Surrounded by Darkness [Open]

[Jukuma]

((I made this topic an 'Open' type, but I would like to avoid characters popping out of the blue with only a lame excuse to show up, like just going for a convenient walk, so if you told me how you plan to show up before you actually join, I would be very thankful for your consideration. Of course, Galihan can join if he still wants to, since we already talked about it.))
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The bus stopped with an awful, shrieking sound from its insides, making most evident the condition the old vehicle was in, which only served to make the passengers ask themselves once again with sincere curiosity how that God forsaken thing wasn’t collapsing on itself and covering their most likely inert bodies with the weight of useless scraps of metal and broken glass. It was funny how, in this occasion, it became so surprisingly easy to differentiate which ones, out of all the passenger in the decrepit bus, had been travelling for a long time and which ones had just recently joined the ride: those who had started their long trip from Akita, the city from which the bus originated, did not show any physical response that gave away they even acknowledged the malfunction of the bus, while those who had tagged along around the neighboring towns of Tokyo, the destination of the vehicle, couldn’t help but open their eyes widely in surprise and annoyance or even wake up in the worst case scenario for a few.

A young man responded to the bus’ stop by holding on to a considerably large, travelling bag on his back, standing up from his deteriorated and seemingly uncomfortable seat and walking towards the exit, consisting on a door that when opening made a sound that closely resembled the one by the brakes seconds ago and that still affected his ears. The man didn’t bear a resemblance to most of the rest of the old, feeble passengers of the bus, at least physically speaking; it was a young man that rounded 20 years old, and his delinquent appearance gave out an air of aggressiveness that instantly killed the idea of others to even dare bidding him farewell. Probably emphasizing that unspoken tone of unfriendliness and unwillingness to interact was the fact that on his back, in addition to the huge bag that covered most of his upper body, a baseball bat of magnitudes that clearly surpassed that of the regular sport ones, noted by even those who were not familiar with that area, rested its body on his shoulder, its head pointing at the ceiling of the vehicle in a constantly wavy manner. The young man passed through the middle way of the bus oblivious to the fact that none of the eyes of the people would look at him on purpose, despite the fact that he was the only one who was coming down in the middle of a deserted nowhere and still far enough to barely being able to see the lights of the city of Tokyo in the far distance of that coil black night. Nobody made any comments either when the man, rather than moving towards the same direction as the bus, switched the course of his feet as soon as they came in contact with the ground and moved away from what had initially seemed likes his true destination, walking away from the lights of Tokyo with heavy steps.

His body was suffocating, he felt like the temperature invading him was increasing every passing second and, even though he was well aware that the more thought was poured into it, the faster the asphyxiation took place, it was the only concern his mind could focus on at that very moment. Why was this happening? It was clear for him that the only one at fault for the lack of proper functioning was that useless Gigai he saw himself forced to use. At times like this, when no matter how much effort he put into simply moving his leg an inch, his efforts would barely pay off and result in an uncomfortable sensation, he missed the times when he could trust on the effectiveness of the providers of these products. That was years ago, but he remembered very clearly that at first the Gigai had a period of usage that could surpass the six years, with a continuous use of a months; with the dead of the creator of those things and the replacement with his good-for-nothing son, he was lucky if the body made it to the three years, and he needed to exit it every week for a cool down, or else he would end up in the same condition as he found himself at the moment. He usually armed himself with ways to extend that period of time, like a pack of cigarettes that counted with a special drug designed to extend the usage time of the artificial body before a cool down was needed, for example, but at the moment he didn’t have any of those left. This occasion had been very different though, the Gigai had had enough time to recover from the last time it had been used, and he had owned it for just a bit over a year. Why was it, then, that it was already malfunctioning as if it had exceeded its usage time? He could not figure it out, all he knew is he had to come out f the Gigai before his mind began to be affected as well. The pressure of his own reiatsu put on the walls of the flesh were reaching critical points and, by the time he had managed to walk only a bit over 100 m, even movement began to prove nearly useless; when he meant to go for a long step, the leg wouldn’t handle even half of the distance of what he had calculated, and now he was required to look constantly down in order to somehow figure out a way to not step on the wrong spot and fall to the ground, in which case there was a very big chance he wouldn’t be able to get up again.

The young man stopped with a sudden and nearly unplanned ceasing of steps. By this point it was clear that the situation was critical enough to take the risk, or else he probably wouldn’t get anywhere at all anyways, and he had to get to Tokyo alive and sane at all cost, no matter how much effort and energy it took from him. After convincing himself that he was taking the right decision, he dropped the huge travelling bag and the baseball bat on to the floor and crouched next to the first one, opening with calm movements of his hands; he was well aware of the danger, but experienced had taught him that no matter what was the scenario, or whether there was crowd or not, one should never lose composure. After casting away from the top a few of uninteresting that were not weird to find in a travelling bag, like food, several books and a fairly primitive portable music system, he found what he was looking for at the bottom: a bone fragment that looked like the frontal area of a forehead, with a curved horn protuberance that seemed to point backwards. The man sighed in discontent at what he was about to do, but also smiled at the idea of finally being able to breath normally in an extremely long time. With a movement of his arm, slow as if he intended to build tension for an invisible mass, he placed the bone fragment at the right side of his own head.

‘I’ll probably regret this later...’ was all he had time to say before a savage blue aura of reiatsu began to flow violently from the point where the mask fragment united itself with the flesh of the man, as if a huge amount of that energy was trying to escape from a slim exit at the same time.

The flow of reiatsu from that area seemed to get more and more violent without really seeming to approach a limit at all, when suddenly it stopped without any previous signs of doing so. Silence took over the deserted area in what was less than half a second, a even the man was motionless, still down on his knees, but otherwise not giving any signs of notion. After long seconds, the body of the man lost balance and fell to the ground, not breathing, as if dead, and with no signs of the bone ever being even close to him. The void he had left behind when falling, however, was still being filled by an identical shadow, a shadow dressed in white and with the same mask fragment incrusted on the same spot as before. With vague movements, the man dressed in white, the real identity of the same person, stood up, inhaling a great deal of air in the process. After holding it in for another group of prolonged seconds, he finally exhaled soundly. A cloud of reiatsu emanated from him at the same time, as if accompanying his exhalation at the same process and, soon, an area of massive size was filled with his presence. For the first time in decades, Garve had dared to release the true potential of his reiatsu in the open.

[Galihan]

Cold stone walls, long vacant and abandoned from the undesired massacre centuries prior when the youngest looking at this place was in fact just a child in mind but much older looking in form. Wandering the empty, derelict corridors was who appeared to be a child dressed in all white garb, accented with pale turquoise embroidery, a telltale giveaway to most who knew of his supposed kind's existence as to what he appeared to be. This child, having deciding to return to where he once called home before being forced to burn it to the ground and slaughter his once-family, now had the chance to repent for his past crimes against his own bloodline. Mercy allowed the young to continue on after fleeing this temple, but many of the old teachings still remained hidden in safe libraries he refused to destroy as his mission was once to kill these people, not their legacy, their pride. Laying open on the ground was a barely legible tomb containing old teachings of a nearly forgotten race, from which he was able to read aloud.

"...The world was always one shrouded in the shadows of humankind, and the delusional ignorance that humans are the dominant race of beings to walk the earth. Basking in the blissful ignorance that their senses were absolute, many men and women have assumed the empirical truth of the world as they see it, denying the existence of that which could not be witnessed or observed. That blissful ignorance that secures the heart of humankind in its own mind is what makes it vulnerable to those that seek revenge against the innocent, the parched fallen whom seek to quench the thirst of pain and suffering using the sustenance of human souls to provide some vain attempt ease their own suffering. Those deceased, shattered hearts seeking vengeance on those who know not of the pain of loss would easily devour all hope for humanity's safe future if not for those few enlightened chosen, blessed with the gift of our forefathers, from whom our Blood and Pride flows, granting our order the strength to vanquish evil and protect the innocent until they too may come to terms with the existence of the bodiless dead, and mankind can join the ranks of the chosen Quincy..."

At that moment, the book started to fall apart in his hands, so he placed it down carefully, not daring to damage this place any further than he already had so far in his life. Then, he also noticed a slight stiffness in his body, slightly unresponsive to his commands. He had rarely been outside this fake shell himself ever since taking upon this reduced memory of his original self.

"Damn it, I didn't want to have to be reminded of what I really am, here of all places."

He cussed bitterly, stretching his arms above his head and standing tall on his toes, exerting his fake body to warm up, letting his energy flow through himself, loosening his unresponsive limbs. It seemed so awkward, dropping to the standards of a shinigami, residing in a fake body for this world of the living. For someone such as Galihan Umbra, a Quincy at heart with no place to call home since becoming a hollow on the outside, he was simply glad that he was now able to exist to protect the living to the best of his limited abilities. He needed to return to where he left his entourage of rouge arrancar outcasts, or else they would get worried about him. And he didn't want to have to deal with the thought of Pena, Temor and Alegría getting themselves worked up anymore than they did on their own even when he was there to make them calm down...

Despite his gigai holding him back, Galihan was still able to move exceptionally faster than the average human being without tiring too much. He made his way out of the deep forest from which the old monastery resided, and eventually onto a narrow country road in the middle of nowhere. Here, he met up with his loyal followers, whom had wandered from their original meet-up location to what appeared to be an abandoned bus stop out here far enough away from civilization to not be bothered, but still close enough that the lights of Tokyo city could be seen far off. Tracking them was no problem for him even if their gigais had concealed their presence from the spiritually aware, he'd spent a good few decades training them and memorizing their signatures after all.

Into view came an adult woman wearing a red jacket over a long purple dress, a teenage boy wearing worn out jeans and a teal turtle neck, and a young teenage girl dressed in a light yellow spring dress. the Adult of the trio seemingly not paying any attention as the young girl appeared to be beating up the boy, whom was curled up defensively, only able to whine pitifully until all three instantaneously looked up and around, eyes laying on the approaching kid in white and proceeding to move to him at each their own pace, ranging from a wiry skip to a nonchalant mosey.

"Heya! We got bored and came here instead of over there, see?"

Alegria piped up as soon as she came within glomping range of their master, to which she attempted and subsequently failed as she was intercepted by a flying dropkick from her own brother in retaliation for the previous beating. Roja merely sighed and bowed her head in shame and apologies.

"I'm sorry master, I tried to stop them but she insisted she try to find food to eat, claiming to be able to smell food from over here. I'd offer you a meal, but Temor had already eaten the metal-paper-wrapped, lightly salted, fried potato slices we ordered for you while you were away."

"No problem, I'm not hungry anyways. We need to return to Karakura soon, my gigai needs to cool off."

Galihan replied rather forgivingly, only to be inturrupted by the cries and yells of the other two arrancar,who had apparently gotten into some sort of wrestling match along the side of the dirt road. Alegria was on top of Temor's chest, pinning him down without resistance to which after a few seconds of still silence, he perversely taunted,

"If dis all ye wanted wussa chance tuh git down wit meh, no 'eed tuh get vi'lent, aye?"

To which she immediately bashed his face in with her forehead, and stood up, stomping on his crotch before giving him a swift kick to the kidneys. In the meanwhile as this was all happening, they didn't notice their eldest sister march over to them both, slapping Alegria with a wide backhand scolding her for her actions.

"Umbra-sama told you two to act appropriately. We don't want to draw any attention to us in the Living World!"

"B-but there's nobody out here! Ain't anyone for kilometers of miles!"

"'lameters 'n miles be te same thing ye dumb twat!"

"Nuh'huh! One's a measurement of distance, the others a quality that records that measurement in a numeral value, you fuckwad!"

"Oh. My. God."

In the midst of all this, Galihan has simply chosen to ignore the sheer idiocy before him, instead watching the approaching decrepit bus that he could guess was about to collapse on itself from its own weight. The bus itself wasn't that interesting though, instead he sensed somebody onboard, someone who was hiding his presense using a gigai just like him. In fact, it was just like his, but apparantly in a much worse condition as it was leaking and giving away his location to anyone nearby with a good talent for tracking souls. Galihan did not like this feeling inside him at all, it made him want to hide but at the same time it attracted him. If was really an enemy, it would have shown up through a garganta portal, not on a dying cage of rusted metal. This person wanted to be alone, if anything. He watched as did the others when they too felt him, and made not a move, only keeping an eye on the slowly crawling man that was spewing forth a powerful reiatsu in his weakened gigai. After what seemed like forever, the man dropped his heavy looking bag and began ruffling through it searching for something, taking out what looked like a white horn, pressing it against his head, generating an explosion of spirit pressure into the area.

When the cloud cleared, the man appeared to have dropped dead, standing over him an exact copy dressed in white and possessing a mask fragment in the form of a single horn. This was really bad, the three lesser nearly paralysed in fear as the youngest stood in front of them, in between them and the other arrancar. He reached into his pocket, taking out a small metallic cross which was imbued with the energy that allowed Galihan to disguise himself as a Quincy instead of an arrancar. In a moments notice, he would be able to discard his gigai and too reveal his real self. In his weakened child form, Galihan did not want a fight, but he would if he needed to protect his fraccion and hide the location of Torre-sama should this guy be an Espada sent to hunt them down.

[wanzer]

The 'unofficial greatest stealth Ops agent' Jirku strutted through the park area of Tokyo; rather he would be struttering if he wasn't trapped in the body of a squirrel and a chicken. The small fowl pecked the ground with small incessant thumps as passerbys threw light, flaky breadcrumbs at him. He took the small pieces of crust with little notice as his other body relayed messages to him from atop a nearby cherry blossum that was in full bloom. The pink petals perfectly concealed the tiny rodent as he scurried up and down its branches with ease and grace that only a squirrel could manage in the arbol region.

"Slow day huh Jir? We've been out here for hours and not a single spec of spirit energy."

The squirrel sent to the chicken with an apathatic thought as the other cheerfully continued to eat to satisfy them both.

"Its because all the bad guys know we're the best there is Ku, so don't worry yourself over it! No one wants to mess with the dynamic duo!"

Ku did a backflip in the tree in agreement only to manage getting his tail stuck in the tree. The squirrel pouted and furouisly worked to remove himself from the situation when the waves of spirit energy struck him and he was sent flying from the tree landing in the soft grass into some of the excess bread. Panic set in as the furry brown squirrel looked at the chicken.

"THE BEST HUH!? LETS GO SHOW UM THE BEST!!!"

"YOU GOT IT!"

The two stood there staring at each other for a long moment, while people took pictures before departing toward the source of spiritual pressure hoping to God it was friendly.

"You know if you chicken out I won't blame you."

"I can say the same to you."

"No you can't I'm not a chicken."

"....."

Jir said nothing to Ku's words and walked faster making sure to move into a plain of existence where the normal humans couldn't see him as Ku entered into his dim form. Both of them hurried along the bustling streets of Tokyo ignoring the food trofts as they neared an old dirt rode and could see dust settling in the air from an old vehicle. The pair quickly made their way along the dusty road toward the source, Jir moving carefully along to appear to be nothing more than a normal kitchen and Ku appearing in one of the trees scurring around and watching the Arrancar before them.

[Jukuma]

The sensation of freedom, of liberation from what had been the equal to thousands of candid chains holding him down and burning him at the same time settled in a matter of seconds. Overall Garve hadn’t really missed his life as an Arrancar all those years that much; it had had its ups and downs back at its time, but the life of a regular human being had proved to be able to provide him more fond memories than those he found in Hueco Mundo, even if he never managed to find a replacement for some of his past acquaintances. There had been, however, one downside to that lifestyle and that was that it didn’t provide him many chances to release his spiritual pressure to its full extent, let alone use it in battle, which somehow was something that he missed passionately, and that was more reason than the fact that his gigais would tear apart due to it with time. How he wished sometimes that his human life had lasted longer!

It wasn’t until after he had tested his physical condition and reaction time by closing and opening his hand a couple of times that he realized the presence of other four entities near him and that apparently had witnessed the whole spectacle. It didn’t surprise him the fact that he hadn’t noticed them until that moment, especially due to the fact that moments ago he was in no condition to really look around searching for witnesses, nor was he surprised that there could be any people around that place in the middle of nowhere, since it wasn’t really the first thought that crossed his mind; what truly took him by surprise was that they were not looking at the completely inert gigai laying on the ground, but instead at the real, spiritual him. His Pesquisa was not working at the moment, as it always happened for a short period of time when he exited the gigai, so he was unable to read the energy of the witnesses nor notice the other two intruders that had just appeared, but judging by the expression of some of them, he found it a safe assumption that they actually did manage to read his. He sighed at the inconvenience this posed to him, as true as it would be that he no longer needed to watch out from witnesses, the boy standing in front of them, whose height would appear anything but imposing or threatening at all, was holding something that appeared to be some sort of cross talisman in one of his hands, this being his response to Garve’s sudden release of energy, he presumed. The sight was considerably awkward to him, was the little kid praying to his god for mercy? Unlike the other three, he seemed to be more collected and ready to respond so that was unlikely. Nonetheless, putting all the little things together, he couldn’t help but find that situation uncomfortable and bizarre, probably because the people in front of him were vastly contrasting and didn’t seem like any kind of reasonable mix for a group.

Now that he had ended up coming out of the gigai, it didn’t really matter whether he rushed things or not since he was now suppressing his reiatsu enough for it not to be read from that long of a distance. No longer how it was looked at it, it was obvious all of the witnesses were able to see him very clearly, but it took Garve a while to get used to it, since very few had been able to do so in the past decades. More over, the fact that they didn’t look like any kind of human group archetype that he had witnessed so far and that it seemed like much coincidence that four spiritually aware humans would gather in the same spot where he would later show up gave him the odd sensation that the people standing in front of him were not really human, even if individually they did seem like it. Then again, their supernatural ability was probably what gathered them together. All sorts of hypothesis like that were going through Garve’s mind as his face portrayed a calm and unthreatening smile. His interest in those four people grew in no time and he decided to take his time studying for a short while; he could take this as sort of his last source of entertainment in the Living World, since it would probably be a long time he would have the chance to go back.

“You can see me?” He asked from his spot to the group of people with a tone that noted sincere and obvious curiosity, in addition to slight surprise that still remained from being spotted by them. His questions were directed more to the small child in front of the others, since he seemed to him the more apt for a conversation “Am I right to guess you are not human?”

[Galihan]

After a short moment passed that must have felt like an eternity under the thick tension of the situation, Galihan did not back down once it became clear that this new arrancar, whom he had never met before, acknowledged their existence and made an inquiry as to whether or not they were in fact human as they appeared. Despite the sincere tone that the arrancar had used to address the group who were in fact also arrancar themselves in disguise, there was too much at stake to just give away their identities. Even if they had no obvious or apparent reason to be enemies with this man, their situation forced them to treat him as a threat regardless.

“Perhaps you are right," Galihan replied cautiously as he tightened the grip on the amulet in his fist instinctively, allowing his reiatsu to flow through it in order to generate an imitation of a Quincy energy bow that hopefully only an experienced authentic member of the race of warrior priests would be able to identify as an illusion meant to disguise the wielder's true abilities.

"What brings one such as yourself all the way out here, arrancar?"

Though not intending to pick a fight, Galihan was not going to risk being ambushed by any possible agent working for his enemies back in Hueco Mundo, of whom he had many concerning considering his bad standing with the both the old regime as well as the new forces in power of Las Noches. He was careful to make it seem as though he was in fact only acting out of precaution, after all, he was staring up at a potentially unstoppable opponent who might be strong enough kill at least half of their small group before being entirely aware of him moving onto an offensive. The thought that this arrancar wasn't confined in a restricting gigai anymore like they were at the moment worried Galihan that none of them could truly stand against him like this. They weren't powerhouses like Torre-sama who could easily stop most threats with but a fraction of her strength; if it did come down to swords, they would all have to discard their human shells and fight as arrancar themselves to win.

As their master was focused on the arrancar, the fraccions Pena, Temor and Alegria quickly gathered to his side as if to be protecting him in case of the worst possible outcome. The teal-clad teenager spat out a bloody tooth thanks to the previous thrashing by his young sister, and despite a swollen lip that did nothing to help his already horrifically butchered dialect, proceeded to exclaim on behalf of his siblings their unwavering loyalty to their young-appearing master.

"Ye'llnt 'tta take 'm yerself, milord, wes 'and by yer side as alwes." To which both of his sisters hummed and nodded, all three sharing a strong bond both mentally and in the heart. To this, Galihan lowered his weapon, and shot a calm glance to his devoted followers.

"Easy, don't be too protective now," Galihan quietly murmered. "We don't want to provoke this new acquaintance with the wrong idea, right? I'd rather we avoid conflict as usual."

(( OOC: I am terribly sorry it took so long for me to get this reply up, I'll admit I was feeling kinda dead inside back in September and it took me way too long to get over some crap that came up at the time ))

[Jukuma]

‘You say that, but the one who summoned his weapon first was you’ Garve thought to himself. He was quite calm, although that was probably only because he was still unaware of the true identity of the ones standing in front of him. He also seemed to ignore the fact that it was him who displayed his reiatsu in the first place.

The child had created a bow made of spiritual energy on his hand and only then did Garve notice that what was in front of him was a Quincy. At least that’s what seemed to be the case for the boy, but as far as the other three went, he had no idea if they were also Quincy or just regular humans with the ability to sense spiritual entities, though he favored the second, as they weren’t drawing any similar weapons. Either way, as interesting as they were, Garve could not see this odd bunch as a threat to his well-being. He was familiar with Quincy (although lacking some direct interaction) and all the information he had on them pointed towards the fact that they were not a serious menace. Even if the other three turned out to also be Quincy...no, even if they were something stronger, they had already given him the impression that they lacked brains, if only because they looked like they had been fighting among themselves and one of them didn’t seem to be able to talk appropriately.

The way they were standing up for each other was truly remarkable, though. The man he couldn’t understand earlier and the other two girls were more surprised than the kid when most of his reiatsu had been freed; but there they were, ready to protect the apparent leader regardless of the situation. Garve probably would never say it out loud, whether it was to this group or to his closest acquaintance, but that was something that he found worthy of respect.

“I agree, a fight would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it?” Garve said with a smile that could be described in no other way than a taunting grin as he raised his shoulders. He was, however, glad that he hadn’t crossed paths with a kill-on-sight individual, as he had suspected was the case just a few seconds ago “If I wanted to fight, I would have already attacked, right? Besides, do you see any weapon on me?” Deciding to believe that he would not be attacked as long as he didn’t show aggression, Garve raised his hands slightly over his shoulders as his reiatsu calmed and lowered its pressure, though his motivation for that was more along the lines of not wanting to attract any more unwanted attention. Just as he said, be it around his waist, on his back or anywhere else, there was no Zanpakuto or spiritual weapon of similar nature to be seen.

“As for my intentions, who knows?” he continued, his hands still raised at the same altitude. “If you tell me a good reason to share them with a Quincy, I might do it”.

((OOC: No worries, I don’t know why you felt like that, but I think if it wasn’t serious you would have remained around, so I understand. Might be late to say this, but glad you are back.

I still need to find Wanzer, but I'll post for now.))

[Galihan]

It seemed quite a relief that this arrancar, who had earlier shown a blatant disregard of his reiatsu, was not apparantly the kind of person to pick fights. While he may have appeared to be curious as to why a weapon was pointed at him, surely anyone would be able to realize that people were naturally inclined to be prepared for the worst when potentially dangerous situations presented themselves. Had the gentlest of lions walked up behind a campsite of adventurers in the heart of Africa and let out a roar, would the men not instinctively reach for their guns? Regardless, Galihan was posed with some rhetoric and was inclined to engage in dialogue with the arrancar for the sake of civility.

"Pardon the caution, my friends and I have had a rather unpleasant history with arrancar so it's rather difficult to be ignorant of any potential danger. You can hide a zanpakuto in anything nowadays and we know from experience that your kind are powerful enough without using a blade altogether."

Galihan decided that this arrancar, whoever he was, was likely not going to attack unprovoked so he lowered his own weapon but remained even more alert in case of the slightest hostile movement.

"I'm curious as to why any arrancar would be away from Las Noches at a time like this, last I knew there was a change in leadership over there and anyone still loyal to that place would have reassembled by now from any extended vacation like what I can only assume you've been on, judging by your rather unorthodox entrance."

It was a rather risky gamble, but Galihan was willing to let out a tiny fraction bit of what he knew about the arrancar, which was nothing compared to what he fully knew considering that he himself was up until recently a member of the Espada. He was praying on that he was right and this arrancar was away for a very long time considering he arrived on an old bus, rather than through a garganta which would have signified that the Horror Vacui were hunting down deserters such as Torre-sama and himself. Had he said too much? It was hard to assess the situation and difficult to think at full potential in his new form, and even less inside this accursed gigai. If only he hadn't been battered so badly from Zetsumei to be crippled like this, then he'd be able to truly assist Torre-sama against their new enemies come the time to fight. Hell, even defending Roja, Temor and Alegria would prove difficult considering that their combined strength would surpass his own given that they still possessed the capacity to release their resurrección form whereas he was stuck in a child's body. His only real advantage now was his superior intellect over his beloved idiotic trio, but he refused to admit that and so would they, even with Las Noches behind them, they were still his Fraccion and forever loyal to their master, just as he himself would remain loyal to Torre-sama forever.

"If you don't wish to tell us, feel free to go about your business, get that gigai of yours repaired or whatever it is you need. We won't stop you considering how much of a pain it is to even find anyone qualified to design a gigai for arrancar, let alone perform maintenance."

Had the undercover arrancar said too much to compromise his identity? A slight twitch and minor strain on his own gigai's arm was a bitter reminder that he had to be especially careful in case this stranger was going to return to Hueco Mundo.

[Jukuma]

((OOC: I feel bad for saying I would post two days ago and then making myself a liar. I’m really sorry, I thought I would have time.))

Garve showed an expression that revealed his curiosity. The kid seemed to know more than just a few funfacts about Arrancar for a Quincy. The fact that he knew Arrancar could in fact hide their weapons with ease was one thing, and it wasn’t the first time someone saw through it, so it was probably common knowledge. The fact that he knew it was rare for an Arrancar to be outside of Las Noches at a time like this was something that could be deduced or at least guessed at given the recent events. However, he wondered how a human would be familiar with gigai in general and more importantly, the complications it implied for Arrancar to find one. The person in front of him wasn’t a regular individual; he was a Quincy, but knew a lot of things about Arrancar and didn’t talk like someone of the age he appeared to be.

“There’s no rush, you know? I don’t need the gigai right way”, Garve responded when the kid offered to let him pass without any kind of violence. He instead stood in place and raised his shoulders. “Why not have a talk, kid? You seem to know a lot about Arrancar, so can I assume you are specialized in hunting us? Or do you just hold an inmensely curious mind?”

Something about the child bugged him, he was kind of suspicious, even if Garve wasn’t really one to talk in this scenario either. Was the child not realizing the questions he was leaving behind? Despite Garve’s own suggestion that he probably was an Arrancar hunter, truth was he didn’t really think so himself. Why? Because he had been a resident in Tokyo until not very long and there was nothing he didn’t know about that city. In fact, being the center of Japan, there were few things Garve didn’t know about regarding spiritual activity going on in the country. If this kid were such a thing, he would’ve been the first to know. And more importantly, if he really was an Arrancar hunter, their fight would’ve started a while ago.

So in front of him there was a newcomer, wise, child Quincy that knew information regarding Arrancar which usually only one of that specie would be aware of. The list was narrow indeed, but Garve still didn’t know exactly who this person was. Some of these bits of information sounded familiar to him, and he knew why. If he didn't know the impossibility of that idea, he would've been euphoric. However, he had to face the fact that the one in front of him could not be who he thought, and that he didn't know him at all. He intended to change that in a few seconds, though.

[Galihan]

It was a stroke of luck that the arrancar didn't call Galihan out on the spot after spilling that little bit of trivia on their kind. The fact that asides from an arrancar, only someone who had experience fighting them would know so much and that was generally limited exclusively to upper-ranking shinigami within the Soul Society, not earth-dwelling quincy and certainly not children like the former-espada appeared to be. Maybe it was exlusively the fact that his injured body was shrunken to a child's that his identity had not been compromised the moment the encounter began seeing as most arrancar could at least recognize the faces of members of the espada, and no there were no children among those ranks. Galihan was not really in the mood to further compromise his identity but was equally not in a position to flee or else prove that he was hiding something.

"I wouldn't say either, specialize in hunting your kind or being too curious; more so gifted in staying alive and when you live through enough, that experience becomes wisdom in itself."

That seemed to feel about right in Galihan's head. A bit ambiguous, but at least not too revealing. Of course, no matter what he said there would be new doors opened for more question so he decided he'd best answer before the obvious ones got asked. How someone so "young" could claim to have survived through so much.

"And before you inquire, I am older than I look. You nearly die one day and next thing you know you look as if you haven't aged in years. The universe is odd like that."

Hopefully that bluff would suffice. Not that it was all too much of a lie, seeing as most of it really was true. If Torre-sama didn't come to his rescue, then Galihan would have been killed by Zetsumei back at Las Noches instead of only being wounded so badly that afterwards his body had to regress to a childlike state to compensate his loss of strength. Considering that so much details as to what really happened during their escape had to have been so obscure thanks to the Horror Vacui's debut, it was probably assumed that the Cuatro Espada, Umbra, was killed along with Zetsumei and Asmodeus. Even if Galihan was to give out his name to this arrancar, he used to only be referred to as Umbra, even by his closest associates, adversaries, allies and friends alike. Hardly anyone even knew that Umbra's first name was Galihan so he wouldn't be risking his identity, hopefully.

"If you want, you can call me Galihan."

[Jukuma]

Garve hadn't heard in his existence of a life-threatening experience that could grant a human the secret to the fountain of youth. His humanity had long disappeared, but he had been living among humans for a while and he was convinced that those things like extended youth (to that extent) were ridiculous legends. He did know of a way that thing was possible, and that way was not something as half-assed as nearing death, it was actually losing your life. And hence, there was the dilemma, as Quincy are nothing but tuned up humans and not spirits. Could that thing in front of him be a spirit with abilities that resembled Quincy? Or a Quincy with complementary abilities? Or none of those options?

"An odd universe indeed", Garve replied with a smile printed on his face.

Garve had seen oddities like that before, so he didn't deny the possibility of the child-like figure in front of him to be what it claimed to be. In fact, if it was true, it was probably more interesting that way. He had already decided to play along, so for now he would only overlook details like that.

"Then good evening Galihan", Garve responded to Galihan's introduction normally. "You have a curious name for a human. You can call me Garve, I'm the newly appointed Primera Espada, but you can skip the honorifics".

Something on the back of his mind was telling him he shouldn't be telling his position to others that easily, but he was pretty confident in the fact that his previous demonstration of reiatsu should be enough to make evident he was around the top-Espada position, and hardly any Hollow wasn’t aligned with the Horror Vacui now, so he probably wasn’t saying anything new anyways, especially having in mind Galihan had shown to be no fool.

[Galihan]

It seemed clear enough that the arrancar was at least a little suspicious of Galihan's nature regarding that even Galihan himself wouldn't believe some human implying to possess some sort of secret to immortality had their roles been switched, so the pretend-Quincy had no interest in continuing that topic or else the truth really would get out. This minor fear peaked the moment that Garve had introduced himself as the Primera Espada. The name was hardly new, and the former Cuatro Espada suddenly was able to recognize the person standing in front of him from at least 60 years ago. He remembered Garve as the former Sexta who managed to slay the Tres and eventually become Segunda just below Torre who had been the Primera at the time before she had stepped down to Tres herself some time later.

"You're not the first to mention that out," Galihan replied, referring to his name being curious. "It's a Celtic name so you rarely hear one like it around these parts, or really anywhere nowadays really."

He was doing an incredibly impressive job at staying calm as red lights were accompanied by blaring sirens in his head as Galihan realized he'd have been outclassed even if he had been at his full Espada-strength, just as he had recognized back then that he was grateful that Garve had decided to skip him and go straight for the Tres at the time instead of fighting his way up the ranks one-by-one. It was also to that note that Galihan would have to be especially careful not to act too much like his usual self or else the now Primera would probably see through the disguise and recognize the pacifistic arrancar whose undesire to fight may just as well have been the only reason why he was able to maintain his rank for so long. His best bet to avoid suspicion would be to feign ignorance as to the current situation in Hueco Mundo to the best of his ability and simply admit to having a basic understanding of Arrancar hierarchical relations.

"Newly appointed Primera, you say?" Galihan replied casually. "That would make you the strongest of the Espada then, correct? Makes me glad not to be fighting you considering the last time we'd fought an Espada...

For once, the random interjections of the fraccion Temor served to be quite well timed as there was a chance that Galihan might have been about to accidently slip a bit more truthful information that he was willing to part with honestly.

"Yeh, 'twas a real nasty feller, all mean n'wutnot. Dunnae' if yedah known 'em or not, was all an' an' alwaes chuckn' uh wicked cero this way n'that, er buzzin aboot wit that sonideh 'ah yers. No courtesy lemme tell 'ye."

As Temor continued to butcher the human language, one would be quite amused to realize that Alegria had also taken to acting out the story like an overdramatic child imitating all the hand motions of firing cero, while also buzzing about Roja's head and clawing at their eldest-appearing sibling who tiresomely batted away her slaps and kicks singlehandedly before grabbing her ankle and throwing the small teenaged-looking girl into the woods behind them.

"...Don't mind them. They're... special, if you get what I'm saying."

[Jukuma]

That did sound reasonable, for once. Sure, Garve had some experience with humans since he had been living with them for many years, but you don’t learn about Celtic names when you are living an everyday life among everyday people in Japan; it’s not really a subject that pops up a lot in conversations. Why were Quincy giving Celtic names to their children he didn’t really care; he had seen regular people making up names for their kids, so if a spirit-annihilating family from God-knows-where wanted to give their genius son a Celtic name, then who was Garve to judge them or the situation?

His throwing out there that he was the new Primera Espada seemed to be news for Galihan. It wasn’t a surprise at all that he knew what an Espada was having in mind his previous display of knowledge on Arrancar, but he didn’t seem to know he was the Primera, which meant that his knowledge on Arrancar could be a bit outdated. His arrival to the Espada ranks wasn’t old news, but it wasn’t a secret either. He was analyzing bits of information on that axis when Galihan suddenly mentioned something about another Espada, which was indeed something that called his attention. He was about inquire about that when Galihan was interrupted by one of the three individuals that were accompanied him. No matter how much he had tried, it would’ve been impossible for him to ignore either one of them; it was like watching a play organized by little kids with incomprehensible narration included and it actually worked to make him regard the last bit of information as something secondary.

“I can guess at what you mean by special...” Garve responded with an aggravated smile. His gestures were becoming more familiar and less ill-mannered by now.

However, while he didn’t ask anything about the Espada this curious group of humans had fought, his attention was drawn towards Galihan’s three companions, raising more questions. Were they also Quincy? That would be the logical conclusion, but it was hard to tell since they hadn’t taken up arms unlike their leader, which showed either uselessness (which didn’t seem to be the case since Galihan didn’t seem bothered and apparently it wasn’t the first time they saw an Espada) or inability. If they weren’t Quincy then what were they and what business did they have with one of them? He could probably make Galihan spit out some more information if he went along that axis. He didn’t know why, but there were two things he suspected at that moment. The first was that he felt Galihan was hiding something; it was probably simply because of the way he acted and the small bits of information he seemed to drop accidentally in more than one occasion. Of course this could just be due to the fact that he wanted to avoid a conflict and felt threatened by him, but he felt that was not the answer. The true answer, however, could probably be explained by his second suspicion: he had the feeling this wasn’t the first time he had met Galihan. Something about him seemed so awfully familiar it actually bothered him a big deal, though as much as he tried to remember, the answer evaded him.

“Are those your... underlings?” he finally decided to ask; for some reason using the word ‘underling’ for those three individuals seemed out of place to him. They could play detective games all night long; personally, Garve found that an entertaining game.

[Galihan]

The more and more this conversation dragged out, the closer Garve seemed to be getting past Galihan's persona and discovering Umbra. While an espada, Umbra was shrouded in mystery and isolation so nobody knew much about him, and when he took in his three fraccion, there was quite the commotion stirred as to why such a loner would take in such a rowdy bunch. If Garve was able to associate Galihan as their leader, then he'd be one step closer to succeeding at his game of detective.

"I wouldn't call them underlings, though I suppose you could say that they accept me as their leader," Galihan replied, looking back at the three and sending a serious yet subtle glare at Roja and Temor that screamed 'just play along.'

"We're more like a disjointed family than anything else. They're actually from a group of Mod Souls originally created by the Soul Society to combat arrancar, but they were slightly... faulty in the head... and scheduled for termination after an accident that led to the death of a coupe shinigami. I just happened to be around at the time to help them escape capture and we've been together since then. We're part of an organization called The Brotherhood, a faction consisting of anyone willing to look after each other against various spiritual threats, namely hungry hollows for the most part. Soul Society would rather look the other way and gladly see us gone, so we have to stick together no matter what."

Galihan turned again when it seemed that once again among his companions, Alegria was making something of a scene with her reentry by crawling out of the woods through the bushes carrying in her hands what appeared to be live animals, a chicken by the leg and a squirrel by the tail.

"Look what I caught! Can I eat them? Please? Pretty-please?"

Galihan and Roja both sighed a irritated "No." To which Alegria whined a little and began to pout.

"No fair, you let Temor eat those potato chippy-things. I don't get to eat anything good around here... YEEP!"

After having began to make a fuss, the pair of critters appeared to be struggling for their lives and after a flash of blinding light chicken could be seen sprinting away at godly speeds and the squirrel was nowhere to be seen, only leaving the jittery girl with a mild rash on her hand that was slightly worsening with each passing moment. Galihan decided to seize the moment to get excuse himself from Garve and possibly find a way to get out of the area.

"De heck wussat?" Temor blurted out rather confusedly as Galihan examined the girls hand closely.

"It appears that the fur of that... creature you had was coated with some sort of reishi-based toxin meant to target spiritually-sensitive beings. While normally I'd recommend you vacate your gigai and we'd carry you back home, it's probably better that you stay inside your body to regulate your reiryoku flow."

"My hand is completely numb."

"Be grateful you didn't eat it."

It was another gamble, hopefully by overestimating the severity of Alegria's condition, it would allow Galihan and his gang to make a quick exit and as far away from Garve as possible.

[Jukuma]

gThat creature is called esquirrele, and they aren't poisonous and are hardly any more dangerous than a bugh, Garve said, now on the opposite side of the gang he used to be on a second ago and less than two meters away from them, contrary to the 15-20 that were separating them when Roja began her sentence. He was calmly looking at Alegriafs hand and switched his sight towards Galihan with the same expression and a weak smile. gBut you already knew that, right Galihan?h

Either Galihan wasnft aware that Garve could listen to him, or he really was too nervous to think coldly about what he was saying. He had said two things that Garve could not ignore anymore and that made any further talking meaningless. One was that he qualified a squirrel as simply a creature; if Garve knew what a squirrel was, then he had a hard time believing a human, whatever his background, could not identify such a thing simply with a glimpse of it (or at least call it a rat, mouse or something along the lines).

But more importantly, he revealed that Alegria was inside a Gigai, which raised questions that didnft have a satisfactory answer whatever the scenario. If Alegria was a Shinigami, then she had to die, since she had seen Garve and as far as he knew, Shinigami were not aware of the new Espadasf identity. If she was an Arrancar, then she should be in Hueco Mundo and not hanging out with a Quincy and two other creatures who, given their closeness, might as well be the same as her. He didnft even consider the possibility of her being a Plus, since if that was the case, she shouldnft have been able to sense his reitasu a while ago, and it was obvious that the entire gang did so. There were no other entities that needed a Gigai, so the answer was one of those options, which led to the inevitable end of him having to further inspect the gang and, depending on the outcome, either letting them go, capture them or kill them.

gWhat are you?h Garve asked, looking straight at Rojafs eyes, as if he could detect a lie just by doing so.

As cruel and unforgiving as his judgement sounded, the scope of possibilities that lead to letting the gang go was actually larger than it sounded. As long as they were interesting enough and, he would regard them as worthy of living. According to him, that was actually a very merciful way of thinking, even if his standards for something being interesting were high. He didnft need to think much to remember many Arrancar who would have already attacked Galihanfs gang if they found them suspicious or simply all for the sake of fun and killing time. Not like he was interested in being compared to other Arrancar to begin with; he was too far above them to be even put in the same sentence as them. The number of Arrancar he would even bother to waste his time talking to didnft even reach the dozen; maybe it was the psychological shock of the Menos transformation that tends to leave them all in such an unstable mental state (including Garve himself, he was aware of that), but talking to them tended to be redundant, there was litttle analysis to be made on their psyche and that was boring.

Hoping that the gang were not Arrancar (or at least that kind of them), he reminded himself that his new objective was to not let them leave until he was certain about their identity.