Chapter Six: Changes

*Hueco Mundo*

A few weeks had passed the eventful meeting and revelation of everything. Halibel was currently lounging in her and her companions' home. Emilou and her son were over to hang out as they had been quite frequently the last few weeks. It was rather remarkable just how fast she and her son caught up and assimilated into each other's lives. It almost felt like at times that they had never been separated to begin with. Of course though them suddenly reuniting brought about some initial questions. Mainly regarding her own hollow nature.

Halibel's behavior and feelings have always been atypical in comparison to the majority of other hollows. In fact her behavior and thinking had remained mostly unchanged as a hollow from what it had been in her human life. None the less, she had address something about herself being what she now was. Mainly was it even safe for her son to be around her?

It didn't cross her mind much during their initial meeting granted that had much to do with the sheer shock of the situation. A few days later though, the subject had been brought up by Mila rose. 'Did she have any urge to devour her own sons' soul?'

Hollows have a tendency to be attracted to and urge to devour the souls of there loved ones from their past life. However this applies mainly to low level hollows who tended to have few little instincts and thoughts, outside of their need to feed. Nevertheless, it was something that had to be addressed.

She thought long and hard on the matter, she needed to be completely sure one way or another. Last thing Halibel wanted to do was accidently allow instinct to get the better of her and wind up doing something she would immensely regret. After thinking a long time in deep thought about the matter. She had reached a definitive answer.

She had no such urges whatsoever, much to her relief. It had to do with her status as a vasto lord. when a hollow becomes a vasto lord they no longer have a need to hunger and feed. Halibel concluded, that when she became a vasto and lost her hollow urges to feed and consume others. Any instincts she may have had to devour any of her loved ones from her human life, went away as well. She couldn't be more thankful for being a vasto lord for when her son found her. It truly terrified her as to what could have happened otherwise.

With that matter put to rest. She returned her thoughts to her son and what she had learned about him in the intervening weeks. Her son was surprisingly a young man of impressive talents. For starters was his cooking skills, Emilou swore by them. One day he showed up with confection of homemade cupcakes, they were beyond delicious to the others, sadly her mask prevented her from enjoying such things. Halibel actually had to order Mila to not eat so many of them so there would be enough for everyone else.

Then Yoshiro told about his training in martial arts and kendo. This surprised her a bit but ultimately approved of it. Her time as a hollow had more than taught her the importance of being able to fight for yourself and others when needed. She was quite interested in how skilled he was, so she did the only reasonable thing. She tested him herself.

She was impressed with how good he was, especially for being human. His movements were precise and quick. He could dodge, weave, duck and roll skillfully. With his martial arts skill. He managed to land a few blows directly to her, not that they did any damage of course. Then she tested his swordsmanship, Mila lent him a blade of her own. Once more he surprised her, he had an excellent understanding of the basics of sword fighting. He knew how to feint, strike, a move about skillfully. Halibel herself didn't fight seriously of course. As skilled as her son was, he was still only human. Any hollow could easily overpower him with sheer overbearing raw strength.

The next thing that came about was the fact her son's strongest passion was music, mostly singing and playing guitar. He showed up one day with what was a very high quality guitar and battery powered amp. He performed a wide collection of songs, much to the delight of everyone. Including a series of songs by 'The Rolling Stones'. Which greatly amused her, they had been her personal favorite during her human life.

Then there was his relationship with her subordinate and friend Emilou. After giving permission to begin living with each other, she noted a particular difference in the air when they were together. She questioned this and they both admitted on the spot they had become intimate with each other. Sung-sun gasp loudly at this, Mila choked on a cupcake she was in the middle of eating and Halibel herself took this while surprised but ultimately ok with it.

She knew already that were quite close with each other when the relationship was first exposed. While she had a few hesitations about it, motherly instinct simply at work there. She understood that her son was essentially an adult, thus he was old enough to make such choices. After that was revealed Mila made a joke. "careful Emilou, you wouldn't wanna get pregnant would ya?" Emilou went red in the face and told Mila to shut up and Yoshiro choked on air.

Halibel merely thought about it for a moment before somewhat playfully saying. "I wouldn't mind having grandchildren at some point in all honesty." This caused everyone's jaws to drop and give a stare inquisitively at her. "what?" was her simple reply. Her son merely put his hands to his face and muttered. "kami help me."

Then she asked her son about his father, her husband in her human life. He grew somber and sad, telling her of the unfortunate accident that took his life when Yoshiro was only a child still. Halibel felt a twinge of sadness but did her best not to let it show. She had hope by chance he would be alive himself and they could reunite as well. Sadly, fate had other intentions in mind and accepted this news for what it was.

All in all, between them all it had all developed into a family like dynamic amongst them all. Surprisingly enough Mila and Sung-sun had started to play the roles of being Aunts of sorts to Yoshiro. For his part he fully accepted it. It really was a wonderful thing to her, especially in a place like hueco mundo.

Yoshiro was sitting in his mothers' home in heuco mundo, Emilou sitting next him leaning against him. Simply, talking and hanging out with everyone. He had come to greatly enjoy his time with them all. He'd even grown use to hueco mundo, unlike his first trip to the realm, he now felt oddly more at peace in the world of hollows then he thought possible. He figured he had just grown to it with all the time spent there recently.

Another thing was despite their initial rough meeting he had managed to get on good terms with Mila and Sung-sun. Mila was certainly the gruffer of the two but was still quite caring none the less to those she held close. One thing he learned when she chose to tell about herself was that while she didn't remember much from her human life. What she could remember was that she apparently had a hobby for bass guitar and body building in her old life and was apparently born in the Mediterranean and died in a train wreck of sorts in her early 20's

Sung-sun herself was certainly much more polite and in control herself much like his mother. she was very polite and proper towards him, he made sure to be in return. Sung-sun chose to share her memories of her old life as well, she could remember more from her human life but not everything about it. Apparently, she had been a Chinese theater singer of sorts from childhood until she died of an illness in her mid-20's.

This raised a question to him, what of his girlfriend's past? He had never bothered to ask before feeling it too inappropriate. Now asked if she wanted to share. She also couldn't remember too much but shared what she could after noticeably pausing to prepare herself.

She had been born in a small woodland conservative town of sorts in the U.S.A. she remembered she was an outcast of sorts in life due to her facial features and being something of a rebel. She remembered that she always got into fights with her family because she wouldn't be a more 'proper lady'. She died at 17 when one night she got into another fight, with her father. He had been drinking though and during his intoxication he shoved her through an open window by accident. That window had been on the second story of the house. She fell and landed awkwardly headfirst; the force of the fall snapped her neck but didn't kill her immediately. She told how she laid there for few minutes in awful pain unable to do anything other than cry before death took her.

When she finished, she had her knees to her chest and some tears on her face. Everyone looked with shocked and sad expressions. Yoshiro immediately felt a huge wave guilt for having asked. He pulled her close to him in a tender hug and gently caressing her head. "I'm so sorry, I never should have asked." He gently spoke. "it's ok" she said softly in return. "I would have told you sooner or later as it was probably anyways."

Everyone remained quiet for a while, until Yoshiro had a sudden idea to lighten the mood. "Mila! I need you to come with me and Emilou to the house and help bring some stuff here?"

"what are you planning?" asked Emilou with a raised eyebrow.

"trust me on this. Have I ever led you wrong?" he replied with a smirk.

She nodded her head and got up, her, Yoshiro with Mila in tow headed outside, activated garganta and stepped through.

Halibel wasn't sure what her son was up to but decided to wait and see. Yoshiro and the others arrived back 15 minutes later. What she saw them with honestly surprised her. They were carrying a variety of music equipment, orange drums, microphones, a few more battery powered amps and a purple bass guitar. He also had a backpack that seemed to be filled with books of sheet music. She looked at her son with an inquisitive look and said. "so, just what are you planning here?" he just beamed a broad smile and replied.

"well seeing as so many of us have some sort of musical background. I figured we can have our own little band here. I can have guitar and vocals, Mila has the bass, sung-sun can main vocals or back up vocals depending on the song and I can teach Emilou drums."

"woah, woah, woah! What makes you think I can still play bass?" "or me sing" "or me play drums" the three women retorted.

"simple" he said looking at Mila and Sung-sun. "you two still remember that you used to play a lot. When you think on that can you still recall the placement and movement of tones, frets, strings, vocal patterns and all that from that time?"

They paused for a moment and thought to themselves. After a few beats, they nodded their heads. Yoshiro smiled and said, "then you just need a little practice to break the rust off and you'll be good to go."

"He's got a point." Spoke Mila "I have to admit now that I think about, I would like to regain my singing talent." Said Sung-sun. Then Emilou chirped in.

"what exactly compels you to think I can play drums?"

Yoshiro simply smirked and said, "Emilou if there's anything I know about you it's that you're a pretty quick learner. Also, if there's any instrument in the world I think you would be natural with, it's the drums."

"I don't know?"

"Just trust me on this."

"Fine" she said giving up

"Alright lets' get set up then!" the blond boy spoke with excitement.

Halibel watched with a hidden smile as her son excitedly began setting everything up. She didn't mind not having role, truth be told while she always enjoyed music. She never possessed any talent for performing it.

After everyone finished setting up Yoshiro gave out commands in a sense. "ok, Mila and Sung-sun. since you two remember more or less, practice on your own a bit and see how it goes." He turned to Emilou. "I'm gonna work with you directly to help get you up and running in no time." With that said he passed out some various pieces of sheet music to everyone to begin practice.

Mila and Sung-sun looked everything thing over and began, it took a little time but eventually it seemed to all come back to them. Soon enough they were playing and singing without missing a beat. He turned his attention to Emilou.

"ok, so just study as I do things and I'll let you have a go from there."

She simply nodded and watched as her boyfriend began playing a series of rhythmic beats on the drum set, she watched intently on movement of hands and feet, the placement of stick strikes against the drums. She saw that in hindsight, it wasn't all that complicated. 'I can do this.' She thought to herself. Then Yoshiro stood and handed her the sticks and had her give it all a try. She took a moment to focus and began playing.

Yoshiro had been right with his assumption; she was a fast learner. She started off a bit slow but not too long she was playing at a perfectly good pace. Then he had an idea, he had her stop and put a piece of sheet music that had a more advanced beat to it. She studied it for moment, planning the steps in her head. Then began to play. She played it exactly how it had to be.

Yoshiro jaw dropped a bit, he figured she would get it, but not on the first try. When she finished, she looked at him with a bright smile. "how was that?" "were ready." Was all he could say with pride.

They all practiced and played together for a few hours before calling it a day. Yoshiro noted how happy everyone seemed, even his mother who was just watching. Granted, when he thought about it. It made sense really, excluding Emilou it had probably been a very long since any of them had done such things.

They agreed to leave the equipment there for next meet up. With that everyone made their goodbyes and Yoshiro and Emilou headed back to his home.

When they arrived back at the house it was nighttime, Emilou was tired and wished to go to bed. Yoshiro wasn't ready yet and decided to stay up a while longer. They exchanged a brief kiss before Emilou went up the stairs to bed.

Yoshiro stayed up for a little while not knowing what he really wanted to do. Seeing as how didn't want to go to bed yet. Eventually he decided he would go out for a late night walk, with that decided he got up and quietly strode the door into the night.

He walked for while until he reached an empty park. Finding a bench, he decided to sit for a moment and enjoy the night air and sky. Then he felt the presence of some spirits in the distance and that reminded him. The last few weeks he had seemingly become much more aware of the spiritual then he ever had before. Though he had no idea why, not just that he felt like something had changed within him but once more he couldn't think of why. He pondered for a moment, then an idea struck him.

His mother mentioned that she meditates, every so often too better hone her mind and better attune to her spirit energy. He decided to try the same thing. He closed his eyes, cleared his mind and focused on his inner self. Seeing what effect it would have. Nothing was seemingly happening, and he was about to stop when suddenly a voice from within his mind suddenly spoke.

"Hello at last, my little kit."

Suddenly a jolt ran through his head, he gasped from shock and pain. As the sensation ran through the rest of his body. When it ceased, he was on ground, he opened his eyes and looked to a puddle of water on the ground. He froze up from what he saw.

His eyes had changed, the sclera of his eyes had changed to all black, his pupils had gone from round to vertical slits like some predator and his eye color had gone from it's blue to a sickly gold color. However the wildest part was the whole upper right corner of his face was suddenly covered in the fragment of some bone white material, it started around and just beneath his right eye ending just below his nose. It stretched up to the top of his head, with a piece sticking up higher resembling some kind of animal ear. It had black swirls of sorts that appeared across it and cut off where the fragment ended. Then he noticed at the very bottom of it was a line of sorts that resembled a whisker.

When he looked at it all he recognized that it gave the rough appearance of something fox like. But what was it all, what the literal hell was happening? Then he remembered suddenly. Emilou, his mother, the others in hueco mundo and even the random hollow that attacked him. He knew what it was now, the fragment on his face was like the piece of….a piece of…. Then the voice spoke again.

"A hollow mask kit."

Then another jolt hit him, and everything went black.

The next thing Yoshiro knew he was in some kind of dense forest like area. He put his hands to his face and noticed his features were normal again. He stood completely bewildered for a few moments, then spoke.

"Just where the fuck am I?"

"Inside your own inner world kit." Spoke the mysterious voice from before.

Yoshiro took note of how the voice sounded. It was feminine, it had an air of royalty of sorts to it, even more so than Sung-sun's high class like voice. There was also a slight touch of a 'I am better than everyone else' like tone to it and yet there also something of a predatory edge to it all at once. Yoshiro looked to where voice came from and gasped involuntarily at what he saw

He saw a woman about 10 yards away from him. She was as a few inches taller than he was and had a perfect hourglass like figure. She wore a type of elegant looking kimono that was all white with black wave like swirls going all over it. The top of the kimono stopped at the edge of her shoulders and the front hung down a bit to show a fair amount of an ample bust. her hair was styled in a short, spiky fanned-ponytail, that also went around from one side of her head to the other and hung a little in front of her face and was pure white.

Her skin was also pure white as well, he also noticed the nails on her hands looked like claws of sorts and were black. Her eyes had pitch black sclera, vertical slit pupils, eyes that were sickly gold. She also had what appeared to be whisker marks of sorts on her face. Four on the left and right sides, he noticed her teeth were pointed with prominent canines like a predator. She also had what appeared to be fox ears on the top of her head, that were all white except the inside that were a pitch black color.

Finally there was the most prominent feature to her, she had what was unmistakably nine fox tails. Each one was a good 3ft in length and stretched in a fan like formation behind her. The were all white except the last 8 inches of the tips were a black. Overall, she looked just like some kind of humanoid kitsune. Yoshiro was for one of the few times in his life completely speechless. Then she spoke.

"welcome to your inner world kit. I do apologize for the roughness of the awakening."

"who are you?" he replied cautiously, steadying himself.

"my name isn't important kit, especially considering you are not yet ready for it." She replied.

"Fine then, just what are you then?" Yoshiro asked inquisitively.

"tis is not obvious my little kit? I am your inner hollow of course."

"MY WHAT!?"

"your inner hollow kit, and please don't yell it's quite rude." She casually retorted.

"have you always existed inside me being dormant or something?" he said trying to keep calm.

"no kit, in truth I only came into existence a short time ago. How exactly, even I do not know. Only that I spawned into existence at some point and have been waiting for you to make first contact. Granted I have tried to push a bit for it." She said with mirth.

"wait a sec." he began to think to himself. "so these strange feelings I've been having lately, have been you trying to get me to talk to you?"

"that is correct kit. I understand you're feeling very lost, confused and even angry at the moment. She said with a matter of fact tone.

"How do you know that so definitively?" he asked a bit wearily.

"simple kit, as your inner hollow our minds and emotions are directly linked to each other. Your emotions are also mine in a sense, your thoughts as well and vice versa."

"this whole situation is completely fucking mad." Yoshiro said with annoyance, then continued. "I can already figure despite my best wishes this is in fact all actually happening. So what exactly happens now?"

The hollow like fox woman laughed a bit and politely retorted. "why your free to leave whenever you want kit, while our power is small at the moment but, it will grow in time with proper care. you will be able to call upon it when needed but, be warned though kit. Doing so may come with unwanted consequences? She said somewhat gravely.

"in what way?" Yoshiro asked concerningly.

"you see kit, you noticed that when you made contact with me you experienced some physical changes. These will disappear once you awake, but the more you call upon my power and use them the more the changes may start to become permanent. They could also occur just as well as your power grows. Though I honesty I do not for sure, this merely my instinct at this point telling me." she said with some uncertainty.

"This is all too much at once for me." He said with exhaustion.

"No matter, it's time for you to return to the physical plane and awake anyways. There will be plenty of time to talk later kit." The hallow kitsune woman said with a knowing attitude.

Before Yashiro could say anything, everything went black and next he knew he was back in the park. When looked at his reflection in the puddle, he noticed his features had returned to normal. 'huh maybe it was all just a dream?' he thought.

"hello kit."

'god dammit, is this going to be a regular thing, with you talking to me in my head about everything. On a constant basis?' he thought to his inner hollow.

"only when I feel I need to speak my voice on a matter kit, don't worry I won't annoy you, well not too much anyways." She said with a giggle.

'I can deal with that I think?'

"that's a good kit."

Yoshiro just grumbled a bit and started to go home and go to bed, trying to figure out just what the hell he was going to do.

Unknown to him however standing a distance away having seen all that had transpired, was a soul reaper. She was a little smaller than even sung-sun and petite. Her hair black and somewhat longer than Emilou's. with some strands that hung between her eyes. Her name, Rukia Kuchiki.

Rukia was in utter shock by what she just saw. She had been on a simple patrol and had reached the park. she noticed an exotic looking human boy on a bench who seemed to be sleeping. She was about to move on when suddenly she a felt a hollow like presence coming from in the direction where the human was close by. She looked believing a hollow was trying to sneak up on the human only to see something that shook her to the core.

She saw the human the ground in some kind of pain, it was she noticed the human's facial appearance that froze her in place. His were black and sickly gold with vertical slit like pupils and he had what was unmistakably the fragment of a hollow mask on his face. Then the realization hit her, the hollow presence she was feeling was coming from the boy.

But how? How the hell was that possible? When she spotted him, he felt no different than any other human. Other than he seemed to have a somewhat higher spiritual energy than most humans but that was it.

Rukia was still in too much shock to move at all, thinking about everything for about 3-5 minutes. Just as she was about to move towards the boy, he awoke. His features having returned to normal and he got back up and walked off. Rukia considered going after him but decided against it. This was something completely unprecedented, she decided to report to her superiors immediately about everything, seeing it as the best course of action.

With that decided she opened senkaimon and stepped through back to the soul society.

A/N:

Author: Hello everyone!

Yoshiro: Why do I feel like my life is about to go to hell?

Author: It's all for proper character development.

Yoshiro: somehow that doesn't make feel better.

Author: Don't worry nothing too bad is going to happen, I think?

Yoshiro: and suddenly I have begun to lose hope for myself.

Inner hollow: Be a dear and please review my little kits!