As promised in my latest chapter of Text, I am back with a new Silent Nightmare update! Yay!

Allons-y!

Fourteen

There's something almost tangible about fear, the Hollow muses.

He's rather fascinated by the concept when he hears the other Hollows talking about it. He has no idea what it is at first. But when they speak of it, they mention humans. Humans apparently fear many things. The other Hollows mention the Soul Reapers too. They claim that the Soul Reapers should fear the new Hollow army that is forming here in Las Noches, and there is much talk of the new war.

When he asks the Second Espada what fear is, Two gruffly replies that it's irrelevant, that fear is a burden. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the Hollow can recall a similar teaching. Something about fear being not adequate as a substitute for resolve when one is fighting for something. Fear does not help you win. When a blade resonates with fear, it cannot win a battle. Or so the words inside the Hollow's head say.

But he questions them, naturally. Amnesiacs do tend to question a lot of things.

The thing is, fear is essentially the foundation of a Hollow's behaviour. The entire race acts out on basic instinct, and fear is a natural element to their traits. A fear of Soul Reapers is what keeps the low level Hollows aware of the ever prominent danger, a fear of being devoured by the greater Hollows is what fuels the resolve inside each and every one to become stronger. The Arrancars don't really acknowledge this outwardly, but the Hollow is inquisitive.

Most curious of all is from whom the clearest and most satisfying answer comes from: Grimmjow.

The Hollow doesn't really understand who he himself is yet, but he sees something in Grimmjow that makes him begin to think that the two of them must have something in common. He recognises something familiar in the way Grimmjow behaves, which makes the Hollow decide internally that before he lost his memories, he must have had a similar personality to Grimmjow.

The Sixth Espada seems to think the same thing, because if anything, he practically takes the Hollow under his wing. And by that, the two of them find themselves ditching almost every important meeting so that they can fight. The Hollow enjoys fighting thoroughly. He realises at once that this is his purpose. He was... born to fight, or something like that. It helps boots some reason inside him to participate in the upcoming war. To begin with, he wasn't really concerned about this huge war that he's been unknowingly dragged into. Other than the telekinetic bond he shares with Dark Rukia and some foreign instinct inside him that lets him know that there's something about her that reminds him of something (something in his mind, something just beyond his reach, something important), he's never really held any attachment to these Hollows he's meant to be fighting alongside. But now he has a reason to fight, the simple one being that he relishes in the thought of engaging in fierce battles.

And there's fear. The Hollow isn't really certain that fear is exactly what courses through him every single time Grimmjow's blade almost reaches his skin, but it's definitely like fear. It's something more than fear.

'You're not scared,' Grimmjow says as the two of them rest, bloodied and exhausted, on the top of one of the Las Noches towers, taking a break while they wait for their instant regenerations to kick in. Grimmjow has actually released his Resurrección to demonstrate it to the Hollow.

'What?' the Hollow asks.

'It's not fear. What you're feeling.' Grimmjow turns to face him with a huge grin. 'It's something way more than that, believe me. It's better. It's like it once was fear, but it's evolved. That's what real warriors feel. 'Cause you get that feeling when you almost get cut, don't you? That swooping feeling inside of you that makes you super aware of everything. There are people who don't like that feeling. People who want to avoid it. People who label it as 'fear'... And then there's us.'

He absent-mindedly rakes the ground beneath him with the claws of his Resurrección. 'We like that feeling because it reminds us of the reality of the situation, the ever constant knowledge that this could be our last fight. And it feels great. It fills you with adrenaline. It makes you faster and so much stronger. It's the best damn feeling in the world.'

The Hollow smirks. 'Never knew you could be so philosophical, Grimmjow. You usually just talk crap.'

Grimmjow swips at the Hollow, which the pale teen quickly dodges with sonido. The Hollow is quickly reminded of Grimmjow's words as he feels the exact feeling that the Sixth Espada described inside of him, due to his ever aware brain calculating his escape from Grimmjow's claws raking though the air towards him. He lets out a laugh of exhilaration, finally understanding fear for what it really means to him.

Dark Rukia doesn't look very pleased after the battle. She never does, to be honest, and it's fairly obvious why. She comes to watch them, mainly out of paranoia for her own safety, because she experiences a lot more peace of mind when she can actually anticipate the moment she'll feel pain, due to her telekinetic partner getting wounded.

'It's a pain in the ass, you know. And that statement is actually literal every time you land on your backside,' she hisses at the Hollow as he approaches her after his refreshing battle with Grimmjow.

'It's not my fault that you feel all my wounds. And you're the one who keeps trying to remind me that this connection is a good thing,' the Hollow replies, smirking.

'Whatever.'

'Why do you hate Grimmjow so much, anyway?'

'What?'

'I've seen the way you glare at him. You look as if you completely despise him. So much so that you want to kill him. What's up with that?'

Dark Rukia smirks herself. 'Aww. Are you afraid that I'll kill your new best friend?'

The Hollow scowls. 'I'm just curious.'

Dark Rukia sighs. She doesn't really want to elaborate with anyone in case someone figures out what's going on inside her head, but it can't harm anyone too much to talk to an amnesiac who probably won't think anything of it and certainly won't remember anything. Plus, she certainly trusts Hollow Ichigo more than anyone else in Hueco Mundo.

'He's... screwed things over in the past,' she says carefully. 'Not that anyone else here really knows. Not that he even remembers. He probably thought nothing of it,' she adds with a darkened look in her black and lilac eyes.

'But he'd never met you before we came here,' Hollow Ichigo points out, confused.

'It's not me he screwed over,' Dark Rukia replies quietly.

'Sing, Kokutan no Kōri.'

Equipped with the crimson scythe, Dark Rukia feels a little nervous. She always does when she releases her Resurrección and she knows that Hollow Ichigo is watching. A part of her will always be worried that he'll recognise and begin to remember the weapon that took his memories in the first place.

But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't appear fazed.

'Some no Kakyoku, Kōriochiru,' Dark Rukia continues, slashing a circle in the air with her scythe, twirling on the spot to send the newly formed ebony ice shards all around her.

'Is it done yet?' Hollow Ichigo asks.

'What?'

'Your Resurrección. Have you mastered it?'

Dark Rukia pauses and examines her scythe carefully before glancing around at the floating ice shards in the air. '… No. There's still more I can do with it. I've mastered the first and second song but there's a third one I need to keep working on.'

'Songs?'

'The different movements of my Resurrección. Three main techniques I can use. The first song is Kōriochiru- Ice Fall. There are other minor ones I'm learning to go alongside it.'

'Like what?'

'Just little stuff I can use in battle,' she says with a grin. 'My scythe itself has... certain abilities that I've always been able to perform.' Not that I'll name the memory impairment thing it can do. I don't want you realising that I'm the one who gave you amnesia.

'How about you?' she asks. 'How's your Resurrección coming along?'

His black and yellow eyes narrow. 'How do you know...?'

'That you've already begun unlocking it? I just know stuff,' she replies with a cheeky grin.

'Not even Grimmjow knows,' he mutters. 'I train for my Resurrección all by myself. Are you sure this connection thing we have isn't telepathic too? Are you reading my mind?'

'No,' she says. 'I can just... feel it. Resurreccións take a lot of strength out of us and can be quite energy consuming. They're powerful and practically uncontrollable. They can overcome Arrancars who are only just beginning to master them. I can feel you... struggling with it.'

'I'm not struggling,' he says indignantly, quickly throwing on his usual cocky grin. 'I'm doing fine, actually.'

'Please,' she says, rolling her eyes. 'We all struggle with Resurreccións.'

Their first week is up and the Hollows are ever aware of it. In seven days time, they'll storm the Soul Society. From their understanding, the Soul Society will also attempt to invade them. They'll somehow figure out a way to avoid the Soul Reapers who have come to Hueco Mundo to attack them. Seven weeks from now, it will all come to an end. Their mission will be over.

'It's not fair,' Eleven mutters, kicking up the white desert sand in irritation as she strides along, trying to ignore the content humming of her companion.

'What's not?' Ten asks cheerfully.

The smaller Hollow scowls. 'Our frickin' rankings! Do those baldies honestly believe that I'm not even Espada worthy? Seriously?!'

Ten doesn't look fazed. 'Espada rankings go from Zero to Nine. You're only two down from it. That's not bad.'

'I should at least be Ten!'

'No fair!' Ten pouts. 'I'm Ten!'

'Grow up, you two,' One mutters, reaching over and cuffing Eleven's head. She responds my pulling off her sandal and swinging it violently at his head. It's a direct hit with his nose and the two of them begin screaming abuse at each other.

Dark Rukia, Ten, Hollow Ichigo and Grimmjow snort with laughter. The six of them have grown bored with the preparations back at Las Noches and have taken a break to go on a little hunt. Killing minor Hollows that scavenge around the walls of the palace is boring, so the group are heading for the Menos Forests for some prey that'll be more enjoyable to fight.

A weird marking on a nearby tree catches Ten's eyes and she bounces energetically over to it, intrigued. 'Hey, check this out!' she calls over to those closest to her, who happen to be the telekinetic duo.

'Is that... writing?' Dark Rukia asks as she reaches the tree and raises a pale hand to touch the engravings on the equally whitened tree.

'There's more,' Ten notes, 'all around the tree. Since when do Hollows write stuff on random trees?'

'There's no way low level Hollows did this,' Hollow Ichigo points out. 'They're too big. And the Gillian are fricking massive.'

'Adjuchas wouldn't have done this, either,' Dark Rukia agrees.

'So, what? Arrancars? Vasto Lordes?' One suggests, venturing over to the tree with Grimmjow and Eleven.

'I don't think so. Can you feel it? These faint traces of spirit energy?' Dark Rukia asks.

One frowns. 'It's quite old. Whatever was here, it would have been more than a few months ago. And it's not Hollow. It's more like...'

'Human,' Eleven finishes, scowling. 'And Soul Reaper, too.'

'Humans and Soul Reapers were here?' Hollow Ichigo says.

Ten opens her mouth to reply but she catches One's eye, sees the look on his face and falls silent. He appears quite grim, having just realised who was here a while ago. After all, his ex-host came here to search for the fugitives who must have hidden around this area of Hueco Mundo, all those months ago.

'I know this spirit energy,' Grimmjow says, his blue eyes narrowing in excitement. 'Kurosa-'

Dark Rukia stomps on his foot, sending a warning glare in his direction before glancing cautiously at Hollow Ichigo. She too has figured out who was once here.

But Hollow Ichigo isn't paying them any attention, anyway. He's too busy reading the engravings on the tree.

RENJI WAS HERE, says the first one in large capital letters.

What's the point in writing in this tree? says the next one in much neater handwriting, obviously belonging to someone else.

BORED. WHAT ELSE AM I MEANT TO DO?

Perhaps not engage in something so juvenile?

SHUT UP, URYU. YOU'RE DOING IT TOO.

Beneath these lines is a chart filled with crosses and circles. It seems that the two who were writing on this tree and ended up playing Noughts and Crosses.

A message to Uryu, Renji, Orihime and Chad. If you guys get back before we do and Ichigo, the Hollow and I are still gone, we'll be down in the Menos Forest. The boys want to pick fights for some reason, says the next line after the game, written by someone else. The message is finished with a tiny little doodle of a poorly drawn rabbit.

That's because we're all bored, Rukia,is the next sentence, again written by someone new.

Hollow Ichigo's eyebrows scrunch together in concentration. Something about this little chatroom doesn't seem altogether strange, or new for that matter. The Hollow can almost picture a bunch of people scribbling messages to each other on a tree out of boredom. Where this thought comes from, he's not sure. But something about this is definitely... familiar. His black and yellow eyes focus on one particular part- the childish drawing of a rabbit. That part seems the most memorable for some reason. He's sure he's seen something like that before.

'… probably just some humans who got trapped here by mistake,' One is saying, albeit a little hastily.

'Then how do you explain the spirit energy?' Hollow Ichigo says quietly. 'You guys said that some of this isn't just human- it's Soul Reaper too. And these names...' his fingers rest of the surface of the quartz tree, tracing over a section of the writing on the final sentence where the word 'Rukia' can clearly be read before raising his hand slightly till it's resting on the word 'Ichigo'. 'You mentioned these name before,' he continues, turning to Dark Rukia. 'You said that Rukia and Ichigo are people on the other side. They were here?'

'Must've been,' Dark Rukia mutters, seeing no way out of telling the truth. To a certain extent, anyway.

'There's traces of Hollow spirit energy here, too,' he continues.

'We're in Hueco Mundo,' One says, coming to Dark Rukia's aid. 'There's Hollow spirit energy everywhere.'

'But this feels like... mine,' Hollow Ichigo says.

'Well, you've obviously been here before, haven't you?' Eleven snaps, really not caring about the whole secrecy thing that One and Dark Rukia are trying to uphold. 'You just don't remember it because of the amnesia.'

'I was here with them?' Hollow Ichigo asks, nodding over to the writing of the tree.

'Yeah, you were,' One says, thinking quickly. 'This was when the Soul Society captured you. They came to Hueco Mundo and apprehended you. These Ichigo and Rukia people turned you over to them.'

'They what?'

'They tricked you into trusting them and then they handed you over to the Soul Society. I don't really know the basics of what exactly happened, but I was there on that day,' One continues. 'There was a huge battle. You were taken by the Soul Reapers and locked up. They experimented on you, and eventually took your memories.'

Hollow Ichigo stares at One for a few seconds before turning on Dark Rukia and stating rather coldly, 'You said they weren't our enemies.'

'I told you that the Soul Reapers are our opponents,' she protests.

'Not them,' he argues. 'I mean Ichigo and Rukia. You said you weren't sure whether they were even our enemies or not. You made it out like they were different from the other Soul Reapers. And they're the reason this happened to me.'

'I... I didn't know they did this to you,' Dark Rukia eventually mutters. She feels like a trapped animal, forced to play along with One's lie. 'I had no idea. All I know about is what the Soul Society did to you once you were captured.'

Hollow Ichigo doesn't say anything for a moment, then a menacing grin splits across his face. There's a rather demented look in his already darkened eyes. 'Well, it doesn't really make much of a difference, does it? I'll be fighting them either way. I'll just make sure they pay.'

He turns around from the tree and walks off in the direction they were heading before they stopped, and Grimmjow, Ten and Eleven follow suit, casting curious glances back at One and Dark Rukia as the two continue to stand beside the tree as the others head off.

'Why'd you do that?!' Dark Rukia hisses furiously once the others are out of earshot.

'One of us had to lie- and quickly,' One replies with a casual grin. 'I figured it was a pretty good one. There's a fair amount of truth in what I said. There was a big battle here and there was a betrayal, though it was him doing it to Ichigo and Rukia, not the other way around. Well, kind of,' he adds, scratching the back of his head. 'As it turns out, he was fake-betraying them. But he was captured by the Soul Society before all this even happened. All I did was shift the truth a bit and get the chronology a little wrong.'

'You've deluded him!' the female Hollow snarls at him, enraged.

'What, by making him want revenge? That'll give him a better reason to fight than the lame one we were forcing on him- that the only reason he needs to fight is that he's one of us. And who cares if he'll want to kill Ichigo and Rukia? They're fighting on the opposite side. They're enemies, just like all the other Soul Reapers. Why are trying to stop him from thinking that?' One demands. 'You know that they're the enemies too, don't you?'

'Screw you,' Dark Rukia spits, turning on her heals and taking off after the rest of the group, but not before One catches the glimpse on her face and the shift in her eyes.

Fear.

I'm trying to think of a theme song for this story. With most of my stories, I use at least one theme for each one. But as you guys don't know where the storyline is going, I understand that there might not be any suitable recommendations that will fit with the plot. Still, suggestions are always welcome and I'll check out the songs and see if any of them will work with the story!

Remember to review, and bye!