Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World (Youjo Senki x Bleach)

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 1: Meeting Acquisitions

~

Tanya felt giddier than she had in the past 70 years—at least, she was pretty sure it was 70. Time was hard to keep track of when one was effectively immortal and lived in a dimension without a day-night cycle.

Still, the point stood. She had managed to get permission to 'scout for supplies' from Ichimaru Gin. Being the laxest of the three Shinigami leaders, she had hedged her bets that he would grant it with no questions asked or none that would be serious enough to actually dig at her true purposes. A simple, "Sure Tanya-chan, have fun," was expected and given, with a bit of teasing about how the 'little soldier' needed to 'eat enough to grow big and strong like her papa'. Most of the time, Tanya found herself grumbling about the man's lackadaisical attitude toward what was a complex operation aiming to topple the very order of the universe and fight forces thousands of years in the making with powers rivaling that of mythical gods, in this one case, she was thankful that he wasn't interested enough in whatever she was doing to carefully vet it. Though, that was also likely owed to her own history of working under the regime of Aizen, emulating in this 'life' what she had learned in her second about being a good soldier. And so, she would be able to get away with this one little less-than-reputable act:

She was on Earth, looking to buy some coffee.

Normally, letting an Arrancar go into the material world of the living would be a bad idea. Even the weakest of their number would light up sensors in the Seireitei made to detect major Hollow incursions and draw a response from higher-ranked seated members, at the least. It wasn't out of the question that captain and lieutenant ranks might be called upon. Unlike most Arrancar, however, Tanya was good at suppressing her reiatsu levels, a skill learned through applying old magical techniques to a new system of energy and adapting it over time through trial and error. She had also requisitioned a suppression cloak, a piece of technology that would only further mask her. With just one or the other, her signature could be mistaken for a spiritually-aware human or a weak Hollow. With both, she was effectively invisible.

Despite her timing getting her the perfect window, and her skills and technology giving her the perfect cover from enemy intelligence, there was one thing Tanya had overlooked when she had come to this Japanese town to obtain her precious resource.

"I forgot that I don't have any money," she bemoaned after searching her pockets and then remembering her species' current tribalistic status. True, she could easily steal whatever she wanted. Simply wait until a bag of coffee beans out of sight of cameras is being unwatched, grab them, infuse a slip of reiryoku into the object to make its 'spiritual frequency' match hers - thus able to be hidden under her cloak - and then abscond with her treasure.

However, Tanya was a firm believer in the principles of the market, even if she had been out of touch with most forms of such for close to a century. And while, as a survivor, she certainly believed there were acceptable times to steal, gaining a bit of comfort was not one of them. Even if she really, really wanted the things on the other side of the store's windows.

Right there.

Just within reach.

The glass wouldn't even stop her. As a purely spiritual being, she could choose to pass through some material objects so long as they weren't awash in reishi. Theoretically, of course.

But then again, her mission would be a waste if she-

"Whoa! What are you cosplaying as?" she heard from her left and turned to see a girl with chin-length black hair and grey eyes looking right at her.

'Drat! Spiritually-aware human! What are the chances? I thought they were supposed to be incredibly rare, like mages. Oh, wait, she thinks I'm a cosplayer? Okay, maybe I can use-'

"Is that...a hole in your chest?"

Tanya looked down, recalling one of the more unique features of Arrancar physiology: their Hollow Holes. Hers happened to be in her chest, at the bottom of her sternum, and the tailors always designed her clothes in such a way as to reveal it. Even when she tried to go around them and get shirts and jackets that didn't have that strategic uncovering, someone somehow always got a hold of it later to alter her wardrobe again.

"Wait, oh, I get it. You're another ghost. You just have a hole instead of a chain."

'Roll with it.'

"That is correct, in a manner of speaking," Tanya answered the girl. "The full reason is fairly complicated and would take a long time to explain without leaving room for misunderstandings, but you aren't wrong."

"Guess that explains why no one else is noticing you," the girl said while looking around. There weren't many people going up and down this particular street, but it was far from empty. Indeed, if Tanya had been as visible as any of them, she would have been very noticeable, being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with a bone-like crown on her head and strange, white clothing featuring an altered military-style shirt and hakama, and a black, glossy cloak clinched over her shoulders.

"So, what were you looking at?"

Seeing no harm in explaining, Tanya gestured to the shop's window, where her desires were displayed.

"I was hoping to get some coffee, but I realized I lack currency, and stealing is...distasteful."

"Can ghosts drink coffee?"

"Sure, so long as it's infused with the right energy."

"Well, it's nice of you to not steal, I guess, even though I'm pretty sure the police can't exactly arrest a ghost for shoplifting."

"It's the principle of the matter. I'd rather not be one of the many factors making life that much harder for the proprietors and workers of this place, who I can only imagine have worked hard to run this lovely little shop."

'Besides, I need to set a good example for the rest of my kind. If we're ever going to pull ourselves out of our scattered barbarism and into civilization, then we have to start acting the part. It's already hard enough to rehabilitate them from their ingrained violent ways without constantly falling back to the 'might make right' mentality, and while stealing something inexpensive may seem minor when held against murder and cannibalism, it's still somewhere on that spectrum. If I'm to lead by example, what does it say about me if I decide to steal from someone just because they can't stop me, whether or not I can be seen? It makes me a hypocrite.'

"Hm, well, I can take or leave coffee, but my sister's pretty good at making it. If you want a cup, we could ask her."

Tanya was rather surprised by the proposition, and it must have shown on her face because the human girl allowed herself a small grin at her expression. There was even a hint of warmth in her heart that came with the seemingly sincere offer.

"Ah, I wouldn't want to impose."

"Nah, you wouldn't be. Yuzu's always bugging me about bringing more friends around to hang out but with my dad... Well, you won't be a bother. If anything, she'll be excited to see you. Well, not see you, but she'll know someone's there."

"Your sister can sense spirits?"

"Kinda. Not like me and Nii-san, but she definitely feels it when one's around."

'Three siblings who can all sense spiritual energy to some extent? One is rare, and two is nearly unheard of, but three? That sort of coincidence only happens for a reason. This bears investigating. I wouldn't normally do this, but if someone asks why I showed up empty-handed, I can at least offer what I learned as intelligence. It'd even explain why I wasn't able to procure the 'supplies' I sought. Yes, showing up with a bag of beans might have required some explanation, but I'd already thought of that. Coffee appears to give humans energy, so acquiring some for personal performance enhancement would have been sound, if awkward to phrase.

'Besides, she offered. It'd be rude to not accept now.'

"I think that'd be lovely, actually. Ah, I haven't caught your name."

"Kurosaki Karin," the girl answered as she stepped around to lead the way. "And you?"

"Tanya Louisenbairn."

~

When they arrived, Tanya noted that to the side of the Kurosaki household was a clinic, or at least it was advertised as such. The sign caught Tanya's interest for a moment, but she refocused on following her newly made acquaintance into the front door of the home portion of the house.

"I'm home," Karin announced, loud enough to be heard throughout before removing her shoes and putting on some slippers. Tanya decided to remove her own boots as well, even though she was certain she couldn't track any dirt in by accident. It was the gesture of respect that mattered, after all.

"Welcome home!" another girl answered from further inside. "Dad just went to get some things from the store, and Ichi-nii's not home yet."

"All right. By the way, I brought a friend."

The two walked into the kitchen, and Tanya saw who she supposed was Karin's sister. Their faces were extremely similar, but the other girl had short, blonde hair with one side held back by a strawberry hairclip. Tanya didn't see any uneven dyeing or dark roots, which likely meant the hair color was natural, despite the rest of her looking very Japanese.

'European descent? I didn't see any hint of it on Karin. They look about the same age. Half-sisters? Or perhaps each just favors one parent?'

"Oh, a friend? Anyone I know?"

"I don't think so." Karin pointed a thumb in Tanya's direction. "Ghost, you know."

"Ah, hello there, Ghost-san," she greeted in Tanya's general direction with a polite bow.

"Hello, I am Tanya Louisenbairn."

"Oh, I think I almost heard something!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"This is my sister, Yuzu. Yuzu, this is Tanya Louisenbairn."

"Oh, that sounds foreign. Spanish? German?"

"Something like that..." Tanya muttered. A lot of Hueco Mundo was strangely...Latine, though it had a fair bit of Japanese and Teutonic... She didn't want to call them references, but she wasn't sure what exactly caused the odd cultural echoes that showed up in the violent afterlife realm.

"She was wanting to try some coffee. Can you make some for us? Soccer practice has me feeling pretty drained today, too."

"Sure. I'd love to. Just a few minutes, Tanya-san. Feel free to wait at the table in the dining room."

"Right over here," Karin indicated before leading Tanya to the next room over where they sat on some zabuton placed next to the table.

'Ah, nostalgic!'

"So, where are you from?"

'Should I be honest here? Well, it's not like telling her will hurt anything. I could give her all the information I have, and there's nothing she could do with it unless some random Shinigami suddenly takes an interest in her, which I doubt. Lord Kaname said that they hardly ever interfere in the affairs of the living unless they do something to specifically upset the balance. Still, I shouldn't overwhelm her. Just the basics then.'

"I'm from a dimension called Hueco Mundo. It's the place where monstrous spirits dwell, born from the souls who lose their humanity after death, cursed to never fill the hole in their being, even as they eat other souls and each other."

"...That sounded like the most evil eye chuunibyo thing I've ever heard, and I'm 11. I've heard a lot."

Tanya couldn't help but bark out a laugh at that.

"Doesn't it? Like it's straight out of a shounen manga. But no, that's really what most of the place is like. Luckily, some of us are intelligent and have regained human form and reasoning. I was actually doubly lucky and was born like this. Well, as a baby, not this size."

"Figured. Wait, ghosts can have kids?"

"We're not so much ghosts as we are on a different part of a cycle of reincarnation." Tanya thought about whether or not she should explain Shinigami, but that might lead to having to explain their dynamic. While she was sure she could be persuasive once the facts were laid out, she'd still have to be arguing in favor of tearing down the old system to put a new and better one in its place, and she didn't know yet if the Kurosakis would be receptive to the idea of such change. As she mulled that idea, she caught sight of an oversized picture on the wall of a woman with strawberry-blonde hair and brown eyes, looking for all of the world like an adult version of Yuzu. Karin took notice and looked at the picture as well.

"Oh, that's our mom. After she died, Dad got kinda...eccentric. It's kinda sweet, even if he can be overbearing about it."

"Ah, I see. Sorry for your loss."

"It's fine. We were little when it happened."

Tanya also took note of several family pictures in more reasonable frames resting atop shelves and drawers, letting her see what the other members of the family looked like. The father was black-haired, square-jawed, and well-built, looking every bit like a strong, Japanese man. Their mother had a lovely figure, and while her eyes were Asiatic, her hair and lips were certainly more European in appearance. Then there was the brother, red-headed and resembling both parents a surprisingly equal amount. If she didn't have proof of his ancestry right there for comparison, Tanya might have thought he had taken to bleaching his hair to get that shade.

Next to all these pictures, however, was something else that caught her eye for a different reason, and once she saw it, she started noticing its presence in some of those photos. It was a pendant on a chain, placed upon a frame and set amongst the photos. It appeared the be a necklace charm, with five spokes, a circle halfway between the ends and the center, and a star etched into it where each point ended at the beginning of each spoke. Most might think it a simple shape, but Tanya recognized it from her studies.

'A Qunicy cross? But hadn't those been nearly wiped out so that only... No, wait, now this all makes sense! Each of these kids is spiritually sensitive, likely because they're Quincies, or at least the child of one Quincy and a more normal human. Their mother must have been a survivor. Or, well, a descendant of the survivors. It happened quite a while ago, after all. Assuming the father is unaware, she would have had three children, each with some potential to wield Quincy powers, though Yuzu might have needed more training to catch up to Karin's level. But since she died when they were little, she never got the chance to pass on whatever teachings and traditions they had.

'Might be for the better, if that thing about them destroying souls is real, but then again, she may have only been practicing in self-defense, likely in the case of a Shinigami attack as well as Hollows. Wouldn't be surprising if one of them got her. They nearly killed off the whole race once before rather than try to find out why their powers work like that and perhaps find an alternative. Then again, that risks the monopoly on the reincarnation cycle. Like an army of squishier Being X's, they have to lord over it and deny that anyone could do a better job. And kill you if you disagree before sticking your soul in the slums.

'Still, this is a good find. Quincies would naturally hate Shinigami if they learned about what they did, and these don't seem to have a bias against Hollows. Even if they did, I'm sure they can be turned around on Arrancar. It's basically the same as becoming human again, just more complex, and a lot more rewarding.'

"Here you go!" Yuzu cheerfully announced as she walked in with a platter with three steaming cups, a sugar bowl, and a glass of milk. "Wasn't sure how you like it, so I didn't add anything to yours, Tanya-san."

"Luckily, I prefer mine black," Tanya said as she picked up the unaltered cup of steamy goodness and took a deep whiff, almost crying as the aroma filled her nose and lungs.

"She said thanks, she likes it black," Karin passed to her sister, who was staring at the cup in mild wonder. Tanya's smile deepened when she realized that to her, the cup must have looked like it was floating in the air.

"Itadakimasu!" Tanya declared once she was sure her cup was at a safe temperature. While she was sure her Hierro wouldn't let something like scalding coffee actually hurt her, she wanted this sip to be as perfect as possible. The sisters repeated after her, Karin then Yuzu, and she took her first sip of coffee in over 70 years.

Bliss filled her being. Happiness and joy. An absolute flood of Arrancar dopamine and serotonin. It was possibly one of the best cups of coffee she had ever had, and not just because it had been so long. Truly, Yuzu was a talented girl, and anyone would be happy to taste whatever she made.

So total was Tanya's euphoria that she didn't notice when Yuzu gasped, nearly fumbled her own mug, and then frantically waved for her sister and then towards Tanya.

"I- I can see her! She's visible now!"

"Huh, you can?" Karin looked over, and Tanya looked between the two with a bit of confusion. Not enough to spoil her enjoyment, of course. She continued taking slow, deep sips.

"Can you hear me, too?"

"Oh my goodness, I can!" the blonde exclaimed. "Wow, I never got to talk to a ghost before! Karin, why didn't you tell me she was a cute girl around our age? I thought she was a grown-up for a moment."

"It didn't come up?" her sister said with a shrug.

"Ah, well, I'm not actually your age. I'm over 70 years old now. Arrancar just age slower." She took another deep draught and sighed contentedly. "If my father's to be believed, he's over a million years old, as in, he claims to predate modern humanity. Not sure if he's being honest or not, but he is old. At the very least, he poked around during the Bronze Age."

"Oh, that's actually pretty cool!" Yuzu remarked. "And, I think you're getting clearer, every time you take a sip. I think...my coffee made you visible to me." The girl then looked at the mug in front of her in quiet contemplation. "Ah! That's it! I must have put my heart into making you a good cup of coffee, and now through our bond I can see and hear you as clearly as any person."

"...Sure, makes sense."

Tanya hated to admit that it didn't not make sense. Not with the new logic of afterlife physics applied to it. Things tended to seem a lot more wooly when it came to magic or magic-like things in this world than her last. It had gone from a science that they didn't know the source behind nor the reasoning for the effects, and now she was in a system where the sources were a lot clearer, but the science was muffled and sometimes inconsistent, but effects had clear reasons. So, a girl with minor spiritual sensitivity made a cup of coffee for a spirit, put her metaphorical heart and soul into it, and now she could see the spirit that drank it? Sure. Made sense, if you skipped a step or two in the middle.

Then again, Yuzu could have just passed some threshold. But maybe Tanya drinking her coffee caused that? Made as much sense as anything. Tanya saw an Arrancar grow back all his limbs without losing any body mass a few months ago. Where did the mass for his regenerated limbs come from? Szayel was still cutting him apart to try and find that answer.

'Ooh, no thinking about him. Just enjoy coffee.' Tanya took a sip of the ambrosius liquid. 'Much better.'

~

"Well, it was nice meeting you and everything," Karin said as she and her twin escorted Tanya outside. Their gifts of coffee and a bag of beans pricked a bit at Tanya's heart since she almost certainly needed to report her findings, but she'd do her best to present them in the best and most useful light, as potential allies in the someday-to-come war against the Seireitei. Or, at worst, non-threatening neutrals.

"And thank you for the gifts. I will have to find a way to repay you somehow."

"Oh, don't feel obligated," Yuzu tried to wave her off.

"No, no, I insist. While I don't have much directly useful for humans at the moment, I have many resources at my disposal, and something should come in handy for you, or be worth exchanging for something else of use."

"Thanks, but like Yuzu said, don't feel pressured."

"Oh, Ichi-nii's home."

For a second, Tanya wondered why Yuzu counted, then realized she meant her brother, Ichi-something, who was walking down the sidewalk.

'A lot bigger than those photos. Didn't Karin say he's 15? What do they feed kids here to get them that big? Definitely takes after his father's physique, just has to fill out.'

The boy paused in his steps upon seeing her, but continued on walking up. Tanya could sense his reiatsu, and he was a veritable waterfall of power. Not only that, but there were fading hints of energy that let her know he hadn't just been out and about. Some Hollows out there had ceased existing if she was right.

'I'm hoping the soul destruction thing is just a result of certain techniques and not inherent to their energy. If we can work around that, then there's no reason they can't help out. Or just live a peaceful life. Though it seems the brother has at least discovered he has power and how to use it.'

"Girls, who's this?"

"This is Tanya," Karin introduced her. "She wanted to have some coffee. Loves the stuff."

"I made her visible!"

"We don't know how far that extends, but yes, both your sisters can see me now," Tanya explained.

"Wait, your... You have a hole in your chest."

Tanya gasped as though scandalized. "My word! Do you just go around pointing out every girl's holes or their lack of chest?"

"Huh, what, no, I didn't- That's not what I-"

The Arrancar chuckled. "Hahaha, you should see your face!"

'Ah, good to use my for to have a little fun now and again. What's the point of being an adorable little girl if I can't use it to my advantage once in a while?'

"She got you good, Ichigo," Karin said while Yuzu looked like she was fighting the laughing fit she wanted to have.

"Anyway, I'd love to stay and introduce myself, but I've already been gone a while, and I'd rather not have my people worry. Thank you both again. I'll try to visit again in the future." She then gave her friendliest smile to the brother, Ichi-whatever. She was pretty sure 'strawberry' was just a nickname, so it was better to stick to the side of caution and not presume she could call him such. "Let's try to get to know each other better in the future, Onii-san. I'm sure we could do a lot for one another."

With that, Tanya activated her descorrer, ripping open a Garganta to the void between worlds before stepping inside and waving goodbye as it closed. She then followed her instincts forward to her home, cloak flapping behind her in the strange reishi winds that swirled in the near-emptiness.

'Today was a good day. And mildly productive despite technically being an off day. I've made connections and possibly got an in with an experienced fighter. I'll have to act quickly if I want to actually get him on my side, of course. Can't let good talent go to waste because he went off fighting some Hollow he couldn't handle. Plus, probably better if we make sure he's not obliterating all the souls they've eaten. If that is the case, then it's better if...pretty much anyone else does it until an alternative is found. And if there isn't one...

'Well, I could use more allies for when I finally get back at Being X.'

~

Ichigo was greatly confused about Tanya, the strange ghost that was hanging out with his sisters when he got home. She looked like a little girl, but something about the way she held herself and spoke... He didn't know what it was, but it reminded him of when Rukia would get serious, only more, somehow. And that smile she flashed him. It was like seeing a tiger or lion ready to pounce, and the beast knows you can't escape. Along with her almost-promise to meet again, he felt like he was being toyed with. Or about to be, in any case. Then there was the fact that she didn't have a chain, but instead a hole, like a Hollow. Yet she was still human in shape. Karin only gave him some basics, saying she was something called an Arrancar. Yuzu had been a bit more scattered about it, telling him more about Tanya's likes and dislikes that she had gleaned from their conversations. And apparently, that strange crown wasn't just for show. She was a princess wherever she was from. Or at least, before some coup that overthrew her father, though she was firm in her belief that their new system was actually better than the old one.

It was all so weird. He was sure Rukia could explain it, but she had some things to do before she got back, so he could really only mull over his questions until then. Right now, he was wondering if there was a way to test if whatever happened with Yuzu let her see more ghosts than just the one.

"And what was with that portal thing?" he wondered aloud.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 2: A New Beginning

---

One moment, she had closed her eyes, everything had faded, and in the next, sensation returned. Pressure, muffled sounds, weakness, warmth, wetness. It was a veritable cacophony of sensation, threatening to overwhelm her, but she held on, trying to concentrate and find a way out of this mystery predicament.

Then she was out of the dark place, light shining down upon her, a woman screaming nearby, and her lungs filled with air before she herself screamed, hoping to ground herself. Rather than the sound she had become accustomed to in her life, she heard something more akin to the wailing of a baby. It was at that moment that she realized what exactly had gone down.

'Not this shit again!'

Before she could curse her immortal enemy for (assumedly) once again dumping her into a new life with her past lives' memories intact, her attention was taken as her alarmingly clear eyes (for an infant) took in the sight of a monster hovering over her. It was like some mad fusion of a butterfly and a tentacled beast, and it face was either skull-like and devoid of flesh, or it was wearing a mask of bone. Having once been a Japanese man, and therefore a Japanese teenage boy beforehand, she knew about the possibilities presented by the presence of a tentacle monster and was deeply hoping that they weren't going to hold true for this life, no matter which tropes it followed.

Nearby gasping then caught her attention, and she looked over to see a dark-haired woman strapped to a bed, her position and general state letting her know that this had to be her mother. For the most part, she appeared to be a plain human, but she had a mask covering half of her face that resembled half of an oversized human skull. She took in deep breaths and seemed to power through the pain of post-labor to open her eyes and look at the baby.

"...she's okay?" the woman muttered, surprisingly in Japanese, with some unplacable accent.

"Female, as I predicted," the tentacle monster declared. "Healthy. Mask is forming. So, it only comes after birth. I suppose that avoids complications."

"Can I-" A tentacle whipped out and smacked against her mother's mouth. Tanya found herself unconsciously moving, feeling distraught about the abuse her parent was facing, despite being unable to do anything about it and logically knowing such.

"Don't interrupt my thoughts. Lumina, Verona, bring the transport. And clean this thing up. It's filthy."

Two more monsters showed up from an adjacent room, one pushing a stroller and the other carrying towels and a pan of water. They resembled pillbugs but with four long legs rather than short ones and four insectile arms. Only their 'faces' were distinct from each other, though both resembled giant, toothy smiles. One had hornlike growths to the sides, while the other had one pointed straight up.

"Here to clean up."

"Cleaning up."

"Cleaning."

The tentacle monster passed her off, and one bug monster quickly scrubbed her clear of amniotic fluids and blood with warm water before passing her to the other, who swaddled her and placed her into the stroller.

'This place... I don't know what's going on, but I'm starting to think monsters like this might be common, and given my mother's treatment... It better not be something like that or I will destroy everything and then myself. I don't know what game Being X is playing this time, but I'm not just going to go along with it to be raised into some monster broodmare.'

"Now, clean up and see to Roka. It'll be easier to feed the little brat if she's around."

"Yes, Master Szayelaporro," they answered before skittering over and beginning to clean and medically tend to her mother.

"Cleaning."

"Seeing."

With that, the floating tentacle beast named Szayelaporro began pushing the stroller out of the room and down a hallway that led up a ramp and into the night. The stars were absent, and the moon held a strange shape, seeming crescent, but too far around, the points touching on the other side of the circular shadow, telling her that this world was neither of the Earths she was familiar with.

Surrounding them was a vast desert of white sand, pockmarked by odd plants that looked almost like stone or crystals and some sturdy boulders. Nearby, however, a portion of the desert found itself oddly filled. Pillars stood some distance away, marking a territory of sorts, and within it, monsters of various forms and sizes stood in a loose crowd. They ranged from bestial to amorphous, some of them being some unique combination of animalistic traits, real or imagined. Hides of fur and scales, and even some that were armored in carapace. The two commonalities of these strange beasts was that each one had a hole going all the way through its body and a mask or mask-like face.

At the head of this crowd of monstrosities was a raised platform of stone with a throne atop it. About the platform were a handful of smaller monsters of humanoid shape, though they still had animal-like aspects about them, like claws, tails, or even their mask-face resembling a creature of some sort. But on the throne was something else. Its face wasn't mask-like at all, but rather its whole head was merely a skull. It was dressed in voluminous purple robes lined with black fur, a gold crown upon its head, golden chains dangling from skeletal wrists, and a golden amulet hanging down in front of its chest.

The lich-looking being took notice of them as Szayelaporro approached, its empty sockets turning towards them. Tanya felt fear running through her at its gaze. The monsters arrayed before this open-air throneroom all looked dangerous and felt powerful, and the humanoid ones felt even greater than them, despite being far smaller on average. And yet, it was this regal skeletal being that seemed to lord over them all. And her...midwife was bringing her straight to it.

"Szayelaporro Granz," the kingly creature called out just as they reached the edge of the platform, his voice penetrating her mind and lingering, "you have done well not to disappoint me."

"I aim to please, King Barragan," the tentacled monster said before bowing and backing away. "As you commanded, an heir, crafted from a piece of yourself and born through...natural means."

'Wait, heir? Crafted?' As she parsed the information she had just received, she started seeing the situation in an entirely new light. 'But then that would make him... Oh, well, at least now I know why I am being shown to...the king.'

As the heady thoughts spun through her mind, the king stood from his throne, and all the monsters kneeled in supplication. He stepped forward and looked down into the stroller. She felt that tingle running through her again, but braced herself against it. If this was her father, and he had her...made on purpose, then she should have nothing to fear. Rather, she looked him over, wondering how exactly this whole thing worked.

'Well, my mother was human. Or at least, something close. Maybe they used some form of magic or technology to...artificially impregnate her, using his DNA?'

Even as she thought this, Barragan leaned over, reached forward, and plucked her from the soft bedding of her transport. Despite his skeletal nature, he was big. Were he of flesh, she could easily imagine him being a solidly built man, and now he was holding her up. Normally, one shouldn't hold a newborn this way, but she felt a bit stronger and more solid than someone minutes old should. It was maybe more akin to a few months old, as she was holding up her own head without feeling too much strain on her neck.

"Born with a crown already on your brow and a strong will in your eyes. Yes, this is my child. My heir." He turned her around and held her in the crook of one arm, his robes surprisingly soft on the other side of her swaddling. "Here me, Hollows. Hear me, Menos. Hear me, my Espada. Hear me, Las Noches. Hear me and obey, Hueco Mundo! My heir is born! Your princess is here!" He then lifted her up above his head to where all could clearly see her, making her feel a bit like that cub from the lion movie. "My child, whose words and commands shall only be second to my own! Swear your lives and fealty to her desire after mine. As your god-king, I, Dio-Rey Barragan Louisenbairn, name her, Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn!"

The monsters cheered, roared, shrieked, and howled. It was the sound of a horde of beasts, baying for their leader, echoing across the vast sands.

In the mind of the newly named child, her thoughts drifted over to one particular part of the announcement.

'Is that name just going to follow me every life now? Well, at least I don't have to learn a new one.'

---

Tanya was unsure about the passage of time. She couldn't ask for a while, as while she understood the language, her vocal chords weren't ready for what felt like months. Luckily, she learned to walk relatively quickly, and no one really questioned it. In fact, no one questioned anything she did at all, unless it was out of curiosity. That could probably be credited to her father and his manner of rule, which was, in short, brutal.

Oh, he wasn't violent for violence's sake, but when something managed to rouse his anger, his fury was something to behold, especially if someone did something serious enough for him to call upon his signature finishing move, Respira. She had only seen it used twice, and both times he took it far away from anything he didn't want damaged, which included herself, thus it was only at a great distance. Her eyesight was good, however, comparable to a low-level sniping formula, so she still witnessed the slow withering that those Hollows went through, being made to rot and decay so rapidly that it was visible, but not so quickly that they didn't suffer through the several seconds it took to finally kill them.

But it made sense, once she learned more about the nature of Hollows. These weren't beings born or created, normally. Szayelaporro's creations were nowhere near the norm, and even her 'natural' development after the IVF that saw her conceived was a rare thing for Hollows to perform. No, the lion's share of her 'people' were the spirits of humans who died, and, for one reason or another, did not pass on into the cycle of reincarnation, thus they degraded until their metaphysical 'heart' melted away and became a mask, turning them into a monster that hungered for souls, trying to fill the pit in their being. But the hunger only grew until baseline human souls could not sate it, and so they went after other Hollows, who would likely be filled with a plethora of souls until they transformed into the next stage: a mindless mass of fused souls known as a Gillian, the first stage of Menos Grande. These poor things stumbled around, occasionally eating, but not quite hungering, until one of the many egos within them rose above the rest and took the reigns. Once it is in control, the Gillian becomes an Adjucha, and this stage is what most of her father's direct subjects were. Unique, bestial, and ever-hungry. The Adjuchas have the issue of needing rather than wanting to eat, as their instability threatens to drag them back down into the Gillian stage, stuck in that mindless form forever and unable to rise back out. If an Adjuchas successfully hunts down enough of its own kind, however, and passes an unknown threshold, they evolved into the final form of Hollow: Vasto Lorde.

About half of Barragan's Espada, a unit of elites akin to knights, are Vasto Lorde. Stable Menos Grande with immense power and a human shape. Tanya found that they were also among the calmest and most intelligent of the Hollow race, and that the ones here serving directly under the king were perhaps anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of all living Vasto Lorde in existence. Szayelaporro used to be the strongest of them, but then got it into his head that he needed to be 'perfect' and so he started surgically removing pieces of himself he considered imperfect, creating a handful of other Hollows, including one containing the soul of his brother from when they were living humans, who was out there traipsing around with a pack now, and the proto-form of her own mother.

She refused, however, to think of the creature in any familial terms. He was an insane and wasteful excuse of a 'scientist' that made Shugel look grounded at his worst. At least Shugel tried to make helpful things, even if his methods could become unhinged and his designs dangerous. Szayel did half of what he did just to sate his curiosity, be cruel to his subjects, or further his 'perfection'. The other half were demands made by his superiors that he grumbled and groused about having to do.

Tanya hated him on principle and for personal reasons. His abuse of her mother went beyond silencing her with physical blows. She witnessed him berating her entire existence over and over, for no other reason than to put her down on the rare occasions she seemed to be even a little happy. Saying things like how she'd finally found some use beyond being a 'rock' and had become a 'vat' of food instead.

The moment Tanya figured out how to talk clearly, she decided she was going to get in the squid butterfly's way. Of course, Szayel's suggestion about vivisecting Roka tilted her to do it a little earlier than planned.

"No!" she screamed, forcing herself to keep her cool and not tip her hand too far. She was still a baby in everyone's minds, after all, even if she had started growing teeth. She couldn't be forming complex sentences at this juncture. Maybe in a year or two.

"What the- What did you just tell me, brat?" the monster said to her, turning his attention from her frozen-in-fear.

"Mine!" she demanded, grabbing the hem of Roka's skirt and clenching it while looking up at Szayel with undisguised hate. "My mama! Not yous!"

'Er, I hate having to dumb down my speech, especially for something like this. Still, I can't have anyone thinking I'd just let someone take something that should be obviously important to me away like this. My future subordinates have to believe I would be willing to stand up for them when necessary, and how can they believe that about someone who let their mother be sliced up on some madman's examination table just because he wanted to see how an Arrancar looks inside post-partum?

'Also, she is my mother. I've only known her for a few months, but I can honestly see that she cares about me. Father could kill half the world if he decided to put in the effort, but his power isn't really designed with the defense of others in mind. I haven't seen much of Mother's skills and abilities, but she's a decent medic from what I've pulled together.'

"That isn't your 'mama', little girl. That's a tool that happened to have a womb attached to it that I used to make you. Why am I even bothering to explain this to you? Get out of my way!"

Tanya saw a tentacle coming towards her. While she was sure he wouldn't harm her for fear of reprisal, he would restrain her and take Roka Paramia away for whatever sick experiments he had in mind, probably with a grudge after Tanya's attempted defiance. Which meant that she definitely couldn't let him, now!

"Get away!" she called out as she threw a fist at the oncoming appendage. Something formed in her hand, pouring out from her body and solidifying in her grip even as she thrust it forward. Szayel cried out as his limb was pierced, and then the three of them saw that a weapon had formed in Tanya's hand. A silver barrel on a white stock, looking like a decorative gun, with a black blade attached to the bottom of the barrel like a bayonet, its edge extending along its length and terminating at the trigger with a gap at the grip. Somehow, a rifle had come into being, perfectly sized for her tiny body. Tanya was shocked but quickly grasped the weapon in a proper grip like she had drilled into her a lifetime ago, letting go of her mother's skirt for a moment to take proper aim as the hole in the blade moved with her forward grip, and fired the moment the bayonet was pulled out of the Adjucha's tentacle. A ball of energy blasted Szayel, and he shouted while retreating down the hall. She then quickly grabbed Roka's hand.

"Run, mama!" she ordered before heading back outside.

Barragan happened to have been in a state of boredom when they reached him, which meant he was actually welcoming for the distraction. Rather than anger, he seemed amused about the explanation once Roka went into detail to expand on the fragments that Tanya told him. Unfortunately for Tanya's hope of getting rid of the mad scientist, Roka had spoken in his defense about how he certainly had zero intention of harming 'the princess' and likely only planned to move her away. It wasn't like Tanya could refute it except to say that she was scared of him. Hollows looked down on people who let fear control them. Anger was the proper response if you ever found yourself in an unfavorable position in this society, or apathy if you found it tiring to continue being angry. Hence even a doormat like her mother was viewed in a better light than someone who might beg for mercy.

Tanya hated it, but could see how it developed in a literal dog-eat-dog world.

Still, her father decided that it was a show of Tanya's strong willpower and her unwillingness to give up what was hers. By the time Szayel dared to show his face after healing his wounds and cleaning himself of blood and soot, Barragan had declared that Princesa Tanya had 'won' her challenge to Szayel's right to Roka. In effect, because he ran from their fight over her, Roka Paramia was 'hers' now. In her mind, Tanya wanted to object to how close the wording skirted towards slavery, but then realized that such a thing was just a fact of life for Hueco Mundo.

The strong ruled over the weak. The strong would eat the weak, should they choose. If the weak wanted to live, then they had to be more useful to the strong alive rather than as food. Perhaps that was why Roka just gave in to Szayel's cruelty. Because, at the end of the day, she would survive. He could carve her open without so much as a drop of anesthetic and stitch her back together - something he had done several times before Tanya's birth, apparently. She would suffer. She'd be in pain. She'd feel less and less like a thing of any worth, much less a person. But she'd live.

Packs formed under the heels of stronger Adjuchas willing to grind their faces into the sand to prove a point, but they'd survive off their scraps.

Hollows would supplicate to almost any demand of a Vasto Lorde they could withstand the spiritual pressure of if it meant getting an edge against the countless others roaming the sands.

Hueco Mundo was a world without civilization. The strong were lauded and the weak were despised if anyone bothered to give them the time of day at all. Tanya knew how a better world could be, but she didn't know how she could apply it to something like this, a system that demanded sacrifice for survival. The only escape there seemed to be was to climb so high that the hunger finally faded and rationality could return.

She touched her mask fragment with one hand as the other cradled her weapon. She was an exception to the rule in two ways. Born Hollows existed outside the evolutionary hunger. They could still eat souls and grow stronger from it, but they didn't have that same push, nor did they have the risks associated with the Adjuchas stage. She was also an Arrancar, a Ripped Mask Hollow. Any Menos Grande, and even some baseline Hollows could become an Arrancar, but there was a great risk to it. It was practically an instinctual ritual that had to be followed through precisely, with the Hollow needing to enter a trance-like state to accomplish it without killing or maiming themselves. Most Arrancar existed in little communities dotted about the desert, as it is best achieved when there's someone that can be trusted with watching your back and ready to take their turn afterward. Roka was Arrancarified by Szayel as an experiment long ago, and the trait had passed on to Tanya.

There were other things that made some hesitate. The drop in power. The physical changes. Going from needing no real food besides other Hollows to actually requiring nutrition. Water.

But those needs could be met. Tanya was eating well on a diet of cave mushrooms, moon fruit, and roasted lizard. Sure, the desert wasn't exactly teeming with resources, and water had be dug for below the Menos Forest that was under the desert itself, but it was found all the time. There were even tales of a great ocean far to the west. But when creatures capable of running faster than some modern fighter jets said something was far away enough to become a legend, then it was certainly too far to depend on.

She could work with this, but it was going to take time. And convincing. Mostly of her father, but she was sure she could do it. Not having to cycle out his troops to allow them to eat other potential subjects should be enticing enough of a proposition. And then there was the bent that maybe managing resources like food and water could bring him out of his perpetual boredom. As it was, she seemed to be the only interesting thing going on in his life, but that was bound to lessen as time went on and she reached adulthood.

She just needed to make sure she had a clearly laid out plan to convince him of, and to be old enough to present it while being taken seriously. No need to rush it this time. She could wait until after puberty was through before trying to be taken seriously by the powers that be.

---

It was years later that Tanya's plan faced its biggest hiccup, yet there was also a great opportunity that she had yet to see.

At the time, though, she was just scared out of her mind about what she had walked upon. She had been away in her little hovel home, effectively a hollowed-out boulder with a growing collection of amenities, when she heard a commotion going on outside. Curious, she grabbed the weapon that she had taken to calling Negraplata and headed outside.

It was there that she saw her father, his crown fallen from his head in half, facing three unknown men. They looked human, wearing black robes and white overcoats with kanji numbers on their backs. Also, several of the Adjuchas that had been there that day were now littering the grounds, slain by blades and slowly disappearing.

"You..." Barragan said, surprise having crawled into his voice in a way she had never heard before, "How can you still be alive?"

The man wearing glasses raised his katana toward him. "My Zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu, has the power of complete hypnosis."

'Complete hypnosis?' Tanya thought as she pushed down her panic. 'That can't be. Surely there's some limit, but... I don't know what happened here. Wait, have they noticed me? Can I distract them? If I get his attention, then surely that'll give Father an opening. There's no way he could hold two separate people under it, right? But what if he can? What can I do about a power like that?
The man had suddenly changed his grip, holding his sword with the blade pointed down, and Tanya sensed an increase in his reiatsu. Quickly, she covered her eyes.

"Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu."

She heard her father gasp and dared to look over her fingers. It was like he was just now noticing his fallen soldier's bodies.

'They made him think he was winning while they slaughtered our men!'

"You bastard!" Barragan roared while raising Gran Caida. Before he could act, the other two were at his sides, swords pointed at his head.

"Don't do anything rash," the glasses-wearing man warned him. "It's pointless. You won't be able to kill me."

Tanya took aim at the back of the man's head. She doubted that she could hurt him alone, but all they needed was a second to-

And then a blade was held at her throat, the point right at her. The dark-skinned man with an orange scarf and blindfold had moved faster than she could perceive.

"What is this?" he asked. "I sensed a strange reiatsu, but this Hollow seems particularly small."

"T-Tanya!" Barragan called out as he realized she was there. The other two were looking over at her as well now. "Don't... Don't you dare harm her!"

The glasses man smirked.

"Oh, and what will you do if she is?"

"If you so much as harm a single hair on her head, then nothing you do will stop me from killing you all!" A mere trickle of his Respira came out, and the stones below him slowly began to crumble. The squinty one noticed and stepped away, troubled by what he was seeing happen. "Your very dust will rot until nothing is left!"

"Such an action will have consequences, you know. If I understand what you are suggesting, then not only will you destroy everything for miles in the attempt, but I doubt that even you would remain unscathed."

Barragan growled, seemingly knowing that the man was not incorrect in his assumption.

"A small price to make sure you pay."

The two stared at one another for a while longer, challenging the other to make the first move.

"Kaname, is the child a threat?"

At that, the dark man flinched.

"Child?"

"The little Hollow. It's an Arrancar child. I have a guess as to where she came from. But is she an actual threat?"

"...No. Not with this reiryoku I sense."

"My my, you went and threatened a little girl without even knowing, Kaname-san," the silver-haired one admonished.

"If she's no threat, then there's no need to harm her. Satisfactory, I would say. Wouldn't you agree, King of Hueco Mundo?"

Barragan lowered his head, and Tanya felt a pit form in her stomach. A moment later, Negraplata was snatched from her hands.

"This feeling... A Zanpakuto?" the blond man asked as he rubbed a thumb against the blade.

"Well, that grew a little tense. Let's try to start over, shall we?" the glasses-wearing man suggested as he sheathed his blade and walked over to Tanya. "My name is Aizen Sousoke. And who are you?"

"Tanya," she answered, slowly calming down now that the situation... She couldn't think of it as resolved, but it certainly seemed that whatever confrontation there was, it was ending in these men's favor. "Tanya Louisenbairn."

Their eyes met, and Tanya refused to be cowed. Not completely. She had been outmatched and outgunned, and so she had surrendered. But that didn't mean she had to give up everything. For whatever reason, these men wanted Barragan alive and under their heel, which meant that she, too, would be forced to serve under them in whatever they were planning. It was just more of the system that Hueco Mundo professed, might making right. Underhanded tactics, misdirections, and illusions were all a form of might as well, and they had deployed them to overcome the once ruler of Las Noches. She didn't know how they would have done in a direct fight. It didn't matter. They were the victors today.

Tomorrow would be a new day. Until it came, she'd stand strong and ready.

"I see," Aizen said while rubbing his chin. "I had my suspicions. Well, this is certainly an interesting development. Let us work together, Tanya-san."

---

In hindsight, Aizen's takeover was probably one of the best things to happen, the deaths of a dozen of the strongest Adjuchas notwithstanding.

May they be reborn to a better life.

After explaining his plan and demonstrating his invention, Aizen started building an army of Arrancar made from a plethora of Adjuchas and several Vasto Lorde. Some of the first examples were made from Uncle Yylfordt's pack (though she hated Szayel, his brother was nice enough, for a Hollow, and was even a competent tactician), including the infamous Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. A bit of a battle maniac, even by Hollow standards, but a strong fighter nonetheless. Unlike the normal process, Aizen's invention, the Hogyoku, could make any Hollow into an Arrancar without power loss or risk of death or maiming. After that, Adjuchas practically lined up to serve him, and even a few Vasto Lorde joined, despite having no fear of losing themselves. Even Tia Harribel, who had been obstinately refusing to join Barragan for centuries, bowed to Aizen. Tanya figured she had done so for her underlings' sakes. She was a rather sentimental woman like that.

And to support this army, systems to draw water and make food had to be developed, as well as several bureaucratic units to oversee them and keep things running. The supports were rather skeletal, at first, but between herself and some other Arrancar whose interest lay outside of fighting, they managed to shore it up enough to feed the army while allowing for future growth. They say it once took a village to feed, arm, and armor a single knight, but Tanya liked to think that they could make do with a small town for their forces. After all, their skin was their armor and they came with their own weapons. Thus the Cuerpo de Palas (Shovel Corps) came to be, supporting the Números army and their Espada leadership from just out of sight.

It became pretty obvious to Tanya what Aizen was really setting out to do once it was explained. He couched it in the language of conquest that was easily digestible to the majority of the Hollow population, but the hints about freedom and upending the status quo combined with his insistence on them organizing and learning to lead themselves let her know what he was really doing. He was trying to civilize them, to drag them up from the scattered monster packs and tribes that they were into cultured people. That's also why he wanted to overthrow an entity he and his fellow Shinigami traitors called the Soul King. Tanya had asked about it, and what they explained was that the Soul King was the one in charge of the cycle of reincarnation. A description she once heard a certain creature apply to himself along with delusions of grandeur about being the One True God.

To say that she was on board, should her theory prove right and this Reio was none other than the hated Being X, was an understatement. Even if it wasn't and there was some degree of separation between the target of her eternal ire and the one overseeing this particular sphere of existence, well, it was a step in the right direction. Besides, Aizen was right about one thing, this system was awful. So many souls were left to simply wither away into monsters and doomed to eat one another until finally one got so fattened up that it became a demi-god, or got slain somewhere along the way by self-appointed upholders of some vague balance and dropped into the 'proper' place for souls to spend their afterlife: an overcrowded district with more shantytowns than there were Adjuchas and maybe a handful of half-decent living areas, all trapped in the feudal era at best and subject to the iron fist of a cadre of nobles who live so long as to be practically immortal in the citizenry's eyes.

For a while, Tanya was skeptical, but each of the three Shinigami gave her a different perspective and spin on it. Aizen's was the purely logical one, simply wanting to reset the system into something approaching efficiency. Kaname was more sentimental, once one dug past his shell of thirsting for justice in the world. He would have likely been satisfied with a simple revolution, to overthrow the corrupt nobles that ran the afterlife like it was no more than a plot of land in a worldly empire. Aizen's plan happened to do this and more, so he signed on. Gin's intentions were the hardest to read, but she figured she had him pegged to a few possibilities. Either way, when he shared info, it was either matter-of-factly, or done in a way to seek out a response. Like when he explained how past a certain point in the Rukongai, people were more likely to kill each other over shoes than anything like food or money. Most souls didn't have to eat, and money was worth less and less the further from the center you were. But a decent pair of shoes? Not even good ones, just a pair that weren't full of holes or falling apart. That could be worth a relatively small fortune out there.

So yes, if even half of it was true - and why would they be lying to a being whose greatest luxury before they showed up was a pillow - then Tanya was all for toppling the old regime and installing a new one. And hopefully keep them from falling into certain societal pitfalls, like communism.

As time went on, things just seemed to be getting better and better. Her father still grumbled, but it was understandable. She and his most loyal supporters let him know that he was still a king in their eyes.

"Besides," she told him one time after she had set out some workers towards building a waste management site, "Shinigami still age. You'll outlive him in the long run, if you're careful."

That brought a smile to the old man's lips. It was interesting, seeing him with flesh on his bones. He turned out a bit fatter than she expected, but he was still a small giant with muscle to spare. It just seemed to be a part of his new physique.

She still tried to get him into an exercise routine. It could only help.

But her talent really shined when she started training a number of rather...uninspired recruits who seemed to think they could afford to rest on their laurels despite not having any. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing after she found herself arguing with the ringleader of the lazy Arrancar group. She had almost lost her cool, then took a breath, and decided that what they obviously needed was some inspiration.

So she started firing Ceros at them.

They were purposeful near-misses and low-powered, but they didn't need to know that. They set off into a run, and then she ran them through a course of training exercises with the threat of Negraplata behind her. Once they were done, she gave them her leave, and said she expected to see them training tomorrow or she'd have to get creative again.

Apparently, Kaname had witnessed the whole thing. Rather than dressing down on her overstepping some unspoken bounds, he praised her forward-thinking, saying that it was better that they suffer a little now rather than become dead meat as soon as they reached the battlefield.

She had just gotten angry at the blatant laziness, but that worked, too.

After that, she was put in charge of the overall training of the Números. While she didn't directly train all of them, more than a few passed under her tutelage before getting handed off to either the main forces or some specialist unit. A few even got picked up as Fracciones by this or that Espada. And then there were the ones that stuck it out and made it through her harshest lessons, adapted from her training of the 203rd so long ago. Escudo, she called them. The name actually came from Dordoni Alessandro Del Socaccio when he overheard her muttering about 'new meatshields', but it become so popular she felt obligated to adopt it.

Now, after successfully obtaining her sacred substance and having a cup in the morning, she was ready to train yet more recruits in the sacred arts of dodging. Today was on-foot training, as Seireitei's composition did not allow for reishi manipulating air-walking, so they needed to know how to work when they were ground-bound, especially since exceptions could exist and some Shikai or Bankai out there could likely let their wielder fly. The fact that Loly Aivirrne, a rather annoying girl, was cycled into her class was just icing on the cake.

"She's going to kill us!" the under-dressed Arrancar screamed as another Cero barely missed her and her blonde friend.

"Not if you dodge correctly like I explained." Honestly, it was like they had zoned out when she described applying Sonido multi-directionally to allow oneself freer movement across the field. So many Espada did it unconsciously. And then there was that odd one, Zommari or something. He took to it like a duck to water, and now he was getting fast-tracked towards a possible shot at Espadahood. Too bad there were ever only ten, and somehow Yammy Llargo still qualified for his spot, the skilless slab of muscle.

"Usagi Jokanbu, feet moving!" Tanya commanded before firing toward the violet-haired, bunny-masked Arrancar. The woman screamed but dodged half-properly. Impressive for the first lesson. Tanya was about to unleash one toward Menoly and the red-haired male when she saw three figures run right past them, followed by a familiar-looking worm Hollow.

"Hold on, what in the world..." She zoomed down, signaling a pause in the training session. "Hold for now. I'm investigating this disturbance."

"Should we follow?" Menoly asked, too late for Loly's shushing hiss to have any effect.

"Good idea. I might need more hands on deck just in case. Follow me, cadets."

Tanya then sped off after the Hollows, passing by the familiar worm, the oddly preportioned tiki-looking creature, and the bug-masked humanoid to catch up to the tiny leading figure, who was screaming loudly, sounding like a child in peril.

'An Arrancar? And such a small one, too. Those old clothes definitely weren't made in Las Noches, though, so they must be from one of the outer communities. These Hollows probably thought they found an easy meal. Well, time to disabuse them of that assumption.'

"Engage!" Tanya quickly commanded her troops, who had thankfully caught up to her and the unknown Hollows. "Restrain those three!"

In an almost comical fashion, the Números tackled the three unknowns to the ground, casting up sand with their impacts. Loly brought down the bug-masked one and pinned it down with a foot onto its chest. Menoly tackled the polka-dotted tiki and was sitting on its back. It took four of the remaining trainees to hold down the big-lipped worm, including Usagi, who then took point by standing atop its neck and holding her spearlike weapon threateningly at its head.

"Bawa!" the worm cried out pitifully.

The tiny Arrancar slowed to a stop and turned around to see what had happened, then shouted in surprise and ran back towards the crowd, blowing right past Tanya.

'Wait, she wasn't that fast a second ago.'

"Wah! Wha're you doing? Don't hurt Nel'sh friends!"

"Uh, what?"

"Well, now I'm confused."

"Did that baby just say Nel?"

"Nel?" Tanya questioned as she stopped to look down at the child, who then pulled back their hood. Tanya was taken aback, seeing a familiar face on a much smaller body. "No way."

The child was nearly a perfect replica of the long-missing Nelliel Tu Odelshwanck, a long-standing Vasto Lorde Espada who had been among the most powerful to fill the ranks once upon a time. Then one day, she and her Fracciones disappeared without a trace, only a few holes in their home giving any indication that there'd been a confrontation, but any evidence that could have pointed to who the attacker was had been strangely absent. This little 'Nel' looked just like that woman, even their masks were similar, though the little one's lacked ram's horns and only had half the teeth. She even had a similar red mark across her nose and below her eyes.

"Same hazel eyes and teal-green hair," Tanya thought aloud, which seemed to perk up the bug-masked Hollow's attention, stealing it away from him gazing up Loly's skirt.

"Ah ahahaha, what do you mean the same? Same as nothing around here, I don't imagine! Hey, you must be from Aizen's army, right? Oh, we love the guy! Unfortunately, we're worthless as fighters, so we try to not get in the way by-"

"That voice! You're Pesche Guatiche! I'd recognize that annoying cadence anywhere!"

"Annoying?" the Hollow seemed hurt by the comment, but Tanya could slow down for his feelings.

"Then you must be Mr. Birstanne," she said to the polka-dotted one, now seeing the resemblance of his current form to his former.

"Hey, I prefer to go by Dondochakka. Mr. Birstanne was my father, don't you know."

"Ah, yes, forgive me. It's been a while."

"Uh, Princesa," one of the recruits, Patros if she remembered correctly, spoke up, "Who exactly are these people?"

"Ah, of course. They were before your time. Well, through my powers of deduction, I figure that," she pointed towards Pesche, "and that," then at Dondachakka, "to be the two Fracciones of the Former Tres Espada, Nelliel Tu Odelshwanck. The woman went missing a few years ago, just before most of you showed up. And the worm must be Bawabawa, a power expression of Dodanchakka's."

"Hey, he's got feelings of his own, too, you know."

"Of course. I remember. Doesn't take away from what his origin is. Speaking of, this," she quickly picked up the child Arrancar from under her arms, lifting her up for the others to get a better look, "must be Nelliel's secret child."

The former Fracciones had stiffened when she grabbed the child, but then relaxed once it was clear she had no ill intentions. They only seemed to relax further when Tanya held her in a more natural position at her side.

"Nelliel?" the little girl questioned, holding a finger up to her mouth in thought. It was then that Tanya took note of the scar on her head.

"You poor thing. What happened here?" she asked while rubbing a thumb over the old wound. It looked like whatever caused it had been particularly bad, perhaps even causing those cracks in her mask. That could be dangerous, even for an Arrancar. She heard Szayel had done some experiments on that, but she had done what she could to keep him from using up their 'human' resources for his mad science, thus the pool was kept limited to those already suffering such damage.

"Oh uh, well, you see, what happened was..." Pesche started before stopping. "Uh, there was a hole."

"A big hole," Dondachakka added.

"A reeeeally big hole."

"And deep, too."

"Waaaaaaay deep."

"And dark."

"So dark."

"You're telling me she fell into a hole and hit her head?" Tanya demanded, anger seeping out of her voice.

"Oh uh, we weren't around at the time!" Pesche tried to excuse himself.

"You left a child all alone!"

"She was asleep," Dondachakka defended, tears forming at the corners of his eyes, somehow.

"In a cave."

"A safe cave."

"It was just a bit too close to the hole."

"Nel doeshn't remember a hole," the child commented.

"Well, you did hit your head pretty hard, apparently," Menoly pointed out, and suddenly all the trainees were looking at her. "What? I'm feeling a little left out here. But I think I remember the lady Princesa Tanya was talking about. Where is she now?"

The Fracciones froze up, looking pensive despite their full masks. Tanya hummed in thought.

"I see. So she didn't make it." A sigh escaped her lips. "Poor thing. She was looking forward to helping build up society. I think she was one of the few people who recognized the true goals of our organization. And a good soldier to boot. Well, at least now we know what happened?" She held up Nel to get a look at her again, but couldn't see any recognizable trace of anyone else she knew that would have been close to Nelliel. "Do either of you know who the father is?"

Their silence on the matter didn't help. When she demanded an answer again through a rough clearing of her throat, all she received was their heads shaking, including Bawabawa's.

"Well, it must have been a real secret if she didn't even tell you two. Maybe she would have after... Ah, no point in speculating. While I'm certain you two have been caring and...mostly competent, I can't in good conscience just let you raise a child out in the desert when a nearly finished town is just a flight away."

"Uh, bu-bu-bu-bu-"

"No, buts! By my authority as Escudo de Armas and Princesa de Hueco Mundo, I will be taking this child into protective custody. You may feel free to join us in order to ensure her proper treatment, but I will not be giving handouts. You will be put to work in the Cuerpos if whatever you've done to regress yourselves makes you unfit for combat. Otherwise, feel free to continue living whatever life you have out here."

At that, the two seemed to take a moment to seriously introspect. Tanya could practically hear Pesche thinking. He wasn't incredibly strong, all things considered, and always acting the part of a jester. But she also had seen those moments when he took things seriously. If he were to apply himself, he could be a terror at the strategist's table. Dondachakka, while not having quite the same hidden depths in his mind, had always been stronger than he let on. Between his bug Hollows summons, his storage ability, and his own strength of arms, he could wreck entire armies. Nelliel hadn't made them her Fracciones just because they were friendly, that was just the final deciding factor. Before that, they were capable warriors. Just not so great as soldiers.

Well, Tanya just happened to be in the business of turning warriors into soldiers and survivors into productive members of society. She could still use them.

"May I stand?" Pesche finally asked.

Tanya nodded, and Loly removed her foot from the Hollow's chest. He quickly stood up and brushed the sand from his body before looking over at Tanya and Nel.

"For Nel's sake, I'll go anywhere," he said before kneeling. Dondachakka did the same right next to him.

"We gotta be there to protect her, you know."

Tanya nodded. "Very well. Looks like I'll have to cut training short today. Everyone, let's escort our returning comrades back home."

Moments later, they were back on the move towards Las Noches. Nel babbled some questions a child might ask, obviously confused about what was going on, exactly. She seemed surprised at the concept of her having a mother, which just solidified the situation in Tanya's mind.

'Died in childbirth. It's the only explanation. She must have found out she was pregnant and left in a hurry out of fear of...something. Something to do with the father, maybe. That would explain why no evidence of anyone else was found in the destroyed portions of her house; she'd done it herself in a fit of worried anger. I don't know if she planned to ever return or not, those plans would have died with her, but her loyal Fracciones stuck by her side and tried to raise her child when complications happened to cause her death. Now we'll never know.

'Anyways, I now have her child in my custody. A charitable act as far as most can tell, but it's pragmatic as well. This Nel was born of a Vasto Lorde, after all, which means that someday she too will reach that level of power, should she cultivate it. Just by stint of being born, she's effectively destined for greatness. Like any human baby, though, she'll need nurturing and care. And I just happen to know someone for whom nurturing and care have become second nature to.'

Tanya, her trainees, and their escort arrived and entered the dome of Las Noches within minutes. The name of the 'palace' had become ironic after the dome was created with its underside covered in a magical projection of a daytime sky. It lit up the place within, giving the illusion of daylight and making it feel just a little bit normal. It was obviously done to help with the mental health of its subjects. Eternal night could be depressing, as many studies on Earth have shown. While Arrancar might be a bit more resilient than normal humans, they still had human-like thoughts and emotions. Thus, an artificial day-night cycle was crafted.

'Lord Aizen really thinks of a lot of things that we would have totally missed,' she mused to herself.

"Show them to the barracks. It's moved a few times since they were last here. I'll go get little Nel here settled."

"Ah, where's Nel going?" the toddler asked.

"It's a nice place," Tanya assured her. "There's plenty of food and soft cushions. You have been eating good, right?"

"Nel eatsh a lizzer sometimes," she answered before flashing Tanya a snaggle-toothed grin, showing that several of her teeth had yet to grow in. "Wha's a coo-shin?"

Tanya chuckled. "You'll see."

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 3: Rebirth Through Means Upheld

~

Roka Paramia knew what she was created for. She was a tool, made to fit whatever desires her creator wished. Often, that meant being the test subject of something he wanted to see the results of before applying it to himself or other tools. She had been cut open many times as a Hollow. Things had been added and taken out. Swapped around. Changed. She could feel their effects sometimes. A lot of it was beyond her understanding. She wasn't made to understand. They weren't made for her to understand. She had been changed from her old body to a new one when her master wanted to observe the process of becoming an Arrancar. He decided it wasn't worth pursuing after seeing her changes unless there was a better way. Then an order came down from the King, her master's only master. Again, he took something from Roka, changed it, and put it back in. Far less painful than usual. Not because of that medicine that decreases pain. He rarely used that. There was just a lot less cutting involved.

Then Roka started growing, and she was feeling strangely ill and emotional. That could be bad. Master didn't like it when she was anything but perfectly still unless she was performing tasks. "Tools don't smile." "Tools don't get to be sad." "You are nothing but a rock. Rock's aren't allowed to be happy. They stay in place until someone moves them." But this time, he let those little slips pass. They were 'expected' since she was 'expecting'. She didn't understand at first, until she saw the scan results he was making with some sort of device.

There was a small child growing inside of her. It was confusing, until she remembered that this was how humans are made. Rather than come to be from reishi condesing or change from something else, humans had to make new humans and grow them like plants from a seed. Inside of themselves, at first, then outside.

For some reason, the thoughts filled Roka with warmth. She was happy, even though she shouldn't be. It was unavoidable. Master thought so as well, so it must have been true. He didn't even try to correct her, after all. So even a rock could feel happiness like this.

Then the day came that the child had to come out. It was painful, but there was a joy behind this pain, so Roka bore it with no issue. The child was born, and she screamed. Roka was worried about her. Were babies supposed to scream? Did she accidentally hurt her? Roka had never used whatever muscles had been contracting before, so maybe she did something wrong.

But Master seemed unbothered. In fact, it seemed things were going back to normal. She wanted to see the child up close. Maybe even hold her. Before she could even ask, however, he had silenced her. Of course, now that she no longer had a child inside of her, she should be going back to normal. Not feeling. He had other tools clean the child and prepare the transport. The King would want to see her. He was the one who had ordered her creation, after all.

Roka knew better than to be sad, but it was hard. She felt empty. The child was gone, and while her fellow tools gently treated her, they did so not with warmth, but calculated motion. They were allowed their happy tones because it was part of their design. Scissors and needles. Gloves and goggles. Emergency medicine. Looking nice and tasting good, but for their Master, not themselves.

Roka had heard of despair. She never thought she'd feel it. Rocks don't despair. They sit in place until they are used. She was bad at being a rock. But maybe it was not so bad. The child was brought back to her, and Master instructed her on how to feed the child, now named Tanya by the King.

Roka had no way to express the joys she felt when she could finally hold the child in her arms and feed her from her own body. It was a part of the human physiology she bore. Humans evolved to let themselves be parasitized by their own offspring until they matured enough to eat other foods. Such a strange thing, but all to better ensure the survival of the next generation. And with it, Roka felt a sort of completeness, a fulfilling of purpose. Master had said something about hormones and chemicals influencing behavior, but Roka never learned more than what these things were called. He did not teach them to her. He merely spoke out loud to himself, and she heard. He also didn't correct her for feeling these things, so she must have been doing it right.

For a while, she was happy to be a vat of food. To be a little more than a rock.

Tanya grew, and soon, the day Roka dreaded was upon them. She was growing in a few teeth and could eat some prepared foods. She would no longer need Roka to feed from, and Master would no longer see any need in letting her contact Tanya. Roka could do nothing to stop it. What could she have done? She was a tool, and she was no longer needed. She would be set aside until the next task came along that her Master required her for. In fact, that task was now there. He wanted to observe how she had changed after all of this. Going through pregnancy and nursing had obviously changed her body in many ways. Master wanted to see exactly how. Once again, Roka would be under the scalpel, doing her best not to scream as she was cut open. Master didn't mind the screams, but they made her throat hurt, and there would be enough pain.

"No!" Tanya had screamed at him, surprising Roka. People, in general, did not tell her master 'no'. The King and the Espada could, but rarely did. Tanya, though... Tanya was dubbed Princesa by her father, the King. He declared that her commands were second only to his. She hadn't been there, but word passed to her. No denizen of Las Noches was allowed to be ignorant of the King's declarations. Not even a rock.

"Mine!" Tanya declared while grabbing Roka's skirt. "My mama! Not yous!"

It felt...good to be defended. To be called...'mama'. Roka didn't understand why Tanya was getting in Master's way, but she seemed to believe that Roka belonged to her. Did she? Could the Princesa simply claim her? If she did, what would happen? What would Roka be then?

"That isn't your 'mama', little girl. That's a tool that happened to have a womb attached to it that I used to make you."

Ah, of course. That was what she was at the end of the day. The young girl was just mistaken. Well, it would be all right in the end. Maybe the King would explain everything to her later, about how things worked. She had to learn from somewhere, after all. That way she could know the things everyone knew and some of the ones that people like Roka did not.

But the child did not acquiesce. Rather, she brought forth a weapon and skewered one of Master's limbs reaching for her, cutting right through his Hierro. Then she fired a Bala from it at him, making him retreat.

"Run, mama!" Tanya yelled before pulling her along. With that, Roka had to accept that she was 'mama', and obeyed the Princesa, following her out to the Las Noches throne, where the king heard them out. Tanya was... Everything she said sounded worse than it really was. If the King believed her unquestioningly, then it was more than enough to have Master executed.

Roka...did not want that.

She could not explain why.

It just felt wrong.

So when the King asked for her account, she slowly explained everything exactly as it happened, putting great emphasis on how Master would not have harmed the Princesa at all with how he was gently reaching. At worst, a tight hold as he moved her out of the way. Tanya herself seemed surprised. She must have not realized that Master would have never let himself hurt her. He was too smart. He wouldn't get himself killed over something so minor. The King agreed. Master would not be executed today.

But he wasn't getting what he wanted.

Roka's first thought about Tanya's demands turned out to be true. She said Roka was hers, so she was hers. There was nothing Master could do about it. It was the King's demands.

He was no longer her master.

But after so long, it was hard to think of him in any other way.

Tanya was technically her new master, but she would not let her call her such. She didn't even like Roka to call her Princesa or Princess. She wanted Roka to call her by name.

Because she was Tanya's mother, and Tanya was her child. That's how mother and child worked. Mothers were given the title of 'mama' and 'mom'. So that's what Roka was, now. Not a rock. Not a vat. Not a tool. A mother.

It was a hard adjustment, but she did learn how it was supposed to function. What she couldn't pull from old memories of the dead souls that made up her being, she asked of those who might know. Most female Arrancar were as in the dark as she was, but a few had ideas. Oddly, it was the Shinigami who knew most. Lord Aizen she could not really approach, but Lord Kaname seemed forthcoming. It even seemed to bring him a small amount of enjoyment at times. Lord Ichimaru was harder to tell, as he almost always smiled, but he must have been enjoying teaching her what he could as well, going by his tone.

So Roka learned. Much of it she could already do. She knew how to clean objects and beings, though helping Tanya to bathe was different from cleaning a subject post-operation. Cooking was harder, but she learned quickly how to prepare things to taste good for Tanya's palate. It wasn't always what Roka preferred, but after having only ever had a plain nutrient-dense semi-liquid food since her transformation, almost anything was far better. And they shared enough preferences that it was rare for them to ever eat something the other didn't want. The exceptions included Tanya's taste for a bitter drink Roka did not like and Roka's craving for spicy foods that Tanya couldn't quite bear.

In the mornings, Roka made sure Tanya's clothes were set out, and fixed them if they were torn or wrong in some way, always making sure they showed her Hollow Hole. It wasn't sewing. Not exactly. It was something else that let her do these things. A side effect of one of M- of Szayelaporro's experiments, maybe. Once Tanya was awake, she'd help brush her hair and tie it up, then prepare breakfast, right before Tanya would set out to do her work for the betterment of Las Noches.

A few hours would be spent going over their home, cleaning what needed to be cleaned, straightening out their bedding and laundering their clothes, then she would ensure they wre properly supllied. Food, toiletries, soap, shampoo. Remove any trash for the utility workers, then prepare lunch, and leave for her outside duties as a medic. A few hours making sure any injuries were properly treated at the medical centers, and then she returned home, usually around the same time as Tanya.

Today, Tanya was early, and she had brought someone with her. Roka was surprised to see her before lunch on a work day, and even more surprised to see a smaller Arrancar in her arms.

"Mama, I'm home," she announced as she walked in, carefully wiping her boots at the foyer. "I have someone I want you to meet."

"Tanya," Roka greeted her child, once again feeling warmth in her heart, a sensation she never grew tired of, never wanted to not feel. She then looked at the smaller, green-haired Arrancar who was looking up at her as well. "Who is this?"

"This is Nel. You remember Nelliel Tu Odelshwanck?"

"Tres Espada, former. Missing. Presumed dead or deserted."

"Confirmed dead. We ran across her old Fracciones while out training. They had this child with them. Apparently, Nelliel's. She must have left in a panic and died in childbirth."

Roka felt a tinge of sympathetic sadness, something Harribel had helpfully explained to her during her mission to acquire motherly skills. She had gone through childbirth and knew it wasn't easy. But to think that such a thing could actually kill an Espada!

And then there was the child. If her mother was dead...

"You must feel lonely."

The small child shook her head. "Nel's not lonely. She has Pesche and Dondachakka and Bawabawa and bunches of mo' sca'wy fwiends that show up shometimes to rawr and shtuff."

"She likely can't remember her mother."

"Nel doesn't. Nel didn't even know she had one."

"That's actually why I brought her hear. We don't exactly have an orphanage or foster system in place. Haven't really had need of one. But you do have experience raising a child. I might have set the standards a bit high, in I could be boastful for a moment, but you're still probably the most qualified to watch over a child like her."

"Oh, so this is...like an adoption?" For some reason, the concept was familiar to Roka. Perhaps a few of her souls experienced it?

"If you wish. I'm sure I can get the Shinigami to set something up if I ask them. I just would rather have-"

"No, I can do it. It won't be any trouble at all."

'This is like...getting another child. A sister for Tanya? I don't know if I could ever have a second one the other way. Who would even want to help me make one? But this... And the poor child. No mother... I can be a mother to her. I've been doing it for Tanya, and she has always said I've done a good job.'

"Would you like to stay here with us, Nel?" Roka asked the child.

"Well...you ah nice. And pwetty. But Nel's worried 'bout her fwiends."

"Oh, you can see them all the time," Tanya told her before setting her down on the floor. "I think it would be impossible to keep them away, in fact. They're loyal, seeing the lengths they went to just to hide and protect you confirms as much. I just don't trust them with the finer points of child-rearing. But for that, my mother is more than qualified."

Roka's heart elated with joy at the praise.

"Just be a good girl for her while I go and straighten some things out. We'll need to process those two, see if we can't undo their Mask-maims, fill out the paperwork concerning you and your mother... It'll be a while. Anything you might need while I'm out, mom?"

Roka quickly went through a mental checklist of their current inventory.

"She'll need a toothbrush."

"Of course. I'll requisition one on the way back. Clothes?"

"She should fit some of your older ones."

"Hm, those are at least 40 years old. Still, if they're in one piece, it should be fine until we get her her own. All right. I'll let La Médica know that you're busy today, and we'll work on the schedule later. Goodbye for now."

Tanya and Roka hugged for a moment, and then the child left with a wave.

"Goodbye. I love you."

"Love ya, too."

And then she was gone in a burst of Sonido.

"So what'sh Nel shupposed to do now?" Nel asked the woman.

"I suppose..." Roka sniffed the air and then looked back down towards the toddler. "When was your last bath?"

"Wha's a bath?"

Roka smiled and started to explain while leading the girl to the bathroom.

She had been created to be a tool.

But things have changed since then.

~

Tanya felt mildly guilty about offloading a child onto her mother so suddenly, especially since she knew the woman wouldn't complain about anything even if she was bothered by it. However, she was right in that there probably wasn't anyone more qualified in Las Noches to watch over a child. Even the handful of Arrancar who did have children didn't raise them particularly well. Most of them didn't realize they were going to have a kid until it was too late, having believed that they were somehow completely infertile creatures up until it was undeniable. At least most of them tried the old-fashioned "feed them once in a while" style of raising children while letting whoever in their community wanted to teach them do so, but that was rather unreliable as far as raising productive citizens went. Then there was Usagi, who apparently went and had four children during her time as an Adjuchas. An unheard-of amount for any Hollow! She claimed she wasn't even sure where they came from. She just took a break to sleep in a cave somewhere and woke up with a quad of tiny daughters next to her. Tanya didn't know if she was telling the truth and was somehow just spontaneously undergoing parthenogenesis, or if something darker was going on behind the scenes, but the woman was proof that one didn't even have to be a Vasto Lorde or Arrancar for it to happen.

There were some attempts at making a system, but with Hollow births still being incredibly rare, there wasn't much chance to implement anything. So far, in the time since Aizen's takeover, no pregnancies had occurred, but Tanya figured it was only a matter of time. Along with the violent attitudes, their tribal structures also weren't big on other inhibitions. Some of them seemed to forget what clothes were supposed to actually cover at times. And others definitely knew and were pushing the boundaries all the time.

Harribel might have been the worst there. Though it could also be a dominance display on her end. Daring men to try something when out of all of them, only Barragan could hope to do anything to her. And he wouldn't. Mostly because she was one of the few Arrancar he saw as respectable. While Tanya wanted to think highly of him, she couldn't get caught in the trap of thinking that he could do no wrong. It was as likely that the mood never struck him to take advantage of a woman as it was that he had a moral opposition to it. Other than him, though, Harribel could trounce any other Hollow and they knew that. Her little harem, however... Well, Tanya didn't like to assume about people's relationships, but the way those women argued was not the way servants argued about the master.

'Still, it's only a matter of time before people start realizing that my PSAs about safe sex were not jokes. And after that, we're going to have to deal with internal population growth. Well, when it happens, it happens.'

After checking in to make sure that Pesche, Dondachakka, and whatever summons the latter had were properly registered, Tanya made her way to the main throne room, both hoping against and for Lord Aizen's presence.

'I'd like to get it all done as quickly as possible, but I'd also like time to pen my debrief in writing beforehand so that I can organize my thoughts better.'

Unfortunately, going by the crowd size, it seemed that she'd have to go on the fly.

~

Aizen preferred to be more off-hand with the comings and goings of his Arrancar army. At first, he suspected that he'd get little more than a collection of powerful pawns in a handful of scattered pack-like structures. Perhaps enough to distract most of the Gotei 13's captain-level ranks while he and his associates focused on the bigger fish and his special projects took care of the most pressing issues. But then he received a pleasant surprise.

Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn. Apparently, Barragan had wanted to cement his rule with a symbol. He was a King, after all, and Kings have Heirs. It might have seemed foolish for an immortal being to waste time and effort on something he would never need, but Aizen at least understood why he thought of it. She existed not so much as his eventual successor but as an extension of his power and the closest thing to a peer he could allow himself. A conversational partner and sounding board for ideas. Perhaps even a bit of a vanity project, to see oneself reflected if this or that were different.

And a weak point, it turned out. While Barragan had certainly feared for his own sake, he and Aizen both knew that a real battle between the two of them would have been devastating. While Aizen was certain he could come out of that battle alive, he also couldn't outright defeat Barragan without great risk. At the same time, Barragan knew he wasn't invincible. A strong enough strike from a strong enough blade, and suddenly a lot of old souls would be sent back into the cycle.

Soul Society would have to scramble for weeks to correct the imbalance it might cause.

But then there was the girl, and Barragan's fear of dying was gone. Aizen knew he meant it when he promised revenge for any harm done to her. Yes, he could still escape it, but his plans would have taken a huge blow. Las Noches was simply too good of a base of operations. It was known far and wide by countless Hollows, and had a modicum of infrastructure, even if it was eons old and decayed. The fact that the King of Hueco Mundo was willing to risk it all for a little girl...

Well, it was intriguing. She was intriguing, even beyond the circumstances of her birth. A bright mind and wisdom beyond her years. Rather than falling into line with angry eyes promising vengeance the moment it could be brought, she took to the new regime like a duck to water. Rules and regulations? She loved them. Loved the structures and guidelines. The army he was building? She immediately set out to make sure it was supplied, raising up cadres of workers to let the soldiers focus on their profession. Even the many pawns he thought to let sort themselves out through the Hollow ways of strong overtaking the weak pushing them all to better themselves, she went and made training regimes oddly reminiscent of what modern Earth performed, though scaled up to push the bounds of an Arrancar's strength. She had even developed a new core unit under her guidance. Elite soldiers rather than the powerful warriors that the Espada were. Escudo. Shields as compared to the Swords. Individually strong, though not much more than lieutenant level on average. But he had seen them work in formation, and that's where they excelled.

Yes, thanks to her, Aizen had the forces to not just keep the captains at bay, but enough to strike at Soul Society itself. A useful distraction, at worst. It certainly made him adjust his plan, but it would honestly run so much smoother like this.

If only he could have ten of her at her father's level of power. Unfortunately, breeding Arrancar was slow, seeing as she was still prepubescent after all these years, and the culmination of his plans was very...soon.

And there she was. He had received a report from Ruddborn Chelute that she had returned earlier than normal from a training session with some unknown Hollows. She was very proactive in recruiting, believing that everyone could have a use if they were given a chance to find it. A rather naive sentiment. Aizen knew many out there had hidden uses, but not in the way she figured. Sometimes, a person's only use in this world is to serve as a whetstone for another's blade.

"Lord Aizen," she greeted him with a salute and a bow. He'd have to remember to give Gin a small reprimand for teaching her that. He was sure that's who taught her, anyway. She started it long before her little 'secret visit' to Earth, and Kaname wasn't the sort, so that left Gin as the most likely source of the gesture.

"Tanya Louisenbairn. You have a report."

"Sir. My training unit and myself came across a group of Hollows performing suspicious activities. We apprehended and interrogated them, eventually identifying three as the Fracciones of former Tres Espada Nelliel Tu Odelshwanck; Dondochakka Birstanne and Pesche Guatiche, and their summon, Bawabawa. We have also confirmed the death of the former Tres."

Aizen noticed two of his Espada looking surprised at that, Nnoitra Gilga and Tia Harribel. The former was likely due to his involvement with Nelliel's disappearance. Aizen was fully aware of it. The Arrancar still had figured out his surveillance technique woven into Las Noches' ceiling. But if neither Nelliel nor her Fracciones were going to report the assault, then he wouldn't bother. She wasn't much use if she was going to be beaten by a much weaker opponent anyway.

"There was a fourth, was there not?"

"Yes sir. She has been identified as Nel. Daughter of the deceased Nelliel."

That...was certainly unexpected. Aizen didn't even know when that could have occurred. Well, as thorough as his system was, the private homes tended to stay private. Less out of respect and more that he didn't wish to have to sort through all of that. He made that mistake once before and got to witness Omaeda having to fight for his life on the toilet.
So yes, he wanted to avoid a repeat of that.

"I see. You're certain?"

"She looks almost exactly like her, sir. I'd be more surprised if she wasn't."

"Understandable. Were you able to ascertain Nelliel's exact reasons for leaving?"

"All I have is speculation, sir. Even her former subordinates weren't kept abreast of it all. My best guess is that she only meant to leave for the duration of her pregnancy, a time when she'd be extremely vulnerable, and return after regaining her strength. It requires believing her to be paranoid about her comrades, but we've witnessed such in the past."

"That we have." Hollows will be Hollows. Even if he had surrogates like Tanya and Zommari painting him in the best light possible, Hollows are creatures of fear, and they rarely trust what looks like gifts on the surface. Especially when the only price he leveled was for them to fight for him, a small thing in their turpid existence. And a few sometimes find it's better to bite the feeding hand than wait for it to empty, only to learn that a blade was always held in the other, just in case. "In that case, see to her accommodations. Her mother did serve admirably in her time here. As for the Fracciones..."

Well, he could keep them around, but that could agitate Nnoitra. Then again, he was incredibly unstable, and most of his power lay in brute strength. He wasn't even particularly cunning. He needed help for even his gambit against Nelliel, after all. Getting rid of them would be simple and well within whatever passed for jurisprudence among this rabble. They deserted, after all, even if one could argue it was for good intentions and at the command of a superior.

Hm, decisions, decisions...

"If I could make a suggestion, Lord Aizen?" the young Arrancar asked.

"Granted."

"The two have been surviving on the move in the desert for years now, all while watching a child. They're obviously resourceful, and the Cuerpo de Palas could always use more hands."

A few Números went stiff at that. The Cuerpo de Palas was another invention of Tanyas, where the weaker Arrancar were made to serve the strong, growing their food, cleaning their shit, building their structures, digging holes, and filling them back up. It was the sect of laborers and servants, and to be placed there was to be told, "You are not good enough to fight, and not worth killing. Now dig." All kept just out of sight until work needed doing, then they scurried up and around like ants before heading back down, so never quite out of mind. For these Hollows, it was the greatest shame.

The perfect place for them.

"Then let's get them some shovels."

Tanya smiled, and Aizen felt a few goosebumps crawl along his skin. Yes, that's where her monstrous side lay. She was born to be a Princess, a leader, and while the royal regime was gone, she had still become a leader. An officer, rather than a near-useless throne decoration with privilege, but perhaps all the more ruthless because of it. Firing squads rather than headsmen. Work camps rather than dungeons. Efficient elite soldiers rather than knights. All colored through the lens of a Hollow playing at being human.

A real monster.

He wished he had a dozen more just like her.

~

Barragan Louisenbairn understood his position. He didn't like it, but he understood. He was dethroned but kept alive, made into a mockery before being used by the one who had bested him. The Shinigami took his throne and his people, his very kingdom and all his world, and now he was molding it as he saw fit, to suit his own ends.

Or so it seemed. Barragan kept his head down at the quiet insistence of his child. Perhaps he would had a bit more pride and defiance in him otherwise, but he could see where it was going. She pointed it out, after all.

'Even Shinigami age.'

He had lived and ruled for over a million years, and he would live a million more. Even the old Shinigami General they spoke of was a mere 2 or 3 thousand, and he was decrepit! They would be dust, some day, and he will have not changed.

But maybe he had grown complacent these last few millennia. After all, suddenly feeling a spark of a dream and calling upon his Royal Scientist to create his Heir was the first major thing he did in a long time. But it was the right choice, in the end. In that dream, he saw the child that would be his, golden-crowned and standing above a battlefield, lording over the dead and dying. Glorious and beautiful. Even now, well before she had fully matured, she was building up a new kingdom right under the nose of the Shinigami and their sycophants. She had even reclaimed old posts of glory that man thought he had co-opted. Barragan had seen her Escudo. Not the strongest, but well-disciplined. A good base to build power upon. And her Palas were quick and loyal workers. Not impressive in their strength, but more so in the skills Hollows once had little need for. Now, Barragan didn't think he could go back to being without them, even if he didn't have all this flesh on his bones. The masseuse alone...

And she was looking out for him as well. If it had come from anyone else, he would have admonished them for thinking they knew what was best for their King, but he could see the genuineness in her suggestions. He needed to improve if he wanted to rise above the blasted Shinigami. He couldn't rest on his laurels anymore or depend on Senescencia and Respira. If this Shinigami surpassed him, then others might do so as well, if not now, then in the future.

'Always prepare for the worst.'

So cautious for but a child. Well, he could blame her. Most of her life was spent under the thumb of the invaders, only known as the Princess of Hollows either unofficially or mockingly. He understood that frustration. If only he was as elastic in his ways as her, maybe he wouldn't feel the need to sit and close his eyes for such long periods of time.

"Father," he heard and snapped to attention. Tanya appeared in his lesser throneroom and smiled upon seeing him before respectfully bowing. "Hello, Father. How are you today?"

"Thinking," he answered before grunting and standing up. Immediately his Fracciones kneeled before him. "Perhaps I should be moving instead. Weren't you running those layabouts outside today?"

"I was, but we came across something interesting and I called off the training for today. Related to that, we finally know what happened to Nelliel: died in childbirth."

"Huh," Barragan grumbled as he walked alongside his daughter. "How did you learn that?"

"Her old Fracciones were watching over a child that looks exactly like her, save for some differences in her mask. Also, you know, being one-tenth her size."

The old King nodded. "I see. Where are they now?"

"I left the child with Mother and sent the others to the Cuerpo de Palas."

If Barragan recalled correctly, the two were clowns. Oh, they could fight, but if it wasn't life or death, they refused to take it seriously. Even before the Shinigami came with his strange orb and turned them all into Arrancar.

"Could one of them be the father?"

"Doubt it. Pesche would have said so if he was. And Dondachakka... Well, let's just say that Charlotte is more his type.

Barragan huffed a laugh at that, and he was sure he heard the man in question jump a bit.

The two ended up performing a few runs across the perimeter of Las Noches, then spent some time throwing up boulders and firing Ceros at them. Afterward, they sat down for a small snack of some sort of pastry.

"Wheat is on schedule," Tanya noted from a piece of paper some Palas had set in a stack next to her before bowing and disappearing, the brown-clad woman barely seen by Barragan or his Fracciones before she was gone. "Might be late with apples. Shouldn't be too bad. We're still unsure about how to source chickens. They keep dying when they're brought in from Earth."

"The reishi might be crushing their souls," Barragan figured. "Weaker creatures tend to be crushed by the spiritual pressure of far stronger beings, and Hueco Mundo is thick with reishi, so it has its own pressure."

"Hm, so we'll have to try and find or breed chickens with a resistance. Otherwise, the only other meat option we'll have is our fellow Hollows."

That was true, and Hollow was getting harder and harder to source these days. Plus, once one had a chicken parmesan platter... Well, there was a reason the human phrase 'tastes like chicken' was synonymous with 'delicious'.

"We'll figure something out."

"Yes... I might have an idea, but I'll need to write it out and make sure I have all my bases covered. Hm, well, it's about that time. I'll see you later, dad."

"Take care, child," he said to her as she put away her things and made to leave. He allowed himself a smile as she waved, and then she was gone.

"Redder, Poww," he called over to his Fracciones.

"Yes, your majesty," the two answered.

"Go find Szayel and question him about how to get farm animals like chickens to survive in Hueco Mundo. I know she won't ask him for anything if she can help it, but I want to make sure this can be done so that she doesn't waste her precious time on it. Tell him to find the answer if he doesn't know."

"At once, your highness," Redder answered.

"It will be done," Poww followed up.

"It'd better."

~

Tanya settled down in the lotus position and put her rifle across her lap after taking it from its cradle at her back. It had grown with her, however little that meant. It was connected to her in a way she couldn't quite describe. Kaname Tousen had called it her Zanpakuto when they'd first met, and when she asked him what that meant, he explained in detail about the spirit swords of the Shinigami and their powers. They did seem quite comparable at first, but several things didn't match up about them. A Shinigami's Zanpakuto started as an empty blade and was slowly filled with the power of its wielder until it took on a sort of identity, an extension of the Shinigami themselves, and then they formed a sort of unique power. An Arrancar's weapon was similar, but not quite. The weapons were, for lack of a better term, born with them. When a Hollow was changed, the weapon appeared alongside them. Tanya, being born naturally, didn't form her own until months later, right when she felt the need for a weapon. Aizen had said that they hold the Arrancar's Hollow power and form within them, and therefore lacked a spirit of their own. But wasn't the Zanpakuto just a container for the Shinigami's own inherent power? What separated the Shinigami from their Zanpakuto spirit if it wasn't the weapon itself? And so, every once in a while, Tanya sought answers. Both Kaname and Ichimaru had given her some instruction on how to commune with one's Zanpakuto spirit, yet neither seemed confident that she would meet any success.

Normally, Tanya wouldn't be one to subscribe to spiritual nonsense, but this wasn't nonsense. It was repeated throughout history by the Shinigami. She was simply trying to emulate their success from another angle, to see how far these powers go. So she performed the meditation, trying to focus her energies upon Negraplata and-

"You know, that's not my actual name, right?" she heard before spinning around to find that she was no longer on the roof of Las Noches.

Below and around her was a city, perfectly grid-set, with architecture resembling a mix of Central European and Japanese, with a hint of the white and red stone that made up most of the buildings of Las Noches. Surrounding the town were massive artillery guns, all pointed outward protectively, ready and waiting to rain fire on the world outside.

"Hey, I'm talking to you," she heard before looking up and flinching at what she saw.

"What- Who are you?"

The being smirked. "You don't know me yet, but you will." The silver-eyed woman with hair of fire outstretched her clawed hands and tattered leather wings. "Welcome to your inner world, Princess. I am [][][][]."

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 4: Old Wounds Bleeding

~

"I...don't believe I heard you properly."

"You didn't hear me at all," the demonic woman told her, putting her hands on her hips. Tanya took the moment to get a good look at her. Her hair was fiery red and waving in a nonexistent wind like actual flames. Her eyes were silver, and surrounded by golden eyeshadow that contrasted with her reddish skin. She was clothed in a button-down shirt and pants, both crimson red and frayed like they'd been worn through several battles. Behind her were a pair of bat-like wings, tattered and torn, with more holes than leathery skin. A pair of twisted horns grew from her head, the color of rust and the tips nearly meeting several inches above her scalp. "Figures. All this instinctual spiritual mumbo jumbo... Of course, you'd be slow to soul searching. It'd take some basic self-reflection. Like you'd know how to do that!"

"We need not devolve this into insults."

"Oh, but I think we do. At least a little. Get us warmed up for the real thing. But I'm beating around the bush." The demon clenched a hand, and blood spilled out from between her fingers and down her arm. Tanya flinched, and the demon smirked. "What's the matter? Afraid of a little blood?"

"You're hurting yourself!"

"Yeah, I noticed." She then opened her hand and the blood lit aflame, wicking away as silver fire consumed it. "We do that a lot, don't we? Sometimes we even get other people in on it. We got Him in on it." The acid in her voice when she mentioned him was palpable. "Not like we had much chance there. He was pretty set. But then you had to go and make it worse."

"I did no such thing!"

"Don't lie to me, Princess. I was there, even when I wasn't. I'm a part of you, remember? Not just you now, but you before, flying around and playing barely legal with the rules of war. Getting yourself shot at when escape was a hop, skip, and a jump away to literally anywhere but there. And I was even there to see you flub at the one job you were good at, Mr. Salaryman. Tell me, what's it like knowing that the person most successful at ruining your life was failed druggy with commitment issues? Certainly beat out the fanatical bunker buster with legs!"

"This is pointless! I did this to learn about my powers, not to get berated by some...symptom of dissociative identity disorder with a blood fetish!"

"Yeah, I know. What, did you think it was going to be easy, Princess?" The last of the fire wicked away, revealing an unharmed hand. For a moment, her silver eyes became gold, and she spoke in a more boisterous tone, "'Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.'" Her eyes then returned to silver, and she clutched her head, claws digging in and drawing lines of blood. "Ergh, even now?! Even here?! Damn you, Being X!"

Tanya was stunned. She had never seen what it was like from the outside for someone to fall under that influence, and now that she had, it was horrifying. That happened to her so many times and for such lengths of time...

"Oh yeah, been a while for you, hasn't it?" the demon asked while pulling her hands away, blood turning to argent flame once again.

"Th- the Type 95 was left back in that world! Whatever you- we are feeling is just-"

"Oh, we left the object behind. But that thing... We held it for so long, after all. Don't you know? Objects close to a person can become bound to them. They become a part of them. Even if that bond is sheer, unbridled hatred, it can still become a part of you!"

The demon ripped open the top of her shirt to reveal her chest. At first, Tanya was shocked and confused, then horrified. There, an almost perfect replica of the Type 95 was embedded in the spirit's chest, just above where the heart should be, casting a faint, golden glow that strobed like a heartbeat.

"A part...of me. A source...of me? Maybe I was born there? Could that be it? After all, I remember it, but you don't. I remember all of it. Every hated word written and spoken, every drawing, every song, every prayer. Praying. Praying for people's salvation while we slaughtered them. Praying for peace as we waged war. Praying for God's guidance as my mind spat a hundred curses at the thing denying me my right to exist! And now that's all me! That's what I am! Can you imagine, Princess, if that's all you were?" A smile then stretched across her lips, splitting her face nearly in half and revealing a set of razor-like teeth as she buttoned her shirt back up. "Ah, but we've gone off track. That's all in the past now. We gotta look towards the future."

"You want me to forget all of that?"

"Eh, why not? You've done it before." The demon chuckled at her. "Ya'know, there was something I could have done here, but I don't think it would be too fair. Or be helpful to our continued survival outside. Nah, we'll take it slow. First off, I gotta teach you my name."

'Seriously, she just revealed that she's got some sort of metaphysical copy of the Type 95 inside of her chest, and she just wants to move on? Just like that?! Is she trying to throw me off?'

"I'm not trying to throw you off, by the way. I'm just a little stir-crazy."

"Guh, you can read my mind?!"

"No, I just know how you think. Especially when you're getting paranoid about people's intentions. Hell's Bells, do you know how many times I've noticed we had an out laid right before us that you just refused to take because you always thought the people who went to great lengths to prop you up were, for some reason, setting you up to fail? Do you know how annoying-! Aup, look at me, I just got done saying it's all in the past." Her growing expression of fury was quickly replaced with a well-practiced, dainty smile. "We should probably move on, or we'll be stuck on this all day."

"Move on to what, though?" Tanya honestly wasn't even sure what the next step was. Her goal had mostly just been to establish contact. She didn't think things went this quickly.

"Getting you to say my name!"

With that, the demon moved, a sweep kick coming for Tanya's midsection. The Arrancar folded over the attack but immediately focused on straightening herself and stopping her backward flight, getting into a fighting stance whilst grabbing her weapon. Luckily, the bladed gun was where she always stowed it, and she brought it about just in time to block a swing from a nearly identical weapon, only red and rusty rather than black, white, and silver.

"How is this teaching me your name?!" Tanya demanded of the violent spirit.

"You'll see. Despite everything, you are smart, after all." She kicked forward, and Tanya spun out of the way, slashing again with her weapon and then firing a Bala at her spirit. The demoness jumped back and ducked the attacks before firing her own, forcing Tanya to enter evasive maneuvers.

"Hehaha! Doesn't this tickle the old nostalgia bones? Or whatever they're called! Nothing in the world like flying through the sky, dodging a reverse rain of bullets!"

"I hated every second of it!"

"Don't lie to me! It won't do you any good!"

The two exchanged fire, Balas and the occasional Cero flying past them both as they moved through the air, old maneuvers coming back to Tanya as she fought like the techniques for riding a bike. Sonido played a part as well, giving them both an edge she didn't have before back in the Empire. Last-second dodges were far more effective when one could enter a mental state where less than a second stretched out, allowing them to 'step' across a wider space than normal. Despite their speed, both managed to clip each other from time to time.

"Whoo! Makes you miss the analgesic spells, huh?" the demoness exclaimed after one Bala impacted her left leg. "Gotta see if Fran's got something."

"Why are you talking when you're trying to fight me?!" Tanya asked in annoyance. Something about the way things were going didn't line up in her mind.

"We're getting there! Be patient. Or not. Patience and bloody battles don't really mix well."

A boom shuddered the earth, and then Tanya was sent screaming as a shell exploded in mid-air.

"Oh cool. The guns finished turning around."

"You're firing artillery on me?!" Somewhere, Tanya felt like several people were experiencing sudden unexplained Schadenfreude.

"Well of course I am. But more than that," the demon blinked out of the way of an incoming shell that exploded in the false city below, "on me, too."

"You're insane!"

"Hey, you're the one who joined the army at 7 years old!" And then she charged in, their bayonets clashing once again. "Coulda waited until the last minute! Could have...stowed away to the States! Literally, 29 different plans that could have worked went through our mind before you signed up for the one that let you kill people."

"I never wanted to kill anyone!"

"Now that's a lie!" She shoved Tanya away then made to spear her. "We never felt bad about killing those commie commissars! Barely pitied the rank-and-file! And the politicians? Divine!" A slash ducked under, and then Tanya felt something wrap around her ankle. She spotted the tail just before being yanked across the sky and down toward a building. Her back impacted the roof just before a pair of shells exploded next to it, collapsing the structure with her on it.

"And remember the perv? How he squealed like a pig when we finally got him? All those pictures... You ever imagine what Visha woulda done if she found him and his stash before we split him in half, crotch to head? Such a nice lady. ...She's probably dead now."

Tanya roared as she leaped from the rubble and smashed her fist to the demoness' face, sending her over the cratered street and into the half-destroyed building across from them, just in time for a shell to hit it and explode. As the flames and smoke cleared, the spirit stepped out, silver flames licking up from bleeding wounds. And that damnable face-splitting smile on her face!

"Hey, just saying. She'd be almost a hundred if she was still kicking. Maybe more. We weren't keeping track well, after all."

"Damn you!" Tanya growled out before charging. The demon kept her smile and met the charge head-on, but now with her claws rather than her own gun. Caught off-guard, Tanya barely saw her raise her hand to her face before a wound there lit up and blasted her with a black-fire explosion, knocking her back.

"Now you're getting fired up! Heart racing! The sound of shells raining! Just needing screaming soldiers firing wildly and we'll have the old band back together!"

"I hate war!" Tanya shouted as she pulled herself up, clutching her scorched face.

"So do I! Cero!"

Tanya leaped to the side as a silver-gold light raked the place where she once stood. She fired back her own, calling the attack's name and cursing whoever designed a world where calling out attack names demonstrably made them stronger. The demon jumped over it and rained a hail of Balas upon her. Tanya dodged through them while flying upwards, answering with aimed single shots of her own. The dance continued for several seconds, then the spirit closed in and grabbed Tanya's weapon, pushing back against the Arrancar.

"Bloody devil!"

"You're getting warmer!"

They suddenly took a nosedive, the demon's heels planting against Tanya's chest and slamming her against the street. As she tried to regain her bearings, a shell exploded near them, framing the smiling spirit looming above her.

"Maybe next time, though." Her spirit ripped her weapon out of her hands and aimed the blade downward. She thrust down, intent on impaling Tanya through the heart, but the girl caught her gun before its bayonet could pierce her chest. The demon, rather than upset, looked intrigued.

"I've always...hated war," Tanya got out through grinding teeth as she forced that blade away. "Everything about it is a massive waste. It wastes lives that could've made a difference in the world. It wastes resources that could have been better spent anywhere else. I only ever studied it to learn about why it happened. To study the people's reasons for waging it. I hate war. I hate the trenches. I hate the charges. I hate the retreats. I hate the gunfire! I hate the pounding of artillery! I hate the death! I hate the bloodshed!" She kicked up, pushing against the ground with her very neck to get the hit in as deep as possible as her foot connected with the spirit's chin, knocking her back and wrenching the gun from her hands before getting to her feet.

"So tell me!" she demanded. "Why is it...that I feel alive when I'm fighting?! Tell me, you blood-soaked demon!"

The demon chuckled and wiped away silvery blood from the corner of her lips, the tips of her horns meeting and starting to glow. "Now we're talking."

~

Ulquiorra did not like surprises. By their nature, they were unexpected interruptions. Even 'pleasant' surprises could be disruptful, often bringing his dislike of them to neutral, at best. Few surprises were ever positive. The current one...he was unsure of.

Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn was meditating atop Las Noches' dome. This was not a surprise. She had been doing this on occasion. It was not regularly scheduled, being, rather, a time-filling event for her when other tasks were done and others still were not ready to be processed. A leisure activity with potential benefits. A more efficient use of spare time.

What was a surprise was the particular energy signal she started emitting through her reiatsu during today's meditation. Ulquiorra recognized the pattern as one he had only ever sensed from one other Arrancar: himself. To most, this energy would have been lost among the many other signals each individual's reiatsu emitted in their near-unique signatures. To the more perceptive, they may have recognized the two shared a particular wavelength and thought nothing of it. Many shared individual wavelengths with many others throughout their signatures. It was the sum that was unique, not each part. But Ulquiorra knew what this one meant for himself, and to sense it in another heavily suggested that they now shared the same trait.

"Segunda Etapa," he muttered aloud.

A secret he had previously shared with no one, not even Lord Aizen, to whom he swore all loyalty. His reasons were varied, but at their core, it was because it was his final trump card. The one thing he knew that made him himself. The advantage he held over all the others should push come to shove. The Arrancar army was not a place of camaraderie. The Espada, and those close enough to potentially become Espada, were always looking for ways to advance themselves. While the top three existed in relative safety, as few could ever hope to challenge them as they were, that did not mean that challengers would never come. The Picaro had once been Espada, and now they served as part of the Palas, working-class Arrancar. And so he held this close to his chest, thinking that perhaps he was the only one who could perform it.

But the Princesa had just proven him wrong.

She had found the secret. The truth about the Arrancar. How their Zanpakuto really worked. It was likely why she was meditating in the first place, and now she knew. She had made that second step. Feeling its acknowledgment, a Horned Black Bat reared up its metaphorical head, grinning. Ulquiorra continued to ignore it like he always did in the outer world. The secret was not yet out, so he would continue to act the part.

'But it is getting out.'

'It is.'

'She will tell the others.'

'She will.'

'They'll all get stronger.'

'They may.' It wasn't that simple, after all. Not every one of them who wanted to face that part of themselves to grow stronger could persevere. In all honesty, it was no surprise that if one were to discover it, it would be the Princesa. She was made for ambition. She sought to make everything better until it was at its best. This would include herself, naturally, and then the Arrancar as a whole. The only way to silence her now would be to kill her.

'It would be simple and easy.'

'It would.'

'So what stays your hand, Blank?'

'Retribution.'

Her father was one of the few Arrancar Ulquiorra was sure could outmatch even his Segunda Etapa. He had been the Primera ever since his induction into Aizen's ranks, though refused the marking. If he killed her now, everyone would sense her death, and everyone would know it was him. While many would fight to avenge her, it was Barragan Louisenbairn's threat that stilled his sword the most. Perhaps if it had been any other Arrancar, but it was not. It was the most untouchable of them all. Even Aizen would hesitate to harm the girl, out of concern for everything that would be lost in the collateral that was certain to pile up in Barragan's rage, more than anything. And before that, she was simply useful. Where others grew tired of managing the Números and lesser Arrancar, the Princesa was thrilled and energized to do so. Aizen ruled Las Noches, but the Princesa was the one who told the Palas where to build its roads and buildings.

The secret was coming out. She would only see the potential to improve others, rather than potential problems. But perhaps that was his mistake?

Had he let basic fear rule his decisions?

Not preposterous, though he wished it were. Something to correct for, starting the moment the Princesa was finished with her meditations. Her own Interna Hueco was a fierce thing, it seemed. Her outer body had received a few sympathetic injuries as the battle within commenced. Much like when Ulquiorra first tried to tame his own Interna.

'Glorious day!'

He disagreed. It had to be done for Ulquiorra to be in total control of himself after becoming Arrancar. Segunda Etapa was a positive symptom of that control.

The Princesa's eyes opened, and then she was holding up her Zanpakuto, looking at its barrel and blade.

"Well, that last bit was just unintuitive. Completely misguiding."

"You have found it," Ulquiorra stated, drawing the Princesa's attention to himself about two meters to her right.

"Ah, Espada Cifer. Good to see you. ...It?"

"Interna Hueco, the Inner Hollow," he laid out. Obviously, the term wasn't being widely used. Murciélago had told it to him when they met. He did not know if the Princesa's granted her the courtesy. If he was anything to go by, they were an obstinate sort.

"Oh, you knew about them?" She smiled as she stood up to her feet, back going straight as she looked at him attentively. "I was worried for a moment I might be a special case. This is good. If it's repeatable, then that means others can learn it as well. A wonderful self-training tool, if one doesn't mind having someone so intimately familiar with them using all their secret feelings like that... Then again, all in the privacy of our own minds and all that."

"You'll wish to inform Lord Aizen as soon as possible."

"That I do, though I fear he's not in Hueco Mundo today. We'll have to inform one of the others. While I doubt he'd be against us teaching the other Arrancar, it's best to hear what he has to say about everything before we proceed. He may wish to fold it out slowly or have everyone set on the same page, all at once. We'll see what he plans once he's informed."

Well thought out. As expected of her. While she did not lack initiative, she preferred permission for larger projects whenever possible. That's why things like the plumbing system needed approval, but the specific piping sections did not. Or why one or two buildings may crop up with little to no warning, but a full outpost had to be signed off on. There was clearly a line she drew when it came to what was and was not acceptable for her to take full responsibility for.

"Then let us inform Lord Kaname."

"Yes. He'll be pleasantly surprised to hear about my progress."

~

Tosen didn't know what he expected from Tanya's attempts at emulating the Shinigami form of meditation as Jinzen. It certainly wasn't this.

"Segunda Etapa," he mouthed. Tanya seemed surprised about something when Ulquiorra explained it, for some reason. Probably the name, Second Stage. It wasn't the most creative. Of course, one might say the same thing about "initial release" and "final release," but they had a certain ring to them when spoken in Japanese. He was also told that their kanji were rather beautiful when drawn. He had to take people's word for it there.

"With the Princesa's discovery of her own Interna Hueco, it has become clear that more Arrancar may be capable of achieving this form of power beyond mere Resurrección," Ulquiorra continued explaining. "Lord Aizen should be informed as soon as possible, so that he may design a plan to incorporate this power into the army as he sees fit."

Tousen nodded. "I will prepare a message for him at once. But I have to ask, Ulquiorra, why have you never come forward about this before?"

He sensed a shift in the Arrancar. Many said that Ulquiorra's face remained expressionless no matter what, even when whatever was occurring had obviously angered him in some fashion. Such a still face didn't matter to a blind man. Kaname Tousen felt people's emotions as much as he heard them. While Ulquiorra was subdued compared to all others, even in this, Tousen could still feel his hesitance in answering this question.

"It had not occurred to me that others may be capable of what I believed to be a unique trait."

"And having us informed of your capabilities?"

"A trump card, as it is called. I am capable of any task I am assigned, but in the case of enemy intelligence believing they have my strength accounted for, Segunda Etapa serves as a reserve of power to overcome their attempts to overwhelm my already displayed ability."

Tousen didn't like the idea that Ulquiorra felt there might be a potential leak, as there were only two people who could divulge such information to their enemies, but perhaps it was just his nature to account for every possibility, no matter how far-fetched. Annoying, as there would have to be a lot of adjusting now that this new level of power was revealed, but that would be the case even if he had only spontaneously come across it recently, much like Tanya just had.

"While I have faith in our information security," the young Arrancar spoke up, "it can only help to keep certain information compartmentalized in order to make enemy intelligence's job all the harder when they do find holes. It can't be guaranteed that every Arrancar is loyal, and we can't hedge it all on The Seireitei continuing its unofficial stance of treating Arrancar like a non-issue in perpetuity. Gears are sure to change over time, especially once the buildup is done and open war is declared. After that, it's a matter of time before someone figures out a way to get flies on the wall."

Tousen nodded. "An astute observation. I assume you have methods of dealing with it."

"A few. Most have yet to come to full fruition, and I'm afraid that a lot of it will be reactionary, plugging holes as they show. In a case like this, there's little for it. The moment an Arrancar uses Segunda Etapa in battle, the Shinigami will know it's something that can come into play, much like how we know of Bankai. But also like Bankai, there can only be so many responses, and they're not exactly uniform. Dealing with your Bankai would be a world of difference to dealing with Lord Ichimaru's."

That much was true. They could safely assume that Segunda Etapa would reach a similar width and depth as Bankai, in the same way that they once thought Resurrección filled that space. In a way, it brought everything into a new light. They had feared that the underwhelming powers of most Resurrección meant that they were going to have to truly dig through the chaff for quality among the Arrancar, but it turns out that this whole time they were looking at the Shikai equivalents, rather than Arrancar having some form of always-active Shikai expressed in their more unique traits and abilities in base form. The whole thing had shifted into a new paradigm.

"I may be able to set up some more proactive efforts for our information security, but ventures into the Living World and Soul World would be required. With stealth taken to the extreme, of course."

"I will look into approving your requisitions for those. Until then, see what you can do to set those operations into place. Ulquiorra, I need for you to come with me and assist in setting up the report to Aizen-sama."

"Yes sir."

"I'll draw up a strategy outline as soon as possible," Tanya answered, the sound of her hand tapping her hat as she saluted reaching his ears. He nodded to her and offered her a light smile.

"Good. I know you won't disappoint. Dismissed for now."

With that, Tousen and Ulquiorra went one way while Tanya headed towards the palace's exits, likely to head into her offices below the sands, somewhere between Las Noches and the Menos Forest.

'That girl gives me hope,' Tousen thought. 'If a kind-hearted soul like hers can arise among monsters and pull them to progress, then this world may indeed have a future.'

~

Tanya's mind was doing its best to not short out.

'Shit! Shit! Shit! Where did that Segunda Etapa thing come from?! A second stage to Resurrección! I thought he just meant finding the spirit of my Zanpakuto in general! I know I'm a little behind the curve compared to most. They all just seem to know it by heart the moment they change. I had to actually work for it.

'No, no, calm down! Ulquiorra's there for their example. I could just say that...there are requirements I have to achieve before I can use it! Right! I can't use it so soon, but it's there. Just stall for time while I figure this all out. I'll need to go into Jinzen if I want to get any answers, but I can do that as soon as tomorrow. Let's focus on what I can do. Okay, have to draw up plans for scouting the Living and Soul Worlds. Cloaks at minimum for that, but I may also need to train some Arrancar in stealth. The Picaro would be useful in communicating but... It's hard enough to keep them on task with what I have them doing now. They'd give it all away the moment they ran across a Shinigami and decided to 'play'.

'I may have to lead by example here. I've gone in and out before with no one the wiser. Soul Society might be easier, as weaker Hollows and Menos sometimes get into the outer districts and lurk about for years unhindered. So a good practice area, starting from the furthest out and extending operations towards the middle. That would also help the war effort in many ways, especially if we can get the most human-looking to set up some cells among the souls. Oh, that's actually quite devious. And unlike the Living World, there aren't any rules about this. Not that we can expect the lazy, genocidal regime to play by any agreed-upon rules. We know how they've dealt with humans and their own in the past, and to them, we'll just be up-jumped monsters until proven otherwise.

'Gah, I hate how much of an uphill battle this is! In the Empire, there was already infrastructure and institutions that had the lion's share of setup worked out by the time I was born. Here, I've had to do most of the heavy lifting, even when they were other people around because they all live on timescales that flip from potential eternity to dead in days. Not the most conducive mindset for building up much of anything within the timetable we're working with. I just know that the moment that Captain-General dies of old age and his overpowered Zanpakuto is no longer in play, we'll be on the offensive. Given how long he's lived, that could be next month, in a few years, or a few decades. Shinigami lifespans are apparently hard to account for, despite being visually confirmed as finite.'

Tanya reached the tunnel leading down into the underground portions of Los Loches, kept lit by crystals that gave off more light than the average streetlamp. The stairs went down a while, then let up into a tilted plane before leveling off. Stone and glass kept the sands at bay, and a few sweepers that came through daily to clean up the mouth of the tunnel waved to her. Further in, Tanya passed by artificially lit greenhouses full of soil and crops that had been adjusted to the reishi of Hueco Mundo. After a time, she stopped in front of a particular door and braced herself before entering.

Francisca Fraustein was a peculiar Arrancar and a way for Tanya to get around her issues when it came to working with Szayelaporro Granz, since Fran's expertise could act as a good replacement for most of the things Tanya might have needed the other mad scientist for. Unfortunately, she lacked the centuries of experience and most of the equipment that Szayelaporro could boast. Tanya knew that she was essentially settling for an inferior product and looking to invest in it in hopes of bringing it up to par with the established version, but it was like green energy versus fossil fuels. Yes, it's much easier and cheaper to burn coal and oil, but the stuff was demonstrably bad for the environment and doomed to run out. It was only a matter of time before Szayel pushed the wrong buttons and bit off more than he could chew, after all.

"Princess! Great to see you!" the far preferable mad scientist greeted her cheerfully as she walked into the lab office, the stitching scars across her cheeks accentuating her small smile and making it look far larger than it really was. The woman was a light blonde with hazel eyes and fair skin, her mask fragments appearing as two ovals on the sides of her head. Along with the scars on her cheeks, above her left eye, and circled around her neck, the ovals made her like someone's gender inversion of Frankenstein's monster, which may have influenced the madwoman to choose her name the way she did. Despite her obvious predilection for unethical science and surgery, she thankfully preferred to keep her experiments humane at worst. As her scars showed, she was more likely to test things upon herself than an unwilling volunteer.

Oh, but she did accept volunteers. No one ever died under her knife and they rarely felt pain, but that didn't mean that they didn't suffer. The brain transplantation came to mind. Yes, it ended as well as something like that could, but the two men were still undergoing therapy.

"Fran, how is the food production expansion?"

"Just wonderful! I still haven't quite gotten the cultured cells to grow in vat systems without them dying to spiritual pressure, but we finally got some farm animals delivered."

"Really?" Tanya was starting to lose hope there. Seeds made the transfer well enough. Something about their state let them exchange their physical kishi with reishi far more fluidly, but animals always seemed to die from suffocation or pressure-crushing them when brought into Hueco Mundo. Not even fertilized eggs made the transition unscathed. "How did you do it?"

"Sad to say it wasn't me. Your father's men came around and gave me an idea though, so I sent Veronica to find some in the Soul World."

Tanya blinked. "You mean the little murder-blender? She went...to the Soul World?"

"Hey now, that's a rather unkind view of her function. I know she's geared toward euthanasia, but she's hardly a murderer."

Veronica, Francisca's little sister, was accurately described as a murder-blender despite the older sister's insistence. The technicality of the kills' reasonings notwithstanding. She had more blades hidden on her person than anyone was sure of, and knew how to use them all to great effect. She was full of poisons that could stagger most Espada and kill anything below a certain threshold ready to be injected with the twitch of a muscle and the press of a finger. A perfect assassin that was assigned under "euthanasia expert" in all records, and packaged in the form of a little purple-haired girl.

It gave Tanya an inkling of what her enemies must have felt when faced with her, but probably worse. She didn't want to kill at the end of the day. Veronica was literally designed by their mother to kill in the fastest way possible. Much in the same way Gavrill was made to kill the most possible at once and Fran to put them back together and use the scattered pieces in emulation of the greater madwoman.

Thankfully, that mad scientist was off to find the edge of Hueco Mundo.

'May she step off it.'

"Wait, she was undetected?" Tanya asked.

"Oh, absolutely. Some of her friends wanted to go with her, but Lord Ichimaru only signed off on her. Probably for the best. They can be quiet, but not as quiet as they think."

"Interesting," Tanya mused. "I might have a job for them. Send them my way when you next see them, assuming I haven't already gotten to them. Your sister, too. We're going to need stealthy people in the near future."

"Ooh, are we doing super spying? I think I have some cuttlefish skin cultures that have acclimated enough for use that I can use to apply a color-changing effect to one's skin. Would you like to try it?"

"...Not at this time."

'The only way I'm getting under this madwoman's scalpel is if I've been torn to shreds and she's the only medical professional in the vicinity. I can trust her to put someone back together the way they used to be, but her adding anything is a crapshoot that can turn out just fine or become a nightmare. Like the bug-sourced skin grafts. The legs, God, the legs!'

"That's okay. It'll probably be better for one of the secret agents, anyway. People always think of chameleons but they're so basic compared to octopi. Won't trick a Shinigami or human up close. Perhaps some ligament adjustments?"

"No, thank you. Just pass along the message for me. Where can I find these animals? What kind did they get?"

~

"These are not chickens," Barragan groused when he saw the creatures hopping about their new enclosure.

"Sorry, Your Majesty, but it seems the Arrancar we sent...didn't know what a chicken was," Ggio explained, worried about incurring his King's wrath but knowing that he had to be the one to give him the news since he was the one who foisted the mission to those Usagi girls. They further foisted it onto some Palas with a job that didn't even serve a function before. What's the point of a 'euthanasia expert' when they don't have anything to euthanize?

Well, okay, there were definitely some Arrancar that needed euthanizing, but they could hardly expect a mere Pala to do that! That was Ruddborn's job.

"But, this does serve as proof that we can bring in animals from the Soul World far more easily than the Living World. We'll simply need to set up a new mission and do it correctly next time."

"Be sure that you. I will not tolerate repeated failures, Vega."

"Oh, hey dad," they heard and turned to see Tanya approaching, followed closely by a Pala wearing the shovel-shaped patch on her shirt beneath a lab coat. Ggio bowed respectfully and stepped back as the Princesa stood alongside the King to look into the enclosure.

"Tanya," he greeted her back. "Seems they mistook these for chickens."

'My King, please, it was those airheaded girls, not your loyal knight!'

"Huh, I was right. Rabbits. Good enough for protein, but if I recall correctly, their leanness makes them calorie-inefficient. We'd have to carefully balance them out with potatoes and bread... Well, assuming we absorb nutrients like humans do. For all I know, we can live off rabbits alone. Fran?"

The Pala shrugged. "Haven't studied it closely enough to say one way or the other, but erring on caution is good."

"Right. We'll do that, then. Now then, I suppose I should go draw up those plans for a spy network."

"Spy network?" Barragan asked his child.

"It came up in conversation with Lord Kaname. There's no threat now, but one day we'll have to deal with espionage, and the best way to head that off is to set up our own counterintelligence ahead of time. They won't suspect a thing, and by the time they know there's anything to suspect, we'll be miles ahead in those respects."

The King laughed. "Brilliant thinking. I'll lend you one of mine then. Ggio Vega."

The Fraccion stood at attention.

"Work with the Princesa on this project. Of all my subordinates, you are the most qualified for the more subtle arts."

'Only by comparison! Why does everyone think I can be stealthy just because I'm not built like all the others?'
"It will be done, Your Majesty."

"It better. Tanya, he's all yours."

"Thank you, father. I'll be sure to put him to good use. He'll return better than when you lent him to me."

'Why do those words make me feel like I'm in danger?'

~

With a trusty subordinate to offload busywork onto, Tanya wrote up a list of traits and talents as well as a first draft of her plan to set up intelligence against the Soul World's primary governing body, then sent a copy to the main office of the Shinigami Lords, another to her filing station, and a third to Ggio, who was further instructed to begin scouting the Palas and Números for individuals who met certain criteria. With that, there would be a lot of waiting time before anything required her input, mostly in the form of vetting and setting up the primary structures of this new branch. While she could use this time to enter Jinzen and talk with her Zanpakuto's spirit, she had only just done that and figured that they needed a little more time to cool down after their last...conversation.

Instead, Tanya decided to kill two birds with one stone. The new branch would need examples of stealth to work off of, and she was one of the best at it that she knew in the Arrancar Army, which said more about them than her, in her honest opinion. There were also some connections and minor obligations she wanted to check on that she couldn't normally do from the safety of Las Noches.

And so, with a cloak requisitioned and her reiatsu suppressed, she headed off to the Living World to see what that little Quincy family was up to, a few items in her pocket to repay them for their kindness from her previous visit. After she stepped out of the Garganta into Karakura, she was immediately assaulted by a deluge of rain.

"Ah, what rotten luck," she muttered before picking up on the familiar reiatsu signature from last time. "Hm, can't pick up anything else for the brother, but that's as good a direction as any."

With that, she sped off in his direction, taking slightly to the air, just above the treetops. As she closed in, she began to sense another presence, more refined, more familiar. A Hollow's reiatsu. Not one she knew, but it had all the marks associated with a Menor Menos, a Hollow that could trigger a Gillian formation under the right conditions. At first, she was curious, then worried as she realized that they were at the same exact place. Within seconds, she saw them, and felt confusion at what she was seeing. The brother was there, Ichi-whatever, facing against a furry Hollow with a large mask. The Hollow had some kind of extension, almost like an anglerfish lure, with the end shaped like a person, its head looking just like how Tanya recalled the family photos showed the siblings' mother looked. And speared through that lure and the brother's chest was one of the Hollow's limbs.

'Oh no!'

Tanya was ready to dash down and rescue the boy, questions about his garb and sword shoved to the side, but just before she could act, the teenager jammed his blade into the Hollow while grasping the limb in his chest, clenching down on it like a vice that could see was crushing now that she had a clear view.

"It's over, Fisher! You're the oldest, filthiest," he said while pulling that sharp limb loose from his body and driving his sword in deeper, "most offensive Hollow that I've ever met!" he screamed while slashing the blade across, nearly cutting the Hollow in half. With a scream of pain, Fisher collapsed to the side, blood splattered everywhere around them and diluting in the rain before it sublimated.

'That...was actually impressive,' Tanya thought, a smirk growing across her face. 'The absolute mad lad, he let himself be impaled in order to get ahold of his enemy and strike him down. Risky. I'd never let one of my subordinates do that without a dressing down, but that kind of daring is rare in a warrior.'

Then things got weird. The lure stood up, groaning with the voice of the Hollow, and the fleshy line between them seemed to absorb the main body into the lure itself.

"I've underestimated you," Fisher said as the last of it was brought into the lure body and a hole appeared in its center. "But you definitely couldn't cut your mother! Oh stupid Shinigami," he said while jumping into the air, the boy unable to catch him in time, "we shall meet again."

On the one hand, this wasn't her fight, and things were looking strange. The Hollow referred to the boy as a Shinigami, which made no sense, given his heritage, no matter what he was dressed as. But still, Shinigami, bar a few, were their enemies. On the other hand, she had an investment here, and it wouldn't take much to secure it.

So as the Hollow called Fisher flew away, she burst over in a flash of Sonido in his path.

"What is- Oh. Oh! Arrancar-san, I- did not expect one of you here!"

"You seemed to be having trouble there," Tanya pointed out, looking down at the brother. They were out of his field of view now, between the distance and the rain, and though he looked like he wanted to pursue despite some girl who had just appeared - probably a friend of his with spiritual awareness - trying to hold him back, it was clear from his bleeding and the fact he was looking in the wrong direction that he wasn't going to be giving chase or finding them if he did.

"I- It was...a mere mistake on my part. I perhaps played around too much."

"You seemed familiar with him, though."

"Ah, I ate his mother's soul about 10 years ago," he said, catching Tanya's interest. "It was a strange thing, but a lucky day for me. Now he's a Shinigami, somehow. I'll definitely get him next time. The rest of them, too."

"I see. Good to know." Tanya put a hand on the body's shoulder, finding it to be quite insubstantial. "You're injured."

"Yes, but there should be someone who can help me patch up. I'll be back in top shape soon!"

"I'm sure you would have." Her grip tightened, and the lure's face shifted to fear. "Gonzui."

"No! No, no, no! Please forgive me! I'll do beeeAAAAHHHH!"

The Holow's begging turned into shrieks of terror as his already compressed body was further crushed and spaghettified, entering Tanya's wide-open mouth bit by bit. The moment it was gone and quieted, she closed her lips and swallowed.

'Blech! Never liked the taste of Hollow. Filling, but worse than ration bars. Barely better than K-brot. And now I gotta pick through this thing.' The worst part about eating a Hollow was definitely having to put up with its souls until she could pick through them and toss them out of her being. It was usually a chore, but then there was the occasion where one was apparently bad enough to deserve Hell, and then she had to see that thing open up and take its due, reminding her once again that there were, in fact, worse fates out there. Then again, Hell only took evil souls, so it's not like it was happening to the undeserved.

'I'll have to go through them later. The girl's treating him, but that injury needs more than first aid.' Just as she was about to saunter over and offer assistance, she felt something that made her pause and quickly push her Pesquisa into an Indice Radar and direct it to where she felt a presence. Through it, she saw that a Shinigami had been watching from the nearby trees before approaching and speaking to the girl.

'No way. Was this... What are the Shinigami plotting here? Is that why the brother has that getup?' Whatever they said to one another was done quickly, and then the Shinigami left. She checked around further, pushing her senses to the brink to pick up even the faintest hint of a spiritual presence, but now it was just the girl and the unconscious brother in the clearing, and the Shinigami was getting further and further away. 'I don't know what's going on, here. Normally, it'd be better to not get involved, but I already am. If the Shinigami have thumbs on the brother, then they likely know about the sisters as well. Damn. This was exactly the kind of thing that should have been most unlikely.

'Now I have to investigate and see what he might know. Maybe they haven't mentioned me, but I doubt it. Any lines of questioning involving Hollows would lead to me eventually. I can only hope he hasn't convinced them that we're enemies. It'll be hard enough thanks to the stupid Fisher.'

Area secured, for the time being, Tanya went down and landed nearby, gaining the girl's attention as she searched through a view vials she kept on hand.

"Let's see. Steroid. Antivenin. Flu vaccine. ...Ah, there we are. Human-safe regenerative serum."

"You- You're-" The girl turned toward Tanya, jumping to her feet. "J-just stay back!"

"Don't worry. I'm a friend," Tanya reassured her, a little annoyed by the girl's sudden fear of her. "I was going to come by for a visit, but I saw that Ichi-nii here was a little busy," she explained before handing over the vial. "Here, human-safe healing serum. It'll help with his wounds. Be careful. That stuff's hard to make, you know."

The girl took it and looked back and forth between it and Tanya.

"I- I don't understand."

"Confusing times, I know. Just be careful about guys like that other one. Oh, and...don't worry about the Fisher. I took care of it on the way." She looked over at the brother, now totally unconscious, and sighed. "And here I was hoping to catch up. I'd like to stay and help, but it's not exactly safe with a Shinigami lurking around."

"But... What about about...?"

"Hm, oh, I know he's human. Living, I mean. Not sure what the Shinigami did to him, but it's...interesting. I'll probably come and ask about it when the area's more secure. Just be careful around those black-robed characters. One step out of line, and you might find yourself passing over into the afterlife living in a half-rotted slum. Try to avoid that as long as you can." Tanya made to leave, but then paused. "Oh, and let the girls know I dropped by." She flicked over a gold coin, which the girl caught despite her surprise. "A little gift from Tanya. Tell Yuzu I can't wait for another cup of coffee."

Deciding that was enough for the poor girl, who was so obviously in over her head with all this afterlife business, Tanya left in a burst of Sonido, putting some distance between herself and the spiritually aware human before opening a Garganta back home.

'Strange. The kid has a Shinigami's shihakushō and a sword that... Well, it wasn't really a Zanpakuto, I don't think. Too big. They tend to be standardized from what I know. Maybe... Could the Shinigami have found a way to give a human pseudo-Shinigami powers? Maybe it's a project to overwrite the Quincy's soul-destroying aspects? If they could use it on the remaining Quincies, many of whom might be in a similar situation to the siblings, where they have no idea about their heritage...

'Damn, I'm definitely going to have to report this! Lord Aizen can't be caught off-guard by a sudden surge in Shinigami numbers pulled from the living population to act as conscripts. If that's what a teenager can pull off, then an experienced Quincy could likely challenge mid-rank Numeros without the worry of annihilating their souls. And every mid-rank occupied is a sliver of attention freed for the high-ranks.

'We need eyes and ears in the Living World sooner rather than later. Good thing we were already working on that.'

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 5: Histories Unrepeated

~

Rukia was happy, elated even, that Ichigo was okay. Well, he was healing. He would be okay. She didn't quite trust the…serum the girl gave her, but luckily, they didn't need to trust it. But just behind that happiness was worry and confusion. Eikichirō Saidō, thankfully, had promised not to report her, giving her more time to get things in order. But after he was gone, she had appeared.

Rukia had been paralyzed with fear when she saw that being. She hadn't sensed her reiatsu at all, but after her approach, she could pinpoint it beneath that cloak, faint, but there, suppressed by stealth techniques Rukia didn't think one of her kind could perform. At first, she didn't want to believe her eyes, but the truth was right in front of her. A human shape, a Hollow Hole, and an incomplete mask. An Arrancar. The academy didn't teach them much about those rare Hollows, only that such a being should be avoided and reported to the highest available authorities. They required someone of at least lieutenant level to have any hope of defeating them.

But the Arrancar didn't want a fight, or rather, she didn't want to finish them off. Even at full power, Rukia would have been helpless against something like her. Even uninjured, Ichigo wouldn't have stood a chance.

Instead, she went searching through pouches strapped to her strangely clean, white outfit's belt.

"Let's see. Steroid. Antivenin. Flu vaccine. ...Ah, there we are. Human-safe regenerative serum." She then held up a glass vial full of red liquid, labeled with Latin letters, and Rukia managed to snap out of her frozen state.

"You- You're-" the depowered Shinigami had gotten into a defensive stance when she finally had control over herself again. She knew she couldn't do much other than delay and get Ichigo out of there, but that would have to be enough. "J-just stay back!"

"Don't worry. I'm a friend," the Arrancar said with a smile on her lips. To Rukia, it wasn't the smile of a friend, but of a predator toying around with hopeless prey. A cat bemused at the struggles of a tiny mouse. "I was going to come by for a visit, but I saw that Ichi-nii here was a little busy," she explained before handing over the vial. "Here, human-safe healing serum," she repeated. "It'll help with his wounds. Be careful. That stuff's hard to make, you know."

Rukia accepted the vial cautiously, looking back and forth to keep an eye on the Arrancar as she did. It didn't explode in her hands or anything, and the feel of its reishi was certainly similar to healing items put out by the Research Division, but there were too many unknowns for her to blindly trust something given to her by a Hollow. Even if this one was somehow familiar enough with Ichigo to refer to him so casually.

"I- I don't understand."

"Confusing times, I know. Just be careful about guys like that other one." She indicated the direction Saidō had left. "Oh, and...don't worry about the Fisher. I took care of it on the way." Her gaze then went down to Ichigo's unconscious form, and a sad sigh escaped her lips. "And here I was hoping to catch up. I'd like to stay and help, but it's not exactly safe with a Shinigami lurking around."

"But... What about about...?"

"Hm, oh, I know he's human." The Arrancar waved a hand over at Ichigo, confirming further that she knew more about him than Rukia would have expected a Hollow to. "Living, I mean. Not sure what the Shinigami did to him, but it's...interesting. I'll probably come and ask about it when the area's more secure. Just be careful around those black-robed characters. One step out of line, and you might find yourself passing over into the afterlife living in a half-rotted slum. Try to avoid that as long as you can."

'She doesn't know,' Rukia realized. 'She thinks I'm just a spiritually aware human. My reiatsu must be extremely faint if she can't sense that I'm a Shinigami. But she knows Ichigo, maybe from before, when he didn't know about Shinigami and Hollows. To the ignorant, an Arrancar could pass as a strange human soul. But what would an Arrancar have to gain from associating with humans, even spiritually dense ones like Ichigo?

The Arrancar had made to leave, but then paused and looked back at her. For a moment, Rukia was worried that she had picked up on whatever it was that she missed, and was about to change course to remove a 'pesky Shinigami' from whatever plot she was brewing.

"Oh, and let the girls know I dropped by," she said before flicking over a coin. Startled, Rukia barely caught it and saw that it was golden with an ancient-looking minting of a cross on one side and a decorated shield on the other, with more Latin letters she couldn't make heads or tails of. "A little gift from Tanya. Tell Yuzu I can't wait for another cup of coffee."

And then the Arrancar was gone. Rukia could barely hold herself up as her pounding heart slowed down again, but she managed.

Now that some time had passed, the Shinigami woman had processed their meeting. The Arrancar, Tanya, knew Ichigo and Yuzu by name. She likely knew Karin as well. And she felt comfortable enough to call the eldest sibling 'Ichi-nii', as though they were close.

When Rukia thought about it, it painted a disturbing picture. How long had the Arrancar been cozying up to the family? How familiar was she, really? She certainly looked around the girls' age, but that could be or trick or just a result of being a Hollow stuck in time even more than a Shinigami might seem. Rukia was a lot older than she looked, after all. It wouldn't be a stretch to say a Hollow that had tried to replicate Shinigami powers experienced the same.

As she looked at the gold coin again, she reminded herself that speculating like this was pointless. She needed to ask questions to get any real answers.

She just hoped they were ready to talk.

"Hello, Rukia-chan," Yuzu greeted her as she arrived at the Kurosaki household. "Ichi-nii's up in his room right now."

"Hey, Kuchiki-san," Karin called out from the couch, apparently doing homework on the table there.

"Hello, Yuzu-chan, Karin-chan, I actually…needed to ask you about something," Rukia started as she walked into the house proper. "I…met someone who mentioned they knew you, and I had some…questions. Do you know a girl named Tanya, by any chance?"

At that, Yuzu brightened up with a smile, and Rukia felt so many of her fears getting that much closer to confirmation. Karin just looked up with interest in her eyes.

"Oh hey, you've seen her?" Karin asked her nonchalantly, obviously ignorant of the danger they were in. "We haven't talked in a while. Was kinda worried she might not show up again."

"Was she doing well?" Yuzu asked quickly. "What'd she say?"

'Damn, she really does know them! I don't know how to warn these two without giving too much away. I have to be careful. Play it casual for now.'

"She, uh, said she misses your coffee."

'Not that casual!'

Yuzu was practically glowing at that. Rukia felt as though the world had decided to drive a spike through her heart at the sight, realizing that whatever game the Arrancar was playing was already far, far in her favor. She knew she had to protect the Kurosakis, but how could she do that without driving them away and further into the arms of a soul-eating monster?

'I have to talk to Ichigo,' she told herself. 'The girls might be ignorant, but Ichigo has enough experience with Hollows that he should understand by now. He can't do much more than me physically, but the girls trust him.'

"Oh, I…better go up and…get Ichigo for…homework. Homework, yeah."

"Hm, homework?" Yuzu asked, a mild suspicion in her voice, for some reason.

"Hey, since you saw her…? Did you also share food with Tanya, or did you see her first?"

'Share food? What… What kind of food could a… Oh no! What has she fed them?!'

"Oh, I just saw her while…Ichigo was taking a nap…on a bench. She didn't want to wake him up so we spoke, and… Ah, I better go talk to him. It's a bit of an emergency."

"Emergency homework?" Yuzu wondered aloud.

'Is she fattening them up to make their souls more filling, or is this some kind of long con where she's going to make a Hollow ally out of them? What is this Arrancar's game plan?'

A few seconds later, she practically burst into Ichigo's room and shut the door behind her, startling him and Kon from reading a pair of magazines.

"Rukia-nee, you scared me!" the plushy-inhabiting Mod-Soul cried out.

"What gives?" Ichigo asked as he calmly set the reading material aside and sat up. "Something's got you worried."

"Ichigo, what do you know about the being called Tanya?" Rukia demanded, trying to not look as frazzled as she felt.

"Tanya? Uh, oh yeah. She's a weird ghost that was hanging out with my sisters. I actually meant to ask you about her, but we got a little distracted the next day." He looked over at Kon, who noticed the glance and looked back at Ichigo.

"H-hey, don't blame me for your forgetfulness!"

"What, is she visiting again or something?" he directed toward Rukia.

"Ichigo, you need to listen very carefully. This Tanya is not merely a strange ghost. She's a Hollow. An advanced type that has managed to copy Shinigami abilities known as an Arrancar."

"Arran-car? Wait, a Hollow? Then how did she… Are you sure? She looks so…human."

"I know, but you have to remember, Hollows were once human souls. It's not beyond some of them to reform themselves back to their old shape, or a new one mimicking the people around them. I don't know what this one's doing, but it can't be good. She…" Rukia knew revealing this might be bad, but Ichigo needed all the context so that he could understand what was at stake. "After your fight with the Grand Fisher, she showed up and gave me a vial, saying it was a…'human-safe healing serum'. I don't even know where she could have gotten such a thing."

"Did you use it?"

Rukia shook her head. "No. I didn't know if I could trust it."

"Do you have it?"

She nodded and pulled it from her pocket. Ichigo reached out and she passed it to him. He took it in hand and rolled it in his fingers, looking at the label.

"It's in Spanish. "'Healing Serum. Human-safe. Apply directly to new or old wounds. Do not use to treat stomach ulcers, cancers (including skin cancers or leukemia), or concussions. Does not remove scarring. Made by Francisca Fraustein of the Corps of Shovels.' You sure this came from a Hollow?"

The addition of another name brought more worries to Rukia, but she shoved them down in favor of focusing on the present.

"The Hole, reiatsu, and mask fragment were all part of a Hollow's physiology. I don't know about the vial, but…" It would be an incredible amount of effort just to mask whatever true intent she had behind getting him to use it.

Ichigo looked at it a bit more, then rolled over his arm to look at a cut on his bicep. It was long scabbed over, and well on its way to healing. Rukia realized too late what he intended as he uncorked it and let a drop of the thick substance drip onto the wound.

"W-wait!"

Too late, it was on. The liquid bubbled a bit where it touched the old wound, and Ichigo grunted with a wince, but then it stopped, and the part of the cut where there was serum was gone.

"It works," he stated before reaching over and spreading it over the wound. Wherever it touched marred flesh, it bubbled for a few seconds like disinfectant peroxide and whisked away the remainder of the scratch.

"Th-that was reckless, Ichigo!" she yelled before knocking him on the head, earning a small yap before he rubbed the spot. "We didn't know if it was real or, or, some kind of poison."

"That's why I put it on a scabbed cut. I'd be less likely to be poisoned if it didn't immediately enter my bloodstream," he explained before looking at the remainder in the vial and corking it back. "Besides, if she wanted to poison me, why bother giving it to you instead of just dumping the stuff on me while I was unconscious?"

That Rukia didn't have a clear answer for. Maybe it being a poison was far-fetched, but there were other things someone might apply to a person aside from healing and poison. She didn't keep up with all the comings and goings of the Research Division, but she had heard of them making things that sounded fantastical to her ears, like microphones too small to see, or cameras that looked like flies. Or enough microscopic bombs spread throughout a person's body to blow them up. That last one sounded more like a nasty rumor, though. No way was that allowed.

"I don't know. It's strange. I thought she was going to kill us, but… She gave me that, said something about coffee, and then she left. It's…remarkably un-Hollow-like behavior, so I'm trying to figure out what her angle is."

"Maybe… Remember Sora, near the end?"

Rukia blinked, then nodded. Inoue Sora had managed to overcome his Hollow nature long enough to purify himself using Ichigo's Zanpakuto. It was a remarkable showing of strength and willpower to pull one's self back from beyond the brink like that.

"Maybe she's like that, but… I don't know, more? Most Hollows have been totally mindless, and the couple that could talk were either monsters in and out…or Sora."

"Yes, but…this goes way beyond that. It pretty much goes against everything we were ever taught about Hollows and how they function."

"Sora did, too, from what I know. I don't doubt that if he could've broken it all away or whatever that he would've stuck around as a…an Arrancar or whatever. Maybe not the best choice, but still. There might be something we don't know about going on with Tanya. At the very least, she's not hostile. Not trying to kill us."

"But Ichigo," Kon spoke up, "what if Nee-chan is right and she's planning something big?"

"How big could she be planning? What could she even be planning that needs me alive and healthy? If it's something bad, I'd just get in the way."

That much was true. Rukia doubted he'd let anyone harm his friends and family, and he had been taking his duties as her substitute rather seriously. She just couldn't help but feel that there was something to this picture that she was missing.

"I don't know. But we need to be cautious until we can be sure she's trustworthy. Maybe… Maybe we could offer her a konso, but… Well, from what she said to me…"

"Just be careful around those black-robed characters. One step out of line, and you might find yourself passing over into the afterlife living in a half-rotted slum. Try to avoid that as long as you can." Why did her words have to feel so targeted?

"She doesn't trust the Shinigami."

No, more than that, she seemed aware of parts of the Rukongai. It was rather an unfair view of it, a lot of the Rukongai wasn't even that bad. It had its rundown parts, sure, Rukia had experienced it. But still…

"The way she said it, though," Rukia muttered. "It was like…she had experience with Shinigami."

'Perhaps it was a bad one that colored her perception? I know not every Shinigami is the most stand-up person, but what could have been done or said to turn out like this?'

"She didn't count us?"

"She knew you were human, and she thought I was one. Ah, she mentioned-" Rukia cut off herself when she heard Yuzu cheering something from downstairs. It almost sounded like a greeting.

"Ah, you felt it, too?"

"Felt it?"

"It was like that time she opened a portal. She must be nearby, then."

Rukia quickly turned and opened the door before shooting out and hitting the stairs. Ichigo followed behind her at a quick but not nearly so rushed pace. When Rukia reached the bottom, she turned and saw the Arrancar once again, with her golden-blonde hair, intense blue eyes, and sharing a smile with Yuzu while handing over some sort of semi-transparent blue gem to the young girl.

"Whoa! Where did you get this?"

"You'd be surprised what you can find with a plethora of supernaturally strong employees digging through oceans of sand and stone. Dumortierite quartz is rather lovely, isn't it?"

"It's matches your eyes!"

"Ah…" The Hollow blushed and rubbed the back of her neck. "Ahem, well, that's a coincidence. Oh, hello there," she greeted Rukia, noticing her staring. "Doing well, I hope?"

"Uh, yeah," Rukia got out, struck by the strange scene before her. Ichigo came down the stairs from behind her, making her look back and up at him.

"And I'm very glad to see you've recovered."

"Thanks, but, uh, no…menciones la pelea…a mis hermanas. Por favor," he said to her in some foreign tongue.

"Ah, no hay problema, mi amigo. Though, I do have something to talk about with you if we get a moment. I'll let you decide how to sort through it. I'd normally ask to speak with your father about it, as well, but as Karin just mentioned, he has no spiritual awareness."

"If he did, he'd have done something about that one annoying old man ghost a few years ago."

"Mm, that one made me feel unsafe," Yuzu agreed.

"Aside from that, I'm glad I caught all of you at once. There's something I wanted to point out, as it's rather important for yourselves and the future. Miss… Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Uh, Rukia," the Shinigami decided to answer, figuring that it would hurt no one. "Kuchiki Rukia."

"Kuchiki-san. Nice to make your acquaintance. My name is Tanya Louisenbairn."

Rukia's eyes widened a bit at that.

'Louisenbairn? But that… It can't be!'

"Don't forget the princess part," Yuzu reminded the Arrancar girl.

"Well, it's barely more than a title these days. My authority comes more from my position in the new government. …Though, I suppose Father's old position does help grease the wheels on occasion."

"Hey, can't change what you are, hime-sama," Karin said teasingly.

"Oh, that has a very different feel to it. Not sure I like it. Fine, Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn. Yes, much better. More official feeling rather than a pet name." She shook her head. "Anyways, I'd hate to push you out of the conversation, Kuchiki-san, but what I have to tell the Kurosakis right now is rather personal."

Rukia didn't want to leave the three of them alone with an Arrancar, even if she did seem polite at the moment. She certainly didn't want to leave them alone with a Hollow going by that name, but she was again trapped in a situation where refusing would just seem strange and rude without explaining far too much to the sisters, and this was a lot more than a Kikanshinki could handle.

Not to mention the earlier memories and Tanya's likely future visits.

"It'll be fine," Ichigo spoke up, calming her nerves a bit. "Whatever you've got to tell us, I trust her with it."

"Hm, well, it's a rather big deal…but I suppose without greater context it won't mean much to her. All right then. It's over in here."

Tanya led the four of them over to the shelves where many of the photos of the Kurosakis' deceased mother lay, the overblown poster used as part of a shrine by the Kurosaki patriarch nearby.

"I noticed something when I was last here, but I needed to confirm my suspicions. I double-checked, and now I'm sure," she said as she pointed to a necklace and charm set on a frame, "this is a Quincy Cross, stylized with the Quincy Zeichen."

Rukia croaked back her surprise, going still as she took that in. She then looked over at Ichigo, back at the cross, to Ichigo, the cross, Ichigo…

"Wait, how is it a 'cross' if it's got five points?" Karin asked. "Isn't it more like a star?"

"Ku-in-shī?" Yuzu enunciated, trying out the word. "What does that mean?"

"As far as I know, it's just a name," Tanya explained, "but the Quincy were a race of people with spiritual powers. Just seeing spirits is the least of those. They can manipulate reishi - spirit particles - and form them into objects. Most notably weapons, but I'm sure the power could have other applications as well."

"Wait, so our mother…had superpowers?" Karin asked, eyes squinting questioningly.

"That's- That's so cool!" Yuzu exclaimed. "Mama was like a superhero!"

"Possibly, though I doubt she was very active. Quincy powers…have problems. I don't want to go into too much detail, but let's just say it's better that a Quincy never uses their powers for battle. It does too much damage to the world."

"Damage?" Ichigo asked. "Like how?"

"It's complicated. And it's part of that thing I need to tell you more privately before you decide if and how to tell your sisters. Ah, Kuchiki-san, you have a question?"

"Oh, uh, yes. Where…did you learn about this?"

"Oh, simple. My father's he- Well, not my father's anymore, I suppose. Our organization's head scientist, loathe as I am to admit it, has a rather extensive library of information gathered over many centuries. Millenia, possibly. I had some basic lessons growing up about the major forces of the Three Worlds, which included overviews about the Quincy. I thought this thing looked familiar, and as I said, I double-checked, read up on them, and decided to inform the siblings, as they seemed unaware."

There was a lot of little things in that explanation that told Rukia other things about the Arrancar. But most standout to her was how Tanya said she had grown up.

"So even ghosts have to go to school, huh," Karin noted. "Are there a lot of Quincy people out there."

"Not really, no," Tanya answered. "Several reasons, like how the power seems to dilute over generations when marrying non-Quincy humans but is easily shored up by two mixed Quincy pairing up. Rather…unfortunate for informing the older cultures' traditions, you might realize."

Ichigo sighed.

"Yeah, let's not go there."

"Beyond that, there's not much to tell. I just believed that you all should know. Beyond that, I'll let your brother decide on how to pass down what I tell him."

"You better tell us everything, Ichigo," Karin warned.

"Yeah, yeah, eventually. I gotta know it first you know." He looked at Tanya with a serious expression. "I have a lot of questions myself."

"And I'll answer them to the best of my ability."

"And while we're talking, you can tell Rukia, too. We've got a lot to tell each other."

"Hm, ah, I understand." Tanya nodded her head.

"Oh, I'll make snacks and coffee," Yuzu said. "And I'll…put my soul into them, yeah!" she added with excitement, pumping her fist. "Quincy Crafting Power!"

Rukia blinked, then noticed the gentle smile Tanya made when Yuzu mentioned coffee. It looked…so genuine.

'Did I overthink it? Is she just…ambiently enjoying this? I just don't know, but I've got to keep an eye on this. No telling what the game is now.

'Still, a Quincy? Is that why…all my power went into Ichigo that night instead of half? And is the penalty worse than a normal human?'

~

Tanya sighed as she took off her suppression cloak, but still kept a tight lid on her own reiatsu output. Rukia jumped, obviously feeling it at this distance, proving that the girl had a sense of spiritual energies that were fairly well-honed, but the lack of alarms from her proximity sensors let her know that she wasn't detectable beyond the house.

'Good. And Ichigo here is probably masking my presence leaking like a burst pipe as he is.'

He also helped provide cover to the agents who even now were setting up the system. It wasn't incredibly detailed, effectively the soul-power sensing version of buoys picking up whale songs in the ocean to track their movements. These would do the same but for reiatsu signatures throughout the town of Karakura and some outlying districts. Once this testbed showed some results (while letting Tanya continue her little personal project unmolested), it could be used in locations throughout the Soul World and other spiritual hotspots of the Living World.

Fran's specialty might lie in biology, but she wasn't inept at the technical side of science. Plus, they were finding out that some among the Palas might actually have some buried scientific knowledge within them. Tanya felt a little bad about okaying that procedure that Fran devised to 'further unlock hidden potential' in Hollows, but it was volunteer-only. A dozen had lined up with joyous tears in their eyes once they had announced it. It moved her to see them so happy to have a chance at bettering themselves and society, even if it meant a little pain and scarring.

The costs of progress, gladly paid for by patriotic volunteers.

"So, what's so big that you need to tell me and not my sisters?" the teenager demanded, seeming so serious for a fifteen-year-old. It would have been adorable if he didn't look like he threw bricks and caught them for fun.

"Well, first, I saw the end of your fight with that Hollow, the one you called Fisher." He didn't look surprised, so Rukia at least informed him about her appearance. "I'd congratulate you on beating him down, but you took a rather big risk to close in on him. If you were one of my subordinates, I'd have you digging trenches in the desert for taking a hit like that."

His scowl reminded her of a cranky cat, for some reason.

"But still, well done. I could tell it was a tough one for you. Related, I noticed your garb at the time. A shihakusho, Shinigami clothing. Very distinct. Why were you wearing that?"

He crossed his arms. "I'm a Substitute Shinigami. I've been going around purifying Hollows for them. It showed up when I got the powers."

Tanya nodded.

'Just as I thought. They found a way to give spiritually aware humans Shinigami powers, and it even works with Quincies. He might be what they called Gemischt, but I bet it could override even whatever passes for 'pure-blooded' among them. Such a silly concept! Whatever functions genetics have on spiritual power wouldn't get watered down like pouring milk in coffee. It's either half, whole, or nothing. If any bloodlines out there tried to stay 'pure' after the genocide, they probably resemble the Habsburgs by this point.'

"Did they explain Hollows to you?"

"Corrupted human souls that turned into monsters when they couldn't pass on."

"The cliff notes version, but yes, in essence. Have they explained the various types?"

"Types? Like what?"

"Well, I guess they're not very relevant. You're on the Menos level at best, after all. So, you're working on a need-to-know basis?"

He shrugged. "Mostly. We get messages, and then we go stop the Hollow."

"You probably shouldn't be dragging your underpowered friend to Hollow fights," Tanya mildly reprimanded him. "Then again, you seem all-in on this? Have they made this Substitute offer to you as well?"

"It's…complicated," Rukia answered.

"I see…"

Not really. Whatever role Kuchiki was playing in this, it seemed like she wasn't a fighter. That could mean a lot of things, but Tanya didn't waste time going down that line of questioning. She had a track to keep.

"So you know what Hollows eat?"

"Souls."

"Yes. It's an unfortunate effect of their condition. I don't know the exact links between cause and effect, but the metaphysical 'hollowing' of their being makes them feel empty, which translates into a ravenous hunger for souls in an attempt to fill that void."

"So you feel like eating souls all the time?" he asked the 'you' directed obviously at her.

"Well, I don't," Tanya answered. "I suppose it was a matter of time before you noticed."

"I was wondering when you'd bring it up." He shrugged. "You seem okay though. You don't act like any of the Hollows I've ever seen."

"There are reasons for that. For one, I am a born Hollow. I've always been like this," not quite a lie. Surely, things would be very similar if she had gone through the cycle of reincarnation like people normally did and was still born as she was. Perhaps with a little less advancement since she would have lacked certain knowledge, but mostly the same. "Second, I'm an Arrancar. A form of Hollow that has torn away part of its mask. Well, normally. Again, born like this. Doing that, however, changes something about the Hollow. They can still hunger for souls, especially below a certain threshold, but it's no longer a maddening affair. Just annoying, from what I'm told. Regular food can sometimes quell it, though caloric intake isn't exactly easily translatable to the metaphysical consumption of a being's entire reiryoku. Arrancar actually need nutrition, unlike other Hollows, though not in the same amounts as a human."

"That's…actually pretty interesting," the Substitute Shinigami said, clearly intrigued by what she'd just explained. "So there's actually a way for Hollows…to not become monsters?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that. Below the threshold of Menos, most Hollows simply can't become an Arrancar. They'd have to reach that point at the least, which, as you can imagine, requires them to eat a lot of souls or absorb a lot of reiryoku from some other source. That's just to get to the minimum. Further stages have an easier time of it, but the process of becoming an Arrancar is always long and intensive, opening up the Hollow to attack from others."

"...Hollows will eat each other?"

"Past the Menos stage, it's practically a requirement. You won't see many beyond that because they simply won't be attracted to normal human souls anymore, in the same way a grown lion isn't going to hunt rats like a cub might. The hunger doesn't become sated, it grows with every step, except the last. I am a… Well, I am believed to be a Vasto Lorde, the last form of Hollow, which no longer hungers endlessly for souls. They passed a point in their evolution where they've simply…fulfilled it. No one knows how many souls it takes, or even if it's the same for every individual Hollow trying to climb the ladder. My uncle told me once about how he and his pack realized they had hit a sort of ceiling or bottleneck and couldn't quite push past it, but it wasn't something they could exactly quantify."

"So it can end, but it takes a lot of souls, and no one knows how many. Or it takes vulnerability that most Hollows can't afford," Ichigo rationed out. "But you were born one."

"And what's that about believing you're a Vasto Lorde?" Rukia asked, sounding frightened, probably because she was trying to fathom the sheer scale of what Tanya was describing. "It- It sounded like a big deal."

"Ah, well, the circumstances around my birth are all-around unique. My mother was an Arrancar, but she wasn't a natural Hollow. She was made by a scientist. A rather despicable being all-around, but a genius. Because of that, her inherent nature is abnormal compared to most Hollows. I don't think she ever hungered for a soul. My father is also unique but in the opposite direction. Obviously, since I'm the Princess, that makes me the child of the King, Barragan Louisenbairn. He was not a normal Hollow. One could certainly think of him as Vasto Lorde, but… Well, I don't think he actually qualifies. To hear him tell it, he simply came to exist one day an uncountable number of years ago. Not uncountable just because of how long ago it was, but because numbers would not be invented until long after he came to be. He didn't evolve so much as he picked up an identity and shaped himself into what he is. He's certainly a Hollow, but above any single Hollow that's ever existed by dint of his power and the shape it takes."

"And what's his power?" Ichigo asked.

"Rot," Tanya answered instantly. "Or perhaps, more accurately, age. Time moving forward. He can accelerate it, not just making living entities age and wither into dust, but inanimate objects will wear away under his power. Buildings turn to rocks turn to pebbles into sand. The only thing I've ever seen resist is glass, and even it grows brittle and shatters eventually. Not even Hollows, seemingly ageless, can stand against it, turning into dust as much as any living thing would."

"And that's your father?" the young man asked with incredulity.

"Yes. He's a rather good one, all things considered. Can you imagine trying to wrangle a kingdom of Hollows? Ah, but we've gone off-track. Yes, I am supposedly a Vasto Lorde, and like any Hollow, I can eat souls. Don't really like it, though. It's usually annoying to have to go through. I've eaten less than a dozen Hollows in all my years, and tossed out nearly every soul they had."

"Tossed out?" Rukia asked. "But…that can't… How is that possible?"

"Seems to be a Vasto Lorde thing. They're the only ones I know of who can do it," Tanya explained. "I was taught how by one of them when I started instinctively trying after my first Hollow meal. My attempts were clumsy. She showed me a refined way of doing it. It's still slow and cumbersome, and I have to be selective since evil souls cause Hell to open up. Literally Hell. Have they explained Hell, by the way?"

"I saw it. I killed a Hollow that had been a serial killer in life."

"Ah, good man. And good riddance to bad rubbish. Society has no place for such degeneracy. Ahem, where was I? Right. This is important, Kurosaki-san, and concerns you very much."

"Call me, Ichigo." Really, he wanted to be referred to as 'strawberry'? Did he already feel they were so close that she should start using nicknames? Well, if he insisted…

"Ichigo, I confronted Fisher after he fled your fight," she told him. "And then I ate him."

~

To say that the revelation made Ichigo angry…

Well, he was pissed, at first, then saddened, then confused.

And when he finally calmed down, clutching his hair in his hands, he sighed and let his arms drop.

That was a while ago. They had a lot more to discuss, after all. Mostly about the Quincy and Shinigami.

Like how the latter basically killed off the former 250 years ago. Few survived. They were thought to be extinct at one point. He really needed to make sure Rukia knew he didn't blame her. She had gone pale when Tanya described how the whole thing went down. But the whole thing was before her time. And he was honestly so disconnected from the idea of Quincies that he honestly only felt about as heated over it as he might any other slaughter in human history. Even if he did probably have some ancient relatives who died because of it. It'd be like getting mad at another prefecture because one time the samurai there killed people here, including some unknown great-uncles.

Still, it happened, and a lot of the people who did it were still alive and kicking, in the Shinigami sense of the word. For all anyone knew, there weren't any more Quincies, and he and his sisters were the last. Tanya doubted that. The Quincy were too 'widespread in diaspora' for that to be the case, in her opinion. His mother might know, but she…wasn't really available.

"But you still have his mother's soul inside of you?" Rukia asked. This whole conversation had to be rocking the girl's world, and not just because of some awkward history. Tanya wasn't just some weird Hollow, she was a leader in a civilization of weird Hollows. Hollows that weren't going out to eat souls. Or, at least, not human souls, not directly. Weird how they used so much Spanish in everything, though.

"Yes. I managed to get through the rest and singled her out. She's not…awake, for lack of a better word, but she's there. I thought you should know before I did anything further. You should have a say in things moving forward."

That was honestly kind of her. It was a weird thought. His mom, or at least, her soul, was right there, inside of a little girl old enough to be his grandma, because she ate the monster that had eaten his mother. He couldn't quite reach her, as much as he wished that he could.

"If it's not too much, I…want to be able to talk to her again," he said, somehow feeling as if a weight was being lifted from him while simultaneously being pulled down from below. "To at least say goodbye, if nothing else."

"...I think we can arrange something, eventually," Tanya said to him evenly with a bow of her head. "I know it can be done. I just…don't trust the one who's done it before. And I'd rather it be refined surgery instead of the…butchery he's likely to inflict."

"Yeah, yeah, I understand."

He was really asking a lot here, when he thought about it. To speak to the dead, and to get it done, a kid might have to tear a piece of themselves off. A 70 year-old-kid, but still, he knew how young people might hide themselves behind a mask of maturity better than most.

"Don't worry. It'll just take time. Until then… Well, I suppose you keep doing as you have been, but I demand that you be careful," she ordered, her tone suddenly changing from kindly to authoritative. "I already gave you a serum, and those things are hard to make. And doing all of this, don't make my investment in you a waste, all right."

"Ah, the serum," Ichigo remembered, searching his pocket, but Tanya waved for him to stop.

"Whatever's left, hold on to it for a rainy day. Like I said, you're an investment. Stay alive and improve, and be careful about those Shinigami. They might seem friendly, and maybe some of them are, but they've got more than a few skeletons in their closets. But that's for another day. You need to go over what you want Karin and Yuzu to know now and later."

"Y-yeah. I do."

"As for Quincy stuff… Well, I can't teach that. But if you ever come across more of them, perhaps they can help. Just convince them to stay out of the fighting, if you can."

"I'll do what I can." Considering the cost, it would be better if they did.

"With that, I should probably go." She picked up the now-empty coffee mug from his nightstand that Yuzu brought up some time ago along with some chocolate cookies. It had been something, seeing that mature face light up like any child's at the sight of sweets and forbidden beverages, and it even helped Ichigo to calm down in the middle of his episode. Of course, Yuzu was worried about her brother now, after seeing him so angry. He'd have to apologize and explain things to her and Karin.

Yeah, they needed to know. At least that mom was okay, in a sense.

"I'll head down and tell the girls goodbye. I'll probably manage more frequent visits thanks to a new thing we've got in the works, but I'll probably be just as busy as before, if not more so."

"What's got you all working so hard anyways?" Ichigo asked as he picked up his own mug and the platter that had been covered in cookies minutes ago.

"...Purely defensive measures. Security and whatnot. Infrastructure. Las Noches was just a series of platforms on the sands more than 50 years ago. But now we have people to feed, and they need actual food and water. And we want to protect what we've built. Like it or not, there are those who will still view us as monsters. As threats."

Ichigo nodded. Considering how the Shinigami dealt with another big threat… Well, maybe things would be better this time. Tanya was here, talking to him, apparently a Quincy, and he had Shinigami powers thanks to Rukia. They could work together this time, instead of immediately going to war.

It took several more minutes to go from leaving to left. Yuzu wanted to talk, and Karin was there to hit Tanya with some questions, too. She ended up getting another half a cup of coffee before finally going, savoring it like she might not get another chance. For a moment, there was just peace between humans, Shinigami, and Hollows.

'Coexistence,' he thought. 'That's the way forward.'

~

She was on a mission.

A mission since Day One.

A mission to see to The End.

A mission given to her by He-Who-Is-Most-On-High!

"You're doing it again," her friend pointed out.

Mary jumped a bit, then nervously rubbed her neck while looking back.

"Yeah… Kinda getting distracted. Since Elly's message, I can't help but feel focused."

"I get that, but you were getting pretty intense with the stares. Could practically feel it in the air."

Mary admittedly had a tendency to do that. Well, it was hard not to. Mary was on a mission from God, of course. Not just any mission, but one to save an entire world. Or two. Or three? It was hard to know exactly. There were supposed to be three big worlds with some smaller ones attached to them in this universe, as far as she was aware, all anchored to something important.

"I will send you forth, and arm you with this Nail, forged by the hands of my own Son, so that it may forever guide your way," He had instructed once Mary had accepted.

It was…surprising to learn that half of what she was taught in life was so far off. People didn't simply go to Heaven or Hell when they died. Instead of one life, a soul had many that it lived in cycles. Birth, life, death, and rebirth, again and again until they reached their enlightened state, and they finally entered the Heavens. When she asked if she would be going to Heaven to see her father, He had told her no. At first, she was scared she was going to Hell, and some part of her thought that maybe she deserved it, but then He explained her father wasn't in Heaven, and then she felt even worse because she thought he was in Hell. But God comforted her, explaining how it all actually worked, and she felt a lot better afterward. Confused, but better. Her father had simply been reborn, living a new life to try and do better than last time.

Then God offered her a gift, but it was a heavy gift with a burden. She would remember this life as she started a new one, but she would have to save God's son. Not the one she knew as Jesus, he was perfectly fine, but another one who had been bound to a mortal world's internal reincarnation cycle. His own crucifixion threatened to last an eternity, and now the whole universe he watched over in His name threatened to unravel as well. Its Hell threatened to boil over, its Limbo was clawing and grasping at power, and the Preta were raising their eyes to the Heavens, all while misguided children sought to end the suffering in the worst way imaginable.

Those bits went over her head even while she didn't have one in her spiritual form or whatever it was between death and life, but she understood the jist of it. And the Nail God gifted her was leading her in the right direction, as was its main prerogative.

Mary opened the compass-watch her father had given her. And wasn't that just the icing on the cake? God sent her parents to be reborn ahead of her, and they met, fell in love once again, and had her just like before. This time, there was no war to take her father from home. They were long past those things. She got to grow up with her family whole, and even a little bigger than before. Her baby brother was getting ready to go to high school soon. But more than just a gift, it was a precious reminder of everything she had and almost lost. And it was from there that her other gift was shown.

"The Hand of God Guides Me," she said, reaching for the very soul of her compass-watch and connecting it to the Nail within her. Her right arm was then covered in bronze armor, a compass upon its wrist, and then the right side of her face had a piece set on her ear, a screen extending from it to sit before her eye.

It was her armor, her sword, and her guide in this life, the Nail's purpose made manifest through her heart and soul. While she had all the other powers inherent to Nail Bearers like herself, this was the part that was uniquely hers.

Matt blinked, but it became apparent why she'd activated her Nail when Vicky entered the room.

"We think we found one, but we might not be the only ones," Vicky quickly explained.

"Not the scavs," Matt muttered.

"It's the scavs."

"Yep, but they're going to be too late," Mary said as she followed the arrows in her eyepiece for a moment. "Japan?"

"It's scary how that thing works," Vicky said, confirming the question. "Why does Elly even have to go digging when you have that?"

"Because I have to ask the right questions or know what I'm looking for." Sadly, Nails were not an intelligent thing. They were simply tools that sometimes fell into the wrong hands. It couldn't tell Mary what she needed to find, only God, herself, and her allies could. What it did do was tell her how and where to find what she was looking for. Sometimes even when. "The Bearers are gonna show up soon. Couple of weeks, tops. We'll need tickets to Tokyo and then a bus down to Karakura."

"Wait, Bearers, as in, plural?" Matt asked her.

"I always ask if there's more than one. It can't narrow it down, though. More than two is the best I've got."

"Still, with just two plus our five, that'd give us seven. We'd outnumber the scavs. Three alone would completely outdo them."

"And we can finally stop those monsters!" Vicky declared.

"It's not just numbers," Mary reminded them. "We need quality. And," she smiled as the question was given an answer, "one of the potentials is capable of beating that Kūgo bastard!"

That was good news indeed! Mary was sure that with the right training, she could someday overcome that murderer, but it was a race where she had to sprint just to keep up. They'd fought several times and both left each time licking their wounds, but sometimes it was Xcution that found the poor Nail Bearer before them. Mary couldn't even use The Hand of God Guides Me thanks to their own Nails working together to counter its answers. They had two that messed with space and one that altered time, which meant that their location and target were never a certainty until they were already there thanks to how they used them. And then there was the Book of The End, perhaps the most dangerous Nail Mary had ever encountered.

She was the only one anyone knew of who could fight it off, The Hand of God acting as its direct counter. Not only that, but she was sure when the bastard first tried, he had seen the face of God and faltered, probably erasing the image from his mind when he couldn't live with seeing Glory whilst living in sin. Others would succumb if she wasn't there to use her Nail to restore them when the Bearer, Tsukishima, inserted himself into their pasts. It was his go-to for confrontations, either making them believe he had always been their greatest friend or just stealing every bit of knowledge he could before using it against them. The Hand of God could set a person straight, but she had to reach them and their soul. Made all the harder thanks to Kūgo often being there to block her path.

But now they may have a step forward. If they could reach these new Bearers, and the one with potential joined them, they could finally break this deadlock and put an end to the murderous organization of Nail Scavengers known as Xcution. This would be the first stepping stone Mary knew she had to pass on her way to completing her mission. After that, she wasn't too sure. Hollows were everpresent, and definitely a problem, but she wasn't sure if that was something that could be solved. They seemed more a symptom of the world being off-kilter rather than a cause. Hopefully, The Hand of God would guide her further along the path.

"Just texted Warren and Elly," Matt told her, and she smiled, thankful to have such attentive allies, even if the faces and souls were ones she remembered from a lifetime ago. But then again, that was another one of God's missives before he sent her on her journey.

"Look for allies where you once saw only enemies, and they shall be among your most ardent defenders, your greatest supports, your truest friends."

Once upon a time, a world and a life away, these people had been her enemies. Now they were the warriors who would save the world.

By the Grace of God!

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 6: Childish Ways

---

Nel loved her new life in Los Noches. She didn't get to see Pesche and Dondachakka as much anymore. It used to be all the time, but now it was just sometimes. They had a lot of work to do, digging holes and planting stuff and cleaning up people's garbage. Nel didn't know what garbage was before, but apparently, if people stayed in one place, the stuff they dropped started piling up. Nel used to just drop things and leave them, but Big Sister Princess Tanya said that was littering, and littering was bad! But then when Nel thought she was a bad Hollow, Tanya said it was fine because she didn't know, but now she did, so she had to be responsible.

So garbage goes in the correct bins so the nice Palas people can take it away to be recycled and made back into useful stuff.

Nel also had a new mama! Roka was a quiet lady and not very good at playing, but she was nice and made tasty food and patted Nel on the head and gave her baths. Nel liked baths! Getting her hair shampooed felt nice, and she always smelled good after. Nel also liked the new foods! Lizards and moon fruits were good and all, but bread was amazing! And potatoes were so cool! They could be made into anything and tasted great! Fried or mashed were her favorites, but almost any potato that Mama Roka cooked was good.

Nel was eating one of her favorites, crispy fried potato sandwich, when her new Big Sister came home just in time for Casual Soul Realm Assault Trip. The teevee was another great thing! Sometimes Nel watched cartoons, but mostly she watched the 'educational programs' Tanya got for her. Thanks to them, she knew most of the colors, how to count to ten, and that eating fruits and vegetables was good for you. And a lot of them were also cartoons, so they were fun, too. Sometimes Mama Roka used it to watch things called 'news' or 'dramas'. But all of them could watch Casual Soul Realm Assault Trip since it was fun, educational, dramatic, and informative on current events in the Living World.

Nel thought it was cool how the human Don Kanoji could jump out of a flying machine like that. Big Sis called it a helicopter, and Mama was interested in how it stayed in the air while being made of heavy metal.

"Ah, it seems this abandoned hospital has a Jibakurei attached to it," Tanya noted when the cameras pointed at the building to show a Plus soul attached to it with a bunch of soul chains. "Poor thing. He just wanted to provide an essential service and profit from it. It may sound bad now that he's so degraded and can't keep himself together, but if the height of his ambitions was a Cadillac, I doubt he was going to run a black company."

"Wha's a black company?" Nel asked, having never heard the term before.

"It's when a company starts doing business in the worst way, running its employees ragged and scalping for every yen they can get at the expense of their reputation and their worker's mental and physical well-being. Imagine if I didn't give the Palas mandatory off-time and vacation hours and made them work even harder until they started falling asleep at the job."

"Oh, dat sounds pretty bad." Nel took a bite of her sandwich and went back to watching as Don Kanoji confronted the spirit. "Ish he go'a be o'ay."

"Don't talk with food in your mouth," she admonished Nel and nodded. "But yes. There's not much a Jibakurei can do except toss some objects around, and unless Don Kanoji suddenly gained… Oh, well that's not good, actually."

Nel didn't notice before, but the soul had a bit of a hole where his chain was at, and now Kanoji was poking it with his Super Spirits Stick really hard.

"Would that not accelerate the Encroachment process?" Mama Roka asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid it would. Normally a human wouldn't be able to pull this off, even on purpose, but Kanoji is apparently so spiritually aware that he can enforce direct action on a spirit through a medium. His reiryoku must be incredibly high for a human."

"Dat's Don Kanoji," Nel mused before sipping some flavored water from her sipping cup. It had a neat top on it that kept her from spilling her drink no matter how far up she turned it.

There was some commotion, and Tanya made a surprised noise when the cameras showed a girl and boy trying to get past the rope barricade and security. They were almost stopped, then another guy bopped the boy on the head and a Shinigami that looked just like him fell out of his body.

"That man… He must be one of their agents," Tanya muttered. "Tapping into cable television turns out to have been a bigger payoff for intelligence than I expected."

'Ooh, that means this is important for work!'

Knowing how much her work meant to her, Nel made herself go silent so that Big Sis could focus. It was hard, but keeping her sipping cup in her mouth and just holding it there helped. It was especially hard when things got so exciting! The Plus turned into a Hollow, and the Shinigami got into a fight with it, Don Kanoji blasted the Hollow with a tiny, slow Bala-thing, and he even saved the Shinigami from getting his head bitten off, just before the Shinigami killed the Hollow and they witnessed the Plus come back for a moment before moving on in the cycle of reincarnation.

Nel kinda hoped he was reborn as an Arrancar. Having a froggy person around could be cool.

"Well, this definitely requires some further investigation. I'll have to ask Kurosaki and Kuchiki about those men next time I visit. …When I get the time."

"Dhoes were your fwiends?" Nel asked, seeing as the show was mostly over and Big Sis had gotten the information she needed. Kurosaki was the name of the three Quincy people Tanya was friends with, and Kuchiki was their other human friend who might also have hidden potential.

"Indeed. Kurosaki has Shinigami powers, for some reason, given to him by the Seireitei as an experiment of some kind. It makes it so he actually purifies the Hollows he kills instead of annihilating their souls."

Nel thought Seireitei was their enemy, but maybe they were trying to get along. At least, getting purified was better than being destroyed completely. Nel would be sad if her friends just disappeared. If they reincarnated, they could always be friends again in the future, but they couldn't do that if one of them was gone forever.

"I'll have to check with the grid and compare it to today's events. Kurosaki's presence might muffle the results, but if those men came from another direction, it should lead us to a base of operations if we walk it back. Mom, do you think you could help me sort through the data?"

"Absolutely. I was fine-tuned for data allocation and recording through Caja Negacion manipulation as one of my earliest alterations."

"...He altered your brain?" Tanya sighed. "That man will go to Hell, someday."

Mama Roka frowned at that. There was someone that Tanya really didn't like that Roka didn't hate, but they never argued about him, whoever he was. But he did sound like a bad man. Mama Roka might just be too nice to him.

Either way, after dinner and a bath, where Nel got to help scrub Tanya's hair and Tanya helped wash hers, they set Nel to bed and went to sleep, but Nel was awake thinking for quite a while before failing to fight her tiredness any further. She was thinking of ways to be helpful. Everyone else was helping, after all, and Nel had learned a lot since she started living here. But hearing Big Sis talk about all the things she had to do and how she might not have time for friends made Nel a little sad. Tanya must have felt sad too about being too busy for friends. Even Pesche and Dondachakka had time to visit almost every day, despite being very busy Palas.

When she woke up, Nel had an epiphany! If Big Sister Princess Tanya was too busy right now, then Nel would help her with her work so that she wasn't so busy and could see friends. Nel had a lot of time she wasn't doing anything with, after all, and it sounded like Mama Roka was going to be helping today too, so nobody would be there except Nel for a while.

And so, Nel set out to help… And then realized she wasn't sure what to do. Tanya needed to find the weird man with the weird hat and wooden shoes somewhere in the Living World, probably close to the Quincies. But getting there meant opening either a Kūmon or Garganta, and she didn't know how to do either of those. So Nel needed some help with her helping.

"Eshcuse me, Uno," Nel began as she approached a Picaro, one of the oddball Arrancar kids who were kind of the same person but also kind of not. "Nel needsh some help doing shomething for Tanya."

"The Princesa requires assistance?" he asked in a monotone voice. "How can we help?"

"Nel needsh to get to the Living World where the Kuroshakis live and find a man wit' a weird hat 'n' clogs."

"Understood. Picaro, pick that up?"

"Yeah, we're gonna help the princess!" a happy girl with pigtails just below antler-like mask fragments cheered. Tres, Nel remembered.

"Oh ho, a new mission!" the floating mask-head Cero added as it sauntered over.

A dog Picaro barked and wagged its tail before sitting in front of Nel and panting.

About a dozen more showed up before Nel realized she needed to tell them that she only needed a few to help her. There was some disappointment, but the first couple that showed up decided that it would be them. Cero, Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Seis, Siete, and Perro Un. That should be plenty to keep a lookout and find the man.

"All right then, the new game is to find the Hat'n'Clogs Man!" Uno announced to his fellow Picaro, which made Nel think that maybe they weren't really the same person with a bunch of bodies, but instead just a bunch of really good friends. That made a lot more sense in Nel's mind. Like how she, Pesche, and Dondachakka were just thinking the same thing sometimes, or how Tanya taught her Escudo how to fight together and stay in sync. Nel didn't think she could be so close to the Picaro, they got a little too intense sometimes, but maybe as a good friend instead of a best? Yeah, that sounded good.

"Let's get the equipment and get ready for infiltration procedures. Secure a cloak for Nel."

Nel got carried off by Cinco, the boy with a fox-ear-shaped mask, Siete, a girl with glasses for a mask, and was lifted from above by Perro Un, riding on its back like a steed. Before she knew it, she was sped off somewhere they stored mission equipment like healing serums and suppression cloaks, and then off to a safe location to open a Garganta, and then through it into the Living World.

"Wow! Their shky dome is sho high!" Nel remarked when she looked up to see blue with puffs of white.

"Actually, it's open sky," Seis, the boy with a bandana and mask lining his jaw explained. "Los Noches' ceiling copies it."

"Dat's sho cool!"

"Should we split up for the search?" the girl with a horn on the mask on the side of her head, Cuatro, asked.

"We should fly and search from the air!" Cero suggested.

"No, we have to follow the rules," Uno reminded them all. "Always go in pairs, watch each other's back, remain hidden from Shinigami sensors, only interact with humans who can see you if necessary, don't kill anybody unless you're in danger, and don't give away vital information if captured. Our names and numbers are all we can tell enemies that capture us."

"Um, Nel doesn't have a number," the green-haired girl told them.

"Hey, is that a problem?" Cinco asked while helping her down. "What if they want her number but don't believe she doesn't have one?"

"That could be a problem," Uno agreed. "Nel, I am assigning you temporary status as Hermana Cero, not to be confused with Picaro Cero."

"Hermana?" Nel asked before gasping, realizing that Uno was referring to how she was Big Sis' little sis. That meant she was representing something very important here on this mission. "Arr right, Nel Tu Oderswhanck is Hermana Cero!"

"I thought her name was Odelshwanck?" Tres asked.

"Dat's what Nel just shaid," Nel said.

"She has a lisp," Sieta pointed out.

"Nel can't help it! She doeshn't even have all her lil' teef yet!"

"It's okay. You'll improve," Cinco encouraged her with a pat on her head, bringing a smile back to Nel's face.

"All right then, let's get into pairs and start covering ground."

---

Kisuke Urahara liked to put forth the image that he was unflappable, that nothing could catch him off-guard, and that he had everything under control. He knew he wasn't, of course. It took a lot of prep work to make anything go right and timing to get it there, and then there was so much waiting in-between that remaining vigilant often felt harder than anything else. But even to himself, he preferred to think he had everything in hand. That no matter what popped up, he was either ready for it or readiness was a bit of elbow grease away.

He played the recording once again.

"Hm, oh, I know he's human. Living, I mean. Not sure what the Shinigami did to him, but it's...interesting. I'll probably come and ask about it when the area's more secure. Just be careful around those black-robed characters. One step out of line, and you might find yourself passing over into the afterlife living in a half-rotted slum. Try to avoid that as long as you can." Pause. "Oh, and let the girls know I dropped by." Tink. "A little gift from Tanya. Tell Yuzu I can't wait for another cup of coffee."

He had gone over it several times already and reviewed the images he captured many times as well.

Tanya the Arrancar. She appeared out of nowhere, reiatsu suppressing cloak explaining at least a little about how she stayed under the radar, though even that would need additional training similar to what the Onmitsukidō underwent to be as effective as she made it seem. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, a mask fragment resembling a crown made from a toothless maxilla and connected zygomata. Height and features resembling a girl between the ages of 10 to 14. Gray knee-high boots, white pants of a military cut tucked into them, and a button-down shirt with a small opening to reveal her Hollow Hole at the bottom of her sternum. Despite hiding from reiatsu sensors so effectively, she made no real effort to hide what she was, which spoke of the confidence she had in revealing herself. It told him that if she expected even the possibility of being seen, it was only if she was broadcasting her presence. It made him more than a little wary of whether or not she knew he had eyes on her at the time.

He played the recording again and watched as well as listened. He looked at the vial again and read as much as he could, even though he knew exactly what it was and what it did. He managed to filch it and get a sample while handling Kurosaki's 'unconscious' body. It did exactly what it said, and even the warnings existed for good reason.

Skin cancer was not supposed to grow eyes and teeth or make pained noises.

He paused it, and went over in his mind what he knew of Kuchiki Rukia.

'She had the perfect words to needle Rukia in the worst way. All while perfectly playing innocent ignorance.' She was a good actor, but no way in Hell had those words been aimed at anything other than Rukia's past in the poorer parts of the Rukongai. 'But worse than that, how long has she been watching the Kurosakis?'

Isshin claimed ignorance when he managed to talk to the man, and he couldn't say he doubted him. He was out on a call at the time Rukia said she witnessed Tanya's visit to the household. Almost perfect timing. He'd need to look into what caused the incident that pulled Isshin away from home, but he had suspicions. During that visit, Tanya had gifted Yuzu a rare form of quartz. Dumortierite like that could go for tens of thousands of yen without getting the same attention that more rare minerals like diamonds or rubies might. That was on top of the genuine gold Spanish doubloon she had passed over. Who knew what else she gave them to earn their trust through financial security? Or even just as pretty gifts? Well, it fits with the claim to royalty she made, even if it was one Urahara couldn't help but doubt.

Barragan Louisenbairn was a legend, in more ways than one. The Hollow was once responsible for wiping out a quarter of the Gotei's seated officers, including three captains, over a thousand years ago when there was an ill-fated attempt to push into Las Noches that went against Yamamoto's warnings, but had backing by Central 46. Nearly everyone who ventured forth perished, and those who survived and returned were scarred after seeing their fellows age to death in seconds before withering to bones and then dust. The King of Hueco Mundo was not to be trifled with.

And Tanya claimed to be his daughter, created by mad science.

Urahara knew that Aizen had insane ambitions, but he didn't think a Hollow breeding program was something he would undertake. And going by the report from Rukia he intercepted, Tanya was a second-generation creation on her mother's side. It was frightening enough to imagine what she might have inherited from her father, but her mother was a total unknown. All Rukia learned or listed about her was that she was 'created' by a scientist, an Arrancar, and may have never personally eaten a soul. That suggested a level of stability most Hollows could only dream of, and often with Hollows, stability comes with power.

It was far worse than he initially assumed. Arrancar could be powerful, no doubt, but most didn't reach the levels of a captain-class or Vasto Lorde, but Aizen must have found a way, likely using his Hogyoku and this geneticist so twisted that even the Hollow Princess was disgusted by him, to push them past their previous limits. And if he could do that and apply it to Vasto Lorde or even more powerful creations on the level of the Hollow codenamed White, or worse yet, Barragan, then the Seireitei was going to be in trouble.

But he had gone too far to back out of his path. Not for sunk costs, but simply because he couldn't take it back. His Hogyoku was already bound to Rukia, slowly dispersing itself through her back into the void.

This little communication through this Tanya Louisenbarn was a taunt!

Aizen knew what he'd done and was toying with him!

But he wouldn't take the bait. Because that had to have been at least one of Aizen's plans. If the Kurosakis were as indebted to her as he believed, and soon they were going to be a whole lot more if she wasn't lying about what she had, then trying to remove her would set them against him and send everything so far off the rails that he couldn't hope to recover it all. And if Tanya was telling the truth, and Masaki's Quincy soul had somehow survived consumption by two different Hollows, she could soon have Isshin and Ryūken by the balls as well, along with Ryūken's kid by extension.

Ichigo, his family, and his friends would be wrapped around this little Arrancar's finger, and by extension, under Aizen's thumb. And they'd thank her for it all the way to the desert sands.

What he needed was a way to expose them. Aizen was too far behind the scenes, but Tanya was poking her head out over and over. He just needed to be ready to whack the mole when it next popped up. Yes, Tanya had dug her claws into them, but by extension, she had an image to maintain. She was still a Hollow at the end of the day, and even if Aizen had removed that hunger for souls, there was still an undeniable vicious streak that every Arrancar he'd ever seen displayed in battle. They may have Shinigami-like power, but they used it like a Hollow.

An alert went off, and Urahara spun around in his chair and checked through his equipment.

"Oh, well, this isn't good."

Stepping out from his cellar, he felt the presence of the many, many Hollows that his systems had just warned him of. Rukia was still hanging around, probably still sorting through her thoughts on the Quincy war he had to explain to her after she informed him of the Arrancar's latest visit, but whatever she was talking about with Tessai had been forgotten as they both felt the Hollow presences as well.

"Something's going on," Rukia stated, looking at her Denreishinki as it beeped out alerts over and over. "So many Hollows at this rate shouldn't be possible."

Urahara wasn't sure what exactly it was, if it was a part of Aizen's plans or just a bit of bad luck. It wouldn't do to needlessly attribute every bad occurrence to Aizen. That way led down an actual path of paranoia. So, an investigation was in order.

---

Etsuya Motome was running, wondering why everything was so bad lately. Her mom got sick, her father started drinking a lot, and then there was the car wreck where she died. That really should have been the worst, but when she went to her own funeral, she had to witness her father get disowned by her grandparents, and then her mom died, but her ghost was nowhere to be found. And now there was a monster after her!

She didn't know why the monster was chasing her, just that she had to get away. But it was so hard! Being dead was so tiring! Why did this have to happen?! She was a good girl, right? Decent at least?

Finally, she had gone as far as she could, and she was falling to her hands and knees. The monster closed in, sounding like a howling beast from the movies, its massive jaws open and ready to bite down on her.

"Mo-to-me," a voice from within the mouth called out, causing her to freeze up even more. "Come…here, Mo-to-me!"

…Maybe…it was better this way? If that voice…

But then, something sped down from the sky and smashed the monster into the pavement. It cried out but went still as the little thing bounced from its back and onto its head.

"Just in time!" the winking, smiling white ball with a cloth draped over it said. "Are you all right, little girl? I hope the mean Hollow didn't hurt you."

"I… I'm okay, but…" Howls echoed around the town. More monsters were out there, and Motome was sure that the one chasing her was far from the worst.

"Mo-to-me," the creature got out, sounding more clear then before. "Please, Moto-me. Let me…save you."

"The Hollow knows you," the smiling ball said. "Not a bad person, then, just confused. It wants to help but doesn't know how. I know what to do, though. I'm Picaro, and I help dead children so that they won't ever be hurt again. Would you like my help?"

Motome nodded her head. The nice ball then floated up, and two tiny arms with alabaster skin reached out from under the cloth, offering her a little wafer.

"Just eat this, and we can help protect you."

Motome took it and ate the white wafer quickly. It tasted a bit like sand from the beach, but dry like it never touched the water before. Then Motome felt a chill running down her throat and all through her guts. It spread but disappeared as the chain hanging off of her chest since she died suddenly turned into a bunch of mouths and ate themselves. A hole appeared in its place while she coughed something up, feeling dizzy for a moment before the weird white stuff slid up into her scalp and hardened into four horns on a hat-like plate of white.

And then she felt…the others. Friendly voices of other children welcoming her and congratulating her and making promises to play when they came face to face. She felt so happy to have so many people ready to help her, and they were happy she was happy. Promises to share their strength and help her heal her wounds if she got any came, along with a clearer voice above them, like a radio.

"Welcome Etsuya Motome, Picaro Uno speaking here. You're now Picaro Doscientioseis."

"Roger, sir." She looked back at the…Hollow, and her fellows' understanding let her put together what, and more importantly, who it really was. "Permission to extract Hollow?"

"Permission granted."

Motome giggled and helped the Hollow back up to her feet, Picaro Cero already floating back to rejoin Uno.

"See you later!"

"Thank you, Cero!" she then smiled at the much bigger Hollow. "C'mon, Mama, let's get somewhere safe. We can come back for Papa later."

Her mother, not quite cognizant, understood enough to follow the child as she tore open a portal to Hueco Mundo, a happy ghostly trill sounding from her throat.

---

Ichigo never thought that the first Quincy he would ever meet was going to be such a stuck-up know-it-all with a death wish, but here they were. After arguing back and forth, getting called a liar, having his ancestry insulted, and then being called someone's attack dog… Well, Ichigo had just about had it.

At first, he was down for whatever contest Ishida Uryu had in mind, but he didn't think it was going to be this.

"When we're done with this!" he yelled at the Quincy, wherever he was, feeling the knot in his gut tighten every time he witnessed a Hollow die from his glowing arrows, and not because of the stupid score, "I am kicking your ASS!"

Part of him wanted to stop and kick Ishida's ass right now anyway just to get him to stop. It's like the idiot didn't even realize what he was doing! For all he knew, these Hollows were once people they knew. Or they had several innocent people inside them. Or both. Or worse, they could straight up be family! And even if they weren't, they were somebody's family, once. There were lost souls here, and Ishida was just casually destroying them forever.

Not only that, but so many people were getting hurt. His friends, his sisters, and for what? To prove Quincy powers were faster at killing Hollows? That didn't matter to him. What mattered was protecting the people and freeing the innocent from torture.

Suddenly, a child's cry was heard, and Ichigo acted more on instinct than senses. Two kids were running, and a giant, wolflike Hollow was chasing after them. He jumped forward and slashed, slicing the Hollow in half and purifying it.

"Doggy, no!" he heard, pulling him out of the moment in shock and making him turn to see that the two kids weren't exactly normal. One was short, maybe 3 or 4 years old, with green hair and a cartoonish animal skull mask on top of her head. The other one was maybe 8 with white antler-looking things just above her pigtails and a hole in her abdomen made visible thanks to her wearing a cropped shirt. Both wore tiny versions of a familiar black cloak over their casual clothes.

"Aw, we were going to take it back home," the older girl said.

"Hey, it'sh one of Big Sis' human fwiends," the smaller one exclaimed while gesturing to him. "Hi human!"

"What the- What are you two doing here?" Were these other Arrancar children from that Las Noches place? Did the bait attract them, too?

'Oh no, what if Ishida runs across one?'

"We're on a mission to locate a person of interest," the older girl explained.

"Yeah, Nel'sh trying to help Big Sis Tanya, but there's a bunch 'a Hollows running around, so Nel and Tres keep getting confused."

"Wait, Tanya sent you on a mission?"

"No, Nel did," the shorter one said, instantly earning a glare from the other child. "What?"

"You mean you didn't have permission from the higher-ups to go on a mission to the Living World?"

"Waz Nel shupposed to?"

The older girl could only frown intensely for a long moment.

"Oh, we're going to get in so much trouble."

He felt for the kid, really. Hopefully, her folks weren't too mad.

"Another thing, what was with all the crying if you were 'playing' with that Hollow?"

"Oh, dat's 'cause Nel's a mashochist," the tiny girl said, causing Ichigo to choke on his own breath. "Is not really fun until Nel's been chased so long that Nel cries 'bout it."

"Who the hell taught you that stuff?!"

"Taught what shtuff?"

The howling of a nearby Hollow stopped that line of questioning.

"Crap," Ichigo muttered, looking around and seeing more Hollows coming out of portals in the sky. And he was seeing less and less of Ishida's arrows, too. "Look, we're in a bit of trouble here ourselves. Some guy used a Hollow bait, and now they're just pouring in all over the place."

"Ish that what shmells like candy?"

"Are you two safe, or did you need to worry about Hollows coming after you? I know you mentioned 'keeping' that last one…"

"No worries. We Picaro are tougher than we look, and I've got Nel. These Hollows are basically just playing around to us."

Well, that was a disturbing thought.

"Should we make 'em shtop?"

That perked Ichigo's interest. "Can you?"

"Hm, maybe?" Tres said uncertainly. "I'll call the others. If we do, could you help us find someone?"

"Sure, I guess." He helped kids find their parents before. This was kinda like that, right?

"Tres to Uno. Tres to Uno. We've made contact with Kurosaki Ichigo. Yep. Uh-huh. He wants help with all the Hollows. Oh, they are? Ah, yeah, okay, we can do that. I'll let him know." She then smiled over at Ichigo. "Good news and bad news. The good news is we can remove the bait and draw in the Hollows to make them go back home."

"And what's the bad news?"

"The Gillian that's on the way is gonna be a bit harder to convince."

"...the what?"

---

Tanya was worried sick as she ran through the void of Garganta, Roka hot on her heels. They barely paused long enough to grab cloaks on their way out after hearing from the Picaro that Nel was with a few of them on a mission in the Living World. Or at least, they thought they were on a mission, but apparently, they misunderstood Nel's personal request as an officially sanctioned operation, and now Nel was in the Living World while a Hollow swarm was forming. The swarm itself wasn't a problem. Even the least intelligent Hollow would listen when Tanya ordered them, and the ones smart enough to make up their own minds but stupid enough to disobey would find themselves quickly flattened. No, the problem was that if this swarm was bad enough, then Seireitei was going to take notice and maybe even send in a heavy hitter to take care of it, perhaps several. And if that happened, it risked both the security of their fledgling espionage systems and Nel's very life.

'Please be okay. Please be okay.'

And she could sense Roka's growing worry as well. The woman had taken a fast liking to the tyke, probably as a way to alieve her Empty Nest Blues that must have cropped up when Tanya went to work full-time. And Tanya could admit, for all the little bratty moments and the trouble Nel could get into, she was a lovable and loving kid. A big heart for a creature that supposedly had none. Nelliel-sensei would have been proud.

They dashed out into the Living World, and Tanya immediately engaged her Indice Radar, feeling out for Nel's signature. She found it, turned, then shot off in Sonido, stopping just short of where Nel was, seeing before her a number of new characters currently being harrassed with questions by the Picaro.

Including that agent she wanted to look into.

And he looked really defeated right now, for some reason.

Ignoring that for the moment, Tanya ran over and scooped Nel up into her arms, stopping her from rubbing something onto a dark-haired, glasses-wearing, teenage boy's arm. The young man was on his back, looking exhausted, with several cuts up his arms that were now healing before their eyes.

"Big Sis!"

"Nel! We were so worried about you! Why did you think you could just run off to the World of the Living without permission?"

The little girl started tearing up, her big, expressive eyes shimmering with shame and sadness.

"Nel's sowwy! Nel just wanted to help Tanya find the man from the teevee!"

"Find the-" Tanya paused in her words and looked back at the agent in green with a striped hat and geta sandals. Along with a tan-skinned man with a mustache, there were also two living children with him, and given that they were answering questions given by the Picaro, they had spiritual awareness. Ah, now she understood. A family outing interrupted by work. And now the Picaro were just adding to his exhaustion on top of whatever his job had been out here. Luckily, they understood information security, but they also deviously knew how to use their looks and charms to lower people's guards. More than a few dissenters had been found out because they weren't paying attention to the little rascals collecting their garbage. Most of it led nowhere, but there had been two cells that had plotted violent uprisings or sabotage found out through this method, and most people were none-the-wiser.

'All right. Let the Picaro work their methods for a moment. I need to check up on a certain strawberry, anyways.'

"Ichigo, you look roughed up."

"Stupid giant Hollow blasted at me," he mumbled from the ground. He looked only mildly better than the other teen. "But I beat it."

"It was sho cool, Sis! He swung a big lazer from his shword!"

"Hey, you were cool yourself, kid." He grunted as he shifted his body to look upward. "Thanks for catching the first one."

"Catching?" What exactly was that supposed to mean? "Nel, what did you catch?"

"Nel can catch Ceros wif her mouth!" the tot explained, her previous guilt seemingly completely absent and now replaced by pride. "And den Nel spits them back out."

"She missed her shot, but it bought me some time," Ichigo explained. "Kinda freaked me out when she toppled over, but then she was back up and complaining about the taste."

"Tastes like burnt," Nel agreed with her tongue stuck out for emphasis.

"Cero Doble," Tanya realized. "That was one of your mother's techniques. I could never figure it out, so I always thought it was unique to her, but it seems you've inherited it." Stopping herself from going further as she realized what kind of company she was in, she passed the suddenly bright-eyed girl over to Roka to hold. "Anyways, we're going to be taking you back in a minute. Ichigo, are you hurt in any serious way?"

"Nah, Nel spit on us. Apparently, her drool heals wounds?"

Tanya looked back at the tiny Arrancar. "Since when?"

"Uh, all da time? But no one's been hurted for a while."

…Maybe she should take a day to go over everything Nel knew about her abilities. Healing saliva was new, though. Did she develop it after learning about her mother's death? No, she wasn't aware of her mother before Tanya found her. She wasn't sure where it came from, then.

"Hey, Ishida, you still alive over there?"

"And unfortunately conscious."

"This is that source I mentioned."

"...You realize those are Hollows, right?"

"Ichigo, who is this and why are you telling him about us?" Tanya was sure she was very clear about him not just telling anyone about her and what she was.

"Tanya, Ishida Uryu. Glasses, the Princess. She figured out about my mom and told me."

"...So, there really are other Quincies, then?"

"Ah, now I see," Tanya said while walking back over to the boy, frowning at the Christian-style cross charm on his wrist. "That's what sticks out about you. I didn't expect another Quincy to be so close. Perhaps you're related?"

"As if!" both teenagers declared at the same time, if in totally different tones. Neither seemed to like how in sync they were, though.

"Well, that's for genealogists to poke at, not me. But since I have your attention, could I ask that you refrain from using your powers in battle until a suitable substitution comes along?"

The boy scoffed. "And what, let Hollows run rampant when I can stop them?"

"That's genuinely preferable to all parties involved, seeing as your power is the sole sort in my admittedly limited knowledge that can actually destroy souls. I'd rather we prevent that as much as possible."

"Afraid I'll erase all your food?"

Well, that tore it! Tanya was very much trying to be reasonable here! She didn't regret baring her teeth a little. It didn't seem to affect him all that much anyway.

"I'm afraid you'll be the one solely responsible for the true and final demise of many a person whose only crime was to linger on after death a little too long. How many parents must have searched for children they knew had passed, ignorant that the child they once loved no longer exists?" Tanya turned her gaze over to the geta-wearing man. He seemed oddly focused on her right now. Then again, she had something to say that wasn't disguised as childish babbling. Well, the Picaro probably already got what they wanted. Time to make an impression and knock this self-righteous child down a peg. "I'm afraid you'll be the one to answer when your time comes if your virtues outweigh your sins. The Gates of Hell are real, my friend. I've sent plenty there, and that's no exaggeration. No matter how many times it opens, those massive skeletal hands dragging the wicked by their chains never fail to impress upon me that evil exists and its cost is real! And you, you know exactly what it is that you do. Look me in the eye and say that potentially slaughtering - no, erasing hundreds of innocents is worth some passing comfort for the few."

A bit of sweat had started to collect on the Quincy's forehead, and his defiant expression had morphed into one of worry. Good, she was getting through to him.

"Your power and ability to shape reishi is something to envy, but its use as a weapon is the most horrifying that I know. At least at the blade of a Shinigami, I know my fate is to wake up to a new life. In the gut of a Hollow, there's a chance to break through and reclaim myself, or for it to run afoul of Shinigami as well. But a Quincy, even a weak one, could end my existence. Oblivion. Nothingness. Not only is that something to fear for myself, it's the fear of what I'd leave behind. My family, my friends, my comrades… They would all be left knowing that there is nothing they can do, because there would be nothing left of me. And that same fear goes for everyone who knows what it is that you can do."

Tanya thought she heard a whimper from Nel, so she stopped. She didn't want to upset the little girl and give her nightmares. She was probably going to have to reassure her many times over the rest of the day that Tanya was in no such danger, and probably soothe her with boisterous tales of her own strength before bed. She had said enough anyway. Yes, by that somber, thoughtful look, Ishida had gotten the message.

"I can promise to refrain from killing them as much as I can," the Quincy said after a long moment of silent contemplation, "but I won't let them hurt people."

"Just remember that inside every Hollow is a person, too. And most of them deserve a chance."

She fought back the urge to sigh. It wouldn't do to look like she was strained here, but she was, just a little. After being worked up about Nel and caught off-guard by all of this, her nerves were a little frazzled. Nothing a moment to decompress couldn't fix. Maybe a snack. Well, they were already in the Living World and Ichigo looked like he needed a hand. No, wait, the agent was right there! Ah, did he already know about Tanya's communications with Ichigo? She never picked up on him watching them closely, but he had been there at the Casual Soul Realm Assault Trip location and knocked Ichigo's Shinigamified soul out of his body. Damn though, she had just spoken to Ichigo so casually, and he basically said out loud that he knew her.

…Wait, if he said that out loud where an agent of the Seireitei could hear, then that meant that he'd already informed him, or…he trusted him enough to not pass it along. It could be that the man served a role similar to Rukia's in a supporting fashion. Ichigo couldn't leave his body on his own, which meant he needed people with the tools to do so close at hand. While she couldn't expect to trust the man with everything (there were some things she would never allow herself or anyone else to leak no matter how much they came to trust the individual human), it at least seemed that he wasn't going to immediately report them to the Shinigami.

Well, even if he was, there was only so much for it. Killing him could cause more problems than it would solve. If he didn't report in, people up the ladder would investigate. If they investigated, they might find traces leading to the Arrancar, or interrogate Ichigo and Rukia to get every bit of information they could. That could lead to a lot of places, and all of it outside of Tanya's control. The snooping would definitely affect the trial operation they had here, not to mention the methods employed to 'extract' their assets could range anywhere from stripping out Ichigo's power to erasing any and all signs of his family ever existing here.

No, better to keep things steady. Don't rock the boat too much. Don't shake up the ladder. Continue as you were, and keep a close eye on things.

"Sorry if they're chatting your ears off, mister," Tanya opened with the man after she approached, patting Picaro Tres and Cuatro on the heads. She decided to go with the casual approach. Act like everything's natural and people will often assume you're doing nothing wrong. "They're just always happy to meet new people."

The man looked at her, and in the blink of an eye, the weight on his shoulders disappeared, and he was smiling with the air of a used car salesman or carnival booth proprietor.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all! I love meeting new people as well. Comes with the territory of running a specialty shop like mine."

'Ah, a shopkeeper for a day job? How industrious!'

"Oh, we'll have to visit sometime. I have had trouble finding a store I could actually shop at in the Living World. I just hope I don't interfere with your regular customers."

"Shouldn't be a problem. Might wanna dress up a little differently. Wear a hat, maybe."

'In other words, only come in disguise. So Shinigami do come around, but they're not monitoring it too closely. That also likely means we haven't been reported on. I should check to be extra careful, though.'

"We'll keep it in mind. By the way, I'd hope that with what's happened here… Well, we don't want some violent figures digging into our business, and we happen to know some violent people with grudges. It'd be unfortunate for us both."

"Oh, yes, I know what you mean. Yeah, while I'm having to pay the Piper, I know more than most that there are certain things we don't tell the folks upstairs. They'll just make a mess of everything."

'Good. We're on the same page, then. He understands that even if Shinigami came, he'd be at risk as well. They might just leave him high and dry and take whatever equipment they've loaned him, or they could tie up all the loose ends and give him a cozy house on the west end of the Rokungai while sending his kids and partner to the other ends. Best not to risk it.'

"We'll just keep it all on the low, then," Tanya agreed, outstretching her hand. "Tanya Louisenbairn."

"Urahara Kisuke," the man returned, shaking her hand and studying her face. She kept her expression even and matched his grip.

A perfectly polite and strong first impression! And with that, Tanya was wriggled a little more into the Living World's hearts and minds. There was still a long way to go, but thousands of miles were walked step by step.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 7: Dividing Past and Present

---

Aaroniero Arruruerie had few regrets in their long life as one of the original Espada, if one did not count the innumerable examples of 'did not eat that person'. They tried not to linger on those for too long. However, their newest mistake earned its place at the top of the list.

They should have read the fine print!

It seemed so reasonable! Let the little Pala scientist study their powers and perform a few experiments. In exchange, she had samples taken from many varied Hollows they could eat and gain new powers from. Hell, one of the experiments was to study how their Glutoneria's Hollow Absorption ability functioned, so it was a win-win! But this next one, they could feel it, it was killing them! No, worse, rewriting them!

"Bastard," they heard from within.

Aaroniero was a Gillian. They just never made that last step into becoming Adjucha. It wasn't unique. There were several Gillian Arrancar, but they alone were an Espada at Gillian rank. They could have probably pushed for an Adjucha form and easily achieved it, but so much might have been lost in the transition. No, better to hold onto all they had. That's why they had two heads. Keeping themselves even and equal to each other but above all the other souls ensured they would remain at this state.

But now another soul was rising.

"For what you did…"

'It wasn't us! We only ate the Hollow that happened to eat you!'

It was no use! He was coming up faster and faster! If he overtook them, it would all be over! There had always been a risk of this happening, but they had been so sure that all their souls were withered into mindless little balls of memory and reiryoku, but the damn scientist was reinvigorating this specific one for her test!

They tried getting her to stop by using Cognition Synchronization, but she just repeated the lines of the waiver they had signed. The very tiny lines among a few hundred others. They tried calling someone else for help, but all of them were leaving Aaroniero to this fate. Half of their fellows even laughed at them.

Perhaps…a new regret was never making a single ally that could step in at this moment.

Wait, they could still salvage this! This soul…it had memories!

They reached in and pushed against the soul's mind. They'd read his so many times before to use his likeness, practicing until they could get it perfect. It was going to be so fun when they met his former friends and used him to eat them, but now this bit of preparedness was going to help them in a different way.

Going off the memories, they reached for another soul and pulled it up. It was risky, but it just might work!

"You… No. Miyako?"

It was working!

"Kai-en?"

Yes, it was working! Now, properly distracted… Wait, what was going on? The souls…were connecting? They were both rising?!

"Oh, well that's interesting!" the damned scientist said just a few inches to their left, so close yet so far out of reach of their paralyzed body. "A second signal. The wavelengths between them… It's similar to the effects of serotonin and cortisol on brainwaves. Could it be…?"

What? What were those? Some kind of hormone, right?

"Am I…getting actual data recordings of the quantifiable power of love?!" she started yelling in excitement.

…That had to be the stupidest thing they ever- No, no, the souls! They were both rising up now! They were so close to Aaroniero now, they could practically see them.

"I can see… I can see what you were planning, you monster!" the female shouted, only serving to fuel her willpower with anger.

"You're as bad as that damn Metastacia! Cruel for cruelty's sake!" the male added, his own rage palpable. The two halves of Aaroniero Arruruerie tried to push back, but the visualizations of the two long-dead Shinigami came into focus. Hand in hand, they attacked with a pair of roars, aiming to overcome the egos that had long led this Hollow body.

Two Zanpakuto erupted side by side from the center of Aaoniero's body. The force and pain of the sudden piercing from within their spirit were so great that even the paralytics Francisca used could not stop them from twitching and seizing up. The blades slid to opposite ends of the Arrancar's body, and they screamed as their halves fell apart.

"Someone! Anyone! Help me! Arrrgggghhhh! Lord Aizen! Please!" one head yelled as it tried to roll about, flailing its orbus body about in its death throes.

"I can't… It can't just end…like this," the other struggled to get out before grunting and closing its eyes.

The two halves then began to glow and reform. Francisca was frantic to get as much data as she could, even though every kind of sensor and camera was already aimed at the operating table. As quickly as it started, it ended, and the flesh of Aaroniero Arruruerie had reformed into two new Arrancar. Both were black-haired adults, with the torn and sliced halves of Aaroniero's clothes barely covering them. The female had a mask over her left eye and down her cheek, tapering off before reaching her jaw, three holes lined below her eye in descending size. Below her right eye was an orange Stigmata shaped like an upside-down fire. Her holed was just below her right breast, in the place where Francisca knew her liver should be, normally. The sword at her side had shortened and broadened while gaining a larger guard and shorter grip, now resembling a 17-18th century seaman's saber. The male's mask was over his right eye, with five teeth on the bottom, and the eyehole being slot-shaped rather than round. Below his left eye was a blue crescent-shaped stigmata. His hole was located just below his left clavicle. The sword had completely changed, turning into a trident that greatly resembled a sort of halberd, or perhaps a straightened bishamon yari.

One of Francisca's hands was rapidly taking notes while another was pressing along points of their bodies, checking over vitals. Her third was turning some dials and nobs on the Resonador del Alma prototype, and the last was gently patting one Arrancar's cheeks, then the other's. After a moment, the male started waking up, his blurry, aqua-green eyes slowly opening and slowly moving over to look at the doctor.

"Where…am I?" he got out quietly.

"Don't worry, señor. You're safe here in Cuerpo de Palas Fuerte Delta: El Silo Médico."

"That…makes no sense."

"It'll become clear in time. Let me see if I can get your companion cognizant."

The female was waking up as well. She didn't pay Fransisca any attention, however, her gaze going straight over to her counterpart.

"Kaien?"

"Miyako? Is that… Is that you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, but…everything's sore. It's all so bright and loud. Like I've been trapped in a dark box for years. I…thought I heard you and…I went to you. I'm… I'm so sorry."

"No, no, don't be. You have nothing to be sorry for." A twitch of muscles, the hand holding one of hers tightening to a comforting grip. "Nothing. I can only feel happy…now that you're here."

There was so much to learn! But…Fran couldn't intrude on this moment. She slowly backed away and turned a few knobs next to the doors. The lighting dimmed and the beeping of the many machines was muted. They were still recording, but Fran felt like these two needed this moment. There was real love happening here, and she would not be getting in the way of that.

Slowly, she exited the room and closed the door, third and fourth hands rapidly texting out instructions to several orderlies and nurses informing them of the new patients, as well as calling for a few Escudo to come down and watch over the pair.

Lastly, she wrote out a full report. While there were some unexpected occurrences, the experiment was a resounding success all around. True, the Shinigami's soul was still an Arrancar but going by the Nihonjin-style names they'd called each other by, it was the original ones they'd been aiming for. She felt no remorse for what happened to Aaroniero. It was just how Hollow's grow and develop from the baseline. The passage from Gillian to Adjucha was not supposed to be interrupted the way they'd done it, and though it was interesting how they held onto that precarious state for so long, it was doomed to fall apart someday. She'd just accelerated it. Besides, it's not like they died.

Before she could forward the report to the Princesa, a message came from the royal leader herself. Fran read it, then frowned.

'Why did a Gate to Hell just open up and drag in two ball-shaped souls that look like Aaroniero's faces?'

"Well, if they went to Hell…that's certainly not my fault, right?"

---

People didn't like the Gates to Hell opening up, even if most of them knew they'd done nothing to get thrown in there. It was still uncomfortable to be reminded that it was always a death away from swinging wide and claiming its next inhabitant. But even in places where death was constant, one did not see it that often.

"The commotion's dying down, so there's that," Tanya commented before sipping her coffee and leafing through some papers. She was going over the current captains, lieutenants, third, and fourth seated officers of each Court Guard Squad, studying their known powers and abilities, all written up by Aizen, Ichimaru, and Kaname (through dictation). She had gone over a few before, mostly the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Her mother, as it turned out, was a speed reader and had a very data-analytical mind. She just wasn't very good at communicating the things she knew. Trying to ask her to find out who was the most dangerous going by the recorded feats was unlikely to bring her an answer, but asking 'which one appears physically strongest?' or 'who appears the most adept at using battle kido?' would get direct answers every time, or at least some good examples of the possibilities.

Therefore, while Tanya went over more personal files, Roka read through pages and pages of sensor readings. A mind-numbing amount of numbers was being parsed through and understood by the woman as easily as a children's book to a literary professor. In the time she'd processed a years worth of reiatsu readings, Tanya had just gone over the Fifth Division's three seated officers.

'I wonder if there are plans to pull some of these over to our side,' Tanya wondered to herself. Ichimaru had added notes pointing out how much Hinamori Momo adored (his words) Aizen. They might have seemed like teasing, but that was just Ichimaru Gin. He had a way of doing things in a half-joking manner all the time, which just meant that when even he was taking something seriously, so should everyone else.

Regardless, Tanya did not have that much information on the woman to know one way or the other. For all she knew, learning that Aizen was working with Arrancar would be the deal-breaker. Sometimes even the kindest folks in the world could hold a burning, irrational hatred in their hearts against entire groups of people with little chance of changing their ways, even for that one thing. She learned that lesson in a rough way during her last life. She still didn't understand what Ispagna's problem was with the Egeptian-Daciana people. At least she could understand it when it came to Hollows and Shinigami. There was actual bad blood between them. The Daciana just had a different cultural perspective thanks to their nomadicism.

Still, worth a shot if and once she got it, but she wouldn't waste her time beyond the first offer if it was shot down. Ispagna also taught her that lesson.

"Ah, Franny just sent a message," a recent addition to Cuerpo de Palas: El Equipo Científico said while sorting pages. He was an average, thin male with a mask fragment on the back of his head and a little patch of gauze taped to the front of his skull. Wilhelm Nylon, apparently with the memories of an engineer recently unlocked. Tanya pegged his attitude as the teaching sort. "The two new Arrancar from the Aaroniero incident have woken up. No violence, but they're demanding answers."

"We should inform whichever Shinigami is here right now. They'll want to know." They were probably also wondering what happened to one of their Espada. Tanya hadn't intended for Aaroniero to be effectively killed like that, but being the 8th and one of the more despised Arrancar due to his old penchant for eating the injured as a Gillian, his loss would be one felt less by the majority. Besides, if things panned out, they may have gotten two experienced fighters for the price of one high-maintenance jack-of-all-trades.

"Uh, ma'am, I think they're all out."

Then again, they probably didn't know yet.

Well, that meant that she had to handle things. Tanya sighed and stood up with her documents in hand. Sure, she could probably get any number of people to look in on them in her stead, including a handful of the Espada, but it shouldn't really be necessary and would just burn a favor for potentially little beyond extra security. Four Escudos were already there, including Capitana Karrotte. Not to mention the Frausteins. The other two weren't great at non-lethality, and Gavrill was lousy about limiting collateral damage, but between all of them, two recently comatose Shinigami souls in unfamiliar bodies ought to be more than manageable.

As Tanya walked down the halls with Wilhelm and Roka behind her, she flipped through some pages and started to read up on the 6th Division. The moment she read the captain's name, however, she stopped mid-step.

"Uh, you all right, ma'am?" Wil asked.

"Tanya?" her mother tried.

"...I may have made a huge mistake," Tanya croaked out.

Kuchiki Byakuya. It could have been a coincidence. She didn't know how common of a surname it could be. She hadn't been Japanese in well over a century, maybe close to two, now. Except the Kuchikis were also one of the Seireitei's Great Noble Houses, and several important relatives of Byakuya's were listed in his profile. While the family name of the Captain slowed her steps, the name of one of those relatives stopped her dead.

Kuchiki Rukia, younger sister, member of the 13th Division.

'She wasn't a human!' Tanya realized, now far, far too late. 'She must have been using some stealth technique combined with a false body! But with how Kurosaki's been acting… How deep can her cover be if she's using her real name? No, that's just it. The Living World wouldn't know what her name signifies. We shouldn't know what it signifies. I only know now because of the information Aizen has provided. And with a noble background, she's both deeply embedded into their society and likely highly trained for her role.

'But then, why hasn't there been a response? There's no way she hasn't reported my presence! Or…is there? She seemed rather attached to Ichigo. Could it be that she's going native?

'If that's the case, I have to test for that. My next visit will have to be extra cautious. I'll bring Veronica and see if I can get some more stealth units ready for it. I'll just lay it all out. Tell her I know, and ask why I'm not being sliced at by her brother captain. No wiggle room. No getting around it. No denying it.'

Tanya took in a deep breath and started heading toward El Silo Médico again. They weren't far from where the commotion was beginning, the male shouting at her Escudo, who were standing firm and holding their fusils at the ready. A good front, but she'd need to go over indoor and close combat readiness. Fusils were for medium and long ranges. Capitana Flan del Karrotte, on the other hand, was doing her level best to talk the man down, sword held at her side in precautionary readiness, but not threateningly.

"I must apologize, Señor Shiba, but thou are not given clearance to trot about the Silo. There is much in the ways of sensitive information in these healing halls."

"Well if you can't tell me what the Hell's going on, and we can't go find someone, then get someone down here!"

"Someone is here," Tanya announced herself, shaking off the uncertainty of another problem for later. "Shiba-san, was it? I am Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn. I may be able to help you."

The man scoffed. "Seriously? And when did the King of Hollows have a kid?"

"Approximately 74 years ago, on July 18th," Roka instantly answered. Tanya was actually surprised she had the exact date.

The man shook his head.

"Whatever! Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Well, that depends on what you mean. Are you asking me to explain where you are or how you got here?"

"Sure, let's start with that. Where exactly are we?"

"You're in a medical facility under Las Noches, in Hueco Mundo. I presume you know what that is, at least."

For a moment, the man looked stunned. Then he looked over at the Escudo, taking careful looks at their mask fragments and the holes that were visible among them, one on the hand of a man, and the other in Flan's neck. Then he looked back over at Tanya and her followers and did the same to them.

"Shit, it wasn't a dream," he muttered before reaching up and rubbing the mask over his eye. "I'm… I'm a Hollow."

"Happens to everyone eventually, statistically speaking," Wilhelm decided to speak up. He got a look from Shiba, but just shrugged rather than back down. "Well, if every soul has always existed and goes through the cycle of reincarnation more or less at the same efficiency rate as all others, it's far more likely that at least 80 percent of all souls have experienced Hollowness on some level, whether as the head or one of the souls it's eaten. And several of those have to have gone through it multiple times."

"Could you just give me a moment?" Shiba asked the engineer before rubbing his nose and sighing. "Okay. So, I'm not hallucinating. Let's assume that. And right now, I'm talking to the child of the Hollow my parents used to tell me scary stories about to make me go to sleep."

"Glad that my father could be of assistance in your rearing."

"What I don't understand is how I'm still a Hollow. I distinctly remember Rukia-chan running that Metastacia bastard through with her Zanpakuto. We should have been purified."

"Hm, Fran? Still have the notes?"

The scientist poked her head out from an adjacent room and offered a smile and wave before walking out. Obviously, when faced with potential confrontation, the healer preferred to avoid it and wait until things were settled. Or the fighting was done and people needed to be stitched back together.

"Ahem, yes ma'am. 'Metastacia,'" she read from a document created after interviewing Aaroniero about his powers and their sources, "'Tasted distinctly of rhubarb and fermented wasabi. Powers include Reitai Yūgō, or Spirit Body Fusion, Zanpakuto Destruction, and Recall on Death.' Ah, it seems that if he came close to dying, he would immediately return to Hueco Mundo, usually to attempt to heal from his wounds. That's when Aaroniero found and ate him."

"In other words, he wasn't de- Wait, did you say Rukia?"

"Yeah, she was one of my subordinates in the 13th." Shiba arched an eyebrow. "Why? Something happen to her?"

"Ah, no, she's perfectly fine, I assure you. Just…some things related to work."

"Oh no, don't you worm out of this. I wanna know!"

"Kaien?" Tanya heard from the room he was in front of, and another Arrancar, the woman, poked her head out. "Did she just mention Rukia?"

"Uh, um, yes, I was- Can we get them some clothes please?!" Tanya barked towards the three Escudo men, who jumped but ran off to find something for them. It was one thing talking to a man wearing one leg of a hakama turned into an impromptu skirt, but another entirely when a woman was trying to very carefully not expose anything in her very torn clothing.

"'Bout time. Helmet-head here wouldn't budge on even that."

"I must repeat mine words," Flan defended herself, "but I had not the men to spare to fetch any clothing. And this would be but one fraction of the reasons you needed to remain in place."

"Forgive us, but we are trying to be secure here," Tanya added, keeping her face from turning towards the door where the woman awkwardly stood. "To answer the questions I'm sure you must have, yes, Kuchiki Rukia is safe. She…seems to be on a mission in the Living World at the moment."

"How do you know that?" Kaien demanded. "Are you guys spying on the Seireitei?"

"Why wouldn't we be spying on the Seireitei?" Tanya shot back. "We're not exactly on friendly terms. As much as I'd like to never have to worry about fighting anyone ever again, history hasn't exactly painted a kind picture concerning their reactions toward rival powers, let alone rival powers led by Hollows. I doubt being peaceful and intelligent will sway enough of the leadership of the Gotei 13 or the Noble Houses to avoid conflict, so thus we must seem too powerful to attack for fear of reprisal."

"Peace through strength," Karrotte picked up from there. "Mine own family has followed such a creed for generations, and it has yet to forsake us."

"And all my father had to do was beat an army of Shinigami so thoroughly one time, and you all apparently still treat him with respect through distance." The Escudo were returning now, clothing in hand. "Ah, thank goodness. Ladies first, if you please."

The woman was given her new clothes, and then she ducked back into the room with a quiet thank you, door shut behind her.

"Okay, so you have your reasons. And what's going to happen to us?"

"Well, that depends on you. Aaroniero was an Espada, one of the top ten elite fighters of the Arrancar Army. Despite being near the bottom of their ranks, that still meant he was among the strongest of our race. I have to assume that you and your…"

"Wife."

"You and your wife could both have a significant portion of his power, assuming a lot wasn't lost in the transition. That's before we account for whatever growth you may experience. Even in perfect halves with a little loss, that's still ahead of the majority of Arrancar. And I can't help but assume you're a little unbalanced, so you're probably not far off Espada levels."

"What makes you say that?"

"The way you hold yourself, and the fact you said 'subordinate' earlier, which means you were an officer. While competence still plays a factor, I know that the Gotei also leans heavily into power for authority. An unfortunate necessity for both of our peoples, as one needs to be able to back up their orders with strength to get…certain types of people to listen."

Kaien's eyebrow arched up again, and the door opened to show his wife now thankfully dressed, fiddling with her shirt's hem.

"It's a little…odd feeling," she said, and then Roka was at her side, pulling and adjusting the clothes. "Uh, hello?"

"About 3 centimeters decrease on the bust seam, 4 on the waist. A small…adjustment to the back," Roka rattled off as she slowly went around and continued adjusting the clothes with her fingers. Done with that, she stood back up, and the woman looked herself over.

"How did you do that?"

"I adjusted the stitching."

"But…how?"

"...I don't understand."

"Yeah, I'm going to get dressed," Kaien said while taking his clothes into the room. "When I'm out, we have a lot more to talk about."

"Oh, certainly."

---

"Aizen?" the former Shinigami muttered after finally learning just what was going on. "Fucking…Aizen of all people? I mean, Ichimaru was no surprise, but Aizen?"

"I'm also shocked about Kaname-san," Miyako added, nursing a warm cup of tea.

They'd finally been allowed out of that hospital wing and led to some sort of cafeteria, though the Princess insisted that her guards hold onto their weapons until they were needed. Kaien didn't like it. The last time he was without a weapon was probably the worst day of his life. No, it definitely was. He and his wife died that day. But those guards were staying nearby, so it wasn't completely out of reach. A little effort and Nejibana would be back in his hands. Hopefully, it didn't come to that. There were Hollows everywhere. Oddly deferential, human-shaped Hollows, but still.

'What the Hell did Aizen do to make all of this?'

"Hm, well, I heard he doesn't like nobles. Probably got…on the wrong side of some less than kind examples," the Princess offered. Yeah, she knew that there were those out there who walked all over people with their privilege. Kaien tried to keep his own clan in order, but even the Shibas had their assholes. "I haven't deigned to ask. He'd share if he felt it was important."

"Have to be a big deal for him to do all of…this."

"I personally like to think this project is their way of showing everyone that there can be a better way. Productive, rather than destructive. The Balance is important and all, but that doesn't mean people can't live fulfilling lives in either the Living, Soul, or Hollow Worlds. After all, if the living, who have short lives and must all eat multiple times a day just to survive, can build the civilizations that they have, why can't we?"

Kaien shrugged and ate a bit more rabbit stew. Seemed to be the only meat they had on the menu here. Rukia would be so sad.

"Still, don't much like this whole aggressive footing you've got."

"You'd have to take that up with Lord Aizen. I just train troops and sign off on road paving and trash collection. Whatever regal authority I might have held under the old system is basically ceremonial at this point."

"...Didn't you authorize the thing that turned that guy inside out to get us?"

"Uh, no, not exactly. He signed a waiver to participate in an experiment being performed by Francisca Fraustein, which she developed on request from me. She could have completely refused and even reported me if she thought I was reaching beyond the authority of my station. Honestly, any random citizen could have done the same thing. You could argue my position gives me a lot of weight in matters like this, but it's more akin to greasing the wheels than it is to the power behind decisions."

'In other words, you're working within all of the technicalities. People can tell you no, but no one would want to. Defunct royalty is still royalty. What was that Western Living World country? England? Their royalty just sits around and gets their pictures taken all day, but people still do whatever they want. Probably got a new king or queen by now, but I'd bet my pay on it still being that way if I even got paid.'

As he went for another sip of water, a wave of reiatsu hit him. Given how everyone else around them paused in what they were doing, he wasn't the only one.

"Do you feel that?" someone asked to the crowd.

"I can taste that!" a voice shouted out.

"The Hell is that?" Kaien asked no one in particular. "It feels like Old Man Yamamoto and Kenpachi just got together and said 'screw that thing in particular' using their reiatsu."

"No, not exactly," Miyako refuted, focusing more on the feeling as she closed her eyes. "This signature isn't aggressive. It's… It feels sad. As though recently begrieved but…somewhat hopeful."

"It's also a complete and utter unknown," Tanya told them. "I can recognize the various Espada's signatures, and that was not one of them. I think we have a new recruit."

"All Espada, their Fracciones, Escudo, and the Princesa are to report to the Throneroom of Aizen's Palace ASAP. An important meeting is to be held within an hour," the voice of Kaname Tousen announced over the intercom system installed throughout the facility.

'Not unknown for too much longer, then.'

---

Aizen was rather thrilled about their newest acquisition and introducing them to the whole. And before him was the pride of years of work. The Espada each stood to either side of his court, their Fracciones standing behind them if they had any. Standing at attention in front of them like the professional soldiers they were was the Escudo, lined up in four columns and split on either side, facing the center and awaiting orders or the signal to face the front. Arriving after most was Tanya Louisenbairn with her mother and two Arrancar with very familiar faces and reiatsu signatures.

'Curious,' he thought, but questions for that would come later. There was a procession to follow.

When the last to arrive finally came, Grimmjow - no surprise there. It was usually him, Baraggan, or Nnoitra dragging their feet - and he and his took their place, Aizen finally deigned to stand. With a silent order from the Princesa, a mere hand sign, the Escudo turned about, facing the front and looking up at their overlord, a magnificent display of disciplined syncronization. All eyes firmly on the throne, Aizen gestured to his left as he spoke.

"Arrancar of Las Noches, rejoice, for we have found a new member of our ever-growing family among the sands." He loved this little bit of patronizing, both because there were a few who actually believed it and clung onto his words, and the ones who didn't could only seethe like dogs forced to wear leashes by their owners. He then raised his hand, and the two beings stepped forward from behind the throne. The man looked bored, or perhaps tired. The one that appeared to be a young girl was more wary, but her eye went over all these new faces, drinking them up one by one, but lingering for a particularly long moment in the direction of the Princesa. Perhaps drawn by their visual similarities. Adorable, on some level.

"Please welcome Coyote Stark and Lilynette Gingerbuck, the new Primera Espada."

Ah, there were the whispers. The Espada were mostly shocked, though Baraggan's was couched with confusion. The Fracciones, however, had more peers to gossip among, and some could not help themselves. Being far more disciplined, the Escudo did not devolve from their attentive stance, but there was surprise in all of their eyes.

"Lord Aizen, I may have misheard," Szayelaporro's voice spoke up. "But which of these two is the Primera?"

"Yes," Ichimaru quickly answered before he could. While mildly amusing, Aizen had a different approach.

"You can simply find that out yourselves, I am sure. Stark, Gingerbuck, go ahead and introduce yourselves."

The two walked forward, more than a little nervous, though probably more for the reasons the other Arrancar did not know about than what they most likely suspected.

"Uh, hey," the man tried once they were at the others' level. "Name's Coyote Stark, like Aizen introduced us. This is, uh…"

"I'm Lilynette!" the girl introduced herself boisterously. "So we're the new Primera thing. How about you?" she asked while pointing towards the Princess.

Tanya cleared her throat and signaled the Escudo, who went from their parade rest to a more relaxed one, though they did not instantly start dispersing. "Greetings, Miss Gingerbuck. I am Princesa Tanya Louisenbairn. On behalf of the Escudo and all Arrancar, welcome to Las Noches."

"Don't call me 'miss', and thanks." The girl put her hands on her hips, and Tanya flinched a bit and blushed, her eyes seemingly focused on how Lilynette's shirt shifted slightly to the sides. "So, you're a girl, right?"

"Uh, er, yes, I am," Tanya answered.

"Cool. I never met another girl before. You're my friend now!"

"I, uh, okay?"

Well, it seemed there were even things that could render the little monster speechless. He knew she had criticisms about some of the ways a few of the females dressed, but he always assumed it to be some sort of self-informed ideal of propriety. Now it seemed there might have been another reason.

"Awesome! C'mon, Stark! Go make friends!"

"Uh, hey?" the larger Primera tried to greet a few of his new comrades.

Nnoitra started laughing from his place, standing up from the squatting position he had taken since the start.

"Oh man, this is like one bad joke after another! First, we're all getting knocked down a number, turns out Baraggan's little girl is batting for the other team, and now it looks like this old man is also taking orders from his own pipsqueak!" He thumbed over in Harribel's direction. "I could get it if one of you was trying to get in good with her. It'd still be pathetic, but hey, look at her! Instead, we got two dozen soldados juguete following the military brat's every word, and now a drunk uncle look-a-like getting bossed around by a - whatchacallit? - mesugaki!"

Leave it to Nnoitra to stir the pot into something entertaining. Aizen was worried this might be boring.

"What was that?" Baraggan demanded as he stood up from his chair and turned towards the much taller Espada.

"Eh, didn't hear me, old man?" Nnoitra taunted the former king, taking a few steps and leaning over, using their height difference to add injury to insult. "It's all right. 'M sure ya got a lot on your mind now that you learned your bloodline's over pretty much as soon as it started.

The old Arrancar grunted angrily. "Young fools like you don't know how to respect your elders or your betters. Half my men could have thrashed you about like the bug you are for your words, but we refrain to keep the well-painted walls as unblemished as we can, out of respect for the Palas who've proven far more useful than you."

Nnoitra's eye narrowed angrily. Aizen was going to have a good, long laugh when he got to his private chambers, looked back over everything, and thought of this moment again.

"So…Baraggan, right?" Stark tried to ask the former king. "That sounds familiar."

"I would hope." Another grunt of annoyance as he turned to look at Aizen and then back to Stark. "I was the King of all Hueco Mundo for uncountable years. Where were you that my name is merely familiar?"

"A valley pretty far up to the north. We…didn't get visitors."

Several eyes opened wide at that reveal.

"You were the denizens of the Valley of Death?" Harribel asked the Primera, who reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I didn't, er, I don't think we called it that."

"It is said that any Hollow who goes there meets their end, crushed under the oppressive weight of the one who calls that place home," Zommari Rureaux recounted. "While the presence of an immensely strong Hollow could be felt at its center, none ever came close and returned to tell of what resided there."

"Geez, we… We weren't trying to do that!" Coyote defended himself.

Rather hilarious from Aizen's point of view. It wasn't just the immense reiryoku of his newest Espada creating such devastating pressure, but also the lack of control endemic to most Hollows. After all, what use was there to hide one's presence when they led solitary lives of violence more often than not? Only Hollows adapted to using stealth or rare cases like the Princesa, a Hollow born with the purpose of ruling over other Hollows, seemed to have any inherent understanding of the techniques used to mask one's presence or restrict their own reiatsu in some way. And so a Hollow finally reaches the point where they no longer feel the need to constantly be on the hunt, but now they've reached the point where almost nothing else can even survive their presence. A few lessons on reiatsu limiting techniques, and suddenly the Hollows felt they owed him everything.

Well, splitting in half certainly helped matters. Even Aizen had hesitated to approach that particular well of power. He had been thinking of saving it until he completed his Hogyoku, but since they'd saved him the trouble by becoming natural Arrancar, he went ahead and collected them.

There was a little more back and forth, and finally, Aizen decided to focus on those familiar beings Tanya had brought with her. Ah, yes. That face certainly looked like Shiba Kaien. Aizen would have remembered him anyway, but Aaroniero liked to pull it out once in a while. Plus, he was curious about what exactly happened to cause this.

"I have noticed that Aaroniero Arruruerie is not present," Aizen said to the Arrancar, some of whom looked quite nervous at that fact being pointed out. Tanya went ramrod straight, standing in expectation of being called upon. "Yet we have two new faces among us. Why is that?"

"Sir," Tanya started, voice even, her nervousness held back with admirable willpower, "Espada Aaroniero Arruruerie had volunteered for an experimental treatment to further research into Soul Resonance technology. However, as an unforeseen consequence of their extended Gillian state, their body underwent the transition in Adjucha, causing them to…split into the two beings we have here now."

A minor loss, all things considered. Aaroniero's only real use was the broad applications of power they held, but it was rather sloppy and unfocused compared to most. A curiosity that might come in handy for specific situations, but oddly they never had exactly what Aizen needed for his most important aims. If anything, what he read of the Soul Resonance technology might be a far more valuable asset to those goals.

"Wait, so those two are like us?" Lilynette asked.

"Like us?" Tanya asked. "Wait, you…used to be…a single Hollow?"

"Yeah. We were." Coyote scratched his chin. "Whoever we were didn't wanna be alone anymore. So we broke ourself apart."

"...Oh that's what Lord Aizen meant when he called you both the Primera," one of the Escudo, their Captain, he believed, suddenly realized. "I had feared the mystery should haunt us 'til someone thought to query our newest knights on their exact ranks."

"Weird," Grimmjow muttered. "We still counting them as one person? Or is it like a Szayel thing?"

"Don't compare my methods of extraction to the equivalent of Neanderthals bashing together rocks to get fire."

"Sure, we'll just compare it to a butcher chopping off his own hand," Tanya snidely remarked, her contempt for her creator showing through. Szayel looked scandalized by her slander, but said nothing. "Still, this is quite coincidental."

"Indeed. Come forth, both of you. Let us meet you as well."

The two nervously walked forward. Unlike the Primera, theirs was more out of fear and caution. They understood that they were far from safe here, even if only a fraction of those present decided to have at them. So different from the approach Stark and Gingerbuck had made just moments ago.

"Well now, ain't that a pair of familiar faces, eh, Aizen-taichou?"

"Indeed. Tell me, do you two have names?"

"Sorta," the male answered, rubbing at his neck. "Pretty sure I'm Kaien, and this is Miyako."

He was guarded. He probably understood the situation he was in was incredibly unfavorable, but likely not to what extent it was and from which direction. It was rather…useful, in a way. Aaroniero could have never pulled it off thanks to their transformation power requiring darkness to function, but if this 'Kaien' was stable, Aizen could take advantage of it far more readily. Miyako, too, perhaps, but more as a way to sell Kaien's presence than her own specific uses.

From one way of looking at it, if he remembered his life as a Shinigami, then he was now surrounded by potential enemies numbering in the hundreds to thousands, some of which outmatched him at his best on their worst days, all headed by what he'd have to see as a 'traitor'. Yet, he was undeniably now a Hollow, and not only of those faulty prototypes who could so easily pass for average Shinigami if they had but a chance to. If he stepped into the Seireitei and spoke to Ukitake Jūshirō this very moment and got him and his old Division to stand up for him, there was still all the rest of the Gotei 13 and the Central 46 to contend with over his new existence.

And why wouldn't the government vote to have him put down? For his soul's own good, of course, if they bothered to explain it like that. A sentence Yamamoto would be forced to have carried out.

He could also just not know anything, just bare recollections of a life lost, but Aizen was not about to hedge any plans on that. Especially not when he was holding the hand of his wife in such a comforting manner moments ago. No, Aizen would need to treat this as if the Kaien who died years ago had just woken up with his mind intact and a Hollow's mask and hole on his body, because that might just be the case. Even if Kaien put up an act, he'd only play along for appearance's sake. And if it wasn't the case, he'd still be able to play his part.

A little complicated near the end, but he had some ideas on that anyway.

"Hey Shiba-san, you remember me?" Ichimaru asked the Shinigami-turned-Arrancar.

"...I feel like I should punch you in the face," the man blithely told Gin. There were definitely some gasps, but it looked like most of the Arrancar were waiting to see what would happen after such blatant disrespect. "Ya'know, for some reason."

"D'aww, it really is him. Just as grumpy as before."

An excellent attempt, but Aizen could see through it. Too direct toward something that should have been vaguely familiar. Even disliked rivals should evoke a sense of comfort to one who cannot clearly identify friend and foe. Not hostility. Yes, he was fairly certain the Kaien before him remembered. He simply didn't want them to know he did. It was a safe route, after all. In his mind, if they knew, they would want to do something about him and Miyako. Several Espada certainly would, but Aizen knew how to play this to his advantage.

After all, Shiba Kaien had an old debt to pay, and his debtor was about to need an emergency collection.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Author's note beforehand, all of the "scientific" stuff here is canon to SOTPOTHoW, even if the story portion itself is not. That includes the totally scientific reason for Szayel's hair color.

---

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter ?: Three's a Crowd Crowned

---

People could say what they wanted about Szayelaporro Granz, that he was obsessive, impulsive, compulsive, insane, weird, strange, oddly homoerotic, but none could deny that he was a genius! Which honestly just made his current work more than a little...frustrating. He had been trying to clone a few Arrancar since it was one of the many things on Aizen's List (capitalized, as it was that important) of things for him to experiment with. After all, if they could clone, say, the Espada, then they'd just have to make a few clones of each one and basically run ramshod over the Shinigami in short order. With enough clones, it wouldn't even be that hard. Barely an inconvenience. However, there were inconveniences in the way of this simple (on paper) solution. First, he was pretty sure they'd have to grow the clones from infanthood. Not too hard. Growth hormones, nutrient injections, and hypnosis training could speed things along. He'd get around to figuring that out if only he could get past the first hurdle.

Hollow DNA was not like human DNA.

Oh, it had human DNA. Lots of it, in fact. Unfortunately, because most Hollows worth anything were actually the amalgamation of thousands of human souls, which all carried a spiritual version of their DNA from life (some minor alterations here and there thanks to the transition doing a combination of resetting and mutating to adjust to a spiritual existence), once they became Menos Grande, all of that got more or less blended together. Normally, not a problem. He'd just isolate the proper sequence. Except, most of them did not have a proper sequence that could be isolated. Even though every last Adjuchas had a single soul in charge of its total being, the makeup of its body took bits and pieces from many of its souls collectively to form it. It's why he had naturally pink hair now, despite being blonde when he was alive. Somewhere along the way, one of the many Hollows that formed him ate the soul of a flamingo. Szayel just had to eat some shrimp once in a while to keep it in this nice shade.

Faced with this conundrum, Szayel made many tests on various sorts of Hollows and finally managed a breakthrough when he grabbed a soul right on the verge of encroachment and cloned the resulting Hollow. Rather than a normal baby soul or some mishmashed creature that shouldn't exist like in past attempts, this time, he actually got a real clone of the Hollow. There were differences, of course. This was still soul science, after all, and a person's innermost being was as important for determining how a spirit looked as much as their DNA, hence why both souls and Arrancar had such a broader range of phenotypes than their living counterparts, but it was still a very close match.

So, it seemed that the answer was to only try to clone Arrancar with a single soul, until such time that he could figure out how to sequence the DNA of hundreds of thousands of souls at one time whilst accurately comparing them to the existing body. In other words, only useful for the things they had no examples of and something that could only be useless if they did exist.

...Wait, no, there was an exception. In a manner of speaking. The Princesa, a creation he was most proud of despite her supposed enmity towards him - it was kinda adorable, really. The term Ichimaru used to describe it was 'tsun'-something - had been born with a single soul. As was every 'naturally' conceived Hollow. He'd run the tests before. Even if they were Adjucha or Vasto Lorde in form, they had always been born into the world single-souled. Which meant that their body had its DNA 'straightened out' for lack of a better term. Whatever sequences the parents passed down reformed into a stable strand, which also gave stability to born Adjuchas, nixing the issue of falling into a Gillian. Unfortunately, he had few examples of this to work with, and all of them had eaten some Hollows here or there by this point, he was sure, and that could muddy results and just bring him back to square one in the testing. Instead, he would approach this from another angle.

Deep in his storage freezer, he had kept the umbilical cord and placenta harvested after the Princesa's birth frozen. He'd only ever used samples from it a handful of times, but it was a unique specimen that he likely would have to wait decades to get anything even close to it unless he went out and made one himself, which he really didn't fell like doing. The baby souls he had to deal with and make Hollow nannies for were more than enough. They'd be useful little specimens, but first they had to be grown into that usefulness. From both parts, he took samples to clone from. Then, as another test, he had one of his Fracciones go retrieve a fresh sample from the Princesa. He half-expected it to get blown apart on the first try (perfectly acceptable as he had some rejuvenation drugs he wanted to try out for a different entry on Aizen's List), but apparently, he was smart enough to go to the lesser Pala scientist Fraustein for assistance. She got it rather quickly and efficiently (if only she wasn't such a moralist, he could actually have a decent assistant he didn't have to make from the ground up), and the work began in earnest.

Months later, in vats partly made of recycled flesh, metal, and glass for viewing, he had three perfectly normal Arrancar fetuses with little variation to the original.

Success! Aizen will be pleased!

...Or he would, if this could be applied to anything other than the born Hollows, but that seemed decades away from feasibility.

Maybe he could convince Harribel to donate some ova?

---

She thought she'd lived a good life, given the circumstances. Sometimes the memories of the war would come back to keep her up, and then there was that reporter who had been so doggedly determined to dig up her past. Well, by the time he found out, she was already old, and along the way, he had pretty much exonerated everything she ever did that could've been used against her. After that, it was pretty much all clear. She was safe, retired, had plenty of loved ones, and was even comfortable on her deathbed as the hourglass slowly trickled down.

Any regrets? Eh, none worth mentioning at this point.

But then she woke up to being pulled out of something squishy and gross, placed on a cushioned table, and looked over by a strange, pink-haired man with bright amber eyes and glasses that looked like they were made of ivory.

"Ah, there we are! Subject Alpha is looking alive and well. Should be crying though, we need those lungs cleared."

She then felt her foot being grabbed between two fingers and her toes being flicked. It hurt, and she tried to tell the man to knock it off, but her voice wouldn't obey and only came up as gurgles. Realizing what her tininess and inability to speak meant, she started shouting out in anger.

'Did He forget to turn off whatever let me keep my memories? I've been reincarnated with my past life again! This definitely counts as something to complain about! I just got done telling my great-grandchildren goodbye! I don't want to remember those crying faces for another 80 or more years!

'And what's this about 'subject'? Am I a science experiment in this life?!'

"There we are. Now to check the other two."

'There's more?!'

---

She liked to think she did well.

There was only so much one could do, in the end. As powerful as any mage can be, they're still only one person. People might believe that there are "Great Men" throughout history who pushed civilization to its current state, but the truth is that there are circumstances behind and around all those historical figures that shaped both them and their environment. Take Alexander the Great and put him in Feudal Japan, and he might not do so well there, even if you wave away the language barriers and give him enough men to start. So was she, too, just someone shaped by her past and the situation around her. Without those memories, without the war, she would've been a very different person leading a very different life. Even if her magic meant she was bound to the military whether peace continued or war began. Maybe talented in this or that, but certainly not whatever people thought she was: prodigy, genius, or what-have-you.

Still, she's pretty sure she did the best she could muster, even though they were defeated, even though she was defanged, defamed, and denounced.

She really did expect that trial to go way differently though. Turned out, her lawyer knew well both the laws and how to play a crowd. Yes, he basically had to foot the whole butcher's bill she racked up to the former government of the Empire and make her look like a smart, but ultimately immature child. It took a lot of tongue-biting from her, but it was pride she had to swallow. This wasn't a mere argument, they had been fighting for her life!

But it worked? She was basically banished from her homeland after all was said and done, but seeing as they were getting lambasted and blacklisted for 'using an innocent girl to wage their bloody wars', she couldn't blame them. Strange how the new administration kept it in place, though.

So she was taken away to live out her days in political asylum on the island nation partly responsible for everything getting that far in the first place. It wasn't all bad. The food wasn't great, but she was basically guaranteed a job. Almost got through to retirement age, too.

Then some vengeful soldier knifed her in the back. She wasn't even sure who it was or why, other than a mention of their 'father's death is avenged.' She would have told them off if one of her lungs weren't full of blood.

But then her daughter shot the attacker, her aim as impeccable as it ever was on their little hunting trips. The assailant lived long enough to hear her scream, "Mother!" before the second shot blew off their skull (though she could barely see it at that point), but she was certain she saw the horror in their eyes before death claimed them first.

They must have knicked something important because she blacked out not long afterward. But now her eyes were opening again. But things were not at all how she expected. She'd been stabbed before, though not quite like that, but this wasn't like waking up from a stab wound at all. In fact, it reminded her of something a little older.

"Subject Beta's doing good as well. Hair color didn't change, but seems wavier. ...Are you writing this down or chewing on the pens again?"

"Wah, sorry Master Szayelaporro!"

The weird, pink-haired doctor sighed and pushed at his nose as she realized she probably needed to act the part of a baby properly and start crying.

"Never thought the little rock would be the best note-taker. Anyways, time to get Gamma."

---

She really wanted to scream, but being immersed in liquid made that hard. Wait, she was in the air now. Good! Let the world and Being X hear her roar!

...Oh, that's a baby's cry she's doing. And...there are more babies around? Yep, at least two she could make out.

So, that damn unkillable Valkyrie actually got her in the end. Damn stupid orb overload! Well, she outdid her old man, at least. She actually managed to get the target, even if it cost her an eye and all the brains behind it. Small comfort, in the end.

"Ooh, a real healthy set of lungs on this one!" some effeminate, pink-haired doctor said as he set her on a table, other doctors and nurses tending to the cord and cleaning of her infant body. From her side, she could see two more baby girls in the same situation as herself. However, they both had strange growths on their heads that looked like bone. "Subject Gamma is perfectly healthy. Forming a mask near the back of her jaws. Interesting, it's in two parts. Reminds me of my brother's ornery pack leader."

She didn't like how this was shaping up. If the looks and terms were anything to go by at all, then this was looking like she had been reborn as some sort of science experiment. Being X must have known that she would try and get out of the situation if she could, so he went and closed off all other avenues. Now she was stuck with whatever designs this mad scientist had in mind. Oh, she was going to tear into Him next time He bothered to come down and gloat!

'Damn you, Being X!'

---

"Sister, you need to eat more," Tasha, the silver-haired girl with a mask formed on her head like a circlet and a hole below her heart admonished her younger 'sibling'.

"But it's so gross!" Tina, whose mask was under one eye and mirrored by a silver Stigmata, hole where her belly button would have been, complained, sticking out her tongue. "Not even Albion made cuisine so tasteless."

The poor girl had apparently been an expat after the war, but unlike herself, got placed in Londinium. Not so bad, but as she told it, she died of a stabbing attack. Tasha wasn't sure what she did to get reincarnated like this. Maybe it was a fluke?

"It's apparently all clones like us are worth," the ironically named Ticha groused, forcing down her own nutrient paste with an expression most wroth. Her mask formed on both sides of her face, looking like the back of some beast's jaws, and her hole was in her neck. She died in a suicidal attack and blamed it on 'God'. Probably a religious fanatic from Francois. There were a lot of those, even before the Tiegenhoff psycho. Must have gotten her in the desert. "Not even worth the salt it'd take to add taste."

"Don't be like that. If we're lucky, this will be the last time we ever have to eat this stuff again."

"What makes you think this Lord Aizen guy is going to change anything?" Ticha grumbled.

"Yeah, he's the one who ordered our whole creation in the first place?"

"For one, we're going to be the cutest, most innocent-looking science experiments anyone has ever seen," Tasha explained, a smile slowly growing on her lips. "And if that doesn't do it, I think I finally got a message to the princess."

"Wait, the one the drones keep talking about?" Ticha asked, looking curious.

"She's supposed to be extremely competent and utilitarian, right?" Tina added.

"That's what they say. And she has a lot of pull. Not to mention, if I'm correct, then she also might be something of a softy." Tasha's smile took on a more devious tint. "Szayel keeps complaining about her 'Pala scientist' not being willing to take real risks. I managed to find a way to ask what he meant without sounding out of place, and now I know why. She's not allowed to be nearly as brutal with her experiments. All above board kind of things, like one might expect from a 'good guy' organization."

"That's a bit of a reach," Ticha pointed out. "And how do you know this message even reached her?"

"It was Bludo."

"Ah, that one." Ticha immediately understood where the confidence was coming from, then. "She's going to know soon if she doesn't already."

~

Not long after their flavorless lunch, Aizen's inspection came around, and alongside him was a girl about twice their own height, with blonde hair, blue eyes, a crown-like mask, and a hole at the bottom of her chest.

"You bastard!" she screamed while rounding on the mad scientist. "Who said you could make clones of me?!"

"I'll have you know I had Aizen's full backing for this project." At a look from said man, Szayel cleared his throat and corrected himself. "...That is, while I had not specified who the clones were of, there was never any stipulations about limiting who to clone."

'That's it! Our ticket out of here!'

"I oughta have you tossed into an incinerator with all the damn experiments you've made!"

That, however, immediately crushed their hopes. Normally, the three would have schooled their expressions and stood firm, but there was no chance of that working here. They weren't appealing to the military arm of an empire, they were trying to get a princess to take pity on them. So the three cried out in fright and started clinging to each other as if scared and desperate, making sure to look as frightened and as close to tears as possible. The princess looked back at them, and her rage was replaced with shock and remorse as she seemed to realize what she'd said.

"H-hey, I wasn't... I didn't mean you three," she tried to explain.

'Keep up the tears! Keep up the tears!'

Well, the samurai with glasses looked disappointed, but that was fine. They didn't need the general to approve of them. They needed the royal family. They just had to get this princess to go crying to her father or mother, whichever had the crown, and get them out of this laboratory.

"While impressive as a whole, Granz, the subjects leave something to be desired," Aizen pointed out. "If you could repeat this, how long will it take to raise up more...suitable examples?"

"While I have done my best to apply growth treatments to these three, the best I could manage was getting them to age at a human rate," Szayel lamented. "Assuming the rate is constant, we're looking at around 14 to 20 years, if I start with new samples as soon as possible."

"It would appear then that this avenue of approach is not worth the investment. Feel free to discontinue the project at your leisure. The army won't be able to incorporate it in time at this rate."

"Of course, my lord. Should I dispose of these, then?"

"Absolutely not!" the princess yelled before clearing her throat and then standing up straight and putting her arms behind her back, doing her best to look dignified despite the outburst. "If you have no further need of them, then I will be taking them into my custody. Whatever the origin, these are still good, useful Arrancar of Vasto Lorde stock. If properly taught and cultivated, they will become a force to be reckoned with in a few decades."

"Yes, yes," the madman said while waving his hand dismissively. "Go take them home and let Roka play with them or whatever. What, are you going to want the soul clones while you're at it?"

"...the what clones?"

---

Figuring out what to call each other was hard. The mad scientist who made their bodies in this life just gave them numbers. In Ispagnan, for some reason. In the end, they agreed to all abandon their old name and wrote a new one on a piece of paper before all sharing it at one time, and that issue was solved.

"So, you actually let her live?" Marian asked Martha, who nodded.

"I just...couldn't do it. Not when she was just holding her grandchild like that. I wanted to, so badly, but then I thought about...how much I hurt for so long, and I realized I'd just be doing the same thing to someone else. To a lot of someones. And if I did that, wouldn't I have just been worse than her, in the end?"

Marian grimaced. "Maybe. ...I...didn't even know. I was just so angry about how everyone seemed to be sanitizing her role. They pinned everything on the government and acted like she was some innocent angel forced at gunpoint to commit all those atrocities, but... I don't know, maybe she was. She was just a kid for the whole war. And if she really thought that it was 'follow orders or firing squad' and 'kill the enemy or be killed by them' the whole time... I never even entertained it until after I died. And right before that girl who looked just like her got me, she was crying and screaming, "Mother!" Did I become the actual monster in the end?"

Martha looked uncertain, and Maddy shrugged.

"I don't know. I think I managed to kill her at Tiegenhoff."

"What?!" the other two half-shouted. Out of all their past life stories shared, that was probably the most surprising bit up to this point. "How?"

"Overloaded my orb. I would've been fine without it, but I think she blew off half my head."

"How would you even know that?" Marian asked her.

"The other half stuck around long enough to die in the explosion, but I know she was at least gone from the waist down." She then frowned. "You guys are actually making me feel bad about it, though. Do you think she could've gotten better after the war? That she wasn't really...evil?"

"Well, mine was definitely completely changed," Marian admitted. "We even talked, and...I think she recognized me. Maybe even knew that I knew. She was willing to let bygones be bygones and just live out her life, working for the US government."

"If I had paid more attention, I might know better," Martha said with a downcast look. "But if she had a daughter willing to...kill to protect her? Guess it's best I never had any children. The cycle ended."

"Hey, you look rather invested over there," Marian called out over to one of their male companions. "Got anything to add? Anything you wanna share?"

He shook his head and continued huddling behind his pillow. "You guys go ahead. It's all...interesting."

Lehrgen wondered which sin exactly had earned him this kind of hell. He had no idea if any of these reborn Bloody Valkyries were from the same world as him, but the fact that two of them had managed to kill her frightened him beyond belief, even if they had nothing like their past lives' powers. And the one that hadn't actually done it had apparently seen her grow into old age. He could be a little happy that she'd learned to be human in one life, at least.

The second scared him, though. If they all agreed that maybe it was the Empire's fault that she became what she did - and he couldn't blame them, honestly - then that meant whatever ire they had left would be aimed at people like him. Better to pretend he was some fresh soul rather than another unfortunately reincarnated one. Like those five who had also been watching with strange interest. Not focused like he'd let himself get, just curious as children can be. The girl looked a little upset, though. Well, it was rather sad, in a cosmic sense.

Then the door to their little cell barracks was slammed open, and she was there, a crown of bone upon her head, three smaller versions just behind her legs.

The three Valkyries were probably extremely thankful that their new bodies had different hair colors than before.

"Szayel, you bastard!" she called back. "Now I have to open an orphanage!"

...what?

 

[Rymu]

Sorry for the double post but I gotta crosspost my omake or my brain will explode.

Omake: Unconditional Motherly Love

The mother that was once a tool was, for the first time in years, truly struggling with the role she had been given after her daughter took her from Szayelaporro. Word had reached her about the most recent meeting that her daughter had attended with Lord Aizen and the Espada, surprisingly before the girl herself who had found other duties to attend to for the next few hours instead of joining Roka to spend time together and speak of her day herself. The information had been, instead of some new improvement to Las Noches or it's various organizations, about Tanya herself.

Evidently one half of the latest Espada, one Lilynette Gingerbuck, had been rather forward with Tanya and unintentionally revealed Tanya's interest in her own sex. To much teasing from Nnoitra who also attempted to provoke Baraggan with claims that his lineage would end thanks to Tanya. Roka did not know how to process the tangled knot of emotions regarding the Espadas' actions, with Lilynette seeming to bear no ill will and Nnoitra simply being wrong as Tanya's mere existence proved, so she discarded the thought to focus directly on her daughter.

It should not be of any real concern that Tanya prefers girls, yet Roka can't help but feel like there is something she should be doing as a mother.

Something important, for when Tanya returns home.

Roka expends a handful of her vacation hours to skip out on her duties as a medic for the day, so that she can delve into researching a solution. Nel is out with her mother's friends for the day and Roka's own motherly intuition, a concept she learned of early in her role as Tanya's mother and hopes she's honed well over the decades, tells her that Tanya will be late. Intentionally so this time, which only spurs Roka to more fervently devour any information she can find on this facet of parenthood.

She does not like what she finds.

More than any other subject under the umbrella of parenthood that Roka has data on, a subject already fraught with flawed data and ungrounded opinions, handling a child who has been revealed to be homosexual is incredibly contradictory and divisive beyond all reason. The "advice" rooted in theology ignorant of the nature of the universe or an incorrect understanding of biology is directly contrary to all notions of being a good mother that Roka has learned with it's mildest advice being rejection of the child. The worst advice evokes an emotion in Roka that she recognizes as kin to Tanya's feelings toward Szayelaporro.

She almost doesn't trust the opposing opinion.

It really couldn't be that simple, could it?

A handful of the quicker and cleverer agents with permission to visit the living world are needed to acquire what Roka does not have on hand in time, but it is well worth it. As when Tanya finally makes it home, Roka feels a warmth she cannot articulate as she pulls her daughter into a hug and tells her that nothing will change how much Roka loves her. A confused but enthusiastic Nel joins in and Roka pointedly ignores whatever reaction she feels coming from her daughter until she can compose herself and pull free from the embrace. Her small family then moves to the dining table, where a rainbow-iced cake sits waiting to be cut.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 8: Amor Incondicional

---

Saki was not doing well. She knew she wasn't doing well. Well, she was doing a little better. She had a lot of money saved up, after all. She just had to be careful. Her last hit should hold up for a while.

'...can't waste it,' she thought, looking at the bundle of cash in her hands. 'One week's worth. It's less than usual.' She opened the locker with her things inside, including the duffel bag where all her savings were kept. 'Because my belly is like this, less people want to pay…' Her hand went over her gravid stomach, the tiniest warmth arising at the thought of her child. As she placed the bundle of cash inside her bag with several others like it, she heard someone behind her.

"Whoa! This bum's loaded!"

"What? No way!"

She looked back and saw…her old classmates. What were they doing here?

"Amazing! You already got millions in there, don't you?" one girl asked her, leaning forward to get a better look. Saki wished she could remember her name. Any of their names, really. "Hey, how come you have so much money?"

"Stop," the other girl whispered while pulling her back, "she's dirty."

Well, that hurt. Yeah, she didn't smell great right now, but she had a bath the day before yesterday.

She made to close the locker, but one of the men caught it.

"Aup, why are you closing it? Can't we just take a look?"

"Isn't this…you know? Where did you steal this money from?" the shorter girl who'd called her dirty asked accusingly. "There's no way a bum could get this much money legally."

"I… I didn't! This is from work!"

"What? Your work as a bum?"

"Hm, stolen, huh?" another man mused, smiling widely. "So, you're a thief…"

"Ah, she's a thief! Now it makes sense!"

Saki's heart was racing, pounding against her ribs. Fear was coursing through her as she realized what was going down. It didn't matter what she said or what she tried to do. She'd heard people talking like this before. Before…when…

She had to get away!

Saki turned, grabbed her duffel bag, and tried to make a break for it, but the big man who had stopped her from shutting her locker reached his arm out and caught her.

"Hey! Don't…run!" he yelled while throwing her back. Saki screamed as she fell, dropping her bag and scattering the rolls and wads of money from within it. Her back hurt, she felt dizzy, and her coat had opened up. She was worried. Worried for herself, her child, her savings, and those eyes. They were looking at her with such disgust and…cruel smiles. They were saying something, but she couldn't make them out. She was too dizzy. Her last hit probably made the pain more bearable, but it definitely didn't help her focus.

"Hey! What the fuck?!" a loud voice shouting in English cut through everything. Her old classmates stopped and turned to look at the interruption. There was a woman there with straight, light-brown hair and green eyes, gazing ruefully at her tormentors. "Just what the hell is going on here?" she demanded switching over to Japanese, though heavily accented.

"Hey, this doesn't concern you, lady," one of the boys tried intimidating her.

The woman scoffed, eyes narrowed and lips twisted in disgust. "So much for that Japanese politeness. I just saw that man throw a very pregnant woman to the floor. I don't care who you are or what you think you're doing, this just became my business."

"What, you care about this dirty bum, gaijin-san?" the taller girl said playfully, stepping closer to Saki and lifting up a foot, pushing it against her belly. "What are you going to do if I-" she started to ask as she reared her foot back.

Whatever question she was asking would go unfinished. Saki hadn't seen the woman move, and not just because she had been looking in fear at the foot getting in position for a kick. One second, the brunette was on one side of the locker room, and the next, she was there, her fist smashed against the girl's face and sending her sprawling, blood and teeth flying through the air and smashing against the lockers along with the girl, who could barely let out a yelp and pained grunts before she fell over.

The others looked on in fear and shock for a moment, and then the man who had thrown her raised up a fist and swung it at the woman with a yell. She ducked, and then her own came up, smashing against his chin just before her other went forward and bashed his nose. He stumbled back, clutching it as it bled, and the other two rushed forward in anger. The woman wove through their punches, catching one's arm and then shoving his elbow back and into his fellow's eye. With one distracted, she focused, yanking the arm forward and slamming her elbow down onto it while gripping the wrist. He screamed in pain, and the woman kicked him away and then knocked the other to the floor with a haymaker.

The first man was back, trying to grab her, but she ducked, stepped to the side, and yanked him along. As he tried to keep his balance, she spun in place and jumped, kicking out and nailing him across the cheek with all the force of her weight and momentum, sending more teeth across the floor. The second swung, but she turned and knocked his arm away, punched him across the face twice, then grabbed his head and jumped up with her knee to slam his face against it, bloodying him further and knocking an incisor loose.

The smaller girl had stood frozen the entire time, as caught up watching the rapid display of one-sided violence as Saki had been, but with far more fear growing as her side slowly lost the battle. She was practically shaking in terror as the woman's gaze lingered upon her.

"Pl-please…I-i-i I didn't do anything."

"You stood there," the woman said darkly. "You egged them on. You bore false witness!"

She backed up when the woman stepped forward, then turned to try and run, but the woman caught her, practically a blur when she dashed, and swung around while holding her arm twisted behind her back and clenching her hair.

"No! No! No! No! No! NO!" she screamed as the woman practically carried her over and reared back, ready to smash her face into a concrete wall.

Something seemed to come over her, though, and she stopped. For a few moments, all Saki heard was the girl's whimpering and the woman muttering under her breath. Not English or Japanese, but a different language she couldn't identify. Unfamiliar to Saki's ears, but comfortable on the woman's tongue.

She suddenly let the girl go, shoving her aside as she did.

"Get out of here!" she seethed, and her former classmate obeyed, running as though her life depended on it. The third boy was trying to prop himself up, looking up at the woman with hatred in his unswollen eye.

"You'll pay for-" Apparently, the violence hadn't fully left her, as her boot smashed into his mouth. More blood and teeth hit the floor as he made muffled cries through his hands clenching his face.

"Learn to shut up," she spat at him. She looked around at the scene she'd created, then took a deep breath and slowly released it. With that, she looked over to Saki and offered her a sad smile.

"Sorry about the mess. Let's get you out of here, okay?"

Saki could only nod as the woman bent down and started picking up her money and helping her pack it back up. Moments later, they were leaving the coin locker as her former classmates stirred. The girl had been first and was distraught and crying at her busted lips and cracked teeth, and the men likely weren't faring better. None of them were going to have complete smiles now unless they got a lot of work done, much like Saki with her one missing canine.

The girl led her away from there and then further into town. She started getting self-conscious about the looks they were receiving, but she couldn't go an alternate route if she wanted. The lady was holding her bag for her.

"Hm, we should be fine out here," the woman said while looking around. It was a very public street, which was why Saki felt so anxious at the moment. People kept giving her sideways glances. Between her tan, her bleached blonde hair, her ragged clothes, and her stomach, she was very noticeable and stuck out like a sore thumb — an unwanted one. "My name's Mary, by the way. Mary Sundén."

"...Yoshida Saki. Wh- Can I ask why you stepped in back there?"

"What a strange question!" Mary half-exclaimed. "Why did I pummel that lot of scum mistreating a poor, expectant mother? Because I have two fists and a heart, because my father taught me to always fight for what's right, and because it was the right thing to do." She winked at that last point. It… It just seemed so silly, like Saki was talking to some anime protagonist come to life. She couldn't help the giggle that came out of her. "Ah, now there's a smile!"

"You're- You're an odd person, Mary-san," Saki said as she rubbed at her eyes.

"My friends tell me that all the time. Anyway, we need to get you set straight. I don't know how the conversion to dollars works, but I know a lot of money when I see it," Mary informed her while hefting up her duffel bag. "Putting all of this in a locker is not safe at all. Even if no one saw you today, someone could have figured it out and broken in to steal it. You need a bank account. Checking if nothing else."

"Uh, I…can't open my own bank account," Saki admitted. "I'm still…a minor…for five more months."

Mary's eyes went wide at that revelation, and Saki felt despair returning.

"Your parents…?"

"They kicked me out a while ago because…" Could she even tell Mary what all led to this point in her life? Any one thing she went through would have made her seem like the filthiest whore in the world. She certainly felt like it some days. She winced, knowing that anyone could paint their own picture. A pregnant gyaru kicked out of her parent's house and somehow having plenty of money despite clearly being homeless? It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on with her.

However, no harsh words came from her new acquaintance. Instead, she suddenly felt herself being pulled forward and held in a tight hug. Saki wasn't a stranger to physical contact with people, but this…was the gentlest anyone had ever held her since her mother's sudden turn.

"You poor child," Mary muttered in English. "No one should have to go through such." She then stepped back from the hug and gave Saki another sad smile. "C'mon. I think I know a way to get around this. Somewhere you can get some real help."

Saki was tired. The heroin in her system wasn't doing anything good for her, and her feet had practically been constantly hurting for months, but she followed Mary. She had no idea where they were going, but she had a feeling. Something about all of this… The American - she was pretty sure she was American by the accent - had jumped in and fought to protect her. Risked herself to get in their way and protect someone she didn't even know. And when she caught just an inkling of her story, she hadn't been disgusted and repelled, she was…saddened. For Saki's sake.

It had been a while since she trusted anyone. The last few people she'd tried to give her trust to had just ripped it up and thrown it and her away. Her mother. Her first serious relationship. They just tossed her out when it became too much for them. But there was that little spark in her heart that still longed to trust someone. Even if it was a foreign stranger whose kind acts to her had included incredible violence. She followed her as she led her along, looking at a strange watch with a compass imposed over its face every once in a while.

As the kept up their walk and took a bus, Saki saw the buildings of downtown give way to smaller, homelier buildings and more trees than before. Appartments then houses took the place of storefronts and small businesses before they stepped off the public transport, and Mary checked her compass-watch again before leading her forward. Soon, they were passing through the doors to a building Saki never would have thought to enter. Mary made a gesture across her chest, and a white man in a priest's outfit noticed them.

"Ah, welcome children! How can we help you?"

"Wh-where are we?" Saki quietly asked.

"A church attached to the nearby American military base." She then nodded to the priest before answering him. "Thank you, father. Just give us a moment please."

"A church?" Saki didn't know much about churches or religions in general, but…wouldn't they despise someone like her? "Are they- Will they help?"

"Not just them. It's just one step. I have a friend, and she's got some credentials, but right now, you need a safe place to rest, and this is a good crossroads. A peaceful place where you'll be safe."

She seemed so sure of this, but Saki wasn't.

"How do you know?"

Mary gave her another smile, but this one lacked all of the sadness her previous ones had.

"Because I'm right where He's led me."

---

Tanya was mildly aggravated about Nnoitra's completely unnecessary commentary during the introduction of the new Primera, the smaller half of which had declared an intent of friendship, like something out of a magical girl manga, only stranger, somehow. Normally, magical girls weren't also soul-eating creatures… Normally. That one with the pink-haired girl and the time traveler she saw in her first life was different.

Still, there was now talk spreading among the populace. By the end of the week, word was going to get around that she was supposedly homosexual.

'...Wait, am I gay, though? I mean, I definitely feel attracted to women. 150 or more collective years of being female hasn't really changed that, has it? Well, if I think about Harribel…yeah. Okay, what about Mila-Rose… Okay, these are bad examples. Loly? Well, if she wasn't so mouthy… Menoly… Sun-sung… Right, yeah, they're all definitely attractive. Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. What about… Do I even want to be attracted to men? No, no, it's not about want. …Actually, it's precisely about want. Ach, focus! Okay, obvious examples I hate or can't like, like the Granzes, are out. Then maybe…Grimmjow? Oh dear. Uh…Ggio? Kinda? Hm, Redder? Maybe if he smiled more. Findorr? Too much mask. Wait, hold on a second?! I am attracted to some men!'

"Is this…what they call bisexual?"

"What's a baisekushuaru?" Lilynette asked as she joined Tanya at the table, setting down a plate of soft-shelled rabbit tacos.

"She likes men and women," one of the four men playing cards at the other table answered, having apparently heard.

"I will have you digging sand trenches, maggot!" Tanya threatened when she realized it was Roder Tyranus, one of her Escudo.

"Just giving honest intel, ma'am," he answered before pushing some chips forward to call. The tan-skinned Arrancar male was black-and-white-haired, the white appearing as patches and spots among the black, and had a mask covering his mouth and nose that looked like a sharp-toothed mouth with teeth around two inches long, each. His currently-opened coat revealed the Hollow hole directly on his stomach. His current opponents consisted of Stark, Ulquiorra, and Ruddborn Chelute. With two of the men having excellent poker faces, and the other two showing little to none of theirs, the advantage of reading their opponents was effectively nulled. Kaien had been cleaned out and was stuck spectating not long in.

"Call," Ulquiorra said as he followed suit.

The Escudo had been excited to invite the Primera over for a game when he learned the man remembered the rules from life. Tanya didn't know how he got Ulquiorra and Ruddborn in on it, but she supposed that was just one of Roder's talents: getting the unexpected done. That and eating enough to supply a small army on his lonesome. Good thing his wife was one of their best cooks.

As Tanya and Lilynette chewed on tacos, Kaien looked over the one offered to him and took a tentative bite.

"So, you planning on going to the Living World tonight?" he said when most of the bite was consumed.

"Yes, and I can already tell what you're going to ask."

"Hey, let me finish, at least," he said before swallowing. "Look, I've had some training in stealth, and I've heard about these cloaks you guys have. Onmitsukidō would have actually killed to have something like that back in the day. Besides, it'll help with your mission, won't it?"

"I have not informed you what my mission is."

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Rukia?" He made a level-handed gesture. "You said she's on a mission in the Living World right now. And your kid sister was yapping about your 'fwiends' earlier."

Tanya rubbed her head. Of course, Nel didn't understand why telling anybody about her short stint in the Living World was…complicated, to say the least. To the tyke, she just went on a bit of an adventure with some friends that got a little hairy towards the end.

"But yeah, I think I get it, and I can help. You want her to not spill the beans on whatever she might know about your operation, and I'm on board. Honestly, don't like the idea of suddenly being picked out as a target by my old comrades, individually or as a group. You guys are pretty cool. I can barely tell you're Hollows half the time."

Ulquiorra looked over at Kaiba, then back to Roder.

"Were we insulted?"

"Actually, I think it might have been a compliment," the man answered just before Miyako and Rosa Diamante, Roder's wife, exited the kitchen, followed closely by Roka and a happily sleeping Nel in her arms. The first two were carrying more food, mostly varieties of tortilla-wrapped meat, cheese, and vegetables, and Roka had a cooled case of drinks.

"Ah, thankye, love," Roder said appreciatively as they set the food down on the counter next to the poker table. "Let's finish this round and eat up. Two pairs, aces and sevens."

"Flush," Ruddborn called while laying out his cards.

"Straight flush," Coyote topped, having the 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Spades. All eyes then went to Ulquiorra, who set his cards down to reveal…

"You had nothing," Tanya noticed with a mite of confusion at the sight of the cards.

"I think you were only slightly better off than a Devil's Hand," Coyote pointed out.

"My strategy was to bluff by doing nothing," Ulquiorra explained. "In the event that someone raised higher than I was willing to risk, I would fold."

"And there I was getting scared you had a Royal," the Primera noted with a slight chuckle. "Damn, I guess it worked out. If you had folded a bad hand early, I mighta pushed a little higher."

"It is a part of a long-term strategy. A drawn-out loss to deprive opponents of future resources."

"Man, I really had no hope here, huh," Kaien noted before looking back at Tanya. "But yeah, what do you say? Let me help out."

There were certainly arguments against bringing him along, but he made a solid point. If Rukia felt pressured to report, she just might, going native or not. But if there was more at risk, like the safety of an old friend she once thought was dead, that could shore up her resolve to keep quiet. And Tanya was fairly certain that there was no lingering prejudice against Arrancar that could override her old friendship. If there were, Tanya would have been ambushed during that whole swarm situation. If anything, they had probably gone out of their way to tell their superiors they had everything under control to keep them from poking in, seeing as neither Nel nor any of the Picaro had been harmed. In fact, the Picaro wrangled a few pets and a new member out of the whole situation.

"Very well, but if you're control starts slipping enough that I think you're giving away our position, I'm tossing you back in through a Garganta."

"That's fair. But thanks."

"Tanya," her mother then said, approaching her with a box. "I had heard…from others at Médico something that I hadn't known before, which helped bring everything about earlier today into context." She set the box down in front of her, pushing the platter of tacos to the side, then bent down and wrapped Tanya in a tight hug.

"M-mom!" This was incredibly unusual for Roka to do so suddenly. Sure, she hugged her every once in a while, usually before and after going to work. But there were other people here! At least two of them were subordinates, and three were peers she needed to look professional in front of.

"No matter what, I will always love you," she said comfortingly, and Tanya felt her heart swell with emotion a little, despite the embarrassment.

"I love you too, mom, but…" Roka stood up from the hug, then took the top of the box off, revealing a cake inside, iced in a rainbow color pattern with little icing doodles of herself, Roka, Nel, Pesche, Dondachakka, and Bawabawa on the top, heart-shaped sprinkles lining it all. "El Amor es Amor" was written in little icing letters just below them.

"Oh," Tanya realized. It seemed her mild issue of perception from the outside was also a concern for Roka, but her mother chose to be supportive. It was rather touching, all things considered. She could admit to feeling a little misty-eyed at the sight, right? "Thank you."

"Nel drew the pictures before she tired out," Roka explained. "Rosa helped with baking it and making the icing."

"We used chocolate," Rosa added, pushing her pink hair back, "since your mama said it's your favorite."

"Oh yeah, that El Gibbitkey stuff," Roder mentioned, seeing the cake.

Tanya blinked. "El…Gibbitkey?"

"Yeah, you know. L-G-B-T-Q-I," he spelled out while picking up a burrito. "How else would you say it?" His mask popped open with a 'clack' and he placed the whole foodstuff into the void that was his mouth, then it clicked back shut, and he started chewing. "Mm, delicious as always, dear."

Tanya shook her head and smiled lightly at the cake once again. Maybe she was being sentimental, but it felt nice to know that she was loved and cared for in this life.

"I think I know what cake is," Lilynette said while leaning over her to get a better look, pressing herself to Tanya's arm, where her short sleeve allowed her skin contact with the other girl's bare sternum area. "I want some! Let me have some!"

"Er, yeah, sure." Tanya wished she could just tell Lilynette not to get so close, but with them so new to everything, it might seem cold and rejective after Roka's recent display of affection. She just really didn't want to be directly touching the skin of a girl who looked prepubescent, even if she was in the same boat as her.

'Hell, she might be technically older than all my lives put together! Damn confusing growth rates!'

---

Isshin was fuming after Urahara's detailed explanation of the situation with his wife's soul. He had to be talked back down into his seat three times when he'd been prepared to run out and get answers, needing to be reminded that he couldn't exactly go to the Hollow World and track down the girl.

Ryuken was there, as well. He had almost as much right to know about Masaki's current fate as her husband. After all, they were still family, awkward as their situation may have been back in the day. If life had gone differently, the two families would have probably run into each other more often, eventually.

"Is there any way to ascertain her…honesty about this?" Ryuken finally asked. While he normally would have wanted all the afterlife's problems to stay away, this one was too close to home.

Urahara shrugged. "Never really needed to separate the souls within a Hollow before, gently or not. I could probably throw something together and work from there, but it'll take time. But right now, I'm more worried about what she's after."

"What do you mean, what she's after?" Isshin demanded. "She's been messing with my family, with Ichigo's whole thing! Trying to sweeten them up so she can whisk them away for something!"

"Yes, for something," Urahara emphasized. "That's what I want to know. Because depending on what that something is…it might be worth going along with rather than preventing."

Isshin looked at him like he'd grown a second head, but Ryuken looked a bit more curious.

"How do you mean?"

"When I put it all together, some things didn't add up. Aizen's planning has got to be coming to a head. Whether he knew it was coming or not, I've already set the stage by placing the Hogyoku in that draining gigai. Even if poor Rukia-chan was removed from it, the Hogyoku is deep inside her soul. Not her spiritual body, but her actual soul. It will break down over time, though I fear it's going to cause a lot of changes in those around it before it finally fades. It's already started. If she dies, it'll still follow her, and be lost in the Cycle. Therefore, Aizen's best interest, should he have learned about it, would have been to wait patiently and then strike, probably with some way to remove it from her if not just keep her around. Instead, I got an Arrancar effectively telling us that he knows. I thought it was a taunt, but the appearance of those…kids at the swarm made me think differently."

Isshin scoffed. "Don't tell me you were fooled by them?"

"That's just it. I wasn't. Most of those kids were proudly going by numbers before names. Uno, Dos, Tres, so on. And it was clear that they were far too in sync for normal children. Still kids at heart, but a kid who can just as easily pick the legs off of a bug as they can run out to save a kitten in the middle of a busy road. They weren't raised normally. It was too organized and similar. Like a production line."

Isshin blinked a few times before going wide-eyed.

"Then there was the little one, Nel. Not nearly as synced up with them. In fact, she was off the mark with their little ticks almost every time, like she was just following along to try and fit in with the bigger kids. But her power… She swallowed a Gillian's Cero and spat it back out with more power added to it than before. It stunned her to do it, but she was right back on her feet seconds later. Then she spit out healing drool. That's not the kind of power you expect a Hollow to have at any level. If they have healing abilities, it normally just expresses itself as regeneration of different sorts. Healing others isn't something they do, naturally."

"But artificially?" Ryuken tried, having followed along about the explanation of Aizen's past experiments earlier and seeing where this was going.

"Not only that, but when she came through… She hadn't really noticed us at first. She was genuinely concerned about Nel. I don't know if she wanted me to hear or hadn't realized what she was saying, but the Cero trick was apparently inherited from the girl's mother. And she hadn't even known about the healing ability. Then there was the adult… What can I even say…?"

"Adult?" Isshin asked. "What'd she look like?"

"Fairly plain and incredibly human. The mask was the only thing giving her away, but I could feel her reiatsu. Very calm and controlled, but big. Tanya referred to her as 'mom' a few times, but she didn't say or do much aside from watch over Nel and follow the princess around like a puppy. Whatever Aizen has set up over there, it has at least two distinct methods. Whatever is producing Arrancar who act more like machines, and whatever is making their elite forces, specialized and powerful Arrancar like Tanya and Nel, only he may have a collection of far more powerful adults at this point and time."

"That's…not good," Isshin admitted. "But what does that have to do with going along with this Tanya's plans?"

"Because it's possible everything she's been doing may have been playing ignorant innocent child not for our perspective, but for Aizen's." He held up a finger and gave them a contemplative look. "Think about it. If Aizen wanted to taunt me, it'd be a risk. I might change course. I could stop him from getting the Hogyoku right now by just killing Rukia, twice if I have to, and then her soul is the Dangai's until it decides to have her reborn in the Living or Soul World, and neither are easily scoured for something so hidden. He has no reason to think I wouldn't. I'd hate it, but if I thought it was the only way… Well, let's just never let the kids know what lengths we'll go to.

"So her doing this comes across more as an information leak if he picks up on it. But it's small, subtle, and deniable. After all, she's not here for Rukia. She's been looking into your kids, and I have my theories about why that started," he added at Isshin's glare, "but right now, it's what she's trying to get to me. After Rukia showed up, she laid the groundwork and extended a hand of trust with that healing serum. The stuff's good, but it also shows that they have some kind of production set up, which includes medicine made specifically for humans. Even if I hadn't picked up her sounding out other names for things a Hollow would never need, just that one proves as much. So then, Rukia has reason to trust her, assuming she used the medicine. She didn't, but your son decided to test it himself, and at least proved it does exactly what the label says. Just in time for her next visit. By the way, that blue crystal? Dumortierite quartz of that purity at that size can easily run for 70,000 yen."

Isshin blinked a few times. "That's…not insignificant, but not a whole lot, either. But if she's been doing that often…"

"Basically giving a low salary's worth of goods to your kids as presents on her visits. All under the guise of paying them back for some coffee." Urahara nodded. "But back to her visit, she revealed Masaki's Quincy past to them." Ryuken's frown deepened. "And after explaining that, she decided to tell Ichigo more in private, but he decided to bring Rukia along. Think he wanted her there for her perspective as a Shinigami, but she couldn't do much while it was happening. That's where they learned about her eating Grand Fisher, the Hollow that killed and ate Masaki."

"That still seems strange to me," Ryuken commented. "Quincy souls…don't mix well with Hollows."

"It's only a theory, but I think after the entire situation with White, her soul might have gained some sort of an…immunity or resistance, either like a vaccine or as parts left behind by the treatment. There's no telling unless and until this Tanya brings us proof. But still, she revealed a lot to them both, about the Quincies in general, but also about herself. Things she hadn't explained to Ichigo before that, from the sound of things. And now, with those kids, I think I see what her message might be."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," Isshin demanded. "What do you think she wants?"

"Help. Against Aizen."

The former Shinigami Captain's eyebrows went high.

"She's called the princess, but her father was overthrown. She was very careful to tell them that it was an acceptable situation, but now that we've seen what those kids and her mother are like… She wants us to empathize. Aizen isn't just making some oasis in the desert to bait powerful Hollows, he's been altering, experimenting, and breeding them while taking the bulk and training them into near-mindless soldier drones, either to be put on the battlefield or used to make the next generation from which he could pick out the exceptional ones. Maybe he was aiming for something specific. Nel-chan there was basically designed for defense and recovery. What if he wanted something able to mess with electronic signals, or an Arrancar specifically designed to extinguish fires no matter how large?"

"...Damn," Isshin muttered as he realized what that would mean. "The Old Man wouldn't be defenseless without it, but…"

"He'd be able to neutralize one of his most potent weapons," Urahara finished the thought. "The Princess is one of those specialized ones, going by how free-willed she is, but she was still subjected to the process. Her mother is basically a broken soul, and her father would have to be one of the most spirited, no matter what Aizen did to get him in line. She'd see that, and compare it, and realize what's going on. She knows what Aizen has done, what he's doing, and what he plans to do with them, and she wants out. And that's why she's reaching out to people like your kids, potential Quincies. And why she's now trying to get messages to me."

"Hypothetically," Ryuken reminded him.

"Like I said, the only other options are that Aizen is taking a risk to toy with me, which might seem like something he'd do, except not for something this important to him. Or, she's somehow completely clueless about everything and just happened to gesture in our direction with words and events that just appear to be a call for help. But with what she said to me, 'violent people with grudges.' That's not Aizen, that's the Seireitei. …And perhaps myself and Shinji's gang. She knows the Shinigami won't be of help, so she's coming to the people who have a bone to pick with Aizen. If he kept any records or told any tales about us, it would have given her a hint as to where to look. Assuming they weren't something she just happened to stumble upon, she would have felt your kids' spiritual pressures and figured that someone would have to come around sooner or later. Or that much is just a coincidence, and she was hoping they could be useful on their own. Rukia just happened to come in right before she would've started getting them up to speed, so she decided to nix the problematic part about Quincies and encourage Ichigo to develop his Shinigami talents. She might not know the whole deal about Substitutes, though. If she found out about you, she might have been thinking it was something you planned out."

Isshin scoffed. "Damn!"

"I just need to get confirmation. She's going to come back around at some point, and I have left an open invitation for her to come check out the shop. In disguise, of course. We need to talk somewhere secure enough she feels confident telling us whatever she wants without Aizen looking in."

A small alarm beeped. Neither doctor knew what it was, but the scientist looked surprised before he pulled out a phone-like device.

"That…is my Garganta alarm. It's probably her."

"Damn," Isshin muttered as he stood. "Can you tell where she's headed?"

"She's really good at suppressing her reiatsu. …But someone else must be with her. Faint signature. En route to your house."

Isshin tensed up at that while Ryuken got to his feet and adjusted his glasses.

"I suppose we're going there, then?"

"We?" Isshin asked the man.

"This concerns my family as well. While I don't like getting mixed into soul business, your children are still my kin. And if this Arrancar is looking around for Quincy allies, then I'd prefer to tell her myself that she's not going to find any more."

"Always good to have backup," Urahara said after reaching over into a stall and tossing a Gikongan container over to Isshin. "Best if we get there as fast as possible."

Isshin groaned. "I'd rather the girls not see me like this, but…" He took out the pill and swallowed it, ejecting his soul from his gigai body. "Oof, been a while. Hey, just sit here and wait for us," he instructed the Gikon.

"Hey, no problem, Boss," the false soul said before taking a seat.

"Let's go," Isshin said before taking off in Shunpo, feeling like he was stretching an old, unused muscle as he did, the other two right behind him. It was certainly much faster than just walking or driving, but he told himself that he couldn't let himself get used to it. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to be like this much more often after this. Tonight was just a special case, after all.

They stopped just outside of the clinic, then he walked over to hide behind a tree.

"What are you doing?" Ryuken asked him, sounding quite annoyed.

"Hiding, what does it look like?"

"Do you honestly think that that's going to work? They'll probably-" Whatever the Quincy was going to say was interrupted by the sound of two beings coming to a stop a few meters away, as though they snapped into place.

"Oof, okay, that was different," a male voice said, perking up the ears of the two Shinigami-in-exile.

"Told you," the voice of a young girl trying to sound mature answered. "I don't know how exactly Shunpo is supposed to work, but Sonido functions differently. Different methods for the same results. Hm, oh, Urahara-san, fancy seeing you here! Ah, who is this?"

Urahara gestured to the Quincy. "Ishida Ryuken. You met his son the other day, you'll recall."

"Ah, the Quincy boy! I hope he's doing well."

"He doesn't talk to me much these days," Ryuken answered, adjusting his glasses again while getting a good look at the girl.

"And, of course, we have Isshin over here," Urahara said while stepping over. A small, blonde girl fitting the description of Tanya to the T went stiff at the sight of him, recognizing his shihakusho.

"Shinigami! Wh- Why didn't I sense you?"

"Uncle Isshin?!" the other called out in shock, making the man look over and balk at what he was seeing.

"K-k-k-Kaien?!" he shouted before jumping forward, landing just in front of his thought-to-be-dead nephew and looking him over as he was, in turn, looked over.

"You got old," the Arrancar version of his nephew pointed out, making him grimace.

"It's been a little rough, okay. And what about you? You…lost an eye?" He tapped a finger to the mask over Kaien's right eye, looking like a much tinier half of a face on his face, and got swatted away.

"N- No, I can still see out of that one, sort of. Pretty sure it blinks and stuff. Never mind that. What are you doing here?"

"I live here," he pointed out while gesturing to the house, then smiling proudly. "You like it? I opened up a clinic."

"You… It says 'Kurosaki'."

"I took my wife's name."

"...Somebody married you?"

"Aw, you're still a little knucklehead!" Isshin declared before wrapping an arm over Kaien's shoulder and pulling him in for a side hug.

"Wait, your uncle?" Tanya finally got out, getting the two's attention. Apparently, the Arrancar girl had been completely caught off-guard by their sudden reunion, not that the other two men were in a much better position. "You're his uncle? A Shinigami? But you…live here? Kurosaki?"

"Ah yeah, we haven't met yet," Isshin said as if just realizing it. In truth, he was switching gears inside, now seeing that the girl was off-kilter. So she hadn't known about him. "Don't know how it works for you Arrancar, but around here it's kinda rude to not introduce yourself to the owner when you're constantly visiting their house."

"Oh, uh, I apologize," she offered with a polite bow. "You've always been out when I was around. …I was also under the impression you couldn't see spirits."

"It was a bit of condition I had," Isshin said in order to brush off that. "I'm better now. Tell you what, let's go inside. I gotta introduce Kaien to his cousins!"

"You reproduced?!"

"You're hilarious," Isshin shot back with a laugh. He was definitely feeling good with this pleasant surprise. For a second, he was worried they had just copied his nephew's likeness, but he could feel his reiatsu under that cloak of his from this close. It was definitely Kaien's. It was tinted by a Hollow signature, but if he had felt it from a distance (and thought he was alive for some reason), he would have just assumed it was Kaien standing near a Hollow. Also, no fake was able to recreate the particular familiar snark Kaien possessed. He led the group inside, checked the time, and figured his kids could afford to be up a little late if they weren't already staying up past bedtime. "Yuzu, Karin, Ichigo! Come on down, I got somebody important for you to meet!"

The twins stumbled out of their room, bleary-eyed, but waking up.

"What the heck are you waking us up for?" Karin asked in annoyance. "And what are you wearing?"

"Who is-" Yuzu started to ask as she opened up her eyes and saw them. She then shouted in fright, scarring the lot of them.

"Daddy, no!" she yelled before running down the stairs and then leaping to wrap her father in a hug. "You're a ghoooooooost!"

"Huh, wha? No, I'm not a-"

"I can see through you!" she declared with despair.

"Ah, you must look transparent to her," Tanya pointed out. "She couldn't see me at all at first, so she's grown since then."

"Wait, Dad's dead?" Karin asked as she caught up to her sister. "What happened?"

"Girls, I'm not dead. It's just…an out-of-body experience kind of…thing. My body's perfectly fine back at the shop."

"Why's your body at a shop?" Karin asked pointedly as Yuzu slowly calmed down, still looking up at him with watery eyes. "And since when could you astrally project?"

"It was the quickest way home." He thought that over for a moment. "I've been practicing, and it worked. Anyways, I got important things to tell you and your brother."

"I think Ichigo's out doing something," Karin told him, and Isshin sighed.

"Boy's too wild for his own good."

"Does it have anything to do with why he's sometimes wearing clothes exactly like this?" she asked while pinching at his shihakusho's sleeve.

"Uh, I'll explain that later. First, let me introduce you girls to your cousin. Meet Shiba Kaien!"

"Yo," Kaien greeted them with a smile. "Heh, now that I see ya, you look almost just like my little sister when she was a kid."

"Wow, you look just like Ichi-nii, but with black hair!" Yuzu pointed out, her tears wiped away now and her frown replaced with a smile.

"Wait, are you a ghost?" Karin asked. Kaien rubbed the back of his neck as he thought it over.

"Kinda," he admitted. "I mean, I was born in the Soul Society, then I got eaten by a Hollow, but then I got out."

"...How?" Urahara decided to ask.

"Something about a Soul Resonance machine."

"Ah, yes, we were testing out a new invention, Resonador del Alma," Tanya explained. "It let's us isolate souls within a Hollow and possibly stimulate them in order to bring their consciousness to bear. Officially, it's for pushing Gillians through to Adjucha status. Though I am hoping it leads to finding a way to…" She suddenly looked over to the girls as she stopped herself from explaining further. Isshin was sure he knew where she was going with that, though. "Well, it helps find us particular souls, is the point. Kaien happened to be in our test subject."

"And Miyako," he added.

"Your wife's alive, too?" the elder Shiba asked.

"Yeah, she just stayed back in Hueco Mundo while I came… Oh yeah, we're supposed to be looking for Rukia."

"Rukia-san?" Yuzu asked. "You know her?"

"Sure do." He gave her another smile. "I owe her for helping me out a while back. And the princess here wants to check in with her about some things."

"Oh, so you really are a princess?" Karin asked.

"You thought I was lying?"

"I honestly had no idea if you were or weren't. For all I knew you were the daughter of a tribal chief who bossed around maybe 20 people."

"...I suppose you had no way of confirming, so I can't blame your skepticism. Still, kinda hurts. Tribal chief children don't have teams of scientists working on solutions to growing food in the desert."

"Guess not. By the way, who are these guys?"

Attention then shifted over to Urahara and Ryuken, the shopkeeper giving a big smile to the girls.

"Why I am Urahara Kisuke, proprietor of the Urahara Shōten."

"Oh, that reminds me, after we speak with Rukia, I need to place a bulk order with you if you can handle it."

"Bulk order?" the exile asked, interest mildly caught.

"Mostly candy with reishi content. Flavors don't matter, as long as there's a significant amount of chocolate included. Seeds capable of growing under desert conditions. And do you happen to know if you can obtain livestock that could survive Hueco Mundo's atmosphere?"

"Ah, I will have to look into it, but I have a good feeling." Nodding in satisfaction, Tanya then gestured over to Ryuken.

"Oh, before we forget, this man's a Quincy," she said, surprising the doctor. "You should introduce yourselves to him. He could be helpful."

"Oh hey, for real?"

"Did you know our mom?" Yuzu asked hopefully.

"Maybe we should all sit down for this?" Isshin suggested.

Odd as it all was, things were going pretty well in his opinion. His nephew was alive, his wife might be able to come back, and Ryuken looked like he was about to get grilled by his tween daughters on information about their mother. And for Urahara, it looked like he was getting whatever it was he wanted from the Hollow Princess. Maybe it was a big step on the way to tripping up Aizen something fierce?

Yeah, it was looking like a good day.

~

Veronica was having a terrible time. She had managed to track down the Princesa's targets, only to find them being harried by a pair of Shinigami. Subject Rukia was apparently being arrested. The Quincy Ishida had tried to intervene but had been dispatched by one of the Shinigami. And now Kurosaki Ichigo was down after having fought off one, only for the other to down him almost instantly.

"Agent V, requesting permission to engage Shinigami," she spoke into her headpiece. She had enough data here, she believed. She knew how the redhead fought, and now she had a decent idea of the dark-haired one's speed and strength. Kurosaki might have been impressive for a human, but this was on a different level compared to what he could perform at. The sort that she was made to engage in and finish quickly.

She grimaced as she was reminded again of the purpose of her creation: to kill. Her mother was just bad at it, with claws that cut too precisely and tendrils that wanted to close any wound they sensed, hers or another's. So she made a killer, then improved her, over and over.

"Agent Blue speaking, we can't approve this," Usagi Azula answered her, sounding slightly scared about the situation they found themselves in. They hadn't imagined that the Shinigami were going to extract their own agent and cover their tracks so forcefully. It looked like Kuchiki Rukia's attempt to go native had taken a bad turn.

"Princesa here, confirming engagement," Princess Tanya's voice suddenly said through the link. Veronica smiled, her razor teeth showing. Oh, how she hated her purpose, but the chemicals flowing as she prepared to kill always felt so nice. She'd hate it later, but right now, she was on top of the world.

"Engagement orders confirmed. Extracting assets," she said as her perception sped up and her muscles tightened and limbered in alterations.

"Huh, wait, do not kill the Shinigami!" the Princess suddenly added, sounding confused. "I repeat, non-lethal takedowns only!"

That would be harder, but…Veronica could do that. Just…don't go for the vitals. Tendons, muscles… They could survive gut wounds if they got Fran on the case.

Yeah, she could pull it off.

"Con-firmed," she got out before she dashed forward, hitting her stride to rush out of the alley and blindside the already injured redhead identified as Abarai Renji, currently gripping Rukia by the neck. He grunted as her open palm strike landed, two of her needles extending and piercing flesh before injecting their contents. In her ring finger was a temporary neuro-blocker, and the index had a morphine extract. They would take some time to circulate, and neither dose was enough to down him on their own, but between them and batting him down, he stood no chance.

"Argh, what the hell is with this place?!"

"Ni-ni-ni-ni-nice to meet you. Prepare for incision!" her mouth chattered. She always hated that effect, but they felt funny while they were happening, so she laughed right now. "Nurse, swab!" she said before reaching under her shawl with both hands and drawing her preferred weapons, one razor-sharp sickle, perfect for hooking around limbs from running subjects, and her long dagger, great for getting in between someone's ribs from behind.

'Focus! Fight! Not running!'

"Who…are you?" Rukia asked her, gaze looking over her, pausing at her face. She was probably focusing on the x-shaped scar over her face. Or her eyes. They probably looked glassy from the outside.

"Hola, señorita, you have retained the services of one Euthanasia Expert Veronica. Please hold while we finish our business here. Might take a while!"

"What are you?" the one identified as Kuchiki Byakuya asked her, gaze leveled and sword held at the ready. "Your reiatsu is not human."

"Please hold all questions until after the presentation."

She dashed over in Sonido, sickle coming down and parried, then jabbed forward towards the man's head. He dodged, stepping to the side in Shunpo.

'Fast! Be faster!'

Her brain felt another rush of adrenaline, specialized glands filtering out the oxidized adrenochrome as fast as it could build up. Her blades flashed forward again and again, the Shinigami finding he had to change to using both hands to keep up after a cut found its way on his wrist. Veronica's smile grew, her teeth separating a bit as she laughed. Her senses then called out to her before she spun and raked her dagger across Renji's chest when he tried to sneak up on her.

"Abarai!" the captain called out to his subordinate after they both Flash-Stepped away.

"Taichou, that brat…she poisoned me with something!" the lieutenant grunted while clutching his chest. Rukia looked at her in surprise.

"You poisoned him?!" the girl asked in surprise.

"Hey, you better clear that up," Usagi Rojami told her. "She sounds upset. I think they know each other."

Ah, what a time-waster! Oh well.

Veronica raised up her hand, index pointed up, and extended the hypodermic needle.

"C-c-concentrated morphine." Then she switched over to the ring finger. "Temp-orary neuro-blocker. You will live. Orders are order are law!"

"Tch, what the hell sent this thing?!"

"I do not know. It appears unstable. Tend your wounds. I will stop this."

Veronica could feel some shakes starting. Not good. She had to tag the captain quickly. The scratch was barely an irritant. She had a lot more work to do.

"I am Kuchiki Byakyua, Captain of the 6th Division."

Oh, they were doing that now?

"Veronica Fraustein. Euthanasia Expert. Cuerpo de Palas. I must incapacitate you now. Careful with the bleeding!"

He then took a stance. Classic, in her eyes. She took her own, ready to spring forward, dagger held in front, sickle held back for a swing. She kicked off, cracking the pavement as she launched forward, bringing her sickle around and letting go of her dagger long enough to reach forward, prepared to use a fast-acting paralytic.

Suddenly, she felt none of the comforting resistance of her sickle in hand. Nor did she feel her right hand at all. And the target was no longer in front of her.

A clattering sound reached her ears as she grabbed her dagger from the air and turned to see her sickle on the ground, her hand still wrapped around it, as well as most of her arm up to a few inches from her shoulder, now severed from her.

"W-what?" she asked, stunned by the sight. She looked at her side and saw the bleeding stump, coagulating agents working to slow the bloodloss. Pain slowly registered as her systems switched over from kill mode to survival. She heard a rush of air and turned, trying to strike with her dagger, but the man's sword was already on the path. Her left hand was sliced off behind the wrist, and she screamed in pain and terror as she finally processed what was happening.

"My hands!" she cried out, backing away from the man in fear. The Shinigami was now looking at her differently, an expression that she couldn't decipher. "You… You cut off my arms!"

Suddenly a fist impacted her face, knocking her down. Pain was back to normal, and her severed limbs were hurting like hell, but she still felt that and was dazed by it. Her glands were sending signals to her body to get up and run. Glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acids were going into overdrive to convince her to get out of there.

Oh, but her hat fell off…

"What the hell?! Is that…a Hollow mask? And a hole? In her head?"

"A Hollow?" Byakuya asked, eyes narrowing in anger. "Why was a Hollow…sent to stop us from taking in Rukia?"

"Veronica, get out of there!" Verdea screamed. "Help's too far! Just escape!"

Escape? She had to get…away!

Veronica scrambled to her feet, her lack of arms making it more clumsy than it should have been, but as she got to her feet, the Captain was there in a flash, his blade driving forward. Veronica gasped as she felt it pierce her Hierro and drive through her chest, looking down to see the Zanpakuto impaling her. Tears began to escape her eyes as she realized just how outclassed she had been this whole time.

"N- Nii-sama!" Rukia called out. "She was…running away. She…"

"She's a Hollow," the elder Kuchiki ground out, pushing his blade in deeper before slashing it down and through her. Veronica screamed out in pain as her blood spattered out across road and sidewalk, knees shaking and threatening to collapse. "Our duty is to purify them. That is the merciful thing to do."

Veronica was finding it hard to stand, dizziness threatening to force her to drop, but…there was something about the man in front of her. His words.

"Kill them quickly, my child. Be merciful." "Better a quick death." "Everything about you is designed to kill a single target as quickly as possible. You aren't made for fighting." "Just land the killing blow first."

Not even Fran could completely override their mother's designs, even years later. At best, she made her recovery time quicker, so she could fight, in short bursts. Filtering out and holding back the crashes from her systems tuning her up to strike a killing blow and nothing else. Useless for anything that wasn't dealing instant death.

This just proved it, didn't it? She tried to fight, aimed for the non-lethal options, and now she was dying for it.

Well, if this was it…

Then what the fuck did any of it matter?!

Her mouth opened and clamped down on the Shinigami's hand, as fast as she could muster. Her teeth bit through skin and flesh and started to crack the bone beneath. The man flinched up, and with his other hand, swung his blade, severing Veronica in half below her ribcage. She only bit down harder, and then it gave. She fell down, a pinky and connected metacarpal clenched in her jaws and gone from his bleeding hand.

At least she finally got a good clear expression out of him. Anger.

'Doesn't matter so much now,' she thought as her muscles all began to unclench, her eyes rolled up, and her brain felt cleared of its interfering chemicals. 'Guess I'll…go to sleep now.

'May we be reborn to a better life.'

~

Urahara figured he shouldn't have left this to chance. He knew Ichigo needed to learn the hard way. Not even Isshin could argue with that.

He didn't expect to walk upon a scene of butchery right next to the unconscious boys. An Arrancar that looked so much like a little girl, already covered in scars. He thought she was dead, but…

Well, their doctor, almost as scarred as her, was putting her back together, getting replacement organs from a human-shaped walking receptacle where she needed them. If he caught her name right, then she was the same one responsible for that healing serum. Four arms worked their magic, snipping and stitching and injecting.

"I should have stepped in," he heard Yoruichi state and looked down at her cat form.

"Not like you to regret how you approach a fight."

"I could say the same about you."

He nodded. "There's been more going on than we expected." His gaze then turned to Tanya, who had gone pale and had yet to recover as she got debriefings from each of the four subordinates who had been monitoring the situation. Each of them was a young-looking woman, rabbit-like masks on their heads with minor differences between them, and a variety of hair colors. She then looked at him, worry on the verge of panic written across her face before she approached.

"Urahara, you were there. You heard what I said," she reminded him of her sudden outburst into an earpiece she was using to keep updated on her people's movements. She'd apparently known about Ichigo and Rukia's locations not too long after they started talking at the Kurosaki household but had wanted to be polite and wait for them to come home. "Did I… Did I make an order to engage?"

Kisuke thought it over, then shook his head. "You said for someone to "not kill the Shinigami" and use "non-lethal takedowns only". Almost those exact words."

"Nothing about confirming an engagement?"

He shook his head. "I don't believe the word left your mouth."

Slowly, the panic in her eyes was subsiding. There was something there that she was scared of, though he didn't know what exactly it was. However, he did have a good idea about what might have happened in this instance.

"Say, why don't you come rest at my store? We're taking Ichigo there to look over his wounds a little closer. Fraustein-san did good work, but… I'm afraid his injuries are rather specific. I have a place where we can talk privately. No chance of eavesdropping. At all."

She seemed to understand that much, at least, and nodded before going over to the four-armed doctor, who was now monitoring vitals with a stethoscope. "Fran, is everything all right?"

"...She's stable, but…it was really close. Her backup hearts kept her torso alive, and necrosis didn't set into the arms, but…I've never dealt with a wound made by a Shinigami's blade before. There's something different about this. She's not healing the same."

"...I am…sorry. About what happened." The doctor just shook her head.

"You couldn't have known. She's always been too confident for her own good." One hand then reached over and ruffled the hair of the unconscious Arrancar, thumb rubbing against the mask that resembled a viper's face hanging off to the left side. "Maybe she'll be more careful from now on and stop worrying her big sisters so much."

Ah, that's right. Yoruichi had caught her name. Veronica Fraustein. A pair of siblings that resembled stitched-up creations of a mad scientist, with potentially more in Hueco Mundo.

Aizen really was trying everything over there.

"Head back once everything's secure here. …Leave whatever reports you feel you have to write down on my desk."

"Organs age out and have to be disposed of all the time," the girl explained. Far too serene for someone who just had to put her little sister back together.

"Of course. I'll be along shortly, once I have…dealt with some things."

With that, he led her away from the scene, thinking about whether or not Aizen was watching everything, or even if he could. In a moment, he wouldn't be able to, but until then, best to remain quiet. After Ichigo was safely set down and Tessai began tending to him with Kaido, Urahara then led the girl down into the basement.

"Well, would you look at that?" he said as they came out to the underground area designed by him. "Someone built a place like this underneath my shop!"

"...Did you build this place?" she asked in astonishment.

"Oh, well, I had some help, of course," he joked, feeling a bit of that weight coming off his chest.

"It's no Dome of Las Noches, but it's still impressive in its own right. You must have used some…spacial techniques to keep it all under your own property." She then looked at him in a new light. "Just who are you, Urahara Kisuke?"

"Why I'm but a simple shopkeeper who happens to know a few things. For instance, do you know what the power of Aizen Souske's Zanpakuto is?"

"...Complete hypnosis," she muttered, surprising Urahara a little, but she seemed more shocked than him about that. "You…know about Aizen?"

"Probably more than anyone else. Not saying much, but still."

"You know his plans."

"The broadest strokes. I know what he plans to do with your people, Tanya-chan." He pointed his cane up at the ceiling. "Don't worry about being overheard. The Kido we've layered over this place basically makes it next to impossible for anyone to spy on us here."

"I… I…see. You're…not going to interrogate me?"

"I think I'd rather hear what you want to tell me yourself."

She gulped. He could understand the hesitation. She had gone from constantly being watched and was just told that she was finally secure. It wouldn't be easy to get her to open up completely.

"Let's start simple, then. How did you first meet Aizen?"

"...When he first came, they'd killed all the Adjuchas at court that day and…held father at sword point." Her eyes were starting to look downcast, her fists tightening. He felt a little bad, asking her to relive that time. "I was…maybe eight months old? Almost a year? All I knew was he was in danger, but…"

He listened along and nodded. He said it wasn't an interrogation, but he did ask questions to help her find her pace. Soon, she was explaining how Aizen ran things, and how she'd worked to make everything work despite him.

It was, at once, not the exact kind of bad he thought, yet in many ways worse. Mad scientists created Arrancar out of whatever they could. Patrols were sent out to find the legendary Vasto Lorde in order to recruit and convert them. A bloody promotion system encouraging back-stabbing and violent competition. And to fuel it all he tossed the 'chaff' to the former Princess for her to make something useful out of. Palas. Shovels. If his kanji was written right, then it could also come out as Dirt Biters.

He was sure he saw tears trying to escape and suggested that they take a break, but she refused. She really wanted to get it out.

"And now…you think he interfered directly. Tried to cause that incident?"

"If the Usagis and Veronica have all seen his Shikai, then they can be tricked wherever they are, so long as he's aware of what the situation is. All he'd need is one listening device."

The look on her face was dark, but it was to be expected. That was her direct subordinate he had sent to get killed, and she almost had. If there wasn't a doctor like that Francisca on hand, she wouldn't have made it. Even if Tessai could heal a Hollow as well as he could humans and souls, he couldn't have saved her if he tried.

"...But I haven't," she muttered. "Because…when he used it on Father, I looked away."

…Now, wasn't that interesting?

"And never after that?"

"I would remember if I had. I just…stopped thinking about it after a while. I was busy with work. Training, recruiting, building, documenting…"

"Building a civilization where there wasn't."

She nodded. "What…do I do now?"

"Well, I have a plan, but I've got to see if Ichigo will be able to get back in shape for it. He was hurt deeply."

"His Hakusui and Saketsu," she recalled. "Like that, he's powerless, unless Quincy reishi manipulation works differently somehow. I read that once those are destroyed, they can't be fixed."

Urahara allowed himself a large smile. "Ah, but I may actually have a method."

~

"There you go, little guy," Vicky said as she poured some cat food into a bowl for the old feline. Nearby, a little old lady smiled at the sight.

"Glad to see there are still decent you people out there," she said as she slowly began to fade away, the chain linking her to the house disappearing into motes of light.

"We'll get him to a good home," Mary reassured her, hand placed reassuringly over the passed away elder's.

"I believe you. Hm, good kids." And then she was gone, and the lights that had arisen with her finally passing into the afterlife slowly winked out, one by one.

"Always something else to see that happen," the young Warren Grant said, squatting near the door. As he stood, Ellya walked in from outside.

"Little old lady moved on?" At the others' nods, she sighed. "That's good. Got news about your stray. The folks at the base have her put up. Got a rehab ready for her and temporary care for her kid. Somehow almost no one's calling these as favors, except my contact who's got a job prospect at the restaurant."

"Well, would you look at that," Mary said with a hint of sarcasm. "Faith in humanity can lead to good things."

"You got the cheat sheet to the world, kid. Most folks have to try a dozen times to get half as much done. Still, can't really nay-say the results. How are we on our trip to this Karakura place?"

"Well, after we drop off Johny here," Mary said before calling upon her nail. "We need…to take the train south and…a bus. Look for the…Urahara Shōten. …And don't start any fights with little girls? What?"

"Why would any of us start a fight with a little girl?" Matt asked, eyebrow arched.

"Maybe there's a really rude one around there?" Warren figured with a shrug. "Does it specify verbal or physical?"

"Uh, no, actually. Yeah, just to be on the safe side, ignore any little girls being rude or confrontational."

"What happens if we do?" Vicky asked out of curiosity.

Mary blinked and frowned deeply. "We might die? Uh, okay, it's an actually serious thing, then."

"You think it could be a Nail Bearer?" Elly asked.

"Possibly. Hey, maybe even who we're looking for. Okay, then. We've got a good idea of what to do." She reached over and stroked the old cat, who meowed quietly.

Internally, Mary wondered if this little warning was also serving as a reminder about her karma. Either way, she would be careful.

Her last fight with a little girl didn't go well for anyone involved, after all, least of all her.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 9: A Rebellious Spark

---

This was going way better than Kaien had expected. Sure, they hadn't talked to Rukia yet, but the fact of the matter was that the crime Kaien feared she may have committed was actually not a crime at all. Giving Shinigami powers to a human was illegal, but there were no rules about giving them to other Shinigami. …Though, they would be stretching the definition in this case. Having Shinigami powers didn't necessarily make one a Shinigami. They were members of a specific organization. Of course, they couldn't really argue that his cousin, whom he had yet to meet, was a konpaku. Not in the general sense. So, it was better to instead argue from the point that he was Shiba Isshin's son, and let the conclusions draw from there.

After the girls had gone back to bed, Uncle Isshin had finally explained what exactly had gone down 20 years ago to lead to this. It could, if one was pessimistic, get him into trouble. But if they narrativized it right, the judges were likely to be very lenient. There'd have to be some give. Isshin might have to face being recalled to the Seireitei, but if it exonerated Rukia and prevented harm to his son, it was worth it to the old goat.

"But anyways, one morning I woke up, and my soul had just…left my gigai. I was freaking out, especially since this was just after the whole incident at the cemetery. But Kisuke looked, and nothing seemed to be wrong. Then we heard about how you…ate the Grand Fisher," he said while pointing at Princess Tanya. "I don't know how it all works, but something about you being an Arrancar…changes things with the seal."

"Indeed. This is all unprecedented," Urahara agreed. It was still strange to see the man out here after everything, but he seemed to be behaving. Kaien had to wonder if he had anything to do with Aizen's whole Arrancar situation. Then again, maybe his accusations from back then held some merit. "It opens up a whole line of questioning I never thought we'd get to explore. How close are Arrancar to Shinigami if it affects something like this so specifically?"

"A question others have had, I'm sure," Tanya responded. "Though I am interested in these gigai you have. I'm sure you would want to be careful about them. I imagine there are restrictions, especially if they can be so varied, but I would like to purchase a few, if possible. Not to mention, it could be a significant step in returning Kurosaki-san's wife."

Oh yeah. That was weird. Kaien hadn't felt any himself, but Hollows did eat souls, and those souls would be there inside of them somewhere. Tanya knew how to remove them, tossing out the core soul but keeping the reiryoku they had produced before and after consumption. It seemed strange, but he was reminded that Shinigami, with their single soul, could often match or eclipse any Hollow with their hundreds or thousands of souls. But when Tanya had found Kurosaki Masaki's soul, she held onto it in order to get informed consent about what to do with her. Ichigo wanted to have at least one last chance to say goodbye, she had said. Isshin, of course, wanted his wife back. Having once thought he'd lost his wife forever, Kaien understood completely. If things were different and he turned out to have Miyako's soul somewhere inside him, he would be working on getting her a body, too. The Quincy, who he supposed was an in-law now, technically (and that felt strange even before taking his Hollow form into account), seemed split on letting her pass on or bringing her back. It felt like the man had long accepted her passing and wasn't sure how to reconcile her possible return.

"There are some I obviously can't hand out like candy," Urahara explained, a little joke in there concerning his other goods. "But there are some older models that are taking up space you might find useful for basic tasks on Earth. You'd need reiatsu limiters in place for some people, otherwise, they might just tear them apart from the inside."

"Ah, then I'll have to take those alongside them. Reiatsu suppression is not a skill many Arrancar find…applicable. Aside from myself and some stealth-preferring examples, most just let theirs pour out all around them like a badge of pride. If anyone wants to go to a genuine taco stand, they'll need some way to control that."

"...A taco stand?" the Quincy asked.

"Someone started complaining about some foods not being authentic, and that he wanted to go to Texas where he knew a genuine taco stand would have real Mexican food. Of course, that idea died in its crib, but it's become a popular sentiment. There's even a club where they've been trying to recreate foods accurately, but due to limited resources, they can only get so close. Can't complain about the results, myself. Food quality has only increased since they've started."

"And you think they would use a gigai to go to...a taco stand in Texas?" Ryuken questioned further.

"They would certainly apply for the attempt. But that would be low-priority. Among the first uses for a gigai I would assign are to further the Soul Resonance research to see if we can't pull a soul from someone into it. Others for supply requisitions in the Living World. I have...some ideas there that should bear some fruit. ...There's a company called 'Apple' that makes music players, yes?"

"I've heard of them," Urahara admitted. "Why do you ask?"

"Just seems like a good investment opportunity, in my mind." Kaien wasn't sure why she was interested in investing in a music company, but she was smiling like she'd just found the secrets to unlimited power. However, her attention was suddenly taken.

"Ah, I'm getting some rapid updates from the field," she explained.

"Updates?" Isshin asked. "On what?"

"We actually found Rukia and Ichigo not too long ago. I was just going to wait for them to come home. No need to be rude and rush everyone, after all. I've had some people keeping an eye on things and the situation has been getting more and more... What?" She suddenly put a finger to her ear, activating that little communicator she was using to keep up with her agents. Kaien didn't take much time to learn about them before they sped off, but there were 5 of them, and 4 were apparently sisters. "Huh, wait, do not kill the Shinigami!"

"What?!" the men at the table asked in shock.

"I repeat, non-lethal takedowns only!" she said into her communicator before letting off on it. "Something's happened! Kuchiki Byakuya and Abarai Renji have shown up with intent to arrest Rukia. Uryu and Ichigo tried to intervene but were disabled. Now... We need to get over there. I don't think Veronica can take on a Captain without a surprise first hit."

Urahara was on his feet first. "I see. We better go help the kids, then."

"Byakuya?" Kaien asked as they all started leaving the house. "Rukia's brother?"

"I don't... Maybe it's being handled by the clan, but Veronica..." Tanya grimaced, her teeth clenched tightly. "You and I will stay hidden while Urahara and Isshin give her a chance to extract herself. Can you two at least distract him? With words, preferably?"

Isshin nodded with a confirming grunt. "Sure. Don't want to fight anyway. I'm not exactly fully recovered."

"Then let's go!"

With that, the two of them sped off with Sonido while the Shinigami followed along in Shunpo. Only a few steps in, though, Kaien noticed how much slower his uncle was than expected. Even the Quincy was way ahead of him with his...whatever. He didn't blame him, because whatever was going on, it would have ended even before Kaien could have made it going full speed. Tanya heard the reports and blanched about halfway there, and then she was telling them to immediately call for Francisca.

What they arrived to find was an injured young Quincy, a kid who looked an awful lot like a younger Kaien with orange hair, and a young Arrancar girl sliced into pieces. He had thought she was dead, but her sister quickly arrived via Garganta and started pulling her back together, accompanied by a creature he'd never seen before that carried spare organs in its body, accessible through zippers. Like some nightmare creation of the 12th​ Division that happened to serve a pretty useful function.

Tanya, for her part, looked shaken by the whole thing. She kept going back to her agents and questioning them, probably trying to figure out where the sudden order to engage came from, and then she was talking to Urahara. Kaien felt for the girl. This was probably her first real taste of the aftermath of a lost combat engagement, and she was trying to find out how everything had just gone so wrong. He had been there many times, but sometimes the only thing to do was accept one's failures or to realize that the whole thing was lost as soon as it began.

Still, that order came from somewhere, and it wasn't her. He was right there, as were the other men, when she heard the confirmation. Something fishy was going on.

"This whole thing stinks something fierce," he muttered as they sat in Urahara's shop. Ichigo was patched up and back in his body, but he was in rough shape with his Saketsu and Hakusui broken. "Rukia was being taken in, which was bad, but salvageable. Uncle Isshin could've still straightened everything up. But with Veronica's attack..."

"Now it's all been escalated," Shihoin Yoruichi said in her cat form. "Without further context, it will appear to anyone in the Seireitei that a Hollow was trying to rescue Rukia. Veronica-chan's specific appearance and abilities will lead to even more speculation, and none of it bodes well for Rukia's chances."

"To join forces with Hollows... No one would argue against it being treason and be taken seriously." Some good souls who know her might try to give her the benefit of the doubt, but without more evidence or testimony, the majority would all come to the same conclusion: Rukia was in league with Hollows in some way. On top of the supposed crime of giving her Shinigami powers to a human, she was facing at least the Nest of Maggots if not a place in the Central Great Underground Prison or execution.

"Your little princess seems very concerned about what happened to cause that."

"Someone got into our channels and...imitated her. There's more than a few people who could do the first, but the second... Either someone had to be prepared..."

"Or have the ability to make people hear what they want them to."

Kaien's frown deepened. Like most, he hadn't believed Urahara's claims when the situation with Hirako Shinji and the others had happened. But with Aizen now heading a small civilization of creatures from the opposite side of the spectrum and confirmation that his Shikai was way more than what he had been claiming this entire time, it was looking far more credible. Aaroniero knew well what the power of Aizen's Zanpakuto was, and even that thing had tried to find counters to it. Kaien had scattered bits of that knowledge, but it was useful in getting around, physically and politically.

"You think it was him?" he asked the woman disguised as a male cat.

"Given what we know, this would have indeed secured some of his plans going forward. Veronica's reveal tipped his hand slightly, but there's no direct line to him for anyone to draw. And we know Tanya has not revealed his connection to the Arrancar to Rukia, so even if they interrogate her thoroughly, they won't gain anything leading them there."

"Why does he want her arrested, though? Even if it causes division, now they're all wary of Arrancar."

"That...is something Urahara will have to explain. Suffice to say, Rukia has something he wants. And the only way to get it now is with the Sōkyoku."

Kaien's eyes went wide at that.

"Wait, you're kidding me?!" Isshin decried. "What the Hell did you guys do?"

"Like Yoruichi said, I'll explain it later," Urahara said as he exited his basement. "Tanya's taking a minute to sort things out down there. Shiba-san, I believe you had a question."

"More like...an observation." Kaien wracked his mind as he recalled what happened after he woke up in Hueco Mundo. "Aizen's been pulling the Arrancar around for over half a century now, but from what I heard, Tanya runs the systems. And her dad has her back with everything she does. Aizen just sort of...lords over everything. He gives marching orders, but it's the ones like her that tell everyone how to step. When she explained how everything worked...I thought she was just stating how it is, but I think she was covering herself. 'Whatever regal authority I might have held under the old system is basically ceremonial at this point,' she told me. And when I saw him holding his little...court to introduce some new guys, Aizen basically just watched them all go at it. Worse than any Captain's meeting I ever sat in on, and it seemed normal. Like he was watching a bunch of puppies tussle. He only interrupted it to ask about me."

Urahara nodded. "In other words, while Aizen holds the keys to the kingdom, she's the one who puts on all the locks. With a handful of spares. He's been content to let things run themselves, but now with everything so close, he may want a tighter grip."

"Yeah, and... What if he's noticed her influence? This time it was just using her voice, but next time? How far does he want this to go? Just get an excuse to demote her, or break whatever trust the people have with her?"

"Poor Tanya-chan seems shaken by the whole thing as well," Urahara admitted. "I could see the realizations coming to her. After all, the Arrancar are a means to an end for Aizen. To her, and you as well, it's your people and their lives."

Kaien wanted to refute it almost instinctively, then remembered the mask on his face. He wasn't a Shinigami anymore. Not even a konpaku in most minds. He was Hollow. Like it or not, the Arrancar were his people now.

"So, we have ourselves a conundrum. Aizen's grip on the Arrancar appears to be absolute, but is it? Sounds to me that Tanya-chan has more pull than even she realizes if he's trying to damage that reputation. And his plans right now include the death of an innocent girl I know more than one person cares far too much about to allow."

Kaien's teeth ground at that.

"What're you planning, Kisuke?" Isshin asked the man.

"It's simple, really. We need a rescue operation and a way to pull back the veil on Aizen, for both the Gotei and the Arrancar. Maybe even get a dialogue going between the two. Hey, Kaien, you have a good history with a captain or two, and you're an Arrancar now. Surely you could bridge the gap?"

"You want me to go to the Seireitei and... What? Talk to Ukitake-taicho and...convince him..."

"That even if Rukia-chan had gotten involved with Hollows, there was good reason," Urahara finished the thought. "Sure, she didn't know about you yet, but they don't know that either. And as responsible and law-abiding as Ukitake-taicho is, I'm sure your presence could help convince him to argue in your favor. Especially since, if I recall correctly, there's no express law forbidding the toleration of a Hollow existing. In fact, it's required for a lot of scientific study. Central may demand the destruction of a specific one, but they've never outlawed keeping some alive."

"...You want to use me to cause division between Central and the Gotei. If Ukitake pushed and got the Soutaicho on his side in the matter...the 46 would have to choose between setting a new precedent or making an enemy out of one of the oldest and most powerful captains in the Gotei, not to mention his whole Division and any of his friends. Kyōraku-taicho is almost certain to take his side if nothing's changed between them in the past 40 years. And both of them could convince the Soutaicho to give it a shot."

"Oh, you thought up a whole lot more than me! I just figured you could convince him to help save Rukia and help you escape."

Kaien scoffed. Urahara could downplay it all he wanted, but it was obvious where his devious plan was leading. And if they delayed or even prevented Rukia's execution by Sōkyoku, Aizen would have to do something to counteract them. Assuming these two weren't pulling his leg, what he wanted must have been hidden in Rukia's soul. If it was so important to push things to this point, then he wouldn't just sit back and let them stop it. And now, with the situation with the framing, Tanya was in a spot herself. She didn't want to go to war with the Seireitei, even if that was what Aizen aimed for.

Break off his connection to the Gotei and the Arrancar at the same time, and Aizen would have to stand alone with whatever elements he could salvage in the aftermath, which might not be much. That was Urahara's goal, and damn it all if Kaien wasn't playing right into his hand, but he didn't really have a choice. He owed Rukia after what she tried to do for him. He couldn't consign her to death out of convenience. Even if Tanya decided to play it safe and stay out of it, he was going to go and rescue her.

"You're full of it. You know exactly what this is going to do. All right, but we need to prepare. We can't exactly infiltrate the Soul Society with a depowered Shinigami, an Arrancar, and a single Shihoin."

"Ah, worry not, Shiba-san! We're getting a team together even as we speak and have a plan to help Ichigo with his particular issue. Not to mention, I don't believe you're going to be the only Arrancar on this little quest."

---

She had been so afraid that it was coming back. After speaking to her weapon's spirit, there was the tiniest fear that the echoes of the Type 95 might reach her, but they hadn't seemed to. When every one of her agents swore they heard her give the command to engage, she thought it was the first sign of it coming back to haunt her. But then neither Kurosaki Isshin nor Kaien agreed, claiming that they had witnessed her going from calm and explaining they had found Rukia and Ichigo to screaming for Veronica to go non-lethal. No commands to engage so much as muttered. Urahara was her third confirmation to that effect, even if he was biased.

The idea that they would all be independently lying about something two of them would have no reason to lie about was unlikely, but she knew how Aizen's power worked. She remembered how her father looked when he'd released him from his control. The shock and surprise at seeing all his guards dead. The idea that her agents had all, at some point, been put under its influence, was not impossible. And if this had been his plan, he would have made sure to set it all up beforehand. But she couldn't just ask her subordinates if he had revealed his Shikai to them. It would be too suspiciously specific. The only safe thing was to assume everyone was touched by it until proven otherwise.

It wasn't until she had practically given her life's story to Urahara that she realized a grave possibility: Aizen was looking to use her, and maybe many others close to her, as scapegoats. Potentially all of Las Noches. He was at the head of their hierarchy, running it like a military junta, but so uninvolved as to appear completely separated from it in totality. He wasn't even always the one passing down the orders. Sometimes it was through Ichimaru or Kaname. If and when they collided with the Gotei, Tanya was reasonably sure of their success. Even if it wasn't a resounding win, they could eke out enough victories to lay down a new norm. To be recognized as people, even if it required holding up a sword in a threatening posture to enforce.

But if Aizen's goal was the throne, then he needed the institutions of the Shinigami, not the fresh-faced city of Arrancar. If one needed to go, he would not choose to throw out the one with thousands of years of built-upon knowledge and power. If the Seireitei could not abide by the existence of a rival power of Hollows, even at peace, and resisted Aizen because of it until there was only so much rubble, then the obvious choice was to do away with them.

Just have the most powerful Espada see enemies where there were civilians. And when the fake bodies were replaced with real ones, have them see each other as Shinigami. Half at a time, until only one was left. Hell, have her father see the images of her broken corpse, and most of the work would take care of itself from there.

She stayed there long after Urahara had left. She might not have been his prisoner, but she did not want to test it. Besides, she didn't want anyone to witness her panicked pacing or hear her mumbled rantings.

Maybe the Shinigami agent didn't actually care about her plight and only wanted to use her, but Aizen was the same, at the end of the day. Really, believing he had their interest at heart was just her being optimistic. Perhaps he cared, perhaps he couldn't care less. The man was an actor, but a good one where she could never tell what was a genuine smile and what was him covering up his disgust. Few were the times he showed honest surprise. Urahara had also kept up an act, and she couldn't trust that his seeming empathy was real.

She was caught between two horrible possibilities. If she went with Aizen all the way, then he might someday throw them under the bus when he no longer needed them. If she followed along with Urahara's plans, she might doom her people's best chance at freedom to, at best, become a client state under the thumb of the Seireitei. And unlike the souls of the Rukongai, they needed carefully managed resources to survive.

However, if Aizen was true, he would lead them to conquer the very Heavens…a far-fetched, pie-in-the-sky claim that seemed silly even at this level of existence, now that she took time to reflect. But with Urahara…they weren't guaranteed their freedom, but they could still fight for it. Aizen had provided a lynchpin to their society, but did they need him anymore? If he disappeared today and never returned, what would change? The systems were set and infrastructure was being built where it wasn't already raised. Urahara's line of questioning led her to make it sound like she was the primary one responsible for it all, but she was just one branch on a large tree. Others had been there to contribute and help her along, and most of it was actually outside of her hands beyond the basic setups she initiated.

Risk and reward. She had to weigh everything and make a careful decision. But luckily, it looked like Urahara wasn't pushing for her to answer him immediately.

She needed time. She needed to get her trusted allies together on the same page about all of this. And she needed a way to get around Kyoka Suigetsu. Right now, avoiding ever looking at it would only help so much. Others could be under its power, and all Aizen needed was a clear view of the situation to make them see what he wanted. Once she knew more, she could start making some serious decisions. Until then, she could keep a loose tie with Urahara. Let him provide them with supplies to make him think she was considering it very seriously, which she was, if not fully on board, which she couldn't decide right now.

"Was this the new game plan the whole time?" she asked into the false sky. "I could understand I had my options after last time, but now they're not just limited, but completely obfuscated. I have to put my 'faith' in something?" She scoffed at the idea. "No. I'm only going to work with certainties and chances. Logical deductions. 'Faith' is a meaningless thing. 'Trust' is an earned return on investment. Someone will prove themselves, and they'll earn my trust. Somehow, Aizen managed to break his, and there was so little after all this time, that I'm positively shocked. Now an agent running a candy store as a front is even with him. What a joke!"

She took her Zanpakuto from her back and sat down, resting it on her legs as she focused. She needed someone to talk to about this, and what would be a more secure place than in her mind?

---

"Quite the pickle, huh, Princess?"

"Focus, Sangrante," Tanya admonished the weapon spirit. "We're going to have to act on this soon. At the very least, we need to set the foundation in the case that we have to sever ourselves from Aizen."

"Little late, don't you think?" the winged woman pointed out while lazily floating on her back. "He's dug in deep. Half the Arrancar practically worship him by now."

"Yes, I should have seen it earlier, but we can't worry about what could have been. I'm not saying we have to get everyone on board, but we do need something in place should he throw us to the wolves. At the very least, a plan about Kyoka Suigetsu."

"Every power has its limits," the spirit pointed out. "We don't know what his are, but they have to exist. Otherwise, he could have played out your whole paranoid episode but with the Shinigami and the Noble Houses."

"...You said you couldn't read my mind."

"Not in here. It's different when you think so loudly on the outside. You were basically ranting out loud from my point of view."

"So, you can see out there?"

"In a manner of speaking. I'm aware of what you're aware of, but there's a layer of separation. Imagine a video or audiobook is playing out loud on a computer. I can ignore it, listen in, or even stop what I'm doing to focus on it."

"I see. And you've never witnessed his Shikai release?"

"Nope." She smirked at that. "For several reasons. Of course, I know where you're going with this. It's worth exploring, but we can't assume we're so independent of each other that if it affects one of us then the other might still be fine. Hope for the best, plan for the worst."

"And what plan do you have for 'the worst'?"

"We gotta pick back up on our magic. Relearn how to cast illusions, then how to get past them." She grimaced at that as her clawed hand hovered over the jewel beneath her shirt. "You used the disciplines of magic to learn Arrancar abilities better, but this will be further than we've ever gone. It might require me to use that."

"...You don't have to do that to yourself."

"Don't worry. It doesn't extend to you when I'm sealed. At the very least, that part." She took a deep breath and exhaled, her silver eyes glowing gold as she opened them again.

"Lord, let us hear and see only your truth! Blind the eyes of the unbelievers, and deafen their sinful ears, until your Light and your Word reach them!"

Illusionary copies of the woman appeared, all with that manic look in their eyes as they spread out. Tanya felt her teeth grind at the sight. Her Zanpakuto spirit was going to dive into that contamination for her sake. As much as she was glad it wasn't her, she was all the more infuriated on behalf of that part of her that became her weapon. She took a deep breath, then focused on what she remembered of her time as a mage to get past illusions.

 

[Jesse K the Bubba]

Saga of the Princess of the Hollow World

Chapter 10: Training and Tech

---

Things had been changing a lot lately for Arisawa Tatsuki, and not in the normal way that life brings changes. Just the other day, the school had been attacked by monsters, and she saw Orihime awaken some kind of power to protect her and the others. Unfortunately, the redhead had passed out right after. And then another monster showed up, ready to eat the dead one's corpse and Orihime right after.

So she ran over and punched it.

But something woke up inside her at the same time.

Like a roar, it rang through her heart and into her fists, coming out like white and blue fire, and she smashed its face in while burning it. She kicked it and got the same sort of result, but more devastating. Again and again, her hits met the monster and exploded into flame as she screamed her anger and rage, both at the creatures threatening them and her own earlier impotence.

After that, it felt like it had been a dream. People were back at school the next day, planning summer vacation and trying to fight the urge to put off the last bit of schoolwork, but she remembered, and she knew some others had as well.

Orihime was certainly hiding what she recalled, and then Kuchiki Rukia had suddenly disappeared with almost no one noticing except perhaps Ichigo and Orihime. It was as though she had been erased from existence, and none of her friends reacted to the name with anything more than confusion and wonder at its unfamiliarity, save those two.

She needed answers.

That's why she was heading to this place, Urahara Shōten. It had been mentioned here and there between Rukia and Ichigo when they thought no one could hear them. It took some searching through a phonebook before locating it, but find it she did. Only now, there appeared to be something of a roadblock.

"You sure you can't go get him?" a white brunette woman asked a little girl of maybe ten or so with pigtails, currently standing in the partially opened doorway of the store. To her left, there was a sign that read, "Closed for business for now. Sorry for the inconvenience," taped to the shuttered window.

"Sorry, but the owner's busy at the moment," the girl answered.

"Okay, I understand, but…maybe you could ask him when you'll be open again? My friends and I were really hoping to shop here."

The girl seemed to mull it over for a moment before nodding.

"I will ask. Wait here, please," she said before going back in and closing the door, audible locks clicking into place after she did.

"Well, is this a bust?" a tall, dark-haired man asked the woman in English. Luckily, Tatsuki had studied the language well in school. She was ahead of almost her entire class in that subject.

"No, we're definitely supposed to be here," the brunette answered him. "Assuming we can't get the owner's attention… Maybe it's not the shop, but something near it?"

"Do you think the Nail Bearers are going to come this way?"

Tatsuki suddenly felt as though something was behind her and turned to see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman walking her way with a copy paper-printed map of the area held in her hands. The woman stopped and looked up before offering her a smile.

"Sorry. I was about to walk into you there. I'm meeting some friends here… Ah, there they are." She waved over to the other two while switching to English, "Mary, Matt, any luck?"

"Not really, Vicky," 'Mary' answered, hands on her hips and a sigh leaving her after she walked over. "Place is closed, and… Oh, excuse me," she said in Japanese after noticing Tatsuki, a slight nod to her head. Then back in English, "Right, I…don't think we've seen the Bearers anywhere. No one's given off the spark that we've seen. The little girl here feels different, but I'm suspecting magic."

"Did you just say magic?" Tatsuki asked, realizing too late that she just caught the full attention of the somewhat shady foreigners talking about things that were definitely supposed to be kept secret. Of course, their attention landed squarely on her, and she felt her flight or fight response beginning.

"Mary, you know English is a popular second language in Japan, right?" Vicky admonished her companion. "We're not exactly speaking in code."

Mary just chuckled nervously while rubbing the back of her neck.

"Hold on a moment," Matt suddenly spoke with a hand raised, then looked toward Tatsuki. "Have you noticed any…strange things happening lately? Seemingly transparent people with chains hanging from their chests? People flying through the air? Strange, monstrous howls?"

'Wait, do these people know about all of that? Could they…have some answers?'

These people were complete strangers, but then, so was whoever ran this place. The only connection she even had to the shop was some loose words from Ichigo and Rukia. Of course, she'd hoped one of them would be there to soften the landing, so to speak, but still.

"Let's just say…there were monsters attacking the other day. My friend managed to kill one, but fell unconscious. I beat the other one to death."

They seemed surprised by that.

"If you're talking about a Hollow…" Matt pondered, fingers cupping his chin. "How exactly did you do that?"

"I… I just kept hitting it. There was some fire, but I don't know how I was making it."

"Fire?" Mary asked. "Like this?"

The woman opened up her hand and a flame burst into being above her palm, hovering and flickering there for several seconds.

"Ye- yeah!" Tatsuki answered, a little dazed to see proof of everything that had happened so casually shown to her. "But…bigger. And it was white and blue, then."

"White and blue?" the brunette asked as her fire went out and let her arm drop.

"Huh, now that I've scanned you…" Matt said, something like a small light in his hands for a moment before it winked out. "Yes, that's a lot of energy, spiritual and magical. And you just now learned about this?"

"What do you mean 'just now'? Weirder and weirder things have been happening for the past few months. The monster attack was just the worst and most direct thing. And the weirdness hasn't stopped! That's why I came here. To get answers."

"Well, store's closed," Mary pointed out the obvious. "But…you can still get answers. You just gotta ask the right questions," she declared while pointing at Tatsuki and winking.

'Ah crud. Not that type!'

"Okay… What am I supposed to be asking?" Tatsuki tried. Mary crossed her arms and smiled smugly about something.

"First of all," she went on in English, "you're not a Nail Bearer, so there's that."

"What even is that?"

"Rather, it seems that you're just a wizard. A human with a natural talent for magic. Like Vicky here!"

The blonde nodded. "Sorry, she's having a moment."

"You see magic is a form of controlled phenomena using the energy of the physical world through one's spirit. To better form this, you could," and on Mary went.

Tatsuki was good at English, but the rate Mary was going was hard to keep up with, not to mention she was using a lot of advanced words. Some of them Tatsuki was sure some of those words weren't even real, like Malkuth, Tipheret, and Nefesh. And she was pretty sure Sephiroth was a video game antagonist.

Evidently, her companions noticed, as Matt reached over and tapped her on top of her head, causing her to pause mid-word.

"Huh?"

"Mary, you're overloading the kid. She probably didn't understand 90 percent of that," he pointed out while gesturing to the clearly confused Tatsuki.

"Yeah, that is not how you teach magic," Vicky seconded his objection. "It's a step at a time sort of thing. And you didn't even answer her question."

"Oh, uh, ah, I'm sorry!" Mary apologized, looking sheepish again. "I can sometimes blow ahead without realizing it."

"Let's start over," Vicky suggested, turning back to Tatsuki and reaching out a hand. "Hi, I'm Viktoriya Serebryakova, but you can call me Vicky."

"Arisawa Tatsuki," the teen answered, shaking her hand.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Arisawa. So, you're a wizard. Would you like to learn how to use magic?"

Tatsuki allowed herself a smile.

"Yes. Very much so."

---

Yoruichi watched as the three strangers spoke to the Arisawa girl. She had been planning on approaching her, but it seemed they had beaten her to it. They were an odd bunch, coming out of nowhere and trying to meet with Kisuke out of the blue, but what they spoke about gave her some clues as to what they might have wanted from him. If it were any other time, it would have been something to follow up on immediately. Unfortunately, they were pressed for time.

Well, she still had the others to look into. Unless Arisawa led these strangers to them, they needed another guide on their path. She could allow a little to go down this one so that she could compare them and see if it was worth investing in.

Until then, she'd just update Kisuke and get back on her task. Ururu had already come up and asked that they check back after a week, and now they were leaving, planning aloud how they were going to teach Arisawa Tatsuki to use her 'magic'. She was sure they'd return after the one week. Plenty of time to see where the winds took things.

---

There was a lot to prepare and little time for it all, and then so much of it had its own requisite waiting time. Rukia didn't know enough to bring down everything, but if she admitted to what she knew, it was enough to get the Gotei on a war footing. Aizen, Kaname, and Ichimaru could try and level things out from that side, but they couldn't push back too hard without looking like total doves, defeatists, or suspicious.

If the powers-that-be decided Kuchiki Rukia was guilty of consorting with Hollows and declared it treason, then every Shinigami would find themselves having to prove their loyalty beyond a reasonable doubt, and, as the communists showed time and again, an easy way to prove one's loyalty was to bring another's into question. Accusations were going to fly and there may be a handful of purges before they settled.

They couldn't wait for that.

Urahara was hatching a plan to rescue the girl. Kaien was on board with it, obviously. Tanya wasn't sure about how close their relationship was, but it seemed like the Shiba couple had been like teachers and/or seniors to her and felt some sort of responsibility to her. She didn't know what the plan for harboring her was, but there had to be something.

The important thing was keeping a precedent from being set and letting Kaien reconnect with some old, powerful allies. Tanya didn't know if he was overstating the bond he had with his former superior, but at best, they'd gain a powerful ally, at worst, they'd know of one Arrancar's potential powerset. And the dynamics wouldn't change all that much if they did nothing.

It seemed strange to her that Aizen hadn't looked into leveraging Kaien to bring Ukitake over. She skipped a few files to look at the 13th Division closer, and he was both an old and powerful Shinigami Captain. Among the current top 20 oldest living Shinigami and one of the 5 oldest living captains, the adage to 'beware old warriors' had to apply here.

The only reason she could see for Aizen ignoring this possibility was his close ties to Yamamoto Genryusai, the Captain-General or Soutaicho. It'd be a hard pull, and he'd want to wait until the last second for it.

But he wasn't even making any plans or telling them about it.

Tanya wracked her brain while clawing at her head. The paranoia was doing her no favors. Just the idea that Aizen was willing to throw her to the wolves for expediency's sake haunted her. She thought she was too invaluable for such a thing, but that was a problem in itself, wasn't it?

She had been too effective back then, too, only there the problem had been becoming some shining beacon that blinded the upper crust to all the other losses in the war. Here, he might just view her as a weight holding him down when the time came. Useful as an anchor in the storm, but not so much on dry land with clear skies.

She shook her head. No point in lingering on far-off possibilities. She had some tentative deals with Urahara for supplies and even got a few of his gigai for Francisca to experiment with, as well as a couple for her personal use and some agents. Low-grade, by his words, but incredibly useful all the same.

Bulk foods could be shipped in later and traded for some spare resources, mostly raw. Animals that could make the transition would take longer to source. He might have to order things like that from the Soul Society, and that would take some doing. All of this to build the foundation of a potential rebellion against their overlords.

Wow, it sounded like she was a part of some RPG when it was put like that. Was she the 'Marth' then? The rightful ruler of an oppressed people looking to restore themselves by installing the rightful royal family after ousting the evil invader? No, things were hardly ever that simple in real life.

Strange things could happen, like Napoleon coming back to rule France a third time, or China falling to the Red Army all thanks to one balls-to-the-wall charge that broke them out of the National Army's encirclement. At their level, it could get even stranger, with the way so many powers worked. Maybe Aizen would take the Soul King's throne and then parade the royal family about like captured pets before doing something insane like having her marry…

"Oh, that's a scary thought I never considered. I would like to erase that from my mind, please."

"Erashe what?" Nel asked from her spot at a table with a coloring book.

"Just scary teenager thoughts… No, 'adolescent' would be the word. Chronologically, I'm a septuagenarian." Tanya then stood up and stretched. "I need to get my mind off of things. I'm going to find the Shibas, some Escudo, and train with them. Stay here, all right. No sudden adventures before mom gets home."

"Okay! Have fun!"

"I might," Tanya said before leaving her domicile. Finding a handful of Escudo was simply as could be. She just followed Flan's signature and grabbed her and the five there before moving towards the Shibas' signature, up above the dome, where they found them both with the Espadas Cinco to Diez and Kaname, either trying to meditate or failing to in anger and exasperation.

"I don't think this is working," Miyako said while looking in concern at Grimmjow, Nnoitra, and Yammy, who were now yelling obscenities and insults at each other about a football field's length away.

"We knew those three might be…an issue," Kaname admitted. "That is why the upper four are training elsewhere."

"I thought it was because we didn't want to risk them breaking the dome," Kaien pointed out.

"That was also a consideration."

"Segunda Etapa training, I assume," Tanya decided to broach the subject.

"Indeed," the blind man answered, turning slightly toward her. "Perhaps you could help them?"

Tanya shook her head. "They have to be the ones to reach their spirit. All we can do is point the way."

"At least Zommari, Luppi, and Szayel could focus enough," Kaien said while thumbing in the direction of the three meditating Espada in question. "Almost thought the small one was gonna join in on the arguing, but I guess he thought better of it."

"Have thine Vasto Lorde made any better headway?" Flan asked the Shinigami.

"They seem to be… doing better."

Suddenly, Szayel yelped and fell over, foaming from the mouth and twitching. Tanya could not help but let out a guffaw before composing herself. The three enraged idiots heard and came to investigate, their argument forgotten over laughing at the mad scientist's predicament. From nearby, Grimmjow's Fracciones also came out to see what was going on, with most of them having a laugh as well. Yylfordt, however, went to his brother's side and shook him.

"Hey, Szayel! Bro! Wake up! Are you okay?!"

The Espada gurgled out something before spitting to the side and coughing, foam and blood splattering out before he took a deep breath and smiled.

"She was amazing!"

"...She?" the blonde Granz asked.

"I managed… to find it… Her! Fornicarás! She was…perfect!"

"Oh, so… that's good, right?" Yylfordt seemed to ask everyone rather than just his brother.

"...It's a step in the right direction," Tanya answered, just before a cut opened up on Luppi's cheek, spattering blood near everyone.

"Wait, no one said we get to fight the Zanpakuto spirits!" Grimmjow decried. "If I had known that, I might have actually done this whole Jinzen thing!"

"...Usually fighting them comes later," Kaien pointed out. "With Bankai trai- Ah, right. Whole different thing. And you guys are going for that Segunda Etapa thing. Right."

"What do you mean, 'you guys'?" Di Roy asked, looking miffed.

"Cut me some slack. I haven't even figured out this Resurreccion stuff entirely."

"What's there to figure out? Ain't it like whatever your Shinigami thing was?" Grimmjow asked.

"No, it's… different. Nejibana's here," he pointed out while taking the trident from his back, "but it's like… she's stuck in a released state."

"I've noticed the same for Nakuarashi," Miyako admitted while drawing her saber. "Their sealed state seems out of reach for some reason."

"It probably has to do with the difference in how Shinigami and Arrancar Zanpakuto express their powers," Kaname admitted as he stroked his chin. "We had believed all the Arrancar were in a constant state of release equal to a Shikai, due to special abilities that present themselves on occasion. Segunda Etapa changed that dynamic. However, there is definitely power expression even in an Arrancar's "sealed" state."

"Like how Father can use Senescencia whenever he wants but has to use his Resurreccion for Respira," Tanya thought aloud before tapping her mask. "Ah, I see! That might explain a lot, actually. Related to that, I was hoping to use you two for training today, but it seems you may have a regime set."

"Yeah, sorry Princess, but we'd like to figure this one out. I can promise to practice with ya later though," he said with a wink. Or at least, she was sure it was a wink. Having only one eye visible made knowing that tricky.

"It will be fine. Señor Grimmjow, perhaps I could borrow Tío and your other Fracciones while you go fight your Interna Hueco?"

"Yeah, sure. Just don't kill any of them. Unless they piss you off too bad, I guess."

"Thank you. I'll return them with nothing worse than scrapes and bruises."

"Boss, what'd we ever do to you?!" Di Roy shouted in despair.

"You literally tried to eat me when we met."

"You been long got me for that one, though," the sharp-toothed man said while pointing to his bandages. "When we met."

Grimmjow just laughed. "I know. Go play with the Princesa, you whiny snake! You wanna be here when I start fighting my Inner Hollow?"

Zommari's neck suddenly and audibly snapped perfectly to the side at a 90-degree angle. Amazingly to all there to witness it, he seemed no worse for wear.

"Yeah, we might wanna clear the area," Yylfordt supposed while gently setting his madly grinning brother's head down. "Let's go see what kinda training you got in mind, sobrinita."

The Fracciones followed Tanya and her Escudo escort away from where the Espada were meditating.

"All right then, Capitana Karrotte here will lead the Escudo, and I'll direct the Ci- Sexta's Fracciones. No Resurreccion for now. You six may use your fusils at range."

"Yes ma'am," the soldiers answered with a salute before reaching back and grabbing the engineered weapons cradled there. Each appeared to be a rifle, white stock and grip with a gunmetal grey barrel and a guardless trigger. Every other one had a bit of customization to them at this point, often a name carved into the stock or something painted on like little decals.

"What are those?" Edrad Liones asked out of curiosity.

"Special weapon developed for the Escudo," Tanya explained. "Though I am hoping we produce enough to arm all Numeros at some point. We call these fusils. They store reiryoku over time given off by entities like Arrancar, though one can also learn how to fuel them directly. That reiryoku can then be fired out in different methods resembling Balas and Ceros.

"There's a switch for different settings: wide mid-range single-shots, piercing long-range but slow shots, three-fire bursts, and full automatic fire. They can't be used to do anything special, like unique or advanced Ceros, but their energy storage capability means they can be fired far more often than most Arrancar can do on their own, and their stability means that those who have problems controlling their output or aiming can use them to shore up those weak points."

"Sounds like a crutch," Di Roy complained.

"Perhaps. But every fighter that can blast the Shinigami before they ever close the gap is a welcome one," Tanya explained. "Besides, would you want to waste time fighting Shinigami that would die to a few low-powered Balas?" she asked, beseeching the bloodthirsty warmonger inside them. That earned some wicked grins.

"Capitana, I want you to perform a standard staggered fallback while the men and I try to close. You're out on first blood or singe. If one of you tries to keep going when you should be out, you'll be doing hanging leg raises with weights. That goes for you lot, too," she directed at the Fracciones.

"Now, let us begin."

---

Tatsuki wasn't sure what magic lessons were supposed to be like, but she didn't think it was going to include being picked up and carried off 100 feet into the air with only a harness and well-wishes between her and a sudden drop.

"Now, you must picture the air beneath you as still," Vicky calmly explained while holding her up by the handles on the back of the harness. "Think of what is beneath your feet as though it were solid ground. Take those aspects of Earth and apply them to the Air."

Tatsuki felt herself going down a bit, and Vicky sighed.

"Were you picturing ground beneath your feet?"

"Ye-yeah!" Tatsuki answered uneasily.

"Not like that. Picture the air as though it were ground. You can't hope to bring the ground up here, so make the air into a new one."

"So… what, make the air stand still?"

"That's another thing entirely. Just make… Here, repeat after me, 'Beneath my feet, the air will hold up my weight.'"

"Beneath my feet, the air will hold up my weight," Tatsuki repeated, trying to enforce her will onto the world as she'd been shown and thinking about how to make the air do that.

"Good. You're getting there. Again."

"Beneath my feet, the air will hold up my weight. Beneath my feet, the air will hold up my weight. Beneath my feet, the air will hold up my weight." As she did this, she felt as though she was getting a little lighter. Looking down, she thought she saw a shimmer in the air, and smiled.

"I… I think I'm doing it!"

"Yes, good job," she heard Vicky say to her side. Startled, she looked over to see the wizard, then up to realize she was no longer holding the harness Tatsuki was wearing.

"Wha- WHA!"

The teen tripped backward, falling for tens of feet, but then her descent slowed as she reminded herself that, only moments ago, she was flying under her own power.

"Phew! Thought I'd have to catch you for a second there," Vicky said as she floated over to where she'd dropped.

"Urk! Yeah, I got it. Mostly," Tatsuki responded as she tried to straighten herself up, flailing against the empty air for a moment. "Guh! How do I… get back up?"

"It takes some practice, but the general trend is to imagine the part you want to be pointed downward is where all your weight is while making the rest weightless."

Tatsuki did her best to follow along. While she didn't quite get back into a standing position, she was able to kneel in place where she hovered, feeling like she was on top of a pane of the world's clearest, most comfortable glass. Next to Vicky, who could saunter forward or stand straight up effortlessly like a superhero, she looked rather childish in her mind.

"Good. Good. This is actually a good base to work from with other spells. But first, let's land."

They dropped slowly back to solid ground, where Tatsuki carefully extended her legs and stopped enforcing magic onto the air so she could instead rely on the naturally solid ground. Nearby, Elly looked up from where she was focusing on the Lookaway shield she had been powering for them to go unspotted.

"Well done, kid. Gonna try to figure out her affinity?" she asked Vicky.

"Maybe. I think we need to look back a little here, though."

"You mean why she didn't explode?"

"Why I didn't what?!" Tatsuki asked in alarm.

"Don't wor- Well, okay. The thing is, the magic you say you used to fight that Hollow… Those were advanced techniques that even I would find difficult to use. You likely have an affinity for them, though. But even then, going from no magic to that should have overloaded your body and spirit. In other words…"

"I should have exploded?" The idea seemed absurd to her, but wasn't that some staple of a bunch of manga and anime? Someone getting too much power at once suffering the consquences of it? "Then… why didn't I?"

"No way to know without having seen it, but we can make some educated guesses," Vicky explained. "But first, I want to get a look at it. I want you to try and tap into that power and display some of it for us."

Tatsuki nodded and tried to focus on the feeling of fire wrapping around her. Flames started coming up from her right fist, and she punched forward, orange and yellow flaring out in front of her.

Vicky hummed at the sight. "That's not how you described it."

"Look, it was… different back there."

"Different how?" the wizard asked. "Is it because you were in peril? I know a lot of people say that being in danger bring things out of them, but it's not the danger itself. It's the feelings, emotions we have when we're in that moment. The difference between who runs and who fights is as much a part of the person as it is the situation. More, perhaps.

"So, in that moment, when the Hollow was coming after you and your friends, what did you feel?"

Tatsuki thought back, remembering not just the relief that had filled her when Orihime had split the first one in half, but also the frustration. She had been the one who took karate, who focused on self-defense, who prepared them in case some man out there got rough or handsy, yet when the chips were down, all she could do was get flung around while her friend, Orihime, the girl who couldn't swat a fly without feeling bad about it, stood tall and brought the beast down.

And then the second appeared, gobbling up the dead one gleefully like a giant toad eating a mouse. Shaped almost like one, too, with a mask-like face that mimicked the likes of a traditional Chinese lion costumes. Its laughter and taunts about how it was going to swallow them had grated her, not just because they were threats, but because even after what Orihime did to save her, she still couldn't do anything!

So she screamed in rage and punched.

White fire launched forward from her right fist, blazing hot. More came from her left, then right again, burning everything in front of her, leaving herself unscathed but warm. Despite its intense light, she went unblinded, her vision only affected by the black core of the fire once it started sticking to its target. She turned and then kicked, concentrated blue flames lurching out with the force of her leg. The fire spun and danced around her, half-defense, half-offense. The white fire poured from the base of her skull like a second layer of hair, and the blue sprung out from the base of her spine like an ephemeral tail. She screamed again, and it flowed over her limbs, like burning liquid armor.

"Whoa! Okay! Cool it down!" she heard Vicky and snapped over her gaze to see the woman had to put up a shield of hexagons to protect herself and Elly from the fires, parts going red where her colored flames licked against them.

Instantly, the white and blue fire was gone, simmered down to regular orange where their surroundings had caught flame. Water apparated from above at Vicky's handwaving then splashed over the worst parts.

"Uh, sorry!" Tatsuki apologized, not sure how apologetic someone was supposed to be after almost accidentally roasting someone else.

"Don't be. That was pretty amazing, but I think I saw what was going on. Emotional affinity."

"Is that good?"

"Actually, it can be very bad," Elly spoke up, wiping her forehead with a handkerchief as she stood up from her little self-made rock seat. "An emotional affinity means when you're embroiled in that emotion, your power and capacity grows with it, along with whatever other affinities you might have, which appears to include fire. And as we just saw, it means your control is loose, at best."

"But it also means you can go way beyond your normal limits," Vicky added. "Just… not in a dependable manner. Most magic requires a great deal of focus and intent, but if you're lost in your emotions…"

"That's basically the opposite," Tatsuki realized, growling in frustration. "Damn it! You're telling me that I actually have power, but I can't even make use of it!"

"Not at all!" Vicky quickly told her with raised hands. "In fact, you can make a lot of use out of it most wizards could only dream of. You might… just find yourself more specialized than most. But! You can still learn magic like any other. With discipline and focus, anything is possible!"

The teen breathed in deeply and sighed, her breath feeling far hotter than normal. "Discipline. I can do that." She rubbed her hair, feeling like the heat underneath had built up more than usual. She had a feeling this was going to be a pattern now. "Right. You think we can go find my friend now? She almost certainly has some kind of magic, too."

"I think I can help you there," a masculine voice said. Tatsuki turned and looked around, but didn't see anyone. "Down here." She looked down and saw a cat. "Greetings."

Tatsuki, at this point, was getting used to strangeness, but even this was a good bit beyond any expectations. "...What?"

"A talking cat?" Vicky asked. "Elly, have you ever seen a talking cat before?"

"A few talking dogs, but not a cat, no."

"Hold on," Tatsuki jumped in. "You said you know where Orihime is? Why do you know that?"

"Simple. I've been helping her to learn how to use her own powers, much like you were doing here."

The picture came together in Tatsuki's head and made her consider euphemistically jumping off a bridge.

"You're the little animal familiar guide thing, aren't you?" she asked before grabbing at her hair and looking up at the sky accusingly. "We've become mahou shoujo! Freaking magical girls!"

---

She was sure she was dreaming vaguely of coffee and chocolate potato cake when something screamed at her to move!

Tanya rolled out of the way as Lilynette flopped down belly-first onto her bed where she had been laying, up on her feet and hands, ready to spring forward before she saw the bright smile the girl gave her.

"Good dodge, Princess! You're way easier to wake up than Stark."

"Lily?" Tanya asked, looking at her clock to see it was about 2 minutes away from ringing her alarm. "What are you doing here? And why were you doing that?"

"Waking you up, and waking you up. I ain't used to this whole sleep schedule thing, so I fell asleep early after we came back from Segunda Etapa training, and now I'm awake." She rolled over, keeping her gaze pointed at Tanya even as she lay there. "But everyone else is asleep. Especially Stark. You gotta help me wake him up so I can get him to go do stuff."

"...Well, all right, I suppose." Tanya reached over and flicked off her alarm for today. "We'll eat breakfast, and then go see about Stark. Mother should be waking up soon, so we can let her know you're here before she gets started."

"Awesome! I like food. And your mom cooks good. Hey, can I get a mom?"

Tanya blinked. "I don't think it works like that… Maybe if you convinced Stark to start dating you could… get something like a stepmother?"

"Huh? Coyote Stark dating? That couldn't… Wait, could he?"

Tanya shrugged as she made her way over to her wardrobe. A quick check and… Yes, the shirt she got the day before yesterday had been altered. Maybe she should set up a security camera? Whoever kept doing this must have been getting a real kick out of it. That, or there was something about the material her clothes were made from she didn't understand.

Well, at least her 'disguise' was unaltered. It couldn't work if it was changed to expose her hole. It would beat the purpose.

"Go ahead to the kitchen. I'll be dressed in a moment."

"Huh, you wear different clothes for sleeping?" Lilynette asked, seeming to suddenly notice Tanya's nightgown for the first time. "Am I supposed to do that?"

"...It's comfortable."

"Neat. I'll have to get some sleep clothes, then."

Once Lilynette was clear, Tanya sighed and got dressed for the day. After her boots were on, she walked out of her room, down the hall past Nel's, through the recreation den, and into the kitchen, where her mother was being told by Lilynette what the latter wanted for breakfast.

"And then some eggs fried but a little runny. Stark said I should mix them with the corn grits and butter."

"I see. It should only take a few minutes. Good morning, Tanya," Roka then said to her daughter. "Do you want anything specific?"

"Just whatever Lily's getting will be fine, mom. No need to go overboard."

"Of course. And a portion for Nel and I." With that, the woman started setting out pans, placed a pot of water to boil, and gathered the ingredients from the icebox. Tanya quickly looked on their window sill and brought in the milk for the day, placing it just in reach but out of the way for Roka.

"Huh, why was that outside?"

"There's a system for those who sign up for it. Fresh milk in the morning, just leave the empty bottles outside overnight, and they'll be replaced at dawn."

"Where do they get the milk from? Cows?"

"Actually, I think it's mostly goats." It certainly didn't taste like cow milk, but the nutrition was there, and it worked as a replacement ingredient in most recipes. "I doubt they're milking the rabbits, and we haven't had much luck in getting cows. Therefore, it's probably the goats. Hopefully, we can change that soon."

Breakfast soon came, and Tanya saw that Lilynette had asked for pancakes, rabbit sausage, apple slices, yoghurt, corn grits, and eggs. Taking the suggestion Coyote had given the other girl, Tanya decided to try mixing the runny eggs into the starchy vegetable and found that the flavors and textures greatly complimented each other.

About halfway through, Nel had sleepily extracted herslef from her room, attracted by the smell of delicious food, just in time to crawl up into the seat where Roka placed her smaller serving and then sat down with her own helping of food.

The rest of the meal was mostly a quiet affair. After a few sips of coffee, Tanya was beginning to feel more awake and started thinking of where her day would take her. Coyote was first on the agenda, but there were a few more things to follow up on.

'Urahara's plans with Kurosaki Ichigo should have gone through by now. If not… Well, if he really wants his powers back, I suppose we could always see if he's fine with being fed to a Gillian before we use the Resonator to draw him up and Arrancarify him. Might be too much for him to consider though. Just an option on the table.'

Tanya thought she felt a stirring inside of her at that, but it was probably just the pancakes that needed a good swallow of juice to follow down. They were going to have to get more moon fruit syrup.

"Ah!" Lilynette sighed dramatically in satisfaction while patting her belly. "That was great! Now I really need to get a mom!"

Tanya swallowed and cleared her throat. "You realize what you want is a servant, right? Not every mother does this. Mine is special."

Roka looked surprised at that. Tanya figured she'd have to clarify, but Lilynette's sudden belch interrupted her.

"Hey! Yours is all I have to go off of! And she's great! Where did you get her from?"

Tanya blinked. "She… gave birth to me," she slowly pointed out. Lilynette's eye squinted at her, then slowly widened as that sank in.

"Arrancar can have kids?!"

"Hollows in general can reproduce, as far as I know." She didn't know about Gillians or lower forms, but she couldn't write them off completely. Adjuchas, Vasto Lorde, and Arrancar just had a lot more of the necessary initiative to perform the requisite actions on average.

"Since when?"

"...Always, I would suppose."

"...Can I have a kid?"

"You are a kid," Tanya pointed out. "Or at least, you have a prepubescent body, like me. We have to actually grow up first before we even consider such things."

"Aw! That'll take forever," Lilynette complained before instantly perking up. "Oh well, something to look forward to! Thanks for the food, Tanya's mom! We're going to go dropkick Stark until he wakes up, then make him exercise."

"You're welcome, and have fun," Roka told the girl.

"Let me just finish this," Tanya said before taking her last deep sip of coffee. "Ah, there we go! All right, I am ready, now."

They went to leave, stepping outside of the house to run across Nnoitra Gilga and one of his three Fracciones, Tesla Lindocruz.

"Ah, Cinco Espada Gilga," Tanya greeted the lanky Arrancar evenly. "Can I help you?"

"N- Nah, just walking. Saw the house. Wanted a closer look." His eye trailed over, seeming to try and peer into the front window. "You got that kid, right? Nel's brat?"

Tanya held back the retort she wanted to give him. It wouldn't do to stir negative emotions this early.

"Yes. Nelliel's child is staying with us. If you wanted to see her, I'd ask that you wait for a time when I'll be home to supervise."

"Just curious, Princess," the man practically bit out as he shifted his axe and turned his head back to look at her. "Ain't never seen a man ask questions before? I get you and your girlfriend are busy trading make-up, but you should learn how people talk to each other!"

'Not going to rise to the bait.'

"I'll keep it in mind. If that'll be all, I'm off to train with the Primera. Have a good day. Lily?"

"Right behind you."

They then sped off, dashing away with Sonido.

"What was that?" Lilynette asked at their first pause.

"I don't know, but I have… a suspicion," Tanya answered as she used her Pesquisa to keep an eye on Nnoitra and his favorite Fraccion. They left the vicinity of her home after a few seconds, but there was that moment where it seemed they were talking about something. "You know, Nel's mother died out in the desert."

"Ah, I didn't know that."

"She was an Espada, once. A Vasto Lorde. She taught me a lot. Probably one of my main teachers for much of her time here. Then she disappeared, and I found her Fracciones and child running around outside the dome a few years later. Imagine my shock. Of course, a child usually has two parents, a mother and a father."

"Oh yeah… Now I remember how that works. Wait, so that's why they say you're the King's daughter? He's your father! Now it's coming together!"

"Yes." Tanya nodded, having to remind herself that Lilynette was almost completely clueless. She was basically the stereotypical 'wild child' reintroduced to civilization. "We don't know who Nel's father is, however, Nelliel spent a lot of time… mentoring and watching over Nnoitra back then. She may have spent more time keeping an eye on him than she did any other single activity. I couldn't tell you why."

A sound like a humorous scoff escaped Lilynette's mouth.

"I would ask that you not tell anyone my theory here," Tanya requested of the girl. "I don't want a rumor circulating around, agitating him. I could be entirely wrong, and we'd need a DNA test to be absolutely certain. Before that, I want to speak with him about the possibility, but he's… abrasive at the best of times. I'm really hoping I'm wrong and that it's not him, though I'd still have no idea who it could be if not."

"Nah, I'll keep it a secret. It's just… Damn, with him?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, when I first suspected something going on between them, all I could think is, 'Sensei, of all people, why him?'"

Lilynette snorted a laugh at that.

"Anyways, let's go wake up your… What do we call your relationship with Stark? Brother, perhaps?"

"Heh, but don't brothers and sisters have the same parents?" the light-green-haired girl asked.

"Well, you came from the same being, much like common siblings."

"Hmm, maybe. I'll call him Big Brother and see how he responds. If it's funny enough, maybe I'll keep doing it." And then she was off again.

"As good a reason as any," Tanya concluded before laughing and taking off in Sonido after her friend.

---

For a long moment, as Ichigo forced himself up to his knees once again, he wondered if it would be fine, even if he became a Hollow.

'They could get me and… fix me, right?' he wondered. 'It wouldn't all be lost. And after what those Shinigami bastards did…'

He grunted and keeled forward. Another link on his chain was eating itself away.

'No! I'm not going to… give up! I'll get up there! I'll get out of here! I have to!'

He pushed, trying to get to his feet, but started to slip, feeling the weakness in his limbs, bound and unbound.

'Damn it! I… I have to do this! I can't force them all to help me out of my problems.'

He wished he had taken the time to learn at least a little about Quincy abilities, if just so he could use them to make some kind of climbing gear or something, even if he was limited to his feet and mouth.

'I need to get up. Get up. Get up!'

As he screamed at himself from within, none noticed the pallor his hands temporarily faded to, or the black claws that grew and faded from his fingertips.