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.
Coming out roaring and growling, shouting and screaming, swinging his arms and throwing the air, Jin came out fighting! He swung his blades with an insane ferocity in random directions, slicing through the air with hollow tearing sounds. Amadeus, the beak-masked Hollow, stood shock still as the mad giant roared at him, then jumped away, just in time to dodge the tree-chopping slice. Jin looked around like a mad, hungry animal, his streaking bangs forming jagged bolts in the air before his face.
REEEEEEEIIIIII!!!!!! Jin roared.
"What was that?" Hoji asked.
"Something familiar, eh?" Shin said as he got up. The Hollow that had pinned him down was in a full retreat, running from the crazed maniac wielding duel-bladed maniac. "Sounds like a name, maybe?" Hoji pulled his back off the ground and looked at the darkness, blankly. He began wracking his mind for possibilities but found nothing. Upon Shin's further prodding with his eyes Hoji crossed his legs and rested his chin on his fist to meditate about it. While he thought, Shin dashed after the retreating Hollow and drew out his blade.
"No running" Shin chided. The Hollow tried to turn around in time but when it looked to see the chasing dread it wasn't there. Shin descended swiftly from above and pushed the Hollow out of Jin's pressure and into the inky darkness. Even with no sight Shin could feel the fear and slashed and hacked the Hollow to pieces.
"I need backup" Amadeus said with fear. Jin stomped forward and broke a tree. Not under foot, but his footfall was so powerful and chaotically fearful that the trees around him buckled in retreat. "I need backup!!!" Amadeus called. Jin was still approaching with heavy, murderous stomps, growling and lowing through grit teeth. "Dammit! Help me! We are Amadeus, together!!! Come together!!!"
"I GOT IT!!!" Hoji shouted, suddenly standing up. He snapped his fingers and let out a Tch at his own slow mindedness. Shin came out from the darkness covered in Hollow blood, tapping his sword on his shoulders. He opened his eyes, flicking more drops of blood off his face from his eye lids. "Why didn't I figure it out sooner!? It's...FAYE!!!" Shin stopped mid-step. His face became blank and flat.
"No..." Shin said. "No...no, not at all. It's Rei."
"Oh!" Hoji shouted, pointing up. "That makes much more sense! Great point, Shin! I am a fool!" Hoji flash-stepped and planted his forehead onto Shin's, confronting him at a dangerously close range. "OF COURSE I KNOW IT'S REI! Quit being sarcastic, DAMN IT!!!" Hoji pressed his head into Shin's to sink his point in deep. Shin didn't move or blink. He just pushed Hoji away with his spare hand, wiping away the blood on his palm, and switched hands. He swung his sword in his path twice to throw the remaining blood off it.
"This guy" Shin began "is getting on my nerves." Hoji drew his sword and placed it on his shoulder in a manner mirroring Shin.
"HAAAAAHH!!!" Jin roared. He growled out breaths and lowed in hissing tones. His madness permeated the air and frightened Amadeus to a starting retreat. "NO...RUNNING FROM DEATH!!!" Amadeus began running anyway, despite the warning. As he ran he took a piece of the madness with him. Jin, who still radiated with that vile blackness from before, watched him go as Shin and Hoji came to his sides.
"He's not a good listener" Shin said.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "What a moron." Both shinigami threw their swords to their sides and dashed off after the fast Adjuchas. Amadeus sensed them coming, one on each side, and then he felt the terrible stomping of the huge one coming straight from behind. Shin came up on the right, so his blade was closer to the retreating Hollow. Hoji did the same, coming up from the left with his sword held in the right hand, and glared the Hollow down. He pointed at it, catching its attention, made a throat-slitting motion with his thumb, then finalized it with a flip of his middle finger.
"You can't catch me!" Amadeus shouted. "I am supreme! A high-powered Adjuchas-class Menos! I am the seargent of an army! I have an entire legion of undyingly loyal Hollows waiting at my beck and call to fight for me!!!"
"So go get them" Shin called. "It'd be fun to be outnumbered."
"But it wouldn't be fair" Hoji replied, shouting across the zooming trees they ran between. "We're too good for just a bunch of regular Hollows. What about a couple Gillians?"
"Yeah" Shin agreed. "I miss those guys."
"Do you even know what you're talking about!?" Amadeus exclaimed.
"DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!!!!!!!" Jin roared from behind. The sound of his mad voice was so loud and booming that even Shin and Hoji had to keep their hearts from skipping beats out of their anticipation. Amadeus had to restart it out of fear.
"I think he knows what he's talking about" Shin said in response to Jin's apparently random madness. "You're surrounded by death, Hollow. You may as well just stop and accept your fate."
"ALRIGHT!!!!" Amadeus shouted. He stopped dead in his sprint with both arms held out. Somehow all three of them, with Jin close behind, wound up in the open ground under the cloudless sky. The dark forest was behind them and Jin's chaotic aura died down in the sight of the glowing sunlight. "If you wish to fight me...then so be it! I shall appease your wish to engage me, but I do not wish to fight either of you first. I wish to fight the mad, tall one!!!" Jin came roaring out of the woods just in time to meet Amadeus' open palm. He was hit with an explosion of invisible force and thrown head over heels into the trees he just exited. "Come, young one! You have bested one of my minions...but can you face up to true power?"
"He better" Shin said, taking a stand outside the apparent area of the fight. Hoji joined him with arms crossed and sword held down in his hand. He had a snarl across his lips. "If he loses we won't take him home."
"If he loses he'll die" Hoji pointed out.
"I'm sorry" Shin began patronizingly "but I don't hear Suichi's opinion anywhere. Why do you think that is?" Hoji looked around with two quick turns and noticed, unfortunately, that they had left Suichi behind. Hoji rolled his eyes and his neck before leaning forward and dashing off into the woods once more...
Jin groaned in pain as his back sank into the broken tree. Amadeus simply stood in the middle of the road, arms down and mouth grinning wide under his mask. Shin dashed over to Jin and shook him lightly until he stirred. Jin looked around, confused and startled, his blades knocked from his hands. Shin leaned in and caught his attention. "Hi Death" Jin greeted. "It's a nice day, isn't it?"
"You're fighting now" Shin said. Jin took a moment with a blank stare to affirm the comment, then his bangs zapped into their jagged forms and he rolled back onto his shoulders to kick himself up. When he landed the ground shook and his blades flew up from the ground. He caught them from behind his back and started running with his arms swinging.
"RAAAAGGHH!!!!!" Jin shouted. He came upon Amadeus like a stampede, swinging every way the Hollow's body covered. Amadeus kept on his toes and dodged swing after swing, his long mask just inches away from Jin's face. The berserk shinigami didn't notice it, however. He was so intent on cleaving the Hollow to pieces as a claim to victory that the true objective right in front of him didn't matter. He wanted to see blood.
"Foolish simpleton" Amadeus mocked. "You know not true trifle! I am a supreme power!!!" Amadeus jumped back, prompting Jin to rush madly in, and extended both his palms forward. The build up of energy was so sharp that it actually drew Jin in for a moment, then a tremendous blast of force came out and toppled a path of at least twenty trees through the forest. The innocent trees flew from the ground and then crashed down in sequence. Jin was off to the side, instinctively dodging when he felt the pull to avoid the push.
"Nice evade" Shin said. Amadeus wasn't as amused, nor was he entirely annoyed. He had assessed his situation and was neither here nor there emotionally. He was calm. His stubble-covered chin held no smirk or snarl, just a flat mouth to compliment his tiredly glowing eyes. "I see. He is good. Even with all that smack talk earlier he can completely remove his emotions from his fighting. It takes a damn good warrior to pull that off on cue. Jin, however, isn't fighting with emotions either. He's fighting on instinct." Right now those instincts told him to roar.
HEEEEYAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!
"Scream all you want" Amadeus said, standing straight up with a palm pointed forward. "I show no mercy even to those who scream and beg for their lives!" This time his hand went flat, palm pointed down and fingers pointed all forward. Jin saw it and wanted it off, he didn't want the Hollow's hand connected to its wrist anymore, so he rushed forward and prepared to chop it off. From the Hollow's hand and to the ground came a bone-white staff. Amadeus slowly moved his hand away, keeping it perfectly level, and kicked the staff out of the ground and into the air. Jin's attack was blocked by the staff. It deflected his hit, absorbed the impact and then bounced to the ground and into Amadeus' hands. The Hollow hit Jin in all of his joints with a mad, powerful rush of attacks and then gave a thrust to Jin's stomach.
Jin tumbled down the road in pain, unable to move at all without some striking amount of pain in any of his limbs, until eventually he stopped and coughed on his side. He was still breathing like an animal fighting a stronger prey, but he couldn't move anymore. A defeated monster.
"You see!?" Amadeus proclaimed. "There are none as strong as me, in or out of the Hollow World! You weaklings have no hope to-" He heard some evil sound behind him. The force of Hell climbing up his back and attaching its chains to his neck sent a deep shiver of fear through his body. He turned around and saw a reaper of all living and dead, a scythe black as it was cold, and of course the shinigami wielding it.
"No hope, eh?" Shin said. He spun his scythe around and rested it on his back. Amadeus took his staff up and took a short step away. "If there's one thing that warrants hope in this hopeless world...that's the sweet release of Death!" Shin repositioned his scythe around his opposite shoulder, the arm holding it wound up tight across his chest, dash forward and slashed at Amadeus' nose. The Hollow wanted to believe that the clashing sound was a successful block...but the beak of his mask had fallen off. It was cut all the way up to the rest of his mask, his entire long nose sliced off. He fell back in distress, unable even to feel pain as it flooded his very mind.
Shin wanted there to be pain, and so he brought it. He picked up the Hollow's dismembered beak, drew it back in his hand and stabbed through the Hollow's chest with the very bone-white structure that was once a part of the Hollow.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" Amadeus roared in pain. His cry was heard throughout most of the forest, even all the way to where Hoji had blindly recovered Suichi to carry him back.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Deal with it, pansy. This ain't the Hollow World. We aren't nice guys here. We kill Hollows. That's just what we do!" Hoji began his run back, following the voice of the Hollow as a guide...
"Your pride" Shin explained "is what killed you. It made you feel invincible, like death was just a word to you, nothing but a noise with some meaning beyond your understanding in a far off land of fearful people. Well, unfortunately, that pride built itself up so high that your fear of death was covered up by a bunch of nonsense. You were unprepared to die. That was your downfall." To add insult to injury, as well as adding injury to insult, Shin was standing on the speared beak that he stabbed through the Hollow's chest as it lodged deeper and deeper into the ground. Amadeus coughed up breath after breath of blood while Shin talked. "When death came at you, you didn't know how to handle it and you froze up, your fear conquered you. Only those who are prepared to die, or who don't know of death yet, can escape my power."
"Ghkk..." Amadeus grunted in pain. "Damn you, shinigami!" Shin stepped on and over the spike he drove through the Hollow's chest and began walking down the road.
"Stay there" Shin ordered "and don't die. I need to ask you something soon." Shin marched, ignoring the palpable hated glare that Amadeus was giving him, and went to check on Jin. Jin rolled himself over onto his back and breathed heavily of the sky. His blades were gone already, retreating inside his body once more, and his chest was dented where the staff connected with it. Shin stopped and stood over Jin, casting a black shadow across his face. Jin looked up and grinned.
"Hi, Death!" Jin greeted happily. "Is this heaven?"
"Nope" Shin answered with a smile. "This is a road. It's made of dirt. You're not quite done fighting yet, you know. He's still alive...somewhat."
"Oh" Jin said. He tried to get up but started groaning in pain as he did. Shin could hear his joints creaking from where he stood, and paid him all his attention by mistake. He took a blind eye to Amadeus, who was quickly recovering. He had silently pushed himself up through his stake and was regenerating the hole in his chest with a visible speed. Muscles and vessels and fleshy patches were regrown and melded together as his Hollow regeneration accelerated him to near perfect condition. Shin was helping Jin, a man a full foot taller than him, up to his feet while Amadeus aimed his pal at them both. The energy gathered from deep within him and his flesh started to bubble.
I will teach you Amadeus growled not to mess with a supreme power! The bubbles of his flesh turned to razor-sharps spears and spikes that formed in his grip. Shin finally felt the power, the murderous intent, and turned around, abandoning Jin to defend he and himself. When he saw the attack forming his grip became tense and the metal of his weapon became cold. Death started to fill him. He could see no alternative but to face the attack and no way out of the pain to come but to die...so he smiled and prepared to block his best.
The clouds began moving again, covering the sun for just a brief moment. The blue sky around them kept the light brightly echoing the verdant greens of the distant, rolling forests and the deep and distant browns of the mountains. The world seemed to be peaceful, a contrast to the panic and dread filling it all over from the constant war, but peace seemed to resonate especially strong in the vicinity of Shin Kenpachi. Amadeus stood watching with wide eyes as his hand, plump and pointy with deadly ends for the attack, spun around in the air with a trail of blood leaving its severed wrist. Another shinigami came with a golden claw and swiped the arm off with a speed that the world could not keep up with. Even as he landed he seemed to be still arriving from the forest as a blast of wind followed him.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed, adjusting Suichi's weight over his shoulder. "You guys can't do anything without me, can ya?" Amadeus started to growl. Shin's smile left him, and now he was yet again a visage of death. Hoji took a step in, brought his bladed fingers together, and delivered a straight chop down. The wind carried his attack and cut Amadeus from shoulder to foot. The Hollow was split perfectly in half, his mask staying intact the whole time. Hoji drew his arm back and clutched a tight fist. Wind started whipping and roaring around the golden blades as he grinned his excited, dastardly grin.
"Tstsumaki-TE!!!!" he called. He punched forward, opened his hand and threw a tornado at the hollow. It opened up as a tunnel, snaking through the air above the road, picking up rocks and shrubs and the chopped down trees from nearby, obliterating the Hollow in a vacuum of wind and debris. The power of the Tiger was unleashed and Amadeus was blown away with the powerful winds. The battle was won, at the minimal expense of the destroyed road and the better part of over a dozen trees. Still, with only such small losses, Hoji stood with his fist on his hip and Suichi over his shoulder with a cocky grin. "Tch. He wasn't that strong." Hoji felt a sharp pain at his head and fell onto his stomach almost instantly.
"Fool!" Shin chided, keeping the blunt end of his scythe on Hoji's head to keep him on the ground. He pushed at it and buried Hoji's face in the dirt more and more to reinforce his disappointment. "I had a question for him, and Jin wasn't done with him yet! Why'd you interrupt!?"
"It was a Hollow!" Hoji shouted. "Why not kill it!?"
"It wasn't a normal Hollow!" Shin corrected. "It was an Adjuchas! You didn't know that!?"
"What's it matter!?" Hoji argued as Jin finally got up to sit on the road and look at the sky. "It was a Hollow at some point, right!? That's just as bad!!!" Jin looked up at the sky, all blue and beautiful, and smiled.
"I missed this..." Jin said in wonderment. "This sky..."
