The Protector

01 - Ookami

He felt... He felt... empty... void.... useless... purposeless... Lifeless.

It was strange, because, at the same time, a new, unprecedented, raw fury was cursing through his limbs... Odd limbs. He didn't remember having... He couldn't remember... What, exactly?

Who was he?... What was he? Where... How... What were those things that didn't stop attacking him?...

Why was he eating them...

They were not even tasty and were not sating his hunger... Not at all. He couldn't stop defending and he supposed that not eating them would have resulted in him being covered by corpses...

Where did this strength come from, anyway? He had... a feeling... it wasn't like that... originally... As if... there was another beginning, besides this massacre of... creatures.

He couldn't remember.

Didn't matter what, he couldn't. Maybe it was not important to begin with, what was he to do about that? He couldn't do anything.

He moved his focus on the attacking creatures and noticed just then how his hearing was slowly coming to him. There were screams of pain, yells of incoming attacks, shouts of anger... But one word was the most heard.

Hollow.

Void, exactly how he felt. Perhaps, he was one. A Hollow. It fit. He didn't like it, but it fit.

He saw how, in that endless darkness, more and more creatures were arriving upon him. He suddenly felt overwhelmed and a surge of power flew from his mouth, hitting several Hollows. Some more shrieked in fear of that light, but came back soon after.

He didn't wait for them to recover too much and started shooting more of those flashy rays. It didn't take long to get rid of them all, but he managed to barely eat their remnants before another wave attacked. He honestly didn't understand what was going on.

How many were there? Why were they attacking him? Why did he keep eating them? Why, with every limb digested, did he feel stronger? It was strange, but felt natural, felt right.

So, he continued. Without rest, without thinking too much, without asking too much. He could talk, he noticed after a while, but no one listened. The waves decreased in numbers of Hollows, time after time after time... What was time? He didn't know.

The waves stopped completely after a long while, he just knew it was long. Nothing more. Then, he started searching for food, as many called himself. No one really managed to give him a scratch, figures a... bite, was it? No, they weren't really that strong. Small fries, though... he knew it was strange for him to be that strong.

It was also a surprise when other, larger Hollows began to approach him, but without the usual fighting spree. They strangely... mixed with his body. And then, the voices came.

Anger, pain, fear, envy, greed... everything swirled in his head as if his own thoughts. He was quick in chasing them away, but, for an instant, he felt the control over his body slip away. He didn't like it. He focused on repelling them as much as he did in hunting.

They increased, increased, increased... until his mind was so full that he had to suppress them completely to maintain his sanity... Did he have one, to begin with? He was eating creatures like himself, after all...

Still not knowing how time passed, given the eternal obscurity, he hadn't quite noticed that his limbs had become furry. It was during one of his meal, when he tore apart the body of a Hollow, that he felt different. He watched carefully how it was easier to rip off the corpse's tendrils of limbs and he noticed how he was not doing it with his arms, but with his mouth. He looked at his arms and... they were not arms anymore...