An Idiots Guide to Surviving Reina (End)

[Darkoda]

In the eternal night of Hueco Mundo’s desert, a winged figure sat on a quartz pillar, her eyes closed, but her senses stretch open, tracking the presence of a few low class hollow in the area. Specifically, she was keeping track of when their presences vanished.

It all started a few months ago, with her just lazing about the eternal desert. She was so bored that he was keeping track of everything around her, if only for something to occur to break the monotony. Then, one of the hollow vanished. While one would consider this a normal occurrence, Reina couldn’t pick up any reiatsu signature in the area. Passing it off as two hollows killing each other, she ignored it.

When it happened a second time, then she started to show interest. After a few more occurrences of this over the course of a couple of weeks, she finally decided to investigate – no one should be able to shield themselves from her when she was trying, and she wanted to know how this particular being was doing it. Perhaps something the Horror Vacui cooked up? It was easy to reach the location, an application of sonido and she was there, scanning the area for the missing presence. A trail was there, very faint, but it gave her a path to follow. That scent ran cold quickly though, abruptly stopping a few meters away, the mass of reiatsu in the area suggesting a garganta. This was definitely getting interesting now though, and she was determined to find this mystery being.

Over the next few weeks, she simply observed; she already had an idea of the strength of the beings she chose to attack, but she also noticed that the targets never came any closer than a certain distance from anything significantly stronger. More likely than not, it was trying to avoid a fight that it wasn’t sure that it could win. This at least gave Reina a piece of the puzzle – she was dealing with a very smart hunter. The solution was easy enough though, simply keep an eye on the ones that fall within the proper power gap, that were far enough away from her to become viable targets.

This was her third week of observation since then, keeping a low profile and watching, waiting for it….there, one of the hollow’s reiatsu had vanished. Not wasting any time, Reina was there, having made use of her full speed this time – the hunter was not getting away this time. She saw the figure already leaving the area, and put an end to that with a bala to the skull – a weak one mind you, she wanted it alive. Landing beside the figure, she grabbed it with one of her claws, and took a good look at it.

First, she should start calling it her, it was a female arrancar. An incredibly tall female arrancar, with a very muscular frame, and pale skin, who apparently liked running around decked out in black. Granted, that was the new arrancar uniform, so maybe she simply modified it a bit…..

[end]

Karla scarcely had the time to acknowledge the massive presence before she felt a wicked blow strike her head. Reeling, Karla felt herself seized roughly by the throat and lifted off the ground. She steadied herself, and looked at her assailant.

It was shorter than her. Female. Humanoid, baring a few eccentricities (like the wings). It was also smaller than she was, by a good 5 inches. Karla had the reach advantage, though not by much. Her hands blurred from her sides. Her right drew her knife as her left seized the wrist of the offending arm. She twisted the arm outward. Even the suddenness of the action, combined with Karla's not inconsiderable strength could not break the grip, but her right arm was already traveling with a crisp, compact movement, and plunged the blade into her target's elbow joint. She tore the blade backward, opening a brutal wound all the way to her left hand. The enemy lost her grip on Karla. Karla kept hers. The drop was only a foot, and Karla landed easily, unbalancing her enemy. Karla twisted her left hand inward, exposing the assailants flank. Pulling violently, she thrust the knife into the side of the targets neck, achieved good penetration, and sliced out through the throat.

Despite the very sudden violence, Karla did not feel the enemy's energy breaking down as it usually did when she killed something. There was no point in arguing. Karla delivered a strong push kick into the enemy's side, releasing her grip. The enemy was thrown back a good ways. Karla didn't bother confirming. She tore at the space in front of her. Escape was her best option.

4 translucent walls appeared around her, and the cut she made in reality refused to peel back. She looked back: her enemy was gone. The walls extended upwards. Ah. There she was. She looked displeased. Her arm was sealing up, and the blood flow from her neck had stopped. Karla pushed up against the wall. No give. She gave it a mighty thrust kick. She only succeeded in unbalancing herself.

She was stuck. At the mercy of a very-not-happy Hollow who held the capacity to crush her, given the opportunity.

Primary goal: survival. Current options: limited. Diplomacy it was then. She made eye contact with her assailant.

'Looks like I'm stuck.' she said casually. It took a moment for her conversational partner to restore her throat.

'...Yeah. You're in a negacion, they do that.' came the reply. 'Did I hit you too hard in the head or something?'

Karla shook her head. Yeah, it stung, but nothing critical.

'No. I just didn't get the memo.' Karla responded.

'How old are you again?'

'35 this November.' Karla gave a slight smile. She had temporarily derailed her captor's blood lust.

'Okay, how did you hide yourself so well?'

'That's something of a vague question. But mostly I keep to the living world, and high-tail it when I sense someone like you.' Karla replied.

'Hmm... Okay then, how do you hide yourself from other hollows when hunting?' her captor asked.

'It seems like missing a piece of the equation here. Care to elaborate a bit?' Karla groped. It was a strange question.

'Just what DO you know about the spirit world?'

Jackpot. Karla gave the question some consideration. Honestly, she knew the bare minimum.

'I got the gist of it. I'm dead. I got eaten. I got better. This place is called 'Hueco Mundo'. We're 'Hollow'. If I don't eat souls, I get hungry. It kind of rubs me the wrong way, so I stick to eating other Hollow mostly. That more or less sums it up.'

'Okay, so you know practically nothing.' She looked exasperated. 'Great, so you hiding yourself is something passive.'

She didn't say anything for a bit. This was trouble. As long as the woman was talking, she wasn't killing. Karla decided to bring up the obvious issue.

'So. Where do we go from here?'

'Give me a reason I shouldn't kill you.' The woman replied. The threat lacked conviction however. It was lazy, an afterthought. Karla could work with this.

'Well, for one, I like being alive, so to speak. For another, I don't think you want to, seeing as I'm still alive.'

'I'm surprised you haven't died yet with how little you know.' The woman said, somewhat disappointed.

'That's one way of looking at it. But if I'm as hard to find as you say, its no surprise no one's been able to find and kill me. Or find and teach me for that matter.' At this point, Karla inward confidence matched her outward demeanor. She was safe. For now.

'Well, since you're too interesting to kill, want to learn about your new life?' The woman asked.

'Enticing. But I suspect you don't work pro bono. Will I be paying for my education by being 'interesting' then?'

A wicked toothy grin spread across the woman's face. Karla had piqued her interest.

'You're definitely a smart one. You'll figure it out.'

[Darkoda]

After the general shock of meeting the mystery hunter, Reina was not pleased to learn about how little she knew, especially after the giant nearly cut off her head – really, people had no idea how annoying it was to have your blood spilling in places that it should not go. However, she looked at the bright side – the girl knew nothing, which made her an easy target for moulding into an arrancar that she could tolerate.

They were currently on top a quartz pillar, overlooking the dome of Las Noches. Reina didn’t particularly trust the girl not to try and bolt yet, so she simply dragged her over there in the Negacion.

“Okay, first up, I’m Reina, the Vasto Lorde. You are an arrancar. What is your name anyway?”

'Karla Ortega. Pleased to meet you.' She extended her hand for a hand-shake….while still within the negacion. 'You'll excuse me for my impoliteness.'

Funny… With a wave of her hand, the yellow walls shattered, letting the arrancar out. It wasn’t as if she could go anywhere now.

"Okay Karla, we start at the beginning, there are hollows, which you know about, and there are these people who run around dressed in black called shinigami. Stay far away from them, especially if they're wearing a haori."

‘Haori?’ How naïve she was, if she wasn’t looking so much like an amazon, Reina might have found it a bit cute.

"See this thing I'm wearing? If you see someone wearing it that's not a hollow, stay away from them." She pointed at the tattered haori for emphasis.

'Since this is a crash course, I'll pass on 'Why?' for later.'

"Okay, now onto what you are. You are an arrancar; a hollow that's broken off their mask and become part shinigami."

'I recall the mask part. It was the only way to get the other voices to shut up. Also, we're deefinately going to have to talk more about the Shinigami thing.'

So her breaking her mask wasn’t accidental. Reina thought that it might have been an accident with her lack of knowledge, but considering that the alternative was getting drowned out by the rest of minds, she could let it slide.

"That's afterwards. Arrancar tend to live in that giant building over there. It's called Las Noches. You'll have to deal with other arrancar, the espada, and horror vacui though."

'Sounds... hazardous.'

"Yeah, it can be, the espada are the ten strongest arrancar, and thus can pretty much do whatever they want. Some of them are......well idiotic violent berserkers and will kill you for no reason at all."

'I'll keep that in mind.'

"The horror vacui....no one knows who they are really; they took over from the royal family of morons. They seem sane though, and are keeping the espada somewhat in line."

'Promising.' The one word answers weren’t telling Reina anything, but she likely taking in the information like a sponge, and Reina had hopefully already planted the seeds of curiosity about Las Noches.

"Now for hollow. You know what they are, and you know that you have to consume souls to live. Stroner hollow need to eat stronger beings. When a bunch of ordinary hollow gather together and try to eat each other, they form a Menos Grande."

‘Big tall phallic things? Couple stories tall. Big noses? Hell. I was one of those.’

"Yeah, I figured. Those things are the lowest class of menos, the gillians. While much stronger than the normal hollow, they tend to be mindless, as all the minds that make them up drown each other out. Occasionally though, one of the minds in there will be strong enough to seize control. At this point, you broke your mask, but the normal path is for the gillian to consume other gillian, until it evolves again, this time to an adjuchas."

‘Not that I regret it, but was breaking my mask a bad move, relatively speaking? Because I notice you still have yours, but you're perfectly coherent.'

"Like I said, one of the minds tends to seize full control. You weren't strong enough to gain full control, but you gained enough to be the dominant force when you broke your mask. As for mask breaking in general, arrancars are half-shinigami. Shinigami and hollow hate each other. There's also the problem of most arrancar gaining a superiority complex after the power boost and trying to lord over the hollow."

'But is it a short term gain? You're more powerful than I am, after all. Or is it absolute? Would you get stronger if you broke your mask? Would your 'power cap' so to speak, change?’

So many questions, but then she would be curious about her new form. Reina thought that she would care more about the issues between hollow and arrancar that she hinted at though.

"It's a permanent boost. I simply choose to stay as I am because I have no desire to be an arrancar."

'Hmm.'

"Right, back to the adjuchas. They are the second stage of menos, and they do not have fun. As an adjuchas, not only do you have the risk of getting eaten, but if an adjuchas does not keep consuming beings around its strength, it will devolve back into a gillian, and lose its individuality. Most adjuchas choose to break their masks instead of risking devolving. But, if an adjuchas consumes a lot, and I mean a lot of souls. They will eventually evolve into the final stage of menos; the vasto lordes.”

'Which you have introduced yourself as.'

"Yep. Vasto lordes are rare; out of the millions of hollow, only about a hundred vasto lordes exist at most. We tend to be solitary, hiding out deep within Hueco Mundo. Despite whatever the arrancar tell you, we are the ones who rule this dimension; we simply couldn't be bothered with dealing with them on a regular basis, for reasons already given."

There were other reasons as well, but Reina left it up to the arrancar to figure them out. It was a test to see if she was willing to take everything she said at face-value. She seemed a bit suspicious about her reasoning for not becoming an arrancar, but some confirmation never hurt.