A/N: Still under a month since I started!
I'd like to once again point out that not only do I not in any way own Bleach, but also that it's entirely possible I'll disappear one day for three years from this account before returning with a single new chapter. I'm not what they call…reliable in my writing. You have been warned.
It should also be noted that my language is foul. I use curse words…a lot. They just seem to fit.
I'd like to take the time to point out that there is not guaranteed pairing. Who ends up with who is really their decision. That's not say some pairings aren't more likely than others, though.
Also, this is a more hollow-centric fic. Will the shinigami play a role? Yes, but not at first. Sorry Ichi/Ruki fans, that's probably the least likely pairing. Though that may have more to do with the fact that I'm a sucker for the childhood friend pairing. Or maybe that, for no discernible reason, I just don't like the pairing. I don't dislike it, but I just don't feel an attraction to it.
Chapter 2: Setting the Stage, Part 2
At their core, hollows are creatures of instinct. No matter how highly evolved they are, no matter how well developed their conscious mind is, they will always listen to their subconscious mind first. It is their very nature to live by these "knee-jerk" reactions. This often leads to evil and savagery amongst the weaker hollows, and even the strongest are subject to baser urges for blood and death.
This, perhaps, more than anything, is the base reason for the unyielding hatred hollows and shinigami have for each other, with all other reasons being mere symptoms of this underlying cause. Shinigami are inherently logical and cerebral, sometimes to their detriment.
Regardless, this means that a hollow will trust its subconscious mind over its conscious mind. And while the conscious mind can forget, the conscious mind can be suppressed, the unconscious mind does not. It remembers even what reality itself has decreed invalid.
What a boring job. So, so dull. Day in, day out. Always in the same damn, grey, depressing warehouse. It was a warehouse split into two halves, each half filled with boxes. On the left were white boxes, on the right were normal cardboard boxes.
Oh, how Akio hated this place. He was supposed to be working in the army, or maybe as an up-and-coming manager in an international company. But no. His job was to remove little packets from the white boxes, then put them in the regular boxes. Finally, he sealed them up and put them in a special corner. The next day, those boxes were gone.
He'd been doing this for the last six months, and by all that was holy and unholy, he would kill the man who gave him this job. Nevermind the extensive contract that had him trapped legally into this job. Nevermind that he was paid exorbitantly enough to far beat any other career he could feasibly obtain. He would find a way out of this job even if it killed him.
And thus Akio continued his seemingly unimportant job. Across the world, in every major country, at least one person was doing the same job. All to complete but one part in plan I, Subset: Loss, Version: 372B, affectionately known as Plan Clusterfuck.
It is interesting the reactions his most trusted friends had to his request. Tatsuki seemed to be fighting from allowing "That" look from surfacing. It was a look she had perfected. It was a look that very clearly said, "No, my eyes are not watery, and if you say anything else, I will devote the rest of my life to ensuring your bones are forever in a state referred to as 'shattered'." It was a look that very, very rarely surfaced. But out it came. The contrast of the light-hearted conversation just prior and the request he'd made had destroyed all but her last bastion of emotional control.
Chad handed over his still half-full bag of chips, and continued to eat his sandwich. He preferred to leave the talking to others when prudent, and Tatsuki was sure to as more questions to cover what they needed to know. Besides, talking could wait until he finished his sandwich. Food could be sacred that way.
"So, who else knows about…this. I wouldn't want to accidentally tell anyone who shouldn't know what's going on if I can avoid it." Tatsuki seemed to have recovered, and, true to Chad's predictions, she seemed willing to cover more of his questions.
Ichigo shook his head, not really wanting to get into this. "No one. Not even Orihime and Ishida. Not yet. Some of the things that happened are too recent." He really didn't want to go into how he impaled Ishida, so purposefully left everything vague.
"Alright, I'll leave that story alone for a bit, but you better explain what you're talking about eventually!" Tatsuki conceded to his discomfort, not wanting to strain their still tenuous friendship further by pushing for what sounded like a grim tale. Just because Ichigo was in the wrong this time doesn't mean he couldn't lash out if she pushed too hard.
When he failed to react, however, her ire rose.
"Oi, Ichigo, are you listening?"
Ichigo was not, in fact, listening. His mind had completely shut down on seeing her prance in, following herself apparently. He didn't even know who she was. But that didn't stop him from focusing completely on her.
It was not because of her beauty that Ichigo was staring, though she was pretty. No, it had to be because she was wearing a sombrero, a Scottish kilt and a stereotypical Chinese shirt, while shaking maracas whilst singing the Macarena in what was clearly poorly faked Engrish. This while still following a clone of hers, who was in much more sensible clothing. That or just how familiar she seemed.
A name cam unbidden to his mind, one previously lost to his mind. Understandable, considering she was "unwritten" from reality.
"…Senna?"
This was torture.
10 minutes of clarity, of remembering all the suffering, of being reminded of how everything had gone wrong ever since that bastard Aizen had brought her to an even greater height of power.
Sure, he freed her from the worst of her incessant hunger, but that he allowed Nnoitra's and Szayel's plans to come to fruition eliminated that debt.
In fact, that is what led Neliel Tu Oderschvank to her current decision. She'd had enough. Her old life was one fraught with pain.
Thankfully, she had a very convenient semi-amnesiac child form she could escape into. Now, the only thing was to figure out where to go once the healers prepared by the provisional ruler healed her mask.
She didn't want this.
She'd made it clear: no one could truly rule Heuco Mundo the way it's supposed to be. All who wanted the power, were unworthy of it. All who would be good rulers didn't want the power.
Which was probably why she was in this mess. Because the very last thing Tia Harribel wanted was to rule over the remaining arrancar, which inevitably led to ruling over the rest of Heuco Mundo.
Which was aggravating. Hollows really shouldn't rule over other hollows. Only really a Vizard had a chance to rule this place successfully, if only because they had Shinigami powers, some order and balance in their soul. Unlike the Arrancar.
Arrancar were not the hybrids everyone seemed to think they were. She was eternally envious of the Vizards simply for the fact that they were undeniably both hollow and shinigami. It's why the Espada lost, really. The Vizards had both a fully functional swords as well as a hollow to call upon. Arrancar were little more than glorified hollows trying to pretend that they could have major powerups when they called a phrase too. The Vizards had the best of both worlds. Arrancar just tried to imitate the shinigami.
That was really one of the things she was going to fix. Shinigami powers had to come from somewhere, and wasn't everyone a human once? She was sure somewhere in her soul, a spirit lay in wait. She would be the first arrancar to achieve shikai, she was sure of it!
Senna's life was pretty good.
No, wait, scratch that. Her life blew chunks. Not only was her semi-normal existence only a year or so in duration, not only did she have to sacrifice herself to stop the destruction caused by a group of morons trying to gain power, but she got herself removed from time and space for her trouble. Now all she could do was desperately amuse herself whilst following around a girl that was strikingly similar to her. She'd say reincarnation, but that didn't seem to fit since she was still here. And kinda sorta never existed before her time as the Memory Rosary. And that wasn't even getting into the questionable stability and existance of her soul.
The final, rotten, poisoned cherry on top of it all was that hollows did, in fact notice her. This was immediately prior to a usually miserable attempt at eating her. Probably some bullshit about the universe's really low-quality quick-fix removal of her. It's like the universe didn't feel like destroying her, and instead just removed her from the collective consciousness of everyone.
So all she could really do was pretend her life didn't suck, and try and get a few laughs out of doing insane things in clothing that only made sense to her due to her varied memories. And of course work out her frustration by stabbing hollows in uncomfortable places.
Occasionally she'd stalk Ichigo. That was loads of fun. There was almost always some drama or large explosion following him when he wasn't traipsing about in other worlds.
Ironically, she wasn't stalking Ichigo when she walked into a shop that will never be named, though she did notice him immediately.
She was not, however, prepared for him to react.
At first, she thought it was just a weird fluke brought about from seeing her clone. But no, he was looking directly at the non-existant semi-ghost Senna. All she could do was blink owlishly, doing her best impression of a deer in the headlights…if the deer took fashion advice from a drunk (and possibly insane) European tourist.
And then she reacted.
She let out the single most piercing, joyful "Squee" to ever be uttered by a not-quite-sane teenage girl who just found out that the only person in the world capable of interacting with her was her not-so-secret crush. (It should be noted that the sample size for this is disturbingly large) And then she launched herself (Through tables, chairs, and people, mind you, being more or less a ghost) and latched ahold of him, having no idea just how she was able to touch him. Not that she cared.
Ichigo, for his part, was confused. On the one hand, a girl he doesn't know just latched onto him. On the other hand, he felt like he knew this girl. On the third hand, a very attractive girl just latched onto him. On the fourth hand, Tatsuki and Chad apparently weren't able to see her. Or hear her, for that matter, considering how loud her squeal was.
And then Senna asked a question that filled him with a deep forboding.
"You remember me?"
Quickly deciding that being semi-rude was better than seeming insane, especially considering his recent condition, Ichigo quickly apologized for zoning out, thanked his two most loyal friends, and high-tailed it out of the restaurant, Senna still latched onto him.
Deciding not to seem insane, he pulled out his phone, fiddled with it, and began to talk as he walked.
"You know that feeling you get when you just know there's something you need to do that you've forgotten? That pretty much describes me right now. Sorry, but I really don't remember anything about you. Except that you might be called Senna."
Senna allowed herself 30 seconds of soul-crushing despair to fill her before her mind moved onto more important things. Like Pie. After 10 more seconds, she realized that this was a conversation, which implied certain social practices. Like how she was supposed to respond to the implied question of who the hell she was.
"Well, we have met before. You may not remember, because I was kind of sort of written out of reality, but you fought for me and saved me from some horrible people."
Ichigo considered this for a moment, and was about to object to this happening, before realizing this sounded exactly like something he'd do. In fact, he had done it. Twice.
"In fact, that ribbon you carry around was a momento of our time together."
With that, Ichigo realized she was probably telling the truth. Not because she knew he kept the ribbon, but because of the little things. Like the fact that he had no idea where it came from. Or because he knew he had to keep it, in the same way he knew Senna's name. He remembered that day on the bridge when it flew off. He nearly pulled out his bankai to get it back, despite the fact that such a thing would have been complete overkill.
"Well, if you want, feel free to stick around. I probably won't say much when others are around, but it's gotta be better than how it's been for you before."
Senna only grinned a grin of overjoyed madness.
Ichigo only shivered in pure terror over what he had just unleashed on himself.
It was rather disturbing for Uryuu to realize he was playing nursemaid to a semi-sociopathic psycho-bitch. On the one hand, it was his own fault. On the other hand, his father was going to die. Painfully. Songs and stories would be written to honor his savagery.
And it was all because that absolute bastard had to stick his nose into Uryuu's business. On the one hand, he was happy his father had chosen not to crucify him for bringing an arrancar home. On the other hand, did Ryuken have to make her sound like some pet he found on the side of the road?
And that look in his father's eye's just screamed "Oh yes, you're doomed now."
"OI! MANSLAVE! GET OVER HERE! CIRUCCI WANTS HER DINNER."
And to think, he could have just left her to the horrors of cannibalism.
Ryuken, of course heard the yelling, and chuckled, an act he made sure his son would not see for at least another decade, amused at how similar this was to how he met his own wife.
A/N: This was going to be a very different Ryuken. Then out of the sky, this story of Uryuu's mother began to form in my head. And I knew it had to be done, and would be far more amusing and less angsty than what I originally had planned for the reasons why Ryuken was so anti-quincy.
This type of anti-quincy Ryuken was one I saw in another fic a while ago, one I can't remember. I personally felt his methods to convince Uryuu of their barbarity were extreme, but pointed out something to me. Quincy are absolutely horrifying. That even after admitting Quincy were in the wrong, Uryuu continues to fire to kill with his arrows when fighting hollows means one of three things: He received an incorrect education of what a hollow was (plausible, considering quincy would have no real way of knowing that the horrific demons weren't monsters in life as well), he hasn't really considered what actually happens to those he shoots, or he just doesn't care that he's condemned hundreds if not thousands of separate souls to oblivion. Alone, the arrancar he killed after infiltrating Hueco Mundo (You know, the one where he did the comically stupid "I'm firing 10,000 arrows a second at you" schtick.) was probably a former adjuchas, meaning he was made up of numerous Gillian, which are made up of around a hundred hollows, each potentially having eaten anywhere between 2 and several dozen souls.
Also, no, the pairing is not instantly Ichigo/Senna. Senna is, however, Ichigo's amusing crazy stalker lady. Whether anything comes of this may come into play later.