Chereads / BLEACH: The Dusk In Red / Chapter 88 - Nothing But Gray

Chapter 88 - Nothing But Gray

After his battle with Uryū, Albrecht was heavily injured. In order to get away from him, he teleported himself to anywhere that wasn't in the world of the living. The place he ended up just happened to be Hueco Mundo. 

A dark shadow opened up just above the white sands, and from it, fell out a heavily injured Albrecht. The blood that spilled from his wounds dyed the white sands red as he struggled to get up. He was too weakened, and so he fell to the ground instead.

Just before he passed out however, he felt the spiritual pressures of a couple hollows gather around him.

"A human? A Quincy! I call dibs!"

A hollow was just about to pick up Albrecht, but then it got side tackled by another.

"No! It's mine!"

It quickly tried to pick him up, but then a cero from a different hollow struck it in the back of the head. The two earlier hollows began to gang up on the cero firing one, which caused the to get distracted. A fourth hollow showed up and tried to eat Albrecht, but fifth one quickly stopped it.

This was Hueco Mundo, a land of Hollows. A predatory world where only the strongest can survive. Everyone here is trapped in a cycle of infinite predation, where devouring the other was necessary to exist.

Souls were their fuel, and even stronger souls would give them power. A being like Albrecht who possessed Yhwach's Reiatsu, was like 5 star meal made by Gordan Ramsey to them. Whoever ate him, was sure to become immensely powerful.

Before the fight could get any bigger, a loud voice screamed.

"HEY! BACK OFF. THIS ONE IS MINE!"

A humanoid hollow exudating Spiritual much greater than the rest, made its appearance. It was a Vasto Lorde. One of the weaker hollows then asked it,

"What do you want with this boy? Your already as strong as you could get, why else do you need to consume more??"

The Vasto Lorde fired a cero which blasted off that Hollow's head. Despite it being dead, it responded to it's question for all to hear.

"I'm already as strong as I could get? Whoever thinks those foolish thoughts can let themselves be devoured right now. Those Arrancar are proof that there is still a stage of evolution, higher than what I am at right now. Until I can reach that stage, until I can become that powerful, I will never stop in my ceaseless quest. Even if it takes me a millennia."

The Vasto Lorde was just about to make it's way towards Albrecht, but something soaring through the sky, suddenly fell in front of the unconscious boy's body. It was a familiar girl, with a lambs skull on her head, and noticeable light green hair. The Vasto Lorde had a scare once she recognised her.

"AHH! NELIEL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?"

"I was just playing a nice game, and what do I find? You causing a fuss again over some boy? Joaquin?"

Joaquin took a step forward as he proclaimed,

"YOU ARRANCAR THINK YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT? I THOUGHT THE POINT OF THE TREATY WAS THAT WE COULD CONTINUE WITHOUT YOU INTERFERRING! THAT BOY IS THE PREY THAT I'VE WON! I'M GOING TO CONSUME HIM, AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"

The appearance of Arrancar who no longer needed to eat and evolve, caused an upset in the balance of Hueco Mundo. If they wanted, they could take the side of hollows they preferred, and only then, they would have a chance of evolving further. To put a stop to this, Hueco Mundo was divided between 3 groups of Arrancar, that ruled the land with their own rules.

The current land they were in, belonged to the group led by Nelliel and Harribel. The rule of their land, was that as long as they didn't interfere with the children nor their affairs between them, they were allowed to live like normal. Currently, Nelliel was breaking that rule.

"Yeah but you see.. this boy isn't a hollow, so technically~ he doesn't fall under those rules~!"

"YOU HYPOCRITES! PREY IS PREY!"

The hollow jumped at Nelliel while preparing a powerful punch, but before he could even make contact, she punched him in the face. The force sent him flying back, stumbling through the dirt.

Joaquin quickly jumped up while grabbing onto it's face. A piece of it's mask had been chipped. He looked at Nel in fear of what she had done, but she just looked at him blankly.

"You'll pay for this! I swear it!"

He ran away into the distance, sacrificing a potential chance to reach greater heights. Nel just looked at the other hollows and said,

"What are you guys looking at? Scram!"

They all quickly ran off with their tails between their legs. While they ran, two other Arrancar witnessed this, but rushed towards Nelliel anyway. They were Arrancar, but they appeared to be more hollow than humanoid.

"Ohh! Miss Nelliel! I thought we agreed not to use that form since we can't keep up!"

"Cheater! Cheater!"

It was Pesche and Dondochakka. They were following behind Nelliel like usual.

"Whose that? A? W*£RHYFIEUG!"

The moment Pesche got a clearer look at Albrecht's spiritual pressure, he remembered the terrifying Quincy who destroyed the Arrancar army, and single headedly defeated Harribel, Yhwach. Nelliel tried to calm him down.

"I don't think this is Yhwach. He looks way smaller, and he's too weak too. If I let those guy's from earlier eat him, then I don't want to imagine what'd happen to them."

She remembered how Ikomikidomoe absorbed Hikone's Soul King's fragments, and witnessed how powerful it had become. It would more trouble some if any one else got to devour him.

"So your saying we should kill him now? Or how about we dump him in Soul Society? It would be better to make him their problem, rather than ours.", Pesche suggested.

Nel thought about it for a solid minute, before finally deciding.

"Let's take him back with us!", she casually said with a smile.

The two began to panic as they tried to dispute the choice. But it's not like they could stop her. She ended up forcing Dondochakka to carry him all the way back anyway.

--4 hours later

When Albrecht woke up, he found himself sleeping on a hammock inside a large white tent. There were several other supplies and such inside it too, but there was a pair of clean white clothes right next to him.

Once he got out, he could feel his strength had returned, and his wounds were healed, but he also felt faint traces of a foreign spiritual pressure which he did not like. He was surrounded by it too which only increased his sense of wariness. 

His current attire was ripped so he quickly changed into the clothes before taking his first steps outside.

The place he was in appeared to be some kind of a ruined castle. The architecture was unlike anything he had scene in the human world, and it's yellow tiles contrasted against the forever black sky.

He tried looking around for a while, but he was completely lost. The scent of good food hovering in the sky tempted him, and his rumbling stomach only urged him to follow it.

Once he walked around a corner, he was met with a rather confusing sight. There were what seemed to be around 200 children all playing amongst what had been the so far empty ruins. And every single one of them were an Arrancar.

It wasn't just that, but there were some adults too.

The notable ones happened to be an Arrancar women with cyan hair, playing with the children, and two more strangely shaped ones with her. On chair next to a table, there was a another much more tough looking Arrancar women with yellow hair overlooking them all, and behind her was 2 others that seemed to be cooking. Oddly, one of them were human?

"(Where the hell? I need to get out of here)."

The large numbers made him slightly hesitant to move forward, so he took a step back as if he was about to retreat. But someone had already noticed him.