Hard Work & Guts [Sola, Solo]

Well, that was cool. Having gotten a free lift and a bit extra from Kizuna, it was pretty convenient having a babe like that to just give you a hand and all. Not to mention she made him work for it rather than just being a huge bitch about it or being an over-friendly, suck-up that just gives things away. We call that good sportsmanship in Sola's book.

No sooner did he finish with her and pocket his new trophy, the arrancar had told her that he was going to go check out the icy environment. There was a tonne of training he could do here to prepare himself for the next trial. The first thing was obviously him working on learning how to get through the snow, not much of that in the hollow wastelands and he liked that every step was a challenge. It took twice as much effort to walk through the snow than it did on nice solid ground.

The second thing was finding some nice freezing water and stripping down to dip himself in it, at first he thought he'd succumb to the bone-chilling freeze that clawed at his bones but after some trial, error - and lots of almost succumbing to frostbite and hypothermia in the process- he had finally figured out the most comfortable way to endure the painful process up to thirty minutes or so and a day of training before he dragged his freezing butt back towards the modest shack he'd borrowed from Kizuna.

As far as things to amuse himself with there were plenty. Besides physical conditioning he'd found some idle amusement in making snowballs and tossing them to try and work on his aim by hitting targets. It was a bit of a pain since every snowball was a bit different and his shot was already a bit lacking. It'd be way easier to just punch things but that was quitting talk for Sola and there was no way he'd let something like that deter him from trying.

With a long day of trying to occupy himself rather than remain idle, the worst kind of state for a person to be in as far as he was concerned, he settled down in the cave he'd found nearby. He could've just mooched off the hot arrancar lady but that wasn't to his taste. A cave like this was more ideal since it required a bit of work to touch-up and make habitable. The actual process of making fire proved to be a bit bothersome, he had no actual idea how to go about it.

So after what felt like hours of doing various attempts. Shooting a cero at the ground and expecting it to leave fire which didn't do much other than char the rock that it was hitting. No no, this was feeling kind of wrong to the numbskull while he sat down to think about it.

He'd seen fire before, there was wood that was on fire. Being a pretty smart guy he opted to try and forage some up and a few hours of gathering with interruptions from a couple of random renegades of the wastelands proved to be a hinderence but a fun little interruption nontheless and he dragged enough wood to his cave to look at a little bit and think about the situation.

"Wood plus cero... equals Fire?"

The young man mumbled to himself and shot the wood. Piercing and charring it rather than actually making it magically become ablaze. It was getting pretty chilly and annoying him a bit.

"Why the heck aren't you catching fire!?"

He shouted in frustration at the wood.

Now as much as he'd like to wish right about now that he had the power to breathe fire or hollow powers which were fire-related to make this easy. That was just a bit of weakness showing. You don't just ask for something and it magically is delivered like a package in the mail. He knew for certain that somehow this damn wood could burn.

Perhaps he was using too much power in the cero but he shook his head after a bit. This whole cero business was a shortcut, he knew that you could somehow make fire without any spiritual intervention. How did those cavemen people do it? Was a real shame he was trying to think back to his human life for these details since God knew that barely anything ever caught fire in Hueco Mundo.

So after a moment of pondering he leaned back against the rocky wall and looked at the wood, if he thought really hard then it'd just ignite right before his eyes. The force of will that could make anything happen.

It was rare to see anyone around these parts, a little silhouette had thought when she'd seen the young man doing strange things in the harsh environment. Her parents were always telling her not to get involved with anyone else outside, they would say that those people were brutes and thugs that would hurt her and maybe even kill her but she'd never really seen anything like this boy.

He was dressed funny and he acted really different. He was really loud but it didn't seem hostile. Slowly she warmed to the idea of creeping up on the man's cave and peek inside. Something about being angry that fire wasn't starting.

Well that was just downright strange! Didn't everyone know how to make fire? Her parents, all the mean thugs and the odd people that were stuck roaming the wastelands also knew. Even she did! So why didn't this guy?

"H-hey Mister. I can make you fire if you want."

She softly ventured from afar at the cave door. The petite little thing ready to disappear into the snow at any moment if he got angry.

"Eh? Kizuna?"

No way but Sola hadn't even considered that there'd be other people out here. Well, besides those assholes that kept trying to get in his way but they were just humans. As long as there weren't too many even he could handle that much despite being weak as hell. That's the benefit of sonido, cero and his sweet right hook. Still the cold was a much bigger problem, it was like his reiatsu was being constantly sapped as he tried to ward it away until he figured out the conundrum.

"Pfft. No thanks. I'm not looking for a little girl to solve my problems for me, I'd be the laughing stock of the sands."

He said with a small laugh, kind of hard to see her though.

Her reaction was a bit confused. She was familiar with what he was saying but it was also a bit hard to try and talk to him in this alien tongue. English wasn't always used around these parts and she didn't understand what he was saying.

"Um, Mr. What's sand like?"

She'd heard her parents talk about it. Mama and Papa would tell lots of stories that they heard from their grandparents and their greatgrandparents when everything was better or something. For a little girl though that knew only the tundra of the wastelands, she hadn't ventured far enough to ever see the sands. It was too dangerous.

"Huh? You don't know what sand is? It's like snow but uh, smaller and... ugh. Yeah it's just snow, they're both a pain in the butt to deal with. How the heck does someone never see sand before?"

What a strange girl, this whole place was real new to him. He hadn't been out here since he was a hollow and everything was pretty hot so it was better to hang out in Hueco Mundo at the time and avoid all that war stuff. It was when he was a much bigger bitch so screw that guy. Jeez it was a real headscratcher though.

"Why the heck would a girl like you offer to make me fire anyway? There's always strings attached to this kind of stuff, at least be up and front about what you want in exchange. It better be good too, if it isn't hard. I don't want a part of it."

Lulled by his casual attitude, he didn't seem that hostile and if he wanted to hurt her he probably would've already, right? Maybe a little naive of her but the girl did come a bit more into sight and adjust her hair to cover the eyepatch over she wore.

"There's just no sand here, mister. "

If he'd seen sand then that must mean he was from far away and even though he seemed a bit dumb to everything - sticking out like a sore thumb if you will - the question of strings had her pause while trying to figure out what he meant. What'd she want in exchange? It was like when mama and papa bartered with other people. This was a deal!

"You're weird, mister. Papa never um barters like this without knowing the name of someone. I'm Irina. What's your's?"

"Err. It's Sola."

He said while analysing her. Didn't seem like much, a little thing like that couldn't be much of a problem so he didn't really care to trouble himself by shooing her away. Not to mention that she wanted something from him and that was fine by him. Deals like this could be fun and challenging. Now he just needed to hear what she wanted in exchange for teaching him how to make fire.

"Now what do ya want for the fire, Irina?"

"So-lah."

She muttered to herself while trying to wrap her tongue around the word. He definitely wasn't from around here but she had also got distracted in this. He wanted to make a trade for the fire but she hadn't the slightest idea of what she could ask in exchange. It wasn't like he had anything on him but he seemed tough! That was good around here.

"Aha. I know. Can you go take care of the bad men Sola? Mama calls them bandits and they attack people that live around this region. They're big meanies who take other people's stuff and make it hard for them to survive."

Irina had once asked her papa why they didn't kill them and he had said that the bandits farmed them for resources so if they killed them unnecessarily then they'd have to do it themselves. That was really bad and so she liked the idea of those strange guy teaching them a lesson.