The ax slided through the hollow and it vaporized. The General looked on. "So he managed to kill it, but not unscathed."
"Sir shall we commence"
The hollow sighed. "So impatient, very well. Commence operations."

Another hollow knew what he must do. It sent out a high pitch shriek and soon after a human walked into the arena. He broke a tablet. The tablet was hollow bait and soon all the hollows not under the generals control emerged. They instantly began attack everyone in the stadium. The announcer alerted them all.

"Everyone, an army of hollows has entered the arena apparently from the death of their comrade just moments ago. Everyone please hurry to the nearest exits"

The General's assistant was confused at this turn of events, "sir?"

"Well we want them to come back. Can't let them realize the real reason for the arena. As for the hollows...don't be a fool. They will be obliterated. Thats why I am not using my men. In the end no matter who loses, we will win." The hollows then retreated back to the spirit world while their brothers continued their attack.

Chris glared, looking up at the hollows, his scarf twisting into an offensive position. "This... is not what I saw. I saw something else happening. And I'll be here when it happens, rampaging hollows or no." He continues to stand, rooted to the spot. Other undead file past him, in a hurry to get out. His scarf made an effort to follow them. "And you called me a coward..." The scarf froze, then made a fist, shaking it at the hollows. Chris smacked he scarf. "Don't be a hero." His eyes narrowed, pointing to his through. "You remember last time." The scarf 'nodded', waiting to see anything. Chris turns to Scoth. "You staying too, My Lord?"

Crimson looked at the amount of Hollows filing into the arena. "Oh...shit...." He remounted his horse and looked up towards the rafters seeing a young boy in a scarf and "The General". "Want to have a little fun gentlemen?" Crimson chuckled and watched the hollows carefully, making sure none of them had any ultra strange powers he should be aware of. A little bit of his blood seeped from his wounds, but it barely hurt, and in a few moments those paltry wounds would be healed. It took a major wound to hurt Crimson for long, as his armor wasn't colored red just for show....although a major factor was the show. He noticed his leige up in the rafters, and noticed he was reading a book. It was always like this...his leige would always ignore him...never wanting to remember the betrayal. Crimson knew it was only a necessity and never blamed the man for what he did. A hollow tried to claw him, and the knight swung his axe downward, cleaving the Hollow's feeble skull. "Well, that one had a brittle skull in comparison to the others..." Several shrieks issued from the other hollows as they consumed the human bait for power. Two hollows began to float, their arms pulsing a deep purple. "...oh....for...the....love...of...."

"How does it look down there?" Lucia peered down towards the faint form of Esmerelda.
"Looks good. We can start from here."
Lucia leapt down and joined her friend and Klarke down in the sewers. Esmerelda was working with a large wheel that opened an oversized door. Her progress on that was fairly nice, but Lucia felt bad for letting her take care of it by herself.
"Here, let me help you get that," Lucia walked over to Esmerelda. The vampire looked back at her friend and smiled. "Relax, I can do this. Keep an eye out with Klarke. It may not stay clear forever...and there. Okay, Klarke. In you go."
The mighty flesh golem dutifully moved into the tunnel ahead, listening carefully to Esmerelda's voice as he went. "Go all the way to the other end of this tunnel and wait for us to open the door from the other side. I will have other orders for you then."
Klarke seemed to understand and was gone quickly. Esmerelda turned to Lucia. "Okay, so let's get going. Wouldn't want to keep Klarke waiting for us to get to the next chamber."
The two vampires got to work, searching carefully as they patrolled down the tunnel, their eyes out for the Murkmen.

Chris continues to watch Crimson in the arena, seemingly uncaring. But within his head, a battle raged on. He could help, and he probably should... but he didn't know whether or not he really wanted to.

His scarf continued to hover by his ear, and make the odd noises again. "I will wait... He seems to be doing fine." The scarf pointed to a single Hollow lunging out from the arena at the little poltergeist. "Oh dear..." It flew towards him, and a look of fear crossed Chris' face... a false look. The hollow flew toward him... as Chris used his powers, levitating a few of the chairs in the stands and flinging them at the hollow. He grinned, as the hollow started to battle the chairs. He raised an open palm, then closed his hand. All of the chairs closed in on the hollow, and crushed it... only working for his power made them spiritual.

"Ohshit." Those were the only words that came out of Ishimaru's mouth when the hollows appeared and the two floated away.

Ishimaru stood up in his zombie-esque body. The only noise that could be heard was the shuffling of feet and the shrieks of the Hollows. Ishimaru would stay here to fight. He noticed that there was a poltergiest standing next to something. He also noticed several others that had elected to stay.

He moved his body down the steps, and into the open ground, where Crimson was fighting. Most of the Hollows smirked and laughed at him. A mere zombie like the one that Ishimaru was controlling could not stand up against a Hollow. However, a Shade could. A hollow clawed at the zombie, and Ishimaru allowed it to take several hits before he exited the zombie's shadow. Ishimaru quickly moved on the ground, and entered the shadow of the Hollow. Luckily the Hollow didn't have much willpower, so he was able to keep control.

Using his new Hollow body, Ishimaru turned on its allies, and begun to attack them. It was then that Ishimaru realised that using a Hollow to attack another Hollow doesn't quite work. He had to ditch the body.

Ishimaru now exited the shadows for good and rose as a Shade. He out a fuuma shuriken, and threw it at the Hollows in front of him. It continued on its path, fist tearing through two Hollows, but the third one dodged. But, the shuriken split into two, one went away and did not hit any more enemies, but the other boomeranged around and tore through another Hollow. Ishimaru was so caught up in watching his shuriken that he did not notice a Hollow sneaking up behind him. The Hollow readied its hand to strike.

The Hollow swung down, but received several kunai in the face. The kunai's origin was unknown to Ishimaru for a second, but then he knew. "Taiki..." he said as he looked at a female Shade standing in the stands with her arms crossed.

An obsidian dagger in his hand cut a slash along his arm. and spoke in the in a fouls language saying few words. Immediately the effects of his spell was felt as the humans felt robbed of breath as one of his lungs collapsed. Charon conentrated harder than normal to maintain the blood spell, but soon found it to hard to keep up.

"I could ask you the same question."

"It seems like your foray into the human world was a sucess 'General'" Mortis Penna called out with a faint note of interest, and amusement in his voice. Crouching on one of the rocks in the wasteland that made up Hueco Mundo Mortis had been hidden in one of the ever changing shadows when General and his host had arrived. Mortis outstetched his single white wing and swooped down infront of the General stirring up clouds of dust in the process. "I was watching your little tournement through one of my minions. It was a ingenious scheme, deliciously cruel and entertaining"

The general let out a small laugh. "Did you expect anything less from me? Not only will they increase our numbers and weaken them, my only losses were the hollows too weak to even think for themselves." He looked back to where he had came, knowing the full extent of what he did. "As a bonus those bloodthirsty undead will still come back despite what happened. I may have gathered some suspision but I cast aside enough of it."

A large creature moved in the distance. More of a moving mountain then a spirit being. The General took notice of it rather quickly. "So, how has Lord Menos and the others been while I was away?"

"You're weak as usual, Ishimaru," said Taiki with a smile.

"And that makes you, what, strong?" replied Ishimaru. Things have changed since they were alive. Ishimaru had gained so much power. He figured that it was time to show her Yashamaru, his zanbatou. Ishimaru's gaseous hand rached back to the giant sword's hilt. His fingers wrapped around it, and with a powerful swing, he broung it down onto a Hollow that was attacking him. The Hollow split into two vertical pieces and both pieces disintegrated. Ishimaru swung his back foot around, and used the tourque to bring Yashamaru around into the side of another Hollow, which spilit into two horizontal pieces that disentegrated. Ishimaru turned to Taiki, who was looking surprised.

Ishimaru's new powers were astounding to Taiki, who watched as he effortlessly destroyed two Hollows. She however, had some tricks of her own up her sleeves. She jumped down from the stands, and landed infront of two hollows. Immediatley, she began molding her feet into the ground and spreading a shadow in front of her. Both hollows charged, and when they were over the shadow, she pounded the ground with her right hand. "Shadow Caltrops!" Several spikes rose quickly from the ground, but only few met their mark. However, the spikes that connected did not connect in a vital area, and the Hollows continued their attack. She kept the shadow up, but this time created clones that halted the hollows in their path. They turned to the clones and lumbered to attack them. The clones began fighting, but didn't last long.

The hollows turned around; they had finally found the real Taiki. But, they were greeted by a torrent of leaves. She had used the Shadow Leaf Dance while they had their backs turned, and unleashed the razor leaves as the Hollows turned. She walked up to Ishimaru and said, "Yes, I beleive that makes me strong."