Info dump chapter

(Davian's P.O.V)

I came back. But things were different.

My inner world was not the same.

Something was wrong.

Very very wrong.

The cemetery looked even more unusual today.

It was gloomier, covered by a thick layer of mist that completely shrouded everything in a white carpet. At first, I tried to go back to the real world. Raven was going to need me in the fight.

Doctor Fate was not a B list character that she could solo on her own.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to pull on the tether connecting me to my body, I didn't succeed.

It was all by design too. Someone wanted me to stick around. Faced with no other choice, I decided to keep moving forward. I could only hope that Raven was having better luck surviving and protecting my body. That raised another question, what would happen if it died?

My foot stepped on a dried branch. It broke but released a sour smell. I knelt and lifted it, black mist rising out of the branch. That's new. I looked around again, noting that I was standing under the crest of a hill of gravestones. Visibility was very low but I could feel something watching.

The black mist curled around my hand as I stood up. The whole ground, seemed to be covered by the same thing. It was concerning but not urgent. What was urgent, was knowing what the fuck had happened here.

"Gordon?!"

I called out into the cemetery.

No one answered.

I took another step and bumped into something. A small gnarled twisted tree. What made me stumble away was the numerous eyes, around the tree. All of them were crying blood tears, all of them turned to stare at me balefully.

I gulped, steadying myself on the Gravestone next to me. I closed my eyes and when I opened them. The Cemetery was gone. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a plain white field of sand. A desert. There was a moon shining above me and for miles all I could see was the sand dunes. A lone crystal tree broke the continuous landscape once in a while.

The change threw me out of loop enough that I started getting angry.

"This is not funny."

I called out into the air.

All that answered was a lonely breeze blowing past.

'... name...'

I narrowed my eyes. The word had seemingly been carried by the winds but apart from the sensation of being watched, I couldn't see the source.

I began walking aimlessly forward again. The feeling of someone watching you was not a good sensation. It sent shivers all over my skin. My body was tense with every step. That's when I realized another unwanted detail. The push and pull had stopped working. I couldn't access my spirit energy.

I faltered on my step. 'That's not good.'

I sighed, suddenly feeling cold without the familiar hum of power inside my chest. Or the warmth in my wrists whenever I pulled on the Reiryoku. Despite the lack of power, I wasn't weak. Not like before.

Recent developments had shown I couldn't use my normal skills, not without access to Reiryoku. However, my body had been steadily changing. I had baptized it by constantly using spirit energy to increase muscle mass density. It was only possible because of a theory I had.

You see, Gotei 13 Captains have one distinguishing factor. As soul beings their bodies are constructed by Reishi. Training and honing their soul skills ensured that even after they died, their bodies did not decompose or break down.

The reishi making up their flesh had grown so dense, even time could not wear it down. I had no idea if I was made from Reishi, but using that thought process, I had managed to enhance my base physical strength, durability and speed to peak human. Active application of Reiryoku to enhance my body took me to superhuman levels. Albeit nothing too exaggerated.

So I might have been less dangerous but I was still dangerous. Speaking of danger, I looked at my right hand and the empty sheath I carried with me. A sigh escaped my lips, someone really wanted to piss me off.

It wasn't enough that I had no access to spirit energy while in my own inner world, I also did not have my primary weapon, my sword.

Where was my sword? I had no idea. It did not seem to have made it to my inner world with me. So what was so special about the sheath? Well, apart from the squiggly golden cursive lines on it's length, there wasn't much more. Or so I thought, until I tried to channel Reiryoku through the sheath and it complied, glowing green instead of the purple I was so used to seeing.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Whoa."

My face was illuminated emerald, as I stared at the softly dancing energy around the sheath. It seemed...gentler than what I was used to. I settled into a pose, lifting up the sheath before slashing in a downwards trajectory.w

"Getsuga Tensho!"

A green, slow burst of conical shaped energy escaped the tip of the sheath, then the energy seemed to disappear into the air.

The sheath didn't seem to do much than that. I couldn't shoot out sharp sword arcs through it like I'd hoped. Instead any beam I managed to let out was blocky and slow. It was as if attacking was not it's main point or application.

Still, anything was better than having no weapon.

A few hours later, I managed to reach the top of the massive dune I had made my goal and looked down onto the other side. I had probably cleared 6 miles from my starting point. Nothing had stood out during that trek.

And then something did.

A lone figure stumbled inside a wide basin at the bottom of the dune I was on. They were dressed in a grimy green shirt, a gray tie, black pants and spectacles covering a moustached face.

"Gordon..."

It was obviously the police commissioner. But what was he doing here?

Infact what was I even doing here too? Why was my inner world so different? It wasn't lost on me that it now looked similar to Hueco Mundo. And was I dead? Did Fate manage to banish me from Earth to where he thought I had come from? Hueco Mundo?

I began to breathe heavily, on the verge of a breakdown. Grabbing the sand with my palm and watching it fall helped me center myself. I...no we needed to get out of here. This place was definitely not welcoming to the psyche.

And if it was possibly modelled after Hueco Mundo, mental breakdown was the least of our worries.

Luckily for both Gordon and I, while the terrain was similar that was about it. I had not come across any Hollow tracks while walking. And despite the fact that Hueco Mundo was effectively infinite, it was weird that there would be no signs whatsoever of it's main residence.

I finally got to my feet again and looked around. I was calm now.

"I can tell you're watching. Why don't you come out and face me like a man?"

I called out. As usual there was no answer.

My gaze fell to the only other being I could see. Gordon probably had some answers.

making sure that I wouldn't be walking towards an ambush, I released a shunpo (Flash step) towards Gordon. Now a shunpo is the pinnacle of Hoho arts, which was basically, superspeed.

But with conditions.

From my practice, initial entry into the skill manifested in huge explosions of Spirit energy to push you forward. The speed was not too fast, and you could only go on a linear trajectory. It was very inefficient. Despite that, I could activate the skill just fine.

I felt a pushback from the sand below me. As if it refused to allow me to move across it. It was...weird. Imagine trying to run towards a huge fan. There is naturally a lot of air resistance coming towards you. The feeling was similar.

I tripped on my feet and started rolling down the sand dune uncontrollably, only managing to kill my momentum by stabbing the sheath on the loose sand.

"Tew!" I spat out sand particles.

"That was very annoying."

On the positive side, Gordon was now only a few feet away from me. He was still shambling forward in an unsteady gait, not seeming to notice my entry.

I rose to my feet.

"Commissioner Gordon?"

He stiffened in place at the call of his name. I tightened my grip on the sheath. I had gotten so used to my sword that I felt naked without it.

"Are you okay?"

I questioned, slowly walking towards him while looking around vigilantly.

Gordon lowered his neck.

"You..."

His voice was scratchy and dry.

"You lied."

He said.

My heart grew cold.

"I didn't. I tried to come back many times but there was always something blocking me."

My answer was met with a laugh.

"Not something... someone. It...'he' comes when the moonlight is slow." His voice went low, unhinged.

"With a blue curtain fall. He mocks my inability to keep my mind."

Gordon's knees shook as he fell. I immediately ran forward to help him up.

"Hey it's alright man. I'm here now."

I touched his shoulder. The body underneath the shirt was bony and weak. How long had he been for?

He jerked his head to stare at me and I instinctively jumped away. His skin was a pale pallid color, his eyes were unfocused and bloodshot, his glasses were cracked, hair shaggy and the most alarming thing of all, he had a chain. a 3 meter chain that dragged on the ground, attached to the middle of his chest. The end of the chain links were slowly disintegrating into the air.

My lips parted, a hundred questions running through my mind.

'Oh no.'

Something told me this wasn't the Gordon I had known before.

Week fingers gripped my wrist, commissioner Gordon looking up at me with a crazed expression.

"I couldn't get used to it. My mind...it's all so silent. The desolation. He told me you were not ready to save me. That you're still too weak. So I took a chance. I walked out of the cemetery. I've been walking and walking..."

He moaned in horrifying sincerity. I swallowed, kneeling down before him.

"Commissioner Gordon, what the fuck happened to you?"

I whispered the question.

"I...I miss my wife. I miss our little bundle of joy...Barb. My Barbara..."

He responded with a tone of loss.

A lump formed in my throat. I had fucked up. I should have tried harder to come back. No, not just come back, I should have put aside my hate for Batman and found a way to tell him of the possibility of Gordon's body being alive.

I hadn't felt the need to because 1) Gordon hadn't had his chain severed so I assumed his captors had needed him alive. The fact that it was now eating itself spelled nothing good for his physical vessel.

Secondly, I had a grudge against the Dark Knight. The fear that had been there had steadily been honed into anger. I won't lie, I had had nightmares about him for days after finding myself in the Tower of Fate. So did I hate him? Yeah. I hated him for being fake.

That was that, what mattered the most was not letting down Gordon again. He talked about a 'he'. Taking into account everything I knew, there was only one possible being responsible for all this.

It seems I had a very...troublesome Zanpakuto spirit. Granted, I had already suspected all that after the numerous whispers of 'name'

"I know you're watching. If you truly know me then you would understand, I hate playing mind games. What the fuck do you want?"

It must have been a trick of the light but I swear I saw the world spin. Gordon's shoulders stiffened.

"He's coming."

I blinked my eyes and my vision changed once more. It was subtle, only catching up to me after a full second.

We were back in the Cemetery. The White sands of Hueco Mundo exchanged for patchy ground with gray grass and mist.

Gordon was on his knees, leaning on his own Gravestone. But we weren't alone. On top of that same gravestone was a tall figure dressed in a white fur coat with a purple collar that extended into a large hood. The only thing I could see within it, covering his face was a devilish grin.

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. Whoever this was, my Zanpakuto spirit or someone completely different, they gave me the feeling of absoluteness. A strength that was Immeasurable. I couldn't sense their spirit energy with my own budding Reikaku (spirit sense). That's how far in power they were in comparison.

One brief surge of spirit pressure from him and I could possibly die.

I raised my sheath and without a word, poured in Reiryoku and held it in. Then I compressed the whole thing, creating a green bubble shield around Gordon and I. I hadn't even known I could do that. My instinct just took over. Something in me realized that I was standing before something dangerous.