Imperfect Image Chapter 1 (Re-write- from the second person, now in the third)

Basic Character Synopsis (BCS): Reino, or "Rei" as she is called by many, is the 2nd fraccione of the 5th Espada, Nnoitora Jiruga. She is third "Grantz" family member, younger than IlForte yet older than Szayel Aporro (whom she calls Szayel), making her the middle child. She works with Szayel in his lab during her free time. He always preferred the fields of chemistry with chemicals and such, but Reino was always more fascinated by living creatures, so she took up the life sciences, specifically Human Biology (which she is equally adept at as her younger brother is to chemistry).

Warnings: Language, a bit of OOCness, violent thoughts

Rating may (and probably will) change!

Disclaimer: I do not own bleach, nor will I ever in the future. If you think I do own it, then you are probably not the brightest light bulb. Why would I write fan fiction if could write this crap in the actual storyline?! But anyways, the only thing I own is the idea for this fic, and my OC, Reino!

Reino- Alteration of the name "Reina", meaning pure; clean.

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Reino Grantz leaned over a cold, metal table, intently focused on her work. On the surface of the structure are two *vivisections of the hollow lizards collected from the outskirts of the baron deserts of Hueco Mundo (one male and one female). She is currently interested on the mating habits of these undead reptiles (Can they reproduce? Or are they only brought to life by having their souls simply appear (as such happens with the soul of a human)?). The only noise in the room is the sound of her pen scratching lightly on a page in a notebook, recording her findings and results from experimentations. As she prepares to continue with a very delicate part of her experiments, she turns back to the table with an extremely small dropper filled with highly concentrated acid, and positions it over the lizard. She is being very cautious, as the liquid is extremely dangerous, and if even the smallest drop falls from her dropper, it will burn through the table and a few feet into the floor before stopping. If any drips onto the frog in any other area than the spot she intends, then the experiment will be ruined (as the hollow creature needs to be alive for this experiment) and either she will have to catch one of the little nuisances herself, or get one of her younger brother's slightly more competent fraccione to do it and wait "patiently" in the lab.

As she deems the dropper to be in the precise spot, and she is just about to gently squeeze on the end of the instrument when-

*BOOM!*

She groans as she remembers that Szayel is doing another one of his chemistry experiments in another room. She then realized quickly after that the explosion caused her to squeeze the instrument in her fingers harder than she intended to and jerk her arm diagonally. All of the contents of her dropper spilled out below her, completely dissolving her lizard, creating a large gap in the center of her table, and now created a jagged crater in the floor 4 feet deep. She scowled.

She checks for her flamboyant younger brother's reiatsu; the two of the three Grantz siblings had made a system- if something went wrong during either of their experiments, one would check for the other's reiatsu. If something went wrong and one needed help, that person would raise their reiatsu significantly, lower their reiatsu significantly, or erratically fluctuate their reiatsu, depending on the circumstances. If something noticeable happened like an explosion, then they would emit a specific combination of reiatsu levels, between low, regular, and high levels (to distinguish between that of random fluctuations). This signal would mean that nothing fatal happened, and the other could continue what they were previously doing. It is a fairly decent system. But of course it is, as Reino was the one who thought of it, after all.

'Szayel better pray that something fatal happened during that explosion or else I am going to prove to be extremely fatal to him, making me ruin my experiment, and my floors! But then again, if something serious did happen to Szayel then I just might not help him! Making me start from scratch again, dammit!' she grumbled in her mind. During another reiatsu check, she sensed the specific code of reiatsu fluctuations- Low, High, Normal, High, Normal, Low. Unfortunately for Reino, it seems that nothing is wrong with him after emitting the signal.

She is just about to call in a lower Numero who can fix the floor, when a charred, staggering Szayel opens the door to the room she is mentally griping in at the moment. She sees that, after he coughs out a puff of smoke, he notices the chunk burned out of the floor under the nearly disintegrated metal table and smirks.

"Made you slip?" He smirks.

Of course she knows that many and most of the verbal encounters of the Grantz family are composed of playfully sarcastic, snarky comments, especially when it came to pointing out the others' mistakes.

"At least it takes a near nuclear explosion to make me miss. What's your excuse?"

Very fortunately to Szayel, a lesser Numero knocked politely on the door as he was about to attempt to formulate an excuse to his failure and the reason for hers.

She calls for the numero to enter, and he quietly steps in, and begins to speak.

"Excuse me, Reino Grantz, the 5th Espada requests your and Tesla's presence in the main training area. Tesla has already been notified and both are currently waiting for your arrival."

"Alright, then. Thank you." With a small hand gesture, she dismissed the small Numero. He gives a slightly awkward bow and slips out of the door, trying to get out as fast as possible (he has a decent idea of what goes on around here, as most others do), closing it behind him.

Reino walks towards the door. With her hand on the small silver knob, she turns back to her younger brother.

"Try to think of a coherent response while I'm gone, 'kay?" With a wink she turned the knob at her fingertips, pushed the door open, and entered the long corridor that would lead her to her destination under the artificial sun of Las Noches.

Nnoitora-**sama often calls for both of her and Tesla's presences during any convenient afternoons (for Nnoitora, at least) in the grounds for training to make sure neither of them got "soft". After all, he doesn't want "weak little pussies for fraccione". Even though his fighting style seems brash and reckless, Reino knows that he is truly good at what he does, since his teachings have helped her improve a lot (more than she'd probably like to admit) after serving under him. She remembers becoming his fraccione very well, as if it were nearly minutes ago…

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*A vivisection is the practice of subjecting living animals to cutting operations, especially in order to advance physiological and pathological knowledge (like peeling back the skin and dissecting a living creature).

**- sama is a Japanese honorific meaning lord, or master, and is used to confer great respect.

I apologize for any mistakes in the Japanese parts (or English if you see something I missed) so if something is wrong/incorrect then please tell me, and I'll fix it.

And yes, I realize the whole clichéd "as if it were only minutes ago" crap, but it was the only thing I could think of so please don't hate me for that! I promise it'll get better from this point!

Please rate and review! Thanks!

Edit: I realized while re-looking at this, that it might sound like the whole story is about how she became Nnoitora's fraccione. But it's not, even though the next chapter will be all about that, and then we'll get into the rest of the story.