Chapter Three: Hunting Ground's
Mila began to stir as she awoke from her slumber. She made a glance down and noticed Takeshi had during his sleep turned around, so his face was planted against her mane and his front was against hers. She watched a little bit seeing him in his sleeping snuggling against her unknowingly.
'heh. It's actually kind of cute.' She thought to herself. she then let out a loud yawn, which in turn awoke Takeshi. He started to sit up himself, stretching out in the process. Mila proceeded to stand up and shake herself awake a bit.
"morning" spoke Takeshi "atleast I think it's morning? It's impossible to tell in this place with it always being dark as the night."
"yeah, you start to lose track of time after a while in hueco mundo. You just sort of get used to it after a while." Replied Mila. "so you ready to head out and hunt?"
"yeah, but first I need to tell you about what happened after we went to sleep." He chimed.
Mila tilted her head in confusion but kept quiet as Takeshi began to explain everything that happened as they slept. To say that Mila was surprised by all this would be an understatement. However she didn't freak out about it, despite the short time they had known each other. Mila had already accepted that Takeshi was far different from any other human. she had already concluded to herself to be prepared for all sorts of surprises from the young human boy.
Not too mention if this Reaver was telling the truth about the nature of his powers. Takeshi essentially didn't have a limit on how high his power could go. 'he has the potential become more powerful than anything else in hueco mundo. All the more reason to keep on his good side and close by.' She mused to herself mentally.
"while I will admit I'm not quite sure on how to think on this whole your necklace having a soul thing and being bonded to you in a sense. I will say that she has the right idea about trying to master your abilities and grow in power as quickly as you can. Hueco mundo is essentially built upon the premise of 'the strong survive and the weak die' philosophy. All the more reason to start hunting." She finished
Takeshi stood up and suddenly heard his stomach growl.
"someone's definitely hungry." Mila said teasingly.
Takeshi sheepishly looked away and then noticed the moss on the wall. He proceeded to walk to it looking at it with uncertainty.
"figuring something out to do with that moss?" inquired Mila.
"yeah, it's gonna be my only physical source of sustenance while I'm here?" he retorted.
"have fun with that one." She replied sarcastically.
Takeshi rolled his eyes at the response before staring down the moss. It had dark pasty green color to it. needless to say he wasn't looking forward to eating it, but he knew had no other option at the moment. Readying himself he pulled a chunk off the wall and jammed it into his mouth.
It tasted disgusting, once he started chewing all the moisture gathered in it came out giving the feeling, he had a cold stew of sorts in his mouth. He had to fight not to choke on it as he chewed and swallowed. Then he had to resist the urge to vomit it back up. He repeated all this a few more times until he couldn't stomach anymore.
Mila meanwhile was watching and laughing her furry ass off at the whole display. Takeshi just shot her a glare of annoyance in response before making his way over to her.
"heh-heh, ready to go now?" she spoke.
"yeah let's get going." He replied. With that he climbed on Mila's back and off they went into the forest to find their first hunt of the day. As they traveled Mila decided to have some conversation to pass the time.
"Hey Takeshi." Mila chimed.
"yeah?"
"Care to tell me what the human world is like, I don't really remember anything of it from when I was alive." She inquired.
"sure, anything specific?"
"not really, feel free to tell me what you can."
"well, back home it was city of sorts, with lots of different buildings for various things. Including food shops, shopping centers and places of entertainment. Everything had actual color to it unlike here and the fact you didn't have to worry about someone tying to kill you at any given moment."
"what about you yourself?"
"well, I live with my family at a house that doubles as a small medical clinic. I have my father whose kind of goofy and well meaning. I have my younger brother Ichigo, who always cool and noticeable with his orange colored hair. I have a pair of twin little sisters. Yuzu has orange hair like Ichigo, and Karin has black hair like me. Then there was my…. mom. she was the kindest person I could ever hope to know. She loved and cared for all of us without limit….. I'm really going to miss her." He finished sadly.
"sorry about asking you that, I didn't mean to bring up any unpleasant thoughts." Mila responded.
"it's ok, I think the more I talk about it the better it will be for me to help cope with it. the thing is now I've lost three parents to a hollow attack now in my life." He stated.
"what do you mean by that exactly?" asked Mila genuinely curious.
"you see" started Takeshi. "my current family is actually my adopted family. My real parents died the day I was born. It was thought to have been done by a mysterious animal. Now I know it must have been a hollow that attacked them. My real father was killed at the scene of the attack and my real mother was wounded but managed to escape. The thing is she was pregnant with me and only a few weeks away from her delivery date. The stress and shock of the attack forced her into labor. While I was able to be born safely, everything was too much for her body to handle and she died. my current family was very good friends with my birth parents and took me n ias their own when I was only a few weeks old." He finished.
Mila for her part honestly didn't know what to say at first. She thought to herself 'shit this kid's been through a lot already for his age. I honestly feel pretty sympathetic for him, no kid should have to go through so much, so young.' She finally decided to speak her mind.
"I am sorry to hear that my kind have caused you so many problems. It surprises me that you honestly seem to trust me."
"you're not the one who killed my birth parents Mila, you're not the one who killed my other mom or dragged me here to hueco mundo against my will. All you've done is help me in fact, while you do have your own reason's for doing so. It shows that your different from the others. While I will admit most hollows seem to be less then friendly. I won't let that stop me from recognizing those that are actually good people, like you've shown yourself to be."
Once more Mila was unsure what to say, this time though it was from how understanding the boy happened to be. 'you keep surprising me Takeshi Kurosaki.' She mused in her head.
"thanks for saying that Takeshi, you actually seem to understand that not all hollows are mindless monsters bent on killing everything they see. I actually appreciate that a lot." Mila stated.
"no problem Mila, I'm sure there are other reasonable and civil hollow's out there like you."
Mila was about to respond when she picked up a few signatures with her pesquisa.
"we have prey." She announced. "not to far from here, from what I can tell."
Takeshi simply nodded his head and went quiet. Mila crept quietly in the direction of the two sources. As they got closer to a clearing on the edge of a section of the forest, they could see the would be prey.
It was two basic hollows, a bit smaller than Mila. one looked like some kind of bull with a horned mask. The other looked to be some kind of beetle looking hollow with six legs and a mask with a large curved horn in the middle of its mask. The two seemed to be in the midst of fighting each other.
Mila whispered to Takeshi. "here's the plan, I'll go out and draw their attention, while you keep back here. While I have them distracted, move in position and prepare to strike when the time is right. Try to go for the beetle, it looks to be the easier of the two."
"understood" Takeshi replied quietly as he got off of Mila's back and began to steadily and silently move himself in position. As Takeshi moved himself into position, Mila strode to confront the two other hollows.
"well, well isn't this something to stumble across?" Mila announced.
The two hollows paused their fight and turned to face this new possible threat.
"what the hell do you want?" spoke the bull hollow in a deep voice.
"leave before you get hurt girly, unless you want us to share in eating you." Spoke the beetle spoke somewhat lecherously.
Now Mila was a little pissed off by that little remark.
"like you two fuckers could hope to take me, especially you fatty." She stated motioning towards the beetle. "you, sad stupid bastards are going to be my next meals."
Now both other hollows had their full focus on Mila. while all this was happening Takeshi had positioned himself behind them on the edge of the clearing waiting to strike.
"you dumb bitch, you'll regret speaking like that to us!" yelled the bull hollow.
"why don't you prove it then you, stupid cow!" roared back Mila
The bull and the beetle looked at each other silently agreeing to put there fight on hold in order to deal with this new hollow. The posed themselves ready to attack Mila, completely oblivious to the danger behind them.
Seeing his opportunity, Takeshi activated his fullbring and charged out from his position at the backside of the beetle. Remembering Reaver's words from last night about 'bringer light'. He focused energy in his feet, with the intent to move faster. He felt a slight surge in his feet and kicked off with it. when he did so some green sparks shot out from the soles of his boots. He had been about twenty feet away from the beetle when he used the ability, now he was suddenly only five feet away.
Putting his blade in striking position he quickly covered the rest of the distance and swung his blade at the beetle. Severing it's two back legs completely off from its body in the process.
"GAAAAHHHH!" roared the beetle in pain as it suddenly found itself down two legs.
"WHAT THE HELL!" yelled the bull as it turned its head to see this new threat. A split second later it realized its mistake, but it was already too late.
Mila charged the bull as fast as it could the moment he was distracted by Takeshi's sudden appearance. Mila was right in it's face before it could react to her charge, she swung paw up with its claws out. It tore right into the bull's shoulder deeply effective render the leg as a whole useless. The bull fell back completely off balance from the attack. Mila didn't let off and pressed on. she swung another clawed paw and connected it into the bull's face across both eyes.
The bull fell to the ground in awful pain and now blinded. Mila quickly moved up and pinned it to the ground before bringing her head down clamping her jaws on its throat. She bit down hard and shook her head. The bull gave out a gurgling death rattle as Mila pulled her head up with a large chunk of the now dead bull hollows throat in her mouth.
As Mila was charging into the bull, the beetle quickly tried to turn around to face its attacker. Though it had hard time moving in a timely manner missing both back legs.
Not wanting to give it any chance to recover, Takeshi moved up slashed once more and managing to remove one it's middle legs. The beetle howled in pain once more, realizing it couldn't hope to maneuver on the ground and knowing he was certainly losing this fight thanks to the sneak attack. It brought out a pair wings from its back hoping to fly away and escape in a quick manner.
Not wanting to let it escape, Takeshi quickly hoped on to it's back as it began to fly off. As the beetle got a few dozen feet into the air, Takeshi slashed his blade across and severed both wings clean off. The hollow yelled in pain and fell into an uncontrollable tailspin. Takeshi held onto the back of the hollow bracing himself for the crash.
The hollow collided with the ground harshly, Takeshi was thrown off the hollow from the impact and flew a short distance before landing on his back and sliding on the sand a little slightly dazed from the crash. He pulled himself up and made his way to the downed beetle. It was still alive but any fight in it had been taken completely out of it.
Takeshi didn't even hesitate as he stabbed Reaver into its head finishing it off. Moments later a familiar silver aura surrounded the dead hollow and broke it down and then was absorbed into his body. He felt any damage sustained be healed and felt his overall power increase once more. Takeshi looked over to Mila as she finished devouring the last of her prey.
"nice work Takeshi." Chimed Mila said as she walked up. Nice thinking on taking quite literally the beetle's legs out from under him. You had me a little worried when you went falling out of the sky. Glad to see you came out of it ok."
"no problem, you made real quick work of that bull hollow."
"your sneak attack caused him to leave himself wide open, it was pretty easy to take advantage of it. also I noticed a slight surge in your energy as you made your advance."
"oh that." Takeshi began "that was me trying use my speed ability for the first time. I sort of got it to work but I know that what I did was just a sputter of what it can really do."
"don't worry too much, it will come to you better after more practice and building up your power. Well we better get going, plenty more hunting to do."
Takeshi nodded his head, deactivated his power and climbed onto Mila and soon they were off again.
"nice work war pup." Spoke Reaver inside his head.
"glad to see you approve Reaver." He mentally retorted.
"keep that up and you'll be reach your next stage in no time!"
"what do you mean by that?"
"as your power grows, that misty like clothing that covers you will morph once you reach a certain level. You can kind of think of it as something akin to your friend's evolution in a sense."
"how will I know just when that is supposed to happen?"
"don't worry war pup, you'll know when it's time. Trust me."
"that doesn't sound like something I should worry about at all." He replied with as much sarcasm as he could muster. Reaver was about to reply when Mila suddenly spoke up.
"I feel more signatures and there's a lot of them too."
"should we avoid them then?" he questioned.
"hmmmmm" was all she muttered as she reached out with her pesquisa more in order to better gauge their probable prey. After a few minutes she spoke up.
"nahh, there's a lot of them but there all pretty weak compared to the two of us. I think I know what we're dealing with here."
"and that's what exactly?"
"it's a colony of low level hollows that either have no potential or desire to evolve. So they just hang around together and do whatever." She stated.
"I see, is it really ok to go in there and just massacre them though. If there all just that peaceful." Takeshi replied, he knew they both had to hunt and kill other hollows but something about attacking a bunch of peaceful ones rubbed him a little wrong.
"I can understand your viewpoint here Takeshi but here's the deal." She began with a slight sternly tone. "someone will come a bout and wipe that place out eventually as it is. those sorts of places aren't meant to last in place like hueco mundo. If someone is going to do it, better it be us seeing how we found it first. A place like this is essentially a gold mine for us, that we can't to afford to pass up."
Takeshi took her words in for a moment thinking about it all.
"she's right war pup." Cut in Reaver with a surprisingly soft tone of voice. "it's simply the way this place works. The strong survive and thrive and the weak either serve the strong or they perish. Just keep focused on your goals and harden yourself up. It's necessary if you want make it out of here alive."
Takeshi let out a huge sigh before he spoke. "I understand Mila, it's simply how things work here. It's best that we take advantage of this opportunity while we can. It's likely such a chance won't present itself again to us."
"I knew you'd understand, let's get going!" Mila spoke with some excitement.
As they neared the destination, Mila had Takeshi get off her back and silently walk beside her as they approached. After a few slow paced minutes their target location came into view.
The were a fair height above the area. The colony had set itself up inside a valley of sorts surrounded by relatively high rock walls of the valley except for a narrow pathway that acted as the only entrance and exit to the place. Looking down at the collection of hollows below them. There was easily hundreds of them.
"you sure this is a good idea? We're going to be heavily outnumbered down there." He questioned.
"like I said their all pretty weak compared to us. The hollows in these sorts of places aren't really fighters. Those two hollows we killed earlier could walk into this place and wipe it out. We have nothing to worry about other then making sure we leave no survivors." She commented.
"well I think the plan here should be easy enough I think."
"what do you have in mind Takeshi?" Mila said. She already knew what needed to be done but she was interested if Takeshi had figured it out as well.
"well, seeing how that narrow pathway is the only way in and out of that place. We can just waltz in and one of us goes out and starts the attack, while the other guards the entrance way. Anyone who tries to make an escape will be cut down, I imagine eventually the bodies will start stack to such a degree that they'll choke off the pathway on their own. If that happen whoever is guarding the entrance can join the other in finishing who ever is left by that point." He explained.
Mila couldn't help but feel some pride in her young friend for figuring things out so well. "you would be correct. I recommend that I be the one to guard the pathway. I'm larger and can better keep it sealed off, so you head out and start the attack."
"right then, let's head down there and do this thing." Spoke Takeshi.
Mila nodded her head, Takeshi climbed on her back and they took off around the valley to the pathway. Once the reached the start of the pathway, Takeshi got off Mila, activated his fullbring and they marched down the path to valley side by side. As they walked together Mila piped up.
"you sure your ready for this?" she questioned knowing the hesitation he had earlier.
"Don't worry, I'll do my part Mila. I made a promise with you after all and I won't go back on my word. this is something that simply needs to be done." He replied.
Before anything more could be said they had reached the entrance into the valley. Takeshi took note of the hundreds of different hollows that were all around the place simply minding their business. Takeshi looked to Mila, who simply took her position in front of the only way in or out as Takeshi stepped forward.
he paused for moment his blade in hand as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in and thought to himself. 'this is how it is in this world. it's what needs to be done. I have to be strong so I can do what needs to be done. So I can be able to go home, so I can see my family again, so I can avenge mom. So I can keep my promise to Mila.' as his thoughts finished, he let out his deep breath and opened his eyes.
He had a different look in his eyes. They weren't seemingly the eyes of an innocent child. No, they had a narrowed, serious look to them. A predatory look, a look of someone ready to do whatever it took to survive.
He approached the closet hollow to him, it looked like a turtle of sorts. before the hollow could say or do anything. Takeshi quickly swung his blade across its throat, causing it to drop to the ground dead. He quickly moved and repeated this process with every hollow here approached. None of the other hollows were aware of what was happening at first. Though once Takeshi downed his twelfth hollow. Others suddenly realized what was happening.
Mass panic ensued as all hell broke loose.
"Oh god run!" yelled a hollow
"Someone has come to kill us!" howled another.
"Make a run for the exit!" screamed another
Once this started Takeshi started using his limited use of his high speed movement ability. While he couldn't move that far with it, he could do short distance burst with it. since there we so many hollows, so close together. It made it all the easier to reach them and bring them down. Not to mention it was very good practice.
The first few hollows started to make their way to the entrance where Mila stood guard. As they neared before they could get even a word in, Mila quickly swiped her claws and began to down them with swift, powerful strikes.
"Oh no! there's another guarding the entrance!"
"We're trapped!"
"They're going to kill us all!"
20 minutes later into the massacre, Takeshi pulled his blade out of another dead hollow and looked in Mila's direction. As he had predicted, all the hollows Mila killed near the entrance had piled up on top of each other. essentially creating a makeshift wall of dead hollows that now blocked the only way in or out of the valley.
With that having happened, Mila gave a roar and charged out into what remained of the collection of hollows. Biting and clawing them to death as he tore through them. Yoshiro continued as he had, he gave a swift swing of his blade and slashed open the throat of another hollow, killing it.
Another 30 minutes later and it was over when Takeshi slit the throat of the final hollow. He quickly surveyed the area. he and Mila had slaughtered every hollow in the valley. Not a single one managed to escape them. The valley that only about an hour ago was bustling with hollows. Was now reduced to a mass buffet of dead hollows for he and Mila. Hs musing were cut off when the lioness approached him.
"Great work Takeshi!" she said with pride. "both of us are going to get a huge boost to our growth and power for this."
"I agree, we roughly took out an even share. We should start to feed before anyone shows to try take our hard work." He stated as he sunk his blade into the nearest dead hollow and started to break down and absorb it. Mila then proceeded to tear into and devourer the closest dead hollow to her.
It took close to another hour but finally they had finished cleaning out the valley. The only evidence left of the massacre that took place was pools of blood that adorned various spots on the sandy earth. Between him and Mila, they killed and consumed a total of 512 Hollows. An even 256 split up between the two of them.
"oh man that was awesome, I've never feasted like that before." Chimed Mila "I feel so much more powerful now. I feel a lot closer to my evolution."
"I feel much more powerful as well. I feel like I might be on the verge of something myself." replied Takeshi as he rode on Mila's back on the way to their home, his fullbring now deactivated.
"like what exactly?" asked Mila.
"I think I might finally be able to access some more of my abilities. plus Reaver explained to me earlier that apparently, I have my own stages of growth in a sense like your evolution. Once my power hits a certain level that misty clothing that replaces my current attire and covers me. It will apparently morph into something new as a show of my newfound level of power." He explained.
"that's pretty neat I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to see what that will look like." She proclaimed.
"I can't deny, so am I." he replied as they reached their home. Takeshi got off Mila and went over to the back wall of the cave and forced himself to eat more moss for sustenance and hydration it offered. It went down easier than it did in the morning. It still tasted dreadful none the less.
Once that was finished, he went over and plopped down next to Mila. soon both drifted off to sleep, content with their day of very successful hunting.