Nipping Trouble in the Bud

Unaware that he had been marked for death, a tall, thin, bespectacled Arrancar with shoulder-length pink hair and bangs to the right side of his face couldn't help smiling as he gazed through the eyepiece of a uniquely 'organic' microscope.

Though he had been instructed not to conduct any experiments before the preservation period had expired, that didn't stop the Octava Espada, Szayelaporro Granz, from taking tissue, follicle, and other samples from Karin's body, suspended naked in a tank of glowing green liquid.

"So this is what the DNA of a Quincy looks like..." mused Szayelaporro, analyzing Karin's genes with an ease that would make scientists in the Human World foam at the mouth like a pack of Saint Bernards with late-stage rabies.

"How truly fascinating. To think cells could exist in a state of quantum superposition, both physical and spiritual, concurrently. With their innate ability to absorb Reishi, they should have attained biological immortality, yet even in a state of suspended animation, their cells continue to divide and decay. Could they be impervious to temporal phenomena? To what end...?"

Shaking his head, Szayelaporro muttered, "No matter. This specimen is far too precious. With such a uniquely dualistic constitution, her womb could serve as a bridge between the spiritual and physical planes..."

Though it might not matter if Aizen succeeded in his goal of becoming a God, Szayelaporro grinned at the notion of invading the so-called 'Human World' with an army of Hollows given physical form.

At present, even the most powerful Vasto Lorde-turned-Arrancar could only stay in the human world for a few hours before their power began to deplete rapidly, leaking from the hole in their bodies. With a physical body to serve as a container, they should be able to stay as they want, leisurely consuming the billions of humans and creatures that called it home.

Eager to test his hypothesis, Szayelaporro used a microscopic needle to extract the nuclei from ten of Karin's egg cells before implanting five with somatic cells harvested from her body and the rest with genetic material procured from the other Espada. He was tempted to 'rebirth' himself, but he wanted to perform a few experiments first.

After placing the first five eggs into pitcher-like sacks filled with a dark purple liquid, Szayelaporro attempted to implant the genetic material he had harvested from the former Tres Espada into the sixth. However, when the genetic material was introduced into the egg, the petri dish containing it exploded, releasing vaporous steam.

Furrowing his brows, Szayelaporro repeated the experiment with the remaining eggs, each bursting without fail. To make matters worse, the growth medium he was using to accelerate the development of Karin's clones had started to bubble, nearly boiling over as the contents within hissed like acid atop a hot pan.

Undaunted by his failure, Szayelaporro held a small microphone up to his mouth, stating, "As expected, the subject's egg cells reacted adversely to the introduction of Hollow somatic cells. It would appear that, even at the cellular level, Quincies reject the very existence of Hollows..."

Setting aside the microphone, Szayelaporro grinned evilly as he mused, "It's fortunate that I happen to have the perfect sample on hand to try my next experiment~."

Retrieving a silver test tube labeled 'Tribrid Specimen 001' from a cold storage compartment, Szayelaporro slowly thawed its contents before extracting a small amount of carmine liquid. Then, using the eggs he had prepared during the thawing process, he implanted the somatic material into its center without incident.

"Marvelous..." muttered Szayelaporro, placing the fertilized egg into the growth solution before readying the next. The solution began to hiss as it had during the previous experiments, but Szayelaporro expected this. He simply wanted to confirm it wasn't viable before moving on to something else.

Placing the newly prepared egg cell in a tank similar to the one preserving Karin's body, albeit much smaller, Szayelaporro filled it with a mitogenic nutrient solution before increasing the internal pressure to stimulate cell division. He generally used this method to produce limbs and replacement organs when full-body cloning was simply a waste of resources, but there was no reason it couldn't work on a fertilized egg and embryo.

Matching Szayelaporro's expectations, though he would never admit to anything exceeding them, tiny bubbles began to form with the glowing blue solution. When he checked on it twenty minutes later, a tiny speck, roughly the size of a vanilla bean seed, could be seen floating near the center of the tank. Twenty minutes later, it had practically 'exploded' to 6mm in length.

Convinced the method was working, Szayelaporro prepared nine more tanks, four containing the embedded cells of Tribrid Specimen 001 and the remaining five using Karin's somatic cells. Once he had viable clones to work with, he could experiment without jeopardizing the integrity of the original sample. At the rate the clones were gestating, he would only need four and a half hours to prepare them and an additional 2-3 days to make the most promising samples 'experimentally viable.'

"Master Szayelaporro! Master Szayelaporro~!" exclaimed a pair of fat, spherical Arrancar with matching features, the only notable difference being their hairstyles. One had a black ponytail, while the other had two pigtails protruding from the back and sides of their hemispherical, broad-mouthed heads.

"What is it?" asked Szayelaporro, staring at the nearly identical Arrancar with annoyance and disgust. He hated having his experiments intruded upon. Even more so when he was required to step away from them for a pointless meeting or something similar...

"Lady Harribel has arrived!" revealed the male Arrancar, Verona, followed by his female counterpart, Lumina, exclaiming, "And she brought the man who killed Lord Barragan...!"

Hearing the duo's exclamations, the pupils of Szayelaporro's amber eyes contracted. He and Harribel weren't on good terms(for many reasons), but her arrival alongside Ohta could only mean two things. She had betrayed the Espada, or she was being manipulated in some way to do the latter's bidding. Either way, it wasn't good for him.

"Dammit...!" exclaimed Szayelaporro, slamming his fist into the tank he was standing next to, shattering it to pieces and causing its contents to spill across the floor. If he had more time, he could have given Ohta one of the clones, and he would be none the wiser. Now, unless he wanted to die, his only options were to hand over Karin's body or retreat, fleeing far from Las Noches to his secret laboratory in the South. The problem with that was Aizen. If he ran away before the final battle, the wannabe deity would likely condemn or ridicule him...

Before Szayelaporro could decide on the best course of action, a tremor caused the glassware in his laboratory to shudder, followed by the floor beneath him abruptly lurching upward like an elevator.

"What the hell...!?" exclaimed the pink-haired Arrancar, pushing aside Lumine and Verona as he rushed to his monitoring station to see what was happening. To his surprise, the external cameras showed that his entire palace was being lifted into the sky, one of them zooming in on the image of a grey-haired Harribel and a dark-haired figure wearing a familiar cloak.

"What is he doing...?" wondered Szayelaporro aloud. Ohta's ability to lift his palace into the air wasn't too surprising, at least, that's what he told himself, but he couldn't fathom what the monstrous human was hoping to achieve. It wouldn't kill him even if Ohta dropped the palace from the canopy of Las Noches.

Furrowing his brows, Szayelaporro speculated, "Could he be trying to destroy the Quincy girl's body? Or is this his way of compelling me to relinquish it without a fight...?"

Receiving his answer, Szayelaporro could hear the metal and stone in his palace begin to groan under intense pressure. At the same time, his hair and clothes began to be drawn toward the wall behind him, followed by everything that wasn't held down 'falling' in the same direction. It was like the direction of gravity had reversed, causing Szayelaporro's amber eyes to widen as he drew his Zanpakuto, holding it aloft like a sword swallower as he shouted, "Sip...!" before inserting it into his throat...

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"Are you sure about this?" asked Harribel, her expression and tone calm, borderline apathetic despite the awe she was experiencing.

"If this guy is anything like what you've described, there's no way we can be trusted to return Karin's body without implanting a trap or pulling some trick," replied Ohta, gradually closing his hand as he added, "Besides, we have the means to provide her with a replacement, so there's no reason to put ourselves at a disadvantage acquiring the original..."

Sensing a sudden burst of Reiatsu from within the crumbling palace, Ohta caused Harribel to shudder as he adopted a toothy, unabashedly sadistic grin and increased the rate at which he closed his hand. Unfortunately for Szayelaporro, Ohta's psychic crush worked by extending an invisible mass of psychic energy from his body rather than trying to interact with it from a distance. This made it easy to dodge, but escape was nearly impossible once you were trapped within.

Breaking through the walls of his palace with Karin's tank enveloped in his weird wings, Szayelaporro attempted to flee into the sky but smacked his head into Ohta's dense psychic membrane. As he did so, a repulsive force radiated through his body like a shockwave, damaging his internal organs and spreading to Karin's tank, causing the interior fluid to become crimson as her body ruptured violently.

("It's a good thing the people inside the cloak can't see what's going on outside...") thought Ohta, discarding his sadistic grin for a markedly more serious, resolute look. Szayelaporro appearing with Karin's body in tow was all the confirmation he needed to know the pink-haired Arrancar was up to something, so he used Harribel's tremendous Reiryoku to empower his psychic crush further. As a result, Szayelaporro's massive laboratory, initially resembling a green dome with multiple lesser domes on top, went from 2500m in diameter at its base to a dense, white-hot sphere of Reishi fewer than 50m across.

As Szayelaporro's Reiatsu had disappeared long before the sphere took its final shape, Ohta exhaled a contented sigh as he allowed the white-hot mass to plunge into the sands of Las Noches below, its heat and density causing it to sink like an iron ball into ice, making a loud hissing sound as a plume of liquefied glass erupted from the hole it produced.

Turning to Harribel, Ohta regained his smile, asking, "I trust you won't be missing him...?"

Shaking her head, Harribel replied, "Among the Espada, Szayelaporro was the most likely to invite trouble to Las Noches, regardless of the outcome of your and Lord Aizen's battle. His death serves the interests of all three realms..."

"Then let's keep up this momentum," said Ohta. "Tell me which Arrancar and Espada you believe should be spared and which you think should die. You and that coyote bastard are likely to rule this place after everything is said and done, so I'll do you a favor by helping you eliminate anyone who might oppose you. Then, assuming I drag Aizen's face through the dirt, you can return the favor by letting me use this place as a vacation home and training venue. Sound fair?"

"..."

Though she doubted Ohta's ability to defeat Aizen, even after witnessing his nigh-incomprehensible display of power, Harribel eventually nodded in affirmation, answering, "Very well. Our–I mean, your next target should be Nnoitra Gilga, the Quinto Espada. He is a violent and egotistical individual who can't stand to be beneath others, especially women. He ignored Lord Aizen's order forbidding internal conflicts among the Espada. And, despite being spared by her several times, he eventually managed to land a sneak attack on the former Tres Espada, Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, leaving her in a state arguably worse than death..."

"Sounds like a cunt," replied Ohta, his expression and tone dismissive as he didn't care about Nnoitra's or this Nelliel woman's past. He might get Orihime to heal the latter if she was still around, but that wasn't on his list of priorities. He had a purge to perpetrate, so after Harribel pointed him in the right direction, Ohta returned her to the cloak's interior dimension and flew toward Nnoitra's palace at Mach speeds...

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(A/N: Boy be zoomin' (O 3 O). Also, just in case this is the only chapter today, here's your daily reminder that Not a Mob: Psycho is not a harem novel.)