Time flowed slowly in Hueco Mundo.
For the shinigami and the hollow alike, the concept of time—months, years, even decades—meant little. They were not like humans, fragile creatures whose lives flickered out in less than a century. No, these beings were born of eternity, tethered to the ageless cycle of death and rebirth.
It had been over a year since Yamamoto Genryūsai led his devastating incursion into Hueco Mundo. That grand, fiery assault had left scars on both worlds.
Since then, the Soul Society had gone unnaturally quiet. No expeditionary forces, no follow-up attacks. Meanwhile, under the cold, meticulous rule of Mazuru—the new self-proclaimed king of Hueco Mundo—the arrancars had also refrained from launching any major offensives into the Human World. What unfolded between the two realms could only be described as an uneasy truce.
But it was a fragile peace. Everyone knew it.
The noble clans of the Soul Society—especially those still bitter about the destruction of Central 46—would never forgive Mazuru. Not for murdering the highest authorities of their world. Not for the humiliation he had inflicted upon them by defeating Yamamoto Genryūsai himself.
The only reason Mazuru remained unchallenged was the immense psychological blow he had dealt to the shinigami during that war. That single defeat had shattered their confidence, leaving them paralyzed. But time was a healer, even of shattered pride.
And as the months passed, the Soul Society's confidence began to return. Slowly but inevitably, they would come for him.
That was the unspoken truth behind the calm.
Deep within the vast deserts of Hueco Mundo, a lonely figure walked across the pale white sands.
Her name was Roka Paramia—an arrancar once created by Szayelaporro Granz. She had never been designed for combat or conquest. No, she was an experiment, a puppet forged in the mind of a scientist obsessed with control and data.
Szayelaporro had preserved her for one reason: among his many creations, Roka possessed a unique ability.
She could emit Negación Silk, thin threads of spiritual matter that bound themselves to various substances—rock, vegetation, even the air itself. Through them, she could link her spiritual energy and information into the very fabric of the environment.
She was, in essence, a living hard drive. Her memories could be recorded into anything around her. If she were ever destroyed, Szayelaporro could recover her essence from these distributed nodes and rebuild her identity. For a time, she had been invaluable.
In the early days, Szayelaporro even used his own soul to forge the initial imprint within her, ensuring that Roka could serve as a backup for himself if needed.
But as his experiments evolved, and his mastery of Gabriel advanced, Roka's usefulness waned. No longer needing a failsafe, he gifted her to Aizen Sosuke. Under Aizen's reign, she was reassigned to non-combat duties—healing and medical support within Las Noches.
Then came the battle for Karakura Town.
Aizen fell. Szayelaporro died.
And in the chaos that followed, Roka—now without a master or a purpose—simply vanished.
Mazuru, consumed with organizing the hollow legions and preparing for future war, paid her no mind. A single forgotten experiment was beneath his concern.
Thus, Roka wandered. A soulless puppet drifting through Hueco Mundo's endless dunes.
She tried to make sense of her existence. She attempted to observe Karakura Town—the place so many had obsessed over—but found nothing of value. No revelation. No purpose. Just more silence.
Meanwhile, her Negación Silk—released involuntarily—continued to spread. Like spiderwebs stretching endlessly, they attached themselves to anything they touched, forming accidental conduits between her soul and the material world.
In time, even those without spiritual sensitivity began to notice her. Humans captured blurry images of her on smartphones. Surveillance systems recorded glimpses. Urban legends of a pale ghost girl began to circulate.
Still, Roka did nothing. She could not understand why she was being seen, nor did she know how to stop it. She simply... existed.
The only blessing was that her instincts—possibly coded by Szayelaporro himself—urged her to flee whenever shinigami approached.
After another narrow escape in the Human World, Roka opened a Garganta and returned to Hueco Mundo.
But this time, something had changed.
She had inadvertently wandered into the territory of a group of exiles—beings who had also once belonged to Las Noches.
They called themselves Picaro.
But "they" were not a single being. Picaro was a collective—a swarm.
Composed of hundreds of childlike arrancar, the members of Picaro were boys and girls appearing to be around ten years old, though many bore grotesque, inhuman features. They were remnants from the time of Baraggan Louisenbairn, the former king of Hueco Mundo.
Baraggan had kept them nearby out of boredom, amused by their antics. When Aizen overthrew Baraggan and seized Las Noches, he briefly considered incorporating them into the Espada. But they proved unsuitable for battle. Unruly, unstable, and too wild to be controlled, they were cast out.
Aizen had relegated them to the low-tier arrancar quarters—under strict surveillance. One unlucky arrancar had been assigned as their warden.
That warden, unfortunately, died at the hands of Kurosaki Ichigo and his allies during the invasion of Las Noches.
Freed from oversight, Picaro dispersed into the desert like a swarm of mischievous spirits. They were children without guidance—playful, curious, but dangerous. Entire groups of lesser hollows had fallen prey to their games, swallowed up during playtime that ended in death.
And now, they had found Roka.
To them, she was just another playmate.
Without hesitation, they descended on her, dozens at once, laughing and shrieking.
Roka, who had narrowly escaped the pursuit of shinigami, now faced a threat from her own kind. She was not built for combat. Her instincts screamed to flee.
A black void tore open behind her—crack!—as she summoned another Garganta to escape to the Human World once more.
But the Picaro were not so easily shaken.
Seeing her flee, they eagerly opened their own Garganta, dozens of them, creating a rift storm across the sky as they followed her in pursuit.
Back in Las Noches, Mazuru sat on his throne, watching the feeds projected by Ulquiorra's surveillance devices. The cold green light of the screen reflected in his eyes.
"It's them." Mazuru said quietly, after a long moment of silence. "Picaro."
A shadow moved beside him. "And the girl they're chasing… it looks like Roka," said Gin, his trademark sly smile absent for once. "She was one of Szayelaporro's projects, remember? He handed her over to Aizen back in the day. She was reassigned to medical support, and after the Karakura battle… vanished."
Gin folded his arms. "Didn't think she was still around."
Mazuru narrowed his eyes. "So she's the one who's been appearing in the Human World lately."
Until now, there had been a rash of unexplained arrancar sightings in Karakura Town. The Soul Society had begun to take notice, even dispatching patrols. They feared that Hueco Mundo might be preparing a new invasion.
But Mazuru now saw the truth.
It wasn't war. It wasn't a coordinated effort.
It was Roka. Wandering, lost, and now… being hunted by ghosts of a forgotten past.
And the worst part?
She might be the catalyst that finally shattered the fragile peace.
*****
Support me on my pat reon and gain early access to my creations.
https://www.pat reon.com/RroY28 (remove the space)
You can access up to 30 advanced chapters.