To answer some truths and, as the saying goes, all is well that (does not) end well.

"No, how could such a thing be possible?" Kuroko stood up and began to back away in confused panic. "Aomine-kun and I...we were born from the same being. Having a deeply involved history before our birth could not happen."

"I can never lie to you, Kuroko. At least, not for long." Ogiwara met his eye steadily. "I could never lie to you after the last time I saw you. That time, it resulted in your death. I can never forgive myself nor atone for it."

Kuroko's back ran into the barrier wall hard. He slid down slowly until he was sitting with his legs tucked close to his chest. It was unexpectedly hard to breathe after hearing it. Shock could not have made him this breathless.

"Ogiwara…kun…?"

No, this sensation was something else entirely. Not only was it difficult to breathe, his head felt as if it were compressing in on itself. It hurt. This sensation was an exact replication of Kuroko's first taste of self awareness as a new whole being.

'dEstROy ThEM—!'

'The only one who can defeat me is me.'

"K-Kuroko? Do your wounds still ache?" Ogiwara's concerned voice barely registered in his ears past the distorted phrases repeating behind his lids and in his mind. "Was it that much of a shock?"

"O-...Shige...leave now!" Kuroko gritted his teeth through the pain to warn him away. "This feels too much like when I and Aomine-kun first separated into two...you...will get hurt if you are close."

"I don't understand," he cracked open his eye to peek at Ogiwara's stricken face, "what's happening to you? Are you being possessed?"

"Something...like it?" he managed to huff out. A laugh resounded in his mind. "Chihiro…" he muttered low.

Ogiwara straightened with a determined expression. "Possession, huh. I've been preparing for something like this all these years."

"Wha…?"

"Stay put right there. I'm going to step out of the barrier and do my magic. Let's hope this works."

Kuroko did not know what Ogiwara would do. All he could do was wait and bear with it as he clutched his head and drew his knees to his chest in a fetal position on his side. Thinking was the only distraction left at this point.

Aomine-kun...

It was him. A happening might have occurred. It could have occurred, yet no image of bloody disaster came to him as a vivid vision. Maybe it was emotional stress? But the thought of 'destruction' was sent to him instead. He had never heard those phrases uttered from the dark-skinned Hollow's mouth.

They alarmed him. He and Aomine were partners, and any signs of hatred were not present last he checked.

"How are you feeling, Kuroko?"

He slid his eye to Ogiwara, who had withdrawn from the yellow, opaque barrier a few paces. The Shinigami had called to him from his spot with his sword unsheathed and gripped with the tip pointed vertically downwards. Kuroko had no idea how to operate a sword, but he instinctively knew how the brunet held it was not how it should be. A weapon as sharp as a sword should be pointed at an enemy, not harmlessly at the earth.

"Alive. Barely." Kuroko winced at the sharp pain his jaw triggered. "What are you doing?"

"Freeing you of your monsters," Ogiwara replied, eyes glazed over in concentration. Under his breath he was humming and muttering words as his free hand was changing movements rapidly. "I've never done this for a Hollow before. There might be side effects."

"That is worrying." The blue-haired Hollow had no qualms about dying except for leaving Aomine and Momoi behind. "Please make...chances...of success...100 percent."

Ogiwara grinned with mirth as he slashed his sword across the ground around the barrier. "You leave a tough case, Kuroko, but it isn't entirely impossible!"

With a wordless shout, he thrust his sword into the earth.

A humming sound reverberated across the clearing in an explosive wave as a red, thrumming light rose from the marks the Shinigami had drawn. The light encased the barrier and Kuroko was forced to the ground. Struggling to open his eye, he saw gravity only affected the area inside the opaque walls. Ogiwara was panting outside it, the power or spell he had used apparently exhausting him. Clutching the hilt of his now glowing sword, the brunet rose from his kneeling position and limped to the Hollow.

"Ogiwara-kun...what…?"

"I'm only restraining your movements if the thing inside you decides to put up a fight," Ogiwara explained breathlessly as he arrived in front of him inside the barrier. The restraining spell appeared to have no affect on the Shinigami. "It will all be over soon, I promise."

'Aw, hell no.'

Now you show up, Kuroko thought to the uninvited guest in his head. You are late. How will you escape now?

'That's the thing. I don't know how.'

Chihiro sounded panicked for once, which left Kuroko bemused and equally satisfied. He did not totally mind Chihiro in his head and had become attached to them at some point, but he did not want to deal with them for his whole life. There was also the several incidences where Chihiro had taken control of his body and started fights between him and Aomine he could not completely clear up after they had forgiven each other.

Overall, Chihiro was harmless, minus the temporary possession over his body.

Privacy and his own mentality were at stake on this questionable samaritan of a Shinigami who had the uncertain power to rid him of this persona possessing him. If Kuroko had to rethink all this, he would say he was insane to agree. But regrets were for later after all was said and done, and he was in no position to go back on his word.

"I trust you...for now." Kuroko released all tension in his body. Chihiro had gone silent.

"Alright." Ogiwara nodded above him and set his sword in front of his chest horizontally, nearly an exact image as in the recent vision of his past. "Let's get to it."

Holding his sword in position in one hand, he traced two fingers from where the dull edge of the glowing blade was inserted, to where it ended in a curved point. As he was tracing the blade, the light faded into his fingers and hand until it was glowing with the same eerie burnt red color. He sheathed his sword, keeping his gaze on his glowing hand, and knelt before Kuroko.

"Now, normally, I would use my sword to exorcise the possessor, but my blade would probably kill you." Ogiwara grinned down at him apologetically. "So, I'll use my hands instead. For a human or Soul, I would use this method to pull whatever was possessing them out of their mouth or chest since that way it would be safer and closer to the heart." His glowing hand hovered over Kuroko's lips and then his chest as he was explaining. "But you're a Hollow, and a hole to the heart has already been opened for me, see?"

Kuroko immediately knew what he was referring to. He glanced down his chest to where his Hollow hole gaped in the middle of his abdomen. The blue-haired Hollow looked up at the Shinigami questioningly.

"This glow makes it so I can reach into your 'heart' and 'mind' easier without physically hurting you. It's like a target of sorts telling me where the source of your soul is." Ogiwara shrugged his shoulders when he saw Kuroko's raised eyebrow. "Don't ask me how, since spell theory isn't what I excelled in back at the Academy."

"Continue." It took some effort to whisper the word with the pounding in his head increasing in tempo.

"Okay." The brunet gave him a meaningful look. "I know your strength, so I'll hold you down."

With one arm braced against the Hollow's chest, Ogiwara inserted his hand within the hole in Kuroko's abdomen. Kuroko watched as it went in slowly. To his disbelief, it did not halt to touch the ground, but kept going until the Shinigami's arm was in elbow deep. It felt uncomfortable but not painful.

"Wow, that's kind of a surprise! Oh, I think I touched something. An arm maybe?" Ogiwara kept his upbeat attitude despite the fact that his own limb had disappeared in what appeared to be some sort of portal to an alternate dimension he called the 'heart'. "You might want to grit your teeth for this next part. This is when it really starts to hurt."

Though Kuroko could not feel anything physically, he breathed in short pants and his vision blurred. Cold sweat and hot flashes rushed across his body unexpectedly, and his body itched to escape. It was torture being unable to move. The metaphor 'to be emotionally touched by (someone's) actions' had become reality.

"I'm going to be pulling now. Brace yourself for some intense pain."

Kuroko barely nodded before colors and stars flashed across his eye and sharp, needle-like sensations pricked across his general torso area. His lungs would not properly respond to him, an invisible weight holding them down.

'S-stop! I want to stay! Kuroko, stop him!'

"It hurts—!"

'It hurts!'

Chihiro was screaming in his mind, so powerful his ears were ringing. Kuroko almost didn't recognize his own moans of pain if he did not feel them in his dried throat and see himself writhing in Ogiwara's pained eyes.

"I'm sorry, so so sorry, Kuroko. It'll be over soon, okay, so please endure it." Ogiwara's brows were drawn close together and he had his eyes closed tightly as he apologized profusely. Sweat—tears?—dripped down his jaw.

Kuroko found the strength to brush his fingers over the arm that was braced against him. "I'll be fine," he weakly assured.

Another wave of nausea hit him, and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. Endure, endure, endure, he chanted to himself. Once it was all over, he would be free.

"Pulling out this thing is going to be difficult. It doesn't seem to want to leave." Ogiwara cast an uncomfortable glance at him. "I'll have to sit on you in a pretty weird position."

The small Hollow had no strength to nod, so he slowly blinked his consent. The Shinigami nodded. He let go of his chest and maneuvered his legs to straddle Kuroko with his free hand gripping his arm tightly. He pulled upward with a strained grunt.

To Kuroko's fascination and disgust, a pale arm appeared on the end of Ogiwara's hand from his stomach. An arm, a shoulder, a neck, a bare masculine chest, and onward emerged until a whole body revealed itself. How it managed to come out of him was a mystery and could only be explained while watching it happen. It practically was like a portal originating from his abdomen in a grotesque fashion.

Once Ogiwara hefted the body to the side, Kuroko was no longer under pressure, and he oddly felt empty and listless.

Above him, Ogiwara wavered from side to side dizzily. The glow from his hand disappeared and, to Kuroko's dismay, the brunet collapsed on him with a flop. Finding some strength had returned, Kuroko pushed the Shinigami away and gently placed him on his back.

A gasp snapped his head toward the body.

The body, a male he presumed, sat with a hand clasped to their heaving chest. Half long, straight pale gray hair sprouted from the top of their head under the remnants of a crown-like plate. Pale wiry limbs and a thin chest resembled that of a human with exception to the hole in the center of their chest.

This thing which had possessed Kuroko for the longest time strongly resembled he and Aomine in appearance as Vasto Lorde, he concluded with faint bewilderment.

"Who are you?" he asked the unknown being.

After a moment of steadying their breathing, or rather, getting used to breathing, they answered bitterly.

"How could you not recognize me, Phantom? Me, who knows all your secrets?"

Kuroko widened his eye in realization. "You are...Chihiro?"

"Spot on." Chihiro flashed a wry grin. It did not reach their eyes. They were a shade darker than their hair and as blank as Hueco Mundo's sky. There was nothing in the gaze that narrowed at him with reproach.

"So this is how you look like," Kuroko said, resigned and relieved to finally be freed of the other being. "This is good. You can finally be your own person."

"Thank the clingy Shinigami for that. I don't know why I was protesting in the first place anyway." Chihiro stretched their arms experimentally. "It feels good to move my own body."

"What will you do now?"

Chihiro paused in the act of wiggling their toes and glanced at him. "I had a scenario thought up that if I ever got a body, I'd use it to kill you."

"Oh." Brutal and direct as always.

"But you've been okay, tolerating me and not desperately searching for ways to get rid of me. That is, up until now," Chihiro pointed out. Kuroko broke eye contact sheepishly. They did have a point, but it was not enough of a reason to kill him. "I'd be a pretty ungrateful bastard to let the host that graciously nurtured me die by my own hands."

"So you do have some morals," Kuroko remarked without thinking.

"Rude." Chihiro tossed their head indignantly. "And to answer your question, I'll leave you and Aomine alone. Then, I won't have to be in debt to you two."

"Of course. You seem like the type to do that sort of thing."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing this to be nice." Chihiro rose on shaky knees to brush off the dirt on their body. They turned to the smaller Hollow to point in challenge. "Next time we meet, I'll definitely use you as a base to get stronger. Hopefully that guy isn't still around for me to do it."

"What do you mean, 'still'?" Kuroko asked, slightly confused by his wording.

"You seriously didn't get the memo from earlier? You should know already that he's a fucking time bomb." Kuroko shook his head. Chihiro raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "The guy wants to kill you, Kuroko. He's ready to abandon you to satisfy his destructive urges."

"I…" Kuroko frantically searched for any indication of animosity from Aomine. "I do not recall that ever happening with Aomine-kun."

"Geez, you're hopeless, you know that? They say love makes one blind." Chihiro closed their eyes and sighed. They opened them to glare at Kuroko. "I'll have to refresh your memory, then."

Kuroko warily scooted closer to Ogiwara's unconscious form as Chihiro neared and stumbled to kneel in front of him.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Chihiro snapped, reaching out a hand to grip Kuroko's head. "I'm testing out a theory I have, since you seem to always have amnesia regarding Aomine's other side."

Chihiro brought his head closer, and Kuroko closed his eye in wait. Their foreheads touched, and a whine droned in his ears.

Dark images, soundless and colorless, all but for the bright splash of fresh blood flitted behind his lid. Another color, faint in some but beacon-like in others, bore into his mind's retina. Two dots of electric blue blazed from the bloodied, familiar form of Aomine, a mangled corpse beyond recognition in one hand and an elongated tongue licking the darkening stains on his clawed fingers of the other.

"You look tasty, Tetsu."

Canines shone sharp as the figure who looked like his partner grinned wolfishly, hungrily at him in the memory as he reached out hypnotically with clawed hands.

'He's a monster...a monster in a friend's skin. I've shown you Aomine's other suppressed nature.

Do you get it now, Kuroko? Is it coming back to you?'

"Come back to me, Kuroko. That's it, breathe slowly."

His eyelid fluttered open to gaze into Ogiwara's worried face as he was gasping for breath.

"Where is...Chihiro?" Kuroko asked, raising himself on his elbows.

"If you mean that thing we took out of you, then they're gone," Ogiwara said as he quickly searched his surroundings. "When I came to, you were collapsed and muttering something about being 'tasty' in your sleep. Were you dreaming about food?"

He recalled the shocking memories Chihiro had given him and murmured, "Not quite."

"Huh." Ogiwara did not comment on his bitter reply. "It's a good thing there haven't been any Hollows around our general area. Usually the Menos Forest is swarming with them, but they all seem to be attracted to something else today."

A boom and a drawn out howl sounded off in the distance behind them. They turned in alarm at the power it emanated. The aftershock was enough to reach them and disturb the dirt and grass in the clearing.

"That doesn't look good." The brunet lips turned down in a grim frown. A hand gripped the hilt of his sword in apprehension. "This strange behavior in Hollow activity is enough to warrant Soul Society's attention." He patted Kuroko's shoulder firmly. "Stay inside the barrier. I'm going to check what all the commotion is about."

Without waiting for a reply, Ogiwara took off and disappeared among the tall branches, leaving Kuroko alone.

"It's not like I can leave here on my own," Kuroko said to air, pressing his helmeted head against the yellow-opaque walls. "Excitable people move at such a fast pace."

Another boom startled him out of his hazy mood. It was not the time to doze off and sleep. Aomine could be in pain wherever he was, and Kuroko needed to be by his side to ease most of it.

If he could just use his sensing ability, then…

…?

He could not feel Aomine's presence. In fact, he felt a void when he tried to activate his ability. Why did it not work?

"I have a theory..."

"...you have amnesia about Aomine—"

"I've shown you Aomine's other side…"

…!

It was entirely possible his power to read Aomine was due to Chihiro's presence and psychic connection to the Hollow. It would explain how Chihiro was able to show his lost memories easily and communicate to him in his mind.

Chihiro, what are you? Are you like us?

Silence answered him. No one would answer but silence now that he was gone.

Kuroko suppressed a shudder from the sensation of cold that had taken over his body, though the barrier kept wind from seeping in. The one eyed Hollow was utterly isolated without the warmth of another body near to comfort him.

"It is lonely."

He huddled closer within himself, clutching his bare arms to his chest over his barely beating heart. There was certainly blood within his veins, his many past wounds had told him that. But it would not move vigorously unless he needed to reproduce the appropriate amount to function. Even now, when he was shivering, it beat irregularly every once in a while as was normal.

The proportions of most Hollows did not allow them to form 'beating hearts' with flowing blood. Whether they were bone or slime, a regular Hollow could not have a functioning, blood pumping organ.

He asked himself what were he and Aomine, and even Chihiro. They were a few of the rumored Vasto Lorde who inhabited humanoid forms, Momoi had decided. Was evolution attempting to tell them that the ultimate, powerful form of a Hollow would be in the shape of a human, the weak and most powerless species?

The memory of electric blue eyes resurfaced in answer.

Kuroko knew power; it was in the shape of his partner, barely contained and brimming within the dark-skinned, muscled flesh of Aomine Daiki.

A sharp ripping shook his eardrums. The one-eyed Hollow did not realize the barrier had shattered until the translucent shards showered over him and dissipated the moment they made contact with the ground.

Before he could react, whatever had easily destroyed Ogiwara's barrier seized him by his leg and roughly tossed him a distance away. Kuroko groaned as he hit the trunk of thick tree hard and limply collapsed at the base.

A low growl snapped his eye open, and he frantically glanced up to see a swirling vortex of dark energy encasing a barely discernable human figure as they slowly lumbered close.

Seeing as Kuroko had nowhere to run, surrounded on all sides, he accepted his fate. He would die here without apologizing to Ogiwara, asking Momoi more about the Human World, or saying goodbye to Aomine.

"...stroy...Tets...uuuu? Tet...Te...ts...Tetsroy? Feel...good...Me, me, me, me..."

The raspy voice drew his attention to the figure who had stopped within arm's length to sniff the air. Now that he got a good look, it had piercing blue eyes that shone bright through the dark, writhing mass. Kuroko froze, recognizing them, recalling all the instances he had encountered the exact creature in similar situations.

How had he forgotten?

This stone cold fear that ran through him was utterly unforgettable and potent. It was a fear someone received when betrayal from a close unsuspecting friend was afoot.

Kuroko was terrified of this creature of unimaginable power who had been barely contained inside the weak-willed friend that was Aomine Daiki.

He had carelessly hurt him. Bit him even, like a rabid dog. One time, Kuroko was on the urge of dying until someone strong on par with Aomine had showed up and restrained him with their power.

All Kuroko could recall of them was their lethal sharp tail protecting him and a flash of shining gold.

Kuroko realized, different from the kind stranger, that Chihiro was unintentionally trying to protect him in their own way from the traumatic memories to extend his survival and well being. He was grateful for Chihiro and his unknown savior.

Chihiro and the stranger were gone, and Kuroko was forced to deal with the heavy truth alone. The oppressing creature of powerful magnitude was not the Aomine he once knew. Or perhaps, this was how he was all along, only Kuroko had ignored it to sleep better at night.

Kuroko felt tears spill down his cheeks as he gazed at Aomine muttering nonsensical phrases and blankly staring at Kuroko in self-conflict.

"How could I let this happen to you, Aomine-kun?" he sobbed as he stretched out a hand to caress Aomine's face.

"Me...me, me, me, me, defeat, me, me, me..."

How could he hurt all the people he loved, turning a blind eye to their pain and sorrow? Had he let the irony get the better of him for an excuse?

"Defeat, me, me, me, me...defeat, Tets... me?"

Kuroko smiled sadly through his tears, wiping at the wetness on Aomine's cheeks.

As he had learned in the past, eyes were the windows to the soul. As he had learned from Ogiwara recently, there were multiple places for the soul as well.

"Yes, I will put your fear to sleep, now, as you wish. Sweet dreams, Aomine-kun," Kuroko assured.

With the technique Kuroko had practiced to perfection, he sharply thrust his fingers into Aomine's exposed eye, a mirror to his own. He took away the power of half of an important sense, lessening Aomine's power by an exceptional amount. He had allowed Aomine one remaining eye, because Kuroko would never stoop so low as to forever blind his friend.

To halt Aomine's healing, Kuroko replaced in Aomine's eye socket Hueco Mundo's darkness he had specialized in gathering to create his one-of-a-kind Cero he stored in his unseeing left eye. He never showed the technique to Aomine, in fear that one day Aomine would betray him and decide to kill him, such as this moment.

As Aomine stumbled back and clutched at his face in a heartrending scream, Kuroko swallowed Aomine's eye within his body for safe keeping. He felt his body hum at the power such a small piece of Aomine gave him.

With renewed strength, Kuroko turned his back on Aomine and fled with a speed he was surprised he had stored in him.

The Hollow's cries behind him resounded on deaf ears as he hurried his way out of the Forest of Menos, never to return to his friend's side.

...

...

Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to go.

A/N:

I'm back from my hiatus! I've been on a writing block for this fic for the longest time, but the news that KnB will be back some time next year brings me inspiration once again.