Title: The Idiot's Guide to Becoming the Cero Espada
Author: darkling59
Fandom: Bleach
Date Published: 6/16/2014
Disclaimer: Bleach and all associated characters, settings, concepts, etc within this story do not belong to me. Character spellings will attempt to follow those on the Bleach wikia.
Summary: Yammy's climb through the ranks. This is based on a prompt titled 'Yammy Sucks' so...be warned. Not for Yammy lovers.
Please review!
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Yammy was not what one would call a 'thoughtful' person. He liked eating, fighting, winning, and Ulquiorra and was more than happy to demolish everything and everyone else.
That was how he'd worked his way up the espada, after all. There was a reason he was the cero, and it wasn't his scintillating intellect.
The previous Diez had been his first target. He won how he knew best; by pounding her over the head and eating her. Granted, he'd had indigestion for two months after and had to drink about ten vials of nasty antivenin courtesy of Szayel so he didn't melt from the inside out, but he still WON.
(Victory number one!)
Aaroneiro obviously knew greatness when he saw it, because he took one look at Yammy standing tall and ready to battle under the bright sun of Las Noches and went back inside without saying a word.
(Victory two!)
Szayel barely made it through half their fight before an offhanded cero broke Yammy's nose and showered blood all over the octava's clothes and hair. His outrage had been heard clear on the other side of the compound before he scurried off to change, forfeiting the battle in the process.
(Victory three!)
Zommari was easy. Yammy walked up to him while he was meditating and clobbered him over the head with one massive fist. Without his speed or words, the sea urchin went down like a sack of bricks.
(Victory four!)
Grimmjow and Nnoitra he actually managed to defeat AT THE SAME TIME! Ha! If THAT wasn't a feat of strength, Yammy didn't know what was!
(He smashed their faces together while they were sparring and Grimmjow's mask got caught in Nnoitra's hollow-hole. They were cursing, snarling, and struggling so loudly that they never even heard Yammy proclaim his victory.)
(Victories five and six!)
Ulquiorra listened to his challenge with a blank stare and offered to speak with Aizen-sama about the situation once Yammy enthusiastically expounded on his victories so far. As a result, Aizen put Yammy back through the Hogyoku and he came out with a new (awesome!) resureccion.
He counted that as a victory over Ulquiorra and acknowledgment of his powers from the very highest authority.
(Victory seven was on Aizen's will.)
Harribel cut him off before he got beyond. "Aizen said…" and told him she would comply with Aizen-sama's orders.
(Victory eight was unsatisfying.)
Barragan was likewise unwilling to listen to his challenge. His fraccion forced Yammy away with bitter but accepting words when he started by telling them he was doing something on Aizen's will. (Actually, he never got close enough to the King's throne to see Barragan, but that didn't matter; surrender counted!)
(Victory nine!)
Riding high on his success, the espada went after his final challenge. Starrk was the newest, strongest, and most mysterious hollow in Las Noches at that point so Yammy was a little worried about the wildcard (that was a Ulquiorra term – the other arrancar always said things Yammy didn't care to understand. The fourth espada was super smart so it was his job to do all of the smart things, like thinking.)
Yammy needn't have worried.
Starrk listened to his entire diatribe with a blank, mildly bemused expression, then yawned and asked what it would take to get the bigger espada out of his bedroom. After the shortest negotiation of surrender in history, Yammy walked away the victor.
(Victory ten!)
But since he'd beaten ALL of the espada, Aizen gave him a SPECIAL rank, higher than even the primera; he'd be the CERO espada. Aizen had always had faith that Yammy was the most powerful of course, that's why he'd modified his resureccion so much, but now he could officially be a secret weapon! And the highest ranked one at that!
(Higher than stupid Wonderweiss, anyway. What kind of secret weapon was he? Yammy was obviously better.)
He went back to his feasting, fighting, and destroying with a wide grin on his face and the knowledge that was the best super-secret weapon in Hueco Mundo – a cero espada.
So super-secret, in fact, that not even the other arrancar were allowed to know of his rank; they weren't powerful or special enough to handle the knowledge of his might.
Exactly as Aizen had planned.
…
(Seriously, not a single arrancar had ever heard of the cero position until Renji mentioned it to Grimmjow about five years after the war, long after Yammy's death. The shinigami nearly got his face torn off for implying YAMMY was in any way superior to the panther king.)
...
Fin
Author's Notes:
About one and a half/two years ago, I accepted chapter prompts for my Starrk one-shot collection 'Howling at the Moon' and agreed to fill a prompt titled 'Yammy Sucks' for Ultimate Black Ace. At the time, I thought I could spin it to revolve around Starrk interacting with Yammy, but my attempts proved futile. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't make Starrk a main character. Therefore, I didn't feel comfortable including it in 'Howling at the Moon', but it is prompt I promised to fill so...ta da!
This story was created.
The original prompt basically asked to me to illustrate how, despite his rank, Yammy was actually the weakest of the espada, because brute force does not make up for speed, strategy, and specialized attacks. I'm not sure I maintained the exact spirit of the prompt, but I took inspiration and let my muse guide me the rest of the way.
Hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear what you thought through a review!
Please R&R!