Chapter 14: First Encounter

We get our sleep. It's as we're walking up, though, that I find out Destiny goes to sleep naked. She throws off her cover to reveal she's wearing nothing but her birthday suit and I immediately start bleeding out.

"Destiny! Put some clothes on now!" Kim shouts.

"Sorry!" Destiny says in a casual tone. "I thought I was doin' you a favor. Geez."

"If it's alright with you, make it a favor that involves clothes next time. Or at least give me a heads up. I don't have an infinite amount of blood, you know." I say as I clean up my nose with loads of tissue and start cleaning the blood off the floor. Once everything calms down, we repair the ceiling and decide the paint the walls today. The problem is that the girls want to paint the walls of the living room a different color.

"DARK BLUE!!" Destiny shouts

"LIGHT YELLOW!" Kim counters.

"WELL, TAGE, WHICH ONE IS IT!?" They turn on me. I want it to go back to the traditional brown that was here 'til the fluids destroyed it.

"Well how about this: You guys paint your room whatever color you want and the living room will match the rest of the house."

"Yeah, that'll work." Destiny says

"I will agree." Kim says. What they don't realize is that the rest of the house is the traditional brown. And they don't figure that out 'til we're home with the paint. After I've gotten them to agree to it on paper. "That is underhanded!"

"And Unohana-taicho's torture methods aren't?" I counter. We're about two seconds front touching the brush to the wall when a gigantic reiatsu shows up. And the worse part is it's so familiar that I'm feeling pain all over my soul and I feel my eyes become waterfalls without my permission. "This is it." I say, my voice cold steel even as the tears continued to fall off my cheeks. "Get out of the gigai. NOW!" At my command they jump out of their gigai and I remove myself from my body and we charge out the door. Kim stops to lock the door on the way out and I give her a stare so cold that she actually started wrapping her arms around herself. I wanted to go full blast to get to her before she disappeared, but some part of my mind was still rational and screamed at me not to leave the girls alone, so I shunpo'd at roughly their speed. In a matter of seconds we reach my mom and see she's one of those humanoid Hollows.

"An Arrancar." Kim whispers

"You expected my mom to be so weak she'd stay a Hollow?"

"Mom? Hmmm..." the Arrancar says. Her voice is exactly how I remember it: Her sweet, Floridan accent, the pen point accuracy of her words as if she was thinking of her words long before you even said anything, and the underlying emotion you have to learn to listen for. This one says curiosity. Because of this, Mom could never hide her emotions from us. Her appearance is almost nothing like Mom's though. Mom's face was gentle and had laugh lines and had soft brown eyes that felt like they were healing your soul. This Arrancar has a steel plated face with Mom's sleek, waist length black hair covered partially at the top by half a mask that looked like it was under used and her eyes look like they are trying to cut me even before she draws her sword. Below the face everything is the similar though: The awkward way she stands, the way she absent-mindedly crossed her arms in front of her average chest- much like the way I do- the muscle-y yet smooth and slim figure. Hell, even the fingernail length was right. I'd know since Mom was VERY specific about the length of her nails: 3 millimeters from the tip of her finger. Any higher meant extra training sessions, any lower meant harsher and more frequent training sessions and we didn't want either of those.

"Aaah, yes. I remember you." Mom says, breaking me from my memories and causing me to go for Darius (there was NO WAY I was using Mana on Mom). I caught the underlying fury in her voice. "Tsh. I guess I need to find better help. I thought for sure Asesino would get all of you." That one sentence sent my heart flying to the farthest regions of sorrow imaginable. Tony trying to kill me is one thing, I hardly knew the man and he was considered one of my enemies, but Mom sending assassins TO me instead of AWAY, that tore me apart. I barely could keep standing, could feel my hand slipping from Darius.

"OY! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!!!" Mana commands. All the rest of my family is silent. Kim is tearing up for me and Destiny looks about two seconds from foolishly punching Mom in the face, but Mana sounded completely unaffected. "This is the Hollow talking to ya, not your mother. She is making you either drop your guard or charge blindly. You can't allow her to do either. CLEANSE HER AND MOVE ON!" she rages. That snaps my heart back. That's right! This has got to be the Hollow in Mom saying this! The sooner I cleanse her, the sooner all of us can laugh this off. I draw Darius and imitate Byakuya's move where he moves at extreme speeds and stabs spirit points. Unfortunately, Mom is too fast and Darius is ripped from my hands. I don't think she thought Darius was a tsurugi since his back edge cut through her skin. She yelps in surprise, backs up and releases Darius

"Geez, Mom could always find a way to cut herself on anything." I mutter as I catch the falling tsurugi

"Get this straight, Kazumi O..." Mom started in fury.

"Dammit, don't use my full name like that!" I quake. Whenever Mom used our full names, we were royally screwed. I still can't stand to hear my full name by anyone older than me to this day.

"OK, then, Montage!" I am not Bilicot Mary! I am Arrancar No.137, 'Analgesico' Existencia Olvida, partner to Asesino Muerto!" She declares, rushing at me so fast I can barely see it, much less defend against it.

So I am very surprised when Kim yanks me to safety, only getting a little cut on her arm in the process.

"Shit!" Destiny yells. She grabs me and tries to run away. I stop her by tripping her.

"What's your fucking problem!?" You gonna leave Kim?" I shout. She looks at me like a relative has died or something.

"Kim IS the problem."

"What?"

"You see, she's kinda got Dissociative Identity Disorder and it shows every time she gets cut."

"Woah, back up. What the hell is Dissociative Identity Disorder?"

"She's got split personality."