Behind the Masks
Chronicles
Chapter 2
Newbies
Umm… well… okay, it's my first time doing this so… I don't know how this works. I guess I just tell what happened right… I'm supposed to use detail so… oh, hold on a sec., I'm supposed to introduce myself. My name's Kenichi… I'm an Arrancar. I'm still new so I haven't been assigned a squad or a number. I didn't join alone though. I joined at the same time with my friends Yasu and Kenji. They're Arrancar too. Yasu always has her hair up in a little tail at each side (I have no idea what you call that), and Kenji's spiky hair is… well, really spiky. My hair isn't as spiky, so you can tell us apart even though we kinda look alike.
Right… so umm… it was a day like any other, I guess. I was looking at myself in my soul form, in front of a clothes store that had a mirror in the door. Lucky for me we're all invisible in our soul form; otherwise everyone would be looking at me like a freak while I was cleaning the mask fragment of my inner hollow (which by the way is a Dolphin fin right on top of my head). After I got done cleaning it, without noticing, I started flexing a little.
"It doesn't matter how much you flex, I'm still bigger than you." (As if) Kenji said as he came in from behind in his normal form.
"Don't you think someone's gonna think you're crazy when they see you talking to yourself?" I asked him
"Not If I'm here." Yasu announced as she walked out from the corner of the store.
"Oh hey… so now you're both gonna look like crazy people talking to a ghost." I responded
"Yeah-yeah… so… same place same thing?" Yasu asked us both
"I hope it becomes a habit… its tasty." I responded
"I'll go get them and see you at the tower." Kenji said as he left
Afterwards Yasu and I, in our soul forms, made our way to the big tower right in the center of town. It's so tall you can see the entire city, and it's an amazing view. After a few minutes Kenji showed up with three pink ice cream bars. We had only been in town for about a week, but we already had something to share every day. That strawberry ice-cream was sweet… so sweet it could erase a whole days worth of bad-ness. When we were done with the ice-cream, as I was looking far, far away towards where the beach was, (you could barely see the people moving) I stretched my arms forward and noticed something written on my ice-cream stick.
'WIN-3'
I figured it must have meant something so I put it in my pocket for later. I looked again at the beach and, from what I could tell, it looked like everyone was running away from the water for some reason. At first I thought: a shark? Sea monster? but just an instant later a strange sensation fell upon all three of us. It was some sort of pressure… spirit pressure. There were two, no… three signatures. I quickly got up, looking around to see if I could find anything. This is when they revealed themselves.
It was tree strange looking girls. One of them was tall with dark skin. She had beautiful eyes and pretty wavy hair. She wore some sort of bone like bra, some gloves and boots, a skirt (all white), and her mask was like a weird shaped tiara. There was another girl with really long sleeves and three dots on her forehead; her mask was like a hair pin. The third girl was kinda wild looking. She had gloves and a normal looking shirt, a red circle around one of her eyes and a horn for a mask.
They looked down at us, as if they wanted to kill us. Surprisingly they opened up to us, which I seriously wasn't expecting. The first to speak was the wild looking one with the horn.
"I am Apache" she said
"I am Mila-Rose" the one with the weird bra added
"I am Sun Sun" the long sleeved one finished, then they all said in unison
"We are here to destroy you." in very calmed voices
We all just stood there, dumbfounded, trying to figure out what was up. But as we stood there, our eyes locked with theirs, they quickly unsheathed their swords and attacked us. It's a good thing Arrancars have super hard skin, I didn't have time to unsheathe my sword and block Apache's attack, so I raised my arm and, tensing my forearm muscles, managed to stop it with no damage. They were strong; they obviously had quite a lot of battle experience.
At that moment we split up into our own battles. Apache had chosen me as a target. Yasu was taking care of Sun Sun, and Kenji took on Mila-Rose. I lost sight of what the other were doing, so I would be able to go all out… still I didn't know why it was we were fighting, but if we didn't we were pretty much dead. I drew my sword and prepared for battle. She smiled sadistically and flew at me. I waited for the best moment and blocked her sword with mine in an upward slash, then followed up with a downward slash, which she blocked.
I flipped for a kick, and landed it, but she managed to fire a Bala while the spun downward. I tried blocking it, but it was too fast, and ended up with my back against the tower. She flew at me, her sword pointed straight at my heart. I timed her speed with our separation, and grabbed her sword right before it could hit; then I pulled her in and crashed her into the tower. I crashed her a bit too hard though and she kinda ended up inside the tower. For a moment I saw a faint red glow and a second later a large Cero was blasted at me.
I crossed my arms in front of me in an 'X' shape and took the blast, using the reishi in the air to stabilize myself and keep me from being pushed back. I wanted to fire a Cero at her, but I could have damaged the tower (more than it already was). She flew at me, and I flew at her, both of us using Sonido. We flashed past each other then turned at the same time. She didn't get to damage me, but luckily I got to at least cut her shoulder a bit.
At that moment the other two girls were sent flying into each other and right in front of me. I kicked both of them into Apache, making them look stupid as they rearranged themselves and took back their stances. Kenji and Yasu came in from the sides. There was a bit of a stare down for a second, and then it was as if all three girls had the same thought at the same time. They mumbled something into their sword and shouted…
"Leona" (lioness)
"Sierva" (deer)
"Anaconda" (anaconda)
They released their Zanpaktou and took on ferocious looking forms. Mila-Rose's clothing and attitude took on that of a hunting lioness, with frizzier hair and claws for a bra. Apache became all furry and grew horns. Sun Sun pretty much became a snake woman. After witnessing their released forms, it was as if Yasu, Kenji and I also had the same thought at the same time.
"Swim, Delfin" (Dolphin) I released
"Float, Mariposa" (Butterfly) Yasu released
"Sting, Escorpion" (Scorpion) Kenji released
We took on our release forms. My Zanpaktou splits into two separate swords with white handles, black blades and fin like curves at the tip. My shirt flew off and in its place a bone like armor plate covered my chest, ribs and back (who needs a full body armor when you've got steel hard abs). On the back of the armor a large bone like fin takes up the length of my back and at the end of it a very thin, long, flexible tail appears. At the tip of it, concentrated spirit energy (blue in color) forms in the shape of a Dolphin tail, which I use as my third blade.
Yasu's Zanpaktou turns into a small wand with a Butterfly at the tip. Her mask, a pair of Butterfly antenna, grows longer, and she grows large, white, Butterfly wings on her back. A simple, but beautiful release form.
Kenji's Zanpaktou turns into a slimmer, lighter blade. His right arm turns into a large armored pincer starting from the shoulder (which causes his shirt to break where the right shoulder is). He also grows a large scorpion tail with a long, blade sharp stinger, almost scythe-like (which I think is awesome (not as awesome as my release though)).
If they were ready, so were we; and nothing was gonna stop us… there was the fact that we still didn't know why these people wanted us dead. For a second I thought that there might have been some kind of clue had we watched Bleach before, but none of us had seen the anime before, so I'm guessing we were all making it up as we went along. The three girls moved back some distance and began charging a large amount of red reiatsu. A few seconds later three large ceros were fired at us.
Yasu used her wand, which gathers up the reishi in the air, and created a shield that blocked the one of the Cero's. I used my dual blades to rapid slash and disintegrate the other one (which was hard as heck). Kenji took the hit using the armor on his right arm and his tail. Once the Cero's dissipated we took a risk and executed a move that we hadn't perfected yet. Kenji got in the center and opened his pincer, Yasu went next to him and pointed her wand forward, and I came up from the other side and pointed the tip of one of my sword forward.
Three red orbs formed and moved in a circle for a little while, they then joined together forming a large red orb. We call the orb 'Delta Cero'. We released it, causing a massive blast and disruption of the atmosphere. The disruption disappeared after a few seconds, clearing our sight. The three girls were floating weakly in midair. Their release forms had been cancelled. Apparently a triple Cero is stronger than three separate Cero's. It's the only way I could explain the amount of damage they seem to have taken.
They took as second, as if taking a breather, then moved closer together. They pulled and ripped (yeah, ripped) one of their arms off. What are they nuts? What can they gain from ripping off one of their arms? That's what we all thought, until we saw them put the arms together, which let off a glow. It was a glow, but it felt as evil as nothing I have felt before. From the glow, a colossal, hollow like beast appeared, ugly or uglier than the word itself. Its pressure was strong… as strong as all three of the girls put together, maybe even stronger, I couldn't quite measure it.
Its appearance was like putting several things together. Its legs were like a horses legs, completely hairy with hooves at the bottom, his forearms were also hairy. Its torso was like that of a human; however his face was covered by a deer-like mask with large horns growing sideways. Over its head was like a dark brown lion's mane that fell down covering its entire back. Just under its mane was a long snake tail, which it moved around threateningly.
Suddenly, it disappeared. We looked around for it, but we couldn't even sense it. Suddenly it appeared right in front of me. It grabbed me and squeezed me tightly, taking away all of my breath. I felt myself fading away into thin air with each passing second. My eyes closed for a second. I struggled to open them up, but all I managed to see was the giant beast, about 300 feet away, while I seemingly fell to my doom. My eyes closed slowly as I saw a pair of lines flying round in high speed attacking the beast.
I felt as I continued fading away little by little. I strange scenery came into view, even though I still had my eyes closed. I suddenly found myself standing on a rock surrounded by sand and… seashells? As I looked up I noticed that I was actually underwater. Completely underwater. I would have held my breath, had it not been because I appeared underwater in the first place. I looked around, puzzled, trying to figure out where I was. When I thought something to myself, I somehow heard it, echoing through wherever I was.
"What is this place? Where am I?" I heard myself think (that sounds weird doesn't it?)
"You're inside yourself… in your mind…" I heard a voice say
"Who's there?!" I asked
"Look forward…" it responded
I looked forward and saw a figure coming closer towards me, swimming actually. As it came close enough I could begin to see what it was. A bone white Dolphin with thin black lines running through its body. His eyes were deep and powerful, blue in color. It came close to me slowly and spoke.
"Why are you startled?"He asked
"I'm underwater… go figure. Who are you anyway?" I asked, knowing the answer already
"I am your Zanpaktou spirit, Delfin."
"I… I didn't know an Arrancars Zanpaktou was like a Shinigami Zanpaktou." I added
"They are not. A Shinigami Zanpaktou spirit is a spirit on its own, a separate life. While an Arrancar Zanpaktou Spirit is an extension of the wielders' own spirit, a manifestation of the wielders' Inner Hollow; it is born when Arrancar and sword meet for the first time." he explained
"So in other words… you… you are me?" I asked
"In a way… yes."
"I see… so… what am I doing… inside me?" I asked, utterly confused
"You are experiencing the Oath."
"What?"
"When a human wielder and their Zanpaktou meet face to face for the first time, they get a chance to become one in Spirit. Once they do, their inner power is drawn out, far exceeding their original strength. The Oath symbolizes this event. Unlike when hollows are turned into Arrancars."
"Wow… cool." I reacted "I never thought I'd get to meet my Inner Hollow… much less that I'd be able to become stronger. Oh my God… Yasu, Kenji! They're still fighting that… that thing! I have to… we have to get back there Delfin, we have to help them!" I reacted
"There is only one way."
"How?" I asked
"Kenichi… will you make an Oath of power, and accept the unity of our strength?"
"I will… I make an Oath of unity and power, that our strengths be as one." I answered
"Then… let us… become one!"
I raised my hand towards him, at the exact moment we came in contact, a bright light burst out, returning me to my body. I got up from the hole I was in, (apparently that's how hard I crashed) and flew up to where the beast was. Yasu and Kenji were knocked out; the strange beast was flying about swinging its arms wildly.
"How… is he still alive?" I heard Sun Sun asked
"He should be more than dead!" Apache added
I turned towards them.
"I can't die… I made an Oath."
Swim… Delfin!
My Zanpaktou released a splash of reiatsu like water, the first time it did that, then multiple splashes coursed through my body. One final splash revealed my release form. For the first time I could feel the extent of my own pressure. It wasn't the strongest thing I've ever felt, but it felt immeasurably much stronger than it ever was. Not just my spirit energy, but my body itself felt different. My muscles felt pumped to the max, my bones felt like a steel armor, I could feel how my blood ran through my veins.
The beast noticed the increase in my reiatsu and directed itself towards me. It swing its huge fist at me, I stopped it with the tip of my blade. I gave a quick flick of my wrist, cutting off a couple of its fingers. It pulled its hand back, enraged and in pain. I thought I was seeing things when I saw it grow bigger with its anger. But no, I wasn't seeing things, he did grow bigger. But I felt no fear… I made an Oath, and that Oath gave me power.
The beast swings its other fist at me, which I stopped and sliced with my energy tail, cutting off some fingers out of that fist as well. I took up my speed stance and got closer with Sonido. My reaction speed had also drastically increased. It was as if I was slicing with four hands instead of two and two tails instead of one. I continued slicing every piece of giant hollow beast I saw in front of me, finishing with one big vertical spinning tail slash.
The giant beast was cut into so many pieces it would take hours to count. The pieces slowly vanished into thin air. Apache, Sun Sun and Mila-Rose flew towards me all at once. I readied a stance to fight them off. Just when I was about to start slicing, a swift wind sliced at all three of them, and they all vanished away. I felt a fluctuation in reiatsu close to me and, cancelling my release form, looked round to see what it was.
"Miss Zile! What are you doing here?" I asked
"I was in the neighborhood. You okay?" She asked with her usual smile
"Yes… thank you."
"No problem… come on, let's get your friends some help."
She took care of Yasu, while I carried Kenji back to the Squad house.