Fanfic / Now You Feel Like Number None

"The hunger was gone. But ambition remains."

— Tagline

Now You Feel Like Number None by Omicron is a Bleach Arrancar Quest on Sufficient Velocity.com It follows the adventures of Nemo Elcorbuzier, Arrancar #48, one of Aizen's more expendable minions, an obsolete Arrancar of no great power. However, all things strive, and in the empty halls of Las Noches, a clear mind and a steady heart can sometimes be worth more than brute strength.

Warning: All spoilers below are unmarked.

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This Quest provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: The arc wherein Cirucci advances her place in the Espada with Luppi's assistance is suddenly cut off when Nemo is taken and imprisoned by Tosen, whereupon the story becomes about getting her back.
• All-Powerful Bystander: Starrk refuses to get involved in the Arrancar rebellion since he considers all sides his friends, and instead dedicates himself to protection the Arrancar Numeros from the collateral damage.
• Ancient Artifact: Ren knows about quite a few thanks to his study of Hueco Mundo's history. He tells Nemo about three that are rumoured to exist at her request as she wants to give Cirucci something that would give her an edge in her fight against Yammy. The one Nemo ends up going after is the Mask of Luna - the remains of a powerful hollow who turned an entire stretch of land to salt. It empowered the hollows guarding it and allowed them to thrive in the otherwise inhospitable salt pan.
• Anti-Villain: Most of the main cast were cannibalistic monsters and losing the need to eat didn't necessarily make them nicer, but it did offer them the opportunity to become so and some took it, even if those people are still ostensibly villains in the setting.
• Artifact Title: The tagline. Character creation and subsequent characterisation set the protagonist as someone who had very few ambitions beyond keeping her head down and staying alive.
• Artificial Human: Ururu, also known as Nemuri Number Four.
• Ascended Extra: Many if not most of the Arrancar to feature in the story had little to no role in the original manga besides "be introduced, engage in one-off fight scene against secondary character(s), lose, die or vanish from the story", with only a handful even receiving backstories. This includes Cirucci, Luppi, Findorr, Grimmjow's Fraccion, and the Tres Bestias.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The Espada, and basically any Hollow community.
• Autocannibalism: Nemo's friend, Mantis, ate himself after Barragan drove him mad with his powers.
• Babies Ever After: Nemo and Cirucci, alongside the help of Alphonse and his master's mastery of La Marana, use the Hogyoku to create a new infant God in order to stop the destruction of reality and maintain the flow of souls until that system can be replaced. They name her Amity. Luppi and Grimmjow also have a son in the Distant Finale, though the exact method (whether adoption or magic) is left ambiguous.
• Badass Boast: Nnoitra gives one during his duel with Cirucci.
  Nnoitra: I am Nnoitra Gilger, Quinta Espada, Death by Despair, and I will keep standing if the fucking sky falls on my head.
• Badass Crew:
  • The Dancers of the Salar de Luna - a band of powerful base hollows who had successfully hunted down Gillians, something that would normally require entire armies of hollows or other Menos Grandes.
  • Dordonni's Exequias contenders, who between them all had enough skill and power to meaningfully challenge an Espada-level opponent. Were it not for the fact that the specific opponent they were fighting was specialised in defeating teams and had an aura that disrupted team coordination, it's likely they would've won. While they lost the contest, their performance was enough to warrant official merit and the survivors were given the group title of Hidalguia.
• Bad Boss:
  • Barragan sent Nemo to recover a stolen crown, something which she did successfully, only for him to drench it in the power of Senescencia and tells Nemo to bury it in the sands. The only reason she didn't die is that she had High-Speed Regeneration to counter its effects, something that Barragan didn't know about.
  • Aizen sent Nemo on a suicide mission for a slight her mistress committed. When she returned successfully having recovered items of immense importance, he berated her for having to be extracted by Espadas at the very end and warned her against "failing" as such in the future.
• Bad Powers, Good People: For all that Polilla grants immensely useful powers, Nemo releases its power as little as she possibly can because she hates the monster that emerges when she does. She's only ever released when her life was on the line and there were no other options available to her that could secure her survival.
• Battle Aura: Spiritual pressure is the outward flow of spirit energy and is typically used to impair or outright incapacitate weaker opponents, with the only real defence being to have a sufficiently high spiritual pressure to counter it.
  • In addition to the above effects, Luppi's spiritual pressure frays at the bonds that hold people together, diminishing their ability to work as a team. There are limits to this, however. When he fought the twins Yin and Yang, it was completely ineffective due to the sheer strength of their bond.
• Big Damn Heroes: Cirucci, Luppi, and the Tres Bestias serve in this role on the day of the Exequias contest to save Nemo.
• Become Your Weapon: The essence of Resurreccion, which returns an arrancar's hollow powers back to their bodies.
• Being Good Sucks:
  • After Nemo defeats Ururu, she stays behind for a moment to tend to her wounds, which gives just enough time for Tessai to catch up and confront her. The only reason Nemo got away is that Cirucci and Ulquiorra arrived exactly at that time to extract her.
  • Gantenbainne's honour and friendship demanded that he not attack Cirucci when she interrupted the Exequias contest, even though Aizen ordered him and all the other contenders to do so. This sets him up for execution until Cirucci bargains with Aizen to grant amnesty to her conspirators. By the end of the chapter, Dordonni - his rival in the Exequias contest and fellow Privaron Espada - gains a new title, Cirucci becomes the Quinta, and his subordinate becomes the new Exequias. This leaves him alone as the last Privaron Espada, alone, irrelevant, outcast, and this nearly drives him to exile himself away forever in shame.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Nemo thinks this of Cirucci during their first night together.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Rather thoroughly averted. Following her fight with Yammy, Cirucci was covered in cuts, burns, and bruises, her clothes were damaged, and her hair was covered in blood and dirt with its curls undone.
• BFG: Ururu whips out a missile-firing cannon seemingly made out of paper and talismans after engaging Nemo in combat and chases her across town with it.
• Black Cloak: A bit of a subversion in that while Nemo wears black cloaks made of the cloth of Gillians, she herself is far from malevolent or evil. Due to Bleach's usage of Dark Is Not Evil, it instead has a somewhat opposite effect, moving her away from the vile side of the Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness.
  • Played completely straight when she enters into Resurreccion, however.
• Blatant Lies: When Nemo is caught by Ururu in the Urahara Shop's hidden basement, searching through the locked closet inside and stealing as much as she can, she attempts to convince Ururu that she isn't a thief.
  Ururu: Are you a thief?
  Nemo: You are, of course, not a thief at all; you were just… Finding your way around the shop, and got lost, because there was no one tending to clients in the front.
• Blood from the Mouth: The journey into the Forest of Menos with Yammy results in Nemo accidentally breathing in fire, which damages her lungs. She shrugs it off for a while, but when she starts coughing up blood, she realises that her lungs aren't healing and that the damage is actually getting worse, which prompts her to go to Esmeralda's clinic.
• Blood Magic: Blood is used to perform the Gran Rey Cero and is used in Brujeria, a kind of magic that the Tres Bestias can use.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Yammy's massive Resurreccion dissolved into blood after he was defeated, drenching Cirucci.
• Bonus Material: The players of the game draw fan art and write side-stories. Of the latter, some are canon within Number None and are referenced in the main story.
• Break the Haughty: A self-inflicted example. Cirucci's pride and ambition drive her to seek a higher place on the Espada, but in going to Tier Harribal for help in recovering Nemo, she proved willing to trade in her dreams and remain forever as the Tenth Espada for the sake of her love.
• Breather Episode: Chapter 11 is about a gala meant to entertain the Espada and bring them together. Chapter 10 was not.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Barragan didn't even think to train his abilities once he was turned into arrancar by the Hogyoku, thinking that all the potential power the transformation gave was given at the moment of transformation.
• Call-Back: After Nemo defeated Findorr, she had to regain control over her body to avoid eating him. The winning vote to abstain was "Someone is watching", symbolizing how Nemo draws moral strength from Cirucci's presence and expectations for her. Later, Cirucci is fighting Nnoitora and hits a low point, she realizes that "Someone is watching" - namely Nemo, whose presence gives Cirucci a second wind.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Aizen's transformation after his near-death at Tousen and Harribel's hands leaves him prone to losing himself in self-contemplation; he is so perfectly self-centered that he loses any chance to save his few remaining loyalists from the Arrancar Rebellion.
• Cap: The skills in Number None are capped at various levels - Legendary for core skills, 4/5 for advanced skills, and Champion for mundane skills.
• Casting a Shadow: Polilla provides several shadow-based abilities that grow stronger over time. Nemo gains the ability to use shadows outside Resurreccion to cause distractions and disrupt abilities, which she uses in the story to briefly get a glimpse of Luppi's nature in retaliation to his continued sarcasm and casual disrespect towards herself and Ren.
• The Cavalry: During Chapter 7, Cirucci and Ulquiorra (the latter begrudgingly) rescue Nemo from an encounter with Tessai Tsukabishi.
• Character Development: A running theme of the quest is Arrancars learning to move beyond their cannibalistic, kill-or-be-killed past.
• Chase Fight: We get one in Chapter 7 with Ururu chasing Nemo across Karakura Town in Slaughter Mode.
• Close-Call Haircut: Happens to Cirucci in her fight with Nnoitora.
• Clothes Make the Superman: La Maraña is an art that allows its practitioners to make magical apparel out of spiritually potent reagents.
  • Magical Accessory: It's not limited to clothes, but all apparel, including jewellery. An example of this is the Beastly Bracelet, which enhances the senses.
• Clothing Damage: Practically every fight results in this, but there are two standout examples. In the first the Butcher King burns away Nemo's original grey cloak with his Cero, who from then on wears black cloaks made of Gillian cloth. In the second, Cirucci destroys Nnoitora's spoon hood at the cost of a curl of hair, a price that Cirucci was alright with paying due to her antipathy for the garment.
• Combat Pragmatist: Both Nemo and Cirucci fall into this camp, using tricks and tactics in their fights to secure victory against their opponents, who oftentimes outclass them in raw power.
• Comfort Food: Nemo bites the head off a lizard and swallows it before finishing the rest off to calm her nerves while on a mission for Barragan.
• Cool Shades: Jackelton's Calaveras sport these due to Gantenbainne contributing to the creation of the uniform that allows Jackelton to make them.

• Crush Blush: Di Roy had a crush on Nemo, so when she came to deliver a uniform for Grimmjow he had this reaction, though Nemo mistakes the darkening of his face as being because she offended him at some point.
• Damsel in Distress: Nemo in Chapter 10. Due to the circumstances she finds herself in, she does little more than serve as the impetus for the arc and provide moral support for Cirucci during her fight with Nnoitora.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Gran Rey Cero serves as this for Nemo due to the immense strain it puts on her body and energy reserves.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Just like in Bleach, darkness is not considered to be inherently evil in Number None.
  • Nemo wears a black cloak, has powers based on shadows and mental assault, and feels most at home in the darkness, but is one of the most empathetic arrancars in all of Las Noches.
    • Dark Is Evil: However, when Nemo enters into her Resurreccion, which wreathes Nemo's body in black dust and improves her shadow manipulation powers, the personality that emerges is a survival optimizing machine, ruled by fear and hunger, even more hollow-like than Nemo was when she was an actual adjuchas.
  • Jackelton is possibly the only arrancar who's even nicer than Nemo and after Rudbornn's death, Nemo makes him a new black uniform for him to wear. It's a stark different to the primarily white uniform of the far more ruthless and cruel Rudbornn who Jackelton succeeds.
• A Day in the Limelight: The point of view character of Number None switches to Cirucci for the duration of Chapter 10 due to Nemo's incarceration.
• Dead Man Walking: Cirucci ruthlessly focuses on causing massive internal organ damage to Ulquiorra during her fight with him, effectively rendering him this, as she prioritizes areas she knows that even his High Speed Regeneration will not heal properly.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Ikkaku dies in the third Karakura Raid in his Bankai while fighting Grimmjow in order to buy some time for his defeated allies.
  • Tier Harribel dies after almost defeating Aizen with Tousen, whereas in canon she survives Aizen backstabbing her. The nature of her death also means her immense Vasto Lord spiritual power becomes life-bringing water for Hueco Mundo, meaning in death she is finally able to nuture true life in Hueco Mundo.
  • Menoly dies buying Grimmjow's pack, Nel's family, and the Ichigo Rescue Squad a precious few seconds against Mecha-Yammy, which is enough for them to be evacuated by Dordonni's Hidalguia and for the Tres Bestias to arrive and finally put down Mecha-Yammy. Her acidic blood splashing on Mecha-Yammy's battered armor is also what finally weakens it enough to break and allowing the Bestias a chance to kill him.
  • Aizen dies after a botched ascension caused by Harribel and Tousen where he sacrificed his Heart to survive, Gin trapping him in the Garganta, which causes him to eventually Go Mad from the Isolation and turn into a pseudo-Hollow in order to escape, and finally being put down by Baraggan in what may as well be a mercy kill.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Gantenbainne nearly hits this following the events of Chapter 10 before Jackelton approaches him.
  • Szayel crosses it when he's told Nemo, who worked with him on Mecha-Yammy and the Sarcophagous and whom he saw as a true friend, was the one behind the rebellion and planned for him to die in it. For this, he lets himself be killed by Mecha-Yammy after commanding him to kill them.
  • Ulquiorra crosses this after Tesla dies, and results in him reunlocking Segunda Etapa.
  • Nemo nearly crosses this after Ulquiorra shows her the Soul King dying, reality starting to collapse, and the Seireitei being invaded by Baraggan and telling her it's her fault. She breaks out of it when she realizes she's already grown from all her previous trials and doesn't need to blame herself for the choices she's already come to terms with.
• Death by Origin Story: Nemo had a friend before she became an Arrancar. Emphasis on had.
• Death Glare: Luppi is given one by Nemo when he suggests putting sugar in green tea, an idea he quickly retracts in response.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Cirucci tries this strategy on Yammy, but it proves ineffective. While the hits Yammy lands on her are rarer than the ones she lands on him, the ones he lands hit a lot harder and over the same period of time Cirucci ends up taking more damage than him, prompting her to switch strategy.
• Desperation Attack: With few other options available to her, Nemo fired the Gran Rey Cero in a (successful) last ditch attempt to defeat Rudbornn.
• Didn't See That Coming: Cirucci was rather surprised at Nemo's behaviour when she was measuring Jackelton's body to make a new uniform for him. Where normally Nemo's demure and gentle, she apparently becomes assertive and authoritative when undertaking her craft.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Among those Nemo has stolen from are Barragan Louisenbairn and Sosuke Aizen, the latter from right under his nose.
• Discard and Draw: After she used the King's Veil to enhance the power of the uniform she was making for Jackelton, she replaced it with a new Maraña creation to fill the Maraña slot it freed up.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Nemo sometimes get distracted while performing tasks thinking about Cirucci.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Arrancars are half soul reaper and as Nemo found, she could use her zanpakuto to, well, reap souls, performing Konso on pluses and sending them off to Soul Society.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Aizen is infuriated to realize that Harribel both understands him, in the fullness of his power, and pities him for his lack of humanity.
• Double Entendre: Whenever Cirucci wants to "rest" or "take a nap" and asks Nemo to join her or close the door.
• Dragon Ascendant: Barragan's decision to disregard Aizen and invade Soul Society himself, besting Yamamoto and bringing the Soul Reapers to their knees, firmly cements him as the Big Bad even before he finishes off Aizen.
• Duel to the Death: Nemo and Findorr's duel, though Nemo ends up sparing Findorr after defeating him. Cirucci has one later on with Nnoitora, killing him and becoming the new Quinta Espada.
• Emotion Bomb: Cero Triste dregs up the most traumatic memories of the people it hits and summons them as ghostly illusions. Nemo uses this to significant effect against Ururu, ending the fight immediately as a phantom apparition of Mayuri appears and torments her.
• Empathic Environment: Storm clouds build and it begins to rain when Cirucci reminisces on her past and reflects on her life during an emotionally troubling period, even though this happens in Hueco Mundo where it never rains. Justified in that the rain clouds are created incidentally as a result of her own immense spiritual power and her storm theme.
• Entendre Failure: Cirucci has to go through a number of different reasons why Nemo doesn't have to do any more work before the latter understands what she's trying to propose.
• Episode Zero: The Beginning: Some of the canon sidestory content is set before the start of the story proper, which prompted the creation of Chapter 0 which houses all such content.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Although Cirucci was perfectly willing to kill Yammy for nothing more than to become an Espada, she was against sending him to Szayelaporro due to what the Octava would do to him, and is appalled when she finally sees what became of him following her fight with Nnoitora.
• Everyone Has a Special Move: All arrancars have one in their sword releases, but sufficiently powerful arrancars also develop unique variations of core skills outside of their released states.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Luppi has a difficult time understanding the trust and love that Cirucci, Nemo, and those in their circle share for each other. To this end, he decided to become Cirucci's Fraccion so he could gain comprehension.
  • Aizen is so self-centered he cannot comprehend doing something out of devotion for someone else, which Gin taunts him with when the latter strands him in the Garganta.
• Evil Versus Evil: The Arrancars were cannibalistic monsters united by Aizen into an army, while the 13 Court Guard Squads were originally powerful psychopaths kept in line by Yamamoto.
• Evolving Weapon: Cirucci's zanpakuto, Golondrina, gets bigger and more ornate as she grows in power, and eventually evolves into Golondrina Ascendente, which when released gives Cirucci a Resurreccion far more powerful than her old one.
  • While Nemo's zanpakuto, Polilla, does not change aesthetically or otherwise in its sealed state, the powers it grants when released have grown stronger over time.
• Experience Points: Number None has a number of skills which are levelled up by investing experience points in them, which are earned by completing story arcs and making fanart or sidestories.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Averted, despite how common it is in the source material.
• Eye Scream: Cirucci cuts Nnoitora's eye in their fight, blinding him. He does not take this well.
• Faceless Goons: The Calaveras of the Exequias.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Chapter 7, Aizen sends Nemo off on a mission to infiltrate Urahara's shop and steal his plans. She does so and breaks into the closet Urahara keeps his plans, but distracted as she is by the number of potential folders for her to steal that she doesn't sense Ururu approaching her from behind. She only notices her when Ururu asks for her attention.
• Fairy Godmother: Hollows have their own version of the story wherein three Adjuchas give a newly born Adjuchas a gift and then another Adjuchas comes in and gives the newborn a curse. The Tres Bestias decide to play the parts of the fairy godmothers for Nemo, each offering to do her a favour. Sung-Sun pairs hers with a curse, allegedly so that a curse doesn't unwittingly strike Nemo after giving her a gift, but more likely because she's a bit of a bitch and wanted to tease her.
• Flaw Exploitation: Exploiting the flaws of their enemies has been just as important to securing victory for Nemo and Cirucci as leveraging their own strengths.
• A Friend in Need: Gantenbainne walks away when he's ordered to crush Cirucci's rebellion due to the help she's given him and his friendship with her, even though he suffers for it.
• Friendship Moment: Just when Gantenbainne is about to walk out into the sands of Hueco Mundo to be forgotten, Jackelton appears behind him to offer him friendship and purpose, saving him from despair.
• For Want Of A Nail: The presence of a single Numero that does not exist in canon Bleach - Nemo - has resulted in an immense amount of changes to the story, not just because of what she's done directly, but also by the ripple effects her actions have caused.
• Fun with Foreign Languages: French is added into the canon as the language that ancient hollows used, where more modern hollows instead use Spanish.
• Functional Magic: There's a number of magic systems in Number None, including not only the Kido of canon Bleach but some original systems as well.
  • Nemo, Alphonse, and Alphonse's mistress are practitioners of La Maraña, a magic system based around the creation of magical apparel.
  • Emilou Appaci, Franceska Mila Rose, and Cyan Sung-Sun are capable of using a kind of hollow magic called Brujeria, which translates literally to "Witchcraft".
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: While on a mission to get Cirucci a new clock, Nemo keeps getting distracted by thoughts of her so she lightly slaps herself on the cheeks to focus herself.
• Giant Mook: The Gillian arrancars Aisslinger brings to the Exequias contest.
• Giant Poofy Sleeves: The outfit Cirucci wears in canon was designed in Number None by Alphonse with assistance from Nemo.
• Godzilla Threshold: Nemo's incarceration nearly served as this, with Cirucci considering enlisting Nnoitora's help freeing her. She decided against it because she didn't want to burden Nemo with the blood Nnoitora would spill in the process.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Cirucci tried to get Tier to help her rescue Nemo. While she failed in gaining the Tercera's aid, she did secure the assistance of her Fracciones.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Averted, despite the protagonist being near-unique in being an arrancar with High-Speed Regeneration. The injuries she takes aren't made more severe than what other characters would take in similar battles. The most serious damage she's taken thus far has actually crippled her as her regeneration can't heal internal organs, which is where she was injured in her fight with the Exequias.
• Grapes of Luxury: Luppi eats grapes from the World of the Living following the events of Chapter 10, which he considers to be rarer than genuine trust in Hueco Mundo.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Like in Bleach, Spanish is used for hollow- and arrancar-related things.
• Group Hug: After reality is saved and while everyone is preparing to go home, Ichigo hugs Cirucci, which turns into this trope as everyone relaxes from the tension and stakes of before, much to Cirucci's chagrin.
• Hand Blast: The arrancars' Bala, used more in Number None than it was in Bleach.
  • Finger Gun: How Cirucci fires hers.
    • Smoking Barrel Blowout: After blowing up the teapot Nemo was carrying as part of her training.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Nemo learns new skills in a span of months what would take years or decades for regular humans to learn. Luppi brings this up while discussing the preparation for a gala, mentioning that such an accelerated training rate is normal for powerful spiritual beings.
• Harsher in Hindsight: What Ishikawa spoke of to Nemo, after the Gates of Hell appeared when Nemo performed Konso on her.
• Haunted Fetter: Ishikawa's Chain of Fate was bound to her grandfather clock shop. The floor of her basement is covered in chains.
• Healing Factor: Nemo is near-unique in being an arrancar who retained High-Speed Regeneration at the cost of power. In the beginning of the story she could heal to full health within a few hours to a day. Eventually the power grew strong enough that Nemo gained the option to heal injuries in seconds by expending energy and naturally regenerates limbs in a few days. Healing internal organs remains impossible, however, a fact that leads to her crippling in her fight with the Exequias.
• The Heartless: Hollows and arrancars literally, but more importantly figuratively. Arrancars, at least, aren't effectively cursed to remain so by hunger, but feeling 'hollow' is often used to symbolize ennui, depression, or loneliness.
• Hellgate: When Nemo performs Konso on Ishikawa, a Plus that she didn't know committed unforgivable sins in life, the Gates of Hell appear and drag Ishikawa in to be tortured for all eternity.
• Hero Antagonist: From Nemo's point of view the Reapers are evil. She sees them as hunters of her kind and people who would kill her if they found her in the Living World just for being an arrancar, which is part of why she fights for Aizen.
• Heroic RRoD: The effects of using the ultimate attack of the Espada when Nemo only has the body, power, and energy reserves of a Fraccion are predictable: it injures her body as the power strains against it and she falls unconscious as her energy reserves crash to zero.
• Hour of Power: Cirucci's evolved Resurreccion, Golondrina Ascendente, only lasts 30 seconds initially. She trains more in order to prolong the duration.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Ichigo loses access to his Bankai after several weeks in Las Noches getting to know the Arrancar as people, and needs to accept the inherent contradiction between recognizing them as individuals and even friends and fighting them before he can regain it. Ulquiorra loses access to Segunda Etapa after consecutive emotional attacks from Nemo shatter his veneer of emotional control and push him to the point of expressing his feelings openly, and only regains it when he hollows himself out in grief after Tesla's death.
• Human Shield: Nemo ducks into a crowd while being chased by Ururu, banking on the idea that she wouldn't risk hurting people. It does not work and Ururu injures several people with collateral damage from her cannon, which would've killed people had Nemo not interfered with its accuracy by damaging it earlier in the fight. Nemo quickly abandons the tactic once it proves to be ineffective.
• Human Weapon: In Number None, Ururu was the fourth iteration of the Nemuri Project and was created to be a living weapon who could be controlled as easily as a child.
• Humble Goal: Nemo's original goal in the story was simply to not die, later expanding to preventing her friends from dying and serving Cirucci.
• Humiliation Conga: This ends up happening to Aizen, culminating in an Undignified Death. First, Gin tricks him into an And I Must Scream situation where his own power turns against him and destroys his mind, and then when the thing that used to be him finally escapes, Barragan puts it down like a rabid animal (after its residual magic briefly fools him into thinking it was a classic Aizen Gambit Roulette).
• Hybrid Power: This is the premise behind arrancars, who were hollows whose masks were broken and as a result gained soul reaper powers.
• Hypocrite: Cirucci, the wielder of a golden yo-yo whip, calls Ichigo's zanpakuto ridiculous because of its shape. Nemo very carefully makes no comment.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Zanpakutos in general, just like in Bleach proper.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Aaroniero is the only arrancar to still eat other hollows and arrancars. One of the potential missions Nemo could've gotten was to help him acquire a hollow with special powers for him to consume.
• Instant Runes: Sung-Sun writes calligraphy in the air with her blood using her sleeves as brushes. Apacci and Mila Rose cut their hands and use the blood to draw ancient glyphs. Combined, they form a spell that turns Szayel's clone Fracciones against each other.
• Invisible to Normals: As arrancars, Nemo and Esmeralda are ghosts and can't be seen by the living. This makes it impossible for Riruka to take a picture with them.
• In-Series Nickname: Luppi's nickname for Aizen, "Lord Smiling Mcsmugface".
• Ironic Nursery Tune: The nursery rhymes the Butchers sing, which principally involve the capture, preparation, killing, and consumption of hollows.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The phantom image of Mayuri Nemo's Cero Triste creates tells Ururu that she has no name because she is not a person, that because she is a thing she is "Number Four".
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: The beginning part of Chapter 8 was literally titled "Such A Good Idea At The Time" and effectively set the expectations for the rest of the chapter.
• It Was with You All Along: This is the realisation that Nemo had while in the Salar de Luna, when contemplating maiming himself or compromising her ideals in order to get the Mask of Luna. Cirucci wasn't weak enough that she needed the Mask to win and Nemo wasn't so weak that it was worth maiming herself or breaking her ideals for its power.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Mayuri, rather than making the full recovery he did in canon, is permanently spiritually crippled by his injuries at Ishida's hands and decides to yield his position as captain of the Eleventh to Nemu so that he can continue to control it behind the scenes-only for his fellow captains to immediately befriend Nemu and teach her to stand up for herself, rendering him a powerless advisor to his own division.
• Kamehame Hadoken: The Cero of Menos Grandes and arrancars born from them. Nemo's in particular is pretty powerful, having as much skill with the technique as the Espada, which allows her to fire the Gran Rey Cero - an extremely powerful Cero variant that is normally exclusive to the Espada due to its power requirements. She uses it to kill Rudbornn when he has her cornered in the depths of Las Noches.
• Klingon Promotion: The Espadas, both to become one and to increase in rank.
• Knockback Slide: The Bala that hit Findorr after he released managed to push him back with his feet sliding across the floor.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Nemo puzzles over why there's a gender disparity among hollows before dismissing it as coincidence.
• Lethal Joke Item: The Style mundane skill represents Nemo's skill as a servant, and by proxy her investment in Cirucci's paradigm. While it was intended as a mostly harmless xp sink, the players proceeded to level it well beyond the GM's expectations and into more general applicability.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Cirucci and Nemo act as this for each other, especially after the events of Chapter 10.
• Mad Scientist: The things that go on in Szayelaporro's lab are a subject of horror stories to the Numeros of Las Noches. Even other Espada are uneasy at the prospect of going inside his lair.
  • Mayuri too. The abuses he inflicted on Ururu and the Nemuri Project as a whole mark him out as being just as bad as Szayel.
• Magically Regenerating Clothing: Justified in that items made with Maraña have the power to feed from their wearers' spirit energy to regenerate.
• Magical Incantation: Brujeria makes use of this, as shown by how Appaci and Mila Rose chant part of a magical incantation that taps into their connection to their mistress, summoning a wave of water.
• Magnetic Hero: Over the course of the story, Nemo manages to forge connections and friendships with many different people thanks to her personality and actions. She's aided in this by the Style skill, which (among other things) helps with maintaining agreeableness and avoiding offence. Thanks to the skill, she was able to quickly establish a friendship with the normally rather hostile group of arrancars known as the Tres Bestias.
• Magnum Opus: Chapter 9 was about making the uniform that would allow Jackelton to make Calaveras and participate in the Exequias contest. The titles of the chapter parts were even the names of the traditional alchemical steps to achieving the alchemical magnum opus. Chapter 9 involved a significant amount of research, experimentation, and even some life experience to finally complete the uniform and represented the culmination of Nemo's skill in La Maraña.
• Make Way for the New Villains: Barragan finalizes his role as the story's ultimate antagonist by killing Aizen-by that point rendered a maddened and barely directed monster of terrible strength by his flawed ascension and his escape from Gin's trap.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Barragan's total victory over Soul Society is entirely pointless, due to the ongoing collapse of reality, but he doesn't care so long as he's the one on top when it all falls apart.
• Mental World: Arrancars have inner worlds and just like Soul Reapers can access them thanks to having zanpakutos. Nemo's inner world is a world of darkness teeming with the thousands of hollows she gained dominance over to retain sapience as a Menos Grande. These hollows are the fabric that makes her, and so she has power over them. When she pulls on them, they dissolve into a sea of black that she can weave into solid ground and a throne.
• Mercy Kill: Cirucci begs Ulquiorra to either kill Yammy or allow her to do so instead of take him to the Eighth Espada to be repurposed, to which Ulquiorra refuses citing his orders.
• Merger of Souls: Menos Grandes are composed of hundreds to thousands of hollows drawn together into a feeding frenzy where they fuse, with some having a single soul gain dominance over the others and retaining sapience.
• Militaries Are Useless: As in Bleach, the 13 Court Guard Squads are largely composed of weak soul reapers who wouldn't matter in any fight involving their superiors. It's why the forces of Las Noches only rely on a small number of elites and their best retainers instead of an army, which led to Aisslinger's loss in status.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: Implied after Dordonni and his escudero discuss how they can recruit arrancars to join them as contenders in the Exequias contest.
• Moment Killer: Nemo and Cirucci have a touching moment after Yammy's defeat when Ulquiorra comes in via Descorrer.
• Monstrosity Equals Weakness: While Resurreccion returns the monstrous form of a hollow to the arrancar who releases, this is only temporary. Those who through imperfect arrancarisation permanently retain a partially hollow form become weaker than they were.
  • The completed hogyoku gives hollows power boosts when it transforms them into artificial arrancars.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: The personality in control of Nemo's body had an urge to consume Findorr's body after defeating him, only held back and subdued when Nemo's own will managed to once more gain control.
• Mook Maker:
  • Rudbornn is capable of creating an army of humanoid minions called Calaveras which he can puppet around as an extension of himself. It's because of this ability that he is the Exequias.
    • Jackelton, a sapient Calavera, inherits this ability after Nemo makes him a uniform out of Rudbornn's remains.
• Mr. Exposition: Ren primarily serves as a deep source of information on the wider lore of Hueco Mundo thanks to knowledge gathered over countless years studying its history.
• Mr. Fanservice: Grimmjow and Ulquiorra seem to be in-universe examples. Esmeralda liked flustering Nemo with the idea of them together and even Jackelton gossiped about the possibility of it.
• Mundane Fantastic: The clothes Nemo makes are magically made to be completely waterproof, but she merely considers it to be good craftsmanship even though others like Cirucci don't.
• Mundane Utility: Brought up and averted. Nemo refuses to use her zanpakuto to cut cake, no matter how delicious it may be.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After Cirucci defeats Yammy, he gets taken off to be experimented on and turned into a weapon by Szayelaporro. Later on in the story, Cirucci finds out exactly what he did to him and has this reaction. Szayel mistakes them for tears of awe.
• Neck Lift: Yammy does this to Cirucci before she takes off her power limiter.
• Nerves of Steel: The Style skill governs, among other things, the ability to maintain one's composure. Nemo's skill in it allows her to stand up socially to the likes of the Espada, whose spiritual pressure would otherwise make it impossible for her to lie to them due to the effects it has on her psyche.
• Ninja Maid: Nemo. Cirucci originally took her in as a servant, teaching her both courtly manners and how to attend to a household. Nemo fully embraced these lessons.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Nemo is a lady wizard seamstress ghost knight.
• Nonuniform Uniform: The black-trimmed, white uniforms Alphonse makes tend to have a lot of variation to custom suit the desires of those who wear them, with the standard uniform only worn by a minority of the arrancars.
• One In A Million Chance: It's very rare for a hollow to have enough will or power to remain sapient as a Menos Grande. Even more rare are those sapient Gillians who eat enough and survive for long enough to evolve into Adjuchas.
• One-Man Army: The Espadas may be the most prominent example, but in theory all Numeros born from Menos Grandes count as this, capable of wiping out multitudes of regular hollows and soul reapers before being taken down.
• One-Winged Angel: Arrancars release their zanpakutous to return the majority of their offensive hollow powers to their bodies, gaining power in the process. This usually less-than-human state reflects the nature of the arrancar and the more animalistic origins they came from.
  • Whereas most Resurrecciones have a set power level, Yammy's increases or decreases based on how much food he's managed to eat beforehand to build up its power.
  • Cirucci managed to evolve her Resurreccion, gaining greater power, new abilities and features, and changing the energy colour of the release state from pink to blue.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Nemo's dialogue is unmarked, leaving it ambiguous as to whether she's talking or thinking. When it's obvious she's saying something, it's always to say something very important.
• Out of Focus: We see this with Esmeralda (Las Noches' medic who was killed by Yammy in canon) after she leaves Las Noches for Naruki City due to not being in Las Noches anymore, which is where most of the plot stuff happens.
• Parrot Expo-WHAT?: Nemo when Ururu activates Slaughter Mode.
  Ururu: HOLLOW SIGNATURE DETECTED. ENGAGING SLAUGHTER MODE.
  Nemo: Slaughter what now?
• Perpetual Smiler: Aizen, something that gets taken notice of by his underlings. Luppi even and sarcastically references it in a conversation with Nemo.
• Plot Leveling: As Nemo increases in power, she has to fight stronger and stronger people.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Ururu, as Nemo painfully discovered after getting caught red-handed stealing Urahara's stuff.
• Portal Door: Arrancars are capable of travelling through the worlds via passageways known as Gargantas, which are opened with a technique called Descorrer - a more refined version of the comparatively crude Kumon technique that hollows use. Nemo used to have to concentrate and put effort when using Descorrer, but she's later able to open one with nothing more than a flick of her hand, just like the Espada.
  • The Gates of Hell make an appearance and like in Bleach, they appear on their own.
• Power Limiter: Nemo made Cirucci one so she could train with Gantenbainne, as otherwise she'd be too powerful to get any kind of challenge out of him. Later on, she wears it to her battle with Yammy out of pride, dropping it when she's very definitively losing and worrying Nemo doing so.
• The Power of Blood: Blood is connected to the nature of hollows and allows arrancars to access powerful abilities from their hollow side.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Golondrina Ascendente makes Cirucci's hair grow and look like storm clouds.
• The Power of Friendship: After Cirucci's meteoric rise following Nemo entering her service, some Arrancars are seeking to emulate her. Many of them miss the point.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Cirucci: “Goodbye, Gilger”, before spearing him through the chest with a lightning spear.
• Pride:
  • Pride is a core character trait of Cirucci's and is a core driver and catalyst of several major plot elements. It was her pride that drove her to reclaim her spot on the Espada by taking down Yammy. That ambition had her send Nemo out to gain information on him, and the lengths she went to for her in this regard was what began Cirucci's attraction towards her. Cirucci's pride is also one of the things Nemo finds attractive, which when combined with Cirucci's feelings for Nemo led to their relationship. After defeating Yammy, her pride drove her towards seeking a higher spot on the Espada, which prompted her alliance with Luppi and her first big fight with Nemo. In this quest of hers, she once more sent Nemo out to gather information, this time on Luppi so she could betray him after he helped her secure a higher rank. This went even worse than the last time, with Nemo nearly dying to the Exequias, being crippled in a way her regeneration couldn't heal, and getting arrested by Tosen, leading directly to the events of Chapter 10.
  • One of Nemo's establishing character traits was that while she didn't like being pushed around, she wasn't a prideful person. Over time, she learns to take pride in being Cirucci's servant and gains emotional strength in doing so.
  • Gantenbainne, Dordonni, and Aisslinger entered into the Exequias contest due to the shame their exile brought them and their desire to reclaim their pride and status.
• Race Against the Clock: Nemo only had a limited amount of time to make Jackelton's uniform for the Exequias contest, made very difficult from attempting to make something far more complex and powerful than she had ever made before.
• Razor-Sharp Hand: Nnoitora's in Resurreccion, which she used to injure Cirucci in his duel with her. Also Shawlong's, which are so sharp that Grimmjow needs to parry them with his sword since his Hierro isn't enough to tank them.
• Rescue Arc: Chapter 10 focuses on Cirucci's efforts to rescue Nemo from captivity.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In a fight between Hiyori and a corrupted Rose, Hiyori plays Imposter Forgot One Detail, with one of the listed points convincing her that the Rose she's fighting is a fake is because the real one is known for making random mid-fight references to popular music, and the fake hasn't. The fake points out that he did indeed reference the famous titular lyric of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" from Daft Punk... a song that, as it turned out, Hiyori had never actually heard.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: When Nemo is arrested by Tosen, Cirucci bursts into Aizen's throne room demanding to see her. Afterwards, she gathers allies together to help her rescue Nemo during the Exequias contest, culminating in a final battle between Cirucci and Nnoitora that leads to the former's victory and Nemo's release.
• Rule of Three: Three times Nemo's actions create a "child" of great power. The first is when her duel with Yumichaka in the ruins of Chernobyl births a corrupted pseudo-Gillian who took on the traits of both of them, and had to be put down as its inherent nature was poisonous to life. The second time her killing of Ruddborne leads to Hooleer's burgeoning self-awareness, and which she guides into becoming a true intelligence by carving the word "Beauty" into its being and creating a new god, Beauty-in-a-Falling-Leaf, whom Aizen kills afterwards as a show of power. The third and final time she and Cirucci, alongside the help of Alphonse and his master's expertise in La Marana, create a new God using the Hogyoku in order to prevent the destruction of reality. This time, their daughter is free to grow up surrounded by love.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Early on, Nemo's greatest asset is that she had the caution and fear of a much weaker hollow while still having the power of an Adjuchas.
• Sarashi: Sported by Nemo.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: As Nemo confesses to Tosen. She would give mercy to enemies and defy the orders she's given if it means doing what's right.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Barragan ultimately decides that he will side with neither Aizen nor with the Arrancar rebellion, but instead attempt to recapture his old glory. He takes Wonderweiss to counter Yamamoto, and then invades Soul Society with his retainers, bringing the shinigami to their knees.
• Secret Relationship: Nemo and Cirucci's relationship isn't flaunted in Las Noches, as another arrancar or one of the soul reapers can use the knowledge of it to hurt them. Cirucci's dramatic rescue kind of spilled the beans to the arrancar.
  • Everybody Knew Already: Word of God says that they were never very good at hiding it in the first place, though.
• Self-Healing Phlebotinum: Zanpakutos in their sealed state can regenerate damage over time, which is why Nemo had no problem chipping a bit off to make Jackelton's uniform.
• Self-Sacrifice Scheme: Tousen's plan to defeat Aizen, which consists of enclosing them both in his bankai and then fighting to the death to buy time for Harribel's massive Finishing Move, which she targets at Tousen's construct. This is noted to be a play on Aizen's own preferred strategy of making his opponents fight decoys while he lines up his final blow.
• Sense Loss Sadness: Esmeralda, who dislikes not being able to sense other peoples' spiritual pressure.
• Sensory Overload: Intentionally averted. While the Beastly Bracelet enhances the senses significantly, it does not make the wearer any more vulnerable to attacks made against them.
• Sensor Character: Almost every ghost is able to sense spiritual pressure, but the spiritual senses of Kaname Tosen go above and beyond, allowing him to tell truth from lies of everyone he speaks to and detect trace elements of someone's spirit energy from a distance.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: The Tres Bestias cast a Brujeria spell to turn the clones Szayel sent out in the Exequias contest against each other, made rather simple because their mindlessness made them easy to manipulate in such a way.
• Shinigami: The enemy of the protagonist's faction, but also something she acts as and half is, being an arrancar who performs Konso on human souls.
• Sitting on the Roof: Tatsuki, while pondering her irrelevance.
• Shoot the Hostage: Ururu does not hesitate when Nemo ducks into a crowd and continues firing her cannon at her.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: One of the rare few times when Nemo explicitly talks. After Luppi had made rather sweeping and condemning statements regarding her character and motives, accusing her of luring him into a battle to uncover his secrets, she verbally tells him to stand back so she can handle the oncoming Exequias herself.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Ururu.
• Skill Scores and Perks: Number None has three different kinds of skills.
  • Core skills are the normal skills that any player character made during character generation would've had access to. Core skills range from Untrained, then go up to Student, Adept, Skilled, Veteran, Master, Champion, and finally Legendary. It takes 100 xp to go from Untrained to Student, at which point the xp cost to reach the level is doubled until it reaches Veteran, after which the xp required to level up increases by 800. Core skills increase the base power level of the character and unlock perks per level up starting at Veteran.
    • At a certain point in the story, the xp costs for three of the seven non-Resurreccion core skills was reduced by 25% while the rest were increased by 50%, representing favoured and unfavoured skills.
  • Advanced skills are something that not all player characters necessarily share. Some are, some can only be acquired as options in character generation, and some can only be unlocked through play. Advanced skills are capped at either level 4 or level 5. The cost to level up advanced skills starts at 500 xp and then goes up by 500 every level. Levelling up advanced skills does not increase base power level and have no perks.
  • Mundane skills are non-supernatural skills that the player can acquire over the course of the game. They share the same progression as core skills, but the xp requirements are halved, they don't increase power level, they're capped at Champion, and they don't provide perk options until Champion.
• Soul Eating: In Number None, all arrancars of Gillian origin retain the ability to grow in power by consuming souls.
• Spanner in the Works: Nemo has become a massive one, stealing Urahara's plans for defeating Aizen and delivering them to him. Now it's unknown how or even if the heroes can stop Aizen.
• Spared By Adaptation: Las Noches' medic (Esmeralda), Shawlong Koufang, Yylfordt Granz, and Nakeem Grindina.
  • As of the end of the story: Every Arrancar except for Harribel, Szayelaporro, Zommari, Tesla, Menoly, Ulquiorra, Nnoitra, Ruddborne, Baraggan, Yammy, Menis, and Aldegor live through the story, in contrast to canon where almost all Arrancar died.
  • On the non-Arrancar side, as the Thousand-Year Blood War arc doesn't happen, Yamamoto lives, albeit immensely broken physically and psychologically from his defeat by Baraggan and willingly depowering himself in order to fuel Wonderweiss's growth as an individual. Nemu and Unohana also live, the latter finally leaving her past as Yachiru behind.
  • Ichimaru, one of the very few Soul Reapers to perish in the original Hueco Mundo arc, carries out his betrayal of Aizen in a very different fashion—instead of trying to kill him directly, he destroys the space they're traveling in. Though Aizen is lost for countless millennia to his perception, which ends up being instrumental to his ultimate defeat, Ichimaru is revealed in the last scene of the story to have somehow survived and escaped (albeit being scarred and blinded in the process), and he's now hiding out in the human world, telling tall tales of his past deeds to uninterested women.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: In Resurreccion, Nemo can briefly conjure shadow copies of her zanpakuto, Polilla. Later on these shadow swords gain the ability to partially phase through targets, giving them better armour penetration.
• Starter Villain: The Butchers: a band of hollows led by an unusually powerful Gillian carving out a brutal society in the wastes of Hueco Mundo. Baraggan tasked Nemo with retrieving an item of his their leader - the Butcher King - stole from him and was using as a symbol of authority. Nemo's ambivalence towards her task and the manner in which she carried it out did much to define her early character.
• State Sec: The Exequias.
  • The Men in Black: Becomes this after Rudbornn dies and Jackelton takes over, complete with black uniforms and visors modelled after Gantenbainne's in a direct reference to Men in Black.
• Suicide Mission: Aizen was a bit peeved when Cirucci took out his prize artillery piece, Yammy, and replaced it with herself, who while strong was ultimately just another fighter and could not fill in for Yammy's intended role. During the mission to test Ichigo Kurosaki's strength, he sent Nemo, Cirucci's new Fraccion, on a mission to break into the home of his greatest rival and steal the plans he had for defeating Aizen, never mind the countermeasures Urahara and Tessai - the former Captain of the Kido Corps - might have in place. Thought it was never explicit, it was pretty clear to all that Nemo was not meant to survive and that it was revenge for Cirucci killing Yammy.
• Supernatural Elite: The Espada, though the only one who equates them with traditional upper-class aristocracy is Cirucci, who herself acts and demands to be treated as a princess.
• Supernormal Bindings: Nemo is touted out in these to be presented to the audience and contenders at the Exequias contest.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Nemo does not like her Resurreccion.
• Super-Senses: The Beastly Bracelet. Made from some of Grimmjow's body parts, it enhances the five traditional senses to superhuman levels.
  • Pesquisa is a technique that all arrancars share that allows them to pinpoint sources of spiritual strength in a radius around them.
• Super-Toughness: Arrancars in general, thanks to Hierro, but Nnoitora most of all from the sheer strength of his.
• Supporting Protagonist: While Nemo does have a lot of agency in the plot, most of what she does is support others.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Soul reaper zanpakutos, but also arrancar ones, which in addition to their release states are also capable of soul burial and purification.
• Sword Fight: Surprisingly few for a work based on Bleach. There are only three examples to date.
  • The first one was between Findorr and Nemo, during their duel. Findorr's skill with the sword was superior to Nemo's so when they clashed in melee Nemo tried to get out as soon as possible so she could continue to attack at range with energy attacks.
  • The second was Cirucci's off-screen fight with Ichigo, where she used her whip to attack him from out of his range and Ichigo leveraged his speed to get himself within it, though this did reportedly deny him quite a bit of mobility.
  • The third sword fight so far was the duel between Cirucci and Nnoitora, though it was an unusual one given that neither had a sword; Nnoitora attacked with a scythe while Cirucci wielded a yo-yo whip.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Aizen is acknowledged as being a complete moral void, an empty and sadistic man, but Harribel still pities him for his pure loneliness after Tousen, the closest thing he has to a friend, betrays him and he metaphorically removes his own heart for the sake of power and spite.
• Taking You with Me: Gin's ultimate plan for killing Aizen: he leads Aizen into the precipice world, then destroys it with both of them inside. Though Aizen survives, in escaping he loses anything that remains of his sanity, and when Barragan kills what's left of him it's practically a mercy.
• This Cannot Be!: Yammy at the end of his fight with Cirucci.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Findorr when Nemo goes into Resurreccion because it has aesthetic similarity to Barragan's pre-arrancarisation appearance.
• Tiered by Name: Golondrina, becoming Golondrina Ascendente in its final form.
• Time Abyss: Barragan is thousands of years older than even Yamamoto, and claims to have seen the heat-death of the universe, which is why he's willing to let reality come apart-he finds a definitive ending more appealing than the empty, broken husk that will otherwise exist.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Nemo has gone from the level of a below-average Numero to a high-level Fraccion throughout the duration of the quest, culminating in her gaining the ability to perform Gran Rey Cero.
  • Cirucci took lots and lots. Cirucci was able to defeat Yammy in a one-on-one duel in the Tercera's Racing Grounds. Later, in her battle against Nnoitra, Cirucci unleashed her newly upgraded Resurreccion, Golondrina Ascendente.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: In the beginning of the story, Nemo was a morose woman constantly living in fear of her superiors and with little to occupy herself. As the story progresses, however, she becomes more powerful, forms connections with many different people, gains a number of useful skills which she takes pride in, and even finds love, resulting to a Nemo that's much happier than the one at the beginning of the story.
• Touched by Vorlons: Arrancars that were artificially created with the Hogyoku are more powerful than natural arrancars, who were hollows who ripped off their own masks. In addition to being more powerful by default, some artificial arrancars are further modified, such as Luppi who was given an aura that breaks the bonds between allies or Esmeralda who was made extremely resistant to the effects of spiritual pressure at the cost of her ability to sense it.
  • Tatsuki's exposure to Cirucci's overwhelming spiritual pressure forced her latent powers to the surface, allowing her to awaken them with nothing more than a brief expression of will.
• Training from Hell: Cirucci training Nemo to be her servant, most of which involved Nemo carrying out some task such as dancing or serving tea while dodging Cirucci's attacks...or failing to do so.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Played straight in the duel between Cirucci and Nnoitora, subverted in Nemo's duel with Findorr, who interrupted her twice while attempting to release.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: The Memory Glove, which conjures an image from the past of the items and people it touches.
• Ultimate Job Security: The more powerful and useful to Aizen you are, the more you can typically get away with. Some, like the Tres Bestias, get more leeway than those higher ranking than Gantenbainne because of the importance of their mistress.
• Unequal Rites: The Tres Bestias dislike how Cirucci Thunderwitch calls herself "witch" even though she knows no spells or magical lore. Cirucci for her part thinks that spells are for the weak and tricksters, claiming the title of Witch because of her power's effects on the landscape and the weather.
• Unnecessarily Large Interior: It can take days to walk from one end of Las Noches to the other and it's so cavernous that it's fairly easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going. While it can be justified as being to keep the multiple extremely powerful, extremely anti-social warriors within away from each other to avoid internal fights, in truth it's probably just because Aizen wanted to show off.
• Villainous Breakdown: Findorr quickly suffers from one during his invasion of Nemo's apartment when she blows a hole out from under him, immediately activating Resurreccion in sheer anger despite already outclassing her by an inordinate amount.
• Villain Protagonist: Nemo shows mercy when she can and fights for those she loves, but she is still a soldier in Aizen's army and however reluctantly is working to further his agenda.
• Villain Takes an Interest:
  • Aizen, before the start of the story, sees something within Nemo that prompts him to turn her into an arrancar.
  • When Nemo runs to Cirucci for protection against Findorr, she takes an interest in her after realising that not only did she force Findorr into Resurreccion without releasing her own, she did so despite being weaker than she could've been for choosing to retain her High-Speed Regeneration.
• War Arc: The entire story is set up against the war between the Arrancars and the Soul Reapers.
• Weak, but Skilled: Half of Nemo's fights have had her fight enemies who were superior to her in raw power, and it was only thanks to skillful use of her powers and strategy that she was able to win.
• The Weird Sisters: In Number None, Tier's Fracciones style themselves as witches.
• What the Hell, Hero?: For all that soul reapers are hunters of her kind and boogiemen to be feared, Nemo does at least acknowledge that their mission goal is to protect humans, so she has this reaction when Ururu continues firing at her with her cannon at significant risk to the lives or humans, even injuring some.
• What You Are in the Dark: To aid Cirucci in her quest to become an Espada, Nemo went out in search for an artifact of power. She found one, but it was the last hope of survival for a band of regular hollows, ones whose lives she ruined when she killed the Butcher King and destroyed the Butchers as a society. Despite being so much weaker than her that they were no threat, they were willing to fight to the death out of spite and despair should Nemo once again tear down their world. With no one to judge her, no one to threaten her, no one to stop her from taking what she wanted, Nemo apologized and walked away.
• White Mask of Doom: Black dust covers Nemo when she releases her zanpakuto. The only thing it doesn't cover is the remains of her hollow mask. This makes her look reminiscent of Barragan, which enrages Findorr.
• A Wizard Did It: The Tres Bestias know actual magic and even they are dumbfounded how Aizen could build an entire colosseum in less than a week. "Magic is probably involved" is the closest thing they have to an explanation.
• Wrecked Weapon: Cirucci and Nnoitora's zanpakutos break against each other in their duel. Luppi breaks Baraggan's axe in the final fight.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Barragan's fighting style consists entirely of indiscriminate blasting and wrestling moves.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Happens so much to poor Nemo. It's not long after she's done suffering through one crisis or another before a new one rears its head, and with war looming on the horizon it's not going to get easy for her any time soon.
  • Chapter 10 was a whole lot of this trope hitting Cirucci. The love of her life gets taken from her, approaching Aizen with demands gets her nothing but frustration, and after leaving his throne room her zanpakuto violently fails to release despite her command. In the next update, she swallows her considerable pride and gives up on her ambitions in advance in order to secure the Tercera's aid, who she hates, only to be refused in the end. In the update after, she confronts Luppi to ascertain his part in Nemo's capture, whereupon he intentionally yanks her chain as hard and as often as he can in an effort to provoke her, an effort she has to bitterly ignore to save Nemo. When she finally arrives at the Exequias contest with newly gained power and allies to help her, she realises that Aizen knew all along what she was going to do and subdues her with his god-like spiritual pressure. Her only hope then becomes to defeat Nnoitora Gilga in a duel, something that no one - not even herself - thinks she can do. Against all odds and with moral support from Nemo she succeeds, and it finally seems like this troubled chapter in her life is over, but unfortunately it's not. She goes to Szayelaporro's laboratory to be studied, which in itself isn't too bad as her rank and Aizen's word gives her protection, but then she sees what Szayel did to Yammy and weeps in guilt at what she's done.
• You Are Already Dead: Twice in one fight. The first time, Nnoitora tells Cirucci she's already lost and clarifies that it's because she can't cut through his Hierro without committing but she can't commit without risking getting annihilated in close quarters. The second time it's Cirucci saying this to Nnoitora after she breaks his zanpakuto and takes advantage of his blindness to trick him into thinking hers is still whole, because he couldn't beat her unarmed and blind while she was still armed and her Resurreccion was far more powerful than his.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Cirucci does not like how happy Szayelaporro is with her for contributing so much for him to study.

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