45 Strange Side Effect

Grimmjow and Nelliel's releases were both a lot more refined than before. Some of the armor had begun to fall off akin to a baby lizard breaking away pieces of its egg shell. For Grimmjow the most obvious change were the black tattoos in lightning bolt patterns that spread out from the center of his chest. In the center was a little blue orb that seemed to be radiating Reiatsu.

As for Nelliel, the armor which covered most of her centaur body was already in pieces, revealing a thick black fur underneath. She similarly had a pink orb at the center of her chest. All of the armor on her humanoid half was still whole, with signs of breaking around the neckline and around her horns. Once they finished dispatching their opponents, they moved on to the weaker soldat.

Shinji and Hiyori realized that these Arrancar were likely not hostile to them so they attempted to assist. Orihime went straight to Ulquiorra's side while Shinji went to assist Tier and Hiyori assisted in clean-up operation. When Orihime arrived, she was initially confused as to why Ulquiorra was having a difficult time, but realized the state of his soul.

'I may have used my ability too much; parts of his soul have been restored to when he was human. This caused a strange chimeric effect. There doesn't seem to be any rejection, but he is severely weakened.'

"You have come, mi corazon."

Orihime stumbled in midair. She wasn't sure how such a thing was possible, but she literally did a front flip and went slightly out of control. She landed in Ulquiorra's arms and she realized his pale hollow white skin had turned into more of a human pale white. In his released form his chest was completely bare and she could see that the pitch-black hole had shrunk by more than half.

His released form still had a similar bat-like appearance except the lines under his eyes were no longer there. His cold and dead eyes seemed to show a tinge of humanity in them. However, his voice was still calm and melancholic. When Orihime realized she was in his arms in a princess carry, she turned red uncontrollably. He let her go and turned to the Quincy that had been fighting Ulquiorra.

He saw an opportunity and appeared beside Orihime. He grabbed her in a choke hold and held his finger up to her temple as if mimicking a gun. Orihime was still slightly stunned by his attempt at catching her that she let her guard down. However, with such a weak opponent she wasn't really too worried. When he made a move, she let down her barriers and wanted to see his plan of action.

"Now that I have this fraulein in my grasp, you will join the divine army, and God may grant you his favor. If you resist, I will kill her!"

The Quincy had noticed the change in his atmosphere when she arrived. He would be a fool to not notice that this woman meant a lot to the Arrancar. He didn't understand the dynamic of a Soul Reaper and Arrancar being together, but to him they were just animals. He wouldn't question why or how animals seek pleasure. Ulquiorra spoke up in his normal calm tone.

"What is your name?"

"Jajaja, I am His holy warrior, Heinrich Himmler, second in command of the Jagdarmee!"

"Good, I'll write that on your tombstone. On second thought, I'll just obliterate your body into nothing."

Suddenly, Heinrich's head was rolling off his body and he saw the sky of Las Noches. There was a large hole which revealed the full moon. He made a mental note on how pretty the moon was in Hueco Mundo, but then questioned why he was looking up in the middle of a fight. Once his vision dimmed and Orihime broke away from his body, Ulquiorra released a cero, reducing everything in its path to atoms.

"Mi corazon, why must you let filth touch you so carelessly?"

Orihime's eye twitched at being referred to as his heart twice already. While she dealt with his strange words, Shinji had been fighting alongside Tier. When he had just arrived, she tried to attack him. She was already in her transformed form, but her strength was low in comparison to the two Arrancar that received Orihime's power up. Shinji casually dodged it and put his hands out like an old man that was being maligned.

"Woah, hold on there. I'm here to help. This guy seems like a challenge compared to the others."

"I don't need your interference. Stand back or I'll cut you down first."

The Quincy in question shot a volley of arrows toward Tier but she cut it all down with a wave of her large shark-tooth weapon. Shinji clicked his tongue and leaned backward on air as if he were being nonchalant. Tier tried to close the distance, but Shinji noticed she was running right into a trap. Before she could step on the spiritual power land mine, he appeared behind her and pulled her arm backward.

The trap still went off causing a pillar of white to shoot straight up into the sky, destroying the roof in that spot. She looked over at him and pulled her wrist from his grasp. Tier was visibly angry at his intervention, but decided to ignore him since he did help.

"Don't get in my way, or I might cut you down too."

Tier was previously a very calm and collected person. However, after Aizen almost killed her and she lost her Fraccion to Yamamoto, she had a deep seeded anger that began to grow day by day. When these Quincy invaded and tried to take over everything like Aizen had, she immediately attacked them. What she did not expect was for Ulquiorra, Nelliel, and Grimmjow to assist her.

When she began to reorganize the Espada and attempt to take over Hueco Mundo, these three were here biggest fear. She knew they were loyal to a different Soul Reaper and was afraid another Aizen situation would happen. However, they remained neutral and did not leave the wing where Orihime had stayed. Tier assumed they were weaker than her and didn't want to cause trouble, but she was sorely mistaken.

Shinji smiled wryly before putting his hand up to his face, creating a hollow mask. He followed after Tier and assisted in fighting the Quincy. He seemed to be a master at laying traps and staying out of their range. However, with a split-second activation of Shinji's Shikai, he confused "backward" and "forward" and stepped into his own trap. Tier was able to impale him with the shark tooth sword, causing black lines to form and spread through his body.

Meanwhile, Hiyori had joined in on chasing the small fries. Her Hollow mask was active so many of the weaker Arrancar didn't seem to notice that she was a Soul Reaper. Nelliel and Grimmjow came forward with her, killing countless Quincy. It was a one-sided slaughter.

Orihime stood with her arm out, stabbed into Ulquiorra's chest. The strange chimeric soul seemed to have created a whole new type of Arrancar. Although parts of his soul became 'human' again due to her powers, the soul as a whole still recognized it as itself. The main problem was, the 'human' portions were overpowering the weakened 'hollow' portions around it and spreading. Instead of causing damage, this seemed to be the chain reaction for reverse hollowfication.

Hogyoku's power was silently pouring in and helping stabilize the transformation. She managed to create a balance at half-human and half-hollow. Once she dislodged her hand, green Reiatsu concentrated at the point she penetrated his skin and created a small pearl like Nelliel and Grimmjow. She realized now that this was a miniature hogyoku which she could create with simply functions. In their cases, its continuous evolution.

Once Ulquiorra reverted to his sealed form, he appeared again in young form. Orihime didn't find this strange since his body would need some time to accumulate spiritual power again after overdoing it earlier. He wasn't struggling against the Quincy, but the moment he made a move on Orihime, Ulquiorra released attacks beyond what he could handle at the moment.

Normally this would be fine since it would just take some rest, however, this stimulated the reverse hollowfication. Orihime was afraid to find out what would happen if a Hollow became a whole again. Would they turn human, or something different? She thought it was worth testing in the future, but for now she turned her attention to the battle. She began to pull the Quincy powers latent in the dead bodies and convert it to her own bloodline.

Orihime harvested half the dead Quincy when she saw a living one hiding within the bodies. She turned over the corpses and pulled their hood back. It was a girl that seemed to be a teenager. She had white hair dyed in red from the blood. She looked up at Orihime in fear and gulped.

"It'll be alright…" Orihime whispered as she activated Hanayo no hime and tore away all of her memories, causing her eyes to roll back, going into a vegetative state.