Chapter 31
I own nothing and now for the main event of this chapter
Heller's inner world, general P.O.V
Heller took a deep breath before opening his eyes and sitting up. He looked around to see he was where he wanted to be, his inner world. But he noticed it was different. The flowers were all withering and dying, turning the field's shades of gray and brown. The trees had lost their leafs and looked dead, the sky was cloudy and rumbling like thunder, and the play set was now rust colored and falling apart.
Heller thought "what's going on? What happened here?"
Then he heard a deep malicious voice speak behind him.
"Well, well, the king has graced us with his presence."
Heller looked behind him. The figure was covered with a cloak like shadow shifter, but it was pure white, and the eyes were hollow eyes, glowing golden, like the eyes of a jungle cat on the hunt.
Heller snarled. "You must be the bastard who's been messing with my head."
The hollow chuckled. "Aw that hurts king. I helped you take out that messenger at base Adams."
"You butted in on a fight that wasn't yours, and then later tried to kill me by screwing around in my head during the fight with Gutierrez. Spare me the 'I was helping you' crap. You know why I'm here."
"yes I do."
Suddenly the hollow raised a hand and threw off its cloak. Underneath was a copy of Heller.
The hollow was Heller at first look, except everything about him was white. The leather jacket he was wearing was white, but the design on the back was a pulsing black, the pants, fingerless gloves, and other clothes all white. The skin was a sterile white and the hair a pitch black. The face was similar, but the canine teeth were more pointed, and the eyes more angular. All in all, the face resemble a tiger's, but human.
Heller looked at the hollow in a relaxed stance and said "huh. So that's what a rip off of me looks like."
The hollow laughed as he said "rip off? I think you mean…"
The hollow's form rippled with white and black tendrils, before his right arm turned into a black version of Heller's blade arm, and his left a white version of his claws.
"… new and improved."
Heller sneered as he shifted to the same weapons and said "don't flatter yourself, jackass."
And with that, they vanished to clash blades in the center of the field, the blast of air like a bomb blast, the clang of metal the only other sound heard besides the thunder.
Real world, general P.O.V
Everyone was resting, standing around not doing much else, besides watching Heller's body for any changes, and in Ichigo's case, maintain the binding kido.
Renji was a little worried and walked over to Ichigo. Ichigo never took his eyes off Heller as Renji began asking "shouldn't something have happened…?"
He got cut off as Heller's energy flared up to its max and caused the air to begin blasting like a hurricane, raising dust and causing everyone cloths to flap wildly in the tempest.
Ichigo gritted his teeth and shouted "it's started!"
Heller's body was being wrapped in its aura, but it was a mixture of red and black, the two mixing and separating like they were fighting each other. The ground around Heller was cracking in extreme ways as the power was built, and the kido were all shaking wildly while the ground was shaking like a 9.0 earthquake.
Ichigo gritted his teeth harder as he tried to maintain the kido. Heller's head was raised and everyone saw a madly twisted smile on its face as the hollow mask began forming along the left side of it. Heller's body shouted out and then used sheer strength to break through all the kido, ripping through kin and shattering the others like sugar glass as it stood up, looking around for an opponent. The wind died down as its aura covered it like red and black flames.
"DAMN IT!" Ichigo shouted. Now he had to resort to barriers. He shouted "WHO'S UP FIRST!?" they had decided that Ichigo would seal both Heller and the fighter for the hour inside, and then quickly switch when said hour was up.
Kenpachi leapt forward and shouted "I AM!'
Kenpachi quickly charged in and tried to slash Heller. Heller's body brought out it's blade arm and parried the blow, sending out a blast of air.
Ichigo saw his chance and made the strongest barriers he knew. He quickly made several gestures and hand symbols as he shouted in order "Koko No Jomon, Kigai No Jomon, Hoyoku No Jomon, Shiju No Saimon!" (A/n: see bleach wiki or Hachi VS Baraggan fight for details and descriptions.)
When all the barriers were in place, three on the side and the last on top, Ichigo finished the barrier with the shout of "Shiju No Saimon!" causing a black box to form around Kenpachi and Heller, sealing them in for the hour.
Ichigo said "now we keep Heller's body busy while he fights his hollow."
Heller's inner world, general P.O.V
Heller lashed with his hollow again, trying to cut the hollow on his side with his claws. The hollow blocked with a shield like Heller's, just white, before it tried to deal a strike with its sword arm. Heller quickly used flash step to dodge and get above, clash with his sword. The hollow bent forward to block, then braced its shield flat against the ground to take its legs and kick Heller under the chin, sending him flying upwards. The hollow shifted his shield back in before pushing of with its arm and racing upwards to Heller.
Heller stopped himself in midair before racing down wards to meet the hollow.
"This thing is better than I thought. Let's kick up the speed!" Heller thought before making his speed clones, about 10 of them. They raced down to strike.
"NICE TRY!" the hollow shouted before making its own clones, the same number as Heller. Heller grunted in frustration before they all engaged in sword play, block and cutting, only for the respective wounds to heal in seconds. Finally they locked swords and held, vibrating from the force behind them.
Heller said "how the hell do you know my moves?"
The hollow grinned. "Simple. I know everything you know.
"LIKE HELL YOU DO!" he shouted back before jerking his sword to right, sending the hollows arm that direction, leaving its head open for a hammer fist punch to the head to send it skidding back in the air. The hollow looked back at Heller to have its face caved in on the left side, blood coming out of its mouth before the wound healed, the bone cracking back into place, stopping the flow.
The hollow chuckled again and wiped off its mouth as it looked at Heller. "So you're not a total weakling. This might be fun."
Heller didn't bother responding. He shifted his hammer fist to tendrils and went on the attack again.
Real world, general P.O.V, 1 hour later
Kenpachi and Heller had been going at it for a while. Heller's body had no mercy, making it so Kenpachi had been forced to take off his eye patch 20 minutes into the battle. Even then, he looked like he had been attacked with a weed whacker. Heller's body had been slowly changing; being bleached of color until it was a much lighter shade of brown, and the hollow mask now covered half his face.
Ichigo looked at his watch and saw the hour was up. He asked, "Who's going next?"
Yoruichi walked towards the sealed door and stood before it, waiting for Ichigo to open it.
Ichigo nodded and made a gesture to open the door enough for her to flash step inside, kicking Heller in the side away from Kenpachi. The body went flying and plowed a trench in the ground before slamming into the barrier, though it didn't even get scratched.
Yoruichi looked at Kenpachi, with him panting and his clothes in shreds around the edges and said "hours up. Might want to leave before Heller gets up."
Kenpachi snarled "let me have another hour! This is way too fun to stop now!"
Yoruichi sighed. Still as stubborn as ever. "if you don't get healed, you'll pass out from blood loss and die. You need to get out now."
Kenpachi was tempted to argue more, but he wouldn't die from something as boring as blood loss. Plus, if he did die, no one would be left to look after Yachiru, and that he would not accept. Though out loud, he simply scoffed and said "fine."
He walked out off the door, the door closing behind him, as Heller's body was reveled out of the dust that had risen when he had gone flying. He looked uninjured and maniac as he roared, sending a shockwave towards Yoruichi. She simply stood there as she let the air wash over her, covering her in dust. Heller charged forward into the dust cloud, and saw a faint outline of Yoruichi in the dust. He struck with his sword arm in an attempt to cut her. He cut her in half going from the shoulder to the waist, but the dust cleared to show he had only cut her overcoat.
"Not bad speed, but it's still pitiful compared to mine."
Eller whirled around just in time to get a kick to the face, several high speed punches to the chest, then to be grabbed by the torso and thrown backwards. He flipped his body in midair and landed facing Yoruichi, who was standing in her black leotard.
She got into a battle position as Heller roared again and charged forward to fight.
Heller's inner world, general P.O.V
Heller and his hollow were facing each other across the field again, Heller panting and looking tired while the hollow still looked fine. The field itself was now nothing but dirt, the flowers having been blown to shreds from the wind and power that had been released.
Heller spat out some stray blood in his mouth to the side as he said "not bad. You're better than I gave you credit."
The hollow laughed. "While you're weaker than I thought you would be."
Heller sneered as he said "too bad for you I haven't used all my power yet."
He quickly brought up the blunt edge of his blade and touched it with his other hand while bracing his feet. He flared his energy up to release his Zanpakutō.
The hollow simply smiled and got into the same stance as it flared its power. Heller paused for a second in shock before steeling his resolve and shouted, at the same time as the hollow. "REFLECT IN DESPAIR, SHADOW SHIFTER!"
Like always, there was a blast of energy as both of them were obscured in dust, Heller's side glowing red while the hollows side glowed a combination of white and black.
When the dust cleared, Heller was wielding his shadow shifter while the hollow was holding his own black copy of it, with shadow shifter's name in white.
Heller shouted "HOW THE HELL CAN YOU WIELD SHADOW SHIFTER?!"
The hollow stood calmly as he said "simple. I am shadow shifter."
"BULL SHIT!" Heller yelled as he used his new power to us his fastest flash step. He stopped in front of the hollow and stabbed it in the chest, spurting black blood out of the hollow.
Real world, general P.O.V, 4 hours later
So far, most everyone had been up in the barrier to fight Heller, who had been undergoing more and more hollowfication as he fought. Right now he resembled a jungle cat that had learned to stand on two legs, his hands having cat claws and pads on the fingers and palms, the clothes more form fitting and the mask now covered everything except a a little bit of his right eye. He also had a graceful cat like tail growing from his tailbone area, but the end was a type of spike, which he had been using to defend his back. His speed and power had also been slowly increasing, growing until he was just below Ichigo in terms of power.
Yoruichi had managed okay, and then Renji and Rukia had gone in, and right now Byakuya was in the barrier, using his Bankai to keep Heller at bay. For whatever reason, the Hollowfied Heller hadn't used his Shikai's ability to copy Byakuya's Bankai. So far, he was trying to get through with brute force, but every time he was sent backwards with the blades, cutting into his body and causing him to hiss in pain like a cat before they healed.
Byakuya was keeping a close eye on him, noticing that he was slowly getting closer to him with every strike.
"Seems like Ichigo was right when he said Heller would get faster than my Bankai. Seems I'll have to get creative."
His thoughts were cut off as Heller suddenly shifted to all his limbs to normal. He growled then roared as his body shifted again. But this time, his legs and arms were the one's shifting, moving into a different alignment and making it possible for him to drop to all fours. Now he resembled a tiger even more, but his tail was looking longer and his claws sharper as it paced back and forth. Ichigo and Kisuke noticed this and Ichigo said "that's not normal."
Kisuke nodded as he looked at the changed Heller and said "it must be the virus. The hollow is using the virus's shape shifting capabilities to change his body to suit its preferences. It might even be accelerating the hollowfication."
"But if that's the case, then Heller could become a complete hollow before he's finished off his hollow."
Kisuke nodded. "I would guess he has another 3 hours before he becomes a complete hollow."
Ichigo said nothing now. He simply watched as he waited for the hour to end. And hoped Heller might eat down his hollow before he was forced to kill his friend.
Byakuya didn't hear any of this, as he was too focused on the new Heller. He blinked when he suddenly vanished, leaving only a small puff of dust, before he suddenly appeared right in front of him, slashing with his left 'paw'. The petals blocked him, but only barely, and then pushed him backwards with enough force for him to fly to the top of the barrier. He hit it paws first, and pushed off to hit the ground away from him, then resumed its pacing as it waited for an opening.
The Hollowfied Heller was getting too strong too fast, and soon, no one but Ichigo might be able to fight him.
Heller's inner world
The hollow howled in pain as it flash stepped away from Heller.
"Seems you can feel something there after all." Heller smirked as he flicked off the blood on his blade.
The hollow was holding the wound tightly as it glared at Heller.
"You know, I'm tired of your attitude." The hollow said as the wound healed. The hollow stood tall again as he looked at Heller. The thunder was getting louder and the clouds were beginning to spin slowly, building up speed.
Heller smirked and said "too bad. Time to end this."
"I couldn't agree more."
The two flared their energy again. Their auras grew larger as Heller focused this new energy into his sword and cut while shouting "GETSUGA TENSHO!"
The energy was large enough to block Heller's view of the hollow as it went racing horizontally towards the hollow. Heller was smiling with satisfaction. It took a while, but now the bastard was down.
That thought was dashed as the Getsuga Tensho was shattered in half, the red wave of energy like glass. Heller saw the hollow was in a stance with its own copy of shadow shifter behind it, like a sweeping motion. Heller watched in shock as the hollow built its own energy into it sword and simply said clearly "Getsuga Tensho."
Its blast of energy was like a white building with a black outline that came flying towards Heller at high speed. He quickly flash stepped above the wave to dodge, only to find the hollow waiting for him. The two exchanged a flurry of cuts and blows, the hollow suddenly being faster than before, and Heller couldn't block all the hits, and those resulted in painful and deep cuts.
The two shoved each other away and skidded on the air, Heller panting and dripping blood while the hollow looked fine.
Heller snarled again and said "how the heck are you getting stronger?"
The hollow chuckled evilly as it said "you just don't get it do you? I have all your powers, I have all your knowledge, and I have something that doesn't hold me back."
Heller knew this thing would try a mind game and wasn't interested in playing. "You mean you're missing something between your legs?" (A/n: think about it, it'll come to you. If it doesn't, then you need some serious help)
The hollow snorted as he kept going "I don't have your useless caring for others. That stupid caring is what makes you…"
The hollow suddenly appeared next to Heller, his sword arm now normal as he grabbed shadow shifter in his hand.
"…weak."
Before Heller could react, color was bleached out of his blade and raced up Heller's arm, turning the red and gold tendrils white and black. Heller yanked his blade out of the hollows hand just as it let go and flash stepped away, keeping care to keep his blade up.
The hollow looked at Heller with a bored expression as he said "what do you think you can do with that? Or rather, without it?"
Heller narrowed his eyes in confusion before shadow shifted started chipping away, crumbling into dust as Heller watched in shock. When it reached his hand, the blade disappeared entirely.
Heller started shaking. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO SHADOW SHIFTER!?" he shouted in anger as he charged.
The hollow vanished as he reached him, then the blade was thrust through his chest from behind. Heller stopped as he felt a feeling like ice poured in, stopping him from moving at all as he heard the hollow say in his eye "I told you idiot. I am shadow shifter."
Real world, 5 minutes before Ichigo's turn
Ichigo had been felling a heavy weight in his chest as he had watched the last battle, this one being Kisuke's turn. There were only a few minutes left before Heller had to be put down. He had now changed almost completely, his clothes replaced with white fur like armor that fit his body and the claws and hand now looked more natural. The only think that hadn't changed was the mask. It still left a patch of skin, though now white, exposed around the eye, but that was slowly shrinking. He took that to be Heller's humanity, and suspected that when that mask was complete, Heller would truly be gone.
"come on Heller. You can do it. You have to fight it to the very end."
Then he heard Zangetsu speak up.
"Ichigo there may be something we can do."
"What?" Ichigo said, desperate to help in any way he could.
Zangetsu started talking fast, there was only 2 and a half minutes left before Heller had to be killed.
"we might be able to send Heller enough spirit energy to beat his hollow." Zangetsu elaborated, saying "when he consumed that phase 2 Orion, he also gained your spirit energy from consuming it. If that true, then his spirit energy would be similar enough to yours that you could send him energy, and maybe mental strength to resist his hollow."
Ichigo saw what he was going for.
Ichigo asked "how would I send him energy?"
"You should only have to send energy Heller's way. If you send it to Heller's personality, he should absorb it."
Ichigo shook his head and said "here goes everything."
Ichigo focused a fair amount of his energy into his hand, creating a pulsing blue ball above it the size of a grapefruit. He then stood and wound up his arm as he shouted "Heller!"
The thing that was Heller turned its head to him as he threw the ball and shouted "catch!"
The ball flew like a baseball, passing through the barrier since that was made of his own power anyway, then strike the Hollowfied Heller in the chest, sinking into his body before Heller's body started glowing with a blue aura. And Ichigo hoped his energy would be enough to save his friend.
Heller's inner world Heller's P.O.V
I felt like ice was flooding my body. I didn't have the strength to raise my head, and was looking down at myself, the white blade of my hollow covered and dripping my blood. The inner world, from what I could hear and barely see, was now blowing like a hurricane and lightning was crashing done, leaving smoking crater in the ground. The color in my body and clothes was bleaching out as I felt myself get absorbed by the hollow.
The hollow was laughing as it shouted to the sky "finally, I will be the ruler of this body! And nothing will stop me!" (get ready for movie cliché)
General P.O.V
Heller somehow found the strength to raise his head and look up. The clouds were spinning just like a tornado as they began descending to cover them. Heller felt tears in his eyes as he thought "I'm sorry Ichigo. I failed"
But as Heller was looking up, he thought that in the dark clouds, he saw a blue glow. The glow was rapidly growing brighter and the clouds were beginning to move away from it as the temperature in Heller's body began to rise. The hollow noticed where Heller was looking and looked up as well. His eyes widened as he saw the glow growing even stronger, driving away the darkness in the clouds and shouted "what is that?!"
He never got his answer and the tornado suddenly opened to reveal a glowing ball of blue energy, shining like a miniature sun. the ball shot downwards and hit Heller, being absorbed into his body and it glowed slightly. Heller felt strength surge back into his limbs as he felt the power. It was Ichigo's.
Heller wasted no time and unlocked the power in his body. The result was a slowly building aura as the inner world clouds suddenly started turning white, the rest beginning to repair itself while the hollow looked around wildly and shouted "NO, NO THIS ISN'T RIGHT! I WAS FINALLY GOING TO BE IN CONTROL! I WAS…"
"SHUT UP!"
The hollow looked at Heller in time to see color suddenly flood back into him and begin racing along his own arm, turning him Heller's color and the blade turning red. The hollow widened his eyes and quickly gritted his teeth as he used his claws to cut off his arm, stopping the color. The hollow flash stepped back 20 feet while Heller's kept growing until his aura exploded in a flash, blinding the hollow as he regenerated his limb. When the hollow gained back his sight, he saw a nasty surprise.
Heller was now glowing a combination of red and blue, and his shadow shifter was back, but it was slightly different. It now had the guard of Tensa Zangetsu near Heller's hand, blue like sapphires, and the blade was longer in width, and lastly was no slightly serrated on both side. Heller was looking at the hollow with quite rage as he said loud enough for it to hear "you said my friends made me weak. That because you were alone, you were strong. But this here…" he held up the blade for the hollow to see. "…this is the power of my friends. My friends give me something to fight for. THEY…GIVE…ME…STRENGTH!"
And with that, Heller charged forward. The hollow prepared its shields, but Heller charged up his sword, giving it an appearance of blue and red flames along the edges and Heller stabbed into the shields, piercing it like a knife through hot bread, stabbing the hollow in the chest.
The hollows shields shattered like glass to show the hollow looking down at the blade shocked. The part of the blade through the hollows back burst, sending out a wave of black that began covering the hollow, turning it the same color as Heller.
The hollow chuckled. "Guess you won with some help. Fine, I'll accept you for now, but know this…"
The hollow grabbed the blade with his hand as he looked at Heller with his maniac eyes, now crumbling away like shadow shifter had. "…if you ever waver, if your will ever falters, I will not hesitate to take over this body and rule."
And with that cherry good bye, the hollow vanished; leaving an inner world like Heller had first come here. Heller then passed out from exhaustion, and fell to the ground below, darkness eating at his vision.
Real world, Ichigo's turn, general P.O.V
Kisuke was panting as he looked at Heller. His body was now almost complete hollow, the only thing missing was his hollow hole, and that fact the mask still had a last chip in it, showing Heller was still in there, but barely.
Ichigo looked at his watch.
"hour's up."
Everyone looked at Ichigo. His eyes were sad as he looked at what his friend had become. He sighed as he was about to shout to Kisuke to exit.
He stopped as a sudden crack in Heller's body formed, blowing out white smoke from his left shoulder while the hollow suddenly began to thrash, turning it's right paw in a hand to try and cover the hole. Other cracks began forming, blowing out smoke while energy began building up in his body, rumbling the ground like an earthquake.
Ichigo's eyes widened as he shouted "KISUKE, GET OUT OF THERE!" while opening the gate enough to let him out.
Kisuke didn't argue as he flash stepped out the door, Ichigo closing the door right behind him. The hollow was now standing on its hind legs as it began to glow a bright red and blue, shrieking like a banshee at the sky before suddenly exploding with enough force to crack the barrier, filling it with dust and black smoke.
Ichigo dissolved the barrier, letting out the smoke. It cleared in a minute, showing Heller standing there with his new shadow shifter and his hollow mask on, the remains of his Hollowfied from like broken pottery around him. Heller looked at Ichigo and the group, then his mask shattered and he fell forward. Ichigo walked forward, the others watching from a distance, until he stood before Heller. He was still awake, but he looked tired as he glanced up.
Ichigo smirked as he said "so how do you feel Heller?"
Heller seemed to think for a minute before he grinned slightly and said "not bad."
Ichigo just smirked more and Heller brought up his sword to look at it, thinking on how his hollow said he would take over if he ever had a chance.
Heller smiled as he said "just try it, and I'll beat you back into hell."
And that's it! I hoped you enjoyed it, and I'm sorry for taking so long, but we just got some good weather in Wisconsin, and I wasn't spending it inside after an insanely long winter. Like always, favorite, review, and take a look at Dante price multiverse jumper