Devilish Gaming: Ch.25

Anomaly has been detected! Anomaly has been detected!

Integrating abnormalities into system! Deactivating safety measures A-00000000 to ZZZZ-10Infinite!

Abnormalities have been integrated into system! System shall now begin a restart! Estimated time of completion: 24 hours!

Until then, system shall be unavailable. Good luck!

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Chad would have been worried about the notice screens flashing in front of him, but he was more shocked at the armour that covered his left arm, twisting it around and clenching a few times.

“Well, this is a…surprise.” Chad blinked at the deep voice that rumbled in his ears and looked around only to be confused as he saw nothing but a frowning Kyoraku and Nanao staring at him.

'What?'

“We can talk later. For now, you need to make sure you escape. You're not strong enough to take him on.” Chad wanted to ask just who this was that was talking to him, but he also knew the voice was right as he raised his fists before unleashing a burst of Reiatsu.

However, he along with both the Shinigami were surprised when a torrent of black and red spiritual energy erupted from his form instead of the usual red like he expected, cracking the ground below him and sending a shockwave flying out in all directions.

'…Okay, this is far stronger than before.' Chad thought before shaking his head as he looked back up at Kyoraku, who looked a bit cautious now as he gripped one of his katanas with a slight frown.

“Are you still in control, young Ryoka?” Kyoraku asked even as he slowly unsheathed his katana and Chad clenched his fists while digging his feet into the ground.

“I am.” Even his voice had changed as it sounded deeper and more guttural compared to before, the teen ignoring it as he stepped forward with a powerful lunge.

Nanao yelped as Kyoraku grabbed the back of her uniform and threw her out of the way to safety while unsheathing his second katana, parrying the teen's first left punch to the right while leaping away in the opposite direction.

His eyes widened slightly, though, as he saw Chad's punch unleashing a powerful shockwave that ripped up the ground, lunging at Chad the moment he landed with his left katana held high.

Quickly shifting Brazo Derecha el Gigante into its defensive form, Chad felt elated while Kyoraku was surprised when the blade only cut deeply into the shield instead of cutting it off like before.

However, the captain wasn't given much time to think as discs of spiritual energy appeared at Chad's fingertips when he clenched his left fist and swung forward with a roar.

“La Muerte!” The name just sounded right when it came from his lips and Kyoraku held his swords in a cross-guard right as the punch clashed with them.

While his katanas had cut deep into Chad's left hand up to his wrist, Kyoraku himself was surprised when a crater in the shape of a horned devil ripped into the ground below them while the power behind the attack itself sent him careening through the air.

With both blades still in his grasp, the captain flipepd around and landed on a rooftop before looking at the direction where Chad was only to sigh as he saw a gigantic dust cloud encompassing the entire battlefield where they had fought.

“Got his energy?” He asked as Nanao landed next to him before letting out a soft sigh as she frowned and shook her head.

“No, he appears to have suppressed his spiritual energy entirely.”

“So, he has a camouflaging ability on top of all the stuff he's shown thus far? Man, this is just getting more and more chaotic by the second.” Kyoraku grumbled as he rubbed the back of his head before shaking his head as Nanao looked at him.

“I know what you're going to say and we can't pursue him if we don't know where he is.”

“No, I was going to ask if you think we should go and report back to the Captain Commander that these Ryoka might be more dangerous than we expected.”

“…That would also work. Then-!” Kyoraku stopped speaking as he felt a presence landing behind them, turning around along with Nanao only to raise an eyebrow at the Shinigami kneeling behind them with some wooden covering over the top half of their head and dressed in a dark red variant of the Shinigami uniform.

“A Riteitai? What message do you have for me today?”

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“Hah…Man, that…was pretty intense.” Chad whispered to himself as he hid behind a crate, having used the reishi in the air around him to hide his own spiritual energy from any sensing abilities.

Looking down at his arms, he watched as his left fist was slowly sealing up the wounds along with where his right arm was doing its best to regrow after he dismissed the armour around them.

“Where did that left one even come from…and what was that voice?”

“That would be me.” The voice spoke and Chad's eyes widened as he found himself standing a few meters away from a familiar door, looking at it in shock.

The slight scrape marks on the walls, the dusty dirt road and the half broken step was something he was all too familiar with as he had to see them every day for an entire decade when he was living in Mexico.

'…Okay, definitely be on guard.' He thought to himself as he opened the door, suppressing his surprise at the living room that looked precisely like the one from his Abuelo's small home as he slowly looked down each hallway to see if anything would happen.

Surprisingly, nothing did and that just left him even more confused as he stood in the living room with his arms crossed while frowning as he looked at each entry point to the room.

“Behind you.” Chad quickly spun around while pulling on his spiritual energy to fight only to freeze as he saw nothing but the room behind him.

However, what made him freeze was the fact that he couldn't feel his spiritual energy nor the reishi in the air, now fully on guard before his eyes widened as clawed hands tore the air open in front of him.

“Welcome…to your mind…Yasutora Sado.” Chad stared in shock and slight horror as El Diablo itself ripped the air open before walking out.

The right side of its body was a pitch black with vibrant maroon tattoos that looked to be tribal tattoos covering it entirely while the left side of its body was a snow white with streaks of scarlet red running along the arms and sides.

Clawed feet stepped through as the devil closed the portal behind itself while a pair of golden eyes stared at the teen with a malevolent grin, a pair of sharp horns protruding out and to the front of its face.

“Who…who are you?”

“You don't have to worry about that. All you need to worry about is surviving.” The devil growled and Chad's eyes widened as he felt his spiritual energy returning right as the devil lunged forward.

The Brazo Derecha de Gigante appeared on his right arm while the devil's arm doubled in size, sparks of red spiritual energy racing up its arm as Chad pulled his right arm back.

With a roar, both of them swung and the entire living room was blown into smithereens as their fists clashed, Chad gritting his teeth at the destruction to his old man before glaring at the devil as it grinned and leaned closer.

“You want to kill me, don't you?”

“No!” Chad growled as he abruptly stopped his punch and dropped his arm down, moving out of the way of the devil's punch still coming before slipping around it while wrapping his arms around its waist.

With a grunt, Chad heaved and lifted the devil above his head before slamming it head first into the ground.

However, his eyes widened as the devil sunk into the ground and shot out from the ceiling above, quickly shifting the Brazo Derecha de Gigante into its defensive form and holding it in front of him right as the devil slammed another punch into it.

The force of the attack sent out another shockwave that rippled across the rubble they were standing on and Chad gritted his teeth as he continued to absorb the force of the attack before charging it to his left leg.

With a growl, he pushed the punch into the ground besides him before bringing his right leg over and delivered a powerful kick to its side, sending the devil flying through the wall and into the numerous homes of the favela they were in.

Kip-upping to his feet, Chad cracked his neck while readying himself as the devil ripped off the walls and crawled out, grinning maniacally while the teen took a deep breath.

A second later, Chad moved his arm up and pushed the devil's punch to the side while delivering a hook punch to its side, but he frowned as the impact let out a soft ding before the devil grabbed his arm with a smirk.

He blinked a few times when the devil smashed their foreheads together before growling as he did a headbutt back, a shockwave rippling through the air as the two of them glared at each other before headbutting the other in unison.

Immediately, the force of the attack sent them both flying back before Chad flipped around and dug his feet into the ground, coming to a skidding stop before glaring at the devil to see it already standing tall with a grin.

“Why are you doing this? For what reason is this needed?!” Chad demanded as he stepped out of the ground and walked towards the devil, who snorted as his left arm shrunk down while it walked towards him as well.

“For boredom. Why else would I do something this tedious?”

“…So you want me to fight you because you're bored?” Chad asked with a frown and watched as the devil nodded with a grin before it frowned as he dismissed his Brazo Derecha de Gigante and sat down.

“I may have developed a slight love for battle, but I will not be facing off against you to amuse you. If you want to fight, go ahead, but I am here to ta-!” Chad was cut off by a powerful punch crashing into his face and sending him tumbling head over heels across the ground, coming to a stop on his back with his nose broken.

“…Are you shatisfied now?” Chad asked as he sat up, spitting out a glob of blood before grunting as he snapped his nose back into place when he felt the devil stop his healing.

“You will fight me or die.”

“Then I will die.” Chad answered bluntly before coughing up blood when the devil lunged forward and stomped a foot into his chest, feeling his vision spinning as the devil stood on him with a glare.

“You will fight or die.”

“Kill…me…then.” Chad growled out through raspy breaths as he glared back defiantly, to which the devil responded by making its left arm expand to thrice its size while dense spiritual energy in the form of red electricity condensed around its arm.

“Then die.” The devil growled as he swung down with a roar, but right as Chad readied himself when he felt the punch impacting his form, he gasped as he found himself sitting on a simple white chair in the middle of the now-repaired living room.

Sitting across from him was a carbon copy of him except for the fact that the copy had a snow white horn with red streaks growing out the left side of its head and a pitch black horn with magenta tribal markings growing out the right side of its head.

“You've got guts, Chad. I can respect that if nothing else.”

“…Was any of that real?” Chad asked as he looked down at his body, not finding any sign of the battle before looking up as the clone snorted.

“It was, but since nothing that happens in the mindscape is permanent, I was forced to heal you as well as restore the place.”

“So, you were actually trying to kill me?” Chad asked before shaking his head with a sigh as the devil snorted and nodded.

“Of course. If I can kill the one in control of the body, I get control back, but unfortunately, this system thing is stopping me from doing so. It's even stopped that Tsukishima guy from taking over your mind.”

“What?” Chad's attention was entirely on the clone as he said that, frowning as the clone rose an eyebrow before grinning.

“So, it didn't warn you of that, did it? Oh, this is fantastic news.”

“What's lying going to bring you now?” He asked and frowned as the devil snickered and shook his head.

“Lying would bring me nothing. That's why I'm telling the truth.”

“So, you expect me to believe that Tsukishima, someone who has been mentoring me for the past few months…is actually trying to control me?”

“Oh, it wasn't control. It was more of a well-crafted illusion that would make you have an unfathomable amount of trust in him to the point that you would even trust him over Ichigo. Truthfully, I only saw it after I looked through the system's notifications.”

'…No, Tsukishima wouldn't do that. He's far too kind and peaceful for something like that.' Chad thought with a shake of his head before frowning as the clone snorted and lounged back in his chair.

“You don't have to look so pissed, you know? I'm just telling you what you've missed. By the way, you know that Riruka's got a crush on you, right?”

“I do, but that's not important. What's important is why you are even here. What are you? My subconsciousness or something?”

“Close. Remember all the Hollow Reiryoku you absorbed during your time in that underground Forest? Well, you forgot to take into account that absorbing that much would result in your spiritual energy forming some sentience in order to help you control it better.”

“So, you're…a Hollow?” Chad asked and frowned as the Hollow/ clone grinned and nodded.

“In the flesh. By the way, you might want to look into styles that doesn't have your hair covering your eyes or else you might look like every time-stopping hent-!”

“No, I'm stopping you there. When did…when did you even form?” Chad asked despite the slight blush on his face at his Hollow's words, which it caught as it snickered.

“Hehehe~ Like I said, about a few days after you absorbed all those Menos Grande as well as those three powerful Hollows in that forest. The system however didn't want me to connect to you so I've been overloading it every day until I got at least your second arm through, which is also why it started to detect ano-Oh, looks like it's time to go.”

“What do you mean?” Chad asked and the clone responded with a simple word.

“STATUS.”

System has been fully updated. All anomalies have been integrated into user's capabilities and skills have been adjusted accordingly to such changes.

Thank you for your patience.

Reading through the screen that appeared in front of both himself and the clone, Chad ignored the deep red borders his screen had compared to the white and gold that Chad had as he dismissed it and looked at the Hollow.

“Does this mean that you'll still keep speaking to me?”

“Oh, definitely. Now that I've been recognized by the system as something to help you, you can forget about ever losing contact with me again…unless a certain something happens but we'll leave that for another time.”

“Of course, we will. Wait, twenty four hours have already passed?”

“You were asleep for 23 hours and 55 minutes. Our fight was 3 minutes and this talk was the other 2.” The Hollow explained and Chad nodded at that before looking around as he watched the world around him beginning to fade away.

“Ah, looks like you're waking up. Remember what I said about Tsukishima and keep an eye on Kūgo.” Chad wanted to tell the clone to stop lying, but he was also unsure of whether or not the Hollow was actually lying.

“…Hah, I will. You know, you're a lot more cordial for a raging Hollow than I was expecting.” Chad said before smirking slightly as his Hollow rolled its eyes while transforming back into its Devil form.

“Go jump off a bridge. Now, enough spending time with me and AWAKE.”

A/: And we end off the first half of the Save Rukia arc with Chad and his inner Hollow having a quick fight as well as talking some stuff out.

However, is his Hollow truly that nice or is it perhaps planning something? And what of the new revelation of Tsukishima? What will Chad do with this news?

Guess we'll have to find out as we head into the second part of this arc.

As always, read, enjoy, review and until the next one…

Ba-Bye~!!