The Best Part of Waking Up...

He'd yet taken the time to soak in the sights of the alien world he'd been thrown into...

Her hand dug into his stomach like a hammer, and seemed to crack the haze that had been keeping him motionless as she felt his form react. His abdominal muscles contracted to shield his organs, and then his body compressed flushing the air and blood from his body right out his mouth as he was given a most rude awakening. It seemed she'd stumbled upon a very special meatbag though, as the man even in his pitiful state managed to force some distance between them and stood up to glare at her.

She'd hit him for more than just the fun of it, or to actually wake him up. Hitting him had been a way to confirm there was enough life left in him to actually have some fun, considering Dahlia only enjoyed living things that could still be saved. Her little wake up call had certainly reached the human's mind though, as he'd not only put a fair amount of distance between himself and her, but was even trying to threaten her. Wasn't he just adorable? Though he'd moved so quickly and struck a threatening post, the Nurse made no move of her own, instead she'd simply moved her arms to rest them on her knees and hold her face up in the palms of her hands.

She smirked at him, a devilish grin giggling at his empty threat. "A meatbag that threatens Hollows, that's a new one!" Her voice was quite playful and friendly even, like that of a girl looking to tease. However the look on her eyes was anything but friendly, those yellow orbs looking right through Haruki as he stood there half dead. These eyes didn't see his threat, or even see him as an equal, all Dahlia saw was a talking sack of meat. She was looking at food, interesting food, but food none the less. Her left hand moved from her chin and pointed at the human, the Arrancar speaking with that same tone. "Dahlia thinks you might wanna worry about your arm more than hers. She thinks it looks pretty dislocated..but she could fix that for ya if you like." Her grin pulled tighter, a predators grin shining in the pale moon's light.

The girl was practically drooling at the thought of forcibly popping his shoulder back into place, what a lovely sound it'd make and the painful pressure would be surely enjoyable, but for now she'd keep her distance. Her hand dropped from pointing at him to wipe the drool away from her lips and stood up finally, showing that she was quite the tiny little monster in comparison to the human's height. "Dahlia's gotta wonder though, how'd you get here meatbag? She didn't think you guys could even see Hollows let alone take a nap in our world." Her voice seemed to catch on those two words, or perhaps it was just a way for Haruki's mind to clarify just where he'd ended up.

The bloodstained Nurse struck a pose, her hips sticking out as her left hand rested on them, her brilliant eyes never blinking as she spoke to him. Her body language was quite confusing, looking goofy most of the time while her eyes just burned into him, picking apart his injuries like a mad scientist picking apart a corpse. Most warriors observed their enemies for weaknesses or signs, but her eyes were more that of a predator picking apart it's meal for the juiciest bits. She'd already diagnosed his injuries, which was a novel experience on it's own as she'd never cared to judge a meatbag before.

The girls right hand had begun to hover over the saw sticking out of the sand, her fingers twitching slightly without her realizing it. She didn't want to attack the human though, he was such a peculiar sight actually that her medical itch was starting to bother her. A patient standing right in front of her, on his last legs and bleeding all over the sand? He was practically  begging for her to do it.  "So tell Dahlia, you just gonna bleed all over the sand...or shall we patch you up." The girl smirked again, her teeth looking positively sharp beneath that dead moon's light.

The man before seemed to have reached his limits, that little flurry of activity leaving him weak in the knees and soon falling flat back onto the sand, his weapon discarded only when he could no longer grip it. Her fingers cracked a  bit in response, eager to grasp her own weapon and get to work, but the girl refrained as she realized a new feeling. His weakened state coupled with the sensation of spiritual power within him was something Dahlia hadn't seen before, and her Hollow instincts had become roused from their slumber. That predatory look on her eyes grew stronger, and the girl's teeth parted just enough to let her tongue run along them. He looked positively edible, and those pangs in her stomach were making it hard not to just let loose.

But she refrained, her curiosity managing to keep her hunger at bay for the moment, though only barely so. Not to mention her other itch was bugging her just as much if not more so than her stomach, the urge to treat him with her Reiatsu was a powerful addiction, and she'd never tried so on a mortal before, making it seem even more needy than normal. Weak and frail, the spiritually aware human spoke once more, causing the girl's eyes to lose their glint someone as she was forced to come up with thoughts and words to respond. "What else would Dahlia call that statement?" She said with a smirk. "She's surprised you guessed how fond she was of dismemberment though."

She watched as the mortal began to move once more, with a purpose as he tore apart his own clothing into strips. Makeshift bandages she realized, the girl's insanity only giving way when it came to things like medical knowledge or torture. Crude, but certainly effective if she'd not been there, in fact trying to treat himself while in front of her was almost insulting! The girl's playful smile turned sour, though she didn't say anything yet. As he went about making his bandages he began to explain his presence as well, though her mood seemed to change ever so slightly after hearing how he'd been lured into a common Hollow trap. "Ah, they got you with that old trick. Love...is certainly a favorite weakness for Hollows to prey on. It's the easiest chain to pull on." Her face seemed...human for the briefest of moments when she spoke of the word love, but whatever sane thought she'd had passed quickly enough.

She tilted her head in actual confusion at his implied insult to her words. She shouldn't call him a meatbag? What else did you call food? "Dahlia doesn't get it, what else do you call food? Wait...Does food have names too? Like real people!?" The girl's jaw looked as if it'd drop at the idea that Humans were actually civilized or had names to go by. In reality the girl simply hadn't ever acknowledged humans as anything more than a background existence, her entire after-life spent living in a world of monsters. Her jest was cut short though, as the proud mortal demanded his own answers in compensation for their dialogue.

The Mad Nurse tapped her left fore-finger to her chin as she thought about Haruki's question. "Hmmmm." She pretended to think deeply on the words, but in reality she was merely playing around before finally answering. She put both her arms up and out with fingers spread out to gesture the world around her, a vast endless waste of sand that went on for eternity. "This is Heuco Mundo, the realm of Hollows and Dahlia's most sandy home!" Though her words seemed almost proud of that exclamation, the realm around her looked like the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic movie, it's only features sand and the memories of the dead. Following that, her left hand moved to her hip and the right hand curled up to point her thumb at herself. "And I'm Dahlia, the only Nurse in all of Heuco Mundo!"

The girl's outfit certainly held similarity with an actual nurse's uniform. It was mostly white, save for various bloodstains that dotted her form, and it wrapped tightly around her body, and buttoned to leave little room for fluttery clothing or the chance to get caught on something. However, the strange skull motif upon her breast, coupled with the odd hat on her head that didn't seem quite right showed this girl was not any normal nurse. That little hat was marked with the skull image as well, a slightly childish image that was also somehow not right, but more odd than that was the way the hat never moved, as if firmly attached to the girl's skull rather than adoring her hair. The large go-go boots on her legs certainly didn't give any credence to her claim of medical professionalism either.

She moved her hand to point at the largest Hollow corpse, the one that Haruki had killed as it pulled him into her world. "And that's a Hollow, duh!" The beast's corpse remained still, unable to breakdown or get devoured as Dahlia's presence held it in check and kept others at bay for the moment. "Hollows are big dumb monsters that like to eat each other, oh and meatbags. Dahlia guesses you met some of the smart ones if they could trick you like they did." She moved her hand to rub her chin for a moment, having forgotten something rather important. "Oh right! Dahlia's also a Hollow you know, but she's the special smart kind that looks like people." The crazy girl grinned like a mischievous child, but her words and that glare Haruki had seen earlier could prove this girl was just as dangerous as the dead creatures before him, more so even.

The quickly girl finally reached her hand down to grasp the hilt of her weapon, yanking the large bonesaw free of the sand. The blade of the saw looked basically like a medical implement, but it's handle was clearly that of an ornate katana or sword, making for quite the odd image. "So Dahlia answered all your silly questions meatba...Food-san?" She was still unsure of what to call a mortal, considering she'd probably just eat him eventually. "Your injuries could use more than junk bandages, Dahlia could patch you up in a jiffy! In fact she implores you to let her help you." Her words offered help and relief, but those eyes of hers...the only thing swimming in that yellow was madness.

(Long post got long )

The man continued to call Dahlia merely a spirit, though the girl had said her own name repeatedly. His respectful moniker for her actually seeming more disrespectful than anything, but Dahlia cared little for the fanciful idea of manners. Rather it seemed the man took only to the words she said that gave him some semblance of information. She'd mentioned the word love, and though she rarely read others, she knew that word more than anything had an effect on all thinking creatures, after all she was the embodiment of what love could do at it's darkest.

The smirk on her face turned grim, an aggressive image emerging from her usually goofy demeanor. "The consequences are the same for all of us, Love really boils down to simple predation." She said, showing off one of the few complex words she knew, at least by her standards. "You consume it, or it consumes you." And she more than anyone knew what love could do it when truly consumed you. That hole in her gut somehow throbbing in a way that brought her free hand down to her waist, hovering just above where a certain piece of her anatomy should be within her hips. "They merely twisted it in hopes of staying the consumer rather than the consumed." But it seemed these Hollows had failed, this man's odd spiritual pressure consuming them instead.

Dahlia was defined by that same craving the man before her had thought of, only she'd taken it to such an extreme as to destroy her sense of self and create the woman that stood here now, a creature of swirling madness and sadistic intent. Though it seemed the creature got serious when the word love came up, her demeanor fell back to comedic as Haruki attempted to display his pride as a mortal. In fact she found it so humorous that she laughed aloud, her giggle somehow cute enough to be utterly disgusting. "First you threaten Dahlia and then you call her a fake, you really are precious." The Arrancar said with the utmost disrespect for Haruki's sense of self. "What makes you more real than Dahlia? Because you breath? Because you bleed?" The girl then took an exaggerated breath, puffing her belly out for a moment before releasing it.

However her next motion was a bit more intense, as she gripped her left  hand onto the blade of her saw, sliding it down those absurdly sharp fangs and rending the flesh of her palm. "Well lookit that, Dahlia bleeds too!" She said waving her hand at him as if to say hello, flicking thick crimson blood down onto the sand. Though this motion was brief as she brought her hand to her lips and licked along the wound, as if her tongue could seal such a deep cut. Only...it seemed too, as she flicked her hand to remove the left over and saliva, showing off that the cut had in fact sealed tight as if it had never happened. "You're like a haughty child you know?" She beamed with a disrespectful sneer.

The man's lack of knowledge and perpetual curiosity seemed to only support Dahlia's insult. She snickered a bit more, finding the injured mortal's demeanor quite amusing as she proclaimed himself the special spirit king of the world, or something like that. "Dahlia is sorry meatba...food-sa...Daimyo-chan." She put her hand to her lips and giggled, insulting the man's sense of pride again and again. His sense of entitlement was not unfamiliar to Dahlia, as most creatures of power within Heuco Mundo were much the same, only she and her species were centuries older than the mortal who had stumbled into her world.

However she was starting to get bored with all this questioning, even if he was fun to play with while he asked her such. Knowledge and thinking were things Dahlia hated doing, and this human was forcing her to think straight for well over two minutes, possibly a world record for the nurse. "Ask away, Dahlia guesses she can dote on you awhile longer." She said as she began to spin the bone saw within her grasp, her fingers managing to maintain their hold on the weapon even as she played with it idley. He seemed unhappy with her expression too, just how needy was this man? She stopped fidling with her saw and forcibly strained her face, pulling it into a completely straight demeanor, and spoke through her teeth. "Howsth Thiss?" She mumbled jokingly before actually answering his demands.

First he'd asked her why Hollows were called Hollows. She tilted her head a bit, why was the sky called the sky, or the dirt the Earth? "That's just what we are. Hollows have been Hollows since like forever. Maybe the stuffygami gave us the name, or maybe it's cause we're actually Hollow." She finished with a shrug, the history of her species name holding little interest for the Arrancar. His second question was far more interesting, as it was a chance for Dahlia to show off her uniqueness among her own kind. She grinned brightly as she continued to answer his query. "You've got it backwards Daimyo-chan! Dahlia isn't an illusion, but she is missing her mask!"

She pointed over at the dead Hollow Haruki had nudged with his sandal earlier. "Hollows start off like that, and then they eat each other a bunch and ta-dah!" She stopped to briefly pantomime the motion of taking off a mask. "The mask comes off and there's a people under it!...Dahlia thinks, she kinda doesn't remember." She shrugged again, cementing that Dahlia was in fact utterly useless for information, or at least highly questionable. "Dahlia does know that the more human a Hollow is, the stronger we are. After all Dahlia's pretty tough!" She quickly put her hands on her hips and made a sort of super heroic pose.

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Their extinction.

What did it mean?