BNHA - Arrancar Chronicles: Chapter 15
A.N. Cameos don't mean crossovers. Admittedly, I made Huecojima bigger than I thought, and it has to have a population. Instead of flooding the world with throwaway characters, I'll just use and mark peeps from stuff I'm into. I don't own anything.
Previously on Arrancar Chronicles; Hakua L. arrives at Huecojima a few days after the attack on Wonderweiss. Principal Nezu has granted permission for three weeks of medical leave as long as the teen is ready for testing when he gets back. All the way in Las Noches, Harribel and Barragan notice the appearance of his spiritual pressure. The crescent moon still shines over the island, so the family worries about the lurking dangers.
Huecojima - Evening, the day Hakua arrived
The red sun slipping away into the horizon slowly eased back on its promises of endless heat. The day had been long, and one could clearly see the signs of the approaching summer. Huecojima was well known for its empty desert fields. The nearby countries considered it both a wasteland and a waste of land. To Hakua L. it is home. His true home. Well, wherever the boy's family lived is his home, and they chose this corner of the world. No shade from the sun, fortress/palace far off in the distance, and a whole lot of sand. The teen woke from his afternoon nap and saw that his feet were buried in the stuff. The journey from the harbor was difficult. To make it hard on potential land invaders, his ancestors didn't extend the road all the way to the coast. Hakua needed to make it more than halfway home to reach the easy stretch of pavement that led to the gate. So far, he'd gone up and down on dune after dune from the moment he got off the ferry to about two in the afternoon. Running at high speed with Sonido didn't make it as easy as he wanted it to either. The golden haired boy adjusted the sweat-soaked mask covering his mouth and sipped on another of his water bottles. He slept through the afternoon in part because he was exhausted, but also because he wouldn't be able to sleep soundly through the night. The moon hadn't quite reached the half state, and that meant hollows would spawn around him.
Hollows. They were spirit monsters that inhabited Huecojima in great numbers. The creatures came in many shapes and sizes, but shared a few common traits. White, bone masks covering their human face, a hole going straight through their chest, and a horrible roar like the echoing wail of tortured souls. Out in nature, a hollow was relatively peaceful. The spirit beings were mostly solitary. They didn't go out of their way to crush plants, insects, or animals. It's only when they come into contact with people that their true nature showed. Hollows don't care for human flesh. They eat human spirits. The stronger your spirit is, the more likely they would sniff you out and hunt you. The Arrancar were prime time targets, and Hakua knew it. Using his quirk to subjugate one would only draw more, and he couldn't fight them forever. Hakua stretched out the kinks he felt and got ready to march through the night as quietly as he could.
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But of course one found him. Hakua had been traveling West towards Las Noches using an old school compass to guide him and a flashlight to see with. The creature didn't come because of the light though. Hakua, unlike Kimito, has always had problems when it came to sensing other spirits and suppressing his own. It was a skill based in concentration, which he sorely lacked. Where a regular person will look like a crumb to a hollow, the young Arrancar was walking around like a full plated dinner.
The creature in question was vaguely humanoid in shape with extremely long, muscular arms. It was hunched over, as if weighed down by its exaggerated limbs, and used its dark hands like feet. The bone mask had four red streaks like claw marks cutting across the monster's face. The ground rumbled everytime the hollow moved. A thick, frothy drool fell from its maw as it lumbered closer to Hakua hiding behind a random sand dune. Clearly the three meter tall (foot to shoulder since it's bent over) monster knew Hakua was near, but not where exactly.
'Should I just blast him and run for it?' Hakua shook the thought away. Even the slight jump in his spiritual pressure from firing off one laser would give him away to any other hollows in the general area. The teen quickly turned on his flashlight to check the compass. 'Shit!' The thing was blocking his way. Since there was nothing to it but to go around, Hakua slowly did.
Unknown place
Wonderweiss Margera stared deeply into the darkness that continued to swirl around him. He couldn't tell how much time had passed since he first became aware of his condition, but with nothing else to do, the teen began to think. It was difficult. His current environment made it hard for the young Arrancar's mind to just wander off. There was no hope in escaping from reality. Imagination wasn't the key.
Wonderweiss wasn't sure whether it took days, hours, or minutes for the figurative divine spark to reach him. A memory. A wrinkled, grey-haired woman who called out his name. He couldn't see her in full, but the sound made his chest warm with a lost feeling. 'Kaa-san?' The blonde thought hard on who the woman might be. She looked like she could be someone's grandmother, but that felt wrong somehow in his mind. Was she his mother?
Another feeling came to the front of his mind. Playing and laughing outside when suddenly purple light shot out of his mouth. It was so scary. The woman he could almost swear was his mother showed a painful expression in this memory.
Then Wonderweiss was on a boat all alone. He carried a backpack full of dried food and water bottles. He stepped off it onto a land covered in sand. To the small him, each dune looked like a hill or small mountain. When he reached the top of a particularly big one, Wonderweiss saw a massive box-like building cutting against the horizon. "Go to Las Noches Wonderweiss." The old woman had told him.
Fear. The teeth chattering, heart quickening fear of a prey animal. Wonderweiss didn't know back then, but he knew now what those bone-faced titans were. Hollows. The one he was hiding from was slow, but it chased him every night. He just needed to make it till sunrise. It always vanished when the Sun came up.
Light. Just like the kind he made. The light that separated him from his mother. This one was dark red though, and it smashed into the monster that threatened him. The hollow fell with one last echoing roar. Tracing his eyes back to where the light came from, Wonderweiss saw a child just like him. The boy still had his dark hand outstretched, and golden blonde hair waved in the wind from his explosion. 'Nii-nii.'
Safety. Radiant, just like the desert Sun. The dark boy who saved him brought Wonderweiss to the adults nearby. When the light of morning arrived, everyone piled into dune buggies to ride back to Las Noches. "My name's Hakua L." His savior mentioned during the long drive.
Confusion. The adults didn't know what to do with Wonderweiss. An abandoned child out in the wastelands of Huecojima that didn't belong to any of the current residents. All the boy had was some food, water, a blanket, and his name. Then the purple light showed up again when he burped at the dinner table. Everyone said he was family after that.
Playing, laughing, learning, living, and eventually, loving. Hakua introduced Wonderweiss to every member of the family. A black-haired boy who swore he was his savior's brother. A three year old girl that followed at Hakua's heel whenever she found him. A cold woman who wore a mask over her face. She had hair just like Hakua though, so Wonderweiss would try to be nice. A giant man who was bald except for the black ponytail at the back of his head. A scarred, old man who Wonderweiss needed to always be respectful to. There were soo many people here that were apparently his family.
Wonderweiss continued down the path of his memories in the dark abyss. There was nowhere else for him to go after all.
Huecojima
The knuckle dragging monster picked up the pace at some point during the chase. It was like the hollow knew the difference between the lingering traces of the cold trail and Hakua's current heading. 'Clever bastard.' The Arrancar thought with malice in his heart. The boy didn't bother turning off the flashlight anymore. The compass told him that he was finally traveling in the right direction. Hakua had taken the mindless beast in a wide arc to get around it. Las Noches should be ahead of him, but there was no way of knowing how many kilometers. The thudding of the creature's steps was getting farther away. The current jog Hakua had maintained for the last twenty-odd minutes couldn't be kept forever. Hollows were inexhaustible if they weren't wounded. No physical weapon on him meant Hakua's options were limited to running or using his quirk. The teen's fists just weren't at the level of his Uncle Yammy yet. 'Damn! I need a sword!'
The light of the waxing moon coming out from behind a cloud faintly showed the palace in the distance. Right now, it looked more like a mirage than his home. 'So far.' Hakua's eyes cut to the side when the knuckle dragging hollow chasing him gave off a roar. The teen stopped jogging when the sand in front of him began shifting. Shaking off the dune was a serpentine hollow with four whiskers coming off its bone mask. The monster's gleaming yellow eyes narrowed at Hakua who opened up his fists at it. The catfish-snake opened up its mouth and roared at the teen. "Eat this!" Hakua's bloody red light went right for the gaping maw, but the hollow coiled away quickly like a cobra. He cursed and started running when the bullet train-sized monster began zigzagging at him. 'Now there's two, and I'll probably lure another two because of that shot.' Hakua controlled his breathing and checked the compass again. The snake had forced him a bit off track, but he just needed to put some distance between them. 'Killing the knuckle dragger from before probably would've been easier.' Hindsight is twenty-twenty. 'Hollows that work together are so unfair. Are you going to share me as a meal?' Hakua joked with himself in an attempt to escape reality. He had a right to be mad. Most hollows were solitary creatures.
Ten minutes passed without seeing ole knuckle dragger, but the snake kept pursuing without pause. It was naturally the faster of the two hollows, and kept up with its fleeing prey with ease. Hakua's lungs were burning. The boy had pulled down the mask covering his face to get more oxygen in a while ago. Between the two, he'd probably been jogging and running for about an hour without stopping. Slowing down meant the snake would get him. Fighting meant more hollows were likely to come after him. Even though it tired him more, Hakua used Sonido to reach the top of a large sand dune and slid down the other side. He'd put about twenty meters between him and the snake, so the boy tried to steady his breathing as he held his chest. 'Fuck! Wonderweiss is waiting for me.' Without thinking, the lad's eyes fluttered shut while he sucked in breath after breath. "Wonderweiss." He panted. The muscles in Hakua's thick thighs screamed now that he'd finally stopped. Golden hair fell over the Arrancar's face as his head drooped down.
Aqua green eyes burst open as an echoed roar went off in front of him. Not catfish-snake, but knuckle dragger. The clever thing managed to sneak up on him like a true apex predator. Apparently there were a lot of sadists among the hollows. Instead of eating him while he was defenseless, the monster wanted Hakua to fall to despair. One eye closed in exertion, Hakua gathered energy into his hands. "Don't fuck with me." He managed through gritted teeth.
Hakua's eyes widened even further when a man appeared in front of the knuckle dragger's face with a raised katana. "Die!" He cleaved the beast in half seemingly effortlessly and gently fell to the ground as the monster began dissolving. Hollows occasionally interacted with the physical things around them, but they were definitely spiritual creatures. The proof of this is that when a hollow is slain, its body would always dissolve into an ash-like substance near instantly. The grey-haired young man that felled the knuckle dragging hollow collected the ash into a clasped jar that was previously on his back.
Hakua blearily took in the bandages wrapped around the man's head and called out to him. "Di Roy-san!" The addressed started a bit when his name was called. "Over here!"
Di Roy Rinker turned to the teen's voice. The bandages covered his right eye, but his left shined with recognition. "Hakua-sama! Oh shit." Remains forgotten, the Fraccion rushed over to the exhausted boy quickly. "What are you doing over here? Barragan-sama told us that you were somewhere out in the desert, but none of the sensor squad could find you. Team 3 radioed in that they saw a red laser fire off into the sky, but you were nowhere to be found out where they traced it." The questions just kept spilling out from the adult without letting Hakua answer anything. Di Roy opened up Hakua's backpack and fished out a water bottle. "Here. You drink, and I'll call in that I found you." He pulled a walkie talkie with a ridiculously extended antennae from his pocket. "Team 2 Di Roy to Patrol Leader, do you copy? Over."
"Huh? What do you got?" A loud, rude voice came back through.
"I found Hakua-sama. I repeat. I found Hakua-sama. Over."
Hakua reached out towards Di Roy's pants leg, but fell on his face. "Thrr's nother." He grumbled into the sand.
"Di Roy, this is Team 1. What's your position? Over." A female voice called out this time.
"I think we're just outside of Sector J. Over."
"All units converge!" The original voice ordered gruffly. "Don't move Di Roy! I wanna see my nephew."
"Will do sir." Di Roy brought his black eyes back to the sight of Hakua with his face in the sand. "Uhh, are ya hungry too? Just wait a bit. You can eat in the dune buggies while we finish up the patrol." Hakua grumbled again. "I'm sorry, what was that?"
The dark teen rolled onto his back. "There's another one!" As if called by the shout, catfish-snake burst out of the sand dune behind the adult. It rushed straight forward to try and catch both males in its gaping mouth. "I've had a chance to take a breather now dumbass!" Hakua rose on his knee and pointed his right hand.
"Don't!" Di Roy stopped him. "I may be quirkless Hakua-sama, but I can handle a lone hollow. Don't do something that'll bring more." The patroller readied his sword and steadied his breathing. The snake hollow zigzagged across the sand just like before. It was hard to see with all its violent movement in just the light of the moon, but the whiskers on the bone mask weren't just flowing in the wind. They were slightly twitching. Di Roy ran at the monster carefully so as not to slip in the loose sand and jumped for its face. When he went to cut it down like old knuckle dragger from before, the snake's head reared back. The Fraccion sliced through only air while his opponent was free to take advantage of his exposed fall. Another roar rang out as it went to swallow Di Roy whole.
"As if I'd let you!" Hakua used Sonido to deliver a devastating kick to the snake body. It wasn't nearly enough to lift the creature off the ground, but it did its job of stunning it. Just for good measure, Di Roy swung again and managed to gash the being's long neck. A thick, black blood poured from the wound as the hollow thrashed on the ground. It rose with narrowed eyes and burrowed into the sand.
"Stay sharp. He won't give up." Di Roy warned. He'd been on enough crescent moon patrols to know that these things wouldn't run from a baby cut like that. Sure enough after two minutes of standing still and watching the area, the sand near Hakua started to shift. The snake hollow tried the same swallowing technique on its original prey. Hakua didn't move. A few meters away, Di Roy prepared his katana. "Sonido Flash." A bass sound rang out as the man appeared behind the hollow's head. Di Roy's sword was raised into the air and covered in thick blood. Moments before the thing could collide with Hakua, a black line bisecting its mask formed, and the hollow dropped to the ground. Di Roy let out a breath as the catfish-snake hollow dissolved just like its partner.
XXX
It didn't take long for the rest of the patrol squads to locate the two. Hakua rested under Di Roy's watchful eye until the sound of a lot of moving sand woke him from his light nap. The dune buggies used by the residents of Huecojima were fully electric and therefore, produced little noise. Most of them could fit six average sized adults, which is the standard size of a patrol team, but larger individuals sometimes requested an electric ATV for solo use. The cargo hatches were full of glass jars much bigger than the one on Di Roy's back. Some of them were filled with the ashen remains of slain hollows, but most weren't. As the grey-haired Fraccion reported to his team, he poured the ash he'd collected into a partially filled jar on the back of one of the buggies.
An athletic man with bright blue hair and equally blue eyes stepped forward out of the group of adults. He wore a short sleeved white shirt with black borders. It was open in the front to expose his chest and stomach, and he had a katana of his own attached to the black sash that tied his hakama. "Yo Hakua. Oyaji told me you'd be out here somewhere. Aren't you supposed to be in hero school tomorrow morning? Did summer come early for you or something?" The man laughed heartily at his own joke, exposing his long canines in the process.
Hakua barrelled into the man's toned chest with an extremely tight hug. The teen's dark hands like claws clenched onto the man in his late twenties. "Grimmjow-ojisan!" His voice cracked as tears threatened to pour out. "I have to go home to see him!"
A.N. So I'll do a powers list this chapter so anyone can know what people are capable of. Family tree will come out with the next Hakua/Wonderweiss focused chapter.
Laser Quirk (Cero) - Only the Arrancar can use this. Hollows and Fracciones can't. Wonderweiss technically can, but doesn't because he isn't training to become a hero.
Sonido - High speed running technique. Originally a Fraccion skill, it was taught to most of the Arrancar family. You have to have a well trained body to use it though.
Hierro (Hasn't been actively shown yet) - Rock-like or steel-like skin hardening technique. Originally a Fraccion skill, it was taught to only a few members of the Arrancar family. Protects against cuts and dulls impacts, but won't save you from fire, ice, electricity, ect.
Spirit sense (Pesquisa) - Kind of a side effect power of using spirit based techniques. Allows one to feel, find, and measure the spiritual pressure of others. Takes a lot of concentration, so not all Arrancar can use it. Some Fracciones and even people not from Huecojima can use it or something similar.
Airwalk (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)(Hasn't been shown yet) - A way of controlling one's jumps and falls in a manner that looks like running or flying. This does affect movement speed in the air, so long falls become safe. According to my story, this is the first Fraccion technique ever taught to the Arrancar family. Only a few people can do it nowadays because of how little it is needed.
Garganta (Hasn't been shown yet) - Portals plain and simple. Nobody can do this yet. Wait till I bring it out though. It'll technically be categorized as an Arrancar technique, but Fracciones make it possible.
