Hollow King chapter 29

Thinking in black and white

I do NOT own bleach

As Gondra meditated, he found himself phasing back into a realm of his mind that had been long forgotten. It was his mind scape. He opened his eyes to find that things had dramatically changed. The small pond in the middle of the oasis had turned into a giant lake due to the ever present downpour. On top of that, the buildings seemed to be fixed in a jerrybuilt sort of way. The few street lights that remained had a haunting amber glow and flickered every time there was a clap of thunder.

"Do you like what I did with the place?" A familiar voice asked.

Gondra spun around to find a reptilian version of himself smiling back at him.

"Tyler?" Gondra asked.

"Wrong o. that would be you. Remember? It's your real name so I suggest you live up to it."

"If I'm the real Tyler, then who the fuck are you?" Gondra growled.

"Why, I would be your blade. You can call me Lord Hexagram." the creature said. "Shouldn't you be looking for Isane and not tagging along with some fling you had so long ago that you can't even remember how you met or how she died?"

A jolt of intense pain ripped through Gondra's brain like buckshot. He clutched his head and doubled over in agony. It was that name that caused him pain. For some reason, Hexagram saying it hurt a thousand fold more than Ichigo.

"Kyahahahaha!" Hexagram laughed as a bolt of lightning shot through the sky. "This is so much fun! It's like a magic word. Isane! Isane! Isane!" Every time the name was spoken, Gondra felt closer to some sort of painful truth.

"Who the hell is she?" Gondra asked after gritting his teeth through the pain.

"You really put that much mental stock into that one photograph? Two many marbles in one basket if you ask me." Hexagram stated as he placed a scaly hand on Gondra's head and knelt closer. "She's your shinigami girlfriend. And she's here in Las Noches!" the blade said as he channelled more memories from him to Gondra.

He remembered his first kiss with the shinigami lieutenant, There first and only real date when the photo was taken, and most of all the times they made love.

Gondra shed a tear of joy and sorrow at the memory. Surly she wouldn't be able to accept him now. He had sided with the sworn enemy of the soul society, had become an arrancar and cheated on her for fuck sake.

"So, what will you do now?" Hexagram asked.

"I just want peace."

"In what way?"

"An alliance between the shinigami and arrancar."

Hexagram held up Gondra's head before speaking. "Very good! You will be the bridge between the shinigami and arrancar.

Gondra was about to ask what he should do when he felt the pounding of little fists on his chest that caused him to be torn from his mind scape and back to the silver sands of hueco mundo.

"Gon! Let me outa' here for fuck sake. Your wings are too dame heavy!" Aiona snapped. Gondra's resereccion was almost at it's limit so he deactivated it to find Aiona sitting on his lap looking furious and worried at the same time. A look only she could pull off thanks to her miss matched eyes.

"What's wrong?" Gondra asked."

"We're under attack is what's fucking wrong! I think my brother's in trouble!"

"When did all this shit happen?" Gondra asked.

"While you were stuck inside your own head is when! It's been hours since you froze like a statue! What the hell were you doing in there?"

Gondra stood up abruptly causing Aiona to tumble out of his lap with a yelp. "I was remembering. He answered as he poured all the reatsu he could into his legs and blasted off across the landscape with a scary fast sonido, leaving Aiona in the dust.

XXXXX

Several sonido's later Gondra arrived at the battleground where Szayel Aporro and someone with creepy reatsu he had fought. Gondra lit up a cigarette and looked around for any signs of life. To his horror he saw the pink hared mad scientist in his resereccion form with a broken blade sticking through his palm and into his chest. Gondra moved closer to see if his comrade was still alive. His eyes were moving but the rest of him was as if he had turned to stone. All of a sudden his right arm shot out and latched onto Gondra's left wrist.

" It took you an eternity to walk over here. I've waited so long. Don't try to talk to me. It won't reach me in time. Please... use this power to protect my sister."

All of a sudden, some kind of disk inside the MP3 player that was on Gondra's belt started to spin wildly and he felt a burning sensation on his wrist.

Szayel finally let go and with a smile, dissolved into dust. Gondra looked at his wrist to find the number 8 on it. It was to perfect to be a tattoo. It was like the skin itself had changed in color.

"Looks like your the new 8th Espada. I'd suggest wearing that mark with pride. It's the mark of madness after all." Hexagram spoke.

Gondra unsheathed his blade and noticed that the edge had become serrated with razor blades. The vision in his left eye went blurry for a moment. When it cleared Gondra came to realize that he was looking through a lens that filled the gap of his mask fragment. Our hero looked off in the distance to see some kind of room be raised from the ground by a figure in black. As Gondra drew near he saw a figure in black and white with some sort of head dress on swing open the doors and step inside. He could tell that this was the man that had killed Szayel. With a burst of speed, Gondra charged inside and grabbed the man by his puffy purple scarf.

"Who dares lay there grubby hands on me?" the man said in a calm yet annoyed voice as he turned around. Revealing his familiar black and white face paint and gold eyes. The man looked in surprise. "Gondra? Is that you?" He smiled showing a set of shining gold teeth. "Interesting! You became an Arrancar after all."

With his memory jogged, Gondra let go of Kurotsuchi and smiled. "Hey professor. I see you got rid of the taco hat. I like the new pharo look. Good to see ya." Gondra said jokingly.

"It is good to see you too my friend. Nemu! Get in here and see who came to greet us." Mayuri called out.

Gondra turned around to see Nemu's expressionless face. She wrapped her arms around the arrancar out of the blue and gave him a bone shattering embrace that lifted him off the ground.

"Gyaa! Nemu! What's gotten into you?" Gondra choked out.

"It is customary to give a friend you have not seen in a long period of time a hug is it not?" she asked as she let Gondra go.

"Damn this fire wall! Even I can't seem to crack the encryption!" Mayuri cursed as he coughed a small amount of blood onto the terminal.

"Mayuri-sama you need to repair your organs." Nemu said, knowing that he had swapped them out with dummies before his showdown with Szayel Aporro.

"I know that you stupid girl! Too bad I used all of the serum healing Abarai and that damn Quency! I swore I brought a third syringe" Mayuri spat as he clutched his side.

"I might have something that will fix you up." Gondra said as he scanned the room. Hiding in the corner was one of Szayel's surviving fraccion. A short round one. Gondra walked over and snatched the thing off the ground and tried to hand it to Mayuri as it squirmed.

"And what am I supposed to do with that pitiful thing?" The good Dr asked as he tilted his head to one side.

"This!" Gondra chimed as he bit the fraccion's head off and swallowed it whole.

Mayuri noticed immediately that Gondra's bruises and cuts were being healed. "I see. Interesting indeed. Give it here, my boy."

Gondra snapped off one of the creature's arms and handed it to kurotsuchi who scarfed it down.

"Incredible. It even tastes good." Mayuri said, returning to the terminal.

"I think it's Philly cheese steak flavored." Gondra said as he took another bite and tossed the bloody carcase aside. He then peered over Mayuri's shoulder at the terminal that he was furiously typing at. The text on the screen read, "Input the number of madness." Gondra then noticed something that resembled a bar code scanner to the left of the screen. "It can't be that fucking obvious.." Gondra thought as he let the laser scan the 8 on his wrist. The terminal accepted the code and gave Mayuri full access.

"I take it that you are hiding something but regardless, I appreciate the help." Mayuri said without taking his eyes off the screen.

"I'll leave it to you then. Just remember that you owe me one." Gondra said as he started walking out of the building.

"Where are you going?" Nemu asked.

"To find Isane." Gondra said as he pulled his hood over his head and sonidoed off.

The girl wasn't that hard to find. All Gondra had to do was follow the empty pain that was in his heart. "What the hell am I supposed to say to her?" I got a real shitty feeling about this." Gondra thought as he leaped up onto a bridge and entered a half destroyed room. There she was. Healing a petit girl who Gondra recognized on the spot as Rukia. As he cautiously approached, a katana appeared in front of his neck. Gondra looked to his left to see the stern gaze of Byakuya.

"What are your intentions? Arrancar." he asked coldly.

Gondra was too caught off guard to think of what to say. "Uh... Just looking for my girlfriend. I mean you guys no harm." Gondra said with a fake grin.

Byakuya withdrew his blade and walked over to Rukia. "Is she healed yet?" he asked.

"Almost sir." a voice said that rang hollow to Gondra's ears.

Byakuya turned to Gondra. "I believe your friend is over there." he stated, pointing to a certain flame headed arrancar looting a corpse.

Gondra walked over to Aiona to see one of her brother's MP3 players in one of her hands and a small round skull with the number nine on it in the other. With a flash of light the nine appeared on the small of her back like a tramp stamp. Gondra couldn't help but laugh as she searched her skin for the number.

"Oh fuck! Did it not work?" she cursed.

"It's above your butt." Gondra laughed.

Aiona turned around to shout at him but got interrupted by her zanpakuto changing shape. The fan became larger and a coiled chain appeared at the base. Also a katana formed at her waist that looked more like the weapon of a shinigami. The chain linked the two weapons together at the hilt. "Cool." she said with a smile.

"That zanpakuto belonged to Kaien!" Rukia said as she staggered to her feet.

"You shouldn't get up yet." Byakuya stated as he showed partially hidden concern for his sister.

"Well, It's mine now bitch and you don't look capable of getting it back." Aiona said with a cocky smile as she drew the blade.

"You don't even know it's name. Do you?" Rukia asked as Byakuya helped her back down.

"I'll figure it out." Aiona said as she studied her new zanpakuto."

"Would you two stop bickering? We should all be on the same side at this point!" Gondra barked.

"And why do you say that?" Byakuya asked.

"Well..."

Gondra was interrupted by a broadcast by Aizen himself. Congratulating the shinigami for taking down so many of the Espada, how he was about to head to the human world, and how he was leaving Ulquiorra in charge of Las Noches.

"That bastard got free... huh?" Gondra thought out loud as he noticed someone special looking at him.

"Your voice." Isane said as she started to approach Gondra.

Gondra pulled his hood more over his face so only his mask fragment was visible and turned away.

"Isn't she the girl from the picture?" Aiona asked as she walked up and studied Isane's face.

"Don't say anything Aya. And call me Tyler." Our hero said with a trembling voice.

Isane looked down to see that the hooded man's fists were clenched and blood dribbled down from his palms.

"It is you. Why don't you look at me?" Isane asked. Gondra turned his back on her and started to walk away. Isane flash stepped in front of him. He had never seen her move that fast. "Look at me Gondra!" she shouted as she slapped him across the face. Isane felt a sharp pain and withdrew her hand. Gondra's hood came down, revealing his face. His mask fragment had a small amount of blood on it from where Isane had struck him.

"I never wanted you to see me like this babe. I'm sorry..."

"Your sorry? I don't care what you look like. Thank god that your alive." Isane said with tears running down her face. She lunged forward and hugged him with all her might. Her hug was almost as strong as Nemu's. Isane felt the hole in Gondra's chest and gasped ever so slightly. Instead of hugging her back, Gondra just sadly chuckled. Isane looked up into his slitted eyes and saw only sadness.

"Can't you tell? I'm heartless now!" Gondra shouted causing Isane to let go of him and step back.

"Why... why are you acting like this?" Isane stammered.

"Because I don't want to see us nailed to the same cross when this war is over..." Gondra whispered loud enough for only Isane to hear as he walked over to Aiona and grabbed her.

"What the hell is going on Gondra?" Aiona asked with narrowed eyes.

"My name is Tyler now!" Tyler shouted as he activated his release mode and blasted out a wall with Aiona on his back.

Isane caught a quick glimpse of the girl smiling back at her on the back of the beast that Tyler had become. "Sunaryu?" she asked as she dropped to her knees. The last thing she noticed was the bite mark and then started screaming out with cries of a broken heart.

Rukia ran over to her side and tried to console her while Byakuya just stood there contemplating what was going on.

XXXXX

"Ty? That was kinda messed up." Aiona said as her and Tyler headed to the throne room like a misile.

"Shut up I don't want to hear it!" Tyler said as her flew.

"I mean... It was kinda my fault. With the picture an all."

"What are you trying to say?" he asked.

"That I'm sorry okay!" Aiona shouted.

"Whatever." Tyler snorted. He was still in a bad mode over Isane. He kept having to say it was for the best in his head as he reached the main building.

"What's the plan?" Aiona asked as Tyler landed and deactivated his power.

"You can get off now." he said to Aiona as she swung around and looked Tyler in the eyes. She kissed him passionately and then slid off.

"We can look for Grimmjow and the others later. Lets just see if Ichigo needs any help." Tyler said as he started walking up a large staircase.

"He shouldn't have any trouble against Ulquiorra. Even we beat him." Aiona said with a laugh.

"He was underestimating us or holding back. We didn't even get to see his release form." Gondra explained.

A few more steps and they reached Aizen's throne room. The two figures clashing blades in front of them were Ichigo and Ulquiorra. Orihime watched intensely from by the throne room.

"Yo Ichigo we came to help." Tyler said as he drew hexagram and approached the fight.

"Stay back Gondra! I can handle him. You guys protect Orihime." Ichigo barked out in between sword strikes.

"You heard the man, Aya." Tyler said as he walked over to the large marble throne and laughed as he sat down. "Who does Aizen think he is? God? God never wanted me... us arrancar are his unwanted children." Tyler then looked from Ichigo to Orihime and noticed that she was looking up at him.

And then in her eyes I saw two mirrors. One showing what I had done and the other what I needed to do. It was then I realized my mistake. I am the martyr, he is the savior and she is caught in my lies reflecting truth.

A mystery, a mirror, a murder.

By inter the collector.

This chapter means a lot to me. I hope you all like it.

SpinalWinter out-