! Ch. 8: Orihime VS Zommari
! Zommari had always been an odd duck, and his brief second life was no exception. Just as before, he fixed his AMOR on the first being he laid his many eyes on. In Hueco Mundo, that being had been Aizen Sousuke.
! Here in Soul Society, it was his fellow Arrancar Charlotte Cuulhorne, tournament commentator extraordinaire.
! The sunup light filtering into the Arena's rec room glinted off Charlotte's white tiara as he crouched down and gently slapped Zommari's cheek (since Zommari was lower on the totem pole among the Espada, it took him longer to come fully back to life).
! "Wakey wakey, snuggums. You're due for your fight!"
! Fight? Zommari opened his eyes. No. Love! AMOR!!
! "Te amo!" Zommari giggled groggily. Memory jogged: "Charlotte Cuulhorne… BANZAI!"
! "Jumping the gun a tad there," said Charlotte. "That's reserved for when you die, silly!"
! The inevitability of Zommari's impending demise hung in the air. He was a one-off matchup antagonist, it was his destiny to die at the hands of a shinigami.
! "What right!" Zommari repeated, now standing up angrily of his own accord. "What right have shinigami to pass judgement on us noble–"
! "Trust me, sugar bun, your opponent today is the last person on the planet to judge anyone. And she's not even a shinigami!"
! Zommari licked his lips. Breakfast was served!
! *__
! "Kubo, why are all your black characters really fucked up?" asked Editor.
! Kubo sippy-sipped his coffee. "Why, whatever do you mean?"
! "Tousen turned into a weird insect thing. Charlotte is a flamboyant transvestite. Zommari is a witch doctor that turns into a weird fucking eyeball... thing. And Yammy turned into a--"
! "Yammy isn't black."
! "He's not?"
! "No. He's Hispanic," Kubo laughed. Wasn't that obvious?
! "Not sure that's much better, but anyway--"
! "Harribel is black, and you wouldn't say she's 'fucked up,'" Kubo countered.
! "Yeah, but that's only because she has tits, so naturally she's voluptuous as opposed to freaky. Which is a whole other can of worms–"
! "With all due respect." Kubo lifted his hand once more to interrupt Editor. "I'm going to give Zommari a crazy good backstory after he dies, and then Orihime is going to cry over him. That will make the readers connect with him in his final moments, thereby making him more than just a one-off matchup antagonist destined to die."
! "I'm actually looking forward to that, I wanna see what you come up with for Zommari," said Editor. "Except, maybe don't make Orihime too weepy and weak."
! "Oh, don't worry about that, I think you'll find our well-rounded friend Harribel has rubbed off on Orihime."
! Editor didn't know if by well-rounded Kubo meant he presently believed Harribel to be a three-dimensional character, or if he meant her 'assets' were well-rounded. Editor could only agree with one of those.
! __*
! The only way Harribel had rubbed off on Orihime was that now her tears streamed out with roughly the same force as Harribel's water attacks. Kubo simply couldn't bring himself to write Orihime any other way.
! Ishida placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as she bawled her eyes out at the thought of taking a life. "Think of it this way, Orihime. Hollows cause nothing but strife and misery, they're just malfunctioning souls turned to darkness."
! "My big brother Sora turned into a Hollow, would you have eradicated him!?" Orihime cried. "I haven't been able to see him since then, I have no idea if he's okay!"
! Ohh, touchy subject. Ishida would have to tread lightly. "I, uhh, could kill every Hollow to avenge you brother in case he's gotten eaten?"
! Orihime shouted what she always did when overwhelmed: "Kurosaki-kun!"
! Tch! A nerve had been struck.
! He slammed her against the wall by the collar, in frustration. "NO, MORE, 'KUROSAKI-KUN'!!"
! This had the opposite effect he'd intended. "Kurosaki-kun! Kurosaki-kuuuun!"
! Ishida chanted over her. "No, more, Kurosaki-kun. No, more, Kurosaki-kun…"
! After about ninety more iterations of no, more, Kurosaki-kun, it finally seemed to resonate as Orihime's hysteria subsided.
! "No, more, Kuro... saki... Ishida-kun?"
! Ishida let go of her collar and they both sat down on the rec room bed, exhausted. "Yeah?"
! "Ishida-kun. Ishida-kun!"
! Oh no.
! *__
! "All right, you can keep hugging me until the match begins," conceded Charlotte, as he tapped his soul-microphone semi-suggestively. "But no leg humping."
! Zommari sucked his thumb and nodded. Then he humped Charlotte's leg anyway.
! "C'mon, I can hardly walk us over to the battlefield--to breakfast, remember!"
! Zommari went >:{ whenever he got cock blocked.
! "Dude, you've got issues. And that's coming from me. Anyway, we're here. Ladies and gentlemen, one and all!"
! The crowd cheered and jeered.
! "Welcome to Day 2 of the preliminary matches! Y'all ready to rumble!?"
! But there was a note of disappointment creeping in the audience's tones. "Is he?" Somebody pointed at Zommari, still clinging tightly to Charlotte's magnificent _amor_able abs.
! Emergency measures. "Rosa Blanca!" Charlotte shouted, and a white rose blossomed above them, wrapping himself and Zommari in a dark undetectable dimension.
! "Get off me, you weirdo! Don't make me cero-beam your ass off." This was followed by the customary sassy black mom mm-hm-mm finger-snapping.
! But Charlotte was a mere Arrancar #20 to Zommari's #7, and so try as he might, Charlotte simply could not pry Zommari off his leg.
! "That's it! You leave me no other choice. Super incredible lovely omega supreme apocalypse transformation, segunda resurrecion!"
! Just like Ulquiorra, Charlotte had a secret second release. The number "0" appeared tattoed on his forehead, a contender to Yammy's title. Most readers could not help but agree with that assessment of his character as his second release seemed to disrobe Charlotte of all clothes. What happened next was far too unspeakable to depict anywhere but offpanel, and so the next page had the dark dimension shatter away to reveal an unreleased Charlotte and an extremely shaken Zommari both crawling on the floor, sore and smarting.
! Orihime rushed over to Zommari immediately to heal him.
! "Please… can you revert memories?" Zommari pleaded. Then his nose rankled. A human!
! It was lucky Orihime had her shield drawn up a split second sooner than the moment Zommari decided to devour her. The whipback of her new improved shield prevented him from simply super-sonicking at her throat once more. The two fairies that comprised her healing bubble returned to her earring–Zommari had given up that oppotunity with his attack.
! "Aaand... they're off!" Charlotte picked himself up off the dusty arena floor and resumed commentating duties as Kon, (the new temporary official officiator until Aizen returned from rehab), rang the bell to START THE FIGHTING!!
! Zommari was not at his peak since he wasn't able to meditate before the match; therefore, all he could muster was a maximum of two speed clones. One clone would fight and eat Orihime, and the other would romance his designated amor.
! Zommari #1 drew his sword and carefully probed for openings around Orihime's shield, not wanting to suffer the recoil of a glanced blow once more. Zommari #2, memories successfully reverted to back before Charlotte's frightening demonstration, began to serenade Charlotte with a strange witch doctory do the Egyptian dance.
! "I'm trying to commentate, honey."
! "Shhh, don't reject my AMOR," said Zommari.
! "If you release you can shower us all with your amor," said Charlotte, knowing that Zommari's resurreccion was, quite incongruously, a stationary pumpkin, and therefore he would be forced to gice Orihime is undivided attention.
! "You're right!" Zommari #2 clapped his hands, owl-twisted his head, and his sword bent into a spiral before him. "Brujeria!"
! But, while Zommari did indeed lose the ability to generate speed clones in this form, he chose to ignore Orihime and instead continue to serenade Charlotte, much to the former's relief and the latter's chagrin.
! "Yeckh!" Orihime nearly fainted. She'd never seen something so ugly in her life, and with the way she cooked that was saying a lot.
! "Feel my AMOR!" All of Zommari's 50-odd eyes converged on Charlotte's crotch, but Charlotte wrapped himself once more in his impenetrable world of darkness with Rosa Blanca. Zommari was doubly surprised when a attack fairy zipped straight through the back of his skull.
! "Some things are just too goddamn weird," said Orihime. For a girl who once said she wanted to be a killer tank robot when she grew up, her likening someone to an abomination was not to be taken lightly.
! Luckily for Zommari, he had never laid claim to much of a brain to begin with, and so Tsubaki's assault didn't kill him. Tsubaki had, however, managed to clip away the last remnants of reason off Zommari's frontal cortex. That's why Zommari panicked and collapsed into his ultimate defense form, EL EMBRION!
! Orihime finished the job by using her healing bubble on the pitiful pink embryo-skull orb thing to erase Zommari from history entirely. As Ishida had said, a boon to all.
! ORIHIME WINS!!
! __*
! "Kubo, I thought you said you were going to give Zommari a sad backstory."
! "I did! He's been erased from history because he was so ugly. If that isn't sad, I don't know what is."
! Editor could only stare agape in amazement at Kubo's pure kingly trollage. As a consequence, Editor was now sort of curious as to how Kubo would pull off the next leg of his daring saga. "Fine. What's up next for 'Grine My Detractilance 3'?"
! "Hinamori versus Hanatarou."
! A sippy sip of the coffee.