- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not really "expanded." More "took what few toys he had left and moved to the closest buildings from the smocking wreckage of what used to be his lab."
They were some pretty nifty toys, though.
Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
They were some pretty nifty toys, though.
That don't work since Aizen would kill him after.
- Location
- France
Have some early Holiday cheer, everyone.
On the first day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
A max rank in style for a moth
On the second day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the third day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the fourth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the fifth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the sixth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the seventh day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the eighth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the ninth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the tenth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Eleven Fake Aizens
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Twelve page of salt
Eleven Fake Aizens
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the first day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
A max rank in style for a moth
On the second day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the third day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the fourth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the fifth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the sixth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the seventh day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the eighth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the ninth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the tenth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Eleven Fake Aizens
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Omicron gave to me
Twelve page of salt
Eleven Fake Aizens
Ten Espadas
Nine angry Captains
Eight tentacles
Seven lost Visoreds
Six Hidalguias
FIVE MARAÑA SLOTS
Four desert friends
Three Witches' spells
Two change in number
And a max rank in style for a moth
Chapter 18, CXX. Lugh
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
CXX. Lugh
You sleep.
You dream.
You are back in the caverns of flesh within the thing that was Hooleer, and as you walk their dim interiors you do not fear them. Though your feet splash blood as you walk, you know that blood will run dry. Though skeletal spawn twist themselves into grand dioramas, you know they will soon make their last artwork. Somewhere at the end of these winding corridors is a beating heart, but it beats slowly now, and soon no more. You know how this story ends; it was beautiful, if only for a moment. It was horrifying, if only the time of a dream.
Could you have done it any different? If you had chosen another gift to impart that colossal newborn… But no. Any way it would have ended, a god would have been born, and Aizen would brook no challenge to his throne.
You understand now something that you have never really considered because you would never cared. You oppose Aizen because of the lives he would take at his whim, because he stifles the burgeoning life of the Arrancars. But the reasons others stand with you in this Quest is different - Harribel, and Cirucci, and Grimmjow…
Aizen does not only seek to claim the throne of God. No, once he has it…
Aizen will kick the ladder down.
A voice speaks from the deep, a rumbling of lungs and cavities and grave-whispers.
"The dream was marvelous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream no matter the terror."
Why are you here? Did your sword guide you to this dream, from some echo of the beauty of a falling leaf? Or is it only a dream?
There is a worm inside you and it gnaws. It hungers for this dream. It seeks to devour these caverns of flesh. What will it find should it consume the dying heart? Another never-was, another spell to conjure?
Spell…
You scratch idly at your wrist, an old itch coming back. But scratching does little. You pause in your walk, at a crossroads of pulsing veins, and feel it burn, feel the thousand pinpricks in your arms.
There is another voice. It burns as clear as that itch. You turn from one corridor to the other, watching the shadows - you hear the splashes of frantic footfall, you hear the voice crying out. She emerges from the dark wild-eyed disheveled, green hair lashing about her face.
"Nemo!" Sung-Sun calls desperately. "Nemo, we-"
You reach for her, she stretches her hand, she slips, stumbles in a great splash of red. You rush to her but there is nothing; only ripples in the blood. She's gone.
You look up, and the caverns come alive with fire.
You wake up with a gasp, your body burning from the inside and yet feeling so, so cold. You stumble out of the covers, fall to your feet, limbs shaking, teeth clattering, ice in your veins and coals on your skin. You grasp the cupboard and try to pull yourself up; the rivers of snow and flame flow from your arm. You look down at your pale hand.
Two bright red dots on your wrist. Sung-Sun's bite. Her poison in your veins. It's already fading, receding as you breathe, each long inhale a dousing of cool water on the coals.
"Nemo?" Cirucci asks drozily behind you. You hear her shift under the bedsheets, sitting up, you can imagine her blinking bleary eyes…
You look out the window, and there in the desert, where the sky is dark-blue with the dawn, a flash of green.
You turn wide eyes to your lover and she freezes, understanding immediately that what she thought a simple nightmare, a nightly disturbance, is much more.
She needs to get up and ready herself. You have to go. You hope you will be back, but she needs to be ready to move, to act at any time.
"Nemo, how do you know…" she starts, trying to be reassuring, but you have no time for it. You reach for the cupboard and pull on threads of reiatsu woven into your clothes, sew them on yourself. Your uniform flows like water onto your body, and then the gloves, you take one blinking step around the bed to snatch your necklace from the nightstand and snap it around your wrist.
You pause and look at her. Her eyes are not bleary anymore, she wakes up so fast. They are wide, and worried, and she clutches the bedsheets against her skin and you are not used to seeing her seem… Vulnerable.
You lean over the bed for the lightest of kisses, only a second's time lost. Then you are on the other side of the room in a gust of wind, grabbing your black and white cloak and clasping it around your shoulder, and you are on the window sill, and you kick off into the sun.
Towards the light so green.
The shining crescent of the sun casts your moving shadows over the sand as you swallow the dunes in heartbeats, moving faster than you dreamed possible. You see the smoke rising from the sand, green-tinged fumes shrouding great tablets of stone on which ancient laws were carved, then eroded away by the desert. Some of them smolder still, cracked stone red with heat, and between them swirling reiatsu, strength unleashed.
You open wide the folds of your cloak, the air feeling like a wall of gauze you hit at high speed before slowing down in seconds. The blast of your approach blows away the top of smoke pillars, bares the sands below, and you stand in the sky framed by these scattered plumes, wings fluttering, as fear and horror grip your heart, as it beats faster than your wings could fly, as icy cold spreads down your back.
Apacci lies furthest away, sprawled unmoving at the center of a sand crater, grains steadily trickling down over her back. Mila Rose is curled up against one of the tablets, two layers of is faded engravings filled with blood like ink. Sung-Sun is crawling on the ground, her torn sleeves leaving her pockmarked hands to claw at the sands for another foot, another inch of distance, towards the two sai planted point-first in the ground, and beyond towards the butcher's knife standing like a banner, its ribbon floating in the fiery wind.
Tesla walks calmly towards her, his blood-stained saber in hand, and pauses. Your heart slows. Horror turns to anger, and both are just as cold.
He turns his eyes to you. One green, one brown. One cold, spiteful. One warm, relieved. There is a long cut across his chest, the bite of a broadsword, but it has nearly stopped bleeding. He favors one leg, though you cannot see the wound. Wounded, but not crippled. His spiritual pressure overwhelms the scenery, the smell of fresh blood and old musk, the shards of broken porcelain sharp against your skin, a tower of feral strength still not risen in full.
It abates, for only a moment.
"Nemo," he says, looking up at you, slightly lowering his sword. "I don't know what's going on here, but the Tercera's Fraccions tried to... It doesn't matter. I was worried I couldn't do it alone, but if you help me secure them until Ulquiorra arrives, I won't need to..."
He looks at his sword, and you see shame in that brown eye of his. You blink, refusing to understand, but you can't help but follow the line of the blade to the prone Sung-Sun, still crawling, yet too hurt to even realize you're there, to turn to you. You understand what he was about to do.
And your heart sinks at the double realization of this intent, of his shame regarding it, of the fact that you sent the Tres Bestias on that mission, and above all at understanding that he doesn't know. That he thinks… you're here… to help him.
It would be so easy.
You would nod and land, you would hurry to him to 'secure' Sung-Sun. He would let his guard down - you would only need one strike.
It is so easy.
Still a hundred yards away, Tessai slams both his palms into the air, and a torrent of blue flame erupts out of it, searing the sky, turning rain to vapor. It hits Tesla from the back and the giant lets out a desperate moan. For one horrible instant your nostrils are filled with the smell of roasted pork. Then the fire engulfs him and burns you as well. Tesla falls out of the sky, still clutching you, the ground rising at precipitous speed and then a great noise.
Your vision goes black for a moment. Your lungs are burning. You are crushed by hundreds of pounds of steel - no, not steel. A body. You shove Tesla's arm away, pull yourself out of the crater where he fell, stagger to your feet.
He shielded you with his body. Perhaps not an intentional gesture - the binding spell froze him with his back to Tessai and you held against his chest - but it saved your life; that spell would have killed you.
But not him. The giant groans deeply, and then that still, fallen mountain stirs again, pushes himself up on his giant fists, black-burned back still smoldering with blue embers, and faces the sky. He exchanges no words with you; no words are needed. In this moment you are each other's lifeline.
Perhaps there is hope yet.
He…
Deserves better than this.
"Nemo..?" he asks, frowning, brown eye uncertain, green eye darkly assessing you.
You bow your head.
The jade shadows of the smoke slither and crawl like dark centipedes, writhe against the stone tablets and the sands, rise up to curl around your feet. Your reiatsu is the wind of your wings, it makes them billow, white eye-circles gleaming with violent intent, lightning crackling along your arms.
This is his one chance to back away. To leave unharmed. You don't want to hurt him as he hurt the Bestias.
But you will.
Tesla's face sinks.
His sword rises.
"You fought by my side and we saved each other's lives," he says calmly. "Stand down and I promise I will argue for mercy, on my life."
You give Sung-Sun a glance.
She has stopped crawling.
He follows your gaze and his eyes widen in panic.
[ ] Tactics.
[X] It doesn't matter. He doesn't stand a chance.
"Crush-" he shouts, his voice frantic, and you punch the air with all the force of anger and that anger is a scream of its own. Your Bala is faster than his voice and it is far, far louder, a thunderclap that shakes the stone and sand and blows away the smoke, too fast to track, a blur of grey-black punching a geyser where Tesla stood. He rolls out of it a ragdoll, limbs flailing, digs his sword in the ground for support and slides back a dozen feet before coming to a rest.
You're already flying after him, wind beating your cheeks, wings folded to a sharp triangle, fist streaking with another howling bolt, but he is impressively fast. He brings up the flat of his sword, where the blade is shaped in an empty circle, presenting his free hand behind it like a shield - there is a flash of white as the Bala hits, a shriek of frustration as it scatters. His blade sweeps plumes of grey smoke…
You zip past him so fast his head can't track you, speed cutting a groove in the sand behind you, and fire another missile at his back, knocking him to the ground with such force he punches another furrow. An inarticulate scream of anger and pain erupts, his reiatsu surges cold and dark, you see a flash of green. But you're already zooming between stone tablets, using them as cover, a mere shadow in the smoke. He cannot grasp you. His power erupts, a coruscating beam of green, faster than any Cero should charge, far too focused; it vaporizes stone in your wake, shatters the tablets to molten lava, cuts a green line across the horizon like the fading sun. The air itself is wrested away by its push, a gasp of scorching wind pushing your wings, and you ride it freely, gliding away from the viridian death and raising into the air, gathering your own power from the shadows inside you. Black sparks crawl up your horns.
The ray dies. Tesla staggers forward, gasping, so, so far below. You spread your wings wide, a jarring stop, hovering above the smoke and ruins. From your crown, a lance of darkness stabs the earth, cackling like the very witches he brought down. Tesla has only a split second of warning and brings up his sword again, metal circle glowing white against the dark beam, and then its power engulfs him. It crawls up your spine, pricks at your nerves, spider-legs along the inside of your skulls as you unleash more and more power, until the Cero dies like a singer's note, breathless.
He is still standing. Or - no. He is on one knee, gasping, the shoulders of his uniform scorched away, revealing wide crimson burns. You raise one hand, claw-like, for a finishing Bala.
At the last moment you remember the way he jumped to escape Tessai. He is not kneeling, but bracing. He kicks the ground with tremendous force, a glimpse of the boar bound in his skin, roaring as he crosses a hundred feet in an instant, and you let power fizzle out of your fingertips to bring your forearm down in a guard.
His saber hits more like a hammer, a slashing cut aimed at taking your neck, strong enough for the impact to shake your whole body and nudge you back two feet in the air.
It only cuts cloth. Tesla's force was half-spent in the sheer distance he had to jump, and his sword fails to pierce your skin.
"How?" he whispers, one eye widening in that moment of grace where you both stand in the sky.
You smile without joy and slide your left arm around his blade, gently pushing it away like a dancing partner you send on her pirouette. He reaches with his free hand, grasp your collar to avoid falling and that eye, that green eye is already blazing with a nascent Cero. But you are in the butterfly stance, and his efforts are doomed. Your mind is filled with instinctual thoughts of leverage and balance, you know he has no footing in the air, you can see the faultlines of his body. You bring up your right palm through his open guard, knocking his chin to deflect the baleful eye, its power dying as Tesla blinks; then you bring your left hand away from his sword, to your chest to brace for the blow, and hit his torso with your palm and your strongest Bala.
The sonic shockwave draws three circles out of the air one after the other, like gates for Tesla to be hurled through down from the sky, shaped to your design even down to the luxury of orienting his fall as far from the Tres Bestias as you could. He hits a stone tablet hard enough to shatter it. Ancient carved stone collapses in rubble around him.
How much strength is in that slim body of his? He has barely finished falling that he shoves away the rubble like it is made of cardboard, stands up despite his forehead bleeding, his uniform in tatters, bare chest covered in bruises, and gleaming, phantom chains of grey fire beginning to weigh him down. He fires off Balas of his own, weak bolts meant to keep you away, futile. You dip your wings and dive to ten feet off of the ground, stomach lurching with harsh turns as you dodge his clumsy missiles, and you tap the air with your knuckles again and again, a flurry of weeping bolts cutting a swath of smoke and dust off the ground, a wide path of destruction that overtakes him, blows the rubble to pebbles, continues across the sand as you track his spiritual signature through the clouds. He is running erratically, trying to dodge the attacks and parry them out of the air at the same time, but your assault is unrelenting. You fire and fire on his track until your speed carries you past him and you tilt your wing in another sharp turn, coming back at a perpendicular angle to the wide line of raining dust.
Tesla stumbles breathlessly out of the sand, eyes hazy, bleeding from a dozen abrasion cuts; clumsy and slow. You see them clearly now: the grey-fire chains may translucent but they are as heavy as steel, binding his limbs. The power of Bala Envolver...
No. Not Bala Envolver, you realize. Your left-handed glove, made out of Luppi's skin. The chains of doubt and betrayal.
Forged out of an enemy's own uncertainty regarding his actions.
You hesitate for a second, and it's almost enough to turn the tables. He stands up from the ground, white grains raining down his battered body, teeth clenched, brown eye furious with anger, and the chains begin to snap. as he grasps his blade in two hands.
"Crush, Ver-"
Your force isn't half-spent when you hit him. You are borne on wings of your own making and they propel you with the speed of a meteor. You twist on yourself and hit him shoulder-first, the impact sending a stomach-churning wave through your body and knocking him off his feet. He tumbles again, comes to his feet again, as you unfurl your cloak and glide to a stop.
At last your feet touch the ground. Tesla stands up on shaking legs, assuming a wide fencer's stance and bringing up his saber in a high guard. But you have the bracelet; you can hear his teeth clatter, see the dots of sweat mingling with the blood dripping from his brow.
"Why?!" he asks, he shouts, at the same time as he lunges into a high cut; but by now injuries and bindings have made him far too slow. You easily hit the flat of his blade with your palm, swatting it out of the way and stepping into his guard.
"All this, for a sword?" he shouts again, backstepping and bringing his sword around for a narrow cut to the flank, to the hand, to the shoulder. You parry them all in turn, moving like water through his linear strokes, curves to his straight lines.
It's not about the sword, of course.
"Then why?! For that dead godling-" he says in anger, sweating and off-balance, and finally he overextends himself in desperation. He means to make an arcing cut to your head and you duck under the blow as smoothly as a bending reed. You know all the weak points, the nerve clusters, the weaker joints. You hit his wrist with the heel of your hand, a sharp stroke that makes him yelp in sudden pain and slackens his grip; you twist the blow into a push of your palm, shoving his limp wrist down to expose the inside of his arm, and you snap a point-blank Bala from you right hand at the inside of his elbow.
Bones break with a sickening crunch. The saber falls soundlessly in the sand. You kick it away with your foot and take another step.
Tesla does not scream his pain this time. Red-stained tears running down his cheeks, he takes a step back, a second to breathe, his right arm hanging limp and useless. Then he closes back in, throwing two quick jabs of his left fist. You duck your head to the side once, twice, take another step so close you can smell his breath, and hit his torso with both palms in exactly the same spot you struck him with a previous Bala. Ribs crack, he staggers back and one pulse of your wing gives you the momentum for a knee-strike. Hairline fractures compound all at once, ribs snapping like drywood, his blood and breath fly out of his mouth. You land softly and punch once, almost gently, because it is not the hand that matters for this one strike; your fist burns black. The air becomes a corridor of wailing cries, a tunnel forged by your simple shove. Tesla's hapless body hits one of the stone tablets with a terrible rumbling sound, a cobweb of crack spreading through the stone, and for a split-second it seems as if he will stay there, pinned like a bug in a collection, before he slides limply to the ground, his back against the wall.
You keep your hand raised, palm up towards him, cloak billowing in the weeping breeze.
Mist swirls around your fingers. Static crackles in your palm. The shadow wriggles out of your arms into a black orb. You do not release it.
Tesla twitches.
He opens his right, green, cold eye, framed in blood and blackened skin.
"Stay down," you whisper.
"Never," he answers.
The green spark alights in less than the blink of an eye, the beam shooting like a Bala, but your Cero was read, you only need to let it slip off its leash. A black spear howls wolf-like as it meets the green, and for a brief instant they struggle, but that struggle is false. The emerald arrow pierces your spear but that only causes the spear to collapse, to become a wave and engulf its prey on all sides, sweeping over Tesla and the stone tablet.
The shadow fades. The stone finishes crumbling, its etchings now truly lost forever. The mists rise, then, at a wave of your hand, split apart.
Tesla lays against the last shred of the tablet, his own body having proven harder than the stone it shielded. His eyes are closed and his body is nothing but one giant bruise, one bag of broken bones and burned skin, his face a horrible tapestry of wounds. What reiatsu he has left slowly gutters out.
So, you think, looking down at your hand. This is war, then.
Did you use the very skills you learned to heal others to better break someone..?
You feel… empty.
You don't have time. You don't have time. You don't… have time.
You breathe slowly, the rush of the fight fading and leaving fatigue out of proportion with your actual effort. You shake your head to shed off the cotton trying to fill your head, and take one step that carries you all the way to Tesla's side.
He's breathing, at least.
You wish you could tell him that it's not about the dead god. It's about the one that can't be allowed to live.
You take another step, past the rubble and the mists, then another, and there you are, amidst fading embers and dying smoke, looking at the scattered bodies of the Tres Bestias. How are you…
Focus.
Sung-Sun seemed the least wounded of them all. You scan the sands for her reiatsu and Sonido takes you in an instant to her side; she is lying on the ground where you left her, but…
Lord and Virgin, she's conscious. Slowly working to pull herself up on her arms, and her eyes lighting up the moment she sees you; you rush to her, put your arms around her to help support her, and she clutches at you like a lifeline with her scarred hands.
"Nemo, you… you received my… I'm sorry, we…"
You shush her angrily. This is no time for such concerns. You need to get the three of them to safety, and get the sword, and while the cumulative weight of the Tres Bestias is something you could easily handle, you don't have enough arms to carry them all.
Sung-Sun, somehow, manages a chuckle - which she instantly regrets as it turns into a bloody cough. She winces and takes a moment to catch her breath while you hold her.
"Emilou weighs… a feather and a half. I'll carry her and walk myself. You get Francesca and the sword."
You nod, propping her up until she tries a step, nods herself, and slips out of your hold to slowly walk her way to her discarded sai, then to the tiny, unconscious Arrancar. You turn back to first rip the giant butcher's knife-
-did you not once kill a Hollow with a knife much like this one? Strangest of coincidences-
You blink, and rip the heavy blade out of the ground, pausing a moment to admire its strange sharpness, its eerie design, not so smooth and whole, without hilt nor guard… It reminds you of the old Polilla.
You don't have time to consider such things. You leap off the spot, opening your wings just enough to carry you the distance to Mila Rose, and fall like a stone towards her. She, too, is still breathing; harshly, even - you're not sure she is completely unconscious so much as too injured to be fully aware of her surroundings. A good half of her body is covered in burns, and she might have a dislocated shoulder, but more concerning are the several cuts across her chest and right shoulder - Tesla probably hacked away at her Hierro with repeated strokes, hammering in a weak point. You're already thinking of how to treat her but for that you need to get home. You swing Ichigo's Zanpakutou over one shoulder and slide your free arm underneath Mila Rose's better arm, and gently push her over your shoulder. You almost topple - her weight isn't an issue but she is much, much taller than you are, completely unbalancing you; you need to let her feet drag in the sand rather than carrying her bodily.
At least it won't take long.
"Where are we going?" Sung-Sun asks, walking back to you with hesitant steps, holding Apacci in both arms in front of her. You consider the question; you will need at least a stop by the Red Chamber, but…
Your thoughts are cut off by Sung-Sun's wide-eyed stare over your shoulder, an instant before you feel the low ebb of reiatsu that should be wholly gone. You turn on your heels, almost stumbling again under Mila Rose.
Tesla is standing there, a few dozen feet away, staring.
He is supporting himself on the broken tablet where you left him with his right arm; the arm that should be broken, useless.
It's not possible, is your first thought. He never showed High-Speed Regeneration before. But then you see: you see the green eye, weeping black ichor down his face, green markings scabbing over the cuts in his face, growing back scorched hair, black where it should be blond. That eye, that eye radiates hateful strength, black veins spreading through Tesla's reiatsu, not just healing his body but restoring some portion of his power… But that new strength is not his.
He's weak. You could take him down in instants, if he makes the least threatening gesture. He doesn't have his sword-
He smiles.
"It doesn't matter," he says calmly. "It doesn't matter," he repeats, wistful.
You stare, wary, hesitant, and his smile widens.
You look up at the sky.
The bright crescent is still thin. Your battle with Tesla was a short one, the dawn is not yet complete. It is thin, but it is widening. The sky should be turning brighter.
And it is. It is.
You just can't feel it.
"Ulquiorra is coming," Tesla says.
"Nemo?" Sung-Sun asks, her voice quivering.
You turn one withering glare at Tesla, and he makes no gesture to stop you. He simply keeps smiling.
You snip at the air, opening the dark portal, and rush through it with Sung-Sun at your heels.
You don't have much time.
Ulquiorra is coming. The revolution is starting ahead of schedule. Ichigo still doesn't have his sword. It's too early for Cirucci to fight. First, you must go to the Red Chamber, but then you will have to move quickly. And prioritize.
[ ] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
[ ] Delay Ulquiorra. Find shelter in Barragan's court, who will not take kindly to his demands.
You sleep.
You dream.
You are back in the caverns of flesh within the thing that was Hooleer, and as you walk their dim interiors you do not fear them. Though your feet splash blood as you walk, you know that blood will run dry. Though skeletal spawn twist themselves into grand dioramas, you know they will soon make their last artwork. Somewhere at the end of these winding corridors is a beating heart, but it beats slowly now, and soon no more. You know how this story ends; it was beautiful, if only for a moment. It was horrifying, if only the time of a dream.
Could you have done it any different? If you had chosen another gift to impart that colossal newborn… But no. Any way it would have ended, a god would have been born, and Aizen would brook no challenge to his throne.
You understand now something that you have never really considered because you would never cared. You oppose Aizen because of the lives he would take at his whim, because he stifles the burgeoning life of the Arrancars. But the reasons others stand with you in this Quest is different - Harribel, and Cirucci, and Grimmjow…
Aizen does not only seek to claim the throne of God. No, once he has it…
Aizen will kick the ladder down.
A voice speaks from the deep, a rumbling of lungs and cavities and grave-whispers.
"The dream was marvelous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream no matter the terror."
Why are you here? Did your sword guide you to this dream, from some echo of the beauty of a falling leaf? Or is it only a dream?
There is a worm inside you and it gnaws. It hungers for this dream. It seeks to devour these caverns of flesh. What will it find should it consume the dying heart? Another never-was, another spell to conjure?
Spell…
You scratch idly at your wrist, an old itch coming back. But scratching does little. You pause in your walk, at a crossroads of pulsing veins, and feel it burn, feel the thousand pinpricks in your arms.
There is another voice. It burns as clear as that itch. You turn from one corridor to the other, watching the shadows - you hear the splashes of frantic footfall, you hear the voice crying out. She emerges from the dark wild-eyed disheveled, green hair lashing about her face.
"Nemo!" Sung-Sun calls desperately. "Nemo, we-"
You reach for her, she stretches her hand, she slips, stumbles in a great splash of red. You rush to her but there is nothing; only ripples in the blood. She's gone.
You look up, and the caverns come alive with fire.
You wake up with a gasp, your body burning from the inside and yet feeling so, so cold. You stumble out of the covers, fall to your feet, limbs shaking, teeth clattering, ice in your veins and coals on your skin. You grasp the cupboard and try to pull yourself up; the rivers of snow and flame flow from your arm. You look down at your pale hand.
Two bright red dots on your wrist. Sung-Sun's bite. Her poison in your veins. It's already fading, receding as you breathe, each long inhale a dousing of cool water on the coals.
"Nemo?" Cirucci asks drozily behind you. You hear her shift under the bedsheets, sitting up, you can imagine her blinking bleary eyes…
You look out the window, and there in the desert, where the sky is dark-blue with the dawn, a flash of green.
You turn wide eyes to your lover and she freezes, understanding immediately that what she thought a simple nightmare, a nightly disturbance, is much more.
She needs to get up and ready herself. You have to go. You hope you will be back, but she needs to be ready to move, to act at any time.
"Nemo, how do you know…" she starts, trying to be reassuring, but you have no time for it. You reach for the cupboard and pull on threads of reiatsu woven into your clothes, sew them on yourself. Your uniform flows like water onto your body, and then the gloves, you take one blinking step around the bed to snatch your necklace from the nightstand and snap it around your wrist.
You pause and look at her. Her eyes are not bleary anymore, she wakes up so fast. They are wide, and worried, and she clutches the bedsheets against her skin and you are not used to seeing her seem… Vulnerable.
You lean over the bed for the lightest of kisses, only a second's time lost. Then you are on the other side of the room in a gust of wind, grabbing your black and white cloak and clasping it around your shoulder, and you are on the window sill, and you kick off into the sun.
Towards the light so green.
The shining crescent of the sun casts your moving shadows over the sand as you swallow the dunes in heartbeats, moving faster than you dreamed possible. You see the smoke rising from the sand, green-tinged fumes shrouding great tablets of stone on which ancient laws were carved, then eroded away by the desert. Some of them smolder still, cracked stone red with heat, and between them swirling reiatsu, strength unleashed.
You open wide the folds of your cloak, the air feeling like a wall of gauze you hit at high speed before slowing down in seconds. The blast of your approach blows away the top of smoke pillars, bares the sands below, and you stand in the sky framed by these scattered plumes, wings fluttering, as fear and horror grip your heart, as it beats faster than your wings could fly, as icy cold spreads down your back.
Apacci lies furthest away, sprawled unmoving at the center of a sand crater, grains steadily trickling down over her back. Mila Rose is curled up against one of the tablets, two layers of is faded engravings filled with blood like ink. Sung-Sun is crawling on the ground, her torn sleeves leaving her pockmarked hands to claw at the sands for another foot, another inch of distance, towards the two sai planted point-first in the ground, and beyond towards the butcher's knife standing like a banner, its ribbon floating in the fiery wind.
Tesla walks calmly towards her, his blood-stained saber in hand, and pauses. Your heart slows. Horror turns to anger, and both are just as cold.
He turns his eyes to you. One green, one brown. One cold, spiteful. One warm, relieved. There is a long cut across his chest, the bite of a broadsword, but it has nearly stopped bleeding. He favors one leg, though you cannot see the wound. Wounded, but not crippled. His spiritual pressure overwhelms the scenery, the smell of fresh blood and old musk, the shards of broken porcelain sharp against your skin, a tower of feral strength still not risen in full.
It abates, for only a moment.
"Nemo," he says, looking up at you, slightly lowering his sword. "I don't know what's going on here, but the Tercera's Fraccions tried to... It doesn't matter. I was worried I couldn't do it alone, but if you help me secure them until Ulquiorra arrives, I won't need to..."
He looks at his sword, and you see shame in that brown eye of his. You blink, refusing to understand, but you can't help but follow the line of the blade to the prone Sung-Sun, still crawling, yet too hurt to even realize you're there, to turn to you. You understand what he was about to do.
And your heart sinks at the double realization of this intent, of his shame regarding it, of the fact that you sent the Tres Bestias on that mission, and above all at understanding that he doesn't know. That he thinks… you're here… to help him.
It would be so easy.
You would nod and land, you would hurry to him to 'secure' Sung-Sun. He would let his guard down - you would only need one strike.
It is so easy.
Still a hundred yards away, Tessai slams both his palms into the air, and a torrent of blue flame erupts out of it, searing the sky, turning rain to vapor. It hits Tesla from the back and the giant lets out a desperate moan. For one horrible instant your nostrils are filled with the smell of roasted pork. Then the fire engulfs him and burns you as well. Tesla falls out of the sky, still clutching you, the ground rising at precipitous speed and then a great noise.
Your vision goes black for a moment. Your lungs are burning. You are crushed by hundreds of pounds of steel - no, not steel. A body. You shove Tesla's arm away, pull yourself out of the crater where he fell, stagger to your feet.
He shielded you with his body. Perhaps not an intentional gesture - the binding spell froze him with his back to Tessai and you held against his chest - but it saved your life; that spell would have killed you.
But not him. The giant groans deeply, and then that still, fallen mountain stirs again, pushes himself up on his giant fists, black-burned back still smoldering with blue embers, and faces the sky. He exchanges no words with you; no words are needed. In this moment you are each other's lifeline.
Perhaps there is hope yet.
He…
Deserves better than this.
"Nemo..?" he asks, frowning, brown eye uncertain, green eye darkly assessing you.
You bow your head.
The jade shadows of the smoke slither and crawl like dark centipedes, writhe against the stone tablets and the sands, rise up to curl around your feet. Your reiatsu is the wind of your wings, it makes them billow, white eye-circles gleaming with violent intent, lightning crackling along your arms.
This is his one chance to back away. To leave unharmed. You don't want to hurt him as he hurt the Bestias.
But you will.
Tesla's face sinks.
His sword rises.
"You fought by my side and we saved each other's lives," he says calmly. "Stand down and I promise I will argue for mercy, on my life."
You give Sung-Sun a glance.
She has stopped crawling.
He follows your gaze and his eyes widen in panic.
[X] It doesn't matter. He doesn't stand a chance.
"Crush-" he shouts, his voice frantic, and you punch the air with all the force of anger and that anger is a scream of its own. Your Bala is faster than his voice and it is far, far louder, a thunderclap that shakes the stone and sand and blows away the smoke, too fast to track, a blur of grey-black punching a geyser where Tesla stood. He rolls out of it a ragdoll, limbs flailing, digs his sword in the ground for support and slides back a dozen feet before coming to a rest.
You're already flying after him, wind beating your cheeks, wings folded to a sharp triangle, fist streaking with another howling bolt, but he is impressively fast. He brings up the flat of his sword, where the blade is shaped in an empty circle, presenting his free hand behind it like a shield - there is a flash of white as the Bala hits, a shriek of frustration as it scatters. His blade sweeps plumes of grey smoke…
You zip past him so fast his head can't track you, speed cutting a groove in the sand behind you, and fire another missile at his back, knocking him to the ground with such force he punches another furrow. An inarticulate scream of anger and pain erupts, his reiatsu surges cold and dark, you see a flash of green. But you're already zooming between stone tablets, using them as cover, a mere shadow in the smoke. He cannot grasp you. His power erupts, a coruscating beam of green, faster than any Cero should charge, far too focused; it vaporizes stone in your wake, shatters the tablets to molten lava, cuts a green line across the horizon like the fading sun. The air itself is wrested away by its push, a gasp of scorching wind pushing your wings, and you ride it freely, gliding away from the viridian death and raising into the air, gathering your own power from the shadows inside you. Black sparks crawl up your horns.
The ray dies. Tesla staggers forward, gasping, so, so far below. You spread your wings wide, a jarring stop, hovering above the smoke and ruins. From your crown, a lance of darkness stabs the earth, cackling like the very witches he brought down. Tesla has only a split second of warning and brings up his sword again, metal circle glowing white against the dark beam, and then its power engulfs him. It crawls up your spine, pricks at your nerves, spider-legs along the inside of your skulls as you unleash more and more power, until the Cero dies like a singer's note, breathless.
He is still standing. Or - no. He is on one knee, gasping, the shoulders of his uniform scorched away, revealing wide crimson burns. You raise one hand, claw-like, for a finishing Bala.
At the last moment you remember the way he jumped to escape Tessai. He is not kneeling, but bracing. He kicks the ground with tremendous force, a glimpse of the boar bound in his skin, roaring as he crosses a hundred feet in an instant, and you let power fizzle out of your fingertips to bring your forearm down in a guard.
His saber hits more like a hammer, a slashing cut aimed at taking your neck, strong enough for the impact to shake your whole body and nudge you back two feet in the air.
It only cuts cloth. Tesla's force was half-spent in the sheer distance he had to jump, and his sword fails to pierce your skin.
"How?" he whispers, one eye widening in that moment of grace where you both stand in the sky.
You smile without joy and slide your left arm around his blade, gently pushing it away like a dancing partner you send on her pirouette. He reaches with his free hand, grasp your collar to avoid falling and that eye, that green eye is already blazing with a nascent Cero. But you are in the butterfly stance, and his efforts are doomed. Your mind is filled with instinctual thoughts of leverage and balance, you know he has no footing in the air, you can see the faultlines of his body. You bring up your right palm through his open guard, knocking his chin to deflect the baleful eye, its power dying as Tesla blinks; then you bring your left hand away from his sword, to your chest to brace for the blow, and hit his torso with your palm and your strongest Bala.
The sonic shockwave draws three circles out of the air one after the other, like gates for Tesla to be hurled through down from the sky, shaped to your design even down to the luxury of orienting his fall as far from the Tres Bestias as you could. He hits a stone tablet hard enough to shatter it. Ancient carved stone collapses in rubble around him.
How much strength is in that slim body of his? He has barely finished falling that he shoves away the rubble like it is made of cardboard, stands up despite his forehead bleeding, his uniform in tatters, bare chest covered in bruises, and gleaming, phantom chains of grey fire beginning to weigh him down. He fires off Balas of his own, weak bolts meant to keep you away, futile. You dip your wings and dive to ten feet off of the ground, stomach lurching with harsh turns as you dodge his clumsy missiles, and you tap the air with your knuckles again and again, a flurry of weeping bolts cutting a swath of smoke and dust off the ground, a wide path of destruction that overtakes him, blows the rubble to pebbles, continues across the sand as you track his spiritual signature through the clouds. He is running erratically, trying to dodge the attacks and parry them out of the air at the same time, but your assault is unrelenting. You fire and fire on his track until your speed carries you past him and you tilt your wing in another sharp turn, coming back at a perpendicular angle to the wide line of raining dust.
Tesla stumbles breathlessly out of the sand, eyes hazy, bleeding from a dozen abrasion cuts; clumsy and slow. You see them clearly now: the grey-fire chains may translucent but they are as heavy as steel, binding his limbs. The power of Bala Envolver...
No. Not Bala Envolver, you realize. Your left-handed glove, made out of Luppi's skin. The chains of doubt and betrayal.
Forged out of an enemy's own uncertainty regarding his actions.
You hesitate for a second, and it's almost enough to turn the tables. He stands up from the ground, white grains raining down his battered body, teeth clenched, brown eye furious with anger, and the chains begin to snap. as he grasps his blade in two hands.
"Crush, Ver-"
Your force isn't half-spent when you hit him. You are borne on wings of your own making and they propel you with the speed of a meteor. You twist on yourself and hit him shoulder-first, the impact sending a stomach-churning wave through your body and knocking him off his feet. He tumbles again, comes to his feet again, as you unfurl your cloak and glide to a stop.
At last your feet touch the ground. Tesla stands up on shaking legs, assuming a wide fencer's stance and bringing up his saber in a high guard. But you have the bracelet; you can hear his teeth clatter, see the dots of sweat mingling with the blood dripping from his brow.
"Why?!" he asks, he shouts, at the same time as he lunges into a high cut; but by now injuries and bindings have made him far too slow. You easily hit the flat of his blade with your palm, swatting it out of the way and stepping into his guard.
"All this, for a sword?" he shouts again, backstepping and bringing his sword around for a narrow cut to the flank, to the hand, to the shoulder. You parry them all in turn, moving like water through his linear strokes, curves to his straight lines.
It's not about the sword, of course.
"Then why?! For that dead godling-" he says in anger, sweating and off-balance, and finally he overextends himself in desperation. He means to make an arcing cut to your head and you duck under the blow as smoothly as a bending reed. You know all the weak points, the nerve clusters, the weaker joints. You hit his wrist with the heel of your hand, a sharp stroke that makes him yelp in sudden pain and slackens his grip; you twist the blow into a push of your palm, shoving his limp wrist down to expose the inside of his arm, and you snap a point-blank Bala from you right hand at the inside of his elbow.
Bones break with a sickening crunch. The saber falls soundlessly in the sand. You kick it away with your foot and take another step.
Tesla does not scream his pain this time. Red-stained tears running down his cheeks, he takes a step back, a second to breathe, his right arm hanging limp and useless. Then he closes back in, throwing two quick jabs of his left fist. You duck your head to the side once, twice, take another step so close you can smell his breath, and hit his torso with both palms in exactly the same spot you struck him with a previous Bala. Ribs crack, he staggers back and one pulse of your wing gives you the momentum for a knee-strike. Hairline fractures compound all at once, ribs snapping like drywood, his blood and breath fly out of his mouth. You land softly and punch once, almost gently, because it is not the hand that matters for this one strike; your fist burns black. The air becomes a corridor of wailing cries, a tunnel forged by your simple shove. Tesla's hapless body hits one of the stone tablets with a terrible rumbling sound, a cobweb of crack spreading through the stone, and for a split-second it seems as if he will stay there, pinned like a bug in a collection, before he slides limply to the ground, his back against the wall.
You keep your hand raised, palm up towards him, cloak billowing in the weeping breeze.
Mist swirls around your fingers. Static crackles in your palm. The shadow wriggles out of your arms into a black orb. You do not release it.
Tesla twitches.
He opens his right, green, cold eye, framed in blood and blackened skin.
"Stay down," you whisper.
"Never," he answers.
The green spark alights in less than the blink of an eye, the beam shooting like a Bala, but your Cero was read, you only need to let it slip off its leash. A black spear howls wolf-like as it meets the green, and for a brief instant they struggle, but that struggle is false. The emerald arrow pierces your spear but that only causes the spear to collapse, to become a wave and engulf its prey on all sides, sweeping over Tesla and the stone tablet.
The shadow fades. The stone finishes crumbling, its etchings now truly lost forever. The mists rise, then, at a wave of your hand, split apart.
Tesla lays against the last shred of the tablet, his own body having proven harder than the stone it shielded. His eyes are closed and his body is nothing but one giant bruise, one bag of broken bones and burned skin, his face a horrible tapestry of wounds. What reiatsu he has left slowly gutters out.
So, you think, looking down at your hand. This is war, then.
Did you use the very skills you learned to heal others to better break someone..?
You feel… empty.
You don't have time. You don't have time. You don't… have time.
You breathe slowly, the rush of the fight fading and leaving fatigue out of proportion with your actual effort. You shake your head to shed off the cotton trying to fill your head, and take one step that carries you all the way to Tesla's side.
He's breathing, at least.
You wish you could tell him that it's not about the dead god. It's about the one that can't be allowed to live.
You take another step, past the rubble and the mists, then another, and there you are, amidst fading embers and dying smoke, looking at the scattered bodies of the Tres Bestias. How are you…
Focus.
Sung-Sun seemed the least wounded of them all. You scan the sands for her reiatsu and Sonido takes you in an instant to her side; she is lying on the ground where you left her, but…
Lord and Virgin, she's conscious. Slowly working to pull herself up on her arms, and her eyes lighting up the moment she sees you; you rush to her, put your arms around her to help support her, and she clutches at you like a lifeline with her scarred hands.
"Nemo, you… you received my… I'm sorry, we…"
You shush her angrily. This is no time for such concerns. You need to get the three of them to safety, and get the sword, and while the cumulative weight of the Tres Bestias is something you could easily handle, you don't have enough arms to carry them all.
Sung-Sun, somehow, manages a chuckle - which she instantly regrets as it turns into a bloody cough. She winces and takes a moment to catch her breath while you hold her.
"Emilou weighs… a feather and a half. I'll carry her and walk myself. You get Francesca and the sword."
You nod, propping her up until she tries a step, nods herself, and slips out of your hold to slowly walk her way to her discarded sai, then to the tiny, unconscious Arrancar. You turn back to first rip the giant butcher's knife-
-did you not once kill a Hollow with a knife much like this one? Strangest of coincidences-
You blink, and rip the heavy blade out of the ground, pausing a moment to admire its strange sharpness, its eerie design, not so smooth and whole, without hilt nor guard… It reminds you of the old Polilla.
You don't have time to consider such things. You leap off the spot, opening your wings just enough to carry you the distance to Mila Rose, and fall like a stone towards her. She, too, is still breathing; harshly, even - you're not sure she is completely unconscious so much as too injured to be fully aware of her surroundings. A good half of her body is covered in burns, and she might have a dislocated shoulder, but more concerning are the several cuts across her chest and right shoulder - Tesla probably hacked away at her Hierro with repeated strokes, hammering in a weak point. You're already thinking of how to treat her but for that you need to get home. You swing Ichigo's Zanpakutou over one shoulder and slide your free arm underneath Mila Rose's better arm, and gently push her over your shoulder. You almost topple - her weight isn't an issue but she is much, much taller than you are, completely unbalancing you; you need to let her feet drag in the sand rather than carrying her bodily.
At least it won't take long.
"Where are we going?" Sung-Sun asks, walking back to you with hesitant steps, holding Apacci in both arms in front of her. You consider the question; you will need at least a stop by the Red Chamber, but…
Your thoughts are cut off by Sung-Sun's wide-eyed stare over your shoulder, an instant before you feel the low ebb of reiatsu that should be wholly gone. You turn on your heels, almost stumbling again under Mila Rose.
Tesla is standing there, a few dozen feet away, staring.
He is supporting himself on the broken tablet where you left him with his right arm; the arm that should be broken, useless.
It's not possible, is your first thought. He never showed High-Speed Regeneration before. But then you see: you see the green eye, weeping black ichor down his face, green markings scabbing over the cuts in his face, growing back scorched hair, black where it should be blond. That eye, that eye radiates hateful strength, black veins spreading through Tesla's reiatsu, not just healing his body but restoring some portion of his power… But that new strength is not his.
He's weak. You could take him down in instants, if he makes the least threatening gesture. He doesn't have his sword-
He smiles.
"It doesn't matter," he says calmly. "It doesn't matter," he repeats, wistful.
You stare, wary, hesitant, and his smile widens.
You look up at the sky.
The bright crescent is still thin. Your battle with Tesla was a short one, the dawn is not yet complete. It is thin, but it is widening. The sky should be turning brighter.
And it is. It is.
You just can't feel it.
"Ulquiorra is coming," Tesla says.
"Nemo?" Sung-Sun asks, her voice quivering.
You turn one withering glare at Tesla, and he makes no gesture to stop you. He simply keeps smiling.
You snip at the air, opening the dark portal, and rush through it with Sung-Sun at your heels.
You don't have much time.
Ulquiorra is coming. The revolution is starting ahead of schedule. Ichigo still doesn't have his sword. It's too early for Cirucci to fight. First, you must go to the Red Chamber, but then you will have to move quickly. And prioritize.
[ ] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
[ ] Delay Ulquiorra. Find shelter in Barragan's court, who will not take kindly to his demands.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
[x] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
Time for Ichigo and Cirucci to team up.
Time for Ichigo and Cirucci to team up.
Daecl
CURSED BY THE DICE
So... we've got the sword. At least that's a thing.
Ulquiorra will most likely get the down low of the situation from Tesla - that Nemo is working with the Tres Bestias and by extension Cirucci. But I think he is duty bound to get the sword back first, if that's any consolation.
So, with those assumptions...
[X] Delay Ulquiorra. Find shelter in Barragan's court, who will not take kindly to his demands.
Ulquiorra will most likely get the down low of the situation from Tesla - that Nemo is working with the Tres Bestias and by extension Cirucci. But I think he is duty bound to get the sword back first, if that's any consolation.
So, with those assumptions...
[X] Delay Ulquiorra. Find shelter in Barragan's court, who will not take kindly to his demands.
- Location
- Ottawa
Poor Tesla. Just the wrong kind of build to deal with Nemo at all.
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
- Location
- Germany
Does Ichigo even have the power to take Ulquiorra down I wonder.
Then again, maybe cirucci will arrive in time for her own interference and for Ichigo to come and help her.
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
Then again, maybe cirucci will arrive in time for her own interference and for Ichigo to come and help her.
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
Akatsunami
The Bonetatoist
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
Canonically he got utterly crushed, and this Ichigo is at about the same level. I don't think Ichigo has much chance against any of the VL. The canonical deus ex machina is unlikely to make an appearance this time.
Not all that sure that they could win even together. Especially since Ichigo cannot fly. Would be reasonably simple for Ulquiorra to kill him quickly, and then focus on the flying Cirucci.
Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
Hmm, im leaning towards finish the job, ironically because the other option seems too good possibly. Basically, that seems to hold the possibility for the perfect outcome (as in barragan and ulqui taking each other out), but it will not be that simple, and if it dosent go perfectly, its likely worse.
- Location
- United States of America
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
unObservant
Just drifting along, really
- Location
- USA
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
[X] Finish the job. Get Zangetsu to Ichigo, even with Ulquiorra on your heels.
This has nothing to do with reasonability for me, I think this might go horribly wrong but for some reason, I have a worse feeling about the Barragan option.
This has nothing to do with reasonability for me, I think this might go horribly wrong but for some reason, I have a worse feeling about the Barragan option.
