Tempting Fate (Open to 1)

More of Auerbach's body socketed, ratcheting into place the bits and pieces that hadn't come quite right. He listened intently, or intently as he could; smothering his own groans to hear. She seemed like someone that had answers, after all. With the last of his body returning to shape, he'd push himself to stand, blinking rapidly as he attempted to internalize what she said with the feeling pulsing down his spine.

"Portal?" Auerbach's head cocked to the side, staring blankly at the ruins. "You mean garganta?" His gaze slipped back to the Vizard, eyes widening with the word. With a burst of speed, he left her behind, rushing to where the arm had fallen. There was danger, yes. But he trusted her. If what she said was anything like he thought, or anything like he felt - maybe he was more put together than he knew.

The rubble shifted with a surprising ease at the arrancar's grip, sheets flying hither into the horizon. His aching grew, and with a triumphant yell, he looked down on a pulsing, shivering shape. Larger than anything else he had come across so far, it coiled in and out of itself, a messy ball that seemed to grow and shrink in innumerate directions. From its center, the arm had sprouted, folding out of the pocket of malformed space with incredulous sense. It seemed much too large for the space, yet the space seemed much too large for itself. Auerbach stared at its shifting edges in a trance, unconsciously holding his breath. With a gasp for air, he yelled back to Chizuru -

"Found it!!!"

Auerbach's head shifted at an unnatural angle to face the vizard as she remarked on his discovery, gaze swiveling to make contact like an owl. The audible crack of his neck a thunderbolt, one eye blinking before the other. "Go in?" He questioned with audible confusion, his apprehension dissapearing in eagerness to correct her. "No no no nono."

With a snap, Auerbach's head righted itself, and the arrancar took a step forward. "This is it." An arm reaching out, fingertips vying into impossible space. What followed sounded like pain, the grumble of a cavernous stomach amplified by enormous reverb. Space folded, rejecting before it remembered, and in a flash of light pouring from Auerbach's eyes -

it was gone. The only memory of its existence a now severed arm, burnt beyond char, beyond ash at it's end. Auerbach shuddered in turn, his skin rippling in waves; and a smile spread across his face. He had never known how to place it, but ever since he found himself awake in the emptiness of Hueco Mundo, he had been hungry. Irreplaceably empty, famished beyond understanding. And just like the shift in space, it dissapeared, and his mind cleared for it, some idea of joy in it's place.

"See!" he'd exclaim, turning as he pointed at the now empty location."I found it!" Beaming all the while.

Attempting to reply to the woman, Auerbach's mouth opened; followed shortly by an exceedingly long, loud belch. Something rotten crossing the air between them, it smelled less than pleasant. With a slight change of color against his cheeks and temporarily concave stomach, the arrancar apologized, meek in his voice. "Sorry."

With a deep breath, his body reformed, and he exhaled with no small amount of relief. "It feels good!" Auerbach replied with exclamation. "There's this big - used to be empty! Now ventriculus feels right. Stopped chewing from inside." His descriptor of hunger not withstanding, the smile stayed plastered across twisted features.

"Thank you! Not sure how I'd handle this." Auerbach waved around, gesturing to the rubble at their feet. "Alone. Scary guy was living in there."

Auerbach nodded in turn, rapid and nonsensical in number. Enthusiasm, if not overdone. "Yes!" his voice peaked, joyful composure retaining throughout. "Woke up lost long time ago. Finding partitions feels right! Makes head less fuzzy. Dunno how many there are, though...." the arrancar's voice trailed, his gaze wistfully turning from the vizard and to the horizon.

How many parts had he found, so far? It was the first time he'd actually considered it. Even if it was ten, or fifteen, how much of that was what he was missing? Not to even think about where or what - the idea of what a new 'partition' could even do for him, entirely alien as a concept. New thoughts, new memories, new sensations, all within the world of possibility, and all non-thoughts.

"But I'll keep looking!!" Hands braced against hips as Auerbach pushed to height, turning back to Chizuru. "Find them all!!!"