Memories Undertail

The streets of Shimonoseki, the vibrant heart of Yamaguchi Prefecture, was bustling. Cars revved and inched forward in the congested streets, their engines sending plumes of barely visible fumes coiling upward into the clear blue heavens. The sun blazed high overhead, casting its radiance down upon the streets below. Somewhere, in the heart of one of the universities perhaps, a clock began to chime; it had reached the third gong before other clocks joined in, marking the hour with a little more accuracy. And as these latter clocks fell silent, the sun seemed almost to dim, its light fading as a sphere of purest darkness appeared in the heart of the plaza before the Yamagin Archive. It began as little more than the size of a human fist, but as the citizens of Shimonoseki bustled blindly past, it began to stretch, to grow in much the same way as a spot of oil might spread across water. Soon, it was the height of a man, a jagged tear leading into the blackest depths of hell. And from that foul and wretched place, a figure watched, hungry and impatient.

In another moment, the garganta, the ebon gateway between dimensions was complete. It would hold for but a heartbeat, yet that was more than time enough for the creature to slither through and, for the first time in fifty-seven long years, feel the light of the sun upon her body. Once, long ago, the creature had longed for the kiss of the sun, but she had been a different being then. A woman, a mortal. And now, now she was something both greater and lesser. She was a Hollow, a hungry spirit whose very heart had been torn out by the tragedy of her demise. Now the sun felt alien and unpleasant as it played across her scales, casting vivid reflections in ways the moon of Hueco Mundo never did, while the gentle breeze that rustled past seemed to carry razors in its grip given the effect it had upon her. Yet for all the strangeness of this place, there was also a familiarity to it, a sense that she had never really left it. And perhaps in a way she hadn't, for she knew this place so very well; it was not ten metres from this place that Reina Fujii had died and been reborn. For one whole year, she had been trapped in this square, a silent spectator in other people's lives, unseen and unheard.

Now too, she was unseen and unheard. Though her form was monstrous, not a soul spared her a glance as they continued on with their daily affairs. More than one tried to walk through her, only to bounce away with a pained and startled look engraved upon their features as they found their paths blocked. That was different from before; in the year she had spent bound to this place, the living had walked through her with depressing frequency. But now she had form, though it was a form their eyes could not manage to look upon, and with form came the ability to touch, and feel and kill and maim. For that was why the Hollow had chosen to make her return to the place that had birthed her after so many years; not to feed, though the mouth beneath the alabaster mask watered at the feel of so much spiritual energy washing around her, but for revenge on those who yet clung to life.

Turning, raising her crimson eyes to the heavens, she remained perfectly still for a moment as she drew forth memories long since buried by the passage of time. It was not a difficult task; she had clung to these memories closely as the years had trickled past, always knowing that she would eventually slither through the portal from the forsaken realm once more to prey on those delicious mortal morsels whose spiritual energy tantalised her almost as much as her thoughts of their suffering did. The thought brought a flash of memory to her mind, a vision of a place, a home. It was not far. Even if it had been, it wouldn't have mattered. She was immortal. Tireless. She would find what she sought.

Laughing beneath her mask, the Hollow launched herself forward from where she was coiled, crashing down on the pavement with force enough to scatter pedestrians and crack the paving stones. By the time people starting picking themselves up, she was already gone, pushing deeper into the heart of Shimonoseki.

Life is a disappointment, someone rather wise had once said. It gets in the way of what you really want to do, whether its because of a job or a family or a thousand other insignificant things that bar the way to experiencing the true wonders of the world. Life is a disappointment.....but death...that was another matter entirely.

Sal Norongachi had never been so alive than on the day he plummeted four stories to the pavement and was reborn a Soul Reaper. The world seemed to expand before him and he saw truly just how much mortality narrowed ones vision. He had seen things no one ever would, done things few could claim, he had travelled the world and met the most bizarre of its inhabitants.

Sal was free, in short, and sure he had matters that he had to attend to, battles to be fought and dimensions to save, but for now there was a lull in the drama, a brief rest before the next war...the next perilous adventure. What do you do when you have time, money, and a heart that yearns for adventure?

You go sight seeing, was the conclusion Sal came to and Japan was the one place in the world he had wanted to see when he was alive. So here he was, kitted out in a Gigai with a rather large bank account in someone else's name.
It never really occurred to him that the whole point of sight seeing was to see the sights and not just those that could be seen through a pub window.

He had moved from city to city, town to town, taking in the culture and mingling with the people. Shimonoseki was his current location, sat outside in the sun, a Japanese beer in hand and the pretty asian girls coming and going.

Life was good, he thought stupidly.

The first tingles began to rise up his spine when he was mid-gulp and he could taste the dark infection like bile rising up his throat even as the beer went down. He followed his senses skyward and saw the tear begin to form and cursed under his breath as the Hollow fell to the earth.

He watched it quietly for a moment and then weighing up his options he found his conscience niggling at him. It wasn't his job any more and besides he was on holiday...but what if it ate some kid?

He gave a huff and slammed the beer down on the table as it sprang away from the crowded Plaza. The Gigai of choice was a combat variant, it allowed for far greater feats than the regular models but still limited his considerable power to a meagre fraction of what it could be but it allowed him to move quicker, jump higher and so he took to the roof tops in a bound. Keeping pace with the serpentine creature from the sideline.

Compared to the deepest depths of the eternal desert, wherein the Hollow had spent almost a lifetime in self imposed exile, the sun-touched streets of the mortal world felt cramped and restrictive. It was as though someone had flung her into the heart of a maze and now watched expectantly to see if she would manage to wind her way to the labyrinth's exit. Truthfully, the easiest answer would be to take a straight path, to carve a swathe of destruction through this ancient city, yet in doing so she knew she would draw the eyes of the Shinigami down upon her, and she was not ready for their attention. Not yet.

Better then to waste a few minutes - and what, truly, was a wasted minute to one beyond the grasp of Father Time? What harm could come of taking the subtle path, weaving and winding her way through the streets with both grace and care, occasionally knocking some wretched mortal into the gutter, but never tearing through concrete and steel as many of her kin were wont to do. Her passage still drew comments and confused stares who found themselves knocked aside, tossed into the gutter or, briefly and messily, into the path of one automobile or another. Brakes screeched in the street as drivers slammed their feet down upon the pedal, hoping to avoid crushing some hapless dolt or another, and more than once the noise of metal scraping along metal rippled through the air like some twisted melody. The Hollow barely noticed, or, if she did, she showed not a sign of it, but instead pushed onward with single-minded determination. Her destination was drawing closer. She could feel it. Taste it. Memories, too, came flooding back, bringing with them all the old emotions; the rage, the sorrow, the horror, the hatred. Everything she had buried within herself over that half-century in the desert.

Suddenly, the towering buildings of the city center fell behind her, giving way to the smaller apartments of the outlying suburbs. These two drew memories from the darkest reaches of her mind, and the Hollow felt her tail twitch as the resurgent memories stoked the flames of her anger. The tip of it caught a car, a shiny new model by the look of it, crumpling the door in upon itself and setting off the siren wail of the alarm. Hissing irritably, Reina lashed out again, this time driving her clawlike fingers deep into the vehicle and spearing them through the alarm and causing the device's wailing to fade into silence with a mournful moan.

"Wretched meat," she snarled, twisting to glare at the apartment the car had belonged to. There was movement in the curtains, just the faintest indication that someone was there, watching in horror as their car seemingly tore itself apart. For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to continue, to draw every last delicious drop of horror out of them and then end their pathetic little life, but she forced herself to turn away. She could not risk broadcasting her presence. Not now, when she was both so very close to, and so very far from, her goal. Better by far to simply mark the place within her mind so that she might return when next the hunger compelled her to venture forth from her lair; she would have the pleasure of anticipation then, and the pleasure of knowing that, in some small way, she had delivered to the people a fraction of the pain she herself had suffered. "Another day, then," she whispered sibilantly, before slithering onwards toward the sweet prospect of revenge.

Where the hell was this going, Sal thought as he kept pace as best he could, the Hollow wasn't really doing anything except causing a mess. He would have thought that the proximity of so much chow would have set the blood lust soaring.

He had gone beyond mere concern for public safety and had moved onto curiosity. He wanted to see where this serpent was going in such a hurry, what was so important that it got in the way of maiming everything in sight?

Sal kept his distance, two roofs to the side of the road, his boots clattering upon tiles, his jacket caught in the wind from his speed. His senses kept the Hollow pinned, he could accurately track her to within ten meters, which was quite shoddy for a Shinigami it had to be said.

He leaped a gap between two tenement blocks and then found himself staring at a suburban fissure. The densely packed inner city had ended, now there were small homes, scattered sparsely across the picturesque streets.

"Bollocks..." He muttered eyeing the Hollow below. He stepped off the rooftop and hit the ground lightly, his feet pounding the pavement as he sped after her.

She was not alone.

As she swept down the sunny street, she could feel the spiritual energy of the one who stalked her. It was a strange energy, as different from that of a Hollow as anything could be, the yin to her yang. And it was powerful; even across the gulf that separated them, she could almost taste the reiatsu that flowed from her pursuer. The very thought of consuming it was intoxicating, and the Hollow found herself slowing, her tail whipping wildly across the tarmac as she twisted about, crimson eyes peering hungrily through the eyelets for a glimpse of the source.

Where was it? The gleaming rooftops above? The empty street? The fetid sewers below? The truth eluded her; the reiatsu was taunting her with its presence, yet she couldn't pin down the source. It was too different from what she knew, too difficult to predict. And yet, as the Hollow cast her maddened gaze about in search of her pursuer, she realised that the flowing energy was not entirely unfamiliar, but rather was hauntingly familiar. But why? Where did she know it from? When did she know it from? It was an old memory. A buried memory. It was from...

... the day she was reborn as a Hollow.

"Shinigami," she snarled, eyes narrowing into gleaming slits as memories of that black-clad form streamed into her mind. Could it possibly be him? The fates were cruel enough, it was true, yet still the Hollow could hardly believe that same Shinigami could still stalk these streets.

Sal dove into a crouch and slammed himself against the back of a blue car parked outside one of the houses along the street, its car alarm immediately began to blare from the impact. He cursed his lack of stealth, or his belief in it, and weighed up his options.

He could avert the inevitable blood bath and simply dispatch the Hollow or...he could play this silly Ninja game a little more and risk the creature taking flight, perhaps losing it in the city where it would cause god knows what havoc.

There was only one choice.

He stood from his hiding spot and stepped out into the road. The green cross code doesnt matter when you're dead but Sal found out, in a very sudden way, that when you are in a gigai it still applies.

The driver yelled, breaks squealed, and Sal suddenly found the world turned upside down as the front bumper smashed into the back of his thighs and he went spinning across the wind shield and over the roof of the car, rolling to a stop behind it.

Sal staggered to his feet and saw the blood drained face of the young driver, his words lost in translation, of which there was none, and Sal was now in no mood to listen. A backhand slap of his hand sent the Japanese man sailing through the air and into the living room window of a house to the left and a volley to the back bumper of the car rocketed into the air end over end until it landed with a crash at the end of the road.

Synthetic blood gushed from his artificial body, his left arm was twisted awkwardly, a shattered bone punching through the skin, and his walk was uneven, one foot turned to the side at a sickening angle. He fixed his rage upon the Hollow.

He had a singular purpose, and that was extracting every single penny he would need for repairs out of its scaly hide.

Perhaps the kindest way to describe the Shinigami's entrance was 'unconventional.' Certainly, Reina knew of not a single tenet of combat that espoused entering the battlefield in a way that was as painful and damaging for yourself as possible. Nevertheless, this appeared to be precisely what the Shinigami had done, for he entered her view with a fanfare of screeching brakes and the blare of a horn, spinning and twisting over the hood of a car to slam down against the warm tarmac with bone shattering force. The sight drew a sussuration of amusement from behind the porcelain-like mask, but that mirthful echo soon faded into the still afternoon air as the reaper rose unsteadily to his feet, shoving both car and driver aside with brutal indifference before turning his malevolent gaze upon the Hollow.

He took a step toward her, splatters of blood marking his path while bones ground sickeningly together beneath his torn clothes. His face was twisted, agony and rage dancing their murderous waltz across his features with every step. And yet for all that rage, all that hatred and determination, the Hollow felt nothing beyond an odd twinge of relief.

Because it wasn't him.

This Shinigami was taller, and less slender. His face was darker, the brow heavier and the lines more angular, while the dark hair was shorter and the eyes larger and lacking the slight curve of the orient to their shape. Even had she the time, Reina wouldn't have been able to explain why the fact that this was a different Shinigami to the one she had encountered all those years ago mattered. It shouldn't have; in her current state, there was little doubt that either would have been able to banish her into the madness beyond death. Yet matter it did, and the Hollow found herself smiling beneath her mask as she coiled her tail beneath her and flexed her talonesque fingers.

"Hello little Shinigami," she hissed, twisting but slightly to regard him through one crimson eye, "Have you come to play?"

He'd seen some downright hideous creatures in his brief but eventful time in the afterlife but few looked so...monsterish. What kind of soul could inspire this kind of visage in death, he would have wondered if he weren't thinking about gratuitous violence and the prospect of some new snake skin boots.

He gripped the broken arm of his gigai and with a sharp twist he popped the bone back under the life like skin. The sound of the broken shards of bone crunching together sounded like glass underfoot and although it wasn't true pain he felt it still made him wince.

He hobbled forward along the road, the curtains of the houses on either side twitched as their inhabitants peered out at the bloody and broken man, alone it seemed after his accident. No doubt someone had called the police.

"Sure, what's your poison?" He asked and stopped about eight feet from the Hollow.

The sound of bones grinding and snapping. A torment to the ears of a mortal, but to a Hollow such as Reina, it was as sweet a music as any that might be imagined, and for the noise to come from the body of a Shinigami was sweeter still. Considerations of why that was, of why she so instinctively hated the Reaper and drew pleasure from his suffering, didn't even occur to the Hollow. Why would it? Their existence was that of polar opposites, and Reina's short time upon the mortal world as a Hollow had been more than enough to reveal that the only thing which spanned the gulf between Shinigami and Hollow was unadulterated hatred.

Fortunately, there lurked in the dark depths of her soul more than enough hatred for both the Shinigami and the living world that had so cruelly abandoned her.

"Sure," the Shinigami remarked, stepping slowly forward as he answered her question, "What's your poison?"

His attitude was flippant, and the offhand remark was the kind of thing she might have expected from Takahiro all those years ago. Now, spoken by this battered Shinigami, it brought a surge of memory sweeping up, like a tidal wave breaking over the walls she'd built up since her heart had been transformed into the alabaster mask that hid her features. She remembered times long past, times spent hand in hand with her rebellious lover. She remembered his face. His touch. His death.

And her rage came rushing forth.

"My poison?" she snarled, glad, for once, of the mask that hid fer face, "My poison is Onnen!" Strange words, perhaps. Incomprehensible to one without knowledge of the Hollow that she had become, must assuredly. But the meaning became apparent quickly enough, for Reina lashed out with one clawed hand, sending hateful shards of venom hurtling across the space between them.