Masami Traning Post

Darkness... Everything was pitch black. What happened? Where was he? Who was he? All he could remember was the sound of a rifle firing, and blood jetting from his chest. Did he get shot? Was he dead?

Bright. It's getting brighter. He opened his eyes and found himself in a desert of white sand, few cactus, and a bright moon overhead. As he tried to stand up, he found his arms were turned into wings and his legs to those of a large bird.

After a few minutes of practice, he stood up. These new limbs would take some time to get used to. If he had the body of a bird, then he could fly. He flapped his arms and rose from the ground, going higher and higher into the sky. Once he was high enough, he held his arms out straight and began to glide.

His head felt light and things began to blur. The ground was getting closer and closer. Suddenly, he smashed into the ground. Everything went back to the darkness. He heard a voice. "Masami! Get up!" it shouted over and over again.

Was he Masami? He could only assume so. A 18 year old man was looking at him, yelling at him, trying to help him up. Was he still alive? Masami tried to lift his arm, but he couldn't move it. He tried to tell this man that he was ok, but no words came from his mouth.

The world went back to the desert. Masami leaped into the air and flew high into the sky. When he was in the sky, he spotted other creatures running across the ground, fighting each other. They alll looked odd and deformed. They had skulls for face and were extremely violent. Masami decided to fly down to get a better glimpse.

When he got closer, one of the creatures tore a cactus from the sand and hurled it at Masami, missing by a few inches. Masami soared higher into the sky, to avoid these barbaric beasts. He kept flying until he came apon a small oasis.

He flew down to the water, not realizing how thirsty he was. When he got close enough to the water, he saw what he now appeared as. He looked like a large bird, like a falcon, the size of a human being. There was only one strange thing about his appearance. He had a skull for a face too. All that it consisted of was two eye holes and a beak.

He was shocked by his own appearance at first, but then bent over and drank some water. As he did, one of the creatures jumped from the sand and tried to attack him. Masami flew up, but the creature grabbed his leg and yanked him back to the ground.

Masami slashed out with his claws and cut the creatures right arm off. The creature stumbled back, stunned by Masami's attack. Masami took the chance he had and dug his talons into the creatures mask. The creature began to dissipate when Masami realized it had a hole in its chest, where its heart should be.

When the creature completely dissipated, Masami flew back over to the water to get another drink. The world blacked out again and Masami heard the voice of an elderly woman, and saw her rocking in a chair in a room. He was lying in his bed. The woman was describing creatures identical to what he had just fought. "They're nasty creatures, with skulls for faces and a hole where their hearts should be. They only form when someone dies and they have some sort of regret in their past life," the woman said. "These creatures are Hollows."

The desert came back into view and Masami rushed over to the water. There was a hole in the center of his chest. It was then that he realized, he had become a Hollow.

A hollow. He couldn't get used to the idea. Being a hollow... He slowly remembered stories of hollows that attacked humans and ate their souls. He also remembered stories of soldiers who opposed these hollow. They wore black and had special swords that could change form and had incredible powers. What were they called? Shinigami? That had to be it.

He always hated the hollow and supported the Shinigami, but now that he was forced into being a hollow, he had no choice. He had to avoid the Shinigami, because, obviously, he was not strong enough to fight one of these soldiers.

Masami flapped his wings and flew from the oasis across the desert. As he flew, he saw one of the creatures jump into a portal that opened before it. What was that? He followed the creature through the portal and found himself in a dark hallway. The creature was racing for the other side. He concluded that it wasn't a good idea to be in this area for long. He flew as fast as he could for the other side and passed the other hollow. When he flew out of the other side, he found himself in a city.

A city... With people! He was in a crowded central street. Nobody paid attention to him besides a 14 year-old girl with a chain attached to her chest. The other hollow jumped through the door a second before it closed. It leapt at the girl with the chain through her chest and she turned and ran. Masami, without thinking, flew at the other hollow and sliced it with his talons seconds before it pounced the girl.

The hollow turned to Masami and let out a terrifying screech. It threw punches at Masami, and Masami slashed at it. The two fought for what seemed like hours before a man with a black cloak on jumped between the two and slashed the other hollow in two with a katana. “Only one more left, little lady,” the man said with a very overconfident tone in his voice. “Then I can bring you back to Seireiti.”

“But that creature saved my life!” the girl protested. “Don’t hurt it!”

“Little lady,” the man said. “You don’t seem to understand. This creature is a hollow; it lives off of eating other hollow and human souls. It attacked the other hollow so it could get a good chomp at you!”

The man charged at Masami and swung his katana at Masami. Masami threw his body into the air and began to fly away. When he was far enough away, the man hit the girl with the butt of his sword and she disappeared.

Masami flew away and looked for other souls in trouble. If he could get stronger by killing other hollow, he could do that and keep souls safe all in one. A lot less barbaric than charging at a hollow blindly, with extreme blood thirst.

As he flew along, he spotted many more hollow, attacking souls. Most of the time he snuck up on the other hollow and slashed its mask without it having a chance to react. He quickly realized that because hollow had no hearts to attack, the face was the obvious fatal point for him to attack.

He encountered no more Shinigami for the rest of the day. He found a quiet spot under a bridge and decided to settle there for the night. In the end, he killed 14 hollow and saved 13 souls. One had been killed before he could help it.

Masami awoke the next morning early and rose from his makeshift nest. He spread his wings and soared out above the city. It wasn’t long until he heard a large crash and many men shouting at one another. He heard another crash, and more yells. He followed the sound and found a hollow fending of five Shinigami. The hollow was much, much larger than Masami. It was about the size of a small house.

The Shinigami were losing the giant hollow, but luckily none seemed to be injured or killed. One of the Shinigami was thrown to the ground and the hollow lunged at it, mouth gaping. A Shinigami with long blonde hair jumped between the hollow and the injured Shinigami.

The blonde Shinigami’s sword looked like a giant upside down J. “Kira!” the injured Shinigami said. “You don’t have to defend me like this!”

The blonde Shinigami ignored what the other Shinigami said and slashed the hollow’s mask, only chipping it. The hollow held its head low, like it suddenly weighed more. It knocked the blonde Shinigami away and lunged at the injured Shinigami.

Masami decided now was the time to intervene. He flew quickly at the large hollow and slashed his talons across the hollow’s mask, leaving two gashes in the bone. The hollow screamed and leapt backwards. Masami flew again and kept slashing at the large hollows mask. The hollow tried to bat away Masami with two giant hands, but couldn’t manage to hit Masami. Finally, Masami flew straight at the large hollow and sunk his talons into the mask of the hollow. He then tore them out, shredding the large hollows mask.

The large hollow dissipated quickly. Three of the Shinigami turned and faced Masami in their battle stances. The blonde Shinigami stepped in from of them and ordered them to sheath their katanas. He turned to Masami and said “Thanks.”

With that, the five Shinigami, the injured one being carried by another, stepped through a set of doors that seemed to appear out of nowhere and left. Masami flew back to his nest and began to build onto it. He figured he’d be there a while so he decided to build onto his nest.

Masami woke early the next morning with the rising sun and flew over the city. He decided he was going to kill more hollow that were attacking innocent souls. It didn't take long for him to find a hollow that was lingering over a scared soul. The soul was a man in his mid-thirties. He was wearing a business suit and he had a briefcase in his left hand.

Masami snuck up behind him and slashed the hollow's mask in half. The soul stood there, stunned with fear. Masami spread his wings to take of, but something sliced his leg open. He screamed and turned to see what had slashed him.

It was a shinigami. The shinigami swung again, but Masami lept back, kicking the shinigami away. He was burning with rage. He had done nothing wrong! Just defending this poor innocent soul!

He flapped his wings until he was hovering about 10 yards from the ground. The shinigami are just as barbaric as the hollow, he concluded. And they too must be killed. Masami felt power well up inside his beak.

He opened his beak and poured more energy into the red sphere that had formed and was growing. He released all the energy at the shinigami. Seconds before it hit the shinigami, he shouted "A Cero?!" and the beam made contact with his chest.

When the dust cleared, the shinigami was nowhere to be seen. Masami decided he must kill the shinigami, and to get the power to do so, he would eat these souls. He turned to the business man and grasped him in his beak.

With one gulp, he swallowed the man whole. He felt power surge into his body, the gash on his leg was healed, and all his fatigue was replentished. No wonder hollow liked to eat these souls. He was going to make a habit of this.

Masami spread his wings and jumped into the sky. He was going to find more souls.

The hunt was on.

Masami was flying around the town, looking for more souls to devour, when he felt himself being pulled towards something. He fought it for as long as he could, but he eventually gave in. As he was pulled through the sky, he saw a mound of other hollow that were being pulled to the same spot.

He opened his beak to fire a Cero, but he couldn't conjure the energy to do so. When he hit the pile, he began to fuse with the other hollow. The world went black.

When it came back into view, the city was so small. He opened his wings to fly, but he now had arms and legs. What happened?

Masami heard a thousand voices in his head. He yelled at them to shut up and then asked, "What am I now?"

A voice replied "You are a Menos Grande. We are a Menos Grande. You just happened to be the strongest of us so you got control of this beast."

A Menos Grande? That doesn't mean he couldn't still get stronger, so he went off, searching for more souls.

Sorry for the wait!

Sitting in Hueco Mundo, the voices slowly died away in his head. He hadn't noticed it at first, but the more souls he ate, the quieter the voices in his head became. Now, they were almost silent.

He picked up the soul of a little boy, who looked like he had been run over by a car, and swallowed him in one gulp. The voices suddenly died away instantly. Masami was confused... what had happened? Suddenly, he felt himself shrinking. He was the same size he was at the beginning of his hollow stage.

He found the oasis he had visited before and saw that he looked like a human, with a bird skull mask and wings extending from his back. He still retained all the power that he had as a Menos Grande, but now he was smaller.

Masami looked into his reflection in the oasis. He looked… different than he had before. He almost looked human again. His body was that of a basic humanoid, but he had wings extending from his shoulder blades. The two wings were covered in golden-brown feathers. His body was the same color, but it had a pale-ish tint. His mask had two eye sockets, like normal, and a giant beak where his mouth should have been. The beak was long and curved with two nose slits on the sides. He had, instead of five fingers on each hand, three large talons and three on his feet, instead of toes.

Masami stepped back and spread his two new wings. He leapt into the air and began to flap them rapidly. He fell straight to the ground with his first attempt. The next few attempts yielded no more success than the first had. Finally, he decided to get a running start.

Masami walked about 100 meters away from the crystal-clear waters of the oasis. He sprinted towards the moon-reflecting pool. When he reached the edges of the water, he leapt with all the force he could generate with his legs, and flapped his wings a single time as hard as he could.

This time, Masami’s body began to pick up of the ground. He took a few more giant flaps with his wings until he was gliding about 100 feet above the ground. He flew around the oasis a couple times to get used to his newfound ability.

Once Masami had gotten used to the rhythmic beat of his wings, he soared away from the oasis, looking for something to hunt. After only a few minutes of flying, he spotted a smaller hollow walking around. Time to test out this new body, Masami thought.

Masami dove down at the hollow’s back as silently as he could. When he got close enough to the creature, he landed behind it and stabbed his right hand into the vile monster’s back. It screamed momentarily, but was cut off when Masami, while holding the creature above the ground by its back, kicked it into the air. As soon as the hollow was airborne, Masami charged a medium-sized cero and obliterated the hopelessly weak hollow.

Masami smiled and ran to take off again. He pulled himself up into the air and began looking for a portal to the human world. It was time to get back to work.