I awoke to the sound of someone stomping on my trapdoor.
"Come on! Get up Sirviente! We have a job for you!" shouted the one with the horn. What was that she had called me? Sirviente? Oh well. If I was going to have a name, it may as well be that one. As I got up, I wondered what her name was. Either she was Apacci, Mila Rose or Sung-Sun. Hopefully I wouldn't get them confused.
Rolling out of bed, I threw one of the many uniforms in my cupboard and slid my spike into the sheath on my back as I wondered what I would be doing today. After clambering up the ladder, I saluted to the woman and waited her orders.
"We need you to go clean out some lesser hollows that are hiding in the basement level. Find them and clear them out." She said
"I... I don't think I'll even be able to do that ma'am." I said sheepishly.
"You dunce! D'you think we gave you those clothes for no reason? The fabric's got some kind of body altering magic in it or whatever. It'll give you the abilities of a half decent Arrancar, even though you've got to learn them yourself, so you'll be able to take those wimpy hollows out just fine with that spike of yours."
"I haven't had much practice though… I've never even used a weapon before."
"Good! This'll give you a chance to sharpen up, provided that you come back." She snorted "Now get going!"
"I- Yes ma'am."
As I turned to leave, my stomach groaned loud enough to wake the dead, leaving an awkward silence in the room.
"What was that?" she asked
"I think… I haven't eaten in a few days." I said, suddenly feeling the hunger eating through my stomach. The woman groaned and put her hand over her face in exasperation.
"Ugh, stupid humans and their stupid… Just grab something from the fridge and eat it while you go there!"
I was fortunate enough to receive directions to the basement level, so I was able to get there without much fuss. Chomping on a large melon while walking down one of the huge blue hallways of Las Noches, I ran into someone I didn't expect to see again.
"Hey, you're that human from the medical ward." said the blonde haired woman "What are you still doing here?"
"I'm… employed without pay, for lack of better term, to Mistress Harribel." I said "I'm just going to try to kill some hollows down in the basement."
"Hmph. You won't last a second against even lesser hollows." She said, folding her arms
"Geez, thanks for all the support." I said sarcastically, continuing on
"Hey!" shouted the woman, drawing my attention "You have a name yet, or is it still Great?"
"My name is Sirviente."
"Well, I think if you want to stay alive, you'd better know how to at least fire a Cero."
She pointed two of her fingers at a wall and concentrated. I saw a bright red ball of light form at the end of her fingers and after a small while, she fired it into the wall, boring a hole straight through it!
"How..?"
"Learning how to perform a Cero is only something you can do on your own." She said "So unless you suddenly know how to do it, you'll have to kill those lesser hollows with that toothpick of yours."
"Right." I said "Anything else?"
"Yeah. Be careful. I don't think Mistress Harribel would appreciate her new pet dying on its second day of consciousness."
With that, she walked away.
I had finally found the hollow I was supposed to be killing. After descending to the basement, I found the hollow almost immediately.
"Ha! Another human soul for my eternal feast!" hissed a lizard like hollow
I took my spear out from its sheath and readied it. The hollow only laughed in response.
"Fool! You think you can kill me?! My rock hard scales are impenetrable! I will devour you, like I have done for so many before!" he roared
Rushing in, I ducked under his first attack and stabbed at his leg, the large spike biting deep into the flesh.
The hollow roared and screamed in pain "What?! But… My scales! You shouldn't be able to cut me!"
"Well I just stabbed you." I said "Technically not the same thing."
"Die worm!"
He raked his claws over my shoulder, pain shooting through my nerves. I slashed at his other leg, swung again with the other end of my spike and stabbed upwards, into its mouth. Wrenching my spike free, the lizard hollow jumped back and rattled its tail. As it opened its mouth, a red ball of light began to form in its mouth.
Realizing what it was, I dived behind some rubble to avoid the beam of crimson energy. Scrambling back to my feet, I ran across the room to find a better position. The lizard hollow swiped at me with his tail, knocking the spike out of my hand and embedding it into the wall with a dull thud.
"Ha! Now you are defenceless! I'm going to savour every moment of my feast!"
My spike was too far out of reach. The hollow began to charge at me. Desperately, I raised both my arms, palms facing outward and touching at the wrist, feeling some form of energy gathering in my palms. As I realised what was happening, the hollow had drawn extremely close. I narrowed my eyes and uttered a single word.
"Cero."
A brilliant white beam tore through the back of the hollow, drilling into a nearby wall. The hollow in front of me stood there on its hind legs, completely immobilized.
"How the… But you're a human… Im-possible…" he groaned, falling to the ground with a crash. As I inspected the corpse, I heard someone clapping off to the side
"Impressive! I didn't think my Human Altering Fabric would be this effective." Said the man, stepping out of the shadows. The man appeared to be one of the odder people I had seen here, and that was certainly saying something. Though he appeared fairly normal, with glasses and a lanky sort of build, all normalcies were offset by his garish pink hair.
"Uh… Hello. Who might you be?"
"Well, I suppose it would be rude not to introduce myself." He smiled pleasantly "My name is Szayelaporro Granz, the eighth Espada."
"Sirviente, employed to Mistress Harribel."
"Ah yes. I've heard about you. A human wandering safely around Las Noches. How ironic." He laughed
"Is there something I can do for you?" I asked
"Well, you can tell me where you got this interesting weapon of yours." He said, tearing the spike from the wall
"I picked it up when I came here. A hollow attacked me, and I took one of its spikes it fired at me as a weapon." I said, shuddering at the horrible experience of having most of my blood spilled onto the unforgiving landscape
"Ah…" he said, pricking his finger on the end of it and looking at the blood on his finger in interest "it appears that this hollow was quite special."
"Why is that?"
"It seems that these spikes are able to pierce the Hierro of Arrancars." He explained "A Hierro is a kind of spiritual armour unique to Arrancars. It would seem it's powerful enough to cut straight through even an Espada's Hierro from what I'm seeing."
"Someone said that these clothes can give me some of the abilities of an Arrancar. Does that include Hierro?" I asked
"Yes, it is what I designed them for, at the request of Miss Harribel." He mused "You may also use High Speed Regeneration and Sonido, a technique that you have seen once before performed by Ulquiorra Cifer, the fourth Espada."
"What?! He was the fourth..? Wait, how do you know that I…"
"That is not important. What is important is that I know, and will continue to know whatever you do." He replied coldly, sending an icy shiver down my spine
"Y-Yes sir. May I go?"
"Yes." He said, tossing my spike like a javelin, embedding it into the rock "And be careful with that. Letting it fall into the wrong hands would be disastrous."
'Yes, but whose hands are wrong?' I thought to myself and I yanked my spike from the ground and climbed up the stairs
I sat in my room, waiting for my next job. I had thought up a name for my spike. I mean, it couldn't just be 'the spike' forever. So now, it was called Hierro Yaburu. My thoughts were interrupted when I heard someone banging on my trapdoor again. Sliding my spear back into its sheath, I climbed up the ladder to see the dark skinned woman.
"Yes ma'am?"
She handed me a mop and bucked "Go and clean out the girl's cell."
"Girl?"