Condemned to Crawl [Ichigo, Safira]

"Uhuhuhu. Okay."

She chuckled to herself at how direct he was about his hunt for fables. He spoke with enough confidence though that she had no doubt it must be fact rather than fiction. He was either delusional or he had evidence to be so confident in declaring it.

"Well. If there's a ring of the dead it will certainly be in Asher's hands. All hollows here abide by his influence, when his body impaled mine it was like I was being painted over by something else. It's nonsensical what he was doing... But he was also very much alive so I don't think he was wearing it. I could imagine he was empowered by it in some capacity though."

Well, a mysterious trump card being her downfall made did a little bit to ease her frustration at losing against Asher.

"I see."

That meant he'd have to kill that hollow. Not that Ichigo was really worried about the idea of doing it, but he didn't like seeking out fights. Better to make sure that really was who had it before he went off wasting his time.

"I'll keep that in mind. If you feel like helping, feel free to stick around."

Ichigo wasn't opposed to picking up other stragglers here and there, but there was something about this woman's attitude that made him fairly sure he wouldn't like traveling with her. Even so, he'd extend the offer. Not like he hadn't made unusual friends before.

Lend a helping hand, hmm? It would be pretty convenient to stick in Ichigo's shadow for a little bit but it would accomplish very little. Safira needed to only be there when Asher was killed or linger around the giant mass of her hollow powers that he had been left with. Reclaiming her zanpakuto would be a bother and it was unlikely in her mind that she could get them back perfectly, she'd need to really think about it when she got to that stage.

"I'll be around, Ichigo Kurosaki, but for the moment I'm trying to acquire my own information about the situation. The shinigami and others shouldn't interfere too much since their blockade was broken so don't worry about many things getting in your way."

She could remind him about the very powerful hollows that were from the gaping hole in the earth but if he didn't know already she was more interested in letting him figure that one out for himself.

"Good luck."

Safira encouraged with a cheerful grin as though she was sending him off on some valiant quest to slay a dragon.