As Ruby's teammates dreamed of their upcoming fights in the Vytal tournament, Ruby's dreams were of a different nature.
For at the gate of Las Noches stood 3 shinigami.
"The scary clown is Mayuri Kurotsuchi, captain of the R&D division," Gin explained, gesturing to the monitors in the room. "The woman with him is Lieutenant Nemu Kurotsuchi, also R&D. And the spiky haired guy is Kenpachi Zaraki, captain of the direct-combat division."
"What do you think they want?" Ruby asked, monitoring the situation with Grimmjow.
"Well, Mayuri is probably here for research, and Kenpachi's here for a fight," Gin explained. "I doubt this was authorized. If it was, we'd have all the captains at the gate, and not just the two."
"Either way, any shinigami barging into Las Noches is just asking to die," Grimmjow said with a shrug. "I'm gonna go kill them."
"What?" Ruby said. "No! We can't just kill them!"
"You really think diplomacy is going to work here, little girl?" Grimmjow asked.
"If you want to stop them, you better act fast," Gin added, the monitors showing that Kenpachi had just knocked the front gate over.
Wow, this was spiraling out of control. Ruby leaped out of the room, sonidoing to the three soul reapers with just a few quick steps.
And then realizing she didn't particularly want to be staring down 3 soul reapers.
"Um, hi guys?" Ruby asked.
"Aw come on," Kenpachi said. "You mean to tell me the best you guys could send out is a little girl? Weren't you the girl that got thrown away while I was fighting your Cero Espada?"
"Um, yeah," Ruby stammered, "Well, we were kind of hoping you would just... go away? Please?"
As Kenpachi lunged forewards, Ruby barely dodged under his strike, before desperately shouting out "Awaken" to go werewolf on the man with her release.
"Well, now I know you're taking me seriously," Kenpachi said, as Ruby desperately blocked the man's blade with one hand and slashed his chest with the other. But the slash just bounced off the man.
"Really?" Kenpachi asked, looking down to where he was hit. Then he put down his sword. "Hit me with your best shot."
"Uh, I'd really rather not," Ruby said.
"This isn't charity. This is to see if you're worth my time. Now do it before I decide to just strike you down."
Deciding she didn't want to be struck down, Ruby desperately lunged at the man, stabbing him with her claw as hard as she could, only to be stopped completely on the man's skin. "Can you really not get through my reiatsu, even after your little resurreccion?"
"Uh..." Ruby said, quickly moving from a claw strike to a grab on the man's neck. With that, she was able to slice at least a little bit into the man's skin with her crushing grip, to which the man smiled like a maniac.
And watching the man she was choking grin like a lunatic now replaced captain psychoclown for the most disturbing thing she saw today.
"Maybe you won't be completely boring," Kenpachi stated, throwing Ruby off with a swing of his arm. "Try not to die too-"
"You get your jollies throwing around little girls?" Grimmjow interrupted, having finally caught up to Ruby. He then proceeded to cut into Kenpachi, slashing him harder without his resurreccion then Ruby was capable of even after her own, as he barreled past the man and out the front gates. "Mind if we take it outside? Harribel will kill me if we have to repair the wall."
"Mayuri, the girl's all yours," Kenpachi said with a wicked smirk, as the two battlenuts left to beat the crap out of each other. Which left Ruby staring down mister psycho clown.
"Uh, hi?" Ruby said.
"What is the name I should put on your jar?" Mayuri asked.
"That is... really creepy? But you can call me Ruby," Ruby said. "Um, so, it would be really nice if you could leave."
The clown stared at Ruby, making the girl increasingly uncomfortable.
"Please?" Ruby said.
The man slowly walked up to her, until he loomed over her. Well, not over, since she was a big tall werewolf thing, but he was definitely looming. He then took out a test tube, and broke it across her chest.
"What are you doing?" Ruby asked.
"It seems the doseage isn't the same for all arrancar," the clown said.
"Wuh?" Ruby replied.
"I'll need to adjust it later," the clown continued muttering to himself, as Ruby noticed her eyes getting heavy. Why was she falling asleep? She just got up! Wait...
"Did you try... to poison me?" Ruby said, as the ground rumbled under the blows of Kenpachi and Grimmjow.
The clown just kept muttering to himself.
Shrugging, Ruby zipped in and picked the man up over her shoulder
"Unhand me," The clown said, jabbing Ruby with a needle that bounced off her hide. "The specimen does not get to handle the scientist."
But Ruby was already sonidoing away with the man, the pair traveling nearly fifty miles from Las Noches in under a minute, as the man tried at least 3 more test tubes on Ruby before taking out his sword. "Um, please don't try to poison any more arrancar?" Ruby said, as the man dropped his sword to the ground. And then a giant baby thing appeared and Ruby decided now was a great time to throw the man away and sonido her way back to the fortress.
And... his assistant was still there. At the fortress. Standing by herself. While Grimmjow and Kenpachi were busy giving the desert new craters barely a hundred feet away.
"Uh, I took your boss away," Ruby said.
The assistant stared at her.
"He's over there," Ruby said, pointing way past Kenpachi and Grimmjow.
The assistant stared at her.
Ruby picked up the assistant and Sonido'd her outside the gates. "Uh... see you? Or probably not, because we aren't letting any new shinigami in, sorry."
The assistant continued to stare at her.
Shrugging, Ruby used her sonido all the way back to her quarters. She wasn't sure what that Mayuri guy did, but she really needed to sleep it off.
VVVVVV
"Odds of them coming back?" Harribel asked.
"Mayuri? No idea. Never sure what's running through that guy's head," Gin answered jovially. "But Kenpachi will keep coming back until either we stop being fun or he's dead. Or until the old man puts his foot down."
"You mean their Captain Commander Yamamoto," Harribel said.
"Yep, that's the guy. Probably doesn't even know the two of them took this little trip," Gin smirked.
"And if we killed Kenpachi?" Harribel said.
"Assuming you actually succeed and Kenpachi doesn't destroy Las Noches in the process, that would piss off Soul Society fierce," Gin replied. "50/50 they take all their captains and burn this place to the ground."
"Neither are good outcomes," Harribel said, Gin by her side as they both reviewed the footage of Kenpachi's fight with Grimmjow. As the tape reached its end, they saw Grimmjow nearly bisected, it would be weeks before the man could stand again. On the plus side, Kenpachi was more wounds then skin, but the man was still standing, and Grimmjow was not.
"And if their Captain Commander saw this video?" Harribel asked.
"That would make him put his foot down, if you could get it to him," Gin said. "Though that's a lot easier than it sounds. If a handful of humans could break into Seireitei no problem, I'm confident we could get an arrancar in."
Harribel looked at Gin, "You told me that one of those humans was Ichigo, and he took down two captains while he was there. One of them being Kenpachi."
"They were trying to stop an execution, we just want to deliver a letter. I'm thinking little red riding hood's fast enough to handle them."
"And you think the Captain Commander will be fine with us invading the capital of Soul Society?" Harribel asked, piling on as much sarcasm as she could muster. Which was a lot, she was second only to Gin in that department.
"The old man will lose face and get all huffy," Gin explained, "But at the end of the day no harm no foul. Plus it sends another very important message to them."
Harribel responded, "...You keep your shinigami out of Hueco Mundo-"
"And we keep our arrancar out of Soul Society."
Harribel looked at Gin, but didn't disagree. Instead, she popped the tape out of the player, wrote up a quick letter, and handed both the tape and the letter to the man. "Run it by Starrk. If he doesn't kill you for suggesting using Ruby, you have my approval. Once she wakes up, obviously." The arrancar half of the girl had been asleep for the past 30 hours after all the stuff Mayuri put in her system, and because it was Mayuri who did it, no one wanted to touch her until the man's stuff had run its course.
Not that it was particularly unusual for Ruby's arrancar to sleep for 30 hours straight.
"Gee, thanks," Gin said, taking the tape.
VVVVVV
"Well, well, it's been a few months since anyone tried to pass through the spirit gates without a travel permit," The giant said. "And I don't get many guests these days. So welcome to you, little girl."
"Um, hi?" Ruby said, keeping her hood up. No reason to show off the mask before releasing. "Could you let me through? I have a delivery for Captain Commander Yamamoto," she finished, showing the man her package.
"Just leave it here," the giant said.
"No can do..." Ruby explained. "I have to give it to the Captain Commander directly. You know how it is, orders. Maybe you could, I dunno, call him over?"
"I do not have the authority," the man said, taking out his axe. "But if you insist on seeing him..." The giant of a man cleaved the ground, it was all very impressive, but it was kind of weak compared to the arrancar of Las Noches. The man then commanded Ruby, "Give it all you got!"
"Um, isn't this a bit much?" Ruby replied sheepishly.
"These are the rules by which I live!" the giant answered in return.
Ruby really didn't want to have to fight anyone here... she was the intruder after all.
"Awaken!" Ruby shouted, going werewolf in front of the man, causing the giant to stutter.
"Wha-what are you?" the man shouted, swinging his axe straight into the wolf's boney hide.
"Arrancar," Ruby replied, sonido-ing out of the way of the blow and past the giant. She then casually reached down to lift the gate herself.
"A-arrancar?" the giant asked. "Arrancar!"
"Arrancar." Ruby answered again and wow there were a lot of people waiting for her inside the gate.
"Stop her!" One of the dozens of shinigami waiting inside shouted as his comrades charged her. Another shinigami lunged for some kind of panic button, and sirens started wailing throughout the city.
That would be her cue to run.
VVVVVV
'This will be easy,' Gin said. 'If a handful of humans could do it, an arrancar will have no problem,' Gin said. 'You're pretty fast, you should be able to outrun them,' Gin said.
As Ruby barely outsped the moutain of flower petals chasing her through the city with a barely coherent map indicating she was probably maybe going in the right direction, she decided never to take advice from Gin again.
At least she could sonido further and faster than flower dude could.
And that was the moment that ninja girl showed up. What did Gin say her ability was again?
Oh right, Soifon, death in two steps. Kills you if she can hit the same spot twice. And she had no problems keeping up with Ruby.
As the wave of petals forced Ruby directly into the stinger of insta-death girl, Ruby blocked the girl's strike, to which she responded by twisting her finger to nick the underside of Ruby's claw. Then the girl moved in to hit her arm again, forcing Ruby to throw her abdomen in the way of the needle, and wasn't that a strange way to dodge anything. Ruby grabbed the girl by the wrist as Soifon retracted the blade from Ruby's hide, and broke Soifon's arm, before tossing the girl away.
Sorry Miss Ninja Girl, Ruby did not feel like testing her durability against an instant-death technique while dodging out of the way of a flower-petal blizzard.
And the girl doesn't even flinch at that, switching the arm she was holding her blade with as the petals tried to force Ruby back into charging the ninja. Not this time!
Ruby closed her eyes, covered her face, and rammed herself straight through the death petal blizzard as fast as her legs could take her.
With a glance behind her as she continued fleeing, she noted both of them still hot on her tail. Couldn't they give her half a second to figure out if this was even the right half of Seireitei?
Wait, she saw it! That's the building where Gin told her the Captain Commader does all his Commandering! Ruby sonido'd into the building-
-and found herself surrounded by half a dozen captains, including the old guy.
"Delivery!" she shouted, instantly dispelling her resurreccion and holding her package in front of her.
Everyone, psycho-clown, kenpachi, old-guy, and the newly arriving flower guy and ninja girl, all of them kind of just stared at her. Then Yamamoto finally took her package, reading the letter and unwrapping the tape.
Every captain's hand was on their sword except Yamamoto's. And with a simple hand gesture, half the captains relaxed.
"One moment," their leader said. "You," the captain commander pointed to Ruby, "Don't do anything until I get back. You," the man pointed to the ninja, "Have the 4th division work on your arm. The rest of you, don't kill her unless she tries something."
Then the old guy slowly walked away, as a half-dozen shinigami captains stared her down.
...Awkward.
VVVVVV
"So I'm Ruby," Ruby said to the captains.
"A pleasure," flower petal dude replied dryly.
"I was thinking we could do introductions?" Ruby asked.
"That will not be necessary," Mayuri said, cutting off the other captains. "The specimen doesn't need to know the name of its handlers."
Mayuri then walked right into Ruby's face and said, "You killed my bacteria."
Ruby blinked twice. "Pardon me?"
"You shouldn't be so calm," Mayuri added. "You aren't leaving this room alive."
"Ignore him," a very short shinigami said. "He's just trying to goad you into attacking him so he can get a new specimen for his lab."
"Spoil all my fun, would you?" Mayuri replied to the short one.
"Typically, you're supposed to follow the spirit of an order, not the letter," the short one snarked back.
"Then he should have been more specific," the clown replied.
"But really," the short one added, addressing Ruby. "Why are you here, arrancar?" the captain spit out that last word as if it were a curse.
"To send a message," Ruby answered bluntly.
"And what's the message?" the short one asked.
"Stay out of Hueco Mundo," Ruby said.
The short one huffed. "We aren't in Hueco Mundo," the short one said.
Ruby looked at Kenpachi, who was smirking like a lunatic. She then looked at Mayuri, as unreadable as ever. Neither of them looked at all bothered by what the short captain said as Ruby turned back to the short captain. "Not all your guys got the memo."
"What kind of idiot would go to Hueco Mundo without the Captain Commander's orders," the captain said. Now that earned a twitch from Mayuri.
"Yeah, that would be pretty stupid," Ruby said, another twitch from the clown. "I mean, you'd have to be a real moron to try to assault Las Noches with only 3 guys." Kenpachi let out a laugh with that.
But the clown was not laughing. Mayuri turned to Ruby and said, "When you are on my table, I will make sure the procedures are painful."
"Enough," Yamamoto declared, returning from the back room with his own letter. "This is for your king. Soul Society will conduct no more operations around Las Noches. Mayuri, Kenpachi, is that clear?"
Kenpachi looked disappointed at the news, saying "Whatever you say, old man."
Mayuri scowled, saying "Crystal."
"Good," Yamamoto declared, staring down Ruby with a tone that brokered no disagreement. "You are to return to Hueco Mundo within the hour. Is that understood?"
"Yes sir!" Ruby said instantly.
Yamamoto nodded. "Byakuya, see her to the gates."
VVVVVV
Ruby had some trouble finding Harribel in Las Noches. This was partially because she wasn't, technically speaking, in Hueco Mundo at all.
"What's this?" Ruby asked.
"You like it?" Lilynette said.
"This is our first forward base in Remnant," Harribel added, overseeing construction being carried out by about a half dozen arrancar and hollows specialized for the task. "I accelerated our timetables for working with the Remnans after the Soul Reapers' last incursion. Atlas had a man who was very interested in working with the few arrancar we had that could keep up with Szayelaporro's research.
"Oh, speaking of which," Ruby said, handing Harribel Yamamoto's letter.
Glancing through it, Harribel said, "Good job. Did you run into any difficulties."
"Tons!" Ruby said. "I was nearly stabbed to death by their ninja!"
"The one with the, Gin called it, 'Two-Hit Kill'?"
"That's her!" Ruby replied.
"Well, you won't have to worry about her for a while," Harribel said as she pocketed the letter. She directed two of the arrancar with a gesture, and continued "I would like you to sleep in doctor Polendima's lab tomorrow, then send your human half over to him."
"What for?" Ruby asked.
"He's our soul researcher. Like I said, we accelerated a number of our timetables. You'll find his lab through the first Garganta on the left."
"The giant grey portal thing?" Ruby asked. "Like, a permanent one?"
"One of a number of things he was able to make a breakthrough on," Harribel said. "Not nearly as... efficient or accurate as yours, but very practical for getting to and from Hueco Mundo."
"Neat," Ruby said. "How'd you get everything up and running so fast? Don't these things usually take a while?"
"I showed Atlas's council the video of Kenpachi's battle with Grimmjow," Harribel said. "We both agreed it was in our best interests to have a defense against Soul Society." Harribel huffed. "I should be thanking the Soul Reapers. If they hadn't returned, we would have been arguing diplomacy for years instead of hours. Did you know that none of their Kingdoms even have kings? What kind of Kingdom doesn't have a king?"
"Well, yeah, I live here," Ruby explained. "They used to have kings a long time ago, but over time each of them evolved their own form of representative democracy."
"What's a democracy?" Lilynette asked. The other Hollows glanced at Ruby as well as they worked, pretending not to be interested. Harribel especially; while she didn't show any outward interest, she also stopped giving out commands to the other workers.
Oh boy, where to begin. "Well, a democracy is this thing where all the people vote for who they want to lead them."
"So they vote on which of them is the most powerful?" Lilynette asked. "Wouldn't it be easier for the arrancar to just fight each other then? Why would voting be a good way to determine strength?"
"They aren't voting to see which person is the strongest, they're voting for the person that will best support the things they want," Ruby explained.
"But what happens when one of them is way stronger than the others and kicks the guy everyone voted for out?" Lilynette continued.
"Well, the people follow their leader because they chose their leader, so the leader has a bunch of strong people that are loyal to him." Then Ruby glanced at Harribel. "Or her. Like with Harribel here. Starrk follows Harribel not because she's stronger than him, but because she's better at leading than him."
"But what if someone stronger than the leader decides to just kill the leader?" Lilynette asked.
"Well," Ruby went on to explain to the now near-silent construction yard, "The thing is lots of people like the leader because they voted for him, so lots of strong people defend the weak leader, and the weak leader organizes the strong people so that they're all fed and happy."
"That's just," Lilynette said, looking for words. "That just sounds so unstable to me! The leader could be taken out by any old schmuck with the power to get through his supporters!"
"Yeah, well, humans don't become as strong as espada, so none of the humans really stand out so much that any one of them could pull that off," Ruby said. "Ideally. Admittedly, it's not as stable as Baraggan's reign, but it shouldn't be because humans die after a while, and Baraggan lived for what, thousands of years?"
Lilynette just looked at Ruby, before saying "Humans are really bad at this whole government thing."
"Hey," Ruby defended, "It got us ice cream! You didn't see any ice cream in Hueco Mundo when it was just a strong guy telling everyone what to do!"
Lilynette huffed. "I still say monarchy is the way to go."
VVVVVV
Blake was mortified.
Yesterday, she decided to try out Urahara's invisibility and flight candy on the roof of the Beacon dorms.
It turned out only half of what the man advertised was true.
So today, her picture was on the front page of the Vale Sun. Alongside the headline "Flight of Fancy".
She tried to pass it off as her semblance. She tried. It's just that, the picture of her was so memorable. Everyone remembered the girl hovering, reclined, over Beacon, casually reading a book as a chain lay through her heart.
"Sup Blake," Yang said, a copy of the newspaper in front of her as she munched on her cereal. "I thought you just did doppelgangers. Have you been holding out on us?"
Blake buried her head in her hands as Yang read aloud, "Blake Belladonna, first year Beacon Student, shocks hundreds by displaying a previously unseen version of flight. Researchers baffled about semblance which allows for casual flight. According to one expert who wished to remain anonymous, it is an advanced application of magnesis via the chain on her chest, but others at Vale University assert that the stresses on the chain make that explanation impossible."
Yang put down her paper. "How'd you do it Blake?"
Dropping her hands, Blake said, "Remember when Ruby took us all to Hueco Mundo?"
"Yeah," Yang said, turning serious.
"One of her friends created a candy that lets you have an out-of-body experience. You know, like a ghost," Blake said, tossing Yang a Pez dispenser with a bunny head. "The effect was supposed to let you fly, and make you invisible to ordinary people," Blake added. "Clearly that half of the product's effect was exaggerated."
"No kidding," Yang said, examining the dispenser. "Did anything else happen?"
"Tons. I'll explain it all back in the room," Blake said. "If you really want to know."
Yang grimaced at Blake with a resigned reply, "Honestly, I don't want to know. But she is my little sister." Then her grimace turn into a grin as she added, "Well Blake, hope you enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame!"
Blake groaned in response.