ROSTRO APAGADO

**Date Started:** 25 December, 2021
**Date Completed:** Ongoing
**Previous Role-Play**:
**Next Role-Play**: N/A
**Users Involved:** User:ComicMaster619, User:Duck Dominator
**Setting:** Hueco Mundo
**Characters Involved**:
* **Hollows:** Free Bird, Lucia Astarosa

## Questo Non è Spagnolo

*Oye cómo va*
*Mi ritmo*
*Bueno pa' gozar*
*Mulata*

*Sand doesnt carry a note. It doesnt make much noise, blowing indescriminately. The gentle scratching when an impact is made doesnt share any semblance of a balanced tune. It's chaotic, it's devoid of rythm, and it's the only ambience Hueco Mundo has, save for the locals, most of whom don't understand, nor care about the tuneless sand. Its a parralel to the Hollows that reside in the land, or, most Hollows in that case...*

"In the Pine~s, in the pine~s, where the sun, don' never shine," A Stone-Like Hollow sang solemnly, strumming gently at 6 fleshy, red tendons like strings on a guitar as it lay on one of the infinite amount of Sand Dunes in Hueco Mundo. The Hollow's mask was shaped like a boomerang, two bright blue glowing rings shining in small cavities within the Mask, looking upwards into the sky. Long muscley growths attatched the many dark gray stones that made up the body of Free Bird, who was still strumming mindlessly.

"Where did'ja sleep... Last night?" Free Bird trailed off, plucking 'chords' G, B, then E minor in succession. He blinked absentmindedly, still staring into the sky. "Don't think th' Main Man c'n last much longer." Free Bird said to himself, Drool pooling at a crevice at the bottom of his crecent-like mask, dripping like water from a stalagtite. He knew it was coming, and coming soon. Hollows by nature are hungry, and Free Bird was denying that hunger with as much will as he could muster. He had already tasted his own kind, many, many of his own kind, which was evident due to his Adjuchas classification. The ecstacy of soul on the 'taste buds' was better than anything he could image when he was still alive.

"Ah, Fuck it. What's one more Bastich? Eatin' don't mean th' Main Man is gone." Free Bird rationalized, sitting up quickly, his demeanor changing. The more relaxed muscles tensed over the stones, tightening visibly as the drool dripping from his mask began dropping faster, the sand below darkening at the touch of the saliva.

"Th' Main Man senses one'a them... a *tasty* one too." He paused, "Dunno what th' point'a sayin that was." Free Bird finished, begenning to slink off into the Desert, moving smoothly towards the reishi heavy meal he had picked up on.

Dragging herself from along the empty dunes, a Vasto lorde, accompanied by a large tribe of Hollows, all ranging from Low-Class diminutive creatures to several Adjuchas were trailing behind her, the slender Hollow was breathing raggedly, wobbling from side-to-side. "Too...much...it's...overflowing," she muttered, falling on all fours trying to catch her breath. Before she could do anything, her mask broke open from across where her lips would be, cracking and breaking to create a mouth that stretched across the corners of her face that began to vehemitaly vomit out white Reishi liquid, the volume exceeding her own body weight as it began to pool around her, the fluid moving and shifting across the floor as if it were alive. From the surface of the fluid, the fluid began to form into dozens of faces, all wailing and screaming in unison, morphing into Hollow masks that sprang into life, forming into freshly born Hollows. Although her face was completely obscured due in part to her mask, Lucia's complexion was much better, her composure and figure much more stable than it was a moment earlier. If anyone was around to notice, the strangest part of this entire endeavor was the significant drop in her Reiatsu, stabilizing as soon as she created more creatures to join her.

She was sharper, more relaxed from letting up on the pressure built up inside her. As far as she could remember, this was a natural occurrence for her, akin to something as simple as eating, she had never questioned why or how it happened, only that it happens from time-time whenever she eats too much. Her life in Hueco Mundo simply consisted of moving from place-to-place, eating and multiplying, sweeping the land like locusts wherever she and her band of creations went. Aimlessly wandering, Lucia had never placed much thought on the direction she was going, only driven by her whims rather than natural instinct. Today was no different, and like any other, another wild hunt was underway for fresh prey.

“Hmmmm. Nothing to do, and even less now that I have all of you to do it for me.” She never once thought of herself as royalty, but she had to imagine this was what their old king must have felt like, Lucia surmised, sitting atop a mound of Hollows to serve as some sort of seat while she waited for them to return. With so many under her command, she didn’t have to so much as lift a finger to hunt, much less kill out of necessity anymore. The very act now became somewhat of a sport, dare she say, “fun” to get her own hands dirty for a change whenever she found a Hollow that piqued her interest, savoring the battle for as long as she could, because there was no telling when she’d find another playmate that wouldn't break after her first session.

Free Bird kept slinking closer towards the, now smaller, more numerous reiatsu he felt, suppressing his own to the best of his ability. An ominous feeling passed through his mind for a second, before being devoured by the ever growing, insatiable lust for more of his kind. He had begun noticing, the widespread amount of Hollows that were in the general vicinity, reiatsu the size of an average human to those on par with himself. Free Bird's left hand shot into the air, his 6 tendon guitar forming in an instant. His method of hunting resembled that of *Grand Fisher*, luring beings in with music, a commodity in this world, then devouring them once they were under his spell. His right hand gave two slow, deep strums.

**Dun- Dun~~n**
The sound echoed across the sand. Free Bird had integrated some of his own Reishi into the strum, almost to work as an appetizer to whet the other Hollow's appetite, and in a way, whet his own. Small courses, and a massive, delicious main course to be reached. He Strummed again, twice more.

**Dun- Dun~~n**
"Come on ya bastiches, th' Main Man don't got all day." Free Bird mumbled to himself, quickly wiping away the drool droplets that had formed on his mask with his right hand, which moved back to the 'guitar'. Free Bird could hear it, the sound of collective ears perking, the sound of the sand shifting against the feet of those who stopped to listen. The guitar itself was loud enough to even rival that of gunfire. Free Bird looked back down at his guitar, and began to play a song he thought was appropriate for a meal of this size, starting at the chorus, since usually it was more enticing.

"We'll have ourselves a ball~... DIRTY DEEDS- DONE DIRT CHEAP!" His amplified voice screeched, as a loud strike to the guitar followed each syllable, carrying like a strongman lifts dumbells across the wasteland, sure to reach any, and every Hollow roaming, or, most importantly, reach that succulent meal, regardless if it's strength had been cut for unknown reasons.

Still bored, Lucia was letting her cheek rest on her hand, waiting, watching the various creatures interact with one another, but something of particular note was beginning to happen. Since she started creating her own Hollows, they always followed her every word, to such a degree that they shared a very intimate connection, broadcasting everything they see and hear directly back at her, almost like some sort of queen bee manivering drones. "Huh?" As such, it immediately drew her attention when they started moving against her wishes, drawn in by a melody they heard, echoing back to her that was not natural. Before she even sat up, the Hollows ahead of their group heard a massive blast of sound reverberate across the desert, the first to hear it were her Hollows out on the hunt, transmitting this information back to the rest of Lucia's colony to act accordingly. "A musician in these parts? How interesting."

Flicking her finger in the air, all the Hollows around her began to converge on her location, desperately lining up and crawling over one another, forming a living mound of flesh all conjoined in their mission to protect Lucia, their masks pointing toward the source of the sound, standing in-between the volume of noise racing to toward her, creating a meat shield of several dozen creatures that took the full brunt of the shockwave. And from the direction and angle, Lucia was more than sure she was the intended target. As it hit, blood and viscera splattered in every direction, staining the sand with Hollow matter that made them unrecognizable. Lucia didn't bat an eye at the loss of her forces, unfazed by the fact her "children" were lying in pieces at her footsteps, the only shame she felt was that she couldn't eat them now, simply vanishing and disintegrating after a short while. She was less interested in their fate and more so on the attacker, the move it used was unusual for a simple Hollow to use, and filled her with intrigue, and something even more important than that: quorisity.

"Oh man, what was THAT? It made my heart skip a beat for a second, where are you?" Getting off her make-shift seat, Lucia lifted her hand into the air, with the rest of the Hollows in her company wailing in unison, all tracing the source of the sound based on where each one of them had heard it. Piecing it together in her mind, Lucia had a reasonable estimation of where it originated. Simply skipping one step, Lucia vanished without a trace, with the only sign she was ever there being the light imprint of her feet in the sand. Given their link, they didn't need any words to know where they were needed, the rest of her Hollows followed in hot pursuit, all coming to greet the stranger among their midst. Flashing back into sight, Lucia stood a reasonable distance from the Hollow, examining him from head-to-toe, taking in all the details so she wouldn't forget. "If you're shy about playing in front of a large crowd, we keep this between the two of us, and keep it intimate," Lucia reasoned, the Hollows keeping a fair distance between them, waiting for their chance to pounce on him.

"Intimate, ya gotta get closer t' be intimate ya Bastich." Free Bird fired back, still strumming away at the guitar, small, fleshy growths banging on Free Bird's stone legs to create a sound Akin to Drums. "Hell, th' show's just m'way of bringin s'me peace t' this hellhole."

The sand below Free Bird had warped, spreading out like waves, with himself as the epicenter spanning almost thirty meters in diameter. Each passing strum began to grow quieter, the sound more akin to the speakers at a concert. Free Bird's blue eyes flashed, as his music warped, ever so slightly. To the average ear, the change would be impossible to pinpoint, yet, there was a new tone to the rythm. It could be described as intoxicating, like the aroma of a fresly baked pie. The Rythm wormed it's way into the ears of any nearby listener, gently, subliminally. Free Bird's **Power Chord** had been activated for those close enough to truly listen to his music, or in other words, those within fifteen meters of the Guitarist.

"You got problems with ya life alone~ You got a broken heart!" He continued, taking a step closer to Lucia and her entourage, who he believed to be his original target. "Y'know, thank ya for bringin' an audience. Been so long since th' Main Man could put on a show like this." Free Bird said, sounding genuinely greatful for the Hollows who would soon be Grateful Dead. While this pun made sense to Free Bird, he assumed saying it aloud would either cause him to be killed on the spot, or laughed at like a clown. Or both, for that matter. "Been a while since any'a ya bastiches've heard music, hasn't it? Did ya miss th' rythm? Come closer, th' Main Man'n that Hollow..." He said, gesturing to Lucia with his right hand, then returning to playing, "... Think it'd be a venture t' come a little bit closer."

As far as she was concerned, the Hollow was simply playing music from a strange instrument, speaking words that didn't interest her in the slightest. But the noise he was making filled her with a sensation she didn't expect to feel unless she was eating or fighting. She wanted to know more, hear more, until she used and abused it until it broke. *What kind of sounds would you make then?* she thought. Taking in his invitation, Lucia simply waltzed up toward Free Bird, taking note that something strange was going on with her Hollows, as of this moment she wasn't sure of what exactly. She would wait and see how things would pan out. "Alright mister 'Main Man', I'm standing and waiting, and I'm at the edge of my seat," Lucia retorted, standing several feet away from him, simply standing and waiting to see what else he could do with that contraption.

"AhT- t- t- t-, shut th' hell up fer a moment," Free Bird replied, his head turning to face skyward, "I'm gonna shred."

The tendon guitar began squealing like a pig at a butchery, each chord struck caused the sand to tremble beneath it's massive weight, as the speed of his constant riffing could be seen as akin to Angus Young or Slash. Free Bird was still gazing skyward, his left hand shaking from the strain from his powerful, echoing blasts from the 'guitar'. His right foot rapidly slammed itself into the sand to create the sound of a cymbal, but was being compressed so hard and fast that the sand below could have easily become powder. Most notably, Free Bird's right hand, the one strumming, was bleeding. This was completely intentional, as blood would usually gain more of a reaction from the crowd. Small black droplets flew from his fingertips, plastering themselves on the sand below.

After a single minute of playing, Free Bird's body quickly regenerated, his fingers rewinding themselves together seamlessly. His tendon guitar vanished, and all music ceased, leaving only the vacant sounds of Hueco Mundo, the sand grew quiet once more. If Free Bird could have, he would have decided to grin, not only from the ending of his song, but most importantly;

*"Don't y'all feel empty 'thout th' Main Man's music?"* He hasked with a calmer voice, lowering his head to stare at Lucia, to make eye contact. He wondered how these hollows would react to Power Chord, he wondered how the world would twist for them without Free Bird's metal melody. He never enjoyed playing with his food, but in Hueco Mundo, survival of the fittest was a priority.

Lucia could feel a nagging sensation curl up inside of her, while she could keep these symptoms at bay, the same could not be said of her companions. As if it were some kind of delirium, the creatures accompanying her were growing restless, and were growing beyond her control, something she wasn't going to tolerate. If things continued, it would be more trouble to keep them around. Pressing her fingers on her lips, Lucia stretched out the palm of her hand out toward the hordes of Hollows, blowing them a kiss from her fingertips, pointing them in the direction above her as her Reiatsu began to appear, gathering around her hand as a bright yellow light began to form. Charging a Cero, Luia fired it across the dunes, cutting into the terrain as it sliced through the Hollows, being followed by a chain-reaction that resulted in a series of explosions wherever the energy touched, reducing the landscape into nothing but a charred wasteland. With all manner of bits and pieces loitering around, rather than the viscera vanishing into thin air as it would normally do so after their death, something unorthodox was taking place instead. The Hollows she killed began to change, breaking down into Reishi that flowed into the air and toward Lucia, a reaction that shouldn't be possible and defied all logic and common understanding of Hollow nature.

Inhaling deeply, the spirit particles raced toward her mouth, quickly traveling down her throat as her belly began to swell and as her Reiatsu began to rise sharply, almost proportional to the number of Hollows she had just consumed, letting out a sigh of relief after everything was said and done. As she was now, her spirit energy now more closely resembled what Free Bird felt before she started spreading her "gift" around, her stomach glowing as her presence began to exude a heavier pressure than before. "Sorry about that, but I don't like people touching my things without my permission, it just feels gross if we're sharing," Lucia snickered, the audience now reduced to just the two of them now. Even with the radical change in appearance, she was just as fast as ever, taking a single step forward as she vanished, darting across the right side of Free Bird, spinning around to deliver a kick across the side of his head.

The cero beams had startled Free Bird, and the sheer magnitude of the being in front of him sent only one thought through his mind; 'Christ almighty'. He barley had any time to think past this quick internal dialouge as the sudden kick colided with his skull, sending him careening through the air, and into a sand dune a good fifteen meters or so away, his body blasting apart the sand around him on impact.

"Ow- th' fuckin'..." Free Bird paused with his train of thought. "Did th' bastich just absorb all th' other bastiches? C'n she absorb th' Main Man?" Free Bird shook his head furiously. "Eh, not now. Ya came to eat, fuckin' eat!" Free Bird yelled at himself, his body standing upright as if it were a care dealership inflatable tube man. His eyes darted rapidly around him, landing back on where he presumed to have originated from, the cero lines still steaming in the desert sand. Free Bird ripped his left arm completely off of his shoulder, seemingly feeling no pain as it regenerated near isntantly. The arm warped itself, splitting into ten baseball sized spheres, still maintaining a red, fleshy quality. Each one had a cone shaped divot thay looked to be drilled into the sphere.

"Never was a good pitcher." Free Bird mumbled, rapidly, in ten blurry swipes of his arms, threw the flesh balls towards the still immense spiritual pressure he felt. As the spheres soared overhead, each one began charging with a pitch black energy, whirring like a PC's fan while trying to run a single tab in Google Chrome. The Dark black energy then shot downwards onto where Lucia stood, the pitch black Ceros emenating from the balls carpet bombed the Hollow, slicing through the ground and air like butter.

Opening her mouth open, Lucia released an excess body of white fluid out, vomiting a massive volume that erupted outward, covering everything that was directly in front of her. From the white pool, hands and masks began to form as the mass of Reishi was given form, taking on the shape of numerous Hollows, but from the appearance alone, they were a level higher than what Free Bird had seen in comparison to the other merely creatures that followed her. Simply because of the excess spirit energy that Lucia let off from time to time, the Hollows this time around were Gillians, their faces emerging from the white sea of Reishi and forming up to create a firing squad. With their long noses pointed to the orbs, the Menos opened their mouths letting loose a volley of Cero toward the direction of Free Bird's attack. What she hadn't accounted for was just how powerful his own Doom Blast was in contrast to theirs, only working to slow down the bombardment while she made her getaway as the Hollows fell, with a stray Cero eviscerating one of her horns from the fallout. With nothing but burned lines etched across the dunes, remarking that he wasn't an average Hollow.

"Maybe you're a better catcher then, hmmmm," Lucia remarked, landing on a large rock nearby. Caressing the area where her missing horn used to be, Lucia had to reconsider the man's position from being more than entertainment, and more so as an actual opponent she had to consider as being much higher on the food-chain than the conventional Hollows she would eat. The look he was giving her was one she wasn't accustomed to, as it was one of a hunter staring down its prey. Up until now, Lucia had always been the one hunting, killing and eating without ever encountering a creature that could put up any kind of resistance that would deter her for long. It was because of this that she was never on the receiving end of this vicious cycle, as she had no natural predators, and as such, she could flourish and develop unipeded for a very long time till now. But for the first time, there was someone who could fill this emptiness she couldn't fill, no matter how many Hollows she created. She couldn't help but find it all amusing.

Letting her foot down delicately on the stone's surface, Lucia broke it underneath her heel, crumbling to pieces as she landed onto the soft ground below. Regaining her more slender form, Lucia lifted both hands up, getting ready to fight at close-range.

Free Bird recoiled in suprise, stepping backwards in retreat in reaction to Lucia's immense power, his blue eyes flickering at the display. 'Shit, This's different than usual.' Free Bird thought, his hands morphing into jagged stone grey Gauntlets, each one laiden with serrated spikes along the knuckles. Free Bird's muscles on his arms warped from thin and strenious to slightly bulking and seemingly, growing in thickness.

"Who knows? Never played ball in m' life." Free Bird responded in kind, shifting his center of gravity slightly downwards. He knew that there was only so long he could stall, and began surveying evey nook and cranny he could on her body. His eyes rapidly spun, moving in a dizzying pattern, before finally coming to a rest on the stump where he had sliced off her horn.

"Y'look a little lopsided, doen't seem like a good look fer ya." Free Bird mumbled, as the dark red muscles all over his body rippled slightly in anticipation. So far, Free Bird only had the basics of a plan, a rough draft. He fully well understood that Lucia was more than likely faster than him, and in some way, maybe more defensive than him. But, even something as opposing as a human can be brought to their knees by something the size of their pinkie finger. Free Bird decided to keep working his poison, as during this encounter, obscured on his back, two small tendrils emerged, one morphing into a set of 6, miniature chords, and the other, strumming quietly. His goal was to hold out as long as he could, and pray Power Chord would eventually cripple Lucia.

Kicking off the floor, Lucia pushed her advance forward, charging head first to the musician, quickening her pace even more than she felt she needed to due to the precarious situation she found herself the longer this fight dragged on. Speed was key, she would either have to dominate her foe before succumbing to his strange symphony or find herself on the back end of this battle, and risk the inevitability of being reduced to nothing but morsal like so many Hollows in Hueco Mundo. As much as she wanted to simply rush him, confident her Sonido to open up such possible recourse, there just too many variables to consider, his abilities unorthodox even for a Hollow, more resembling a musician she had heard of in the Human World.

"Good rhythm, but the tempo's all wrong," stopping mid-way, Lucia darted off to the far side of the Hollow's peripheral vision, kicking up sand as her foot lifted off the dune's white surface. Repeating the same motion over and over again, her pace began to increase, escalating to the point of creating a dozen afterimages that flickered in and out of existence all around Free Bird, the rapid movement ceasing until they took a more tangible form, with any distinguishable features that proved they were otherwise a trick of the eye all but gone. Circling around Free Bird like vultures hovering around their prey, they slowly closed the distance, advancing step-by-step, with three Lucia's breaking out into a full sprint to attack, using a flurry of kicks from three sides, all the while the rest stood in waiting.

"Sounds like ya got a bad ear ya bastich!" Free bird yelled back, his shock factor mostly bottomed out by the time Lucia began showing off her stunning array of speed. Free Bird immediately dropped his musclebound form, the firsts fading as the after-images surrounded him completely. He carefully watched the images close in faster and faster, assuming that even at his fastest, He'd have a hard time keeping up. Keeping the 'instruments' close to his head, both it and the instruments shot nearing 2 meters skyward, as the three images began barraging his body, their limbs plunging into his soft, pliable flesh, almost as if it were immensely durable play-doh or silly putty.

"Too close fer comfort!" He noted, as the three images would find themselves slowly getting more and more fleshy residue on their legs from the kicking. As movement continued, the clumps of 'flesh' began moving, and growing as tendrils began trying to latch onto the ground, and slow down the movements of the one they were stuck on. Regardless of speed, any physical contact was met with this gimmick of an idea.

Keeping the pressure going, Lucia, in tandem with the rest of her Sonido clones, outstretched their fingers towards the skyrocketing object in the air. While stuck on the floor, those trapped on the ground floor simultaneously opened their mouths, outstretching their jaws as far as they could go, unveiling the back of her throat, gurgling white fluid that erupted into a fountain. Sacrificing themselves to extend their attack, the mash of Reishi climped up into the air, reforming into the maws of Hollow masks with their teeth agape, spirit energy gathering as the Adjuchas-level creations fired a volley of Cero. The rest of the Lucia's followed suite, synchronizing their attacks and firing similar beams of energy flying from all directions from within the circle, eventually colliding with one another. If she couldn't rely on accuracy to catch him, it would be more efficient to simply destroy everything and anything in Free Bird's general vicinity in one fell swoop, catching it all in one giant explosion. With the original running far away from the blast range so as not to get caught up in her own attack, all she did was watch and hope.

"Mmm, you're so good, I didn't think you'd get me so worked up," she muttered, her appetite growing and growing to a substantial degree, wondering if Free Word's melody was progressing much further than she had expected, needing to rush the battle along in the way she did because of it.

"Well shi-" Free Bird tried to say, being completely enveloped by the explosion, taking what little fleshy body mass he had left to shield his mask from the brunt of the blast, hardening like a cocoon. It wasnt very effective in the end, blasting little globs of red to kingdom come, the flesh rocketing outwards in every conceivable direction.

This included Free Bird's instruments, which stopped playing their music. Any being, specifically Lucia, would feel an almost intense desire wash over them a deep sated need to hear any sound from the Hollow again. It would be akin to how one views a heroin addiction; Absolutely necessary to one's survival. For a solid three or so minutes, the music had been playing, had been flowing through the air.

Meanwhile, nearby Lucia, Free Bird's head and a small amount of red mass which could hardly be called a 'Body' landed in the sand like a meteor, steaming from the impact. Free Bird's world was spinning, feeling himself knock, knock, knockin on heaven's door as what remained of his body lay in the crater, sub-consciously trying to build up enough Reishi to regenerate.

As the explosion began to subside, Lucia gazed into the crater created from the shockwave of the blast, anything nearby, including the Hollows and copies were eviscerated, catching only a small glimpse of a small projectile escape from rising cloud of smoke. Before she could so much as take a step forward, Lucia fell down on one knee, gasping and sweating profusely as fatigue began to rise, Free Bird's dulcet tones, although absent, still ringing in her head. It was as if all the wind was knocked out of her without a single blow thrown at her direction. *Could this be his sweet tunes* she thought. Weather she was conscious of it or not, Lucia made her way toward the wreckage that was Free Bird, following the trail of Reishi rising.

Towering over what remained of the Hollow, she couldn't help but run her hand over her broken horn, a memento of their encounter, trying to heal his injuries. "To think we were so compatible with each other, it's never happen to me before," she muttered, tilting her head back to such an exaggerated manner her chest rose up, opening her mouth to the point of cracking her mask along the edges of where her mouth would be, unveiling Hollow-like teeth as she shrieked out loud. Snapping back, Lucia began to vomit white fluid in quantities that greatly dwarfed her own body's mass as it oozed and washed over Free Bird's body. She wasn't about to let the Hollow stop over something as inconvenient as injuries, deciding to accelerate his healing by supplying him energy from the various Hollows she's consumed, force feeding him Reishi in the process.

"Wh-why would ya..." Free Bird trailed off, feeling some semblance of consciousness returning to him as globs of flesh began oozing out of his skull like red, bloody tears, while the white mass excreted by Lucia began dissipating into Free Bird's body. As his body began reconstituting itself from the flow of excess energy, Free Bird rested in the crater contemplating what the actual FUCK was going through this other hollow's mind as of this moment. Finally, after around twenty seconds of awkward silence, Free bird gained enough Reishi back to ask his question.

"Why would ya save th' main man? I was tryin'a... tryin'a get you addicted t' th' main man's music." Free Bird asked, while his shapeless body began to slowly form into 'Arms' and 'Legs', thinning out from the play-doh like substance. Free Bird's two circular, glowing blue eyes flashing in brightness due to slight irritation as the white liquid had fully seeped into the sand below, or been absorbed by the music man.

"Is it a condescending' blow t' mah confidence? It's workin' pretty well..." Free Bird joked, laughing like an exhausted military vet, expecting to be eaten in one fell swoop. He knew it would end this way, that some day, a hollow with remarkably strong willpower would render his Power Chord mostly useless... albeit this time it felt even worse, seeing as this woman got the jump on him before he could adapt accordingly to their Reiatsu.

Lucia could only grin at the man's utter confusion, finding it amusing for him to rationalize her actions as he struggled for an answer. Running her hand across the side of her head, Lucia couldn't help but reach toward what should have been one of her horns, simply grasping at thin air as if to remind herself of what had transpired. The fact that a Hollow⁠—an Adjuchas⁠—could have wounded her to such a degree brought on a sudden realization that lit her face up with exuberance at his question.

Squating down, he knelt beside Free Bird, letting her slender finger run across the Adjuchas' mask is small gentle circular motions, taking in all the small crevices and lines it had. "My poor little humming bird, it wouldn't make much sense to kill you when I could continue to enjoy every small little peep and cry you make, not matter how beautiful or painful it sounded," as if one cue, she increased the pressure on his head ever so slightly, not enough to injure him, but enough to insinuate a more nefarious tune he could be singing to. "If I had my way, I'd cage you up and drag you all over Hueco Mundo If I thought that'd make things more fun. But I doubt you'd sing as well. After all, what is it that they say? If you love something, set it free."