The visit was rather easy going with the Kurosaki's being extremely thorough, mainly Pschent due to her being a Beast. Though Masaki handled Suì-Fēng with Ichigo's assistance, Isshin deals with Pschent because his son is still clueless about reapers and such. That left me to hang around the lobby reading the Japanese translation of Harry Potter. Yoruichi lays on my head as a cat and reads along, her tail lazily smacking my face idly. She turned back up after an hour and has just been waiting with me in the lobby.
It was honestly rather peaceful… until something walked in towards me. Xane growling slowly with blood lust radiating from his body. Setting the book aside, I clicked my tongue at Xane while moving Yoruichi towards the book. Standing up as the creature stopped five feet away from me, I tilted my head at it. It looked Human, but it was anything but Human, no it was dead yet the creature looked very much alive. The more we studied each other, the more I began to remember what exactly this creature resembled in essence.
"Are you so threatened by the looming threat that you've begun to create these THINGS?"
The creature tilts its head, before deciding to point at me, at my heart specifically.
"Give me."
"Why should I?"
"I don't want to die, I want to live. You're going to die anyway when the gate's open. Sinner of Genocide."
"No. You may have spied another instance of this universe having what you seek to create, but it would be wasted here. So I cannot let you ascond with my heart, my soul, for you to create that despicable thing. It belongs only in instances where Root and Abyss exist. That madness isn't intended for a regular place like this universe."
"The greatests sinners and heroes will return from the completed task. I will survive, everything survives, your task completed. So why? You are the second worst sinner living upon me. Yet you deny such an easy way out. Why? You get redemption easily. So offer yourself to me, I want to survive, you do not care nor will you survive."
"I decline Gaia, simply because I want to find the me people said I couldn't be or deny me from becoming. I decline because the easy way out is horrid and a bad ending just waiting. I accepted my place once because I had no future, not now though. I declined because I won't let you trample upon those long dead to survive. I decline because I am a soldier, a tired but resolved soldier, marching to the end with a growing genuine smile. This instance of your universe has some form of gun toting criminals of another world because we won't fear Hell. We'll embrace it because we desire change no matter how small, so when the gates open we'll give up everything. Because to save the change we've experienced, we'll need to be ready to give it all up even if we're scared to do so."
"....Fool."
"No, I'm just a tired soul willing to seek a change. You're just trying to imitate another, you're not looking at your natural defenses. Because you're not the only one that wants to survive, and imitations only take you so far. The Soul King won't help either, they're just a corpse with residual energy of who they once were. So you're better looking around you, not into the distance, oh great mother nature."
The creature said nothing, just looked impassively at me with fear and hatred in their eyes. So I decided to ask something.
"Do you even know what Genocide does? The weight of it fully manifesting from someone that's earned it?"
"No. It's useless though."
"Cut only us off from the rest of the planet. You want to know about your greatest defense, then I'll let you experience it without trying to actively kill you. I don't want to kill the home of animals or those I like after all, that'd make me a monstrous asshole. More than I already and always was…"
The creature tilts its head with curiosity in its eyes. Then it's just us standing within a pure white world, a white world with traces of darkness running through it like cracks. Nodding slightly I didn't give them a warning, I gave no indication of what was to come. Where there was nothing, there was now a reality. The creature Gaia was piloting nearly died from just being in the epicenter of its manifestation. Meanwhile like grains of sand I vanished, because I no longer physically exist within this realm as a singular entity.
I'm just the weapon, death, and destruction this hell brings to life. My Hollow sighing as he, Kūsho, and Megumi appeared gradually, with the blowing winds carrying ashes creating their bodies. All while looking at the creature Gaia used with pity or cold indifference. That was when the true horrors of this reality began, the creature hacking up blood, their organs rupturing. Yet their death was not coming as my guns and Hollow kept them alive under the weight now descending upon them.
"You should've just backed down without the possibility of a fuss. Now it's come to this so do enjoy the consequences of your choices."
Kūsho spoke in a voice so detached from emotions that it was as if she was a machine. Her eyes held zero empathy nor care for the one they're keeping alive. Megami at least has a mix of pitiful indifference in her eyes, my Hollow just stares in pity with hints of amused pleasure radiating from his body. The creature fell to its knees.
"S-sto-op… I acknowledge… I understand…"
"I'm sorry but it can't be stopped now until it's fully formed. Genocide isn't a feeble make believe reality, it's a universe in of its self contained within a bubble depending on the severity of it. It can be sections of a planet, an entire planet, or even an entire galaxy. All depending on just how far you took your fighting and mass slaughter."
Gaia looked at my Hollow as he spoke.
"As you said…. We're one of the greatest Sinners, and it's because we didn't fight just on Earth. We have the entire Milky Way in this reality… and an entire copy that could temporarily overwrite the galaxy in the real world if we didn't care to contain it. Then everything and everyone just dies without knowing it…. Because their souls would just cease to exist. Earth… you… became crowded… it became illegal to encroach upon nature more than it already was. It didn't matter how important you thought yourself to be, if the government didn't execute you then criminals certainly would.
However, if they didn't? Then the everyday citizens would. I watched a five year girl strangle a grown man to death with his own intestines for kicking a tree after a cop gutted him. Getting off world was even harder and the wars held out beyond the atmosphere were downright frenzied. Yet they would stop fighting if any shuttle that carried animals, or plants, off world to sites meant to save their species left orbit.
Once they left though, it was back to fighting to the death. So it's all been one massive weapon and war ground to us. So do enjoy the weight of an entire war torn galaxy weighing on you. Because… it weighs on you when you realize just how bad war can get…. How little you care to keep living after becoming something inhuman just to get a single potato to eat after a mission…"
My Hollow crouched before the struggling creature housing a planetary ego. His eyes lose any pity in them as he snarls at them with rage that won't change anything in the end. Even then he loses steam at the end, resignation on his face.
"Gaia… you're lucky… your fucking lucky… you get to LIVE… we're just waiting to be extinguished permanently… Juki's don't get happy endings in this life just like the last, Gaia. We all get snuffed out without exception, every single one of us, once Hell opens its gates worldwide. Because that's the ultimate goal, push Hell back into dormancy.
I have to watch myself have at best thirty years to do something we'd never get to experience otherwise. Then we're just gone. Gone, as if we never existed! Because that's our final mission, our final war. We're the few to save the many, the sinners that must face true death in order to be redeemed! And we don't even get a say in that ending… our deal for this life was always to save everyone and everything on you at our own expense…
Especially in the case of anyone with a Genocide, we're the first and last to go… we've got thirty years, in Human terms, left to make the most of this life with the shits being born… thirty years to be ready for goodbyes…. So you asking for our heart? It was down right cruel because that means not getting to experience things that haven't yet come… to not experience briefly what it feels like to be a father instead of a blood drunk…"
At the end of his words the creature looked… remorseful almost. As if Gaia truly regretted what was asked, what was done. Then she lashed out extremely lightly in retaliation for not giving her any real warning for what was going to happen.
\\// Pschent POV //\\
I wasn't bright, not in the least, I knew many things, yes. But I wasn't smart, I was only smart if it involved my fist or my duties as a noble. Otherwise I was an air headed Beast. I knew that so very well that I embraced it because it helped in certain matters. When I saw my husband as I left my examination room, I felt my heart break. He was slumping against a wall as he vomited blood onto the floor, a gaping hole through the center of stomach. Yoruichi was beside him with her hair bristling while she stemmed the blood with the medical arts of the Japanese reapers. Mind blanking I only knew I was next to them in an instant, my hands reaching out for the hole and covering both sides. Golden markings and symbols covered my body, my partner growling in my head, a promise for revenge on whoever hurt him.
"Anubis Number Three: Regeneration."
It was the first time in a long while that I was using the arts my mothers family specialized in out of all Egyptian soul arts for our own reapers. Last time I had truly used it was when I needed to regrow an arm after a Hollow ate it and most of my left side when I was younger. Now however I watched my murderously peaceful mate ease out of the pain from the hole through his stomach. Everything slowly regenerated , even his clothing as I kept the medical technique going. His breathing evening out before he just seemed to go to sleep with a grunting sigh.
"I'm sorry but I am taking him home."
I didn't wait for anyone's response. I hefted my husband up into something he called a fireman's carry and ran off with him. My long time partner and friend whispering promises of revenge and feasting in the back of my mind with maddened and worried laughter.