She had made her way back to the tenth division barracks after she was instructed that her job was done. She saw the other Shinigami spring into action and go and find out how they could be of more service than she had been. She fled. She knew that was the right thing to do but she shook her head violently as the building in her vision crumbled into nothing, lightning fell from the sky, scorching the street, melting it into magma. She physically winced, feeling sick as if the reiatsu effects still ailed her, but it was only her mind. The trauma of witnessing an arrancar destroy the city she was so apt to defend, the fact that she did nothing for her comrades except run back to the barracks in search for…she should have stayed and fought. She should have also risked her life, but she knew that were those that were much more apt at fighting, much more powerful, friends that could rival that foe.
Hashidearu fell to the barracks floor and exhaled a deep sigh. It was so loud. The tenth division was chaos. She should have learned some kaido…her mind began to race through all the things she
should have done but there was no way for her to be of aid. She would have to go within herself and talk to the wisest entity she knew Hoshi no kyokugei-shi (Contortionist of the Stars).
“Hoshi no kyokugei-shi,” she whispered as she drew her zanpakuto, placing it in her lap with her palms facing upward, holding the hilt and the blade equidistant from each other. Her eyes slowly closed as a deep black reiatsu began to slowly wisp from her body, encircling her and her zanpakuto as softly as mist. Her zanpakuto, under the effects of her reiatsu began to rise slowly from her palms and stand straight up, flowing into the orbit of her reiatsu. It was a unique way to enter her inner world but each time her zanpakuto passed in front of her face she fell deeper and deeper into her mind. The orbit of her zanpakuto was slow, the silence that she seemed to find herself in was deafening. In the darkness there was nothing. The blackness of her eyelids were unaffected by the light of the day. Her reiatsu blocking the light from reaching her. As time progressed the mist of her reiatsu thickened until there was a black mass of fog encircling her, leaving her body unable to be seen.
Blackness. Blackness. Nothing. So cold. Hashidearu shuddered as she opened her eyes to the darkness of the void. She was blind here. There was never anything in her sights except the distant dot that could be a planet or a star. It’s faintness only strained her eyes. It was better off if she kept them closed. Still, her body unmoving and her mind unknowing of any direction. Direction did not exist. Time did not exist. Light did not exist. Where was she again? How long had she been here? Seconds? Minutes? Where was she? Eerily she felt peace here. That if it had been decades she was safe. If it had been millenia in this place, she would grow wiser upon being here. The darkness was infinite and so was its wisdom. Darkness, the first of the primordial forces, even before there was light. It held weight, mass, even though there was nothing there. Was there really nothing there? Or was everything in her innerworld so made of the substance of darkness, dark types of matter that left light questioning if its existence was needed and Hashidearu questioning if she would ever leave. The comfort of this type of prison was something that she had longed for in her waking day. Where were they? Where was her zanpakuto spirit? They were everywhere all at once and yet unseeable, blending in with the void. They were weeping and mourning and joy. They were full and empty. They were darkness and only darkness and all things were drawn to orbit the dark.
Her eyes flickered around as her body aimlessly drifted through this darkness. It was always her first lesson—patience. There was nothing else for her to do but think, to reminisce on the rampaging monster that caused the Lieutenant to release their Bankai. Bankai, something that she had yet accomplished. Even her shikai was still developing. Manipulating orbital forces, she was the center of the universe when it was released, all things were too and from her all things were attracted and repelled by her will, by her zanpakuto’s will and might and wonder.
She flailed her arms lightly and nothing about her trajectory changed. This might have not been her domain, but she was intertwined with its owner. Hashidearu inhaled deeply and simply stopped moving, no aimless movement. There was something more here. How would she find them here? They were always in a new place with planets and stars littered around them.
“Always so silent they are…” but they weren’t silent. They spoke in the physical and she felt the current. She wasn’t drifting aimlessly, she was being pushed and pulled by the ebb and flow of the universe within. Hashidearu turned and extended her right hand into what seemed to be a stream of energy of gravity. There was no temperature, there was no appearance, it was simply there. It existed in itself and therefore it just was. She submerged herself in this stream and was immediately whisked into a slow flow of what she would consider to be none other than the grace of her zanpakuto. As she spun along the current her eyes began to water with delight. There was such peace in the current that slowly took her towards the center of the spiral where they resided. As she entered the proximity of her Hoshi, she could see them playing with the very stars they created. Nothing but a black mass with the outline of all the light that illuminated them. With no need for light they simply created the planets and the stars for sheer child-like pleasure. The being turned, its eyes—wormholes of color, magnificent in their appearance. As the giant, eons larger than Hashidearu turned its whole body, the stream that she found herself in sped up and she was absorbed into the black humanoid mass. It was the shape that they decided to take to make her comfortable. They could have taken the shape of the nothingness, the expansiveness that they were but they chose to appear humanoid, a reflection of their owner.
No words were exchanged as she entered into the humanoid void. Nothing existed yet everything was possible and in this silent exchange, Hashidearu wept tears of comfort. A hand reached into the abdomen of Hoshi and slowly extracted her, bringing her to the front of their face. There was no mouth. Simply eyes as glorious as the first dawn of existence, brilliant color, magnificent intensity, as if the gods had designed the world with more color than it needed. How was Hoshi no kyokugei-shi both nothing and everything.
“Out of darkness all things are born” the voice did not echo through the expansive world but, in unison, settled lightly on her ears as if they were being whispered to her.
“You do not seek power, or protection. We are not power. We are not peace. We are the flow that holds the universe together. That brings atoms fusion. That pulls worlds into creation. We exist to exist.” The voice whispered in thousands of unisons.
The hand let go of her and she began to fall at a rapid rate unable to control the gravity that was being forced upon her before she was slammed into a stream of orbital energy that rapidly swung her around the width of her zanpakuto spirit and towards a planet that was made primarily of liquid mercury. Hashidearu slammed into the liquid, and sunk quickly, her hands stretching out for glory for safety for something to catch her but nothing was coming. Her eyes watched the expanse of the red sky above her dwindle as she was consumed by the silver liquid. She was raised up again just as quickly as she had been sent to the planet.
Again she was flung into a jungle planet. There was life everywhere. Disturbing life, beautiful life, life that was consumed by predators and prey that ran away in frenzy as the crater that her body created destroyed that life.
“Life is but a breath in our eyes.”
The planet she was on began to shudder as it began to rip apart from the inside, pieces breaking off and animals scattering. There was nowhere for them to go. Hashidearu couldn’t move. She couldn’t think fast enough. She was being thrown through the void into planets of her zanpakuto’s design. What did they mean that they were not power. They were not peace. She needed both power and peace to survive. If she would have had power she would have stood some chance against the arrancar and if she would have had some semblance of peace she would have been able to at least protect those that needed help. She grunted as her hands grasped the dirt beneath her and attempted to push her up, but an orbital wave pushed her back against the dying planet knocking the wind out of her body and causing her eyes to flutter open into…nothing. All was gone again and she had returned to the void. In the distance she saw the planet that was destroyed by her zanpakuto slowly piece itself back together and all the planets change the trajectory of their orbits to fit as rings around Hoshi no Kyokugei-shi’s fingers. Thousands of planets acting as jewelry for her zanpakuto.
“Light is our plaything. Matter our subject.”
Paralyzed she lay in the void. The words infiltrating her mind as she saw stars and galaxies appear, planets manifest and rip apart, only to be pulled back together again. Life was insignificant yet more precious than she could imagine in the innerworld. Life could be made here. Illusions of light and matter all spurring from the end all be all—darkness.
Hashidearu felt like she was slowly understanding what Hoshi no Kyokugei-shi was saying but she also wasn’t sure. He too spoke in little words and poetry, something that they shared. She believed that her zanpakuto affected orbital forces, but what was behind the orbital force? A type of substance that was unseen? Unable to be affected by light and electromagnetism? Able to bend the forces of the universe and create even galaxies. It all escaped her as quickly as it came.
Hoshi no kyokugei-shi manipulated all manner of matter in their domain through the use of—Hashidearu extended her hand into the void once more and inhaled deeply. She had always assumed that nothing was there. There was only her zanpakuto and what they created. That they created out of nothing. That they created simply by having it be their inner world. She commanded the orbital energy that ebbed past her fingertips to swirl and spiral, collecting what she thought was a form of matter that had been lost upon her. A matter that was behind matter and soon enough she had spiraled and superheated that secret matter into a small star. It was the size of her finger. Small but bright. She shifted her body to the upright position and leapt into the void—up. She knew which way was up. She could tell the direction based on the axis of the orbit. There was a horizontal axis and a vertical one that existed, invisible yet there. It could be felt. It could be sensed.
Hoshi no kyokugei-shi’s face lit up with some sense of mysterious delight as the little star hovered over her fingers. His large eye holes changing colors more rapidly than before as the star on Dearu’s finger grew larger and larger until it even began to burn at her skin. It’s heat emanating, spirals of debris swirling in from the cosmos enlarging it until it was the size that it was meant to be. Matter was all around her in this place. Dirt and dust everywhere in the world of the living. Enough speed, enough velocity, accumulation superheating, coalescing energy until….stars and planets were formed galore. Matter so dark it was invisible but so real that it could create worlds all affected by Hoshi no kyokugei-shi’s orbital energy and the infinity of an innerworld.
“We exist to exist.” The words came from all around her.
“This is no abyss.” In that moment millions of stars came to light. She didn’t know that it was possible for there to be so much light in this domain, but Hoshi remained the same, as void as ever. No light penetrated them. Only illuminated them from behind.
“This is no abyss.” The words came from all around her yet again.
“This is no abyss. The last chanting of the wisdom that she was imparted flung her out of her inner world, her zanpakuto clattering to the ground and her reiatsu immediately dissipating. She doubled over to catch her breath, sweat dripping down her face. Hours had passed since she had been in her inner world and she was unsure what time it was. Dearu began to cough and wheeze at the violent expulsion from her inner world and before she could catch her breath she remembered. She extended her fingers and in her mind’s eye she could see them, the stars forming from dust and debris. She could see them. The planets being created from the basic materials. She could feel the pure orbital energy that locked it in step and the gravity that forced it to the ground.
“Light is our plaything. Matter our subject.”
She regained her composure and stood up, sheathing her zanpakuto and heading towards her bed. The dust had formed a mound around her as her reiatsu caused it to orbit her and settle on the ground as it dissipated. She turned on her heel and headed into her room. She needed to journal before she proceeded to train to do as her zanpakuto had done and
Contort the Stars
