-Bleach: The Sanguine Espada, Revised-

Chapter 2: To Hunt

Time passed. In the vast emptiness, they encountered nothing. For each step, their hunger grew, boiling in their guts with a voracious need.

Eat.

Or regress.

The thought sent a cold shiver down Sangre's spine. In his head, he could hear the indiscernible whispers and mutterings.

Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

"Quiet!" He hissed, clawed hands clutching his temples as he flew. A chuckle echoed from below.

"Ha! Gettin' a little crowded up there?" The feline mocked, "Maybe if you'd come down here, you might get a bite to take the edge off."

"No."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, stop being such a pansy!" Sangre glanced down at him.

"Pan... sy?"

"Weak! Soft!" Now he turned fully to regard the cat.

"I choose life... over death... is that so weak?" He'd spoken so many words since meeting this violent, snappy creature. Words he didn't even know he knew, words that he never remembered speaking before.

"Yes!" He supposed that made sense, at least coming from such a tunnel-visioned being.

"Then to you, I am weak."

To you.

He knew his strength. Gratification was something he didn't need.

That I exist, makes me strong. That I am me, makes me strong.

It made the one stalking him from below strong, too.

We fought the hardest. We conquered the other voices. We had will.

"Do you have... a name?"

"Eh?" He growled, "No shit I've got one."

"What is it?"

"Like I'd tell my next meal!"

"Hm." That was fine. That he had a name said all Sangre cared to hear.

"I am Sangre."

"And I don't fucking care."

So on they went, his wings only now beginning to show signs of fatigue.

More time passed, the both of them silent as the grave.

But then, as they toiled through the wastes, something shifted in the air around them. It was faint, at first. A small, yet ever so steadily growing weight which pressed down on Sangre's back.

"You feel that?" The cat called from the ground, looking awfully light on his feet. Paranoid.

"I do. I've... felt something similar, in the past."

"Means there's a Vasto Lorde somewhere in the distance."

"Vasto... Lorde?"

"Ugh, so fuckin' clueless. They're Hollows, like us, just older. Stronger. I'm outta here." He bounded into motion, turning on a dime and racing off in the direction they'd come from.

Sangre, noticing an opportunity as his hunter sprinted away, dropped from the air and allowed his feet to finally touch the sand.

"You dumbass!" There was a sudden, deep buzz. Suddenly, fangs had buried into his throat, clawed paws latching onto him and wrestling to bring him to the ground.

The upper jaw lifted from his neck, forcing Sangre to throw himself back airborne to avoid the beast biting back down on his spine. He slung himself about in a frenzy, his own blades lashing out at every bit of flesh he could reach. Blood was already leaking from them, splattering the white below with a dark crimson.

This.

This is life.

To fight. To flail.

To bleed.

And then cease.

He began to rise, sending himself higher, and higher, bringing them both so far into the sky that blackness surrounded them in a thick embrace. The sands below felt far, far away.

But not yet.

Then, he drove his claws into the feline's back, pulling it up and over his head. Claws still shredded and tore at his shoulders, but the firm lock on his throat broke. His wings drew themselves tight to his body, allowing them to begin a deadly freefall.

They hit the ground a second later.

Huh?

A rolling shockwave of billowing sand rocked the dunes, pain as yet unfelt shot through every bone in his body, bones crumpling and crushing under this new, unexpected weight. He couldn't even lift his head, let alone push himself up.

"So... heavy..." He breathed, only to realize that each word pushed more and more air from his lungs.

C-can't breathe!

Something impacted the ground in the edge of his vision, only for what seemed to be a bolt of bright, green energy to punch a gaping hole in the base of its throat. The being fell limp, smoking wisping from the corpse as another, leaner creature landed some distance away. It was... pale.

The... entity, looked over, regarding their limp forms was an indescribably vacant gaze. Then, without any care for the meal it had earned, it vanished with a similar buzz to what he'd heard before.

The sudden release of pressure made him feel light as a feather, bouncing to his feet before sparing a glance to the cat.

It lay, ragged breaths escaping its maw as blood pooled.

"You... do not regenerate?" No, not quite. He could see the wounds which littered its body beginning to mend, but it was progressing too slowly. The truth dawned on him a moment later.

He's been starving long before we met.

Vermillion eyes flicked back over to the still smoking corpse, then back again.


Hello again! I'm enjoying writing this portion of the story even more than I thought I would. We barely get any real, ground level experience of what it's like to be a Hollow, and it's something I always thought could make for some really cool material.

So, for anyone who's a little lost, this is taking place a while before Grimmjow encounters his Fraccion.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm going for a more existential look at Hollows here. I've always loved Bleach, specifically for how it tackles literal metaphors, like Inner Worlds and Zanpakuto Spirits just being reflections of certain portions of one's psyche.

Okay, I'll stop rambling about writer stuff, I'm just really liking how this is going so far.

Anyways, I'm gonna get back to work. Buh-Bye!