Post by Jukuma on Apr 13, 2009 2:12:51 GMT -4
Arrancar
Name: Garve (Like many other Arrancar, Garve's name is a derivation from an architect's, in this case, Michael Graves)
Gender: Male
Age: Alive: 19 Hollow (+Menos): 568 Arrancar: 94
Ranking: Espada.
Number: Uno.
Base Type: Vasto Lorde.
Physical Description:Visual Reference
Due to the fact that he died at a young age of what would be today's standards, barely passing the adulthood during his living years, Garve now maintains a juvenile appearance to himself that has not been affected by his Arrancar conversion. He has extremely long brown hair that, if let loose, would easily reach approximately to his hips or possibly past them even if he is standing still and straight, though obviously not moving. Normally, Garve wears his hair backwards in a lighter, long, spiky fashion, but has also cut shorter the sides from the forehead level down, having a darker tone on that area. Finally, the long hair is kept in a slim ponytail that starts at the lowest point of the back of the head and is constantly shaking from side to side when he is walking. He has round facial features, but manages to have a mature visage regardless; in a way, this is arguably due to the constantly serious expression his dark green eyes convey to others. His nose and ears are rather small compared to the proportion of his head. His eyebrows are very thin and rarely move from their stationary, impassive spot, certainly complicating others the task of reading through what he is thinking. His mask fragment takes the shape of a completely pure white right half of a forehead (which is also the place where it is located) that extends backwards, covering a small section of his head on the process; furthermore, the bone-like fragment is most notable for the relatively long curvy horn that grows around the same spot where his hair starts, also pointing backwards. Despite his current position, he still hasn’t been awarded with the Uno tattoo and the one portrayed on the left back of his neck is the Dos tattoo from the time he was the Segunda Espada; this will soon be fixed when he makes contact with the new leading organization in Hueco Mundo. His hollow hole, having a radius of approximately 2cm is located right on the middle of his chest, making it very easy for him to disguise it if necessary. Being 5’8 tall and having just an average total of muscle, Garve does not have a very imposing physical presence, which often misleads people to assume he has little physical prowess, this being a bad mistake to make.
Because of his condition as a resident of the human world, Garve has met the obligation of learning how to adapt himself to different types of human lifestyle and his own personal style has been heavily influenced by this. Because he can physically pass as a person anywhere between 18 and mid-20s, he has had the chance to try dozens of different routines from student to amateur businessman, though the latter met little to no success. Currently, Garve is fascinated by the Japanese delinquent or gang subculture that takes place among part of the youth in the country and both dresses and acts accordingly to it. His current hairstyle, also present in his original Arrancar self, was heavily influenced by this subculture and, additionally, the gigai has had its hair dyed red to emphasize his devotion to this lifestyle. Because he does assist to school most days of the week, he usually wears the uniform required from him; this consists on a green formal shirt he keeps open to show another white button-shirt under it, a dark green pair of pants and a red tie that he does not tie in most occasions and keeps around his neck for show. His clothing outside of week days varies a lot and he doesn’t repeat combinations very much, but he has shown clear preference for simple, dark-colored and free of illustrations attires. He dislikes the use of any kind of accessories, even if the most small and insignificant ones, like rings or pendants; the ones he hates the most are the extravagant ones, like chains as the ones attached to belts, chokers or similar ornaments that do nothing but get in the way. The only exception to this rule is piercings, which he does stand given that they don’t burden him in the least; this, however, doesn’t mean he is fond of them and he wears them only on his gigai.
He has yet to learn of the new Arrancar dress-code and therefore hasn’t shown any sort of variation as to how to wear it. He used to wear the original white uniform open around the upper area of his chest to show a section of his hollow hole and with long sleeves. He differentiated himself from others in that his uniform did not have any kind of shirt extensions in the back because it would negatively influence the movement of his legs, which are a key factor for his fighting style. Regardless of what the new uniform will be, Garve has the intention of modifying it similarly to the one he had when he was Segunda.
Personality:
There is no need for much pondering to come to the conclusion that Garve, above anything else, is most characterized by being an extremely secretive individual, rarely revealing anything about himself, especially when it regards his time residing in the Living World. Not only does he censor information he finds appropriate to hide for his own interest, but he also has absolutely no dilemma with lying in order to drive people to more convenient conclusions; the danger in this is that, because he is so used to it, it is very difficult to tell when he is lying or telling the truth and trusting him is always a gamble. Most of the time he keeps a calm expression to himself, but in occasions of great joy he expresses what he feels very openly to whoever he is interacting with, though this still doesn’t mean he will be any more sincere. He possesses a great deal of patience and there have been probably zero occasions on which he has burst in rage or irritation, at least in front of his comrades. Having his own interest and being as self-reliant as he is, it is sometimes hard to tell which side he is on in an argument or even a fight, often tagging along with whoever he considers will lead to a more amusing finale. He is very conscious of the limitations that should be kept on this and wouldn’t openly betray a group of people or individuals that had the power to cause him trouble, which is probably the main reason why he is not willing to leave the Espada a second time anytime soon. Even though it is not an obsession in his mind, he regards strength as something highly important and takes battling very seriously, most notable when he is up against an enemy that can fight evenly against him. If he finds serious complications to defeat an enemy, his personality may suffer some slight alterations from his usual self; however, his reactions may vary depending on what kind of enemy he is fighting. If his opponent is someone he regards as interesting (not necessarily in terms of talents or power) he can enjoy the fight and even welcome the battle with a smile; on the other hand, if he considers his opponent to be dreary yet able to fight him evenly, he can become much resented with his lack of ability and switch to a far more aggressive personality, barely keeping his usual calmness.
Another significant aspect of his persona is his inclination towards being extremely arrogant and egocentric; he does not go to the extent of constantly imposing himself as a superior being on others and it is more of an inner obsession, meaning little clues of his self-absorption are given to others. He has the tendency of classifying people as interesting or uninteresting based on different aspects of their guise and in some occasions their abilities; whether he finds someone appealing or not will wholly influence his attitude towards the person in question. If he doesn’t consider someone to be worth his attention, he keeps an extremely indifferent manner towards him/her; normally this involves keeping a constantly apathetic expression during any kind of interaction, not answering questions directed to him in conversations and complete disregard for other people’s desires or feelings, though the latter really is also present to some extent for people he does find interesting as well. In general, however, he appears to be a very different person when he is to interact with someone more fascinating; though he maintains his secretive self, it is more likely that he will answer questions with sincerity and with a smooth smile on his face, plus, he will go as far as seeking conversation with them. This selective attitude of who to befriend and who to ignore is probably the only sign of his arrogance that people can clearly perceive.
To the annoyance of many, Garve takes his secrecy to very high levels and goes as far as to aim to fulfil a “trickster” role. He always manages to be one of the first to learn about events thanks to a wide variety of contacts he has spread around Hueco Mundo and the Living World (missing infiltrates in Soul Society), though the latter is rather limited. Going along with his censoring and lying tendencies, he is very manipulative and out of all the information he manages to get his hands on will only mention what he considers will provoke a desired emotional response from others and, subsequently, a particular reaction or simply just to see what the answer will be like out of pure curiosity. He emphasizes this mannerism especially so with people that call his attention. Furthermore, although his revere for authority is very clear in the way he addresses superiors, the independent way he works and the fact that he carries out his tasks using the methods he prefers shows that he gives very little importance to orders and shows no concern for punishment, exposing a rather irresponsible side of his personality.
Unlike practically any other Arrancar in existence, Garve has developed certain affection towards the average human mind over the past years he’s been living in the world of the living; because of this, he has a clear obsession with them and their ability to feel empathy towards each other, something Garve has noticed in absent in many Hollow, including himself. For this, he secretly respects humans and sometimes it can be rather difficult for him to hide the fact that hurting them is something he would like to avoid at all cost; this doesn’t mean he won’t defend himself if necessary if his opponent is a Quincy or a spiritually strong human. Be it for one reason or the other, Garve has always been fighting Shinigami as either part of his instinct, duty or survival and has eventually grown to consider them his enemy like every other Hollow does. Despite their hollowfication, Vizards make absolutely no difference to him from regular Shinigami, although the truth is he has little knowledge of them other than the fact that they are pretty much the opposite of an Arrancar. He feels little attachment towards his own race and has few close acquaintances among them. But in the end, all of these prejudices can be overlooked if they are interesting enough.
History:
Human Life
Garve was born during the middle of the 13th century as the first of two sons of a middle-class family residing in Spain; his original name was Aarón Covez Fierro. During this period of history, Spain was continuing a winning conflict against a deteriorating Muslim invasion that had started near the beginning of the millennium; with a successful counter-attack that took place in the 13th century after several complications in the war, Spanish morale was very high at the moment. However, this didn't stop from resulting on a lot of young men being sent to war at an early age and, consequently, several broken families; however, thanks to several contacts his father had among the army, neither Garve nor his younger brother were affected by the conflict and his early years passed by smooth and peacefully. Garve's father worked as an artisan of weaponry and had earned a decent fortune throughout his many years of active service and hard work; however, the fact that his hands were getting old and the quality of his products was dropping from middle-high slowly to low forced Garve and later his brother to start working and learn the arts of crafting at an early age. Garve proved to have no talent at all as a weapon artisan and had no choice but to serve his brother as an assistant, given that he had been luckier and possessed a gift that, with time, would surpass that of his father. Although the family went through severe economic ordeals, they managed to somehow stay on their feet both thanks to the genius little brother and the savings kept by the father during his working years and things seemed to be going alright for the family.
Few years later, however, when Garve was 18 years old, a terrible plague struck not only the country, but the entire continent they were residing in (Black Plague); this would lead to the family's downfall. Garve's father fell instantly to illness and, after holding his own for only four days he died covered on his blood-soaked bed. Those four days and the few weeks that followed later were enough to completely deteriorate the economy of the family due to the lack of the guiding figure in the house, great expenses on medicine that took nowhere and a lack of motivation from Garve's little brother, who was the main source of income now. The father’s death was moaned and there was no time to get over it before Garve's brother also fell ill. Although he lasted more than his father, he too died after a week of intense pain in front of Garve and his mother. Now the family fell into complete decay and both survivors were forced to live on the streets, not even knowing what to do first. Garve finally took the initiative of taking on the family job one more time and, with as much optimism as the situation allowed, attempted to once again make a living out of weapon crafting. His attempt was unsuccessful and, for a year, Garve and his mother stayed alive out of fate’s pity, going from a host family to another. At the age of 19, Garve suffered from a deep fever and, recognizing the symptom as one of the first signs of the plague, he hung himself in the front door of what used to be his house one time. As an ironic twist of events, Garve's fever was not the beginning of the disease, but simple and plain fever; this remained unknown to him forever and even today he doesn’t know the true nature of it (and of course, he will never know).
Early Death
Garve's time as a plus was extremely short, ranging between the two or three weeks of duration. This was because by the time he died the whole city had been infested with Hollow due to the increase of Plus population as a result of the many deaths on the hands of the plague. Once devoured by a group of Hollow, Garve too was turned into one of the monsters, but remained as a demi-hollow.
Not being a full developed Hollow and bound to the house he had grown in back when he was alive, Garve was never noticed by other Shinigami and his slow and steady transformation into a full monster was allowed to take place over time. Be it because the traumatic experience of his death and the events that took place after it were having a terrifying effect on his personality or because he was succumbing to his new instincts as an evolving Hollow, Garve developed a necessity of exerting violence on other humans and during this stage of instability, many people that approached the building he resided in were brutally strangled by him. In comparison to other Hollow, Garve proved to have a considerably faster rate of evolution and in just three weeks he was already a full Hollow without any intervention to accelerate the process. By the time the mysterious deaths around his home attracted the Shinigami, Garve had already left as a complete entity.
As a Hollow, Garve did not cease to surpass the average spirits of his kind in terms of adaptation and, to some extent, power. After little time, his new unstable personality even lead to him enjoying his new lifestyle, as tended to happen in many other numerous Hollow cases. As a result of this new euphoria, Garve became very active and careless as a Hollow and spent more time in the real world devouring significant amounts of plus souls than he did travelling around Hueco Mundo; unfortunately for him, this ended up attracting the attention of Shinigami, creatures he didn’t know were in existence until that moment. Although badly injured in his first encounter with two low-ranking members, Garve managed to devour one of the aggressors and force the other one to retreat. The newly acquired awareness of other spiritual beings that were able to injure and probably annihilate him somewhat softened his aggressive nature and for the next years, Garve spent more time analyzing Shinigami behaviour until he was able to effectively stalk and kill low-ranking Death Gods. As he became more experienced in the skills of survival with the passing of the years, he slowly began to go back to his hostile activities with a considerably calmer attitude, not going berserk on the sight of competition as he used to do.
However, when the plague responsible for Garve’s death ceased and population in Spain began to stabilize again, resulting in fewer deaths taking place and therefore less Plus spirits coming to existence, the huge population of Hollow that had risen as a result of the past events saw itself in a famine crisis, given that there just were not enough souls to devour. Competition between the monsters reached critical points and most of them saw no choice but to fight between each other and in some cases even resort to cannibalism. This event was of historical importance to everyone aware of spirits’ existence and in Soul Society the problem was considered to be of such ridiculous magnitude that only Captains and Lieutenants were allowed in the area due to the amount of present Hollow; this incident was known as the “European Catastrophe”. Already having experience with hunting down creatures of equal power to him in addition to his already above averaged strength, Garve was one of the minorities Hollow that was able to adapt to the catastrophe by resorting to cannibalism and for many years he managed to survive facing moderate difficulty. The calamity was expected to last somewhere between one or two years if no special complications took place, but that wasn’t the case and the conflict came to a conclusion in a matter of 4 months due to the creation of a great number of Menos Grande when the battles reached a peak point resulting in the Hollow combining with each other. Although against his will because he was completely unaware of what would happen if the union were to happen, Garve was too caught up in a conflict and became part of one of the last Menos Grande to be born before the crisis ended. Lost in the sea of minds that, like him, composed that new omnipotent entity, Garve remained unaware of his actions and it took him one year, after an apparently never-ending internal struggle, to take possession of the body and find himself in Hueco Mundo.
Pursue of Power
Not remembering either how long he had been in Hueco Mundo, his reasons to move there and really anything he had done during that year when his mind was completely blank, Garve saw himself in a very confusing position. Because he had spent most of his previous life in the Human World developing as a Hollow instead of getting to know Hueco Mundo, he knew nothing of the layout of the place and was left with any other option than wander around that new world in search for answers. Unfortunately for him, his intellect was still not much greater than that of the average Gillian, and the years his spent in this phase of his evolution passed by like a dizzy set of images no more clearer than a dream. Among the few memories he holds of this period, most of them involve the cruel assassination of other Hollow, countless regular ones and a great amount of other Gillian, some of them even which, like him, had the ability to evolve further. Driven more by instinct than by astuteness, Garve demonstrated even more malice than in his previous life, greatly exploiting his new techniques, particularly Cero and Garganta, and the use of his long nails. Most of his victims would be killed from behind, having Garve’s nails penetrate their skull and, if necessary, being finished off by quick Cero; little times did he have to make a different approach except for the smarter Gillian. He did visit the Human World in more than one occasion, being dragged there by his old memories of the years spent there, but his new feeding instinct and his animal-like devotion to it always dragged him back Hueco Mundo until he finally got to the point of feeling most at home at this new deserted residence. He was lucky enough to never encounter any strong spiritual beings during his visits to the world of the living with the exception of a few low ranking Shinigami that never posed a threat to him from the beginning and limited themselves to flee on his sight. Even with the effectiveness of his backstabbing and crowded assassination tactics in addition to a relative lack of conscience of the passing time, it took Garve very long to accomplish any significant increment in power. All in all, he spent nearly 120 years of his existence struggling to evolve into a greater being, eventually managing to achieve his objective and becoming an Adjuchas, finally recovering his former individuality and intellect.
As an Adjuchas, Garve recovered a portion of his old self from back before he even became a Hollow and was just a regular human being, partially due to his new ability to rationally look back onto his own memories. Not putting his strength to test even on one occasion, Garve concluded that he had no further need to repeatedly hunt down other Hollow and decided to cease the violence and instead devote himself to the search of a different type of lifestyle. After what really were just a couple of hours of continuous pondering over the subject, Garve’s first action in this new form of his was to displace himself to the Human World one more time, this instance with the hopes of finding answers as to exactly what he was and what kind of options he had as to lead his life other than the commitment to his own instincts. Although it might seem an action triggered by foolishness and naivety, it was only normal for him to reach such a decision having in mind most of the being he had been fighting so far had been, like him Hollow, meaning he would either receive the answer he was running away from, or be attacked and forced to fight once again. As expected, however, his arrival would not be welcomed in the Human World at any moment.
The first thing to do in this occasion, or at least the course of action Garve decided to go with, was to contact someone with strong spiritual powers that could see him and, hopefully, talk to him; this, of course, excluded anybody wearing a black robe. It could have been over a century ago, but Garve had not forgotten that the first to ever attack him were not the ones of his own kind, but the warriors with the black garments and a sword that, unlike anything he had come in contact with since the moment he died, could hurt him. Although he still hadn’t had a sane conversation with anybody since the moment he died, he was able to grasp the reason why a creature like him would be hunted down, but he did not emphasize with their rationalism by reacting with guilt over his actions, instead finding very natural that he, as a predator, would feed on his natural preys while the latter tried to protect themselves. But once again, his luck had no plans prepared for any Shinigami to be waiting for him at his entrance and the start of his search was smooth. Despite his Pesquisa not being fully developed, it was enough for him to find the kind of subjects he was looking for in close distances, so once that objective proved to be useful or not, he had no option but to blindly change location until he sensed another reiatsu of non-regularly high frequency and start the cycle again; this process was very slow and tended to take nowhere in most of the occasions. In addition, he also had to keep disappearing into his Garganta from time to time to be harder to track for the Shinigami, a tactic that, although effective, also leeched much of his searching time. The first four objectives he came in contact with, all being humans, had very similar reactions: respond with fear and run away at the sight of the monster. Of course, despite their running, Garve did make the attempt to follow them and communicate, even if he had to make use of threats and other types of terrorizing actions to obtain a response; this, however, was no different from letting the villagers go, since he did not discover anything about himself other than the fact that people feared them because they fed on souls and could kill living humans to later eat them, which he was already familiar with. At times, Garve felt greatly discouraged by the lack of cooperation and usefulness of humans, but he did not desist on his duty to find the one individual that could tell him how to live his life out of conflict, or at least what was expected of him other than eating souls. His determination was indeed strong, but after the word about his existence was spread around the whole country, humans with strong spiritual energy and fairly developed powers began to go after him, putting his mission in danger. Eventually, after the number of people gong after him increased too much for him to go easy on, he had to resort serious combat and ended up killing several humans, powerful or not, in a state of berserk rage that had resulted due to his abstinence from eating souls all that time. After his plan for a peaceful life met failure, Garve gave up on this mission and returned once again to Hueco Mundo, giving in to temptation and once again resorting to the devouring of weak Hollow. It is important to note that Garve was never seriously injured during his stay in the Human World, which allowed him to evolve later on.
Garve still refused to engage in combat with other Adjuchas, this time out of fear rather than resignation to accept what he was. Because of this, his diet was based solely on regular on regular Hollow and the eventual Gillian, both of which had no chance of defeating him in normal conditions and posed no serious threat to him anymore; this however, required greater quantities of souls to satiate his hunger and was slowing down the evolution he obliviously was going through. It was years after his return to Hueco Mundo that he encountered another Adjuchas that, unlike him, had the resolve and bravery to attack other Hollow of equal strength to his to pursue of more power. Naturally, that other Adjuchas didn’t doubt for a second to take the chance to attack Garve, and without any previous signals of violence, launched himself towards him. Seeing himself caught up in a battle he could not run away from, Garve had to fight back and, despite his hesitance to do, the battle ended very quickly on a clear victory for him from which he ended unscathed. Instead of killing off the other Hollow, who was too injured to run away, Garve took the chance without much enthusiasm or hope and questioned the Hollow as to what their purpose was, an answer he had expected to learn from humans rather than beasts. The Adjuchas told him that he had learned from an omnipotent being long time ago that, if a Hollow was to consume a great number of its own kind, it would evolve further and receive even more power; additionally, not consuming enough Hollow souls would lead to a reverse process and, instead of moving closer towards Vasto Lorde, the Adjuchas would only go back to become a Gillian, this time permanently. Although surprised by the Hollow’s assistance, all Garve felt towards the reason behind all the cannibalistic tendencies his race was responsible of was disappointment towards the realization that, no matter what he did, his specie was condemned to participate on a constant struggle or fall into the hell of having no individuality as a Gillian and fight forever for control over the body. When he asked the Adjuchas if he didn’t find that unfair or atrocious, this one replied that he did not care what kind of despicable acts he had to carry out, who he had to kill or really anything else as long as he didn’t go back to Gillian, since Vasto Lorde was already impossible for him after losing a couple of horns. Out of pity and so that the centuries he knew it would take him to achieve the Vasto Lorde phase didn’t pass by as slowly, he allowed the Adjuchas, who later introduced himself as Xifan, to accompany him as a helper. It was at that moment that Garve made a pact to himself that, no matter what the cost or the situation, he would gain power until he didn’t have to go through all that effort and desperation to lead the kind of life he chose to lead, thus initiating his chase after supremacy.
Darkened Path
The group Garve and Xifan formed together turned out to be of outstanding effectiveness, due to the combined abilities of Garve’s natural power and practice with stealth tactics together with Xifan’s years of experience fighting against other Hollow. Surprisingly, despite being a servant and not a friend of Garve’s, Xifan demonstrated a loyalty and devotion to his new master that surpassed what the first had imagined on his most exaggerated thoughts. Xifan shared all of his wisdom with Garve even if he didn’t ask for it, warning him from unexpected dangers and else with such detail and accuracy that Garve couldn’t help but grow deep trust towards his new acquaintance over the passing of years. He was asked in one occasion why his devotion to someone who wouldn’t have a problem with killing him could be so unbreakable, to which he answered that “in the gamble that is surviving in this hell, I think Garve-sama is my best bet”. From that moment on, both Hollow began to grow fond of each other.
With the passing of the years, and despite the effectiveness of the team, both Menos came to realize that they had been overestimating the challenge of seeking evolution (in Garve’s case) and there was no way that just the two of them could accomplish such a deed. For that reason after approximately 50 years of attempting it with just the two of them, the group decided to form a larger team in order to take on greater numbers of Hollow at the same time. Clearly the most difficult aspect of this procedure was finding other Adjuchas who were willing to team up or preferred centuries of devoted serving instead of extermination. But even when this obstacle was overcame and the group managed to obtain so many members it seemed more like an army than a regular party, Garve’s pace did not accelerate in the least, and it could even be said that it rather slowed down. Because the army group also included many Hollow that still held the chance to pursue evolution, none of them was willing to grant Garve most of the food, as he did when his only partner was Xifan; this meant sharing food with more people and the truth was that the amount of it didn’t make for it in the least. For this reason, he concluded actions needed to be taken and indeed they were: Garve became more selective and, after separating the members he didn’t want to work with (particularly the ones who also desired the power of a Vasto Lorde), he devoured them one by one. This process was made very discreet and with time intervals that could vary from days to years, but eventually any competition Garve had was devoured by him; the only one who was aware of what was really happening was Xifan, who, of course, was never part of his list. Even though that wasn’t the initial plan, Garve couldn’t help but notice that luring people into believing him to later eat them was a very effective method and decided to make use of it in other occasions, although he finally gained a bad fame to his name and soon everyone in Hueco Mundo knew he was not one to be trusted, forcing him to go back to his regular hunting tactics with Xifan as his only partner.
It wouldn’t be until 445 years later that Garve would make contact with a complete Vasto Lorde for the first time. I was a monster that assassinated other Hollow for pleasure despite his lack of necessity of feeding on them anymore so as to call the attention of some creatures called Arrancar. As soon as Garve heard about this rumor, he set it his new mission to destroy and, if possible, devour that Vasto Lorde; but even though his reasons were, as always, to eliminate competition for victims of a decreasing Menos population, he never openly admitted to any Hollow other than Xifan, aware that would mean absolutely no supporters to accomplish his new task, which he definitely needed. Contrary to what he had been expecting, finding supporters wasn’t the hardest thing to do despite of his foul fame. While it was true that all of the Hollow he recruited were skeptic at first at some proved to be rather impossible to negotiate with, others joined his side as soon as he revealed his objective. Some of his allies, like Xifan, truly believed that with a well-known figure like Garve on their side it could be possible to defeat the Vasto Lorde, while others were just hoping for him to die in the upcoming battle. But what all of them agreed on was that, regardless of intentions, if Garve ever showed any signs of planning on betraying them, they would all just kill him and either give up on the mission or finish depending on the situation was the scenario to happen. That did not take place and, for once, it seemed like Garve was willing to help.
The Vasto Lorde had a stationary residence in a huge cave that it had stolen from another great group of Gillian. A week before they got to the cave, Garve sent Xifan on a special mission that required him to separate from the group. By the time the party reached the entrance of the cave, Xifan had not returned or contacted his leader at any point, so it was assumed by everyone that he had either died or escaped in fear of fighting the Vasto Lorde. Unwilling to wait anymore, Garve ordered the group to separate into two factions, the first would go in and fight the strong Menos with the intention of making it believe that they were all there was to the group; the second team would go in later and, taking a chance when the Vasto Lorde was distracted, they would kill it from behind. Garev intended to be in the second group to make sure they went in, but, as expected, he was still not trusted and he was forced to lead the first team. Outnumbered, he had no other choice, and the leader was forced to obey the followers. When the party went in, no matter how much they searched, their target was nowhere to be seen, and despite going around the area several times, no signs of it were spotted. They were considering leaving when, unexpectedly, they were attacked near the exit by the monster without them realizing. The Vasto Lorde massacred everyone before they reacted with the exception of Garve, who he did not even touch, revealing that the original plan was for Xifan to take the shortcut and was the monster that he was being followed, requesting it didn’t kill Garve. As expected form a Hollow, though, the Vasto Lorde threatened with killing Garve and Xifan as well, which triggered the second part of the plan. The strong Menos was never told that there was a second party, so when these entered the cave, he was caught offguard and was severely damaged. Taking the opportunity, Garve and Xifan escaped the cave and while the others killed each other. After they collapsed the cave from the outside, there were no survivors except for three weakened Adjuchas, who were killed off by them. Searching in the rests of the cave, the corpses were still there and, after Garve devoured the great number of Adjuchas (the Vasto Lorde wasn’t found), it took him just one more week to accomplish the final evolution, gaining the ultimate power that could ever be achieved...or so he believed.
The Lady Dressed in White
The euphoria that invaded Garve when he finally accomplished his long-lasted objective after so many centuries of hard work did not have the effect that was expected from him. He no longer wished to live a different life from the one he had been carrying out so far since the time he died, why should he? He was now a Hollow that would be remembered forever! All who had gotten in his way up to that moment had been obliterated and were not remembered as anything else but a step closer to his ultimate evolution. He was proud of his accomplishment and the many Hollow who just considered him a replacement for the previous Vasto Lorde that had been terrorizing the area would not change his self-perspective. But regardless of his success, his newfound power and his demonstration of superiority over others, he felt like he was now incomplete. Now that he had no interest in living a different lifestyle, yet there was nothing left to do for the path he had been following so far, his life was losing purpose; he finally concluded all that was left do was keep doing what he did best: kill, even if it wouldn’t lead him to power anymore. In hopes of finding a being of great strength that would somehow lead him to achieve even further improvement in power, he also took the task of making a name of himself and earn some fame so that others would have it easier to track him down; needless to say, he was confident that event he organized to assassinate the other Vasto Lorde wouldn’t repeat itself to stab him back. His method to do so was to always kill his victims by stabbing all the nails of his hand on the Adjuchas’ masks, which he would later detach from their heads and leave somewhere on the floor later for others to find. Xifan didn’t take much credit on the carnage and now limited himself to follow Garve exclusively for convenience reasons, never starting a conflict against another Hollow if he didn’t have good reasons to do so. As a sign of his changing mentality, it should be noted that if it wasn’t for the many centuries they had been working together, Garve wouldn’t have had a problem with killing his friend.
It was not long after the establishment of this new carnage self-policy that Garve’s area was note frequented anymore and that forced him to move from district once again, which he had been avoiding because it would just result on possible opponents to take longer to find him. Before he had the chance to move far from his usual spot, a group of Adjuchas that had been few months after Garve’s final growth openly faced him with the intentions of putting an end to his slaughtering by killing and devouring him. Mocking their imprudence for believing they really stood a chance against him with such a low number of allies and claiming that he had no time to lose with novices, Garve proceeded to execute them one by one, proving one more time the great difference in power he had achieved during his many years of preparation. As always, Xifan did not agree with what Garve was doing, but he was too fearful to contradict him at this point and decided the best thing to do was to just put up with it. He hadn’t managed to deliver the final blow to the leader of the rebellious party when, with no signs for him to notice, someone or something stood on his way and blocked his claw’s path, defending the Adjuchas that still remained alive. Caught up in the surprise of someone being able to survive, let alone block his attack, Garve had to cease his mad fighting method and took his time to examine the newcomer; it was nothing more but a woman…a young woman wearing a white uniform, yet her reiatsu was still so similar to his own. With a familiar tone, the woman scolded Garve for being such an inconsiderate and cruel being, going as far as to attack others of his own kind despite him not needing it anymore. The Vasto Lorde was startled by the creature’s words and decided to not give a response, instead demanding for the woman to confess how she had obtained such a great power, to which he received no answer either. Insisting on his previous order and despite the woman’s clear lack of interest on starting a fight, Garve proceeded to challenge her to a fight with the intention of asking the same question later when she was rendered helpless and tortured on the floor. The fight lasted 4 seconds overall and it concluded with Garve’s clear defeat on a blood-splattered floor. Xifan’s still living respect towards his master forced him to make an attempt to interfere in the battle when he noticed Garve was in trouble, but after a simple, slight push by the woman that sent him several meters away, he was not minded on this battle that was clearly on a different level that what he could handle. Garve felt humiliated due to his defeat despite his now old belief that he was the strongest form of existence in Hueco Mundo, but he still enjoyed the fact that there was still more power for him to pursue...if he lived.
And indeed, instead of delivering the final blow, the woman sheathed her sword and directed him a smile that he could not understand. She introduced herself as Teya and, after offering him some sort of regenerating drug (which he rejected), she revealed that she was a different type of creature from him called Arrancar, a Hollow that, after attempting to obtain further power, managed to do so by gaining Shinigami abilities, becoming some sort of a hybrid. Garve’s hurt pride prevented him from giving any kind of response to this, but the Arrancar Teya insisted on talking to him. She told him that, if a Vasto Lorde managed to obtain such power, the result would be a new being of incomparable battle potential, worthy to be considered one of the strongest creatures in existence not only in Hueco Mundo, but anywhere in the universe. With a tone that didn’t give any signs of friendliness, the Hollow asked how he could manage to become an Arrancar.
“It wouldn’t be fun if I just told ya!” Teya replied to him with a smile that only disturbed Garve even more. “If you are destined to become an Arrancar you will be able to find out yourself, don’t ya think? Just remember you won’t be entirely a Hollow anymore.”
After giving him directions to get to the Arrancar base, where many more of her kind resided, Teya left and gave him time to think what to do. Garve was not sure which path to take at this point, he longed more power, and after this humiliation his wish just became stronger than ever; on the other hand, refusing to remain a Hollow meant he would also lead a different lifestyle and he wasn’t sure if that was his objective anymore. Days after the confrontation, neither Garve nor Xifan had anything to eat, since both had been shocked by the woman’s extreme power and her message to Garve; their deprivation lasted so long that both of them came close to death (or, in Xifan’s case, morphing back to a Gillian). All the pondering over what decision to make had taken the Vasto Lorde back to his early years once again, which he remembered despite of the many centuries that separated those memories from the present. He remembered why he had been hoping to become stronger in the first place and how he had been afraid of ending up like he did. He was no longer able to emphasize with his old-self, but there was definitely something about it that was amiss without it; he missed his old human self, the one that cared for survival and not competition, felt love for his family and friends and didn’t need servants, but, most of all, the one who felt there was meaning to his existence. In a moment of weakness that was never repeated ever again, Garve apologized to Xifan without giving any reasons and, after not moving an inch for days, got up and told his servant to wait there for a while. He didn’t know if he had taken the right decision, but he wanted to remember what it felt to be human once again, and as a Hollow he would never know. He already had an idea of how to become an Arrancar just by looking at Teya before, but even he was unclear as to whether he was doing it because of that or simply because he wanted to see his own face once again. At first, his fear kept him from fully tearing off his mask, but with time he became more violent and finally managed to accelerate the process. As soon as he felt his reiatsu grow to its maximum capacity, he directed his eyes towards his hands and realized with great delight that he was once again a human. With no time to waste, Garve went directly to Xifan so that both would meet the Arrancar. Garve’s optimism was now reaching a point never reached before.
Garve, the Arrancar
Both Garve and Xifan, who also transformed into an Arrancar after Garve revealed the secret to do so, appeared at the front area of the Arrancar base one week after the mysterious woman contacted them naked and with no guide to allow them in. Neither one of them remembered Teya’s name, so they could not claim that she was the one who gave them the base’s location, since apparently there were many female Arrancar that dressed in white. Nonetheless, and despite their bizarre entrance, Garve’s reiatsu, which greatly surpassed the one of the guardians at the entrance, was enough for them to call an Espada to inspect the newcomers. The only one expecting any new Arrancar to arrive was Teya and her first reaction was of happiness, as if she hadn’t stabbed Garve almost a week ago. After scolding both of them for having no shame to go around naked, she invited them inside and provided clothes for both. As expected, both of the newcomers had a lot of questions to ask, but Teya limited herself to say that she would answer them later, as there was something more important to take care of first. They weren’t even told what the group was about before both were presented to the Royal Family, the rulers of the whole organisation and the only ones to have been born pure Arrancar. They noted some interest on Garve when it was mentioned that he was originally a Vasto Lorde and some high expectations were set on him, but other than that they didn’t mind their recruitment. Before the reunion was over, Teya explained the ranks in the group, particularly the existence of the Espada, Arrancar that far surpassed the average levels of power and were ranked in a order of power from one to ten, one being the strongest. She later revealed to be a member of the Espada herself, possessing the rank of Segunda, meaning she was the second strongest among the elite. When she later requested that both Garve and Xifan joined her Fracción, none of the royal had any objections and it was done on the spot. Needless to say, Xifan made no objections since he was already used to being a follower, but Garve did not like the idea from the very beginning.
The new team did not seem to be working out during the first days after it was created. Together with Garve and Xifan, the Fracción counted with eight members, all of which were approximately on the same level as the latter, making Garve the strongest (not counting Teya) of the team. But even though this fact was made obvious on various occasions, he did not receive any more respect than all of the others did and no matter how much he insisted by saying that he would one day be an Espada as well, Teya never changed her mannerism towards him, and it could even be said that he was scolded more often than the rest. Garve demonstrated a great lack of respect towards his new master, which was something she wasn’t willing to accept under any circumstances, resulting on both of them engaging on innumerable arguments. It was during one of these debates that the discussion evolved into an actual rather unserious between the two that, despite increasing in duration, ended up on Teya’s victory again. After this, Garve, humiliated once again, left the place without any announcement and not even Xifan knew where he had disappeared. Fortunately, Garve’s intentions were never close to leaving the Arrancar society he had managed to find, so he never left too far away. Wherever it was that he ended up in (all that’s known about it is it was a quiet place with no name), Garve took a while to find out he wasn’t the only one contemplating the view, there was another black-haired woman close and, by her looks, it was clear she too was an Arrancar. She proved to be very uncommunicative, but encouraged Garve to share his troubles with her, which, with a childish tendency of trying to make it sound like he was the victim, he did. The woman refused to give advice but when the man demanded a response, she simply said that it was hard to get used to new environments, but if no effort was put into socializing in this kind of situation, then it was only natural no improvement would be met. Garve argued otherwise but internally began to realize it was true that without any guidance from Teya it was unlikely he would learn anything. The woman, unmotivated to continue the debate, simply wished him good luck in the future and left him alone in a flash; hours later, Teya managed to read his presence and found him. Before she had a chance to give one of her famous lectures, Garve kneeled down before her and apologized for his actions during the past days, in addition to never thanking her properly for granting him the chance to obtain more power. Surprised and somewhat uncomfortable with the situation, Teya forgave him and the relationship between the two improved considerably from that moment on. Weeks later, during a regular meeting, Garve learned that the woman he met the other day was none other than the Primera Espada, Lynia; but for some reason, he felt too embarrassed to apologize. This was actually good news, since it meant he was regaining part of his long-lost old self.
Now that their relationship was so much better, Garve spent much more time with Teya, though that didn’t change the respectful mannerism he now knew he had to demonstrate. After a year of faithfully obeying his master’s orders, Garve proved to be a warrior of great potential and Teya concluded it would be reasonable to finally train him properly on the more advanced techniques of an Arrancar; this included leaning him to a similar fighting style to the one she employed, greatly emphasizing on speed and strength. With little time, Garve managed to become skilled at the continuous use of “Sonido” during battle and even imitated perfectly Teya’s signature move, “Impulso” (which he would years later improve and rechristen into Evión). After training hard under Teya’s teachings for other 3, he had already increased his fighting potential to a point that could easily be considered that of an Espada’s, and finally took the decision of attempting to enter the ranks. He easily managed to obtain the Sexta (6th) Espada position, but it would take him other 4 years to develop his power even further and finally accomplishing the Tercera (3rd) Espada seat, easily defeating the previous bearer of the position. It should be noted that, despite the ease with which he defeated the Tercera, the reason that he did not attain Segunda wasn’t because he didn’t want to fight Teya, but because he could not defeat her yet.
Once Garve acquired that position and decided he was happy with things as they were, he requested Xifan to join his Fracción and, in addition to him, formed a group including more than ten other members. For the next 12 years, he would become increasingly devoted to the royal family and would spend less time with Teya and his old Fracción. He did not give it much thought until the tragedy happened...
Dry Tears
It happened without any previous signs that would warn anybody or without any clear reason, but one day, Xifan ran desperately (which contradicted his usual self) to inform Garve that Teya had betrayed the Arrancar and escaped somewhere in Hueco Mundo. The royal family summoned Garve and Lynia to explain the event on more details; as it turned out, Teya openly announced to her Fracción that she would leave and, before they had the chance to object, they were all knocked out in a minute. Because it would be reckless to send a big group to search for her, it was exclusively the Primera and Tercera´s mission to bring her back in front of the royal family; if it was not possible to bring her peacefully, then she had to be eliminated. Although shocked and definitely hurt by the announcement and the tragic possible ending his mission could cause, Garve took the mission with the clear determination to kill Teya if there was no other way out despite the strong bond they shared.
Lynia ordered to initiate the search right away and, with only a few minutes for each to announce their absence to their respective Fracción, they left to find Teya right away. Lynia proved to be a very complicated person to socialize with and this interfered with the mission to some extent, since she was the one with the most accurate “Pesquisa”; she tried to limit their conversations to yes or no questions/answers as long as they were relevant to the task and not even once she showed any kind of emotional reaction, which Garve just found unnatural on anyone, even if it was a Hollow. Secretly, Lynia was afraid that her partner, having in mind his background as Teya’s closest pupil and probably friend, would betray her and join forces with the traitor; Garve, although imagined such a scenario, didn’t think she would take any actions on the matter. In the end, it turned out he was mistaken, as Lynia finally talked to him just to say that, when they found Teya, it would be him the one to fight her first and, did he prove to be insufficient, she would later join the battle. Fearing he too would be considered a traitor if he didn’t cooperate, Garve agreed to follow that tactic quickly changed the subject, which didn’t last long. It still took them a long time to find her but, after following directions from a Hollow claiming to have seen their target’s figure in the distance, they managed to locate her reiatsu after two weeks. As planned, Lynia waited in the distance while Garve followed Teya to engage in the battle he had feared to fight all that time.
As soon as Teya noticed Garve’s presence, she stopped and received him with a smile, hoping he had followed her to join her. As expected, she was heartbroken when he asked her to please go back to the royal family and accept whatever fate they had chosen for her and for the first time the two had known each other, Garve got to see her true sad expression. Refusing to go back as long as they had to be ruled by the same group of arrogant and cruel leaders, both of the Arrancar began a fight they didn’t desire. Though the confrontation seemed to be very equal and there was no possible way to predict who the victor would be for the first 4 minutes of the fight, it became increasingly clearer that Teya was gaining advantage over Garve, who just became more aggressive as the battle progressed. After Teya delivered the first direct blow of the combat, which made evident her advantage over him, Garve asked her with some difficulties why she decided to leave the Arrancar society. Voluntarily giving him some time to recover his breath, Teya explained that she could no longer stand the nature the royal family and all the Espada encouraged, continually seeking battle and death sometimes for reasons that didn’t even qualify as a good cause under her standards; preferring a peaceful life even though she knew no one would support her, she left with no clear destination, which made her actions seem extremely reckless. After giving her explanation, she asked Garve why he tried to stop her, since it was obvious she wasn’t a threat to anybody, to which he rejected to give an answer, since he himself was ashamed of it. Taking the chance, Garve released his Zanpakuto, ready to fight using the full extent of his power. To keep herself even, though not really with the intention to kill him, Teya did the same and also used her Resurrección, and a battle that reached unimaginable magnitudes initiated. Nothing like the previous round, this encounter seemed to have no end and, whenever someone appeared to have the upper hand, the other one always managed to pull out a comeback that would completely change the situation the other way round. The battle reached its climax when a clash between the two using all energy they had left after 10 minutes of fighting (which wasn’t much) took place, finally concluding the winner of the match. Neither Garve nor Teya were able to keep the fight going, but the first’s case, his energy was completely consumed and he was no longer able to maintain his released form, falling to the ground motionless and making the ex-Segunda the winner. With difficulties to even breathe, Garve addressed his long-time friend or the last time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, hoping he would get an answer for that last question.
“I love you...Garve” she replied with tears falling from her eyes and a fake smile that didn’t fool him for a second “; but you are no different from the others...just another Hollow.”
Getting up from her knees and with no spirit to talk or fight anymore, Teya began to walk away, sparing Garve’s life exclusively for their history. She didn’t manage to move three steps away when she was stabbed in the heart by Lynia, who had been waiting for that chance during the entire battle. While seeing Teya’s silhouette fall to the ground lifeless, Garve passed out and did not wake up again until he was taken back to the base by Lynia.
Even after his wounds had healed, the encounter with Teya had given him many things to think about and he was not psychologically ready to take the lead of his Fracción or carry out missions again; even Xifan, who had always remained one of his closest acquaintances, didn’t manage to maintain a discussion with him. Due to the loss of the Segunda Espada, the remaining members of the elite under that rank received a promotion and Garve became the new Segunda, taking Teya’s position; he did not seem overjoyed by this at all.
During this phase of bewilderment, Garve took the chance to think about how he had been managing his existence so far and realized that it had all been a boring, continuous vicious cycle. He had always been hoping to be in control of choosing his lifestyle and believed that obtaining power was the way to go, but he always became obsessed with it and forgot what his true objectives were; even as an Arrancar, that hadn’t changed...it was true that he was still only a Hollow. Disgusted by this sudden realization, Garve went through a severe mental crisis and completely enclosed himself from the outer world, becoming an extremely apathetic individual that simply limited itself to follow orders. He kept serving as Segunda Espada for 2 more years keeping the same kind of attitude, which pleased the royal family as it was easier to control him as a powerful tool.
General Info
Name: Garve (Like many other Arrancar, Garve's name is a derivation from an architect's, in this case, Michael Graves)
Gender: Male
Age: Alive: 19 Hollow (+Menos): 568 Arrancar: 94
Ranking: Espada.
Number: Uno.
Base Type: Vasto Lorde.
Physical Description:Visual Reference
Due to the fact that he died at a young age of what would be today's standards, barely passing the adulthood during his living years, Garve now maintains a juvenile appearance to himself that has not been affected by his Arrancar conversion. He has extremely long brown hair that, if let loose, would easily reach approximately to his hips or possibly past them even if he is standing still and straight, though obviously not moving. Normally, Garve wears his hair backwards in a lighter, long, spiky fashion, but has also cut shorter the sides from the forehead level down, having a darker tone on that area. Finally, the long hair is kept in a slim ponytail that starts at the lowest point of the back of the head and is constantly shaking from side to side when he is walking. He has round facial features, but manages to have a mature visage regardless; in a way, this is arguably due to the constantly serious expression his dark green eyes convey to others. His nose and ears are rather small compared to the proportion of his head. His eyebrows are very thin and rarely move from their stationary, impassive spot, certainly complicating others the task of reading through what he is thinking. His mask fragment takes the shape of a completely pure white right half of a forehead (which is also the place where it is located) that extends backwards, covering a small section of his head on the process; furthermore, the bone-like fragment is most notable for the relatively long curvy horn that grows around the same spot where his hair starts, also pointing backwards. Despite his current position, he still hasn’t been awarded with the Uno tattoo and the one portrayed on the left back of his neck is the Dos tattoo from the time he was the Segunda Espada; this will soon be fixed when he makes contact with the new leading organization in Hueco Mundo. His hollow hole, having a radius of approximately 2cm is located right on the middle of his chest, making it very easy for him to disguise it if necessary. Being 5’8 tall and having just an average total of muscle, Garve does not have a very imposing physical presence, which often misleads people to assume he has little physical prowess, this being a bad mistake to make.
Because of his condition as a resident of the human world, Garve has met the obligation of learning how to adapt himself to different types of human lifestyle and his own personal style has been heavily influenced by this. Because he can physically pass as a person anywhere between 18 and mid-20s, he has had the chance to try dozens of different routines from student to amateur businessman, though the latter met little to no success. Currently, Garve is fascinated by the Japanese delinquent or gang subculture that takes place among part of the youth in the country and both dresses and acts accordingly to it. His current hairstyle, also present in his original Arrancar self, was heavily influenced by this subculture and, additionally, the gigai has had its hair dyed red to emphasize his devotion to this lifestyle. Because he does assist to school most days of the week, he usually wears the uniform required from him; this consists on a green formal shirt he keeps open to show another white button-shirt under it, a dark green pair of pants and a red tie that he does not tie in most occasions and keeps around his neck for show. His clothing outside of week days varies a lot and he doesn’t repeat combinations very much, but he has shown clear preference for simple, dark-colored and free of illustrations attires. He dislikes the use of any kind of accessories, even if the most small and insignificant ones, like rings or pendants; the ones he hates the most are the extravagant ones, like chains as the ones attached to belts, chokers or similar ornaments that do nothing but get in the way. The only exception to this rule is piercings, which he does stand given that they don’t burden him in the least; this, however, doesn’t mean he is fond of them and he wears them only on his gigai.
He has yet to learn of the new Arrancar dress-code and therefore hasn’t shown any sort of variation as to how to wear it. He used to wear the original white uniform open around the upper area of his chest to show a section of his hollow hole and with long sleeves. He differentiated himself from others in that his uniform did not have any kind of shirt extensions in the back because it would negatively influence the movement of his legs, which are a key factor for his fighting style. Regardless of what the new uniform will be, Garve has the intention of modifying it similarly to the one he had when he was Segunda.
Personality:
There is no need for much pondering to come to the conclusion that Garve, above anything else, is most characterized by being an extremely secretive individual, rarely revealing anything about himself, especially when it regards his time residing in the Living World. Not only does he censor information he finds appropriate to hide for his own interest, but he also has absolutely no dilemma with lying in order to drive people to more convenient conclusions; the danger in this is that, because he is so used to it, it is very difficult to tell when he is lying or telling the truth and trusting him is always a gamble. Most of the time he keeps a calm expression to himself, but in occasions of great joy he expresses what he feels very openly to whoever he is interacting with, though this still doesn’t mean he will be any more sincere. He possesses a great deal of patience and there have been probably zero occasions on which he has burst in rage or irritation, at least in front of his comrades. Having his own interest and being as self-reliant as he is, it is sometimes hard to tell which side he is on in an argument or even a fight, often tagging along with whoever he considers will lead to a more amusing finale. He is very conscious of the limitations that should be kept on this and wouldn’t openly betray a group of people or individuals that had the power to cause him trouble, which is probably the main reason why he is not willing to leave the Espada a second time anytime soon. Even though it is not an obsession in his mind, he regards strength as something highly important and takes battling very seriously, most notable when he is up against an enemy that can fight evenly against him. If he finds serious complications to defeat an enemy, his personality may suffer some slight alterations from his usual self; however, his reactions may vary depending on what kind of enemy he is fighting. If his opponent is someone he regards as interesting (not necessarily in terms of talents or power) he can enjoy the fight and even welcome the battle with a smile; on the other hand, if he considers his opponent to be dreary yet able to fight him evenly, he can become much resented with his lack of ability and switch to a far more aggressive personality, barely keeping his usual calmness.
Another significant aspect of his persona is his inclination towards being extremely arrogant and egocentric; he does not go to the extent of constantly imposing himself as a superior being on others and it is more of an inner obsession, meaning little clues of his self-absorption are given to others. He has the tendency of classifying people as interesting or uninteresting based on different aspects of their guise and in some occasions their abilities; whether he finds someone appealing or not will wholly influence his attitude towards the person in question. If he doesn’t consider someone to be worth his attention, he keeps an extremely indifferent manner towards him/her; normally this involves keeping a constantly apathetic expression during any kind of interaction, not answering questions directed to him in conversations and complete disregard for other people’s desires or feelings, though the latter really is also present to some extent for people he does find interesting as well. In general, however, he appears to be a very different person when he is to interact with someone more fascinating; though he maintains his secretive self, it is more likely that he will answer questions with sincerity and with a smooth smile on his face, plus, he will go as far as seeking conversation with them. This selective attitude of who to befriend and who to ignore is probably the only sign of his arrogance that people can clearly perceive.
To the annoyance of many, Garve takes his secrecy to very high levels and goes as far as to aim to fulfil a “trickster” role. He always manages to be one of the first to learn about events thanks to a wide variety of contacts he has spread around Hueco Mundo and the Living World (missing infiltrates in Soul Society), though the latter is rather limited. Going along with his censoring and lying tendencies, he is very manipulative and out of all the information he manages to get his hands on will only mention what he considers will provoke a desired emotional response from others and, subsequently, a particular reaction or simply just to see what the answer will be like out of pure curiosity. He emphasizes this mannerism especially so with people that call his attention. Furthermore, although his revere for authority is very clear in the way he addresses superiors, the independent way he works and the fact that he carries out his tasks using the methods he prefers shows that he gives very little importance to orders and shows no concern for punishment, exposing a rather irresponsible side of his personality.
Unlike practically any other Arrancar in existence, Garve has developed certain affection towards the average human mind over the past years he’s been living in the world of the living; because of this, he has a clear obsession with them and their ability to feel empathy towards each other, something Garve has noticed in absent in many Hollow, including himself. For this, he secretly respects humans and sometimes it can be rather difficult for him to hide the fact that hurting them is something he would like to avoid at all cost; this doesn’t mean he won’t defend himself if necessary if his opponent is a Quincy or a spiritually strong human. Be it for one reason or the other, Garve has always been fighting Shinigami as either part of his instinct, duty or survival and has eventually grown to consider them his enemy like every other Hollow does. Despite their hollowfication, Vizards make absolutely no difference to him from regular Shinigami, although the truth is he has little knowledge of them other than the fact that they are pretty much the opposite of an Arrancar. He feels little attachment towards his own race and has few close acquaintances among them. But in the end, all of these prejudices can be overlooked if they are interesting enough.
History:
Human Life
Garve was born during the middle of the 13th century as the first of two sons of a middle-class family residing in Spain; his original name was Aarón Covez Fierro. During this period of history, Spain was continuing a winning conflict against a deteriorating Muslim invasion that had started near the beginning of the millennium; with a successful counter-attack that took place in the 13th century after several complications in the war, Spanish morale was very high at the moment. However, this didn't stop from resulting on a lot of young men being sent to war at an early age and, consequently, several broken families; however, thanks to several contacts his father had among the army, neither Garve nor his younger brother were affected by the conflict and his early years passed by smooth and peacefully. Garve's father worked as an artisan of weaponry and had earned a decent fortune throughout his many years of active service and hard work; however, the fact that his hands were getting old and the quality of his products was dropping from middle-high slowly to low forced Garve and later his brother to start working and learn the arts of crafting at an early age. Garve proved to have no talent at all as a weapon artisan and had no choice but to serve his brother as an assistant, given that he had been luckier and possessed a gift that, with time, would surpass that of his father. Although the family went through severe economic ordeals, they managed to somehow stay on their feet both thanks to the genius little brother and the savings kept by the father during his working years and things seemed to be going alright for the family.
Few years later, however, when Garve was 18 years old, a terrible plague struck not only the country, but the entire continent they were residing in (Black Plague); this would lead to the family's downfall. Garve's father fell instantly to illness and, after holding his own for only four days he died covered on his blood-soaked bed. Those four days and the few weeks that followed later were enough to completely deteriorate the economy of the family due to the lack of the guiding figure in the house, great expenses on medicine that took nowhere and a lack of motivation from Garve's little brother, who was the main source of income now. The father’s death was moaned and there was no time to get over it before Garve's brother also fell ill. Although he lasted more than his father, he too died after a week of intense pain in front of Garve and his mother. Now the family fell into complete decay and both survivors were forced to live on the streets, not even knowing what to do first. Garve finally took the initiative of taking on the family job one more time and, with as much optimism as the situation allowed, attempted to once again make a living out of weapon crafting. His attempt was unsuccessful and, for a year, Garve and his mother stayed alive out of fate’s pity, going from a host family to another. At the age of 19, Garve suffered from a deep fever and, recognizing the symptom as one of the first signs of the plague, he hung himself in the front door of what used to be his house one time. As an ironic twist of events, Garve's fever was not the beginning of the disease, but simple and plain fever; this remained unknown to him forever and even today he doesn’t know the true nature of it (and of course, he will never know).
Early Death
Garve's time as a plus was extremely short, ranging between the two or three weeks of duration. This was because by the time he died the whole city had been infested with Hollow due to the increase of Plus population as a result of the many deaths on the hands of the plague. Once devoured by a group of Hollow, Garve too was turned into one of the monsters, but remained as a demi-hollow.
Not being a full developed Hollow and bound to the house he had grown in back when he was alive, Garve was never noticed by other Shinigami and his slow and steady transformation into a full monster was allowed to take place over time. Be it because the traumatic experience of his death and the events that took place after it were having a terrifying effect on his personality or because he was succumbing to his new instincts as an evolving Hollow, Garve developed a necessity of exerting violence on other humans and during this stage of instability, many people that approached the building he resided in were brutally strangled by him. In comparison to other Hollow, Garve proved to have a considerably faster rate of evolution and in just three weeks he was already a full Hollow without any intervention to accelerate the process. By the time the mysterious deaths around his home attracted the Shinigami, Garve had already left as a complete entity.
As a Hollow, Garve did not cease to surpass the average spirits of his kind in terms of adaptation and, to some extent, power. After little time, his new unstable personality even lead to him enjoying his new lifestyle, as tended to happen in many other numerous Hollow cases. As a result of this new euphoria, Garve became very active and careless as a Hollow and spent more time in the real world devouring significant amounts of plus souls than he did travelling around Hueco Mundo; unfortunately for him, this ended up attracting the attention of Shinigami, creatures he didn’t know were in existence until that moment. Although badly injured in his first encounter with two low-ranking members, Garve managed to devour one of the aggressors and force the other one to retreat. The newly acquired awareness of other spiritual beings that were able to injure and probably annihilate him somewhat softened his aggressive nature and for the next years, Garve spent more time analyzing Shinigami behaviour until he was able to effectively stalk and kill low-ranking Death Gods. As he became more experienced in the skills of survival with the passing of the years, he slowly began to go back to his hostile activities with a considerably calmer attitude, not going berserk on the sight of competition as he used to do.
However, when the plague responsible for Garve’s death ceased and population in Spain began to stabilize again, resulting in fewer deaths taking place and therefore less Plus spirits coming to existence, the huge population of Hollow that had risen as a result of the past events saw itself in a famine crisis, given that there just were not enough souls to devour. Competition between the monsters reached critical points and most of them saw no choice but to fight between each other and in some cases even resort to cannibalism. This event was of historical importance to everyone aware of spirits’ existence and in Soul Society the problem was considered to be of such ridiculous magnitude that only Captains and Lieutenants were allowed in the area due to the amount of present Hollow; this incident was known as the “European Catastrophe”. Already having experience with hunting down creatures of equal power to him in addition to his already above averaged strength, Garve was one of the minorities Hollow that was able to adapt to the catastrophe by resorting to cannibalism and for many years he managed to survive facing moderate difficulty. The calamity was expected to last somewhere between one or two years if no special complications took place, but that wasn’t the case and the conflict came to a conclusion in a matter of 4 months due to the creation of a great number of Menos Grande when the battles reached a peak point resulting in the Hollow combining with each other. Although against his will because he was completely unaware of what would happen if the union were to happen, Garve was too caught up in a conflict and became part of one of the last Menos Grande to be born before the crisis ended. Lost in the sea of minds that, like him, composed that new omnipotent entity, Garve remained unaware of his actions and it took him one year, after an apparently never-ending internal struggle, to take possession of the body and find himself in Hueco Mundo.
Pursue of Power
Not remembering either how long he had been in Hueco Mundo, his reasons to move there and really anything he had done during that year when his mind was completely blank, Garve saw himself in a very confusing position. Because he had spent most of his previous life in the Human World developing as a Hollow instead of getting to know Hueco Mundo, he knew nothing of the layout of the place and was left with any other option than wander around that new world in search for answers. Unfortunately for him, his intellect was still not much greater than that of the average Gillian, and the years his spent in this phase of his evolution passed by like a dizzy set of images no more clearer than a dream. Among the few memories he holds of this period, most of them involve the cruel assassination of other Hollow, countless regular ones and a great amount of other Gillian, some of them even which, like him, had the ability to evolve further. Driven more by instinct than by astuteness, Garve demonstrated even more malice than in his previous life, greatly exploiting his new techniques, particularly Cero and Garganta, and the use of his long nails. Most of his victims would be killed from behind, having Garve’s nails penetrate their skull and, if necessary, being finished off by quick Cero; little times did he have to make a different approach except for the smarter Gillian. He did visit the Human World in more than one occasion, being dragged there by his old memories of the years spent there, but his new feeding instinct and his animal-like devotion to it always dragged him back Hueco Mundo until he finally got to the point of feeling most at home at this new deserted residence. He was lucky enough to never encounter any strong spiritual beings during his visits to the world of the living with the exception of a few low ranking Shinigami that never posed a threat to him from the beginning and limited themselves to flee on his sight. Even with the effectiveness of his backstabbing and crowded assassination tactics in addition to a relative lack of conscience of the passing time, it took Garve very long to accomplish any significant increment in power. All in all, he spent nearly 120 years of his existence struggling to evolve into a greater being, eventually managing to achieve his objective and becoming an Adjuchas, finally recovering his former individuality and intellect.
As an Adjuchas, Garve recovered a portion of his old self from back before he even became a Hollow and was just a regular human being, partially due to his new ability to rationally look back onto his own memories. Not putting his strength to test even on one occasion, Garve concluded that he had no further need to repeatedly hunt down other Hollow and decided to cease the violence and instead devote himself to the search of a different type of lifestyle. After what really were just a couple of hours of continuous pondering over the subject, Garve’s first action in this new form of his was to displace himself to the Human World one more time, this instance with the hopes of finding answers as to exactly what he was and what kind of options he had as to lead his life other than the commitment to his own instincts. Although it might seem an action triggered by foolishness and naivety, it was only normal for him to reach such a decision having in mind most of the being he had been fighting so far had been, like him Hollow, meaning he would either receive the answer he was running away from, or be attacked and forced to fight once again. As expected, however, his arrival would not be welcomed in the Human World at any moment.
The first thing to do in this occasion, or at least the course of action Garve decided to go with, was to contact someone with strong spiritual powers that could see him and, hopefully, talk to him; this, of course, excluded anybody wearing a black robe. It could have been over a century ago, but Garve had not forgotten that the first to ever attack him were not the ones of his own kind, but the warriors with the black garments and a sword that, unlike anything he had come in contact with since the moment he died, could hurt him. Although he still hadn’t had a sane conversation with anybody since the moment he died, he was able to grasp the reason why a creature like him would be hunted down, but he did not emphasize with their rationalism by reacting with guilt over his actions, instead finding very natural that he, as a predator, would feed on his natural preys while the latter tried to protect themselves. But once again, his luck had no plans prepared for any Shinigami to be waiting for him at his entrance and the start of his search was smooth. Despite his Pesquisa not being fully developed, it was enough for him to find the kind of subjects he was looking for in close distances, so once that objective proved to be useful or not, he had no option but to blindly change location until he sensed another reiatsu of non-regularly high frequency and start the cycle again; this process was very slow and tended to take nowhere in most of the occasions. In addition, he also had to keep disappearing into his Garganta from time to time to be harder to track for the Shinigami, a tactic that, although effective, also leeched much of his searching time. The first four objectives he came in contact with, all being humans, had very similar reactions: respond with fear and run away at the sight of the monster. Of course, despite their running, Garve did make the attempt to follow them and communicate, even if he had to make use of threats and other types of terrorizing actions to obtain a response; this, however, was no different from letting the villagers go, since he did not discover anything about himself other than the fact that people feared them because they fed on souls and could kill living humans to later eat them, which he was already familiar with. At times, Garve felt greatly discouraged by the lack of cooperation and usefulness of humans, but he did not desist on his duty to find the one individual that could tell him how to live his life out of conflict, or at least what was expected of him other than eating souls. His determination was indeed strong, but after the word about his existence was spread around the whole country, humans with strong spiritual energy and fairly developed powers began to go after him, putting his mission in danger. Eventually, after the number of people gong after him increased too much for him to go easy on, he had to resort serious combat and ended up killing several humans, powerful or not, in a state of berserk rage that had resulted due to his abstinence from eating souls all that time. After his plan for a peaceful life met failure, Garve gave up on this mission and returned once again to Hueco Mundo, giving in to temptation and once again resorting to the devouring of weak Hollow. It is important to note that Garve was never seriously injured during his stay in the Human World, which allowed him to evolve later on.
Garve still refused to engage in combat with other Adjuchas, this time out of fear rather than resignation to accept what he was. Because of this, his diet was based solely on regular on regular Hollow and the eventual Gillian, both of which had no chance of defeating him in normal conditions and posed no serious threat to him anymore; this however, required greater quantities of souls to satiate his hunger and was slowing down the evolution he obliviously was going through. It was years after his return to Hueco Mundo that he encountered another Adjuchas that, unlike him, had the resolve and bravery to attack other Hollow of equal strength to his to pursue of more power. Naturally, that other Adjuchas didn’t doubt for a second to take the chance to attack Garve, and without any previous signals of violence, launched himself towards him. Seeing himself caught up in a battle he could not run away from, Garve had to fight back and, despite his hesitance to do, the battle ended very quickly on a clear victory for him from which he ended unscathed. Instead of killing off the other Hollow, who was too injured to run away, Garve took the chance without much enthusiasm or hope and questioned the Hollow as to what their purpose was, an answer he had expected to learn from humans rather than beasts. The Adjuchas told him that he had learned from an omnipotent being long time ago that, if a Hollow was to consume a great number of its own kind, it would evolve further and receive even more power; additionally, not consuming enough Hollow souls would lead to a reverse process and, instead of moving closer towards Vasto Lorde, the Adjuchas would only go back to become a Gillian, this time permanently. Although surprised by the Hollow’s assistance, all Garve felt towards the reason behind all the cannibalistic tendencies his race was responsible of was disappointment towards the realization that, no matter what he did, his specie was condemned to participate on a constant struggle or fall into the hell of having no individuality as a Gillian and fight forever for control over the body. When he asked the Adjuchas if he didn’t find that unfair or atrocious, this one replied that he did not care what kind of despicable acts he had to carry out, who he had to kill or really anything else as long as he didn’t go back to Gillian, since Vasto Lorde was already impossible for him after losing a couple of horns. Out of pity and so that the centuries he knew it would take him to achieve the Vasto Lorde phase didn’t pass by as slowly, he allowed the Adjuchas, who later introduced himself as Xifan, to accompany him as a helper. It was at that moment that Garve made a pact to himself that, no matter what the cost or the situation, he would gain power until he didn’t have to go through all that effort and desperation to lead the kind of life he chose to lead, thus initiating his chase after supremacy.
Darkened Path
The group Garve and Xifan formed together turned out to be of outstanding effectiveness, due to the combined abilities of Garve’s natural power and practice with stealth tactics together with Xifan’s years of experience fighting against other Hollow. Surprisingly, despite being a servant and not a friend of Garve’s, Xifan demonstrated a loyalty and devotion to his new master that surpassed what the first had imagined on his most exaggerated thoughts. Xifan shared all of his wisdom with Garve even if he didn’t ask for it, warning him from unexpected dangers and else with such detail and accuracy that Garve couldn’t help but grow deep trust towards his new acquaintance over the passing of years. He was asked in one occasion why his devotion to someone who wouldn’t have a problem with killing him could be so unbreakable, to which he answered that “in the gamble that is surviving in this hell, I think Garve-sama is my best bet”. From that moment on, both Hollow began to grow fond of each other.
With the passing of the years, and despite the effectiveness of the team, both Menos came to realize that they had been overestimating the challenge of seeking evolution (in Garve’s case) and there was no way that just the two of them could accomplish such a deed. For that reason after approximately 50 years of attempting it with just the two of them, the group decided to form a larger team in order to take on greater numbers of Hollow at the same time. Clearly the most difficult aspect of this procedure was finding other Adjuchas who were willing to team up or preferred centuries of devoted serving instead of extermination. But even when this obstacle was overcame and the group managed to obtain so many members it seemed more like an army than a regular party, Garve’s pace did not accelerate in the least, and it could even be said that it rather slowed down. Because the army group also included many Hollow that still held the chance to pursue evolution, none of them was willing to grant Garve most of the food, as he did when his only partner was Xifan; this meant sharing food with more people and the truth was that the amount of it didn’t make for it in the least. For this reason, he concluded actions needed to be taken and indeed they were: Garve became more selective and, after separating the members he didn’t want to work with (particularly the ones who also desired the power of a Vasto Lorde), he devoured them one by one. This process was made very discreet and with time intervals that could vary from days to years, but eventually any competition Garve had was devoured by him; the only one who was aware of what was really happening was Xifan, who, of course, was never part of his list. Even though that wasn’t the initial plan, Garve couldn’t help but notice that luring people into believing him to later eat them was a very effective method and decided to make use of it in other occasions, although he finally gained a bad fame to his name and soon everyone in Hueco Mundo knew he was not one to be trusted, forcing him to go back to his regular hunting tactics with Xifan as his only partner.
It wouldn’t be until 445 years later that Garve would make contact with a complete Vasto Lorde for the first time. I was a monster that assassinated other Hollow for pleasure despite his lack of necessity of feeding on them anymore so as to call the attention of some creatures called Arrancar. As soon as Garve heard about this rumor, he set it his new mission to destroy and, if possible, devour that Vasto Lorde; but even though his reasons were, as always, to eliminate competition for victims of a decreasing Menos population, he never openly admitted to any Hollow other than Xifan, aware that would mean absolutely no supporters to accomplish his new task, which he definitely needed. Contrary to what he had been expecting, finding supporters wasn’t the hardest thing to do despite of his foul fame. While it was true that all of the Hollow he recruited were skeptic at first at some proved to be rather impossible to negotiate with, others joined his side as soon as he revealed his objective. Some of his allies, like Xifan, truly believed that with a well-known figure like Garve on their side it could be possible to defeat the Vasto Lorde, while others were just hoping for him to die in the upcoming battle. But what all of them agreed on was that, regardless of intentions, if Garve ever showed any signs of planning on betraying them, they would all just kill him and either give up on the mission or finish depending on the situation was the scenario to happen. That did not take place and, for once, it seemed like Garve was willing to help.
The Vasto Lorde had a stationary residence in a huge cave that it had stolen from another great group of Gillian. A week before they got to the cave, Garve sent Xifan on a special mission that required him to separate from the group. By the time the party reached the entrance of the cave, Xifan had not returned or contacted his leader at any point, so it was assumed by everyone that he had either died or escaped in fear of fighting the Vasto Lorde. Unwilling to wait anymore, Garve ordered the group to separate into two factions, the first would go in and fight the strong Menos with the intention of making it believe that they were all there was to the group; the second team would go in later and, taking a chance when the Vasto Lorde was distracted, they would kill it from behind. Garev intended to be in the second group to make sure they went in, but, as expected, he was still not trusted and he was forced to lead the first team. Outnumbered, he had no other choice, and the leader was forced to obey the followers. When the party went in, no matter how much they searched, their target was nowhere to be seen, and despite going around the area several times, no signs of it were spotted. They were considering leaving when, unexpectedly, they were attacked near the exit by the monster without them realizing. The Vasto Lorde massacred everyone before they reacted with the exception of Garve, who he did not even touch, revealing that the original plan was for Xifan to take the shortcut and was the monster that he was being followed, requesting it didn’t kill Garve. As expected form a Hollow, though, the Vasto Lorde threatened with killing Garve and Xifan as well, which triggered the second part of the plan. The strong Menos was never told that there was a second party, so when these entered the cave, he was caught offguard and was severely damaged. Taking the opportunity, Garve and Xifan escaped the cave and while the others killed each other. After they collapsed the cave from the outside, there were no survivors except for three weakened Adjuchas, who were killed off by them. Searching in the rests of the cave, the corpses were still there and, after Garve devoured the great number of Adjuchas (the Vasto Lorde wasn’t found), it took him just one more week to accomplish the final evolution, gaining the ultimate power that could ever be achieved...or so he believed.
The Lady Dressed in White
The euphoria that invaded Garve when he finally accomplished his long-lasted objective after so many centuries of hard work did not have the effect that was expected from him. He no longer wished to live a different life from the one he had been carrying out so far since the time he died, why should he? He was now a Hollow that would be remembered forever! All who had gotten in his way up to that moment had been obliterated and were not remembered as anything else but a step closer to his ultimate evolution. He was proud of his accomplishment and the many Hollow who just considered him a replacement for the previous Vasto Lorde that had been terrorizing the area would not change his self-perspective. But regardless of his success, his newfound power and his demonstration of superiority over others, he felt like he was now incomplete. Now that he had no interest in living a different lifestyle, yet there was nothing left to do for the path he had been following so far, his life was losing purpose; he finally concluded all that was left do was keep doing what he did best: kill, even if it wouldn’t lead him to power anymore. In hopes of finding a being of great strength that would somehow lead him to achieve even further improvement in power, he also took the task of making a name of himself and earn some fame so that others would have it easier to track him down; needless to say, he was confident that event he organized to assassinate the other Vasto Lorde wouldn’t repeat itself to stab him back. His method to do so was to always kill his victims by stabbing all the nails of his hand on the Adjuchas’ masks, which he would later detach from their heads and leave somewhere on the floor later for others to find. Xifan didn’t take much credit on the carnage and now limited himself to follow Garve exclusively for convenience reasons, never starting a conflict against another Hollow if he didn’t have good reasons to do so. As a sign of his changing mentality, it should be noted that if it wasn’t for the many centuries they had been working together, Garve wouldn’t have had a problem with killing his friend.
It was not long after the establishment of this new carnage self-policy that Garve’s area was note frequented anymore and that forced him to move from district once again, which he had been avoiding because it would just result on possible opponents to take longer to find him. Before he had the chance to move far from his usual spot, a group of Adjuchas that had been few months after Garve’s final growth openly faced him with the intentions of putting an end to his slaughtering by killing and devouring him. Mocking their imprudence for believing they really stood a chance against him with such a low number of allies and claiming that he had no time to lose with novices, Garve proceeded to execute them one by one, proving one more time the great difference in power he had achieved during his many years of preparation. As always, Xifan did not agree with what Garve was doing, but he was too fearful to contradict him at this point and decided the best thing to do was to just put up with it. He hadn’t managed to deliver the final blow to the leader of the rebellious party when, with no signs for him to notice, someone or something stood on his way and blocked his claw’s path, defending the Adjuchas that still remained alive. Caught up in the surprise of someone being able to survive, let alone block his attack, Garve had to cease his mad fighting method and took his time to examine the newcomer; it was nothing more but a woman…a young woman wearing a white uniform, yet her reiatsu was still so similar to his own. With a familiar tone, the woman scolded Garve for being such an inconsiderate and cruel being, going as far as to attack others of his own kind despite him not needing it anymore. The Vasto Lorde was startled by the creature’s words and decided to not give a response, instead demanding for the woman to confess how she had obtained such a great power, to which he received no answer either. Insisting on his previous order and despite the woman’s clear lack of interest on starting a fight, Garve proceeded to challenge her to a fight with the intention of asking the same question later when she was rendered helpless and tortured on the floor. The fight lasted 4 seconds overall and it concluded with Garve’s clear defeat on a blood-splattered floor. Xifan’s still living respect towards his master forced him to make an attempt to interfere in the battle when he noticed Garve was in trouble, but after a simple, slight push by the woman that sent him several meters away, he was not minded on this battle that was clearly on a different level that what he could handle. Garve felt humiliated due to his defeat despite his now old belief that he was the strongest form of existence in Hueco Mundo, but he still enjoyed the fact that there was still more power for him to pursue...if he lived.
And indeed, instead of delivering the final blow, the woman sheathed her sword and directed him a smile that he could not understand. She introduced herself as Teya and, after offering him some sort of regenerating drug (which he rejected), she revealed that she was a different type of creature from him called Arrancar, a Hollow that, after attempting to obtain further power, managed to do so by gaining Shinigami abilities, becoming some sort of a hybrid. Garve’s hurt pride prevented him from giving any kind of response to this, but the Arrancar Teya insisted on talking to him. She told him that, if a Vasto Lorde managed to obtain such power, the result would be a new being of incomparable battle potential, worthy to be considered one of the strongest creatures in existence not only in Hueco Mundo, but anywhere in the universe. With a tone that didn’t give any signs of friendliness, the Hollow asked how he could manage to become an Arrancar.
“It wouldn’t be fun if I just told ya!” Teya replied to him with a smile that only disturbed Garve even more. “If you are destined to become an Arrancar you will be able to find out yourself, don’t ya think? Just remember you won’t be entirely a Hollow anymore.”
After giving him directions to get to the Arrancar base, where many more of her kind resided, Teya left and gave him time to think what to do. Garve was not sure which path to take at this point, he longed more power, and after this humiliation his wish just became stronger than ever; on the other hand, refusing to remain a Hollow meant he would also lead a different lifestyle and he wasn’t sure if that was his objective anymore. Days after the confrontation, neither Garve nor Xifan had anything to eat, since both had been shocked by the woman’s extreme power and her message to Garve; their deprivation lasted so long that both of them came close to death (or, in Xifan’s case, morphing back to a Gillian). All the pondering over what decision to make had taken the Vasto Lorde back to his early years once again, which he remembered despite of the many centuries that separated those memories from the present. He remembered why he had been hoping to become stronger in the first place and how he had been afraid of ending up like he did. He was no longer able to emphasize with his old-self, but there was definitely something about it that was amiss without it; he missed his old human self, the one that cared for survival and not competition, felt love for his family and friends and didn’t need servants, but, most of all, the one who felt there was meaning to his existence. In a moment of weakness that was never repeated ever again, Garve apologized to Xifan without giving any reasons and, after not moving an inch for days, got up and told his servant to wait there for a while. He didn’t know if he had taken the right decision, but he wanted to remember what it felt to be human once again, and as a Hollow he would never know. He already had an idea of how to become an Arrancar just by looking at Teya before, but even he was unclear as to whether he was doing it because of that or simply because he wanted to see his own face once again. At first, his fear kept him from fully tearing off his mask, but with time he became more violent and finally managed to accelerate the process. As soon as he felt his reiatsu grow to its maximum capacity, he directed his eyes towards his hands and realized with great delight that he was once again a human. With no time to waste, Garve went directly to Xifan so that both would meet the Arrancar. Garve’s optimism was now reaching a point never reached before.
Garve, the Arrancar
Both Garve and Xifan, who also transformed into an Arrancar after Garve revealed the secret to do so, appeared at the front area of the Arrancar base one week after the mysterious woman contacted them naked and with no guide to allow them in. Neither one of them remembered Teya’s name, so they could not claim that she was the one who gave them the base’s location, since apparently there were many female Arrancar that dressed in white. Nonetheless, and despite their bizarre entrance, Garve’s reiatsu, which greatly surpassed the one of the guardians at the entrance, was enough for them to call an Espada to inspect the newcomers. The only one expecting any new Arrancar to arrive was Teya and her first reaction was of happiness, as if she hadn’t stabbed Garve almost a week ago. After scolding both of them for having no shame to go around naked, she invited them inside and provided clothes for both. As expected, both of the newcomers had a lot of questions to ask, but Teya limited herself to say that she would answer them later, as there was something more important to take care of first. They weren’t even told what the group was about before both were presented to the Royal Family, the rulers of the whole organisation and the only ones to have been born pure Arrancar. They noted some interest on Garve when it was mentioned that he was originally a Vasto Lorde and some high expectations were set on him, but other than that they didn’t mind their recruitment. Before the reunion was over, Teya explained the ranks in the group, particularly the existence of the Espada, Arrancar that far surpassed the average levels of power and were ranked in a order of power from one to ten, one being the strongest. She later revealed to be a member of the Espada herself, possessing the rank of Segunda, meaning she was the second strongest among the elite. When she later requested that both Garve and Xifan joined her Fracción, none of the royal had any objections and it was done on the spot. Needless to say, Xifan made no objections since he was already used to being a follower, but Garve did not like the idea from the very beginning.
The new team did not seem to be working out during the first days after it was created. Together with Garve and Xifan, the Fracción counted with eight members, all of which were approximately on the same level as the latter, making Garve the strongest (not counting Teya) of the team. But even though this fact was made obvious on various occasions, he did not receive any more respect than all of the others did and no matter how much he insisted by saying that he would one day be an Espada as well, Teya never changed her mannerism towards him, and it could even be said that he was scolded more often than the rest. Garve demonstrated a great lack of respect towards his new master, which was something she wasn’t willing to accept under any circumstances, resulting on both of them engaging on innumerable arguments. It was during one of these debates that the discussion evolved into an actual rather unserious between the two that, despite increasing in duration, ended up on Teya’s victory again. After this, Garve, humiliated once again, left the place without any announcement and not even Xifan knew where he had disappeared. Fortunately, Garve’s intentions were never close to leaving the Arrancar society he had managed to find, so he never left too far away. Wherever it was that he ended up in (all that’s known about it is it was a quiet place with no name), Garve took a while to find out he wasn’t the only one contemplating the view, there was another black-haired woman close and, by her looks, it was clear she too was an Arrancar. She proved to be very uncommunicative, but encouraged Garve to share his troubles with her, which, with a childish tendency of trying to make it sound like he was the victim, he did. The woman refused to give advice but when the man demanded a response, she simply said that it was hard to get used to new environments, but if no effort was put into socializing in this kind of situation, then it was only natural no improvement would be met. Garve argued otherwise but internally began to realize it was true that without any guidance from Teya it was unlikely he would learn anything. The woman, unmotivated to continue the debate, simply wished him good luck in the future and left him alone in a flash; hours later, Teya managed to read his presence and found him. Before she had a chance to give one of her famous lectures, Garve kneeled down before her and apologized for his actions during the past days, in addition to never thanking her properly for granting him the chance to obtain more power. Surprised and somewhat uncomfortable with the situation, Teya forgave him and the relationship between the two improved considerably from that moment on. Weeks later, during a regular meeting, Garve learned that the woman he met the other day was none other than the Primera Espada, Lynia; but for some reason, he felt too embarrassed to apologize. This was actually good news, since it meant he was regaining part of his long-lost old self.
Now that their relationship was so much better, Garve spent much more time with Teya, though that didn’t change the respectful mannerism he now knew he had to demonstrate. After a year of faithfully obeying his master’s orders, Garve proved to be a warrior of great potential and Teya concluded it would be reasonable to finally train him properly on the more advanced techniques of an Arrancar; this included leaning him to a similar fighting style to the one she employed, greatly emphasizing on speed and strength. With little time, Garve managed to become skilled at the continuous use of “Sonido” during battle and even imitated perfectly Teya’s signature move, “Impulso” (which he would years later improve and rechristen into Evión). After training hard under Teya’s teachings for other 3, he had already increased his fighting potential to a point that could easily be considered that of an Espada’s, and finally took the decision of attempting to enter the ranks. He easily managed to obtain the Sexta (6th) Espada position, but it would take him other 4 years to develop his power even further and finally accomplishing the Tercera (3rd) Espada seat, easily defeating the previous bearer of the position. It should be noted that, despite the ease with which he defeated the Tercera, the reason that he did not attain Segunda wasn’t because he didn’t want to fight Teya, but because he could not defeat her yet.
Once Garve acquired that position and decided he was happy with things as they were, he requested Xifan to join his Fracción and, in addition to him, formed a group including more than ten other members. For the next 12 years, he would become increasingly devoted to the royal family and would spend less time with Teya and his old Fracción. He did not give it much thought until the tragedy happened...
Dry Tears
It happened without any previous signs that would warn anybody or without any clear reason, but one day, Xifan ran desperately (which contradicted his usual self) to inform Garve that Teya had betrayed the Arrancar and escaped somewhere in Hueco Mundo. The royal family summoned Garve and Lynia to explain the event on more details; as it turned out, Teya openly announced to her Fracción that she would leave and, before they had the chance to object, they were all knocked out in a minute. Because it would be reckless to send a big group to search for her, it was exclusively the Primera and Tercera´s mission to bring her back in front of the royal family; if it was not possible to bring her peacefully, then she had to be eliminated. Although shocked and definitely hurt by the announcement and the tragic possible ending his mission could cause, Garve took the mission with the clear determination to kill Teya if there was no other way out despite the strong bond they shared.
Lynia ordered to initiate the search right away and, with only a few minutes for each to announce their absence to their respective Fracción, they left to find Teya right away. Lynia proved to be a very complicated person to socialize with and this interfered with the mission to some extent, since she was the one with the most accurate “Pesquisa”; she tried to limit their conversations to yes or no questions/answers as long as they were relevant to the task and not even once she showed any kind of emotional reaction, which Garve just found unnatural on anyone, even if it was a Hollow. Secretly, Lynia was afraid that her partner, having in mind his background as Teya’s closest pupil and probably friend, would betray her and join forces with the traitor; Garve, although imagined such a scenario, didn’t think she would take any actions on the matter. In the end, it turned out he was mistaken, as Lynia finally talked to him just to say that, when they found Teya, it would be him the one to fight her first and, did he prove to be insufficient, she would later join the battle. Fearing he too would be considered a traitor if he didn’t cooperate, Garve agreed to follow that tactic quickly changed the subject, which didn’t last long. It still took them a long time to find her but, after following directions from a Hollow claiming to have seen their target’s figure in the distance, they managed to locate her reiatsu after two weeks. As planned, Lynia waited in the distance while Garve followed Teya to engage in the battle he had feared to fight all that time.
As soon as Teya noticed Garve’s presence, she stopped and received him with a smile, hoping he had followed her to join her. As expected, she was heartbroken when he asked her to please go back to the royal family and accept whatever fate they had chosen for her and for the first time the two had known each other, Garve got to see her true sad expression. Refusing to go back as long as they had to be ruled by the same group of arrogant and cruel leaders, both of the Arrancar began a fight they didn’t desire. Though the confrontation seemed to be very equal and there was no possible way to predict who the victor would be for the first 4 minutes of the fight, it became increasingly clearer that Teya was gaining advantage over Garve, who just became more aggressive as the battle progressed. After Teya delivered the first direct blow of the combat, which made evident her advantage over him, Garve asked her with some difficulties why she decided to leave the Arrancar society. Voluntarily giving him some time to recover his breath, Teya explained that she could no longer stand the nature the royal family and all the Espada encouraged, continually seeking battle and death sometimes for reasons that didn’t even qualify as a good cause under her standards; preferring a peaceful life even though she knew no one would support her, she left with no clear destination, which made her actions seem extremely reckless. After giving her explanation, she asked Garve why he tried to stop her, since it was obvious she wasn’t a threat to anybody, to which he rejected to give an answer, since he himself was ashamed of it. Taking the chance, Garve released his Zanpakuto, ready to fight using the full extent of his power. To keep herself even, though not really with the intention to kill him, Teya did the same and also used her Resurrección, and a battle that reached unimaginable magnitudes initiated. Nothing like the previous round, this encounter seemed to have no end and, whenever someone appeared to have the upper hand, the other one always managed to pull out a comeback that would completely change the situation the other way round. The battle reached its climax when a clash between the two using all energy they had left after 10 minutes of fighting (which wasn’t much) took place, finally concluding the winner of the match. Neither Garve nor Teya were able to keep the fight going, but the first’s case, his energy was completely consumed and he was no longer able to maintain his released form, falling to the ground motionless and making the ex-Segunda the winner. With difficulties to even breathe, Garve addressed his long-time friend or the last time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, hoping he would get an answer for that last question.
“I love you...Garve” she replied with tears falling from her eyes and a fake smile that didn’t fool him for a second “; but you are no different from the others...just another Hollow.”
Getting up from her knees and with no spirit to talk or fight anymore, Teya began to walk away, sparing Garve’s life exclusively for their history. She didn’t manage to move three steps away when she was stabbed in the heart by Lynia, who had been waiting for that chance during the entire battle. While seeing Teya’s silhouette fall to the ground lifeless, Garve passed out and did not wake up again until he was taken back to the base by Lynia.
Even after his wounds had healed, the encounter with Teya had given him many things to think about and he was not psychologically ready to take the lead of his Fracción or carry out missions again; even Xifan, who had always remained one of his closest acquaintances, didn’t manage to maintain a discussion with him. Due to the loss of the Segunda Espada, the remaining members of the elite under that rank received a promotion and Garve became the new Segunda, taking Teya’s position; he did not seem overjoyed by this at all.
During this phase of bewilderment, Garve took the chance to think about how he had been managing his existence so far and realized that it had all been a boring, continuous vicious cycle. He had always been hoping to be in control of choosing his lifestyle and believed that obtaining power was the way to go, but he always became obsessed with it and forgot what his true objectives were; even as an Arrancar, that hadn’t changed...it was true that he was still only a Hollow. Disgusted by this sudden realization, Garve went through a severe mental crisis and completely enclosed himself from the outer world, becoming an extremely apathetic individual that simply limited itself to follow orders. He kept serving as Segunda Espada for 2 more years keeping the same kind of attitude, which pleased the royal family as it was easier to control him as a powerful tool.
. Also given that he’s 600+ years old it would NOT have been odd for him to have died so early, the average lifespan was hardly forty at that time. 