I'm almost done writing the rest of this arc, and it looks like it'll take us to about Chapter 65, before another break comes, and then the finale. For now enjoy the trash that I give you.


Part I

Is it weird that waking up to a strange ceiling isn't so strange to Rukia, nowadays? She sure feels like it is… isn't? She wasn't awake enough for this, right now.

Rukia felt sore, albeit not as sore as she ought, considering what she just went through. For a moment she considered just closing her eyes again, to shut it all out, but the moment passed, and she found herself staring frustratedly at that "strange" ceiling.

"Fucking finally," Jaegerjaquez grumbled.

She squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the snarl of the figure looming above her.

"I mean, first you get your ass kicked by Dordoni of all fucking people, and now you've wasted my entire evening napping. I got half a mind to kill you on the spot just for that!" He grabbed her by the arm dragging her upright with little warning.

"Hey!" she yelped.

A mousy attendant walked up shyly, near-whispering when they said, "E-excuse me, sir, the patient is supposed to…"

The glare Jaeagerjaquez sent shut them right up. He followed it with an eyeroll. "She's fine," he shrugged off. "Look: standing and everything."

"You're the one that dragged me out of bed!" she yelled up at him.

"Well, someone had to! I don't have time to watch you lie around and mope!"

"Mope?!" she choked out. "You, ugh! I won that fight!"

He scoffed, already halfway out the door, "Obviously. You're still breathing."

Rukia made about five different noises of disbelief in between them entering the hall and him literally tossing her into her quarters.

"And that was against his released form!" she said pettily, "and somehow you're STILL–!"

She cut herself off, hands tearing through her hair. Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline talking but she felt completely and utterly done.

"I wonder what your release form is, Grimmjow," she snarked. "I was thinking dog, you know, since you're all bark and no bite and always do what you're told!"

His hand tensed on the door frame, cracking it. "What?!" He slammed the door so hard it closed despite the poor fit.

Good, she smirked. I have his attention.

"You never did answer my question," she said, lowly. "Why a Shinigami? Why follow him?"

"You little…" he huffed out a sigh, shoving his still twitching hand into his pocket. "Fine, if only to shut you the fuck up…"

Rukia's heart nearly skipped a beat. She didn't expect that to work.

"If us Hollows know one thing, it's power," he started. That was something Rukia had more or less figured on her own. "Power is something that ba… I mean, Lord Aizen has a lot of. We don't love it. That's just how it is. That good enough for you?"

Rukia frowned. "But… if you don't like it, I mean, there's no way he can overpower all of you, is there?"

Grimmjow let out a laugh, harsh and unforgiving. "You really don't know how things work around here, do you? Just go back to sleep. Breakfast comes in the morning and all that. Next fight is same time tomorrow. Try not to suck so hard again."

Without saying anything more he stalked out, shoulders in a deep hunch, and despite learning something new, Rukia couldn't bring herself to be happy about how the conversation turned out. Convincing him may be tougher than she first thought.

Of course, she didn't do what he ordered. Who had time for sleep when their life would be on the line tomorrow? She had far too much work to do…

"I disagree with that one," her Hollow said from the vanity mirror at the wall. "I don't think you sucked that hard."

"Thanks," Rukia said dryly. "I can't guarantee the same for the next fight, though. We have no idea who was there, who was watching. For all we know my next opponent was there." She let out a deep sigh. "If only I could get a sword, or, you know, something sturdier than an ice cube."

"There's always the option of letting me out to play," she said slyly. "Letting some nobody have it sounds like my type of fun."

"I've explained, already, I can't just… wait!" She bolted up to her feet. "That might not be a bad idea!"

"…Wait, what?"

"What are you going to do, run? Worst case scenario you cause a bit of destruction, hardly my problem," Rukia scoffed. "Besides, you have a better grasp on Sode's abilities than I do. It's brilliant!"

"…You're joking, right?!"

Rukia ignored her. "So, what if I have to wrestle back control? That's better than being dead."

"…She's not even listening to me…"

"You get to have your fun, consequence free, and I get through the next fight. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I… yes?" she stuttered out, looking near dismay. "I didn't think you'd actually go for it. Okay! Yeah, let's do this!"

Rukia grinned, her reflection grinning back. For once, they were on the same page, and it felt good.

Part II

Everything was timed carefully, or as carefully as it could be in a realm where all sense of time was lost.

The switch took place right after the evening meal, right before their "escort" was scheduled to arrive.

"Follow Grimmjow, and don't mouth off to him." Shaking her head Rukia corrected herself. "In fact, don't speak to him at all, if you can help it."

"Yes, mom."

Rukia stiffened. "Hey, do you want your playdate or…" She trailed off at the sound of cowering Fracción in the distance. That was their cue. "Careful with my bo–"

She didn't even get to finish the word. She had already been pushed back into her inner world, a frozen landscape staring her in the face.

"Of all the idiotic…!" Sode was ranting and raving, pacing the ice right behind her wielder. Rukia scrambled around so quickly she nearly slipped, only to have a very upset ice spirit glare down at her.

"…What?" Rukia asked awkwardly.

Sode hissed, "Trust your body to the psychopath. I'm sure this will end well."

Rukia opened her mouth, closed it, and stared at the ground, crossing her arms. It seemed like a good idea at the time. She refused to go back on it, now.

"Are you going to help me with our Zanpakuto or not?" she asked stubbornly.

The Spirit walked away, sigh only recognizable by the fog that wafted up into the air. She held a hand out and with a flick of her wrist summoned her sword.

"If I must," she pouted. "It's not like there's much else to do with that one running the show."

Rukia chased after excitedly, before slowing. "Wait… you're not going to just fight me until I figure it out by myself, right?"

"Though it would make me feel better…" Rukia froze, "there's not much point to it." She turned to her wielder expression solemn. "Learning this will not be like learning the dances."

Rukia nodded, committing every word to memory.

"You are aware your powers are not that of a Shinigami… right?"

"The second personality was a bit of a hint," she said wryly.

"But it's not like that of the Visoreds, either," Sode said. "You are living. They are not. This will always be a key difference. If anything, circumstances have led you to mimic the powers of the dead. The Hollow and I were mere byproducts of this. If you had lived and died normally, perhaps you would have met one or both of us with time, but…"

"But…" Rukia was starting to feel overwhelmed.

Sode paused, mulling over her words, choosing them carefully. "Your friend, Renji. It would be much more apt to compare you to him. He is living, but he mimics the power of a Hollow."

"I…" Rukia shook herself. "I'm having a hard time following. How does this get me to learn the technique?"

"Your friend doesn't need to turn to a different form to access his powers. He just needs to capture a feeling. You must do the same."

"A… feeling," Rukia trailed off. "I… How do I do that?"

"You already have."

Rukia looked up at her, something sticking in her chest. She already had; she knew without even thinking. But what was that feeling?

"I felt angry," she said, "frustrated."

"You feel that now," her Zanpakuto scolded. "Are you any closer to forming a sword?"

"I don't know!"

"Then dig deeper! I did not ask you to describe a base emotion. What were you feeling?"

Rukia thought… Then she shrunk into herself. "I felt like I wasn't enough," she said quietly. "Like I needed to do more, be more."

"And now?"

"And now I'm feeling it more than ever!" she snapped. "I can't do anything! I'm just stuck here as Aizen's goddamn puppet. I… was so afraid of dying I did something stupid…"

Sode walked up to Rukia, resting a cold hand on her shoulder. "Do you understand, now?"

She wasn't sure if she did. All she knew was that she needed to fight.

…needed to fight…

I need to fight…

"I need to fight!"

In her hands was her sword pristine and white. She looked down at it, amazed.

"See, I can be nice," Sode said with a smirk.

"…Thank you."

"Thank me when the fight's over. We're both still stuck here until the Hollow is done."

"…Right," Rukia said shakily. She hoped she hadn't made a horrible mistake.

Part III

The feeling of taking control of the human's body was something difficult to describe in human terms, though if she were to try and come close…

It was like she imagined driving a "car" would be like, versus sitting in the passenger's seat. She was seeing and hearing all the same things from both spots, but in only one did she have the ability to set the course, to decide what they would do and how they would get there.

And for once she didn't have to take the driver hostage to do this. Finally!

The Hollow stretched out her fingers, flexed her shoulders, and cricked her neck. It all felt smooth, no resistance, no tension. It felt nice.

Behind her the door slammed open, and she didn't even have to look back to know it was him, the loudmouthed one with the hair that resembled Rukia's used toothbrush.

He was alright, as Arrancar went.

"Get your ass in gear, we're mo–" he cut himself off with a frown the second he laid eyes on her, or rather her mask. "Someone's eager," he mumbled.

"You're one to talk," she smiled back. He shot her a crooked grin, one just barely tinged with nerves.

"Whatever. Move or Aizen's having both our asses for breakfast."

She stared at him for a moment longer, watching him squirm, before standing up with a flourish, hands brushing off imaginary dust from her white uniform. With a skip she followed the Arrancar out.

"So…" she drawled, "who am I up against? They any good?"

"All the Privaron are fucking weaklings," he snapped. "The piss poor job you did in that last fight makes me embarrassed to have a grudge against you."

"Good to know, good to know," she said, eyes raking across the walls.

He looked at her strangely. "Hey, could you maybe stop doing that?"

"Doing what?" she asked, batting her eyelashes at the man. This sent a shiver down his spine.

"Acting like…" he trailed off, leaning in suddenly, nose wrinkling before he drew back sharply. "You're not." He took a good step and a half back. "Just when I thought you couldn't get any fucking weirder–!" Still, he continued on their way.

"Please," she scowled, struggling to keep pace. Curse these short legs! "If anything, you're the weird one, here. I've got, what, three souls knocking around in this body? How many did you eat to get where you are, again?"

"Gods, you're a pain in the ass," he glared. They turned the corner to the same hidden door as last time, and oh boy the Hollow could feel her excitement rising.

"Yeah, but I'm your pain in the ass," she said, eyes not leaving the stone, "at least until daddy gets tired of you."

Unsurprisingly she found herself shoved through the door, face first, the stone closing loudly behind her. She couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of this whole situation as she dragged herself up, brushing the sand off her pants.

She stood to a perturbed, whispering crowd. Aizen, and of course his right-hand man, were the only ones that looked any shade of pleased. In fact, they looked godsdamned tickled pink, the bastards.

(She would be sure to make the show something special, just for them.)

There were no declarations this time, though she may have not been paying enough attention to tell. The fanfare was nonexistent. Aizen just cocked his head, and across the arena another door opened. The Arrancar that walked through it looked like she might be interesting.

She certainly looked confident, something that could be a turn on, or turn off, depending on the Hollow's mood. Her pigtails swung subtly as she twirled her oddly shaped Zanpakuto around her. It wasn't like any weapon that the Hollow had seen before. If anything it reminded her of this human kid's toy. What was it called, again…?

The toy came down with a crack, the Hollow darting up and landing safely on a ledge.

The Hollow let out a gasp. "Yo-yo!" she cried happily. "That's what that thing is!"

"Excuse me?" the girl hissed. With a careful motion she sent the yo-yo into the Hollow once again, cracking it over and over, and missing every time. Her frustration was visible. "You're fast," she grumbled.

"Not really," she sing-songed.

"And cocky," the Arrancar frowned. Then, she plastered on a smile, as fake as her eyelashes. "I'm Cirucci Sanderwicci, and I have a prediction. I will not have to move a single centimeter from this spot to kill you."

She cracked her weapon one more time, decimating a section of the wall.

"So far so good," the Hollow agreed, safely landing right behind Cirucci. She let loose a spray of icicles, whistling as the toy came back to block just in time. When it rounded again to strike her, she skated back, literally.

The Hollow moved back gracefully on crafted paths of ice, dodging Cirucci's blows expertly. She had none of the same reservations as the human towards using their powers. Keeping all your limbs intact while using frost was just a matter of controlling the flow of Reiryoku, and even if they did get a little frosty, big whoop. That was battle for you.

So when the toy touched down on one of those paths, breaking through it, she felt no hesitation in cranking up that flow to encase it in ice, leaping at the Arrancar with an improvised dagger, forcing her back those few precious centimeters.

Cirucci blocked successfully in the end, toy whipping up just in time, but still, the Hollow enjoyed that little victory.

Cirucci did not. "You little…" she growled out.

"Little what?" the Hollow asked innocently, touching down to the ground, fingers buried in the sand. "Little bitch? Human? Maybe you didn't get the memo, but she isn't here right now."

And this was where the fun truly began for the Hollow. This is what she had been waiting for all this time. She sent a huge wave of Reiryoku through the field, spikes jutting from all directions toward the Arrancar.

"Rip! Golondrina!" Cirucci yelped, and much to the Hollow's disappointment most of her projectiles were brushed off by the Arrancar's newly grown steel wings, only a scant few managing to burrow into her legs. With a pained growl she flew up.

"Interesting," the Hollow said with a grin. It stayed plastered on even as the Arrancar's tail darted forward, knocking the Hollow to the ground and pinning her there, over a dozen feather-blades pointed right at her.

"G-guess I should have known better," Cirucci stuttered out, "than to play with my food… I'll make this quick."

"But… Cirucci," the Hollow wheezed, "that's the fun bit." An icy hand went up to the tail, freezing it from the tip up. Eyes widening the Arrancar darted back, two blades flying forward, the Hollow somersaulting away.

The distress in Cirucci's eyes as she saw the frost spreading was wonderful, nearly as wonderful as the determined look she had when with a flex of her wings she sliced it off.

"No big deal," she said shakily, sweat dripping from her forehead. "Ranged fighting was always my strong suit, anyway."

The Hollow smirked, and with a twirl of her fingers manifested a fully formed Shikai. "Then by all means." She darted forward, slicing through a spindly guarding appendage, and darted back when a wing came down in retaliation.

She dodged away from one, two, three projectiles, and for a moment the thrill of it all had fully set in.

Cirucci may not have been much, but she was desperate, and it showed in everything from her reckless moves to the carefully concealed fear in her eyes. Still, the Hollow could tell somewhere, deep down, the Arrancar had held onto hope.

Now this, I can work with.

The fourth projectile came crashing down, and with a stumble the Hollow dodged forward, covering a grimace with a grin as she sealed a deep gash on her back with a layer ice. She fell to her knees, noting Cirucci's sharp inhale.

With a simple icicle in hand, the Hollow darted forward, piercing straight through Cirucci's middle, that breath turning into a noiseless gasp. The frost spread quickly, mercilessly, and writhing on the ground the Arrancar died slowly, frost barely reaching her neck before she stopped twitching altogether. The Hollow savored every moment.

Battle over, she looked back to the still murmuring crowd, and then to the smiling snake-bastard whispering into his leader's ear. Aizen had a grin that practically split his face in half, nodding in agreement to whatever his lacky was saying. The third… he had no expression in particular. He just solemnly stood by.

She disrupted them by throwing an icicle right at Aizen's head.

The snake-bastard's blade was out in a moment, extending to shatter the projectile.

"Bakudo Number One, Sai!" the blind one roared, and the Hollow found herself slammed into the earth. "You insolent whelp! I should kill you right now for even daring–!"

A loud piercing sound interrupted him, an alarm, the Hollow realized with glee. The timing couldn't have been better.

"INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS! …"

The declaration droned on in time with her deranged laughter, the crowd's murmurs rising to outright shouts.

"Aizen!" she yelled over them all. "He who thinks he can control the Hollow! You're a dead man walking, you hear me! You and every other coward in this damned place!"

She was dragged away by the guards, the alarm still ringing in her ears, and her belly aching from the force of her laughter. The Shinigami, those losers Rukia called friends, they were coming. It was only a matter of time, now.


I've really been enjoying the stream of reviews coming in. It's been my replacement for all the cancelled conventions. I almost don't want to name drop any others that I might be attending early next year, for fear that they'll be next. Either way I love you all, and I hope this new chapter was to your liking. (Your comments give me life.)

Also, if the shorter chapters got you down, get ready.