AN: More backstory for this chapter, and the SI reacting to his own past memories.
Tounge-Lasher's cave seemed so much bigger when I was lying on my back. The stone roof, which had seemed so close to my head before, now looked so far away . . . it was a clear sign of how different things could be with a simple change of perspective.
It had been some time since my fight with the shinigami, if it could even be called a "fight". Long enough that I'd mostly recovered from my injuries, though I still experienced phantom pains in my ankle and knee whenever I tried to stand up, and was a bit unsteady when I moved. But, my near recovery didn't do much to motivate me, and I found myself just . . . lying there, staring up at the ceiling.
It seemed that that was all I wanted to do, lately.
In the aftermath of the battle, I'd been to injured to really move by myself, and the frog had been forced to drag me along my the one arm that was undamaged. Considering his size relative to myself, and the way his body plan was built around hopping, it had been an . . . awkward, journey. The one saving grace was that we could come back out of the void already inside of his cave.
And once we'd gotten back to his home, I'd essentially turned myself into a log. Just lying there, staring up at the ceiling. Doing nothing. Not even thinking, really.
It was interesting how used to not thinking one could get after spending an age alone in the dark. How one can just . . . shut down, to the point where even boredom ceases to exist.
'But, you can't shut down forever.' I sighed.
I pulled myself into a sitting position, and dragged my body back against one of the side walls. I used only my arms for the motion, letting my still sore legs remain as they were, stretched out and motionless.
Leaning my weight against the wall, I allowed myself to pull up one leg, so I could rest my elbow on it, and rest my head on my hand in turn. Needless to say it was the leg that had had the injured ankle, and not the knee.
I sat there for a some time before I began to think again, trying to simply enjoy the quiet . . . and the first thing I thought was how I hated the quiet. I wanted sound. I wanted wind blowing. I wanted water-flowing. I wanted birds chirping. I wanted a hundred and one things I hadn't know I missed. Hadn't been able to know I missed.
And wanting those things, and knowing I couldn't have them? That made me angry. Angry enough that I wanted to take it out on something. Wanted to smash the walls, and blast cero's at the roof.
But, that would be rude to Tounge-lasher, who had been relatively nice, even before accounting for how he'd saved me. So, I simply sat there. Stewing in my anger and feeling sorry for myself like a angsty teenager. Until I found myself growing tired of the anger. Until I realized there was no point to it. Until I realized there was no point to any of it. There was nothing I could do to change it at the moment.
I hated that, but there was no fire behind that hatred. Just . . . bitter, tired acceptance.
'I'm stalling.' I thought, eyes drifting once again to the roof. And it was true. I was stalling. I was stalling as much as I could. Because I was scared to . . . look in the mirror, so to speak. I was scared of what I'd find there.
Scared of how I might compare to what I once was.
I sighed, holding my hand up to my face. The fingers which had nearly been shorn off by the shinigami woman's zanpakuto were fully healed, but I could still feel where the blow had struck. Absently, I ran my thumb over the spot where the slash had gone through. I could feel the contact between finger and thumb, but just barely.
I touched my talon's tips to my mask, just above my eye, and traced the edge of my face. I could feel the contact in an odd, distant sort of way. Like what you would feel taping the back of ones fingernail, or touching one's teeth. A spread out, second-hand pressure.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned my head back against the wall, closer my eye's, and let the memories flow.
I don't know how long I'd left the mantis Hollow waiting for an answer to my question, though it was clear it had taken some time. Long enough, at least, for me to move to the entirely opposite side of the room from where I'd started, sitting in one of the darkest corners. Likely so that the mantis would be forced to stand in the line of light from the entrance if they wanted to see my eye's.
Even after that, though, I must have sit for a considerable amount of time. I could tell because of how oddly clear the memory of staring at my blood-stained claw was. Every skiff, every oddly pale spot where my natural coloring shone through, every dent or scratch in the armor. I remembered all of it, from every angle I could have seen it from.
"I . . . didn't intend to kill him." I began after the eternity of silence. "Not really. Of course, in hindsight I don't know if there was another option. As long as I'd known him, Timber-back . . . that was his name, Timber-back . . . I didn't know him as well as I could have. He just . . . found me, one day, sleeping in a hole, woke me up and dragged me back out." I sighed, shaking my head.
"Didn't know if I should be thankful or angry over that. On one hand, there's a part of me that's scared I may have never woken up if he left me there. But, on the other hand, I don't know if I like being awake, anymore. It seems to make things so . . . complicated, and . . . and I'm stalling." I cast a glance at the blood-stained sand where his body had been, and before I knew it, I'd spent several minutes just staring.
I sighed. "When he brought the child . . . I knew I was going to stop him. I knew it, cause I've done it before with Hollows I don't know. Not often. Not for a long time. But . . . well, a few decades ago other hollows would avoid me, since I had a reputation for it, if that tells anything. I think it was . . . sixteen humans I rescued? Counting this one makes seventeen . . . " I turned my eye's up to the ceiling, gazing into the shadows for a moment, before shutting them.
"Of course, I only ever killed two of the hollows I was taking them from. I'm . . . pretty good at knocking people off their feet." I chuckled humorlessly. "Chances are, I could have avoided killing Timber-back too, but . . . I didn't think of that. Not in the moment."
"I . . . want to say it was . . . how I'd almost never given anyone enough time to fight back before. Not before I could leave. It would always either be a fight right from the start, or a grab and go. So, when he came at me, I guess I reacted the way I would to someone attacking me in general. It was . . . just . . . "
I raised my blood-stained arm up holding it over my head. But I didn't open my eyes.
"Instinct." I scoffed. "It always seems to come back to instinct, doesn't it?" I let the arm flop down into my lap. "Everything I do wrong nowadays. It all seems to come back to the one thing everyone else I encounter seems to think I should fall back on. It's like a sick joke. Like everyone else is sick in the head. Or . . . maybe, I'm the one who's sick."
There was a long moment of silence, after that, where I just leaned against the wall, barely putting any effort into supporting my body. Soon enough, it seemed the Mantis figured out I was waiting for a response, and spoke up.
"But . . . why? You've talked about the "How", and the "When", and yet I still have no clearer an idea as to "why". Why did you decide to start saving the souls of human children?"
Taking a deep breath, I opened my eye's and leaned forward, settling my arms on my knees and looking at the patch of dirt between my feet. Slowly, I licked the lips of my mask, feeling the sharp, smooth edges that substituted for teeth. Finally, I looked up to meet the cold, dead eye's of the mantis. "Not children."
"What?"
"Not children. Or, not just children. Teenagers . . . Adult's . . . old men and women . . . I didn't just save children." I shook my head, closing my eye's as I slumped my shoulders down. "I . . . "
Looking up, I touched one finger to my brow, and began to trace the edge of my mask. "You know, there's still a human face under this mask? Under every hollows mask, is a human face. Hidden. Sometimes warped beyond recognition. But . . . there. Did you remember that?" I clenched my claw into a fist so tight it threatened to crack my palm.
"Cause I do. I can still remember what it looked like. I can still feel it, when I focus on the shapes where the skin and bone meet. And I . . . I can't forget that. I don't want to forget that."
Suddenly, I pulled myself back up, staggering like a drunken man getting woken up with a bucket of ice-water.
"You remember that to, at least in part, don't you?" I leaned forward, trying to focus on the mantis's face for any sign or reaction in it's dead black eyes or antennae. "Forgive me if I'm reading to much into this, but your immediate assumption was that I was saving human children, as if I was still following patterns of more basic human emotional morality, like protecting children first, and putting there safety above other factors."
I stepped closer, eye's unblinking."In my mind, that means you either remember what those morals were, or you've lived long enough to learn re-learn them through observation. Am I wrong?"
As I spoke, I could see a sort of . . . tension, seep into the mantis stance. "No," they began. "I do remember being human, but what does that have to do with this?"
I took a deep breath, and straightened to my full height. "What does it have to do with this?" I chuckled. "EVERYTHING! It has everything to do with it!" I turned my back to the mantis, throwing my arms out to the side and holding my hands as if I was gesturing to something vast. "I still remember what I once was! I still remember what I once wanted to be! I still remember what I once believed! I remember all of it!"
I once again turned to look the Mantis in the eye. "And I'm not willing to give up on all that . . . even if I can't actually feel it anymore."
" . . . "
" . . . "
" . . . I'm afraid I still don't understand."
I sighed, bowing my head, some of the energy leaving my body. "Of course you don't. I've never been good at explaining my thoughts. And I haven't practised in forever. Just . . . give me a minute."
Once again silence fell between us, and I began packing back and forth through the cavern, an uneasy tension charging my limbs. My mind raced, trying to order my thoughts into a proper form, trying to arrange the words into a pattern that made sense. But in the end, I just couldn't find a place to start, let alone a path.
Finally, I gave up on a perfect description, and resigned myself to trying to wing it again.
" . . . What do you want, Mantis?" I asked. "And I don't mean right now. I mean all together. If you could say that you were working towards one goal, what would that goal be?"
The insects triangle shaped head lilted to the side. " . . . Surviving?"
I nodded, somewhat relieved that they'd answered the way I'd assumed they would. "Exactly. You, and most other Hollows, want to survive. That means not getting killed by another Hollow, or a shinigami. It's easy to avoid shinigami, they can't come to Hueco Mundo, but other hollows? That's a bit harder."
"After all, other Hollows live in the same place as us. So, most decide their best chance at surviving is to grow stronger. And that means hunting other Hollows and humans. I mean, that is the only way to grow stronger. That's why other hollows continue to hunt, even after realizing that eating does nothing to actually fill that void in our chests."
"And . . . that's why I don't. I don't want to survive."
" . . . You want to die?" The mantis sounded genuinely confused, though it wasn't exactly clear considering how wispy their voice was.
I shook my head. "No. I don't want to die. I want to live. And there's a big difference between living, and just surviving."
" . . . what kind of difference?"
I thought over it for a moment. "The difference between living and surviving is . . . when your surviving, your just staying alive. When your living, your enjoying being alive. That's the difference. I want to enjoy being alive. And . . . in order for me to enjoy being alive . . . I feel like I need to be happy with what I am."
I turned around and walked over to the back of the cave, and shifted aside a small boulder I'd leaned against the wall, revealing a space that had been hollowed out of the wall. Inside, was a long, flat piece of black stone. It was polished. So shiny, I could see my face in it.
Stepping into the light, I held up the makeshift mirror, so that I could see my reflection, and the mantis could as well. "There is a human face behind this mask. There is a human mind underneath this mass of flesh. And . . . that human is the bar by which I judge my current self."
I turned around the mirror, flipping it so that the mantis could see their own reflection. "Look. What would your human self say if they saw you now? Would they think your a monster, or be proud of what you'd become?"
The mantis stared at their own mask for a long second, then shook their head violently, seemingly annoyed. "I was pathetic when I was a human. They were a coward, I am strong."
I nodded. "Likely true. But my question still stands. How would your human self react to you? Even if you still looked the same, and only your actions were accounted for?"
The mantis stared into the mirror again for a long, hard moment, before turning their head so I was looking straight into their jewel black eye's. "I think I get it. You're still proud of who you were as a human. That's why you acted that way. You feel like . . . acting as a hollow would degrade you. Make you lesser."
I thought about that for a couple seconds before I responded. "I suppose that's one way to look at it. I wouldn't say that I'm proud of who I was when I was alive. I was a lazy lout who never accomplished anything really worth remembering, you see. But, I will say, I do not believe that the philosophy I followed in life was wrong, nor do I feel that I should change it now." I conclude.
"But . . . everything else has changed." The insectoid hollow snapped.
Once again, I nodded. "True. Everything else has changed. But, that doesn't mean that the things I felt were right are no longer right. I didn't justify my philosophy with a simple, "that's how it is". I found a reason behind every belief, and those reasons haven't changed."
" . . . and what is this philosophy?"
I snorted. "The golden rule. I value my life. I believe my life has value. Therefor, I do not want it to end. If I have no desire for my life to end, isn't it hypocritical to enforce onto another, who value's their own life just as much, the same thing I don't want? It's an entirely different matter when it's me or them, but . . . " I gestured to the cave around me. "I clearly don't need to eat humans or other hollows to survive. So, why would I?"
"And in turn, if I was in a situation where my life was going to end, and there was someone nearby who could help, I would clearly want them to, would I not?" I continued. "If that is the case, then when I see another being who values their life in danger, would it not be hypocrisy if I did nothing to help them?" I added a hammy, dramatic tone to that last sentence.
The mantis looked at the ground long and hard, something in their body-language betraying confusion. "Is that really the way you feel?"
For a moment, I didn't respond . . . then I laughed."Pfft . . . hahahaha! No, of course not." I scoffed.
"I am a HOLLOW. We, are hollows. Our heads literally can't get invested in that kind of empathetic thought. I watched dozens of humans get eaten before I decided to start saving them, and I've failed far more then often then I've seen success. And when I failed, and even when I just sat there and watched, I never felt guilty about it in the slightest." I shook my head. "No, that's not how I feel . . . but it is what I think."
"After all, just cause you can't agree with something for emotional reasons, doesn't mean you can't intellectually recognize that thing as being correct." I sigh tiredly and shake my head. "And of course, the only thing I really care about is myself. Therefor, I act on a series of values I believe are right without any true investment in them. To, "avoid degrading myself", as you put it earlier."
The mantis considered my explanation for a moment. "So . . . it is pride that makes you act that way . . . am I right?"
"Pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, whatever you want to call it." I shrugged. "I just said it myself. My sense of morality exists only on a intellectual level. But, even if I find it annoying, or exhausting . . . even if I think of it as nothing more than a chore, I will continue to follow it. After all, there is nothing I possess that I value more than that sense of self worth." I cast a glance at the blood-stain where timber-back's body had once been. "And I mean nothing."
"That seems . . . rather weak, doesn't it? As a justification?" The mantis skittered over, towering over me as they looked down. "Doesn't that seem rather . . . "
"Hollow?" I cut them off, chuckling. "Of course it does. Then again, what else do I have?"
"Your life! Your still here aren't you? Why aren't you living for a future instead of just trying to preserve something that doesn't exist anymore?! Were monsters now! ENJOY IT!" The mantis burst, their voice suddenly carrying far more emotion than it had before. "Why bother caring about someone else? They wouldn't do the same for you! That's the point of being a hollow! Why aren't you putting yourself first?!"
I was honestly surprised by how vocal their response had been. Had a unknowingly touched a nerve? I was so confused that I couldn't find the voice to respond right away, prompting the mantis to press me.
"Well? Why? Why do you wast time and effort on something that won't help you?"! The shoved their face right into mind, so close out masks would brush if I so much as twitched.
Even after that, it still took me a moment to find the words, during which I just stood there with my mouth hanging open like some kind of simpleton. "Like what?" I finally decided on.
"What else do I have to pursue? I don't value strength enough to consider it worth the time and effort. I don't like hunting. The only things I can still feel have value are all firmly rooted in the world of the living. The only thing I have left are sleep, and my sense of self worth. A self worth which is tied to a sense of morals I can no-longer feel. So I sleep, or I follow my morals. What else do I have worth pursuing? I've already explained I can't survive for the sake of surviving the way most hollows do."
The Mantis shook their head angrily. "If that's how you feel, then why do you do anything at all?!"
"I've just said, I've done nothing but sleep and travel for decades." I countered. "I literally don't do anything except occasionally look around to see if the environment has changed. I don't do anything, except what this one thing drives me to do."
The mantis backed up, tense in a way that bespoke anger. They went to say something else, but stopped, seemingly not able to find the words. Again they opened their bear-trap like mandibles, only to close them again. Finally, they simply settled down and crouched low to the floor, seemingly deep in thought.
I did the much the same, sitting down and closing my eyes.
I took a deep breath, pulling my body back into a sitting position. "So that's who I used to be . . . " I muttered, holding my hand in front of my face so I could see it.
In that memory . . . I'd discussed a couple of ideas I could barely understand now. That I probably barely understood then. Morals . . . a word referring to a system of proper or appropriate behavior. But what even was "proper" and "appropriate" supposed to mean?
My past self . . . they'd said that it was as simple as just not doing anything to anyone you wouldn't want them to do to you. I could understand that. If you didn't like something, that must mean that you feel it's wrong, after all. And if it's wrong for you, and someone else is your equal, then it must be wrong for them to. It seemed to make logical sense at least . . .
I sighed. "Something tells me it's a bit more complex than that . . . "
Climbing to my feet, I stretched out my sore legs until the pain and stiffness faded a little. Carefully I leaned my full body weight onto my left leg for a few seconds, then switched to my right. Then back to my left. I repeated this a couple more times, just to be sure that I could walk without issue from my ankle and kneecap, and then made my way out of the cave.
It took me a couple of hours of wandering around to find Tounge-Lasher. Likely a side effect of how I'd only recently remembered that it was possible to track spiritual pressure to start with, and was still trying to recall the specifics.
But, I found him eventually, only a few dunes away from the cave. He was almost fully buried in the sand again, with only the tip of his nose pocking out, which could easily be mistaken for a rock.
I planned to stomp on the ground to get his attention, but he surfaced almost as soon as I got near enough. "Ah! Kid, your up! A' higured ya' would be up sooner or later! M' glad to see you can stand again."
I nodded. "Yes . . . thanks again, for getting me out of there. I was not ready for a fight like that yet. I owe you one." I bowed my head to the frog for a few seconds.
"Hey! Don't go bow-in ya' head ta me! I got ma' rear end pulled out'a more than my hair share's worth of trouble back when I first became a hollow. Just pay it forward if you get the chance, n' I'll call us even, ya got it?"
I went to respond, but paused. "So . . . you only helped me because it seemed like the proper thing to do?"
The frog shifted their weight a little to one side. "Huh?"
I shook my head and chuckled humorlessly, palming my forehead. "Sorry. I've just been . . . remembering things recently and . . . I used to have something of a moral code. And I just can't stop thinking about it, and . . . wondering . . . about, it." I shrugged. "The more I think about it, the more . . . exhausting it gets, and the more sense it makes . . . "
The frog hummed for a moment. "Well, A' can't say A' get what ya' saying, really A' just go with wha' feels righ' at tha' time, ya know? Or seems most interestin'. Can't really talk a'bout morals and all that."
I sighed and let my head droop, so I was looking at my feet. "I figured. I guess I was just hoping to find someone to . . . bounce idea's off of, if that makes sense. Help me make sense of this."
"Well." Lasher began, hopping closer. "Just cause I haven' got er yet don't mean A' wont. Why no' try and explain er to me anyway?"
I raised an eyebrow and looked down at the frog, considering. " . . . fine. I guess it couldn't hurt."
" . . . "
" . . . "
"Well? Are ya' gonna start or what?"
"Give me a moment." I groaned, trying to think of a way to phrase it. "Ok," I began after a few more seconds thought. "I feel like . . . I used to have a better sense of . . . identity, really. Like, even if I didn't know where I was going, I knew how I wanted to get there . . . if that makes sense."
"So wha's the problem?" The frog tilted their body again, an action I was starting to sense was a expression of curiosity. "Aint like ya' can't figah tha' stuff out now, righ'?"
I shake my head. "No, it's . . . how do I . . . " I groan, looking down at my feet again and putting a hand to my forehead. "I feel like . . . I've degraded. Like, I've become something less than I used to be. Less sure, less . . . I feel like, I . . . may have become something . . . uglier? than I used to be . . . "
" . . . Kid, tha's wha' a Hollow is t' begin with."
I glared at the frog. "I'm already regretting this."
AN: I tried to covey the SI's former mentality, as well as their current one in this chapter. Not sure how clear I was, but really, if it's unclear and a bit shaky, I'm fine with that. SI hasn't had much, if any social interaction for years prior to either of these conversations, so I'd say being a bit hard to understand is fine. What do you guys think?
