2 Job Interview 2 Electric Boogaloo

Turns out, manipulating your own soul isn't really all that hard.

It's not easy, granted, but it's not like it's any worse than when I was just learning to use chakra.

Except for the fact that that's a complete lie and I'm just saying it to make myself feel better.

Seriously, chakra is a mix of soul and body, and not to brag, but I am kinda amazing at manipulating chakra.

So why. Is it as difficult as it is to just manipulate my soul? Clearly I was mistaken in thinking that a soul was 'just' yin chakra without the yang, because there's obviously more to it.

For one, I don't have any fucking Tenketsu, being that I have no physical body. So even if I did have chakra, I wouldn't be able to do much of anything with it anyway.

So far, all I've really managed to do is some rudimentary enhancement, making my skin tougher and body stronger, if only a little. As well as a poor man's Shunshin that is far too energy intensive for what it provides.

Other than that, attempting to spread this energy into my surroundings has so far only resulted in me wasting it away and achieving nothing. Though, at least with this, I'm fairly certain that it's just due to my inexperience with this new form of energy, rather than the technique being off, so that's nice... I think.

However, it's been like three days or something. It's hard to tell since Hell doesn't seem to have a fucking day night cycle, because of course it doesn't. Either way, I've just spent this time wondering around this empty ass desert, with literally nothing of interest happening.

It sucks.

At the very least, I've gotten more used to being a lizard, and found that walking on four legs is actually more comfortable than two. As a rather accomplished Medic-nin, I'm not surprised by the fact, knowing just how poorly designed the human form is.

I always find it amusing when people talk about evolution like it has some kind of plan. Evolution is just mother nature throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks, there is no rhyme or reason to it all.

Shit just happens, and we're the result.

I'm so fucking bored.

Part of me wants to just build a sand castle, or dig a hole or something to pass the time, but I get the feeling food isn't going to come to me, and I can feel my hunger returning.

That in itself is another odd thing about my predicament.

When I ate that fucked up looking scorpion worm thing, the feeling was not quite the same as eating a nice meal as a living human.

I don't really know how to describe it. Like there was just something more to it all. Whatever the case, it was satiating enough.

Boooooom!

Startled out of my thoughts, my head snaps to the side, where I can see some kind of explosion going off in the distance.

It's too far away for me to really sense anything about it, but just from the fact that it's a fucking blue explosion, it's clear enough that it's not the result of any actual weaponry I know of, which means it's an energy explosion.

Which means, over there is a motherfucker who knows how to manipulate their soul better than me.

Let's hope they aren't aggressive. With an explosion that big, they can probably kill me, which is insanely lame, by the way.

It wasn't even that big an explosion, at least not by my standards. I've seen bigger bombs being used in pranks for fucks sake. There was that one guy back in Anbu, Squirrel, I think, who was a real asshole of a prankster.

He fucking blew up some dudes house once on a bet, shit was funny as hell. Pretty sure he got executed for it though, now that I think about it. I mean, he did set of a bomb in the middle of town. Killed like thirteen civilians or something.

The party that followed his death was epic though, because seriously, the guy got executed for a prank, what a legend. It was one of the funniest moments of my entire life. Lives.

Anyway, blue explosion person is waiting for me~.

I don't bother to use my poor man's Shunshin to close the distance, not wanting to deplete my reserves in case it turns into a fight, but I do make sure to conceal myself as best as I am able.

I can't turn invisible without keeping still, which sucks, but that doesn't mean I can't hide my presence. I am the best stealth specialist Konoha has ever produced, hiding from some little Devil is no challenge.

Wait a minute, I just had a thought. The Uzumaki had some secret technique to summon the Shinigami, didn't they?

...For some reason, I get the feeling that meeting the Shinigami would be bad for my health.

Great, now I'm getting excited...

Ahh, to kill a God~.

I bet that would feel amazing~.

Tsk, stop getting distracted, Me. I've got a new friend to meet, I'm sure we'll get along. Probably.

We'll see.

Eventually, I crest over the final dune of sand blocking my view, and am finally granted sight of Mr Blue Explosion.

It's...not a particularly encouraging sight.

Just another pair of monsters, though I don't know why I was expecting anyone humanoid. Clearly Hell has a thing for animals or something. I don't know, I'm not a Deuteronomist.

One of the Devils is dead, some big monkey-gerbil-octopus freak of a thing about four times my size.

The other Devil is smaller, smaller than me, even. I'm not sure if that means I'm big or he's small, but I think it's the former, since the sand seems further away than I'm used to by a rather significant amount. Just at a guess, my eyes are probably close to twenty feet off the ground, which would put this Devil at around eleven feet.

It's also less freaky looking, being some quadrupedal thing that looks like if a toddler was told to just take a guess at what a 'wolvaphant' would look like. It's got a mostly wolf-like body, but with giant tusks that it's using to gorge it's prey's stomach open. It also has a pair of large, flaccid ears covering it's body like a coat and a freaky trunk thing that's pretty short but also seems to have teeth, like a fucked up nightmare-worm.

Why is everything here so damn creepy?

Still, I'm assuming he's the one who did the explosion, but I can't get a read on his power, and I can't try without giving my location away.

I'll just wait for him to finish eating first and then introduce myself. It's rude to interrupt dinner after all, and I don't want this scary guy to make me his next meal or something.

Lucky for me, he eats like a savage so I'm not left waiting long.

Only once he starts looking like he's about to start walking away do I reveal myself, and immediately after I let some of my presence out, not all of it, old habits die hard, he turns to stare right at me.

Hopefully he'll teach me how to sense like that.

"Ohayooo!!!" I greet, waving a hand, paw? At him in greeting, making my way closer as I do.

He only stares at me in silence until I am but a short distance away from him, whereupon he tilts his head confusedly.

Oh well, maybe he's just shy? "Excusi, Monsieur~. Do you know the directions to the nearest, uh... anything?" Hell is seriously lacking in shit to do. Just sand, sand and more sand.

"You are brave, little Hollow," She says, her voice a lot more normal sounding than my own animalistic rumble, and most certainly feminine. My bad. "But no matter, I don't mind if my food save me the trouble of finding it."

Wait what?

As soon as she finishes her words, she dashes forward with incredible speeds, intent on using her tusks to gorge me like she did her last prey.

But I am a. Mother. Fucking. Ninja.

Side-stepping the predictable attack is as simple as fighting an academy graduate, and before she gets to backpedal, I open my mouth and shoot out my lizard tongue, striking her in what should be a weak point in wolf physiology.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, as she just disappears backwards, making some distance even while ignoring the blow.

That was definitely my poor man's Shunshin that she's using, but unlike me, she's not wasting the majority of her Soul energy or whatever it's called. Lucky for me, I'd have to be blind to not be able to sense the movement of energy right next to me, especially when I was touching her body directly at that point.

It wasn't enough to perfect the technique, obviously, but it's given me a better understanding of how it works. Noice.

"Hey now! Why so violent! Can't we all be friends!?" I call out, still preferring we not fight. My attack clearly did nothing to her, and despite what she may think, I really don't have any better options than that.

Plus, I've already learnt so much from her! Such as the fact that we are apparently called Hollows, not Devils.

"You... you're an Adjuchas, aren't you? I'll admit, you had me fooled, hiding away your Reiatsu like that, but now that I've seen through your ploy, I, Panpanchino, won't hold back!"

Reiatsu. Spiritual Pressure, huh? Guess that's what I'll call the energy we're made of then.

Before I can think further on that, dark blue energy, Reiatsu, probably, bursts out of her body, surrounding her like an armour.

Wait what?

Hold on, no need to be so rash!

Her body blurs in front of me, and I barely pull of another shitty Shunshin in time to get out of the way, all the while my focus is entirely on her body. Even as she continues to chase me, and I continue to barely evade, I leave the fight to my instincts so that I can focus my mind on studying how she is using her energy.

As the fight progresses, I find my Shunshin's getting less and less shitty when I notice something else. Every time I appear behind her, she turns around to continue chasing as if she has eyes in the back of her head.

It takes a couple of goes, but I can soon get a vague understanding of how. Every time I Shunshin, she lets out a pulse of energy, finding my location the moment it makes contact with me.

Guess that's how you sense as a Soul, then. It's similar to Chakra sensing, but not the same.

With Chakra, it's a radar, you bounce out your Chakra and wait for it to come back with information on what it touched, but here there's no reverb. The instant her energy touches my own, she knows where I am.

I suppose it sort of makes sense, if that energy is out Souls, then naturally we would know if our Souls were touching anything.

How interesting.

"Stop dodging!" She yells out, the voice snapping me out of my thoughts and distracting me for a moment from the fight.

Crap.

I have to abort my attempt to dodge to the side and give my full focus to dodging.

Instead of moving away, I jump just enough to lift my feet off the ground, and instead hold my front two hands out, grabbing the encroaching horns for a brief moment before letting go, allowing her own momentum to give me distance, a sense of déjà vu filling me in the process.

"Stop attacking me! I don't even know what an Adjuchas is!" I yell out, to no avail.

"Bullshit!"

Sighing to myself, when her next attack is dodged, I decide to try a counter, spinning with my dodge to launch my tail into her side as hard as I can.

My tail snaps in half.

What the fuck.

Oh, and owww.

I had expected my attack to at least push her, but she is straight up unaffected, as if I hit an immovable object. And due to that, I am left unable to move as she deftly turns on her spot, charging right at me.

Damn. This is some bullshit.

However, instead of the expected pain of being run through, something I am already familiar with, I instead feel her hit me with the force of a train, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me crashing onto my back, a weight resting on me.

Opening my eyes, I look up to see a tusk pointed an inch away from my head, with the Hollow looking down on me sceptically.

"What was that?" She demands, as if I should just miraculously know exactly what she is talking about. A lot happened!

"You're gonna have to be more specific, Darling." Score! She seems to react well to being called Darling, and I am happy to have been right on the first try. It's always good to endear yourself to those more powerful than you, but I'd rather avoid having to call her Mistress or something.

Tried it once with Tsunade. Was not fun. For either of us for the matter. But that's neither here nor there.

"That attack you just did, why was it so weak?"

Ouch, so rude, my feelings are hurt~!

"Why were you so sturdy?" I counter, making her glare at me.

Right, I'm the weaker party, gotta get back to being used to that.

Man, I really wish the Hokage didn't reduce the amount of infiltration missions he sent me on after I finished Sage training. I'm all rusty.

"I, uh, I only got here recently. You're the third Hollow I've seen, counting the one you ate. I really just don't know much of anything, I'm not strong and beautiful like you are."

She doesn't blush, I'm not sure if she even biologically can, but she clearly likes my compliments. I'm not really surprised, she does seem kind of stupid.

"Hmph, you got that right! That must mean that you really aren't an Adjuchas, if you don't even know something as simple as Hierro," oooh, new word! I guess Adjuchas is an older Hollow then, or something similar. I'm also going to go out on a limb and guess she's an Adjuchas.

Ignorant of my musings, she continues to mutter to herself, seemingly just as lost in thought, if less aware. "But to have such Reiatsu right after being born...yes...yes, that could work...hmm."

She seems to come to some sort of decision, lifting her tusk away from my face and jumping back to allow me to get to my feet, which I do so tentatively.

"I have come to a decision! Little Hollow!" She yells out, raising a paw to point imperiously at me, "you shall become my servant!"

...Eh. I've never been much of a leader anyway, it's not like I have a problem bowing my head.

If anything, I prefer having superiors. It makes everything so much simpler if you don't have to decide for yourself what to do, just having someone else to give you orders instead.

Besides, she might be stupid, but it's amusing, and she's clearly ambitious, if she wants a servant. So, as long as she teaches me what I need to know to get stronger, then I won't mind serving her. I'll even try to curtail her stupidity.

Who knows, maybe it'll be fun?

I can always just toss her aside if she proves boring, after all.

///

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

I honestly thought I'd written more chaps for this lol. Ah well, I've started watching Bleach TYBW (even though I never finished Bleach, but fuck going through 366 episodes) and it made me wanna write here.

Also yeah, Hana's Reiryouku is like a low-adjuchas already and he's not even a menos yet. He's still gotta turn gillian, and then adjuchas, and then even Vasto Lorde! Who knows how powerful he'll be then! >:)