Hueco Mundo - Menos Forest

Madara clutched at his bleeding shoulder as he violently tumbled out of the garganta, crashing into the base of a crystalline-looking tree trunk. He had been lumbering through an organic tunnel of some sort, littered with skeletons and decaying remains of its victims.

His mind was clouded by bloodlust, and the hunger that had been gnawing at him since hollowfying was now threatening to devour his entire being. Eyes darting about, he noticed his immediate surroundings were barren, although his keen hearing could pick up the telltale pattering sounds of what were most likely footsteps.

He scowled as he noticed them getting softer, however. They were moving away from him, but he was in no condition to be chasing after prey. He tried to take a bite of the bark on the tree next to him, though he howled in pain when it was not the bark that cracked, but his teeth. The object looked like a tree but the outer layer was definitely not bark.

The survival skills honed through decades as a shinobi were really being tested now. He looked down at his corpse, now almost completely cold, and a sick feeling settled into his stomach. It was quickly replaced again with a renewed wave of hunger and, trying to rationalize that all he was about to do was eat to survive, he drew Hashirama's sword from his human body and started unbuckling his red Samurai armor.


As he feasted, Madara felt clarity returning to his brain. He vaguely noticed his body changing form, but all he could truly appreciate upon completing his meal was a blessed absence of the inconsolable desire to feed. As he drew himself up, however, he began to notice a cacophony of snarling and hissing coming from around him. On instinct, he activated his Sharingan and was surprised to sense his eyes actually morphing into their familiar, Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan state.

He surveyed his surroundings. Creatures of various sizes and shapes were cautiously closing in on his position. The only similarity they had with one another appeared to be a circular hole at the center of their chest.

Madara reached for his own chest; the wound on his right shoulder was healed, somehow. Maybe it was the flesh I obtained from Hashirama. That accursed senju regeneration. To his surprise, he found that his own chest bore a similar hole, where the chain had been right after he died. This must be where the term hollow comes from, then.

"Do any of you understand me?" Madara asked. He extended his arm and pointed his sword forward. His hands still bore a sickly white color, but the claws had morphed back into normal, human-looking fingers now. He concentrated on his rear - the tail was still there. Maybe smaller, though.

There was no verbal response; however, a large, green hollow lurched forward face-first, jaws agape as if wanting to devour Madara. Compared to the auburn-haired shinigami woman, it was slow. Madara leaped over its head, slashing down as he passed by, completely bifurcating it. He perched perfectly atop a tree and watched in morbid fascination as other hollows immediately moved to eat the large one he had just killed.

What a pitiful afterlife to be in, Madara thought. Is this hell…? Were my actions in life so heinous that I leave a world of constant war and must now be subject to one where cannibalism runs rampant? The passageway he had run through certainly looked and felt like the causeway to hell.

He turned his attention back toward the group of hollows below him as they started fighting over the carcass. As chaotic and disgusting as the sight was, Madara had nothing better to do than to simply watch.


Hours passed, and Madara was contemplating using the trees to navigate and do some reconnaissance of this place when a wave of pressure shot out from below him. One of the hollows that was feasting on another downed comrade was glowing, and shrinking physically until it took the shape of a white, armor-clad bear with a hole in its chest.

All the other hollows took notice, and immediately scattered away. Madara made no attempt to intervene or move, however the newly transformed hollow raised its head and pointed right toward him.

"Come out, little hollow - I can sense exactly where you are." He fired a Cero from his mouth toward Madara, who leaped down from the branch he was on to avoid it. He landed silently, roughly ten meters in front of the bear hollow. His sword was lowered.

"That wasn't a very polite greeting there," Madara said. He noticed his voice was sounding how he remembered it used to sound in life, again.

"All I needed to do was to flush you out from your little hiding spot, and now I can eat you and continue my evolution into a Vasto Lorde!" The bear hollow replied.

Madara was on guard. He didn't know how powerful this new enemy was, and he didn't know how powerful he himself was, either. He flexed his chakra and called upon the Mangekyou Sharingan.

The bear lunged at Madara.

"Susanoo."

The bear hollow slammed head-first into a blue, flaming rib cage that had enveloped Madara, and was stopped in its tracks. "Oh, you have some fight in you, little hollow. It's going to be fun beating you down!" It drew back and suddenly a stronger wave of pressure began emanating from the bear hollow. Madara could feel it in the air and on his skin, but was not perturbed. Rather, he had more important things to focus on at the moment.

My chakra feels different. It is there, but it feels different in some way that I cannot place.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by the bear hollow's bellowing, "Do you feel that, little hollow! Or is the weight of my reiatsu so heavy that you cannot even move?"

Madara cocked an eyebrow.

The hollow continued, "I could wipe you from existence with a cero, but then I'd have nothing to eat. I'm going to apologize in advance because this is going to be messy. I've just evolved into an Adjuchas, after all." It smacked its lips with a barbed tongue as it spoke, salivating down its furred chin. "I don't know my own power that well, you see."

"Is that so?" Madara stated. He had no issue following the bear hollow's movements as it darted about before charging toward him. It was definitely faster than before, yes, but not enough to warrant any alarm.

The hollow pounced, sinking its jaws into one of the susanoo ribs, and Madara was pleased that they did not break. In fact, he felt barely any drain on his chakra at all. With a mere flare of his will, the rib cage surrounding Madara expanded, and with it, cracked open the bear hollow's jaws. It roared in pain and let go, thrashing around as it nursed it's broken jaw.

Before it had any chance to gather itself, a huge, blue chakra sword pinned it onto the ground by the shoulder. "How about this, Adjuchas. You answer my questions, and then depending on how satisfied I am with your answers, I may let you live."


Seireitei, 4th Division Barracks

"Takomi, report." Hitsugaya's tone was commanding but soft, given the state his 11th seat was in. He was stable, having been treated, but his reiatsu was low and he wouldn't be in fighting shape for a few more days, at least. Rangiku Matsumoto was beside them, too, having been the only other one to cross blades with the aberrant hollow.

"Captain Hitsugaya, sir!" Takomi saluted, with as much gusto as he could muster. "I was performing my duty in the Elemental Nations' Land of Fire, when a series of enormous explosions started ringing out where you found me. I kept my distance, until I felt a hollow's reiatsu, and then went to purify it."

He paused briefly, allowing the scribe beside them to note down his words. "That was the hollow you all saw. I tried to get a jump on it as I sensed it was quite powerful, but he evaded my first blow. I then tried to bind it with a Sai but he fired a Cero at me. That was when I paged for help. I then explained the process of purifying souls to the hollow and it seemed quite intrigued by the idea."

Hitsugaya nodded. Standard procedure. He was proud that his 11th seat had performed his duties well and stood tall in the face of danger. However… "That valley we were in, was it always there?"

Takomi started; "Uh… Probably, sir. I don't know. Actually now that I think about it, no, that area should have been a grassy plain. The hollow's Cero probably caused it, but I wasn't exactly paying attention to the landscape at that point, you know." He finished with a short chuckle. "Why?"

"We flew up to survey the area. There is a small village not far away, but around where we found you, the surroundings were littered with burn marks and the unmistakable signs of a very recent, horrific battle. It must be the explosions you heard." Histugaya's frow furrowed in contemplation as he spoke. "What can you tell me about the Elemental Nations, Takomi?"

Takomi didn't need to know that the valley was an ugly scar in the earth that had spanned hundreds of meters, and that Hitsugaya had spotted uprooted trees and debris kilometers away from the area. Whatever was fighting there had enormous destructive power possibly on par with, or even above that of a captain. If the hollow had fired a Cero powerful enough to cause such damage, Hitsugaya himself may have been hard-pressed to survive without being in Bankai, much less an 11th seat.

It was something else, and they needed to determine what that 'something' was as soon as possible.

"I've been stationed in the Land of Fire for 3 years," Takomi replied, "From what I've heard in passing, it used to be a war torn country. However I have never known it to be anything but peaceful, and only low-level hollows have ever shown up there. I've had no issues dealing with anything until now. The most I've seen are some acrobatic humans who are good at martial arts and throwing knives."

"Did you have much interaction with them?" Hitsugaya prodded.

"No, sir. I did not have a gigai so could not interact with them. I honestly don't know too much about the inner workings of that place, but there is a village called Konoha near where you found me. I'm sure you could find all the information you need there."

Hitsugaya nodded. "Thank you for your service, Takomi. You're hereby granted three months of paid leave. Vice captain Matsumoto and I will handle the rest."

Takomi perked up at that, and sat up straighter. "Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!" And held a salute as his superiors left his room.


"Rangiku," Hitsugaya started as they walked back to the squad ten barracks, "I wasn't paying much attention because I was taking care of Takomi at the time, but did anything stand out to you as you fought that hollow from earlier?"

Rangiku made a pose as if recalling something interesting, but then shrugged and said, "Nope. It was stronger than an 11th seat for sure, since it blocked a few of my strikes, but if it hadn't escaped in that garganta I would have purified it within the next 15 seconds… 30 tops."

"Did you get a good look at the body it took when it escaped?"

"Nope… It was wearing red armor, black hair, a sword through the heart. Male, I think? Why are you so concerned by a minor hollow? It's not even a Menos Grande. I'm sure it's no big deal."

Hitsugaya fell silent for a while, before pursing his lips. "Those eyes...I saw them before you started fighting. They were calculating - intelligent. That hollow was a veteran fighter before his death."

His Vice Captain made a disapproving noise. "Captaaaain...!" She drawled. "You're only a hundred, and you've got a head full of white hair. You keep stressing over these little things and you'll be bald with crows feet all over your face in another fifty!"

Hitsugaya scoffed, but a rebuke on his lips. He decided against it, however, opting instead for an exaggerated sigh, "I'm probably just overthinking. When we were shunpoing there I thought the landscape looked like it had been blasted open by a huge Cero, but Takomi wouldn't have survived if it had been the same hollow that did that. Get some rest; we'll request use of some gigai and have a look at this 'Konoha' in the next few days. You know hollows always go back to where they have some emotional attachment. I'm sure this one will pop up soon and we'll have it dealt with in no time."

"Oh captain, you really, really, really need to lighten up a bit!" Rangiku moved in and pulled Toshiro into a tight hug, earning herself a grunt of displeasure. "But then again… You know I'd never refuse a trip to the world of the living!"


Hueco Mundo - Above the sands

Madara bounded across the desert with his sonido - as he had recently learned it was called - once more dressed in his old red armor. He much enjoyed the sound of the low sonic boom that accompanied his every step. He was moving fast - much faster than he ever could have with his living body.

It had been a few days since his arrival in Hueco Mundo, and his body had more or less reverted to its previous, human form, now. The bear hollow had been quite useful. Too useful, in fact. Its fate was sealed once it told Madara that hollows evolved by consuming other hollows until they became humanoid hollows known as 'Vasto Lordes.' It was now a part of Madara, having been consumed once Madara figured it had told him all it could about this place.

He had been somewhere known as the 'Menos Forest', where newborn hollows often found themselves through their first usage of a garganta. He had learned about hollow evolution, and that he himself was probably either an Adjuchas or already a Vasto Lorde, due to his lucid mind.

The difference in his chakra he felt as he activated his Sharingan was probably because hollows used something called 'reiatsu,' or spiritual pressure. It was released predominantly from two vents on each wrist, and the measure of a being's reiatsu was often an indicator of its power. Madara still had no idea how to sense his own or anybody else's, though. He was an expert sensory shinobi in regard to chakra, but he had yet to acclimatize to the feeling of reiatsu.

However he had experimented with much of his old jutsu and found that he still had access to everything he remembered. In fact, whether it is because of this new reiatsu he had, or because he had consumed some of Hashirama's flesh… Or even because of the hollows he had consumed, he felt he had more reserves than he ever did when he was alive.

He looked down at himself. His tail was all but gone, and his proportions were perfectly human and normal. Suddenly, as he listened to the constant crunching of sand beneath his feet, a flash of inspiration occurred to him. Drawing upon his reserves, Madara took a deep breath, then roared: "Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"

Sprawling waves of crimson rolled across the empty desert of Hueco Mundo. Individual tongues of fire formed dragon heads as they rolled forward. Madara kept the jutsu going for a while longer, feeling the drain on his chakra, until he released the jutsu, satisfied that he was no less powerful in his current form than he was in life, and definitely had more reserves than before.

However… that had not been the only point of his jutsu. Madara leaned down at the now glassed sand, and a stranger stared back at him. I don't know what I was expecting… He reached up to touch his mask. He had known that just like all the hollows he had seen and eaten, there was a mask on his face, but although he could feel it before, this was the first time he had actually seen what it looked like.

Bone-white, with rings expanding out from the center, it was almost exactly like a three-tomoe Sharingan eye. Two of the tomoe served as openings when his actual eyes were, and the third was set high on his forehead. It would have been the perfect opening of those godlike, enlightening beings he had read about, with a third eye on their forehead.

A sense of pride welled up from within Madara - even in death, his Uchiha blood ran thick enough to manifest in the form of his hollow mask. However, his musing was cut short by the sound of rushing water. It was drawing closer rapidly.

Water?

"Tiburon!"

He heard a cry somewhere in the distance. It was echoing off the reflective surface of the glass left behind by his Great Fire Annihilation, making it hard to locate. Sharingan. With his ocular jutsu active, it only took an instant to locate the source of the voice.

A blond-haired, tan-skinned woman stood in the skies above him. Her right arm was extended, holding what appeared to be a broad knife with a hollow center. A tidal wave had met the last dregs of his fire jutsu and was containing it in the distance. Madara cursed to himself. Although he had played around with standing in the air using reiatsu, he didn't quite trust himself with aerial combat just yet.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Madara shouted.

Madara saw her mouth move, but amidst the roaring waves and the steaming water, he couldn't hear clearly. I guess I'll have to bring her down here, then. "Why don't you come down and we can have civilized conversation. Are you a Vasto Lorde? I haven't seen another humanoid hollow here yet."

The woman didn't move, and Madara was getting annoyed. He was Madara Uchiha - nobody simply ignored him. "Fire Style: Dragon Fire Jutsu!" Madara released his technique - he had intended it to scare the woman out of the skies, and so was completely ill-prepared when, through the roar of his flames he heard: "Cascada."

Although he was still looking upward, he barely had time to register what was happening when the skies shimmered, smothering his flames and collapsing upon him in an ocean of frigid water.


AN

Hey, so Madara is a hollow, and still has his old powers (valley of the end, battle with hashirama level) but slightly amped with sonido and extra reiatsu reserves on top of his chakra. please review and let me know what you think of the story so far, any questions/suggestions/criticisms etc