Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
While en route to their tandem destination, the traveling shinigami led by Shin came under an intriguing conversation.
"Say Hoji" Suichi said, "can I ask you something?"
"Tch?" Hoji grunted back.
"What's the X for?" Suichi asked, pointing at Hoji's forehead. Hoji looked up and took notice to his asymbolic red mark above his brow.
"I've been wondering that too" Shin said. "Is it a family crest?"
"Well, sort of" Hoji said. "I got it because I thought it would look cool. I mean, I can't do much with my hair in the front, obviously, but my head looked really vacant without something."
"Why not get something interesting?" Shin asked. "Maybe a Manji or a Madala?"
"Tch" Hoji scoffed "those are too hard. I couldn't do something that complex by myself."
"You did that to yourself!?" Suichi exclaimed. Suddenly, the group's merry discussion was broken by a heavy, demonic breathing. Upon hearing this unknown sound the swordsmen grasped the handles of their blades and huddled with their backs together.
"Hehehehe..." laughed a nefarious voice in the woods. "What luck. Today really is a lucky day! I have found three, three shinigami to eat!"
"Hollow..." Shin growled.
"You sure?" Hoji whispered. "It's not an Adjuchas or Gillian?"
"It feels pretty weak" Suichi noted, finally picking up the presence.
"It's a Hollow" Shin said "but we still can't let our guard down. Hollows have unique abilities."
"Tch" Hoji growled. "I hate these uppity bastards. I want to shout at him."
"Don't" Suichi chided.
"Hehehehe!" the Hollow laughed again. "Foolish shinigami! They don't know I can hear them whispering! The fools! How foolish! I shall wait for their guard to go down and ambush them!" The shinigami looked confused.
Wait... Hoji thought, we can hear him now. Does he know that?
This Hollow Shin observed obviously doesn't have an intellectual priority.
"Come on..." the Hollow said anxiously, "move it! I'm hungry!"
"We can hear you, numb-nuts!" Hoji shouted. Silence passed through the forest, an awkward wind blew. The quiet sound of a distressed Hollow gasping was heard through the trees. In the spiritual stagnancy Shin took an advantage and blasted the trees with his pressure. The branches all shook and the leaves that fell sank straight to the ground. Shin felt a lump in the pressure field, and that's how he found his prey.
"Switch around" Shin ordered. The boys all made a strafing hop to the left and switched places in their triangular huddle. Shin was now facing the direction of the Hollow and made a powerful horizontal swing. The blast of air shook the trees from their roots up and cut the shrubs in the forest line. The Hollow dodged by leaping high into the air and hovered overhead for a moment, out of sight.
"He's coming" Suichi said frightfully.
"Tch" Hoji sneered. "Bring him on!" In a moment the Hollow came back down and crashed in the middle of the road.
"Hehehehe..." it chuckled in a deep and destructive voice. The dust started clearing, revealing its mask with a crown of horns and red streaks converging in a uniform point between its eyes and its mouth. It, surprisingly, wore clothes over its perfectly humanoid body. A normal, red kimono robe and large red pants tied off at the wrists and ankles which made them appear puffy and huge. His skin was shock white, as most Hollow's, and his eyes within the dark holes of his mask were shockingly red.
He was about five inches tall, at most.
"HAHAHA!!!" it laughed in a high, tiny voice. "Fools! Now you must face EL DIABLO!" The shinigami turned to their opponent, shared a look of mutual underwhelming dissatisfaction, and sheathed their swords.
"FOOLS!" El Diablo growled, steaming. "You dare unequip yourselves against the mighty ME!? I shall show you the error of your ways with my mighty, super powerful-" Hoji just stomped the ground and shook the tiny Hollow off his balance. Diablo faltered a bit before stomping back on both feet. He tried to continue his ranting but Hoji bent down and picked him up by the back of his robes.
"What the hell!?" Hoji said. Diablo started kicking around, trying to shake himself loose, but Hoji retaliated by shaking him back. "Tch! Is this it!? Where's the rest of him?"
"I think that's all of him" Suichi said. He and Shin came over to crowd around and study the strange, tiny Hollow. "I have an idea. Maybe a Hollow this small could be of use to Lady Unohana."
"FOOLS!" Diablo shouted. He wrenched himself loose of Hoji's finger-grasp at last and leaped through the air onto Hoji's face, grabbing onto his nose. "You know not whom you quell?"
"Quell?" Shin repeated. "What's that mean?" Diablo remained silent, obviously unable to answer.
"Tch" Hoji grunted, "get off my face, you tiny bastard."
"Bastard!?" Diablo shouted. "Me? No, you shinigami are the real bastards..." Diablo became suddenly solemn and clenched his toothy mouth shut. Even his eye-holes morphed into a sad shape. "Every time a Hollow decides to risk their life and venture into this world they never return! The lairs of all my old friends are quickly emptying as this world becomes more and more dangerous for all Hollow kind! It's miserable, you know, to starve to death because the fear of dying is too great to get proper food! Shame on you devils! SHAME SHAME SHAME!" El Diablo started sobbing into his sleeve on Hoji face, prying some sympathy from the most unlikely place. Shin took the Hollow and held him in his hand.
"I can't easily sympathize" Shin said "but perhaps there's a reason why those Hollows never come back. Maybe they're living well off the land and its...people."
"Really?" Diablo said hopefully. "I'm so glad to meet a thoughtful shinigami like you! I've been so very distressed since my older lair-mate Danzig died." Shin suddenly became paralyzed with guilt. "Just knowing he may still be alive, I feel I can go on..." Hoji had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing.
"Ah," Suichi began, "like I said, this Hollow actually seems to be rather tame. Friendly even, if a bit boisterous." El Diablo looked hopefully over at Suichi and invoked some empathetic emotions. "El Diablo, would you agree to answer some questions about your home land to another shinigami? A friend of ours?" Hoji felt like pulling Suichi aside and lecturing him about the dangers of Hollows with a knee to the crotch, but his request had an oddly positive response.
"Sure" El Diablo agreed. "I'd love to help you friendly people out!"
TCH! Hoji loudly scoffed to himself. Am I the only one who hasn't gone stupid spontaneously!? It's a damn Hollow! An inter-dimensional monster that eats people's souls whole! There's nothing trustworthy about it! Nothing at all!!!Regardless of Hoji's silent rant, Suichi let El Diablo hop over from Shin's hand into his. Shin and Suichi both felt relieved, but Hoji didn't let his guard down.
And for good reason.
Suddenly both Shin and Suichi looked surprised, even horrified, and started shaking. There was a huge field of pressure bearing down on him. "Ha!" Diablo laughed. "Like I'd ever help a shinigami! I know who you people are! I know you killed Danzig, Shin Kenpachi!" Hoji reached for his sword, but El Diablo was already using his unique Hollow powers on Shin and Suichi. Neither of them could move. Under the giant shock of Hollow pressure, Suichi got knocked out and started falling, El Diablo exploded into a mist of red and surrounded Suichi's body. His upper-body skinsuit and pants became stained blood red and his eyes rolled back into black-and-red Hollow eyes.
"HEHEHEH!!!" Suichi laughed. "Fools! Now I defy you to fight me! I have taken the body of your comrade! This is my awesome power! First I sway my prey's emotions to let their metal guard down, then I possess them! HEHEHEHEHE!!! Eh?" Shin and Hoji, now venomously glaring, drew out their swords slowly. Hoji was smiling, because he was right, and Shin looked scary as hell because he had been tricked into feeling guilt.
"Sorry Suichi" Shin growled.
"We'll make sure" Hoji said sternly "that your funeral is a great one..."
"EH!?" Suichi gasped. "You...you'd really kill your own fellow shinigami!?"
"Don't take it personally" Shin lowed, "it's for the greater good, after all."
"One less Hollow" Hoji said, preparing to charge. Diablo started shivering in his new body. He had apparently made a grave mistake in fighting these men...
Hoji started the fight. He ran forward while Diablo was still searching for Suichi's sword and prepared what looked like a decapitating, powerful swing. Finally, after frantic hoping, Diablo located the sword strapped to the back of Suichi's waist and drew it out to defend.
"Tch, idiot!" Hoji shouted. "Suichi's left handed!" Diablo believed Hoji and switched hands. Of course, it was a lie. Hoji made his strike and Diablo defended, only to get heaved off his feet and sent into a tree. Double idiot Hoji internally snarled. Suichi's ambidextrous, but only defends with his right hand! I've fought him enough to know all his weaknesses and fighting quirks!
"You'll pay for that!" Diablo declared. He raised his right hand and started glaring at Hoji. An invisible ball of frost started forming, a sloppy attempt at honing Suichi's natural shinigami element into an attack that Hoji decided to quickly counter. Hoji leaned back and pointed with his palm, gathering the wind from all directions and forming a swirling vortex in his hand.
"Tatsumakite!" Hoji incanted. "You really wanna have a kido duel with me!?"
"He'll kick your ass, Suichi" Shin called.
"I'm not Suichi!" Diablo announced. "Screw it! I don't need to know the name of an attack to shoot it at you! TAKE THIS!" Diablo fired Suichi's attack, which exploded chaotically into cloud of icy shrapnel. Hoji just smirked and let the ice swirl into his vacuuming hand. Diablo grimaced with shock at how easily his efforts were brushed away by this shinigami.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Moron..." Hoji took a step forward, then a leap and reeled up his windy arm. With a roar he spiked his ball of wind and ice into the ground below Diablo's feet and a huge geyser of ripping wind and icy shard shot up into the sky. In an instinctive leap, Suichi's body invoked his sword and pulled himself away from the full brunt of the attack, suffering minor scratches at best from the rocks and some of the ice.
"He can invoke a shinigami's sword?" Shin noticed from the sidelines. "That's a terrible power...or..." Diablo took a moment to catch his breath and try to determine what had just happened.
Wait...what!? Diablo internally shouted. That's never happened before! His sword automatically released, as if at its own whim. Was it the attack that made him dodge?
"Tch!" Hoji shouted. He took his sword in his release grip, keeping his right hand where it was near the hand guard and took his left hand to grip below his right. "So it's like that, eh?"
"Like what!?" Diablo shouted.
Hoji looked down and let his passive aural energy whip up a storm of energy. "Rip and Tear" he incanted, "Torakaze!" In a blast of wind, Hoji parted his two arms and showed off his shikai gauntlets. Golden with tiger-stripes of green, each finger tipped with a sharp claw. Hoji swayed his body in a windy way, letting his shoulders guide his legs and rising up to his toes. Then he sank down, left leg straight and forward with right leg crouched and knee facing forward. His left arm was stretched out and his claws were bared, his right arm was tensely drawn back and his fist tight. Hoji's glare sent the hopeless message to Diablo of 'you're screwed' and Diablo believed it.
"OH CRAP!" Diablo shouted. "I have to figure out how this thing works" he said frantically, looking down at the chain around his arm, "or I'm dead!"
"Actually" Hoji said, "you're dead no matter what you choose to do..." Hoji turned his left wrist and grabbed at the air to his side. Then he pulled and teleported right next to Diablo with his legs in the same position pointed down, meaning his right leg was kicked up. "Suichi may be fast...but no one can outrun the wind..." Hoji thrusted his right hand down and grabbed the air under him, then made a turning motion with it. His whole body started spinning in the air, legs out front, and as Diablo turned Suichi's face he got a painful encounter with Hoji's powerful legs. An air-warping roundhouse to the jaw was exactly what Suichi needed to wrench the little demon Hollow from his mouth in a splatter of red.
"You...fools..." Diablo groaned on the ground as a puddle of red. "You'll...pay for that now..." Shin made his entrance, deep and powerful, with a ground cracking stomp. Diablo quickly reformed and looked up at the tower of death that loomed above him.
"How...will we pay...Diablo?" Shin slowly asked. Diablo had to shiver in fear for a moment, realizing he was surrounded, then gave a scared squeak as an answer.
"I...I'll cry?" Diablo said. Shin raised his sword high up and sent it crashing down. El Diablo flinched and cowered with his hands on his head. Shin's sword met Hollow skull...
Madala: Buddhist wheel of reincarnation. Hindu term
El Diablo: Obviously, 'The Devil' in Spanish
Tatsumakite: Tornado-hand
