Thou Art Blessed [Reida, Safira]

Her second suspect then. If she could utilise her Olam Ha'Ba right now then she could've allowed her sapling to use Binah. That wasn't possible right now though so she'd need to use the more archaic method of gaining trust with her words. It was tried and true for a reason though, and she wasn't going to give up so quickly.

"Isn't that the same situation you found me in as well? Vulnerable in that desert, you could've killed me or taken me prisoner but you didn't. You took me at my word that I'd bring ruin onto the shinigami."

She wasn't going to explicitly ask the human to trust her or be upset that she felt that way. The kinds of people that asked for trust were the ones that shouldn't be trusted in her experience instead Safira tried to be more tactful about it. She presented it as a parallel and let her sapling make her own judgments.

"Uh huh. So it's that ya owe me one this time?"

It was true, Reida could have just blown the arrancar away. Maybe even should have, knowing how everything turned out. But here they were now, going back and forth on some insistence that Reida do something she might not ever be able to undo. The question was how vulnerable she would become. If it would really be in her best interests, or if it would just put an end to even her best attempt to make this all right.

"All I'm sayin' is this is a big ask. Takes a lotta trust to ask me to be so vulnerable, all 'cause it might make me somethin' closer to a hollow."

"I understand, while I can offer you all the assurances in the world, I have only my word and actions to show sincerity towards my goal of denying the shinigamis' existence. That's a lot of faith to ask you to place in me."

She bent down to crouch in the pool of water and look up at her sapling from a lower position. If someone looked from afar they might even mistake it as Safira kneeling in front of her. The human did have some level of power in this exchange but she wasn't desperate. She was still willing to bargain.

"If not my words and past actions, is there anything I can offer you to alleviate your concern? Collateral or not. I can't offer you my life as I did in the past to hold in your hands but if you have something on your mind, I will endeavour to provide it."

It could be interpreted as trying to buy her but Safira understood how bargains worked. If she would like something as collateral then who was she to deny the consideration towards it.

How promising that seemed, and yet Reida had to wonder how valuable an offer it really was. After all, what sort of collateral could she even request for something like this? No, it seemed stupid. She wondered if the creature knew that, or if it was just trying to offer her a false sense of security.

Either way, there was a question she had in mind. The answer, if nothing else, was something she suspected would decide the rest of this encounter.

"Another arrancar at the resort. Sumana. I've seen her face before. Looks just like a hollow that I ran into a long time ago. She took somethin' from me, and I wanna know what you know about her. If it's the same one... I wanna wring her neck."

The fury of long ago was still palpable in Reida's voice, even now. She'd never forgotten it, any more than she'd forgotten all her other anger at the losses throughout her years.

"I wanna know if she ever spent time in America. In Georgia, 'bout two decades ago now give or take."

"Sumana? She's never been to that part of America, to my knowledge."

So that would be the topic then. She did remember that day like it was yesterday herself since it had come up. The method she employed had been a little underhanded, necessary as they were to awaken her sapling's powers. She had a choice then to be forthcoming or withhold the information from her. She had not spoken a lie just yet and she would prefer to keep it that way. Leaving out pieces of the truth was different.

At the same time, she had kept that soul which her sapling spoke of. She could return it right now. Safira had every intention of returning her friend's soul at the time - had she asked - but she was so caught up with staying alive that it must have slipped that young woman's mind in the desperation.

For the moment she decided to let this play out.

"I see. I'd never forget that face, though. She have any twins? Other arrancar that look like here? Ain't a good chance two hollows look the exact same just 'cause of chance, ya know."

Reida would not allow that revenge to rest, any more than she would that of her family. It had of course been perhaps marginally less important to her; she couldn't say Brae had been as dear to her as her husband, her children. But she'd been set on this road by that encounter, and that alone meant she had to see it through, too.

"She took someone from me. I ain't intent on lettin' that stand."

It was not a matter that was going to rest. That was a little bothersome but she had yet to give up just yet and this would prove to be a case of that persistence. Safira wasn't going to allow all of this work to be for naught over one little soul, surely her sapling could understand the greater picture here. In her current state she couldn't exactly restrain the human either, this vessel was a fraction of her with very little substance to it by design.

"Sumana's appearance is not her own. However, she wears it for reasons of avarice and so everything the hollow you speak of took would belong to Sumana by proxy. So if I were to be able to get this soul back for you...?"

A leading question but Safira did not want to linger on the details of the skin she wore before now. She wanted to look to the future and not the past. So she moved to dangle that hope of reunion to return her sapling's attention to the present and not the grudges from her past. Was she content enough with having a lost piece of her past returned and not look to question it?

Look a gift horse in the mouth was how the idiom went, no?.

Reida's eye narrowed at that explanation. She didn't really like it. It didn't explain where that hollow actually was, why Sumana just so conveniently looked like her without being her, why she had Brae's soul. When she spoke again, there was more irritation in her voice, a tinge of malice to it.

"Then I'd wanna know why she has it. And where the one who actually took it is."

She didn't think there was much answer that would satisfy her here, but she supposed it was possible. If nothing else, it was still plausible that she could come out of this trusting the arrancar before her.

"Because that one is gone, a victim of her own vanity, and all that she had are Sumana's spoils as a result."

Safira liked to think that she said quite a bit there and said nothing at the same time. She did genuinely believe what she said which helped her say what she did. Her past form was vain, a false kind of pride, who was a sacrificial lamb to create her new incarnation that sat before her sapling. When she lost to Asher she shed away her power and split them into two. The part that lost to Asher, the nucleus that Klein brought to her, was taken as tribute.

She was the result of that failure and where her past incarnation failed or deluded herself, this new form was infallible truth. It was because of that she would try to lead her sapling towards that light of truth rather than let her linger in the darkness, chasing ghosts.

"Tch. Go figure."

So that was it, then. Couldn't even kill the hollow responsible. It pissed her off to think about that, but Reida wasn't going to let herself ruminate on that. The question that had been posited to her was one she needed to answer, and when she spoke, her voice was still harsh, clearly irritated with the results of all this.

"Yeah. I'd like her soul back. Even if I dunno what I could do with it."

There was defeat in her words, too. An understanding that she couldn't do much of anything with that.