"So that's where you are." Chad raised his head and saw Cain walking towards him with a raised eyebrow. "Gonna tell me what got you so down?"
"...I am fine." Chad lied with little to no hesitation and could tell that his new friend could tell that he was lying.
Not that he was going to admit out loud.
He didn't have the right to complain or feel sorry for himself after all his failures.
In Soul Society, he had been the very first person among their group to get caught. He had then spent the time Ichigo was fighting for Rukia in a cell. Then after that, he hadn't been able to found any of these Bounts and finally, and most recently, he had been all but useless against the weird maskless Hollows that Aizen had sent to Karakura. Worse, he had been the target of the attack that Cain had to stop, giving the enemy the chance to escape.
He was meant to have Ichigo's back, to keep his promise to his best friend, yet he was weak.
"Enough moping." Chad's thoughts were cut short as a hand clamped on his shoulder and he found himself in air and the world turned upside down, Cain was holding him up by the shoulder. "If you got time to go into depression, then you got time to git gud." And then Cain sliced the air open with a swipe of his hand, creating a dark void, and threw Chad into it.
He could only stare dumbfounded at his surroundings, which was only more darkness, before he landed on a bluish white platform.
"Stop wasting time." And Cain was standing right beside him.
"Where are we?"
"Garganta, it's the void that connects the realms to Hueco Mundo. The world of Hollows." He then started running, the platform extending as he kept moving forward. "Make sure to keep up, the foothold we have gets weaker the further away I am from it; till it just disappears. And even I have no idea what would happen to someone if they just fell into this void with no way to get out." That was all Chad needed to hear before sprinting after Cain.
They run through the void for a while in silence, not a single word between them till Cain speaks up again.
"I heard you once fought against a Hollow serial killer."
"...yes." He wasn't sure what was the point of this. He hadn't thought much about the mad killer turned monster who had stuffed Shibata's soul into a parakeet and had been his first encounter with the world of souls.
"You ever saw another like that one, a Hollow with intelligence beyond that of an animal?"
"No."
"And you ever thought of why?"
"...no." He did not think much about monsters he had to fight, and did not really pay much attention to how smart they were before his fist cracked them open.
"It's a result of the physiology of Hollows. When the Chain of Fate is fully gone, it's replaced with a gaping hole left in the soul as they turn into a Hollow. That's why they have the urge to eat other souls, they are hoping to fill the hole. Driven by an endless hunger." Cain explained the horrifying process with little to no care in his tone, as if he was just talking about weather. "Some with stronger senses of self and those who had similar 'hungers' in life can keep their egos for a while. But even that is only temporary."
"As they eat more and more souls to deal with the hunger, a Hollow will eventually start going after other Hollows. They are made of souls too after all. Except this kind of brute forcing method will backfire on them. Without a strong enough sense of self, an ordinary Hollow will be reduced to a creature no more mentally sophisticated than a random animal, driven only by the sense of hunger they feel to consume more and more Hollows." He said with a laugh, and Chad was starting to think that he may not have made the best decision following after him.
"And then, one day, they manage to eat so much; their form changes. The amount of souls inside turn them into a hovering monstrosity. Their egos destroyed to the point they are incapable of doing anything on their own accord. The lowest end of the Menos Grande totem pole." A light appeared in front of them as they finally reached the end of the void. Exiting to see... a sea of black.
"Gillians."
There had to be hundreds of them. Slowly walking around what he could guess was some sort of cavern with crystal pillars rising into the ceiling that was high enough that none of the Hollows came close to reaching it despite their own height that skyscrapers look small.
"Welcome to the Forest of Menos. The birthplace of majority of Gillian and Adjuchas level Hollows. The bathrooms are wherever you want to shit and air conditioning is terrible." Cain said with a smile and put a hand on Chad's shoulder. "It's also the place where the key to you becoming strong is."
"How?" Chad's head snapped towards Cain, making a sharp crack with the movement. Yet he cared little for the discomfort, far more interested in the answer.
"Before that, just answer one question." Cain said as he looked at Chad. "How much are you willing to risk for power?"
"Everything." There could be no other answer. "I am willing to risk everything if it means I can help Ichigo."
"...good answer." Cain said with a smile. "The key to becoming stronger is simple."
"Survive." And the he kicked Chad off of the branch they were standing on, into the gathering of Gillians.
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