Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]

CIV. Challenge,


The wind whistles. The leaves rustle.

Concrete and asphalt claim to be timeless but this is a lie. You can hear the sound of their slow decay. One day all this will be dust, and you will stand, because you are already dead.

Jackelton lays the cards between you, and you look at them curiously. You've never seen playing cards such as these: they are not paper, but carved wood. On each one is an intricate image; usually a masked Hollow of some kind, although there is also the Moon, the Sands, the Tower, and a single Arrancar. He explains to you that this is different from the card sets you know: he learned of these through Zommari, who talks about them as an instrument of wisdom and divination, each one representing a step on the Path.

Then he giggles, and tells you that few of Zommari's faithful understand how the cards are meant to be used: instead they have made up a game using them that cannot be played with an ordinary deck, with complex rules meant to represent two Hollows competing on the path to becoming a Vasto Lorde. It is silly, but very amusing. Then he frowns, and apologetically tells you that he didn't think about teaching you the rules first, and that this would take a lot of time when you are always so busy…

You smile and pick up one of the cards. There is really no need to worry; you can afford yourself this indulgence to spend a little time with him. You study the card and turn it around, asking him what this one does.

The Arrancar, he tells you, is the fool who forsook power for freedom, and thus is doomed. It can never win the game - but perhaps, he muses, that means he cannot lose it either.

Ghosts live in eternity. Humans live in the moment.

You collapse your mind into the next second.

Yumichika takes one step and disappears. You kick the ground and are ten feet into the air, punching the air with your left hand. Vapor erupts in a circle around your fist and a bolt of grey howls to the ground, shattering the asphalt.

Yumichika is already in front of you when it hits. His teeth shine as bright as his blade, his smile has the same perfect arc as his cut. You hastily bring up Polilla to deflect it and the impact sends a shock through your arms and shoulders. You can't match his strength - but by now you are used to facing stronger opponents. You let yourself slide away under the blow, forming gracile platforms of reishi to support yourself in the air, and your swords clash again - but this time you thrust your left hand under the lock for a point-blank Bala.

His hand swats your wrist away. Your projectile flies off into the air, shattering the top corner of a housing tower; a flock of birds scatter, their calls echoing your Bala's whimper a dozenfold. Then Yumichika kicks you in the chest through your open guard. You fly off straight towards another of the buildings surrounding the plaza, and at the last second form another platform under your feet and slide to a jarring stop. Better than hitting the wall. You are already blindly firing three more Balas; trees explode into splinters, brickwork shatters. You do not hit.

Yumichika is above, too fast for you to track. You dissolve your platform and let yourself fall before his sword can catch you, and three strands of your hair are cut. His eyes shine merry and cold. He pushes himself and is faster than your fall - your swords clash again. You prepare to go with the blow; even if he knocks you to the ground, that is a more advantageous setting to you than the air.

"Bloom, Fujikujaku."

You are enfolded in a mantle of feathers, each one staring into your soul with an unblinking eye. Then it folds itself like the peacock's tail and becomes a blade, and four sickle-blades rattle against Polilla's edge. Your heart skips a beat as you remember the last time he used that trick on you; you shift your grip to both hands to resist the torsion as Yumichika hooks your blade and wrenches it aside…

…and then his free hand grabs your arm and the torsion shifts your whole body. He never meant to disarm you. You turn upside down, stomach lurching, eyes failing to keep track of the world, and are hurled across the air, up and up and up… Your back hits a wall and you punch straight through the concrete, your lips opening on a silent scream. Dust fills your ears and bars of iron inside the wall scrape against your skin, drawing blood. You bounce against a ceiling and fall to the ground amidst broken glass, rusted cooking utensils and rotten furniture. A stray lock hands before your eyes - your hair has gone white with dust.

He stands as a shadow cast against the shimmering evening, a faceless shadow whose sword gleams with a hundred colors.


"You don't have to come, you know?"

You look at Esmeralda, surprised - and a little hurt. Does she not like to see you? You don't come as often as you'd like, but she still matters a lot to you…

"No, no, that's the opposite of what I'm saying!" she says, shaking her head quickly, just as afraid of having hurt you. She brushes her fingers against her veil, looking away. "I know that all of the things happening to you, around you… They're so big. Bigger than me, bigger than you, even bigger than your mistress alone. It's so much to deal with. You don't have to set aside precious time for me; I'll survive, you know? I won't think less of you for it. What kind of friend would I be otherwise?"

You smile faintly. What kind indeed? It's because she wouldn't think less of you for not visiting her that you have to visit her. Because you need that little corner, these stolen moments, here and there, to remind yourself that there is a world beyond Las Noches.

"A world with way better booze," she says, topping her glass. You chuckle and politely refuse a refill. Then she looks at you with a strange, thoughtful look.

"You saved my life, you know?" she says finally, and you look at her in surprise. "Not just from being killed by an Espada. You also saved me from what Las Noches does to people."

You are not sure how to respond. You stayed in Las Noches; what did it to you?

Esmeralda raises her glass in a toast.

"It made you my friend. I'll never forget what you did."


"You're not weak," Yumichika says stepping inside the room.

You pick yourself up, panting. Torn wallpaper hangs in strips from the walls. The wood creaks with each step. Your foot butts against a baby carriage, just lying there, and you step around and behind it. Your sword-grip is slick with sweat. The first stars of a constellation of bruises beat inside your iron skin.

The smallest of chip falls off your mask. You almost miss it.

"Your power has grown so much since we last met, and yet you still don't know how to use it."

You glare. He hasn't seen anything yet. He raises an eyebrow and smirks.

"Are you keeping me waiting?"

Power roils inside you, burning, raging, licking at the inside of your skin with tongues of cold fire. You rein it in, push it back into that envelope of flesh. The shadows of the room all point to you with accusing edges.

You kick the baby carriage into the air and Yumichika is briefly surprised. He moves to swat it aside, you hurl a Bala, and a shower of dust and rusted metal fills up his side of the room. Black wisps feel the air with a chorus of demented laughter to hit your blinded opponent.

You feel a gust of hair on your cheek. Black hair brush your shoulder. Your eye twists in its socket to track the thing already at your flank. Yumichika grins.

You bring up his sword knowing he stepped too close for his blade to be of use, and he just smashes the pommel in your teeth. Your lip splits with pain as sharp as a scalpel cut. You topple backward, four edges dancing across your eyes; you try to predict the next blow and he kicks you in the chest. You spit out breath and drool, eyes wide, and your back lances with agony as you break through a bedroom wall.

You land gently. A rotted bedframe breaks under you, but the worm-eaten mattress cushions you. Rusted springs tear their way free to scrap against your Hierro. Moth-eaten bedsheets entangle your limbs. Yumichika is coming.

You close your eyes and touch the ancient thread. Cheap fabric for a cheap apartment. Not worth taking as the city was evacuated. A gift returned to the spirits of the land, welcoming them back into the lands mortal men had held for but the blink of an eye. You are a spirit. You accept their gift. The sheets unravel under your fingertips and you thrust your hand before you, casting long ropes of cotton around the Reaper's body. Yumichika staggers in brief surprise but he's already slicing his way through as you get up. You have no chance in close quarters.

You punch the ground and the Bala shrieks in manic glee as the concrete shatters. You hop through the hole to the floor below, scattering brown leaves as you touch down. Yumichika follows a moment after, torn strips of dirty-white cloth dancing in his aura. A storm of leaves follows you as you leap through the window ahead, glass shattering against your iron skin, back into the twilight of the outside. You pivot in the air and unleash a barrage of bullets at the building's facade, not even bothering to aim.

Load-bearing walls collapse. Corroded metal gives its last breath. The top three floors of an apartment building collapse onto the Shinigami. Poisonous dust fills the air, chokes your maimed lungs, you spit black phlegm. The building's foundations groan under the strain, about to give.

You halt your spiraling fall with swift platforms and exhale heavily. There is sweat around the edges of your mask and your hands are burning with the release of power, but this is nothing like fatigue yet. It's a warm up. The sun is sinking now, and the stretching shadows coo around you. They tell you to come out and play, to make them dance, to give them purpose. You deny them. You shut them out and catch the fleeting memory of Sung-Sun in the sands, speaking in wistful tone.

You've been fighting with daggers because Yumichika won't let you draw your sword. You inhale sharply and dark grey light howls between your horns, its pitching going higher and higher.

Concrete covered his words. You only feel the spell coming because of Sung-Sun's teaching. A holy authority embedded in the sky comes down upon the world of matter like a divine hand. It grasps the collapsed top of the tower and hurls the giant slabs of false stone at you like a skyborne avalanche. You hold in the Cero, backlash cramping your neck, and flash-step out of the way, but there are more still coming at you - you deflect one with a Bala, a small rock bounces against your shoulder and makes you yelp. You catch the leash of your power, bring it around to your horns again as you scan the whirlwind of stone.

Yumichika is above you, his peacock-feather blending into the otherworldly shimmer, sword catching the dying sun, tinging it blood-red. You know soon true blood will dye its edge. Your eyes widen, but your Cero is ready. He falls on you, strike, you unleash your power…

His crooked blade hooks the tip of your right horn and he pulls violently, twisting your neck. You gasp as your unleashed Cero follows the motion of your head, screaming in helpless rage as it is denied its prey; instead it scythes through three buildings, bringing them down in an instant, choking the air with dust and rubble. You duck down out of the sickle's grasp, bring up your hand, and Yumichika kicks you in the chest in the exact same spot as before. Bruised flesh becomes hairline cracks in your plexus and you fall out of the sky, every breath a lance of iron in your chest.

"Bakudo #28: Sinner's Shroud."

You twist in the air and land feet-first without harming yourself. Your eyes snap up at the trails of folding reiatsu but you only have time to see Yumichika's wide black sleeves flow gracefully through the air before their fingers draw a long dark shape that falls on you like a stone; you dart aside to evade it and it unfolds suddenly into a long brown cape hiding the sky, twisting itself to catch you.

You are engulfed in conjured cloth. Wrong choice of bindings. Before you can be wrapped up like a nice present Polilla makes herself your shears and you cut, one complete turn on your heels slicing the fabric to so many ribbons.

Yumichika's sandals softly touch the ground inches from you. Your guard is open. He is smiling.

His sickle-blades unfold like the peacock's tails again, a blinding sight of a thousand eyes, its absurd shape making its flowing motions impossible to read. Blades fold and unfold and fold again. Yumichika steps past you, and flicks his wrist.

Your chest, shoulders and back open in five long cuts.


Alphonse pauses in his work and gives you an odd look. Then he puts his hand on yours, halting you in the midst of cutting up the fabric for the skirt. You look at him nervously. Where you doing it wrong?

"No," he says with a faint smile, "or perhaps yes."

You're not sure you understand.

"I have told you before that I learned this art as a Hollow, have I not?"

You nod solemnly. You remember each of his stories.

"Yes, that is the thing. Nemo, Hollows obsess. It is inherent to their nature. Early in their lives, they obsess over a place, or a family, or a spouse. Soon, they obsess over the hunger. If they find something more meaningful to them, they obsess over that instead, and it consumes them until they risk even forgetting to eat."

Hollows, forgetting the hunger? You stare at him dubiously.

"They don't forget the hunger," he says, and it feels like an admonishment. You slump a little. "They displace it. Whatever their obsession, it becomes all."

If he says so, you believe him. You just don't understand…

"Your masks may let you fool others because they do not see the circles under your eyes," he says sternly, "but I am watching your every motion as you work, to see how you progress. I can see the slowness of your gestures and the shaking in your fingers. You haven't slept."

You blush in embarrassment and look down. You were just so fascinated with this new design; you spent all night thinking about how to perfect it. You think this skirt…

Alphonse cuts you off.

"Nemo, we are not Hollows. We are Arrancars. We must not let our passion consume and destroy us. It must be an aspiration, a path. It must serve. We seek both our own progress, mastery of a beautiful art, and service to others who need us. We must be human. Or else we risk forgetting all our rules and limitations and become monsters of our own making."

But it was just one skirt. It was just one night.

"It was just one skirt, and just one night. It was also your most important lesson to date. Nemo, I want you to burn this skirt and all the sketches you made for it."

You stare at him in utter shock and incomprehension. But-

"Unless that is," he says looking away, "you did not understand the meaning of my words."

For a moment you want to refuse, to challenge him, to speak outrage. But then you look at your perfect work, your grand idea, and you realize.

It was just a skirt.

You nod firmly.


You are down on one knee, breathing heavily. Blood flows off your stainless uniform, watering the mutant ground under your feet. Blue-and-green grass twitches at its touch, blades almost pulling themselves from the ground to touch your skin. But your skin is not the same; blood stains your right hand, your palm and fingers. Your grip on Polilla is wet and weak. You can no longer identify each source of pain in your body; they weave in and out of each other, bruises and cuts and cracks in the bone, pulsing with every heartbeat. You feel like a hollow shell, filled with agony.

A thumbnail-sized piece of your mask breaks off, near your left eye. Skin that has never felt the touch of the wind shivers at this caress. The trees around you begin to bend, their brown leaves falling off in a cascade to dance in the wind of clashing reiatsu, joyous and free and already dying.

Crows circle you in the sky.

"You have more power than I do," Yumichika sneers, wiping the blood off his blade. His eyes are sad. "Your reiatsu is so cloying, so… Deep. And yet you cannot touch me. Why is this?"

Your eyes narrow in anger. Does he think to give you lessons?

"You shame me, Arrancar," he spits, his face twisting in a contemptuous scowl. "You and I are alike: born to magic, with souls of power, begging to be unleashed. But you revelled only in that nature. I was trained, for years, every other skill drilled into me until it was second nature. Your Bala is too fast to dodge, but the hand-motions with which you throw them are easy to deflect. Your Cero is too strong to endure, but it charges too slowly."

...born to magic? You chuckle. What does he know of magic, who has used two spells in this entire fight, cutting at you with his blade over and-

You blink.

He only cut you just now.

"You don't know how to fight," Yumichika says, scowl turning to smirk, swinging his blade with slow, intricate motions, shifting it from hand to hand. "You look only at my sword, terrified of its bite. Every punch or kick or pommel strike is a surprise. It is better for me to not use my full powers, easier, because as long as I hound you in melee you are too slow to escape and too weak to defend. You will die of a thousand cuts. In the end, you are only Hollow. All your sword makes you is a cut-rate me."

He doesn't even know you. He doesn't…

But you don't know yourself. Isn't that why you're here?

The shadow is whispering in your ear now. Pulsating behind your mask like a tainted heart. It tells you to unleash all your power. It tells you that he will never expect you to go toe-to-toe, that you should go through a hail of swords to reach him and pin him down with your Balas, or stun him with your full reiatsu and take to the sky, levelling the city with unbridled power.

It tells you these things because it wants you to lose yourself in the battle and burn all your strength until you have no choice but to call upon its name.

You lift Polilla into a higher guard, staring at her edge with wide eyes. It is not merely rough now - it is chipped, jagged. You hear the Reaper's words at least.

You sealed that past into your blade. Of course you would always refuse to rely on her. Of course you would throw yourself into all other studies of strength. Footwork and dodging and Bala and Cero and regeneration and so many items crafted with so much care and imbued with so much power…

And never a thought for the one made out of your very own soul.

Of course you would fear your own sword.

"What are… Are you laughing?" Yumichika says, furrowing his brow.

You can't help it. The nervous giggle is turning into a full blown explosion of laughter, threatening to topple you and leave you open for a killing blow, but thankfully Yumichika seems to baffled to take the shot. Your mad giggle dies down, and you wipe a tear off your mask - your finger feeling a crack at the corner of your eye.

Of course.

Your grip on Polilla is slick with blood. So you let go of the sword. You plant her point-first in the ground and step back.

Yumichika looks at you, baffled.

The shadow hisses fury at your betrayal, and you lash it rope upon rope of your own memories, bringing it down inside you. You flare empty, shadowless power, cold as porcelain, and it flows into the bracelet at your wrist. Grimmjow's fangs rattle with new ferocity and tighten their grip, biting into your iron skin. They draw a trickle of blood, and your senses explode. The smell of the dust, of the lingering poison in the air and the ground, is almost intoxicating. The rot buried in every corner of this city seeps into you. You hear the oppressive silence of absent bird songs, and the flutter of their wings. You feel the coming of winter on your skin. You smile. Your blood no longer flows. Your breathing is no longer harsh. You heal your flesh with the slightest, most gentle touches, mending only what is needed, accepting the pain left as necessary.

You spread your feet, bend your knees to lower your center of gravity, and extend one hand, palm up, towards your opponent.

Inviting him.

A look of surprise. A frown. An amused chuckle, not condescending, merely intrigued.

You hear the creaking of his sandal as his weight settles into the stance before a flash step. You hear his breathing, and the moment it cuts off before the move. You see his eyes and spot the slight motion of his pupil as he aims at exactly the spot he intends to hit. You even hear the sound of muscles tensing against the bones.

You can't follow his flash-step, but you can predict its outcome.

He disappears. His reiatsu comes like a wave, and it is an aura - surrounding him, therefore preceding him by an instant. It is a gallery of fluttering wings, a whirlwind of feathers designed to baffle the eye and the mind, to create an instant of doubt. But you feel the glint of the blade beneath, you have seen his path.

The first sweep aims to take your neck and you lower your head, letting the sickles cut a lock of your hair. You take one step back as the flowing blade comes around for another motion, and you know he is too fast for you to dodge more than one blow. His second one aims to slice your chest open and come back for another cut at the legs. You hear the blade whistling and feel the innermost edge of his spiritual pressure slam into your torso.

You step into the blow. What was meant to be a cut becomes a thrust, four sickle-tips hitting hard white porcelain and breaking through it, spreading shadow blood under your breast. One rib breaks. Unfamiliar pain comes to you; spiritual flesh and shadow-self bleed into each other as the barrier is broken, and you feel a surge of nausea. You bite it down.

Sickles are not meant for thrusts. You angle your body and the tips of the blades are hooked against the inside of your skin. You exhale and torn muscle fibers weave themselves anew around the blade, the rib reconnects and traps the steel inside. Yumichika tugs on his sword to pull it out of you, and fails.

Your left hand grabs his wrist in a palm half-flesh half-ceramic, and holds him there. Your right hand forms a fist, and your Bala weeps for your opponent's mistake as it slams into his chest, and then another, and then a third at which point your grip can't hold him in place anymore and he flies off across the asphalt, gasping blood, shrouded in smoke.

You grit your teeth, put both hands on the Zanpakutou's hilt, and relax your chest. You pull the misshapen sword out of your body, feeling its anger burning your fingers at behind held by its foe.

You brace your shoulder and hurl it into the sky. It flies off, whirling madly over the buildings, and you fire off another Bala. The detonation echoes like a child's tears and the blade disappears over the skyline.

Then you take Polilla, rip her out of the ground, and do the same with her.

You turn to face Yumichika as he pushes himself up, robes torn by your assault. The smoke is turning denser now, condensating into silken weaves around his limbs.

You open your empty hands and spread your arms. Does he like you better now?

You see outrage in his face, his lips turning into snarl, about to insult you - and then the expression softens. He smiles a mean, hungry smile.

"I might be starting to, if you can keep this up."


Ren stares at the tooth of weathered gold, the chip of the Old King's crown. You hold it before him, in your hands, and in his eye you can read all the greed and envy and hunger and the hate that he cannot touch it. He cradles his weathered arms, bobbing back and forth, eyes never moving from the tooth.

"And that's all? That's all. Only this."

You nod and pocket the chip again. Your hand feels sore just from touching it, but its power is fading, soon to be gone entirely. It doesn't hurt as much as it used to.

"Y-you had a piece of Barragan's power, a secret treasure. Survived by sheer luck, just happened to still got your healing. And you just left it in a drawer. Took it out sometimes to stare at it. Nothing more."

You shrug. What else could there have been?

"I seen your stuff. Clothes you make. Powerful. Secrets and stories and lives bound in f-fabric. You could have used it! Made some pretty ring out of it. Could have had the King's power, all the things stories are told about!"

You don't want anything of Barragan's, least of all his power. Not after what he's taken from you. Not after what it's done to him. Left him the listless king of nothing but empty sands and mad Hollows. Left him, in the end, crownless and destitute, wallowing in his lost glories.

"'t's just like the mask. Power at your fingertips, and you give it away?"

What of it?

He groans and slumps a little more, eyes sullen and angry.

"All my stories. All of 'em. About how nothing works out in the end. About how Hollows try to get things, become strong, claim rulership, try to change things, and so on and so on. All doomed in the end."

He points an accusatory finger at you, but you stand your ground, defiant.

"Think you're above them, uh? Think you see a d-different path? Think you can afford to turn away from strength? You're just another of these stories in the making, girl."

You smile.

Perhaps you are.

You hope it will be a story worth telling.


One instant.

Yumichika raises his hand, index and middle finger joined to point at you, swirling reiatsu gathering to a pinpoint of light.

The sun crosses the horizon. Red and gold and orange burst in the twilight, twisted to wavy ribbons by the shimmer, a scream painted on the sky. The shadows of broken towers finally stretch down to Yumichika's feet.

"Hado #33: Soukatsui!"

You clutch your hands like claw, black sparks of crackling reiatsu flaring around your forearms, your sleeves billowing. The shadow rises out from the ground, black threads worming their way into Yumichika's spell. You reach inside for the thing you've shackled. You will not let it bleed into your soul.

But you will let it bleed into his. You mirror his finger-pointing motion and the Witch-Worm erupts out, a needle piercing the fabric of his spell.

The pinpoint of light explodes into a wave of blue fire, hot enough to scorch the twisted weeds away, wide enough to deny all escape. And then that wave howls with the pain of starving, opens itself like a great fanged maw, and collapses as it seeks to devour itself. The shaped blast becomes an uncontrolled deflagration. Searing-hot air burns your face, smoke and light blind you, a tongue of blue flame disintegrates half of your left sleeve and the red-dyed bandages beneath, revealing smooth white porcelain unbound. You swallow the taste of black dust on your tongue, the hunger surging in your stomach.

You take one step into the dying inferno. You cannot see anything, and neither can Yumichika - but the bracelet quakes with power. You hear a breath cutting through the wind, the soft tapper of sandals on reishi platforms. He's flying up to get a better vangate on the smoke-shrouded battlefield.

The wind hides the bang of Sonido and you are at Yumichika's back. At the last second he senses you and turns to you with wide eyes, and you thrust both fists at once, Balas coming out in basso and contralto. Yumichika is tossed away like a ragdoll, flying off above a concrete's tower top. You kick after him, following the grey trails of Envolver. He's slower than you now; as he falls off past the tower into the trees, you inhale and charge the light of Cero between your horns.

"Shakkahou-kahou-kahou-kaou-"

Balls of sunset-red fire erupt out of Yumichika's hands as he falls, arcing towards you, weak but numerous. Up in the air you have no shadows to impair his casting; you bite your lip to blood as you send off the Worm alone again and again. The fireballs hiss and smell of cooking flesh, veering off wildly and colliding, consuming each other for their precious heat. It's not enough. One fireball passes you by, grazing your shoulder enough to burn, and the second one hits you in the collarbone. You scream and topple - the smell of cooking flesh is you now, mixed with sap and soil as you break through the treeline of a park outside the town's center. You catch yourself before hitting the ground, bounce lightly on brief platforms to get away from the skyline and resume charging.

You see him as a black shadow against dark blue skies, the Evening Star at his shoulder. You let your Cero out in a wide, unfocused wave, turning half the park to splinters and charred wood. He dodges up, but you only meant to keep him at bay; you flash step away, down into the treeline, darting in short bursts as fast as you can. Branches shatter at your passing, leaves are caught in your wind trail, you form an honor guard at your heels, and Yumichika follows. Too slow. You smile to yourself and hurl Bala after Bala into the sky to keep him off-course. He's not attacking, he's just trying to keep up; you must have hit him hard…

...and then you hear it over the screams and whimpers and fallen timbers. He's chanting.

You pull on the leash with which you've bound the shadow-hunger and send it out, but he's in the air free of any shadow and the incantation bolsters his spell into a fortress, all your effort does is make your chest ache with famine. You feel your stomach wounds flare up, the porcelain creep past the bandages up to your collarbone.

"Daichi Tenyo."

The hand of God comes down again. It scours the earth which belongs to Him, and uproots the trees which He made for his leisure. Pines and birch trees rise into the air like so many javelins, and in panic you hurl a barrage of Balas, destroying a dozen - not enough. They come down in a hail, so heavy the ground explodes at their impacts. Meteorite-trees digging craters in the tainted forest. The air is an inferno of shrapnel so you fall back to the ground, racing between flash-steps as the projectiles hound you, debris plinking off against your skin.

And then you see it. The pines and birches were a smokescreen.

The centuries-old oak tree comes at you like God's own fist. You dart back at the last second and it explodes on contact with the ground, sending a shockwave that knocks the breath out of you. Sharp spears of pain erupt from your shoulder, arm and abdomen; you roll helplessly on the floor, push yourself up, and only then see the jagged branches stuck all the way through your body in three spots. You almost fall.

He hits the ground before you, black robes billowing in the wind, his face an inhuman visage towering above you, a statue carved in fearful worship. His eyes burn with the cold, merciless certainty of his title: God of Death, who holds dominion over all wayward souls such as you.

You gasp and throw a right hook and he swats it away with the back of his hand, sending your Bala whimpering off in the distance. His palm-strike sends a ripple of pain cascading down your shoulder and you stagger backwards, hurling a left-handed missile; he catches your wrist and twists it harshly. The ground explodes behind him harmlessly and he hits the inside of your elbow with the edge of his hand, while holding the wrist.

The joint dislocates. Your mouth opens wide in silent, sudden pain. His fist hits your ribcage and you hear the cracking of your ribs. You stumble. He catches your mask in his right hand, and flash-steps.

The forest fades to a blur around you. You hit trunks and shatter them in staggered flashes of Cero-bright pain. He is driving you across the entire park and letting it do the job.

He underestimates your ability to power through injuries. You clench your teeth, clutch your right hand into a fist, and punch him in the chest - the point-blank Bala draws a scream and your mask is free, you are free, he's been knocked off you, you're still flying but you only need a moment to…

You hit metal, bend it, break its hinge, and land painfully on a fake leather seat. You blink tears out of your eyes.

You are inside a suspended cabin.


Luppi stares at the open ceiling, kicking his legs. You stand behind him, leaning against the wall; you're taking a break from tailoring and don't have the energy to shoo him off. You just rub your weary fingers, paying him little attention.

"I think I get it now," he says wistfully. You try to ignore it, but can't repress a suspicious look.

"You hurt her and she hurts you," he adds, and you stop rubbing your fingers. You glare at him with an intensity that should burn holes in his back, and instead he turns to you and grin.

"What? It's a good thing, I think. It's like… an agreement. Instead of years of fragile mutual reliance undercut by fear and suspicion ending in one big falling out, it's… How to put it…"

You fold your arms and eye him coolly.

"People are terrible," he says with a shrug. "They screw up, all the time, and they hurt everyone around them at one point or another. But the way you do it, you just accept that. Instead of being always on the look-out for the moment the other one will hurt you and building up years of nervous tension and prepared counters, you just accept that it will happen. So when it does, you don't explode and kill each other. You take the blow, and you're hurt, and maybe you get angry, lash out, hurt back, but not that much. And at the end of the day, it was just a little pain. And you are okay with that."

Your lips twist in a grimace. Why does he have to keep phrasing things in a way that is right, but awfully presented, making it sound so awful? Your love isn't about the moments of hurt. It's about the moments of joy.

"It's what I want with Grimmjow," he whispers, and you blink in surprise. Your annoyance fades, replaced by confusion and curiosity.

"He's someone without hatred," Luppi says with a faint smile, "only anger, a lot of it. He knows rivalry, but not suspicion. He wears his heart on his sleeve, all his grudges and feelings. I will always hurt people. It's in my nature, even if I try not to, even if I get better. But him? If I hurt him he won't feel betrayed. He'll just feel angry. Maybe very angry. He'll definitely strike back. Maybe we'll fight. Maybe we'll tear each other apart. But at the end of the day, he won't feel that special pain you feel when you realize that someone wasn't who you thought they were, and cut them off forever. He'll just feel like I've been an asshole. And if I've learned my lesson, we'll move on. Together."

You don't know what to say, so you just give him a thoughtful look. You never expected this from him. You thought it was only a whim, a passing fancy.

"I want to know what it's like to love too." He turns and gives you a wry grin. "I must have copied you too many times. Now I am not who I was. And who will mourn the old Luppi? Nobody. Ain't that sad?"


Miniscule chips of bone cascade into your lap. You can feel the corner of your right eye open to the air now, the way it feels when you blink, so sensitive it makes you shed a tear. Your chest feels strange when you breathe, ensconced in a hard shell that still move a little with your lungs. Your neck is stiff - porcelain reaching your Hollow hole.

You're no longer bleeding red. All your wounds are now dripping jet-black fluid. Not dust, not yet - but soon.

You grab your right forearm and twist it into place, relocating the elbow and healing the strain. You breathe and fix broken ribs just enough that they don't risk piercing the lungs, clot bleeding wounds without fixing them entirely. Conserving energy.

Yumichika's feet ring against the metal of the broken door ahead of you. The entire structure on which you sit, a giant wheel of rusted metal and chipped paint full of cabins like your own, groans and tips a little, shaking you in your seat.

The Shinigami looms over you, and you glower. No more banter? No more accusations of being a failure, a monster, a cut-rate him? Is he short on breath?

"I have never enjoyed anything in my life," he whispers with a grin, "more than I am enjoying this moment. Make it last."

His fist darts like lightning and you slide in the seat; his hand punches clean through fake leather and fillings. Your hand is still touching the fabric and it answers to your will, squeezing his hand; one look of surprise and you're punching his face. He ducks to the side just in time, avoiding the Bala - but the detonation of its firing comes right next to his ear and he staggers pack, pulling his hand out of the seat, blinking and shaking his head. Deafened. You push yourself on your arms, throwing yourself leg first through the cabin's opening, grabbing its roof and pushing again to the next cabin above. The counterforce sends another creaking shudder through the wheel, and it turns a little further. You send down a Bala, destroying Yumichika's cabin as you leap up even further above. Flakes of rust fill the air, acrid-tasting, and the wheel turns a quarter-circle again. Hinges pop. Metal moans.

Yumichika comes out of the debris, racing along the circular frame the wheel as if gravity held no power over him. You just move higher, beginning to charge your Cero, and he waves his hands as he begins a chant…

You land on the topmost cabin, the peak of the wheel, overlooking a landscape of burning trees, craters, smoke, long trenches dug in the earth, collapsed concrete towers, decaying children's attractions slowly falling apart with no one to use them.

You grab the roof of the cabin as hard as you can with both hands, and fire an unfinished Cero at the sky. The recoil makes the entire wheel shake - and then it comes apart from its supports. Long-dying bolts give their last and the wheel emerges free of its metal cage, rolling down the park, smashing fragile trees out of its way even as it comes apart. You catch a brief glimpse of Yumichika's surprised and horrified face as he grabs on to the frame, and then all you see and feel is a blur of of wind and color and terrifying tremors in your chest.

You feel motion above and barely push yourself off the cabin in time to avoid Yumichika's diving kick, immediately grabbing onto the frame to avoid being thrown off into the air spinning out of control. You hurl a random Bala to keep him on his toes and inhale through the harsh wind, charging a Cero. You can't hit him in these circumstances, but the demented rolling of the wheel is giving you time to charge for when it ends…

And then Yumichika yells a word you can't hear over the roaring of the structure and blue light swallows the frame; it catches your fingers, spreads up your arm, lightning conducted through metal. You muscles spasm, incapable of letting go, as the current scours your veins. It burns without any softening from your Hierro, and the power of your Cero escapes your grasp, flying off into the night.

It's enough to kick the wheel off-course again. It almost topples to its side, rights itself, rolls… And finally hits the river.

Thousands of pounds of rusted iron come apart in one moment as they crash into cold water, as hard as stone at this speed. The frame splits under your grasp, sending you flying off into the air, the world turning upside down on you. You repress nausea, form faint platforms to slow your course, fall towards the water. Yumichika is already coming for you.

You dance.

This close to the water, you need not run on reishi platforms. Foam and vapor shape themselves around your body, carrying you like a leaf on the breeze.

The tip of your feet grazes the languid flow, sending a wake of seaspray behind you. Yumichika follows, a black spear-head on a white haft. Your curving trails meet again and again, Bala and lesser spells flying off and knocking each other out of the air. Your trails intertwine, a braid of vapor. You remember a challenge.

'Carve upon the face of the water.'

You remember Findorr. A hateful being, who was the first to force you to stand up and fight for yourself, proudly, when you could have ran away. You have no sorrow for him, but still you carve your path in his name. Yumichika slides gracefully, wide sleeves at his hips, and his fists come out like daggers. You kick and glide away backwards, howling bolts dancing across the air. Their fall sends rain down upon the both of you. He comes back again, this time with far more brute force; a dual stream of foam rises like wings behind him and his fist hits you like an avalanche - but you hold both your hands before you, palm up, and let the impact spread through your limbs and send you gliding back, far, too far. Black light gathers between your horns. You shape reishi and the water rises behind you in a great curving wall, your skin half an inch from it.

You fire, and he is still too fast. He slides to the left, out of the beam's path, and comes at your side. You smirk. You kick the water and fly off, and the wall collapses on a surprised Shinigami, smothering him for an instant, just what you need.

You fly. Stars dot the sky now. The last brightness of blue passes the horizon. A cloud shifts, and the moon appears in a velvet-and-silver tapestry.

The night has come. Your shadow howls. Your nails are porcelain now, sharp and cutting. Your reiatsu burns as it flows in your veins. You are shrouded in crackling darkness, static noise around you. You gather strength.

Yumichika emerges from the flow, the wave trailing behind him. He races you and you let him, the water spiraling up and up behind you, stretching like ribbons offered to the moon. Light again appears in your horns. Your fists fly and he swats them away like so many flies. You open your mouth in a silent scream, rear back your head, and his smile flashes bright -

"Do you never learn?" he shouts, and grabs your left horn in his hand, pulling on your neck. You yelp in pain and your horns discharge-

A Bala.

He stares at you for a fraction of second of surprise. You grin, open your right hand, and let your Cero flow out of it.

Grey-black light swallows the Reaper, a match for his robes, howling with pain and anger and betrayal and loss. It falls down like lightning, striking the heart of the spiraling watersprout, turning it to wide circles of steam around its baleful stroke. Then it hits the water, and the river surges, flooding its banks.

You stand in the air, panting. Your surgeon's touch prods your skin, judging the cuts and bruises and fractures, healing what is most vital, shutting down bleeding elsewhere, leaving other wounds untouched. The surface of the waters is completely shrouded in mists now, lazy banks curling together like so many dancers. You're wounded, and tired, but with such a clear hit…

Something comes out of the water below. You dart back in fright, thinking it some kind of projectile, but it is too slow to hurt you; as it reaches your height, you blink in surprise.

Polilla. Polilla has been thrown out of the water to you.

You reach out on instinct, grabbing the leather-wrapped hilt before she falls again, and look down.

The river inflates like a great balloon, a light from below making it shimmer like a new sun, and then whatever fire spell Yumichika just cast explodes at its contact. Instead of a pillar of fire easily dodged from this distance, what comes to you is hundreds of yards of water turning to scalding-hot, high-speed vapor.

You frantically flash-step away, too slow to avoid minor burns on your hands and feet - and then you sense his power. The steam was concealment. He comes barreling out from below and you parry a blow you don't even see, steel ringing on steel, and then he is level with you.

He is a vision of terror. His left arm is twisted and limp, his left leg is broken, both limbs have had their robe shredded, his feathers are gone, his hair is a mess, his face is scorched, his lips bloodied.

Switching the Cero channeling lost you some power, you should have anticipated it, but even so, how…

Golden ropes tied around his broken leg and arm.

He used a binding spell on himself as a form of first aid.

Feathers come alight with laughing eyes, and the sickles sweep at your chest. You're off-balance and surprised; the best you can do is raise your blade, one hand on the flat, to take the brunt of the impact. One sickle hits, then its three sisters click, and the combined strength knocks you away towards the riverbank. You try to correct your course and he is at your side, the tip of his blade piercing your shoulders. You're hooked like a fish as he whirls around in the sky and hurls you down, and all you can feel is the pain, the lancing in your shoulder, the blur of motion.

You see a tower; you see square stone buildings; you feel a pulse of dormant power…

You smash through three ceilings and floors and come to a stop in depths of utter darkness, lit only by your entry point. You blink, staring at the sky, and feel nothing. Not even pain. You try to move your fingers, and they do not answer.

Your spine broke.

It's okay. It's okay. It's fine.

You can fix this.

You focus on your neck and it comes with a snap - nerves reconnect, pain floods your body and mind. You twitch on the ground like a pinned insect, screaming without sound. You erratically weave broken ribs and vertebrae and shoulder bones, stop internal bleeding, and drag yourself onto your feet, your whole body shaking, sweat dripping down every inch of your skin. Your jacket is gone, only the dyed-red bandages remain, clotted to your skin by the blood.

You are standing in a corridor full of plaster dust and debris, and you were wrong. There is light here. There are a thousand lights.

The taste of poison is intoxicating. Every speck of dust in these depths is charged with the power to kill. Mushrooms grow out of the walls everywhere, phosphorescent spores making the air itself light-bearing. Centipedes flee to the edges of your reiatsu, where they drink in the power with glee. Slime for which you have no name glows an enticing blue as it seeps from cracks in the walls.

Nothing should live here. Everything you see is dead, and twisted in death.

A bolt of black lightning falls through the opening in the roof. Reiatsu squeezes your lungs. Yumichika's face is distorted, inhuman, a visage of- anger?

No. Pure concentration. He exists only within each second of this fight. For the next move, and the counter-move, and the counter to that, a perfect dance.

He was already crackling with power when he fell - you kick yourself back into the shadows, gritting your teeth against the pain, as he raises his sickle.

"Bakudo #30: Shitotsu Sansen."

No incantation. A mistake. He has barely started the first word that you are calling upon the shadows of the corridor to swallow him, and all the deathly glows of mutated creatures dim as darkness corrupts his spell. You hide the Worm in that darkness; and as three triangular shapes of bright gold appear in the air and Yumichika unleashes them, the hunger of Hollows is unleashed in their heart. The projectiles should have taken your limbs and put you at his mercy; instead they fly off wildly, ricocheting against the walls, and strike at random. One gets lodged into the roof. One strikes your leg from behind, forcing you down on one knee with a yelp of pain and surprise.

The third one hits Yumichika in the arm, piercing the concrete behind and pinning him to the wall with his Zanpakutou extended.

You inhale sharply. You are stuck to the ground, he is stuck to the wall, but his sword arm is caught and his free arm is broken while both your arms are free. You pour strength into your hands…

Yumichika grins, eyes shining, and kicks the ground with one leg; before you can react he extends both and slams them around your neck, leaving him suspended in mid-air. His thighs squeeze your throat like a vice; at first you only understand that there is pain, but then he forces your breath out your throat. Tears fill your eyes. Your wounded lungs burn with asphyxiation. And to top it off he starts twisting his body, twisting your neck while you are pinned by your leg, trying to break you…

With your last bit of air you punch the wall ahead of you and your Bala shatters it. The triangle binding Yumichika's arm goes with the rubble, and his eyes boggle as he topples backwards. Your head is pulled down but his legs slip and you are free. You punch the ground and concrete cracks around your own shackle. You stand up and breathe, liberated.

It is the first time, you realize a moment too late, that you are breathing through your nose.

Your mind explodes with lights. Your face burns with sensation. You are blind with stars and stagger back, hitting a wall, touching your nose dumbly. You cannot comprehend anything as 'good' or 'bad' smells; there is only a rush of visceral sensation on a level you never felt before. You blink the tears out of your eyes, breathe out from our mouth, in again, close your nose - you're panting, anyway. You grasp at a nearby wall for support.

You open your eyes and see Yumichika and the room beyond him. Decades-old machinery sleeps under a coating of dust, but the burning taint within them knows no rest - only patience, and slow death. Metal pipings and buttons and levers you can't make sense of…

He's not attacking you. He's just staring.

You touch your nose again, and realize just how little of your mask remains.

You have a face, you realize just then, eyes widening. You have a face.

And you will soon lose it. Porcelain creeps up your chin, sharp edges poking at your blue-painted lips. It is already encroaching your cheeks.

Breathe. In an out. In an out.

You look at Yumichika again. He is… studying you. There is blood on his clothes, yours and his, and his left arm is a total mess, so badly twisted he couldn't even move it. The pain must be unbearable, and yet still he stands.

"Everyone," he says softly, "know that Captain Unohana is terrifyingly powerful and ancient, and that she is best not angered. Few know her history as you do. Few know her past, and the nature of her true power. Even though it is not a secret, it is rarely shared. Do you know why?"

You don't understand what this has to do with anything.

"Because," he continues underettered, "her past self is not her true self. She is not a sleeping demon, putting on a mask, playing games of pretend while waiting for the carnage to come. She is herself: the Captain of the Fourth, the greatest healer in Soul Society, a kind and nurturing soul, if one with a stern and disciplined mind. Who she was is still there, and it can be awakened. There is a sleeping demon. But it is not her true self. It is just a self."

The understanding of what he is saying makes you freeze, still as a statue, eyes fixed on him. How can he..?

He chuckles slightly.

"I see you now. I do. Our souls have clashed again and again, with blade and fist and spell. You have sent that piece of your shadow into my magic. How could I not understand you? No, not just understand."

He levels his sickle-sword at you, and his eyes become hard, firm.

"You are my peer. You are human. You let your mask fall away, you threw your own sword away, so that you could fight as a woman, even as that shadow inside is consuming your flesh. I acknowledge you, Nemo Elcorbuzier, half-Shinigami. Let that shadow fight. I will not think you a monster for it. I will not think it you truest self. No more than I would Captain Unohana's."

No. You can hold on a little longer. He hasn't even used his true release yet-

-he will. You know this. You have broken his arm, his leg, wounded him too many times. He cannot fight, except with its power. You have done that much, at least.

The porcelain touches your nose, and all you breathe becomes empty of sensation. Your right arm is all smooth white hardness now, joining at the shoulder with the chestplate.

All you bleed is dust.


A face. A smile. You are dancing in the sky.

A storm. A whisper.

"I love you."


The shadow writhes against its bindings, deep deep inside your sword. Subdued. Shackled. Yours.

It is no longer raging or howling or hissing.

It is pleading.

It wants to save you. It's all it has ever wanted.

You are its better half.

There is a cracking sound, and your horns fall away, shattering like glass on the ground.

Breathe. In and out. In and out.

Breathe.

Remember.

You are only yourself.

That's all you ever were.

"Challenge, Polilla."


[ ] Remember.