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"Shinigami, oh, Shinigami!"
A thrumming thrill reverberated through its throat as it let out those words full of clarity. And that was enough for Itachi to know that he wasn't just dealing with any kind of Hollow.
Its speech, how it reacted, and how it escaped it bindings with ease was a dead giveaway that the Hollow before him was different from any other Hollow he's fought.
An Adjuchas.
Hollows as a race are divided into two simple categories; normal Hollows and Great Hollows, commonly known as Menos.
Under Menos, there exist three progressive evolutionary paths starting from Gillians, Adjuchas and then the strongest evolutionary height of a Hollow, a Vasto Lorde.
Each classification is accompanied by a staggering qualitative leap in overall capabilities, most strong enough to fight squarely against Lieutenants or even outright kill them.
"These Hollows are specific."
He agreed with his clone's words as all the Hollow's he encountered that were involved with the disappearance of the Shinigami all had stealth traits.
"Manual selection." He said.
SCREEECH!
They both jumped back, lucky enough to avoid the weapon in the Hollows hands that suddenly whipped out and smashed where they previously stood.
"Move." Itachi had barely spoken the word out when the Hollow suddenly appeared in front of his clone, a soft glow around his hands and a blue energy ball charging up in his mouth.
A Cero, Itachi realized. A Hollows innate attack available to them in each step of their evolution.
When his clone blocked the Hollow's fist with his sword, Itachi's eyes widened as he saw his clone's Reiatsu suddenly breaking out of its body with a crack before the Cero engulfed them.
Seeing how Itachi's clone simply disappeared in front of its Cero, the Hollow turned to Itachi with what was a displeased expression on its face.
"Your tricks won't save you, Shinigami!"
"Are you the one responsible for the recent disappearance of a group of Shinigami?" He asked.
No matter how he looked at it, something suspicious was definitely going on but he just couldn't put his hand on what it was.
"Who knows? It won't change anything even if I answer your question." The Hollow sneered. "Maybe I can console you with the name of the last thing you'll see."
"…"
"Drummerbone. That's my name!" The weapon he held started wiggling on the floor like a snake until it crawled up its hands and fused into it.
Deciding on a path of action, Itachi twirled the sword around his fingers and ran towards Drummerbone who also met him halfway and punched at his sword with his glowing hand.
"Uh?!"
Itachi parried the blow expertly and kicked Drummerbone in the head, causing him to stagger a few steps backwards.
Inwardly growling in anger, the Hollow rushed at him, arms swinging, attempting to force Itachi back with his overwhelming strength but Itachi knew that and he redirected every blow he couldn't dodge thereby repeatedly disrupting Drummerbone's flow.
After the last strike, Itachi put a healthy distance between them as he noticed something weird about the Hollow.
Every clash between Itachi's sword and Drummerbone's fist caused Itachi's Reiatsu to flow haphazardly, making him shift his focus to actively keep him Reiatsu in a patterned flow.
"You can feel it right? Haha hahaha!" Drummerbone laughed hysterically and pushed on his attack with more frenzy.
Itachi retreated under Drummerbone's assault, prompting more manic glee from the Hollow.
'Tsukuyomi.'
'If you had more subpar control of your Reiatsu, you won't even be able to release your Shikai.'
Mentally nodding to his Zanpakutō spirit, Itachi changed the grip he had on his sword and this simple motion made Drummerbone stop and then staggered until he took a knee.
"W-what?"
"Hadō #13: Hanateki."
An Hadō spell slammed into its face at point blank range and exploded like fireworks but when the smoke cleared there was no sign that Drummerbone took any significant damage from that and Itachi's guess was the faint glow around the Hollow's hands.
"You break down the Reiatsu of anything your hands touch and absorb a small quantity of it that isn't harmful, right?" Itachi hypothesized.
"So what?!" Drummerbone shouted and charged a huge Cero that it wasted no time in shooting it towards Itachi who hastily jumped back as he drew something in the air.
"Bakudō #13: Kukaku."
A translucent barrier came in between Itachi and the huge Cero with the force of the explosion pushing him back.
"Bakudō #4: Hainawa." Another Kidō spell was released and this one was a spell of binding lightning rope that was shot at Drummerbone as soon as it jumped out the dust cloud with its weapon out of his body.
Restrained, Drummerbone fell straight to the ground but Itachi didn't let up the opportunity.
Sensing the danger, Drummerbone's hands glowed as he tried to break the binding rope, and he did, but he was a second too late as Itachi took one of its hands.
The handicapped Hollow had barely pulled a hasty retreat when he heard Itachi's voice and saw the Shinigami's eyes turning to a red pattern iris.
"Terase, Tsukuyomi."
Itachi released his Shikai in tandem with his Sharingan.
'It's defense, speed and attack are top notch and it can disrupt most attacks. But what about an attack that it can't see?'
With how intimate his Sharingan worked with his Shikai, given that they gave birth to Tsukuyomi, the view Itachi's eyes reflected when he used both at the same time was something only he could appreciate.
Red, black and grey lines weaved together in a never-ending twist and turn that he could pull at anytime to set up an illusion.
Reiatsu, Reiryoku, and all five physical sensations were all receptive to his illusions.
Drummerbone's stump started wriggling as it watched Itachi with caution while it tried to heal up another arm, only to stare gobsmacked as the man in front of him simply fade away like the wind and the next thing it knew was another searing pain as it's second hand fell to the ground.
"RARGHH!" It shouted in pained rage and blasted balls of Cero in every direction, even instantly regenerating its hands as it was blinded with rage. Unfortunately…
Caw caw.
It heard the sound of crows and its world turned upside down.
Its eyes spun fiercely, causing it to lose its balance more than once, and when everything finally stopped, alarm bells rang in its head.
A maze.
Everything was a maze.
Left and right, up and down, everything was chaotically joined together so that to tell if one was standing on the ground or in the air was virtually impossible.
Caw caw.
Inky black crows and red dotted eyes flew around letting out dreadful cries.
Nothing felt real.
'Is it real? Or is it an illusion?'
That had been Tsukuyomi's question to Itachi when he first entered his mindscape and beheld the world of crows and darkness under the rays of a red lit moon.
'It's an illusion, because it once used to be real… now it's not.' That had been Itachi's answer.
He had refrained from pulling too much of Tsukuyomi's illusory prowess as most of them were tuned, or more compatible with Tsukuyomi's Mangekyō.
Seeing how Drummerbone was flailing around on the ground, unable to even push itself up without falling back down, Itachi knew that the Hollow was completely lost in the illusion they were both seeing.
As if sensing the danger around it with some kind of animalistic sixth sense, it turned its head at Itachi's direction and threw away all caution as it charged up the biggest Cero it could form and let it fly.
Faced with the incoming Cero, Itachi simply slashed down and for an instant, it felt as if the real world and that of the illusion joined together as a bright red light shone from where Itachi had slashed.
As for the Cero, the moment it got to the point where Itachi had slashed, its direction changed as if nothing happened and it had been traveling in a straight line all along as it sailed back to Drummerbone.
The Hollow in question only stared in shock as its strongest attack simply flew backwards without any lag in its momentum until the Cero impacted its body.
It had tried blocking with its hands but somehow, the position it crossed it's hands were not the place the Cero had landed its hit.
CRACK! BOOOOOM!
It had to be said about Drummerbone's hard body as not even its own Cero could completely destroy its body… but Itachi didn't care, nor did he appreciate it.
"Hadō #11: Tsuzuri Raiden."
Channeling the lightning Kidō spell through his blade, Itachi stabbed it through Drummerbone's head and the Hollow stilled.
Unlike what he was expecting, instead of the Hollow to start disintegrating, he felt a small wisp of energy building up inside the body and he quickly retreated to a safe distance.
The Hollow exploded but unlike the violent explosion Itachi had expected, the wisp of energy simply dissipated only the air.
"What was-"
Barely a second, not even letting him finish his words, and the ground started rumbling and Itachi could hear roars from the distance, more loudly as they got closer.
A parade of Hollows.