Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]

III. Paces in the Sand

"You take me to the most interesting places," the spider comments as it comes to a halt.

Water is rare in Hueco Mundo, but it does exist. You are standing on a dune, overlooking a glittering pool of water. Small, but beautiful, the moon rippling across it waters. And besides it is a village - or was, once.

It's nothing but ashes and burnt foundations now. You feel sorry about taking your new friend to such ominous places, but it only chuckles (it's a disturbing sound, full of clicking mandibles).

"Don't worry about it. It's only par for the course in this desert. Will you be needing a ride back?"

Yes, and perhaps a little further before that. This is only the raided village; if your search bears fruit, you will likely have to follow a trail elsewhere, to wherever that mysterious army came from. If it does not… Well, perhaps it would be better to keep riding forward, away from Las Noches, than coming back empty-handed.

"If you need to go further it will have to be alone, I'm afraid. We ran for days, and I am quite hungry. I will be hunting in these dunes for a while. When your business is done, come back, and I will be happy to take you back."

You're grateful.

You're also afraid. The last time you bonded with another Hollow… No, this was ages ago, and besides this spider could not be said to be a friend yet. It does not deserve thinking about for now.

Even if you are running an errand for the very man who killed him.

You hop off the spider and wave to it. It answers with another clicking of mandibles, and then is gone in a spray of sand, its agility belying its size.

You tighten your cloak around your shoulders, feeling an eerie chill on your skin, and set off towards the village.

There's a part of you, a distant and detached part, that wishes it could actually have seen the village itself for the sole reason of seeing a change from Las Noches's sterile, gigantic, overbearing architecture. Alas there is very little to see here - square patterns of stone, broken beams of quartz cut from the white stone-trees of the desert, heaps of collapsed rubble. Cinders, here and there, and charred marks on the broken stone.

There is no wood in Hueco Mundo; buildings are made of stone. A village cannot simply be set on fire. This was the work of a Cero. A Menos was here.

And there is blood. No flesh, no bones, but blood on the stones. You pass your finger through it - it is days old now, but the feeling of faint spiritual potency lingers. Hollow blood, then. And there is a lot of it now that you know to look, staining many of the ruins. But no body.

Whatever horde came to this settlement must have devoured the inhabitants on the spot. An orgy of hunger leaving not one scrap of flesh, but messily staining the feasting hall. You've seen it before.

Such a number of Hollows would have left a trail, but it's been too long; wind has covered the wake of the marching spirits. You pace the village, time seeming to lose meaning as you explore ruined hovel after crumbling house, street after outskirt, and find not one footstep to follow.

Ah, but in the end you do find something, although it takes you a long time. At the north end of the village, you spot a little thing sticking out of the sand. You bend over to pick it up and find it heavier than you thought - you brush off the sand and pull out of a dune a piece of bone-like material, slightly curved, with a hole in the shape of an eye. A Hollow mask - not always an easy thing to digest, especially on the move.

It's outside the village, so perhaps it was someone attempting to escape who was run down and eaten on the spot. If that's the case then you don't have any lead. It could be, however, that it was dropped by a Hollow of the army as they marched away from the village, their assault ended. It's worth a shot. You set off towards the northeast, walking slowly and scanning the ground.

There, a white quartz-tree has lost a branch, broken by the passing of some lumbering form. You have a better sense of their direction now.


It takes a very long time. Hours? A day? More? You are no mortal, bound by hunger or the need for sleep. You are no Fraccion, consumed by her self-importance, convinced that there is better for her to do elsewhere. You are patient, cautious. You walk, back and forth across sand, examining rocks and trees, picking pieces of Hollow bodies, bits of torn fabric out of the sand. You trace the path one step at a time.

Eventually you see it. There is a rock in the distance, a blue-white protrusion jutting out of the sands. A mountain, although perhaps smaller than one. The army marched in this direction, and you feel confident that this was their destination. You stop tracking and start running; you dash across the sand, cloak floating on the wind, seeming to disappear for a half-second every time your feet touch the ground. The rock looms ever larger as you approach.

When you begin to see the shape of creatures you slow your run. Inertia carries you forward, sliding across the sand; it scatters over you as you take an angle and come to hide behind a dune. Your fingers twitch nervously, hoping you haven't been spotted from afar; you lie down in the sand and crawl on your hands and knees.

The horns of your mask poke from the dune, and beneath them your eyes. You don't feel very comfortable with this. You're a stealthy kind, certainly, but Hueco Mundo is all open terrain, terrible for the likes of yours.

There is an opening in the rock. It is very tall, and very rough; a jagged knife wound in the mountain, such that you are not sure whether it is natural or Hollow-made. What was certainly made by hand is the sigil above that opening; a crude image of a four-sided crown hovering over a butcher's cleaver. Around the gash - the door, you suppose - a handful of Hollows idle. They are no Menos, although their forms are particularly twisted; a snake-like creature whose arms are twisting lampreys rebelling against its will, a rolling slug with a dozen of hands as rounded and soft as a babes, a great masked tiger who would be awe-inspiring if its legs were not all of slightly different sizes, making his steps crooked, and more besides, sometimes coming out of the gate, sometimes going in. You think they're supposed to stand watch, although they do not excel at it; two of them are engaged in some kind of game in the sand, tracing lines, throwing sticks, counting points. One of them is obviously hunting for food without daring to go too far from his position, and meeting little success.

A small Hollow lizard scurries its way up the dune, staring at the rock with you. What a simple existence for this mindless creature - feeding on ambient reiatsu, hiding from taller and bigger things, never knowing age, guilt, or true hunger.

You snatch him from the sand and chew off its head in one bite. You might not need to feed upon spirits anymore, but it still tastes good. The rest of it goes down in two separate gulps, and your tension relaxes somewhat.

A handful of guards do not make an army. Likely inside this rock is some troglodytic palace where dwells their Menos lord and most of its cohort. You need an approach.

[ ]Approach openly. You of all people know that raiding villages and murdering dozens does not mean one cannot be a polite and organized ruler who receives envoys gladly.
-[ ]Present yourself as an emissary of lord Aizen, ruler of Las Noches.
-[ ]Present yourself as a wandering Arrancar, looking for shelter and perhaps a powerful master.
[ ]Attack immediately. This number of Hollows are no match for you, and if you dispatch them quickly you can break into the rock before any defenders can muster up a response.
[ ]Infiltrate covertly. Use stealth and misdirection to get inside the rock undetected, and do your best to remain unnoticed as you make your way inside.