In the darkness a young hollow is reborn as an Arrancar. Struggling to recall her past, she searches for the reasons that made her crack her own mask. A couple of headcanons, no romance, and no original characters (that play an important or even slight role). Features a Nel who is horrible.

For about a year now I've been thinking about a Neliel who is horrible (yet beautiful, in a way) in both inwards and outward appearances. A special thank you to Aatropos tumblr for indulging in this horrible fantasy of mine and contributing in it!

This started out as a drabble, but I slowly began to think more about it so it could become an actual fanfic. Pretend this chapter is all you get and be gladly surprised if I update it! Reviews are welcomed, and please don't feel shy on correcting me on some things.

1.

It opened its eyes

~bleach~

In the beginning it was dark. There was no vision and no sound. There was touch and taste and nothing else. It understood nothing and it couldn't speak. It could only eat. More didn't matter.

And then, just like that, there was a shift. There was power and there was a divergence within it. A turmoil of senses and pain began to arouse. Sounds began to form as a humming vibration and colors shifted into vision like blurry dots, constantly moving. A heavy, dark made itself loose and engulfed the beast. Bone gnawed at bone with a painful, yet satisfying grinding feeling. Flesh shifted and set itself right again with ripping and dripping. Every part that moved stung and ached. Then it was dark again, but it wasn't resting.

The scraping of bones against teeth and meat kept it awake. It felt everything grow and shift, but was unable to do anything about it. Trying to move was a great struggle and it felt tired if it tried to do so. But it couldn't go to sleep; It had to be conscious for the transformation to be complete. So it waited.

It was aware of the mist, moving away from it, disappearing, and it was scared, because it had never drifted away. It had always been around its vision and shielding it from the world, and the world from it. Now that it was fading, it was best not to move, .

Everything moved. Everything hurt, but there was no way to let out its displeasure. No scratching, rubbing, gnawing. It couldn't even make sense of weight and gravity or direction. Centuries and decades passed until the pain finally stopped and then it was still. Completely still this time as it finally slept.

When it opened its vision it felt betrayed. It could make nothing out of the swirling lines that danced along it. Where should it focus? It tried to move, but that also proved futile. Its whole body was numbed. Dots pricked in its skin and it couldn't even scratch. It let out an agitaded snarl. It shut off its vision and went to sleep.

It awakened slowly. Its face felt awefully naked, as if something was missing. Its limbs felt up in confusion.

Where was it?

It let out a distressed growl. With haste it began to scratch at its face, making tiny tears in the flesh, and prodded the skin to see if it was hidden beneath it. It was! Through a hole poked two pointy somethings with the hard familiar structure. It felt up the hole and expected the rest of it, but was met by a slimy piece of meat. It pushed it aside and felt around the hole. The teeth were smaller and pointier and the annoying meat was stuck to it. It viciously pulled the flesh, but it hurt. It closed its vision close off again and its face automatically contorted in pain. It was the wrong mask.

This isn't right. They see it.

No, they can see it now don't let them, they can't see it's not for them go away go away. Please go away don't look don't look at me. There is nothing go away.

Its body felt dizzy and it twisted around without looking. Trying to get a hold of all the swirls around itself as it flapped its appendages around. With one it shielded its face from the world, obscuring its vision from the dark swirls too. The creature was spinning around itself and tumbled over when it couldn't find something to hold onto.

It fell on the ground with its limbs painfully beneath it. It dug into the grainy sand. It scraped its newly formed flesh and eyes and teeth and nails. It was everywhere. It opened its mouth and let out a roar of frustration. It cringed and crawled in the dust, rolling around. Tangled hair and sand stuck to its eyes and mouth. It found it annoying and wiped its hands over its face to rid itself of the nuisance. Its hind legs pushed and dug into the ground until, eventually, the being lay rolled up like a ball. It held its teary eyes wide open, jaw as clenched as it could.

Eyes. That was the word for it. It could see with it.

Teeth. To eat.

Nails. Scraping.

Jaw. To gnaw.

It began to think and it began to recognize, bit by bit. The blurs and swirls were no longer unrecognizable and the dark mist before it vanished slowly. It saw each particle of sand and each strand of its wild hair. The sand around it was muddy and stained with dried blood and dark hair as if something had been ripped apart days ago. Its fingers lay before it and with its eyes it observed the stained and unkempt nails. It observed every lump and curves in its hand. No line in her fingers went unnoticed and there was a moment of silence, simplicity, and curiosity.

With the quietness it became aware of a heavy weight on its head. For a second it panicked again, but when it reached its head there was relief. There it was. Safe on her head, where it belonged. Of course it was on her head! Where else would it be?

She sighted and rolled over onto her back. She closed her eyes and listened to her own quiet breathing for a while, in and out. She held her breath for a long time to see what would happen to her body, and the rapid bloodstream in the veins of her throat as a result gave her a little thrill. She then played with her eyes and blinked fast, making a disgusting slopping sound with them, or she didn't blink at all, making them dry in the dull desert air. After that she clenched her eyelids so hard together that she could see little dots. She tried to follow the colored shapes in the void of her eyelids, but they moved as soon as her eyes almost caught them. She felt completely good right then and stared at the moon above, her mind disappearing to the bottom of the sands where she heard the Menos roam.

Softly she stroked all the corners and edges and holes of her mask. Her hands grabbed hold of the horns on each side of her mask and clenched them firmly. After a while her hands grew tired and fell on the sand again.

Nelliel Tu Oderschvank.

That was its name. It was a she. Or at least, she thought she was a she. No, definitely a she. It was what they had told her long ago, the voices, and it was what she felt like. A girl. That sounded about right. Woman, also, but a little less.

The voices where the ones that had taught her when she had forgotten everything; what she should do to survive, what she was, the names of things, her decisions. Not her name, though. She had picked that one out for herself -one of the few things she alone had decided. But the voices were gone now and she didn't miss them that much. It is what she had wanted to become stronger back then, before the darkness, and she had traded them for something else. What was it again?

She sat up and touched her face again, but this time softer and more caring, like she had done with her mask. She felt thick eyebrows, soft eyelids, long lashes. Dry skin across her nose and cheekbones, but soft lips. There she felt her teeth again and she rubbed and tapped the pointy ends. She opened her mouth and put her right arm in it. Testing the strength of her jaw, she snapped it shut and let out a cry when her teeth broke her skin. Blood stained the tips of her teeth and tongue. She blinked a tear away as she decided that they were strong enough. When she was done she rested her hands on her neck and hooked her fingers into each other.

She gazed forwards to the vast and boring landscape of Hueco Mundo and then to the ends of her big legs, inspecting every round toe and dirty toe nail. While she gazed, she moved her hands to her shoulders and kneaded them, feeling that they were broad and strong. Her hands strayed down to her chest and felt up the big lumps that were her breasts. She rubbed them together and apart again, enjoying the slight pressure on her ribs and the stretching of skin. Then she moved her hands down to rest them on her pudgy hips. Fingers pressed down in the flesh and she rolled them over her curves, feeling the mass move beneath and between them, while her eyes stared sluggishly across the plane.

A glimmer caught her eye from the sandy dunes. Then she saw the thing she had subconsciously been thinking about and stopped wiggleing her fingers. Sticking out of the sand, a couple of meters away from her, lay a green sheath slightly unsheathed. The memories came with a slight, unexpected shock and she winced at the recollection.

The last thing she remembered was the uncontroleable pain of the shift. She had a body now, physical alike to a human, fueled by both shinigami and hollow powers. She tried to remember what she looked like in her other body, but couldn't. A broken mask sat on her head, because she broke it. The voices were gone because of that. But who had told her to break it?

She pondered about that for a bit, but couldn't come up with an answer.

She also didn't feel any stronger. Rested, sure, she had just been reborn and she still felt the new energy in her body, but the immeasurable power that was promised was not there. The only difference she felt now was the quiet. She could barely hear anything. No hollow would dare to challenge her now with this spiritual presence around her so they kept to themselves in the Forest of Menos. The hunger was gone for now too, which meant she didn't have to hunt for a while, which she was grateful for. With the strength she now (supposedly) had, it would only bring despair to her. She hoped there were no hungry hollows secretly lurking around somewhere. She didn't want to kill anybody if she wasn't hungry.

Her attention shifted back to the lone sword. Maybe her power lay within her zanpakuto. With a sad feeling she thought she could only hurt people more with it and wondered what its real purpose was for again.

She inattentively rubbed the edge of the right eye socket in her mask. Then she moved her legs, bent her body forwards, and pulled herself up for the second time that hour. (She thought it had been an hour. Time is untrustworthy in a place with no diverse landmarks or time regulation.)

Her stance was sluggish and though she wasn't tall, she looked like a beast. Her big hair hung wildly over her shoulders reaching just above her nipples and behind her it was unkempt and looked as if she had a fur pelt dragged over her shoulder. Out of instinct she looked around to see if she was, indeed, alone. Her eyes had a yellow gleam to them when they shifted in the moonlight. Her reiatsu leaked around her to ward and warn any stray hollow that might've snuck around. When she confirmed that there was no hollow around except for the ones beneath the sand, she walked towards the sword in the dune.

She picked it up and traced the braid on the handle with her index finger. It was a beautiful sword, she had to admit.

The shapes like crescent moons on the hilt looked lovely to her. It was what she liked most about it, in fact. It felt like a personal gift to her, the guard, as if it were made for her, which it was, of course. The forms were smooth and her eyes glided along the lines of the scabbard. The color was something she liked too; precisely the color she liked.

Her hand stroked down the smooth surface of the sheath and up again towards the crescent shaped guard. There was a great need to stroke every line of the katana, so she did just that. Inches by inches her weapon got inspected by her fingers. Her nails went over the braid enough to move them, but not cut. It made a satisfactory ripping sound without them actually ripping. Her thumb went over the ridges of the end and followed it in in its shape. She rested the hilt on her hand and grabbed her weapon, feeling the solidity and realness of it in her palm.

She then unsheathed the zanpakuto completely -not bothering with the proper unsheathing etiquette, she was alone- and looked mesmerized at the metal. It shone with newness and she could vaguely see her own grey eyes reflected in it.

Gamuza. That was its name.

She softly spoke its name out loud and her own voice surprised her a little.

There was little she knew about human voices. As Adjuchas she had talked and had heard others talk, but never in her afterlife had she heard a human speak. What her voice was now contradicted the heavy, beastly voice she used to have as an Adjuchas. It was completely different. Soft without any edge. Even though she didn't think the sound fitted her, she liked it.

"Gamuza," she said again and let out a spontaneous laugh, which bubbled in her mouth. That was something she had never done before; laughing.

Again she said its name and again, like a mantra, to get used to her own voice and her new appendage.

After some time she sealed her sword again and held it horizontal before her. Then she shook her thick hair so that it dangled in her face and over the sword, seeing if it was the same color. Almost, yes, and she found it the finest color to look at. Teal in the night glow. A weird color for hair, she knew, but just as charming. Hollow genes were weird. No abstract color complexions were too abstract down in the forest of menos.

But where was it weird?

Shaking her hair back again, she made a thinking face. A lot of memories seemed to have been lost during her transformation. How could she not know how she knew this? She frowned her bushy eyebrows and pressed her underlip on her upper lip, obscuring her under bite from sight. While thinking, she looked at the dark hairs of her eyebrows.

Now, where was it not normal for people to have purple skin?

Hmm... people... places... different places... Of course!

Now she remembered. That's the place where they didn't have green skin or purple hair.

The Human World!

Favorite hollow visiting place for the holidays. Lovely in the winter, beautiful in summer. Tasty snacks for free all year around. Too bad it was lethal for her and her fellow hollow friends and foes to enter, though. She'd probably get killed on the spot if she were to visit now. All because of them. They came back to her now too. The black-clad shinigami. She'd almost forgotten about them.

She didn't remember any run-ins directly, but she did know what they were. Hollow catchers. They hunted hollows because they ate human souls, which was a ridiculous reason. If she was hungry, she ate. It wouldn't be fair if it wasn't the same for Shinigami. Though it wasn't like they cared for their souls. She had never heard of a Shinigami actually listening to a hollow before, but now that she thought about it, she hadn't heard of many other things either. She just knew Shinigami don't eat up their victims when they are done with their business. For some reason, Shinigami don't need the life of others like Hollows do.

Often individuals could fight back and eat them right up, however. Many didn't have to think twice about attacking something that was just asking to be eaten with its scent drifting around them like there is no care. Shinigami smelled delicious and there was nothing Nel would rather do than to gnaw at one and taste the richness of life that streamed through it, even if it was just one bite.

But no matter how many Shinigami one could wear off, in the end they were all sentenced to the sword. Swords for hacking their souls out of her bodies.

She winced at that thought and gripped her katana tight. Hers wasn't like theirs. She had a Arrancar zanpakuto, for fighting and protecting, not for soul destroying. She could protect herself. There was a sword in her hands. She had broad shoulders, strong hands, strong arms, strong legs, and there was no Shinigami in sight.

That was what she was now. An Arrancar. Hollows that had cracked open their own mask to get more powerful and gain shinigami-like powers.

She tried out this word.

"Arrancar."

The drop of volume threw her off and she frowned. This wasn't the voice she used for words. The word came from behind her throat, not her lips, and she could feel the shift of her Adam's apple apparent.

She tried more words she knew to see if it was the same with other words. "Gamuza," she said as first, the name coming out as she expected. The words "sword," "mask," "hair," and "teeth," then came to her mind, all these came out with the high voice she now recognized as her own.

"Arrancar," she tried again, but it was like before. A low offensive growling, rolling deep in her throat and on her tongue. When it still sounded the same after a couple of times trying she gave up and accepted the word in her vocabulary.

She held up her zanpakuto and eyed it for the last time. She swung the sling over her right shoulder, carrying her sword at her hip where her hand could protectively rest on the hilt.

Letting go of her sagged posture, she rose up. Shoulders back, chest up, and feet and toes firm in the sand. Then she moved her head about, hair swishing around her, deciding which way to go to. Around her was only sand and dead tree tops, marking no specifically alluring path.

She sniffed the air, searching for a safe trail without too many hollows. Confrontation wasn't what she wanted. For now, roaming was enough. Besides, she didn't even know what she could do just yet. She had to find a safer place first; too many Hollows beneath the sand.

She crouched and bend her knees, building up all the reiatsu she could gather in her legs, with one hand steadying her upper body. She raised her head and let out a thunderous howl, warning others that she was coming. She ran. A distorted image of her remained in the air for a second. Then it was gone, leaving the vibrations of a sonic boom behind and a crater of dust.

end.