The surface of the lake reflected the stars above like a mirror. The trees surrounding this mirror swayed in the breeze and every so often, the call of one of its many natural inhabitants could be heard in the distance. This was a beautiful place indeed, one of many Akane Watanbe had found herself in on her excursions to the World of the Living. The chestnut-haired Shinigami always made it a point to stop and take in the scenery of such places once her missions were completed. Tonight, however, as she stood in the middle of the lake, she found her heart too heavy to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings.
It had been eating her up inside for the past few years now, ever since she had to konso an entire family after they had lost their lives to a deranged lunatic. Akane had already been taught how things work when it came to performing Soul Burials. She knew that the family might be separated once they moved on to the Soul Society, the man, woman, and children forced to call strangers from different times family from then on. Even if they did stay together, they would have to contend with the crime-ridden slums of the Rukongai, a far cry from the world of peace and beauty they had always known. Akane had been born in the Rukongai and knew firsthand how treacherous it could be. To send people who had already had their lives stolen from them to such a place, it just didn't seem right.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her partner's spiritual pressure appearing behind her, turning around, her green eyes locked with the brown pupils of her close friend Sanji Crusoe. "You find anything yet?" He asked with a hint of impatience in his voice. He was never the most polite person and sometimes, Akane wondered why she even hung out with him. Nevertheless, she sighed and answered his inquiry.
"There's a Plus at the bottom of this lake, most likely a drowned victim." She explained. "I was just about to konso it."
"It. Is that was these poor souls have been reduced to?" She thought. "Just a bunch of its?"
Akane found her thoughts cut into again, this time by the cry of a far-off Hollow. Sanji scoffed as he turned in its direction. "Looks like another one showed up. I swear, every time there's a murder, these things pop up like zits on my ass!"
Akane coughed. "Thank you for the wonderful imagery Sanji."
Unsurprisingly, Sanji winked at her with a click of his tongue. "Anytime. Look, I'll handle those assholes over there and you perform the konso. Capisce?"
"Very well." Akane turned her attention back to the water under her feet as Sanji flash-stepped away. She was not lying when she said that there was a Plus under the lake's surface. She could sense them through the water. They were in there and they were suffering.
With a deep breath, Akane allowed herself to fall into the lake. The water was freezing and with only the waving light of the moon to guide her, it was hard to make anything out. Once she was able to gather her bearings, she felt for the soul trapped within the lake and sensed it directly below her feet. Akane swam downward, feeling anxious as the moon's light weakened more and more as she descended into the abyss. Just when she was about to run out of light, she found the Plus.
To her horror, the poor thing seemed to be a child, no older than 10 or 11. The boy was curled up in a ball, clad only in the black swim trunks he was wearing the day he died, and crying softly to himself. As Akane swam closer, she could barely make out the word "Mommy" mixed in within his sobs. It broke her heart to see a human soul in such pain, especially when that soul was a child who had died an easily preventable death. Once she was close enough to him, Akane reached out her hand and brushed it against his shoulder.
"It's alright little one." She spoke, the water unable to interfere with her speech due to her spiritual nature. "I'm here to help."
Surprised, the boy suddenly shot up with a yelp, revealing his deformed face to Akane in the process. Even with the limited light penetrating the lake, the 7th seat of Squad 5 was still able to take in the sunken left eye, bulbous bald head, and bent jaw that made up the boy's face, causing her to scream. Her scream, in turn, only served to frighten the boy as he curled up even tighter than he had before, his severed Soul Chain jangling as he made himself into a ball. Akane realized what she had done and covered her mouth.
"I'm...I'm sorry." Akane whispered, somewhat embarrassed that she had screamed like that because of something as superficial as the boy's appearance. Deformities or not, this was still a Plus in pain and by the look of things, a great deal of it as well. "P-Please don't be afraid of me." She pleaded. "I'm here to help you little one! I'm sorry if I scared you."
The boy wouldn't stop trembling but he did look up at Akane, his more normal eye studying her closely.
"My name is Akane Watanbe and I'm a Shinigami." Akane explained. "It's my job to guide souls like yours to the other side." She carefully unsheathed her Zanpakuto. "I know you must be scared and lonely at the bottom of this lake but that's all over now." Once Akane had her Zanpakuto full out of its sheath, the boy blubbered fretfully and backed away. Akane realized that she had scared the boy again, this time by brandishing her sword, and stammered as she tried to explain herself.
"Oh no! No!" She giggled sheepishly. "I'm not gonna cut you or anything! I promise! I'm simply going to press the hilt of my sword against your forehead. She picked up her Zanpakuto and pointed to the pommel. "See? It won't hurt! I promise! I'm just gotta tap you on the forehead once and then you'll be in Soul Society."
"M-M-Mommy?..." The boy breathed.
Akane nodded. "Of course...you'll see your...Mommy..." Akane trailed off as she found herself once again thinking those intrusive thoughts she had hoped to leave back at the surface. "That's not true is it Akane?" They said. "You know damn well that this boy will not see his mother in the Rukongai. In fact, with his appearance the way it is, it'll be of no surprise if he's simply killed on the spot once he arrives! That's just the kind of awful place the Rukongai is! That the Soul Society is! All you're doing is giving him a brand new Hell in exchange for the one he's already in!"
Akane felt tears well up in her eyes, only to drift away and augment themselves to the water surrounding her. "I can't do it!" She thought. "This poor child has already suffered so much! I can't just dump him in such a cruel place as the Rukongai where he'll suffer even more." She sheathed her sword and buried her face in her hands. "But what can I do? The boy has already perished and if I just leave him here, he'll either become a Hollow or worst, get devoured by one! Oh what can I do!?"
As she wept, another memory came to Akane. One in which Sanji had shown her a certain scroll that pertained to a forbidden Kido. Apparently, he had stolen it from the Daireishokario, for what purpose, he never revealed to Akane.
"Sanji!" She had exclaimed. "This...This Kido..."
For the third time, that night, Akane found her thoughts disrupted, this time by the soft whimpering of the Plus before her. Even from inside the lake, Akane could sense her partner engaged in a fierce battle with the Hollows above. Hollows that most likely came for the boy and most certainly would have already found him if not for her and Sanji.
"To be devoured by a Hollow or live out a miserable existence in the Rukongai. Those are the only two options available to the boy." Akane locked eyes with the scared child. Lowering her gaze, she noticed his body laying directly under him, not yet ravaged by this world's laws of decay. Realizing there was still time, she sighed and closed her eyes. "No! I know I'm going to lose my status as a Shinigami, possibly even my life, but I'm choosing a different path!"
With her resolve aflame, she swam toward the boy and placed both hands on his cheeks. The boy was shocked but didn't seem to mind the sudden affection, perhaps because it reminded him of his precious mother. As she caressed the boy's face, she began to speak the incantation needed for the Kido she was about to perform.
"O Hear me, Mother of Life and Father of Death! Embrace each other at the Center of all Creation and bring everything into the One. 100 Stars fall upon the Earth and bring forth the Fruit of Triumph and Despair Alike! The Cat with the Sun in its fur and the Dog with the Moon in its eyes chase each other eternally under the Ever-Devouring Serpent. Let man forge his own path within this never-ending wheel and bring forth the victory of existence!"
As Akane spoke the incantation, the palms of her hands began to glow dark pink. The boy struggled to get away from her grasp, only to stop once the light spread over him as well. It encompassed his Soul Chain, rebuilding it with its own energy and bringing it down toward the boy's body at the bottom of the lake. As the glowing chain reached its target, Akane opened her eyes.
"Fukkatsu Suru"
Bleach: Jigoku Files: THE UNLUCKY 13 ARC (START)
"It would seem Freddy was not the only entity of his kind." Mayuri spoke. "At least not completely. It should be noted that this entity does not operate in the Dream Realm as Freddy did but hunts humans in the World of the Living instead. As with Freddy, however, it began life as a normal human who died but never joined the Cycle of Souls. Instead, it came back as an undead revenant hellbent on destroying any human it comes across." Mayuri pulled a compass-like device out of his robes. "An entity that poses a threat to the Cycle of Souls if left to its own devices." The Captain of Squad 12 continued as he pushed the single button on his device, causing it to project an image on the wall before him. All the other captains turned to study the image displayed within the light. It was a man or at least something that looked like a man. Its complexion mirrored that of a corpse and its face was concealed by a strange mask. "And its name is Jason Voorhees!" Mayuri finished.
"Is...Is that a Hollow mask?" Junshiro asked fretfully.
"Relax Junshiro." Shunsui replied. "It's just a hockey mask. Humans use them in a sport played on frozen water from what I hear."
"Jason...Voorhees.." Soifon thought as she studied the image on the wall. "This...thing did battle with Krueger in the World of the Living?" Soifon thought back to her own battle with the man once known as the Springwood Slasher. It wasn't an easy one for sure and given how that same monster nearly destroyed the Soul Society with ease, it was hard for Soifon to imagine anything short of a Shinigami or Arrancar being able to fight on equal footing with Freddy. "Just...what kind of monster is he..." She shuddered to think about how strong it had to be to match Freddy.
Zaraki, on the other hand, only grew excited. "That mask...so that's the hockey puck Krueger was talking about." He grinned sadistically. "Color me interested."
"Give us a fucking break." Kensei cursed under his breath. "First Freddy and now this bastard? Just where the hell are these guys popping up from?"
"An actual undead being." Toshiro pondered grimily. "It's hard to imagine but I suppose we cannot deny it either."
"Indeed we can't," Mayuri interjected. "According to the article detailing his battle with Krueger, it was mentioned that Jason already possessed a kill count of at least 200 humans, dwarfing Krueger's by more than half!"
There was shocked murmuring among the captains.
"That doesn't seem like such a big number to me," Zaraki shrugged. "I've killed more people than that as a kid fucking around in the Rukongai."
"Perhaps such a number of bodies might seem like child's play to you," Retsu spoke. "But this is the World of the Living we are talking about. Even for the most vicious serial killers, such a high body count is unheard of, especially in this day and age." Retsu turned her attention back to the image on the wall. "What I want to know is how this Jason character has managed to get away with it for all this time."
"The reason for that is painfully simple." Mayuri once again butted in. "It's because as with Freddy, humans rejected the supernatural elements of Jason and dismissed him as a myth, a legend based off the tragic drowning of a child and the following murder of a couple of teenagers that took place within that area." Mayuri pushed the button on his device again, changing the image on the wall to that of a map displaying a giant lake. "The humans of America refer to this place as Camp Crystal Lake."
"Camp?" Junshiro questioned. "Isn't that a place humans send their children off for fun?" He seemed unnerved. "Captain Kurotsuchi, surely you're not saying such grisly incidents happened in such a place!"
"Bad things happen everywhere." Mayuri droned. "We of the Gotei 13 know that better than anyone. At any rate, we're getting away from the point." Mayuri approached the wall and turned to his fellow captains once he was right in front of it. "The fact is, Jason Voorhees is the single most destructive murderer in the history of the World of the Living. 200 is only the official number of his victims but it's believed that he's actually slain many more and if left unchecked, the number of humans he kills could eventually upset the Cycle of Souls."
"I see," Genryusai muttered. "If that is the case, we cannot allow Jason Voorhees to continue to wander the World of the Living. We as the Gotei 13 must do everything within our power to see to his destruction before he can upset the Cycle of Souls."
"That will not be an easy task," Mayuri warned. "From what the article mentioned, Jason is alluded to as being immortal much in the same way Freddy was. Officially speaking, he died back in the '50s as a child via drowning. Yet, it has been reported by all who have managed to survive their encounters with him that it was indeed Jason Voorhees. Given the descriptions of his undead nature, it's clear that something extraordinary has happened to this particular human."
"Do you think he could have been possessed by a Hollow?" Junshiro asked
"Perhaps, but it's also possible that this is the result of something we've never seen before. The only way we'd be able to find out for sure is through extensive tests on the subject in question."
"Whoa now!" Shunsui spoke up. "Are you suggesting capturing this Jason fellow and bringing him here to the Seireitei? Captain Kurotsuchi, I understand wanting to learn what we can about this guy but that seems a little risky."
"Risky!?" Soifon shouted. "More like outright reckless!" She stared daggers at the Squad 12 Captain. "Are you trying to instigate a repeat of the disaster two months ago?"
"I second Captain Soifon's opinion!" Sajin growled. "What you're suggesting is outright foolish!"
"Agreed." Toshiro grunted.
"Will all of you calm down and let me explain!?" Mayuri snapped. He took a brief moment to recompose himself and then continued, "I understand the reservation you have considering the damage caused and lives lost in the struggle against Krueger. However, that very reason is precisely why we must bring in Voorhees for study!"
Once again, the other captains murmured amongst themselves, unsure what Mayuri was getting at but fairly certain they were not going to like it.
"Think about it! First Krueger arrives in Soul Society and nearly takes us out. Now we find that he did battle with a similar being beforehand. Who's to say that these two entities are the only ones of their kind? Who's the say that there isn't a whole group or even an entire army of these undead mass murderers lurking under our very noses!?" He turned and pointed a finger toward the Head Captain. "You said it yourself, did you not? For all we know, thousands of beings like these two could be operating in the World of the Living as we speak and at any moment, one even stronger than Freddy could make their move!"
Genryusai said nothing but his eyes narrowed as he studied the Squad 12 Captain. "How do you suppose we go about this, Captain Kurotsuchi?"
Mayuri's lips produced a smile far wider than any of the other captains, hell, any other Shinigami could manage as he pointed his device to the wall. "I'm glad you asked!" He beamed as he pushed the button.
The image changed again, this time displaying a strange symbol resembling the skull marked on a pair of Gokon Tekko, only this one was tilted to the right and winking. Underneath it was an acronym spelling out D.A.C.U
"D.A.C.U?" Soifon uttered. "What does that mean?"
"Death Anomaly Correction Unit!" Mayuri explained with glee. "My proposed subdivision for the Department of Research and Development. Its mission will be to gather intel on how the various souls from the World of the Living died and whether or not their deaths were caused by beings like Krueger or Voorhees. If its established that that is indeed the case, the D.A.C.U will then work toward a solution to dealing with said entity based on the intel given. I conceived the idea after the whole debacle with Krueger and to be completely honest, I've been dying for the perfect opportunity to propose it." He turned to his fellow captains, his yellow teeth gnashing within his horrid grin. "I can think of no better being to serve as its first research subject than Voorhees!"
"A subdivision...for the Department of Research and Development?" Retsu repeated.
"When you said this unit of yours would gather intel from the souls of dead humans, what exactly did you mean by that?" Toshiro asked. "Surely you don't plan on experimenting on the residents of the Rukongai?"
"And since when do you care about what happens to the trash living in the Rukongai?" Mayuri's eyes narrowed. "But since you asked, I have no intention of conducting any invasive experiments on the souls in question. Rather, I intend to sniff out the past victims of Jason Voorhees and simply interrogate them."
There were more than a few audible gasp from the other captains. Even Genryusai widened his eyes at what the Squad 12 Captain suggested.
"W-What did you just say?" Toshiro asked.
"Of course, we'll need a lot more information pertaining to these victims from the World of the Living." Mayuri continued, ignoring Toshiro's stunned inquiry. "I've already taken the liberty of sending Nemu there to gather the necessary information. Once we've uncovered the names and appearances of the souls in question, we will send out Shinigami to find and escort them to our labs. I promise it will be as painless a process as possible, provided the souls are willing to comply. Furthermore-
"Are you insane!?" Soifon interrupted. "You wish to bring random souls from the Rukongai into the Seireitei? You've completely lost your mind!"
Mayuri scoffed. "Funny. I didn't hear you complain when your friends from Beautiful Dream enrolled in the Academy!"
"That's different!" Soifon snarled. "If it weren't for Nancy and the others, we would have never defeated Freddy!"
"That's exactly my point!" Mayuri shouted. "If Freddy's past victims held the key to defeating him for good, what's to say Jason's victims can't do the same!?"
"Why you!" Soifon wished to say more but was silenced by the Head Captain's sudden roar.
"ENOUGH!" He demanded with a slam of his cane, nearly shaking the entire meeting hall.
"H-Head Captain?" Soifon whispered.
"I understand you're reservations." Genryusai began. "I share them as well. But Captain Kurotsuchi makes an excellent argument. I myself warned that the discovery of Krueger and the Dream Realm opened the door to things we as Shinigami have never seen before. It may not seem possible given our place in the way of things but its the truth and if we are not prepared to deal with these new enemies as they arise, we may very well endanger not only ourselves but reality as a whole. We are Shinigami and it is our sworn duty to protect the Cycle of Souls, regardless of what entities pose this threat!" He turned to Mayuri. "I will need to speak to Central 46 in order to officially adopt your unit but as of now, I personally give you the go-ahead on D.A.C.U, Mayuri Kurotsuichi! You have my permission to gather whatever intel you need to capture Jason Voorhees and see to his destruction!"
Mayuri smiled once more. "You won't be disappointed, Head Captain. "All I ask in return is the right to run a few experiments on him beforehand. After all, he is quite an anomaly, being undead and all. It would be a waste to not conduct a little research."
Genryusai nodded curtly. "Very well. As long as this ends with his demise, I will allow you to do as you see fit."
"Head Captain," Retsu asked. "I do not wish to question your authority but are you sure this is the best option?"
"Indeed." Genryusai replied. "We cannot allow a repeat of the devastation Freddy Krueger brought into our realm! We have handled things the way we have for the past several millennia and that has served us well in the battle against Hollows. But now the tides are changing and we must change with them if we wish to protect the Cycle of Souls."
The other captains held their heads down, the Head Captain's words ringing in their heads. They didn't want to accept it. Some of them still wouldn't. But deep within their hearts, they knew the truth. The battle with Freddy only marked the beginning of a new era that would bring with it new enemies unlike anything they had ever faced before. It was uncertain what lay in store for them but they could agree on one thing.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
(Well, here we go! The first chapter of the second arc of this story and on the 25th to boot! Not to mention this is the 13th chapter overall which is just perfect considering the franchise we'll be dealing with. As I'm sure you have already guessed by now, the idea is for each big horror series to get its own arc for this story with a lot of smaller movies making single chapters or mini-arcs. I have way too many ideas!
Also, I've come to realize that I haven't done much of my homework when it came to Bleach lore. I'm sorry for that and promise you that I have since rectified that mistake. That being said, this is a different continuity so some things won't play out as they did in canon. I will also be referring to all characters by their first names from now on.
Merry Yuletide and Happy New Year!)