Training in The Deep (Tier/Santa)

"I'm not great with Ceros. I forgot.... I used to be able to do a couple at once. But I haven't done it in a few centuries." The garden panted, the voice coming from all around Tier as Santa explained through her garden. However, that sudden rush of energy caused her to perk up, startled. WHOOSH!

It was... AMAZING! That cascade of energy that ripped outward didn't even leave any specks of the garden behind! That tremendous tumultuous blast ripping outward and washing away the bases of the trees! Causing them to begin crackling and crashing down below! IT was amazing! And Santa couldn't help but smile to herself, grinning madly. What a gorgeous attack, what a powerful woman! Her heart was pounding in her chest as she smiled from ear to ear. The instant that cero cleared, the garden was growing again, claws raking towards the woman.

"Garra en la tierra"

From that mass, there was a loud screeching noise as Santa's blade crumpled in on itself, reiatsu BURSTING, not just from her, but from the entire garden! Flooding Tier's own senses as that spiritual pressure roared all around her.

THOOMTOOMTHOOM! Untouched, the garden from the trees had been allowed to mature, and now several versions of Santa were now in the air complete with alterations, Santa's body, and the garden's having transformed with that sudden burst of energy garbed in shaggy fur and armored plates, having used sonido to blitz in and then strike with various bone weapons, blades and serrated claws, and there was Santa in the midst of them, smiling from ear to ear. Her mouth bleeding. She'd stabbed herself in the face, and Tier would see it as it just finished regenerating, into a mouthful of teeth that looked almost like the ones on her mask as Santa LUNGED, aiming to latch and sink her teeth into the woman's shoulder. Her zanpaku'to was gone thanks to her ressurection, and now her sharpened claws lunged to grab onto the woman following her biting attack.

Seeing Tier getting more vicious had roused her own ferality back to the surface.

She felt her entire body tremble in response to the sudden spike of reiatsu. That sheer power as the woman released, and that torrent of water suddenly slammed into her and all of her clones, making her wince as she slammed her wings open, still tumbling but slowly righting herself until she and the rest of the garden could find spots to land. And she ...froze. Her eyes a bit wide. Some small part of her lamented the sudden loss of that mask. But it was still something to see the woman's form garbed in power. She was so frozen that she didn't even react when that weapon was aimed at one of her clones and then that sudden fang of water plowed clean through it. The force so high that the clone didn't even stagger as that hole was simply blown clean through them with so much obliterating force that none of it even transitioned into the rest of it's body. Like a bullet through paper.

but that hole rapidly closed up, the clone not even flinching as soon it and the rest of her garden was roused up from her stupor. All the same. Something was slowly creeping up from below. Growing. The garden rising up in a pillar of flesh as the bodies melded together, Forming one, massive hand that reached up, it's lanky length surging up in almost slow motion, sweeping in a motion that aimed to strike Tier from the side and send her hurtling into the nearest chunk of broken tree. She didn't know any way to get close.

But she wanted to. She VERY much wanted to. The air bled darkness as holes opened up. Not the sharp, refined descorrer that arrancar used, but those circular voids that were utilized by hollows, that shed the plane of existence as Santa and several of her Garden darted into that thin veil. It was rare for hollows of the menos class to use. But it was not unfamiliar to Tier. To not fully enter the valley of screams, but to slide just barely into it. And peek into the world of the living through that thin veil. The hunting tactic of base hollows.

All the same, that garden would swat at her, and moments after, the air around Tier would bleed dark as Santa suddenly emerged from the veil, and stopping suddenly. Several other dopplegangers in various stages of emerging from garganta would pause. Her instincts betraying her. As deep down, her battle instincts told her that any closer would be deadly. And so she stopped, frozen almost like a deer as she stared at the woman, pausing. She had nothing. She was out of Ceros. Launching herself at the woman would simply mean she was washed away. There was nothing she could grow or adapt about herself that could get past that. At least none that her limited intellect could muster.

She ....furrowed her brows, her cheeks puffing slightly. "......That's all I've got.." She admitted lightly. "If this were a real fight, this is the point where I would sneak off." She admitted sheepishly.

Santa was frankly exhausted. Even if she HAD the will and an idea of how to continue going after tier, she felt like she was about to fall apart. Her resureccion faded and her garden dissolved, vanishing as the souls were reabsorbed into Santa’s body and that deerlike form faded to her usual garb, her body slumped slightly as she hung her head slightly, clearly a bit discouraged by how hopelessly outmatched she was.

“What do I need thats above basic morale?” she asked curiously, keeping her head bowed slightly in recognized defeat as she looked to the woman, her heart still racing just a little.

Strange. ”Huh, I think your mask was prettier. But you have a really nice face.” she blurted out, too tired to keep her thoughts to her stupid self.

She was, surprised when she suddenly saw that powerful form mesh and ripple into a bubble of reiatsu, that sudden pop making her blink for a moment as she watched the woman return. Thinking about those words but also....perking up. She smiled, even if Tier did not respond, it almost seemed as if she was humoring her preference. A slight tint to Santa's face as she admired the mask, her mind wandering only briefly to daydream about ..... oh a good number of things, staring a little at the blonde before remembering the question.

"OH! Uhhhhh, actually yes that might help." She admitted. She was bone tired, and a meal WOULD help get her back up to snuff, they might even be able to get back into training. She paused, looking around as she wondered what would make good hunting. There were a few prospects. She couldn't really take out a Menos in any timely fashion... so she instead focused on some of the small fry that were down below. Her eyes darting until she used her pesquisa, and routed them out. A few scattered hollows. And one particularly easy prey.

She took a brief moment, looking over her shoulder at Tier and seeming to ...hesitate. As if thinking about asking the woman to join her. But ultimately, she hopped off of the little branch they had been standing on and plummeted down toward the ground. slowing by skidding along the tree itself, watching the small lizardlike hollow down below. And then, she stabbed her sword into the trunk, stopping just fifty meters above the hollow itself.

And then, her garden did the rest. In the blink of an eye, flesh was surging up from the ground beneath the hollow. A loud, startled cry escaping from the beast as the hands latched onto it, bony claws forming at the fingertips to sink into flesh and rip. The Hollow managing to pry itself free, but those claws raked along it's body, ripping in and damaging the muscle, crippling the hollow as more hands grew into the spot it had thrown itself into. IT was a painfully slow process,since her garden wasn't....brutishly strong enough to hold it down properly, instead, those hands were more like a bush of thorns. Slowly ripping away at the hollow, bleeding it, tearing muscle, until eventually the hollow's struggles weakened. And then they crept in, surrounding the hollow and beginning to rip into it, a slow process before a long sliver of bone was finally driven into it's mask, and Santa finally dropped down.

Taking the beast's spine and skull, she used her garden to slowly carve it away from the rest of the body, and promptly began making her way back up the tree as her garden devoured the rest of the body, consuming it in scattered pieces before that garden would dissolve into nothingness, it, and the meal, being cycled back into her, allowing her to eat through her garden. Which meant that the flesh she was bringing up.

She came to a stop before the woman, smiling before she promptly offered it to the woman. The spinal chord and ribs of the hollow she'd slain as so calmly and casually attempted to nest feed the Shark.

A pause as she listened to the blonde woman's words. It was ....strange. Admirable even. To have gone past the point of needing to eat. And she wondered if she herself would ever reach such a point. Would there be a time when she didn't rely on the bodies of others? She didn't know. How did Tier recover? Patience? What about when she was boigged down and given no time to rest? These questions ate away at her mind, but slowly she looked down to the offering she had made and tore into it.

She couldn't afford this sentiment. No matter how much she'd have liked to just drop it, to follow Tier's example. She was so tired. Worn out. Exhausted. She had to. She welcomed it into her body, to join her garden, before she stood up, wiping her lip and thinking. What SHOULD they do next?

"Do you think.... I ....." She struggled. "You said that I have potential. But I don't know .....how. I see things. I copy things. I try and I fail, and I remember my successes. But still, I can't do it fast enough." She reached up and.....worry crossed her features as she gently massaged her temple. "I'm stupid. I know. But I don't know how to train my brains." She murmured.