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Chapter 67: Voldemort
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"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."
No Zanpakutō was visible, yet the air pulsed with the unmistakable presence of Kurayami.
With the Perfect Shikai state, the sword had transcended mere form, and now, it flowed through him constantly; shield, staff, bow, blade; manifesting only when called.
After all, Kurayami at heart was only Darkness, and no single form could perfectly describe it.
The Endless War allowed him to understand Darkness than ever before, thus achieving what he calls Perfect Shikai.
It wasn't as if his Shikai had evolved; he just understood it completely and unlocked what should have been there from the very start.
The Eldritch City hummed around him, in a quiet symphony, as if its walls were singing to him, trying to please him.
Massive, grotesque from the outside, yet orderly and elegant on the inside.
It sprawled across the forest floor of Hueco Mundo like a black tumor blessed with architecture.
The horrors under his command; worker horrors were always moving about, always amidst research... Not today.
They gathered tools, sealed specimens, and catalogued remains of defeated hollows.
Once everything was accounted for, they offered the goods to Gluttony, who lumbered forward, opened his unhinged jaw, and devoured it all into an unknowable void that had no bottom.
Gluttony was more than storage. He was insurance. The Eldritch Realm itself; Akashi's greatest defensive construct; could not yet store physical matter when pulled into his Inner World.
Therefore, Gluttony became his walking vault.
Still, the time had come. Once every two months, the city had to be moved deeper into Hueco Mundo's forests.
And this time, Akashi would do so with a new companion; one he had been preparing to summon for over a year.
A horror unlike any other... Perhaps only second to the First when it comes to uniqueness.
There he was again in his Inner World, facing the ocean of darkness. He hovered before his target, an egg the size of an adult human.
"Come forth, Voldemort."
Darkness thickened in front of him, twisting like a tornado of hate and silence.
Crack!
It was as if the egg's seal was broken, allowing what's within freedom, finally.
From within, a figure emerged; humanoid, pale, and deathly regal. Voldemort's body was serpent-thin, his limbs long and skeletal, yet imbued with supernatural grace.
His face was featureless at first, until two slitted nostrils and crimson eyes faded into existence. His mouth was a thin cut.
His robes billowed like breathless fog, always moving, never still. The aura around him was not just evil; it was refined malevolence.
Like all horrors, he was not sentient; only instinctual. Voldemort had not been summoned with his mind, but as a collection of capabilities, an interpretation of evil power.
He could not scheme. He could not betray. He was simply… effective.
Akashi had learned to appreciate that. Cthulhu, for all his size and regenerative abilities, was a lumbering giant of madness.
Powerful, yes, but driven more by hunger than strategy. A beast. Not Akashi's Cthulhu, however.
None of Akashi's horrors were who they truly were. Had he called for them with their previous personality, he would have caused the greatest crisis the World had ever seen.
There are horrors that wish for world destruction. There are some that wish for the vilest of things imaginable, and there are some like Voldemort that wish for pitiful things like blood superiority.
The combination of so much evil would've been horrible and uncontrollable, but they aren't like that.
In Akashi's mind, Darkness is one, and they are merely an extension of it. There needn't be a personality, they need only obey.
They work by instinct, and they may learn and improve, but in the end, they still only heed Akashi's will, a unified will making them more efficient than they had ever been in their stories.
And Voldemort; though mindless; was a miracle of structure.
Abilities; dozens; twisted from what the magic they once were to become pure abilities that work on energy.
He possessed curses, illusions, energy displacements, and one in particular that had cost Akashi over a year's worth of harvested darkness to manifest.
"Let's see if you really work," Akashi whispered.
He placed a hand on Voldemort's shoulder.
The horror turned. No words. Just action. In an instant, the air popped; no flash, no thunder. Just… absence. Apparition.
One moment they stood near the vacant land that was once the Eldritch City.
The next, they were standing several kilometers away, atop a jagged stone cliff overlooking the endless pale sands. The world hadn't bent. It had simply skipped.
Akashi blinked, and then burst out laughing.
It was a full-bodied, delighted sound. "Wonderful... So ridiculous," he said, placing a hand on his beating chest, "Just that alone makes you worth it."
But Voldemort was more. Much more. The first of Akashi's creations to have so many abilities.
With a breath, Akashi returned Voldemort to his Inner World. The horror collapsed into smoke and retreated into the perfect black sphere beneath his chest.
A moment later, a pulse of energy formed beneath his feet, and Zena rose; his winged mount, silent and devoted.
She spread her massive wings, black as eclipse, and began flying forward, slicing through Hueco Mundo's stagnant air.
Akashi's eyes flickered. Thoughtful. Calculating.
He was still uncertain, 'Is it enough... Would Kurayami and the First be enough to face the Wandenreich? To face Aizen? To face Yhwach? To face the Almighty?'
No. No. No. No. They're monsters hundreds to thousands of years older than him, and he's only a newborn, but he doesn't have much time.
He believes that his Shikai is broken, extremely strong and versatile. Akashi was sure that Benihime, Urahara's Zanpakuto; could rival Kurayami in versatility. Katen Kyōkotsu should come third.
Then there is Ichibei's Zanpakuto... Straight up reality warping. Yamamato. Ichigo. So many broken Zanpakuto.
Akashi feels like his Zanpakuto's potential may surpass them all, but it also has a weakness they do not have, himself.
Akashi's horrors require a lot of Reiatsu, but their source of energy is himself; however, he doesn't have enough energy.
Even a Captain level of spiritual power is not enough to face them.
And he isn't even Captain level yet, far far away, 'I have to work harder, much harder, but also take shortcuts.'
It's hard to imagine how he could work harder, considering he spent almost every day for the past year bathed in blood, tirelessly.
It would be torture to some, how hard he works. However, Akashi has grown fond of the experience, developing a sense of enjoyment in battle and continuous improvement.
And now, Akashi fell from the heavens like a meteor wrapped in black flame, his body rotating slowly in the air, arms loose at his sides, eyes half-lidded with serene confidence.
Below him stretched a field of horror; dozens of Gillians, a lumbering pack of malformed titans.
They towered over the twisted trees of the Forest of Menos, each one pulsing with spiritual pressure so dense it warped the air.
They raised their grotesque masks toward him in synchronized hunger.
These weren't scattered beasts; this was a convergence of predators as Gillians usually move in groups, dozens of mouths open wide to devour him with Cero.
The sky exploded in scarlet.
It was a rain of beams, countless Cero of varied hues and intensities, some so powerful they bent the treetops in their trajectory.
Akashi's expression didn't change.
He raised his hand.
And Voldemort was there.
The pale, snake-faced horror appeared without a sound, his long fingers curling around Akashi's shoulder.
Together, they vanished with a whisper of space folding, reappearing at the base of the towering monsters.
The Apparition spell didn't drain Akashi much this time; the distance was short.
Voldemort returned immediately to the inner world, his form melting into the chains curling around the black sphere embedded in Akashi's chest.
The Gillians stirred in confusion and disorder.
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