Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of the characters associated with it. All rights belong to the creator Tite Kubo. This is an AU story with some OOC.
Chapter 22: Too Much In One Day
-X-
"Hey, Lily." Ichigo looked down at the girl. After their confession it was hard for them to sleep. So far they'd been awake for the last 3 hours, not talking but enjoying each other's presence. He hears her hummed, and he asks. "So, what now? About us?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are things going to change between us?"
Lily lifted herself to look at him. "What are you talking about, you idiot? Nothing between us is going to change, we're still gonna be us, doing our own thing and the only thing that changes between us will be this." She leans down to kiss him before she snuggles back to chest. 'It feels weird kissing him when his mask is over his lips… which means I still haven't kissed him… damn it.'
With the action still being new to him, Ichigo couldn't help but blush under his mask before wrapping his arms around the pouting girl. "Well, that's good, I thought we would end up being like the couples that we used to see in those Spanish soap opera shows back at Urahara's place. You know, the kind that act like a lovey-dovey couple." He embarrassingly admitted.
Her attitude changed as she heard him and she couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Hahaha! Oh Kami, you thought we would end up like that?" She smirks and pokes his chest. "Or maybe you're hoping for it? I remember those shows clearly. The couples always did everything they could to be alone together so they could get freaky."
Blushing, Ichigo said, "Sure looks like we didn't see the same thing since they did none of those 'freaky' stuff." She laughed again, and he rolled his eyes. "Alright, get off already."
Lily pouted but obeyed. She watched him head towards his clothes drawers and pulled out a new white shirt before moving on to put on his coat. He headed towards their living room and left her behind to get dressed too.
Five minutes later, Ichigo turned around to see Lily wearing his white shirt with her usual clothes. "Are you sure you want to wear my shirt?"
She looks down and then back at him. "Something wrong if I do?"
"Nothing wrong." he saw her lift an eyebrow. "I mean it. It's just that… we're gonna head towards Menos Park, y'know? People may see you with the shirt and they will without doubt notice that's one of my shirts. Then that will get people talking and rumors are gonna spread around."
"Are you worried about rumors or don't want anyone to know about our relationship?"
The redhead wanted to say yes to both of them but honestly it was the latter that he was more worried about. "I mean… I know everyone probably saw it coming, but I feel as though Starrk wouldn't approve of us."
It didn't surprise Lily that they both share the same trouble thought. In the last few hours she was thinking about what Starrk would do if he ever found it. "If you're that worried about him, then let me handle him."
"No, I'll do it. I was the one that confessed to you, so I might as well be the one to tell Starrk about us, too." If there was one thing that those cheesy Soap Opera shows had shown him about relationships, it was the boyfriend's duty to tell his girl's father/brother that he'll be dating his little daughter/sister. 'What's the worst he can do to me?'
'Neutered you?' Zangetsu said, making a powerful point.
'Starrk wouldn't go that far.' Ichigo mentally rolled his eyes.
With a deadpan tone, the Inner-Hollow said, 'You sleep, not only in the same room, but in the same bed. What's stopping Starrk from thinking that you're plotting in deflowering his baby girl?'
'...'
'...'
'… Oh crap.' Ichigo was about to take back his words and let Lily tell Starrk when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pecked him on the cheek.
"You're the best, Ichigo." She grabbed his hand as she walked towards the door. "Honestly, I got scared there for a minute, I thought I would be the one to tell him. Guess I shouldn't worry about it."
Well, shit. The redhead couldn't say no now. Lily opened the door and he could already see Menoly and Loly waiting outside. 'Sheesh, do these two live outside our apartment like guard dogs?' He saw their eyes land on their hands and until now, he realizes that not a single person has ever seen them holding hands together, in fact they had never held hands and now that they were doing it affectionately. Now was the moment to show Lily that he cares about her by not hiding their relationship to these two. "Do you two want to get the room right next to us so that both of you don't have to sleep outside our room?"
Both Hollows look away from the hand holding and to Ichigo, the Arrancar Captain showing off a cheerful attitude in his eyes. They looked towards Lily and saw a bright smile on her face.
"Hilarious Captain Kurosaki but we came to tell you that your Division is finally ready." Loly said, and Menoly added.
"We're also here to tell you that Sub-division Captain Love has another message for you. He said they found something very interesting for you."
"Looks like it's time to head to Menos Park, Ichigo."
"That's Captain Kurosaki to you."
Both sisters saw the newly formed couple playfully arguing for a bit longer before leaving through a Garganta. Once the scene was over, and a few seconds passed by, Menoly turned to her sister. "I think it happen."
"Yeah..." Loly nodded and then looked at Menoly with a brief grin on her. "Wanna tell everyone about what we just saw."
"Or how about if you two wait until Ichigo and Lily tell anyone?"
Menoly and Loly turned around to see Ulquiorra walking out from Mashiro's apartment. Loly was about to open her mouth before shutting it. They may be in playful terms with Ichigo and Lily, but the rest of the Captains and Lieutenants may act a little more harsh towards her sappy attitude. She bows her head, and Menoly follows suit. "Very well, Captain Cifer."
As both sisters left, Mashiro poked her head from behind Ulquiorra's back. "Did it finally happen?" She saw Ulquiorra nod, and she grins from ear to ear. "I hope it was Lily who confessed to him first because if she didn't, we lost ¥30,000."
"I took my ¥15,000 and bet it on Ichigo. You'll be the one losing the other half." Ulquiorra coolly replied.
She blinked once, twice and thrice before her brain finally grasped what the man said. "Eh?" She watched Ulquiorra close his eyes and leave her alone at the door. "Ulqui-baka." She puffed her cheeks and closed the door. Guess that'll be the last time that she'll invite Ulquiorra over to her room for a while for being a jerk.
Since Menos Park was so huge, because it's literally the entire world underneath them, it would have been impossible to find Love and Rose if they didn't search for them by sensing their Reiatsu, but things at Menos Park have gotten different now and it was much easier to find them. Because every farm requires a group of Hollows to protect them from Baraggan's men, both Visoreds and Nel had a region to protect; each protecting eight farms.
As all of their food supply come from the re-transform Gillians, Szayel and Urahara had built two dozens farms. The farms in question weren't your typical looking human farms; in fact, it looked nothing like a farm; they were actually just giant black steel chambers with no windows, a large glass cube on top and only one door that the Gillians walk inside to. There were also no fences needed to keep the Gillians together—the creatures obeyed powerful Hollows. So a pack of Hollows could easily maintain a sizable group of over two-hundred Gillians in check and the only thing the Adjuchas do is monitor them and protect them from any of Baraggan's soldiers. Usually by the end of a 40-day cycle, five random Gillians in each herd get selected and guided towards the 'slaughterhouse' so to speak of. When the Hollows enter the gigantic building, two members of the Science Division—each given instructions in how the machine's work—use the computer by the door's side to convert Gillians into food pills.
Ichigo and Lily walked out from the Garganta in time to see a new patch of Gillians going into one of the many machines located across Menos Park.
"It's been 40 days already?" Lily said out loud but then she remembered one of Shinji's reports mentioning the rise of population in the last few months, meaning that more food was getting consumed so they needed more. 'What's the time period from the last pill's process?' She looked to her left to see Ichigo leave her side and talk with Love, the afro-star man still wearing the same clothes. As she got closer, she could already hear them discussing something.
"Yeah, I don't know if it's the same thing you have been looking for, but what we found was definitely not something anyone has ever seen."
She hears Love say, and she moves to Ichigo's side.
"Did you ask Gerald or Nel?" Her boyfriend asked and while she was curious to learn what they were talking about, spotting a very familiar Hollow working on the computer dragged her attention and curiosity. She left Ichigo's side and made her way towards the Hollow, its name on the tip of her tongue. "Roka?"
As the Hollow heard her name, she turned around. "Lilynette-sama, what are you doing here so late at night?"
Lily moved to Roka's side, trying to catch a glimpse at how the machine operates. "Well, Ichigo and I have some business here." She notices that her presence was making the Hollow feel a bit uncomfortable. "So, um, how does the machine work? I never got around to asking Szayel or Urahara before." Not a total lie, Szayel had explained it to her about how the machine operated... but he kept everything so technical and 'scientifically' accurate that she couldn't fathom the man's explanation.
The question seemed to wake-up the woman from her mental haze. "You see Lilynette-sama, these machines first separate the Hollow's Reiatsu from its body which then moves to the glass cube that you see on top of the chamber, then the machine breaks down the Hollow's physical matter into its atom form; Reishi. After a few minutes, we release artificially created Reishi which then the machine melds together into one. The artificial Reishi also carries a dose of empty Reiatsu. Once the fake and real Reishi mold into one and create the small pills you're used to seeing, we release the Reiatsu back into the chamber so that it'll fuse with the fake Reiatsu. When the fake Reiatsu comes in contact with the real Reiatsu, it will leach into one of the thousands of Reiatsu and will start imitating its power and multiply. While the imitated Reiatsu multiplied inside the pill, the quality of the pills are far more downgraded since most of what Hollows are eating are 'empty' power that fill their stomachs." She looked towards Lily to see the girl's eye spinning in a spiral. "I'm sorry, it seems I have confused you. What part didn't you understand, Lilynette-sama?"
"I, um, well, I think I got most of it down." Lily started calling out the steps with lesser details. "So first you suck the Gillians' Reiatsu and store them in the glass, then you destroy their bodies and reconstruct them back to Reishi. Then you release your fake Reishi that's also carrying fake Reiatsu and well, that's all I can figure out. I don't understand the last part though, you said how the fake Reiatsu copies the other thousands of Reiatsu. But where did that statement come from? What thousands of Reiatsu?"
Roka smiled at the princess. Seems like that last part always confuses everyone. "I didn't understand it the first time I heard it either. Captain Szayelaporro and Urahara learn that all Gillians that come from a re-transform Adjuchas have a unique Spiritual Presence. An Adjuchas' Reiatsu that you sense comes from the owner's power that absorbed the other souls and that's how you can sense only one presence instead of all the thousands of souls. However, these Gillians are different since they no longer have a conscious mind and that causes the other souls to try taking control but won't be able to."
Lily closed her eye and concentrated on sensing every Hollow. Like the woman stated, all the Gillians felt as if they were carrying thousands of souls in them. "Is that how we're able to find all these special kinds of Gillians?"
"That's right Lilynette-sama." Roka presses a button, and she releases Reiatsu back into the chamber. "Because of the large number of unused Reiatsu these Hollows are carrying, Captain Szayelaporro and Urahara created a special Reiatsu that mimics them." She puts a finger on her mask's lips and says, "If I remember right, Captain Urahara said how the Shinigami used something similar with their strange 'mod-souls' creations. To create these fake souls, they first needed Reiatsu examples to create them."
"What are you two talking about?"
"Captain Kurosaki." The Hollow bowed as the Captain stood behind the princess, looking over the girl's shoulders.
Not staying there for long, Lily followed Ichigo after he greeted the Hollow and asked her to follow him. So after waving at the Hollow she goes after him, ignoring the odd look Roka was giving her. "So what happened? What did you and Love talk about?"
"The double-headed Gillian has attacked another one of our farms. However, this time it seemed to have finally picked a side."
She could already guess the unpleasant news by seeing the soft frown in his eyes. "It joined Baraggan's side?"
Ichigo nodded. "Yeah, when they attacked the last farm, a bunch of Baraggan's soldiers were with the Hollow. Since we spread apart our farms to avoid constant destruction; Rose, Love and Nel couldn't reach them in time to aid them. So the farm got destroyed and there was no one left since they were all eaten by the Gillian."
"I don't understand." Lily frowned as they walked deeper into the woods. "How has a single Gillian been giving everyone so many problems?"
"Love actually gave me an answered to that, too. So this Hollow can use the abilities of every Hollow it ate… this includes Adjuchas too and since our war has been going on for two years now, there's no telling how many injured and weak Hollows this Gillian has preyed upon." Ichigo sadly knew that their war caused this sort of monster to be born. "Now that this Hollow join Baraggan's side, there'll probably be a jump on attacks."
Thinking again in some of Shinji's reports, Lily hummed as she recalled some of them. "If I remember right, 9 out of the 24 farms have been attacked with only 4 out of the 9 fully destroyed. That would explain why it'd been 30 days since the last time they made extra pills. We're starting to rush the production rate so that we can feed our citizens."
Out of curiosity, Ichigo asked about their current population and how much food they needed.
"We're easily back to 4,000 Hollows. Usually the five groups of Gillians create between 300 and 400 pills then you multiply that with the remaining factories... so that's 7,200 to 9,600 pills a month but since some Hollows need more food than others, we usually have to cram in a couple of Gillians now and then." Lily put a finger on her lips and started mumbling, trying to recall every little information that she could remember.
"Do you actually remember all of that? Or are you just guessing?"
Lily heard the curious tone in Ichigo's voice, so she stopped muttering and looked at him. "What are you talking about? Of course I remember all of it. What did you think I was doing while I was Starrk's lieutenant?"
"Well, I thought you just slack off all day and hang around with Loly and Menoly at the Plaza." Ichigo confesses. He rarely saw Lily doing any actual office work; Ulquiorra's division was less about paperwork and more about running around the entire place.
"Oh?" She gave Ichigo a toothy grin. "Spying on me, Stalker?"
"Yeah, to make sure you were working."
Rolling her eye, Lily said, "I do my job perfectly fine. Besides, most of the times when I'm busy is right after an attack or the monthly reports that I get from all the divisions. Ugh, trust me when I say that I used to get stuck in my offices for days and I mean days because of those reports!"
"As Starrk's lieutenant, what did you do?"
"Well, before the Information Center got established, every little report from all the Divisions got sent to me and I summarized every little detail in the report before I sent them later to Starrk." she sighed before continuing, "At least Ulquiorra made my job easier by doing the weird eye-thing."
"What weird eye thing?" Ichigo curiously asks. What the hell had Ulquiorra shown her?
"Eh? You never seen him pull out his eye before?"
Okay, so that wasn't what he expected. He turned to Lily to see her imitate Ulquiorra's weird eye trick.
"With a hand he pulls out his eye before crushing it and telling you to absorb the Reiatsu so that you can see everything he has seen for the last 2 hours. It's super creepy." Seeing as they still are heading deep into the woods, she asks. "Where are we going?"
Ichigo looked towards the gigantic tree that Love had pointed towards. "Sadly, we won't be able to catch the Hollow today since it's back to Baraggan's territory, but Love found something very interesting for me.'' He stopped and remembered their promise. "I mean us. He found something very interesting for us."
It took Lily a second to figure it out, but when she did, she smiled. "Yeah, I'm sure he did." He stills remembers their first promise; to learn the History of Hueco Mundo together.
They both came to a halt once they got close. From far away, both Arrancar could tell that the tree would be huge by how its body easily dwarfed the surrounding trees, but once up close, they realized just how big it was. The tree made from the strange stone material occupied just as much space as eight city blocks.
"This one is bigger than the last one." Ichigo was referring to when he found Dordoni and Mosqueda with a bunch of the Humane-Hollows in a familiar-looking tree-fortress before, but that one wasn't as big as this one. After a while, his eyes scanned the tree's strange rock-bark to find the entrance that Love told him about. He started walking around by the side for a while before finding the entrance, which was just a vast hole made into it.
Lily leans her head inside to see anything but her vision only reaches a few meters before darkness conceals the rest.
"It's too dark to see in there."
She heard Ichigo and turned around to see him squinting his eyes to see better before looking back inside. "Don't worry about it. I got this." she took a step in and started walking deep into the darkness before her presence blended in with the rest of the shadows and then she brought her left hand out and focused on gathering her Reiatsu at her palm. It only took seconds for her to concentrate on her Reiatsu and looked down at her creation. A bright lime-green cylinder that stood only 6 inches tall acted like a torch inside the hollow tree, illuminating green light to reveal anything that was hiding in the shadows. Hearing footsteps, she turned her head around to see Ichigo walking towards her before turning around and showing Ichigo the candle-like object in her hand.
"What is that?" Ichigo asked as he moved closer, his hand reaching the strange object in her hand before she pulled her arm away.
"Don't touch it, idiot!" She looked down at the green candle. "Yoruichi-san almost burned her hand when she grabbed it. She couldn't sense any kind of heat at first, but after grabbing it she let go in an instant. So while she didn't burn her hand, she said how there was an unbelievable pain that lasted for a few seconds before her hand went numb and which then lasted for a few days." She stuck her other hand out and created the same green cylinder. "Yoruichi-san and Mashiro-neesan commented on how I don't have a ton of Reiatsu like you or Starrk but they said how that was good because that makes it easier for me to control my Reiatsu." She closed her eye and focused on gathering Reiatsu on her arms and sprouted dozens of the green like candles across her arms before reshaping them into oddly bent cones. Making it appeared as though her shoulders, elbows, forearms had grown thorns.
"I call it Espinas (Thorns)." She deactivated all but one of the Espinas in her palms and blushed a bit. "You, umm, sort of inspired me. I wanted to make something like your Capa Cero, but I fail miserably every time. Then I remember how I used my Zanpakutō to gather my Reiatsu before shooting it from its tip. So I thought, "Maybe I can do that with my body, but make it a little different." A few lessons with Yoruichi-san and Nee-san and I got it down."
From the corners of her eye she could see Ichigo staring at the Espinas with great intensity and notices the telltale signs of Ichigo frowning behind his Hollow mask.
"Hey, Lily, do you know how to fight?"
She could already see Ichigo ready to apologize, but she opened her mouth first. "Did you forget that I'd been training for these last few years too?"
Okay, so maybe his question sounded a bit rude, so he better defuse the situation with an apology. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for my question to sound mean. Look, let me just rephrase what I meant to say. How do you fight? What sort of fighting styles do you use."
"Oh, well," She started walking around the room to find a door and hoped it was this room's exit. "These past few years I'd only been focusing on Reiatsu control. I sort of lost focus in my Zanpakutō's training after I couldn't figure out anymore unique types of stances for it." She forced a smile on her lips as her eye darted towards Ichigo's white-free skin and his duo-color bladeless grips before she rose the corners of her smile to a more believable one. "Yoruichi-san and Nee-san train me really hard so that I can stand next to you. Yoruichi-san helped me develop a Hakuda technique of my own. We sort of worked around with an existing technique called Takigoi and turned it into an unique style called Hotaru." As she found a door that led out to a hall, she looked from left to right before she took the lead and started walking left. "Hotaru is basically a kickboxing style."
"That's amazing. To create your own fighting style. How about a demonstration?"
Lily spun around and poke Ichigo's nose before playfully saying, "Maybe in a spar!" She turned back around and started walking again, but not without feeling a bit guilty for lying to him.
She stopped with her Zanpakutō's training about two years ago, around the time the Visoreds started living in Hueco Mundo. There was nothing wrong with the training or the stances that they had taught her; they were all great for having a strong defense and they were even a better offense when she was able to use her blade's ability, Punta in an unsuspected opponent, but Punta's speed and strength all depended in how fast she could gather and concentrate her Reiatsu. So she dropped her training in the arts of swordsmanship to learn how to control her Reiatsu and that accidentally led her to the creation of Espinas.
From the beginning, Espinas appearance didn't look the same as it does now. From the start it looked like a green blob of Reiatsu that appeared patched into her skin. During the time she was still training with Mashiro, she asked her about any pointers but sadly her sister-figure didn't know much about Reiatsu control, which was what led her to ask Yoruichi for Reiatsu training. She wanted to make her new ability to be like Ichigo's Capa Cero, which never happened. Ichigo's white-skin shield was something different and more difficult to imitate. So she couldn't recreate a 'perfect' shield, but she was able to create an amazing 'unstoppable' sword.
Espinas wasn't anything like Starrk's soul separation abilities, Ulquiorra's amazing regeneration or Ichigo's white shield. Instead, it became the replacement for her Zanpakutō. Later she eventually learned that her new ability appeared to be an extended and more strengthened version of her Zanpakutō's Punta. Which caused an additional challenge to rise but wasn't too difficult to beat because thankfully she learned a few tricks from Yoruichi in Reiatsu control. So after months of lessons and training, she was able to develop her new ability.
Again, it wasn't anything too flashy to what everyone could do, but when she ranked them all down to which abilities stumped the other one, there was no doubt in her mind that among all the Arrancar—which are only eight, she probably ranked 2nd among them. 1st place seems to be held between Starrk and Ichigo.
Starrk could easily outnumber and outmatch anyone in power because of his abilities and thanks to his Soul-wolves, the man didn't really need to do much fighting. Usually five wolves was enough to scare away Baraggan's army for whenever the old king of Hueco Mundo felt cocky enough to try a frontal assault on them. Even when she involved the Visoreds with their unique Bankai, Starrk still held a prominent position. The only people that come close to challenging his strength in abilities are Urahara, Shinji, Yoruichi and Ichigo.
Now there's Ichigo. Although he already had several abilities on his belt, her boyfriend had learned a few new tricks these last two years. One of the two new abilities he learned had to do with the better control he had between his Capa's powers. It used to be hard for him to change between all three different aspects of his Capa Cero, but after a few months and possibly the hardest training in Reiatsu she had seen him do, Ichigo could finally change between Capa, Exoesqueleto, Devorar with no problems. Even though he had pushed his Capa Cero's limits beyond what they were two years ago, Starrk could still overpower him—their current spars were proof of that; even though Ichigo was actually getting closer to beating him, something the Visoreds still haven't done.
Then there was his other new ability, well, not truly a new ability but mostly the mastery of his Zanpakutō. Which embraces his Quincy power.
Ichigo had always stayed and learned everything he could that an Arrancar could learn; Cero, Bala, Garganta, Sonido, Pesquisa, his Capa Cero's abilities and finally the newly discovered Gran Rey Cero. Once done with all of that, then what?
He tried to learn some of Shinigami's skills but from what she had seen, there were a lot of similarities between Arrancar and Shinigami so the only thing he could have learned were their strange arts of spells, but that proved to be abilities that only Shinigami could possess. So that only left him with about only one thing he could try to learn.
His Quincy powers.
However, the only problem with learning about his mother's heritage had narrow down to the fact that as far as they knew, the only and last remaining Quincy was Ichigo's uncle and during the last two years that the war with Baraggan began, he couldn't leave Hueco Mundo and go to the Human World for training. The only thing he could have done was talk with Urahara and see if the blonde had anything, which he did, but it wasn't much.
In her opinion, it wasn't worth a minute of his time to learn the only two abilities that he was capable of. One of them was a variation of Sonido and Shunpo; Hirenkyaku. Nothing new and nothing special, but still Ichigo used his time to learn it.
A complete waste of his time is what she would have told him, but wouldn't say it because Ichigo had once told her before that knowing at least a bit of his mother's heritage made him feel closer to his late mother. So out of respect for both Ichigo and his mother, she kept her opinion to herself.
The second ability that he learned from his Quincy powers had to do with the mastery of his dual-color blades. Like Quincy, Ichigo can create weapons by gathering Reishi around him but being a unique hybrid, Ichigo doesn't just gather the Reishi around him but the Reiatsu of other spiritually aware beings. He had tried creating bow and arrows like a Quincy could but found out that he could only change the forms and sizes of his Zanpakutō, which wasn't an enormous deal for him. He carried them in their seal-state; bladeless and only the grips.
As she peeks a look at him from the corner of her eye, she couldn't help but internally groan as Ichigo had removed his Capa Cero for whenever he was in Hueco Mundo or wasn't on any important mission. She actually misses seeing the skin-layer armor. She didn't beg but she sort of downplayed it that he should just be wearing his Capa all the time, but he always says how it's a waste of energy... Kami, is this how Ichigo felt like when she didn't listen to him about wearing a bra or something to cover her chest?
She moved her eye away from him and looked back forward, trying to push down the dishonesty. She was more or less a liar for telling Ichigo that she stopped her Zanpakutō training to focus on her Reiatsu control.
Besides the fact that she mastered her stance, what made her stop her training was the way both she and her Zanpakutō felt rather... distant. There was something about her blade that made her feel oddly numb when using it, or better yet, feel as though her sword doesn't want to get used by her. Yoruichi always told her about the saying that a weapon is a part of the user's body, but she didn't feel like that was the case for her. To her, she felt the complete opposite, as if she's supposed to feel like a weapon instead.
Maybe it had to do with the fact that she has been denying this entire time that she didn't know who the voice in her head belonged to. Ichigo lived through the same situation, and Starrk did too...
This whole time, she has been hearing her Zanpakutō's spirit.
And she won't ever accept it, not with the way it'll talk so ill about Ichigo. It wasn't or supposed to talk about Ichigo in that way, her spirit's supposed to represent a deep part of her soul, shouldn't it? And if it does, why would she ever feel like that towards him?
It doesn't matter because as long as it takes, she won't ever accept her Zanpakutō.
... What's the worst that could happen?
-During the same time, Soul Society-
After the Captain meeting held today, Ukitake had invited Shunsui over to talk about what he saw in the Human World and he couldn't help the smile on his face as he kept talking about it.
"I'm telling you Shunsui, everything looked like what I would expect if we made a treaty with the Arrancar—!" Ukitake coughed into his hand before picking up a handkerchief to wipe away the slight traces of blood. Curse illness. He looks up to his best friend and notices the small and weak smile on his faded bearded face. "I'm letting my excitement get to me again, aren't I?" He sighed and refilled the man's tea again.
Picking up the beverage and smiling into the edges of the cup, Shunsui said, "Well, I understand your excitement." He took a sip of the drink and let out a satisfying sigh, not sake but still a wonderful drink. "But I think you're getting excited over the wrong thing."
The 13th Division Captain had the decency to look a bit ashamed. "Yes, well, if you saw what I saw then perhaps you would feel the same," He looked out through the only window in his office. "Zangetsu came and took the Hollow away with no sort of conflict starting. He came, did his job and left."
"Well, his job could put us out of business." Shunsui commented after he took another sip and put the cup down. "Trust and believe me when I say that our lives would be easier if the Arrancar made things this simple but you have to question yourself; "What'll happen to us? What would the whole point of the Gotei 13 be if the Arrancar are doing our job?""
"Excellent point."
Seeing his friend sad wasn't something Shunsui wanted to see, and it felt worse when he'd caused the sadness but he needs to point out the reasons the scene which he retold at the Captains' meeting today had put some Captains on the edge of breaking into Hueco Mundo and caused a massacre. "I know it's nothing to be happy about, or sad on the contrary, but many of the Captains are seeing this as a threat to our way of life and possibly the entire balance of the world. I'm even sure you had scared a few of us when Zangetsu told you the way they made a government. I mean, the thought is scary. Organize Hollows? That sounds like trouble to me. Planned and calculated attacks? How well are we prepared for it? Do we have the proper amount of Shinigami to possibly defend the entire world?"
"We could always ask the other branches for help if things become too hard for us to handle."
Shunsui picked up his cup again and thought about it as he took another sip. While Soul Society is considered the East Branch and there are 3 more, then possibly asking for help wouldn't be an awful idea… if the old man wanted to look pathetic in front of the other branches. "We both know that Yama-jiji will be too stubborn to ask them for help, if things get too bad then he'll ask help from the Zero Squad, but the other Branches? I don't think so."
"Unless things get dreadful."
"Which is something that no one wants."
Their conversations drifted from the worries of Zangetsu to the newly appointed Captain of the 10th Division; Amagai Shūsuke, a promising Shinigami and while his leadership had shown, the man was still a bit too timid when attending a meeting. Hell, both of them would if they had to stand next to someone like Captain Kurotsuchi and Zaraki.
After a few more drinks and a farewell, Shunsui wandered around. Not much work today, and because of either fate or a sense of nostalgia. He walked down towards the old road he used to take when heading to the Shinigami Academy. When times were much simpler and easy. He barely visited the school's grounds, but when he did, he always felt a bit at home. The halls, walls and rooms still looked the same as they always had and he bets how that will never change.
As he walked down a hall, he noticed a few students outside the room. His curiosity peaked and walked towards them. "I'm sure you're supposed to be inside the room if you're trying to learn anything." He smiled towards them when they turned around.
"C-Captain Shunsui!" One student recognized him instantly. "Sorry that we're outside the classroom, sir, but Captain Aizen's classes get packed and there's never enough room for everyone."
The Captain's left eyebrow slowly climbed up to his hairline before trying to sneak a peek inside the room, and as the students moved to let him see, he felt his right eyebrow join in with his left at his hairline. He thought the students were possibly joking or exaggerating when they said that Aizen's class was packed, but lo-and-behold; the room was literally quite packed; he found some students standing or sitting down towards the corners of the room.
What did Aizen teach again? Calligraphy class, right? Why would so many students attend it?
He looked towards the center of the room to find the man and when he did, Captain Aizen found him too and sent a nod and smile towards his direction before continuing his lecture. "Mind repeating the question again, Harada-san?"
"Is it true that we're going to war against the Hollows and that's why all the classes have sped up?"
'Well, that's not a question to ask in a Calligraphy class.' Shunsui didn't bother finding the female speaker, instead his attention was on Aizen in trying to see how the man would diffuse the troublesome situation. War is something none of these students needed to live through.
"Well, that's not something to ask in a Calligraphy class," Aizen let the chuckles settle down first before answering. "Is true that classes have gone up at an unusual speed, but that's only because we're preparing you for the smallest chance of the worst plausible scenario."
"Which is war?" The student asked again and Aizen smiled in her direction.
"And as much as we all would like to believe otherwise, the chances of war are something we can't overlook. However, this doesn't mean that the Gotei 13 isn't trying to stop it. War is something that no one should live through."
Another student raised his hand and spoke before getting called out. "So does that mean the Gotei 13 will do anything they can to kill Zangetsu?"
"Well, as Captain Tōsen likes to say, we must take the path with less bloodshed."
Shunsui watched as the same student spoke up again with the next followed up question and answers, causing something inside his head to click.
"Why did the captains start labeling Zangetsu as an Arrancar and not some Vasto Lorde?"
"We didn't call them Arrancar first but we don't see the reason to change their 'category' to something different. Seeing how the word Arrancar can translate to 'Tear' which turned out to be quite the fitting name since these Hollows had 'tear' their masks."
"But why would a Hollow ever do that? Isn't their mask supposed to represent their heart since the only way to kill them is by destroying it? They're crippling themselves, but that's not what's happening."
Aizen sadly smiles towards the student. "We don't quite know why a Hollow would ever do such a thing but rest assure that it appears as not all Hollows can tear their hearts. Seeing as how only five Arrancar have ever been spotted and these are the group of Hollows that we are searching for."
Shunsui's eyes slowly widened and he turned around to head back towards Ukitake because that small back and forward conversation had told him something dreadful. These Arrancar had torn pieces of their heart, but some were still there. A small portion of their Hollow nature was still ever so present and unless they tear away everything, they won't ever learn what it's like to feel complete.
It's almost like when a Shinigami thinks they learned Bankai but the Zanpakutō's spirit doesn't fully recognize its wielder, thus it gives its wielder a fake Bankai's name and not its accurate name. Resulting in the Bankai not being in its authentic form and therefore weaker.
Arrancar could be the same thing.
Arrancar, a Hollow that has torn his own heart but there's something still missing for them. They have to achieve something, some kind of inner peace or perhaps a mental breakthrough about who they are. Hollows are still a bunch of souls stuck inside one entire body, but Arrancar are different, far too different. Most of those souls may be under their total control, but what if the last thing they're missing is to understand their own soul? The reason for being what they are, perhaps? If they learn who they are, then their heart will finally vanish. They'll be complete.
'Completo... it wasn't a sentence closure, it was a hint!' The moment he steps outside the school's gate, he Flash Step towards his best friend. 'The Arrancar haven't achieved their last form! They haven't achieved their 'Bankai!''
-Hueco Mundo, A few hours later-
"Do you feel it now?"
Ichigo narrows his eyes at Lily's words. It took him a while to pick up the weak sense of an Arrancar's Reiatsu that was right behind the current wall that seemed to be a dead end to their exploration but Lily had stopped him when she didn't follow him through the Garganta to head back to La Estrella because she was able to sense traces of Reiatsu.
He nodded, "Yeah, I can now and there's no doubt about it. It's an Arrancar, and it seems like it's right behind this wall."
Lily looked around in trying to find some sort of secret entrance. "Looks like we need to find some other way around." She looked at Ichigo to see him flexing his right arm before pulling it back and punching the wall, creating an entrance into the secret room. "Or you can also, y'know, punch a hole into it."
Ichigo rolled his eyes before squinting them when a second source of light randomly hit his eyes. Only taking a few seconds to adjust, he fixed his eyes to see how they had found a larger and, rather strange, circular room. Following the light, he noticed how it came out from the top of the room before reflecting off the blade of a basic katana with an hourglass-shape guard that seemed placed in a crater at the center of the room.
He searched across the room to find the Arrancar that they had been sensing, but he couldn't see or sense anything else besides the sword.
As Ichigo headed towards the sword, Lily headed towards the walls.
Something felt odd as his golden eyes looked at the sword before looking around the room. Who would leave their Zanpakutō here? Or how did someone come into the room and leave, with the fact that there weren't any exits? His eyes didn't bother searching throughout the rest of the room and he looks back to the sword when he felt a strange attraction towards the weapon. He grabs the katana but didn't pull it out. "Why... do I feel like I know who this belongs to..." He whispered quietly before Zangetsu answered him with a sad tone.
'Well, you shouldn't, that's for sure but... even though I never met him before, I know who it belongs too.'
'Who?—'
"ICHIGO!"
The redhead stopped his conversation with his inner-Hollow to turn to Lily, his girlfriend pointing at the wall while her mouth was forming words but she couldn't find her voice, so instead she looked like a fish trying to breathe when stranded on land. "Lily, what's wrong?" He saw Lily move her body and the arm that held Espinas revealed something drawn into the walls of the room. As he got closer and the green light revealed the drawing, his eyes slowly widened. "Hollows."
What Lily found weren't drawings but carvings of thousands of Hollows into the walls, each no bigger than seven inches. So while not new to them, what made this different was how detailed every Hollow was. They were all of distinct sizes, with masks and their Hollow's hole found in different locations across their bodies—a few even seemed to replace one of their eye sockets. As he kept inspecting the wall, he saw something new.
A couple of yards above the Hollows, Ichigo could see the drawn forms of Gillians and that was entirely something he never saw before in the pillars, not in a single one of them but now he found them here in a totally isolated location... Why? Looking at them more closely, Ichigo could see how some Gillians wore different masks.
And what's going on with the strange singular crack running across the wall?
"Ichigo, look at this."
Broken from his thoughts, Ichigo looked at Lily to see her lone eye wider than before and as he followed her line of sight, he felt his eyes widen, too. Right above the Gillians, a couple of feet above them, stood another patch of Hollows in smaller numbers with each looking somewhat human. "Vasto Lordes..." his head rushed towards Lily. "These drawings are showing us the Hollow evolution. First are the newly born Hollows, then the Gillians, followed by Adjuchas and then Vasto Lordes."
Lily looked at him and then back at the drawings before she moved her arms to see if there was anything more drawn when her light stumbled upon a large circle carved into the walls that they had dubbed as the 'moon'. The strangest thing about the circle was the way it seemed to have been carved over the drawings of Hollows and then she looked up when she thought she saw more. She increases the size of her Espinas, and with it, the light reveals even more above them. "Arrancar..."
There was still more, he could feel it. This room wanted to tell them its secrets. "Lily," Ichigo looked at Lily, her eye still glued on the Arrancar drawings. "Go to the center of the room and try to brighten up the room with your Espinas."
"Huh? Oh, right!" She ran to the middle of the room and stood next to the sword before she dispersed the green thorn in her palm, letting the darkness reclaim most of the room before she sprouted a dozen Espinas running down her arms.
Just by how much this room had revealed, it perhaps showed a small amount of Hueco Mundo's history and Ichigo wasn't expecting much anymore. But he was wrong. "If… if these are Arrancar then… what are those." The drawings above the Vasto Lorde reveal Arrancar, but the ones above them looked more like the one he'd seen in the pillar; Hollows with a human appearance with a Hollow mask above his head and no hole. 'The pillars only had Hollows, the masked humane-Hollows and the moon. None of them ever had Gillians or regular Hollows, Vasto Lorde or Arrancar before!'
But these images are showing the steps of their kins' evolution, are they not? And if it is…
At that question, Ichigo's brain stopped. If the drawings are showing just that, then does that mean there's another step for them..? "Being an Arrancar isn't the last step." He whispered quietly to himself before his head snapped to Lily, his voice filled with so much excitement. "There's another step for us! Our power can go higher! We don't stop at being Arrancar!" He thought the excitement would reach her but Lily was looking at the image of the human-Hollow with an almost haunted expression.
Lily held her breath as her mind recalled the strange memory she had about two years ago. The drawing of the man on the wall was that of Garreth. She recognized his lanky form with his sharp facial features and brown hair shaved from the left while his right side was braided into a single bun. His clothes were the same as she remembered in the memory and above his head, there was a mask that resembled an eagle's skull. "Garreth..." Her eye stayed looking at the man's figure until Ichigo blocked her field of vision by putting his head in front of her.
"Lily, are you okay? You look a bit... sad."
Ichigo backed away as she slowly shook her head, trying to shake the glum feeling in her mind. "I'm fine, Ichigo." she smiled at him, softly but with no happiness behind her expression. She would have said more, but now that she wasn't solely focused on Garreth, her eye notices another detail drawn into the walls. "Ichigo, turn around and tell me what you see."
He did as he was told and froze. Standing and examining the drawings on the walls at a close proximity, Ichigo wouldn't have found out that the crack wasn't an effect caused by Father Time. It seemed purposely placed there—no, more like purposely drawn there to represent the gigantic silhouette form of a Hollow, easily the size of half the wall with a bunch of the Hollows of all stages of evolution drawn inside its body. With the man Lily called Garreth placed at the center of the Hollow's face. His vision then soared to the object he had dubbed the moon, and until now, he realizes how it placed perfectly at the center of the Hollow. "It's not the moon. It was never the moon, it was a Hollow hole!"
"But... What does that mean?! Why would anyone draw a bunch of Hollows inside a bigger one!" She couldn't help but yell her question as Ichigo. So everything they had guessed on the pillars was wrong? Are they back to the beginning of their personal mission?
Guess he's feeling the same thing as her right about now. This little discovery had set them back to square one. "I don't know. All I know now is how we weren't the only Arrancar that ever existed and that we can go further into our evolution." The light started fading and Ichigo turned around to see if Lily had lost her focus from all the shock, but he saw how the sword stuck in the ground started absorbing Lily's Espinas. He didn't need to warn her. She cut off her control over the green thorn and turned around to look at him.
"Well... that just happened."
Ichigo watched the blade glow a light green before it slowly faded away and it got a few questions to pop into his head. "This is someone's Zanpakutō, an Arrancar most likely... or whatever those other Hollows are."
Lily slowly frowned and turned to the spot that the darkness had retaken. She wonders if the Zanpakutō belong to Garreth. She looked around the room and then out of curiosity she looked up to the hole where she knew the moonlight was coming into the room by. "There's no way I can get any more surprise but... hey, Ichigo would you look at that."
The redhead didn't want to look. Surely there wasn't anything left in this room that could top off what they discovered. So he didn't look up and stared blankly at the wall. "Is it something good? Or bad?"
"Eh." She shrugged, "Want me to tell you or you rather see it yourself."
He sighed, closed his eyes and looked up. "I'd rather just see it." He then opens his eyes to have his heart stop beating. The moonlight lighted the ceiling only enough to reveal the drawing of a woman with what he now definitely knew was Hueco Mundo's moon place at the center of her chest, but what really halted his heart was the fact that he knew who the woman was and her name didn't come out from his mouth.
"Luciana."
"How do you know that na—!" Ichigo senses the Reiatsu and rushed in front of Lily, with his arms crossed in front of his chest and his limbs coated with Capa Cero, he used his Devorar to absorb the blue Cero that came shooting out from the entrance in the wall. After absorbing the last of the attack, he snaps his head back to his girlfriend. "LILY! ARE YOU OKAY?!"
The shock wore off when he yelled her name. "I'm fine but—!"
"Orange hair and hollow eyes, no doubt about it, you must be the dipshit that everyone always fucking talking about. Zangetsu."
Both look back at the entrance to see a man walked out from the smoke, his light blue spiky hair and same shade color eyes that came included with a green line below them stuck out. His clothes included a white hakama, a black sash and a ragged white jacket with an upturned collar. The inner lining of his jacket was black and wore it with the sleeves rolled up and leaving it open, exposing his muscular chest. They saw the remains of his Hollow mask comprising a right jawbone and his Hollow hole in his abdomen.
The man looked at Lily, and a psychotic grin broke out. "And without doubt, you're the princess of the sand, Lilynette. Ha! I came for the fucking sword only, but I hit the jackpot instead." His grin dropped when the room started shaking.
"Ichigo!" She didn't need to continue for Ichigo to know what was happening, the Cero had destroyed most of the wall that they came through and now the entire room was shaking and it seems like it was seconds from collapsing. She tapped the air behind her and opened a Garganta. "Time to go!"
"You're not going anywhere!"
Ichigo glares at the stranger before aiming one arm at the ground and the other one to the ceiling before firing the collected Reiatsu into a blue and red Cero. The explosion shook the room more, causing everyone to lose their balance for a few seconds and releasing the sword stuck in the ground. Ichigo grabs the Zanpakutō and wraps an arm around Lily's waist and shoots straight into the Garganta.
When they reached the other side of the gate, both of them landed right on top of their bed. Ichigo landed first with Lily landing on top of him with a slight huff.
Lifting herself up and straddling Ichigo's waist, Lily looks down at the sword in Ichigo's hand and then back to him. "Well, looks like our second official mission as Captain and Lieutenant was a success."
Rolling his eyes, Ichigo raised himself up with his arms while Lily still straddled him. "Come on, we need to tell Starrk what we found today."
Minutes later, Grimmjow tsk and gives a passing Hollow a piss off look that makes the other lesser creature hurry its pace. As he walked down the halls of Las Noches, he couldn't help stop the dreadful feeling slowly rising in his empty stomach. He didn't want to return without the sword or the delightful news that he got to kill off one of the two most important individuals in La Estrella. Before pushing through the doors to the war room, he fixes his attitude and enters the room before kneeling down. "I lost the sword. Zangetsu and the princess found the secret room before I could."
He looks up to see Baraggan's ever present scowl has not changed one bit. "See what I meant when I say you should have changed one of my men into an Arrancar, Aizen? This useless ant had just failed such an effortless task."
An ant? He bit down on the quick comment he was about to reply to, but Baraggan had already shown him why you shouldn't ever talk back to him. Instead, he looked towards the dark corner of the room where a man—whose name he learned to be Aizen, stepped out from the shadows with his ever so expression; a simple smile.
"Maybe you were right, but the sword doesn't matter. We can always get it back. But I think it's about time my—I mean, our plan comes to play."
"Tier Harribel?"
"Exactly."
Grimmjow scowled and left the room while wondering how they'll recruit the Vasto Lorde. 'Tsk, times like these I wish I would have gone to La Estrella...' But the King of La Estrella didn't share the same views as him—the only thing he and the old king have in common is the natural law they both live by; the strong are the ones to rule over Hueco Mundo. He stuck his hands inside the pockets of his pants and glared forward. 'Doesn't matter, I'll make my fucking move and when I do, I'll kill both Baraggan and Coyote.'
COh, my fucking... Ugh! 3 months later and I finally got to upload this story and I just feel so... so... so frustrated! On the day I posted the last update which was 3 months ago, I was already halfway done with this chapter when my Wi-fi decided to be funny and lose the connection when I was close towards the end which made me lose most of the progress... UGH! Cause of that; I sort of just took a minor break and such. Also, this whole pandemic issue isn't helping either. Working 60+ hours a week is not fun.
Anyway, honestly this chapter would be different but... I was a bit happy and sad with what had happen because I got to change a ton of things. Looking back into the story, I realize that every couple of chapters there's always a fight scene, and I thought, "Maybe I can skip a fight scene?" which I did.
Hmm, so what should we talk about this chapter? Maybe the only major one? Completo.
So as I wrote the story, I realize just how powerful the Zero Squad really were and thought about how it would have been possible for the Espadas win against them. Especially against Ichibē, he's rather a powerful character. So how did I think I could balance that out? By adding one more evolution to the Hollows, BUT fear not! This last step of their evolution isn't something that will make them broken or completely overpower! (Maybe only in Starrk's and Baraggan's case. Ichigo's gonna end up been overpowered, he was always gonna be OP). They will all be on par with the Zero Squad and the Schutzstaffel (Yhwach's elite guards). Also, only about five of them will reach the stage of Completo. (Just another way to keep them all balance.)
Eh, what else? So Grimmjow got introduce but didn't do much. Aizen is about to roll out his plan and with it, we'll be one chapter away from the Soul Society arc and Lily is doing her best to simply ignore her zanpakutō, that's not gonna turn out pretty. Also introduce who the new captain of the 10th Division is and did a little reference of the 'Bleach-verse' by 'mentioning' the other branches. And for those who don't know, Tite Kubo wrote a manga call 'Burn The Witch' or something like that and in there they mention Soul Society. So both Bleach and Burn The Witch are set in the same universe. But probably not around the same timeline.
Welp, we're done here. I honestly can't tell y'all when the next chapter will roll out, maybe in a couple of months or so. I do have a nice slight crossover idea that I wanna do that involves My Hero Academia and Bleach, but I sort of wanna post another chapter in my other story. Meh, guess I gotta wait and see what happens.
I know y'all heard it plenty of times but be safe out there people, things are getting crazy!
-Ten Out.