Hollow Moon: A Bleach Tale

Chapter 7: A Soul's Sweet Release

At home, Silas locked himself in his room.

There was a reason that he had not wanted the dispenser with the duck head on it. From what he recalled, there was a character named "Kon" that teamed up with Ichigo. Kon was a modified soul, not an artificial one. If Kon were to take over Silas's s body, he'd run off with it. Ichigo and Rukia, after determining that Kon wasn't such a bad modified soul, decided to work with him. But now the story's changed.

Kon was no longer going to be a part of this world.

Whether or not it was Kon truly inside didn't change Silas's mind after seeing it was a duck's head. That was the exact dispenser that Rukia had purchased from Kisuke's shop. It was their mistake for not having read the box Kon was inside.

Nonetheless, no matter what Kisuke would have said or done, Silas was by no means going to partner with him this early on. What he needed was the soul candy in order to help him access his Soul Reaper powers.

It was a risky move to go into Kisuke's shop and buy it, but he was prepared in case the shop owner wouldn't give it to him. Ichigo had over ten thousand yen saved up. If he needed to bribe Kisuke with that amount, he would have gladly done so. Then there was Isshin. Silas could have used his name in order to get what he needed. However way he saw it, he wasn't going to leave without that soul candy.

Perhaps he could have suppressed his spiritual powers and stolen it, but that would have ended in a failure against the employees at the shop. Tessai was once part of a powerful subdivision in the Soul Society. He could easily rival a captain-ranked Soul Reaper. Then there was Kisuke. There's no telling what sort of surveillance he had in and around the shop. Neither of them compared to Aizen, though. For all Silas knew, Aizen could have been spying on him even now. The only thing Silas found victory in was that he didn't reveal anything about wanting to become a Soul Reaper.

Before choosing to dispense out a soul candy, he began sensing his surroundings. That's when he noticed something peculiar. So he hid the dispenser away and climbed into bed. Outside was a black cat a few blocks away. And it was looking directly into Ichigo's bedroom!

Silas was right to have scouted the area before taking the pill. For the cat that was watching him was in league Kisuke. No ordinary cat from that distance would choose to look into his room. And on top of that, he had already familiarized himself with everything around this neighbourhood. This particular black cat was not from here!

She was truly a Soul Reaper named Yoruichi Shihōin in disguise. Yoruichi is part of one of the royal families in the Soul Society. She abandoned her post as a Soul Reaper in order to help Kisuke defeat Aizen when the time came. Although she's taken the form of a cat that could talk with a deep man's voice, she is truly a dark-skinned woman. And she is also regarded as one of the most beautiful characters in the Soul Society.

What was dangerous about her was her fighting capability. She didn't use a Zanpakutō and relied mainly on her speed and hand-to-hand combat.

Silas monitored her carefully while pretending to be asleep. After a couple hours, she finally left the area. Even so, Silas decided to wait another hour in case her spiritual power returned. Yoruichi was clearly ordered by Kisuke to spy on Ichigo. And for whatever reason, it was likely due to Silas's recent action.

After the hour passed, Silas retrieved the dispenser. He made sure to close his window and double-check if his room had been bugged. Now was a crucial time. If others discovered what he was up to, he could be in serious trouble.

Feeling secure, he pressed on the rabbit's head, causing a candy in the shape of a small orb to come out. The moment he ate it, he felt a sudden rush inside as his soul left his body from the back!

The first thing he looked at was his clothes. He wasn't wearing a shihakushō, the signature black robe that most Soul Reapers donned; he was wearing his regular garments. Things hadn't felt different. All except his weight, which was a little lighter than when in his body, and a long chain extending from his chest.

The moment he looked at his body, it turned around to face him. "Hi!" it said in a lax tone. Silas examined it to ensure that it wasn't a modified soul. Artificial souls were no more than puppets to help extract a soul from the body. They didn't have any personalities, nor were they alive; they were fake souls formed in a lab to help Soul Reapers. Nothing more, nothing less.

When he confirmed it was a normal artificial soul, he ordered it to stand and guard the front door from inside. The artificial soul nodded its head and began doing just that. If anyone comes in, it was to act normal.

Silas then felt the chain protruding out of his chest. It was known as the "chains of fate", a chain that bound one's soul to their body. If this chain were to break, it would cause that Soul to eventually turn into a Hollow overtime. Even Soul Reapers had something similar to this, but it hadn't come in the form of a chain. If theirs were to break, they would lose access to what made them a Soul Reaper in the first place.

Silas sat down and began to concentrate. Now that he was just a soul, it was a lot easier to use his spiritual powers. All that time training was finally paying off. For now, he was able to enter into his "inner world". But he hadn't entered just yet. He waited until he could hear what he needed.

"Ichigo..." a voice said. Silas recognized that voice. "Ichigo...!"

When he focused on where it was coming from, he lifted up his eyes and found himself standing outside on the edge of a skyscraper. He was no longer in his room per se; he was in Ichigo's inner world, a subconscious realm where the voice was calling from.