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.
The morning ran into scene with its usual hot attitude, the sun casting a glare on everything that could reflect and receive light. The grounds of the Unohana manor never looked better in recent days. The Hollows never got past the front gate, all thanks to the powerful man sleeping in his room from a mild stupor of victory sake. The staff went about their lives as normally as possible, acting as if they had not a care in the world aside from the obvious duties they were expected to perform. Lady Unohana had made no mention of Cane's battle, of which she was the sole observer, and by her unusually demure and reserved attitude when approached about the man, the staff had begun to find their own suspicion for the wandering swordsman...
Still, it was safer this way, for everyone. No Hollows could penetrate his wall of a defense, as ruthless and bloody as it seemed to be. Rei knew it was better for the sake of all her workers and loyal servants to have a single strong warrior to defend than many weak ones who may end up injured or worse. It was an unspoken understanding that she didn't want anyone to die over protecting the manor unless it was her.
Natsumo carried a heavy bundle of bandages down the hall and passed by Telly who just took a leisurely stroll. They met eyes for a moment, then continued walking. A perfectly neutral air was between them for once. There wasn't any anger or even friendship between them at that moment, and some passing girls patrolling the halls made a note of it to be saved for later.
At dinner Carroll finally reemerged to feast. He sat with the warriors as they silently ate. He had been instructed earlier that it was rude to talk at the table unless invited by the hostess to do so, and he would rather not invoke the wrath of his gracious benefactor at the moment. The dinner was calm and sedated his rampant hunger to the point where he wished for a sparring partner to work himself out before the night fell.
"I'll do it!" Katana Netami exclaimed. Natsumo stared at him as he left with the stranger, a concerned scorn on her face. Regardless the brash young warrior followed the brave, powerful man out into the garden where they stood apart, showing their swords to each other.
"Alright" Katana began, "you may be strong enough to take on a bunch of stupid Hollows, but how are you at fighting actual enemies with their own swords?"
"Don't forget, kid" Carroll began, taking his broad sword into both hands for a better grip, "I did slay that Arrancar when your lady was in dire straits!"
"You killed it from behind" Katana said with a flat face. "That's hardly a testament to your 'skills'."
"Hey now" Carroll said with a bead of sweat, "at least I helped, right?" Katana took on his bloody rampaging grin and glare and leaned back.
"Well whatever" Katana said. "I'm gonna go all out for you!" Katana blasted forward with his sword drawn down low and pointed up. He made a stab up at Carroll's head which the warrior leaned past and made a swing against. Katana hopped back from the swing and Carroll pressed, keeping his sword in front of him and making short, controlled chops to drive Katana away.
He's got some impressive speed on that big weapon of his Katana thought. He used his sword in both hands and made a full-body rotation swing to slash Carroll's sword away. Then, with the opening, he rushed in and prepared for a deep slash to Carroll's body. Carroll read the attacks, one by one, and dodged them as they came. He brought his sword in for another horizontal neck chop. Katana brought his sword high up with the blade drawn downward and blocked the attack. The force Carroll put into it with his thick arm and his taught hips forced Katana to slide away across the flat grass. Once he stopped he took his sword in one hand and jumped forward, all to the horror of the watching gardeners who bit on their own garb.
"Our poor grass" one sobbed.
"It took days to fix" another said, shielding his crying eyes, "and now it's about to be torn apart all over again!" One man in the back ranks began openly sobbing. Katana made a ground-dragging slash that kicked up a dusty string of grass at Carroll. The mighty warrior backed away and raised his guard up. Katana came in low and got in a solid, though shallow, stab. Carroll was shocked to see his guard so expertly manipulated and then reeled away in pain as Katana extended the cut with a clean swipe down.
"Heh!" Katana smirked as he twirled his sword at his side. "You're a lot of talk with no substance, aren't ya?" Carroll was still glaring down at his bleeding abs, the thin trails of blood drifting down to his kilt. He spun his sword over his head between his fingers and then made three vicious swipes at Katana. The attacks were as fast as they were unpredictably powerful and Kanata's sword rang with pain at each hit it took. His arms numbed almost instantly from the stress of blocking the attacks and he was left shaking and vulnerable to the glowing-eyed warrior that approached him. Katana tried to kick, but Carroll beat him to it, planting his armored foot squarely under his ribs and lifting him off the ground. Katana spat up a glob of spittle.
"DIE!" Carroll roared. He slammed the butt of his sword into Katana's back and blew him to the ground where he cratered the lush grass into dirt. Carroll then turned his blade down and thrust it near to his neck, the edge of the blade just scraping across the skin of his neck. Katana struggled to remain conscious. The pressure, and the pain, were both slowly killing him, and all he could do was hope that this merciless monster would have a bit of pity for the weak little warrior that he was. The sword was drawn back up slowly and sheathed behind his back again.
"I'm sorry about that" Carroll said, pulling Katana up and helping him stand. "I got a bit too into it, didn't I? You got a good attack in. Any deeper and I would be in trouble! You're good!" Katana looked up at Carroll's friendly, grinning face, and forced a grin out of himself.
"Thanks" Katana said. No matter how he stared he could only see the veil that this man wore, and he couldn't seem to recall the memories of that monster that had beaten him into the dirt and tried to kill him viciously...
"HNNNEEEAAAAAHH!!!!!" Such was the roar of Bucephalus, Carroll's Hollow steed. It bucked and reeled wildly in the allotted room that Rei had designated as its stable, thrashing about and slamming its head against all the walls to find a weak point. It tried to chew at the floorboards in an attempt to tunnel away and it made monstrous leaps and hind-legged kicks to the ceiling but all in futility. The room was heavily reinforced with a sealing kido that was kept in check by a group of kido-specialist guards. They constantly poured their pressure out to keep the creature in.
It roared and neighed in its terrible, Hollow voice all the time, each night until dawn. The barrier had to be reinforced yet more as a sound-blocker so that the guards quartered in the wing could sleep. The monster was never calm unless its master was nearby, the terrific Carroll Cane. He would part the kido barrier for just a moment, slip in, and all would be calm. His horse would be as stoic and submissive as any horse would be under its master. It would even eat modestly from his hand, not at all trying to nip at his hand like any other Hollow would. This behavior intrigued Rei more than anything, and she requested to sit in upon the regular interaction between Hollow and shinigami.
She took her place in the corner, out of the way, behind an invisibility kido that Bucephalus couldn't penetrate. Carroll came in as he always did, with a swaggering step of haughty pride and his hands tightly clenching his hips. He held himself in a high air, a sheer act of confidence against the Hollow instincts within the best. He grinned and approached the creature. It trotted back and away from him. He stopped after it had retreated only a few steps and held out his hand. Bucephalus looked between the hand and the face, recognizing both in and instant, and brought its slimy green tongue from within its masked mouth to lick the calloused palm. Carroll grinned and approached again. This time Bucephalus showed no fear and accepted Carroll to stroke his mane.
Carroll displayed a proud grin of victory, one he had worn many times before. Rei observed it as a ritual between not a man and a beast but two adversaries in a duel. One enters submissive and scared, the other enters confident and mighty. The outcome of such a match would be obvious. With Bucephalus weak against the simplistic yet effective advances that Carroll displayed the match drew to an early close and Carroll, in his mercy, allowed his opponent to live for showing the restraint and submission that he wanted. Once Rei left she headed straight for her quarters and logged it all down in the lengthy scrolled pages of her research. Carroll came to call on her and pushed past her guards and went into her room.
"Lady Unohana!" Carroll exclaimed. Rei looked up with a start and set her brush down away from the page she wrote on. "I apologize for my rude entry, but there is something urgent that I must discuss with you!"
"Lady Unohana!" another voice called. Carroll turned to his side and showed her the guard who was hanging from his back and dangling about helplessly. His efforts to stop the man were obviously in vain, but he kept trying. "I also apologize for his rude entry. I was overwhelmed..."
"That is fine" Rei said gently. "Return to your post, please." He hopped down, bowed, and retreated from the room, leaving those two alone to talk. "And now, Sir Cane, what is it that requires my attention?"
"I have sensed a sinister energy lately" Carroll began "that comes from the nearby mountain. It is an aura unlike anything I have ever seen before. It may be a Hollow. I would request a change of duties for the course of this night."
"What sort of change?" Rei asked.
"I wish to hunt whatever Hollow is lurking in the hills" Carroll said with adamant determination "so that I may continue to protect the mansion from a blind-sided attack."
"How are you so certain the Hollow is hostile?" she asked. "It could very well be lost, in between worlds with no way of getting back."
"I doubt it" Carroll said. "There are so many beings here who are rich in spiritual energy, is that not the reason why this manor is constantly under attack? I have already seen such a sight in my wandering..." His attitude had apparently shifted. He was demure and burdened by some past nightmare that floated around his head like a dark cloud. "...when I was a child" he began, "my entire village was slaughtered by Hollows." Rei closed her eyes in sympathy. She had heard such a thing before, so many times, but it was always sad to hear.
"I woke up in the middle of the night" he continued "only to find that the houses around mine were burning and collapsing on their own weight. A group of Hollows, led by an Adjuchas I couldn't identify, had killed and eaten everyone only to burn down our houses with the Adjuchas's power. I tried to seek out my parents, both of whom were experienced shinigami, but when I went to their room I saw one of the monsters leaning over their bodies, eating them and picking at their corpses!" Rei clutched at her robe, keeping her hands at her lap to kindly listen to his story. "I've never forgotten that feeling of fear, that terrible pressure. I became a Manzenryuu so that I could hunt down the Hollows that destroyed my life and forced me into the wicked world without a family. This feeling...this pressure. Lady Unohana, I know it's true. It's him! That Hollow! I have to kill it!"
Rei sighed. It wasn't a sigh of any relief, but one of ever increased burden. Now she had to manage this travesty as well, topped with the myriad of innocent lives that lay vulnerable each night to the endless coming of Hollows from the woods. She stood and presented herself in as elegant a manner as she could.
"I will gather the guards" she said "and tell them to stay at the gate for tonight. You may hunt this Hollow, and any others that you may find. I hope you will return by morning."
"That I shall" Carroll said gratefully. He bowed low and Rei bowed as well. Then he left. From that point on the Unohana manor was, once more, on its own. Rei snapped her fingers to call for the guards and issued them with the task of rounding up the guard.
"We need a full legion at guard tonight" she warned. "Carroll Cane is leaving on a short expedition in the nearby hills."
"What!?" the guard who had attempted to stop him earlier exclaimed. "Wh...why?"
"It is something I feel he has to do" Rei explained. "Who am I to take away from what could be his destiny...?" The guards acknowledged their orders and left in sprints. Rei waited a few moment before turning around to the warrior who hid in her shadow, one dressed in a strange garb of leather straps covered in symbols, leaving no space to see his skin beneath. "Follow him. Do what you can to find out what he is up to" she said.
"Of course, my lady" the warrior, in his gentlemanly and elegant voice said. He rose up and gave her a sincere bow with a hand across his chest and an upturned wrist. "I will not let you down." He vanished. Rei went back to her notes thereafter, trusting everything to her people and bearing their burden of distrust.
I only hope I'm making the right choice she thought. The lives of many rest on my hands, and I can only hold so much blood before it starts to drain away...
"They're stronger this time" Natsumo said. "The only reason they'd come in fewer numbers is because they don't need or don't have any more Hollows this strong to use. This may be their final assault."
"So they're going all out" Katana said with a smug scoff. "If this is their last ditch we should give them a loss to remember. That way they have something to mull over in Hell!!" Katana swung his sword down to signal his readiness. Natsumo turned to him and glared him out from the corners of her sharp eyes. He was stunned when he connected his gaze with hers, paralyzed under the geyser of pressure she emitted at him.
"Don't act so tough" Natsumo scolded. "You can die just as easily as they can, you know." She turned back around. Katana took her words to heart but externally scoffed and marched down the line to fight with someone who was less bitchy. He feared for his life just the same, but he didn't want to waste the energy to show it.
The clouds moved as thin, wispy lines across the night sky. The waning moon gave light to the forests that reflected from each leaf but didn't reveal the veins or the contouring lines of bark on each tree. The light was too dim to fully illuminate the world tonight. The Hollows rushed through the woods, staying out of shinigami vision and away from the beaten path that led to the Unohana gates. They were terribly animistic creatures all, most covered with fur that bustled around their Hollow holes and frayed at their bloodied claws. An army of monsters who went from kill to kill to preserve the fresh taste of blood and souls in their mouths.
Natsumo clapped her hands and slowly began to part them, forming a destructive, transparent orb between her palms. "Suihou-hou!" she called, tensing her fingers to grip the bubble lightly. She began to shrink it by pressing it down until it just barely fit between her hands that were brought together by the bound tips of her fingers. "Don't fight fair!" she called to the line of guards. "You know they won't if they get the chance. Kill one and help someone kill another. Don't stop until we're sure they're all dead or at the very least dying!"
"Got it!" Katana called, without a moment of hesitation. He grinned a nasty smirk and spun his blade back to tap onto his shoulder. He was getting anxious. Natsumo kept her concentration on her bubble, keeping it from bursting in her own hands, and waited with her piercing eye dead set on the open gate. The Hollows waited on the other side, out of sight, for their own perfect chance to strike. It was a deadlock of patience, and only the strongest will would win. However, the bloodthirsty instincts of the monstrous Hollows in the bush made it all the more difficult to maintain a patient air. One was clutching its mouth and using its steel-sharp teeth to gnaw at its own hands.
"Hey, Pigglia" another Hollow said to the frustrated one, "take it easy, alright? We're gonna kill them all, just like we're supposed to, but not until we're sure we've got the advantage."
"When's that?" the frantically voiced Pigglia asked.
"When the moon gets blocked" another Hollow with square eye holes in his tight humanoid mask said. "That way they have less light to work with."
"I can't wait that long" Pigglia said. "I need to go now! I can already feel it! The De-Evolution is catching up to me! I haven't eaten another Hollow in days! I'm bound to revert to a Gilian at any time...forever!!!"
"Just calm down" the former Hollow said, trying to wave away his worry. "You'll be alright. Shinigami have more spiritual pressure on them than most of the Hollows we've been eating anyway. Especially the ones with the fancy weapons."
"Kill them all" the square-eyed one said "and we'll divide up the bounty of bodies evenly."
"It's one kill, one body!" a Hollow roared from behind. "Urrraaagghh!!!! This is taking too long! I want to fight! I want to kill!!!"
"Don't get antsy with me, Rude" the square-eyed one said.
"PIGYAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!" the furious Pigglia screeched. It leaped straight over the trees, clawed at the wall of the manor and slammed into the ground. It was emaciated in form, a tall and thin creature covered with short, pink hair and a mask with a wide spear-tipped snout and beady, gleaming eyes under a row of four thin, bladed horns. It wielded long, sharp claws on each finger and powerful animal-like hind legs that ended in wide, sharp claws. "I'LL KILL YOU AAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!"
"Attack!" Natsumo ordered. Rude was the next over the wall, coming in with his giant, muscular form descending along the wall's edge and his hoofed feet stomping in the ground, just in time to watch the attack begin. He started running for Pigglia but was stopped by what felt like a huge, killing pressure behind him. Natsumo opened her hands and let fly her attack, which sunk into Rude's chest and expanded with a blast so loud it shattered the clouds and made a crater over the explosive impact. Rude was decimated and Pigglia was blown away by the blast. In his blind, berserk rage he was also caught in an inescapable attack made by Katana and his head was severed down the middle.
"That's two!" Katana exclaimed, swinging the blood away. "I wonder how many we'll get to kill tonight..." He licked his lips in anticipation to find out. He was tempted to climb up that wall and being battle right on top of it, but upon seeing Natsumo's incredible display of power ended with her equally incredible calmness, he decided to stay with his group. A scolding from her would hurt more than any Hollow could...
Up in the hills that rolled above the Unohana manor a chilling and sinister figure stalked about with three equally terrible accomplices. It was a Hollow, an Adjuchas leading a small group of smaller Adjuchas, two full-grown men tall and thin down to its stretched, lanky muscles. It walked on stilted legs and three-taloned bird-like feet. Its hole was located dead in the center of its chest. It was bone-white with a six-point star on the back of its head. It's arms were long, thick, wing-like extensions with rotted flesh webbing them together. The points of its wings were dulled and worn from a life of use stabbing and scraping.
The three that walked with it stayed in the shadows that the villainous figure cast over them. Two were more humanoid in form, one almost perfectly so and the other with inhumanly round shoulders and abnormally wide forearms. The later had a mask with a horn protruding from the center of its forehead, the previous had a perfectly human skull mask. Then there was one that kept to the shadows so elegantly that it could not be seen, save for the four glowing orbs that bobbed with its motions of walking through the darkness.
"He's late" the shouldered one said in a raspy voice.
"No" the human one said in a lethargic voice. "He's here. He's behind us." The tall one stopped and turned around. The front of its face had a top row of sharp, gnarled fangs that all extended down over its incising bottom row. Its red eyes shone out through peculiarly angled holes, giving it a perpetual look of disdain. It had four nostril splits, two placed perfectly over the others, and on its forehead were two short horns that seemed to break out from within its own mask. It stepped to face the direction where Carroll Cane, riding on his Hollow Bucephalus, approached with great speed. At last he stopped, pulling on the reigns for his steed to halt, and jumped off with a bloody grin.
"I don't like that look he's got" the wide-shouldered one said.
"He won't attack us" the human one said, drawing his hands to wrap around his stomach and grip his sides. "If he did he'd die, though..." The Hollow in the darkness made a pleased, animal grunt and bobbed its head up and down rapidly. Carroll stopped a far enough distance to glare down at the smaller two and respectfully address the taller one.
"I'm glad I found you again" he said. "It's been quite a while since we worked together." The tall Hollow drew in a long breath and then spoke in a booming bass.
"Indeed" it said. "Such is the fate of the wanderer in purgatory. Eventually he shall meet the Devil."
"And I'm lucky we hit it off right" Carroll said. "I've got the entire manor on lockdown like you requested. All that's left for you to do is swoop in and kill all the little bastards and motherless bitches while that gullible Rei turns a blind eye."
"Good" the Hollow hissed. "It is a fine night to dine..." It spread its wings and breathed out a loud, echoing hiss of breath. Feathers of bone white began sprouting rapidly and soon the frames of both wings were coated with light, lifting feathers. "We leave at once! Carroll, your role is not yet done. For your service to be complete, you must kill the lady Unohana so that we may eat in peace." There was no hesitation or even a glimpse of thought. Carroll mounted his horse and drew out his sword, quickly releasing it to its terrible harpoon state.
"Easy" he growled. The killer force left with an explosion of air to shake the trees and erupt the dust and dirt from the ground. The killer bird and its subordinates took to the air while Bucephalus rode the wave of wind with a Hollow roar. The bloody night was just beginning...
Natsumo was at the front of the league. She had anger that she wanted to fight out. She even came to the battle with her sword already released and her studded gauntlets already equipped. Katana Netami arrived as well, opting to have his entire upper body wrapped in white bandages instead of wearing his actual robes, and tapped his sword impatiently on his shoulder. The guards were gathered in the front courtyard between the manor itself and the thick, newly rebuilt stone walls. By Natsumo's orders the gate was left open so as to funnel the Hollows inside rather than fight where they had the potential advantage.
Telly took command of the night staff, regulating the flow of foot traffic through the halls and the delivery of the supplies that the men and women carried in haste to the proper places. She was in her element, dictating and commanding with incredible ease and a very stern demeanor. All the security precautions had been taken. All of the wing doors and passageways had been sealed with some sort of blocking or illusionary kido. The Hollows were coming from the woods, most everyone knew, and they came in much fewer numbers than the last time. That led the guards to assume the same thing.
