Prelude in Fog

[madimpossibledreamer]

don't expect me to be coherent i got sidetracked into wasting time and then ended up spending way too much time because i made mistakes argggh /ded fortunately most of this has been done since forever

Main Points:
Bleach AU
Chapter Summary: A glimpse into what happened before City of Emptiness.
Word Count: 3103
Rating: Teen
warning: hollow bein' hollow and swearing a whole bunch
ichi does not appear in this fic but features prominently anyway

        Shiro’s tried, several times, to analyze what went wrong. Hollows exist to consume. Humans exist to—well. He hadn’t figured that one out yet. He’s pretty sure King’s no stellar example of what humans are supposed to look like, anyhow, and neither are his friends, so what the hell is he supposed to do, make random guesses?
        All right, maybe he’d considered they were just—cattle. There to feed on. Depending on the human involved, sometimes maybe they were more like…what, flies? Except that wasn’t right either. He was a little bit lizard, sure, but flies weren’t usually this good about evading—or fighting back. So it’s not as if they’re completely helpless. Some of them would be fun to hunt, even.
        So it was the natural way of things. He called Ichigo King, but he was just playing into the redhead’s overinflated sense of self. The natural state of things was for the Hollow to eat the Human. Nothing more than that. Sure, all right, maybe the Shinigami bit complicated things, but the idiot was still human. And plenty of Shinigami got eaten by Hollows. So Ichigo’d fall in the end.
        Maybe it was the way it happened. Shiro imagined some grand battle, one he’d be able to look back on with smug pride. That possibility had been snatched from him.
        He woke up in the hospital. It took him a minute to even realize this was the real world. Another to realize, well. This was King’s body, only King ain’t home.
        It’s so unsettling he almost immediately disappeared back into their inner world, demanded the Old Man get out there and explain. Nothing. It’s not raining. Creepily silent, in fact. There’s just the slightest hint of familiar reiatsu, but he can’t pinpoint it, or even figure out whether it’s not just lingering. It’s as if, one moment, King just was erased, but it’s hard to even imagine that. Maybe a Zanpuktou could do that, but…how? And wouldn’t it have affected Shiro, too?
        Maybe he’d fallen into a coma, and Shiro’s the one that woke up, but if so, why weren’t King’s family all gathered around, being all so annoying and human? For that matter, weren’t there supposed to be docs or nurses or whatever? (He’d picked up a thing or two from Ichigo’s head, unwillingly. Hollows weren’t supposed to heal, they were supposed to hurt. Knowing things about healing, especially the healing of humans, was a little irrelevant.)
        He goes back out of his inner world to find it exactly as deserted. Stands, finds a mirror, and yep, that’s his—that’s Ichigo’s face. He’d done it. He’d won. But it’s a hollow—ha!—victory. Unsettling. It’s not like he wanted someone to be around to hand him the crown, but this. He hadn’t been able to rub it in Ichigo’s face. Hadn’t gotten to sneer at him—see? This is where your humanity gets you! You’re weak, you’re the horse now!
        Nothing.
        Silent.
        Empty.
        Alone.
        He panics a little, much as he wouldn’t like to admit it. He reaches for the part of him that is Hollow and obligingly he feels the reassuring weight of the mask, but it goes as far as the tail and the rest. He hadn’t planned on a full transformation, but it’s good to know he’s capable, and what’s more, he doesn’t feel out of control, unlike King. It’d be awful if he inherited the landlord’s piss-poor control. It’s the simple matter of a thought to go back to King’s normal face. He probably shouldn’t go around like that just yet, not if he wants to avoid pointless fights until he knows what the hell’s going on.
        It’s dark, but Shiro’s eyes are better at seeing in the dark than a human’s, and anyway, there’s just a little light coming from behind the drawn curtains. He’s in a hospital gown, which is freakin’ embarrassing. Some conquerer. Any other hollows, well, they’d laugh themselves silly. And he’d call on his Resurrección, slaughter them, eat them, and they wouldn’t be laughing anymore, but the point was, he needed something to wear, because it’d still be a humiliating experience even if no one was left alive to remember it but him.
        King’s clothes aren’t in the area, either. In fact, there’s dust on everything, which makes him frown. How freakin’ long has it been?
        With a little exploration, with timid, annoying glances around to make sure nobody sees him like this, he finds out that the whole place is deserted. No corpses, which…he’s not sure if he’d prefer, to be honest. It’d be some clue as to what happened, and he doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s getting a bit spooked, because what the hell is he supposed to do? He wants, needs a plan of attack, but he can’t get one because he doesn’t have anything to work with. The only thing he’s got is a physical body and even that’s being a pain he hadn’t anticipated.
        Eventually, he manages to find a few things that were left behind by whatever other patients might have been here—a pair of jeans that are just about the right size, sneakers that are a little too big for his feet, a hoodie. He still doesn’t look intimidating, like he should, but it’ll do.
        When he gets outside, there aren’t many lights around. Maybe Karakura wasn’t huge, judging by King’s memories, but they’d still have their lights on at night, and yet—there’s only a couple, like the city’s nearly abandoned. The weird dust is everywhere, there’s nobody on the streets, there’s no cars… He’s debating the wisdom of just seeking out one of those lights when he hears a monster scream. Not a Hollow, but the prospect of an actual fight and maybe even some answers is a cheering thought.
        And that’s when he runs into the second problem, the second place it might have all gone wrong, because that’s when he runs into Yuzu, being chased by the thing that made the noise.
        He’d only ever paid enough attention to the brats to know it’d hurt King if he went for them. Knowing weaknesses was useful. But she’d run up to him, hugged his leg, cried and called him Ichi-nii. Said they’d thought he was dead, and begged him to make the monster go away.
        This would have been the time to shatter her hopes and dreams like that sanctimonious prick shattered his sword. Sneer and toss her to the monster, wait for her to be eaten, then pick a fight for the hell of it. Or kill her himself. But—
        But King wouldn’t know. No point in doing it, because he wouldn’t get a good fight out of it. And, well. Hollows didn’t trust. No point, when it’s eat or be eaten, one of the main reasons why that aqua haired aberration was so frickin’ weird. And he’d only been met with resistance, suspicion, and a desire to kill from his landlord (which would have been better directed at their mutual enemies, but then, King never had a sense of priorities that in any way aligned with anything sensible—plus, after all, the mutual protection pact was just so King’s body was in good shape when he took over).
        Karin. If it’d been Karin, she would’ve tried to kill him, and ended up dead, and things would’ve been simple, but Yuzu…Yuzu trusted him. This wasn’t some ploy. And instincts, those same instincts he’d praised what feels like a lifetime ago, took over. Maybe it was because as a Hollow he was so bewildered by the idea of anyone trusting him he let King’s body act out the instincts of its previous owner, or whatever the hell explanation he can come up with, because he’s got no clue why he flings her behind him roughly, mouth set in a scowl, and moves, calling out the mask and Zanjii silently. He doesn’t even play with his prey, some sort of weird mutated goop-wolf that oozes as it steps and tries to ooze up around his leg like it’s gonna absorb it off with a slurp. Fortunately, Zanjii, who still hasn’t spoken a word and might honestly be as dead as Ichigo, cuts through the thing like tissue paper, and it makes that weird, syrupy howl again as he cuts it up. He figures it’s dead, once he’s hacked it to enough pieces and it’s stopped making any noise or even twitching. Maybe it’s playing dead, he doesn’t know for sure, but at least it’s not going to come for them.
        “You all right, brat?” he snarls, but rather than doing the sensible thing and run from him, Yuzu runs to him again, tucking her snotty, tear-stained face into the jeans that aren’t his. Just like the body isn’t his.
        Screw his life.
        “I was so scared,” she whispers, and he sighs. Heavily. Because he’s behaving like a tame dog, instead of the predator he is, and he isn’t even fighting it.
        Easy, Shiro, he reminds himself. He’s about to recreate an argument with King simply because he’s bored. He shouldn’t be fighting his instincts simply because he doesn’t like where they lead. That just makes him King. And even if he’s the new King, he can make new laws, or whatever. He’s too lazy to follow the metaphor through to its conclusion.
        He needs to know what happened. He might need allies, no matter how pathetic. And…well. Tormenting Ichigo had been a pastime, a motivation for the King. There’s no point. He’s not the type to just be cruel for no point, no matter what Ichigo had thought.
        “Well, you’re fine now. C’mon, we’ll go to where we’re staying.” He’s bold enough to include himself in that, but Yuzu at least wouldn’t throw her big bro out so easily, would she?
        He can’t talk exactly like Ichigo, but apparently it’s fine, because she smiles at him, drying her tears on her sleeve.
        “Welcome back, big bro.” She reaches out and grabs his hand and it’s a weird feeling. He’s…never felt a touch that’s not meant to hurt, and it very nearly makes the oh-so-human body cry. Which is kind of pathetic, but he’s not used to any of this. Maybe it explains King. He’s not the type to be prepared for any of this, either, even if he had experienced it before. He’s caught between the warring desires for another fight and not wanting her to get caught up in anything until they get to where they’re going. They need answers.
        It’s not their house. It’s kind of hard to get to, which he approves of. It’d be hard to get out if something happened, sure, but every castle with a moat could be a jail instead. More to the point, it’s defensible, it’s hard to find, and it’s probably the only reason the brats have lasted this long. (Something else, though, that’s just occurring to him and he’s wondering if possible brain damage from fighting reckless in ages past is what actually caused King to be so thoughtless—either they’re masking their reiatsu, somehow, or the sludgemonster can’t sense it. In any case, he hasn’t felt many Hollows around, which is good, because it doesn’t matter how hard it is to get to if they can just sense where the brats are hiding. They’d just knock down walls.)
        They come down a tiny alleyway that a blind Human would have called haunted. But then, it’s not like they have the senses for it, maybe. It does make them the equivalent of blind, but eh. It’s not their fault they’re born helpless.
        Speaking of, Karin comes out to the door, bat in hand, glaring, and he approves. She’s also glaring at him, and pulls Yuzu away, fussing over her. She doesn’t lose her grip on the bat, and maneuvers herself slightly between Yuzu and him. She can sense him, that he’s a predator, not prey. Yuzu, in the meantime, seems confused.
        “You brought her home safe?” And there’s the challenge he’d been expecting.
        And he smirks, rather than attacking her like he would’ve. Yuzu meeting him first? She’d lucked out. “Yeah. There a problem, midget?”
        Meanwhile, Yuzu’s glancing between them, a little scared, like this is some sort of terrifying tennis match. “Um. Please don’t fight.”
        And her fear—her fear energizes him, but not like it should. Most Hollows feed on fear. Certainly he’d found King’s delicious. But this time, it feeds a burning, reckless anger. How dare Karin scare her sister like this? And maybe the only reason he allows it is—rage? He gets that, even if he doesn’t get the why, like nothing else since he’s woken up in this freaky place.
        “Yuzu, get away from him. That’s not Ichigo.” Karin’s still glaring at him, still in battle stance, and he sighs.
        He really has to work on his Reiatsu control, come off like a Human, not a Hollow. King hadn’t seen a point in any of that stuff. King hadn’t seen a point in a lot of things, and now he was dead, or whatever, so it was still his life’s goal, possibly entirely literally, not to be like Ichigo. Control would put whatever survivors of this weird possible apocalypse at ease, and maybe even get him underestimated by his enemies shortly before he tears them apart. That’d be fun. “You’re right, brat, but you’re wrong about something else. If I’d planned on eating you, I would’ve already done it. No point in rescuing somebody I’d just let die later.”
        “Stop possessing Ichigo!” Karin yells, threatening him with the bat, and instinctively he snarls, baring sharper than human teeth.
        And then Yuzu starts to cry, and he very nearly calls out the mask again. Instead, he just kneels down, pulling her into a hug. It seems she actually listened to her sister, at least a little, because she’s hesitant but allows it, which actually hurts him. No wonder humans are so weak, if they have to deal with this crap all the time. (But then, maybe it’s also a source of strength, because burning pain and rage like this is real power. Shiro’s head hurts.)
        “Can’t do that. No idea where Ichigo’s gone, but someone’s got to keep the home fires burning, yeah?” It comes from his mouth before he even realizes he’s spoken. He’s not certain if he believes himself. Now that he’s got a body of his own, like hell he’s giving it back. But—but maybe he could be persuaded to take one prepared for him by the reckless scientist, as long as the man doesn’t try anything. It’s a question he doesn’t have to answer until they find where King’s hiding, anyway. “You can sense me, yeah? Try to tell me he’s in here, because I looked. As far as I can tell, he’s not here.”
        Karin growls, menacing enough she’d make a decent Hollow. “Sit.” She indicates the couch with her head, not moving the bat an inch from where she’s pointing it at him. He goes along quietly enough, Yuzu clinging to him, probably mourning her brother all over again. “Not you, Yuzu. Get away from him.” She shakes her head, from where she’s buried herself in the hoodie at his side.
        He shrugs, uncomfortable. Seriously, no wonder King was the way he was. Being human is nothing like he expected. ‘Course, rather than being an ass, Ichigo could have gone ahead and explained that to him, but then, without this, maybe he wouldn’t have believed a word of it in the first place.
        Karin moves in front of him, staring fixedly, bat still pointed at him, like that’ll do much. “You killed him, didn’t you?” she accuses him, and—
        Well, he loses it. Because he expects that question, had it all mapped out in his head, but the second she asks he’s on his feet, snarling like a wounded animal, and the next he’s on the ground, clutching his head and ignoring the rivulets of red running through his fingers, as Yuzu sobs. She’s got a good hand. Won’t do much in the long run, unless she gets her hands on a better weapon, but still, he’d approve if he wasn’t too busy screaming at the world.
        “That’s how it was meant to go,” he rants, eyes bleeding to inhuman black. “I was his Hollow! The fight made us both stronger, strong enough for him to win, the ungrateful bastard, and he just goes and forfeits the fight, like it—” Like that’s worth anything, if he wins that way. “Sure, he hated me, but still, I wanted him to call me King, not just abdicate the throne!”
        “You wanted him to acknowledge you,” Yuzu suggests quietly and—
        Okay, sure, so maybe, just maybe, things might’ve been different, if he’d been thankful, but they were both stubborn, and Ichigo went out of his way to pretend the power was all his.
        And he realizes the lonely chill, the hole of a Hollow, has made a nest in his body, not visible but no less painful of a wound. He’s crying, too, his human body getting the better of him. “Why the hell do your bodies do this? Make it stop!” he demands, desperate.
        Karin lowers the bat, which just makes it worse, like he’s no longer a threat. “Welcome to being human.” She sounds smug.
        “Stop being a pain. I will eat you.” Sure, he looks pathetic now, but still—
        “You won’t. You’ll heal.” Karin sounds sure, and he feels more humiliated than he had just wearing a hospital gown. “You were lonely and hungry and you wanted answers. You still do. And you want to know what happened to Ichigo as much as we do.” Hell. Her reiatsu reading’s a whole lot better than King ever let on. Then again, with how oblivious the guy can be, it’s likely he didn’t know, either.
        She pauses, just in time for Yuzu to continue the duo act. “I made karaage,” she tells him, grabbing his hand, and his stomach growls.
        Why not. He had wanted at least a temporary alliance from this exchange anyway, even if the way she’d gone about it had hurt his pride. And he’s not gonna let King just keep calling the shots by being reckless, even if Shiro is damn annoyed. Might as well try eating like a human, too, even if he’s hoping this little stint is temporary, because damn, a human’s body with everything that comes with it is shit.