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Chapter 66: Let There Be Rest
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Akashi was already there.
With one clean motion, his blade took its head.
The body twitched, then collapsed, head still screeching as it rolled in the sand.
Akashi fell to one knee, panting hard. His entire body trembled. His spirit was nearly hollowed out.
His limbs were heavy. Blood seeped from more than a dozen shallow wounds.
And still, the Gillians in the distance loomed.
"Time," He whispered.
From the sands, his shadow surged upward, forming intricate shapes, growing, building; the Eldritch Realm rose.
A fortress of black stone, pulsing and alive, emerged from the hollowed sands of Hueco Mundo.
The living city shifted and groaned as if breathing, walls lined with jagged teeth and writhing tentacles.
The worker horrors, pale and eyeless, took position on the battlements. Cannons formed on towers, humming with dark energy, primed to fire on any creature foolish enough to approach.
The city walls formed a dome around Akashi as he stumbled inside.
A bath was drawn. He shed his ruined robes and stood beneath the steaming waters, eyes closed, letting blood and dirt wash away.
"Despicable, huh?" That was strange coming from the creature that not only sneaked attacked him, but also called for the Gillians to swarm him.
"Was it due to a lack of vocabulary?" Akashi wondered, "Speaking of which, how do they learn to speak? Is it from their faint human memories? Does language come to them naturally? How does it feel?"
Curiosity was overflowing. He truly wished to have a long conversation with a hollow, "In due time, Akashi... Now, rest... I'm fucking dying. Suicidal thoughts. Destructive thoughts, what's with the Voices today?"
He was tired. Too exhausted, and the Voices weren't making it easier for him, tempting him to destroy something, even if only a little.
"The World sounds like a good start."
"Do it." "Do it." "I believe in you."
"The World wishes to be destroyed. I feel it! Do it!"
The Voices were truly weird today.
After the shower, he fell into bed; a hollow carved into the city itself, soft and warm and protected by living shadow.
Outside, the horrors watched.
He would sleep now.
Let the sleepless monsters guard his rest.
Time moved differently in Hueco Mundo. Not in seconds or minutes, but in scars.
In how the sand beneath one's feet grew colder, more familiar.
In the way silence became a song, and pain, a friend.
A year had passed; a full revolution of Akashi's evolution; measured not by clocks, but by the weight he could bear and the darkness he could command.
"Seems I finally qualify for Lieutenant-level spiritual power…" Akashi murmured, the words more of a self-confirmation than a celebration.
His tone was quiet, though it couldn't hide the endless satisfaction within.
"Am I able to destroy the World now?" He wondered before his eyes twitched, "Whose thought was that? Voices, cut it out."
Shaking his head as if reprimanding an incessant whisper only he could hear, he continued.
"It's change, not total annihilation… How unimaginative. Alright, alright, give it a rest. Yes, yes, I know you all think you're brilliant... Tch."
Akashi has grown a lot over the past year. His mind has grown more stable. The Voices now aren't a problem at all.
In fact, he was confident now; absolutely certain that his mental state had reached new heights. Sharper than ever. Clearer than ever.
Definitely better than the Joker's. That was never a comparison any sane person should make.
But Akashi made it anyway, without hesitation, even proudly. When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do. When mad, measure yourself against madness.
Akashi had vision, after all. A grand design scrawled across the walls of his mind in blood and shadow.
The Voices weren't madness; they were advisors. Consultants. Friends. He didn't laugh into the void; he conversed with it.
And when it whispered back? He listened. Took notes. Implemented improvements. That wasn't insanity. It definitely was not.
Naked and drenched in sweat, Akashi stepped into the obsidian-tiled shower chamber attached to the inner sanctum of his Eldritch City.
The hot water hissed as it met his overheated skin, a soothing hiss that echoed across the walls like gentle applause.
His breathing steadied, long and slow, as the grime of 30x gravity and endless battle washed from his skin.
This was no ceremonial bathing; his muscles were sore, his bones ached, and his Reiatsu was burned nearly to the last strand.
Hueco Mundo's environment was already harsh enough, its gravity higher by default; its skies pressing down like an unseen god; but Akashi had amplified it further within the specially sealed gravity chamber.
Each moment spent inside was like wading through invisible mud. Every strike, every movement, was resistance against a hostile world.
He remembers horrifying instances of sleep paralysis that were less restrictive than this.
He fought in those conditions endlessly; not just against the weight of the world, but against endless Hollows, Adjuchas, and aberrations drawn to his soul.
The gravity outside of the gravity chamber may not be as high as within, but combined with having to fight endless hordes of hollows.
No rest, no real danger either, for his horrors never allowed true death to claim him… He would never risk his life to that extent.
Had he been truly putting himself in the face of death every day for the past year, the chance of him still standing now would be close to zero.
The horrors were his last measure; when death called for him, they pulled him back.
Reiryoku blossomed when pressed to the edge of death, and Akashi stood at that edge every day, nudged forward by his own will and steadied only by the horrors that surrounded him.
Once the shower's heat had done its work and his skin flushed with renewed color, Akashi stepped into his personal hot spring nestled in a crater near the city's core.
Steam curled around his body like affectionate wraiths. He leaned back against the smooth volcanic rock, humming a slow, wordless tune, a small, satisfied smile pulling at his lips.
He looked… happy. Perhaps happier than ever.
The past year had etched its proof into his flesh. His body was lean but forged like steel; flexible and brutal, shaped by combat and suffering.
Countless scars lined his arms, chest, and back; each a marker of a wound too deep or too sudden to be fully healed by Kidō or his natural regeneration.
Some were faint silver lines; others ran jagged like cracked glass. He never tried to erase them. It was pointless, and he was proud of them.
He rose from the spring, water cascading from his sculpted frame. Then it appeared; the symbol of his transformation.
A perfect black sphere, painted directly on his chest, just above his abdomen, and into his chest.
Its surface shimmered like liquid obsidian, as if fragments of his inner world were exposed to the physical plane.
From the sphere, tendrils of darkness sprouted. They were not wild, but elegant; flowing like black silk across his limbs.
Chains, fine and inky black, unfurled from the orb and slithered along his arms and legs like intelligent tattoos.
Within seconds, they wove themselves into a Shinigami uniform unlike any seen before.
It was striking.
The upper robe opened in a deep V-neck, revealing most of his scarred chest, yet the edges were outlined in sharp chains, as if the very seams could cut.
The sleeves were sleeveless, replaced by layered, banded chains that wrapped around his arms like serpents, tightening only when needed.
His pants flowed like hakama, yet they were infused with the same darkness, subtly shifting in texture like shadowy silk, and his feet were bare, as if always ready to feel the earth; or sand; beneath him.
He turned to a tall black mirror embedded in a twisted obsidian pillar.
"Hmm," He mused aloud, fingers brushing his sharp collarbone, "I never realized I cared so much about appearances… It's very cool though, Perfect Shikai."
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