AN: Ok, now for a bit of backstory. Not much, but a bit.

"Oi! Drowser! Wake up!" Something hit me in the side. "Get up you lazy lout! You're going to get eaten at this rate!" I opened my eye's and blinked blearily. A large, oddly shaped figure stood over me. They looked like a red/brown gorilla, only their head was shaped like a barrel . . .

I groaned, leaning heavily on the wall of the cave, my head feeling like it was splitting in two from the sudden burst of pressure. "Hey, you alright kid?" The frog asked, watching me with slight concern from the corner of the cavern.

"Are you alright? I haven't seen you move in three days!"

"I'm fine. I'll be fine, Barrel-beak."

"Well-hey! That's not my name, damnit!"

"Then stop calling me Drowser. It's not my name."

"You haven't given me anything else to call you!"

"I . . . I'm fine." I groaned in response to the frogs question, even as pictures and flashes of random color danced behind my eyes.

"Ya don't look "fine"." The frog drawled accusingly. "When was da last time you ate?"

"You know, I've known you for over a year now, and I don't think I've ever seen you go hunting before." The barrel faced creature spoke. "How long has it been since the last time you ate?"

I put a clawed hand to my mask and hummed in thought. "I believe . . . assuming counting the winter's has been accurate . . . a bit over thirty years?"

"Thirty-?!"

"Shortly before I started running. Three . . . Gillians." I groan, a clawed hand rubbing my forehead in a vain attempt to ease the pain. "And a couple more a bit before that. Don't know how long I was running for, but it couldn't have been more than a day, I think."

The frog nodded. "Couldna be that then, ya should be able to last a fair bit of time on a Gillian 'fore ya need ta eat again."

"I don't actually need to eat. You don't either. As long as we spend enough time in the Hueco Mundo, you'll be able to survive without it. Just draw in power from the air." I explained, tired.

"I know that! But you don't get any stronger!" The barrel-gorilla countered heatedly.

"Maybe not, but I don't think I could get strong enough to do anything of note anyway. Not like I have any goals."

"What are you talking about? You want to survive, don't you?!"

I turned to face the amphibian like hollow."I think it's . . . just my head. It started when you said . . . human. What . . . what is a human?"

The frog blinked. "Don't remember that either, eh? Well . . . if I 'ad to describe them . . . think of a small, pinkish 'ing shaped more of less like you, bu' with a fleshy face and a mass of fur on top of it's head. Ring any bells?" He asked.

It did.

I could hear the sound of crying, and terrified screaming. It was loud. Loud enough to wake me up. I opened my eyes to see the barrel-gorilla. They were holding . . .

"Here. Eat this." They shoved something small, and most into my face. It was . . . a little over a third of my height. Small, pink, and wearing brown, ragged clothing. They had brown hair on their head, though I could make out nothing else from how they were curled up fetal in the gorillas oversized hand.

I stared at them for a moment, then flopped back down unto my side. "No."

"You need to eat sooner or later. If you never get stronger, you'll run into someone tougher than you and get yourself eaten. You can't survive on the air forever." The Barrel-gorilla dropped the smaller for in order to cross their arms over their chest and glared down at me. I didn't say anything.

Dragging the kid over to me, he shoved them into my face again. "You smell that?" The gorilla asked in a tone one would usually reserve for especially slow children. "That smells good doesn't it? You want to take a bite?"

"I have a horrible sense of smell." I answered, not even bothering to open my eyes.

The Gorilla spent a few more moments holding the boy in front of my nose, but I didn't react in the slightest. Finally, they seemed to give up. "Alright fine. If you don't want it, I'll eat it." They sighed, raising the child up into the air with one hand and making a show out of lowering him into their mouth as slowly as possible.

I just lay their, one eye cracked open to watch the bawling figure. I huffed out a sigh. "Stop."

The gorilla pulled the child away from their mouth, and seemed smug as I got back to my feet. "I knew you'd come around, here you-hey!"

I grabbed the child with my left hand and yanked them away from the gorilla, doing my best to avoid causing damage. Putting them under left my arm, I began to walk away, to my companions confusion.

"Where are you going?!"

"The world of the living. I'm putting it back."

"What?! If you don't want it I-" A-big-hand-on-my-shoulder, spinning-around-gasping-RED.

"I . . . I remember humans." I nodded. "They live . . . in . . . another . . . "

I stared at the -RED-covering the ground, as well as the front of my chest. The form on the ground was oozing it. It wasn't moving. I stared at it. At the-RED. At the RED on the ground. At the RED coating my arm up to the elbow. 'I didn't need to do that.' I thought.

Something told me I should feel guilty. I didn't.

A movement against my side drew my attention away from my red right claw. The child was starting to wiggle. To try and get away. My mouth watered.

Shaking my head, I turned around and began to walk towards one of the cave walls, shrouding my body in energy. The first step was normal. The second step was normal. But, at the third step, the air around me began to warp, and with the fourth, tear, revealing a black void beyond.

I walked through the void for several seconds, instinct guiding me, until finally, I emerged to . . .

"Hey!" Tounge-Lasher yelped as I spun around and began to walk towards the wall, actions guided by a half remembered instinct. Reaching out one energy cloated hand, I grabbed the air, yanking to the side to rip the space, revealing a void behind it.

"Hey! What are ya' doin'?! Just goin' to the world of tha' livin' is a terrible idea! Shinigami always react ta' menos sooner or later ya' fool!" The frog shrieked as I stepped through the opening, letting it close behind me. As it shut I just barely heard him moaning. "Gah! He doesn't even know what a shi-" and it shut, isolating me.

For a few minutes, I was left alone in the darkness. Just me and my thoughts. A return to the norm, really. I sighed.

'What are those memories? Who was that?' I shook my head, stepping forward into the darkness. I needed more info. Reaching a different feeling portion of the black, I once agan reached out to grab the space before me. 'Maybe I'll remember more once I-'

I stepped through into the early morning sun.

Stepping through the tear, I found that it was the middle of the night, the half-bright-half-dark moon shining down from above. The weather told me it was either late spring or early summer. I was inside what seemed to be a decently sized city, with the streets sparsely lit by candle-light.

I was at the edge of a small village, surrounded by skeletal, dead looking trees. The ground was covered by grass, and numerous brown, orange and yellow leaves. It was moist, and I could see mushroom everywhere I looked. Albiet, they too a moment to find, considering how I was taller than most of the trees.

The houses themselves were simple, wooden things, with straw roofs. Their design seemed . . . foreign, but something told me I'd seen their like before.

Looking out across the collection of buildings, I estimated there were a few hundred. So, perhaps not a small town . . . I didn't know how to judge such things, really. I most certainly could not remember having seen a gathering of hundreds, so perhaps it was a large town. But something told me it should be considered small, so I trusted my gut.

Of course, it may have just been how none of the buildings were past my waist in height that made me think that. Being ridiculously tall tended to warp ones perspective of size, after all.

I took a few careful steps forward, surgically moving around the buildings. My eyes were constantly turned down to make sure I didn't step on any of the little creatures that were occasionally moving around the roads, and my whole body felt like it was holding it's breath, somehow.

Noting something brown moving in the corner of my eye, I turned my head to see a horse pulling a cart.

Looking around, I spotted a cart parked over by one of the brighter candle-lights, and walked over to it. I dropped the boy, who, realizing they were free, crawled under the cart and hid, crying the whole while. Nodding once, sat down, clawed fingers placed down on my knees as I crossed my legs. I leaned back, took a deep breath, and SCREAMED. Then, I waited.

'What had my past self been waiting for?' I wondered as I tip-toed around a group of children who were playing in the streets. Wanting to get a better look, I crouched down over them, trying to get a better view of what they were doing.

On reflex, I again raised my fingers to between my eyes as if to move something up the bridge of a nose that wasn't there.

I stared at the children for a long moment, watching them kick an odd, leather ball around, an odd, painful, nostalgic feeling starting to grow in my guts, so intense it began to drown out the hunger.

I reared back my head to cry out three more times over the next hour, the high pitched, inhuman sound echoing off the building around me. Though, whatever it was I was waiting for, it didn't appear. The child, at least, seemed to have fallen asleep under the cart. The were so exhausted from their ordeal that they didn't wake when I screamed.

On and on I waited, until I looked up to find the sun just beginning to peak over the horizon. It lit the sky with dazzling colors, and soon, I found myself caught up in admiring the beauty. Then my instincts screamed at me, and I ducked forward into a roll just in time to avoid getting my head split in two.

I was back on my feet in an instant, one hand braced against the ground and another held out to the side, fingers curled to put their sharp tips at the forefront.

Standing across from me was a human male, roughly a third of my own current size, though their head was level with my chin. His hair was black, his eye's were brown, and he had a strong jawline covered in stubble. His clothes consisted a set of black robes with baggy pants, and in his hand was clenched a katana.

I narrowed my eyes at the man, and spoke. "I'd recommend you konso the child." The man in black seemed to tense at my words, and I noted his eye's drifting in the direction of the cart, if only for an instant, before returning to me. "I'd rather not get him caught in the cross-fire after . . . no, I suppose that isn't your concern." I sighed.

"Well, if we're going to fight either way, let's just get it over with, yes?" And I lunged . . .

I frowned under my mask, narrowing my eyes as I rose back to my full height. 'What was I doing back then? Who was that man? . . . Shinigami.'

I looked around me, muttering. "Shinigami . . . "Death gods"."

They hunted . . . hollows, because . . . hollows hunted human souls, right? But, I . . . hadn't hunted human souls? I'd brought one back? Why? Why did I do that? I could understand not wanting to eat, it was always unpleasant and didn't really seem to do anything, but everything after that? It seemed like so much effort . . . and for what? Why?

Despite my bulky, hunched over figure, I moved with surprising speed, blurring forward only to stop short, just in time to let the shinigami's counter-swing miss. Their blade whistled harmlessly past my my face, striking the cobblestone under our feet. The instant the blade made contact with the ground, I thrust my hand out and grabbed hold of the blade, the black haired man yelping in surprise and trying to yank back his weapon.

For several seconds, we struggled back and forth against each other. My greater weight could have given me the advantage, however I was weary of the more agile man suddenly reversing into a lunge, and therefor I maintained a stance that would let me back-pedal if necessary. In the end, that decision cost me the tug-o-war, and the shinigami managed to free his blade from my grip with a sudden twist of his wrist.

It only took him a moment for the trained fighter to get back into a proper stance, brace, and swing full force at me. I, in turn, flowed energy inside my body in a manner that made me feel as if I was holding my breath, before "exhaling". Mid swing, the shinigami shuddered, and seemed to loose some power, which let me deflect the weapon away from my body by angling my arm at just the right angle and letting the blade skitter harmlessly across the armour.

I looked down at my my hand. The clawed fingers looked extremely similar to what they looked like in the memory, but . . . different as well. A paler shade of white, and the arm was slightly more slender. And the rest of my body . . . I'd used to be squatter, and hunched over, with more torn up, draping robes. The ones in my memory covered my head and almost drifted into my eyes on occasion.

I must have changed at some point. Somehow, that didn't bother me. No, instead, what my attention turned to was . . . whatever it had been I'd done to stagger that Shinigami. More specifically, how similar it had felt to what I was doing right in that moment.

And so, I focused on the "holding breath" feeling I'd been having since I arrived in this other world, and after a moment, released it.

Almost instantly the children, who I'd nearly forgotten were playing nearby, began to scream and fall to the ground, and I immediately reeled back whatever it had been I'd just unleashed.

'Was that the pressure the frog mentioned to me earlier?' I thought, taking several steps back as I watched the children slowly get back to their feet. Turning around, I began to walk creep back out of the town.

'Yes, it was probably the pressure . . . I began doing that subconsciously the moment I stepped through into this world . . . have I done this before?' I wondered. 'No, of course I have, but why did I need to hold it it? And why . . . did it feel so different from what I did in that memory?'

I sighed, stepping back out of the line of buildings and walking slowly on to the grassy field that sat between the edge of the town and the tree-line. I felt as if I'd slip if I wasn't careful, because of the grass being wet.

The shinigami, now off balance, wasn't able to do anything to stop me as I stepped forward, and stabbed the fingers of my left hand into his shoulder. I clenched, taking hold of the bone through his muscle and skin, earning a pained scream for my efforts.

With my other hand, I once again grabbed hold of his weapons blade. Heaving my body in a circle, I threw the shinigami, putting all of my weight behind the motion. The momentum proved to be enough to make him loose grip on his katana as he flew away, leaving it locked between my claws. Glancing at the weapon, I simply tossed it aside.

He flew a good twenty, thirty paces before he rolled to a stop. To his credit, he was back on his feet in an instant.

The man, looked back and forth between me and the spot on the ground where I'd thrown his sword, and I could see the confliction in his eye's, if only for an instant. And an instant was all it took the man to come to a conclusion on how to respond.

"YE LORD!" He cried. "Mask of Blood and flesh, all creation-"

However, I knew what he was doing, and stopped paying attention to him at this point. No, instead I began walking to the left, watching as the air around me seemed to stretch and tear, and a black opening began to form in front of me.

"-flutter-of wings-ye who-bears-the-name-of-man-!" The shinigami, seeing me beginning to flee, began to chant faster, but it was to late. I'd escaped into the black.

I turned my eye's up to the sky, the blue horizon dotted with fluffy white clouds seeming both like something entirely new, and something terribly nostalgic. That was the sky the rain had come from. I had once been human. The frog wasn't lying.

I turned around and looked out over the town again.

Was that why? I'd killed another hollow, one I had apparently known, to protect a human child. . . . was it because I had once been human? Because I'd remembered being human back then? I sighed.

That still didn't feel like a good enough answer to me. Not for that kind of reaction. 'But if that's not it, then . . . or, is it just that my mentality has fundamentally changed from back them?' I pondered.

'Could it be that I'm just a different person from who I was before? I've gone without memories for some time . . . but all the same . . . ' My instincts screamed at me, and I flinched to the side in response. But I didn't move fast enough.

I stream of blue fire struck my shoulder, washing over my body like a wave and scorching my robs and the body underneath. Choking back a scream, I raised my right arm to protect my face from further attack.

Standing in the air some four arms-lengths away from me, was another shinigami. The instant I lay eyes on them, they blurred off like a humming bird, and I lost tract of their movements before I could make out any details of their appearance beyond the standard outfit and long, brown hair.

I grit my teeth as I felt a pressure settle down unto my shoulders, nowhere near enough to force me to my knees, but at least enough for me to feel it weighing me down. More importantly, I could feel the direction it seemed to be coming from . . .

'There!' I spun on my heel, claws extended as I swiped at the air. The shinigami seemed surprised by my reaction, but didn't cut off their charge, instead simply shifting aside enough to avoid my swipe and taking a slash of their own at the back of my hand. Their blade was barely slowed down by the bone-like shell that coated my body, and I suddenly lost use of three of my fingers, which hung limply.

I jumped back, clenching my teeth even as I channelled energy into my mouth, focusing it at the tip of my tongue.

The shinigami darted through the air, blurring around me as I spun in place, trying and keep them in my line of sight. Suddenly, they dropped down to the ground and began to circle me at a closer range, zig-zaging all the while.

I tried to keep my eyes on them, my uninjured left hand reeled back to thrust my spear like fingers at them if they slowed down for long enough to lock on, but they never did. Instead, they suddenly shot closer, circled around behind me and slashed out the back of my ankle. I screamed.

Falling to one knee, I barely managed to keep myself from clenching my eyes shut in response to the pain. The shinigami, seeing my distraction, again shot back up into the air, and took another shot at the back of my head. But this time my instincts kicked in just in time for me to respond. Throwing my body forward into a summer-salt, I just barely managed to dodge the slash.

Coming back up, I found that the shinigami wasn't giving up after just one try, and was only an instant away from splitting my forehead in two. Thinking fast, I opened my mouth and fired the blast, the cero, which I'd stared charging earlier, right at them point blank. For the first time in the fight, something connected.

The shinigami was sent flying back, and hit the ground in a blast of smoke and dust a fair distance away.

I stared at the dust cloud, eyes narrowed. I couldn't see any movement . . .

Getting back to my feet was difficult thanks to the pain, and I couldn't afford to put any real weight onto my damaged foot, but I managed to begin hobbling towards the cloud of dust. Absently, I noted how the people in the nearby town seemed to be panicking, but ignored it. I needed to see if I'd killed the shinigami or not.

Of course, I hadn't as I soon learned the hard way.

"Hado Number thirty one! Shakkaho!" A feminine voice screamed from within the smoke. An instant later, a glowing red sphere of energy came blazing out of the cloud, impacting my good leg and shattering my knee cap.

I screamed in pain as I once again fell to my knees, the shock of my body hitting dirt only making the sensation of dirt grinding into the fresh wound worse. The feeling of the bones grinding together vibrated up my leg. It was excruciating. And unfortunately, it wasn't over yet.

"Hado Number Thirty Three! Sokatsui!"

Another beam of blue fire, identical to the one that had started the fight, came blazing towards my face. Some part of me must have still been conscious in spite of the pain, as I was able to get one arm up to block it from reaching my eyes. Of course, this time, it carried enough force to full on lift my body off of the ground, and I flew a shot distance.

I landed on my back with a pained wheeze, now full on dizzy from all the damage I'd taken. I barely had enough presence of mind to begin propping myself up on my elbows.

My opponent, meanwhile, closed in for the kill, and I suddenly found myself with a shinigami braced to plant their sword right between my eyes. I didn't even have time to blink, there was nothing I could do to stop them. But it seemed my good luck hadn't run out.

Just short of making contact with my face, the shinigami suddenly jolted to a stop. I had only the briefest of moments to register the shocked, horrified look on the woman's face before she was ripped back by the thick, pink . . . thing, currently wrapped around her leg, screaming.

Once, twice, three times she was slammed into the ground, only loosing grip on her sword, her zanpakuto, on the third blow. Then, with a whip-like crack, she was dragged into a the black abyss from which the pink fleshy line had emerged.

The last I heard was a bone-chilling, feminine shriek, as the "abyss" snapped shut, leaving behind a bone white face, and a pair of disturbingly human, orange eye's.

"Honestly! A left ya alone for five minutes, and what do ya do?! Ya nearly get ya'self killed! Wha' da' 'ell was ya' thinking?! . . . Are ya' alright, kid?" I simply blinked at the giant frog, still feeling rather shocked.

I walked back out of the black tunnel, finding myself back where I'd started. The same dark, sandy cave me and the gorilla hollow had been sharing for who-knows-how-long. I heaved out a heavy sigh, suddenly feeling totally exhausted. Not physically, no, I could still go for hours, but rather emotionally.

All I wanted to do was just lay down, close my eye's, and go to sleep until the world froze over. Unfortunately, things could never be that simple.

'Where did the body go?' Sure enough, the gorilla hollows corpse was gone, with the only sign it had ever been there being the bloody stain left on the ground. I tensed, and crouched down in preparation for a fight, eye's darting around my surroundings. If the body was gone, someone must have been nearby to . . . remove it.

A flare of reiatsu drew my attention. A powerful one.

For the briefest of moments, I froze. Any entity strong enough to send out such a powerful flair would be able to rip me to pieces as easily as blinking, after all. Slowly, I turned my head to face the direction of the flare.

For a long moment, I stared into the dark, dingy corner of the cave, trying to make out anyone, or anything that might be there. It was to the credit of the Hollow in question, that even though I was staring right at them, I didn't actually see them until they began to move.

The first thing I noticed about them was how they were easily twice my height, even when hunched over. The next was their insect like appearance, with the dark silhouette resembling nothing so much as a giant preying mantis. The third was how I couldn't hear them, or feel them, despite the fact that they were only a few steps away. If I'd still had a heart, I was sure it would have been beating itself out of my chest by then.

"Hello." The mantis spoke, their androgynous voice sounding as smooth as oiled silk, and yet . . . wispy, and ethereal, in a way that sent shivers down my spine. I felt the urge to bolt, but fought it down. Chances were they could run me down anyway.

The shadows seemed to cling to them as they stepped out of the darkness, and before I'd even had a chance to gather my whits, I found they were standing so close I could have reached out to touch their abdomen without fully extending my arm.

For a long moment, I was frozen there, staring up, up, up at the mantis hollows face. Finally, I had the presence of mind to respond to their greeting. "Oh . . . hello?"

The Mantis began to slowly circle around me clockwise, and the urge to run away once again overcame me.

"You know, I've been watching you for several days now." The mantis began, forming a cold pit in my stomach. I took a nervous step back.

The mantis seemed amused, and chuckled softly, the sound sending another spike of cold down my spine. "Before you ask, I wasn't hunting you, no. Had I been doing that, I would have struck by now. No . . . I had . . . other reasons."

I swallowed thickly, my saliva tasting like copper. "Other reasons?"

"Oh yes!" The giant insect nodded animatedly, the quick action seemingly at odds with their prior behaviour. "Other reasons. Specifically, I was meant to . . . judge, you and your friend. See if you were the right kind of fit, so to speak."

"Right fit?"

The mantis hummed. "Yes. The "right fit". And I was almost sure you were . . . but then . . . " With shocking speed and fluidity, they reached down and took a hold of my right arm with their pincers, pulling it up to get a better view of it. It was the same hand I'd used to strike the gorilla hollow earlier, and it was still covered in dried blood.

"Then this happened." The Mantis finished, shaking their head. "You were so close to, but then? You just killed him. I was quite disappointed. All that wasted time . . . But, then, you did something I didn't expect. Something . . . abnormal, and I found myself feeling rather curious."

Once again they began to stalk around me, this time going around me counter-clockwise. "So, I decided to come out and ask. Why? Why did you kill your friend? At first, I thought it was simply because they were annoying you or something equally petty. It wouldn't have been the first time after all. But, then . . . "

The mantis turned to face the wall. "Then you took the child back. I was watching, you know? You waited there until the shinigami came to kill you. And I just don't know why. Well, I know why, the only thing it could be, is that you wanted him to find that boy. So I know why. But I don't know, WHY."

They tilted their head to the side, and got right into my face, forcing my stomach up into my throat. "I've never seen a hollow behave in that manner before, and I want to hear it from you." I felt the curled, spiked, bladed arm of the mantis settle across my shoulders. "So . . . why?"

"No, Lasher." I gasped out between my wheezes of pain. "I don't think I am."

AN: Hopefully the transitions between the flashback and present are clear.