67 – Troubled Thoughts
67 – Troubled Thoughts
Though having them use the Hōgyoku on him would provide an opening to steal it, stealing it right in front of them would be a terrible thing to do. If he just took it there was no way he was powerful enough to escape from the entirety of Las Noches currently. If he instead tried to fuse with it right away who knew how long the process would take and how vulnerable he would be throughout the process so that option was out too.
Then there was also the concern he might be forced to watch the release of Aizen's Zanpakuto. This would leave him permanently hypnotised and unable to trust any of his senses which was unacceptable. There was a possibility he would be protected by the system, the same way it protected his mind during the Hollow-fication process. That wasn't guaranteed though and when it did that it came at a massive cost that he couldn't afford again. He was sure even if the system could protect his mind in the same way protecting it from Aizen's release would be far more costly than protecting it through the Hollow-fication process.
An entirely different question was whether he should get Harribel and the Tres Bestias to join Las Noches like they were originally meant to. He assumed they would succeed in becoming Arrancar if they did since they had in the original timeline, there was no real reason to think that meeting him would throw that off. However, he wasn't thrilled with the risk. On top of that by now he trusted them to keep him a secret, but that didn't mean Aizen wouldn't manage to find out somehow through interacting with them.
Nel Tu and her Fracción wouldn't be able to return to Las Noches in their current state either since her Fracción was one of the weakest if not the weakest in all of Las Noches. The only reason they managed to survive in Las Noches was that while Nelliel was at her full power she could protect them. With her current injured state and amnesia there is no way Nnoitra wouldn't take the time to bully and eventually eradicate all of them. Not only Nnoitra, but there were plenty of other Arrancar that would also kick someone while they were down due to the envy they had while Nelliel was a high ranking Espada.
He really wanted more time to prepare, but he knew he was running out of time. Even if time moved differently here it was still progressing and he had left for Hueco Mundo right as Ichigo left for Soul Society. That whole Soul Society ordeal took only about a month and even with the time dilation he had already been here for a long time.
He had made great progress even managing to become a Vasto Lorde. It was an amazing feat considering he had only become a Hollow around two decades before. Something that generally required centuries not decades. He was powerful enough to resist even an Arrancar like Grimmjow as a Vasto Lorde despite being cornered due to the situation and not being able to showcase all of his trump cards. However it was still not enough to resist the entire force of Las Noches and Aizen. Not even if he worked together with Harribel, the Tres Bestias, Nel Tu and her Fracción. Even with all nine of them together they would just be a somewhat powerful force.
They could run away to Earth, but that would slow their growth to a crawl. That was just him though as the Tres Bestias, still being Adjuchas, would actually lose power if they didn't consume enough. On Earth there wouldn't be enough ambient spirit particles to absorb for them to maintain their strength. It would require inflicting mass genocide on the human population to maintain the current growth. Neither he nor any of the girls would be keen on that. It would also instantly draw the attention of the Shinigami and every other supernatural force which they couldn't afford either.
Their little group was relatively powerful being comprised of two Vasto Lorde, three Arrancar, and three Adjuchas. Maybe comparable to a group like the Visored. However even the Visored despite being one of the more powerful groups were skulking around hiding from Soul Society and Aizen rather than living a relaxing life where they could do as they please. As a group of Hollow they would be in an even worse situation than the Visored.
Finally Nel Tu broke Hisashi out of his thoughts. "Yeah, there are some real bullies there," she said crossing her arms with a serious frown. It wasn't very convincing with the snot bubble hanging from her little button nose.
Hisashi couldn't help but smile at her antics. Although part of him originally approached Nel Tu with ulterior motives to gain a powerful ally down the line when she finally regained her original power. She had quickly grown on him over the few weeks they had travelled together. When she returned after calling his allies despite fearing Grimmjow he couldn't help by open his heart to the little troublemaker. Though not quite to the level of Harribel, Apacci, Sung-Sun, and Mila Rose she was quickly becoming a larger priority for him.
He hadn't grown quite as close to her Fracción yet. Though they were slowly changing due to not being naive like Nel Tu was they had been a lot more guarded with Hisashi. He had been able to see the wariness in them that had remained until when he had blocked Grimmjow's attack on Nel Tu putting himself at risk for her sake.
"After we were kicked out of Las Noches we wandered around the surface of Hueco Mundo. We might have been weak in Las Noches, but we are still more powerful than almost all regular Hollow so we just avoided the stronger Arrancar," Pesche said with some pride.
"Do you know if they're aware of us?" Harribel asked worriedly.