Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]

[wingstrike96]

Is Luppi's plan to make everyone want to kill him so much that they get in each other's way?

 

[Redshirt Army]

Is Luppi's plan to make everyone want to kill him so much that they get in each other's way?

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: That sounds familiar...

 

[RookDeSuit]

So what I'm hearing is that Luppi dumped everything into Reiatsu Perception and has potential for Legendary. Once he stopped being so self absorbed he could see so much.

Click to shrink...

Let's hope Luppi doesn't start hearing the Call of Cthulu Hooler. Or maybe he hears the 4th wall instead?

 

[Eiral]

Let's hope Luppi doesn't start hearing the Call of Cthulu Hooler. Or maybe he hears the 4th wall instead?

Click to shrink...

He took over EarthScorpion account and used it to convince people to dump experience into him. He already assumed control of the Fouth Wall, let alone hearing it.

 

[veekie]

The Tessai battle was fleeing, but the fight with Ururu, Orihime, and Tatsuki was a right proper fight, even if Nemo didn't release.

Click to shrink...

It wasn't even a fight. Nemo was suppressing her power level to approximately Gillian, and thus getting kicked around the block. She wasn't even swinging at them for real, since she was trying to talk them down instead.
The moment she took things seriously they were stomped flat FAST.

I.e. not the kind of fight you announce name and title for.
Nemo was not proud of that fight in any way.

 

[pucflek]

I.e. not the kind of fight you announce name and title for.
Nemo was not proud of that fight in any way.

Click to shrink...

I doubt Nemo will ever be proud of any fight. She might be proud that she is helping her bird, but thats not something you announce. Can you imagine it.
Nemo: "I am stomping all ya asses in name of getting laid with Thunderbird"
Everyone else: "WTF"

 

[Omegahugger]

I doubt Nemo will ever be proud of any fight. She might be proud that she is helping her bird, but thats not something you announce. Can you imagine it.
Nemo: "I am stomping all ya asses in name of getting laid with Thunderbird"
Everyone else: "WTF"

Click to shrink...

Let's not act like Luppi wouldn't do that if he thought it would net him points with Grimmjow.

 

[NexysDhyArchen]

I imagine Ishida would be Nemo's opponent of note for the Karakura Krew's invasion arc. Quincy spirit threads versus Hollow La Marana. Would the nature of Quincy attacks appear as 'perverse' to Nemo's tastes? Who knows, but I definitely see Ishida's powers being something Luppi would find hilarious for Nemo to fight.

 

[Lisafication]

--Aftermath--

The skies over Karakura town were still overcast even hours after the Espada left, thunder a distant rumble and the rain a gentle sprinkling compared to the sudden storm that had nearly drowned the town. It fit the mood of the Shinigami of the town all the same: Dreary, wet, and generally miserable. The Gotei thirteen had sent a captain, a lieutenant, a third seat and a fifth seat, backing up people who were already known to be resourceful and surprisingly dangerous in a fight. They hadn't simply lost; they had been massacred.

Were it not for Urahara and his band - three exiles of Soul Society for whom the official stance barely allowed the Shinigami on the ground to pretend not to notice them - then everyone sent on the mission would be dead. As it was, they had still lost one of their own, permanently. Ikkaku Madarame gave his life to buy the rest of them time.

It shouldn't have been a sacrifice required of him, though. A captain and a lieutenant together should be a force that enemy hollows fled from in terror, rather than casually crushing in scant minutes. For so long, the Gotei had gotten used to not having any true threats to it to face, and grown comfortable in their untouchable superiority. Now, they had been given a rather rude awakening to the fact that this wasn't the case.

Toshiro would admit that he was likely the weakest of the captains. He had hardly been among their ranks for as long as his elders, and for all his genius, there was something to be said for combat experience and the simple amount of time that the others had trained for. Even so, at the end there, he thought that Ikkaku may have well made a better showing against the blue haired Arrancar than he did.

It wasn't fair, as immature as the thought sounded, even in his own head. Toshiro should have been able to protect him, somehow, rather than needing to be protected at someone else's expense. Even then, part of him felt that it just should have gone differently: Ikkaku had just pulled out his Bankai - something that he'd likely been working on achieving for years, decades, or even centuries for all he knew - finally reached and revealed when they most needed it. It should have let him fend off their enemies long enough for the rest of them to stand up and join him again, this time winning. It should have let him at least buy enough time for Urahara and Shihōin to show up and save him, too. It should have ended with the bald man bragging about saving a captain's life, and rudely shouting about how Toshiro would owe him booze for the next three hundred years while he held it over his head.

Ikkaku should have become a new captain in his own right, replacing one of the three traitors, an equal to his old captain who he could spar with whenever they wanted. A century later, they should have looked back on it and laughed, fighting beside each other with the trust born of those who had risked their lives for each other. Should have, could have... but none of it would ever happen now, because even with his Bankai, the monsters they were fighting had crushed him.

The Espada hadn't even released his sword like the others, after going through two Shinigami whose strength would see them classified as captains, even if the weakest of the rank. He hadn't been forced to. Just what sort of monsters were they fighting?

He shifted his eyes to look at the stump of his arm, bandaged and swathed in white. They were warriors, first and foremost - even him, despite his appearance and jokes that had been made at his expense. Every Shinigami who went out to hunt hollows knew the risk when they did so; knew that some hollows would just have abilities that were impossibly unfair, unpredictable, and fiendishly hard to counter on the spot. Even Lieutenants had died to hollows sometimes, rare as it was. Yet, it was rare. The rank and file, those too inexperienced or who just hadn't paid enough attention in the academy and training, those who hesitated and allowed themselves to be caught off guard - losses among them were something that he'd grown used to, almost. It was expected that not all of them would make it past those most dangerous years and ranks, where they were weak enough that sometimes it wouldn't even need the hollow getting lucky for them to be overwhelmed.

Ikkaku had been a shinigami for ages. He had been one of the strongest of the eleventh division. He had reached Bankai. The enemy fought him one on one at the end, in close quarters combat. Everything that Toshiro knew from his experiences up until that point told him that it should have been impossible that Ikkaku would simply die against his enemy without even forcing his foe to reveal some strange, unfairly powerful ability at the bare minimum.

He grimaced, clenching his jaw to chase his mind back away from that line of thought. He already knew that it didn't lead anywhere.

For now, all he could do was try to do the man's memory and sacrifice justice somehow, even if he only had one arm left. But before then, there would be a task that he was looking forward to even less than learning to fight without one of his arms. First, he had to debrief to the other captains, and deliver the news to Zaraki in the process. He'd almost rather fight the Arrancar again, right then and there without even waiting to heal.

A sound from behind him had him closing his eyes for a moment, before rolling towards the door. Yoruichi Shihōin stood there, her expression professional enough that he could nearly imagine her wearing Soi Fon's uniform.

"The fourth division's people are ready to take you back. Do you need help walking?"

There was no derision in her question, and he was painfully thankful for it. Closing his eyes again, he reached out with his one arm to grip the side of the bed, forcing himself slowly to the edge, and then down to the floor. He swayed, barely able to force himself to stand, but stand he did. He looked back up, and earned a respectful nod from the woman, before she turned to walk away. He just hoped that he'd be able to stay standing until he was done giving his report so that it wouldn't be hanging over his head in the hospital; they'd probably have to use a kido to knock him out for him to sleep if he had that weighing on his mind still.

---

In the end, Unohana had put her foot down after seeing the state of her new patients; the debrief meeting was held in the fourth division's barracks under her watchful eye, an additional medic on standby for each of the wounded. If she had been able to force it, they'd have held off the debrief for at least another day or two but the abilities of the enemy forces, along with the results of their attack, simply couldn't wait. The exiles had provided the remaining details of what the Shinigami forces had missed, along with confirmation from the spiritually sensitive humans.

The room was crowded with captains and lieutenants all in the room with the medics, but no one complained about it as the story was told. No one would risk Zaraki's temper if they had, once he heard that Ikkaku had made his last stand with them. The fight itself took little time to describe, yet it felt like it had taken hours by the time each of the survivors had finished their own takes on it, even before the discussion.

The room was silent for a moment after they had finished, the mood weighing heavy on all present. Naturally, Zaraki was the one to break it, arms crossed.

"Fuck. Well, looks like I've got someone to fight then, if he beat Ikkaku without releasing. Sounds like it might be fun."

The statement felt just out of place enough for Toshiro to stare, open mouthed, before growling. "That's all you care about, here?" he shouted. "One of your men gave his life-"

Spiritual power flexed, slamming into him and pinning him back to the bed as Zaraki turned a frown on him. "Yeah, he died. He died before he admitted defeat, and it sounds like he died the way he'd have wanted to go out - fighting a strong guy and doing something he thought was worth it. I'm not going to insult him by getting all teary eyed about it! I'm going to take the Eleventh out to drink in his name, and then we're going to fight in his memory! And I'm going to find the guy strong enough to kill him, and see just how tough he is. Got it?"

Sweat dripped down Toshiro's back, and he nodded. "Y-yeah. I... he really would prefer something like that, huh?"

The question was met with a sharp-toothed grin. "You'd better believe it - any of us in the eleventh would want the same."

A cleared throat had everyone turning back towards Yamamoto, the head captain's eyes opening partially. "There will be time to mourn or not later. Captains - your thoughts on the reports?"

The Shinigami in the room looked among themselves, before Kyōraku shrugged at the side. "What is there to say? We underestimated the forces that Aizen's built up. It's unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. But I think we all got that from looking at Hitsugaya's arm."

A sigh drew his eyes towards Soi Fon. "Yes, thank you for that. In that vein of thought, I believe we should consider ourselves fully at war, rather than simply acting to punish some traitors and a band of hollows they've collected. The coordination and the numbers of opponents able to fight against captain level shinigami that they were willing to send on this last attack should be more than enough to show why. Four different Arrancar at levels close to or equal to a captain, and then a fifth who was waiting in the wings to try to take advantage of a distraction to assassinate Urahara. They crippled several of our assets, injured more, killed one, and kidnapped another - one who up until now has shown a trend of rapid growth and who hadn't seen Aizen's Shikai. Even if it was unlikely that Kurosaki would have been at the level of being able to fight Aizen on his own any time soon, it was still a potential advantage we could have made use of. One that the Arrancar have now removed from consideration."

Ukitake tilted his head up. "Fair enough. Then, given that our enemy was willing to commit so many lieutenant and captain level threats to this fight, I would propose that we keep that in mind for our own deployments. Divided, we can be swarmed and defeated in detail. I'd propose that no less than three captains be present for any deployment, and given Urahara's aid to us this time, that we try to coordinate more with his group. Had the three of them been on the battlefield from the start, things would have gone much differently, I feel. And if he had a way to contact us, he could have requested someone come to deactivate the trap he was caught in from the outside."

The tightening of both the head captain's and Soi Fon's lips into thin lines showed what they thought of working more closely with Urahara, but a moment later, Yamamoto nodded gravely. "I won't stop my men from making use of what allies they can find in the field. He is untrustworthy, overall, but in this at least, he is our enemy's enemy if nothing else."

A yawn from across the room drew glances towards Mayuri, though the scientist didn't seem to pay them any mind. "Yes, yes, but when will you be getting me some samples to work with?" he asked, the smile on his face sharp as a knife. "If I have something to start from, I'll be able to fine-tune my poisons for them, or perhaps figure out some of their abilities and ways to negate or bypass them. Really, you should prioritize that above anything else, if you want to win!"

Byakuya's voice cut in, there. "While all of this is well and good, I think that what the head commander wanted was more... strategies and battle tactics we could actually put into use for our next fight. For one, it is obvious that we cannot try to separate and fight one on one as we might normally do, but neither can we trust a group fight to go our way as long as they have the Arrancar mentioned in Urahara's report. As such, that one should be considered a priority target if we can convince them to separate again, as they did at first, and have a squad or a captain specifically ready to aim for his life nearby. From what we've seen of him, someone able to bypass his tentacles would be best for a quick kill before he can bring in his allies; Myself or Soi Fon would likely be best. If he tries to defend against me, my Shikai and Bankai can flow around his defense to destroy him. With Soi Fon, she need only tap his own guard twice to kill him, unless the tentacles are somehow separate creatures."

There was a slight murmuring of agreement, before Mayuri piped up again. "Well, just make sure to preserve as much of the body as you can for me to research. If I can reverse engineer that ability, it could be useful in letting our lower ranks participate in a meaningful way in the fights."

The lower ranks would also likely die doing so, but Mayuri wouldn't care about that any, of course.

Toshiro finally cut in again from his bed. "We also simply didn't have the numbers to prevent them from launching attacks in multiple locations," he reminded them. "Fighting to defend locations they're attacking lets them choose the battlefield too well. What we should focus on is finding a way to bring the fight to them, where we can go all out without worrying about the living world around us."

"And rescue Kurosaki?" Soi Fon's pointed question drew a small flinch. "Attacking a location that the enemy has had time to make defensible is guaranteed to end up with more casualties in any large scale engagements. Not to mention that we'd need to commit everything if we were expecting the full enemy's strength to be near our own in numbers and power both. It would leave the seireitei nearly undefended if we took enough to crush them at full strength, and Aizen's the sort to take advantage of that. We'll need to pick off some of his minions on the field first, if we want an all out assault to work without leaving us open to a slaughter of our remaining forces we leave behind."

He clenched his fist, trying to calm himself, but it wasn't working. "Then we just leave him in our enemy's hands? Will we do the same if it's one of our numbers they decide to take, next?"

"You're being irrational, Hitsugaya-taichou. But I didn't say that we shouldn't attack them in their base - merely that an all out assault would be doomed. What you'd want would be an infiltration squad - assassins, saboteurs, and extraction specialists. Something which you are unfortunately ill suited for. Leave such things to the second division, and focus on your own job."

And of course, Soi Fon's assassins would definitely put rescuing someone who wasn't actually a part of soul society yet over attempting to kill one of the enemy fighters if the chance presented itself. Something told him that the idea would be about as convincing and comforting to Ichigo's friends as it was to him. However...

It wasn't as though he could go in his shape. He would need days to recover his spiritual energy and cracked ribs, maybe weeks if they were broken badly enough, and even then, he wouldn't have his arm. It would be months before he could reliably fight against enemies on his own level again without the missing arm hampering him, even if he was sure he could still fight well enough to be of use with a couple days of practice once he was out of the hospital. If anyone was going to try to invade Aizen's stronghold and rescue Ichigo, he wasn't likely to be able to join them.

He wasn't as close to Kurosaki as some of the other Shinigami were, but even so, he was the one who had been on duty, been charged with protecting Karakura town. It grated that he wouldn't be able to fix his mistake - wouldn't be able to make up for at least one of his failures, even if he couldn't bring Ikkaku back. Of course, Soi Fon might actually be right about what the best course of action was, to an extent: sneaking in, if it was possible, would avoid whoever was going possibly having to fight several of the monsters that had crushed him so easily when they came at him together. He glanced at Byakuya, but the man's face was as unreadable as ever.

Would the younger Kuchiki insist on trying to rescue Kurosaki herself? Almost certainly, he determined. The boy and his living friends had invaded soul society for her, and her honor wouldn't let her do anything less in return, he was sure. Would her brother join her to help? Or would they try to invade without any captain class fighters to back them up? At the least, maybe he could help train some of the people who would be going, give them some pointers and suggestions.

Soi Fon was still looking at him, trying to read his expression, and he allowed the defeat to sink into him. He, after all, would likely not be able to help with any retrieval done. "I'll leave it to those more suited than myself, then," he agreed. The conversation started turning back to more ideas, but they had still only seen a few of the Arrancar's abilities enough to be sure of counters for them, so they'd need to either have overwhelming power on hand or fight defensively until they could come up with those counters, if they wanted to make sure they won with as few casualties as possible moving on.

He wasn't able to keep his focus much longer, laying back and closing his eyes as his thoughts moved on and worried about those children who would almost certainly be going into Hueco Mundo soon, with or without help from the Gotei thirteen thanks to Urahara. He'd find some way to make sure they had help, he determined. It was the only thing his own honor would allow.

Click to shrink...

Okay so I've just had this pointed my way - it's not badly written, not at all. As a stand-alone piece, I quite like it.

But it isn't a stand-alone piece. One of the key themes of Omicron's Winter War so far has been focusing on the horrors of war, the necessary evils that are still evil and the impact that those actions and such have on people. This piece makes it very clear that you, the writer, consider the Espada to be the protagonists of the war. There's a distinct lack of the sort of visceral impact that I'd expect to see.

As an example, a large part of Hitsugaya's internal monologue at the start is dedicated to, basically, sucking off Grimmjow and Luppi. This should at most be an after-thought. A piece covering the impact of the War like this should be exploring the damage that has been done - one of Hitsugaya's best friends is in intensive care. How does that make him feel? Where are Ikkaku's friends who aren't from Eleventh Division, what sort of impact has his death had on them?

You don't need to have legions of people weeping, but I think you really want to look into the emotional and mental impact that this sort of thing has on the friends and allies of those injured - the evils that Aizen's army have committed should not be glossed over like this.

My apologies if this seems unnecessarily harsh, but I think this is really important to Number None's themes - war, and the damage it does to the people involved in it should be at the forefront of any snippets that want to cover this sort of thing, in my eyes.

 

[Omicron]

The Deluge

All right guys. Time for some new ground rules.

I really appreciate how much effort people have been putting into fanwork for this Quest, I really do. Having that kind of reception has been bewildering and at the same time heartwarming.

That said, it's kind of a problem.

I like reading your omakes, but when I come home from a family week-end to more than twenty of them, and have to read them all and judge them to award xp, it's... It's homework, guys. It's a significant expense of time that I am not willing to delegate to someone else because it's my Quest and my canon. It delays the next update even further and can take me an entire evening because I am slow to get these things done. Even enjoyable things, in too much of a quantity, begin to be overbearing.

That's even besides concerned about sudden XP growth and the power curve. XP is there to reward people for bringing their own contribution to the Quest and show my appreciation that they're fans dedicated enough to write about my own weird little interactive fanfic. "Farming" XP isn't supposed to be a thing, and while I feel a bit bad about lowering rewards to keep the power curve in check, ultimately if you write less because you were putting in so much work to make Nemo's numbers bigger, I'm sorry, but not running yourself ragged will probably improve the quality of your output because you give it more time and thought?

The latest trend of "omake quests" is also a problem of its own. People vote on them, and that's fun, and it keeps the thread alive between updates, but I've had people telling me in private that they basically stopped following the thread until the next update because, well, they're here for Number None and the thread has grown ten pages, of which 50% are votes on a sub-Quest that has little if anything to do with the actual Number None story, so they just tune out.

That's an issue for me.

So, I'm not going to ban sub-Quests. They're fun and I clearly have readers who do appreciate them. I also don't think they'll last forever, motivation for crack stories eventually runs out. You can still post them in this thread! But I am going to ban, well, voting on them by posts in the thread. Sorry. There can be alternatives! You can have people PM you votes, or you could institute a "vote by ratings" system ("Like this post for Option A, Informative this post for Option B,") open an "official NN subquests thread," I don't know. Many options.

I'm going to grandfather in @Phigment's Now You Feel Like Number 48 if his last post about not continuing it was a joke. Because it was the first of its kind, and it's actually closely related to the NN story itself rather than only featuring its characters, and also it's really more of a fic where as far as I can tell the vote is often not real because it's told in anachronic order and the follow-up to an update has already been written and posted weeks before

And generally reactions to people's omakes are fine. It's just these vote-only posts that are votes for a Quest that isn't actually the Quest that are a problem.

I am also probably going to skip omakes that have increasingly little to do with Number None other than featuring a character called Nemo. I don't mean stop rewarding them, I mean I'm literally going to skip reading them because you're already giving me so much to read and I have to, you know, actually update the Quest.

And generally I might reward some things less than I used to when there is a huge glut of omakes. The canon stuff below only got 25xp, for instance.

All right. We cool?

So, let's get to the current round of omakes.

Luppi's Day Off

Your name is Luppi Antenor, and you are unfairly tired.

If there was any justice in the world, you'd have finished up your little argument with Grimmjow, and then the two of you could have made some beautiful corpses together. Hell, maybe the pretty one would have come to and tried whatever cute little technique he'd been holding back. It would have been the perfect denouement to the outing - not only to you get to heroically save the Sexta, you'd get to prove you were right and he was wrong. And what's more romantic than saving someone's life and getting to rub their nose in it?

But apparently, the Universe isn't willing to let you enjoy yourself, because it just had to throw a monster at you.

You frown a little at your own thought there - it's not like you're opposed to monsters, as a general rule. You're a monster, the Espada are all monsters in at least one or two ways, even Nemo's a monster deep down for all that she tries to cover it up with frilly layers of "basic decency," "standards of behaviour" and other nonsense. You'd hardly be as attracted to Grimmjow if he wasn't at least a touch monstrous - yes, he has abs you could grate steel on, and a smile that reminds all the little people just how tragically fragile they are, but it would hardly be worth pursuing if he didn't have that drive to dominate, to conquer and break his enemies. Something to bounce off of in a less literal sense, if you will.

This was a different sort of monster, or at least a sort you're lucky enough not to deal with.

Ever since your, if you are to be honest with yourself, rather embarassing performance as your battle with Dordonni's little friends began, you've been paying closer attention to the texture of the bonds you break. Something about them reminds you of threads, or tapestries, or scarves and sashes. You blame Nemo for that. And at the start, the Shinigami had seemed normal enough. The captain, linked to his lessers by heavy cords of duty alone. Baldy and Feather-Eyes, bonded by a thick weave, friendship and rivalry and lust and respect all tied together. The woman, the threads of her care fainter than her allies, but woven twice over with something almost familial for her captain, made as strong as any other.

The monster had bound himself to the cat with chains of iron. It was unnatural, startling enough you didn't even think to comment on his frankly ridiculous attire. For a moment, you'd wondered if it was something external, something forced onto him - breaking something like that, seeing him turn to her with the eyes of a stranger would have been delicious. But as you grasped at the chain you felt it, felt him, and knew it was his own doing, and something too strong to break easily. And it definitely wasn't because you were too busy trying to not die to focus on breaking it.

The man in the hat had forged his chain from himself. Piece by piece, making a way to reach out, pieces of something cold linking together until they could pass, at a glance, as friendship. Or maybe another kind of relationship - you mean, you'd judge the lady for her taste if she'd gotten involved with something wearing that outfit, leaving aside any issues with romancing someone who'd made something so fake out of himself, but you could hardly fault him for his taste if they were together.

And then he'd sent her off to help the wounded, so you'd had to just... Fight. Like any of the other Arrancar. It's like, sure, Nemo's little present meant you could count on the others to not be total glory-hound idiots, and you were hardly looking forwards to fighting two captains at once, but still. You were literally made to fray bonds, and you didn't even get the opportunity to try!

You just had to hope your previous showing had managed to keep the Sexta thinking of you. And good luck with that, knowing him he's probably decided this guy is his new rival and decided to spend all his time training. Again.

You pout, briefly.

But at least the battle wasn't a total waste. The instant corpses Mr. Hat had kept for decoys were interesting, to say the least. A bit of energy, and instant body! You're pretty sure you could get them to shrink back down, too, if you could just get your reiatsu to move the right way. It's so much easier than having to kill someone every time you need a corpse for a prank, and you already have some fun ideas.

Of course, picking a target isn't easy. You mean, normally you could test it on Nemo but she was off, fighting her own captain, and didn't even get the chance to see him. Admittedly, she might have mentioned seeing him on her spying trip, but you don't think she did, and even then you're honestly not sure if something as little as an instant captain would break her composure. The same goes for Ulquiorra. If you thought you could make him flinch you'd consider stealing a camera from the mortal world just to prove it happened, but getting under his skin would just be too much work right now. And Grimmjow's pack is out for the opposite reason, it would just be too easy to get them right now, but you don't want to wait.

You need someone who knows what the guy looks like, someone with an actual reason to fear the man, and someone who wasn't part of your little invasion force.

Well, when you think of it like that, there's only one target even possible!

---

Finding a cane and some sticks to prop the corpse up with was slightly trickier than expected, but between Nemo's workshop and some furniture no one was using anyways, you managed to put something together.

And it's not every day you get to find out how Gin reacts when he walks in to find Urahara Kisuke sitting slouched on his bed.

Click to shrink...

So, yeah, this ended up canon.

The one thing is that seeing spiritual stuff as threads is Nemo's shtick; as seen in the interlude just posted, Luppi conceptualizes it as music. That's not a deal-breaker though. Canon, 25xp. Luppi gets another 25xp.

AN: By the way, I'm titling this whole thing "Now You Feel Like Number 2hu" for now.

Loading. Please wait warmly.
​

Stage Two

life wouldn't be better
if your presence was absent
please reconsider
​

The mountainside is alive. It's alive with trees and shrubs and grass and flowers, with insects and birds and forest mammals large and small. It's alive with activity, other travelers you see in the distance, patrols of bird-like pseudo-Hollows in the skys above. But it's also alive in a more direct sense.

Little bundles of magic and nature swirl in your wake as you speed down the trail, tiny fairy sprites that remind you of that girl you fought against not that long ago. When you examine them, you gain flashes of the land that spawned them - this one, born from the knot in an old tree, the next, from a particular rock slick from river water. They fearlessly chase after you, a few tossing simple orbs of light so gossamer thin that they shatter from mere proximity to your spiritual pressure. They know no death - so long as their tree or rock or glade or fallen log remains, they will be reborn.

The vibrancy of the flowers, so beautiful at first glance, is in truth unnaturally powerful upon closer examination. Their very colors are a subtle enchantment to entice the eye, spread out in a gamut that ranges far beyond that of normal flowers. The plants here are not merely fed with sun and water, they feast upon the power of the land.

You redouble your speed. This is a strange mountain, in a strange realm, and in your experience, strange places are dangerous. Perhaps you could face this danger, now that you've grown, but perhaps not. At best, it would still represent a delay. Better to leave this behind, and focus on your destination.

You continue following your map, and soon enough the woods at the base of the mountain give way to open farmland. The young spring fields sway in the wind, and for a while you ponder on what differences allow this place to be so lush while Hueco Mundo remains a barren wasteland. If you could learn, perhaps you - you and Cirucci and all the Arrancar - can change that place and make it grow as well.

You're idly pondering how ethical it would be to unravel a fairy to see how it works, when you're distracted by the music coming from further ahead. You don't hear the music, in much the same way that others don't hear you speak - the impression of the melody is being carried on subtle fluctuations of background energy, rather then on vibrations of air, and so you feel it with your inner self, not your ears.

It's an improvisatory tune, something like a reherasal or brainstorming session, with different leitmotifs and instruments being thrown in or out from moment to moment, but all the same it showcases a significant degree of underlying skill. You stretch your senses out, but the results are confusing, and so your curiosity is piqued as you round the bend around a gently rolling hill, and finally lay eyes on the source of the music.

They look like ordinary girls, but to your senses they feel... confusing. You approach closer, narrowing your eyes. They don't have souls at all - it's not just that they aren't alive, they never were alive. They're something close to the phantoms conjured by your Cero, really, but fiendishly more complex, and fully self sustained - there's no trailing connection to a caster, and nobody else around to sustain them anyway.

What are they?

"We're the Prismrivers," the tallest one states blandly, as she tucks away her papers - sheet music, now that you're looking more closely. Belatedly, you notice that the background melody has stopped, all three of them gazing at you now with different degrees of guardedness.

You back away a touch, and bow in apology. You hadn't ever seen an enchantment as... intricate as them before.

There's a pause, and then the pink haired one jumps to her feet with a smile. "We're just awesome like that! Are you new to Gensokyo? What are you? Do you play an instrument?" She snatches at your arm, and you consider throwing her off, but she releases it almost as quickly. "You do! Strings!" She turns to the tallest one, and tugs at her sleeve. "You wanna compare notes, Lunasa?"

The girl in question sighs, while the final member of the trio quietly giggles. "My apologies for Merlin's exuberance. I am Lunasa Prismriver, Merlin needs to learn to contain herself, and our youngest sibling is Lyrica. I don't recall seeing you before, are you indeed new here?"

You nod. You've recently arrived, and you've been informed about the Spellcard Rules. You're currently heading to the Netherworld.

Lyrica finally pipes up. "That makes sense. You're a whole bundle of restless spirits all tied up into one thing, right? If anyone can sort that out, it's Lady Yuyuko."

You keep your face impassive as you file that information away. You don't particularly desire to be 'sorted out', actually - you're hoping that Yuyuko can assist you in another matter.

Merlin looks like she's about to interject again, but Lunasa cuts her off. "Well, as a client Lady Yuyuko's been excellent in our experience. Prompt payment, very few issues. She looks flighty, but at least half of that is an act." She shifts a touch, in apparent embarrasment. "I've never won a game against her, be it Go or Chess."

Yukuko hired them?

"For years and years, yeah!" Merlin's eyes sparkle, literally, as she digs into a pocket and pulls out a... buisness card? "The Prismriver Sisters do birthdays, social events, graduations, parties, and concert venues! You can hire Gensokyo's best musical group for highly reasonable rates!"

... Just how long have they been active? Your Cero's echos fade after only a few minutes, but if they've been continually active for years... This is seriously bothering you, what are they?

Lunasa's eyes narrow, but Lyrica smiles a false smile, and walks up to you. "After some unfortunate events, youngest and dearest sister was once left all alone in our family mansion. She went a little bit mad, and made illusions of her departed elder sisters to keep her company. And year by year, she fed more and more of herself into those illusions, until she had faded into nothing, and we were all that was left, now more real then her."

She makes a show of counting on her fingers. "That was, oh, four hundred or so years ago. We came to Gensokyo thirty or so years later, and we've been here ever since, as thinking and learning and real as any other being." She approaches even closer. "So, since we're sharing backstories, what does an amalgam of thousands of wailing souls want with the Lady anyway?"

Ah. You keep your face blank, considering how to respond, when Merlin butts in yet again. "Stop picking fights, Lyrica! And you, moth lady, you should apologize too." She blinks, then smacks a fist into an open palm. "We needed inspiration anyway, the session was getting derivative. Play us a spooky song, spooky lady, and we'll call it even!"

---

You...

{ } ...don't have time to waste.

You've already spent long enough on this digression. Quickly apologize and try to smooth things over as best you can, and then get back on task.

{ } ...answer Lyrica's questions.

Your questioning of their status seems to have nettled them, so you should reciprocate by sharing your own origin in broad strokes. There shouldn't be many negative consequences beyond your own discomfort, and perhaps they can give you advice.

{ } ...play Lunasa a song.
-{ } Of Hueco Mundo, hollows, and home.
-{ } Of Cirucci, duty, and love.

They've been in repeated contact with Lady Yuyuko, so being on good terms with them might be very useful when you're later negotiating for her help - and this is probably the response best at making up for your mistake. Hopefully they can provide an instrument...

Click to shrink...

That introductory bit is pretty solid description work, evocative.

You bow again, deeper this time. You won't play them a spooky song, but you will play them a song about yourself, and answer their questions. Is that fair recompense for prying at their past?

Lunasa looks you up and down, and nods. "Yes, that would be a fair exchange." In her expression, you can see a hint of respect towards you. "You play strings, yes? Which ones?"

The zither, primarily.

She brings a hand out, and focuses. "Waldzither? Alpine, concert?"

Er? You focus on the parts of yourself that know how to play, and all you recall is the instrument being called a zither, without any additonal prefixes.

She blinks. "Mmm, it's always distracting keeping up with the current names. They started shifted them a century or so back. Not the waldzither then, you'd call that a cittern." She waves her hand, and a copy of a your instrument of choice fades into sight. "How's a volkzither?"

You distractedly reach out and grab it, focussing on something else. They renamed citterns zithers, even though there was an entirely different instrument already called a zither? That's dumb.

Lunasa smiles faintly, and Merlin enthusiastically nods along. "It's suuuper dumb, yeah! Don't even get me started on all the different types of flute!"

Right. Right. You need to focus. You're going to be tell them about what you're doing here, and that means explaining what it is you need to return for. What Cirucci means to you. You test pull on the strings of the phantom instrument, and the sound is as crisp and clear and ethereal as you've ever heard it, perfectly tuned. And then you play.

You play of fear, of hiding in the shadows in a land of giants, one that you needed and hated in equal measure, of trying and failing to stay away from the gaze of those infinitely your superior. You play of rising tension and disaster, as a servant of time itself sought to bring you low, of running to the only safe space you could think of.

And you play of the rising storm that sheltered you, that nurtured you, that built you up even as you built it up, your melodies entwining. The first drops of falling rain, as the storm reclaimed its place among the mightiest rules of the universe, of bringing you into its service as its loyal and dutiful servant.

And then of the wrath and rage of the storm, as you were taken from it, of the day the thunder marched against the moon and won, for the sake of your love. You play of building things, of the nurturing rains that can one day bring life to the desert.

And then you were lost, set adrift in the place between worlds, and that same storm must now still rage on. You must return to your love once more, that the storm will again dream of giving life, instead of causing death.

A moment of silence, as you open your eyes. And then-

Merlin is hugging you, and you hide a wince as your poor organs protest the abuse. "Aww, that's so sweet! Don't worry, I'm sure Lady Yuyuko will help reunite you with your storm." Her voice drops to a stage whisper. "She's a total sap for stories like that!"

Lunasa politely applauds for a moment, but Lyrica just looks thoughtful. "The place you were in..."

Las Noches.

"Las Noches, okay, it sounds like the people in it were pretty strong, if someone like you had to hide. Because you got stronger with your storm, but you weren't eating more souls or anything, right? You were like this from the start."

All of you were. You were all of you Arrancars, the ravenous souls sent to Las Noches, reforged into a human shape once again.

Merlin and Lunasa look startled, but Lyrica's thoughtful expression only intensifies. "All of you? Even Time and the Storm? Hm." Lunasa looks like she wants to ask something, but Lyrica sends her a look as she taps her fingers together, and the older girl cuts herself off. Lyrica looks back to you. "How did you get lost anyway?"

You were fleeing with an ally within a Garganta, the passageway between worlds that Arrancar can generate, when a stronger foe chased you within. You unraveled the pathway to save your comrade, but were lost yourself, and ended up in Yukari's realm.

Lyrica ponders this for a moment. "If you can open pathways between worlds, couldn't you just try doing that from here?"

You rock back on your heels. Could you just open a pathway home from here? Have you just been ignoring the possibility? You pluck at reality, eager to test it... you pluck at reality... it's not working, at all. Not even the slightest ripple, much less a full opening. It feels like reality here is less like fabric you can cut, and more of a hazy mist that constantly slips through your fingers.

Lyrica leans in, pondering this. "Huh. If Yuyuko can't help you, maybe try going to the Outside world, and trying to open a path there? It's more, uh, 'real' then this place? More solid, more concrete."

You file that away as an alternative plan if your current one doesn't pan out, then curtsey one final time as you thank them for accepting your apology.

Lunasa dips into a curtsey of her own. "Thank you, Nemo, for sharing what you did with us. It's a very inspirational story, and we wish you the best of luck in getting home. Stay safe while you're here!" And with that, the three of them gently lift off, towards the mountain.

You smile, and continue past them... wait. You turn back. You never told them your name, so how did...?

Merlin catches your eye, and winks.

Huh.

You continue towards your meeting with the Princess of the Netherworld, armed with new information for negotiations and pondering just how much about you the sisters learned from that song, and soon enough the intersection with the Road of Reconsideration is within sight, a maple tree planted on the far corner. You're slightly behind on your mental schedule, owing to your prolonged interaction with the musicians, but as long as nothing else suddenly crops up, you should still make it to to Yuyuko before nightfall.

You approach the road, gazing at your map to ascertain which direction to turn, when-

The moment you step onto the crossroads, the sudden change of atmosphere is so stark it takes your breath away, so stark you come to a halt to gawk at the difference. The grass, so green and lush a moment ago, now has the yellows and browns of imminent death. The tree, once teeming with new buds, now looks entirely bare.

It's not that there is a border separating the living greenery from the dead - it's that a border shifts your perception of all the plant life around you. You step backwards slowly, and you catch the moment again, the shift as everything around you changes, and all the plants within sight are once again thick with life, the tree once again budding.

You reconsult your map, and find that passing along the Road of Reconsideration is indeed the fastest way to reach your goal. Braced for it, expecting it, the shift is less startling this time, but no less unsettling for it. In the distance, even the mountain you descended from now looks lifeless and barren.

You're not averse to the deadness of the area - this side of Gensokyo is still more lively then the wastes of your home. Rather, it is the sheer contrast between this region and your previous observations that perturbs you. Is this what it truly means to exist in Gensokyo, located on the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead? Is that why the Garganta wouldn't open, because you were already within the in-between place?

You move, at first cautiously, and then with steadily increasing speed as you seek to put this place behind you. Around you, plusses bob lethargically through the air, and in each and every single one of them you catch the feelings of despair. You reach out for an answer, and find it in the paving stones of the road. This is the path that all those who contemplate suicide must walk down, a metaphor made literal, all those despairing spirits drawn as one to this place.

You try to shut your mind's eye and push forward ever faster, but an oddity worms its way into you - you can feel that these spirits have been festering here for years, even decades in some cases. Why haven't they succumbed to the hunger? What is this place, where reality is evershifting, where life springs from nothing and death knows no emptiness? You don't belong here, and the pressure of it is stifling. You close your eyes, and focus only on the movement, pushing yourself just below the pain threshold. You need to get to Yuyuko, talk to her, and get out.

You spot her far too late, nearly crashing into her as she slowly walks by the road. Her spiritual pressure is intense, dangerous. Not nearly as powerful as an Espada, but still stronger than yours. You shouldn't have have missed it, but you were trying to avoid paying attention to your senses here, avoid hearing the endless litany of suicidal thoughts. In the background, is... something.

You've read about gigais, and how shinigami can use them to assume a facsimile of life once more by possessing them. This looks like a horrific corruption of the same concept. A departed soul, chained back into its rotting, decaying body by the magic of the woman, and bound to obey its masters every command with bonds stronger then steel.

The woman is pulling the abundant souls of this place towards her, gathering them in a basket held by her risen corpse minion. She was, rather, because it seems you've attracted her undivided attention. You consider fleeing past her, but there are other beacons of her power scattered across the path ahead, traps or barriers of some kind.

She looks fascinated by you, taking a long drag from her pipe. "Just look at that, it's gorgeous!"

You keep yourself from leaning back. You're just passing through, and would like to avoid any trouble.

She licks her lips, leaving her basket of souls behind as she deliberately steps into your personal space. "Well, I suppose I could let you go, buuuuuut..."

She reaches in, and plucks a soul from you.

Wait, what. What?! You frantically Sonido back out of range, gritting your teeth at the stab of internal pain. Polilia is drawn and at the ready, as you focus on what she's holding. Your senses trace the connection between the soul in her fingers and your greater self, still solid for now but slowly being worn away. How is that possible? What did she do?!

"Ho? A fast one, aren't you? Tell you what, I'll let you past me... if you give me one hundred souls." She twirls your stolen essence around her fingers. "I'll even be generous and consider this one of them. Come, now, you've got thousands of the things."

Your grip on your blade tightens. She has unknown abilities, and is stronger then you. Fresher too, probably. But you're loathe to leave a part of yourself - any part - with her, if she treats it anything like how she treats her servant. Perhaps... a challenge under the laws of this land? Or should you try to flee?

---

{ } Challenge her to a spellcard duel, for the return of your soul and safe passage.
-{ } Write-in strategy.

Your Balas are significantly faster then standard Danmaku, and Sonido is a useful trick, albeit a painful one with your current wounds. Your opponent is probably experienced with the customs of this land, however. That said, she seems to be a wicked and prideful one, so perhaps you can goad her into an error?

{ } Flee, abandoning the single soul stolen from you.
-{ } Back towards the mountain, a known trail to you.
-{ } Past her, seeking to avoid or weather the traps she's laid out on the ground and in the sky to fence in lesser spirits.

A single soul is a pittance of your total power, but leaving it behind gives your opponent a direct link to your inner self until the connection degrades, and will leave a spiritual scar for some time even afterwards.

{ } Fight in earnest.
-{ } Write-in.

You'd better have a really good plan...

Click to shrink...

That was a cute song. Still good environmental description, too, and the idea of stealing a soul from Nemo is clever.

You exhale, and gather your focus. The safest way to proceed is to challenge her under the rules of this land, but you need to do it cunningly, if you want to maximize your odds of success. It's distasteful, but you'll lower yourself to even this if it means you can return to Cirucci sooner. You channel Luppi.

You're astonished that someone could possibly be so ignorant of the situation they find themselves in, although you suppose that her clothes should have tipped you off already - nobody that keeps wearing a dress literal centuries out of style can be expected to be alert to the world around them.

"Hmmm? I see the true Tao of the universe laid before me, and you are the one labouring under a delusion." She clenches her hand around the soul. "Pay my toll, restless spirit, a minor portion of the souls you yourself have stolen, or I will rip you to scattered shreds, never to reunite!"

She's right in one respect - a single soul is but a drop of the vast sea you have within you. But even a newcomer to this land like you can tell that you won't need even a fraction of that power to defeat her - she's a brute, with no finesse or skill, it's obvious.

"Hah, you think you can defeat me? Hell has sent for me a dozen times, and a dozen times I have prevailed! You have some measure of power, girl, but you cannot measure up to the wrath of the kishin themselves!" It's subtle, but her expression twists for a moment, and you seize the opening.

Did she really prevail against the kishin each time? Or did she simply run and hide until the danger had passed? You know well the expression of a coward, and she holds it. You think of Rudbornn. You have stood and fought against those many times greater then you. Can she say the same?

The zombie looks up from its basket, gazing at its master. She's angry now, though she tries to hide it with a false carefree smile. "My story is not for you to know, insolent whelp. Who are you, to challenge me? My skills have won many a day, and they will win again today."

Oh, you very much doubt that, if the state of her servant is anything to look at. You could bind a soul infinitely better then that with an hours work and some string. She should be ashamed, putting such crude work on display - if she feels any shame at all, that is.

Her eyes narrow, and her response is nearly a hiss. "You impugn my talent, and you insult my dearest Yoshika." The zombie perks up, smiling at hearing its name called and dropping the basket of souls in the process. "I challenge you to a duel for the insult, a duel with the servant you so disparage acting in my stead."

She floats backwards, out of the way, as the corpse girl suddenly jerks up into the air ahead of you. The connection between master and servant flares bright in your spiritual senses. She takes a deep pull of her pipe. "When Yoshika wins, I demand from you a thousand souls."

You curtsey. Unlike her, you have manners. When you win, you all you ask is the return of the soul she plucked from you, safe passage down this route, and for her to trouble you nevermore.

The feather-light binding marking the start of the duel descends.

Stage Two Boss - Yoshika Miyako
The Reliable Jiang Shi Assistant

You open by launching a screaming duo of Balas at the animated corpse, wanting to judge its reaction speeds, and are pleased to see that Yoshika is indeed too slow to properly dodge your attacks - and less pleased to note that the gaping wound you've blown in her chest is healing extraordinarily quickly before your very eyes.

You launch a third and forth shot, slowing the already ponderous movements of your target even further with Bala Envoler, while you try to consider your options, but your opponent makes her own move at that moment. In your spiritual senses, you can see the dozens upon dozens of finely linked chains lash out from her spirit, each of them individually hooking onto one of the myriad floating souls around you.

Suddenly, you're faced with a barrage of shots - not from one direction, but from all around you, as through the chains, the lingering spirits become nothing more then an extension of the necromancer' will, each of them a mobile bombardment platform spitting out bullet after bullet. You frantically weave through the unceasing storm, but there's simply too many shots, and where they hit you you feel weakened and numbed.

This can't continue. You lash out, your Cero cutting a clear path. Over a dozen of the suicidal souls evaporate as it slams into your target, and the remainder flee in response, some deeply buried survival instinct rearing its head. She jerks sideways unnaturally at the last moment, but that just means that rather then vaporizing the entire body, you've merely bisected her vertically.

You relax momentarily, approaching closer, only to realize the chains between the master and the servants soul are still active. With a sinking feeling, you realize that the spellcard binding on you didn't instruct you to tone down your Cero at all - it counted as non-lethal. Within seconds, the body of the woman is entirely reconstructed from the power fed to her by the necromancer. It looks to be, if anything, in a better and less decayed state then it was before the fight.

The spirit link flaring to the highest degree you've seen yet forewarns you, and you back far out of range just in time to mostly avoid a veritable explosion of power from the zombie, streams of light and energy curving slightly towards you as the roadway beneath her is reduced to so much rubble. That attack wouldn't have killed you up close, you note in the back of your mind, but it would have been a crippling injury. Even still, you're being worn down, and the numbness from the shots that connected with you is only spreading.

What does it mean, to fight a 'non-lethal' duel against an opponent who can regenerate from that degree of injury, one that does not feel pain. Does it even have enough thoughts enough to affect with your conjured phantoms? Every single one of its actions are dictated to it by the connection to the woman floating in the background. You keep up a barrage of Balas as you circle around, the slowing effect of Envoler letting you keep your distance for now as you implement your solution.

If the servant is thoughtless, then the master must be directing its every move. You charge up a Cero once more, but having already seen it, your opponent is prepared to counter, unleashing a barrage of dagger shaped constructs of light, seeking to cut off your attack. You're forced to jerk to the side to dodge, and your beam goes far to the side of Yoshika, missing her entirely. Rather, your Cero Triste splashes against the ground next to the necromancer.

Linking into the lingering mists from your previous failed shot, the effect this time is nearly instantaneous. A figure takes shape from your dark fog... one that looks nearly identical to the servant you've been fighting this whole time.

"Why did you chose me?" You'd perhaps have expected anger, or lingering resentment, but you can't sense either of those things from the shade you've called forth, only earnest curiosity. "There were dozens, hundreds of corpses you could have accessed far more easily, and yet you broke into the mausoleum of a long departed author to create your servant."

Seiga gives the apparition a side-eyed look. "This is just an illusion, a trick. You can't expect me to fall for this."

The phantom is gaining in cohesion, the edges becoming more defined by the moment. "It's an illusion, but if I can see the operation, so must you, Seiga. It taps into memory. Your memory... and mine." Yoshika has turned away from you entirely, shambling towards her mirror image with a smile. Orders come down the link... but aren't obeyed.

Power builds up in Seiga's hands, enough to rival your own Cero, but she can't quite bring herself to launch it, backing further away from the illusion instead.

Yoshika - both Yoshikas - keep advancing towards her. The phantom you've made looks entirely solid now, the impressions of life and color now slowly weaving their way along her clothing. "It wasn't to gloat, or to show your power - there are plenty of kings and emperors you could have raised as menial labour, a far more ostentatious display. So what was it? Did you hate my writings that much?"

"Hardly." The second phantom is more wispy, more indistinct, but you gain the impression of an aristocratic looking man, with unruly hair deeply reminiscent of Seiga's own in colour. "She adored your work, during the long years she spent waiting in Japan for her part in her grand scheme. She was a loner, and an outcast, and she both desired the connection to you she felt from your writings, and feared your rejection should she speak to you in truth."

The hermits eyes open wide for a moment, before she shoots you a deeply venemous glare, her arm rising to point at you. "How dare you bring my fathe-"

The memory of her father cuts her off. "Seiga. Listen. I'd be proud of you. The most important thing in life is seeking your own path to happiness, and I don't care one whit if you've done that by tearing it from the universe itself. But you've been hiding from your own desires, and you know as well as me that that's no way to approach the Tao. Get to know the girl."

Yoshika, the real Yoshika, shambles up to her master, and awkwardly pats her on the back. "Bring me... more ...back. It would be... good."

Seiga slumps, defeated. "Do you know how much work it takes to properly resurrect someone?" Her father's face keeps looking down at her, and finally, the hermit throws her arms up. "Fine, fine, I'll do it, stop doing that!"

The shade of her servant looks true to life, every detail crisp and every color sharp. In her hands, you can see a thick pile of papers and manuscripts. "Thank you. You're a fascinating individual, Seiga Kaku, and I wasn't enjoying myself at all in that mausoleum anyway. I'll be happy to see you, once the time comes."

And with that, the phantoms dissipate into nothing. Seiga gazes off into the distance, her eyes unfocused, while Yoshika clumsily tries to hug her. A moment passes.

You awkwardly tap your foot. You believe that is your victory? Yoshika's stopped trying to harm you for quite some time now, after all.

The hermit levels a glare at you. "I could very easily dispute that, you realize. I'm highly tempted to release my tensions by using you as target practice." She glances at Yoshika. "But I'm busy at the moment, so if you could get out of my sight instead...?" She flicks your soul back to you, and the instant it makes contact, you can feel it slot back into place. In the distance, you can feel her energy draw back from the enchantments she's placed, leaving them inactive.

You curtsey once more, and then strive to quickly get out of sight, before she changes her mind about seeking revenge on you for having inflicted growth as a person on her.

The lingering numbness from the duel is only just starting to fade as you approach the Human Village, but for all that, you're still in slightly improved spirits - it seems that your fight scared most of the remaining plusses away, and the further along the road you went, the less oppressive the atmosphere became, until the lush greenery and fields you recalled from the mountain were once again in full sight.

But how should you approach the village?

{ } Don't.

This is a settlement of mostly ordinary humans. A more powerful being like yourself passing through would only create a disturbance. Stay outside of the village proper, walking in an arc outside its borders and retuning to the pathway on the other side.

{ } Pass straight through.

This land is filled with any number of strange and mighty existences. What's one more, when you can simply pass through the village without any fuss?

{ } Do some sightseeing.

The idea of a village of ordinary humans existing in the same place as so many monsters, mostly peacefully, is interesting to you. Perhaps you can learn something from this, to be applied in Hueco Mundo to create a more equal society?

Click to shrink...

References to Nemo's actions in canon and the other character she encountered keep this from feeling like a really separate AU where a character in name only encounters obligatory opponents, which is nice.

Loading. Please wait warmly.​

Stage Three

could it be something
that the whole world believes true
which is illusion
​

What does a settlement of humans look like, in a place like this? Would it be something like the Arrancar communes you saw with your spider friend, away from Las Noches? It's a strange idea to you, one that you're drawn to examine.

You cast your gaze up at the sky, at the changing position of the sun, so different from the endless stasis you're more accustomed to. It's still early in the afternoon, so you can spare a few hours and still reach the Netherworld before nightfall. Does that matter? What hours does Lady Yuyuko keep?

You wave the thought off. The exact timing of the meeting isn't critical, at this point, and it's likely more important to be well rested, so you're prepared to deal with other disruptions, and so you aren't falling asleep on your feet when you finally secure an audience. So you'll try to relax a bit, play tourist, and maybe learn something useful.

You approach the outer gate at a leisurely walking pace, carefully observing the situation around you. The village proper is surrounded by a wall, and while you can sense the flow of energies warding off incursion spread throughout the barrier, they're relatively low in power - your Cero could punch through easily enough with a bit of effort. The gates themselves are wide open, and a steady stream of people flows in and out, carrying all kinds of merchandise and produce. This is no impregnable fortress.

The considering gazes as you draw closer make it clear that humans here do have some spiritual power of their own, but on average, you can that it's limited in scope to around that of a base hollows. Interspersed throughout the gate crowd are a few points of other, non-human energies, but even the strongest of these is on the weaker side for a Numero.

The flow of traffic through the villages walls shifts, clearing some space as you pass through, but it's hardly the terrified deference that the unassigned Arrancar now show you. You nod at what looks to be the gatekeeper, he hesitantly nods back, and you're in. Is the threat of retribution really enough to keep the various youkai here in line, all on its own? You doubt it - no matter how powerful the peacekeepers, they can't be everywhere at once.

It's eclectic, to say the least. The fashion is a blend of traditional Japanese and European, but even that is interspersed with more modern takes on casual and buisness clothing. The architecture, too, is a mishmash of too many different styles for you to name, Hindu pagodas just across the street from French-style cafes. You can't think of a place more different from the enormous uniform emptiness of Las Noches.

You're still being observed, you note, and after a moment's thought, you enter the cafe. The free eclair sample is actually quite decent, though you think they overdid the icing sugar a touch. By the time you emerge, having thanked the cashier, most of the lingering gazes have moved on.

You slowly drift down the street, passing several fruit stands, a carpenter, and a notary, before you zero in on another shop of interest - a haberdashers. You can feel some minor magic woven into some of the items on the front display, simple beginners tricks to ward off the wet and cold, and you enter the shop.

The store is well organized, and the displays put together with a good eye for aesthetics - you wouldn't be surprised if they did brisk buisness. The shopkeeper keeps a close eye on you from the moment you step in, the flavor of his slightly above average energy in evidence throughout the work in the store. You examine the felt lining of a beret, then bring it up to the front desk.

When you re-emerge half an hour later, you're holding a chic chapeau that you think Cirucci will love, and the owner is still scribbling some notes from your primer on basic La Marana principles. His approach was very different from the one Alphonse taught you, but you can see how it provides an interesting alternative angle to take for certain goals. You feel refreshed.

You still have an hour or so to spare, and you put it to use investigating. What keeps this place functioning, when presences like Seiga's lurk outside the walls? Some distant authority wouldn't suffice, so is there a local group that defends the village?

You cast your senses out, and move towards the strongest concentrations of energy you can sense. It's difficult to orient yourself, at first, the swirling masses of people and varied and unfamiliar types of energy reducing your ability to pick out distinct individual signatures.

You steer clear of a schoolhouse that has a burning ember within it, heavy from the weight of history. You don't want to push the boundaries of the current wary acceptance you've been granted. Passing through sidestreets, you briefly approach a bookstore, but as you get closer it becomes clear that the power in the place is entirely due to a cluster of enchanted items.

Still, you've becomed more attuned to the energies of the village over the course of your wandering. You close your eyes, and concentrate.

It's deceptively mild, belonging to someone who does not flaunt their sheer strength. Yet, beneath the misleading first impression, this is a power outstripping your own, on the level of the Privaron... and even then, there remains yet more of their stength, drenched in chaos and illusions, now locked and kept hidden away. Might to match the lower Espada, left unusued, tied to a deeply meticulous and precise nature. Control. Control in both word and deed is their most prized virtue, mastery of the self leading to the mastery of the external.

You follow the trail into the heart of the village, as the buildings get taller, more ostentatious. What authority does this person hold, what role does a non-human play in keeping this town functioning? You round the corner, and see a crowd of children raptly watching a puppet performance in the center of town square.

It's stunningly done, the motions so seamless and natural that without your senses showing you the hidden strings, you'd swear that the dolls were alive. You take a seat at the edge of the square, the hatbox on your lap as you simply watch the spectacle. An impossibly intricate dance of motion occurs every instant, dozens of scale model characters playing their part simultaneously, all under the control of a single figure.

It's a story of fall from grace, an angel's failed rebellion against the god that she loved, and how the lengths she went to for the sake of reclaiming that love only pushed him further and further away. A sad story, but one that ends on a surprisingly hopeful note, with the possibility of redemption offered even to those who had fallen furthest.

As the puppeteer bows, and her dolls bow with her, you applaud. The croud lingers for a minute, parents gathering offspring, a few more looks thrown your way, more curious then concerned. As the puppeteer begins packing her materials and props into the bags behind her, the dolls move to assist, fluttering up to refurl the banner proclaiming this to be a "Alice Margratroid Performance".

You approach her more directly. She's extraordinarily talented, and you're privileged to have witnessed her work.

She turns to you with a smile. "Alice Margratroid. I'm pleased to see our newest arrival has a taste for the arts." Behind her, the dolls keep packing up the set. "There's been talk all throughout town about you, but you've blended in very well. You shouldn't have any issues getting accustomed to Gensokyo if you keep this up."

You thank her for the compliment. You've been trying not to disturb the peace of this place, while you observe. But you're curious - what role does someone of her power play in this village?

She blinks. "Oh, I'm not associated with the village directly, I just put on my shows here. I've assisted them once or twice when trouble crops up, but I usually stay well away from that sort of buisness."

So she... just comes here to do charity plays? You understand the thrill and pride that comes with performing for an audience, having done it yourself, and you suppose there's no reason that even the more mighty couldn't feel the same. This is presumably part of the reason Zommari has his sermons. But even Zommari has his own grand hall, and the base hollows must come to him, their superior, to hear his words. This woman has power, but she seems satisfied with a role closer to that of the dancers of the Salar de Luna.

She's... invested, you realize. She cares about the continued wellbeing of this community, without desiring to rule over it. What will it take, for Hollows to do the same - to work together for the sake a better future, without the drive to dominate and rule tearing it down from within? Is it even possible, or has the emptiness in all your hearts gnawed away at that possibility?

Heavy thoughts, and she seems to have picked up on some of them. "For me, this is a way of pushing my own skills forward, of refining my own abilities while doing something worthwhile with my time. There's a different sort of power in the perfection of the simplest things, I've found."

You nod in agreement. Having learned to control yourself, having pushed yourself to master simple matters of presentation under your lover's guidance, it didn't make you any more powerful in absolute terms, and yet... the surety, the confidence in yourself that came with it, has propelled you to further and further heights nonetheless.

Her eyes flash with emerald light for a moment, and she looks at you with a discerning eye. "Hmm. You tailored that outfit yourself? You've dedicated yourself to your work to an admirable degree." She blinks. "What world are you from, precisely?"

You take a step backwards. She could sense that you aren't native to this realm?

She waves off your worries. "It's nothing to be concerned about - I've simply had experience with other planes of existence and noticed the signs. Still, what brought you here?"

Yukari. You were adrift in the space between worlds, and she picked you up and put you here. You're planning on petitioning her to return you to your home - your lover is waiting for you.

Alice's smile has entirely vanished, as her expression twists into a grimace. "Then you likely owe her your life, and certainly owe her your sanity. Your power isn't sufficient to withstand that place for long." Her boot taps at the ground in agitation. "How practiced are you at spellcards? Yukari might challenge you to a duel for your return, and if she doesn't, she'll send one of her minions to test you."

Your eyes widen, as you recall the overwhelming presence and pressure from the figure within the border between spaces. You can't fight something like that!

"Of course you can. One of Yukari's primary aims when designing the system here was something that let even the spiritually weak challenge the very strongest beings here, herself included." She glances at a wristwatch, then looks up at you, considering. "If you assist me with the puppet costumes for my next performance, I'll help you adjust your energy releases to the ruleset here."

< > Accept the offer.

Alice is an experienced long time resident of Gensokyo - with her assistance, you can refine your already well practiced skills with projectiles into a barrage that carries the inherent expression key to winning a true, fully formal Spellcard Duel. This is also a chance to gather more information on both Yuyuko and Yukari.

< > Politely refuse.

Spending several hours assisting Alice with her costumes and practicing your energy release will probably use up the rest of the day, and you're confident enough with your skills at dodging and launching Bala that you think you can do this without the help. Pushing through to the Netherworld today is more important - you need to reunite with Cirucci as quickly as you can.

Click to shrink...

Still good! Alice Margatroid is one of the few Touhou characters I've actually heard about

Although really, this speaks to a lack of experience in running Quests. This is an obvious lopsided vote where everyone would automatically latch to one option

You thank her for her offer of assistance. What's worth doing is worth excelling in, and ensuring you are as prepared as possible for your encounters with Yuyuko and Yukari is vital if you wish to succeed.

Alice nods in agreement as the swarm of dolls hefts her bags upwards. "Speaking to Yuyuko is a good starting point if you wish to convince Yukari to act. The best time to approach the ghost princess is near mid-day, which has passed already, so waiting until tommorow is reasonable in that regard as well."

You suppose you agree, but you can't help but worry about what Cirucci is doing in your absence. You're certain that whatever Luppi is doing, he can't possibly have helped the situation either.

"Act decisively, solve the issue, and return with all expedience. It's all you can do." Her response is blunt, but the advice is valid, if difficult to implement. Fretting over the situation at home isn't helpful right now, but while you've learned to put on a placid mask, beneath it your emotions remain churning, beyond your control.

You trail behind Alice as she briskly strides towards the opposite side of town from where you first entered. You attract some attention as you go, more then a few heads turning in your wake, but the mood remains positive. She's has clearly long since earned their trust, and her implicit approval seems to have soothed the majority of the humans' remaining concerns.

There's a second passage through the wall up ahead, letting traffic cut straight through the center of the village when both gateways are open. The gatekeeper here doesn't even bat an eye this time as you both pass through, the entourage of dolls following behind you in orderly rows.

Only a few steps past the wall, your guide smoothly takes to the air, and with a moment's focus on the progress you've made towards your goal, you do the same. "My residence is in the Forest of Magic, quite close to the gateway to the Netherworld. You won't lose much time on travel."

That much is good, at least. The aerial path you take begins as a straight flight over farmland, but as the increasingly dense overgrowth transitions into a full blown forest, filled with burbling arcane energies, you begin taking detours. Soon, the canopy is so thick that you can only snatch glimpses of the glowing mushrooms littering the forest ground, and you take a particularly long diversion far to the side before finally touching down in a clearing.

The residence itself is a neatly cared for western style house, too small to be called a properly called a mansion. A second detachment of puppets greets you as you arrive, opening up the doors and packing the performance materials away with utmost efficiency. Alice hangs her coat up and tucks her shoes away, while a lone puppet retrieves a pair of guest slippers from somewhere and places them at your feet.

The interior is well organized, as you'd expect... and utterly filled with dolls. The vast majority match the style of the dolls from the puppet show, fully articulated joints and incredibly detailed painted porcelain, but even then there's variation in their sizes, accessories, and the type of magic invested in them. Some hold cleaning supplies or gardening equipment, many others have spears or shields, while others still have cooking implements, or wrenches and screwdrivers.

More interesting are the oddities, be they products of experimentation or simply art pieces that Alice found intriguing. A ventriloquist's dummy sits on one of the windowsills, and what seems to be an attempt to make a hybrid between Alice's usual style and a nesting doll lies partially disassembled on a workbench in a corner. Along one wall a display case is filled with various simple straw and fabric dolls, each pierced through with pins and faintly humming with magic.

The lady of the house wastes no time in clearing some space around her work area, a set of her minions bringing you a chair even as another brings out a thick stack of hand-written pages. "How do you take your tea?"

You make your way over to the indicated area, once again thanking her for the hospitality as you take a seat. Green tea is your preference, but for black tea you'd appreciate some simple cream, no sugar.

She nods, flipping through the pages, and you can hear water being poured in another room as she passes you an outline. "My current project is preparing a performance based on the legend of Narasimha. An evil king cannot be killed during day or night, within or without, by man or beast - and so the half human, half lion hero slays him within an entranceway, at twilight, and saves the realm from his evil." She spreads out a group of sketches for different costume concepts. "The style would be inspired by Gupta period outfits, but historical accuracy is much less important then matching the aesthetics called for by the performance."

Hmm. These sketches are useful, but they primarily focus on the external appearance of the costumes, which doesn't give you all the information you need to work with. Could she give you some examples of previous doll outfits, to examine in detail?

She turns to the chest in the back of the room, and the puppet perched on top of it comes to life. The motion is still impossibly fluid, the doll briefly stretching and acting as if to blink away sleep before floating into the chest and rummaging around. Your gaze turns to Alice herself, and finds the faintest impression of a smirk ghosting her otherwise placid expression.

You consider calling her out on putting on a show for you, but are distracted by the arrival of your requested samples, along with a sewing kit. As you examine the tiny outfits, you consider how to adjust your usual approach for the differences caused by both the altered scale and the lack of importance of comfort for the wearer.

Finally, you're satisfied with your observations. You grab a swatch of fabric, and with a moment's concentration to bring the unruly fibers into line, suffuse it with your own spiritual energy. Without your blood, or any other kind of binder to anchor the attunement, you won't be able to provide your work with any sort of unusual properties, but for the majority of the outfits merely impossibly precise mundane craftsmanship will suffice.

Alice gives you a undecipherable look as she watches the fabric trim and fold itself, a line of brightly colored thread weaving itself among the tiny blue dress to create a pattern of a moon and stars. "Interesting. Under usual circumstances, I'd say that reaching a level of proficiency with spellcards sufficient to impress Yukari Yakumo herself within a day was plainly impossible."

You glance up. If she specified 'usual circumstances', would that imply your situation is unusual?

Her response is blunt. "Yes. You have a good degree of power, and you have both adequate control over your own energies and experience weaving them into constructs. And you have a unique talent which will be crucial."

You tilt your head, filing her comment away while beginning your work on the next outfit. What talent is that?

In lieu of answering, she asks a question. "What's your full name?"

Hmm? It's Nemo Elcorbuzier.

She claps her hands, once. "And how precisely, Nemo Elcorbuzier, did you just tell me your name without speaking, using hand gesture for a sign language which I don't understand?"

You sigh. People keep badgering you about this. Beyond the normal sub-vocal components of communication, you think it has to do with the background energy carrying your meaning. What does your silent communication have to do with improving your ability to spew out projectiles?

Alice considers how to respond for a moment, before slowly beginning. "In practice, among the lesser youkai, the spellcard rules usually simply act as an agreement of sorts to keep altercations well away from lethality. But the ideal of the Spellcard duel, as it was originally conceived, was for the attacks and patterns themselves to form a means of self-expression."

Self-expression? You set aside a miniature uttariya emblasoned with the glittering rays of the midday sun, dubious. Dodging and firing shots doesn't seem to lend itself to that particularly well, in your experience.

"It can, if you approach it correctly. Spiritual energy comes from the soul... or souls, in your case. The usual practise is to consciously shape it into a particular effect, but if you leave it less controlled, the release will generally take on aspects of your own being, being 'tinted' by your personality."

You think you understand. It's a similar principle to the generally unique colors that Ceros have, specific to each particular Hollow. Or the grey mist and shadows that trail after your Bala.

Alice smiles. "Precisely. So consider what would happen if one were to intentionally maximize the occurrence of that effect, causing the energy released to behave in a manner as affected by the users personality as possible?"

Well. It wouldn't be very effective, would it? The power would be diffuse to the point of harmlessness, and however the energy clumped up, it wouldn't fly straight - the pattern might not be predictable at all. However... you see where this is going.

Alice nods in confirmation. "It wouldn't be effective as a weapon. But a fully formal Spellcard duel is less of a physical conflict, and more of a conversation, or a debate. The meaning invested in the pattern is far more important then the raw amount of energy. A well crafted spellcard is one that carries a beautiful sentiment, which itself contains a deeper truth."

Hmm. But wouldn't speed, durability, and endurance ultimately decide the winner regardless?

Your host shakes her head. "Just as in a debate you can predict what arguments your opponent is leading towards, in a formal duel, if you can read your opponents investiture you can predict the openings and provide your own riposte." She lays her hands flat on the table, leaning in. "And it doesn't matter if someone still has endurance remaining if they've already lost the 'argument.'"

Interesting. Using more power would then be the equivalent of shouting during a disagreement, then - it might work in a less formal setting to underscore your point, but in a formal debate...

She sits back in her chair. "That's essentially correct. Yukari herself is meticulous about sticking by the spirit of the rules when challenged, which is to be expected given she drafted them to explicitly 'reject a system wherein only the strongest have the right to rule.'"

You return to your work, turning the words over in your head. Someone extraordinarily powerful, able to push a decree on the entirely of a realm... and yet who rejects the idea of rulership for themselves.

Starrk?

Is he the key to Cirucci's dream? The situation is hardly directly analogous, but there's a spark of an idea there. It's difficult to think of him as having any desires of his own, but if he and Lilynette used to be a single being, then her diatrabe about the issues with power take on a new meaning...

Alice interrupts your musing. "We'll spend some time after this practicing the more mechanical aspects of the technique, but with your talents I expect you to grasp them quickly. You should spend some time considering what sort of expression would resonate best with who you are."

You nod in acknowledgement, setting your thoughts on the future of Hueco Mundo aside for the moment as you continue your tailoring work. , you'll express yourself as:

{ } The Queen of Shadows.

Once an insect scurrying underfoot, you have since learned the lesson of self-mastery, and with it have toppled the endless sea and the tree that reaches the sky. You do not waver in your principles - what actions you refuse, you refuse absolutely; what you accept, you accept without hesitation. Show Yukari your truest and deepest self, without obfuscation or waverance, and throw your full conviction at her in challenge.

{ } The Thief of Crowns

You're an opportunist, a scavenger, a thief... and a kingmaker. You've absorbed the lessons of Alphonse, of Esmeralda, of Cirruci, you've stolen from Kings and Gods alike. Now, you will once more learn from those willing to teach you, and this time you will steal Hueco Mundo itself, and use the lessons you've aquired to deliver it from chaos. Prove to Yukari that what she did with Gensokyo, you and yours can do in another realm.

{ } The Lover of Winds

A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, but what can a moth do? You've been caught up in the furious gale of the storm you nurtured back to power - and in that tempest, you've been lifted higher up then you've ever dreamed of flying. You'll return to your love, or perish in the attempt - and you know she would do the same for you. No matter her power, you will defy Yukari if she keeps you apart.

Click to shrink...

Okay, this is a pretty neat way to tie NN's themes and Nemo's specific abilities into this weird setting. I like it.

Have a total of 50xp for these.

-Having a Bala. Alternately, Dodge-bala-

Actual schedules are something that most of the hollows in Las Noches don't really bother to keep to or pay attention to. That fact alone is a bit misleading, though, since it implies that the rest of Hueco Mundo might be better at keeping any sort of schedule. In one place, there is a sun that never moves, in the other, a moon that will not set. It makes it rather difficult to keep track of things, with people who actually care just having to guesstimate things as best they can if they want to try to keep track of time, and more often than not end up just eating and sleeping whenever they feel like it even then. It's one more reason for you to appreciate the clocks that you've retrieved from the human world - it allows actual scheduling of things and setting things up so that you can have as much time to cuddle with Cirucci as possible.

That said, when someone else decides to be on a different schedule, it can lead to irritating situations. Naturally, Luppi would decide to be awake and active right when you were curled up with Cirucci and trying to sleep. By some miracle, the hollow banging and booming of blows rattling against stone aren't waking her, but there's no chance that you'll be able to get back to sleep like this until Luppi quiets himself down. That, or until you make your bedroom fully sound-proof.

You sigh softly, before carefully shuffling out from the warm, inviting embrace of your lover. Your bare feet touch the ground, and you move over to your clothes to pull a feather-light white night slip. You'd put on more... but you honestly don't feel like bothering with something you'll hopefully just be taking right back off after telling Luppi to keep the volume of whatever he's doing down.

The moment that you step out of your room's door, the light of Las Noches's eternal sun smacks into you like a freight train, forcing you to squint. Still, it's not too hard to move into the shadows of the hall after shutting the door to avoid disturbing Cirucci any more that you have to, and then you're ghosting down towards the source of the sounds. The pillars shake with another blow to one of them, and you can hear dust falling to the ground as you finally hop down towards the perpetrator.

It's Luppi, as you suspected, though... you might not have quite expected exactly what you're seeing. He looks... maybe not bedraggled, but as though he's been exerting himself some, at the very least. His clothes are perfect, of course, since he insisted that you make him a set that would hold up in battle like you made for yourself and Cirucci, but there's a small few puddles of sweat on the floor where his clothes shed it. He wears a smile, standing lightly, before spinning to launch a bala at another of the pillars, twisting to bring his other arm up and around in a half circle to slam another bala after the first in a dance like motion - this one into the floor. He vanishes in a buzz of Sonido to land on his feet against the first pillar, forcing out both of his hands to launch another pair of Bala from under his sleeves, the cloth billowing as he instantly follows it up with a rapid flicking of his hands to add a flurry of smaller, weaker strikes, dropping to the ground half way through and spinning to launch a full strength one with a kick.

You give a slow clap at the display, stepping out of the shadows as you give him a pointed look. While you applaud his desire to train, does he have to do it when he knows that you're going to be sleeping? He woke you up from a very, very nice dream.

He only barely stops himself from a flinch, turning towards you with a grin on his face. "Ah, sorry, sorry - I guess I was just feeling a bit restless, and wanted to get some practice in before turning in for the day. Blame the adrenaline high, or maybe having gotten to see the sexta in action up close. Meow~"

You cross your arms, before letting the disapproving expression drop. You can understand wanting to practice, after everything that happened. You might not know what it was like for him to be fighting the one who showed up on his side, but you, Tesla, and Ilforte barely survived to walk away from the ex-captain that came at you. By all honesty, you shouldn't have managed to do even that much, but... you managed to catch him off guard with what your phantoms dragged up from him. It allowed you to tug at his heartstrings a bit and take the fight out of him enough to escape without being disintegrated or crushed into a pulp.

"Yeah, that makes more sense than the three of you actually fighting off someone that tough, even if you're a bit deadlier than you like to pretend," he agrees, his grin just at the edge of annoying in how smug it is. "We were pretty much tearing ours apart, though he was a slippery one. If I weren't there, I'm pretty sure he'd have killed a few of our guys and walked away without a scratch. As it is though..." slowly, he shakes his head. "Fighting him and his friend as well would have sucked pretty hard. It's kind of embarrassing that we had to get saved by Cifer at the end when he tried to pull out his Bankai."

And so he's wanting to work on his Bala, since it's the fastest way he could interrupt someone starting to release their sword like that in a fight. Given what you know about his released form from the trial, it makes since - he's already strong in melee, but he doesn't seem to move around as much as unreleased. You've honestly been working on it some yourself, for a while now, but recently you've been having things pulling your attention constantly in whatever way that they can. You used it a lot in your last couple fights, and it's your skill with it that let you survive as long as you did, and win the first fight without killing anyone.

"Right, right, that. Except for the not killing anyone part!" Luppi replies with a grin.

You roll your eyes at him, but he continues quickly. "Actually, want to join me? I had an idea for making a bit of a game out of it."

Well, you were planning to get back to bed and get some more sleep...

"Oh, like you really care about that all the time," he retorted. "I remember what you were doing when we were putting on that opera. Are you telling me you don't have some energy drinks on hand? As long as you're not trying to skip out on sleep completely this time, I doubt that it will be as hard on you to get a few extra hours a day here and there."

That's... that's true, you suppose. Fine. You do need to put some more training into your combat abilities if the war's only going to keep getting worse. You don't want to end up being unable to support Cirucci, or having her get hurt protecting you. What does he have in mind?

He steps back, spinning and lifting an arm up to point up to the pillars above you. "I'm going to call it... dodge-bala. We both pick a pillar, and then we're not allowed to dodge off of it - only around on it. We try to knock each other off from our own pillar with bala, and we're not allowed to use anything else. No Sonido, no swords, and going past the edge of the pillar is an instant loss for whoever's forced to do so first. Oh, and if you manage to block a bala with your own bala closer to you, you get a point. Get a hit on your opponent, another point. Knock your opponent off or make them take a dive, ten points and the game's called. That way, if you get an eleven point lead, you can retreat from the battle and consider it a win!"

That sounds surprisingly alright for a training game. Actually, considering the lack of Sonido, it sounds like it's almost taking your injuries into consideration. The ones he saw when he walked in on you trying to examine them. Is he... trying to be nice to you? Well, doesn't that feel weird. You return a small smile, before moving to get up onto one of the pillars. You turn to look for Luppi...

A heavy blow strikes you in the back, sending you tumbling forward before you instinctively turn with a ballet spin, ducking as another blast shoots over you. You punch back a bala of your own as soon as you see Luppi, glaring at him as he laughs, barely dodging your attack before it's launched. That was cheep, you reprimand.

"Maybe, maybe - but you have to be ready to react to things like that on the battlefield. The Shinigami won't fight fair, so you have to be expecting it. Oh, and cheat back harder before they can manage it, if you can! Best way to survive a fight with people like them is to just not let them get to use their full power in the first place if you can avoid it. Besides, fairness is boring!"

Another volley of Bala start slamming at you, focused on one side and a bit past, forcing you to dance to the left - closer to the ledge that you're already at. You duck under a punch he aims at you, but the fluttering of his sleeves covers the exact trajectory, and you punch forward yourself the moment you sense spiritual energy from his attack. The bala slam into each other, your wailing bullet vanishing into a loose cloud of spiritual energy as it detonates his at the same time. The next three force you to move quickly and tumble to avoid them, and suddenly you're balanced on the edge. You twirl to send a Bala at him, and he weaves between the next several you fire, moving forward towards you and shortening the space between the pillars as he keeps up a stream of his own shots.

He focuses on making sure that you can't move away from the ledge to dodge, more than trying to push you off for the moment, and every step forward he takes gives you just a bit less time to dodge the shots. Bala fire fast enough that they're nearly impossible to dodge up close, or even at a decent distance, but you're just far enough apart that there's a split second of extra time to react to the blasts. As he gets near the closest point on the pillar, you manage to slip one bala onto his leg, knocking it back, but he spins with the blow as he slams bala right at your feet and shoulder, forcing you to duck and twist - the stone breaks under you right as you set down a foot, and in the moment's unbalance, a bala takes you in the chest and blows you just past the edge.

You tumble through the air down to the ground, rolling on the landing with a slight jarring force through your Hierro, before looking up. He stands on the edge of his pillar, a hand out of his sleeve towards you, motioning towards himself. Bring it on. Your lips twitch up as you sonido back to the top of a pillar, feeling the necklace you never take off starting to shine under your slip. He wants you to cheat? Fine - no sonido doesn't mean no flying.

It's a couple of hours later that you crawl back into bed with Cirucci, and you feel bruised all over, even if your regeneration took care of the actual damage already. Still, you have a small smile on your face. Two to eight isn't the best score, but Luppi is a fighter on the level of the Espada - it's a fair showing for your first session sparring together.

Click to shrink...

Heh, this works. Canon, 25xp. Luppi gets another 25.

Ulquirroa Cifer!Luppi, Nnoitra Gilga!Luppi, Cirucci Sanderwicci!Luppi, and Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez!Luppi are still in the pipeline... but... until then.....

Zommari Rureaux
"So this is the miracle I've been dreaming of...."


Szayelaporro Granz!Luppi Antenor
"Making two possibilities a reality...."


Aaroniero Aarruruerie!Luppi Antenor
"One look and I can't catch my breath.... Two souls into one flesh...."
​

Click to shrink...

Ulquiorra Cifer!Luppi Antenor
"I had a heart that doesn't speak to me anymore...."

​

Click to shrink...

Nnoitra Gilga!Luppi Antenor
"The fight is won, the war is won...."

​

Click to shrink...

Stretta and Galavante
"They live in you...."


​

Click to shrink...

Our potential daughteru…!

Click to shrink...

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez!Luppi Antenor
"I just can't wait to be king...!"
​

Click to shrink...

Yammy Llargo!Luppi Antenor
"Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it..."


Wonderwiess Margela!Luppi Antenor
"....?"

​

Click to shrink...

Okay, I love that Luppi Cosplays the Espada series. It's totally something he'd do, as well. And that daughter is cute! Have 50xp for the lot, and Luppi gets 25xp.

A dumb idea that came to me while bored at work. Presenting Attack on Tessai

Click to shrink...

Hilarious. 25xp.

Let's Bala and run

Luppi is very hard to draw cause my brain keeps going smug? Mischievous? Kinda untrustworthy? Are you sure we're not drawing Oma.

Click to shrink...

Well, I didn't know what an Oma is, but having googled it I can see some resemblance 25xp. I love that smug grin. Luppi also gets 25xp.

Now You Feel Like Number 48
LIX: Toy Soldiers

———————————————

You don't know why any calaveras would be down here in the tunnels beneath the foundations of of Las Noches. Shouldn't they be guarding something? Opening doors for people, or marching around, or whatever they do?

Admittedly, you're not really clear on what exactly it is they do all day. Or how many of them there are. Or where they come from. Or…

OK, nobody below the rank of Espada really seems to know much about the Calaveras. They are commanded only by Ruddborne Chelute, the Exequias. His position was created by Lord Aizen, and he is answerable to Aizen, not to any particular Espada. Ruddborne personally always has an honor guard of calaveras, but otherwise, they're mostly seen as individual figures, guarding hallways or intersections or doors.

A lone calavera is not so terribly alarming, but if you ever stop to consider how many calaveras must be active all the time to cover a space as large as Las Noches… Even a very low estimate says there must be a lot of them. Hundreds. Thousands, more likely. All standing silently, watching and waiting.

All the numeros were wary of calaveras. Too many rumors of skull-faced enforcers coming to apprehend some arrancar and march him away, never to be seen again. When they were seen gathering together, the wise numero found somewhere else to be.

Well, Cirucci Sanderwicci is not some little random wise numero! Something strange is going on here, and you're not passing up a chance to learn exactly what it is! You haven't committed any crimes against the laws of Las Noches lately that anyone would know about, so you have nothing to fear from a bunch of authoritarian thugs! This is a time for daring and boldness! Plus, they must be planning to go back upstairs sooner or later, so you can follow them back to the surface.

Discretion being the better part of daring, you stay hidden in the shadows as you follow the lines of soldiers.

They march in lockstep, never even looking to the left or right. As you follow, a second column joins the group you are trailing, and then a third swells the ranks further. Finally, you see more lights flickering ahead, and these calaveras stomp into a large cavern, already packed with their kind. You slip through the entrance and dart around the outskirts of the cavern to observe.

It's a strange room, and clearly one they have arranged for a purpose. The far end of the cavern is gashed by a black abyss; a narrow tongue of stone juts out over it. Dim red lights dot the room, casting eerie shadows that are further fed by the guttering torches carried by the entering figures. Some sort of cubical structure, shrouded in cloth, stands to one side.

The skull-faced warriors form into neat rows facing the chasm, and drop to their knees. A lone figure, clad in a red robe, goat-masked and crowned with cruel horns, strides forward and turns to address the ranks. Ruddborne Chelute.

"My brothers!" he thunders ecstatically. "We join here again, to witness the birth of new kin to swell our ranks. Rejoice, for we grow ever greater! Long ago, was I driven from the lands above by those who envied unity! They hunted and slew us, though we offered them only the mercy and glory of service to the light! But they could not sense the spark here, so close to the eternally hungry void, and so we sprout anew! Call out to the god!"

At this exhortation, the kneeling calaveras pound the ground in unison with their fists, and chant a single, gutteral syllable, over and over.

Thump.

"Hooooo!"

Thump.

"Hooooo!"

Thump.

"Hooooo!"

Thump.

As they chanted, a forms swells in the chasm behind Ruddborne. You realize, with a shock, that the chasm is not dark simply because of the poor lighting; rather, river of thick black sludge oozes through it. A tumorous white mass of tremendous size breaks the surface of the river and rears up above Ruddborne, then opens a single, yellow eye that flickers like like a dim sun.

The chant changes as the beast emerges.

"Hooleer!"

Thump.

"Hooleer!"

Thump.

"Hooleer!"

With a sharp gesture, Ruddborne cuts off the chanting. He turns to face the monster from the abyss, and lifts his arms theatrically. You wonder, hysterically, who exactly he's trying to impress. Do the Calaveras care about all this theater? Does the creature? Or is it all some mad narcissism of Ruddborne's?

"Great Hooleer, who swims in the void beneath the world, grant us your boon! Provide your sustenance to the seeds of my new children!"

With a start, you realize the ground around Ruddborne is spotted with white objects. Skulls.

A rift opens on the front of the abomination, and it vomits forth a tide of black sludge and a stench of death that reaches all the way back to the rear of the cavern. It spreads around Ruddborne's feet; as the growing lake of tar touches each empty skull, you see small lights kindle in the empty eye sockets. As the tide reaches the furthest skulls, the nearest ones which first were affected are already forming arms and legs and dragging themselves from the sludge.

Twenty more calaveras join the ranks, before the black tide recedes, and Hooleer looms expectantly.

"Bring the sacrifice!" Ruddborne commands. "Honor to the Great Hooleer!"

A squad of unsmiling calaveras pull the cloth from the structure you noted earlier, revealing a crude cage, with a female arrancar inside. She is clearly not here by choice, but her struggles to escape are of little use against a half-dozen skull warriors who seize her arms and legs and drag her toward the chasm.

"Do not struggle," Ruddborne implores her solemnly. "You, a pitiful natural arrancar were of no use to anyone when my soldiers found you, skulking outside the walls, but now you have a purpose. Your legacy is this new generation of perfect vessels. No minds, to fear. No wills to break. No voices to cry out in pain. Your existence gains meaning here. At this moment, you fulfill your destiny."

"Damn you!" the arrancar screams, in an oddly melodic tone. "Damn you, let me go!"

The woman does not look familiar, but you would recognize that voice anywhere. It belonged to a blank-faced dragonfly. You suppose she managed to break her mask after all.

For what good it did her. This situation is awful. You have to act.


[ ] Save Ishi
- [ ] (Write In) But how?

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Still the best of these, no offense to the runner-ups 25xp. Cirucci gets 25xp.

Now You Feel Like Number 48
LX: Hoo-Lyre
(~ Omake ~)
———————————————

The terrifying display you were up until now hidden from goes still at your sudden challenge, even the struggling victim of this abhorrent ritual stopping to stare at you incredulously. For a moment, you begin to doubt yourself, aware that you might have just blown your only chance at saving that ill-fated girl, but then the amorphous entity who sits at that crevice between worlds, the ordered physicality of Los Noches and the oily, fluid nature of its own being, curves its baleful orb into what some might, foolishly, think resembles a smile.

Hooleer. The devouring one, who once rampaged through the worlds at the behest of its boundless hunger. Hooleer, the sounding one, whose call was inescapable, the dreadful resonance that brought terror. But you know more. Drips and scraps, torn from the dark places left behind by history in your endeavors. Cryptic lines, mentioned in passing by that mysterious historian, which frightened you too much to follow up on. What they think they know is wrong.

This awful creature did not devour for hunger alone. Its call, the anthem of death to the hungry dead, was no mindless grumbling. It was a challenge.

~~~

Once, a being, nameless, broke through the ranks of the Adjuchas and became one of the lordes of the unending night. In its newfound freedom from struggle, it sought meaning in other pursuits. Vast palaces it built, stone by stone, and then tore down. Paintings, banners and tapestries, to adorn those barren walls, it crafted from the looms of the living world, and then burned to ash. All it created was as temporary as its enjoyment in them. But, one day, it happened upon a lone arrancar, weak by any measure, but named; Ktypima, they were known. His art was the most transient of all, for it lasted only the length of a single breath, and yet the unsatisfied lorde found it the most beautiful of all the arts that they had encountered. They approached, and demanded to learn, and Ktypima accepted, of course, for it is the nature of arrancar, who have given up ambition, to be agreeable about such things.

And so they learned of lyrics, and rhythm, and the careful counting of words and rhymes. In time, the unnamed one grew to surpass their teacher, and felt their learning was complete. Then, uncaring and destructive, they devoured poor Ktypima, from the feet up, and savored their destruction, as they savored the flames of their paintings, and the crumbling of their finely carved stones. But arrancar are strange, and not without recourse, and so with his last breaths Ktypima poured his power into a working; not a curse, as many would consider it, but a blessing. To the one who destroyed all beauty they partook of, he left behind the treasure of songs, that they might remember all they heard; for so it is that sound outlasts stone.

The unnamed one, struck by this spiteful gift, was filled with a fury beyond words, for in their way of creation and destruction they had found something they could never divest themselves of, and the gift, unwillingly received, they knew, would last as long as songs did.

So it was that this master of songs did resolve to collect all the music in all the worlds, and then destroy it in its entire, such that it might never ring out again, and they might be free of the knowledge of its existence. But songs are elusive, and intangible; when they flee, they cannot be caught, and when the heart that contains them is devoured they slip out through one's teeth. It is only when they stand in defiance that they might be known, and their wings crushed underneath the mastery of another that they might not flee, and the heart of their host consumed that they might be collected. And so it is that the reign of this nameless lorde began, and their victims found and crushed and devoured. And the name they gave unto it was the sound of the only true words it would speak, for all else that it divulged was verbal destruction; a challenge to all who contained rhythm within them, and the command for its unwilling retinue to start up a suitable beat.

"Who?"

"Lyre!"

It rampaged for hundreds of years in the realm of restless spirits, devouring all who answered, growing bloated and e'en more monstrous than before, a world-spanning sludge of hatred and the anguished dead. But Hueco Mundo has ever been sparse, and in the gift of music this held true. After a century without answer, but still plagued by the song in its heart, the abomination that was that nameless lorde forced itself through the walls between worlds like a bloated worm, and consumed the joys of still-living souls. And so it was that it came to the attention of the gods of Death, who maintain the balance between the living world and the afterlives, and they came down to do battle. And many were the songs and many were the deaths of the deathless guards, before their greatest turned his gaze upon the ever-gazing one.

Grand symphonies clashing mercilessly against each other, the fight between Who-Lyre and the Shinigami shook the world, and disaster was brought upon innocents, and death upon the living, but in the end they lured it to a remote island, where the Main Commander awaited. And such was the strength of their conflict that the heart of that island beat in time with their rhythm, and some say the height of all music was reached that day, and some say it shall never be reached again, for never shall another foe as worthy as that monstrosity exist, and the world, though deprived, might be better off for that. The flow of the beast was terror and fear, the concentrated misery that it had inflicted upon the world, stretching forth with tendrils of rot to sap at the spirit of its challenger. But they found no purchase there, for his spirit was the core of the world, as strong as iron and hot as the sun, and when his enemy had exhausted their rhymes and awaited his rebuttal he opened his mouth and spat forth fire. And such it was that the sickness of its lyrics was burned out of it with a purifying flame, and its capacity for verbal destruction destroyed. And e'en the mortals witnessed this triumph, though they do not remember what was said, for even beyond the horizon the glory of that divine roast was not for their lowly kind, and those within twelve leagues, who could make out the words, were rendered forever deaf. Four times did the sound travel the world, though its inhabitants were still ringing from the first pass, and the island was destroyed utterly.

With all the victims of its rampage purified in the moment of its defeat, but still a ruined, bloated, and pitiable abomination, the remnants of the profaned one slithered away in the aftermath, and escaped to the dark and silent places of the hollow world, where it might suffer in its now eternal muteness.

But though it might never again crush the songs that rest within the breasts of others, it still retained its hunger for them, and the torment of the endless song that fluttered within its heart. Were another to defeat its victims for it, and offer the remains, that tormented being might be most pleased.

~~~

(@Phigment, please put the XP to Resurrecion. I think this might be enough to get us over the edge?)

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RECURSIVE SUBQUESTING WHAT

Okay. This is funny. But there is one problem with your premise. One big problem.

"Lyre" rhymes with "liar," not "leer," so the joke doesn't work at all

25xp.

Sure, no problem. It may be a little out of date, though.

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I'm not giving this XP but I wanted to highlight it because I'm the biggest Exalted fan and this is my jam

Fixed her face.

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Gorgeous. Might put this on the front page if I can figure an arrangement that works with the other picture. 50xp. Luppi and Cirucci each get 25xp.

A Fighters Paradise

When Ikkaku Madarame opened his eyes, it was to a completely unexpected sight. When a Shinigami died, they weren't supposed to linger. The great wheel of reincarnation took your soul, chewed it up until all that made it unique was gone, then spit it out in the body of some helpless brat in the living world. No lingering around and hollowing for the ones already dead.

So him seeing anything after death, as himself, was already unexpected enough. Never mind the black, star- and cloudless sky with a huge, unnaturally crescent moon in it. As always when he was in doubt, he felt for his Zanpakuto.

Huh. That was there as well. Weird. From the coarse particles on his skin, he was pretty sure that he was lying in sand. He was starting to believe that he was in Hueco Mundo. Strange. He was sure that he had gone fighting. His mistake had doomed their team, and he had unleashed Ryumon Hōzukimaru to make up for it.

He had been dead. He made the bastards who did it pay a price in wounds, he gave it his all, even using his Bankai, but it hadn't been enough. The 3rd seat of Division 11 didn't feel bad about his death. By most accounts, it was a good one, worthy of his rank and division. The only thing he hated was that he had doomed Yumichika, Captain Hitsugaya and Rangiku as well.

Then again, if he was alive, maybe so were the others. Still slightly befuddled, he sat up and looked around. He was lying in the centre of a massively oversized amphitheater carved out of monolithic blocks of white marble. All around him, cyclopean rows of stone seat rose into the sky like fortress walls, and dilapidated forests of white pillars stood accusingly against the moon. If he was in fact still a Shinigami, then it was his duty to get up, find them, and complete the mission.

His musings were interrupted by a drawling voice that cut through the silence withing the theatre like a knife.

"Fucking finally. It was getting boring as hell here, ya know? The Tree is a pretentious asshole, and that other Shinigami is weak as fuck."

Ikkaku smelled more than feel the wall of Reiatsu that slammed into him, as a stench of blood and rusting iron filled the Air. In an instant, he was on his feet, Hōzukimaru drawn out of his sheath. Then, the shadow of the moon fell upon him, as he laid eyes upon a lanky figure in ridiculous clothes, perched upon the highest pillar. The monsters form somehow overshadowing even the pale moon in this starless sky.

An oversized, scythe-like weapon at his side, white clothes cut in the way of Aizens little Hollow army, a gigantic round collar that framed his head like a halo. An eyepatch, which reminded Ikkaku oddly of the one the Captain himself wore and an inhuman grin from too large and too even teeth, that stretched too far across his face.

And that motherfucker felt stronger than the cat arrancar that killed him. Where the hell did Aizen find those monsters?

Even as he was thinking these thoughts, Ikkaku Madarames grin was a big as the one on the face of the Arrancar he was facing.

"Oh?", he challenged his opponent. "Who the hell are you?"

If possible, the grin on the Slaying Moons face grew even wider: "Nnoitra Gilga. Arrancar number 5. You are sounding awfully cocky for a small fry that got beaten by that pussycat Grimmjow. Am I going to have to teach you some manners?"

Ikkaku furrowed his brows as he twirled Hōzukimaru playfully in his hand. "How the hell do you know about that?" Before Nnoitra could reply, he added. "No, don't answer. I am going to kick your ass now, we can talk about that later. Grow, Hōzukimaru." In an instant, the Katana in his hand transformed into his signature spear, and the Shinigami entered a combat stance.

The arrancar laughed, a short and hideous sound, like the call of a vulture picking a battlefield clean. "Ohh, I am going to enjoy this." In a burst of Sonido, he disappeared from his pillar, only to pop up in front of Ikkaku. "Any last words, Shinigami?"

"Yeah.", Ikkaku shrugged, before standing on the tip of his left foots toes and putting his body into the vertical. "Luc-Luc-Luc-Luc-L-Luc-Luc." Quickly, he pivoted on his foot, looking into the other direction before polevaulting over his spear and coming to rest in a broad stance, with his weapon held in front of himself. "Luc-Luc-Luc-Luc-Lucky!"

Ikkakus bald head shone like the full moon.

While all of this was unfolding, Nnoitras expression was rapidly changing from his trademark grin into a dumbfounded stare, followed by a dismissive sneer "… Can we get on with the killing now?"

With this word, he transitioned into a lightning charge, the force of his steps sending sandstorms across the planes of this hollow world. In a flash, the horns of his weapons enveloping Ikkaku completely, but the Third Seat of Squad Eleven barely managed to get block the strike by interposing his own spear spear.

"A member of Squad Eleven is not that easy to kill, Arrancar!" Ikkaku exclaimed boisterously, even as his voice strained from the effort of holding that blow. The bastard was as strong as he looked from swinging around that hunk of steel he called a Scythe.

Nnoitras features shifted into a dismissive sneer, and he changed the one-handed grip he had on Santa Teresa into a two handed one. "Big words from a dead man!", he shouted, putting his strength behind his weapon and pushing, sending Ikkaku flying back across the sands in a single, mammoth charge.

By the time the Shinigami found his footing again, Nnoitra was on top of him again, his scythe sweeping in from the side in a devastating blow that the Shinigami barely avoided by giving yet more ground. Once again, the sheer pressure of his enemies attack sent clouds of sand billowing across the colosseum.

Again and again, Ikkaku had to retreat, block punishing blows that left his arms hurting and be sent flying across the sands. He knew that he was losing this fight – his enemies reach, strength and speed were all greater than his. But he had enough of being pushed around – time to apply a little trick he had learned from Captain Kenpachi.

The next time the now lazily grinning Mantis warrior was closing in on his prey, Ikkaku didn't do what his opponent expected. Instead of blocking or dodging, he moved into the blow, Hōzukimaru striking with serpent-like speed for Nnoitras throat even as the side blade of Santa Teresa bit deep into Ikkakus flank.

Even as the bald Shinigami coughed up blood, he felt that something was wrong. Instead of striking true, his attack lit up sparks across his opponents skin as it deflected to the side.

"Idiot." Nnoitra said dismissively. "My Hierro is tougher than any other amongst the Espada." Then he shrugged and grinned even wider. "Not that it matters here."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Ikkaku spat.

"Haven't you noticed?" Nnoitra asked with a tone of bitterness entering his voice. "You wound has already healed. We are already dead, you and I. We can't be killed again."

Indeed, when the blade of Santa Teresa had left Ikkakus body, it had left not a single drop of blood behind – even the spit of the Third Seat had already vanished.

"Huh. Lucky me, I suppose", the Shinigami opined. "I guess that means you won't be able to put me down."

"No" the Arrancar laughed. "But I can fuck you up real good. You still feel the pain."

"We'll see about that." Ikkaku answered, a mad grin on his face. "But since there are no other Shinigami around, I might as well make it as hard for you as I can. Bankai. Ryumon Hōzukimaru."

Nnoitras grin appeared back on his face as the violent and wild Reiatsu of his opponents final release washed over him like a bloody tide. "That is what I was looking for, bastard!", he cried out.

In an explosion of dust and violence, the Crescent and the Full Moon clashed. Since they cannot be killed, their battle will last for a small eternity.

____________________
​

RIP Ikkaku and Nnoitra. Or well, don't rest in peace, since i don't think either of you would like it. I hope the two of them have fun slaughtering each other in the afterlife. Also, they are good practice writing kinetic fights.

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D'aw, the perfect eternity for the both of them. It's really sad this isn't actually how the Bleach afterlife works. 25xp.

I only just found this quest due to it being recc'ed in the pink flamingo thread and read it all the way through in like a day.

Posting a real quick fanart is okay I hope?

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Gnnnhbeautiful. The different shape of the horns compared to most fanart make her mask not look like an animal, which makes Nemo feel a lot stranger, a bit more alien. Haunting eyes, as well.

I did another one.

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So it turns out that I can lower omake rewards all I want but when such amazing art drops on my lap I can't just give it the minimum reward.

Have 75xp for these two pieces. Cirucci gets 25xp.

This has been a great day for NN fanart. Kudos to @Camellia and @trob030490. On that note...

Luppi's a Scary Guy

"You know, I really thought Ghostland would be, like, spooky," says Ichigo as you lead him out of his cell. "But instead it's bright all the time, and like, sort of a really cold white. Did someone think an abandoned Apple Store would be a cool place to live, or are Hollows colourblind?" Man's got a point. Most Hollows don't have any appreciation for a good scare, Las Noches' architects included. Grandiose, yes, intimidating, hell yes, but scary?

Holding Ichigo's other cuff, Nemo suggests that the lack of building materials in Las Noches other than white stone limits the window of architectural possibilities, particularly on the scale of this fortress. "You're no fun. No, the builders just didn't have any sense of artistry in their work. I could build a scarier building out of gingerbread." You mean it too. You're the resident master of psychological manipulation. Ichigo just sniggers.

"You? Luppi, man, you're about as scary as Orihime. What would you do, hide under the bed and sass people while they're trying to sleep? At least moth girl's got the creepy mime vibe going on." Nemo nods, and notes that you've never actually scared anyone without the threat of imminent physical violence.

"Violence, really? Luppi's like half my size and I'm not even that huge compared to some of you Hollows," Ichigo adds.

"Nemo's the littlest person I know. How am I the short one?"

"Dude, little girls are the scariest of all. Don't you have The Ring in this place?" says Ichigo. You are reluctantly forced to admit that you don't have any idea what that is. But you must persist!

"If I'm so nonthreatening, how about a little contest. Nemo and I will try to frighten you, and we'll see who's scarier." Nemo points out that if you're running around setting up scares, no one will be doing your actual job of making sure Ichigo doesn't run away. "No problem. Just leave me alone, and I will totally not run away. Nope, not at all," Ichigo says mockingly. You already thought of this one, of course. "I know just the person to watch you, Ichi-boy." There's no way Ren will actually refuse this, right?

---

After dragging a reluctant Ren out of the vault with vague promises to let him out more often, you get down to business. Nemo's off preparing her own surprise, and Ren has reluctantly embarked on a tour of Las Noches' most scenic vistas, dragging Ichigo along by the manacles. Ichigo seems to be humouring you for now, since it's not like there's really anywhere for him to run to. They're passing through an unoccupied series of bedrooms near Cirucci's old chambers. You think this is where Nemo used to live? Before your time, that.

No point in doing anything fancy just yet. You're going for an old classic, the weird noise that happens just behind you and you don't know what it is. Suppressing your reiatsu, you creep into a dusty room just behind the two, silent as an owl. Then you thump the wall with a kick and hide under the bed and wait. In comes Ren, looking around the room. Of course, your hiding skills are far too great for him to detect you.

"Here, it came from here! I heard it, oh yes I heard it. Stalking us, are you?" Ren mutters. "Of course someone's stalking us. It's one of those two following us around and making noises," says Ichigo. "No. They wouldn't try something so crude. It's the… the… it's probably them, yes." Well, it's not like you actually thought that would work. You've got to make a creepier sound, and you've got just the thing.

As Ichigo and Ren proceed down the corridor, you slap your tool of choice against the floor at a steady rhythm. Splat! Splat! Splat! Ren starts, and spins around to look for you or Nemo, but you're already concealed around a corner. "Th-that wasn't the footsteps of anyone I know. Run, boy!" says Ren, starting to run, or at least stumble, down the path. "They're just waving around a dead fish or something. Calm down," replies Ichigo as he grabs Ren by the collar. "No need to worry. Your boss man said not to fuck with me."

Of course he totally misunderstood the true nature of your plan. You're waving around a jellyfish, not a fish. At least you think it's a jellyfish; the dishes at the Numero's mess hall are often hard to identify.

Still, Ichigo is obviously pretending not to be scared. It's got to be his whole tough guy persona. Won't let himself seem weak when anyone's watching, that's it. You need to get Ren away from him, but you're under orders never to leave him unattended. Ah, but Aizen did specify one time he could be out of his cell alone. Ideas start to grind together in your skull, but you're going to need some more equipment for this one.

---

As you dash across Las Noches gathering supplies, you run into Nemo lugging a very suspicious bundle across her shoulders. "Killed a man, have you? Good show, getting in to the whole emotionless murderers aesthetic. Ichi-boy'll be very scared of your martial prowess when you throw it at him." Nemo stops and stares at you. You think she's ticked, somewhere deep under that poker face. This, she proclaims with a wide gesture, is not a corpse. It's an artisanal hand-mutilated flesh doll, fresh from the dumpster behind Szayel's lab, and it's way scarier than whatever you're doing, Luppi. She scurries off with the hunchbacked body before you can ask her more.

---

Soon, the hour of your real prank, you mean scare, approaches. Shinigami, you recall, still need to relieve themselves, whereas Hollows don't. Ergo, Las Noches has but one bathroom, and it's in the shinigami's private quarters where you are definitely not supposed to be. Ren is waiting at the entrance to the forbidden rooms, and Ichigo's on his way now, his spiritual pressure a bulb you could feel from the other side of the palace. You wait, tense as you've ever been, and look upon your handiwork.

The bathroom is built in the same too big, too white style as the rest of Las Noches, so you took it upon yourself to spruce it up a bit. You tracked dirt into all the corners and around the toilet, and, with a bottle of blood purloined from Nemo's workshop, you seared red-brown stains on the walls and in the sink. And with the assistance of a frog-like Numero you shanghaied into helping you, you filled the room with a dense grey fog. It doesn't get scarier than this. Now you're hiding behind a blind in the corner.

The Numero who's actually making the fog wheezes alongside you. Apparently he has to stay in the fog he makes, and just filling a room is a bit of an effort. Honestly, you were imagining something more like Nemo's spooky fog, with all the ghosts and stuff. This guy really sucks by comparison, and you sort of wish this had been a cooperative venture with Nemo,instead of a contest. You can't even remember what this guy's name's supposed to be. But Ichigo's right around the corner.

He pauses at the entrance, apparently confused by the fog. You take this moment to signal your other accomplice with a slight flex of your reiatsu. Strategically hidden in the linen closet across the hall, Lacallas begins to wail wordlessly. A noise like an air-raid siren echoes into your ears, seeming to come from every direction, quietly, so quietly at first, but growing louder as Ichigo moves further into the room.

Now he's looking around for the source of the noise, and something catches the corner of his eye. It's your piece de resistance, the new bathroom mirror. You found this beauty in Cirucci's trash heap, a cursed mirror that reveals the inner darkness of the onlooker. Frankly, it's useless for Hollows, who can just look in any old mirror to see their inner darkness, but Ichigo's got to have some crazy blood-drenched beast in there, right?

He's getting closer, closer. Soon his worst nightmare, the face that haunts him eternally will appear out of the fog, and he will realize that the real monster was him all along. And now's he's looking, he's looking and… now he's turning away. Apparently Ichigo's inner darkness just looks like Ichigo when seen through dense fog. As Ichigo pauses to examine Aizen's extensive selection of hair products, you sling Fogboy over your shoulder like a sack of lucre and boot it.

---

This contest was, you realize, a total defeat. Maybe you really aren't very scary, at least when you aren't making people's closest friends betray them and then crushing them to death with your tentacles. That's probably pretty frightening, but Aizen would be a bit ticked if you did that to Ichigo. Maybe whatever Nemo is setting up with that body will be even less frightening than your vain attempts.

Her trap is sprung as Ichigo and Ren return to his cell after his trip to the toilet. The door to the cell snaps a hair-thin cord as it opens, and that damnable hunchback swings down from the ceiling in a harness, coming to a halt just an inch from Ichigo's nose. Ichigo jumps three feet into the air, cracks his head on the doorframe, and yelps out something like "Wooooaaaaaarrrgghh!" Ren just faints on the spot.

That's so crude! You were so sophisticated, so atmospheric, and now Nemo is going to win with baby's first horror trick. She even dressed the body in a clown costume, for crying out loud! Nemo slinks out of the shadows, a huge smirk on her face. You show yourself as well, prepared to accept your humiliation.

Nemo gives Ichigo a sort of were you scared at all by Luppi's pranks, or do I just win by default kind of look. Ichigo doesn't seem to know what to say, but then your salvation appears, from the mouth of a babe. "I wasn't scared!" Ichigo exclaims, "You think all it takes is something jumping out at me to scare me? I've fought real battles against real scary dudes, and this is some kindergarten crap, you hear me?" He is so obviously scared, but this is your big chance.

"Does that mean Nemo loses?" you inquire sweetly.

"Yeah! Yeah! This ain't scary at all."

Nemo doesn't splutter, but she sure does start waving her arms frantically. You think she's asking if Ichigo is crazy or not.

"Now now, don't be a spoilsport. Ichi-boy's already declared me the winner, and you know what that means.

No, Nemo replies, I don't actually know what that means. We never agreed to any stakes for the contest.

"It means someone's got to clean Lord Aizen's bathroom before anyone else sees it. And guess whose job that is!" You feel a huge grin on your face, and stroll off as Ichigo laughs.

Click to shrink...

I can't believe someone actually remembered Ren exists

25xp. I was amused. Luppi gets 25xp.

The Nemo Force
A Bleach/Marvel Omake​

Las Noches was bleeding out, figuratively not literally because that would be real weird watching buildings bleed. Where was she again? The blood lost to the now red sand must be getting to your moth brain. Nemo Elcorbuzier was literally bleeding out, along with all your loved ones, friends, and people you just short of kind of knew. Did the blood loss just make you think of yourself in the third person there? Hopefully it was just blood loss and not brain damage. Anyway, the Shinigami had come to their home, and kicked all of their asses. Hopefully no one she cared about was dead, you had already cried enough tears today from getting impaled repeatedly.

As Nemo slowly dragged herself off the ground, and into a seated position she thought she heard someone yelling in the distance.

"I'm gonna stab that smirk right off your face Aizen!"

"Is this really my face? It could be one of your friend's faces, or even your own face Ichigo."

"SHUT UP YOU SMUGAAAaaaaaaah!"

Well it seems like Lord Aizen was stabbing "Mr. That thing is too big to be called a sword", you still aren't sure why Szayelaporro called him that after Cirucci captured him. Something about manga and a never ending boat…

Yeah, your blood loss really must be getting to you even with your High Speed Regeneration if you are thinking about that and not what to do next. You could either go fight, guard your friends and other downed Arrancars, or you could run away. Could you do that last two at the same time with Descorrer? Of course you could! You're Nemo the Door Queen!

You nodded to yourself full of confidence born of skill, and not dreams of grandeur born from blood loss. Raising your hands slowly you began opening your door out of here, when you suddenly hear a voice right behind you.

"Huh, running away? You never really seemed the type to do that Mothy Moth."

You jump in surprise, and terror, as you twirl around to face Gin.

"You really should be watching that shouldn't you?"

At Gin's word you look over your shoulder at your Garganta as it- Oh Soul King it's growing out of control! It was definitely the blood loss talking earlier!

The Garganta was expanding at an astounding rate, far too quickly for you to get control of it again. It swallow the ground, walls, and sky itself! As you fell into it, you could see only that those with enough strength to fly or run fast enough got away before it swallowed all of those still within Las Noches. The only thing you could think of as darkness engulfed you was that you were the one to actually defeat Lord Aizen, or at least disrupt his plans and set the rest of them on fire.

Thanks again blood loss...

A time skip happens because falling through a Garganta for a long period of time is really repetitive!​

When the falling finally stopped it was still pitch black, the only reason you even knew something had changed was because you could now see a spaceship in the distance. Well at least you healed all your injuries, even the internal ones! Turns out your High Speed Regeneration can heal your organs. It just needed however long you fell to do it.

You really weren't sure what to do now that… Wait what's that light over there? It's- OH SOUL KING IT'S BRIGHT! AND THE PAIN! THE UNENDING PAIN! IT'S JUST LIKE WHEN- What? Now what was happening?

Before you was a giant golden man, he had way too many faces, and a hollow hole shining like an arc reactor. How did she know what an arc reactor is/will be?!

"First of all, because your a Aspect of reality now. Second of all, I'm the Living Tribunal, basically I'm the referee of this universe. You are now the Moth Force, or the Nemo Force to those you tell your name to. Doesn't really matter on my end. You represent life and rebirth, so that's your job. No you can't ask any questions, I need to tell you all of this first."

The Living Tribunal took a sip of his coffee that he apparently pulled out of nowhere, and continued on before you could ask anything.

"Like I said no questions at this time. You just survived the big bang, that's what made you an Aspect. As for your friends, or at least I assume the people with you were your friends, no they don't get to be Aspects they're all dead. Did have a lot of souls though, so they'll all be reborn as people eventually. Also, sad to say that you are going to explode now because your current body can't hold all your power."

Before you could say or think of anything you just exploded into an ever growing mass of shadows and thread.

"Well at least it wasn't messy, now all I have to do is wait for the space ship guy to become Galactus and give him the rundown."

You aren't sure how you are still aware of everything a mass of shadow and thread, but you know that your body is moving on it's own right now as it leaves thread behind to create life, somehow.

The next hundred years were really boring, after your body stopped shifting you became a moth the size of a large star, all shadow and thread still. Sometimes you talked to Death, she was your opposite after all. The two of you met at an Aspect meeting at that galactic bar. It was mostly empty right now, not many gods, demons, or entities were born yet.

What do you do while you wait for your friends to be reborn?
Choose 2.

<M> Create Mutants, everywhere.
<M> Hang out with Death.
<M> Follow Galactus, and bring life to the planets he's drained.
<M> Play card games with other Aspects.

---

AN: I've hopped on the Band Wagon of Mini-Quests. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Click to shrink...

Yeah see Zilla this is where you've gone so far into crack-land you can't see the sun anymore and this is just too weird and disconnected from the story for me to reward sorry >.>

--Aftermath--

The skies over Karakura town were still overcast even hours after the Espada left, thunder a distant rumble and the rain a gentle sprinkling compared to the sudden storm that had nearly drowned the town. It fit the mood of the Shinigami of the town all the same: Dreary, wet, and generally miserable. The Gotei thirteen had sent a captain, a lieutenant, a third seat and a fifth seat, backing up people who were already known to be resourceful and surprisingly dangerous in a fight. They hadn't simply lost; they had been massacred.

Were it not for Urahara and his band - three exiles of Soul Society for whom the official stance barely allowed the Shinigami on the ground to pretend not to notice them - then everyone sent on the mission would be dead. As it was, they had still lost one of their own, permanently. Ikkaku Madarame gave his life to buy the rest of them time.

It shouldn't have been a sacrifice required of him, though. A captain and a lieutenant together should be a force that enemy hollows fled from in terror, rather than casually crushing in scant minutes. For so long, the Gotei had gotten used to not having any true threats to it to face, and grown comfortable in their untouchable superiority. Now, they had been given a rather rude awakening to the fact that this wasn't the case.

Toshiro would admit that he was likely the weakest of the captains. He had hardly been among their ranks for as long as his elders, and for all his genius, there was something to be said for combat experience and the simple amount of time that the others had trained for. Even so, at the end there, he thought that Ikkaku may have well made a better showing against the blue haired Arrancar than he did.

It wasn't fair, as immature as the thought sounded, even in his own head. Toshiro should have been able to protect him, somehow, rather than needing to be protected at someone else's expense. Even then, part of him felt that it just should have gone differently: Ikkaku had just pulled out his Bankai - something that he'd likely been working on achieving for years, decades, or even centuries for all he knew - finally reached and revealed when they most needed it. It should have let him fend off their enemies long enough for the rest of them to stand up and join him again, this time winning. It should have let him at least buy enough time for Urahara and Shihōin to show up and save him, too. It should have ended with the bald man bragging about saving a captain's life, and rudely shouting about how Toshiro would owe him booze for the next three hundred years while he held it over his head.

Ikkaku should have become a new captain in his own right, replacing one of the three traitors, an equal to his old captain who he could spar with whenever they wanted. A century later, they should have looked back on it and laughed, fighting beside each other with the trust born of those who had risked their lives for each other. Should have, could have... but none of it would ever happen now, because even with his Bankai, the monsters they were fighting had crushed him.

The Espada hadn't even released his sword like the others, after going through two Shinigami whose strength would see them classified as captains, even if the weakest of the rank. He hadn't been forced to. Just what sort of monsters were they fighting?

He shifted his eyes to look at the stump of his arm, bandaged and swathed in white. They were warriors, first and foremost - even him, despite his appearance and jokes that had been made at his expense. Every Shinigami who went out to hunt hollows knew the risk when they did so; knew that some hollows would just have abilities that were impossibly unfair, unpredictable, and fiendishly hard to counter on the spot. Even Lieutenants had died to hollows sometimes, rare as it was. Yet, it was rare. The rank and file, those too inexperienced or who just hadn't paid enough attention in the academy and training, those who hesitated and allowed themselves to be caught off guard - losses among them were something that he'd grown used to, almost. It was expected that not all of them would make it past those most dangerous years and ranks, where they were weak enough that sometimes it wouldn't even need the hollow getting lucky for them to be overwhelmed.

Ikkaku had been a shinigami for ages. He had been one of the strongest of the eleventh division. He had reached Bankai. The enemy fought him one on one at the end, in close quarters combat. Everything that Toshiro knew from his experiences up until that point told him that it should have been impossible that Ikkaku would simply die against his enemy without even forcing his foe to reveal some strange, unfairly powerful ability at the bare minimum.

He grimaced, clenching his jaw to chase his mind back away from that line of thought. He already knew that it didn't lead anywhere.

For now, all he could do was try to do the man's memory and sacrifice justice somehow, even if he only had one arm left. But before then, there would be a task that he was looking forward to even less than learning to fight without one of his arms. First, he had to debrief to the other captains, and deliver the news to Zaraki in the process. He'd almost rather fight the Arrancar again, right then and there without even waiting to heal.

A sound from behind him had him closing his eyes for a moment, before rolling towards the door. Yoruichi Shihōin stood there, her expression professional enough that he could nearly imagine her wearing Soi Fon's uniform.

"The fourth division's people are ready to take you back. Do you need help walking?"

There was no derision in her question, and he was painfully thankful for it. Closing his eyes again, he reached out with his one arm to grip the side of the bed, forcing himself slowly to the edge, and then down to the floor. He swayed, barely able to force himself to stand, but stand he did. He looked back up, and earned a respectful nod from the woman, before she turned to walk away. He just hoped that he'd be able to stay standing until he was done giving his report so that it wouldn't be hanging over his head in the hospital; they'd probably have to use a kido to knock him out for him to sleep if he had that weighing on his mind still.

---

In the end, Unohana had put her foot down after seeing the state of her new patients; the debrief meeting was held in the fourth division's barracks under her watchful eye, an additional medic on standby for each of the wounded. If she had been able to force it, they'd have held off the debrief for at least another day or two but the abilities of the enemy forces, along with the results of their attack, simply couldn't wait. The exiles had provided the remaining details of what the Shinigami forces had missed, along with confirmation from the spiritually sensitive humans.

The room was crowded with captains and lieutenants all in the room with the medics, but no one complained about it as the story was told. No one would risk Zaraki's temper if they had, once he heard that Ikkaku had made his last stand with them. The fight itself took little time to describe, yet it felt like it had taken hours by the time each of the survivors had finished their own takes on it, even before the discussion.

The room was silent for a moment after they had finished, the mood weighing heavy on all present. Naturally, Zaraki was the one to break it, arms crossed.

"Fuck. Well, looks like I've got someone to fight then, if he beat Ikkaku without releasing. Sounds like it might be fun."

The statement felt just out of place enough for Toshiro to stare, open mouthed, before growling. "That's all you care about, here?" he shouted. "One of your men gave his life-"

Spiritual power flexed, slamming into him and pinning him back to the bed as Zaraki turned a frown on him. "Yeah, he died. He died before he admitted defeat, and it sounds like he died the way he'd have wanted to go out - fighting a strong guy and doing something he thought was worth it. I'm not going to insult him by getting all teary eyed about it! I'm going to take the Eleventh out to drink in his name, and then we're going to fight in his memory! And I'm going to find the guy strong enough to kill him, and see just how tough he is. Got it?"

Sweat dripped down Toshiro's back, and he nodded. "Y-yeah. I... he really would prefer something like that, huh?"

The question was met with a sharp-toothed grin. "You'd better believe it - any of us in the eleventh would want the same."

A cleared throat had everyone turning back towards Yamamoto, the head captain's eyes opening partially. "There will be time to mourn or not later. Captains - your thoughts on the reports?"

The Shinigami in the room looked among themselves, before Kyōraku shrugged at the side. "What is there to say? We underestimated the forces that Aizen's built up. It's unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. But I think we all got that from looking at Hitsugaya's arm."

A sigh drew his eyes towards Soi Fon. "Yes, thank you for that. In that vein of thought, I believe we should consider ourselves fully at war, rather than simply acting to punish some traitors and a band of hollows they've collected. The coordination and the numbers of opponents able to fight against captain level shinigami that they were willing to send on this last attack should be more than enough to show why. Four different Arrancar at levels close to or equal to a captain, and then a fifth who was waiting in the wings to try to take advantage of a distraction to assassinate Urahara. They crippled several of our assets, injured more, killed one, and kidnapped another - one who up until now has shown a trend of rapid growth and who hadn't seen Aizen's Shikai. Even if it was unlikely that Kurosaki would have been at the level of being able to fight Aizen on his own any time soon, it was still a potential advantage we could have made use of. One that the Arrancar have now removed from consideration."

Ukitake tilted his head up. "Fair enough. Then, given that our enemy was willing to commit so many lieutenant and captain level threats to this fight, I would propose that we keep that in mind for our own deployments. Divided, we can be swarmed and defeated in detail. I'd propose that no less than three captains be present for any deployment, and given Urahara's aid to us this time, that we try to coordinate more with his group. Had the three of them been on the battlefield from the start, things would have gone much differently, I feel. And if he had a way to contact us, he could have requested someone come to deactivate the trap he was caught in from the outside."

The tightening of both the head captain's and Soi Fon's lips into thin lines showed what they thought of working more closely with Urahara, but a moment later, Yamamoto nodded gravely. "I won't stop my men from making use of what allies they can find in the field. He is untrustworthy, overall, but in this at least, he is our enemy's enemy if nothing else."

A yawn from across the room drew glances towards Mayuri, though the scientist didn't seem to pay them any mind. "Yes, yes, but when will you be getting me some samples to work with?" he asked, the smile on his face sharp as a knife. "If I have something to start from, I'll be able to fine-tune my poisons for them, or perhaps figure out some of their abilities and ways to negate or bypass them. Really, you should prioritize that above anything else, if you want to win!"

Byakuya's voice cut in, there. "While all of this is well and good, I think that what the head commander wanted was more... strategies and battle tactics we could actually put into use for our next fight. For one, it is obvious that we cannot try to separate and fight one on one as we might normally do, but neither can we trust a group fight to go our way as long as they have the Arrancar mentioned in Urahara's report. As such, that one should be considered a priority target if we can convince them to separate again, as they did at first, and have a squad or a captain specifically ready to aim for his life nearby. From what we've seen of him, someone able to bypass his tentacles would be best for a quick kill before he can bring in his allies; Myself or Soi Fon would likely be best. If he tries to defend against me, my Shikai and Bankai can flow around his defense to destroy him. With Soi Fon, she need only tap his own guard twice to kill him, unless the tentacles are somehow separate creatures."

There was a slight murmuring of agreement, before Mayuri piped up again. "Well, just make sure to preserve as much of the body as you can for me to research. If I can reverse engineer that ability, it could be useful in letting our lower ranks participate in a meaningful way in the fights."

The lower ranks would also likely die doing so, but Mayuri wouldn't care about that any, of course.

Toshiro finally cut in again from his bed. "We also simply didn't have the numbers to prevent them from launching attacks in multiple locations," he reminded them. "Fighting to defend locations they're attacking lets them choose the battlefield too well. What we should focus on is finding a way to bring the fight to them, where we can go all out without worrying about the living world around us."

"And rescue Kurosaki?" Soi Fon's pointed question drew a small flinch. "Attacking a location that the enemy has had time to make defensible is guaranteed to end up with more casualties in any large scale engagements. Not to mention that we'd need to commit everything if we were expecting the full enemy's strength to be near our own in numbers and power both. It would leave the seireitei nearly undefended if we took enough to crush them at full strength, and Aizen's the sort to take advantage of that. We'll need to pick off some of his minions on the field first, if we want an all out assault to work without leaving us open to a slaughter of our remaining forces we leave behind."

He clenched his fist, trying to calm himself, but it wasn't working. "Then we just leave him in our enemy's hands? Will we do the same if it's one of our numbers they decide to take, next?"

"You're being irrational, Hitsugaya-taichou. But I didn't say that we shouldn't attack them in their base - merely that an all out assault would be doomed. What you'd want would be an infiltration squad - assassins, saboteurs, and extraction specialists. Something which you are unfortunately ill suited for. Leave such things to the second division, and focus on your own job."

And of course, Soi Fon's assassins would definitely put rescuing someone who wasn't actually a part of soul society yet over attempting to kill one of the enemy fighters if the chance presented itself. Something told him that the idea would be about as convincing and comforting to Ichigo's friends as it was to him. However...

It wasn't as though he could go in his shape. He would need days to recover his spiritual energy and cracked ribs, maybe weeks if they were broken badly enough, and even then, he wouldn't have his arm. It would be months before he could reliably fight against enemies on his own level again without the missing arm hampering him, even if he was sure he could still fight well enough to be of use with a couple days of practice once he was out of the hospital. If anyone was going to try to invade Aizen's stronghold and rescue Ichigo, he wasn't likely to be able to join them.

He wasn't as close to Kurosaki as some of the other Shinigami were, but even so, he was the one who had been on duty, been charged with protecting Karakura town. It grated that he wouldn't be able to fix his mistake - wouldn't be able to make up for at least one of his failures, even if he couldn't bring Ikkaku back. Of course, Soi Fon might actually be right about what the best course of action was, to an extent: sneaking in, if it was possible, would avoid whoever was going possibly having to fight several of the monsters that had crushed him so easily when they came at him together. He glanced at Byakuya, but the man's face was as unreadable as ever.

Would the younger Kuchiki insist on trying to rescue Kurosaki herself? Almost certainly, he determined. The boy and his living friends had invaded soul society for her, and her honor wouldn't let her do anything less in return, he was sure. Would her brother join her to help? Or would they try to invade without any captain class fighters to back them up? At the least, maybe he could help train some of the people who would be going, give them some pointers and suggestions.

Soi Fon was still looking at him, trying to read his expression, and he allowed the defeat to sink into him. He, after all, would likely not be able to help with any retrieval done. "I'll leave it to those more suited than myself, then," he agreed. The conversation started turning back to more ideas, but they had still only seen a few of the Arrancar's abilities enough to be sure of counters for them, so they'd need to either have overwhelming power on hand or fight defensively until they could come up with those counters, if they wanted to make sure they won with as few casualties as possible moving on.

He wasn't able to keep his focus much longer, laying back and closing his eyes as his thoughts moved on and worried about those children who would almost certainly be going into Hueco Mundo soon, with or without help from the Gotei thirteen thanks to Urahara. He'd find some way to make sure they had help, he determined. It was the only thing his own honor would allow.

Click to shrink...

This is, hm, it has some problems. It's too resigned and fatalistic, so to speak - Toshiro is more prone to anger than resignation when faced with upsetting setbacks, his big sister/mother figure is probably in intensive care and yet he spends more time thinking about Ikakku, generally Soul Society's reaction doesn't have quite the tenor one would expect from Hollow-derived monsters showing up and murdering one of them and crippling everybody else.

There should be more spite. From Soul Society's point of view the Espada aren't just dangerous opponents, they are evil and hurt them in a personal, emotionally resonant way.

25xp?

Your first moments of existence are heralded by a song.

Though you do not yet have eyes to see, ears to hear, nor flesh to feel, the nascent core of self knows. For in that voice power dwells, and though you are new born, you know of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, by force of its melody.

Unto your core, two gossamer threads are spun together and weave through your being.

One of the same origin of the song, proud, of light and lightning, triumphant, and center stage.

The other of shadows, thievery, creation, hidden from view, but working unseen.

Together one might imagine a clash, where light devours darkness or darkness consumes light, but it is not so.

The threads feed of each other the shadows growing black as void, and the light growing ever brighter.

And so, you learn of compassion, love, and how a whole can be greater than its parts.

If the Weaver's hands were less precise, less skilled, these threads would destroy you utterly, yet instead these threads meld with your being, and your soul completed.

Completed, yet shapeless, and so with more threads you are bound to a body.

And so you see.

And so you hear.

And so you feel.

And so you are.

Before you stand two gods.

One with a mask bone white upon her head, with two ribbed horns rising from its top, and with a broken and cracked lower half revealing her mouth.

She is garbed in grey, blacks and whites, a formal suit that looks like it is spun of shadow, along with gloves, rings, necklaces who match with impeccable form, each piece of clothing containing hidden power.

The other bears purple hair done up in pigtails, purple eyes, with purple teardrops under them. She has smooth pale skin, unblemished and perfect.

Her regalia is of white, purple, and gold, a dress of white in its purest form, with gold like lightning weaved through it, power that strikes from clear skies. Upon her brow is a golden circlet, with a purple gem in the middle, and above that is a white spiked hair clip in her hair.

The shape of their souls, your are intimately familiar with, for a single thread of each lies within you.

You stand face to face with your creators, as they look upon you, and observe you, and just as you sense the barest strands of their beings, you know that they see through you utterly.

It is of great surprise to you, when they move unable to react as they both pull you into an embrace.

You don't not yet know them not as Cirucci Thunderwitch, crown princess of Los Noches, or as Nemo Elcorbuzier, her wife, weaver of wonders, and envoy.

In this moment you only know them as your parents.


You have yet to see your form, but each part was chosen with care.

What of the heart?

{} Your heart has been replaced with a mask, like with all beings that walk the halls of Los Noches. Complete, for no breaking is required to free you of hunger.
-The form of your power is like that of a hollow or Arrancar, with Cero and Balas, and one or two unique instinctive skills tied to your nature.
-The most accepted and understood nature for one who walks Los Noches. A symbol that even without being able to give birth, Arrancars can form families, without additional agenda's mudding the issue. The Unity of family.

{}Your core has been wrapped with a ribbon of red Reiryoku.
-The form of your power follows the arts of the soul reapers, with kido, and blade, whose sword is a part of you and conduit for some of your power.
-The soul reapers were until recently an enemy to your kind, and such bad blood does not disappear slowly. A less accepted nature, hated by some, but with you a child of your parents, perhaps you can be a symbol of to bind together two once-foes in peace.

{} Your heart is your core in its entirety
-The form of your power is unknown, a new path to walk, not of hollow, or shinigami. They wished for you to forge your own path.
-You will be strange to the spiritual senses of those of Los Noches, a thing of curiousity. You do not know how well you will be accepted or put to the side.

What blood flows through you?

{} Condensed reiryoku from the spiritual raincatcher deep within Los Noches
-Liquid in which flows traces of the essence of every being in Los Noches. Of Energy, unity, and community.

{} Black blood Siphoned from Hooler
-Blood of an ancient being who can give birth to an unending tide of monsters. Of creation, life, and horror.

{} Blood of your parents.
-Blood Siphoned from Cirucci and Nemo. Of family, love, and sacrifice.

{} How do you look?
-{}Write in
-Ideally, your appearance should take after that of your parents in ways small or large.

Los Noches, even with regained nobility, and the beginnings of civility, is a place of violence, where former monsters walk the halls.

Though they like it not, your parents know that conflict will one day come your way.

And so…

{} You are given a Needle the size of a sword, with spiritual thread as a weapon. To pierce your foes, and weave a maze of near invisible threads upon the battlefield. A weapon of trickery and precision.


{} You are given an Asauchi obtained from methods you know not.
-Only valid if you choose the form of your powers to be those of a Shinigami.

{} You are given nothing, for your body is your weapon.

{} You are given nothing, for a child should not fight, but be protected.

{} Write-in

Votes are by plan.

Click to shrink...

What kind of horrible parent would make their child with Hooleer's blood.

That's interesting, though... Short? It's a chargen post so there's not much actual story eh. I'll wait to see if you go further with this before giving it xp.

So. I wanted to do something for the thread, but I didn't really have a good idea for an omake. What I did have was an idea I got from someone writing up a Nobilis character sheet for the Doctor and wondering how hard/easy that would be for Nemo. For those of you who don't know, Nobilis is a game where players play the embodiments of concepts and... well do a lot of things. The important thing for me in deciding how to stat up Nemo was figuring out how to reconcile the assumed high power of the game with Nemo's small stature and relative personal weakness.

First things first, I needed to decide what Nemo was the Noble of. This one was actually pretty easy for me because I knew that I wanted to avoid something very broad like an idea or an emotion. From there I just looked at the things Nemo was associated and came up with 'Thread'. Thus we have:

Nemo Elcorbuzier, Noble of Thread

Next, having decided that, we need to decide the 'Properties' of Thread. That is, according to Nemo, what is Thread all about? What does it mean, and what does it do? Again, this part was pretty easy, and mostly a matter of looking at the things Nemo does in story and the ideals and ideas she espouses. I could probably add to this list a bit, but it's a good starting point I think.

Properties of Thread:

Thread joins together to make a stronger whole

Thread binds things to other things

Thread sews up wounds

Thread makes great works of art

Next, we're on to the part of character creation that lets me add a bunch of small things to make Nemo feel like Nemo. Gifts! Gifts in the Nobilis system are anything a character can do that doesn't fit under their main stats.

Durant (1CP) (Lesser Preservation of the Self 3CP, +1 Automatic, -3 Self only, -2 Limited utility, Common, Total 1CP)

Now we come to the first tough decision I had to make. In this case, exactly how tough is Nemo Elcorbuzier? Without going into too much detail, the durability system in Nobilis runs from Durant (1 character point), Eternal (3 character points), and all the way up to Active Immortality (6 character points). Now, right away I could easily say that Nemo doesn't have active Immortality. She's nowhere near that tough, she can't survive a nuke or being stabbed in the heart with all of Hell shrunken down into a knife. This is where the tricky part comes in, because I wasn't yet sure whether I wanted to represent Nemo's Resurreccion mechanically. Nemo at base is obviously just Durant, which amounts to solidly insulated from but not immune to most mundane harm and healing more quickly from less mundane things. However, in her released state Nemo is significantly trickier to kill, so I was for a long while tempted to give her Eternal, which is much stronger than Durant to account for this. Ultimately however I decided to represent Nemo's release elsewhere, and so I left Nemo with just Durant rather than Eternal.

Shapeshifter (1CP) (Lesser Enchantment of Shadows 4CP, Automatic +1, SelfOnly -3, Limited Flexibility -2, Common, Total 1CP)

Here is how I ultimately decided to represent her resurreccion. A bit obvious to me in hindsight that a lesser enchantment of shadows covers just about everything Nemo does when she releases, but it took me a while to come to this, especially given that I was unsure if I should make it something bigger and more impressive given the recent revelation and speculation about it. For anyone wondering exactly what a 'lesser enchantment' is, it essentially makes Nemo more shadow like. In the case of her resurreccion, it makes her insubstantial like a shadow, lets her move quickly like a shadow, and lets her 'heal' more quickly like a shadow in that you can't really harm a shadow in the first place.

Flight (1CP) (Treasure Miracle 3CP, +1 Automatic, -3 Self only, -3 One Trick, Common, Total 1CP)

Okay, this one is a bit weird but I like the solution that I came to. Nemo can airstep all the time, which isn't something Nobilis characters get to do for free, so I needed to give her a gift to do it easily. However, Nemo not being able to truly 'fly' except with her necklace is brought up a lot and is a big part of her character. This is where it's an issue, because I could give Nemo a gift that just lets her airstep, but it would cost exactly the same amount as flying. So what I did was just give her a bond that Nemo's hypothetical player is obviously using to try and earn MP by having it get in her way and playing it up for drama.

Aspect Gift of Skill: Style (Aspect 3, Automatically activates when appropriate, Self only, broad package of abilities, rare) (2 CP)

Nemo being a stylish moth is a big part of her character at this point and so I wanted something to represent it mechanically. For reasons I'll get into later, I'm not giving Nemo high enough Aspect that she could be just that stylish naturally. I chose Aspect 3 for the level of the gift because that's the level where you have just barely left mundane skill behind and are operating on a supernatural level. This mirrors Nemo's champion style pushing mundane skill to the limits fairly well.

Sword and Dagger (Lesser Creation of Destructive Energy, Simple Miracle, Local things only, a handful of applications) (1CP)

This gift covers all of Nemo's applications of Cero and Bala. Unfortunately, the scale of the Nobilis system betrays me a little bit, because even Gran Rey Cero falls under a lesser creation rather than a greater creation and so it gets lumped together. Gran Rey Cero would be her going for maximum destructive power with this gift, while the others would be small scale uses of it. Another issue is that unless I decided to make the gift worse for no mechanical reason, using it doesn't cost her any energy. This is less of an issue because in an actual fight against peer opponents she would presumably back it up by spending MP for miraculous strike (making it more powerful basically) if she wanted it to be useful, but it's worth noting all the same.

Gatemaker (Lesser Creation of Passageways) 1CP


This gift effectively covers Nemo's use of Descorrer to make portals. Luckily Nemo doesn't have the next rank yet, or I would have to move some CP around to cover the spying functionality.

Now we're done with Miraculous Gifts and we can move on to the core attributes of Nobilis: Aspect, Persona, Domain, and Treasure.

Aspect 0

I mentioned Aspect briefly while discussing Nemo's Style gift, but here I'll talk about it more completely. To explain what Aspect actually is, it's human (or 'human') ability pushed up to Miraculous heights. Almost every character in Bleach is throwing around the equivalent of mid-upper mid tier Aspect Miracles like candy when they fight, doing things like flash stepping and cutting skyscrapers in half, all of that. The issue for me when trying to figure out what level of Aspect Nemo should have is two fold. Firstly, what each level of Aspect covers scales up incredibly sharply. As an example, Aspect 5 is leaping 50 yards into the air and running on top of blades of grass. Almost all of the stuff in the original soul society arc maxes out at Aspect 5. Aspect 6 is literally any amount of force or speed, as much as required to accomplish what you want, so long as you're not expecting the rest of the world to keep up with your miraculous power. For instance, you can absolutely outrun a laser beam, but you can't yet see something invisible, or pick up a whole mountain. You would be strong enough to lift the mountain, but as a mundane object chunks of it would just break off rather than be lifted whole. Aspect 7 is where you can ignore things like 'physics' or 'common sense'. Soi Fon moving so fast a bunch of copies of her appear is this level of Aspect. Aspect 8 is shooting down all the stars in the sky with a hand gun. So the way Aspect scales is the first issue. The second issue is that Nobilis characters can spend MP to be better than their baseline rating temporarily. Luckily, starting Nobilis characters only start with 5, and they can only spend MP in chunks of 1, 2, 4, and 8. Nemo doesn't have enough MP to spend 8, so I don't have to worry about her being strong and fast enough to play tennis with planets, but I need to keep in mind what her Aspect rating + 4 is to determine her maximum level of physical abilities.

That was all a very long winded way to explain that baring in mind Nemo's crippling and her lack of personal physical ability 'a bit below what most people were doing in the soul society arc' is probably a reasonable level to have as her upper limit.

Persona 1

Persona is how Nemo uses her estate (Thread) and it's properties (see the properties near the top of this post) as a metaphor to effect the world. In other words, Nemo uses Persona to make great works of art, to join people and things together to make a stronger whole, to bind people to other people, to bind things to other things, and to bind things to people. And also, to both literally and metaphorically sew up wounds. There's a lot of complicated nonsense in explaining the exact specifics here, but the important thing to note is that Persona 1 is the point where she can use 'Blessings' and 'Curses' of Thread for free. That is, adding or taking away a little bit of the properties of her estate from people and things. A blessing or a curse won't dominate someone's life, but it will effect it notably. The example given is that looking at someone's life as whole, a blessing or curse might only effect about 10% of it. This is the level of Nemo's intercession with the Coro Nocturno in my view, and is why Nemo has Persona 1.

Domain 0

Where Persona is metaphorical, Domain is literal. Here I give Nemo Domain 0 because while she can literally animate and do other things with thread, the things she does with it are fairly low key, and she doesn't do them often.


Treasure 5

This is the big one, the place where most of Nemo's points have gone. Even here, however, there was some waffling. You see, I set a minimum bar of Treasure 3 so that a Treasure 7, getting miraculous help miracle would be in reach to cover Cirucci saving Nemo and fighting Nnoitra in the arena. And yes, obviously Cirucci is Nemo's treasure in hypothetical Noble Nemo land! Nobles are powerful, even if Nemo is weak compared to the people around her. How to reconcile this without intentionally frittering away all of Nemo's character points? Count Cirucci as an extension of her power! But back to why Nemo has Treasure 5. So like I was saying, Treasure 3 is the minimum so Nemo could spend 4MP to have Cirucci save her. However, looking at the fight between Cirucci and Nnoitra, Cirucci's eye amulet letting her stun Nnoitra sure looked like Treasure 8, you and your Treasure's powers being unleashed together. So Treasure 4 was the right answer, right? Well, I almost settled for Treasure 4, but if Nemo were Treasure 5, she would be just in range of being able to use Treasure to enact an Imperial Miracle. And given all the talk of how Nemo's presence has changed the story and how the narrative has been irrevocably altered by her presence I could not resist.

You see, an Imperial Miracle is a story told to the world. It's a demand being made- and not one made quickly. The minimum time frame to do one is a scene, but an entire story might be needed to encompass the scope of such a powerful thing. The power of an Imperial Miracle is like a new law of the universe being made, like if you lived in a world without gravity but one day you realized that things should fall and not remain floating. And so things fall, because when faced with the weight of the Miracle they can't help but do it.

In this case, Nemo's Imperial Miracle is probably something about how the Arrancars matter, how they aren't just a tool for Aizen to use and then callously toss aside. Of course, we'll only know the full scope of this Miracle when Nemo is done telling it.

As an amusing note, in the view of the world where Nemo is a Treasure 5 Noble, you can directly attribute all of the the most recent Karakura town fight's outcomes to her using Treasure Miracles. Using them to have Cirucci beat Ichigo, to have Luppi coordinate his big fight, and to team up with Tesla and Ilforte against Tessai. This is... Close enough to the actual truth of things in the quest given Nemo's ripple effects on canon that I am entirely happy with Treasure 5 Nemo. This even covers why Nemo had so much trouble when fighting Tatsuki and friends and then Tessai. Against Tatsuki, Nemo's power was tied up in running Treasure Miracles for Cirucci and Luppi, and in the fight against Tessai Nemo was almost out of MP for Treasure and couldn't use her big Miracles. It doesn't really matter, but I like that I came up with a character sheet where Nemo's actions and the story make sense when compared to it.

Finally we have bonds and afflictions! These are the things Nemo cares about and the laws of her nature. As you can see, she has lots of bonds because she cares about a lot of different people and things, though some less than others. I had trouble coming up with good afflictions, but thought I should include at least one, so we have the very minor Affliction 1 making note of Nemo's supernaturally incredible composure.

Bond 4 I will weave a better world

Bond 4 My love for Cirucci

Bond 2 Luppi is irritating, but...

Bond 2 I don't like speaking

Bond 2 The things I've made with La Marana

Bond 1 I love flying, but can only truly do so when my heart is as light as air

Bond 1 The Coro Nocturno

Bond 1 My comrades in arms

Affliction 1 My composure is unbreakable


And that's it! More words then I originally intended, but all 25 Character points have been spent (Domain, Persona, Aspect, and Treasure cost 3CP per rank), and I feel like I've come out of it with a fairly accurate representation of Nemo as a Nobilis character. Interestingly, this sheet leans heavily on the meta perspective that in universe so many changes to the shape of the story and the people in it can be directly traced to Nemo. This makes sense, as a character sheet is a somewhat meta thing to begin with!

Click to shrink...

Well, that's... interesting. Never played Nobilis myself. I didn't give Phigment XP for his Cirucci character sheet but this was a lot more words and kinda interesting to read? I'll give it 25xp but I'm not going to reward a flood of "Nemo in RPG System X" before people jump on that idea

Now You Feel Like Being Reviewed By Luppi Antenor

Part the Second

What is up? Once again, it is your boy Luppi; hero, gentleman, and the lone voice of sanity in the madhouse that is the Thunderwitch's retinue. Or, at least if not sanity, the only one who doesn't spend every free moment making out with Cirucci (if you're Nemo), with Nemo (if you're Cirucci), or with your archaeological relics (if you're Ren).

I'd wash your hands if you ever end up touching those bits of stone he likes so much. You don't know where they've been.

Today, we will be examining so-called Chapter Zero, an eclectic mix of things which were written out of order. What fun! Well, at least it's more fun than having let another spin-off quest in which Nemo goes to a land of magical hats, or in which Nemo gets up to something disgustingly romantic, or in which Nemo gets beaten up by a shinigami from another universe.

Well, actually, I'm down with the last one. I've heard good things about it and I can't wait to get to it. It should be a hoot.

So, let's begin.

---

Prologue - A Flame to a Moth

Well, little Nemo has the heart of an artist. I wasn't in Las Noches when all this was happening, but the tale of how the old Espada were cast down and replaced by new, better ones is an epic tale nigh-mythological in proportions.

Oh wait, no, sorry, that's the wrong script. She's actually just melodramatic and pretentious. Which is something you only need to spend time around her to realise - little miss "I'm a super spoopy shadow moth; a creature of feeeeeeeeeeear and the niiiiiiiiiiiiight" and "oh my love is just so pure and true and I'm a monster and she's a monster but we can be monsters together and be less monstrous together".

Anyway, it's pretty dull. Let's skip past that to get to the interesting bits. Like the fact that darling little Nemo is a traitor who betrayed an entire army just to protect one person and she hated ol' one-eye for a long time before she even became an arrancar. So circumstances arranged themselves that she betrayed people again just to save one person, and the Killing Moon wound up dead.

See, things like this are why I like her. And she likes me too. We're not so different - I'm just more open about what we are. She just pretends she doesn't like me, because she's embarrassed at the idea of showing affection towards men.

Anyway, it turns out this little section covers a period when our champion, our heroine, the brave little moth deserted Lord Aizen and went AWOL. Scandal! Horror! Calumny! Who could ever see her doing that?

I mean, apart from everyone.

So she's off into the human world, planning to set herself up as a queen that the shinigami will never find. Oh wait, no, she's hiding. Urgh. It's like she doesn't want a fun story to happen. Nemo is an awful storyteller. I've heard the mortals have dice-based games which are a form of competitive storytelling and that sounds like it's something that floats my thousand-ship strong navy, but if she ran something like that, it'd be nauseatingly domestic.

Anyway, showing her usual fine judgement and capacity to keep out of trouble, she finds herself in the middle of a war zone. Rather than leave or find somewhere where shinigami aren't going to be, she naturally stays. That girl has no survival instinct. She wanders around for a bit, doing nothing interesting, then smells something lovely that's clearly bait. Smelling the bait she obviously runs away and- ha ha ha, I can't even complete the sentence. Nemo, am I right?

So of course she wanders straight into the trap, and we discover that the shinigami can actually be cunning. Luring in Hollows with a lovely spiritual scent is something I am so down with. If I'd thought of that, I'd have been the prettiest rose in all of Hueco Mundo. God, I'm actually a little bit mad. That's such a clever way of hunting. Nemo finds a Hollow who's been lured in too and he tells her that the shinigami have been playing sport with Hollows, and letting Pluses who are on the edge of turning transform fully so they can have the fun of fighting them.

I mean, she's probably outraged by that, but I'm not.

And then a shinigami shows up, in their usual black robes. Only this one has an orange wool collar and feathers glued to one eyebrow.

Oh! I know that guy! I broke his arm in five places and tortured him until he screamed. What are the odds, right? It's a small world. Next time I see him, I'll have to tell him that Nemo sends her regards. And I'll need to tell Nemo that I saw him and he said "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! My arm! No, please, stop!".

Perhaps it's a shinigami greeting to friends of friends.

Anyway, he criticises Nemo's fashion sense, thus showing he's her natural rival - who I've probably stolen, with the whole arm thing - and she, sigh, tries to talk him down. It doesn't work, of course. Though it's interesting to note that this is long enough ago that the shinigami think she's a natural Arrancar, and have no idea about Aizen's army.

Ever wonder what would have happened if Nemo had kept up to her usual betraying habits and told him she'd had her mask broken by Aizen? Food for thought.

Anyway, it turns out this shinigami likes fighting small scared moths - though doesn't enjoy fighting big tough Luppis, in my experience - and so naturally tries to fight her. So Nemo naturally pulls out the Gran Rey Cero and evaporates him...

... is what I would have said if a) she wasn't apparently really pathetically weak at this point and b) she's Nemo and even now she wouldn't open like that.

No, it's just a fight. One where he doesn't approve of her sword either, which - fair enough - is a more valid opinion. Something clearly went wrong with her given her crude sword and her largely unbroken mask. Of course, when he says that, she angsts again.

It's not a very attractive character trait.

But anyway, they fight for a bit, then she remembers she was an adjuchas and actually starts trying. And then loses anyway and gets smashed through a building for her pains. Which are numerous. There's some nauseating honour culture things, and he releases his weapon and starts chopping at her with it. Then she manages to get a Cero off and scorch his uniform and he doesn't like that at all. I'll have to remember that if we have a rematch. I should have wrecked his clothes as well as his skeletal structure. Oh! And I should have stolen his orange scarf! That'd've have shown him!

... oh. Iiiiiinteresting. Not only does he seem to have a hidden release thing - the bankai I've heard about - but the words are written in a different colour. I wonder why he didn't use that against me? Well, holding back power like that nearly made him 'armless. Nearly as 'armless as that boy-Captain.

Too soon?

Speaking of 'armlessness, his hidden release apparently makes parasitic energy-stealing vines which tear off Nemo's arm! Oh! A man after my own heart! That's beautiful! Imagine if I could do that with my arms. Wonderful. And then she releases, and I get to see what her...

... no. Of course I don't get to see what her power really does. @Omicron is a damn cocktease, that's what he is. Playing with the heart of a poor innocent like myself! For shame!

Anyway, blah blah blah, Nemo runs away and comes back to Las Noches and pretends she wasn't a deserter. The end.

6/10. I liked the betrayals and the bit where I got to see the hidden tricks of Mr Eyebrow, but on the other hand the fact that Nemo was so disgustingly Nemo let the whole thing down.

---

Distraction

Because chronological sequences are for wimps, we now jump back to an adjuchas Nemo in the Forest of Menos.

So, turns out she made a friend as a Hollow with a Mantis who had a thing for setting murderous traps. They came to an agreement - she'd drive prey into the traps, and his traps would murder them. Then they'd split the rewards.

I had a friend like that once. Well, a few times. Little Hollows would sometimes come to me and offer to lure people into my arms. But they always got ideas above their station and tried to steal from me. Then they'd discover that what they thought was food they were stealing from my mouth was just another of my limbs.

The taste of betrayal is sweet.

---

sated

Firstly, I'm pretty sure titles should be capitalised. Also, what is going on with the authors of this thing? Was I lied to when people said this was by @Omicron?

Anyway, this is the story of how a weasel-Hollow failed at trying to drive a wedge between allies. Amateurs. They really have no idea how to do things properly. I'd have had Nemo eating that mantis within a few sentences.

Anyway, that's about it. That, and Nemo Nemo-ing about ennui and how friends try to ward it off. I do notice she hasn't tried to sleep with the mantis yet, though. Probably because he knew she'd just eat his head. That's what female mantises do to male mantises.

I wonder what lesbian mantises do.

---

A Reversal of roles for the Day.

They swapped roles once. It's not very interesting. And the narrative style is significantly different. And not for the better.

---

The Moonlit Desert

Now once again, consistent narratives are for the weak, so now we're back to ol' Nemo (rather than Killer Moooooooooooooooth). Looks like this is before A Flame to a Moth, though, since the stone that allows you to break masks properly hasn't been found yet.

Nothing happens. She just runs around in the desert brooding.

Seriously, Nemo needs to improve her storytelling.

---

The Fall

I honestly don't even think this story happened. It seems inconsistent with some things that I'm sure were confirmed to have happened otherwise.

And it's so short!

---

Like a Moth

I... think this is happening before A Flame to a Moth? A lot of these stories have her angsting about not having wings any more. I don't get it. You don't see me complaining about not being immobile. She just needs to get over it. It's dull to read about.

Anyway, using those talents that Lord Aizen used her to have her steal something from his great foe, a monster in a silly hat, she has gone to steal curtains.

Truly a tale for the ages.

Then she kills a Plus soul, in a brave battle which earns her glory beyond measure. And then she eats it.

Of course, we don't need to eat souls, so... well, you can if it floats your boat, but there's no real point to it. Oh well. She's just a slow learner.

Still, it's something to tease her about when I'm low on material.

---

The Spider Express

We're back to running around in the desert. What fun.

She finds a spider. She rides on it. Nothing much happens.

---

Well, this was a disappointment. It started off so strong, but most of the rest was just meaningless, with a recurring theme of angsting about not having wings. I liked the bit where she ate a soul and felt bad about it, but the rest was just not great. Not a very good introduction to the character, all things considered.

Also, I wasn't in any of it. Which is hardly a surprise, because my presence makes everything better. Hint, hint.

I hope Chapter 1 is better.

Click to shrink...

Haha. There are some issues with Chapter 0, uh. The early Quest feels so far away and different now. I'll give it 25xp, which ES already told me should go to Luppi, in addition to the bonus 25 Luppi already gets from this. Hope you continue it

Hope I didn't forget anyone. Don't expect another of these round-ups anytime soon. This literally ended up being my entire evening.

 

[Alectai]

Total of 500 XP, enough to grab Marana and a bit more towards Res, or all but guarantee getting Res for our next major story arc.

I'll follow this up with a callout so everyone knows how much they have to spend here.

 

[Floom]

Total of 500 XP, enough to grab Marana and a bit more towards Res, or all but guarantee getting Res for our next major story arc.

Click to shrink...

But it's almost guaranteed to all go into different places. So...

Fingers crossed?

 

[NSMS]

Total of 500 XP, enough to grab Marana and a bit more towards Res, or all but guarantee getting Res for our next major story arc.

Click to shrink...

So naturally it'll get scattered all over the place.

 

[tri2]

Cero <3

 

[Alectai]

XP SORTED BY CONTRIBUTOR

@tzar1990: 25 XP (+25 Luppi)
@Redshirt Army: 50 XP
@RandomNPC: 50 XP (+25 Luppi)
@Coshiua: 50 XP (+25 Luppi)
@Yama0: 25 XP
@CausalityCircle: 25 XP (+25 Luppi)
@Phigment: 25 XP (+25 Cirucci)
@chocolote12: 25 XP
@Camellia: 50 XP (+25 Cirucci and Luppi)
@Chronic: 25 XP
@trob030490: 75 XP (+25 Cirucci)
@Yaga: 25 XP (+25 Luppi)
@Lexica: 25 XP
@EarthScorpion: +50 Luppi XP

Luppi got +200 already! He may beat us to Master BALABALABOBALA.

Unless we decide to have a bala and make everyone involved have BALABALABOBALA. This is entirely within our power, though requires everyone to commit to raising Bala.

Or, you know, we could increase Resurrection or Marana, or go for the maximum meme and spread the XP out uselessly in all directions. THE CHOICES ARE YOURS!

 

[CeBrudras]

If roughly half of that exp pile gets shoved towards Luppi in addition to what he will already get we can get him his upgrade before the next stage of the war starts.

 

[thefoolswriter]

can we just focus on ourselves for once

 

[Yaga]

So naturally it'll get scattered all over the place.

Click to shrink...

Don't you know it. Put my 25 XP in Luppi, @Omicron. ES has swayed me with his wicked words.

 

[Coshiua]

I think that I'll put twenty-five XP into Nemo's Bala and twenty-five into Luppi.

I do want to help advance La Marana, but Bala is getting close as well. And, well, I think that it would be kind of nice if both Nemo and Luppi achieved the next rank in Bala at the same time.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

Bala is ~400 away
Maraña is ~400 away
And Luppi is ~600 away

This incoming split is gonna be hilarious

 

[tzar1990]

My omake was Luppi-exclusive - and while I'd intended to put any xp I got in Marana, that doesn't feel right.

Give my reward to Luppi, please!

Also, I may go back and edit my piece to use music metaphors instead of clothing ones sometime in the next few days.

 

[Dutch]

If roughly half of that exp pile gets shoved towards Luppi in addition to what he will already get we can get him his upgrade before the next stage of the war starts.

Click to shrink...

If the next arc is a social arc then Luppi is already as good as guaranteed to hit Master Bala before the next war arc. He's sitting on 1225 currently and gets half of what we get.

 

[Camellia]

All of my xp, 75 xp, into Resurrection please!

 

[Chronic]

D'aw, the perfect eternity for the both of them. It's really sad this isn't actually how the Bleach afterlife works. 25xp.

Click to shrink...

Naturally, my 25 XP go into Hierro.

 

[Alectai]

THE MEMES

THEY RISE