The Inner Battle,The Hollow Rising

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Takeshi Sawada walked into his small room at midnight exhausted. He lies down on his comfortable bed and shut his eyes. His fatigue came from the fight with Naoki Fukuda in the Soul Society when it came down to that final blow to determine the outcome. With a yawn, he scratched his head and felt a small piece of clay fall out of his black hair. He made a note of it but didn't think much of the bone white piece of clay. He once again shut his eyes and fell into a world of Black.

When Takeshi opened his eyes, he found himself in a strange yet familiar world. Bright blue sky with large clouds racing above his head, stairs like the one he was standing on lined up laying horizontal. and Takeshi, who was wearing the black robes of a Shinigami's uniform with his zanpakuto sheathed. He knew this place that was his inner mind where he discovered his zanpakuto Sugetsu and received his shinigami powers.

"Congrats kid, on attaining Bankai," said a shadowy voice that came from behind Takeshi. The voice came from a man who looked exactly like Takeshi except his entire body was ghost white including his hair; the only part that wasn't white were his eyes.

The white were black and the pupil was golden. These eyes stared straight into Takeshi's brown eyes.

"I gotta say that will make a fine addition to the power I'm going to have when I take over your soul." He said finishing with a sinister laugh that had a shrill that made the hair on the back of Takeshi's neck stand up. He knew exactly who this man was and was ready to fight him since what happened in the Soul Society against Naoki. Takeshi looked at his hollow version of himself intently and stepped forward with his zanpakuto drawn.

"Take over my soul huh," he said, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword.

"Well you're going to have to take it."

The hollow laughed again with the same shrill and stuck his hand out to the side as a white version of Takeshi's zanpakuto crashed through the window below, hilt up, into the hollow's hand.

Takeshi's Zanpakuto felt heavier than usually, so heavy that he could barely hold it. Damn, the fight with Naoki. He was still fatigued from that fight which would probably be why the hollow chose to attack now. One attack, one attack had to count.

Takeshi raised the two katanas and say Eclipse to kill “Sugetsu”. Smiling, the hollow did the same.

"Kyodan Tensuga!" The both cried in unison as an arc of blue condensed spiritual energy shot from Takeshi's zanpakuto and an arc or red from the hollows. Quickly the red sliced through the blue and inflicted its wound on Takeshi across the chest. Dropping his zanpakuto, Takeshi fell to the glass ground on his hands and knees. He couldn't move his body just like before in the fight with Naoki; he reached his limit. The hollow came, picked up the Takeshi's zanpakuto with his off-hand, and looked at it with great greed in his expression.

"Don't you dare touch Sugetsu!" Takeshi was able to say before the hollow's white sandal connected with his face.

"Why not," he asked holding the blade at its wielder's throat "I'm the one that deserves it not some punk kid who thinks too much of himself!"

On that note, the hollow raised the blade above his head to deliver the finishing blow. The blade stopped mid-swing as a hand grabbed the blade and stopped it. Looking up, Takeshi saw the man who was his zanpakuto, the young Sugetsu, griping the blade and snatching it from the hollows white hands. Angry the hollow screamed "Kyodan Tensuga!" and unleashed another arc of red towards them.

The last thing Takeshi remembers before blacking out was Sugetsu grabbing him by the collar and throwing him off the side of the stairs. Falling back to darkness.

His eyes opened to find himself in the intersection of two streets surrounded by towering buildings. Above were the horizontal buildings blocking out most of the sky. It was silent and empty. The wound; Takeshi looked at the spot to where his wound was supposed to be to see that the only remains of it was the blood soiled on his robes.

Sugetsu leaned against one of the buildings holding the blade that was Takeshi's zanpakuto.

"You and I need to talk." He said quietly to Takeshi stabbing the blade into the ground.

When ''we left Takeshi, he came home to relax after fighting with NaokiFukuda only to be sucked into a fight for his soul against his inner hollow. Weakened and wounded by the hollow, Sugetsu came and saved Takeshi from curtain death…''

"Good Morning Takeshi!" Shinji Yoshikune yelled as he dashed into his friend's room to wake him up with a swift foot to the face. He looked around the room to see that it was clean and empty as usual when Takeshi was gone. The bed was unmade, which meant that he was here last night but left this morning. Looking around the room, Shinji found a small piece of clay on the floor beside the bed. It was bone white and had a trace of red paint on it like a hollows mask. ''What have you gotten yourself into this time sawada kun? ''Shinji thought tossing the piece of mask in the nearby garbage bin. A thundering roar sounded nearby followed by an enormous amount of spiritual pressure that felt like a hollow but at the same time very familiar. Takeshi; Shinji.

He dove out the window above the bed and leaped from rooftop to rooftop following the spiritual pressure. he widened his eyes when he saw the source of the weird spiritual pressure. It was a hollow that seemed to be deformed with ghost white skin and long black hair that touched the ground. The mask had similar markings to the piece that Shinji found in Takeshi's room. The hollow consumed the souls of all the nearby people walking by it, unaware of its existence. Although the hollow has mostly taken over his soul, Shinji could still faintly feel Takeshi inside trying to get out. He had to buy time until his friend came back. With a heavy heart Shinji drew his zanpakuto.

Sugetsu stood next to the sword that he stabbed into the ground "You and I have to talk." He told to Takeshi. Sugetsu long black hair and black flowing robes and always wore the same emotionless expression that Takeshi could never mistake. Rain began to pour down over them from the sky above. Soon a clash of thunder followed with a series of lightning that destroyed a horizontal building overhead of them. Glass and debris showered down about as fast as the raindrops. Takeshi dashed towards the nearest building for cover, trying not to get hit by the mixture of lightning and concrete that rained down from the sky. "As you can see, his influence is spreading over the place like a disease.", Said Sugetsu, appearing out of the darkness of the empty room that they both ended up taking shelter in.

In his right hand, he held the zanpakuto. "Even now as we speak he is up on you world reeking havoc to the humans, probably to gather souls to stay strong." He said, leaning against the zanpakuto casually. Takeshi panicked, remembering getting taken over in Bankai fighting Naoki.

"No." he declared, "I can't let that bring me down."

He clinched his fist tightly and said, "I'm can't let everyone I care for and love get hurt because of me." He said with passion in his heart and fire in his resolve. He was ready to do whatever it took to defeat the hollow and get back to his life for a time. "Ok then listen up and listen well, I'm not going to explain it again" Sugetsu said handing Takeshi the sword. "You and I are going to train your limit to how long you can use Bankai until your soul reaches its limit. In order to do that you and I must fight except for one major rule: no Bankai, just Shikai so that the hollow cannot detect us so we can train longer. The one thing to be aware of is that time here and time up there are two different things.

"But in order for you to train you limit you will have to reach your limit through Shikai."

"How the hell do I do that?"

"Very simple." Sugetsu said.

Soon, a purple blade came from the young's robe. It was pure black from hilt to blade and had a guard that was shaped as a Swastika above the hilt. Takeshi right away recognized it; Sugetsu Zetsumei, his Bankai.

"In order to push you to your limit, I must fight you with Sugetsu Zetsumei and push on until I can force you to break your limit. When that happens, you will be able to control Bankai for a lot longer than usual."

Takeshi thought of how crazy the idea of training at this time was but still did knowing that if he ignored the training, he would never win against the hollow. He nodded and readied himself for the barrage of attacks that were to come, "Hit me with all you got." He said ready to face his own power.