#dgm hollow

[thornart]

Remember my D. Gray-man phase. It was sooooo long ago.

[animeyanderelover]

Anon: Hello, anon req for letter E, K, R, V with Megumi & Inumaki (JJK), Sado (Bleach), Lavi (DGM), please and thank you!

Tw: Yandere themes, toxic relationship, possessiveness behavior, obsession, delusional thoughts, overprotective behavior, stalking, manipulation, clinginess, jealousy, paranoia, abduction, isolation

Yandere Alphabet

Sado Yasutora

Earnest-How intense and dangerous are they really?

🛡️Sado would be together with Orihime the tamest one from the original Ichigo squad. He’s a pacifist and uses violence only when it is to protect someone and is lucid about his obsession. What can be pointed out but really is no fault of his might be that the average person isn’t going to just approach you without any care when Sado is with you. We’re talking about a guy nearly 2 meters tall after all so perhaps it’s understandable why they would be a bit intimidated by Chad. If you’re a social and extroverted person, this factor might dull a bit of your fun though. I’d say worst aspect is that Sado is loyal to his core. This might sound flattering at first but that is until you realize the implications of this. This man is fully committed to you and ready to die for you. He’s much more selfless than most other Yandere and perhaps it’s that selflessness that might scare you a bit.

Kidnap-When and why would they kidnap their darling? How much would they plan ahead?

🛡️With Chad you have a lower risk of being abducted because he takes good care of you. He’s protective but mature enough to tone those urges of his down so he doesn’t restrict your life. Obviously he’s going to be a tad bit more careful though as he can see Hollows you can’t see and has been involved in some very life-threatening fights. I’d say the chance for a more permanent abduction would involve an incident where he feels like he could have done more to prevent it. That can obviously include the chance of Hollows attacking you but it can be implied to much more mundane accidents in the normal world too. That would be most likely the point where he wouldn’t be able to win a fight against his nerves anymore. Why don’t you just stay with him for a longer period of time? Please…just let him take care of you for a while now. He’s very insistent on his will as you will figure out and it’ll be one of the few times where you find yourself arguing with him.

🛡️It won’t be a one-night plan nor will he brood very much about it. After such a terrible case where he has been triggered enough to be even pushed this far, he knows that he has to act soon. First and foremost he would stock up on items and stuff you’ll need to live healthy and comfortable. Sado values your comfort and your happiness and whilst he is sure that an abduction will most likely rob you of your ability to be as happy and joyful as you normally are, he still tries the best he can do within the new situation. He ponders the most on what he will tell you when you realize what he’s doing and the confrontation is the part he dreads the most. He knows that he is wrong which makes all of this much more complicated, he doesn’t know what he could say to defend his actions against you. Chad doesn’t tell you about it until the last second either and you don’t assume anything to be wrong. Not until you’re already in his house and he blocks the door, too ashamed to even look you into your eyes.

Race-How fast would it take for them to grow toxic feelings? How do they realize?

🛡️I do see him as a guy who has started wearing his heart more on his sleeve ever since he befriended Ichigo. Yes, he is a rather quiet person normally but if you don’t get discouraged by his lack of speech nor fear his built, getting to know him and getting closer to him isn’t as hard as you might believe. Whilst Sado is quick to grow to care about someone, an obsession takes much longer. Perhaps it is a crush after a few months, perhaps it is love after a year but this is a far cry from obsession yet. He’d have to know you for a much longer period of time and vice versa if love should ever be dragged into the dark and twisted emotional aspect of devotion and attraction. By the time his feelings start getting twisted, both of you probably know each other from the inside out already and might as well be already in an established relationship.

🛡️Because it is such a long process of developing a real obsession and because the changes are subtle, even Chad is a bit slower to realize that something has changed at all. He’s always been loyal and devoted to everyone he cares about. His behavior doesn’t change visibly either so he has no one who could point it out to him either. I’d say that the one thing he can pin his change of feelings down on is his increase in worries about your safety. Sado has always been a bit protective over you due to seeing Hollows but that seems to slowly expand to the point where he finds himself being worried about situations he has never really considered as dangerous before. He has his intrusive thoughts but he hushes them down quite well in his mind, otherwise he might develop the nasty habit of being a bit paranoid over you.

Voice-If their darling asks them for something, would they give it to them? How much do they do in general for them?

🛡️In most cases, Chad won’t hesitate or think much about it if his s/o would ask him for something. His devotion and loyalty does make him prone to caving in quite easily to your every whim and need. This makes him prone to spoiling his s/o a bit too often but it isn’t to the point where it is really exaggerated or ridiculous. He isn’t just throwing out money blindly nor is he doing absolutely everything for you either. He is speaking up about it when he isn’t comfortable with what you’re asking him off, in most cases because he’s worried that it might potentially be a risk for your health. Such objections are rare and few though so if his darling desires something material or needs Sado to do something specific, they can count on him.

🛡️Overall Sado is doing a lot for his s/o too even if they aren’t asking him for anything. He’s always going out of his way to ensure that you feel comfortable and happy and tries to surround you with people and stuff that always makes you feel safe and joyful. He’s quite attentive and usually always sticks up on everything you need so if you feel like you are about to run out of your favorite snacks or certain products, Chad has oftentimes already bought it for you again. He keeps a close eye on you and your needs but not to the extent where it makes you feel uncomfortable and creepy but makes you feel appreciated and cared for. If he notices that you’re feeling down, he steps his usual care up a bit in an attempt to comfort you and cheer you up by buying you small and cute stuff or by encouraging you to go outside and/or do something relaxing.

Lavi Bookman

Earnest-How intense and dangerous are they really?

🔨​You tend to get way too easily fooled around Lavi which is simply a result of his insightfulness and the change of his entire personality for missions and inspections. He doesn't know what else to do as he essentially never had a personality or identity of his own. He's the next Bookman and that's all he's ever known to be. This adaption skills to fit his personality within what you feel most comfortable with is probably the most dangerous skill he has because he can blend in like a chameleon and change his demeanor whenever it is needed. Even if you might think of him as goofy, don't let yourself be deceived as this is merely a charade of Lavi which he can change quickly to gain the sympathy and the favor of a lot of people in your life. This also implies that he is even able to put up a facade to scare and frighten you if there should ever be the need for that. Lavi essentially never stays the same, his whole personality can adapt and change and that makes him unpredictable.

Kidnap-When and why would they kidnap their darling? How much would they plan ahead?

🔨Lavi can't do much as long as the old Bookman is still with him because that old man would never tolerate him abducting his s/o. In his company the best Lavi can do is lie to you by using his manipulation or convincing others to lock you away or just keep you away from any danger. It is only as soon as he has officially the title of Bookman and is by himself that it dawns on him that he is now free to do as he wants. That sudden freedom and the power that comes with it scares a small part of him but it's in that moment that you're suddenly at a constant risk to be taken because as a Bookman he can never stay in the same place for a long time. Ultimately this undeniable lifestyle he has a Bookman is what would at the very last push him to try to convince you to travel with him or in the worst scenario to abduct you.

🔨You'd think that he would have made grand plans as soon as the old man can't travel with him anymore and he officially takes over as new Bookman. Truthfully though, he is so used to the man's presence that it somehow slips his mind that one day the old man can't accompany him anymore as he is the closest thing to a parental figure Lavi has. Without him anymore though, Lavi realizes how lonely it'll be from now on, especially without you. With the ability to act freely though, Lavi can't deny that he starts planning what he should do now. He definitely wants to convince you to come with him and what to do if beguiling doesn't work on you. There's never a strict plan though because it's near impossible to plan ahead if he can never settle down unless he trains another successor and if he doesn't know when he has to travel where for how long.

Race-How fast would it take for them to grow toxic feelings? How do they realize?

🔨He cozies up to people for the sake of watching history unfold itself but the old man has always told him that as a Bookman he is never allowed to bond with someone. So even if he might act at first friendly towards you or you might just be someone he perceives as beautiful, this isn't him being genuine. He's being wary due to his duty as a Bookman so to genuinely develop an obsession for someone requires him to know you for a longer period of time. Funnily enough the process itself from transferring from love to obsession isn't even that long nor difficult as the mere concept of sincere feelings towards someone is foreign and unknown for him as it has never happened throughout his whole life.

🔨With his feelings all mixed up, Lavi has to navigate through a labyrinth that consists of his own feelings. The mere notice that his feelings go deeper than they are supposed to go and the fact that he feels attachment towards you goes against his principles and the world he has known so far so Lavi denies himself those emotions. Those pent-up emotions crack up his normally flawless charade though as he always slips up around you. This is unusual and has never happened before to him, makes him dread how serious the situation really is. He's focusing too much on you, ignores even other beautiful women in favor of you and initially can't hold up his mask around you. All signs that eventually lead him to the realization that his interest might go deeper than he might have ever anticipated.

Voice-If their darling asks them for something, would they give it to them? How much do they do in general for them?

🔨Lavi would love to act on his lovesick emotions at times on sheer impulse alone but he always tries to keep a bit of levelheadedness. Especially during the early stages of his obsession would he make an effort to never make himself suspicious by being too friendly with you nor being too rude to you as both could lead to unwanted attention. As he gradually warms up around you and the idea of holding genuine affection for someone, he starts being more willing around you. He has certain phases where he is very affectionate and would go above and beyond to fulfill you your wishes you ask him for and in other moments he appears to be calmer and composed again and wouldn't actively spoil you.

🔨Undeniable is though that Lavi looks out a lot for you and always makes sure that you have enough in your life to be satisfied and healthy. He always guarantees a mimimum you have to have in your life and if you lack something that is included in this minimum, he always goes out of his way to ensure that you have it. He takes importance to remind you about such basic things you need in your life more than riches or jewelry as you don't need unnecessary items in your life to survive if you should ever be mad that you couldn't purchase something you wanted. That isn't to say that sometimes he will fall into a mood where he literally tries to gift and buy you such stuff if he has the money for it to cater to your happiness. But only if he is in the mood because he shifts his focus elsewhere in your life otherwise.

Fushiguro Megumi

Earnest-How intense and dangerous are they really?

💙With Megumi you as his darling are most certainly on the worse side if I had to be honest. Megumi is quite a mess on the inside even if his permanently stoic face might give the illusion that he doesn't care. His paranoia, his urge to protect you, his introverted and stressed behavior around everyone that is around him, especially in your company, and his own insecurities are your worst enemies. He seemingly doesn't trust anyone around you, not even his and your own friends are exceptions to that. There is always something he doesn't like about other people or something about them he feels like might end up getting you in troubles and in the worst case he doesn't want you around them because he fears you might like them more than him. No matter how much you reassure him, he'll always relapse and ask you instead to spend time with him alone rather than going out. So you're stuck with him, slowly isolated and forced to neglect other relationships in favor of calming his insecurities and his paranoia that will never fade away.

Kidnap-When and why would they kidnap their darling? How much would they plan ahead?

💙I've already mentioned it in my Hc's for Megumi but chances to be abducted are higher with him. His limitless paranoia and ever-present insecurities surrounding you and your safety will be his motives if he should ever abduct you. You just have to give one of those fears of his the last push and lead his mind to crumble apart. You could get in danger for normal or curse-related reasons, you could shatter his mind by leaving him for someone else because you're fed up with his antics or you could simply neglect him without intention by focusing on something or someone else and push his already wavering sanity over the edge. His paranoia and irrational fear will do the rest for you even if nothing has technically happened. Let his mind run wild and overthink all by itself and you'll get the same results no matter what.

💙He isn't fully spontanous but waiting for too long would be agonizing and torture for Megumi so he won't plan too far ahead either. He plans ahead to not be fully unprepared because he does understand the consequences of an abduction. He thinks about aspects such as where he will abduct you and if he will knock you out or use other ways to lure you where he plans to keep you and how he will provide from you then because you can bet your kidney that he won't let you leave for a while. Those plans would be easier fulfilled if Megumi has his own residence at that point where he can keep you but if he's still under Gojo's watch and a student, he obviously has less freedom to act as he wishes he could. That doesn't mean that it'll discourage him though.

Race-How fast would it take for them to grow toxic feelings? How do they realize?

💙For Megumi to actually obsess over someone, his darling needs to pour patience and time into this boy if they even want him to open up somehow around him. Megumi rarely feels comfortable around people as they're more than often the main source of his stress so you really shouldn't be too pushy unless you want to have him avoid you. It takes a lot of time and trust for Megumi to trust someone and genuinely care about them, considering the way he grew up without any parents to take care of him and had only his sister to rely on. An obsession is a really long process because even the aspect of falling in love is a very delicate topic for the jujutsu sorcerer. Once it has come to the point of no return though, you can be assured that Megumi would never give you up or let you leave him. Never.

💙When Megumi gains romantic feelings of you without any obsessive tendencies, you don't know about it. Because he never tells you anything about it when he himself comes to terms that he loves you. He already hesitates and panics slightly at this stage as he doesn't know what to do with his feelings and keeps quiet about it ultimately in some silent hope that it'll go away. His hesitation and unwillingness to tell anyone about it and just pent everything up is the fault for his feelings to escalate even further. It is his downright co-dependency that has him realize his unhealthy attachment as every stressful situation always brings up thoughts about you and an impulsive need to see you, be alone with you, cope via you. His inner peace is disturbed as all feelings and thoughts lead back to you and he only feels somewhat relaxed when around you.

Voice-If their darling asks them for something, would they give it to them? How much do they do in general for them?

💙If it involves anything of you wanting to do something for someone else for the sole purpose of impressing them and gaining their favor, you can count him out. If it is something that isn't realistic for him to do and that might put him in an uncomfortable situation without any deeper motives of him protecting you or something along those lines, Megumi has no problems denying you your wishes. Otherwise he'll see what he can do and how much money he's willing to spend on you without draining his resources. He gets very paranoid and twitchy though if you seek out help through someone else and not him because he views this as a breach of trust from your side, enough to make his mind spin. Do you see him as incompetent? Has he done something that offended you? Why aren't you asking him? If you need help, come to him! Don't ask anyone else...

💙He focuses on your safety and protection over your own indulgence in little things. He's paranoid and worried about curses in your area and gets rid of as much as he can with the help of his shikai and is just as dedicated when it comes to the people surrounding you. Admittedly, Megumi does a lot of things for you you'd never want him to do because it involves scaring certain people he doesn't trust for his mostly paranoid reasons and telling them to stay away from you. He does such acts for you though and in his mind it is perfectly justified for him to act the way he does. It hurts him immensely though when you react angrily and disappointed because of them. He's done it because he loves you and wants you safe. Why can't you appreciate him at least a little bit for it...?

Inumaki Toge

Earnest-How intense and dangerous are they really?

🗣️A clear threat that is there is Inumaki's inherited cursed speech and even though he would rarely ever use that on his lover, on the first glance this is the most obvious reason why he would be seen as dangerous. Toge knows that too. He knows what possibilities he has because of his inherited power. If you would look at his emotional situation though, Inumaki is rather stable in comparison to some other students such as Yuta or Megumi. He's very calm and insightful, cares about his s/o and his antics are even rather endearing at times simply to make you more comfortable around him due to his inability to converse with you in a normal way, especially if you don't fully understand him yet. Perhaps you could count his emotional calmness as a double-edged sword though because in certain situations it is very scary to see him so composed.

Kidnap-When and why would they kidnap their darling? How much would they plan ahead?

🗣️​Toge's reason for an abduction would be out of protective reasons because otherwise he wouldn't be able to justify such a thing with his own morals. He isn't very paranoid nor possessive otherwise so he has no motives to kidnap you otherwise than a life-threatening situation or maybe, maybe, a potential separation from you that he can't stop or prevent through more convenient meassurements. An abduction isn't a case of forever isolation and imprisonment in his case though but more a method to wait until the situation isn't as dangerous and risky anymore in which case he would grant you the privilege of moving around freely again. Of course you can't tell anyone else about what happened though.

🗣️His cursed speech feels like an abuse of power so he genuinely tries to only use it as a last resort if he can't convince you otherwise to please just let him take over your life for a moment. Toge feels in moments of dangers responsible for you so if he sees no other way than temporary abduction and other attempts to solve the problem haven't worked, he will be rather determined to pull through with it until he deems everything to be safe and fine again. Here his scary composure comes into play because despite the little hint of guilt in his eyes, he is firm with such a decision once he makes it. The contrast to your own turbulent feelings against his quiet and convinced demeanor makes for quite the strong and unsettling contrast in this scenario.

Race-How fast would it take for them to grow toxic feelings? How do they realize?

🗣️You might let yourself get fooled by his initial appearance and mistake him as someone quiet and aloof but Inumaki is beyond that first impression kind and caring. Earning his attention and his platonic love for you isn't that hard for you with a bit of time spent together and fooling around together. I'd say that even having him love you in more romantic ways isn't as hard if you just hang out enough with him. Obviously that will be easier though once you learn to understand his special speech and can communicate better with him. Only the final step to an obsession is the biggest struggle because Toge is very in tune with his emotions as he is very mature for his age. He realizes that something is going not quite right with his feelings for you and tries to prevent it from escalating. Without much success obviously.

​🗣️​He would never abuse his cursed speech for his own selfish purposes but the intrusive thoughts of doing so pop up the worse his feelings for you get. Not against you but for the largest part against those who wrong you and make your life at times a bit hellish. The impulse to use his cursed speech, make them stop or even hurt them with his ability when he feels his ire raise are first signs that something isn't going right with him. Especially if those people are non-sorcerers and he knows that they wouldn't stand a chance against him. The second sign would be the developing habit of his to just trail behind you without you being aware of it. It often starts with him thinking that one or two minutes will be enough only that those few short minutes quickly turn into half an hour before he even knows it with him still following you around.

Voice-If their darling asks them for something, would they give it to them? How much do they do in general for them?

🗣️​He's relatively chill if it comes to doing you a favor or two or three. Running a few errands for you is something he has been doing ever since he only thought of you as a close friend and that hasn't changed even with his obsession. He doesn't have an insane dedication to it though so if he has other stuff to do at the moment, he will tell you so. He feels quite apologetic though if you should give him a sad face and promises to do it for you as soon as he has finished whatever else he's occupied with at the moment. He doesn't even care much if people like Panda or Maki tease him for his obvious soft spot and gossip that he'd never do such stuff for them. If he can help you and make you happy within your own life, he's feeling quite fulfilled and content.

🗣️​He's a tiny bit like Yuji in the way that he likes to buy you small gifts or snacks once he has gained romantic feelings, especially if you two should be in a relationship at that point. He isn't as spoiling as Yuji but you get once or twice a week such little treats from him without you ever asking for it. If he thinks that you need something, he doesn't ask you if you actually need it most of the time but just gets it for you instead. Better more than less after all, isn't he right? I mean, he even comes to visit you in your home when he finds out that you have to do a lot of household chores and just helps you, even if you tell him that he doesn't have to help you and that you will do it somehow alone. If he senses that you're nervous or stressed about something, you should always expect him to support and help you in whatever way he can.

[raytm]

ray media consumption update. watching with tobias : jjba p 5 > a sign of affection > ranking of kings > bsd. solo watching: bsd season 4 ( rewatching ), hellsing ultimate ( im on like episode 3 ) and thinking about starting watching d gray man but idk where from yet. reading: silver under nightfall ( 280 / 500 ) > the secret history. audible: n/a ( sort of relistening to house of hollow ) waiting to buy greywarren. playing: fire emblem conquest & fire emblem awakening ( when they arrive lmao ) manga: im on volume 9 of DN angel rn but ive taken a break and im considering reading the DGM manga but honestly im reading novels rn so its like oof commitment.

[darkspace7]

Overture

"A plucked note, a half familiar tune, it's okay if you don't remember the words- you will soon."

(Or in which Ichigo has a bad day, meets a guy with personal space issues and who looks way too much like his zanpakuto to be comfortable, and finds out reincarnation is also apparently a thing?) Words: 10572 Rated: Fiction T A/N: This is actually very old wip that I found in one of my old journals and simply decided one day to finish on a whim. I've always been rather fond of reincarnation stories and figured it would work out rather well here. Also honestly I just wanted to have an excuse for Ichigo being a salty little shit to someone. Anyway, I do not hold the rights for either DGM or Bleach because -let's be honest here- would I really be writing fanfiction if I did?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Overture"-noun: an orchestral piece that serves as the precursor to a larger musical composition; the start of something much bigger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Sixteen…"

With a flash of steel viscera flew away, shattering into nothingness before it even had a chance to hit the ground.

"Seventeen…"

The thick blade of the khyber knife slid through flesh and bone with little effort, carving a path of destruction in its wake.

"Eighteen!"

The teen hefted the massive blade onto his shoulder and cast a glance back at one of the (un)fortunate few hollows that had managed to escape from the carnage. ' Though not for long… ' "Oi Ishida!" He called out suddenly, "That's eighteen now, how many have you managed so far?"

A bolt of blue soared past him, just narrowly missing by a small margin as it went on to pierce the mask of one of the more opportunistic hollows who thought they might be able to get a cheap shot or two in while he was distracted. "Perhaps you should focus on the task at hand instead of asking inane questions like who can kill the most hollows in one go Kurosaki." The bespectacled Quincy replied in a droll tone as he leapt back, ducking quickly in an effort to avoid the clawed swipe a low-level adjuchas before launching off a volley of arrows in retaliation. "And it's twenty-three if you must know."

"Damn." Ichigo turned away with a grumble but still felt the need to retort,"Yeah, well, you know we wouldn't even be out here in the first place with if a certain somebody hadn't shoved me back into that crate of hollow bait!"

"I already told you that was an accident! My arms were so full of stuff that I couldn't even see over them! How on earth was I supposed to know you were right behind the door? I may have talents that span across many fields, but you will be hard pressed to find being psychic among them." "Uh-huh, yeah, sure." Ichigo nodded entirely unconvinced, "Tell that to the hand you messed up!" He flicked said appendage toward the other teen. An action of which merely caused the other to roll his eyes. "It was just a small cut Kurosaki, stop being so melodramatic." "Melodramatic?!" The teen cried, "You're not the one who ended up taking an entire shelf down with him! I got dirt and god-knows-what in this damn thing. Do you know how much bacteria is in that shit? I'm lucky if it doesn't get infected!" A shout quickly cut both of them off and not a moment later it was followed with a large hollow being sent sailing past the taller teen. He blinked and turned to the source. "Hey how you holding up Chad?

"Fine." Yasutora Sado -or as he was known to his friends- Chad replied. "I managed to get thirty so far." His armored fist crashed through the skull of a still-twitching creature. "Though I think that was the last one."

The deafening sound of a garganta tearing through the night sky drew their attention upwards. Twin sets of bleached bone hands accompanied by the massive visages of their owners peered out of the void-like spacial tear. They stared up at the newly-arrived gillians for a second before Chad spoke up once more. "I might've been wrong." Uryu pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"You know…" Ichigo eyed the gillians with a discerning look, "This feels suspiciously familiar for some reason." He turned to face his Quincy companion speculatively, "Didn't we have to do something similar to this the last time you decided to be an idiot?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." He grumbled, shooting the teen a gimlet stare. "Don't tell me you're thinking of rushing up and trying to knock them down from the bottom-up again are you?"

'Er well maybe not from the bottom-up anyway.' The substitute shinigami thought with a flush. "That was one time! And from what I remember, its not like your plan was any better!"

"Excuse me?" Came the indignant response. Ichigo's look was as dry as his words, "It involved tying my sword to your head and trying to shoot the damn thing down Ishida. I think that counts."

"Ichigo."

"What?" The teen turned to his tall friend who in turn made a silent gesture towards the general vicinity of the massive hollows, the other's gaze locked on something in the distance. Curious, he traced the path only to spot the telltale glow of a cero beginning to form on the leftmost gillian's lips. "Oh…shit." With that he moved.

Shifting into a shunpo, he flickered up and over to meet the threat. Zangetsu out and at the ready, he sent forth a nameless arc of energy directly into the large beast's face. The light of the cero dissipated as the gillian was knocked back from the sheer force of the attack. Incensed, the being let out an ear-drum shattering screech.

However, not giving it a chance to recover, Ichigo launched himself forward and swung. A fearsome cry ripped loose as the blade cleaved though the hollow's mask and eventually the being itself. "That's nineteen." He slid back, allowing the dissipating reishi of the newly purified beast to filter around him as he made to survey his newest target. "Now let's see if we can make it twenty."

A faint shimmering glow began to encapsulate the zanpakuto as wisps of power rose up to meet their king's demand. Slipping one foot back, he settled into a firm stance, braced the charged blade with a strong grip, and then uttered the two damning words, "Getsuga Tensh-?!"

It was then, at that very moment, he felt his power surge. Taken off guard by the unexpected ferocity he jerked and involuntarily released the charged attack. However he only had a split second to process this before it all went to hell. It was… odd, he thought with a detached air. There was the vague sense of his half-called attack coming forth to strike the unfortunate hollow with enough force that if the blast itself hadn't destroyed it then the resounding shockwave would have managed that thrice over. A searing throb pulsed through his arm as ringing echoed with an omnipresent chime in his ears. He thought if he strained hard enough that he could maybe make out the disant voices of his friends and the rush of wind flowing past him as he flew. And then suddenly the world shifted and he was falling and everything was beginning to lose focus and then- Darkness.

-------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ … … …? **…? It.. me, ****. Ca. ..u …r m. ..t? ***** y.u …d .. get up! ***..?!

"Damn it Ichigo wake up!" -------------------------------[ - XV - ]---------------------------------- Warm brown eyes flickered a bit as the lids hiding them cracked open- only to clamp shut seconds later with a pained hiss. He opted to remain like that as he took stock of his situation. He was obviously still alive if the general ache that seemed to run through every part of his body were any indication (and shit if it didn't hurt) and from what he could tell, he was sprawled out on on something hard and cold - the ground- presumably. His hand twitched and brushed up against something at his side. Curiosity taking precedence for the moment, he hazarded a glance around until his slit-eyed gaze happened upon the thing. It was his sword, somehow he had managed to keep his grip on the blade despite being tossed about like a ragdoll. Good to know.

"Ichigo!"

His head tilted towards the shout and the tension bled from his frame when he caught sight of who it was. "Hey…you okay?" The teen managed to grit out. 'Because I sure as hell am not.'

"Kurosaki." There was a flicker of relief behind metal-rimmed frames that was quickly asked by annoyance. "I think that question would better be directed at yourself." Reaffixing the sliding pair of lenses he continued on, "Seeing as I'm not the one in the crater right now."

"Ishida!" It was at that moment that Chad had finally managed to make it to the scene. As his attention flickered from the Quincy to a vaguely irritated-looking Ichigo then to the surrounding destruction he came to a conclusion of some sort and finally let his gaze come to rest on the fallen substitute shinigami. He took a step forward and asked, "What happened?"

With some difficulty Ichigo managed to push himself into a semiseated position. He looked up at the two perched upon the lip of the impact site with a pensive scowl. "I'm… not entirely sure." He admitted honestly, a hand raked through disheveled locks as he thought.

"It looked like you exploded."

"Yeah? That's a bit what it felt like too." The whole peculiarity pf the incident had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth (although that might've just been blood.) "It was weird. I was just doing as I normally do when out of nowhere my power just sort of… skyrocketed. Next thing I know that hollow is on death's door and my ass is being sent flying halfway across the city."

They were all silent for a pause, each lost to their own thoughts until Ishida decided to break it. "We should head on back, perhaps that shopkeeper can shed some light on things."

The black-clad teen snorted, "If you somehow think you can get him to drop that cryptic bullshit for two seconds then by all means go for it." He slowly began to pull himself up, grunting quietly from the effort.

"Do you need some help?" Chad -ever the reliable friend- offered.

"No, no. I got it." He waved him off and slowly managed to heave himself upright with Zangetsu acting as a sort of makeshift crutch. He successfully made it a step-and-a-half forward before his legs decided to give out on him and he crumpled. "Um maybe I don't have it…"

Ishida's brow hiked up slightly, "Oh really? I honestly couldn't tell." He drawled, earning a glower from the other teen. The bespectacled youth chuckled slightly as he bent down and carefully perched himself on the rim of the crater, his hand extended out towards his sometime friend/rival. Grumbling under his breath, the boy clasped onto the proffered limb with a firm embrace. And then it happened…

One moment everything was fine and the next second, right as Ichigo's made contact, the other's sleeve seemed to just disintegrate. A startled yelp escaped the Quincy as he jerked the limb from the other's grasp, the sudden loss of support sending the teen back down flat on his ass. He stared in a sort of horrified bewilderment as the other clutched at the pained limb and from where he was sitting Ichigo thought he could spot a welt of red stand stark out against pale skin. Appearing almost as if it had been seared there. His gaze flickered down to his bandaged hand, watching as the appendage trembled slightly when he made a fist.

What in the actual fuck?

Pain momentarily shunted to the back of his mind, he scrambled up the pile of rubble, taking care to maneuver around the duo as he hefted himself up and over the ledge. Wordlessly he met their troubled flickers with an uneasy gleam of his own. The same unspoken question passed between them: just what the hell was going on? Thankfully they were spared the issue of dwelling on it for too long when a distinctly familiar presence decided to make itself known. "Oh my, you boys sure know how to make a mess." The clack-clack of wooden sandals slapping against concrete came to as stop as their owner cast an impassive eye at the trio, namely a certain swordsman. "Well I suppose it's a good thing that my ability to conveniently appear at just the right moment is as impeccable as always. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Urahara-san, as much as we would love to stand around and discuss your frankly stalker-like tendencies don't you think there are slightly more pressing matters to attend to?"

The man's attention flickered briefly to the injured Quincy before shifting back to Ichigo. "Yes, I suppose so. Exposition time it is then." He affected an almost put upon sigh before sobering so fast it could've given a person whiplash. Leaning forward with his cane as a support he began, "I'm certain you can recall the actions of young Kurosaki-san of a few months prior. How in a desperate last ditch effort he employed the use of his final single most powerful technique in order to stop Aizen and ultimately save out collective asses, in spite of the supposed cost brought about by doing such a thing."

"Except that didn't happen." Ichigo said slowly, "The cost that is."

"Precisely. Which is in where lies the problem." The man's steel eyes glinted slightly, "With the use of that technique you should have immediately undergone the process of losing your spiritual pressure -and with it your powers- the moment you released the attack. But you didn't. Somehow the process was… circumvented -for lack of a better term- allowing for you to pursuit a third option and keep both your abilities and your spiritual energies, albeit in a slightly diminished state. Naturally, phenomena such as this bore further examination and I have to say," He pushed his hat back allowing for a better view, "The results were rather interesting and, sadly to say, inconclusive."

"These results wouldn't happen to involve things like, say, random power spikes and straight up disintegrating shit would they?" The brown-eyed teen asked lowly.

The blond nodded, "From what I have been able to gather I'd say its a bit something like this: imagine if you will, a system of pipes and valves. Normally you'd twist on the tap and water would flow through them with no trouble right? Now picture that those valves, for whatever reason, up and decided that they simply don't want to work properly anymore. What happens when suddenly there's all this extra water and nowhere for it to go? It begins to back up and flood the system, naturally."

He almost didn't want to ask but he needed to know, "And… what happens when the system is completely flooded?"

"Over time the pressure produced would escalate to a level far beyond that which is in any way safe and eventually the backlash would destroy the system entirely-" The blond's gaze traveled significantly to Ishida who continued to clutch at his wounded arm, "- along with everything else within a fourteen kilometer radius." The teen felt his blood become ice. "Oh." A bead of sweat dripped from his brow, "That's…not good." Was all that he managed to get out.

It was a bit before anyone could figure out just how exactly they were supposed to respond to that little proclamation when Ishida -ever the pragmatist- asked, "Is there any way to fix it and make it so that doesn't happen?"

For a brief second he dared hope but when the man simply shook his head his heart sunk, "While I do have some theories that could potentially bear merit, I'm rather reluctant to implement them, at least not until I can manage to extrapolate the underlying cause of all this."

As the incredulous disbelief, which had been progressively mounting throughout the duration of the the conversation, finally deigned itself to drag the teen into its murky depths a thought occurred to him and much like a lifeline he clutched onto it. "What about my body?" Could he even return to it in this state?

The man hummed thoughtfully, "You probably could try to go back to it, but unless you want first-hand knowledge on what its like to inhabit a body that's in the process of slowly being torn apart from the inside by its own spiritual pressure, then I'd advise against it."

'Well that answers that.' The teen grimaced, it was not a pretty picture and in all honesty he kind of felt like he was going to be sick. Having your own abilities suddenly decide you would look better slammed into the concrete and then being told that you were essentially a ticking time bomb that could potentially level half the damn city simply by existing would do that to a person he supposed. "Ichigo." He twitched. Raising up to meet the gentle giant's silent concern, they locked eyes for a moment before he looked away, unable to answer the question held within. Was he okay? Good question.

"I-" He swallowed thickly, noticing how his hands tightened around Zangetsu's grip. Only then he realized he had neglected to sheath the blade and immediately set about rectifying this. He hoped the others were unable to see the way his hands shook as he did.

(They probably could.)

He… He needed some space. To be alone so he could just think and attempt to process whatever the fuck was happening right now with his body, with him. And this is pretty much what he told the others. (And if he was alone then at least he wouldn't take anyone with him.)

Urahara met this with a nod of understanding, hands drifting to his pockets. "I have something for you," He dug through them, pulling out a stick of gum and a rubber duck to which he quickly dismissed and tossed away. "It's only a prototype at the moment-" An innocuous looking green stone of indeterminate construction (it almost seemed to contain an unearthly glow) quickly joined the pile, "-but-" followed by a traffic cone and a stop sign (How did that even fit…?), "-if it works…" then a ball of multicoloured rubber bands and a roll of bandages (which were spared a moment's glance then lobbed over to a thankful Chad), "-it should be able to open up a portal to Hueco Mundo for you to go through," And, finally, out slipped the palm-sized device. "You know, if you, well…"

He trailed off, finger hovering above the sole button on the device for a second before he pressed down. "The portal will only be able to stay open for about a minute on this end but that should be long enough for you to make it through if you hurry."

Ichigo nodded and shifted so now that his friends were the ones in sight instead. He opened his mouth to say something but got cut off before the words had ever reached his tongue. "Go." The tallest of the trio said, "We'll take care of things here." He made certain that they could see the thanks in his eyes before he turned away. Taking a fortifying breath the substitute shinigami stared straight ahead. Only a minute huh? He could handle that.

"Ah well I suppose I should be getting back to the shop. Come along now Sado-kun, Ishida-san."

A beat, then two, and then suddenly he was standing before the static-filled void between worlds.

"Urahara-san aren't you forgetting something?"

He took a step. "Huh? Oh right! Wouldn't want to litter would we? Now let's see, there's this and oh wow! Forgot I had that and… huh? Could've sworn there were two…"

The last vestiges of conversation drifted from awareness with a crack as the mouth of the portal came down behind him and he let out the breath he hadn't known he had been holding. Mechanically, he started forward, legs automatically propelling him towards that land of eternal night. Maybe on the way there he could think of some way that he might just be able to pull his sorry ass out of the proverbial fire this time, and maybe, just maybe there would be no one around to hear his frustrated scream.

------------------------------------[ - XIV - ]--------------------------------

The rhythmic patter of footfalls and unsteady breaths trailed along as he ran. The solitary sounds in stark juxtaposition with the oppressive nothingness was what had finally allowed for the shock to break and everything else settle in. How long had it been now? It was as if he had been on a treadmill, running endlessly yet never getting anywhere. But surely that couldn't be so, he must've made some progress right?

… Right?

He wondered if they managed to make it back to the shop yet. (He tried not to remember deep red in the shape of a hand -his hand- to not picture white-and-silver-and-blue wracked in pain -that he had caused- or recall warm brown, kind yet tinted with a solemn silence and it was his own fault goddamn it-) He hoped they had. In his distraction the walkway he stood upon began to slip back into the ether and caused the teen to pitch forward a bit until he managed to right himself and continue on. It was just a bit before thoughts once more began to drift.

His family…

A niggling feeling of guilt wormed its way up his chest and settled heavily in his throat. He had promised to watch his sisters since their father was out of town for the weekend but now how was he supposed to do that if he couldn't even get near them (or anyone else for that matter?) What if they weren't able to fix things and he'd never be able to see any of them again? Something cold slithered down and joined its fellow in the depths of his heart. He wondered if anyone had went ahead and even bothered to tell them anything. 'Oh god they haven't had they?'

(With a dawning horror he imagined the two girls waiting for him to come home as they always did only to come to learn that their older brother just simply wouldn't be coming back this time and probably never would again. Yuzu would be devastated which would set Karin off because nobody gets away with upsetting her twin like that and then she would try to hunt him down so she could kick his ass and he'd completely deserve it too because what kind of brother does that to his sisters? But it'd all be in vain because he'd be dead and-) He tripped and caught himself once again.

"…" This was taking a very long time. Surely he should've made it somewhere by now shouldn't he? Did he manage to get himself lost on top of everything else? Had Urahara's sketchy invention been a dud? He did say it was a prototype. (Or maybe it was never meant to take him anywhere in the first place and the bastard had left him to die like-)

He shook his head. Well wouldn't that be just perfect, being forced to spend the rest of eternity trapped in the void until either his power tipped past critical and took him with it or he went irrevocably insane from the the fact that he just couldn't seem to find the damned exit- oh.

As if summoned, a bright light slipped onto his visual radar and seemed to grow nearer with every passing second. He quickly stomped on the breaks and screeched to a stop just before it, having came this close to missing the mark completely. Taking a step back, the teen carefully peered out into the distance at the sea of sand below. Very distant. Man he was high up. "Hn a fall like that would've- oof!"

Something slammed into his back, knocking him off-kilter and sending him flailing through the open portal. Suddenly he was falling and those 'distant sands' didn't look quite so distant anymore.

Ichigo screamed. -------------------------------------[ - XV - ]------------------------------- … A****. … Wh. .re … ..ing? …? Yo. ..n't .. ..mfor…le ..ke .h.. .. .et up. (…Nngh.) Co.. .. .ow ..u .ren't ..ving up on m. .r. y..? (W-Who?) Do… yo. re…ber? (I don't…?) Sta.. .n .our ow. ..o .eet Al***, kee. m…ng for..rd wit..ut hesi..ti.n. Eve. .f .ts jus. one st.. at a t..e, walk. .ow enoug. lyi.. aro..d. Get up. (What?) Get up All- --------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ He inhaled sharply and was instantly rewarded with a mouth full of sand. Sputtering, he noted how this was starting to become a pattern. One that seriously needed to stop. He shifted around to lay sprawled out on his back, eyes clamped shut as his breathing evened out. Ichigo took a moment to just stay like that. God, everything hurt. With head turned a bit to the side he finally decided to open his eyes…only to find a face a breath away from his own. He swore.

"Well that's one way to wake up." The figure remarked dryly. Ichigo's mouth opened slightly before he paused then slowly let it fall shut. Brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he took in the figure that stood before him only to widen again when he drew back in confusion. '…Tensa?' He blinked. No, that… didn't make any sense. For a number of reasons, actually.

The first of which being the fact that -if his surroundings were any indication- he was not currently within his inner world at the moment.

(That is to say, if the place hadn't up and decided one day that it wanted to look exactly like the Hueco Mundo for no other reason than to simply make him confused.) Sure, there was the possibility that the spirit had decided to manifest into the physical realm for whatever reason but that just gave rise to even more questions. Like why was he even in that form to begin with? The last time he checked he hadn't entered bankai or anything like that so there was really no reason for him to be that way. Unless… whatever was going on was affecting his zanpakuto too? Hn actually… now that he looked closer there was a slight difference or two between the being before him and the spirit of memory. (But still the resemblance was uncanny.)

… And the guy was staring at him. Had he zoned out?

"You okay? You didn't hit your head there did you?" An eyebrow hiked up slightly but the expression was otherwise impassive. Yep, he had. But that was besides the point. The awkward silence stretched between them for a bit longer until the other finally asked, "You just going to keep sitting there?"

"Um…" He replied smartly.

Not-Tensa rolled his eyes and huffed. Hand extended, he proffered it for the other to grasp. When he made no move to do so he leaned forward"

"Ah don't-" -and firmly clasped it in his own. …What?

He hefted the balking teen up with ease, lips curved into a bland smirk as if he hadn't done something that which by all rights should've been impossible. Ichigo was certain he was gaping at the moment but seriously what the actual hell man? The way the other's eyebrow raised, as if to say 'what of it?' certainly wasn't helping matters any. Just who was this guy?!

Apparently either completely oblivious or someone who simply did not give a fuck to any kind of social convention if the way he now dragged him along was anything to go by. "H-Hold on a second! What the hell?! Let go!" Ichigo finally had the good sense to start struggling against the other's grasp but alas was unable to break free. Damn, the guy's grip was like iron. "Where are you dragging me?" That was definitely not a note of panic in his voice, nosiree. But the other merely ignored him as he hummed under his breath. The fingers of his free hand tapping rhythmically against his pants leg, as if they were sketching out a melody that only he were privy to. (He wondered briefly what that strange melody would sound like if it were played across the set of a fine ivory keyboard before he shook his head. Now wasn't the time for such things.) Abruptly the humming cut off. Then-

"What the hell is that?!" A doorway of ethereal white had flickered into view amongst the desert sands. The man's grip tightened as if sensing his suddenly renewed desire to abscond the fuck out of there and slowly began to drag him toward the light. It was at this point the teen began to struggle in earnest. Because okay, yeah, no. There was no way in hell he was going to let himself be placidly dragged along into whatever-the-fuck that was, weird zanpakuto doppelganger notwithstanding!

"Hey! I'm not-" A sharp tug had him nearly biting his tongue as he stumbled forward. Just barely able to catch himself in time and avoid a nasty spill he shot the man's back a dirty glare that sadly served to do little to help his predicament. He wasn't quite sure how but he thought he could feel the faint amusement bleeding from the man's frame. Asshole. And it was with that the struggling youth disappeared into the doorway of light. -------------------------------[ -XV- ]--------------------------------------- White.

That's all that he could see.

A empty town with white cobbled roads, white stone doors, white window frames, white wooden floors. Down a white hallway that lead to a white room with a white piano across from a white couch next to where he now stood. No matter where he turned there it was, that damned colour -or rather- lack of it. It sent a shiver up his spine. (A flicker of memory crossed his mind of a white moon in a dark sky across endless white sands; of long -short- red -black- hair and brown -black- eyes, crying, crying; of black cloth and white stone and white hands stained red red red- "Ichigo!" "*****!") He blinked. How had he even wound up in this situation again? Oh right, that asshole. He strained against the vice-like grip with a huff. Suddenly the death hold was dropped as his kidnapper made to brush past him. The man padded across to where the instrument lay and promptly claimed its bench as his own. Upon having been seated he turned and gave a gesture for him to do the same. He did, keeping his eyes trained firmly on the other as he slowly shifted Zangetsu from his holster to rest conspicuously upon his lap. The action and its clear intent seemed to evoke a small smile from the other.

"Way you were thrashing I would've expected to be held at knifepoint sooner rather than later."

An utterly flat stare. "It's kind of hard to hold someone at knifepoint when the one with the knife is the one being dragged along through god-knows-where by a weirdo with no concept of personal space boundaries. But something tells me you already knew that." He drawled.

A conceding nod. "But not impossible if one was truly inclined." Not- Tensa added, looking over at the blade with an almost appreciative eye. "Not that it would have done much with your current state being what it is at the moment." Bright eyes gave the teen's hastily bandaged hand a significant look. Ichigo -refusing to rise to the bait snorted. He shifted forward, letting the damaged limb splay against the flat of the blade and met the other's gaze.

"And just who are you to care about a thing like that?" The man smirked.

"Well, truthfully I've held many a title over the years, some being more…creative than others. But I suppose something to best suit the current situation would be…hm yes. You can call me, ****!"

… What?

A bead of sweat dribbled down the young teen's spine as the heavy feeling of something utterly foreign and cold settled down upon him. The man had clearly said something so why couldn't he…? Quickly schooling his features, the teen then asked in as nonchalant of a way as he could manage: "Could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it the first time."

The other's brow furrowed, a faint glimmer of something flickered through his eyes before it was gone. Ichigo watched as he did as he was asked, observing how the man's lips went slowly through the motions again to say his name and…nothing.

Complete and utter silence.

Even though he should've been able to, even though he could almost taste the sting of syllables on his tongue, he just couldn't make out a sound. The other's expression was inscrutable, a carefully bland mask as he observed but the teen paid it little mind because that thing right there? That's what did it for him. More than the other's inexplicable resistance to whatever weirdness that was going on with him, more than the strange portals to stranger bleached ghost towns and their unnerving (familiar) emptiness, it was that: the silence where it should not have been. That was what scared him.

"Well, this is a problem." The man sighed, "Although not much of a surprising one." And then in an undertone, "You always did like to make things unnecessarily difficult."

That last little bit drew the teen up short, successfully dragging him out of the beginnings of a downward spiral that he nearly found himself in. At least for the moment anyway. "You make it sound like we're already well acquainted." 'And I know I've never seen you before in my life.' He thought to himself. 'So there's no way.' Right?

"In a way, yes." Before Ichigo could ask what the hell that meant the man suddenly sat back and slapped his hands together, startling the boy. "I have an idea! Why don't we play a round of twenty questions?"

Okay, what?

The confusion must've been apparent because he went on to explain, "Understandable that you would have questions about any number of things. Things that I may or may not hold the answers to, so what better way to solve this little dilemma than with a bit of back and forth hm?"

"Okay first off: I'm…pretty sure that's not how 'twenty questions' works-"

"Semantics."

"-and second, something tells me that you'd be getting a lot more out of this deal than I would." And I'm not quite sure how I feel about that to be honest.

It was brief but he caught the faint flicker of something in the man's eyes before it was gone with an apathetic shrug, "Fair enough. But honestly, what have you really got to lose at this point? I mean with your condition…" The other trailed off with a significant look and that made his hackles rise.

'Oh I can think of a few things.' He thought, having to bite back the retort. His hand twitched faintly at his side. While it was true that he could perhaps get some of his many questions answered such as: 'How was it that you were able to grab me without a thought while my friends couldn't so much as touch me without getting hurt?' or 'What exactly are you because I know for a damn fact that there's no way you could be a normal human being or even a spirit for that matter with that creepy vibe you're giving off right now,' and his personal favourite: 'Why the hell can't I hear your name?' but was it worth it?

Some nagging feeling in the back of his mind whispered no; that giving this zanpakuto lookalike could potentially do more harm than good. This was further exasperated by the sensation that he felt emanating off of the man, something not too dissimilar from the one that he received from that damned shopkeeper. And if there was one thing that he had learned for certain it was to always be on your guard whenever that mad scientist was involved. But, that being said…

"Alright." He shifted forward with an acquiescing tick of the head, "Let's see what you got."

The man visibly brightened, "Knew you'd come around eventually. So why don't I start us off with something nice and easy like… oh, how about your name?"

('My name? Oh, why it's-')

…? The teen shifted slightly, settling back into the stiff fabric of the cushions. An orange brow hiked up just a bit. "Shouldn't you know already?"

"Of course, but it'd be rather rude not to allow you the chance to introduce yourself don't you think? After all it is usually the first introduction upon which one usually draws their opinion of another is it not?"

"I guess?"

"…" A blank smile. Slender digits traveled along the flat of the knife, an arrhythmic beat tapped along in their wake. "…" "… Well?" "Well what?" "Aren't you?" "Aren't I what ?" "Going to introduce yourself?" The other stated plainly, as if pointing out the obvious.

'Seeing as there isn't much of a damn point why would I?' He thought with a sort of blank incredulity because surely the man had to have been fucking with him, but no, from the expectant gaze trained upon him he realized that the guy was dead serious. Weird. He vented out a huff and proceeded to -in the single most sarcastic and utterly done voice that he could muster- say, "Hello I'm-"

('-A***n ***k*r-') "-Kurosaki Ichigo and I'm-" ('-an Exorcist-') "-a Substitute Shinigami. I think its been a real pleasure to have been able to hang out in this creepy colourless ghost town with only my zanpakuto's weird doppelganger for company, how about you?" "…Somehow I doubt all that." Said doppelganger deadpanned. "And what do you mean weird?" He added as an afterthought. Blatantly ignoring this the teen plowed on, "My turn, so where are we anyway?"

The man ceased his muttering and turned to look at the boy, "Just for the sake of clarification: do you mean in general or-" a gloved hand waved vaguely at the space around them, "-the room we're currently in, or perhaps even-"

"Just answer the damn question!" Ichigo barked, his patience finally having snapped.

The man seemed to blink and give him another one of those curious stares before finally something shifted and his eyes lost that playful glow. It was a subtle change but a definitive one, having the teen subconsciously sitting up a touch with a slight frown as the sobered air settled upon them. A brief irrational thought had him wonder if, just perhaps, he might have said the wrong thing but he pressed on. After all, he deserved at least that didn't he? Besides, he had seen all kinds of weirdness so whatever the man threw at him couldn't be that bad compared to some of the other things he'd witnessed. Probably.

The other leaned forward, carefully pressing the fingertips of his gloved hands together, "Tell me boy, are you familiar with the story of Noah?" "'Noah?'" He questioned, tasting the syllables as they rolled across his tongue. "Vaguely." Was the orange-headed teen's answer, tone contemplative as he flicked through old conversations in his mind's eye. "It's a story from the bible, isn't it?" Upon the other's look he elaborated, "My friend, Chad, his grandfather was born in Mexico and raised to be Catholic so when Chad was younger the two of them spent a lot of time together at the local church where they would pray and sometimes read from the scripture. Apparently that story used to be one of his favourites. I remember him telling me about it."

Chocolate eyes lifted to meet tarnished gold and he had to blink, had they always been that color? There was something haunting about those eyes that held him. A soul-searing pair with an intense otherworldly quality, not quite unlike another pair that he knew of, albeit, without the inverted scelera and the wild madness he knew that lie underneath. Hopefully anyway.

Shaking off the mental image he continued, "It was about this guy, Noah, right? God was apparently pissed at the world because humans -unsurprisingly- turned out to be a bunch of jerks all except for this one dude. So god then tells the dude to build this giant ship thing and to load up his family and a zoo on it because basically god told him he was gonna go to town on everyone else and didn't want them caught in the crossfire. And so everyone but them died and the world reset or something like that." His brow furrowed a bit as he thought back to remember just what had been said, "Sorry, it's kind of been a while since I heard it." Plus there had been a bit of paraphrasing too but he had gotten the gist of it more or less. And what if I were to say that story, or at the very least an unbastardized version of it, was but all too real?"

He was silent for a moment, "I'd say: all stories have to start somewhere. More often than not it's the craziest ones that have a basis in fact." A pause, "And would it be wrong to assume you had something to do with it?" The following silence was confirmation enough.

"Would you be willing to share then?" As if sensing the stirring of uneasiness he quickly added, "If not everything, then what you can?" He knew first hand what it was like to have things that you wanted to keep to yourself, painful insidious things forcefully locked away so that you never had to see-think-hear of them ever again in the light of day. He understood. But conversely, he also knew the danger of silence.

"In time, perhaps. The past is… complicated. For more reasons than you know." He murmured quietly, appearing for a moment as if weighted down with some great unfathomable burden. And then it was gone, replaced with what was beginning to become a familiar mask. "Back to your previous question, this place-" a gesture to the space around them, "-was once our home, among other things. 'The Ark' we deemed it, home to the clan of Noah. And this very room in which we now sit?" A faint smile flickered into being as he turned back to face the piano, hand running gently over the ivory keys. Shadowed eyes stared into the mid-distance, attention snagged by something that only he could see. "Its center-" Golden irises side-eyed him from where he sat, "-or Heart, if you will."

Ichigo felt his bandaged hand twitch faintly as his own heart decided to stop and skip a beat. This gave him a moment's pause as there was no rhyme nor reason for the action. "Yeah?" He said with a mental shake of the head and attempted to distract himself from the peculiar behaviour, "And what did you do in here?"

"A bit of this and that. Play piano." The man shrugged, "Other stuff."

"This 'other stuff' wouldn't just so happen to deal with anything that might bring about the apocalypse now would it?" He had honestly been half-kidding but when the other didn't respond he felt a minor spike of alarm. Seriously? The teen cleared his -suddenly dry- throat and, as if without any input from himself, the following escaped his lisp, "Just what is the Ark?"

The Noah froze, hand poised above the keys before slowly it retracted and fell limply back to his lap. "It's… The best way to describe it would be 'a world between worlds'; a sort of in-between place with many 'doors' that could lead to anywhere and anything that your mind could think of, and even some it can't." His lips curved into a little half-smirk, "I suppose you could compare it a bit to something like the Dangai with a couple of senkaimon thrown in but better looking and with marginally less things that would try to kill you at the moment."

'Like a doorway…' Chocolate eyes widened, "That white gate thing in the desert." "Mhm." He nodded. "Then…that thing you were humming…the way your fingers kept twitching…" A keen gaze trailed along to the only other thing with them in the everpresent white. 'As if you were playing a song…' "The Key."

Ichigo looked at him, "Key?" "An audi-visual system directory entered into a specific frequency only accessible via the correct pattern being paired with a certain physical device i.e.: a musical instrument for example." "So play the piano open the door." He summarized.

"Basically." The Noah shot him a vaguely amused look, "What? You didn't think this thing here was just for show did you?" "Ah, no." He coloured faintly. Not gonna lie though, he had been kind of wondering what its deal was though. "So, like, can anyone control it if they had the passcode or is there something extra that makes it user-specific or something?"

He quirked a brow, "Why, curious?"

"No." Yes. "I was just wondering if you had to be a pianist or if anything else would do." A small shrug.

"And just what's wrong with the piano?" Was it him or did the guy almost seem…affronted? He returned this with a blank stare and a vague gesture to said instrument, "I can't play for shit. Any instrument really." He thought for a second, "No wait, I can play guitar. Sort of. Chad's been giving me lessons."

The musician matched this with a blank look of his own. "…Right. You know? It's not that hard. C'mere I'll show you." Ichigo almost got up to follow until he remembered his current predicament. "Actually, it'd probably be a better idea for me to just stay over here ya'know?" He absently toyed with the frayed fabric that wrapped around his left wrist. There had been no time to find a proper bandage so he had used a strip of Zangetsu's cloth and he hoped the sword hadn't minded too much, it had been kind of an emergency after all so probably not.

The Noah stared him blankly for a second before a light seemed to click on. "Ah right, I suppose some other time then." Yeah, if he could ever get that random disintegration under wraps then sure. But until then he was better off staying away from important looking things, or anything alive for that matter. He'd probably wind up accidentally burning some poor bastard's skin off when they tried to touch him like what happened to Ishida and…wait.

"Hey, how did you grab me?" Seeing the look of confusion he clarified, "Back in the desert, you dragged me here. How?" Because by all rights he shouldn't have been able to do so. Not-Tensa tilted his head to the side, "You mean how did I escape injury via that ridiculous and unstable mess that you call your spiritual presence? Oh don't look so surprised, it'd literally be impossible not to notice." Gold eyes watched the teen keenly. "I assume you have some clue as to what is going on?" "I know what its doing-"

(a surge of power, the sharp crack of a body hitting pavement, burning flesh and a scream-) "But not why." The Noah finished. "I might have a theory." He pointed to the wrapped fist, "But I'm going to have to see that first." Dark brown eyes turned wary as their owner gave a hard stare, finally -lips taught- he followed with a slow nod. The cloth came off with little trouble, its purpose having been fulfilled and thus reabsorbed back into the spiritual fabric from where it came. This continued on until the very last little bit peeled off to reveal- "What the actual fuck?"

Bizarre. That was the only way to describe it. That long messy cut he had received what felt like a lifetime ago back at the shop had sealed over with this strange thing. He could see small flecks of it scattered around the back of his hand, sinking into the tan flesh, corrupting it . Hesitantly he felt along the edge, taking in the smooth almost glasslike quality and ethereal sheen. It felt warm, almost- (Innocent) A set of gloves gently took his hand. He started. "Its just as I thought."

Ichigo tore his eyes away to gape at the Noah. "What?" "That-" A nod to the hand, "-right there is the reason for all your problems." He shot the hand a look as though it had personally offended him somehow. "The sporadic power swells and blockages, mood swings, hell even the fact that you've still been able to galavant about as a patron of souls in the first place. Its all because of this." He gave the stone a tap, eliciting a shiver. The teen was torn between asking how he knew this and telling the man to back the hell off because he was too close but was cut off when he began to speak again, "You've probably been subconsciously syncing with it for weeks and all it needed was a single opening and bam you're an Accommodator."

"Okay." He carefully pulled his hand out of the other's grip, "So what am I supposed to do about that?" He sat back on his haunches and appeared to think it over for a bit before pulling a face, "Well there's nothing for it." He sighed, scratching the back of his head with a gloved hand. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your short existance in isolation -haunted by the weight of your failures as you begin your slow but assured descent into madness and subsequent self-destruction- you have to synchronize with it." The resigned way he said it, as if he were being put upon by something truly bothersome, made the teen twitch just a bit.

"So saying I do this thing, what happens?" "Well, it should allow for things to reach a stable equilibrium…" "But?" He prompted. "I'm not going to lie to you, once you choose to do something like this there isn't any going back. Because if you successfully manage to come out of this there's a strong possibility that things are going to be…different. You're going to be different. Different in ways that not even I could foresee."

"I see." He shut his eyes for a moment. The faces of his family and friends flashed though his mind in an instant. Silently he clenched his fist. 'No going back huh?' His focus shifted to the blade sitting on his lap and he remembered the spirit's words. To hesitate and he would be stuck here, trapped at a crossroads until time claimed him. To go back was a death sentence for certain. So that only left one thing, to move on and keep walking forward. He opened his eyes and met the golden gaze head on with a level stare. "What do I have to do?"

"Just try to focus on your left hand. Now, do you feel the swirling energies there in the center trying to mix and incorporate with your own?" "…Yeah?" "Let it. Don't try to fight it. Accept it." It hurt. A gloved hand reached up to cup the pained teen's cheek and he opened his eyes (when had they closed?) His hand burned with something fierce wrenching soul-deep and he felt his breath get caught on molten gold and warm skin bleeding into inhuman grey. The Noah shot him a rueful smile. "Then you say the magic words."

Lips moved unbidden with a memory long forgotten, "Innocence: Activate." And the world flashed a dizzying whirl of grey-blue-green-white and then went dark. --------------------------------[ - XIV - ]------------------------------------ "It's time to get up now my little nephew, you've been asleep long enough. Get up Allen. Wake up." --------------------------------[ - XV - ]------------------------------------Waking up somewhere with a head full of memories that one had not had prior to falling unconscious was a hell in of itself and suffice to say he currently had the mother of all headaches. If it were not for the fact that he had sworn off alcohol both in this life and the last (and boy wasn't that a thought) he could've sworn this was what a hangover felt like. He bit back a groan. Where was he anyway? The last thing he remembered was the moonlit sands of Hueco Mundo before being dragged upon the Ark by his insufferable arse of an uncle. Who also knew that the Ark's reach appearantly extended into the afterlife and neglected to tell him. He'd have to talk to him about it when he was less annoyed at him of course because the Noah was kind of on his shit list at the moment. Afterall, not only had he somehow managed to disguise himself and convince him that he had been a sword spirit of all things, he had done so all the while binding up the true essence of his powers. Thus allowing for things to escalate so out of hand that he couldn't successfully hold back the flood anymore resulting in their impromptu powwow in the Ark. A perfectly reasonable excuse to be mad at somebody, right? And, okay so he might not've actually remembered him or his penchant for pulling shit like that at the time but now he did and it was the principle of the matter and seriously who the hell does stuff like that?!

"Someone who actually has a sense of self-preservation, unlike yourself."

The youth started. Well 'started' is a bit of an understatement, more like: jerked up and awake with a yelp before getting immediately slammed with a vicious wave of vertigo sending one careening head-over-heels to the floor. He cracked an eye open and stared blearily up at the ceiling. Allen (or was it Ichigo now? Urgh, this was gonna get confusing…) stared blankly at the familiar walls painted black in the pre-dawn hour. His room, he was in his room and that was his bed that he had just fell off of like an idiot. Vaguely he felt the Noah's amusement filter through the back of his mind. The bastard was laughing at him right now.

Muttering a few choice words under his breath, he leveraged himself up and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair with a sigh. Had he woke anyone else with that little spill just now? He froze, taking a second to listen and see if he could hear if either of the girls had stirred. (Sisters! He had sisters!) Hm, seems like they were still asleep. Good, it was still kind of early after all. Satisfied with his assessment he allowed himself a moment to simply not think and just take everything in and confirm that, yes, this was indeed his room that his mortal body was now currently in. How did he even get back here anyway? He had the sneaking suspicion that his uncle had something to do with it. Well there was no sense beating around the bush. "Neah?" He asked catching the other's attention, "Did you do something to me?"

"Now what makes you think that?" He made sure the other could feel the flatness of his look. "You honestly think I would take advantage of your indisposed state to 'borrow' your body for my own personal use? Why Allen I'm almost insulted-" Yes, because you've done it before. Multiple times. "-really, have you no faith my nephew? For shame."

"Neah what did you do ?" The youth asked with a growing sense of alarm.

"Oh, nothing." A nonchalant shrug, "By the way did you know Kisuke's shop has a rather impressive stock of sweets? Some of them I haven't even seen in centuries! Apparently Tessai likes to custom make them in his free time, not something people really take the time to do anymore these days you know?" Whatever alarm he had felt had multiplied tenfold as the other blithely went on. "Oh he left you a note by the way."

"What?" "On the back of your hand -no not that one the other one- yes your right." He flipped the limb over and blinked at the messy scrawl in what looked to be (and knowing the blond probably was) permanent marker pen. From there he began to read: "'Ichigo (or whatever relevant name you may now go by), after you left for your understandable and completely justifiable alone time it was brought to a general concensus that I, being the bright and incredibly humble shopkeep that I am-" He had to snort at this, "- would be the one to help find a solution for your little problem. (It should also be said that your friends can put up quite the convincing argument expessially when aided by Inoue-san's intriguing and -dare I say it- somewhat terrifying imagination.) And I was all set up to do so until -imagine my surprise- I found that the problem had up and resolved itself! Naturally my curiosity was piqued and it was only with the apperance of a certain somebody that the questions I had were oh so graciously answered. He was even willing to indulge the curious scientist in me for a bit!-'"

"What?!" The teen hissed, stopping himself for a second as narrowed eyes stared down at the scribbled text. The Noah of course offered no explanation and he sighed. Resigning himself to a month's worth of paranoia and check-overs in order to see if the two madmen had done anything else to him.

A mental nudge drew his attention back to the note, "'-So it was upon further examination that we found with the assistance of the substance (of what I'm now informed is to be known as Innocence - fascinating stuff really-) now present in both your physical and spiritual bodies there was created a sort of stabilized equilibrium so that you are no longer in danger of a catastrophic meltdown, congrats! Oh and I'm not mad at you for what happened to my shop and the Innocence samples, the data you provided was more than enough to cover what you owed for the damages.'" He twitched ever so faintly.

"Don't forget the post-script!" 'There's more?' He flipped it over to his palm, "P.S. Tell your uncle I said hi! He's given me such great ideas and that Tessai's always willing to talk over tea again. Oh and enjoy the new hair, it looks quite good on you! Bye-bye~ Kisuke'" He let the hand fall. So he wasn't a ticking time bomb anymore, that was good. But the thought of his uncle and the dubious shopkeep being anywhere remotely near one another caused him to shudder.

"Oh come on, he's not that bad." His uncle chided.

"Yes he is and so are you. You're both horrible, horrible monsters who thrive on chaos and destruction and proceed to drag anyone unlucky enough to be within blast-radius down with you via your own personalized brands of insanity." He intoned flatly, "And what did he mean hair?!"

"Now before I say anything I don't want you to freak out. It was a bit of an unexpected side effect from the transition but don't worry you look fine. And, hey, it's not like you're a stranger to having weird hair." "Neah you are terrible at reassuring people now what happened to my hair?" He attempted to tug at the short strands to no avail. "You might've gone a bit prematurely grey but like I said its not that much of a big deal. It isn't completely white, just… most of it." He was quick to offer.

"My hair's white?" Again? Damn it all, of all the things to carry over. He'd already been through this once with certain people (who shall remain nameless) calling him 'strawberry' he didn't need to be 'beansprout' as well. He groaned softly and flopped back, arm shielding his eyes. At least he hadn't been cursed with a lack of height this go around like a certain snow-headed captain that he knew.

He lifted the arm and stared at it. Tired eyes traced the contours of the reddened flesh as he slowly flexed, watching as the embedded stone glimmered with its own quiet light. A small frown graced his lips. This was quite the fine mess that he had gotten himself in wasn't it?

What was he supposed to now? Sure he could always dye his hair but what of his arm? Long-sleeved shirts and gloves would only work for so long and what of his personality? You can't exactly hide a whole lifetime's worth of memories and experiences forever, not without having those close to you start to worry. And it'd be an icy day in hell before he let something like that happen. So they'd have to come up with something to keep them from freaking out…and then what? Once everything was said and done where did they go from there? What was there for a once-exorcist turned-substitute-shinigami and the Noah that he housed who just so happened to be his past incarnation's adopted uncle? "Well whatever there is we'll just have to persevere through it for better or worse. Besides it isn't as though you haven't had your own fair share of problems before, now have you?"

He had a point. He just had to keep walking huh? The youth's lips curved into a bittersweet smile. Yeah, he could do that.

[akirayuri]

IN THE ANIME. He was blonde in DGM hollow 😭

MAYBE HE WAS KILLED CAUSE HE WAS GUARDING DEAGED ALLEN!? maybe they find out the bookman betrayed them!? BROO SO MANY POSSIBILITIES. SOULMATES FRRR

I’m rewatching DGM from the beginning and it’s only making sense to me now why the Gatekeeper couldn’t tell what Allen was.

The gatekeeper only tells when someone is human or an Akuma, but not if they’re a Noah, so ofc Allen wasn’t going to show up in the scan. He doesn’t really belong to either category. In fact, Allen has been under the influence of others for years prior to this. (Estimated age for Allen at the start of the series is 15/16 and his estimated age as a child is 12/13)

It’s safe to assume that (some of) these are recollections of Past!Allen as we can clearly see Nea from a specific pov. And through some speculation, we can take a guess at who the embracing characters can’t be.

Firstly I want to point out little details such as gloves and the (main) characters we’ve seen wear them.

Cross Marian

Mana D Campbell

Nea D Campbell

Past!Allen

But they’re both depicted as having lighter colour hair (as darker colours would be shaded black/gray). And the hair is wrong for both Cross and Allen. There’s no long half down hairstyle or ponytail for either of them.

Cross Marian

Mana D Campbell

Nea D Campbell

Past!Allen

So whose memories are we looking at? Unless we’re seeing something from Nea’s memories where he is being held by presumably Allen (as the bangs might imply) and hair colour suddenly meant very little.

Which (unfortunately for all like two of you) brings me to another point. Sort of. We don’t know how the transfer for Noah Memories works exactly. So far we know that they’re reborn randomly and that no recorded instance of NM being willfully transferred to a specific target has happened before Nea and Allen.

But here are the things we do know:

The Noah’s memory can be transferred successfully to an intended person

Dark matter is deadly to non-akuma and non-Noah

Dark matter is the polar opposite of innocence

Allen Walker’s unrefined parasitic type innocence is described as being foreign tissue that his body learned to accept (which would explain why, despite being “born” with it, he had next to no functionality with it).

Innocence and dark matter can and will destroy each other.

So what happens when you put both together in a singular mass? They either destroy the other until one remains or balance out. But what if it does both?

Innocence would attempt destroy the foreign thing (black matter and Noah memories, or at least the memory of having them) and likewise, black matter attempts to destroy what rejects it (Allen’s left arm, which is notably different from the rest of his body until it fully gains what limited sentience it has and begins to look “Normal”). It would then be able to properly balance out the dark matter and appear more human, as it should.

Which would explain why Akuma bullets don’t work on him (parasitic innocence and dark matter) and why when stabbed/hit with other innocence weapons, he suffers (DM).

anyway I like to ramble incoherently about nothing and everything 🏃‍♂️💨

[ultravioletotaku]

I just want him to be happy ;-;;;;;;

[snowyshadow]

i love you forever... / ch. 191.

D. Gray-man [ディーグレイマン]

[lotusstigmata]

When I lived in Japan it was when Hollow was out, and my roommate was asking me about it. She was Portuguese, so I said it happened to have a Portuguese character in it as it’s kind of rare in manga, she then made me explain his entire character and what he was like. She then laughed and said it was weirdly accurate.

Needless to say, all of the Tyki merch I own was given to me by her as he was the only character she even remembered from my very long dgm monologue. I feel like she was a fan and didn’t want to admit it.

[lgbtkanda]

sometimes you just have to remember alma and kanda’s story and cry

[yumetsudraws-blog]

Alma Karma.~

[mortesangrizwrites]

Gueeeess what updated (after a year lol, but still).

[ambie1049286]

re-reading the later half of dgm (around where kanda reunites with alma) and can I say that the art is gorgeous?? like what the fuck? how dare allen and kanda be so beautiful??? lines and color blocking should not be more entrancing than real people?? why cant I meet anyone as stunning as them?

[nicolekart]

Inktober 2018

Day 8 STAR

[yuki10003]

End year) Happy new year)

[miel-1411]

Approximate transmission .. -I decided that I would marry And I will give birth to a daughter -Thank God, I woke up

[derriskharlan64]

never thought i'd step foot here again but just in case, had to grab the url. probably will be relatively inactive here until the future but hey. yeah it is me hollow, same url from twitter. i like donkey kong, most other nintendo, tales, jojo, final fantasy (especially xiv) and uhhh mob psycho and bleach are my current animes i am watching. reading hxh and dgm as they come out with new chapters. eagerly awaiting jjba part 9.