A/N: Yay people actually like my story! I've received a few anonymous reviews stating that either they didn't like the story or that there was something wrong with it, I don't mind constructive criticism, but unless you tell me what's wrong with the story or what you didn't like I can't fix it! So to any anonymous reviews in the future, since I can't reply to your review, please state what you didn't like or what was wrong with it. Also after rereading chapter 3 I noticed I forgot to capitalize Tensa Zangetsu and some other things like that. Also I personally didn't like how cheesy the ending of the last chapter was so please forgive the cheesiness! And to the reviewer who stated that the "trees" in the menos forest were crystal, not wood, here is my only response to that, I don't care. They're trees. Trees burn. End of story.
Recap: "Alright I guess we can get started on that once I finish regaining my strength," Ichigo said as they made their way back into their small camp. "I guess I can also try to eat a hollow again since we're trying to break down the boundaries between shinigami and hollow."
"I can also try to purify a hollow," Nel said. "But for now, I'll just go hunting."
"Alright, I'll go try to get some wood for the fire, since I'm starting to get some more strength back," Ichigo said before he and Nel went off in different directions. Little to Ichigo's knowledge after he ate that hollow, a small speck of white, barely the size of a fifth of a grain of rice, formed on the left side of his face on his hairline.
Ichigo was standing holding out his index finger focusing reiatsu onto the tip of the finger where a red ball was forming. Nel was shouting out advice at him as he grunted in concentration , just as he tried to yell something at Nel the ball of red reiatsu destabilized and blew up in his face, literally. The force of the explosion sent Ichigo flying back about 20 feet. Ichigo stood up again brushed himself off as Nel ran up to him and said "You're getting better, but don't lose concentration. Try to focus and compress the reiatsu, and do it evenly. You do remember what happened when you compressed one side before the other, right?" Ichigo did remember, it nearly cost him a limb and made a huge crater.
"Argh! I just can't get it right! How do you do it?" Ichigo nearly shouted in frustration.
"Practice makes perfect Ichigo," Nel replied unhelpfully.
"Yeah, well to hell with practice!" Ichigo shouted as he raised his hand and without really knowing what he was doing, shot off a huge black cero straight at Nel.
Nel's eyes widened with shock and then she calmly lifted up her hand and momentarily stopped the cero, only to have it rear up and explode. While all of this happened Ichigo just stood there staring at his open palm. 'Shit, she's gonna kick my ass for that!' thought Ichigo. Nel was pushed back a few feet from the blast and had a few scrapes from the flying shrapnel caused by the explosion of Ichigo's unstable cero.
"What the hell Ichigo?!?" shouted an enraged Nel. Ichigo started to say that it was an accident, but Nel was already on him and mid way into a roundhouse kick, which was aimed at Ichigo's stomach. Ichigo never stood a chance. He got hit, and because of Nel's super human strength, got shot back 50 yards coughing up blood as he flew. He once again crashed into a sand dune. Nel just now realizing what she had done, rushed over to Ichigo and started to hug him saying that she was sorry. Ichigo, as was the norm with Nel's hugs, couldn't breathe and felt his bones start creaking under the pressure, which was not exactly helping with his already shattered rib cage. "Nel, your… cru… shing … me!" Ichigo managed to stammer out, before he felt one his rib fragments puncture his lung. Ichigo coughed out more blood as he felt his lung fill up with liquid. After Ichigo had coughed up a large quantity of blood Nel immediately released her hug on Ichigo, and quickly started to feel up Ichigo's mid section. What she found frightened her a little, she could feel several pieces of shattered bone, a few ribs protruding out, and one rib that had actually punctured the skin and was sticking out in the open. Nel decided that these kinds of injuries were out of the scope of her saliva's healing powers, so she laid Ichigo down on his back, and, for a lack of better words, drooled all over Ichigo's mid section. Nel thought that would at least stop the bleeding and maybe heal a bit of internal damage, although she knew that it wouldn't do anything for his obliterated rib cage. Nel told Ichigo that she'd be right back and then sonidoed away leaving Ichigo on his own.
Nel also knew that Ichigo's only hope for survival would to either go to the real world to see if orihime could heal him, which would take too long, or for him to consume a vast quantity of hollow, which would hopefully heal him enough for him to be stable. She decided on the latter and proceeded to the Menos Forest to hunt for some adjuchas class menos. Nel busted through the ceiling of sand, or to her the ground, and dropped down into the forest. She was in luck, there were a few adjuchases a mile or two away, she quickly sonidoed to where the adjuchases were. Nel had arrived and had already loped the head off of one of the 4 assembled adjuchas's head before any of them even noticed her. She then took out another hollow before it could react to her presence. This had by now given the other assembled hollow enough time to launch a counter attack on the green haired arrancar, not that it would do them any good. Within seconds Nel had disposed of all the adjuchases she quickly gathered up the concentrated remains and sonidoed back to Ichigo.
Ichigo was looking worse for wear; he was coughing up blood at least every 30 seconds now. "Ichigo, I'm back. Can you eat?"
"I *cough* think so," Ichigo replied uncertainly.
"Well then here try to eat," Nel said while handing him one of the four black spheres in her hand to him. Ichigo shakily raised his hand to grasp the black sphere and brought it to his mouth where he tried to chew it, but was too weak from the intense pain and blood loss to really chew it. Ichigo was about to voice his problem, when Nel suddenly leaned into a kiss. Ichigo instantly shot up from his laying position to a sitting up position. Bad move. He shot right back down as fast as he had come up with pain and fresh blood blossoming across his abdomen. Nel tried again and Ichigo finally realized her intent, it wasn't to kiss him, but to spit out the hollow that she had chewed for him into his mouth. That didn't do much for the blush that was plastered on his face, which as the feeding continued just grew larger and deeper in color. On the bright side Ichigo could actually feel his body starting to piece itself together again. Still unknown to Ichigo and Nel, the small speck of white on Ichigo's hairline also grew with each piece Ichigo consumed. When Ichigo had finished eating the four adjuchases, what was once a speck the size of a fifth of a grain of rice was now about the size of 2 grains of rice. His body also felt physically better and marginally more powerful. Nel told Ichigo that she was going to go hunting again since his wounds hadn't completely healed yet, and left off further than before.
Nel was making her way across the vast deserts of Hueco Mundo on her hunt for adjuchas class menos. She had already gone about 10 miles, and decided that this was as good of a place as any to enter the Menos Forest. When she emerged into the vast underground forest she instantly felt a crushing reiatsu, a vasto lorde's reiatsu. It had reiatsu similar in level to the 4th espada, she could take it. She shot off at the speed of sonido towards the source of the massive reiatsu. She arrived to see it killing and feasting upon a dozen unlucky adjuchases. It had pale white skin, with strange yellow markings forming weird swirl patterns on its body. Its mask looked like that of a grizzly bear, but with the muzzle of a hawk. The beak of the hawk also had dozens of serrated teeth running along the jaw lines. Its hands had large talon like claws on them as well. Aside from the odd shaped head, unusually pale white skin, the claws, and yellow swirl markings the hollow looked like a normal human. So far it hadn't noticed her, probably so engrossed into its task of feeding it wasn't really aware of its surroundings. Nel stalked as close as she dare before shooting off at the vasto lorde with Gazuma drawn and poised for action. The vasto lorde had just noticed her in time to dodge getting his head lopped off, although he wasn't able to completely dodge it, he did sustain a nasty cut to his bicep. "How dare you attack me like that!" screamed the vasto lorde as he clutched his bicep where he had been slashed. "I'll kill you!" roared the vasto lorde son doing toward Nel in a full frontal charge. Nel easily blocked the jab with Gazuma.
Gazuma's edge bit deep into the hand of the vasto lorde. "You're incredibly foolish to attack me straight on unarmed," said Nel calmly, which just had the effect of throwing the vasto lorde into an even greater frenzy, it wasn't used to pain.
"I'll fucking kill you for that!" yelled the vasto lorde while charging up a cero. Nel simply smiled. The vasto lorde shot a large yellow cero at Nel, who lazily put out a hand to halt the progress of the hollow's cero and started to suck it in. The vasto lorde was now laughing manically thinking that it had killed the arrancar. Once Nel had sucked in the entire cero she shot it back out at the vasto lorde adding on her own cero turning the entire thing a light violet color. The vasto lorde took notice of the large, blazing violet laser like burst flying at him. The vasto lorde tried to dodge it, but the cero was already too close. The vasto lorde took the full brunt of Nel's cero, including all the power he had just a few moments ago launched at her. Oh the irony. Nel wasn't as foolish as the vasto lorde in thinking that that would be enough to kill the other. At best it would cost him a limb, if she was lucky, and if she wasn't then it would have only caused a really bad bruise and dozens of small cuts.
It was her lucky day today. The vasto lorde had lost an arm. "You stupid bitch! Why won't you die?!?" screamed the vasto lorde partly in frenzied anger, agony, and insanity. It then shot off several hundred volleys of bala blasts where Nel was standing. Nel simply sonidoed out of the way, the vasto lorde kept of firing volley after volley directly where she was standing like 3 minutes ago. This hollow was so insane that it just kept firing at where she was as if she wouldn't move. It took all she had to stifle a fit of laughter at the hollow's stupidity. 'Well in the mean time I think I'll charge up a gran rey cero' thought Nel to herself as she brought her hand back and to her waist charging a large deep violet cero. The vasto lorde was so obsessed with firing bala blasts at the spot Nel was standing at 4 minutes ago didn't even notice the monstrous reiatsu forming into a cero directly 15 feet behind him. The vasto lorde was completely oblivious to the fully formed gran rey cero rearing and even emitting a high-pitched screech not 15 feet behind him as Nel thrust her hand forward launching a monster cero at point blank range and the hollow's back. The cero hit him and obliterated his legs and everything else below his navel. The hollow dropped from the air as the cero subsided, landing with a dull thud on the ground. Surprisingly when Nel walked over to the vasto lorde she discovered that it was still alive and laughing, swinging its only remaining arm like it was still hurling bala blasts at her. Nel just shook her head in disgust, this hollow reminded her greatly of Nnoitra, and then stabbed Gazuma at the vasto lorde's head; suddenly the vasto lorde came to its senses, and rolled out of the way of Gazuma. Nel's blade still stabbed trough his arm, but the wound wouldn't kill him. The vasto lorde suddenly released a large amount of reiatsu and to Nel's shock and horror, started to re-grow its limbs and torso. It had rapid regeneration. Nel leapt back as the vasto lorde lunged out at her with one of its clawed hands. The index claw grazed her shoulder before she could get out of the way.
Nel was getting a little worried now, it seemed to be regaining its sanity as the fight progressed, and soon it would be able to put up a decent fight. Even as she spoke Nel could feel the hollow's reiatsu rising, it was now somewhere between the third espada and the fourth espada, she had to end this quickly. Nel held out Gazuma in front of her horizontally and placed her left hand near the tip of the blade, "Declare, Gazuma!" A huge burst of light enveloped Nel, and the vasto lorde tried to lunge at her again. The vasto lorde was met with a large lance to the face. The hollow screamed in pure, bloodcurdling agony, and leapt back, he had a large stab wound on his face with blood pouring out of it. Before the vasto lorde's rapid regeneration could kick in to heal his wound, Nel brought back the lance that was Gazuma and shouted "Lanzador Verde" and launched Gazuma which now was spinning rapidly and glowing with reiatsu. The vasto lorde never even saw it coming, he no longer had eyes. He got nailed the full force of Lanzador Verde directly in the chest. The attack pushed him back about four yards then started to bite into his flesh like a drill, and completely went through him, in the process destroying his heart. Gazuma embedded itself into one of the trees of the forest, as Nel walked (galloped?) over to where the hollow lied dying, she sealed her resurrección form Gazuma was once again in its sheath at her waist. The hollow was slowly and painfully dying on the ground before her, as much as she hated to kill and fight, she had to kill this beast to allow Ichigo to live, so she drew Gazuma and stabbed her zanpakuto through the vasto lorde's head, instantly killing him. The vasto lorde was compressed into a tiny marble sized black bead. Nel picked it up and noticed that it was pulsing with reiatsu, she sonidoed back to where Ichigo was.
When she arrived Ichigo had at least stopped coughing up blood every few seconds, so that was a good sign. Nel popped the small marble like ball into her mouth and chewed it enough for Ichigo to swallow, and leaned in and fed Ichigo the vasto lorde. As soon as Ichigo had swallowed the hollow's remains he could feel tons of power rushing through him, healing his wounds completely. He felt about twice as powerful as before, with all of this new reiatsu. Now the mask fragment on Ichigo's hairline started to bubble and grow. Ichigo got up onto his feet and did something that surprised even him; he hugged Nel while simultaneously thanking her. Nel had a blush and a content smile plastered on her face as Ichigo hugged her. When he pulled away, Nel's content visage disintegrated into a look of shock. Without Ichigo even noticing it, the mask had grown to cover a little under a fourth of his face*, coving one of his eyes which caused both of his eyes to get the demonic yellow and black look to them. "Ichigo, your mask…" Nel said pointing at his mask.
"Hmm? What about it?" said Ichigo still oblivious to the mask.
"Its part way there," said Nel.
"What are you talking about Nel? I didn't call it out," said Ichigo starting to feel around his face. When his hand brushed the somewhat jagged edge of the mask shouted in horror, "Ah! What the hell!?!"
Nel walked up behind him and draped her arms around him and said seductively "It's alright Ichigo, it looks nice." This seemed to calm Ichigo down a little.
"Aren't you afraid of me now?" asked Ichigo uncertainly.
"Why would I be? I am a hollow after all, so seeing a mask on you doesn't scare me at all. In fact, I think it makes you look better," Nel whispered into his ear. Ichigo could feel Nel's hot breath tickle his ear.
"What are y-you do-doing Nel?" Ichigo stuttered.
"Nothing," Nel replied in her normal voice and released the hug. "Back to cero practice." Ichigo was completely dumbfounded by Nel's complete disregard for what had just happened and decided that it would be best just to go with the flow.
Ichigo got into position again and tried charging up a cero. To both their surprises it formed perfectly and remained stable even during it flight. Nel just smirked.
A/N: *this is like what his mask looks like on the here to protect you piece, excluding the jaw line mask fragment and it only just covered his eye.
Alright I hope you liked chapter four, and I'm really sorry for the late update. Anyway I am still in need of a beta or two, so any volunteers? Also to the anonymous reviewers out there without an account, either A) get one; or B) if you provide constructive criticism, or say that you don't like something, please tell me what it is and what I could to fix it. This is my first 3000+ word chapter, including recap and author notes it is 3163 words long and without them it is 2741 words long. Please review it's really not that hard and it inspires me.