Process of Illumination

He nervously chuckled to her when he heard that the guy thought the hollow entity was a case of a bad taco. He shook his head and his smile reformed itself as his mind seemed to wonder for a moment about how the hollow presented itself. He tried to retrace his own steps and thought of whether or not something miraculous like that could have happened to him to cause her to surface. But he definitely knew that it had to do with him visiting his inner world. He remembered that he entered some type of cluster of red stars in the corner of his mind, that he never paid attention to until he was introduced to his spirit more formally. This reminiscence that he had made him remember that he still hasn't even seen his spirit since that day, and it's only been this hollow. This realization made his smile drop, as he had a more serious demeanor with his goal being just to see Sumire again, and not really care what happens to the hollow. As soon as he snapped out of his thought processes, he looked back over to Ulv and how she passive-aggressively insulted who he was to her.

"Alright. Look, I'm gonna say this again. All I know is that as soon as I learned of my shikai, I had her show up. The thing talks to me like I'm it's father or something, and it didn't present itself as a threat. I was strolling talking with it, and came into "your town". You appear and tell me "Hey, dumbass, that's not a spirit, that a hollow two things can happen with one of those. One kills you, one doesn't". So now we're here. I would like my spirit back, I want to learn about my shikai a lot more than I have, and this thing will not let me communicate with her unless I "play" with it..."

He pressed his back on the banister behind him, and shuffled his hands farther into the arm cross to relax himself as he chose his next words. He moved his head to look to the pier as he pondered how to explain himself or think of some type of deal to work out between the two of them. His eyes rolled upwards as if he was seeing his sentences formed above his head, and nodded before continuing his eye roll to glance over to Ulv. His head then turned to match her in eye contact as he took a large breath and sharp exhale before speaking again.

"...Hearing what you said, I assume the "play" time is me turning into one of those things. Just because I don't fit the mold of your ideal citizen or whatever, doesn't mean i'm just a piece of garbage, and it definitely doesn't mean i have a "bloated ego". I survived because I felt something off, but didn't know what she was doing. And until i figure out what she wants, I've been just ignoring her "playtime". Now, since you know seem to know about this stuff more than I do, I would like some type of help to figure out what the hell I'm going to do as my next step. Help me out and you don't have to see me or my "bloated ego" here ever again. Hell, if the help is that, reiastu force thing, you can do that and then throw me out to the wolves for all i care. I don't have time to prove to people my worth through word choice."

His carefree demeanor now just being more prominent as he looked away again after speaking his piece. His mind became cluttered with his own thought process and having his spirit chime in to talk over him didn't help him.
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"Jus walk away Missy-yo! Iy'll be more fun for us!"

"Shut it, you. Nothing's fun about me not hearing my own thoughts, and it's not fun without Suzy here to help me think better, if anything you're making my already horrible thought process even more horrible. Don't make me put you in... timeout... or something."

"No, no, it's not that... I know what she looks like.. In fact we talk all the time." He seemed to calm down when reminiscing about Sumire, relaxing his shoulders while still keeping his arms crossed, and cracking his neck. "When I met her, she kinda...hid certain parts of her inner world to me for all of my time working with her. When I unlocked shikai, when we were in the world, she took me through one of those covered up areas. So I assumed it was just an effect of hers, and not really a hollow." He looked up at Ulv taking a seat in the air and scoffed cracking a light smile as he saw her floating eye level to him. "Probably should've said that, to give you a reason to why I'm confused. It's not that I don't know hollows exist or whatever, its that I don't know why or how I even have one ta begin with."

He looked around the pier hoping to find some type of bench to sit on, but with no avail, he turned behind him and hopped up on the railing to sit. He then rested his elbow on his knee and used his hand to prop up his head,covering the lower half of his face with his opened palm. He then began to mumble under his hand as he pondered more out loud. "Maybe she was trying to cover something up for me? But... how... did it even...get there...?" He then exited his train of thought to look back to Ulv as she corrected his comments that he made. He uncovered his mouth, closing it into a fist as he rested his cheek on the top of the closed fist and spoke, "Thought you said the hulking out part was easier to deal with? And it would just be a battle between me and her? And you'd kill me if I did it the wrong way? Look, bottomline is I want to make this a "easy" process... Ya know the one where I'm not destroying a city or two, or ya know... dying because of it. Whatever option to make that happen i'll take."

"Well... Okay.. yeah you got me there. I did ask about it when I was in there a few times.. but she pretty much told me not to worry about it much and she'd take care of it. So i just sorta, believed everything was okay. But now that it's been taking up the front of my mind... I'm not now seeing she's not been handling it well... *sigh* and now i can't talk to my spirit to say something's wrong."

His body slumped over as his elbows rested on each of his knees and his hands clasped in the air between his knees. He took in another deep breath and sighed as she explained some situations as to how hollows can enter. He nodded in agreement as he listen to how easily energy could enter into his body. And as soon as his head was far enough downward he felt a change of pressure from the back of his neck. His eyes opened up and looked up swiftly as his eyes furrowed and then widened seeing a cero being charged in front of his face. As it seemed to grow in power, most of his clothing began to blow backwards, and his scarf briefly caught on fire from the energy swirling around the two of them. He slowly leaned backward as the Cero seemed to grow in size, almost to a point where it was inches away from his face. And then as soon as he felt the burning sensation from how close it was beginning to settle in, the cero was dispelled.

"Geez, lady... what's with you and wanting me to die?! You're telling me there's no other way other than dying... again, to get this thing somewhat under control?" His expression had a face of annoyance and fear as he was still taken aback by the fact that she was so openly ready to melt his face off, well, so ready to kill him out right with the drop of a pin.

"I... huh... Hey I remember the part of me thing! I just... well the self reflection thing didn't dawn on me until now really. I, somewhat know what I'm doing, it's just the flashy stuff and not really the fundamentals..." He tried to clean himself up, but at this rate he completely lost steam and focused more so on the next part of her plan. "But yeah... You're right I should've paid a bit more attention. I mean i got pretty far without it, but... probably not gonna go much farther if I don't learn a little something."

He hung his head down again looking down at the pier's floor, his hands shaking slightly as he heard her say the "easy" fix would be death or the Devil's Heart, which he knew was not the plan to go for. In fact the effects from that would probably bring up a lot of the stuff he's been neglecting to face, which would be whole other set of baggage that seemed far more annoying than a child in his head that won't shut up.

"So if I get my hea--- If i get blown u--- If I'm un-alived. What's the play from there? Or are you doing that as a plan so that you don't have to deal with me as well... because like... again living is preferable... having my spirit, preferable...controlling this thing... slightly less preferable but still preferable." He spoke, wincing at the options of how she planned on killing him, making him feel even more uneasy than he already was.

"I get it, i get it... I'm a dumbass alright, oh woe is me. Forgive me for not reading a book or two and still doing enough to pass." he sarcastically remarked having his annoyance to this situation really show its way through a bit more. He then rolled his eyes upward and looked to his left to the distance of the pier, as she continued to explain about the Devil's Heart and his absolute death. "If anything, I'd blame it on the academy more than anything, if someone as "bloated" as I am made it through."

"Cool, welp, this has been fun. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to figure this out on my own then, like I have to get to this spot in the first place. Because even though you think that just because i didn't read i'm just a pile of bones with a consciousness, but there are actual thought process in there that I'd like to keep." He hoisted himself off of the banister and began walking away. "And that Devil's Fruit thing doesn't sound pleasant either...I definitely don't want to bring her back. So... Oh and If the hulk out thing happens and I wind up not being able to control this thing, I'll be sure to not have you get the final blow. Just to rub more salt in there." He casually waved his arm as he walked down the pier, then pulled his flute from being tucked in his belt and started to twirl it playfully as though it were a baton

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"Yay! You did it! Now We can play!"

"I didn't do it for you. No this does not mean playtime, and yes I'm mad at you. Go back to your star cluster thing or whatever. You're grounded."