Chapter 24: Fight for the soul begins
Elsewhere inside the underground bunker at Urahara's shop Mitch had undergone the first stage in combating his inner hollow as a few seconds earlier Urahara had knocked him out cold. Auron laid his son's body on the ground as everyone stood back while Tessai set up a barrier around Mitch and waited for his hollowfication to begin.
Awaking inside his spirit world Mitch noticed it hadn't changed in the years he had been away, there was lakes of lava flowing throughout the place while the ground was made of molten rocks. The trees were all on fire burning brightly while a huge volcano stood in the background as lava gushed out into lakes. "Welcome back King I wish the wolf Ashura was here to greet you but I've taken his steed instead".
His inner hollow stood before him snickering and staring down towering over Mitch by a good 2 feet with the coarse rough white skin of a hollow covering his entire body, even though he looked like a wolf he stood on two legs and looked incredibly similar to a werewolf as he had small yet stocky legs and big bulky arms with razor sharp claws jutting out at the end.
His white tail swung at the side while a pair of cold dark red eyes glared down at Mitch as he bared a snarl showing his set of razor-sharp white teeth. "Well let's get this over with I have more important issues to deal with" Mitch said placing his hand on Ashura releasing the shikai as his inner hollow mimicked his exact movement. The world erupted in a huge flash of fire as both charged at each other clashing their now released zanpakuto's together as the ground trembled from the force of their strikes.
Breaking off from the encounter Mitch immediately raced around creating four clones of himself while Ashura knowing every single move of Mitch's copied him as their clones began to engage each other while the real ones stood back watching. Two of Mitch's clones sliced through one of Ashura's clones as another popped up behind slicing both before turning to see a fireball slam into his body as it evaporated in a haze of smoke.
Mitch stood there with his blade arced down while the real Ashura just laughed "Nice trick using your clone as a decoy, but I won't fall for an amateur trick like that". His laughter was cut short as Mitch also began laughing "What the hell is so funny?" as the supposed real Mitch disappeared and the real one appeared behind him as he slashed down across the hollow's back drawing black blood as he roared in anger.
On the outside of Mitch's spirit world his hollowfication had already begun as half of his mask had formed and his left eye turned blood red with black surrounding it. Unleashing a high pitched howl he broke free of the binding spell holding him down and quickly wandered around the barrier looking for fresh blood to spill. "Well looks like I'll be the first to go then" Urahara said snapping the fan he was holding shut and stood up as his cane split open revealing his zanpakuto inside.
"Alright Auron after 10 minutes we'll switch then it'll be Yoruichi, Shinji and finally Ichigo will be last" he said as Tessai created an opening in his shield as the shop keeper walked in just as the hollowfied Mitch sensed a presence and spun around snarling at his victim.
"My, my that's no way to greet your opponent" Urahara said wagging a finger at the hollow who in response pulled unsheathed Ashura and leapt through the air towards Urahara roaring in anger. Calm as anything Urahara simply side stepped the swipe and spun around to block another vicious attack from the hollow as he smiled "Are we all bark and no bite?" In response to that comment the hollow leapt back and swung Ashura down as a huge fireball raced towards Urahara slamming into him and exploding in a huge cloud of smoke.
When the smoke had cleared Urahara was lying face first on the ground as hollow Mitch charged forward and stabbed Ashura deep into his heart and yet instead of blood spewing out Urahara simply deflated as the real one appeared behind him and cried out "Look at what you've done to my portable gigai! That cost a lot of money to make!" Frowning he used shunpo to grab the gigai and went back to standing where he was before with the deflated balloon in his hands.
"Is he even taking this fight seriously at all" Ichigo sighed shaking his head while the other three just laughed at his antics. Urahara easily blocked the reigning blows from the hollow as he noticed the mask had slowly begun to spread encompassing the entire left side of his face.
Leaping back he dodged a vicious swing from Ashura "My, my it seems the hollowfication is going faster than the last time this happened".