Post by Wycliff on May 15, 2020 15:30:52 GMT -5
The sun had just risen over the skyline, it’s rays of light starting to illuminate the beginning of a new day. The sky was clear and in less than an hour it would become a perfect day to go out and enjoy the wonders of the world. The winter months were over and spring was in full bloom, the temperature of the world was just getting warm enough to make it pleasant to stay out in the sun. Off the coast the winds would be just enough to cause a cool breeze to flow, not enough to cause sand to pick up, but strong enough that one could relax in it cooling them down if they bathed in the light.
It was a perfect day to go to the beach, those who knew Wycliff would expect him to be right out in the human world enjoying such a day. Yet instead the shingami had locked himself in his room. The windows were closed letting in no light. He sat on his bed, his blade across the room, he looked as he saw the air around it freeze over. It had been a long time coming, Wycliff knew better than anyone what he had to do. It was the day that he would finally confront his Zan spirit, to figure out what was wrong. Wycliff made up his mind today either he would get Chukudo under control or he would try and kill it, he had become too strong lately and he wasn’t able to be kept under control.
Slowly Wycliff rose from his bed and went over to his blade. His fingers wrapping around the sheath, as they did he could feel the chill from the blade start to enter his bones. The cold started to freeze his fingers in place, locking them making it impossible for him to move them. It seemed that his Zan had the same idea. Today was the day, no getting away from what they had to do. As his fingers froze around the sword he hesitated for a moment, knowing very well that he would have to enter his inner world to deal with the man and he didn’t want to deal with that, deal with the world of cocaine.
Letting out a deep breath he already knew the truth, if he kept making excuses he would never solve anything. With determination he tried to tighten his grip on the blade and held it in front of him. Sitting down he closed his eyes and tried to focus. Blocking out all other thoughts that he had he was trying to commune with Chukudo. In the past he wasn’t that successful at entering his inner world, but he knew that was due to him just trying to do it half way and not really wanting to be in there, not since the first time he understood exactly what it was.
Wycliff’s eyes opened and he saw exactly what he didn’t want to, an examination room. It was fully stocked and looked like it was ready to receive patients. This was the only place he knew in his inner world that was peaceful and wasn’t instantly affected by the cocaine. Even if Wycliff was here to deal with Chukudo he wasn’t going to go out into the rest of the inner world, this was their meeting place and he was going to wait here till his zan came, he knew that eventually he would come and then the two of them could deal with one another.
As Wycliff waited he took a look around at the room and started to notice several things that were wrong. Normally this place was well kept and clean, yet there were traces of dirty bloody bandages in the waste bin. The light seemed to be flickering and one of the light bulbs was completely dead. Yet most worrisome was the cracks in the walls, at first they were minor, but the longer he looked at them the larger they became and the more they showed the outside world. This place was falling apart, he wasn’t sure as to why it was but he could feel a chill sinking in from the outside. The heat of this place was being sucked out and the room was starting to crumble.
A loud howl of wind ripped right through the crack and shoved Wycliff against one of the walls. As he crashed against it the wall crumbled and fell apart forcing Wycliff out of the room and his body was forced to rest against the snow that was all around him. He could only watch as wind started to rip apart and destroy the room that he had been standing in. A small twister formed and tore it apart the howling winds slowly eating away his safe haven and the only place he knew that he was safe from his own powers.
He expected to feel the impact of the drug entering his body as he laid in the snow, his back hurt from the sudden force that threw him out of the room. Yet as he laid there he felt nothing, there was no high, no pleasant feeling to get lost in, yet there was cold. An unfeeling and heartless cold covered his body, something was up. He knew for a fact that before this world was just cocaine and that he was easily affected by it, it’s why he liked the examination room, yet now he was fine. Slowly he cupped a bit of the white substance and put it to his tongue. It didn’t taste like anything and melted into water as the warmth of his body reached it. “What….. is going on here.”
Eventually Wycliff was able to get up, his body ached between the cold and the violent attack that had thrown him. He looked out at the normally calm inner world that was a massive wonderland made of cocaine. Then suddenly he saw it start to shatter and break, the cocaine was being washed away and something else was replacing it, the white cocaine was being replaced by ice and snow even brighter and clearer than the cocaine. He watched as his inner world was shifting and being destroyed. This was wrong, something was overwriting his inner world and he wasn’t sure as to what it was, he wanted it to stop he screamed out, but the sound of the wind and the world cracking and breaking drowned out his screams.
Then a voice came and spoke to him, in a firm tone it spoke. “Hush boy, you’re not helping anyone.” Wycliff turned to see that it was Chukudo, well sort of. The figure resembled him slightly, the spirit appeared to be much older and have much longer hair. His limp was gone and the blue eyes seemed to be even brighter. His hair had changed from a light brown to a silver and it was clear that his voice wasn’t the same as before. This individual seemed to be Chukudo, however there was so much different about him that it was hard to say that he was the same person.
Wycliff tried to speak but once again the sound of the wind cut away his voice, he was unable to say anything. He saw as who he assumed Chukudo was draw out the very same blade that he had in release and raise it up. “Wycliff, you keep running from yourself. You can’t move forward if you keep this up.” Without any sign a twister of air started to form infont of the tip of the blade, it came crashing towards him and he found himself unable to move as the twister ripped through the area and hit him. The force of it pushed him back, the force causing him to wince and close his eyes. When he opened them he was in a very different place.
No longer was he standing in the middle of a snow storm, instead he was inside of an old home. He could smell the wood and soot everywhere. The walls had seen better days as the paint was peeling off of it. The floors creaked as he stepped and put weight on them, yet as run down as this place was he felt some sense of comfort and warmth from here. This place was familiar to him, but he couldn’t pin point it, the lantern light didn’t help, but as he stood around he saw that everything seemed to be just frozen in place. The only thought on his mind as he looked around was where was he? He knew this place, but why did he?
The answer came as a woman opened the door carrying in food and a little child behind her. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back, her tired eyes betrayed how she felt and made her look older than she actually was. Her clothing was plain and dull, a bit ragged but nothing that was more so than clothing that had seen well use. Wycliff instantly knew who she was, it was his mother and the little kid behind her was him. Why was he back here? How was he back here? His home no longer existed, it had been destroyed years ago, his family had moved on and he could never find their souls, not that he tried that hard. Still he smiled as he saw his mother, this place was warm and had some comforts to it, but that wouldn’t last for him.
The door slammed open and he saw someone who he never wanted to see again, it was his father. The man reeked of booze and was clearly dunk. Time had never been kind to his father, the man looked like he had been through so much, yet he was still very young. Even though they talked Wycliff couldn’t hear what they were saying. His younger self was pushed aside and forced to go to another room. His father gripped his mother and started to drag her. Wycliff knew exactly what was about to happen, before he hadn’t been strong enough to stop it, but now this time he was. He wouldn’t let history repeat it’s self.
As his father went to strike his mother Wycliff went to stop him. However the moment he touched his father he simply passed through him and came out the other side. He did hear the screams, followed by the sound of her being hit. “You couldn’t change what happened back then. You were powerless, unable to understand what was going on, but you could hear. You could hear the pain that rage could inflict on others, I wonder if this is where you learned to hold back and not let anger take you.” The same voice as before echoed into his mind as he watched his father brutally beat his mother.
Wycliff tried to stop it again but it didn’t work, all he could do was simply watch as his mother was beaten over and over. He could feel the rage boil up inside of him as he watched his father’s blows starting to draw blood on his mother. He wanted this to stop, he wanted to keep his mother safe and even more he wanted to make his father pay. He felt his grip tighten on his blade and without thinking he lashed out slashing at his father with his blade. This time however the blade connected with his father and blood went flying everywhere. His mother laid motionless on the ground as his father slowly died from being attacked. “See even now, you had the chance to save her, but you rejected the rage and tried to do it without killing him.”
Wycliff turned around to see try and face the voice, but more so go away from the scene before him. As he did he saw that he was back in the ice covered world that was his inner world. He wanted to speak but he knew it would be all in vain. He still had his sword ready and if this version of Chukudo was going to act like this then he would take care of him with his own power. He held his blade ready and charged at Chukudo. He wanted to end this without having to kill his inner spirit, but if he was going to act like this then he would have to kill him.
As the blade came down Wycliff saw the figure in white vanish into a storm of snow and ice, his body was gone. Wycliff’s blade slammed down and crashed into the snow. Chukudo was gone, but Wycliff knew something was up, the blade had no resistance as it went down, there was nothing stopping it or slowing it down it was as if he just sliced through thin air. That’s when in front of him he saw Chukudo reappear in a violent explosion of ice and snow being flung everywhere. The cold hit him and forced him to slide backwards slightly from the impact of it all.
This power that this Chukudo had was clearly different than the one he knew. Looking at his own blade he finally noticed something, he wasn’t producing cocaine, in fact the sword wasn’t producing anything at all. There was something really wrong with his powers right now, between the new powers that Chukudo was using and the lack of ones he had something was up. If just going towards him like that wasn’t going to work then using a stepping tech would be the answer. Wycliff wasn’t sure if he could actually use shumpo inside of his inner world, but it was the best plan he had at this time.
He gathered the reiatsu around his feet and condensed them, taking a deep breath in he launched himself forward and towards Chukudo. As he did so he saw the spirit mouth something then suddenly he felt the pain of whatever he had done. Wycliff came out of the shumpo earlier than he wanted to. He doubled over in pain and saw his red blood dying the white snow and then realized where it was coming from. It was his own blood, he had been cut, not just cut once, but there were cuts all over his body . He could feel the cold freeze over the cuts and the blood stopping it’s flow. “You rush into things too much Wycliff, you came at me in your rage without looking. Do I have to remind you about the last time you tried that?”
Wycliff turned his head up and strained his eyes to look at Chukudo. The figure’s appearance had changed so much. The flesh on his skin was starting to rot, his hair was falling away, the skin on his fingers started to sink in showing more bone than anything else. The spirit started to say something, but Wycliff wasn’t able to make it out as his eyes got heavy and started to close. His mind was drifting away the loss of blood and the cold was making it hard to stay awake, he was starting to slip. For a moment his eyes shut and the sound of wind and ice stopped, the only sound he could hear was that of water dripping down hitting stone.
It took a while but he was able to open his eyes again, there he saw that he was no longer in the white world again, this time he was in a cave, a dark and dank cave. The smell of blood and sweat was in the air and there was no mistaking the aura around the cave, it was heavy and dark. He knew this place, it was where he last saw Rose, where he was trying to help her and in his own weakness fucked up and left her for a moment. She vanished after he trusted her and wanted to save her, the smell, the aura it all brought it back. He wanted to move on past this, he knew it haunted him but he wasn’t strong enough to relive it, sadly for him he had no choice.
Without even realizing it he had stood up, the cuts all over his body were gone and the blood was as well. He saw the heavy metal door that stood between him and the memory or whatever this was. He knew that behind that door was the past. Was Chukudo planning on having him relive everything he hated? Every moment of weakness? No he didn’t want to play this game he knew that he had messed up, he was afraid to help her, he was too scared to use his strength to do something, at least to sooth her pain. Yet as he tried to ignore the door, he found his body moving towards it unable to control his own actions he saw himself opening it.
There was nothing that could prepare him for what he saw, back in the deepest part of the room he saw the corpse of Rose chained up against the wall. Her form was changed and morphed, it no longer resembled the beautiful woman that he had come to care for, instead it was twisted and dark. Her pale skin was now darkened and patchy with what looked like the flesh of a hollow. Her long locks were matted and cut, the blonde hair was turned into something more aken to a blood red. Her face was mixed with what seemed to be a hollow mask. Her skin was sunken into her body, it seemed as if she had died there with nothing to nourish her.
Wycliff had to do everything to keep himself from vomiting upon seeing this sight. He had expected to relive the moment that he had came in to help save her. There was no preparing him for this, it was true that he still held feelings for Rose, mostly due to her being the first person who wanted to help him after learning what his power did to him, so seeing even a fake version of her like this made him sick. After the door was opened he was able to control his body again and held an arm against the door to brace himself. He could feel the blood draining from his body as he simply stood their watching her body.
“This is the one who you trusted, she gave you hope and how did you repay her? You were a coward, you hesitated, stood back and feared using your power, you did this to her Wycliff. You caused her to leave, your inaction and fear of yourself pushed her away. How can you say you cared about her if you never were truthful with yourself about her? You knew the truth, she needed your help and you didn’t do anything to really help her, you just said you did and fooled yourself into thinking that you did more than you actually did. You say you want power, but you can’t even handle yourself with it, you want to be stronger? Do what needs to be done, she is suffering, end it.”
The voice came from the back of his mind and he knew exactly who it was, however he didn’t know what he meant by him saying that she was suffering. It was at that moment that he noticed something that he hadn’t before. Rose’s chest was slowly raising and lowering, she was breathing. She was alive, or at least breathing. Wycliff watched as the body he thought was a corpse start to move slightly, she was still chained up and moving in a horrific manor. Slowly he pulled himself away from the door and started to walk towards her, cautious about what was going on.
As he got close he saw her lift her head, her eyes glazed over and lacking light stared right at him. Her misshapen mouth started to mutter out something over and over again. No sound came out, but he could understand what she was saying. It was his name, over and over she was calling his name as he got closer. While the sound wasn’t coming out it was clear that she was in pain, she seemed so hurt and he wanted to help, he didn’t want to kill her, he wanted to save her, he could save her. She hadn’t gone too far yet right?
His hand went to grab her on her shoulder, her skin was cold and damp, it felt dead. He looked at Rose hoping that she was still breathing, he let out a sigh of relief at that moment but then he felt something wrong. Rose’s hand went to wrap around his arm and dragged him closer to her. Her face twisted upwards and looked at him this time her voice was clear as she screamed into his face. “Give me your soul!” Her eyes widened as she dragged him closer and tried to bite down on his neck. Wycliff used all his strength to try and pull away from her trying to bite down on him.
Pulling away he was able to get back far enough to get away from her grasp. The sudden movement and the force of him exerting when moving backwards was more than enough to force him to fall backwards and land on his rear, his hands helping him brace his fall as he hit the ground. He saw as Rose started to move pulling on the chains screaming and howling like a wild animal. The chains rattled as she tried to remove them and free herself from the wall. Wycliff was stunned, he thought that he could help, this was his memory, his mind after all he could change things if he wanted to right? He could save her like he did before?
The voice of Chukudo came once again into his mind and this time it was angry. “You think you saved her? If that’s true where is she Wycliff? Where is Rose? You don’t even know do you? We both know the truth, you were to weak to help her and then you piled on your own issues onto her. You made it worse for her so she ran. You caused her to die, you caused her to leave and now you can’t even face the facts, what’s left of her is only harming you. That thing isn’t her, it’s her memory and it’s killing you draining you.”
Wycliff simply stopped moving as he heard the voice scream at him drowning out the angry and hungry cries of what was Rose. He wanted to argue but it was true, he had trusted Rose and she hurt him. He had hope that she would have helped him deal with his issues or at the very least help him understand why, but she left without a trace, she left him all alone and the thought of trusting someone else became too much. She destroyed his faith once again in his superiors and she kept on tormenting his mind as he tried to move on.
He knew what he had to do, he had to get rid of the memory of her. Not all of it, but this particular one. He couldn’t keep on remembering her just as this person, he had to move past this moment. If he didn’t then he had a feeling that this scene would continue to plague him no matter how strong he got. He sighed and looked at Rose. It was time, he had to get rid of her, it pained him but he knew that Chukudo was right, him remembering her like this wasn’t good for him. He had found memories of her, but he knew that as long as he never let go of this time he would never be able to cherish the time he had with her.
Wycliff stood up, the sounds of the chains rattling came back into focus as did the screams and cries of Rose wanting to consume him. For the first time since he had been in this room he saw his blade around his waist. Wycliff was ready, he was ready to say goodbye to Rose and only see her as a memory, a fond one, not this twisted monstrosity that he had come to create over replaying that night in his mind over and over. The blade felt cold in his hand as he moved towards her, he could see her motions, chained yet violent, it’s screams changed as he lifted his blade, they begged for him to saver her, to let her free, to save her like he had done before. No he knew the truth, if he did that he would be right back where he was before.
The closer he got to her he saw dark tendrils around his body form all of them coming from Rose. They weren’t holding him back, yet as he pressed forward each inch he felt his emotions being tugged at, the sadness he felt from her vanishing, the hopelessness he felt when he realized that no one was there to help him, the guilt of blaming himself for her vanishing all of these came to him as he tried to strike her down. Wycliff wasn’t a stone wall, he was human like everyone else and all of it was almost too much for him, but it didn’t stop him as he plunged the blade into Rose’s heart. For all the screaming and protesting she had, she hadn’t put up a real fight once the blade was plunged into her.
He lowered his head as he felt the warm blood drip down the blade and touch his hand. The tendrils slowly started to vanish as he simply held his blade there. Tears forming in his eyes as he just wanted for this to be over with, Wycliff felt a warm hand land on his cheek and caress it slowly. With tears in his eyes still he raised his head and looked up to see that the monstrosity of Rose was gone and she looked like she did normally. His blade still plunged into her chest. He couldn’t muster up words as he saw her smile at him and simply say thank you before vanishing in a bright light.
He watched as she faded into the light and the rest of the room slowly being consumed by it. The dark corners of this place slowly fading into a bright white nothingness. He still felt ill to the stomach of having to do that, however he knew that it was for the best. The brightness started to fade and another vision came, this time it was fuzzy and hazy however he could tell through the vague outlines that it was Rose sitting at her desk with a smile across her face. It was a memory of her that he had pushed back because of the last experience with her. As the brightness started to fade he saw that the memory became a bit clearer, but not that much. Suddenly his eyes opened and he was back to the fight with Chukudo.
He was still bleeding, the snow was now red with his blood and he stood up shaking from the blood loss and the cold. What the hell had that been? His breath heavy and fogging the air around his mouth he knew that trying to say anything would be useless as the wind and snow would just drown him out. His grip was still on his blade, his hand frozen over it as he pointed it back at Chukudo. Speeding towards him didn’t work, attacking him with his blade wasn’t working so there was one option left for this fight, Kido.
Wycliff wasn’t even sure that kido would work in this place, hell he wasn’t even sure that the damage he took was real, it felt real but it was a gamble he had to take. Shumpo had worked, so kido would have to work right? It was the same idea as shumpo, if there was reiatsu in the area that allowed him to use shumpo then kido had to be on the table. At this point it was all up in the air, but it was worth a gamble and he had to try something or he would lose, and he really didn’t want to know what would happen if he lost.
If he was going to bet everything on Kido then he knew the exact one he was going to use. Chukudo to him was beyond saving and he had to end this now. He figured that if he did a normal incantation two things would happen, the first is that the wind would block his voice and it wouldn’t work in the way he wanted it to, the second would be that Chukudo would realize what he’s doing and stop him mind incantation making it all for nothing. He took a deep breath and started to chant the words in his mind, hoping that this would be the last of this fight, he wasn’t sure how much more he could really take.
O, Thyne of Impotent allure, draw thyself here today in the very pits of Tartarus and the glowing golden; There are six keys to seven doors, and seven levels to eight stages; There are dogs and cats of Rodi, there is the mighty god of each, and then God himself to smite you in your own feeble underdressing and vomit and snot and drool; Know yourself, you foolish thing, and do not hold back, realize only that by the stars there can be nothing but greatness; The lightning compels you, Sacrilege, Destruction, Chaos, all unite; Final, Destructive, Shattering and knowing, realize yourself and your butchery! Hado #99: Kaminari Ha
Without any waring hundreds of blades of lighting formed in the middle of the storm. All of them impossibly large and surrounding Chukudo at all angles. This would be the end, Wycliff knew it he had to kill his inner zan spirit and this was the way he was going about it. With a single motion of moving his blade he had all of them fly right at Chukudo and waited to see the massive lighting dragon form and kill the spirit. He was sad, he didn’t want to do this he enjoyed being a shingami and now without a zanpakuto spirit he wasn’t sure if he could remain as one.
Wycliff’s eyes closed for a moment knowing full well that this was over, yet as he opened them he saw something that baffled him. There in the center of where Chukudo was, all the blades of lighting had stopped moving in fact everything in that area had stopped. The snow was stopped, and Wycliff could clearly see Chukudo where he was, then there was the motion of him moving, not showing steps, but slowly the figure of him skated around the blades and headed towards him. Motionless and with the same expression that he had before. Wycliff raised his blade and held it upwards before trying to slash down at him as he got closer.
As the blade came down he could feel it being stuck near the top, he was unable to push it down and suddenly everything froze, he couldn’t feel himself moving, his heartbeat stopped, his breathing stopped. Everything was frozen his vison was locked onto Chukudo as he saw the spirit had moved, it’s just that everything else in the world hadn’t. His kido landed in an empty area and he then understood what had happened. Chukudo had frozen the world around him and made it impossible for anything to move but him. What was this power? Where had this come from? Chukudo was a zan that was made from cocaine not cold right?
He could feel it, something was dragging him away again, he had no idea as to where he would end up this time, if this was like the other times he would face another apparition of his past. Someone important to him, he was tired of this, why was Chukudo showing him these ghosts? It wasn’t doing anything for him except forcing him to relive the worst times in his life and remember how much he had failed those he cared about. His vision was blurring again inside of this cold, he couldn’t feel his fingers and maybe this was it, this chill would take him away.
Wycliff was snapped out of that trance like state by the sounds of a soda can being open. He readjusted his eyes and saw where he was. He was sitting down in a chair, in an office that he knew very well. This was the squad thirteen office and he was sitting across from where Ludwig had been when they had their first chat as well as after finding out about his power and the issues he had. The room had the smell of something sweet lingering in the air, he figured that it was the soda he had heard opening before.
Yet instead of seeing Ludwig there in the chair he saw that it was empty. Why was he here? Who was he suppose to meet here? If it wasn’t Ludwig then why was he in the captain’s office. He stood up and looked to see if there was anything else that was out of place. As he scanned the office he noticed that it looked exactly how Ludwig had left it, there was nothing out of place, while the office now was a bit of a mess, with paperwork everywhere that he often pawned off on others to do for him.
The emptiness of this place was starting to get to him, there was always someone else here with these visions so why not now? What was so different about this time that he was here all alone? Moving over to the desk Wycliff pulled on one of the draws that he knew Ludwig had kept sweets in to try and find a possible clue, but there was nothing in there. This whole experience was surreal to him given what he had just been doing before, Wycliff was all alone. He was all alone and there wasn’t anyone coming this time. That’s when it sank in for him, he was all alone and no one was going to help him.
If no one was going to come in Wycliff would leave, this was a waste of time and god knows what was happening to him in his inner world. While nothing had happened yet while he went on these deviations, but he wasn’t sure that it would be the case for forever. As he reached the door and placed a hand on it he felt that it was locked, trying to open it proved to be pointless as he couldn’t. The door wouldn’t even budge, he was puzzled by this as every time he was able to walk and open things, he had done that with Rose and he could have done it when he saw his mother, so why couldn’t he do so now? His eyes went over to the windows behind the captain’s char, trying to open them was pointless just like the door, there was no way out. Wycliff was stuck here all alone, unable to leave with no one coming to show him the way.
With this realization Wycliff went to grab his blade and found that it was nowhere around, without giving it a second thought he tried to grab the bookshelf and pull it down, however it wouldn’t budge. Grabbing the books and anything he could get his hands on resulted in the same things over and over again. Nothing was going to budge in his fit of rage or if he was going to try and use it to escape. This was his prison, a solitary confinement prison all for him with no way of knowing when his sentence would be over.
Time would pass as Wycliff tried everything he could to escape this emptiness, the longer he spent in here the worst he felt about how he was fairing in the outside. The light from outside the office would fade into darkness and the time on the clock passed. Eventually as Wycliff grew tired from trying to escape he found himself sitting down in the captain’s chair in the dark, only a few bits of light coming off of the various things in the office that were electronical. His breathing was heavy as the darkness came and overtook the office entirely. He could feel his eyes getting heavy as time went on, he didn’t want to pass out here, he had no idea what would happen if he did and he wasn’t about to find out.
As he regained the motivation to stay awake he saw a piece of paper on the desk illuminate slightly, moving his hand to pull it out from the pile he saw what it was and the blood from his face drained. It was a drawing of Ludwig’s face with the words Missing in bold red all around. In the back of his mind he felt a thought come creeping from the back of his mind, one that he knew existed, but never wanted to acknowledge. Yet the more he tried to push it back the stronger it was; Ludwig left because of you.
As those words came out to him he shot up out of the chair pushing it back and slamming the paper down on the desk, he knew that it was true, but he didn’t want to accept that. He had a cold sweat fill his body as he moved away from the desk. He always had those thoughts, but never wanted to actually say them out loud, after all who could blame him for that ? Ludwig was loved by his squad and they were devastated for him going missing. Wycliff took on everything that he could to try and make up for it, but it wasn’t enough for the squad they still had their issues.
As he rejected the missing poster the room around him started to get darker and darker. Everything was fading into nothingness and blackness. Wycliff as he turned to face the desk again to try and find that paper to destroy it would find him surrounded in nothingness. Everything was pitch black and the world seemed vast yet was void of anything say for more darkness. There was enough light coming from somewhere for him to be able to see himself, but everything else was just covered in darkness. Then it came, suddenly and from everywhere he saw thousands of missing posters for both Rose and Ludwig surrounding him all of them showing different expressions and angles.
As the posters started to appear around him he heard the whispers of others starting to mutter around in the darkness, all of them saying the same thing, where are they? Why did they go missing? Does anyone know what happened? Who did this? The voices continued as the posters started to swirl around him. Wycliff just stood in the center paralyzed by all of this, he couldn’t respond to it all, because he knew the true, he was responsible for both of them going missing, they both left after they tried to help him. He’s the cause of them going, he’s responsible for the both of them leaving soul society without a notice.
With each passing second the missing posters got closer and closer to him and the whispers changed from low voices to loud screeching. The posters slowly starting to rotate all around him as then closed in, every moment causing him more and more stress over it all. His hands went to cover his ears as he tried to keep himself from hearing the sounds of the questions, however it didn’t matter no matter what he did the sounds kept on coming. In this state he screamed out that he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to make them go away. A loud thumping started to chime in as he fell to the floor screaming out that he didn’t mean to make them disappear.
“Stand up, what are you doing on the ground Wycliff?” A voice told him silencing everything else in the void. Looking up he saw Ludwig standing over him with a disappointed look across his face at Wycliff. “Honestly what am I going to do with you?” Ludwig said as the darkness started to be illuminated by the light in the void turning the darkness back into the office that Wycliff had been in before the darkness had consumed it, the posters vanishing from sight and Ludwig sat down in his chair waiting for Wycliff to get off of the floor and sit down in the chair.
Slowly Wycliff stood back up looking around to make sure that this wasn’t a trick or anything, with hesitation he sat down in the chair looking at Ludwig wondering why now was he here. “Listen Wycliff, you have to stop blaming yourself for me and Rose, both of us left and you didn’t have anything to do with it.” His hand raised up and stopping Wycliff from being able to speak. “Let me finish alright, people just leave and sometimes there isn’t a reason for it, you have to stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t do. Sure you did a lot, and drove me crazy with some of your shenanigans, but you didn’t cause me to leave. You have a lot to blame yourself over, but us leaving isn’t one of them.”
Wycliff looked at Ludwig strangely as he said the word us, before a voice came from behind him that he recognized. “We all have out demons Wycliff, sometimes we can’t tell others or trust them with them.” He turned around to see that it was Rose standing there like a proper captain, holding her dog in her arms. “Now stop being a sad sulk and get off your ass and get out of here.” She shoved his shoulder and smiled nodding towards the door. “Wycliff, your not meant to die here with this regret, get out of here and take control of your life.” Ludwig said with a firm tone, “that’s an order from your captain.”
Wycliff chuckled a bit as he heard that from Ludwig, Wycliff knew that Ludwig knew very well that he never listened to the orders, or at least not that well. Still something inside of him was telling him that they were right, this wasn’t his fault, them leaving wasn’t his fault and he couldn’t keep blaming himself even if he wanted to. There was no point, Rose, rose had her own demons and she vanished with them, Ludwig, Wycliff really didn’t know what was going on with his former captain, but he knew that simply saying that he caused that issue wasn’t true. He just kept blaming himself over something he had no control over.
He smiled at the two of them before standing up and walking over to the door, he looked back once more to see that they had vanished and this time he had a feeling that they were gone for good, yet he didn’t feel guilty about that. His hand grasped the doorknob and slowly turned it opening the door and stepping through the bright whiteness into the abyss leaving behind the office knowing that after this was over he would need to stop going into that office in the real world, it wasn’t his and the responsibility and guilt of no captain wasn’t needed.
His eyes opened and he found himself once more back in the swirling storm of ice and snow that was his inner world. The blood still flowing from his wounds, yet the cold was slowly freezing over the blood sealing away the wounds. Chukudo was standing away looking at Wycliff with a stern look across his face. “You’ve done well, but this ends now Wycliff.” His words still sounded as if they were gusts of wind forming sounds and not an actual voice. Wycliff wasn’t sure as to what was about to happen, but he was ready to face it. Then it came, Chukudo held out the sword he was holding and said something that he had never expected to hear. Bankai
The world changed, before Wycliff had been able to at least see the world around him through the wind and snow, now all he saw was white. The blood on the ground was covered by pure white snow, the blue sky was so filled with snow that he wasn’t able to tell where the sky started and where the ground ended. The hills and trees were covered and vanished with the furry of the wind whipping the snow up off the ground. Wycliff couldn’t even see further past a foot past his face, this was so surreal, if this really was his bankai then it was nothing like he had known in the past. The cold got even worse as he felt it creeping up his body entering his core.
Wycliff had no idea what to expect next yet he held his blade tight as he waited for an attack, even though he couldn’t see what was coming he still wanted to be prepared for any sort of attack. Then suddenly a form came towards him, it was in the shape of Chukudo, it swung a blade made of ice and snow and slashed right at him. Wycliff blocked it with his own blade, the two swords clashed letting out a crunching sound as he broke the ice blade of the creation. It looked at the broken blade for a moment before reforming it and continuing it’s attack towards Wycliff.
Wycliff had been used to construct before, heck in shikai he had some that he was able to manipulate, but this thing was different, each time their blades clashed it seemed to respond without a delay, as if it had it’s own mind and it’s own thoughts. He really felt as if he was fighting another individual, as they continued to clash he noticed something that made him pause for a moment. This construct was changing it’s form, it’s face was turning younger and the clothing becoming something more familiar to him, something he swore he would never wear ever again. It took a bit of time, but he saw the snow construct form into a likeness of his old self, just before he died.
He was stunned for a moment watching the construct resemble him, it was in that very moment that the construct was able to strike the blade out of Wycliff’s hand. Wycliff was disarmed and looked down to try and see where his blade had gone, it had vanished covered totally by snow and frost. Turning down to look for the blade was the worst decision Wycliff could have made as the construct looking just like a younger him slashed him across his chest, blood poured out and covered the construct, just as soon as the blood came out it was instantly frozen and covered by snow and frost turning pure white. Wycliff fell backwards into the snow.
“It’s time to end this Wycliff.” The voice of Chukudo said as he came into view from above, the snow and ice pulled away to make a clearing for Chukudo to be seen. Suddenly everything became extremely hot, all Wycliff could see was a blinding white brightness and all he could feel was a burning sensation surrounding his body. The bright light overtook his vision resulting in it blinding him as he was consumed. Every inch of his body felt assaulted by the heat all at once it burned every part of his body and then suddenly it stopped. He was no longer in the inner world, it seemed that he had one more past to experience.
Wycliff’s vison came to in a large metal cage surrounding a fighting ring. Wycliff looked at his clothing and saw that it wasn’t his shingami uniform, but rather a set of modern-day fighting shorts with no shirt on. The smell of blood and smoke was in the air, but Wycliff couldn’t tell where it was coming from as all he could see was just the fighting ring and the massive metal cage that kept him in. Then suddenly the sounds of people cheering, clapping and screaming started. A vague outline of people started to show up in the background behind the cage walls. A bright light came down into the center of the stage and a voice came over from above.
“Tonight Gentlemen, we have a real treat for you. In one corner the mad dog of London, the blonde bruiser himself Wycliff Mason.” The light went over to shine over a version of himself that he never wanted to see again. This Wycliff had longer greasy hair, his body covered in bruises and cuts, the look in his eyes was dead and glazed over, watching him slowly snort some white powder he stood up with both bare fists in the air ready to fight. “And in the other corner, the former fighting champion, now a coward hiding behind the truth. Wycliff” The light went over to shine over him and the crowed booed at him and even threw some trash at him.
“Now gentlemen, you know the rules, this is a fight to the death, I want a clean fight.” The announcer said in a cackled laugh as a bell rang out. Wycliff knew exactly where he was, he was back in the death pits that he used to make a living after he left home. This was the last place in the world he wanted to be as he knew himself at this time was the person he was trying to always run away from. To forget and ignore the things he did at that time, everything he had done since then was to try and make up for that time in his life. Yet it seemed that the final thing he had to overcome was himself.
The past Wycliff didn’t waste any time as he threw a powerful right hook right to Wycliff’s jaw, bashing him in the face causing him to falter and step back. Wycliff could taste his own blood in his mouth, Wycliff didn’t want to fight him, it was pointless to fight back and try and take him on, not that he couldn’t, but that it wouldn’t do anything. The past version of himself then kicked Wycliff in the stomach forcing him to fall to the floor. “Get up and fight back, stop being a coward. You can’t get out of this by talking or being scared. Fight me you coward, face me and stop trying to run.”
As the past Wycliff said these things to him he was also being assaulted by repeated fists to his face. Wycliff felt each punch to the face as the past version of himself wasn’t showing any mercy, this was just the way he fought in the past to survive these fights. The more that Wycliff tried not to fight back the stronger the punches became from his past self. After a few seconds of this the ref came over to pull the past self off of him. Allowing Wycliff to stand up, his face was all bloodied and his vision was fading, he didn’t want to fight, it didn’t make sense as to why he had to.
The past Wycliff looked at the bloodied version of him and started to speak again. “Fucking coward, you have all this strength and you hide behind the pretense that it’s toxic, that it’s a burden. You know what you are Wycliff, a scared little kid trying to be a hero. You’re just a disappointment, dad was right we never did grow up to be anything special. Unlike you I embrace what we are, we’re strong, powerful and we take what we want. Just go cry and let others do all the work while you’re too paralyzed with fear of what you could do, to act. Once I beat you, I’ll take over, I’ll be strong, I’ll be the one who does things and I won’t be afraid to use Boreas. So go ahead and die you waste of space.”
Wycliff listened as the past self pretty much told him everything he knew that he was afraid of doing what he needed to do. That he was running away from his past, but what worried him wasn’t the fact that he was hearing everything he tried to keep away, but that the possibility of this version of himself would take over if he failed. Wycliff with blood pouring down his face looked at his past self who hadn’t even taken a single blow yet and knew that his past self was right, he couldn’t just keep hiding from who he had been, he had to embrace the person that he had been and keep it with him. With a heavy breath he stood upright and motioned for his past self to come at him.
His past self charged back at him as the bell rang again for them to fight once more, Wycliff stayed still as he watched his past self throw a punch. Then without any large fight or motion a blast of lighting came out from the tip of his finger shooting his past self through the heart. It was a sure fire kill and it caused his past self to fall to the floor without any resistance. While this was a fight to the death, he didn’t have to play by the rules that had been set. He had kido and he knew how to use it, it was a gamble but everything here was. Wycliff kneeled down as the last grasps of breath of his past self were happening. There was a smile on his face as he died, “Don’t be a coward, use him and trust in yourself.”
With those words the past self of him was dead and the crowed was cheering at the way the fight had ended. The announcer came into the cage and raised up Wycliff’s hand saying that he had won the fight. Wycliff was done with this and slowly headed towards the door of the cage. He found no resistance to him exiting the cage and the crowed of people vanished as he stepped into the darkness. It would all fade and Wycliff would find himself back in the fight with Chukudo, the bright light and the blazing temperature had faded. He looked at the spirit now knowing what this all was.
By this time the spirit had fully changed into something unrecognizable, it was a monstrous being of ice and snow and Wycliff knew why this was. It roared out in a loud echo at Wycliff before slamming down it’s fists nearby him. Wycliff simply cried out “Enough Boreas, I get it.” The monster of snow and ice started to melt, the world around him slowly started to calm down as Wycliff would find himself in a massive ice throne room. Sitting on the throne of ice was his zan spirit with it’s real name Boreas. “Finally you listened and used my name Wycliff, all this time, you had been poisoned by your fear and it poisoned me.” His voice boomed and appeared to be made of the sound of wind clashing.
Wycliff, just looked at the spirit and finally asked the question on his mind. “So now what? I mean, ya power isn’t what it was is it? How do I know what I can do?” Boreas looked down and stroked his beard, with a chuckle as the question was asked. “You’ve seen what I can do, what our power is both in shikai and bankai Wycliff, use it well, but remember you’re not the scared child anymore who hides from his father’s wrath, nor are you the mad beast of London who fights for money. You are you, embrace everything that you have been and you won’t lose your way.” With that said Wycliff was pushed out of his inner world and ended back in his room, his zan was no longer cold, but he could feel a inner peace inside of himself that he had never had before. He smiled as he saw that it was already night time and he knew what the future would hold for him. Chukudo was just him rejecting his power and being afraid, now that he had faced his demons the real name came to him. He was excited to see how he would be able to fight with Boreas.
It was a perfect day to go to the beach, those who knew Wycliff would expect him to be right out in the human world enjoying such a day. Yet instead the shingami had locked himself in his room. The windows were closed letting in no light. He sat on his bed, his blade across the room, he looked as he saw the air around it freeze over. It had been a long time coming, Wycliff knew better than anyone what he had to do. It was the day that he would finally confront his Zan spirit, to figure out what was wrong. Wycliff made up his mind today either he would get Chukudo under control or he would try and kill it, he had become too strong lately and he wasn’t able to be kept under control.
Slowly Wycliff rose from his bed and went over to his blade. His fingers wrapping around the sheath, as they did he could feel the chill from the blade start to enter his bones. The cold started to freeze his fingers in place, locking them making it impossible for him to move them. It seemed that his Zan had the same idea. Today was the day, no getting away from what they had to do. As his fingers froze around the sword he hesitated for a moment, knowing very well that he would have to enter his inner world to deal with the man and he didn’t want to deal with that, deal with the world of cocaine.
Letting out a deep breath he already knew the truth, if he kept making excuses he would never solve anything. With determination he tried to tighten his grip on the blade and held it in front of him. Sitting down he closed his eyes and tried to focus. Blocking out all other thoughts that he had he was trying to commune with Chukudo. In the past he wasn’t that successful at entering his inner world, but he knew that was due to him just trying to do it half way and not really wanting to be in there, not since the first time he understood exactly what it was.
Wycliff’s eyes opened and he saw exactly what he didn’t want to, an examination room. It was fully stocked and looked like it was ready to receive patients. This was the only place he knew in his inner world that was peaceful and wasn’t instantly affected by the cocaine. Even if Wycliff was here to deal with Chukudo he wasn’t going to go out into the rest of the inner world, this was their meeting place and he was going to wait here till his zan came, he knew that eventually he would come and then the two of them could deal with one another.
As Wycliff waited he took a look around at the room and started to notice several things that were wrong. Normally this place was well kept and clean, yet there were traces of dirty bloody bandages in the waste bin. The light seemed to be flickering and one of the light bulbs was completely dead. Yet most worrisome was the cracks in the walls, at first they were minor, but the longer he looked at them the larger they became and the more they showed the outside world. This place was falling apart, he wasn’t sure as to why it was but he could feel a chill sinking in from the outside. The heat of this place was being sucked out and the room was starting to crumble.
A loud howl of wind ripped right through the crack and shoved Wycliff against one of the walls. As he crashed against it the wall crumbled and fell apart forcing Wycliff out of the room and his body was forced to rest against the snow that was all around him. He could only watch as wind started to rip apart and destroy the room that he had been standing in. A small twister formed and tore it apart the howling winds slowly eating away his safe haven and the only place he knew that he was safe from his own powers.
He expected to feel the impact of the drug entering his body as he laid in the snow, his back hurt from the sudden force that threw him out of the room. Yet as he laid there he felt nothing, there was no high, no pleasant feeling to get lost in, yet there was cold. An unfeeling and heartless cold covered his body, something was up. He knew for a fact that before this world was just cocaine and that he was easily affected by it, it’s why he liked the examination room, yet now he was fine. Slowly he cupped a bit of the white substance and put it to his tongue. It didn’t taste like anything and melted into water as the warmth of his body reached it. “What….. is going on here.”
Eventually Wycliff was able to get up, his body ached between the cold and the violent attack that had thrown him. He looked out at the normally calm inner world that was a massive wonderland made of cocaine. Then suddenly he saw it start to shatter and break, the cocaine was being washed away and something else was replacing it, the white cocaine was being replaced by ice and snow even brighter and clearer than the cocaine. He watched as his inner world was shifting and being destroyed. This was wrong, something was overwriting his inner world and he wasn’t sure as to what it was, he wanted it to stop he screamed out, but the sound of the wind and the world cracking and breaking drowned out his screams.
Then a voice came and spoke to him, in a firm tone it spoke. “Hush boy, you’re not helping anyone.” Wycliff turned to see that it was Chukudo, well sort of. The figure resembled him slightly, the spirit appeared to be much older and have much longer hair. His limp was gone and the blue eyes seemed to be even brighter. His hair had changed from a light brown to a silver and it was clear that his voice wasn’t the same as before. This individual seemed to be Chukudo, however there was so much different about him that it was hard to say that he was the same person.
Wycliff tried to speak but once again the sound of the wind cut away his voice, he was unable to say anything. He saw as who he assumed Chukudo was draw out the very same blade that he had in release and raise it up. “Wycliff, you keep running from yourself. You can’t move forward if you keep this up.” Without any sign a twister of air started to form infont of the tip of the blade, it came crashing towards him and he found himself unable to move as the twister ripped through the area and hit him. The force of it pushed him back, the force causing him to wince and close his eyes. When he opened them he was in a very different place.
No longer was he standing in the middle of a snow storm, instead he was inside of an old home. He could smell the wood and soot everywhere. The walls had seen better days as the paint was peeling off of it. The floors creaked as he stepped and put weight on them, yet as run down as this place was he felt some sense of comfort and warmth from here. This place was familiar to him, but he couldn’t pin point it, the lantern light didn’t help, but as he stood around he saw that everything seemed to be just frozen in place. The only thought on his mind as he looked around was where was he? He knew this place, but why did he?
The answer came as a woman opened the door carrying in food and a little child behind her. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back, her tired eyes betrayed how she felt and made her look older than she actually was. Her clothing was plain and dull, a bit ragged but nothing that was more so than clothing that had seen well use. Wycliff instantly knew who she was, it was his mother and the little kid behind her was him. Why was he back here? How was he back here? His home no longer existed, it had been destroyed years ago, his family had moved on and he could never find their souls, not that he tried that hard. Still he smiled as he saw his mother, this place was warm and had some comforts to it, but that wouldn’t last for him.
The door slammed open and he saw someone who he never wanted to see again, it was his father. The man reeked of booze and was clearly dunk. Time had never been kind to his father, the man looked like he had been through so much, yet he was still very young. Even though they talked Wycliff couldn’t hear what they were saying. His younger self was pushed aside and forced to go to another room. His father gripped his mother and started to drag her. Wycliff knew exactly what was about to happen, before he hadn’t been strong enough to stop it, but now this time he was. He wouldn’t let history repeat it’s self.
As his father went to strike his mother Wycliff went to stop him. However the moment he touched his father he simply passed through him and came out the other side. He did hear the screams, followed by the sound of her being hit. “You couldn’t change what happened back then. You were powerless, unable to understand what was going on, but you could hear. You could hear the pain that rage could inflict on others, I wonder if this is where you learned to hold back and not let anger take you.” The same voice as before echoed into his mind as he watched his father brutally beat his mother.
Wycliff tried to stop it again but it didn’t work, all he could do was simply watch as his mother was beaten over and over. He could feel the rage boil up inside of him as he watched his father’s blows starting to draw blood on his mother. He wanted this to stop, he wanted to keep his mother safe and even more he wanted to make his father pay. He felt his grip tighten on his blade and without thinking he lashed out slashing at his father with his blade. This time however the blade connected with his father and blood went flying everywhere. His mother laid motionless on the ground as his father slowly died from being attacked. “See even now, you had the chance to save her, but you rejected the rage and tried to do it without killing him.”
Wycliff turned around to see try and face the voice, but more so go away from the scene before him. As he did he saw that he was back in the ice covered world that was his inner world. He wanted to speak but he knew it would be all in vain. He still had his sword ready and if this version of Chukudo was going to act like this then he would take care of him with his own power. He held his blade ready and charged at Chukudo. He wanted to end this without having to kill his inner spirit, but if he was going to act like this then he would have to kill him.
As the blade came down Wycliff saw the figure in white vanish into a storm of snow and ice, his body was gone. Wycliff’s blade slammed down and crashed into the snow. Chukudo was gone, but Wycliff knew something was up, the blade had no resistance as it went down, there was nothing stopping it or slowing it down it was as if he just sliced through thin air. That’s when in front of him he saw Chukudo reappear in a violent explosion of ice and snow being flung everywhere. The cold hit him and forced him to slide backwards slightly from the impact of it all.
This power that this Chukudo had was clearly different than the one he knew. Looking at his own blade he finally noticed something, he wasn’t producing cocaine, in fact the sword wasn’t producing anything at all. There was something really wrong with his powers right now, between the new powers that Chukudo was using and the lack of ones he had something was up. If just going towards him like that wasn’t going to work then using a stepping tech would be the answer. Wycliff wasn’t sure if he could actually use shumpo inside of his inner world, but it was the best plan he had at this time.
He gathered the reiatsu around his feet and condensed them, taking a deep breath in he launched himself forward and towards Chukudo. As he did so he saw the spirit mouth something then suddenly he felt the pain of whatever he had done. Wycliff came out of the shumpo earlier than he wanted to. He doubled over in pain and saw his red blood dying the white snow and then realized where it was coming from. It was his own blood, he had been cut, not just cut once, but there were cuts all over his body . He could feel the cold freeze over the cuts and the blood stopping it’s flow. “You rush into things too much Wycliff, you came at me in your rage without looking. Do I have to remind you about the last time you tried that?”
Wycliff turned his head up and strained his eyes to look at Chukudo. The figure’s appearance had changed so much. The flesh on his skin was starting to rot, his hair was falling away, the skin on his fingers started to sink in showing more bone than anything else. The spirit started to say something, but Wycliff wasn’t able to make it out as his eyes got heavy and started to close. His mind was drifting away the loss of blood and the cold was making it hard to stay awake, he was starting to slip. For a moment his eyes shut and the sound of wind and ice stopped, the only sound he could hear was that of water dripping down hitting stone.
It took a while but he was able to open his eyes again, there he saw that he was no longer in the white world again, this time he was in a cave, a dark and dank cave. The smell of blood and sweat was in the air and there was no mistaking the aura around the cave, it was heavy and dark. He knew this place, it was where he last saw Rose, where he was trying to help her and in his own weakness fucked up and left her for a moment. She vanished after he trusted her and wanted to save her, the smell, the aura it all brought it back. He wanted to move on past this, he knew it haunted him but he wasn’t strong enough to relive it, sadly for him he had no choice.
Without even realizing it he had stood up, the cuts all over his body were gone and the blood was as well. He saw the heavy metal door that stood between him and the memory or whatever this was. He knew that behind that door was the past. Was Chukudo planning on having him relive everything he hated? Every moment of weakness? No he didn’t want to play this game he knew that he had messed up, he was afraid to help her, he was too scared to use his strength to do something, at least to sooth her pain. Yet as he tried to ignore the door, he found his body moving towards it unable to control his own actions he saw himself opening it.
There was nothing that could prepare him for what he saw, back in the deepest part of the room he saw the corpse of Rose chained up against the wall. Her form was changed and morphed, it no longer resembled the beautiful woman that he had come to care for, instead it was twisted and dark. Her pale skin was now darkened and patchy with what looked like the flesh of a hollow. Her long locks were matted and cut, the blonde hair was turned into something more aken to a blood red. Her face was mixed with what seemed to be a hollow mask. Her skin was sunken into her body, it seemed as if she had died there with nothing to nourish her.
Wycliff had to do everything to keep himself from vomiting upon seeing this sight. He had expected to relive the moment that he had came in to help save her. There was no preparing him for this, it was true that he still held feelings for Rose, mostly due to her being the first person who wanted to help him after learning what his power did to him, so seeing even a fake version of her like this made him sick. After the door was opened he was able to control his body again and held an arm against the door to brace himself. He could feel the blood draining from his body as he simply stood their watching her body.
“This is the one who you trusted, she gave you hope and how did you repay her? You were a coward, you hesitated, stood back and feared using your power, you did this to her Wycliff. You caused her to leave, your inaction and fear of yourself pushed her away. How can you say you cared about her if you never were truthful with yourself about her? You knew the truth, she needed your help and you didn’t do anything to really help her, you just said you did and fooled yourself into thinking that you did more than you actually did. You say you want power, but you can’t even handle yourself with it, you want to be stronger? Do what needs to be done, she is suffering, end it.”
The voice came from the back of his mind and he knew exactly who it was, however he didn’t know what he meant by him saying that she was suffering. It was at that moment that he noticed something that he hadn’t before. Rose’s chest was slowly raising and lowering, she was breathing. She was alive, or at least breathing. Wycliff watched as the body he thought was a corpse start to move slightly, she was still chained up and moving in a horrific manor. Slowly he pulled himself away from the door and started to walk towards her, cautious about what was going on.
As he got close he saw her lift her head, her eyes glazed over and lacking light stared right at him. Her misshapen mouth started to mutter out something over and over again. No sound came out, but he could understand what she was saying. It was his name, over and over she was calling his name as he got closer. While the sound wasn’t coming out it was clear that she was in pain, she seemed so hurt and he wanted to help, he didn’t want to kill her, he wanted to save her, he could save her. She hadn’t gone too far yet right?
His hand went to grab her on her shoulder, her skin was cold and damp, it felt dead. He looked at Rose hoping that she was still breathing, he let out a sigh of relief at that moment but then he felt something wrong. Rose’s hand went to wrap around his arm and dragged him closer to her. Her face twisted upwards and looked at him this time her voice was clear as she screamed into his face. “Give me your soul!” Her eyes widened as she dragged him closer and tried to bite down on his neck. Wycliff used all his strength to try and pull away from her trying to bite down on him.
Pulling away he was able to get back far enough to get away from her grasp. The sudden movement and the force of him exerting when moving backwards was more than enough to force him to fall backwards and land on his rear, his hands helping him brace his fall as he hit the ground. He saw as Rose started to move pulling on the chains screaming and howling like a wild animal. The chains rattled as she tried to remove them and free herself from the wall. Wycliff was stunned, he thought that he could help, this was his memory, his mind after all he could change things if he wanted to right? He could save her like he did before?
The voice of Chukudo came once again into his mind and this time it was angry. “You think you saved her? If that’s true where is she Wycliff? Where is Rose? You don’t even know do you? We both know the truth, you were to weak to help her and then you piled on your own issues onto her. You made it worse for her so she ran. You caused her to die, you caused her to leave and now you can’t even face the facts, what’s left of her is only harming you. That thing isn’t her, it’s her memory and it’s killing you draining you.”
Wycliff simply stopped moving as he heard the voice scream at him drowning out the angry and hungry cries of what was Rose. He wanted to argue but it was true, he had trusted Rose and she hurt him. He had hope that she would have helped him deal with his issues or at the very least help him understand why, but she left without a trace, she left him all alone and the thought of trusting someone else became too much. She destroyed his faith once again in his superiors and she kept on tormenting his mind as he tried to move on.
He knew what he had to do, he had to get rid of the memory of her. Not all of it, but this particular one. He couldn’t keep on remembering her just as this person, he had to move past this moment. If he didn’t then he had a feeling that this scene would continue to plague him no matter how strong he got. He sighed and looked at Rose. It was time, he had to get rid of her, it pained him but he knew that Chukudo was right, him remembering her like this wasn’t good for him. He had found memories of her, but he knew that as long as he never let go of this time he would never be able to cherish the time he had with her.
Wycliff stood up, the sounds of the chains rattling came back into focus as did the screams and cries of Rose wanting to consume him. For the first time since he had been in this room he saw his blade around his waist. Wycliff was ready, he was ready to say goodbye to Rose and only see her as a memory, a fond one, not this twisted monstrosity that he had come to create over replaying that night in his mind over and over. The blade felt cold in his hand as he moved towards her, he could see her motions, chained yet violent, it’s screams changed as he lifted his blade, they begged for him to saver her, to let her free, to save her like he had done before. No he knew the truth, if he did that he would be right back where he was before.
The closer he got to her he saw dark tendrils around his body form all of them coming from Rose. They weren’t holding him back, yet as he pressed forward each inch he felt his emotions being tugged at, the sadness he felt from her vanishing, the hopelessness he felt when he realized that no one was there to help him, the guilt of blaming himself for her vanishing all of these came to him as he tried to strike her down. Wycliff wasn’t a stone wall, he was human like everyone else and all of it was almost too much for him, but it didn’t stop him as he plunged the blade into Rose’s heart. For all the screaming and protesting she had, she hadn’t put up a real fight once the blade was plunged into her.
He lowered his head as he felt the warm blood drip down the blade and touch his hand. The tendrils slowly started to vanish as he simply held his blade there. Tears forming in his eyes as he just wanted for this to be over with, Wycliff felt a warm hand land on his cheek and caress it slowly. With tears in his eyes still he raised his head and looked up to see that the monstrosity of Rose was gone and she looked like she did normally. His blade still plunged into her chest. He couldn’t muster up words as he saw her smile at him and simply say thank you before vanishing in a bright light.
He watched as she faded into the light and the rest of the room slowly being consumed by it. The dark corners of this place slowly fading into a bright white nothingness. He still felt ill to the stomach of having to do that, however he knew that it was for the best. The brightness started to fade and another vision came, this time it was fuzzy and hazy however he could tell through the vague outlines that it was Rose sitting at her desk with a smile across her face. It was a memory of her that he had pushed back because of the last experience with her. As the brightness started to fade he saw that the memory became a bit clearer, but not that much. Suddenly his eyes opened and he was back to the fight with Chukudo.
He was still bleeding, the snow was now red with his blood and he stood up shaking from the blood loss and the cold. What the hell had that been? His breath heavy and fogging the air around his mouth he knew that trying to say anything would be useless as the wind and snow would just drown him out. His grip was still on his blade, his hand frozen over it as he pointed it back at Chukudo. Speeding towards him didn’t work, attacking him with his blade wasn’t working so there was one option left for this fight, Kido.
Wycliff wasn’t even sure that kido would work in this place, hell he wasn’t even sure that the damage he took was real, it felt real but it was a gamble he had to take. Shumpo had worked, so kido would have to work right? It was the same idea as shumpo, if there was reiatsu in the area that allowed him to use shumpo then kido had to be on the table. At this point it was all up in the air, but it was worth a gamble and he had to try something or he would lose, and he really didn’t want to know what would happen if he lost.
If he was going to bet everything on Kido then he knew the exact one he was going to use. Chukudo to him was beyond saving and he had to end this now. He figured that if he did a normal incantation two things would happen, the first is that the wind would block his voice and it wouldn’t work in the way he wanted it to, the second would be that Chukudo would realize what he’s doing and stop him mind incantation making it all for nothing. He took a deep breath and started to chant the words in his mind, hoping that this would be the last of this fight, he wasn’t sure how much more he could really take.
O, Thyne of Impotent allure, draw thyself here today in the very pits of Tartarus and the glowing golden; There are six keys to seven doors, and seven levels to eight stages; There are dogs and cats of Rodi, there is the mighty god of each, and then God himself to smite you in your own feeble underdressing and vomit and snot and drool; Know yourself, you foolish thing, and do not hold back, realize only that by the stars there can be nothing but greatness; The lightning compels you, Sacrilege, Destruction, Chaos, all unite; Final, Destructive, Shattering and knowing, realize yourself and your butchery! Hado #99: Kaminari Ha
Without any waring hundreds of blades of lighting formed in the middle of the storm. All of them impossibly large and surrounding Chukudo at all angles. This would be the end, Wycliff knew it he had to kill his inner zan spirit and this was the way he was going about it. With a single motion of moving his blade he had all of them fly right at Chukudo and waited to see the massive lighting dragon form and kill the spirit. He was sad, he didn’t want to do this he enjoyed being a shingami and now without a zanpakuto spirit he wasn’t sure if he could remain as one.
Wycliff’s eyes closed for a moment knowing full well that this was over, yet as he opened them he saw something that baffled him. There in the center of where Chukudo was, all the blades of lighting had stopped moving in fact everything in that area had stopped. The snow was stopped, and Wycliff could clearly see Chukudo where he was, then there was the motion of him moving, not showing steps, but slowly the figure of him skated around the blades and headed towards him. Motionless and with the same expression that he had before. Wycliff raised his blade and held it upwards before trying to slash down at him as he got closer.
As the blade came down he could feel it being stuck near the top, he was unable to push it down and suddenly everything froze, he couldn’t feel himself moving, his heartbeat stopped, his breathing stopped. Everything was frozen his vison was locked onto Chukudo as he saw the spirit had moved, it’s just that everything else in the world hadn’t. His kido landed in an empty area and he then understood what had happened. Chukudo had frozen the world around him and made it impossible for anything to move but him. What was this power? Where had this come from? Chukudo was a zan that was made from cocaine not cold right?
He could feel it, something was dragging him away again, he had no idea as to where he would end up this time, if this was like the other times he would face another apparition of his past. Someone important to him, he was tired of this, why was Chukudo showing him these ghosts? It wasn’t doing anything for him except forcing him to relive the worst times in his life and remember how much he had failed those he cared about. His vision was blurring again inside of this cold, he couldn’t feel his fingers and maybe this was it, this chill would take him away.
Wycliff was snapped out of that trance like state by the sounds of a soda can being open. He readjusted his eyes and saw where he was. He was sitting down in a chair, in an office that he knew very well. This was the squad thirteen office and he was sitting across from where Ludwig had been when they had their first chat as well as after finding out about his power and the issues he had. The room had the smell of something sweet lingering in the air, he figured that it was the soda he had heard opening before.
Yet instead of seeing Ludwig there in the chair he saw that it was empty. Why was he here? Who was he suppose to meet here? If it wasn’t Ludwig then why was he in the captain’s office. He stood up and looked to see if there was anything else that was out of place. As he scanned the office he noticed that it looked exactly how Ludwig had left it, there was nothing out of place, while the office now was a bit of a mess, with paperwork everywhere that he often pawned off on others to do for him.
The emptiness of this place was starting to get to him, there was always someone else here with these visions so why not now? What was so different about this time that he was here all alone? Moving over to the desk Wycliff pulled on one of the draws that he knew Ludwig had kept sweets in to try and find a possible clue, but there was nothing in there. This whole experience was surreal to him given what he had just been doing before, Wycliff was all alone. He was all alone and there wasn’t anyone coming this time. That’s when it sank in for him, he was all alone and no one was going to help him.
If no one was going to come in Wycliff would leave, this was a waste of time and god knows what was happening to him in his inner world. While nothing had happened yet while he went on these deviations, but he wasn’t sure that it would be the case for forever. As he reached the door and placed a hand on it he felt that it was locked, trying to open it proved to be pointless as he couldn’t. The door wouldn’t even budge, he was puzzled by this as every time he was able to walk and open things, he had done that with Rose and he could have done it when he saw his mother, so why couldn’t he do so now? His eyes went over to the windows behind the captain’s char, trying to open them was pointless just like the door, there was no way out. Wycliff was stuck here all alone, unable to leave with no one coming to show him the way.
With this realization Wycliff went to grab his blade and found that it was nowhere around, without giving it a second thought he tried to grab the bookshelf and pull it down, however it wouldn’t budge. Grabbing the books and anything he could get his hands on resulted in the same things over and over again. Nothing was going to budge in his fit of rage or if he was going to try and use it to escape. This was his prison, a solitary confinement prison all for him with no way of knowing when his sentence would be over.
Time would pass as Wycliff tried everything he could to escape this emptiness, the longer he spent in here the worst he felt about how he was fairing in the outside. The light from outside the office would fade into darkness and the time on the clock passed. Eventually as Wycliff grew tired from trying to escape he found himself sitting down in the captain’s chair in the dark, only a few bits of light coming off of the various things in the office that were electronical. His breathing was heavy as the darkness came and overtook the office entirely. He could feel his eyes getting heavy as time went on, he didn’t want to pass out here, he had no idea what would happen if he did and he wasn’t about to find out.
As he regained the motivation to stay awake he saw a piece of paper on the desk illuminate slightly, moving his hand to pull it out from the pile he saw what it was and the blood from his face drained. It was a drawing of Ludwig’s face with the words Missing in bold red all around. In the back of his mind he felt a thought come creeping from the back of his mind, one that he knew existed, but never wanted to acknowledge. Yet the more he tried to push it back the stronger it was; Ludwig left because of you.
As those words came out to him he shot up out of the chair pushing it back and slamming the paper down on the desk, he knew that it was true, but he didn’t want to accept that. He had a cold sweat fill his body as he moved away from the desk. He always had those thoughts, but never wanted to actually say them out loud, after all who could blame him for that ? Ludwig was loved by his squad and they were devastated for him going missing. Wycliff took on everything that he could to try and make up for it, but it wasn’t enough for the squad they still had their issues.
As he rejected the missing poster the room around him started to get darker and darker. Everything was fading into nothingness and blackness. Wycliff as he turned to face the desk again to try and find that paper to destroy it would find him surrounded in nothingness. Everything was pitch black and the world seemed vast yet was void of anything say for more darkness. There was enough light coming from somewhere for him to be able to see himself, but everything else was just covered in darkness. Then it came, suddenly and from everywhere he saw thousands of missing posters for both Rose and Ludwig surrounding him all of them showing different expressions and angles.
As the posters started to appear around him he heard the whispers of others starting to mutter around in the darkness, all of them saying the same thing, where are they? Why did they go missing? Does anyone know what happened? Who did this? The voices continued as the posters started to swirl around him. Wycliff just stood in the center paralyzed by all of this, he couldn’t respond to it all, because he knew the true, he was responsible for both of them going missing, they both left after they tried to help him. He’s the cause of them going, he’s responsible for the both of them leaving soul society without a notice.
With each passing second the missing posters got closer and closer to him and the whispers changed from low voices to loud screeching. The posters slowly starting to rotate all around him as then closed in, every moment causing him more and more stress over it all. His hands went to cover his ears as he tried to keep himself from hearing the sounds of the questions, however it didn’t matter no matter what he did the sounds kept on coming. In this state he screamed out that he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to make them go away. A loud thumping started to chime in as he fell to the floor screaming out that he didn’t mean to make them disappear.
“Stand up, what are you doing on the ground Wycliff?” A voice told him silencing everything else in the void. Looking up he saw Ludwig standing over him with a disappointed look across his face at Wycliff. “Honestly what am I going to do with you?” Ludwig said as the darkness started to be illuminated by the light in the void turning the darkness back into the office that Wycliff had been in before the darkness had consumed it, the posters vanishing from sight and Ludwig sat down in his chair waiting for Wycliff to get off of the floor and sit down in the chair.
Slowly Wycliff stood back up looking around to make sure that this wasn’t a trick or anything, with hesitation he sat down in the chair looking at Ludwig wondering why now was he here. “Listen Wycliff, you have to stop blaming yourself for me and Rose, both of us left and you didn’t have anything to do with it.” His hand raised up and stopping Wycliff from being able to speak. “Let me finish alright, people just leave and sometimes there isn’t a reason for it, you have to stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t do. Sure you did a lot, and drove me crazy with some of your shenanigans, but you didn’t cause me to leave. You have a lot to blame yourself over, but us leaving isn’t one of them.”
Wycliff looked at Ludwig strangely as he said the word us, before a voice came from behind him that he recognized. “We all have out demons Wycliff, sometimes we can’t tell others or trust them with them.” He turned around to see that it was Rose standing there like a proper captain, holding her dog in her arms. “Now stop being a sad sulk and get off your ass and get out of here.” She shoved his shoulder and smiled nodding towards the door. “Wycliff, your not meant to die here with this regret, get out of here and take control of your life.” Ludwig said with a firm tone, “that’s an order from your captain.”
Wycliff chuckled a bit as he heard that from Ludwig, Wycliff knew that Ludwig knew very well that he never listened to the orders, or at least not that well. Still something inside of him was telling him that they were right, this wasn’t his fault, them leaving wasn’t his fault and he couldn’t keep blaming himself even if he wanted to. There was no point, Rose, rose had her own demons and she vanished with them, Ludwig, Wycliff really didn’t know what was going on with his former captain, but he knew that simply saying that he caused that issue wasn’t true. He just kept blaming himself over something he had no control over.
He smiled at the two of them before standing up and walking over to the door, he looked back once more to see that they had vanished and this time he had a feeling that they were gone for good, yet he didn’t feel guilty about that. His hand grasped the doorknob and slowly turned it opening the door and stepping through the bright whiteness into the abyss leaving behind the office knowing that after this was over he would need to stop going into that office in the real world, it wasn’t his and the responsibility and guilt of no captain wasn’t needed.
His eyes opened and he found himself once more back in the swirling storm of ice and snow that was his inner world. The blood still flowing from his wounds, yet the cold was slowly freezing over the blood sealing away the wounds. Chukudo was standing away looking at Wycliff with a stern look across his face. “You’ve done well, but this ends now Wycliff.” His words still sounded as if they were gusts of wind forming sounds and not an actual voice. Wycliff wasn’t sure as to what was about to happen, but he was ready to face it. Then it came, Chukudo held out the sword he was holding and said something that he had never expected to hear. Bankai
The world changed, before Wycliff had been able to at least see the world around him through the wind and snow, now all he saw was white. The blood on the ground was covered by pure white snow, the blue sky was so filled with snow that he wasn’t able to tell where the sky started and where the ground ended. The hills and trees were covered and vanished with the furry of the wind whipping the snow up off the ground. Wycliff couldn’t even see further past a foot past his face, this was so surreal, if this really was his bankai then it was nothing like he had known in the past. The cold got even worse as he felt it creeping up his body entering his core.
Wycliff had no idea what to expect next yet he held his blade tight as he waited for an attack, even though he couldn’t see what was coming he still wanted to be prepared for any sort of attack. Then suddenly a form came towards him, it was in the shape of Chukudo, it swung a blade made of ice and snow and slashed right at him. Wycliff blocked it with his own blade, the two swords clashed letting out a crunching sound as he broke the ice blade of the creation. It looked at the broken blade for a moment before reforming it and continuing it’s attack towards Wycliff.
Wycliff had been used to construct before, heck in shikai he had some that he was able to manipulate, but this thing was different, each time their blades clashed it seemed to respond without a delay, as if it had it’s own mind and it’s own thoughts. He really felt as if he was fighting another individual, as they continued to clash he noticed something that made him pause for a moment. This construct was changing it’s form, it’s face was turning younger and the clothing becoming something more familiar to him, something he swore he would never wear ever again. It took a bit of time, but he saw the snow construct form into a likeness of his old self, just before he died.
He was stunned for a moment watching the construct resemble him, it was in that very moment that the construct was able to strike the blade out of Wycliff’s hand. Wycliff was disarmed and looked down to try and see where his blade had gone, it had vanished covered totally by snow and frost. Turning down to look for the blade was the worst decision Wycliff could have made as the construct looking just like a younger him slashed him across his chest, blood poured out and covered the construct, just as soon as the blood came out it was instantly frozen and covered by snow and frost turning pure white. Wycliff fell backwards into the snow.
“It’s time to end this Wycliff.” The voice of Chukudo said as he came into view from above, the snow and ice pulled away to make a clearing for Chukudo to be seen. Suddenly everything became extremely hot, all Wycliff could see was a blinding white brightness and all he could feel was a burning sensation surrounding his body. The bright light overtook his vision resulting in it blinding him as he was consumed. Every inch of his body felt assaulted by the heat all at once it burned every part of his body and then suddenly it stopped. He was no longer in the inner world, it seemed that he had one more past to experience.
Wycliff’s vison came to in a large metal cage surrounding a fighting ring. Wycliff looked at his clothing and saw that it wasn’t his shingami uniform, but rather a set of modern-day fighting shorts with no shirt on. The smell of blood and smoke was in the air, but Wycliff couldn’t tell where it was coming from as all he could see was just the fighting ring and the massive metal cage that kept him in. Then suddenly the sounds of people cheering, clapping and screaming started. A vague outline of people started to show up in the background behind the cage walls. A bright light came down into the center of the stage and a voice came over from above.
“Tonight Gentlemen, we have a real treat for you. In one corner the mad dog of London, the blonde bruiser himself Wycliff Mason.” The light went over to shine over a version of himself that he never wanted to see again. This Wycliff had longer greasy hair, his body covered in bruises and cuts, the look in his eyes was dead and glazed over, watching him slowly snort some white powder he stood up with both bare fists in the air ready to fight. “And in the other corner, the former fighting champion, now a coward hiding behind the truth. Wycliff” The light went over to shine over him and the crowed booed at him and even threw some trash at him.
“Now gentlemen, you know the rules, this is a fight to the death, I want a clean fight.” The announcer said in a cackled laugh as a bell rang out. Wycliff knew exactly where he was, he was back in the death pits that he used to make a living after he left home. This was the last place in the world he wanted to be as he knew himself at this time was the person he was trying to always run away from. To forget and ignore the things he did at that time, everything he had done since then was to try and make up for that time in his life. Yet it seemed that the final thing he had to overcome was himself.
The past Wycliff didn’t waste any time as he threw a powerful right hook right to Wycliff’s jaw, bashing him in the face causing him to falter and step back. Wycliff could taste his own blood in his mouth, Wycliff didn’t want to fight him, it was pointless to fight back and try and take him on, not that he couldn’t, but that it wouldn’t do anything. The past version of himself then kicked Wycliff in the stomach forcing him to fall to the floor. “Get up and fight back, stop being a coward. You can’t get out of this by talking or being scared. Fight me you coward, face me and stop trying to run.”
As the past Wycliff said these things to him he was also being assaulted by repeated fists to his face. Wycliff felt each punch to the face as the past version of himself wasn’t showing any mercy, this was just the way he fought in the past to survive these fights. The more that Wycliff tried not to fight back the stronger the punches became from his past self. After a few seconds of this the ref came over to pull the past self off of him. Allowing Wycliff to stand up, his face was all bloodied and his vision was fading, he didn’t want to fight, it didn’t make sense as to why he had to.
The past Wycliff looked at the bloodied version of him and started to speak again. “Fucking coward, you have all this strength and you hide behind the pretense that it’s toxic, that it’s a burden. You know what you are Wycliff, a scared little kid trying to be a hero. You’re just a disappointment, dad was right we never did grow up to be anything special. Unlike you I embrace what we are, we’re strong, powerful and we take what we want. Just go cry and let others do all the work while you’re too paralyzed with fear of what you could do, to act. Once I beat you, I’ll take over, I’ll be strong, I’ll be the one who does things and I won’t be afraid to use Boreas. So go ahead and die you waste of space.”
Wycliff listened as the past self pretty much told him everything he knew that he was afraid of doing what he needed to do. That he was running away from his past, but what worried him wasn’t the fact that he was hearing everything he tried to keep away, but that the possibility of this version of himself would take over if he failed. Wycliff with blood pouring down his face looked at his past self who hadn’t even taken a single blow yet and knew that his past self was right, he couldn’t just keep hiding from who he had been, he had to embrace the person that he had been and keep it with him. With a heavy breath he stood upright and motioned for his past self to come at him.
His past self charged back at him as the bell rang again for them to fight once more, Wycliff stayed still as he watched his past self throw a punch. Then without any large fight or motion a blast of lighting came out from the tip of his finger shooting his past self through the heart. It was a sure fire kill and it caused his past self to fall to the floor without any resistance. While this was a fight to the death, he didn’t have to play by the rules that had been set. He had kido and he knew how to use it, it was a gamble but everything here was. Wycliff kneeled down as the last grasps of breath of his past self were happening. There was a smile on his face as he died, “Don’t be a coward, use him and trust in yourself.”
With those words the past self of him was dead and the crowed was cheering at the way the fight had ended. The announcer came into the cage and raised up Wycliff’s hand saying that he had won the fight. Wycliff was done with this and slowly headed towards the door of the cage. He found no resistance to him exiting the cage and the crowed of people vanished as he stepped into the darkness. It would all fade and Wycliff would find himself back in the fight with Chukudo, the bright light and the blazing temperature had faded. He looked at the spirit now knowing what this all was.
By this time the spirit had fully changed into something unrecognizable, it was a monstrous being of ice and snow and Wycliff knew why this was. It roared out in a loud echo at Wycliff before slamming down it’s fists nearby him. Wycliff simply cried out “Enough Boreas, I get it.” The monster of snow and ice started to melt, the world around him slowly started to calm down as Wycliff would find himself in a massive ice throne room. Sitting on the throne of ice was his zan spirit with it’s real name Boreas. “Finally you listened and used my name Wycliff, all this time, you had been poisoned by your fear and it poisoned me.” His voice boomed and appeared to be made of the sound of wind clashing.
Wycliff, just looked at the spirit and finally asked the question on his mind. “So now what? I mean, ya power isn’t what it was is it? How do I know what I can do?” Boreas looked down and stroked his beard, with a chuckle as the question was asked. “You’ve seen what I can do, what our power is both in shikai and bankai Wycliff, use it well, but remember you’re not the scared child anymore who hides from his father’s wrath, nor are you the mad beast of London who fights for money. You are you, embrace everything that you have been and you won’t lose your way.” With that said Wycliff was pushed out of his inner world and ended back in his room, his zan was no longer cold, but he could feel a inner peace inside of himself that he had never had before. He smiled as he saw that it was already night time and he knew what the future would hold for him. Chukudo was just him rejecting his power and being afraid, now that he had faced his demons the real name came to him. He was excited to see how he would be able to fight with Boreas.
