Monsters We Became { Bleach Aizen Sousuke Fanfiction }

01 - As Night Falls

Night fell upon the Soul Society.

Three humanoid silhouettes, cloaked in darkness, loomed high above the central west Rukongai districts of the Seireitei. They stood not on branches, roof tops, nor any surface of solid creation. For them, the air was no different than the ground–they stepped upon the incorporeal with ease. Two of the figures scanned the surrounding civilization. The center figure faced only ahead.

In the shadow of the new moon they appeared almost as Shinigami.

One pointed to a break in the sprawling forest. A crow cawed from the tree cover. With their destination set, the group descended, towards that tell-tale clearing. Through the dense canopy a gray shingled roof emerged. There they found a shrine constructed of nothing except well-carved wood.

The structure was remarkable in how unremarkable it was. Single-floored and unadorned, there was nothing that separated this structure from any other. No reason to pay it more than a passing glance. Even the white and red rope hanging from the roof above the donation box sat untouched–like the box itself–as though everyone else thought the same. A disguise in the woods.

Light from the stone lanterns along each side lit the cobbled path. It was uneven, as though the walkway had been eroding into the soil for a hundred years or more. Moss grew between the cracks in the stone and onto the lanterns. Green covered the building's elevated foundation all the same. Old as the structure was, careful care had gone into its maintenance. Not one plank laid out of place.

But the visitors were not fooled by the shrine's age or apparent abandonment. They landed upon the path with a confidence seldom found in anything short of well-trained soldiers or the bloodthirsty. Newfound light unveiled that two of the three figures wore masks of bone white. Skin, no less white than their masks, glistened in the light from the flames. Hollows.

The first to step forward was an effeminate Hollow. Pastel pink hair of curls reached beyond her waist, almost sweeping the floor as she bent over to get a different view of the shrine. Rabbitine ears covered in white fur intertwined with those pink spirals and followed the movement. Like a costume, it amplified the illusion that this Hollow was an actress instead of some man-devouring fiend.

A white mask in the shape of a rabbit's head concealed her face. Thick red borders surrounded each eye and extended outwards at the edges, akin to thick eyeliner applied by a skilled hand. Deep violet eyes looked out from within—beauty broken only by their black sclera. Where the peak of her nose would have been, the white mask was marked by a red heart. A black line ran down from that point to where a mouth would be. It upturned at both sides and split the surface into separate halves. There was a glint of malice in the perpetual grin painted upon the covering that adorned her face.

Standing in the center was a shorter Menos. This Hollow's appearance was closer to expectations. A hole went clean through her chest, where a heart should have been. Her flat mask stretched from the tip of the nose to the strands of ruddy hair reaching over the edge. Two thick and flat horn-like protrusions stretched from its far corners and swept backward, then inwards. From the rounded tips of each horn, gold demarcated the mask's edges and poured down the center of both horns in a line, decorating the otherwise featureless surface. That gilded line ran from the horns' peaks, to where eyes should have been, and ended at its cheeks. To those without knowledge of the spiritual she would have looked like a demon.