So this one took a little longer than what I would have wanted. If anyone who's interested in this story sees me taking longer than a week to update, please shoot me a PM reminding me about it. It's always a good motivator to be reminded I need to do something, especially when I get tired after work and sometimes just let things slip away.
I was talking it over with one of my friends and I decided I'd far prefer to actually flesh out Hideaki's time within Hueco Mundo, mostly because I like the journey he'll be going through and how it eventually leads him onto the path of wanting revenge, which is what the story is mainly about.
So hopefully you don't mind too much to follow Hideaki as he grows up to where he actually meets up with his family again. For now, we see how Hideaki goes through the first parts of his life in Hueco Mundo.
The portal they walked through was long and silent, something straight out of a science fiction movie. Everything within the space was muffled and silenced; Hideaki had the fleeting desire to test if he could scream in this space or if it would be like yelling through cotton. Hardly a sound would come out but the vibrations could echo. The idea wasn't attractive enough to follow through with it.
Adding to the silence was the fact neither of them were speaking. While that might have been because the Hollow in front of him had nothing to say in the situation they were in it might also have simply been attributed to the fact that it took quite a bit of concentration to actually move about in here.
The flooring wasn't so much flooring as it was some weird undercurrent of goopy slime that sludged slowly in the direction they had come from. It took Hideaki a few minutes to realize his companion was doing something so his feet were hovering above the slime, allowing him walk on some invisible platform or something. It was even longer for him to actively manage it himself and by the time he'd done so he'd lost his sandals into the muck.
That hadn't been a very pleasant experience and his face was twisted in disgust for quite a while after that as the slime on his feet slowly dripped back down into the disgusting muck beneath them. Where the sludge was going and what it was even doing in this space that seemed to exist everywhere and yet nowhere at once he didn't know, nor did Hideaki care enough to actually waste concentration on asking.
So it was easy to believe he'd been so focused on watching his feet and making sure the invisible platform underneath him didn't just disappear on him that he wouldn't notice they had come to the end of whatever black space they had been walking through. One moment he was walking over the sludge and the next the platform underneath him had given way and he stepped down onto crunchy white material his feet and toes sunk deep into almost as far as the muck had when he'd first been walking through it.
Whereas the sludge material had felt absolutely disgusting and shudder-inducing, clinging far too much to his skin as though it didn't want to let go, these grainy things were far more inviting. They brushed and caressed at his feet as though welcoming back a friend that had been gone for too long, kind of like a puppy when its master came back from.
He brought his head up to look around him and his breath caught in his throat, he had to remind himself breathing would be a good idea right about now even if it wasn't necessary. Because the sight was something straight out of those motivational pamphlets his father was given once by those strange people in robes. The pictures within those had been breath taking as well, beautiful sights of waterfalls and mountains and even some forests but they had never called to him as much as this.
It was like a sea of white against a backdrop of the inkiest black wherever he looked, the white sparkling like magic underneath the pale glow of the moon that shone far above it. A desert, one unlike any he'd ever seen. And Hideaki had seen a few deserts at night on the television, none of them had held a candle to this place.
Eyes closing, he tilted his head back and breathed in the wind that brushed lightly against his cheeks and through his horns. Almost like mother's touch when she laid him to bed and kissed him goodnight. The wind filled his lungs and was a pure rush of power or affection that overwhelmed him and he leaned back as the wind continued to pour over him.
This was coming home. He'd never known he was missing this; it hit him so hard he was left gasping for breath, weak to the point he sunk to his knees. Fingers grasped at the little white grains of sand beneath him, curled into a fist and let those grains press hard into his palm as he continued to simply breathe in the cool air.
Underneath the halo of the moon he felt more comforted than he ever had in mother's embrace. And as he tilted his head back to stare, wide-eyed and breathless up at the moon shining down on him he realized this was what he had been waiting for his whole life. The moon above the human world had paled in comparison to this one, like some kind of shallow imposter that dared to prance about and claim they were the true thing.
A swallow, a second one to get his emotions back under control even as his throat felt tight and restricted. "Home…" he whispered through the tightness, hearing the breathless squeak that underlined the word but not caring at all because this was home.
Something hard and heavy clamped down on his shoulder and he jerked his head to the side to stare up at the Hollow who had led him here, the one staring down at him with softened gold eyes. In those eyes he saw the same emotions sparkling back at him, the understanding of how special this moment, this place, was.
He swallowed again and managed a weak smile up at the Hollow, feeling like his entire body was made of nothing more than paste, or like the sludge they had walked above to get here. Hideaki wasn't sure if he could manage to stand right now and so there was no irritation when the Hollow's hand wrapped gently around his upper shoulder and helped him stand, keeping him straight when his legs wanted to give out underneath him.
"Relax little one," the elder spoke soothingly, head moving to stare out over the landscape almost calculatingly, as though he expected something dangerous to come out at any moment and attack them. Considering where they were, it probably wasn't that far out there to expect it.
"I'm relaxed," he retorted, hating the sulkiness that lined the words. Something the other caught if his mask-lips curling up was any indication, but he didn't taunt him as Hideaki expected. Maybe the elder understood his feelings, maybe he didn't.
"So this is…" he started again as he looked around, pulling away from the Hollow's grasp to show he could stand perfectly fine on his own now, thank you very much. The name of this land escaped him though he'd been told it not an hour earlier.
"Hueco Mundo," his companion supplied him, voice droll and amused which he received a glare for. Not that it bothered him any considering his lips only curled more, the bastard.
"This is where Hollows live…" he said to himself, taking a few steps forward in the sand and loving how it felt around his feet. In just the few minutes he'd been in this world he felt more alive and whole than he ever had in the human world, it was like he was meant to be here. Meant to breathe in this air, to stand on this sand, to simply exist here. Goosebumps rose on his legs as warmth seeped up through the cold sands into him, flooding his body with a thrum of heat as relaxing and comfortable as any heater blanket.
It should have been unnerving but it wasn't. It was more unnerving he didn't feel that way, and he looked back at his Hollow companion. The look he was giving him didn't help the unnerved feeling spreading through his belly.
"I'm not a Hollow, so why do I feel so comfortable being here?" he questioned him, kicking his foot through the sand and looking down to watch the little grains fly into the air only to settle back amongst the rest of it.
"You don't remember what I told you, do you." Hideaki gave him a withering look. Of course he didn't. "I said you had some Hollow powers, maybe there's a bit more to it than that. Whatever it is, you're as much a Hollow as a Plus can be. Makes sense you'd feel at home in the world of Hollows."
A one-shouldered shrug was the only other thing the Hollow did even as he looked past Hideaki across the dunes into the distance. He turned to see what he staring at but couldn't see anything but the dunes themselves, the grains of sand whipping up into the air as the wind took them up and deposited them further away from where they had started.
"Something have your attention?" Hideaki asked him, wryness covering his voice as he glanced at his companion out of the corner of his eye. He only got a grunt for his cheek, the Hollow's large wings spreading out behind him and whipping up sand even the wind itself couldn't pick up.
They caught his eyes; the feathers sparkled like the sand under the moonlight above them, like some kind of ethereal creature from Hell pretending to be an angel to lead people astray.
"You're a bird Hollow, obviously," he added quickly at the blank stare his comment received, "so what kind of bird are you specifically?"
The Hollow took a few moments to respond to him, wings folding back down to rest how they normally did behind his back. His fingers combed through the feathers on one wing, finding a feather or two that weren't settling correctly and fixing them back into place.
"I'm an Accipiter, or what can commonly be referred to as a hawk or a falcon by normal people who don't differentiate between the actual species within those categories," he said, sounding very much like one of the teachers Hideaki had once in school. That man hadn't expected they would know anything he was talking about but he spoke patiently and calmly which somehow managed to draw them into what he was saying and pay attention to it.
"So you're an Accipi-thing, how do you actually know that?" he said curiously, crouching down amongst the sand to pick some of it up into his hands. Once he had the sand grains he stood up and spread his arms wide to release the sand into the air, watching it catch on the breeze and dance away from them before dropping back down. The show was pretty and so he repeated the process.
"One could say I knew by trial and error but that's not true. I was quite the bird watcher when I was human and so I was able to conclude which bird I had become when I got a good look at myself one time after I fed at a lake."
There was no need to ask what "fed" meant, and while the idea might once have made him shudder in disgust it didn't anymore. Perhaps the human world wasn't the only thing he left behind when he decided to follow this man, or perhaps it had left him long before and he'd never noticed.
Whatever the answer was it didn't matter anymore because the lack of reaction was already there and he couldn't put it back inside him now.
"How often do you normally have to feed?"
His companion almost answered him but then stilled as though a gun had been aimed at him, feathers on his wings ruffling up like a cat's when they were stuck in a corner. The action caused to rise in him and he turned to see what might have caught his attention. What he saw stoke the fear into a fire.
Across the dunes in the distance a giant creature was crawling along the ground, like some kind of giant centipede except it was full black, besides the mask Hideaki could barely see from here. He remembered what the nature channels said about centipedes, how they could be poisonous and there had been a few deaths from them. If centipedes were that poisonous to humans when they weren't even their prey, how poisonous would a Hollow centipede be…?
He wasn't able to find out however because a hand closed tight around his shoulder, large fingers digging in enough to ensure he wasn't going anywhere. It was hard to hold in the shock but he managed to not jump from the sudden contact. Instead he grit his teeth to release the energy that coursed through his body as he looked up at his… friend?
Whatever the man was to him wasn't important currently, not when he was frowning like that while watching the creature coming towards them in the distance.
"That creature…" he said low as he continued to eye it as it came closer while the seconds ticked by. Now that it was closer Hideaki could see it didn't have legs like a centipede, so how could it even be moving? It was making some kind of worm movement but it didn't look exactly like a worm either.
"What about it?"
"It's time for us to get out of here; you don't want to deal with those nuisances in the first hour of being home. Trust me; they can cause the most powerful headaches if you're stuck with them."
Hideaki didn't see anything other than the centipede-worm and he wanted to question what he meant by "those nuisances" if there was only one thing out there but he didn't get the chance because he was being pulled in the opposite direction of the creature.
A scowl spread across his face but he didn't snap at him because he could understand they needed to get away from there because that centipede thing was coming straight towards them, it even shifted off its previous course to bowel towards them. The last thing he wanted was to get involved with something that seemed to annoy the elder Hollow so much.
He was almost being pulled off his feet within seconds when the Hollow's stride lengthened to ensure they got away from the fast-moving Hollow approaching them. There wasn't even a chance to squeak out for him to slow down before the Hollow's other arm wrapped tight around his stomach and pulled him straight into the air until all he was seeing was the sand flying underneath them. The wind blew at his eyes and dried them up so he had to close them tight against the force that seemed to want to tear into him as much as it could.
"W-where are we going?" he choked out against the wind even as it caught his words and tried to force them back into his throat. They were going so fast now they had to be flying faster than any car he'd seen, far faster than the creature that had been coming for them.
There wasn't a response for a few extra moments and only until the pace had slowed and the wind wasn't tearing at his eyes did it come. "We are going to my home. It is far from the area where those fools play their games, on the outer edges of the desert where very few Hollows come to make trouble."
That sounded like a rather nice place, they would have the solitude Hideaki was starting to enjoy. The wind wouldn't be ruined by others calling out or trying to attack them, which warmed Hideaki's heart because he was starting to become fond of the wind when it tickled at his ears and sounded like a friend whispering in his ears. Secrets that were for his own ears only and no one else was allowed to have.
"What kind of a home does a…" but he wasn't able to finish his question as sand enveloped them both as the avian Hollow dove directly into it with him. Sand crawled down his throat and he choked on it, feeling the grains dig into his throat and wet his eyes as he struggled against the strong urge to throw up.
It was overwhelming and he was going to puke if he didn't swallow down more of that sand, it would fill up his belly and the thought itself was so disgusting he gagged in the back of his throat, further making the course grains scratch at his throat and then the sand around him was gone and there was once again cool air. No wind greeted him however, because no wind blew underground.
His body was wracked by coughs as he spat up the sand that had gotten into his throat, gagging again when he couldn't properly get the sand out. Absently his body noticed the world around him shifting and a hard surface pressing against his stomach as fingers forced his mouth open and a cool wetness flooded into his mouth.
Again he gagged and spat it back up, afraid this time he'd be drowned instead of suffocated and the fear grew as more water was again poured into his throat until everything was dizzy and no more grains were sticking into his throat or mouth. Deep in his stomach he felt sick, a sure sign some sand had managed to be swallowed and wasn't willing to come out for him.
But it was relief enough to no longer have that sickly feeling of sand in his throat and through teary eyes he stared up at the Hollow who was watching him silently, another handful of water at the ready in case he needed it. He didn't and so he shook his head at him and his companion nodded slightly as he tilted his hand to let the water drip back into a small pool beside Hideaki's head.
It was then he realized they were in a strange underground cave system, and he could see where they had come in from. A few feet away from where he lay was a huge wall of sand as though part of the upper world had simply collapsed in on itself and fallen into the cave system, the sand tumbling in until it could come no further. They must have come in through there because the rest of the cave seemed to be nothing but bone-like material. Absently he wondered if it could actually be the bones of a giant Hollow, if they even left things like bones if they were only spirit creatures.
He himself had bones; it seemed logical Hollows would as well and would have the potential to leave them. However that wasn't the important issue at hand and so he tore his eyes away from the cave walls to look back at the man who had helped him, more than he needed to or ever had considering he didn't owe him at all.
"Why are you helping me? Why take me to your home? You could just leave me up there you know, I'd find my own place to stay."
The look he was given made him feel like some kind of moron who'd failed at answering his teacher's question properly, especially when the answer had been written on the board all along if he had cared enough to look at it. He hated when people made him feel like that, failure was something he could hardly stand to tolerate. It always left a bitter ashen taste in his mouth, if that was possible.
"I would have thought that was rather obvious by now," the amusement in the Hollow's voice was even further disgrace to Hideaki and he almost wanted to stand up and leave then and there for it. He wondered if he was somehow able to read his mind because the mask-lips curled up in that way Hideaki was starting to realize meant he was darkly amused about something. "I did not bring you here so you could wander off on your own and become the meal of some passing Hollow. That would have been a complete waste of time looking after you and bringing you here."
It didn't answer his question at all and the Hollow surely must have known that, it only added to the irritation grating on his patience. "So what did you bring me here for?" he bit out as he scowled up at him, getting onto his knees so he wouldn't be lying on the floor in a position of defenseless weakness, something he hated. His legs felt weak after the choking incident and he wasn't sure if they would hold him up so he'd rather stay on his knees than fall over and make a fool of himself.
"I brought you here…" the Hollow said slowly, probably enjoying causing such tension with how he drug his words out and let them dangle in the air between them as one would dangle a cat toy in front of a cat and wait for it to go wild, "so that you would become my charge."
The words tumbled through the air and danced around his head, his face twisting in confusion. He wasn't a credit card, and there certainly wasn't some kind of currency amongst a world of creatures that ate people and each other, there was far too little structure to even imagine such a thing, so what in the world did he mean?
"Well I don't think you're meaning money, but I can assure you there's no way you can get electricity out of me either. Or that there's even anything that would require it here."
Once again there was that bastard smile, the one that meant he'd missed the mark completely and had shown how foolish and naïve he was about the world. But Hideaki was only nine, he wasn't meant to know everything. Although considering where he was now, in the land of the dead, perhaps not even being a teenager yet wasn't an excuse. You were expected to know what you needed to know or you would die without any concern on anyone else's part.
"You must have never heard it referred to in the way I'm meaning, that would make sense seeing how young you are. These days from what I can see people don't take in others for apprenticeship, or at the very least it is not common." Hideaki simply stared at him, wanting to tell him to just get to the point already. "What I want from you is for you to stay with me and learn everything you need to know. Sort of like an apprenticeship, have you heard about that?"
Hideaki certainly had heard about that, but he could hardly understand why. There was nothing special about him, at least nothing that seemed important enough to catch someone's eye to the point they wanted to take him in like some kind of homeless child they'd found on the street.
"Uh, what exactly am I going to be… learning while I'm here?" he mumbled as his eyes sweeped over the cave walls, taking in the little imperfections and scratches in the wall where it looked like someone might have taken claws to it. It was like a cave where a bear would sleep, something he had never imagined as a home but it was such a sensible thing now that he was in one and there was a high chance he was going to be living here for quite a while.
He wondered how long Hollows lived; whether they would die of old age just like regular people did. The rules of the spirit world were something he didn't know, it wasn't like there was a book each new person was able to read through to understand. In this life it was sink or swim in a never-ending ocean.
The Hollow stood and walked to one of the walls, running his fingers over a deep scratch in the wall, staring silently into it as though it held all the answers to every question he could ever ask. "I want to teach you how to survive in this world, and I hope to teach you how to control those powers you have. I don't know if you can evolve like a Hollow can, since you're a Plus, but if it's possible I would like to see how far you can go."
There was an ocean of subtle things that weren't being said, something in the Hollow's voice was warm. And then it hit Hideaki like a bull, struck him in the stomach as hard as if someone had snapped off his horn and drove it through him.
His companion didn't have the chance to evolve further, he'd said so himself. Hideaki had taken that away from him because he'd bitten him when they had tried to kill each other, and even though he hadn't known what he was doing at the time it was still horrifying to remember. How he'd lost control like that and the bloodlust had driven him to nearly kill something else, even if it had been trying to kill him at the same time.
That was something he could never take back no matter how much he wanted to, and it would forever follow and cling onto his elder companion's life, leeching what it could off him and leaving him stuck at this level of power. Never to evolve further, never to get stronger in the eternal power-struggle that ran this world and everyone within it.
He took in a deep breath, pressing his hands together as he clasped his fingers around each other tightly, feeling the pulse of his dead blood rushing through his body. "I'll stay with you then," was what he managed to choke out through the overwhelming feelings running rampant throughout him.
There was nothing else he needed to say when those golden eyes turned towards him and stared at him with an intensity he hadn't seen in them since they met. In those eyes was something he didn't understand, some kind of silent communication that his companion understood but he himself was left floundering and wondering what was going on here and then the connection was broken as the elder smiled again and looked away from him.
Suddenly he was able to breathe again and he wondered when during the staring contest he'd stopped.
"What is your name?" It was a question he was not prepared for and he stared wordless at the elder who was once again watching the wall, except it was a different wall this time which didn't have any claw marks on it.
He wanted to say he didn't know how to answer that question, but no matter how much hurt ached in his chest and how acid rose in his throat as nausea swamped through him and almost made him puke he couldn't deny he knew the answer to it. As much as he hated how he'd been forgotten and abandoned he was still part of the family, whether his family wanted him to be or not.
"Kurosaki Hideaki," he breathed, closing his eyes as the words danced in the air around him and sunk back into his skin. He was a Kurosaki and he would forever be one, he'd been raised by his mother and he had grown up in that household which would in some way forever remain a home to him. But this was his home now and his old life was like the sludge in the pathway that had brought them here, it would cling to him and try to stay with him but eventually it would slide away and return to where it was meant to be.
"Kurosaki?" the sharpness in his friend's voice made him open his eyes to look at him. The calculating look in those golden eyes made him nervous, flighty as though he needed to get out of there right now. Whatever lurked behind those eyes was not friendly towards that name and he worried if that would turn against him and he would be attacked just as he was in the forest last night.
However the attack never came and those eyes turned back to their normal blandness. He felt like some kind of crisis had been averted although he didn't understand what had happened, just like he hadn't understood the connection between their eyes earlier. It was there still, lurking underneath the surface but the claws it had gripped him with weren't sinking in.
"You're a Kurosaki, I see. How very interesting." What exactly was "interesting" about it wasn't explained, but he got the feeling there was something big he was missing out on. Was there something special about his family that he didn't know? Whatever it was his companion was grinning in that dark way, something he'd seen villains in television shows do before something bad happened to someone. He only hoped that someone wasn't him.
"Vorabeil."
The strange nonsense word out of his companion's mouth caused him to stare confusedly at him, fingers twitching against the hem of his shirt, the stupid orange shirt that must look utterly hideous on him as it clashed against the paleness of his skin. He shuddered to think what it looked like against the whiteness of his hair, whereas it had once gone quite strikingly with his once-orange hair. He hadn't stared into the mirror in his house long enough to remember what it looked like, the only thing that stood out to him even now were those wicked-sharp horns still on his head and those haunting demon eyes his friend shared.
"My name, it is only fair that since you gave me your own name I should give you mine."
And with those words there was once again some heavy connection in the air as they stood and looked at each other, something deep and primal Hideaki couldn't understand. What he did know was they were both smiling just like he and his father had once smiled at each other while sharing in a private joke. A joke that would make his brother puff out his cheeks because he wanted to know what it was and his mother would look on with a fond smile of her own as her family bonded in ways she could only watch and be proud of.
This wasn't what he expected of his afterlife, smiling like a lunatic with some person who had tried to eat him not just the night before, scaring him within an inch of his life and literally eating him from the inside out. But here, in this new home that meant more to him than his house ever had, that seemed to be a natural thing. Hollows tried to kill each other, and they had tried but had not succeeded. It seemed only natural the next step was this strange friendship.
And deep in his belly something gnawed at him, grabbing his attention and demanding to make itself known as a growl rose up from his stomach. Flushing bright at the noise and the amusement on his friend's face, Hideaki flicked his eyes to the ground and put a hand tight over his stomach, hoping it would stop making those noises.
"It seems that you're hungry," Vorabeil said cheerfully and it sounded like his fingers were tapping against the wall of their cave in a steady rhythm. "Then I'll show you how to get food, you're going to need to know this from here on out if you're going to live here."