NIHM: Ch. 16

The three Hollows circled Kazuha like predators sizing up wounded prey. They were basic Hollows, not particularly intelligent, but hungry and desperate. The closest one looked like a twisted fusion of a wolf and a bat, with membrane wings and fangs that dripped acidic saliva onto the sand.

"Fresh meat," the wolf-bat Hollow hissed. "And he's already injured. Easy prey."

The second Hollow, resembling a massive centipede with human arms instead of front legs, clicked its mandibles in agreement. "His mask isn't even fully formed yet."

The third, a hulking creature that looked like a gorilla crossed with a spider, pounded its chest. "I claim the head. The rest you can fight over."

Kazuha touched his face instinctively. They were right, his Hollow mask had only partially formed, covering the left side of his face while the right side remained human. He could feel it slowly spreading.

"Sorry to disappoint you," he said. "But I'm not on the menu tonight."

The wolf-bat Hollow laughed, and attacked, diving from above with claws extended. Kazuha sidestepped, but wasn't prepared for how different his new body felt. His reflexes were faster, his strength greater, but the proportions were all wrong. He stumbled slightly, and the Hollow's claws raked across his shoulder.

The centipede Hollow rushed forward, its human arms reaching for Kazuha's throat.

This time, Kazuha was ready. He caught the creature's wrists and was shocked by his own strength. He then twisted sharply, hearing the crack of breaking bones.

The centipede screamed and tried to wrap its lower body around Kazuha's legs, but he leaped backward, much further than expected.

Kazuha flexed his claws, feeling the power flowing through him.

The gorilla-spider charged, using its eight legs for incredible speed. But Kazuha could see it coming, instead of dodging, he stood his ground and caught it by the throat.

His claws tightened, and with a crunch, the gorilla-spider went limp.

As the gorilla-spider's body dissolved into spiritual particles, something unexpected happened. The particles didn't just disperse, they flowed toward Kazuha, drawn by an irresistible force.

The moment they touched him, he felt a rush of power unlike anything he'd experienced. The Hollow's strength, its memories, its spiritual energy, all of it flooded into him.

And with it came the hunger.

It was overwhelming. His body screamed for more.

The wolf-bat Hollow, sensing weakness, attacked again. But this time when Kazuha blocked its claws, his own strength had increased dramatically. The impact sent the creature flying into a dune of sand.

He began backing away. The hunger was becoming unbearable. he could feel his consciousness slipping, the human part of him being overwhelmed by Hollow instincts. Just as he was about to lose control completely, the familiar sensation of the System Space tugged at his mind.

---

Hollow Kazuha found himself back in the chair, gasping as if he'd been holding his breath. The other two Kazuha were already there.

"The hunger," he panted. "It's stronger than I expected. I almost lost control."

"We felt it," Ninja Kazuha said. "You consumed another Hollow. That's what triggered it, right?"

"Yes." Hollow Kazuha shuddered. "I wanted to kill everything around me."

"But you didn't," Ninja Kazuha pointed out. "You resisted long enough to come here."

Hollow Kazuha looked at his hands, which were trembling slightly. "What if I can't control it next time?"

The blue light panel flickered to life above the table, but this time it displayed new information:

---

Name: Kazuha (Experience +3)
HP: 26,000 (+50/300)
MP: 26,100 (+153) (+25)

---

"Consuming those Hollows," Hollow Kazuha realized. "Their spiritual energy became part of mine."

Ninja Kazuha studied the display. "The power increase is clear, but we need to figure out how to handle these hunger episodes ourselves. I have some meditation techniques from my ANBU training. They're designed to maintain sanity under extreme stress, might work for controlling Hollow instincts too."

"And I learned willpower exercises from surviving with Dorry and Brogy," Marine Kazuha added. "Might help you stay in control when the hunger hits."

They spent several minutes sharing techniques for mental control. Ninja Kazuha taught breathing exercises used by interrogation-resistant operatives, while Marine Kazuha shared focus methods for maintaining consciousness during extreme physical duress.

"The key is to create mental anchors," Ninja Kazuha explained. "Thoughts or memories that keep you grounded when everything else is chaos."

"Like what?" Hollow Kazuha asked.

"Your grandmother," Marine Kazuha said immediately. "The reason you don't want to become a monster. Every time you feel the hunger taking over, remember her face, or why you're fighting it."

Hollow Kazuha nodded slowly.

"Good. Now, about your current situation," Ninja Kazuha said. "You've got two more Hollows out there, and you're going to need to deal with them."

"I could try to avoid them," Hollow Kazuha suggested.

"Bad idea," Marine Kazuha replied. "You showed weakness when you retreated here. If you don't establish dominance now, every Hollow in the area will see you as prey."

"But if I kill them, I'll have to deal with the hunger again."

"Then we'll be ready for it," Ninja Kazuha said firmly. "You'll consume them one at a time, and the moment you feel control slipping, you come back here. We'll help you work through it."

---

When Hollow Kazuha's consciousness returned to his body, he found the two remaining Hollows arguing over whether to flee or attack.

"—telling you, he's not normal," the centipede was saying. "Did you see how he absorbed Gorak's spiritual energy? That's not something a newborn should be able to do."

"So what if he's strong?" the wolf-bat replied. "He ran away. That proves he's weak."

"I didn't run away," Kazuha said, stepping out from behind the dune where his body had been sitting motionless. "I was deciding whether you were worth the effort."

Both Hollows turned toward him, and immediately they could see the difference. His mask had spread further across his face, and his Reiatsu felt more controlled, more focused.

"You want to know what I am?" he continued, slowly walking toward them. "I'm something that shouldn't exist. A Hollow who remembers what it means to be human."

The wolf-bat Hollow snarled and launched itself at him again, but this time he was ready. Instead of dodging or blocking, he grabbed the creature mid-flight and slammed it into the sand with enough force to create a small crater.

"And that," he said, placing his foot on the stunned Hollow's chest, "makes me more dangerous than anything you've ever encountered."

The centipede Hollow tried to flee at that point, but his enhanced speed made escape impossible. He caught it within a few strides and ended its existence quickly.

As the spiritual particles flowed into him, he felt the hunger rise again, but this time he was prepared. Following the techniques his other selves had taught him, he focused on his grandmother's face, on the disappointment she would feel if she knew what he was becoming.

The hunger was still there, but it was manageable.

The wolf-bat Hollow was still alive, though badly injured. It looked up at him.

"What do you want?"

"Information," Kazuha replied. "Tell me about this place. The hierarchy, the territories, who I need to avoid."

"Why... why should I tell you anything?"

He crouched down next to the creature. "Because if you do, I'll kill you quickly. If you don't, I'll let the hunger take over and see how long you last."

The threat was more effective than he'd expected.

"The desert is divided into territories," the wolf-bat Hollow explained quickly. "Most of us weak ones stick to the outer areas, hunting scraps and avoiding the strong ones."

"What strong ones?" Kazuha pressed.

"The Adjuchas. Hollows who've evolved beyond basic form. They claim the better hunting grounds, the areas with more spiritual energy."

"And above them?"

"The Vasto Lorde. Then there's..."

"What?"

"Las Noches. The palace in the center of Hueco Mundo. They say something lives there that makes even the Vasto Lorde look weak."

Kazuha absorbed this information carefully. The power structure was clear enough, strength determined everything, and he was currently at the bottom of the food chain.

"One more question," he said. "Are there places where weaker Hollows gather? Somewhere I could blend in while I get stronger?"

The wolf-bat Hollow nodded eagerly. "The Bone Forest, about a day's travel north. Lots of hiding places, and the Reiatsu of the trees masks individual signatures. But be careful, there are things in there that even the Adjuchas avoid."

"Thank you," Kazuha said, and before the creature could respond, he ended its existence quickly and cleanly.

As the final spiritual particles flowed into him, the hunger rose again, but this time it felt different. He was learning to control it, rather than letting it control him.

---

Alone in the desert, Kazuha took stock of his new abilities. His strength had increased significantly from consuming three Hollows, and his mask had spread to cover about three-quarters of his face. Only his right eye and part of his jaw remained human.

He experimented with his new powers, discovering he could fire blasts of concentrated spiritual energy from his fingertips. The red energy beams carved furrows in the sand and left glass where they struck.

His speed had increased as well. When he focused, he could move fast enough to leave afterimages, covering dozens of meters in seconds.

But the most interesting change was in his spiritual perception. He could sense other Hollows from much greater distances, and more importantly, he could gauge their relative strength. Most of the presences he detected were weaker than him now, but there were several stronger signatures in various directions.

One in particular caught his attention, a massive spiritual presence to the south that felt cold. Even from this distance, it made him instinctively want to flee.

"Not ready for that yet," he muttered, turning north toward the Bone Forest.

As he traveled across the desert, he found himself thinking about what he'd become.

More troubling was how natural the killing had felt. He'd ended three lives without hesitation, and while they had been trying to kill him first, the ease with which he'd adapted to violence was concerning.

"Is this what the other me went through?" he wondered aloud, thinking of Ninja Kazuha's time in ANBU. "Learning to kill without hesitation?"

The comparison wasn't entirely comforting. Ninja Kazuha had at least been killing for a cause, to protect his village.

And he was killing to survive and grow stronger, motivations that felt more selfish.

But what choice did he have? In this world, the weak were prey. If he wanted to maintain enough of his humanity to eventually help his grandmother, he needed power.

---

After several hours of travel, the landscape began to change. The flat desert gave way to rolling dunes, and in the distance, Kazuha could see strange white structures rising from the sand.

As he got closer, he realized they weren't structures at all, they were trees made entirely of bone.

The Bone Forest was simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. The trees were enormous, some easily a hundred meters tall, and they gave off a faint Reiatsu of their own. Between them, shadows moved, other Hollows seeking shelter or hunting grounds.

As he approached the edge of the forest, a voice spoke from behind him.

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

Turning, he saw three wounded Hollows fleeing across the desert, their movements desperate and panicked.

Behind them came an Adjuchas, a humanoid Hollow with a bird-skull mask and lean, powerful build. Its Reiatsu was overwhelming, easily ten times stronger than anything Kazuha had encountered.

The Adjuchas caught the slowest fleeing Hollow with ease, ending its existence in seconds before pursuing the others. But as the remaining two Hollows reached the edge of the Bone Forest, the Adjuchas stopped.

It stood at the forest's boundary, staring at the wounded Hollows who had collapsed just meters inside the treeline. The powerful creature circled the perimeter, clearly frustrated, but made no move to enter.

"Why doesn't it follow them?" Kazuha whispered to himself.

One of the wounded Hollows noticed him hiding behind a bone tree. It was more evolved than the basic Hollows he'd fought earlier, still crude, but with clearer speech and more intelligent eyes.

"You're new," it gasped, a centipede-like creature missing several legs. "Don't know the rules yet."

"What rules?"

"The old law," the other Hollow replied, this one resembling a twisted bird with broken wings. It was clearly close to Adjuchas-level itself, probably why it could speak so coherently. "No killing inside the Bone Forest. Sanctuary law, established long ago by the King of Hueco Mundo."

"King?" Kazuha moved closer, keeping his voice low as the Adjuchas continued pacing outside.

The centipede Hollow explained. "Ancient ruler who claimed this place as neutral ground. Strong ones like that bird-skull won't risk breaking it."

The bird Hollow nodded weakly. "Too dangerous. They say the punishment for breaking sanctuary is... final."

Kazuha watched the Adjuchas give up its hunt and retreat into the desert. "So inside this forest, we're all equal?"

"Equal in safety, not in strength," the centipede corrected. "You can't be killed here, but you can't kill either. Makes it perfect for the weak to hide, and recover."

"Or gather," the bird Hollow added, giving Kazuha a meaningful look. "Lot of displaced ones coming here lately. Ones who got tired of being prey."

As Kazuha helped treat the wounded Hollows' injuries using spiritual energy techniques he was instinctively learning, they explained more about the Bone Forest.

"The bone trees absorb Reiatsu, make it hard for outsiders to sense what's happening inside," the centipede Hollow said as Kazuha sealed a wound on its leg.

"You're saying Hollows gather here for more than just hiding?"

"Look around," the bird Hollow gestured weakly. "See how many different types are moving through the trees? We're not all just refugees."

Kazuha extended his senses and was surprised by what he detected. Dozens of spiritual signatures moving through the forest. All maintaining the peace, but clearly here for reasons beyond simple survival.

"Some are here to recruit," the centipede continued. "Form packs, create territories. Others looking for specific skills or knowledge."

"And the really ambitious ones," the bird Hollow added with a knowing look, "they're planning something bigger. Territory wars are coming, everyone can feel it."

The idea of just surviving was beginning to feel insufficient. If territory wars were coming, perhaps there were opportunities for someone smart enough to position themselves correctly.

"Tell me more about these recruiters," Kazuha said.

The two wounded Hollows exchanged glances.

"You thinking of joining up with someone?" the centipede asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm thinking of doing the recruiting myself."

Both Hollows laughed, but it wasn't entirely mocking. "Ambitious for a newborn," the bird said. "Plus your Reiatsu is higher than most at your level. Maybe you could pull it off, given time."