Shuuhei is a Slut

A/N: When I started writing this, I meant for it to be funny. Like, they're drunk and having sex when the hollow attacks, haha. That went out the window pretty quickly. Almost forgot. This'll be part one of three. Enjoy.

Title: At Sunset, and into the Evening
Pairing: Shuuhei/Izuru
Warnings: drinking, violence, graphic and/or disturbing images (if body horror squicks you, this chapter isn't for you)

The sun set foreboding and blood-red in the west. Birds scattered up out of the trees, their caws echoing throughout the empty sky and their dark silhouettes leaving enough of their likeness to imagination that even the sturdiest of men might look upon them with worry. They receded into the horizon never looking back.

In the woods wherefrom those selfsame birds originated two men clothed in shadow stalked through the trees in search of something. And as they navigated the sprawling treacherous branches, they talked.

Shuuhei said he wasn't quite sure what the hollow looked like, hadn't been told such. Though he imagined it wouldn't be too troublesome to locate.

Izuru rejoined that neither had he been so informed, but his conclusions were of a similar nature to his friend's.

They stopped.

“You know,” Shuuhei said, “we don't have to wrap things up tonight. They gave us a whole week to take care of the thing.”

“Are you proposing what I think you are?” Izuru said.

“I even brought a blanket,” he said as he produced it from God knows where.

“Don't think I didn't notice the sake.”

The blanket spread even on the ground, they drank and they disrobed. Not even an hour later they'd emptied the first bottle and half the second with an eye on the third. And they fucked intermittently with the drinking.

First time round Shuuhei wearing naught save his pants sat upright upon his blanket with Izuru naked fully straddling him. He pulled the other down into a kiss with his arms wrapped around his back and feeling there of the skin and the muscle he so desired and he ground their groins together in spite or because of Izuru's protestations thereof.

His pants now removed in their entirety he felt with each of his movements the twigs and the leaves and the small rocks pressing into his skin through the thin cold cloth beneath him. He held Izuru a moment as he was, knees pushing into the ground astride Shuuhei's hips, mouth pressing against and into his own, hands grasping he knew not where. Shuuhei held him still so he might pull back and regard Izuru as rarely he did and see those flush lips parted and panting from the taste so recently upon them it lingered yet on his buds and he desired the taste even could he not describe it beyond his longing for it. Shuuhei bit his own lip.

“You ready?” Shuuhei said, and Izuru replied with only a nod in the affirmative.

Once past the initial preparations everything accelerated to a blur. What either felt seemed only in hindsight but no less intense or pleasurable than they could suppose for otherwise. Shuuhei thrust upward and Izuru came down to meet him and when ass met lap either saw stars if only from looking skyward.

Shuuhei leaned onto his back of his own accord and brought the other forward with him so Izuru lay atop him, and he pulled him down and pressed him against his chest already tight to bursting he couldn't say why. His heart pounded away into Izuru's ear.

He rolled them over so he was now on top and driving down into Izuru, and now they were half off the blanket but cared not to right it. Leaves there were, and pebbles and sticks still, now all of them prodding and poking them directly. Shuuhei panted with each thrust and he looked upon the man beneath him with lust enough to push him past where he could even think to stop and he was spent not a moment later and collapsed upon Izuru who worked himself on finishing his own need.

They drank on.

The second time the roles reversed if you could call them that and passed much as above if only in spirit and not execution.

Between the second and proposed third the birds returned.

When the moon reached its meridian there appeared before it bird-shaped silhouettes outlined by its light approaching their rookery. Each masked in marble pallor as of the dead. At a distance they look no larger than a dove, but their descent dispels any such notion. Any who see their form in the pale moonlight must fear for death, if they have time enough to do so. For they move with a frightening speed befitting the king of terrors on his pallid horse.

Shuuhei and Izuru righted themselves upon feeling them. But they hadn't enough time to dress, only to grab their zanpakuto from where they lay.

The first one hit was Izuru with a beak to his shoulder from which blood dripped and marred the bird's pale white mask with stains of red. What retaliation the two offered their drunkenness impeded such that often they missed by feet in their strikes or fell over in the swinging. Another hollow from what struck Izuru sliced across Shuuhei's chest.

Already the hollows had surrounded them so numerous were they, and there was no escape from them except to defeat them.

One of the two magicked a bright blue flame into the ground and raised up a great cloud of dust and in the subsequent confusion they grabbed what clothes of theirs they could find and ran off they knew not where.

But their foe was not long inconvenienced by this tactic and at length a handful of scouts sortied in various directions while the largest of the things perched atop a tree and preened itself as it waited.

Izuru and Shuuhei had meanwhile managed to don their pants and their feet pounded against the earth as they ran until they hid behind a tree where they sought to catch their breath.

“Is that the hollow we're after, then?” said Izuru.

“I guess so,” said Shuuhei. “I didn't expect we'd find it so soon.”

Izuru peeked around the tree back the way they'd come. “And I wouldn't say we found it. Them. Whatever. Do you think we lost it?”

“Doubtful.” Shuuhei crouched down low on his haunches. “According to the report from the twelfth division, there are at least eight specialized tracking units. Maybe more by now.”

A caw sounded closeby where they hid. They stilled. The bird-hollow perched atop a low-hanging branch and thence he surveyed the area surrounding. Trees stood with only chaos to their ordering in all directions, but still it perceived something amiss. Its head cocked to the side in quandary and investigation.

Izuru produced from his pocket a now empty bottle which he threw toward the bushes opposite their hiding place when the hollow was looking elsewhere, and the bird now distracted Shuuhei leaped from his crouching and fired at the thing a volley of light to restrain it. It slammed faintly against a tree where it lay unmoving.

Shuuhei moved nearer to examine it. Through and around the shards of light he could make out the ravenblack feathers contrasted with the stark white mask. The thing on the tree did not move nor did it seek to. Shuuhei leaned directly before it. From his new and closer perspective he noticed how its eye moved lidless and rapid. Its head twitched, and then it called out with a cry so shrill as to render both shinigami momentarily stunned. Izuru sliced off its head to silence it.

“What do we do now?” Izuru said.

“They'll be headed right for us.”

“Why didn't you go ahead and kill it?”

“They want us to bring back a specimen.”

“Of course they do.”

But there was no time to continue their discussion, for the hollows were upon them. The first and smallest wave came at them from beneath the forest's canopy in two groups of four. They flew with the intention of startling their prey, and in that at least they succeeded. At the first sign of their approach, the two stumbled back from where they were crouched, but they were up and on their feet within moments.

Now sobered through stress, Izuru led the counter-offense with a flash of red fire, and Shuuhei followed with his rods of light. Their foe so thinned, they proceeded thence with swords drawn. This time they did not miss, and each stroke felled with it another hollow. Within the first minute all were gone. What little respite their victory offered, though, did not last for long.

The next group was twenty strong, and with them the fight moved above the trees and into the night sky. They moved with a frightening speed, these hollows, and their maneuvers were coordinated so as to overwhelm their opponents. So focused were they in speed they could not hurt the shinigami, but that was not their aim. After a long few minutes caught within the swarm another group four in number swooped in from above.

These were larger than the others, but not as fast. What need had they of speed against a disoriented and distracted enemy?

Their feathers sheened like polished obsidian against the flashing steel swords, yet they yielded not. Fire and light both bounced off their coats without leaving a mark or so much as a smudge of ash.

Shuuhei dove among the trees below, and Izuru followed. They maneuvered effortlessly through and around the branches with the birds in tow and gaining. Izuru grabbed at a branch and swung below, and Shuuhei took another and swung above. Their pursuers split evenly between them. Each shinigami arced divergently so as to suggest a circle if seen from above, where sat a single observer yet to enter the fray.

“Raise your head, Wabisuke,” he called, and with those words he caught a branch above where he had just passed and clove it from the tree. It fell and with a dull thud brought with it several hollows who passed screeching into oblivion. Then swift as a lark he doubled back at a declination and while yet facing upwards toward the swarming hollows he said, “Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws. Hado thirty-three: Blue fire, crash down!”

Only the two larger hollows remained unscathed, their subordinates having shielded them at the last moment. They emerged slowly from the resulting cloud of smoke and dust and around them the branches glowed with a faint red light and leaves crumbled into floating embers on the wind. Their eyes turned toward Izuru, who had since returned to his previous path, and they continued their pursuit.

A chord apart from Izuru, Shuuhei hopped along the treetops with the bird-hollows at his heels. He glanced back ever and anon until of a sudden he dropped straight below through tight-wound branches where only the smaller could follow easily. The branches scratched at his bare skin and drew blood even, but he winced not. Upon reaching the ground he looked back up to gauge the distance. When the first hollow cleared the lowest branch he called out and summoned a volley of bright flame which consumed his enemies directly above him.

The path of descent now free of blockage the two larger hollows joined Shuuhei on the earth. Before either could reach him he reentered the network of branches to emerge above the canopy. The birds followed. After a distance he settled atop a tree and stood to face them. They continued towards him. Both opened their beaks which glowed the fierce red of an impending cero, but Shuuhei took action before either could fire.

He said: “Carriage of Thunder. Bridge of a spinning wheel. With light, divide this into six! Bakudo sixty-one: Six rods prison of light!”

Now the nearer of the hollows veered to the side, but its companion took the spell head on and froze where it flew and could not move nor hope to. Shuuhei advanced upon the hollow, his sword ready to strike, and he saw himself reflected in the eye he a moment later pierced all the way through.

Elsewhere Izuru neared unknowingly where they had first run into the hollows. But he had no choice in where he went after he'd run into another group of the things. When he sensed where they were leading him he had to make a choice, but in this he erred.

He tried to outmaneuver them, to lead them to the left. But that way held its own dangers, and he knew them not. He came upon a certain tree, and what he saw horrified him to paralysis.

Two shinigami he could not identify hung inverted from opposite branches their eyes open and pleading but their mouths sewn shut to muffle their screams. You couldn't tell they were there but to see them by some magic peculiar to these hollow. They hung by their own skin, carefully and skillfully pulled away from muscle and ligament and looped around various branches to suspend them. Various organs spilled bloodless from their gaping stomachs far enough down that their respective owner could taste it if only he could stick out his tongue. Several birds sat upon their outstretched arms pecking and tearing at the whorls of their fingertips.

No telling how they'd managed to survive.

Almost before he could react one of the hollows made to attack him, but Izuru dodged enough that it only grazed his side. He readied his sword and stood his ground.

Shuuhei stood atop the vanishing hollow's corpse a moment longer before setting off to find his friend. He traced around the curve Izuru was supposed to have followed until he met the trail of blood where it veered off to the side. Seeing this much blood he began to worry, and he would have moved faster if only the trail weren't so hard to follow and intermittent. It knew no course save chaos and panic.

A ways along the trail he encountered a contingent of bird hollows he easily dispatched, but in so vanquishing them he alerted the others to his presence and they flocked to him.

These were larger still than any of the others and stood level to Shuuhei's chest when full upright. With just a flap of their wings they brought down whole trees. But their size also made them slower.

He jumped backwards to start with and produced again his rods of light which he threw at them indiscriminately and they did nothing save bounce off the nightblack feathers like rejected stars. One of them in return opened its mouth and fired with greater celerity than should have been possible a cero which succeeded in grazing Shuuhei's arm.

“Reap, Kazeshini,” he said, and when his sword took on its sickle-like appearance he bounded above into the trees. The hollows responded by felling all they could within a short radius but he was not among them. They took to the sky.

But along their ascent Shuuhei snared one of the two around its neck with his zanpakuto, and he sent through the chain a surge of electricity which stunned his target long enough he could approach and as with the previous two stab it in the eye to kill it. It dissolved away around his blade and now he could focus on the other.

When Shuuhei tried to likewise ensnare the other the hollow split itself into a dozen pieces so his blade went straight through without hitting a one. These then flurried about faster than their parent and dove for Shuuhei and some struck him with their beaks or with their claws about his chest or on his arm so he was covered in cuts which bled and bruises which purpled and along his brow gathered beads of sweat which might have glistened were there any sun to light them.

The hollows grouped in threes and between them prepared a set of cero of varying quality. Again it seemed swifter than possible but within moments they were upon him and he could not dodge them all. One struck him below his knee, another on his elbow.

The birds spoke in a whispering unison: “We shall kill you, and we shall devour you. Pitiful shinigami, you stand no chance.”

He stood in the air within a dissipating cloud of smoke clutching at his weapon ever tighter and with a determined look to his face. His eyes betrayed none of his thoughts, nor did they acknowledge weakness. They spoke only of one thing, and that thing he then put to words.

He said: “You think me defeated. You see me here just barely able to stand and think I'll go down with another strike.” He pointed his weapon where the hollows frenzied above him. “But you are mistaken.” Shuuhei leaped up and away from them and threw one of his sickles at them and it decapitated one and took from another a wing.

The birds pursued him, but as they neared he dropped below and into the trees. When they descended they could not find him.

His voice when next he spoke echoed excessively and would not reveal where he hid. He said, “It used to be I despised my sword.” Accompanied only by a faint whirring his zanpakuto flew spinning from a distance and dismembered two more of the hollows. “Can you see how its only purpose is to take life?”

“We shall kill you,” the hollows said. “We shall devour you.”

A blur of a shadow among the branches flashed for a moment across the birds' eyes, and they turned their heads only to turn for another to streak by in just the other direction.

“I still don't like it,” he said, “yet it came from my own soul. It is a part of me. Why is that?”

Their frenzy organized into a circle which rotated slowly by some magic in defiance of the laws of physics and each one of them fired a continuous cero in its own direction and angled downwards until all trees in their range had fallen in a cloud of leaves and dust which flew up to where they were and blinded them so they could see nothing.

And in their blindness Shuuhei approached them silent as swift as the wind and they were gone before the first speck of dust could settle. A single bird remained.

“Though I wrestled with that question for years, I have at last reached an answer.” He pointed his weapon at the bird. “This blade of mine means to kill my enemies, and so shall I use it.” Not a moment later he moved faster than the bird could see and was next to it. “You,” he said, “are my enemy.”

Thus did Shuuhei vanquish the hollow.

He slumped against a piece of fallen tree to catch his breath and gaze upward towards the sky which showed no signs of lightening. Dawn was yet hours away and he needed still to find Izuru. In the distance he saw a flash of light where Izuru must have been, but he could not hope to rise. He closed his eyes, if only for a moment.