He laughed as she touched his hair to her heart's content. "Yer hair isn't so smooth yerself y'know that right?" Pointing to her messy locks that stuck out of her mask, and framed her face. Renji used an arm to wrap around Nel's legs so that she wouldn't fall off his shoulder - what with her excitement, that could be a possibility.

Chopper stared wide-eyed at the woman before him, her touch obscured by the hat between his head and her hand. For a few seconds, many questions flooded his mind. Nelliel spoke far more maturely, never using the lisp or her childish vocabulary from before. Was her mind upgraded as well? She clearly recognized him though.

Taking a half-step backward, the reindeer's eyes sparkled with admiration and excitement, squealing in delight. "You look like a knight! So cool!!! I didn't know you were a superhero this whole time!" Chopper's heart throbbed madly in his chest, excited to have been friends with a hero all this time. Luffy's vague definitions clearly infected Chopper's own views.

BIG WIGGLE MODE ACTIVATED!!!

🐾🐾🐾‼️‼️🐾🐾🐾

WUFF!! Kukkapūro’s tail spins like a propeller the moment Nelliel bends down—OH WOW OH WOW FRIEND FRIEND FRIEND—paws scramble in the sand, tongue lolls out in pure, full-body happiness!! And then—oh. Oh.

UP!!!

HE IS UP!!! INTO THE ARMS!!! SO WARM!!! SO NICE!!! SUCH SMELL!!! She smells like desert wind and strong warrior and maybe melon??? She is SO NICE TO DOGGOS!!!

"AWRRR-WUFF!"  He leans into the head pats like a champion. Ears go all floppy under the SCRITCHES OF THE GODS. He closes his eyes in utter bliss and lets out the softest little tail-thump-whine of joy.

@ramxswords || ✱˚｡⋆ ↪ 𝐀 𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄 . || no longer accepting

Ichigo freezes in the doorway, satchel still hanging from one hand.

He takes in the sight of her—sprawled out like she owns the place, casual, comfortable—and lets out a breath through his nose, somewhere between a sigh and a half-laugh.

"You know," he says, kicking the door shut behind him, "most people call first. Or knock. Or hell, I dunno, ask before moving in."

He toes off his shoes, dropping the bag on the counter without looking away. There's no real heat in his voice. Just that low, familiar bitching tone he gets when he's already resigned to something before he even starts complaining about it.

Finally, he crosses his arms, eyeing her like he’s trying to decide whether she’s a permanent fixture now.

"So? You hungry or what?"

@ramxswords

A break from his boredom; Chopper spotted someone. A sweet looking child with a skull on her head. What luck! The forest wasn't a place that Chopper ran into people often! Of course, unlike the supposedly human child, Chopper was capable. He couldn't guess how scared the child was just by a first glance, so he rushed towards the girl, his bored gaze brightened into an excited grin.

Slowing to a stand by little Nelliel, Chopper lifted his head to make eye contact. Two things were likely to catch the child's attention. First, Chopper's blue nose, second, on Chopper's left antler, a brace was wrapped around the center, keeping it together after a brutal beating when he was younger. Chopper's warm smile showed only friendly intentions. No longer idle, the deer-boy placed his hoof atop the arrancar girl's shoulder as gently as he could, hoping to get her attention. "Excuse me!" These were the only two words he'd excitedly cheered out, awaiting a response before doing anything else.

💥💖🐾 AWRRR-WUFF?? WUFF-WUFF?? 🐾💖💥

Kukkapūro goes FULL ragdoll the moment Nell hugs him—legs flailing like a dropped sack of noodles, tongue lolling out dramatically. He lets out the most heroic, over-the-top sigh of joy imaginable. Like he just returned from war. Like this hug is what he’s been fighting for his WHOLE LIFE 🫡💞

His tail is doing a windmill of honor. His ears are wiggling so fast they generate local breeze conditions. His entire soul leaves his body and returns with a squeaky toy.

🐶💭 This is it. He lives here now. He will eat all her enemies. Even the mail.

He snorts. Licks her nose. Flops back dramatically with a final flump into her lap.

@ramxswords || unprompted

"Nel?"

Ichigo hasn't even seen her since she left to return Harribel to Hueco Mundo. And before that, she only came to find him because the Quincy were invading.

He assumed she was busy rebuilding and taking care of arrancar... things. Actually, he wasn't sure at all what she'd been working on.

He couldn't fully grasp what it was Nelliel was saying. Grimmjow just looked at her, brows tightly knit together further deepening his frown. "Yeah, I do." She may not understand his reasoning behind the need to be alone. Maybe it wasn't so much a need or a want, but something else. Instinctual.

He'd never really been all that social aside from lashing out and trying to start fights. What could he say? He liked destruction. "There ain't a single entity out there who can handle helpin' me not to be alone." Even in a room filled with others he was typically alone. Never lonely, and even if he was he'd never admit it. Especially not to Nelliel. It wasn't because he disliked her. He didn't. "I'm too much of a fuckin' monster for even our own kind.

That was something Nelliel likely couldn't understand. Because people liked her, they wanted to be around her, even on his good days nobody wanted to be around him. He thought some of them liked him enough to want to be in his company but he'd been wrong. Nelliel and Harribel were typically the only ones even giving him the time of day. "Besides, I'm used to it." As he had been for years now. Since the loss of his fracciones. Prior to them he'd been wandering the sands alone. What was the difference now?

That he was an Arrancar? Big deal. He was still a Hollow. Not many Hollows were pack creatures. Everyone knew that much.