60 – The Chase
60 – The Chase
It had been a couple of weeks scouring the sandy dunes that covered Hueco Mundo's surface under the cold moon light for Hisashi. Although the forest of menos might be dangerous, the mind-numbingly monotonous surface was by far the worse experience to him. At least with the life and death fights something was happening.
He had come across some Hollow though very few, most of which he consumed, but his targets had eluded him.
It was only now that Hisashi caught on to some promising tracks. He found a large gulley shaped track along with a bunch of footprints all going in the same direction. After a day of tracing the tracks he finally found the source.
Three Hollow seemed to be chasing a little green haired girl. A huge snake like Hollow, a large humanoid Hollow with what looked like a huge maori like mask and a human sized and shaped Hollow with an insect like mask.
If you looked closer though the girl had a cracked skull like Hollow mask covering the very top of her head indicating she was an Arrancar rather than a human. For Hollow unaware of what Arrancar were it would make sense they believed she was human when seeing them from a distance.
Though it looked like the other three Hollow were hunting the little girl it wasn't hard to tell they weren't serious given the lack of killing intent coming from them and the tracks had been going on for far too long if this were truly some kind of hunt.
It was just Nelliel and her Fracción. Though in her current child-like form sh went by Nel Tu. Given the description of the "suspicious activity" this was pretty much what he had expected. The only "humans" in Hueco Mundo were more likely than not to be Arrancar and there was only one little girl Arrancar that he was aware of in Hueco Mundo around this time.
Nelliel was one of the highest ranking Arrancar in Las Noches until she was ambushed by Nnoitra who was jealous of her, but couldn't defeat her in a direct clash. During the ambush her mask was damaged turning her from her powerful adult form into a weak little child with amnesia. Rather than finish her off Nnoitra preferred she suffer and kicked her out of Las Noches instead.
The three Hollow chasing her were simply her Fracción that followed her in exile despite her losing her memories.
Hisashi considered simply leaving and reporting his findings to Harribel, but it was also a good opportunity to introduce himself to what was pretty much the only other group of peaceful Hollow besides Harribel's group. Since there were so few of them introducing himself and making a good impression might actually be very worthwhile. He was rather lacking in allies after all.
On Earth he had his sister and Masaki. Maybe Isshin and Kisuke, but he didn't fully trust them yet since he hadn't actually gotten to know them yet. Sure they were "good guys" in the show, but that was from the perspective as Ichigo as the protagonist. There was no telling how they would treat him a Hollow. He hoped better now that Masaki should have returned and explained more about him, but you could never be too careful so that made all of two guaranteed allies on Earth.
In Soul Society he would trust no one currently and couldn't foresee that changing anytime soon. The Shinigami's (admittedly warranted) prejudice against Hollow was only beaten by the Quincy. He wouldn't dare risk going out of his way to try befriending any Shinigami until he had the power to resist at least all the captains besides maybe Yamamoto and even then he would prefer not to venture into Soul Society itself. Maybe Ichigo and Rukia would be an in after she was rescued and Ichigo rehabilitated his relationship with Seireitei. He would hopefully at least have positive feelings once he found out Hisashi had actually twice saved and protected his mother.
Which left Hueco Mundo where he only had Harribel's, making 4 allies there. Adding them all up he had a whopping 6 allies gained over the decades since his reincarnation. Adding 4 more would be nearly doubling them in one fell swoop. Not only that, but if Nelliel regained her adult form she was would also immediately become the most powerful ally. Harribel would only be able to match her after becoming an Arrancar and even then it was questionable if she could beat Nelliel in her prime.
Unlike Ichigo he knew all 4 of them were friends and merely playing something akin to tag. Since Nellie was currently in her childish Nel Tu form, the best thing he could do was play along.
He sped past the three chasing Nel Tu sweeping her up in his arms.
"And you're caught," he said with a chuckle.
"Aaah," she yelled when she was suddenly moving faster.
The other three continued chasing after the two of them.
"Oh no! We have to save her," the big chunky Hollow yelled.
"It's up to us!" the skinny one chimed in.
They were rather slow compared to Hisashi though who wasn't even using his Sonido nor the limits of his dexterity.
Nel Tu was alternating between screaming, giggling and kicking her legs excitedly.
After running far enough ahead for the three chasing them to be mere silhouettes in the distance Hisashi stopped, waiting for the three chasing to catch up.
"No no faster, faster. Don't shtop! We're playing endless chase!" Nel Tu yelled.
"If we don't give them the chance to catch up it won't be fun for them will it?" he asked her. Though mostly because he was fairly certain unlike Nel Tu they didn't think he was playing along and instead were worried he was kidnapping Nel Tu.
She nodded seriously. Unlike her serious demeanour would indicate though she started climbing up his arm and shoulder until she managed to sit on his shoulder.
"So, what's your name little one?" he asked turning his head to face her on his shoulder.
"I am Nel Tu the Arrancar," she said proudly crossing her arms over her chest.
"What about you?" she asked out of curiosity.