Shadow in the Moon

**Date Started:** 26 November, 2021
**Date Completed:** Ongoing
**Users Involved:** User:DazzlingEmerald,User:TheCheeseMeister, User:TheGoldenBuddha
**Setting:** Rukongai
**Characters Involved**: Togashi Hiramochi, Lightning King, Wakino Atsumori

## Shadow in the Moon

While he was out on missions, Togashi Hiramochi did not often stop to think. He committed everything to instinct. Memories of past wars would guide him to accomplish his assignments. He would only receive the details for the mission and move to fulfill his duty in the very next moment. Such was the life of a Shinigami within the Tenth Division. Yet there was hardly any time to complain --not that he would, Togashi would rather have had things go about in this manner than any other.

It was how he had escaped his unfortunate beginnings in Akatani. A district riddled by crime. Depression was constant. A large sense of disbelief rant rampant. He had to protect his mind from the negativity of the others around him. He had to shield his will so that he could still find even that small sliver of belief within himself. He wouldn't let anyone else put him down.

Togashi knew only how to work. He only knew how to put his best efforts forth. That was what had led him up to this point. He raced towards a district on the north side of Rukongai with haste as he had been told of a Hollow appearance in the area. He wasted little time, leaping down to the ground that was soon to become a battlefield.

As soon as his feet touched the ground he gave a good look around the area. Where was this damn Hollow at?

In the heart of the northside of Rukongai, a raging storm had begun its devastating rampage in the northern Soul Society district. The thunderous roar of lightning and the terrified screams of souls filled the air as the source of the fear came unto view, a horrific Hollow with blue fur coating its flesh and two beastial horns sproating from the sides of its feral mask, piercing blue electricity rebounding across its hide.

The beast terrorizing the populace of northern Rukongai was simply known by its self-imposed ephithet of Lightning King, and king it was of the primordial element of destruction, having already razed a portion of the district leaving naught but the scent of ozone and ash. Tearing swaths through buildings as it blasted lightning from its body, a figure caught the eye of the destruction monarch, a muscular man with sea-green hair a kosode only half-worn. The man caught the attention of the Hollow due to his presence, instead of running or cowering in fear, the man stood there searching for something amidst the chaos.

The Hollow turned its frame towards the man, a mad gleam in its eye as it stared at the man. "IHIHIHHIHIHI! YOU, YOU PUNY MORTAL! WHY AREN'T YOU RUNNING IN FEAR OR AWE OF MY GODLIKE POWER! PREPARE TO BE OBLITERATED BY THE WRATH OF A GOD!" The mentally unstable Hollow shouts as within its large clawed paw, an orb of electricity begins gathering. Once the Hollow deemed the sphere to be of appropiate size, its mad smile grows even wider as it swings its arm holding the ball forward, launching a brilliant blue flash of lightning towards the green-haired man.

The Lightning King was a Hollow the Gotei 13 had their eyes on for decades. For it to show up in broad daylight was almost like a dream come true. Togashi wasn't keen on hunting it down any farther than this. This was his first time encountering the monster and he greatly desired that it would also be his last. "Me? Run from a beast like you? Don't make me laugh."

Coming straight for him was a ball of lightning faster than any ordinary Shinigami should have been able to avoid. According to the reports, which were numerous regarding the Lightning King, the speed of its attack alone had allowed it to kill tens if not hundreds of Shinigami over its lifespan. But it could not as easily land a hit on a target that was capable of moving as fast as Togashi.

Togashi was something of a Shunpo specialist. He shimmered away just in time to avoid the ball of lightning, letting it teether through flickered lines that once composed his being. He warped himself behind the Hollow; at once, without wasting any more time, he unsheathed his Zanpakuto and uttered its name. "Tilt, Rikuten."

The Zanpakuto conformed greatly in size. It was already a massive blade, thanks to the large sums of reiatsu that Togashi possessed, but the nagamaki expanded in size even further, becoming a large block of metal. "Hollow. I won't even ask you for your name." Togashi reassured it at once.

A look around convinced Togashi that this was not the most appropriate of places to be conducting such a battle. If the stories of the Lightning King held validity, then it was a beast that Togashi did not want to underestimate. Nor a beast that he wanted to tango with out in the open. There were too many people around here. He didn't want to involve them in a matter like this. "Let's take this somewhere else."

Not like the Hollow had a choice to respond. Togashi aimed his Zanpakuto at the Hollow and emitted a powerful gravitational force upon it to push it through the wall behind it. This force would be powerful enough to push the Hollow through numerous more walls, until it was in an entirely different district --one with an open wasteland.

The Hollow stares intently with malicious eyes as its ball of destruction blitzes towards the Shinigami, which quickly turn into eyes of *shock* as the Shinigami's form shimmers then disappears from view, letting the Hollow's attack fly through without any harm. The next bit of surprisal came from when the Hollow heard the man speak from behind him, and it was something he had heard many times before, the release of a Zanpakuto.

The spiritual pressure released from the invocation of weapon confirmed the mad beast's suspicions that this Shinigami was not one of the fodder that he had easily smote with his godlike power, but was one that the Hollow could only see as a Usurper to his claimed throne of godhood. "FOOLISH MORTAL, YOU ARE TRULY BLESSED TO EVEN SEE MY FORM, HEARING MY NAME IS RESERVED FOR THOSE WHO ARE TRULY POWERFUL, NOT SOME SNIVELLING WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU!" The mad Hollow declares befores it feels a pull, slight at first before in the span of a second the pull turns a terrifyingly powerful yank as the King is thrown through building after building due to gravitational effect of Togashi's Zanpakuto.

The gravity yank however would not incapacitate the Hollow, as during its forceful flight to a yet unknown destination, the insane beast locked eyes with the one who started its journey. Staring at the man, a dark red light gathers in the maw of the beast before a violent burst is released as a **Cero** from the King's mouth, roaring towards the Shinigami. After flying through the sky, the Hollow finally makes its landing, hitting the ground like a meteor with bolts of pure voltage arcing off the beast.

Togashi handled his Zanpakuto with extreme grace. His stokes were most fluid; an ability to manipulate gravity only added to his expertise within the field that was known as Zanjutsu. However, he had grossly underestimated this Hollow --whose name he did not know. It was a foolish mistake, the sort a novice made. It only went to show that even high tier shinigami such as him were not beyond blunders such as this.

Togashi did not anticipate in the slightest that the Hollow would be able to resist the gravitational push produced by Rikuten, even if it was only a Shikai. While it was true that Togashi still achieved his intended effect in dislodging the Lightning King through a series of walls and hence a fair distance away from the rest of civilization, what he failed to do was protect himself in trailing after the beast. The Hollow was still airborne when it managed to fight off Rikuten's force, raising a great deal of alarm in Togashi's mind. "...!"

The eyes of the Shinigami widened. Shunpo would not be enough to ward off his attacker this time. Especially not an attack of *that* magnitude. It was... a Cero. Togashi was in the midst of lunging forward when it was fired, so he could not as readily shuffle his feet to utilize Shunpo. He was, simply put, caught in the act.

Still, he managed to get off some form of counter at the very last instant. The Cero may have been enough to claim him if not. In what little time he had to react, Togashi readied his Zanpakuto and depleted the gravitational force from around the Cero. This greatly reduced its potency by decreasing the raw force that it carried behind it. Even still as the Cero collided with his body, Togashi could not deny that it possessed unfathomable power.

"Guh!!" He could not help but grunt aloud as the Cero knocked him out of the sky and sent him reeling into the ground below. A trail of white smoke followed his descent into the ground where a crater formed underneath his figure.

Togashi was slow to get back up to his feet; his body shivered with pain. He wiped blood that had spilled from his mouth with his hand, yet more of the same gushed out from his nostrils, tainting the hairs of his beard. He eyed the Hollow, who had admittedly managed a far more graceful landing than he.

"I... I was careless. I let down my guard. I did not anticipate you to be able to resist the effects of my Zanpakuto. It goes without saying that you are the first to do so." Togashi sealed his eyes for some time. Calmly taking a moment to himself; thinking things over.

He was wounded. If this battle carried out or went the length, at this stage he would be at a great disadvantage. Should he call for reinforcements? He reached into the insides of his black garb, locating a soul pager. He dialed the number of a certain Wakino Atsumori, and rather than request her backup, he made a very sensible suggestion to her.

"Atsumori-san." His tone was warm as he took her name. And then, in that very next instant, as he opened his eyes, a piercing cold gaze sat in them. "Seal all parameters leading into District 30, North Rukongai. Make sure no one is allowed entry."

Togashi hung up the call, shoving the pager back into his Shihakusho. He clenched his Zanpakuto tightly in one hand as he rested down on one knee in the crater the Lightning King had made for him. He allowed the Hollow to take the next move, as a powerful aura began to surge around the Shinigami.

Shaking off the mild disgruntlement of the landing, Lightning King's mask turns into a distorted smile of glee at the sight of the bleeding Shinigami, the blood of such a weak being filling the Hollow with an indescribable joy. The mask however quickly contorts into a terrifying visage of burning rage that the Shinigami is still alive after being hit by the Cero, *how?* it asked itself, *HOW?* did such a pitiful lifeform such as the Shinigami before it survive the attack.

Intaking its surroundings, the Hollow sees nothing but desolate buildings and waste in the nearby area of the land surrounding the two combatants. "IHIHIHIHI! I SEE NOW, YOU WISHED TO BRING ME SOMEWHERE WERE OTHERS WOULD NOT SEE THE HUMILIATION THAT YOU SHALL SUFFER AT MY HANDS, ALTHOUGH YOU SHOULD BE SEEING IT AS THE BEST OPPERTUNITY OF YOUR MEAGER LIFE TO FALL AT MY HANDS YOU DISGUSTING SUBCREATURE!" The mad King shouts; taking up a stance as if praising the skys above with the telltale light of a charging Cero fills the beast's maw while two orbs of lightning begin to gather in the monster's hands.

"I SHALL GRANT YOU THE BLISS OF DYING TO A STRIKE THAT FEW HAVE WITNESSED, BEHOLD MY **RUBY LIGHTNING HELIX**!!!" Lightning King proclaims as he swings his clawed limbs forward, launching the orbs that begun spinning like binary stars, rotating around the launched Cero at a destructive pace. The attack tearing the ground asunder between the two foes violently as the blasphemous combination of that which symbolizes heaven and that which symbolizes hell roars towards the Shinigami in an unholy union, intent on bringing kneeling soul's life to an end.

How many Shinigami had fallen at the hands of such a beast? This was a battle for all of those that had perished in times past. Togashi gripped his Zanpakuto and turned it upside down. The large sums of reiatsu that was fluctuating around him came to fruition as he commanded the energies to evolve his weapon even further. "Bankai. Rikuten: Butsugai Musaboru."

The world around the two shifted immediately upon the activation of Togashi's Bankai. For one the sky turned pitch black; bright glittering stars took the place of the clouds. The ground turned white, giving the impression that they had been transported to the moon.

Within a mile radius of Togashi's spiritual pressure, every object, being, and creation was under the effects of a tremendous gravitational force. "Mugen Madoromi." Suddenly everything felt like it weighed 1,000 times more than it ordinarily did. Under ordinary circumstances it would be impossible to even move so much as a single finger out of place. The Cero simply ceased to exist once it came under the effects of the pressure, dissipating harmlessly midway through its trajcetory.

The tremendous downwards pull by gravity would cause everything to lay down flat against the ground. The Lightning King was no exception. In this boundary of tremendous gravity, which was 1,000 times stronger than ordinary, only Togashi, the wielder of the Zanpakuto, was capable of any form of movement.

"Welcome to your infinite slumber. Oh, that's right. You can't see me now, can you?" Even the eyes of the beast would be unable to move. Togashi used Shunpo to flicker into the Hollow's view. "I want you to see for yourself as I put you to rest."

And Togashi went to do exactly that; he lifted his Zanpakuto above his head and then came down with full force, the gravity acting upon his blade so that it possessed 1,000 times more power than before. Togashi aimed to sever the Hollow's head off and put an end to its life.

The Hollow stared forwards as its body was dragged violently onto the ground with a force that was hundreds of times more powerful than the pull that had brought him to this barren wasteland that the Shinigami had terraformed the area into. A mad gleam in its eyes as it can't even move them around due to the sheer weight caused by the released Bankai.

As the Shinigami flickered into view, the air would begin to fill with the penetrating scent of ozone as the laying body of the Hollow would begin to partially smoke as static voltage begins to rebound across its body. The blade of the soul reaper came crashing down like a guillotine upon the neck of the King, and as the blade slices through the neck of the beast, the source of the ozone is made clear as daybreak.

Massive bolts of lightning are unleashed from the decapitation of the Hollow, flying through the wind in all directions before smiting anything in the surrounding area around the Hollow as the intense gravity caused by the Bankai takes hold and drags the electricity back down towards the floor of the district. The Lightning King may not have slain the green-haired Shinigami, but the mad beast got the last laugh with the voltaic self-destruction unleashed from its corpse.

"...!" The self destruct mechanism installed within the Hollow was of grave concern. Catching Togashi by a great deal of surprise it would have outright killed him if he didn't have a counter already at play. The solution was simple: another technique from his Bankai. A black ring appeared momentarily and intercepted the whole corpse, erasing it from existence.

Togashi fell back down to his knees thereafter, blood spewing from his open wounds. He had been suppressing it for the duration of the battle, but now was his chance to let it all out. He caught himself from falling by stabbing his sword into the ground. "W-Wakino..." he dialed her number once again, calling for her aid. "Y-You can put down the barrier now."

In the Tenth Division's squads barracks, you could see everyone situated in their usual seats and chairs casually getting through their days. But there was a disturbance every once in a while coming from Wakino's Denreishinki. While she she was well aware Togashi was sent on a solo mission she didn't know what exactly he was up to. She was ordered by him to set up a barrier around the district of Rukongai although confused she follows through with it. Then she puts it back down as Togashi said so "Just what happened with you." Wakino said questioning him through the soul pager.

Togashi fell forward onto the ground.