Arrancar Template
Name: Secudino Zansori
Nickname(s): Dino
Age: 560
Visual Age: Late 20’s
Gender: Male
Rank: Espada sumtin
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Height: Tall
Weight: Normal
Body Frame: Medium
Blood Type: Ermm O… mg who cares
Sound of Voice: He has a sorta snake like voice, very deep and gruff, but sounds like he's been a smoker for his whole life
Appearance:
Secudino appears as a man not unlike some other men, he has hair, legs, arms and a torso, perhaps most pronounced is his head, which obviously is needed for any creature to keep living. He wears the traditional espada robes, which obviously are the opposite of the shinigami robes in color, white outer coat, black inner coat, which is the reverse. All in all, one might presume he looks like the picture stated below, but then again most people don't presume much of anything these days.
Introvert/Extrovert: Introvert… you already asked if I was straight or gay
Hobbies: Gardening
Likes and Dislikes: (What does your character like and dislike? At least 5 for each.)
Likes- Scenery, landscapes, gardening, fruit, hording
Dislikes- HM *The place*, kidou spells, birds, spears, horses
Personality: Secudino is an amalgam of personalities, and to define him as a singular one would be like trying to nail water to a cross. What people might notice about him first is his noble standing, it is not an entire view that he is above others, but he creates an atmosphere of nobility and almost an air of respect and prestige that comes with it. This nobility usually only shows when he deals with people, or any living creature in general, he acts as if royalty cannot be bothered by such tomfoolery. Another side of his personality is his playful attitude when he is surrounded by people he holds dear. A joyous and uplifting beat that surrounds him, he laughs and makes jokes, and is over all very unlike a classic espada, but in reality, perhaps one might call it a intoxication with life. He becomes involved in battles, and will sometimes get excited about the idea of fighting, or going somewhere new, a hunger for that hole in his soul remains, and he tries to fill it with many a things, women, beer, pretty things, money, friends, power, and even food. The final side of him, is a devious side, he is very cunning, tricky, and over all calculative and cruel. A does not play games, does not horse around, just gets the job done and wants to be left alone. Cold blooded would be a perfect example, perfectly content to remain motionless for long periods, before a burst of activity in which food might be acquired. These traits define him, however one might think of him as unstable, or with multiple personalities, and they would be mistaken. There isn’t a change in behavior, or a sudden flip in the brain, its rather a different day, a new attitude, just repeated over the three listed.
Defining Characteristics: His green hair, blue snake like tongue, and small purple dagger that he uses to cut up fruit.
Specialties: Growing Fruit… and eating it
Fighting type: Ranged Combat
History/Background:
Human Life
Secudino was born during the middle of the 13th century as the first of two sons of a middle-class family residing in Spain; his original name was Aarón Covez Fierro. During this period of history, Spain was continuing a winning conflict against a deteriorating Muslim invasion that had started near the beginning of the millennium; with a successful counter-attack that took place in the 13th century after several complications in the war, Spanish morale was very high at the moment. However, this didn't stop from resulting on a lot of young men being sent to war at an early age and, consequently, several broken families; however, thanks to several contacts his father had among the army, neither Secudino nor his younger brother were affected by the conflict and his early years passed by smooth and peacefully. Secudino's father worked as an artisan of weaponry and had earned a decent fortune throughout his many years of active service and hard work; however, the fact that his hands were getting old and the quality of his products was dropping from middle-high slowly to low forced Secudino and later his brother to start working and learn the arts of crafting at an early age. Secudino proved to have no talent at all as a weapon artisan and had no choice but to serve his brother as an assistant, given that he had been luckier and possessed a gift that, with time, would surpass that of his father. Although the family went through severe economic ordeals, they managed to somehow stay on their feet both thanks to the genius little brother and the savings kept by the father during his working years and things seemed to be going alright for the family.
Few years later, however, when Secudino was 18 years old, a terrible plague struck not only the country, but the entire continent they were residing in (Black Plague); this would lead to the family's downfall. Secudino's father fell instantly to illness and, after holding his own for only four days he died covered on his blood-soaked bed. Those four days and the few weeks that followed later were enough to completely deteriorate the economy of the family due to the lack of the guiding figure in the house, great expenses on medicine that took nowhere and a lack of motivation from Secudino's little brother, who was the main source of income now. The father’s death was moaned and there was no time to get over it before Secudino's brother also fell ill. Although he lasted more than his father, he too died after a week of intense pain in front of Secudino and his mother. Now the family fell into complete decay and both survivors were forced to live on the streets, not even knowing what to do first. Secudino finally took the initiative of taking on the family job one more time and, with as much optimism as the situation allowed, attempted to once again make a living out of weapon crafting. His attempt was unsuccessful and, for a year, Secudino and his mother stayed alive out of fate’s pity, going from a host family to another. At the age of 19, Secudino suffered from a deep fever and, recognizing the symptom as one of the first signs of the plague, he hung himself in the front door of what used to be his house one time. As an ironic twist of events, Secudino's fever was not the beginning of the disease, but simple and plain fever; this remained unknown to him forever and even today he doesn’t know the true nature of it (and of course, he will never know).
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Early Death
Secudino's time as a plus was extremely short, ranging between the two or three weeks of duration. This was because by the time he died the whole city had been infested with Hollow due to the increase of Plus population as a result of the many deaths on the hands of the plague. Once devoured by a group of Hollow, Secudino too was turned into one of the monsters, but remained as a demi-hollow.
Not being a full developed Hollow and bound to the house he had grown in back when he was alive, Secudino was never noticed by other Shinigami and his slow and steady transformation into a full monster was allowed to take place over time. Be it because the traumatic experience of his death and the events that took place after it were having a terrifying effect on his personality or because he was succumbing to his new instincts as an evolving Hollow, Secudino developed a necessity of exerting violence on other humans and during this stage of instability, many people that approached the building he resided in were brutally strangled by him. In comparison to other Hollow, Secudino proved to have a considerably faster rate of evolution and in just three weeks he was already a full Hollow without any intervention to accelerate the process. By the time the mysterious deaths around his home attracted the Shinigami, Secudino had already left as a complete entity.
As a Hollow, Secudino did not cease to surpass the average spirits of his kind in terms of adaptation and, to some extent, power. After little time, his new unstable personality even lead to him enjoying his new lifestyle, as tended to happen in many other numerous Hollow cases. As a result of this new euphoria, Secudino became very active and careless as a Hollow and spent more time in the real world devouring significant amounts of plus souls than he did travelling around Hueco Mundo; unfortunately for him, this ended up attracting the attention of Shinigami, creatures he didn’t know were in existence until that moment. Although badly injured in his first encounter with two low-ranking members, Secudino managed to devour one of the aggressors and force the other one to retreat. The newly acquired awareness of other spiritual beings that were able to injure and probably annihilate him somewhat softened his aggressive nature and for the next years, Secudino spent more time analyzing Shinigami behaviour until he was able to effectively stalk and kill low-ranking Death Gods. As he became more experienced in the skills of survival with the passing of the years, he slowly began to go back to his hostile activities with a considerably calmer attitude, not going berserk on the sight of competition as he used to do.
However, when the plague responsible for Secudino’s death ceased and population in Spain began to stabilize again, resulting in fewer deaths taking place and therefore less Plus spirits coming to existence, the huge population of Hollow that had risen as a result of the past events saw itself in a famine crisis, given that there just were not enough souls to devour. Competition between the monsters reached critical points and most of them saw no choice but to fight between each other and in some cases even resort to cannibalism. This event was of historical importance to everyone aware of spirits’ existence and in Soul Society the problem was considered to be of such ridiculous magnitude that only Captains and Lieutenants were allowed in the area due to the amount of present Hollow; this incident was known as the “European Catastrophe”. Already having experience with hunting down creatures of equal power to him in addition to his already above averaged strength, Secudino was one of the minorities Hollow that was able to adapt to the catastrophe by resorting to cannibalism and for many years he managed to survive facing moderate difficulty. The calamity was expected to last somewhere between one or two years if no special complications took place, but that wasn’t the case and the conflict came to a conclusion in a matter of 4 months due to the creation of a great number of Menos Grande when the battles reached a peak point resulting in the Hollow combining with each other. Although against his will because he was completely unaware of what would happen if the union were to happen, Secudino was too caught up in a conflict and became part of one of the last Menos Grande to be born before the crisis ended. Lost in the sea of minds that, like him, composed that new omnipotent entity, Secudino remained unaware of his actions and it took him one year, after an apparently never-ending internal struggle, to take possession of the body and find himself in Hueco Mundo.
Pursue of Power
Not remembering either how long he had been in Hueco Mundo, his reasons to move there and really anything he had done during that year when his mind was completely blank, Secudino saw himself in a very confusing position. Because he had spent most of his previous life in the Human World developing as a Hollow instead of getting to know Hueco Mundo, he knew nothing of the layout of the place and was left with any other option than wander around that new world in search for answers. Unfortunately for him, his intellect was still not much greater than that of the average Gillian, and the years his spent in this phase of his evolution passed by like a dizzy set of images no more clearer than a dream. Among the few memories he holds of this period, most of them involve the cruel assassination of other Hollow, countless regular ones and a great amount of other Gillian, some of them even which, like him, had the ability to evolve further. Driven more by instinct than by astuteness, Secudino demonstrated even more malice than in his previous life, greatly exploiting his new techniques, particularly Cero and Garganta, and the use of his long nails. Most of his victims would be killed from behind, having Secudino’s nails penetrate their skull and, if necessary, being finished off by quick Cero; little times did he have to make a different approach except for the smarter Gillian. He did visit the Human World in more than one occasion, being dragged there by his old memories of the years spent there, but his new feeding instinct and his animal-like devotion to it always dragged him back Hueco Mundo until he finally got to the point of feeling most at home at this new deserted residence. He was lucky enough to never encounter any strong spiritual beings during his visits to the world of the living with the exception of a few low ranking Shinigami that never posed a threat to him from the beginning and limited themselves to flee on his sight. Even with the effectiveness of his backstabbing and crowded assassination tactics in addition to a relative lack of conscience of the passing time, it took Secudino very long to accomplish any significant increment in power. All in all, he spent nearly 120 years of his existence struggling to evolve into a greater being, eventually managing to achieve his objective and becoming an Adjuchas, finally recovering his former individuality and intellect.
As an Adjuchas, Secudino recovered a portion of his old self from back before he even became a Hollow and was just a regular human being, partially due to his new ability to rationally look back onto his own memories. Not putting his strength to test even on one occasion, Secudino concluded that he had no further need to repeatedly hunt down other Hollow and decided to cease the violence and instead devote himself to the search of a different type of lifestyle. After what really were just a couple of hours of continuous pondering over the subject, Secudino’s first action in this new form of his was to displace himself to the Human World one more time, this instance with the hopes of finding answers as to exactly what he was and what kind of options he had as to lead his life other than the commitment to his own instincts. Although it might seem an action triggered by foolishness and naivety, it was only normal for him to reach such a decision having in mind most of the being he had been fighting so far had been, like him Hollow, meaning he would either receive the answer he was running away from, or be attacked and forced to fight once again. As expected, however, his arrival would not be welcomed in the Human World at any moment.
The first thing to do in this occasion, or at least the course of action Secudino decided to go with, was to contact someone with strong spiritual powers that could see him and, hopefully, talk to him; this, of course, excluded anybody wearing a black robe. It could have been over a century ago, but Secudino had not forgotten that the first to ever attack him were not the ones of his own kind, but the warriors with the black garments and a sword that, unlike anything he had come in contact with since the moment he died, could hurt him. Although he still hadn’t had a sane conversation with anybody since the moment he died, he was able to grasp the reason why a creature like him would be hunted down, but he did not emphasize with their rationalism by reacting with guilt over his actions, instead finding very natural that he, as a predator, would feed on his natural preys while the latter tried to protect themselves. But once again, his luck had no plans prepared for any Shinigami to be waiting for him at his entrance and the start of his search was smooth. Despite his Pesquisa not being fully developed, it was enough for him to find the kind of subjects he was looking for in close distances, so once that objective proved to be useful or not, he had no option but to blindly change location until he sensed another reiatsu of non-regularly high frequency and start the cycle again; this process was very slow and tended to take nowhere in most of the occasions. In addition, he also had to keep disappearing into his Garganta from time to time to be harder to track for the Shinigami, a tactic that, although effective, also leeched much of his searching time. The first four objectives he came in contact with, all being humans, had very similar reactions: respond with fear and run away at the sight of the monster. Of course, despite their running, Secudino did make the attempt to follow them and communicate, even if he had to make use of threats and other types of terrorizing actions to obtain a response; this, however, was no different from letting the villagers go, since he did not discover anything about himself other than the fact that people feared them because they fed on souls and could kill living humans to later eat them, which he was already familiar with. At times, Secudino felt greatly discouraged by the lack of cooperation and usefulness of humans, but he did not desist on his duty to find the one individual that could tell him how to live his life out of conflict, or at least what was expected of him other than eating souls. His determination was indeed strong, but after the word about his existence was spread around the whole country, humans with strong spiritual energy and fairly developed powers began to go after him, putting his mission in danger. Eventually, after the number of people gong after him increased too much for him to go easy on, he had to resort serious combat and ended up killing several humans, powerful or not, in a state of berserk rage that had resulted due to his abstinence from eating souls all that time. After his plan for a peaceful life met failure, Secudino gave up on this mission and returned once again to Hueco Mundo, giving in to temptation and once again resorting to the devouring of weak Hollow. It is important to note that Secudino was never seriously injured during his stay in the Human World, which allowed him to evolve later on.
Secudino still refused to engage in combat with other Adjuchas, this time out of fear rather than resignation to accept what he was. Because of this, his diet was based solely on regular on regular Hollow and the eventual Gillian, both of which had no chance of defeating him in normal conditions and posed no serious threat to him anymore; this however, required greater quantities of souls to satiate his hunger and was slowing down the evolution he obliviously was going through. It was years after his return to Hueco Mundo that he encountered another Adjuchas that, unlike him, had the resolve and bravery to attack other Hollow of equal strength to his to pursue of more power. Naturally, that other Adjuchas didn’t doubt for a second to take the chance to attack Secudino, and without any previous signals of violence, launched himself towards him. Seeing himself caught up in a battle he could not run away from, Secudino had to fight back and, despite his hesitance to do, the battle ended very quickly on a clear victory for him from which he ended unscathed. Instead of killing off the other Hollow, who was too injured to run away, Secudino took the chance without much enthusiasm or hope and questioned the Hollow as to what their purpose was, an answer he had expected to learn from humans rather than beasts. The Adjuchas told him that he had learned from an omnipotent being long time ago that, if a Hollow was to consume a great number of its own kind, it would evolve further and receive even more power; additionally, not consuming enough Hollow souls would lead to a reverse process and, instead of moving closer towards Vasto Lorde, the Adjuchas would only go back to become a Gillian, this time permanently. Although surprised by the Hollow’s assistance, all Secudino felt towards the reason behind all the cannibalistic tendencies his race was responsible of was disappointment towards the realization that, no matter what he did, his specie was condemned to participate on a constant struggle or fall into the hell of having no individuality as a Gillian and fight forever for control over the body. When he asked the Adjuchas if he didn’t find that unfair or atrocious, this one replied that he did not care what kind of despicable acts he had to carry out, who he had to kill or really anything else as long as he didn’t go back to Gillian, since Vasto Lorde was already impossible for him after losing a couple of horns. Out of pity and so that the centuries he knew it would take him to achieve the Vasto Lorde phase didn’t pass by as slowly, he allowed the Adjuchas, who later introduced himself as Xifan, to accompany him as a helper. It was at that moment that Secudino made a pact to himself that, no matter what the cost or the situation, he would gain power until he didn’t have to go through all that effort and desperation to lead the kind of life he chose to lead, thus initiating his chase after supremacy.
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Darkened Path
The group Secudino and Xifan formed together turned out to be of outstanding effectiveness, due to the combined abilities of Secudino’s natural power and practice with stealth tactics together with Xifan’s years of experience fighting against other Hollow. Surprisingly, despite being a servant and not a friend of Secudino’s, Xifan demonstrated a loyalty and devotion to his new master that surpassed what the first had imagined on his most exaggerated thoughts. Xifan shared all of his wisdom with Secudino even if he didn’t ask for it, warning him from unexpected dangers and else with such detail and accuracy that Secudino couldn’t help but grow deep trust towards his new acquaintance over the passing of years. He was asked in one occasion why his devotion to someone who wouldn’t have a problem with killing him could be so unbreakable, to which he answered that “in the gamble that is surviving in this hell, I think Secudino-sama is my best bet”. From that moment on, both Hollow began to grow fond of each other.
With the passing of the years, and despite the effectiveness of the team, both Menos came to realize that they had been overestimating the challenge of seeking evolution (in Secudino’s case) and there was no way that just the two of them could accomplish such a deed. For that reason after approximately 50 years of attempting it with just the two of them, the group decided to form a larger team in order to take on greater numbers of Hollow at the same time. Clearly the most difficult aspect of this procedure was finding other Adjuchas who were willing to team up or preferred centuries of devoted serving instead of extermination. But even when this obstacle was overcame and the group managed to obtain so many members it seemed more like an army than a regular party, Secudino’s pace did not accelerate in the least, and it could even be said that it rather slowed down. Because the army group also included many Hollow that still held the chance to pursue evolution, none of them was willing to grant Secudino most of the food, as he did when his only partner was Xifan; this meant sharing food with more people and the truth was that the amount of it didn’t make for it in the least. For this reason, he concluded actions needed to be taken and indeed they were: Secudino became more selective and, after separating the members he didn’t want to work with (particularly the ones who also desired the power of a Vasto Lorde), he devoured them one by one. This process was made very discreet and with time intervals that could vary from days to years, but eventually any competition Secudino had was devoured by him; the only one who was aware of what was really happening was Xifan, who, of course, was never part of his list. Even though that wasn’t the initial plan, Secudino couldn’t help but notice that luring people into believing him to later eat them was a very effective method and decided to make use of it in other occasions, although he finally gained a bad fame to his name and soon everyone in Hueco Mundo knew he was not one to be trusted, forcing him to go back to his regular hunting tactics with Xifan as his only partner.
It wouldn’t be until 445 years later that Secudino would make contact with a complete Vasto Lorde for the first time. I was a monster that assassinated other Hollow for pleasure despite his lack of necessity of feeding on them anymore so as to call the attention of some creatures called Arrancar. As soon as Secudino heard about this rumor, he set it his new mission to destroy and, if possible, devour that Vasto Lorde; but even though his reasons were, as always, to eliminate competition for victims of a decreasing Menos population, he never openly admitted to any Hollow other than Xifan, aware that would mean absolutely no supporters to accomplish his new task, which he definitely needed. Contrary to what he had been expecting, finding supporters wasn’t the hardest thing to do despite of his foul fame. While it was true that all of the Hollow he recruited were skeptic at first at some proved to be rather impossible to negotiate with, others joined his side as soon as he revealed his objective. Some of his allies, like Xifan, truly believed that with a well-known figure like Secudino on their side it could be possible to defeat the Vasto Lorde, while others were just hoping for him to die in the upcoming battle. But what all of them agreed on was that, regardless of intentions, if Secudino ever showed any signs of planning on betraying them, they would all just kill him and either give up on the mission or finish depending on the situation was the scenario to happen. That did not take place and, for once, it seemed like Secudino was willing to help.
The Vasto Lorde had a stationary residence in a huge cave that it had stolen from another great group of Gillian. A week before they got to the cave, Secudino sent Xifan on a special mission that required him to separate from the group. By the time the party reached the entrance of the cave, Xifan had not returned or contacted his leader at any point, so it was assumed by everyone that he had either died or escaped in fear of fighting the Vasto Lorde. Unwilling to wait anymore, Secudino ordered the group to separate into two factions, the first would go in and fight the strong Menos with the intention of making it believe that they were all there was to the group; the second team would go in later and, taking a chance when the Vasto Lorde was distracted, they would kill it from behind. Garev intended to be in the second group to make sure they went in, but, as expected, he was still not trusted and he was forced to lead the first team. Outnumbered, he had no other choice, and the leader was forced to obey the followers. When the party went in, no matter how much they searched, their target was nowhere to be seen, and despite going around the area several times, no signs of it were spotted. They were considering leaving when, unexpectedly, they were attacked near the exit by the monster without them realizing. The Vasto Lorde massacred everyone before they reacted with the exception of Secudino, who he did not even touch, revealing that the original plan was for Xifan to take the shortcut and was the monster that he was being followed, requesting it didn’t kill Secudino. As expected form a Hollow, though, the Vasto Lorde threatened with killing Secudino and Xifan as well, which triggered the second part of the plan. The strong Menos was never told that there was a second party, so when these entered the cave, he was caught offguard and was severely damaged. Taking the opportunity, Secudino and Xifan escaped the cave and while the others killed each other. After they collapsed the cave from the outside, there were no survivors except for three weakened Adjuchas, who were killed off by them. Searching in the rests of the cave, the corpses were still there and, after Secudino devoured the great number of Adjuchas (the Vasto Lorde wasn’t found), it took him just one more week to accomplish the final evolution, gaining the ultimate power that could ever be achieved...or so he believed.
The Lady Dressed in White
The euphoria that invaded Secudino when he finally accomplished his long-lasted objective after so many centuries of hard work did not have the effect that was expected from him. He no longer wished to live a different life from the one he had been carrying out so far since the time he died, why should he? He was now a Hollow that would be remembered forever! All who had gotten in his way up to that moment had been obliterated and were not remembered as anything else but a step closer to his ultimate evolution. He was proud of his accomplishment and the many Hollow who just considered him a replacement for the previous Vasto Lorde that had been terrorizing the area would not change his self-perspective. But regardless of his success, his newfound power and his demonstration of superiority over others, he felt like he was now incomplete. Now that he had no interest in living a different lifestyle, yet there was nothing left to do for the path he had been following so far, his life was losing purpose; he finally concluded all that was left do was keep doing what he did best: kill, even if it wouldn’t lead him to power anymore. In hopes of finding a being of great strength that would somehow lead him to achieve even further improvement in power, he also took the task of making a name of himself and earn some fame so that others would have it easier to track him down; needless to say, he was confident that event he organized to assassinate the other Vasto Lorde wouldn’t repeat itself to stab him back. His method to do so was to always kill his victims by stabbing all the nails of his hand on the Adjuchas’ masks, which he would later detach from their heads and leave somewhere on the floor later for others to find. Xifan didn’t take much credit on the carnage and now limited himself to follow Secudino exclusively for convenience reasons, never starting a conflict against another Hollow if he didn’t have good reasons to do so. As a sign of his changing mentality, it should be noted that if it wasn’t for the many centuries they had been working together, Secudino wouldn’t have had a problem with killing his friend.
It was not long after the establishment of this new carnage self-policy that Secudino’s area was note frequented anymore and that forced him to move from district once again, which he had been avoiding because it would just result on possible opponents to take longer to find him. Before he had the chance to move far from his usual spot, a group of Adjuchas that had been few months after Secudino’s final growth openly faced him with the intentions of putting an end to his slaughtering by killing and devouring him. Mocking their imprudence for believing they really stood a chance against him with such a low number of allies and claiming that he had no time to lose with novices, Secudino proceeded to execute them one by one, proving one more time the great difference in power he had achieved during his many years of preparation. As always, Xifan did not agree with what Secudino was doing, but he was too fearful to contradict him at this point and decided the best thing to do was to just put up with it. He hadn’t managed to deliver the final blow to the leader of the rebellious party when, with no signs for him to notice, someone or something stood on his way and blocked his claw’s path, defending the Adjuchas that still remained alive. Caught up in the surprise of someone being able to survive, let alone block his attack, Secudino had to cease his mad fighting method and took his time to examine the newcomer; it was nothing more but a woman…a young woman wearing a white uniform, yet her reiatsu was still so similar to his own. With a familiar tone, the woman scolded Secudino for being such an inconsiderate and cruel being, going as far as to attack others of his own kind despite him not needing it anymore. The Vasto Lorde was startled by the creature’s words and decided to not give a response, instead demanding for the woman to confess how she had obtained such a great power, to which he received no answer either. Insisting on his previous order and despite the woman’s clear lack of interest on starting a fight, Secudino proceeded to challenge her to a fight with the intention of asking the same question later when she was rendered helpless and tortured on the floor. The fight lasted 4 seconds overall and it concluded with Secudino’s clear defeat on a blood-splattered floor. Xifan’s still living respect towards his master forced him to make an attempt to interfere in the battle when he noticed Secudino was in trouble, but after a simple, slight push by the woman that sent him several meters away, he was not minded on this battle that was clearly on a different level that what he could handle. Secudino felt humiliated due to his defeat despite his now old belief that he was the strongest form of existence in Hueco Mundo, but he still enjoyed the fact that there was still more power for him to pursue...if he lived.
And indeed, instead of delivering the final blow, the woman sheathed her sword and directed him a smile that he could not understand. She introduced herself as Teya and, after offering him some sort of regenerating drug (which he rejected), she revealed that she was a different type of creature from him called Arrancar, a Hollow that, after attempting to obtain further power, managed to do so by gaining Shinigami abilities, becoming some sort of a hybrid. Secudino’s hurt pride prevented him from giving any kind of response to this, but the Arrancar Teya insisted on talking to him. She told him that, if a Vasto Lorde managed to obtain such power, the result would be a new being of incomparable battle potential, worthy to be considered one of the strongest creatures in existence not only in Hueco Mundo, but anywhere in the universe. With a tone that didn’t give any signs of friendliness, the Hollow asked how he could manage to become an Arrancar.
“It wouldn’t be fun if I just told ya!” Teya replied to him with a smile that only disturbed Secudino even more. “If you are destined to become an Arrancar you will be able to find out yourself, don’t ya think? Just remember you won’t be entirely a Hollow anymore.”
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After giving him directions to get to the Arrancar base, where many more of her kind resided, Teya left and gave him time to think what to do. Secudino was not sure which path to take at this point, he longed more power, and after this humiliation his wish just became stronger than ever; on the other hand, refusing to remain a Hollow meant he would also lead a different lifestyle and he wasn’t sure if that was his objective anymore. Days after the confrontation, neither Secudino nor Xifan had anything to eat, since both had been shocked by the woman’s extreme power and her message to Secudino; their deprivation lasted so long that both of them came close to death (or, in Xifan’s case, morphing back to a Gillian). All the pondering over what decision to make had taken the Vasto Lorde back to his early years once again, which he remembered despite of the many centuries that separated those memories from the present. He remembered why he had been hoping to become stronger in the first place and how he had been afraid of ending up like he did. He was no longer able to emphasize with his old-self, but there was definitely something about it that was amiss without it; he missed his old human self, the one that cared for survival and not competition, felt love for his family and friends and didn’t need servants, but, most of all, the one who felt there was meaning to his existence. In a moment of weakness that was never repeated ever again, Secudino apologized to Xifan without giving any reasons and, after not moving an inch for days, got up and told his servant to wait there for a while. He didn’t know if he had taken the right decision, but he wanted to remember what it felt to be human once again, and as a Hollow he would never know. He already had an idea of how to become an Arrancar just by looking at Teya before, but even he was unclear as to whether he was doing it because of that or simply because he wanted to see his own face once again. At first, his fear kept him from fully tearing off his mask, but with time he became more violent and finally managed to accelerate the process. As soon as he felt his reiatsu grow to its maximum capacity, he directed his eyes towards his hands and realized with great delight that he was once again a human. With no time to waste, Secudino went directly to Xifan so that both would meet the Arrancar. Secudino’s optimism was now reaching a point never reached before.
Secudino, the Arrancar
Both Secudino and Xifan, who also transformed into an Arrancar after Secudino revealed the secret to do so, appeared at the front area of the Arrancar base one week after the mysterious woman contacted them naked and with no guide to allow them in. Neither one of them remembered Teya’s name, so they could not claim that she was the one who gave them the base’s location, since apparently there were many female Arrancar that dressed in white. Nonetheless, and despite their bizarre entrance, Secudino’s reiatsu, which greatly surpassed the one of the guardians at the entrance, was enough for them to call an Espada to inspect the newcomers. The only one expecting any new Arrancar to arrive was Teya and her first reaction was of happiness, as if she hadn’t stabbed Secudino almost a week ago. After scolding both of them for having no shame to go around naked, she invited them inside and provided clothes for both. As expected, both of the newcomers had a lot of questions to ask, but Teya limited herself to say that she would answer them later, as there was something more important to take care of first. They weren’t even told what the group was about before both were presented to the Royal Family, the rulers of the whole organisation and the only ones to have been born pure Arrancar. They noted some interest on Secudino when it was mentioned that he was originally a Vasto Lorde and some high expectations were set on him, but other than that they didn’t mind their recruitment. Before the reunion was over, Teya explained the ranks in the group, particularly the existence of the Espada, Arrancar that far surpassed the average levels of power and were ranked in a order of power from one to ten, one being the strongest. She later revealed to be a member of the Espada herself, possessing the rank of Segunda, meaning she was the second strongest among the elite. When she later requested that both Secudino and Xifan joined her Fracción, none of the royal had any objections and it was done on the spot. Needless to say, Xifan made no objections since he was already used to being a follower, but Secudino did not like the idea from the very beginning.
The new team did not seem to be working out during the first days after it was created. Together with Secudino and Xifan, the Fracción counted with eight members, all of which were approximately on the same level as the latter, making Secudino the strongest (not counting Teya) of the team. But even though this fact was made obvious on various occasions, he did not receive any more respect than all of the others did and no matter how much he insisted by saying that he would one day be an Espada as well, Teya never changed her mannerism towards him, and it could even be said that he was scolded more often than the rest. Secudino demonstrated a great lack of respect towards his new master, which was something she wasn’t willing to accept under any circumstances, resulting on both of them engaging on innumerable arguments. It was during one of these debates that the discussion evolved into an actual rather unserious between the two that, despite increasing in duration, ended up on Teya’s victory again. After this, Secudino, humiliated once again, left the place without any announcement and not even Xifan knew where he had disappeared. Fortunately, Secudino’s intentions were never close to leaving the Arrancar society he had managed to find, so he never left too far away. Wherever it was that he ended up in (all that’s known about it is it was a quiet place with no name), Secudino took a while to find out he wasn’t the only one contemplating the view, there was another black-haired woman close and, by her looks, it was clear she too was an Arrancar. She proved to be very uncommunicative, but encouraged Secudino to share his troubles with her, which, with a childish tendency of trying to make it sound like he was the victim, he did. The woman refused to give advice but when the man demanded a response, she simply said that it was hard to get used to new environments, but if no effort was put into socializing in this kind of situation, then it was only natural no improvement would be met. Secudino argued otherwise but internally began to realize it was true that without any guidance from Teya it was unlikely he would learn anything. The woman, unmotivated to continue the debate, simply wished him good luck in the future and left him alone in a flash; hours later, Teya managed to read his presence and found him. Before she had a chance to give one of her famous lectures, Secudino kneeled down before her and apologized for his actions during the past days, in addition to never thanking her properly for granting him the chance to obtain more power. Surprised and somewhat uncomfortable with the situation, Teya forgave him and the relationship between the two improved considerably from that moment on. Weeks later, during a regular meeting, Secudino learned that the woman he met the other day was none other than the Primera Espada, Lynia; but for some reason, he felt too embarrassed to apologize. This was actually good news, since it meant he was regaining part of his long-lost old self.
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Now that their relationship was so much better, Secudino spent much more time with Teya, though that didn’t change the respectful mannerism he now knew he had to demonstrate. After a year of faithfully obeying his master’s orders, Secudino proved to be a warrior of great potential and Teya concluded it would be reasonable to finally train him properly on the more advanced techniques of an Arrancar; this included leaning him to a similar fighting style to the one she employed, greatly emphasizing on speed and strength. With little time, Secudino managed to become skilled at the continuous use of “Sonido” during battle and even imitated perfectly Teya’s signature move, “Impulso” (which he would years later improve and rechristen into Evión). After training hard under Teya’s teachings for other 3, he had already increased his fighting potential to a point that could easily be considered that of an Espada’s, and finally took the decision of attempting to enter the ranks. He easily managed to obtain the Sexta (6th) Espada position, but it would take him other 4 years to develop his power even further and finally accomplishing the Tercera (3rd) Espada seat, easily defeating the previous bearer of the position. It should be noted that, despite the ease with which he defeated the Tercera, the reason that he did not attain Segunda wasn’t because he didn’t want to fight Teya, but because he could not defeat her yet.
Once Secudino acquired that position and decided he was happy with things as they were, he requested Xifan to join his Fracción and, in addition to him, formed a group including more than ten other members. For the next 12 years, he would become increasingly devoted to the royal family and would spend less time with Teya and his old Fracción. He did not give it much thought until the tragedy happened...
Dry Tears
It happened without any previous signs that would warn anybody or without any clear reason, but one day, Xifan ran desperately (which contradicted his usual self) to inform Secudino that Teya had betrayed the Arrancar and escaped somewhere in Hueco Mundo. The royal family summoned Secudino and Lynia to explain the event on more details; as it turned out, Teya openly announced to her Fracción that she would leave and, before they had the chance to object, they were all knocked out in a minute. Because it would be reckless to send a big group to search for her, it was exclusively the Primera and Tercera´s mission to bring her back in front of the royal family; if it was not possible to bring her peacefully, then she had to be eliminated. Although shocked and definitely hurt by the announcement and the tragic possible ending his mission could cause, Secudino took the mission with the clear determination to kill Teya if there was no other way out despite the strong bond they shared.
Lynia ordered to initiate the search right away and, with only a few minutes for each to announce their absence to their respective Fracción, they left to find Teya right away. Lynia proved to be a very complicated person to socialize with and this interfered with the mission to some extent, since she was the one with the most accurate “Pesquisa”; she tried to limit their conversations to yes or no questions/answers as long as they were relevant to the task and not even once she showed any kind of emotional reaction, which Secudino just found unnatural on anyone, even if it was a Hollow. Secretly, Lynia was afraid that her partner, having in mind his background as Teya’s closest pupil and probably friend, would betray her and join forces with the traitor; Secudino, although imagined such a scenario, didn’t think she would take any actions on the matter. In the end, it turned out he was mistaken, as Lynia finally talked to him just to say that, when they found Teya, it would be him the one to fight her first and, did he prove to be insufficient, she would later join the battle. Fearing he too would be considered a traitor if he didn’t cooperate, Secudino agreed to follow that tactic quickly changed the subject, which didn’t last long. It still took them a long time to find her but, after following directions from a Hollow claiming to have seen their target’s figure in the distance, they managed to locate her reiatsu after two weeks. As planned, Lynia waited in the distance while Secudino followed Teya to engage in the battle he had feared to fight all that time.
As soon as Teya noticed Secudino’s presence, she stopped and received him with a smile, hoping he had followed her to join her. As expected, she was heartbroken when he asked her to please go back to the royal family and accept whatever fate they had chosen for her and for the first time the two had known each other, Secudino got to see her true sad expression. Refusing to go back as long as they had to be ruled by the same group of arrogant and cruel leaders, both of the Arrancar began a fight they didn’t desire. Though the confrontation seemed to be very equal and there was no possible way to predict who the victor would be for the first 4 minutes of the fight, it became increasingly clearer that Teya was gaining advantage over Secudino, who just became more aggressive as the battle progressed. After Teya delivered the first direct blow of the combat, which made evident her advantage over him, Secudino asked her with some difficulties why she decided to leave the Arrancar society. Voluntarily giving him some time to recover his breath, Teya explained that she could no longer stand the nature the royal family and all the Espada encouraged, continually seeking battle and death sometimes for reasons that didn’t even qualify as a good cause under her standards; preferring a peaceful life even though she knew no one would support her, she left with no clear destination, which made her actions seem extremely reckless. After giving her explanation, she asked Secudino why he tried to stop her, since it was obvious she wasn’t a threat to anybody, to which he rejected to give an answer, since he himself was ashamed of it. Taking the chance, Secudino released his Zanpakuto, ready to fight using the full extent of his power. To keep herself even, though not really with the intention to kill him, Teya did the same and also used her Resurrección, and a battle that reached unimaginable magnitudes initiated. Nothing like the previous round, this encounter seemed to have no end and, whenever someone appeared to have the upper hand, the other one always managed to pull out a comeback that would completely change the situation the other way round. The battle reached its climax when a clash between the two using all energy they had left after 10 minutes of fighting (which wasn’t much) took place, finally concluding the winner of the match. Neither Secudino nor Teya were able to keep the fight going, but the first’s case, his energy was completely consumed and he was no longer able to maintain his released form, falling to the ground motionless and making the ex-Segunda the winner. With difficulties to even breathe, Secudino addressed his long-time friend or the last time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, hoping he would get an answer for that last question.
“I love you...Secudino” she replied with tears falling from her eyes and a fake smile that didn’t fool him for a second “; but you are no different from the others...just another Hollow.”
Getting up from her knees and with no spirit to talk or fight anymore, Teya began to walk away, sparing Secudino’s life exclusively for their history. She didn’t manage to move three steps away when she was stabbed in the heart by Lynia, who had been waiting for that chance during the entire battle. While seeing Teya’s silhouette fall to the ground lifeless, Secudino passed out and did not wake up again until he was taken back to the base by Lynia.
Even after his wounds had healed, the encounter with Teya had given him many things to think about and he was not psychologically ready to take the lead of his Fracción or carry out missions again; even Xifan, who had always remained one of his closest acquaintances, didn’t manage to maintain a discussion with him. Due to the loss of the Segunda Espada, the remaining members of the elite under that rank received a promotion and Secudino became the new Segunda, taking Teya’s position; he did not seem overjoyed by this at all.
During this phase of bewilderment, Secudino took the chance to think about how he had been managing his existence so far and realized that it had all been a boring, continuous vicious cycle. He had always been hoping to be in control of choosing his lifestyle and believed that obtaining power was the way to go, but he always became obsessed with it and forgot what his true objectives were; even as an Arrancar, that hadn’t changed...it was true that he was still only a Hollow. Disgusted by this sudden realization, Secudino went through a severe mental crisis and completely enclosed himself from the outer world, becoming an extremely apathetic individual that simply limited itself to follow orders. He kept serving as Segunda Espada for 2 more years keeping the same kind of attitude, which pleased the royal family as it was easier to control him as a powerful tool.
It took all those years for him to reach his next self-realization, but after being nothing more than a puppet, he decided it was time to mark an end on how either other people, events or his instincts could control his life as they pleased and that it was time to finally do as he pleased, leaving the wickedness he had found in Hueco Mundo behind once and for all. Reminiscent to the actions of Teya years ago, Secudino also took the same decision to leave behind the life of an Arrancar and dedicate himself to do what he wished; the difference was that he had a clear destination: the human world, a place where he knew he’d have more chances to do what he wanted if he managed to adapt himself properly. The only person he announced his decision to was Xifan, who, despite of his mater’s orders, would transmit the message to the entire Fracción. That is how, the night Secudino decided to leave, his entire group was waiting for him at the entrance, but not to stop him, but bid him farewell and best wishes. He thanked them with a smile that had been inexistent for a long time and left behind his the Arrancar with no regrets. He still had to face a challenge and that Was Lynia, who revealed to have been watching over him ever since their mission to eliminate Teya, never trusting on his devotion to the royal family or the Espada after that moment. She had intercepted him in the middle of the desert in Hueco Mundo by herself, confident that she would be able to bring him back with little effort. Nothing like Lynia expected, Secudino greeted her with a smile and nicely asked her to get out of the way; of course, this was useless and soon both Espada were forced to engage on a battle that required for them to use their Resurrección to keep up with each other. Because they both instantly escalated to the use of their strongest moves, the battle was extremely short, and after a minute, Secudino emerged as the victor after Lynia’s shoulder was impaled by Secudino’s weapon. Letting her know he had been training himself more and more during the past few years to reach his full potential and surpass her in a scenario like the one they found themselves in, Secudino sheathed his sword and left his old partner defeated on the ground, unable to stop him anymore.
“B-But why are you leaving?!” she asked, showing some emotion for the first time since Secudino had known her.
“Don’t take it personally” he replied with an innocent smile, conscious that it was probably the last time he would talk to her. “, I just realized I don’t know why I am here anymore.”
That said, Secudino disappeared and was not seen again in Hueco Mundo until 61 years later.
((OOC.: Somehow, I really feel the need to remind everyone that “love” doesn’t always mean romantic love; what Teya meant when she was dying was friendship, simple as that.))
The Life of a Human
Unlike his first attempt to meet humans as a Hollow when he still was an Adjuchas, this time Secudino was on a considerably better position. First of all, he had changed a lot, his appearance was now easier to disguise, his Pesquisa was more accurate than he was a regular Menos and he definitely was smarter. In addition, the world had changed a lot, and the people residing in it were not as primitive as they used to be, which made them more likely to listen to him if he ever wished to contact them. It didn’t take long before he heard about a man named Kise Sanjo that resided in Japan and that would probably be able to aid him. Indeed, it wasn’t hard for Secudino to find that man in Tokyo as soon as he got to the country, as he seemed to have foul fame among some Plus and, strangely, Hollow. As it turned out, the Sanjo was an old, regular human with spiritual power slightly above average that created different sorts of dangerous and illegal items, most of which would never be approved by Shinigami or humans. He was easily convinced to give a hand to the former Segunda as long as the latter accepted to test all of his creations, which he would have access to later on. None of the tools really posed a threat to his well-being, so Secudino considered it a fair trade. The first thing he demanded was an Arrancar gigai, which he used to blend among humans in order to study their behaviour closer and see if that kind of lifestyle would do the job or if he had to keep searching. The world was in a considerably unstable situation at the time, with WWII being over just a few years earlier, Japan was still in a process of recovering itself both in a physical and political way due to the nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. and the occupation by said country. People felt hopeless and shared their feelings with each other, which somehow made Secudino feel more accepted in the society than he ever did in Hueco Mundo, so, despite the horrible situation the country was in, he decided to stay regardless and keep learning more about the human heart.
He had never been good at hiding his own reiatsu, so in more than one occasion, there were other creatures that could see through his disguise and identify him as an immensely powerful spiritual being out of the normal. This kept away the weaklings that found him, but he more than once had to deal with groups of overconfident Shinigami and spiritually powerful humans, which made him realize that, if he wanted to survive in that open battlefield-like world, he needed to keep his power at the high level it had was at the moment and, under the risk of being tracked down even easier, he kept himself in shape by training a certain amount of hours per week. Unfortunately, his reiatsu also attracted Arrancar messengers, who had similar missions to that he received when Teya escaped, though excluding the part where he had to be eliminated in a scenario where he didn’t cooperate, most likely because it was clear that it wouldn’t end up in success. Not to the surprise of anyone, he ignored them, sometimes not even listening to what they had to say and simply sending them back in poor conditions; nonetheless, envoys kept showing up. Luckily enough, one of them turned out to be part of his old Fracción, who took the mission just to talk to him, not to take him back; taking the chance, Secudino accorded to organize meetings with any member of the Fracción every now and then to keep himself informed of what was happening in Hueco Mundo, of course, not saying anything to the royal family or the other Espada. The Fracción was beaten up with his consent so that the story would be more credible and the plan worked wonders.
Secudino managed to keep his human life going and, with time, improved it more and more until he could not be told apart from them as easily, mainly due to the improvements Sanjo made on the Arrancar gigai and his own deeper understanding of human behaviour. Because he had a choice as to kind of life he wanted to live due to a wide amount of different gigais to choose from and a curiosity to explore as many as possible, Secudino tried out many different lifestyles; namely, a beggar, a businessman, salesman, different grade students and, most recently, a delinquent member of a known gang. He faced several ordeals while trying to live as a human; Sanjo died in 1974 and was replaced by his not-so-experienced son, his gigais would get damaged on several occassions and, most notably, the appearances of other spiritual beings, although rare, eventually forced him to move to different locations from time to time when stronger creatures such as Shinigami Captains showed up searching for him; when this happened, he had to go all the way back to Tokyo for new resources if needed. He did kill a Captain in one occasion, but always tried to refrain from doing so in order to stay longer in one sngle location. Nonetheless, Secudino managed to overcome these obstacles and get closer and closer to humans to the point that he became very closely acquainted to them and developed affection to their race in general. There were cases that, although not as close as Xifan or Teya were, managed to create strong bonds with him.
Role-play Sample: Hige watched as the ninja began to formulate there plans, each taking a individualistic approach and offhandedly going to try some tactics, the general idea being shouted about was to bring the bijuu down, which would prove disastrous, it would fall, crush many buildings, and still lash out and would most likely kill a few untrained shinobi. Hige took note of this idea, and sought a different stratagem, one that might keep a full strength bijuu for landing, but at the same time compare the idea of getting on the ground, and in a moment he had it, a solution that would cause large scale damage to the town, but at the same time large damage to the bijuu, and lessen the amount of work the ninja had to do.
The bijuu had to intricate sweeping attacks in order for this plan to work, which meant enticing it to... or rather make that the only move available to use. It took but a second to ponder what exactly would happen, but Hige figured it out, he would use its own wind against it, not in the form of lobbing attacks like the other shinobi would do, but rather cut its wind with a equally powerful move.
Hige moved acrimoniously fast, his ice flute disappearing in shattering of ice, in fact his normal speed was compared to flicker and thus he naturally when desired could move that fast without repercussions (NO AP for FLICKER BITCHES) Getting in the exact center of the wind blast, Hige formed a sort of ice spear from his arm, almost like a growing of a tree, one end stuck in the ground, and the other formed a sharp point, however the point was large and rounded like that of a umbrella. With his arm attached to the spear, Hige braced himself as the gale force wind hit. The second it hit, he activated his trap. His infinite chakra armor started absorbing the chakra from the gale force wind, however Hige was no fool, he knew the chakra armor couldn't take in all that chakra without repercussions, so he used it as quickly as it came in, increasing the size of the spear, making the umbrella part grow larger and taller, until all the chakra that was in that gale force wind was gone, and Hige now had a block size umbrella type spear pointing towards the sky, protecting the area from any wind based moves that crazy bijuu might try. And the only way to get at the soft cushion that was Konoha ninja, would have to be using its body to break the spear.
Hige watched as the other ninja fired off random jutsu's, at the bijuu, a distraction would prove most useful, as he would await for the bijuu to realize its own attack had caused a amazing defense, Hige took the defensive ideal, the stronger the defense, the quicker the bijuu would in acts of desperation and throw itself against the ice spear pillar like protection to destroy it, thus making it come close enough for Hige to trap it and hurtle it to the ground.
Looking at the Hokage and others, Hige simple said, quietly but loud enough to be heard. "Send the young ones to me, and keep the bijuu from fleeing" Hige needed some support, he figured he might be able to do this all himself, but when help was there, Hige was not one to pass it up, especially not since all he needed was more bodies.
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