Aracelis stomped her foot down again, the Arrancar under foot involuntarily grunting as his face smashed farther into the tiled floor. Off to the side she heard one gasp in surprise, the other two remaining quiet as they indifferently watched their fellow servant being beat into the floor. At least one seemed to understand that she was now in charge.

"Do you really think you can just run around, smashing apart the place, when you get into a spat with another damn idiot?" she hissed out through gritted teeth. "Huh? You think you get to do whatever the hell you want? That there's no consequences?"

The Arrancar forced out a half-laugh through the pain of tenuously holding onto a single scrap of remaining life. He earned another stomp into the ground for it. His mask shattered under the abuse, the Arrancar barely holding back a pained screech as shards scattered about the floor.

She was completely and utterly frustrated with the damn servants, the one under her foot only one of many. Three days in and she was done with their crap. None of them listened to her. Worse, she was a damn joke to them. A few of them had the guts to outright tell her that they wouldn't listen to some woman. They were slashed in half before they had time to say another word. When she tried to order a few around they ignored her. Their blood was quickly spattered across the white ground. Two she sent through a wall because they wouldn't stop fighting each other when she ordered them to do so, both dead from near-disintegrated bones. One had foolishly attacked her outside, it incinerated in a cero before it got anywhere close to hitting her. Despite the ten plus she killed, with witnesses, she wasn't worthy of respect or fear by reputation. Apparently the rest were just too stupid to catch that she wouldn't tolerate their insubordination.

Didn't help that the Espada were all cooped up in meetings with Aizen the last two days. The moment the Espada left, the servants thought it was a damn free-for-all because she just wasn't scary enough. Now, Ulquiorra, they were terrified of him. It had been hilarious when he had shown her around Las Noches because the servants either ran away the second they sensed Ulquiorra, or they just became bumbling, quaking fools as they attempted to go about their work. One had tripped and fallen flat on their face because they were trying to speed-walk the opposite direction while their knees knocked hopelessly together in fear. Too bad they didn't react to her that way. That would be endlessly entertaining. And less frustrating.

With all she had already killed, she was unsure how many more would be counted 'necessary' casualties. The last thing she wanted to do was piss off Ulquiorra. Not when she had managed to get back on what she assumed was his good side- he hadn't threatened her with death recently, at least. If she wasn't careful she would be the one on the ground in a bloody heap, though.

That was the only reason the one squirming beneath her foot still breathed. She wanted to kill him. She should kill him. But that doubt in the back of her mind, it kept her from finishing off the defiant Arrancar. If this was the one that pushed her into the bounds of being in trouble herself…

Oh, just kill the bastard already. The biting tone of her instinct decided it was time to intervene with her deliberations. Do you honestly think such a disobedient whelp should be kept alive after directly disobeying orders? Keeping him alive will kill whatever fear and respect you've garnered with these idiots.

Well, yeah, but she already knew that. Her instinct literally ignored that making Ulquiorra mad would be worse than-

Quit worrying about him. If he's as intelligent as he was in the past, he will recognize that you will need to eliminate any who disrespect you until you establish that you are not someone to be messed with. I'm getting irritated. Just kill the stupid thing already.

"You too afraid to kill me?" the shaking voice of the Arrancar asked, reaching a hand up in a sad attempt to remove her foot from his face. "You're such a pathetic bi-"

Blood spattered across the floor, the wave accompanied by the sickening crunch of bone under foot and the muted screech of one of the onlookers. She stepped over the body into the growing red puddle on the ground.

Without turning, she addressed the three other servants. "You really should start listening to me." After dragging her feet a few steps to rub off some of the blood from her shoes, she paused to glance over her shoulder. "Be sure to clean up that damn mess or I'll add you to it."

With that, she resumed stalking down the hall, ready to find the next problem that she needed to deal with.

See, that wasn't hard, was it? Just keep killing them and-

"Shut up," she grumbled. There was no way she was about to listen to her instinct gloat about being right for the next hour. She hoped the stupid voice would keep quiet because blocking it out took more concentration than she wanted to use on such a ridiculous thing.

Damn voice needed to go away again. She'd enjoyed its relative silence when she had been sitting around the human world. After a while it had given up on trying to convince her to go back to Hueco Mundo, especially if she fed off hollows occasionally to placate its demands. Now it had returned with more attitude and aggravation than ever. Ordering her around… Man was it annoying to be nagged by her own instinct. Made her wonder if other hollows had to put up with such a thing, or if their instincts just naturally coincided with what they wanted to do. If she wanted to do something it would occasionally show up to yell at her to do the opposite or just berate her for her own stupidity while she went about her business. It was like a damn flea was trying to order around a dog.

She crossed her arms over her chest, continuing down another non-descript hall in the white prison of Las Noches. Honestly, she just wanted to go outside for a bit. And not to the fake sky on the dome ceiling, either. The eternally dark night sky at least allowed her the delusion of not being stuck in a soul reaper ruled palace amuck with obnoxious hollows. Hard to believe it was only day four-she didn't count however long she'd been unconscious after the Hogyoku- with how done she felt with the place. She would go insane if she-

Her balance was thrown off as she collided with something reminiscent of a wall. As she tipped backwards, however, she met green eyes. Before she could fall completely, he grabbed her wrist, roughly jerking her back to her feet. Without a word Ulquiorra began pulling her along with his hand still trapping her wrist.

"Did you have to do that?" she whined half-heartedly, distracted. He appeared to be in somewhat of a hurry. Why else would he decide to just drag her along instead of waiting for her to figure out she was supposed to follow like he usually did? "Can't just appear in front of someone without warning. Did you know running into you is like running face first into a brick wall?"

No response. He just kept on walking, either ignoring her or caught up in his own thoughts. For once, she actually thought he was distracted. His grip on her wrist remained. By now he would have usually released his hold because she got the memo to follow- the extended physical contact was weird for him.

Not that she minded much. He wasn't crushing her wrist so there was no real reason to protest. Anyone else, though, and she knew she would have freed herself by now no matter if that meant taking off a hand. He would always be her exception to her self-made, hollow rules of conduct. Obviously he had a similar exception for her because she was still alive after repeatedly getting on his nerves with her 'nonsensical behavior' and her 'irritating tendency to ask questions endlessly.'

Even after a few more corridors' worth of walking, he stayed quiet. Whatever he had in mind, he seemed to be leading her outside.

"Ulquiorra, where are we going?" Anything but sword training. The last two times he had attempted to teach her how to use her sword had resulted once in her nearly losing an arm, the other with her sword a fraction away from being broken in half. She was beginning to believe she frustrated him immensely with how bad she was with her sword. She wouldn't mind simply sparring though; that'd actually be fun, like the old days. "Ulquiorra?"

"We are leaving Las Noches to-" he began, only to have her interrupt.

"Really?" She didn't hide her excitement. "What are we doing?" Despite there being a zero percent chance, she wanted him to say they were escaping. But, even if she knew that wasn't the case, being away from the grand prison would do.

He turned his head just enough to give her a sideways glance for her interruption. Had she kept quiet, he would be done explaining already. At that point he noticed he still held her wrist captive, dropping his hand to return in to his pocket before explaining what was going on to his overly zealous subordinate.

"Lord Aizen has given us a task. Two days ago, a large settlement of hollows reluctant to Lord Aizen's rule was located. I have elected to take you along."

He was hesitant to leave her in Las Noches, especially because Harribel would also be a part of this operation. If Aracelis was left without someone familiar, it became likely that she would grow bored and seek out trouble. With her, she would pick a fight with an Espada, getting herself killed with her idiocy. Bringing her into battle would likely be safer considering her tendencies.

He had resolved to keep her alive until he figured out the exact reason for her conflicting skills and odd spiritual energy. Certainly he did not do this out of concern for her well-being. At least he had convinced himself of such. Once he learned what he wanted, she became completely expendable, especially if her abilities were proven useless. He would allow her to get herself killed in whatever way she managed in that event. If anything he should kill her himself considering all of the problems she caused for him, his reduced judgment when around her one such issue.

"Our goal is to locate any hollows with useful abilities," he continued, "and to eliminate those I deem worthless."

"What ranks are we going after? Can't imagine that you've missed Vasto Lorde with how much time Ai… Lord Aizen has been creating this army." No one escaped conscription. Even she had eventually been drawn back to Hueco Mundo to end up a part of the mess. They'd also managed to find Ulquiorra. It was hard to imagine any other Vasto Lorde going about undetected.

"Adjuchas are what we will focus on bringing back, although the number of Guillian far exceeds the number of Adjuchas," he answered plainly, mission information something he didn't mind answering because it was important for her to know. Her trivial questions had a tendency of growing tiring, however. "I doubt any of the Guillian will prove useful; feel free to kill them at your discretion."

"Sweet," Aracelis muttered to herself happily. Perhaps a killing spree would lighten her mood a bit. It had been a long time since she had torn a mass of hollows apart for the hell of it. "Is this the last little rebel group, then?" Couldn't many of those left either. Aizen probably had rebellions quashed as soon as he became aware of any that could potentially cause any sort of problem to his plans. The final group of rebellious hollows were likely all that remained of the other groups.

"Presumably."

"Nice. That means they'll have a bunch of them gathered together as one final resistance against soul reaper rule." It'd be fun. For her. For the Guillian, not so much.

The Adjuchas probably had every Guillian they could find with them, the lower ranked not really having much of a choice. It was either follow the Adjuchas or follow Aizen, and they choose the natural response of 'soul reapers are the enemy and to be subjugated by them was both pathetically weak and utterly disgraceful.' If they placed any value of their lives, however, they would switch sides as soon as they saw Ulquiorra. The Espada were terrifying with how powerful they were.

But hollows were stubborn and prideful. Taking the Adjuchas alive and in working order would actually be quite annoying now that she thought about it. Killing was so much easier than recruiting the wholly unwilling. After the initial fight they'd have to drag them all the way back to Las Noches, too.

"Are we the only ones going?" she asked on that thought.

It'd be impractical for two people, no matter how strong, to bring back a group of rowdy, reluctant hollows. Time consuming as well considering that the hollows wouldn't even begin to match Ulquiorra's, or even her, speed. Regrettably, Aizen wasn't an idiot. He wanted this operation done with efficiency; why else send Ulquiorra and not someone else? Ulquiorra wouldn't dally. He'd also recognize a useless hollow from one with an ounce of potential. He had an unfortunate eye for assessing the skill levels of others; in two attempts of trying to train her he'd told her exactly what she was bad at down to the minutest detail, like a foot a fraction out of stance. It wouldn't be efficient to just send Ulquiorra, and by default, her.

"Harribel and her Fracción shall arrive after I complete my initial assessment of the hollows." That is why it irritated him when he had to hunt Aracelis down. They needed to leave before Harribel, arrive on location, and pick through the hollows before she caught up. While Harribel was clearly capable fighter, she-

"Oh, I get it. Harribel would want to keep them all, or at least try to. You'll sift through the garbage to find the talent, then ditch the trash instead of dragging it along with us back here." She held back a laugh when he slightly tensed with irritation towards her essentially calling him a dumpster diver. "Lord Aizen just wants the worthwhile ones, after all. That's why he's sending you, with all your analytics and reasoning skills." She paused for a second, adding as an afterthought, "Just thought I'd ask because I didn't want to drag back all of those hollows with just the two of us."

Perhaps she would have a chance to speak with Harribel finally. The last few days she had been in meetings or on opposite sides of Las Noches, surrounded by her obnoxious trio. Aracelis hadn't had the chance to ask Harribel if she'd figured out Ulquiorra was who she had been looking for, or how she ended in Aizen's army, or a bunch of random things, actually. They could have a decent conversation with all of the crap Aracelis wanted to know with the added bonus of not bothering Ulquiorra with all of her 'inconsequential' questions.

They turned another corner, Aracelis remembering that a staircase leading outside would be coming up soon. It'd taken no time to clear a lot of the twisting, nonsensical halls with the pace they were going.

"Are we in a rush or something?"

Ulquiorra fought sighing. She'd done it again. "You are suppressing your spiritual pressure."

After a second of being taken aback that he blatantly ignored her question, she began arguing. "I am… not…" she trailed off. She hadn't even noticed, nor did she know when she'd done it. Before the Hogyoku, she swore she had more control than this. Whatever that stupid gem had done had made her seem like an unobservant idiot. She was good at reading and sensing spiritual energy, so why the hell her own had suddenly become a secret to her pissed her off to no end.

"You need to be aware of this before it becomes a further inconvenience. I was forced to waste time tracking you down because your own ineptness. Had I not come across that Arrancar you killed, I would likely have left you behind instead of wasting more time looking for you."

He shouldn't have bothered with her, but, in order to test a new hypothesis, he needed to get her away from Las Noches. The need for this only became more obvious with her disappearing act. When around other hollows, the distortion of energy around her lessened or strengthened accordingly to mask her own completely. With the weaker hollows' spiritual pressures, she became a void entity as she drew in all of the radiant energy, a near undetectable distortion forming. Around him, he noticed that she could not draw in all of the energy, leaving a secondary trace of spiritual pressure surrounding her that was definitively his. No matter what, however, her own spiritual pressure seemingly disappeared unless she made a conscious effort to spike it. If he got her away from all of the spiritual energy present in Las Noches, he could see how far this effect stretched, perhaps isolating her signature with less interference.

She muttered "Sorry," under her breath despite actually being sincere about apologizing. "I honestly don't remember hiding my spiritual pressure. I understand that I can't keep using that excuse, either."

It was becoming frustrating for the both of them. She hadn't noticed that she had somehow managed to hide her spiritual pressure to the extent Ulquiorra had problems finding her. It'd annoyed him, too. For him to not be able to do something… She was surprised he had admitted to it. It had to be a sign he was completely done with her inability. She didn't like that. She… She didn't want him to think of her as an inconvenience not worth his time.

She smiled to herself. How absolutely pathetic she was. Letting herself be controlled by such a human sentiment as wanting to be liked while having zero control over her own hollow abilities. Her priorities were completely screwed up.

After a few silent moments of walking, and as they reached the stairs leading outside, she hesitantly asked, "You're… um… not mad about how many servants I've killed, right?" He had found the most recent mess, apparently. If anything, she just wanted to know how many more she could kill before she stepped out of his graces and into punishment.

For a few seconds the question hung in the air unanswered, the sound of their footsteps as they went up the stairs echoing in the narrow stairwell. Just as she opened her mouth to add excuses to her defense, he simply stated, "No."

"R-really?" she stuttered in surprise, her brows pushing together. "Damn, and here I thought I'd been on an unauthorized murder spree. Did you know this would happen?"

"I did expect this result. It will take time for them to recognize your authority over them. Until they learn to fear you, deaths are inevitable." He paused before adding, "The process would be shorter if you stop suppressing your spiritual pressure. Many of them are not intelligent enough to see that you are doing such, and likely perceive you as weak."

"I… I guess that might be part of the problem, huh?" What an embarrassing problem. She hadn't even considered that she would outwardly appear weak without her spiritual energy hanging about her as a show of power. Without that threat she must've seemed like a very regular human. What else had no spiritual pressure? She definitely needed to deal with this sooner rather than later. If she didn't she would remain a joke of a hollow. No wonder Ulquiorra didn't want her as a Fracción. She was a walking disaster of incompetency and idiocy.

I told you he wouldn't care. Instinct chimed in, using this as another moment to brag.

She could only mouth 'shut up' to the stupid voice, in no mood for additional taunting.

They reached the top of the stairs a few minutes later, the moonlight overhead almost bright after traveling through the darkened stairway. After taking a few steps out in the sand, Ulquiorra stopped to glance over his shoulder at Aracelis.

"I will leave you behind should you prove too slow to follow."

With that half-warning, he disappeared from sight, already speeding away. Aracelis panicked for a fraction of a second before launching herself through the air using sonido, determined to show him she could keep up and that she wasn't as useless as she was making herself seem lately. She caught up enough to see his back, maintaining a bit of distance in case he suddenly decided to stop. She'd call the pace a fraction more rigorous than leisurely, but this was a battle of endurance considering the distance they would have to cover. A rebel group could only survive far away from Aizen and the Espada, but, even then, they wouldn't live for long.

The merry trip to kill and capture had begun.


A/N- A day late and less than I planned, but it is done! Never procrastinate doing a 12 page research paper, it's not fun doing that in two days. I hope that the two talking isn't overly boring because that has been the last few chapters… I'm getting back to the action soon, I swear. The idea of going after rebel hollow settlements is from Nel and Nnoritra's past, so I decided to use it here. Just because I'm not sure if I'll get to use it, Aracelis is Arrancar 57.

And is Ulquiorra still in character? He's done a lot of talking lately, so… idk. His interest in Aracelis's abilities make sense to me because he seemed quite interested in Ichigo's abilities, but I could be wrong. Any feedback would help.

Thank you for reading!

Thank you LightFun27, Krystalana, and MarishkaTheUnderdog for favoriting and/or following!

Mari Clair Roemajji Celts- Yeah, I planned to do much more with that training last chapter, but because of time I didn't. At the same time, it makes sense because Aracelis is lot weaker in comparison, especially with her problems, so I was happy with it. Last chapter definitely focused on how they thought of each other, that's for sure. Thank you for reviewing again! (And I'm glad that you thought Ulquiorra running instead of answering was amusing despite it being something very odd for him to do.)

haipa-chan- Yeah, he's just so confused about her skills, to the point he'll make it an excuse to keep her around. And, as for Aizen, he knows more about Aracelis than Aracelis does, especially capability-wise. He did find her, after all. And, you know, he's Aizen, so he knows everything, apparently. Aracelis was in the human world for like, 100 years-ish, sort of during the time after the Visored were made and before Rukia's execution (I never did quite make a specific timespan because Aracelis wouldn't have an idea herself honestly- and I'm lazy). I love questions. Thank you for reviewing again!