I do not own bleach
The pairings are going to be Ichigo+Nelliel+Orihime+Tier, maybe I add a fifth one later, but these are the planned ones, at least for the main pairing, I will pairing Ashido with the tres bestias and Rukia with Kaien and Renji, because I can also create a reverse harem, I may add either tatsuki or yoruichi to the main harem, but tbh I always saw yoruichi as the half-girlfriend of Urahara, and as this is an arrancar harem I would need a pretty good excuse to get a hollowified tatsuki which right now I do not have if I was to add her, btw yes I turned Orihime in to an arrancar, it just works very well, it is a perfect excuse to alter her personality just enough for her to be frigging deadly, and an excuse to give her the reiatsus reserves and base stats needed to be an absolute beast in combat, she is still going to be bubbly orihime and she is not going to like to kill or anything like that, but now she will have no qualms about killing when it is necessary to protect those she cares about, so when she has to, she will do it, badass orihime is what she is going to be. This story is going to be hueco mundo sided, but without Aizen, the main and recurring enemy is going to be soul society because fuck them, they always have been an evil organization, you just have to see the Rukongai to realize that the shinigami government and the Gotei have to go, that is not an adequate 'good afterlife', this fanfic is in part an answer to that and a way to redeem hollows as hollows are basically the most redeemable villains, most of them you can excuse with 'they did not know better' or 'they where tricked by Aizen' or 'they where basically animals with no self-control before' so hollows are pretty easy to de-villanize, I mean half the espada where not even evil, and also as a Spaniard I am kind of forced to like to write about hueco mundo as it is pretty easy for me to come up with names for stuff as Spanish is my main language, tldr shinigami are rotten evil, hollow are cool and cute.
I am going to repeat what I wrote at the end of last chapter, Ichigo and Orihime due to their hollow transformation have aged up in body and mind to be like their 24 years old selves, in universe explanation is that the process of becoming a hollow ages up the individual to their prime, this is a mechanic I pulled out of my ass but since it makes sense I am going to stick with it, as it would make sense that a newly formed hollow to be in its prime even if it was formed from the soul of a child, as hollows need to hunt, so in my story if you become a hollow and are younger than 24, you age up in mind, body, hormones and maturity to your 24 years old self, this is something I do for our shared mental well being, after all I can't pair a pair of teens with a couple of older women like Hari and Nel, it felt very uncomfortable as I was writing it, so I had to age Ichigo and Orihime to 24 years old, they look cooler that way anyway, and as hollows they are going to be stuck in that appearance since in this AU Hollows do not age once they are in their prime, and Barragan only looks like an old man because of his power, in this story hollows do not age past their prime and do not eventually die of old age, only way that a hollow can die is either by destroying its soul or purifying its soul, not even being eaten counts as in this fic there are some ways to separate individual souls from a hollow that they have eaten, so a eaten hollow has not truly died yet, this is something I do because honestly it fits very well with the hollow theme, hollows are essentially dead people that don't accept their deaths and remain in the world of the living until they transform in to hollows, so in this fic a hollow is the ultimate form of that negation of your own mortality, and manifests in a body that will never naturally die on its own, an ageless body. It is just something that fits them too frigging well, as hollows are then souls that get so obsessed in negating their own dead due to their earthly attachments that eventually they lose their heart, what made those earthly attachments in the first place in exchange for the ability to keep negating their own death forever and the power to fight those that want to bring them to the afterlife, the very personification of death, the shinigami, but in doing so they become hollow on the inside, becoming monsters that only exist to perpetuate their own lives and to try to fill their void, so yeah, even if it contradicts some cannon, in this fanfic hollows are that way because it is convenient and because it fits their theme very tightly, that is not to say that hollows are resistant to Barragan aging ability the respira, if they are hit by that they will actually age, as they are just resistant to aging as long as they are aging at a normal rate, it would be some applied way of instant regeneration, they are always regenerating back to a younger form every second they age so they stop aging, but Barragan's respira just ages them up so damn fast that they can't keep up with their regeneration, but as long as they do not die, even if they were aged up a lot by Barragan, they will eventually de-age back to their prime with time, those with usable instant regen like Ulquiorra may even do so in a few seconds, those that have lost it may take some weeks, idk
. . .
"We greet the Gran Rey Cero" said the two espadas at the same time as they kneeled in front of the newly born arrancar Ichigo Kurosaki, at this display of submission he was rather confused, the only thing he tough may explain this was that weird dream he had this night about energy blobs connecting and synchronizing.
"Why are you kneeling? And why are you calling me Gran Rey Cero ?" questioned the Kurosaki oldest son to the two green-eyed Espada.
At his question the paler of the two answered, "What are you so confused about Lord Ichigo? After the stunt you pulled yesterday, controlling this world to your will and then vassalizing us what did you expect you had become?" questioned the emotionless espada "Still I can understand that you were a completely different species until recently so I am going to assume that the shock of that has reduced your capacity of reason so I will explain, only the rightful ruler of Hueco Mundo can command this very world to do his bidding, for further confirmation after you connected with us last night we could feel in our souls that you were indeed the rightful ruler, el gran rey cero, the attack of the same name is named in honor to such a figure, but that is not the only reason we are kneeling to you, due to the vallaje you casted on us, this night we were forced to completely empathize with you, with your emotions, your wants, your fears, your will, although we can't know the specifics, we now understand you as a person, your heart completely and as such we can trust you for we have understood that if we were to follow you you would prioritize our own well-being over your desires or even your well being, this is something that for sure can't be said from Aizen our previous boss, and for the next I do not speak for both only for me, but personally by making me empathize with you I have archived what I truly desired, to understand the heart, and in such I have found my own, for this I am eternally grateful and indebted to you" said the pale green eyed arrancar with the most matter of fact voice possible, although at the end his speech by the time he was talking about the heart a small barely perceptible smile could be seen, smaller than a smirk.
"I am of the same opinion for the nonpersonal, as for the personal I really resonated with your will to sacrifice yourself to protect others as I feel that is something I can deeply respect, it is also through this process that I have become aware of something that I did not want to think about and it is that Aizen does not have our best interests in mind and would sacrifice us for his own gain" Said Harribel.
"Actually, you are right Harribel, at the time I did not know my heart so I did not care, but I must show you this", said Ulquiorra as he removed one of his own eyes and exploded it creating a sort of hologram of his memories.
In the memory, Aizen appears talking with Tousen and Gin about how he plans to sacrifice the Arrancar and that he never has planned that the Arrancar had any chance against the gotei 13 as they were and they would only serve to buy him time and save him the hassle of fighting himself, the only truly useful to him being Wonderweiss and the rest being nothing more than a distraction so the Gotei underestimates him and an experiment on how to use to hogyoku.
As the tercera watches this she is even more sure of the decision to not follow Aizen.
"Anyway after what you did Lord Ichigo is not like we could have still followed Aizen, after all, we are sealed here and he is sealed from here, and if I may add if you as a vasto lord were enough to defeat that form of mine, now you as an Arrancar... are likely much stronger than Aizen, so even if from a practical standpoint, it makes sense to follow you" said Ulquiorra with the most serious and emotionless face he could muster.
The young arrancar was flabbergast by this, the enemy he just yesterday killed him and he wanted to kill now was swearing loyalty to him alongside another Espada, he had come here to rescue his friend from Hueco Mundo from its ruler, and in turn, he has killed his friend and became the ruler of hueco mundo. He was honestly confused but he could feel the truthfulness in their words and knew that now he was responsible for them, this added responsibility and extra people to protect... he felt as if that was filling a little bit the void he now felt inside as a hollow, this filling made him incredibly happy and as such he accepted them. He was ready to give them his hand for a handshake when a wild Nel appeared and hugged them both "I'm very happy you have decided to follow Ichi as I did", this surprised these two and the boy, who said "What you decided to follow me?" asked the young arrancar and soon he found the answer
"But of course Ichi, didn't I followed you even when I was in that younger form? And I have even more reason to follow you now, after all since the moment I saw you as an Arrancar I have decided that you are my mate" said the teal-haired woman with a little bit of red in her cheeks but with certainty to her mate.
"Ehhhhh? mate? what do you mean by mate Nel?" asked the young arrancar with a face as red as his name implies, which is an accomplishment since his skin tone right now is candle wax white.
"You don't want to be my mate Ichi?" asked Nel with teary eyes and an overall abandoned puppy face to her crush.
"Well is not like I don't want to..." said in a low voice the demon like arrancar while looking the other way to hide his embarrassment.
"Then it is decided you are my mat..." was saying the teal arrancar when she suddenly was interrupted by an angry Inoue Orihime
"Noooo! You can't Nelliel-san! Kurosaki-kun is mine, I was going to confess and was going to be my boyfriend" said teary and angry the only non-arrancar hollow of the group.
"So you also want him as a mate?" asked Nelliel with a curious look on her face.
"Yes!" answered a teary and angry orihime.
"And exactly what does it matter he being your mate with he also being my mate? I don't dislike you, do you dislike me?" asked Nelliel worried that she was disliked by Orihime and seeing absolutely no problem in both of them being his mates at least as long as they didn't dislike each other.
"Whaaatt? What are you saying Nelliel-san? Couples are meant to be only two... is no like I dislike you, I have not known you much time, only a few moments in fact but I can tell we can be friends" said Orihime with a mix of surprise and even more surprise.
Then the tanned arrancar decided it was her turn to explain and approached the two to explain things to Orihime.
"Orihime-san was it? Well it seems you are having a confusion here, it may have been true in the human world for humans to have relationships consisting only of two people, but here in hueco mundo for hollows, or at least hollows that are sane of mind, it is not normal at all to have relationships that can't have more than two hollows, in human terms, polygamy here is the norm, or well the real norm is no relationships at all, but basically all relationships end up being polygamical in nature here, this is specially true for relationships with one male and various females, but the reason might surprise you, the fact is that hollow males that are decent enough to be in a relationship and that want to be in a relationship are a lot rarer than hollow females that want the same, even if females here are rare, a good chunk of them actually are decent and want a relationship, while for males even if they are more common, maybe only 1% of them are decent enough to be mate material, and of that 1% about half of them is not interested in relationships, and added to all of that, to find a male in that reduced pool that also have traits that you can love or that you are attracted to is even rare, it is rare enough that for most females that male might not even exists, or if it exists to only be one such male in all of hueco mundo, this is even truer for menos, because due to the great difference in power an adjuchas or a vasto lord can't mate with a lesser hollow without it being mortal, even in some cases some weaker adjuchas will not be able to mate with some of the stronger vasto lord, so in our case the pool is very limited , due to this it is normal for females to share a mate they all found desirable as long as they don't dislike each other, that is not to say that the relationship is not exclusive, after two or three females choose a male as their mate, if another female wants to join has to be liked by all previous females and as such is not like the male can go adding random new mates without prior consent of his mates, unless he wants to close a relationship with two or three mates over one mate, which as you may imagine never happens, so it is not only tradition and the correct thing to do to have these type of relationships here between hollows, it is encoded in our instincts, now ask yourself if you really mind to have to share your mate with two friends that also love him and that you like them." explained the blonde arrancar.
Orihime was overwhelmed with such a lewd but analytical explanation speaking about males and females instead of men and women, but still, she did take the advice to heart or to the hollow hole she guessed and asked herself if her truly minded sharing Ichigo with Nel-san, and the answer was that not only she did not mind, she actually kind of preferred it that way, she was sure that had she tried to do the same while still being human she would have absolutely have minded and in fact, she would be kind of angry, but as a hollow she actually liked the idea more and more.
"Actually I think you are right..."
"Tier Harribel"
"As I was saying I think you are right Harribel-san, now that I am asked myself, I think I may even prefer it this way" said Inoue very surprised with herself.
"Is that right Hime? Yay, this makes me very happy" said a very happy Nelliel as she embraced Inoue after giving her a pet name.
"Before you two continue I may add that I also do want to make him my mate, as I really resonate with his feelings of protection and self-sacrifice, I feel he is someone I can be safe around, and I happen to like his physique, and you two liking him confirms to me that he is a decent make" said a slightly blushing Tier. "Still for that, I think you two need to know me better so what do you two think if we go for a walk and we know each other better to be sure we want to share mate" continued Harribel, as she Inoue and Nelliel walked out of the cave and started talking about each other and their likes and dislikes, and of course about Ichigo.
"Did that just happen?" asked a completely flabbergasted Strawberry to the only other occupant of the cave right now after having just heard how he suddenly is going to have two or even three girlfriends without much input of himself, as if his agreement was but a matter of fact, which of course it was, but still he felt he should have been consulted on the matter, he did not even know one of the three at all but her name, and to be honest most of what he knew about Nel was in her younger form which honestly he thinks it doesn't count for this matter and he is right.
"Don't ask me, I know less about the heart than you" responded a very serious Ulquiorra, "But what Tier Harribel said is indeed true as far as I learned" continued the green-eyed arrancar.
. . .
Several hours later
. . .
The three female vasto lords returned from their walk laughing and talking between the three as if they were besties that have known each other all of their lives, there was a bit of blood in the three of them indicating that they had been attacked, probably by lesser hollows during their walk and their attackers have been exterminated like flies.
"So how was the walk girls" asked a blushing strawberry still as red as one.
"Fantastic Ichigo-kun now we are all friends" replied Orihime with probably a smile on her face but was not possible to be seen as her mask covered it, "very good Ichi, Tia and Hime are very fun" answered a beaming Nel. "Very good Ichigo, Orihime has talked a lot about you and how you are in detail and now I certainly will make you my mate" said Tier with the same certainty as a shark that is going to eat its prey.
Suddenly one of them picked the boy by one of the horns, and another of them by the opposite horn, the third picked him by the legs, essentially lifting him from the ground as if he was a sofa by the three of them
"Wh-what are you three doing! Where are you me bringing me to?" asked Kurosaki to his three potential girlfriends. only to be answered by a unanimous "To mate" by the three of them as they continued to chat between themselves only stopping for Harribel to say to Ulquiorra
"Hey, Ulquiorra would you mind guarding the entrance of the cave so no one enters?"
to which the pale arrancar replied affirmatively and moved to the entrance to guard it, as the three of them brought Ichigo deeper into the cave as if he was prey and they were going to devour him, which is exactly what happened, although not in the literal sense.
. . .
eight hours later
. . .
A very fatigued Ichigo exited the deeps of the cave surrounded by three very happy girlfriends of his. He was also very happy, in fact, he was so happy that it seemed as if the void he started to feel since he became a hollow has completely disappeared or at least in grand part, but he could not negate that he was very tired, maybe he would have not been as tired if Nelliel had not insisted on doing it in her resurrección form as well one of the multiple times with her, It was also kind of hard to please Orihime as she was still not an Arrancar so certain feelings and sensations where a bit muted for her, so to compensate he had to do more work. Still, it was an amazing experience, the whole concept of having three girlfriends and doing a foursome with the three of them still baffled him to the moon of Hueco Mundo.
"So have you finished your mating business?" asked a slightly annoyed Ulquiorra, clearly bored by having to wait 8 hours while having to hear all the moans and screams.
"Yes Ulquiorra, we have finished" said a beaming Nelliel.
"Then what do you suggest we do now, this cave is not exactly very safe, and at this point las noches has for sure fallen under Barragan, and while he is not more powerful than you Lord Ichigo, he has a very dangerous power that is not easy to counter with power alone, if anything the power of the wom... of Orihime may be able to counter it as it seems to negate events or things it may be able to negate its powers but I doubt she is capable of using his powers in this form, still she should be able to use the where she to become an arrancar, but that brings us to the initial point again, we need the hogyoku which unless Aizen has it, should be in las noches, luckily I was the only espada that was revealed where it is hidden so Barragan shouldn't know where it is or if it is there at all, so I would recommend we actually find a more secure base of operations and find the whereabouts of other espada, if we were able to get la primera, or maybe three of the ones numbered 5 or less, we may be able to split in two groups, one that distracts Barragan and other that goes toward the hogyoku, by need you would need to be the one to use the hogyoku, I the one to guide you to it and Orihime will need to be with us so we transform her as soon as possible, this leaves only Nelliel and Tier to go against Barragan, and honestly that is not enough.
"You are right Ulquiorra" affirmed his lord, "if we want a base, I might know someone that has one and it has served him a lot of years so it should be decent, I do not know how he will react to us though, he is a shinigami, and to be honest I do not even know if he is still there, he may have been thrown out of hueco mundo, but something makes me think otherwise for some reason"
"Then it is clear, we are going to head to the forest of menos" commanded Ichigo
. . .
In the sands of hueco mundo quite an unusual scene was taking place, Ulquiorra was flying in his resurrección, following what appeared to the untrained eye the Hueco Mundo equivalent of a clown car, after all, There was Nelliel in her resurrección that gives her the body of a goat the size of a big horse from waist to bellow, and riding her was at the front her mate Ichigo Kurosaki, but there was also her two co-mates which she shared mate riding her, Harribel in the middle and Inoue in the back, the reason for inoue to be in the back is because her wings were kind of of nuisance unless she was in the back, and as for the reason she did not fly it was very simple, she was not fast enough yet to keep with the flight speed of Ulquiorra and the gallop speed of Nelliel as the group of four approached the entrance of the forest of menos.
But as they continued towards their destination they saw a curious sight, two small hollows the size of children were fighting each other, one was masked with a mask with a single horn and red elongated diamonds on the front with yellow eyes with black sclera but without a hollow hole at least one visible because she was clothed in a tracksuit and yet had a zanpakuto, while the other did have a hollow hole and a broken mask that covered an amount of face similar to Ichigo's but without a zanpakuto.
It is only when they approach more that they are recognized.
"I recognized the swordless arrancar, Lord Ichigo, she is named Lilynette Gingerbuck, and is the fracción of the primera espada Coyote Stark, as for the other I do not know but she seems similar to what you were before, a masked soul reaper" explained the winged pale arrancar approaching the rest of the group as they all stop to see the two shortstacks fight.
"Hey I recognize the shortstack in a tracksuit" said Ichigo pointing to her, "Her name is Hiyori, she is one of the Vizards" continued Ichigo, still pointing.
"Vizards?" asked the rest of them, clearly confused at the term.
"Vizards are what I was before becoming an arrancar" Ichigo paused for a moment while trying to weave an explanation, "If I had to describe them, they are half hollowified soul reaper, essentially a soul reaper that has been hollowified but that has managed to stop the process of complete hollowification" Ichigo paused again to think more and try to remember what the vizards explained to him in more detail, "If I had to explain them as they have been explained to me, a soul reaper, is a plus soul that has archived the state of soul reaper, usually when a plus starts hollowifiying it can't be stopped but as soul reaper powers have a purifying effect on hollows, if a plus happens to be a soul reaper and is forced to hollowify it is possible to resist this process, leaving a soul reaper that is half a plus and half a hollow" Ichigo paused for a brief moment as he put his hand in his chin in a thinking pose, "That process creates a sort of inner spirit similar to the spirit of a shinigami zanpakuto that they call an inner hollow, that being said I am not exactly sure if it is correct to call them, my case is a little special as it seems that my inner hollow was also my shinigami zanpakuto spirit but in normal vizards it seems to be a separate entity, still I think that calling them inner hollow is not correct", Ichigo paused for a moment and picked up his new white zanpakuto, "I think that these inner hollow may in fact be the proto-spirit of an arrancar zanpakuto, after all mine became that after becoming an Arrancar", Ichigo paused for a brief moment to recompose its thoughts after having gone by a tangent, "Anyway, in essence Vizards are shinigami that can put on hollow masks, becoming more powerful and in some cases even using hollow abilities like the cero." The young Arrancar ended his explanation.
Everyone of his four companions was so entrenched with the strawberry's explanation that they did not notice that the two midgets had stopped their fight and were approaching them.
"Hey! Who are you all?" asked a masked angry midget in a tracksuit, in response the blade-horned Arrancar approached her for which she unsheathed her blade and took a defensive stance. "I repeat! Who are you? What do you want?"
To this questioning coming from an angry midget Ichigo could not help but laugh and put on one of his classic smirks "What? Do you no recognize me shortstack? You look a tad too young to have Alzheimer tho." He said so with an ironic and quite theatrical voice, clearly making fun of the Vizard for not recognizing him, after all even if he looks a bit older and lot more hollow, she should still be able to recognize him. Thinking that maybe is that they were still too far apart he used sonido and appeared in front of the tracksuit wearing masked soul reaper.
"Better now? Take a good look, I may look whiter, older and hollower but I take pride in having a rather easy to identify face, specially paired with my hair." Continued talking in a joking tone with a very big smirk on his face the young man.
"I do not know any orange haired Arranc..." Suddenly she stopped her words as if she realized something, "NO WAY!" Shouted the midget as she pointer her finger at the strawberry face, "NO FRIGGING WAY!", continued the masked warrior as both her mouth and her mask mouth opened wide enough that would put rattlesnake to shame, "IS IT YOU ICHIGO?" shouted her in a tone that can only be expressed as ninety percent surprise and ten percent anger.
"The unique and only Ichigo Kurosaki, at your service shortstack" Said Ichigo in a mix of polite and ironic tone as he did a theatrical exaggerated bow, only to end it with another smirk as he said shortstack.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SHORTSTACK!" Shouted Hiyori as she tried to punch Ichigo in his face, but before she could, Ichigo caught her fist with his bare hands without moving even a centimeter from the blow, canceling all the kinetic energy by absorbing all the energy of the blow on his body.
"That is no longer going to work with me Hiyori" said Ichigo with the bigger smirk on his face, clearly very happy of the power that allowed him to tease her without having to suffer the consequences, or so he tough, because he soon found the fist of an angry Orihime smacking him the head, a comically large head bump coming afterwards. "Why did you hit me Orihime?" said Ichigo comically as he put on an exaggerated pained expression.
"Now that I am your girlfriend I can't have you behaving like a douche can I?" said Orihime in a reproaching tone as she moved her right hand with the index finger extended as if she was reprimanding a child for a misdeed he did, to this Ichigo choose to shut up and accept it, after all his father raised him to believe that arguing with a woman in these cases can only end up badly and the best course of action was to accept you did wrong and... "I am sorry, it will not happen again, I promise" said the strawberry to one of his girlfriends as he lowered his head slightly to express how apologice. Should be noted though that Orihime did not request him to apologice to Hiyori which was the victim of the teasing, as she really did not care about that, she only wanted Ichigo to act more mature, and as such an apology directed to herself was enough for her.
"Sorry to stop your lovers comical duo but Ichigo, what the hell happened to you to become a frigging Arrancar? And for that matter you called that vasto lord Orihime, wasn't that your human friend that was kidnaped by Aizen and that you had gone in a suicide mission to rescue?" asked a confused Hiyori in her usual angry voice.
"Ah right!" exclaimed Ichigo, "Sorry Hiyori, I will explain, but it is a bit long do you mind if we find some cave or somewhere to hide, it may take a few hours." ichigo paused for a moment as his head turned towards the short arrancar that was now next to Hiyori "And you, Lynette-san i think was your name? You should come as well, this does involve you as well"
"Wait how do you know my name?" asked a surprised Lynette.
"I did tell him" answered Ulquiorra that has approached with the resto of the group.
"Wait Ulquiorra? Harribel? What are you doing here with this orange haired weirdo? And WAIT! Is that Nelliel? I tough she was dead!" exclaimed a confused Lynette.
"Well, you may find that my death was greatly exaggerated" answered Nelliel not noticing the reference she did to an absolute cult classic.
As the conversation ended they all found a nearby cave and proceed to take refuge. In the cave Ichigo, with the help of Ulquiorra, managed to explained to both midgets what has happened, how he became an arrancar, how Orihime became a hollow, how he somehow was the Gran Rey Cero and was able to seal off Hueco Mundo and separate hollow-kin from everyone else, how the two espada had seared loyalty, and even how now he had 3 girlfriends slash mates, to the absolute amusement of both midgets as they began to cooperate in a tease crusade against the strawberry that ended in him being as red as his namesake, after the explanations were over Hiyori decided that she was going to follow them until she found the other Vizards, slightly angry that Ichigo has gotten them all in this mess by summoning them to Hueco Mundo but weirdly understanding that it was actually a very good choice and that in fact it was not even Ichigo's consciousness that did it but his now dormant hollow zanpakuto spirit Zangetsu, as for Lynette, she also decided to follow them until they find Stark, not only that, she had decided that she was going to convince Stark to join them and abandon his ideas of following Aizen, as she has never really liked Aizen that much and always appeared to her as an opportunist that was taking advantage of her other half, after knowing Ichigo and the way the two espadas and the ex-espada talked about him, she was convinced that he would make a much preferable leader than Aizen, and given that the only espadas that Stark actually enjoyed their company were already following Ichigo it should not be that hard to convince Start to switch to the side where his friends were she thought, after Ichigo's explanations it was Nelliel's turn to explain, and she explained how she was betrayed by Nnoitra and Szayel and ended up in a child form wandering the dessert with her fracción without her memories until she found Ichigo which ended up in her temporally regaining her body and memories and after that in her mask being repaired by Ichigo's reiatsu while arrancarizing.
. . .
Next Morning
. . .
Ichigo found himself in a situation that while extremely envidiable by any and all men, was quite the problem.
He found himself being embraced in one arm by a sleeping Nelliel, the other by a sleeping Tier, and both his legs were being embraced by Orihime, with the left leg being embraced with her arms and the right left by her legs while her head rested on his belly.
As his three mates were sleeping he really did not want to wake them up and wanted to allow them to continue their placid sleep, but due to that he was completely immobilised and could not move without at least waking one or two of them.
This situation on itself would not be that much of a problem, he enjoyed being embraced by his three darlings and could continue that way for days without boredom even appearing, but it just happens that for some weird reason, he wanted to pee.
This, he thought, was very weird, as far as he was aware spirits do not pee, and even if spirits did not pee, he was completely sure that hollows did not pee, so he was very confused and slightly worried.
"Ichigo, do not fear" said his quincy spirit without bringing him to his inner world, all sounding inside his head "What you are feeling right now is not actually the need to pee, what you need to expulse from your body is some form of coagulated liquid spirit energy that form because your reiatsu levels are too high, as you still see yourself as a human even if you are not, your body is responding to that and is materializing this need to expulse this coagulated liquid spirit energy as the need to pee, but there are other forms to expulse it, first and foremost you could simply use it, as it is most compressed and your body wants to dispose of it, if you try to use an energy based attack like a cero or a getsuga tensho, you will first use up this coagulated energy, in fact with a single one of either you would use it all and lower your energy levels enough to not have to worry for some time" after a brief pause the spirit continued "You could also expulse it other ways like as a form of sweat or even coagulate it more and shitting it, technically you could even expulse it in the form of tears or of saliva, but that would certainly be a little suboptimal" explained the spirit.
'Old man, I understand what you are explaining and it may be a very good way to prevent it, but i can't exactly fire a cero right now, less a getsuga, and I am not sure i can change it to other body fluid when it already is there' thought to himself the young arrancar as a way to converse with his spirit.
"Certainly Ichigo, right now you either expulse it in an attack or as a form of pseudo orine, then i recommend you to just pee right now, it is not like this is real orine, it is just spirit energy, it is not dirty nor does it smell, nor will it even leave a stain, as you pee it will just disperse in the atmosphere of hueco mundo" suggested the fragment of the father of all quincy.
'How could you suggest i pee myself in the bed? even more as I am being embraced by my three girlfriends! I can't shame them by peeing myself in the bed old man.' Ichigo screamed in his own mind.
"Then you have no option but to wake them up" said as a matter of fact the quincy spirit.
Ichigo again considered that option but he really did not wanted to wake them up, and as such continued to repress his need to pee while being embraced by three beauties.
. . .
"Good morning!" said Nelliel as she was waking up from a good rest, as she did this, the other two started to wake up as well.
"Hey isn't it weird how concentrated is the spiritual energy right now? it is like 3 or 4 times the normal of Hueco Mundo, and for sure yesterday it was not like this" said Harribel as she noticed how concentrated was the spirit energy in the cave right now.
As she said this, Ichigo could not help but blush slightly and put his hand in his mouth as if he was thinking to hide his blushing, not wanting them to notice what have happened, even he himself wanting to forget it.
"Does it matter?" asked a curious Orihime.
To which Tier responded "Not really, maybe it is that way because the cave has good insulation and such a concentration of strong presences slept here, i guess it is not that weird, just unusual and harmless, at least to us."
Ulquiorra actually having seen what happened was going to explain the reason when suddenly Ichigo appeared in a burst of sonido in front of him and said "Hey Ulquiorra how about we talk about that thing you did during our fight that second transformation" as he said that he manager to go out of the cave with him, successfully avoiding the reveal of his shameful moment to his lovers, which where quite suspicious right now by that sudden action but decided to drop it because they had better things to do.
Outside of the cave where no one could heard Ichigo was pleading to Ulquiorra. "You never saw that, that is to be a secret, in fact if you can forget you should forget, never bring that up again"
"Understood, I don't know why would you want to hide something that innocuous from everybody, but again I am quite uninformed of the intricacies of social interaction so I will obey" said Ulquiorra
. . .
After some ten to twenty minutes of preparing themselves the resumed their travel to the forest of menos, as there were two new members and Nel refused to give a ride to anyone that was not either her mate, or her co-mates, Ulquiorra had to pick up both of them, one in each of his hands, which was simple as he reasoned to himself that they where rather compact and easy to transport and the travel continued with the winged arrancar and the four legged arrancar serving as means of transportation.
In this last period of travelling they found some curious things, like a lot of lesser hollows, which was quite rare in the dessert, It was Tier that pointed to them that they where probably the hollows that were previously in the world of the living but were transported to Hueco Mundo by the actions of her mate. Other interesting thing they noticed was that the sealed garganta in the moon shaked from time to time, as if someone or something was trying to force it open, but to not avail as the seal did not budge one bit, nor it appeared to be going to budge in the future.
Finally after what might have been the equivalent to a human week since the fight between ichigo and ulquiorra they arrived to the entrance to the forest, completely unguarded.
. . .
"How weird, this should have been guarded by a group of Adjuchas by order of Aizen" commented Ulquiorra.
"Yeah, about that, I may have contributed in the past to weed out their population, you see they kidnapped Nelliel while she was in her sealed child-like form and so I had to rescue her" said an apologetic Ichigo
"No need to be so apologetic Lord Ichigo, even going by Aizen's rules, they should have not did that to an Arrancar, no matter how much like a child she appeared to be, by kidnapping her they actually disobeyed orders" said Ulquiorra without a shred of empathy for the deceased Adjuchas.
Ichigo really appreciated the reassurance from Ulquiorra, although he used to hate the guts of this guy, that has now changed, after taking with him for days he had come to understand that Ulquiorra was not evil, he couldn't be, he lacked too much to be able to be evil or good, and seeing how he behaves right now that he seems to have found and start to understand the proverbial heart he is so obsessed with, Ichigo found out that Ulquiorra is actually quite nice company, albeit a little bit dry, he also seems to have become very loyal and attached to him, Ichigo thought that the reason for that very probably is that until Ichigo Ulquiorra did not have friends, as he lacked the ability to understand that, but after the weird sync dream Ulquiorra seems to have acquired this ability and Ichigo has become his first true friend, although he talks to him as his lord, Ichigo can tell, inside Ulquiorra considers him a friend, and right now, even him is starting to consider Ulquiorra a friend, inside his head separating the Ulquiorra pre-dream as a different entity than the one post-dream even if that is not exactly the case, it made it easier for Ichigo to accept him as a friend, so he did tell himself this little half-lie half truth.
. . .
After some searching Ichigo finally found the hiding spot of Ashido, right now Ulquiorra and Nel were out of their Resurrecciones, and all of them were walking.
As Ichigo was going to enter the secret base of the hollow hunter he sensed something in his back and materialized fake zangetsu as he used sonido to rotate 180 degrees and parried the incoming attack.
After the sudden attack Ichigo observed his attacker, the attacked had a hollow mask, an old shinigami garment and a brown fur cape with hollow masks attached and a unreleased zampakuto.
Seeing that the man was still here mildly surprised Ichigo, it is true that he had a fleeting thought that Ashido maybe was not expulsed of Hueco Mundo in some strange notion that he has been here too long, but really that did not make any sense at all, that being the reason of the surprise of actually finding him here.
"Hey Ashido don't you recognize me? We may have not known for long, but it was not that long ago that we met" said a grinning ichigo, fully aware that Ashido may no recognize him since his appearance right now was different enough that for someone he only met for a short time like Ashido, he may not recognize him at all.
"I know no arrancar! Now hollow prepare for your demise!" shouted Ashido as stepped back and readied himself for another attack.
clash
It was not needed for Ichigo to defend himself, as Harribel and Ulquiorra had parried the slash, while Nel had sonido behind Ashido and has put her blade to his neck and Orihime had appeared a moment later to his left and has readied his hand to perform the shinigami's heart at a moment notice. Lilynette and Hiyori simply watched this whole event unfold mildly interested as if they where watching a movie, Hiyori has even materialized a box of popcorn from somewhere somehow and was sharing them with Lynette.
"Do not think you have got me hollow!" shouted Ashido but without taking action as he well know that doing so would mean the end of his life.
At that stupid act of bravery Ichigo could only answer by changing his face from his usual smirk to a weirdly warm face, "Ashido, my name is not hollow, my name is Ichigo Kurosaki, I know I look quite different, you know, with the hollow hole, the broken horned mask, older, and with candle wax like skin, i even hace fur and claws now, but you will recognize me if you look for a moment"
At that Ashido grunted, clearly thinking that he was being tricked and that somehow this Arrancar has obtained information about that boy, but then he looked closer and actually did start to see the resemblance more and more.
"Ichigo is it really you?" said Ashido finally as he was finally convinced of this.
After that they all entered the hideout and proceeded with another round of explanations about everything that has happened, not only about Ichigo's, but everyone shared their story.
. . .
Several hours later
. . .
"I must admit those where quite the tales, and it is very sad what happened to you and your friend, and I am very grateful, you have archived what I never got to do, although in another way, but you have actually managed to save the living world from wild hollow attacks by sealing Hueco Mundo, that is something that makes me very relieved, as I will not need to continue my crusade, but still, I question why is that I am still in Hueco Mundo. Shouldn't I have been transported outside by what you describe?" Said Ashido switching from sadness to happiness to doubt in very few moments.
Ichigo was going to try to answer that but was interrupted by Hiyori, "I think I may have an answer to that" said the young looking tracksuit vizard, "You may be a proto-vizard, you may have an inner hollow like me and the other vizards I commented" explained Hiyori.
"But how could he be a Vizard? And weren't you stuck with your mask since you were summoned here for some reason unable to unsummon it? He doesn't have a mask apart from that one he puts, but that is not his mask, that is just a mask" said Ichigo to rebute Hiyori's theory.
"You shut up carrot, You may not know but I used to work at the research institute of the Gotei 13, and by his reiatsu I can tell that he is some sort of vizard, and i have my own theories" said Hiyori
After a brief pause she looked to Ashido in the eyes and continued "As a shinigami you should feel hunger from time to time but you say you have been stuck here for hundreds of years, how come you are still alive? what have you been eating?" asked an analytical Hiyori
Ashido rather flustered by this sudden interrogation quickly answered "Well... what could I have eaten? Hollows that I hunted of course. I had to be careful to kill them with kido and not use my zanpakuto so they were not purified and i could eat them, It is not something i am exactly proud off but I needed to survive."
"And how exactly were you able to do that mr hollow hunter? After all hollow meat is poisonous to pure shinigami without hollow reiatsu" asked and clarified the ex-researcher.
"I just did!... Maybe it is related to my shikai, It allows me to absorb reiatsu from those I cut to restore my own, I just usually don't use it because I have no way to disperse the hollow reiatsu in hueco mundo, so I just used it in life or death situations, the first of them was when i first came here." explained Ashido
"And there you have your explanation, you used your shikai to get hollow reiatsu that allowed you to devour hollows" concluded Hiyori.
"But how does that explain me being a what you called? Vizard?" inquired Ashido.
"Are you an idiot or what? You have been eating hollows! You know who are the ones that eat hollows? Other hollows! Hollows are human souls, by eating them you have been doing the same as a hollow, and in doing so you have absorbed their souls in to your own, and thus now your soul is partially hollow, i do not know why it has not tried to take control of you or completely hollowify you, but you are vizard, and in fact you are probably the most hollow like vizard, we were forced a hollow in to us, you have been hunting and devouring them for centuries, like a hollow would do" shouted Hiyori.
Only then it hit Ashido how hollow like he had been behaving, he blinked and when he oponed his eyes again he was in other place, the place where his friends had died all those years ago, but he knew this was not actually that place, it has been a lot of years, and it has changed, but as a shinigami he actually knew of this place. 'My inner world' Ashido thought, 'But it is very different to how i remember, it seems that all these years obsessing over this have changed my inner world to this, it is very fitting i guess' guessed Ashido.
Ashido noted a hand on his back and rotated to see who has touched him and saw a version of himself mask and cape and all, but more white, and with yellow eyes behind the mask. "Hey you are finally here" said a raspy voice by with a weirdly happy tone
"Who are you" Ashido asked.
"I am what that woman has explained to you as your inner hollow" replied his self proclaimed inner hollow.
"And why have you not tried to take control of me like she said you all do?" asked Ashido confused about this supposed inner hollow behaviour.
The inner hollow started to laugh maniacally "hehe That is very easy, very easy indeed, hahaha, you see... You have been such a perfect hollow that it would have made no sense for me to do so, I am actually very happy with you and have no intention of overthrowing you, you defend our life very well, and since all this time in this forest your have honed your instincts to the max, basically relying on them, you also act like a hollow, attack first, questions later, eating other hollows, hunting hollows tu survive, a life of eating souls, instincts, survival and an obsession trying to fill a void, hahahahaha, there is no way i could replace you, you are completely a hollow already"
Ashido wanted to negate what he was hearing, but he deeply knew that there were no falsehood in the inner hollow's words, but still wanting to rebuke it he unsheathed his blade and pointed it to the inner hollow, as if in a sign of defiance
"Yes, that is actually a good idea" said the inner hollow as he did something that Ashido did not expect at all at the hollow impaled himself in his blade. "There is no need for something like an inner hollow like me when you there is already a phenomenal outer hollow like you hihihihi" the inner hollow plunged the blade deeply, "Now consume me like a true hollow and be reborn, then after i time i will be able to asume a new role since the inner hollow role was unnecessary in your case" as he did say that he started to disintegrate in to shite particles that flew towards Ashido's mouth and he unwillingly swallowed them all as they forced themselves in to his mouth.
While this was happening outside of the inner world the moment that Ashido entered his inner world the mask has appeared, it was a very similar mask to the one he usually put on himself from that hollow, but this one was slightly different and seemed to fit better in his face.
After what may have been a minute or two a hole appeared in Ashido's chest and from it a white substance started to come out as it transformed his body in to that of some kind of animalistic chupacabras, Ulquiorra recognized that it emitted a reiatsu very similar to that of an adjuchas that is on the verge of becoming a vasto lord, and Hiyori recognized it as a similar thing to what happens to a Vizard when they are battling their inner hollow, but before she could go up to battle it a weird thing happened, the mask broke off leaving only a bit of the top part, and Ashido's body changes again, returning to its shinigami like appearance as all the extra mass transformed again in to the white substance and flowed inside his zanpakuto, by the end it was the same ashido as always but with a hole in chest and two mask fragments in the top of his head, corresponding to the two horns his masks had, although one of the horns was broken at the middle.
It was then that Ashido opened his eyes, seeming to have returned from his inner world, his eyes were as always, so really the only changes were the horn and half and the hole, at least physically, as for his reiatsu it was the reiatsu of an lower espada level arrancar made out of an strong adjuchas, Ichigo tough that is was similar to Grimmjow's
Ashido found himself weird, the words of his inner hollow and his actions have shaken him greatly, but he seemed to be fine or so he thought, then he noticed how his own reiatsu was no longer that of a plus, but of a hollow, then he noticed that the void inside of him that started to grow with the death of his friends was now more real than ever, and as he brought his hand to his chest as if to calm himself, he found a hole there, this greatly scared the hunter and he jumped backwards bending to see his chest, and what he saw was very clear, a hollow hole. Then as if in feat he put his hand on his face, after which he started to feel relief to not sense a mask there, or at least it was until he started to move his hand up and found a pair of horns. Scared again Ashido brought the blade of his zanpakuto to try to see his own reflection and what he saw was the splitting image of an arrancar, a broken mas, a hollow hole and a zanpakuto, the one he was seeing this reflection on, although it was the same he used as a shinigami.
"It seems you where wrong Hiyori he was not a vizard but an arrancar" said Ichigo with a smirk in his face, as if mocking the midget sized researcher.
"Shut up carrot! he was totally a vizard, he just did something weird like you did and ended up an arrancar!" shouted an angry Hiyori.
"But he did not tore off his mask as I did, it's more like it broke on its own" replied Ichigo in an analytical manner.
"Maybe he was too far gone to remain a vizard i guess, after all vizards do not eat hollows and he must have eaten a lot these years, some of them may have been adjuchas, he may have been too much like a hollow already to remain a vizard" conceded Hiyori in an annoyed manner.
"You there Ashido? I am going to guess by your reactions that you are still you..." said Ichigo, "It seems that all your years of behaving like a hollow and eating like a hollow have caught up to you and you actually became a hollow" continued Ichigo sarcastically, trying to calm the man.
"Yes... it is me, and also yes, I seem to have sowed the consequences of my actions" responded Ashido with a dispirited voice.
"Don't worry Ashido, it is not that bad, i can guarantee you, I am a perfectly fine example of it not being that bad, who knows you maybe even get three mates like me as well" said Ichigo trying to animate the guy.
"yeah right, as if girlfriends just appeared suddenly outside one's house and knocked the door" said ashido sardonically.
It was then that they started to feel weird reiatsu signatures outside, 6 signatures, one of them very high, and before they could do anything they heard a sound come out from, the entrance of the hide spot, probably against the wall as no door exists for this hideout.
knock knock knock