Current mood:	creative
Current music:	Yellow Magic Orchestra - Behind The Mask (Remixed by Fantastic Plastic Machine)
Entry tags:	apache, bleach, chirucchi, di roy, grimmjow, il forte, lumina, luppi, noitra, szayel apollo, tesla

Bleach - [Arrancar] - Pieces
Title: Pieces
Characters: Apache, Cirucci, Di Roy, Grimmjow, Il Forte, Lumina, Luppi, Nnoitra, Szayel Apollo, Tesla
Rating: PG-13
Squicks/Spoilers: If you're up-to-date with the manga, you're good.
Summary: Little pieces of the parts that make up Hueco Mundo.
Author's Note: Some older snip-bits from a go at the music meme from a while back.


Cirucci didn't like to admit when she'd lost her number, she'd lost more than a black number on her chest. Losing that tiny patch of skin had stolen a part of her she'd never thought be without.

It was easy to think she was better than anyone else when she had the status to prove it. It was easy to hold her head up high when she knew there were only a few above her.

It was harder to admit that now there were hundreds above her. It was harder to be proud of her rank when she saw those who had stolen it from her, childish hollows who'd have waited more than a hundred years to taste the chance of the power she'd gained by ripping off her mask if it hadn't been for Aizen and his hougyoku.

She reached down, fingers brushing against the sleek dark hair of one of those hollows, one of the ones who had been beneath her just months before, one who now deigned to grace her with his presence in Tres Cifras. And, somehow, she had to admit a taste of pride in the fact that they still needed her, that she could drag them down this low for a taste of her.

- - - -

Lumina pressed his fingers together, before splaying them, giving him just enough lift to spring down the hallways of Las Noches.

Light, light, bright, bright. He knew where he was going, he did. He'd been well-educated on the castle's layout. He even knew secrets, secrets he wasn't supposed to tell anyone, oh no no no. The other Espada weren't supposed to know that he knew about them, their secret little hiding places.

Szayel Aporro-sama would scold him, after all. Naughty, naughty. Things like this would get them all in trouble. They'd all get eaten and that wouldn't be good at all, no no!

That's why he had to be careful, darting around the heels of servants and lesser arrancar. He wasn't supposed to be found, no no. This was just as secret as any of the other secrets that Szayel Aporro-sama had trusted him with, yes!

And, then, there it was. He crotched, drawing upon his strength, and with an easy bounce, he launched himself into the rafters with a laugh.

- - - -

Nnoitra's back was a comforting thing to watch and, even before he'd adopted the tall, spoon-like hood, he'd always stood well above the others of the Espada. But Tesla truly doubted that without it, he'd have any trouble finding the other.

He'd never understood it, what drew him to the other arrancar. It wasn't like the other fraccion. At least, he thought it wasn't. It wasn't that Nnoitra was strong or that Nnoitra had promised him things. Nnoitra had never given him any incentive to follow him. He'd never even asked.

Tesla had simply done it on his own and Nnoitra had just grown to accept the fact that he was there. Like pieces of a puzzle, they'd slowly fit together.

- - - -

Blood was a familiar thing to Grimmjow. It didn't matter whose it was, even if it was his he could always get more. He just knew that he liked it, the strangely comforting feeling of the warm of it against his fingers, turning tacky in the warm air of the place they'd learned to call home.

The smell of it had just grown to be something he didn't even notice unless it was gone.

It was half why he didn't like this place. He didn't enjoy this hole where they dressed up like humans and played house with a shinigami. He didn't like the fact that the only way he'd smell blood was if he crushed some weakling or had to ask for it.

Fuck that. Fuck that, he thought.

- - - -

Halibel was beautiful. Apache had never fully understood how or why she felt this, but she'd been drawn to her. It had never been a dilemma of pride to bow her head to the other woman. She simply recognized the beautiful strength that Halibel held in her stillness.

Apache knew she never could have followed any of the other Espada after seeing her. And, when Halibel had asked her, blue-green eyes meeting hers with a sharp directness, she hadn't stopped to think. She'd only answered as if she'd been waiting to give it her entire life and sometimes, she truly believed that she had been.

- - - -

He'd never understood Aizen, not from the time he'd come to them, not even when he'd sworn his loyalty to him. All that Nnoitra had ever understood was how strong he was. It wasn't hard to see, of course. The others had gone up against him and been crushed easily.

It stirred something in Nnoitra to watch that, driving him more than a little crazy. He wanted that power. He wanted to find a way to get that strength. And, when Aizen had looked for volunteers to submit themselves to the hougyoku, Nnoitra had been one of the first to bow his head to it, just for a taste of that strength.

He knew he couldn't beat it now, but Aizen's reign wouldn't last forever. Slowly, but surely, he'd get stronger. Nnoitra knew this. He'd fight as much as he could, beat anyone who stood in his way to get to the top. And, then, then when Aizen's reign was starting to falter, before he lost that strength that Nnoitra so admired, he'd be the one to cut him down.

- - - -

Strength wasn't exactly one of his best aspects. Di Roy would proudly admit that any day. He wasn't some dumb muscle-head like some other arrancar he could name. Sure, he wasn't exactly winning any arm wrestling contests or shit like that, but at least he wasn't tottering after some blank-faced loser who talked like a reject from one of those bad science fiction films he didn't like to remember that he'd watched as a human.

He liked to think that the fact that he was fast and smart well made up for crap like that. Who needed rippling muscles (not that Di Roy would like to admit he was scrawny, though) and fists the size of your average human trash, when you were genius enough to beat them without all that?

- - - -

Szayel's elegantly gloved fingers splayed against the skin, thick and dead beneath them. Gently, he began to spread it apart. He'd long grown used to the smells of his fellow arrancar after they were dead. He'd known them even before when he was a hollow.

He'd learned early on that defeating people face to face was troublesome. He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't interested in that beyond the necessary doldrum of forcing another into submission. He didn't see why the others were so entirely obsessed with things like that. Even when Nnoitra spoke of it, what little he did speak of it, Szayel only understood on a rudimentary level and considering it was Nnoitra he was speaking to, he was more than happy with that.

No, he'd long grown to understand that when he opened a body, he'd understand much more about its owner than if he had spent days or weeks speaking with them.

- - - -

Il Forte hated his brother, but it was comforting, at least, to know that the feeling was more than mutual. Siblings were rare enough in their number, but that fact had certainly inspired no particular measure of love between them. Rather, it had only served to increase the distaste held between them.

As hollows, they'd worked together well enough. Il Forte loved to fight and he didn't mind being used by his brother to crush whoever stood in their way in return for what medical help and pointers the other had for him.

It was only as arrancar that the difference between them slowly began to drive them apart, made worse as Szayel began to find other arrancar to use, stronger arrancar, ones that didn't complain or could be dropped without that annoying little family connection.

Il Forte hated it. He hated the fact that Szayel was getting stronger and, more importantly, he wasn't getting stronger with him. He was beginning to see his limits and when Szayel was accepted into an Espada spot and he wasn't, it was made all the more clear.

- - - -

Luppi hummed to himself, slipping free of the ledge he'd been perched on. They were back, at least one of them was. And like a vulture to carrion, he followed, feet light against the pure white of the halls of Las Noches. He could smell the blood, almost taste it on his tongue.

Grimmjow had gotten hurt. How fun was that? He'd been injured and none of his stupid little lackeys were lingering about after him. The fact that he wasn't running his mouth about with his usual lines sent Luppi's tastebuds tingling. Grimmjow had messed up quite a bit, hadn't he?

Oh, this was more than beautiful. He couldn't wait to hear and see this.