Chapter 90 - Hueco Mundo II

"Seek not beauty in battle. Seek not beauty in death. Consider not your own life. If you wish to protect that which must be protected, then strike while your opponent's back is turned." — Sosuke Aizen.

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The three of them sat around the small table; one of them extremely casual and joking, one of them relatively calm, and the last one looked serious as he stared at the intruder.

"I've heard what you have to say, and the matter of trust aside, what makes you think I can build such a device?" Kisuke asked with a harmless smile.

"You can't?" Itachi replied, making Kisuke's eyes twitch.

"Now now, let's not rush to conclusions eh?" Kisuke said, waving his hand dismissively which inadvertently drew Tessai's unbelieving gaze to him. "Theoretically, even if I could build something like that, it'd likely take time. Mayuri wasn't lying to you."

Itachi nodded. "I know." He admitted, "I merely used it to gain a timeframe."

That ended up making Kisuke break out into a grunt that slowly grew wider the more he heard Itachi speak. He was starting to like this guy. 'Maybe Yoruichi was right after all.'

"Hoh, a timeframe for what? If you don't mind me asking."

"The time limit I figured you'll need if you agreed." Itachi answered evenly.

A wide smile was well plastered across Kisuke's face and the eyes he used to appraise Itachi slowly started changing.

"You know, most people wouldn't go to a traitor for help." Kisuke said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Itachi replied easily.

Tessai's hostility towards Itachi reduced a bit, not anything noticeable but it did go down a teensy tiny little bit. Even if Yoruichi, and to some extent Kisuke, had vouched for him as a trustworthy ally, they were in a precarious situation for them to do so easily.

"True as that may be, we still don't know if we can or have the facilities to help you. What are you going to do in the meantime?" Tessai was curious, but it looked like Kisuke already had the answer to that as he was smiling with unveiled interest in his eyes.

Itachi stood up as he turned around to leave, but not before answering Tessai before he moved past the door.

"Hueco Mundo."

The door slid shut behind Itachi who was about to move away when he heard Kisuke's words.

"Not going to ask about Yoruichi? She'll be sad and pissed when she finds out you visited but didn't inquire about her."

Itachi didn't say anything to that and just left to begin his next objective.

...

[POV: With Kisuke]

Kisuke sighed and dropped his smile after sensing that Itachi had left, which was when a familiar black cat decided to hop on onto the table.

"You could have said something the entire time he was here but didn't, why? Cat got your tongue?" Kisuke fell into a tirade of laughter while Yoruichi looked at him with an annoyed expression.

"Right. Of course you'd find this amusing." Yoruichi growled in irritation and swiped her clawed paws at Kisuke who howled in pain and stumbled off his seat.

"You think he knew you were here?" Tessai asked, acting as the voice of reason for the two childish ex-Captains.

"With him, nor one knows for sure. Anywa—" Yoruichi's words were caught short when they felt the spiritual pressure of a Hollow, prompting them to come outside to take a look.

"What the hell is he doing?" Yoruichi shouted in disbelief as she saw Itachi riding a Hollow into the Garganta.

"Hahaha hahaha!" Kisuke laughed loudly as he saw the insane spectacle up in the sky. "He really meant it."

"This is no time to be laughing, Kisuke! How the hell is he going to get back!?" Yoruichi was genuinely worried. It was a very foolish act to her eyes because now he would be stranded in a world filled with Hollows with no way of getting out.

"Calm down, Yoruichi." Tessai held her tense shoulders and prevented her from doing anything reckless until she calmed herself down. It was a pretty rare sight to see someone like Yoruichi this agitated over someone else.

"I think he'll use the same method he used to go in to get back." The former Grand Chief said while having to inwardly accept that the young man named Itachi was resolute if nothing else.

"Yeah, and that worries me even more." She turned to glare at Tessai who still remained impassive and shrugged off her glare.

"Calm down Yoruichi. Let's just wait and see the results." Kisuke said with a smile in his eyes.

...

[Hueco Mundo]

Gray.

A world of pale ash gray and a perpetually dark sky was what greeted Itachi's eyes when he touched down on the white sand that covered every expanse of this… dead world.

The Hollow he had hitched a ride from had turned to dust not two seconds after it crossed the Garganta with Itachi in tow.

"The information wasn't exaggerated."

Hueco Mundo was like a desert filled with Hollows – A prison that held each and every Hollow eternal captives and led them to take out their bestial instincts in each other.

The entire place looked like a blank canvas that someone threw black paint and swished it around to paint the dreary setting before him.

"What should I do first?" Itachi thought to himself as he observed the dead landscape before him. "Well since we're in Hueco Mundo let's find a Hollow first."

This was the reason why he came to this world after all.

His objective centered around the more intelligent and powerful Hollows so he had no qualms killing most of the lower level Hollows but he also did not go out of his way to do so. This was a self-imposed reconnaissance mission and not an extermination mission.

As there was no way for Itachi to determine his location, he proceeded to head north while killing or hiding and avoiding some Hollows if he deemed them not worth the attention or risk.

Only dunes of sand were visible as far as the eyes could see, which meant there weren't exactly prime locations to lay low in the event he got caught or surrounded.

"I guess even Adjuchas are rare to find even in Hueco Mundo."

He sidestepped a lunge from a Hollow and decapitated it in the same instant before covering the distance between him and the two remaining Hollows.

A kunai wrapped in Reiatsu sank into the masked face of one of the Hollows while the second one found itself bisected from the head down.

"They are becoming even more infrequent as I go forward. Perhaps a strong Hollow is nearby." Itachi muttered to himself as the last Hollow faded to dust.

Since Hueco Mundo was perpetually nighttime, it was hard to tell how long had passed but Itachi reckoned it was a little over six hours. He could increase the time limit of his stay in Hueco Mundo by a few days, but not more than a week. He couldn't keep himself so out of touch with what was happening by ignorantly exploring Hueco Mundo.

A few hours of walking and blending in, Itachi finally managed to come across the Adjuchas Hollows he'd been looking for. Three of them at that.

One looked like a salamander that had all his spine bone jutting out. The second just looked buff and humanoid. As for the third, Itachi couldn't tell if it looked like an insect or a reptile.

'There's no other Hollow around, except if one might be hiding underground. This shouldn't cause too much of a ruckus.'

He entertained no other useless thoughts and stalked towards the humanoid Hollow, also the one with the most intense presence.

Maybe it was because of its innate instincts as a beast, but the Hollow jumped sideways… only that it did not matter as Itachi was already behind him and drove his sword through the back of its head.

The other two Adjuchas' reaction was instant as they immediately charged up Cero blasts and shot it at Itachi and their dead comrade.

"Did we get him?" One asked fearfully.

"Uh?" Both of their attention was quickly drawn to the sword that was pinned to the ground directly in between them but before they could say another word, a spark of lightning crashed into the sword and lit it up in lightning that then shot towards the two of them who stood too close to it.

The lightning stream did a number on them, immobilizing them long enough for Itachi to restrain them with Kidō for his questioning.

"The only existing 'power' in Hueco Mundo is Las Noches, palace of the Ruler of Hollows…"

Interesting was a word to describe the little information he could get from the two Hollows before he killed them.

The first and most important was that Hueco Mundo had a ruling figure that was called the God-king of Hollows, a very powerful Vasto Lorde, and he had a base of operations called Las Noches.

Itachi had no thoughts of sneaking into Las Noches as the only thing he was sure would come out of it was him being overwhelmed by the sheer number of Hollows in the palace, not adding whatever Vasto Lorde might also be under the king's rule.

"I'm quite far off from Las Noches it seems but my hypothesis was right that there's something strong further ahead as those Hollows wanted to kill it and consume it."

He'd leave Las Noches for now until when he had a better plan and goal for going there.

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