Fanon Canon: Phantom Ascent

Never Saw them Coming
Nighttime in Karakura Town used to be a peaceful and relaxing time of day, when one could simple lay their worries to rest for a few hours and enjoy a soothing night of sleep. But tonight, there was something... anxious about this typically quiet city. Most people in their beds found it hard to close their eyes; some of them were even pacing around their beds in a restless manner. Even for those who had no Spiritual talent whatsoever, they could all tell that something was very, very wrong about tonight.

The night had seem to have gotten unreasonably darker. Indeed, even with the full moon shining brightly above the skies and the various city lights dotting the large settlement, the streets were coated in a shade of black that could drive even the reasonably sane to question their own reality. It felt downright sickening to be near this darkness, which obviously warranted that getting further inside of it could prove fatal. So at a glance, no one left their homes for fear of making contact with it.

This was only for the residential districts of the town, however. Near the more deserted parts of Karakura, particularly the warehouse section, some night-wanderers had apparently not taken enough caution. Within the ever present dark shade that was over each of the cities streets, dozens of bodies of humans were scattered about under it's black haze, and while they weren't in excessive numbers, these supposedly lifeless corpses would still warrant great caution to any who saw them.

But this wasn't the only thing that was off-setting about tonight.

There was a particular yellow warehouse in this sector, but it's door, unlike the others, appeared to have been blown open. A large smoking hole, big enough to fit a tractor-trailer through, was in the center of the door's broadside. The warehouse appeared to be almost entirely black on the inside, save for a handful of spotlights that would give way to some clear vision, but it didn't seem to matter... as the darkness outside of the warehouse was slowly creeping in.

Finally, a sound could be heard: the patter of feet rapidly making contact with the ground, along with excessive panting, the signs of someone sprinting as fast as they could. This source was a seemingly young girl with brown eyes and blonde hair with two spiky ponytails, wearing a pink hoodie and sweatpants. She was sweating heavily; tears were streaming from her eyes but she was not crying, perhaps due to the fact that she did not have the time to sob. A large serrated cleaver was in her right hand as she continued her mad dash towards the door, but this mighty weapon had a large crack in it's center; the blade appeared ready to fall apart should it hit a hard surface.

It was Hiyori Sarugaki

"L-Lisa!!" she yelled with a mixture of fright and anger, turning her head to look behind her as she neared the door. A foolish decision, as she would be unable to see the long pole that was seemingly extended from the wall to her right side, just before the hole in the door. "Lis-GURK!!" she grunted as she turned her head just in time for the pole to crash into her neck and send her crashing to the floor. Her head smacked the concrete ground hard enough to draw blood, which caused her to grunt once again in pain.

"The fuck... was that...?!" she angrily asked to no one in particular, grasping the new wound on her head before looking over to the pole's source. What she saw caused her to gasp and instinctively cover her mouth with her cleaver hand: it was Lisa Yadōmaru, impaled and pinned to the wall with her own, halberd-shaped Shikai. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and flies were beginning to gather around her body.

"Oh...oh god..." the girl began to sob, trying her best to keep her voice low. As fast as she was trying to make it out of this building, she couldn't stop herself from mourning her brutally murdered friend. "I'm gonna kill him.... I swear to god..." she began to mutter between her sobs, grabbing her cleaver as a pink colored energy began to gather around her manifesting in tendrils. "I'LL FUCKING KILL HI-". She was cut off once again, this time by a hand that grabbed her collar, a hand belonging to someone who was running just as fast as she was previously. Looking up to see who it was, she found that it was her fellow Visored, a bruised and slightly burned Love Aikawa.

"Love?!" she yelled in anger and surprise, noticing that they were now a fair distance away from the building. "Did you just leave Hacchi in there with him?!?!" Love initially didn't respond, instead donning his toothy Hollow Mask without a single motion. He twisted himself around, slinging Hiyori towards the direction that he was previously running, before opening the maw of his Hollow mask. A crimson orb of energy gathered between the sets of teeth before it was unleashed in the form of a massive beam, completely obliterating the warehouse, and hopefully, whatever it was that had forced them out.

Hiyori's tears seemed to almost completely dry after this, as she stood back on her feet and delivered a powerful kick to the back of Love's knee. This forced a grunt out of him, as well as caused him to kneel on that particular knee, just enough so that Hiyori could move to his front and grab his neck with both of her hands as tight as she could. "The fuck are you thinking?!?!" she yelled, rearing a fist back to punch Love as hard as her body would allow her. "You just killed Hacchi like he was nothing!!?!? So what, are you going to just kill me too, to spare me from whatever the fuck that thing's going to do?!?!" she continued before Love almost effortless pulled her hands off of him and stood back to his feet.

"Keep it together!" he angrily yelled, pulling his Hollow mask up over the top of his head to glare at her right in her eyes. His face was sweating, and although he appeared to be keeping a composed demeanor, it wouldn't take much for one to see that he was in just as much stress as Hiyori was. "Hacchi's fine, he made it out of the building before either of us did." he continued, looking back up at the burning ruins of the warehouse they used to call home. "We've got to get the word out to Shunsui and the others; this shit could get out of hand quick..."

It was then that his heart seemed to stop, as his eyes widened and a slight gasp escaped the gaps between his teeth. Within the smoldering flames of the warehouse stood the figure that had been terrorizing presumably the entire city. He was tall, nearly two feet above Love himself, and he wore a tattered brown trenchcoat with a large hood over his head, obscuring all of his facial features in darkness. Slowly, the man began to raise his two arms up to his sides, which subsequently caused the flames that surrounded him to dissipate, and the darkness that surrounded his feet began to rise next to his hands, following their exact motions.

"Not even a dent?!" Hiyori thought to herself, gulping as she clutched her cleaver with both of her hands. However, Love firmly placed his hand on her shoulder, causing her gaze to quickly shift to him. "No, Hiyori." He said in a stern voice, staring down the hooded man that had murdered their friend. "You're faster than either me or Hacchi; you can outrun this motherfucker faster than he can kill us." he continued, his last statement seemingly implying that he had already accepted his fate. Hiyori, of course, had to object, ripping her shoulder away from his hand with a snarl. "If you think I'm just going to leave you and Hacchi here..."

"This isn't a request, Hiyori-san." the simple voice of their friend, Hacchi, said, the round and pleasant looking man appearing behind the two of them. "If someone isn't told about what this man is capable of doing to this world, then every living thing in existence will be in grave peril." he continued, a sad expression on his face as he went on. "I'm sorry Hiyori-san, but this is out of the question: you must warn the Gotei 13, immediately." Her mouth dropped open slightly, the tears beginning to well back up in her eyes once again. Her shocked face looked up towards Love, who merely smirked and nodded in response, and back to Hacchi, who managed to put back his trademark smile for her one last time... and then with another snarl, she clenched her eyes shut and began to run away, deep into the building alleyways behind them.

Love then looked back towards the hooded figure; the fires that previously surrounded him had completely vanished, and the darkness that had surrounded his feet was now materializing around him. He then began to quickly walk towards the two Visoreds, the darkness moving in sync with his footsteps, appearing as waves on a beach. Love then clenched his Zanpakuto, wordlessly releasing it into it's colossal spiked club form, while Hacchi used his Flash Step to appear on the top of the building directly behind him. With that, Love pulled his Hollow mask over his head and began to quickly run towards his new opponent, clenching his giant club with both hands.

"Come on, you rat-bastard!" he yelled, starting to lift his weapon up into the air. "Let's g-URK!!" he grunted as the hooded man continued walking, but outstretched his left hand to grasp Love's neck. The force used in this grab was unlike anything the former Captain had experienced; it was like a bear-trap that had just locked onto his neck and he couldn't get it off. Unwilling to let his weapon go, all he could do was clench the man's hand with his free one and try to stop the man's pace. The hooded man continued walking towards the spot that Love once was, the latter's feet skidding and stomping as hard as they could to stop his opponent's movement, but to no avail. Then, with the same amount of force applied to the grip, the being through Love through the building that was in front of him, causing him and his club to not only fly through it, but the structure behind it as well.

"Love!!" Hacchi called out with alarm, quickly pointing his arms down at the hooded man, who was still in clear view. His signature orange barrier, shaped like a cube, materialized around the hooded man, immobilizing him from further movement and hopefully giving Love a moment to recover. He didn't expect what was coming next, however. The hooded being tilted his head up slightly to the right, looking directly at Hacchi, before shooting his right arm up towards the round Visored. Five tendrils of the darkness around his feet immediately shot up towards Hacchi, at a speed that the latter was unable to react in time too. The bottom three tendrils tore the corner of the building Hacchi was on apart, while the other two wrapped themselves around the man's shoulders and began to drag him down.

"Urgh! No!!!" Hacchi yelled as his feet hit the darkened ground. Instead of touching solid concrete, he felt as if he had been drug down into a pool of quicksand, and his body only continued to sink. His hands and his waist were submerged into the dense and wet-feeling darkness, as the hooded man stood in front of him and stared him down. Before Hacchi could react, the man's left arm clasped over the immobilized Visored's face. His body began to glow with a dark blue energy, energy of which that began to feed into the hooded man's left arm.

Over this exposed arm were several arcane, black markings, the center of which contained an upside down star, but upon absorbing the blue energy, this star transformed into what appeared to be the shape of Hacchi's Hollow mask. The energy then dissipated, and he released his grip of Hacchi, whose eyes had rolled into the back of his head, and his skin had become a sickening pale color, before his body was slowly drug into the shadows until not a trace of him was left.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" an enraged Love leaped from the hole of the building he had previously been thrown through, raising his club over his head with both hands and swathing the weapon with a mighty burst of flame. Just as the weapon came down upon the hooded man, however, the darkness around the latter's feet shot up into the form of two pillars, both of which caught the club in midair and forcefully destroying the flames that were previously cloaking it. With Love's hands still on the handle, the pillars of black slung the man and his club around in an arch, planting the Visored's back flat into the darkness-submerged street.

"Ugh! The fuck?!" Love shouted in anger, his hands still grasping the club, but not for long. The darkness that clasped onto the club was released, and the hooded man simply walked over and ripped the giant weapon from it's owners hands. He raised it above his own head, the mark on his arm changing to reflect that of an Iris, the emblem of the 7th Division, before slamming it down onto the immobilized love. While such an impact would have normally caused a crater in the ground, the darkness prevented such from happening, once again making it seem as if he had struck a pool of dense water. There was another sound, however, the one of bones being crushed under the force of the impact; if Love had somehow survived a blow like that, then he wouldn't survive what came next. The club was left stuck in place, and the darkness slowly began to drag it, as well as the presumed corpse of it's owner, down into it's maw, as it had done to Hacchi.

With both forms of opposition out of the way, the hooded figure looked out towards the distant city. He could sense the presence of Hiyori a few miles away, and if he hurried, he could intercept her before she could get the word out to his enemies. While it seemed reasonable for him to chase after her... he instead decided to turn the other way and begin to walk in the opposite direction... as if he wanted to be discovered and known about. The darkness that was around every street corner of the city began to quickly materialize a few feet in front of the man, taking the shame of a small spire that was just about the same height as himself, before he walked through it like a doorway. And with that, he disappeared, and Karakura Town's night once again appeared to have gone back to normal.

Well, except for the few dozen corpses that dotted the sector.