Thou Art Blessed [Reida, Safira]

While she intended to remain in Kizuna for a bit longer to aid in her recovery, she sought some kind of stimulus besides the darkness that was her only companion inside of the other hollow. There was something that she was curious about and it was not something Safira wanted Kizuna to serve as emissary for. She arranged for it to take place in seclusion so that the others would remain in blissful ignorance - body of a serpent slithered out of Kizuna and expelled her mind into a weak vessel.

It was just an extension. A single one of her heads in the grand scope where the majority of her remained inside of Kizuna. By splitting off an eighth of herself she intended to keep her spiritual pressure from being detected. The petite figure sat on the edge of a pool of water, she hadn't bothered dressing herself due not intending to remain for long.

If anything the cool water of this pool was a relaxing change of pace compared to the humid and boiling inside of Kizuna's composition. So she kicked her feet in the water and ruminated while waiting for her fullbringer to arrive.

Reida wasn't especially happy. Not that it was a very new experience for her to be unhappy, but this, at least, was a different sort of unhappy. She'd always wanted to get her revenge. The only thing that had ever carried her through her days, for years on end, had been seeing the Gotei burn, killing as many shinigami as she could after what they'd taken from her.

Well, it had been the only thing for a while. But she'd certainly found other things that anyone would have called worthwhile when she was in the Vandenreich. She'd still thrown it all away for her vengeance, and in the end, had it even been worth it? Eye for an eye, and all that. But here she was, still alone, still miserable. In the end, it wasn't as if causing that much strife had brought her any solace. Just a faint catharsis that hardly made her feel better.

"Ya called?"

She didn't especially know what she'd be doing from here on, but Reida wasn't especially excited about the thought of doing it again.

"I did."

Not surprised by her still being around. What a shame, Safira did hope for a bit more animated reactions from people. Perhaps they all just understood her enough to know that she was already a force of persistence. Death was just a shortcoming to be overcome on the path of her goals.

"You look glum. I take it the high of killing shinigami has run its course?"

It should've, their success was a fleeting victory. If there was nothing to follow through then the world would remain the same. In the hands of the shinigami and that was unacceptable. The paradigm had to shift towards a new path.

"More or less. I wanted to see the Gotei burn, and I got to see it."

Reida kept her eye on the arrancar, not exactly trustful but not quite in a place where she assumed any imminent betrayal. Rather, she just didn't really know what this creature exactly wanted from her now. They'd aligned out of a desire to crush the shinigami, and now that had been seen through. Something told her, however, that she wasn't exactly going to be told to be on her way now.

"So whatcha got in mind next?"

"To take the world away from the shinigami and make them obsolete relics that don't belong in this world is what is next. The gears have been set into motion but the greatest trial to overcome has only just begun."

She was glad that Reida had enjoyed her slaughter but now she had to broaden those horizons. Killing them didn't change anything, if she wanted meaningful change then they had to be undermined in their entirety and for that Safira gestured for the human to join her.

What better way to clear the mind than with water? She was placing a great deal of faith in this human but in order to achieve that, Safira needed to expand her horizons and help her to sympathise with the ideal that she had. She had a special place in this plan if she'd accept it so allowing her sapling a mutual understanding was of great importance.

"You believe in gods, don't you?"

With a shrug, Reida complied with the gesture, removing her boots and rolling up her pants before sitting at the water's edge and putting her feet into the cool water. If it were a different circumstance, she might have thought this was nice. As it was, it was just a moderately enjoyable sensation, and as she spoke again, the calm of the water only mostly overrode the faint stern edge in her voice.

"Just one."

She was a devout woman, for all her failings. It wasn't as if she believed God had any positive feelings on what she'd done with her life, but Reida wasn't the sort to lose her faith because of that. It just meant she had to ask forgiveness.

"I did too. When I was a human a long time ago, I was murdered in front of a statue of our chief god. There was no retribution or justice, no peace either, nothing except learning that I lived in a cycle created by beings that called themselves gods. They were all fakes."

She kicked her foot in the water and glared at the ripples. It made her angry to think about and it was the source of her pride. The driving motivation to overcome the shortcomings of these idols, physical and figurative.

"I want to provide something real and substantial rather than faith that the shinigami punish. They preach the benefit of this cycle of souls but it's just a wheel of suffering. There is no reason that an alternative cannot exist and I intend to offer it to the humans, and all souls. A choice to not be livestock for the shinigami's cycle and to remove themselves from it, to remain together rather than be forced apart, and to pursue a different afterlife that rewards good deeds and punishes evil ones."

Now that wasn't what Reida wanted to hear. Maybe if she were a more despairing type, she would have been willing to throw away the last little bits of what she believed in and bought into something like that. But she wasn't so sure, and she certainly didn't like the idea of someone claiming to create a new world like this.

"Just remakin' the whole world? I ain't got any issue with takin the shinigami down a peg, but somethin' like that's not really in my wheelhouse. Don't quite know what ya want me to help with in all that."

Even if she had been particularly passionate about such a goal, Reida wasn't the type who could change the world. She wasn't even the type who wanted to, honestly.

"No, not to remake it. To create alternatives within it."

She clarified that she had no intention of rewriting anything. Frankly, she was content to leave the shinigami's cycle in place if only to undermine it and watch it rot in favour of better alternatives being offered.

"It's naive to think the shinigami have been humbled. You live in a world that is created by them and where the sole path is decided by them. Killing them won't change that. When you die, they will still view you as a number on a scale. Never wanting it to tip out of balance."

"Do you know what their next move will be for our actions? To compensate for the loss of souls in the Soul Society they'll remove some from the living world. They will kill innocent lives to make them pass on for the sake of this balance. That's what the shinigami are and so what will you do then? Kill more and continue this cycle? Kill them until they are all gone?"

"The only way that you defeat the shinigami is by depriving them of their purpose. As long as the world remains in the image they created with no alternatives, they will continue with this purpose until they are met with rebellion."

"That so..."

On paper, Reida didn't hate the premise that was being presented to her. The nature of the shinigami, their willingness to treat lives as expendable, wasn't something she could deny. Sure, she hadn't gotten anything meaningful out of vengeance, but the arrancar apparently understood that.

"And how're ya plannin' to do somethin' at that scale?"

She wanted to know more. Partially because she thought she might support it, and partially because she imagined it might be wildly against her ethics. Either way, she couldn't make that call without all the information.