a/n: reaching the end now guys! Thanks for riding this one out with me :) Another specimen that broke containment, almost wrangled.
notes/warnings: swearing, body horror and mentions of pain/breaking bones, the voice personified. Please proceed with cauthion, and an open mind.
Gin woke up slowly, still groggy from the blow to his head when that... thing... had ambushed him and brought him here. Wherever here was.
He sat up slowly and looked around, finding himself shackled to the stone wall behind him. Frowning at his manacles, he looked at his surroundings. It seemed he was at the bottom of a lake, strangely still able to breathe.
"Th' fuck am I?" he muttered, scowling. Where was this? Why had that bastard brought him here? More importantly, how was he going to escape? There was nothing he could see, no rocks or ledges to climb up. And nothing he could use to get his shackles off with. Shinsou had been foolishly left behind when he'd stormed out of the house earlier after that stupid fight with Sousuke.
Gin cured his stupidity. How low was his IQ? Even a child knew not to go out after dark unarmed. That was why he was currently in chains. If he'd had Shinsou on him when that bitch attacked, it'd be dead in the ground and he'd be safely holed up at Ran's place eating ice cream and watching stupid movies. Far away from this hellhole.
His spiritual energy had been dampened, too. Which made escape further impossible. It'd been muted by whatever spell the hollow had cast on him, so he couldn't even fight his way out. Much as he wanted to do some serious damage to the wretch who'd done this to him, he'd have to wait and think of something that might get him out of here. Gin grit his teeth and clenched his fists. He'd definitely get payback for this. Somehow.
"Oh my, you're finally awake. So good to see you up and about. I'll admit I was starting to fear you'd never come to. But that's not surprising. You put up a heck of a struggle, didn't you?"
Gin looked at the the source of the sound, a cloaked and hooded figure, and snarled. "You! You're the one who ut me in this hole!"
The newcomer chuckled. "Why yes," it said smugly. "I am."
"Bitch."
"Now now, no need to get snappy, boy. You forget who I am."
Gin squinted and the creature came into view. The beasts three eyes seemed to glow, and Gin knew immediately who he was facing. "Ashen Eye," he growled.
"Yes, correct dearie," the ancient hollow answered, a touch of pride creeping into her gravelly voice at the fear that just her name instilled.
"Why did you capture me?"
Ashen Eye gave a wide, devilish grin. "Somebody wanted you to disappear."
"Who?"
Ashen eye chuckled, her eyes full of mischief. "I'm afraid you'll have to ask your darling partner that, I'm afraid. He knows more than I do."
Gin frowned. "I highly doubt he enlisted you for that. If he wanted me gone, he'd take care a me himself."
Gin tried to appear firm, but Ashen Eye just chuckled and grinned even wider. "Oh dearie, he didn't specifically go out of his way to," she began. "But he made a little wish, and... well, I just so happened to be around to grant it."
"Liar," Gin spat. "Course we fight 'bout stupid shit, everyone does. That don't mean he wants me gone."
Ashen Eye cocked her head at him. "Oh? Are you sure about that? What makes you so certain? Do you think he'll notice you're gone and come rescue you? Is that it?"
"He will."
"Why? If he wanted you to vanish?"
"He loves me," Gin answered. "He'll come for me. Then he'll gut you like a fish for takin' me."
"Will he now?" Ashen eye asked. "Now tell me, my dear boy. Why would he come and rescue you if he wanted you to disappear?"
"You don't know that," Gin argued, though the seed of doubt had already been planted and watered by the logic in the hollow's words. "You don't know him."
Ashen eye smirked. "Oh, but I do," she told him, her voice light and amused. "Because I was there when he said so."
. . .
The moment the Monster vanished, a crippling pain forced Sousuke to double over and clench his teeth.
"Fuck!" he cursed, groaning with the sudden burst of pain. It was so intense he thought his body might break apart with the agony of it.
His head was throbbing, crushed with some invisible vice. His lungs were on fire, making the simple act of breathing laborious. And his body... that was in so much pain he felt his bones would snap they were under so much pressure.
In fact, they did just that. Bending and snapping, crunching and reforming into a different shape. Crippling him and forcing him onto his hands and knees. He tried to scream with the agony as his own body ripped him apart from the inside, but his voice morphed into an animalistic roar. Deep and rumbling from somewhere deep within. His skin began sprouting thick, dark fur growing into a full pelt that covered his whole body. Apart from his head, of course. His hands – or what was left of them before they became paws – shook and he doubled over again, wretching and vomiting up what looked like thick, goopy tar. His mind registering somewhere in the distance that this was from the tar pit inside him, the one that would drown him and everyone he cared about.
He staggered – crawled – over to look at his reflection in a nearby frozen puddle, and was greeted by a familiar face. The one he saw nearly every time he looked into a mirror. The reason he despised reflective surfaces.
His body was the shape of a Monster. Black fur where skin should be, tar dripping from it in place of blood. His face was the skull of a grizzly bear, with the same black tar dripping from its – his – jaws.
His world span a moment before he closed his eyes and opened them, finding them glowing red when he saw himself again.
He took a deep breath, adjusting to the shape of his new lungs.
Cost what it may, he repeated to himself as the pain recedes into memory. Cost what it may, I will bring you home.
. . .
"You lie!" Gin spat. "He'd never really mean that!"
"Oh? Really?" Ashen eye asked, tilting her head curiously. "He sounded like he meant it when you were fighting earlier."
"He was angry," Gin snarled. "We all say shit we don't mean in fits of anger. Even me. Even him."
"And you're just making up excuses for him." Ashen Eye said dismissively. "Do you really not believe he doesn't want you around? Are you so deluded by your misplaced faith or are you just that stupid?"
Gin swallowed, but didn't want her to know she'd hit a raw nerve. He'd believed for so many years he was expendable to Aizen. That Aizen could – should – go and easily find somebody better. Someone younger, stronger, more attractive. But he couldn't let that show. So he took a page out of Sousuke's book, and bluffed his best. After all, no matter how much they squabbled, they had to show a united front to the world. Especially to enemies.
"My faith aint misplaced," he said firmly. "He'll come for me. I know he will. And I'll get to watch him kill you."
Ashen Eye chuckled and leaned in close to him. Grin plastered on her face beneath her three manic eyes. "Then you know nothing, dear Gin."
Gin held firm and met her gaze head on, though it was hard when that seed of doubt was beginning to grow roots and sprout. Because Aizen could suddenly decide he didn't want him any more. Say he found someone better. Someone easier. Someone with a lot less baggage. Less anxiety. Fewer problems.
But he had to keep his faith that Sousuke would come for him. Because he had to. Aizen had to come for him because he loved him, and gin had to believe that. Because the alternative wasn't even worth thinking about.
"He'll come fer me," Gin said firmly.
Ashen Eye merely tilted her head. "And are you willing to bet your life on that, little boy?"
"I am."
Ashen eye chuckled to herself. Reaching out a thin, bony hand and taking a hold of Gin's chin with her fingertips. "Then very soon it will belong to me."
Gin met her eyes and tried to keep his belief from wavering. Knowing he had to keep strong despite his fear.
Please,Sousuke. Hurry up an' get me outta this mess.
. . .
Sousuke scented the air, the chill wind blowing his dark fur about as he tried to isolate Gin's scent. Sure that now, being a being from another world – the Place of Nightmares – the Hollow World – he'd be able to find wherever that fiend Ashen Eye had hidden his other half.
He could pinpoint them easily, having known their scent intimately for decades even if he didn't quite remember their name, and set off running through the snow in the direction the scent came from.
It was close, a far enough run but, he might run out of time. He just hoped he didn't run into any pesky soul reapers set on delaying him, because right now every single second counted. If the sun set before he could find his partner, they'd be lost to him forever. And he refused to let that happen. They were his whole life, and Aizen absolutely fucking refused to give them up without a fight.
In fact, he refused to give them up at all.
So he ran on through the deep snow, following the trail of his partner's scent. Mentally plotting out how he was going to rip that Ashen eye apart with his teeth as he bounded over the snowdrifts. A low growl in his throat as he neared the source of the scent. Already hungry for blood and carnage.