Mila Rose's patience had long since run out.
"Just give it up already! Leave!" she growled, her sharp fangs bared in frustration.
But he stayed.
He always stayed.
He did not mind her trying to pick a fight with him constantly; he barely even fought back, mostly sticking to avoiding her blows.
No matter how angry she got at him, he stayed.
"Why should we trust you?" were her very cold words.
Gabriel thought for a while. What was something he could offer to them that could make them accept it?
He pondered a bit.
Then it hit him.
"I can remove the possibility of you regressing."
...
...
...
The silence that followed after his words was heavy... hella heavy.
"You can... what?"
So she could speak without sounding angry.
"I can stop you from regressing to a Gillian."
"As if I would take YOUR word for it." Damn, she was already judging him.
"I can show you," he said, his hand glowing a purple color.
"As if I would let you touch me." She sounded defensive... Jeez, she sounded like she hated him.
"Let me touch you."
"Oh my, how forward of you~" He could hear the teasing from Sun-Sun. Okay, maybe his words sounded wrong.
"Get your hand away from me... creep."
Harsh, but alright.
"My power works by making physical contact, i.e., if I can't touch you, I cannot do it," he explained logically.
"Why should we take your word for it? For all we know, you could use this chance to kill her," the deer said. He thought her name was Apacci or something.
Without any hesitation, he ripped off his left hand and tossed it toward Sun-Sun.
"If I act out of line or even show any sign of doing something weird, you can eat it."
...
This may have seemed like a small price. Well, to be fair to Gabriel, it was. He could always reshape his soul later and get the arm back without stopping his evolution.
Nothing could stop his evolution—maybe death. Though chances are, if he went to Hell, he'd probably become the ruler of it in about 100 years... yes, his potential was that great.
However, to the four Hollows present, what he had just done was... something no sane Hollow should do. They knew that he knew that if another Hollow were to eat any part of his body, he would stop evolving, and yet here he was... giving his arm away.
"Plus, Shark-lady over here could kill me if she noticed anything wrong," he said calmly.
Harribel just looked at the scene, her expression unreadable.
"If you try anything, I will kill you."
Noted...
She got close. He reached his hand and touched her mane... fluffy.
The purple energy around his hand glowed.
There he saw it—thousands upon thousands of souls fighting for dominance, so many souls fighting to become the anchor soul, causing the anchor soul (Mila Rose's soul) to need a shit ton of energy in order to maintain itself.
The whole place looked like a fragile mess; if one thing was removed, it would all come falling down.
Deciding to be a helpful fellow, Gabriel used his Idle Transfiguration in order to destroy the identity and personality of all the sub-souls before fusing them into the anchor soul, stabilizing them.
As Gabriel opened his eyes, his hand stopped glowing.
Mila Rose looked the same, as if nothing had changed.
"Oh my, it seems like nothing happened," that was the snake lady.
"I knew it was a scam," goddamn, the deer had no faith in him at all.
However, Harribel felt something... Mila Rose's soul had changed. Something about it had fully changed.
"Tch, knew it. You just wanted an excuse to touch me." She didn't even seem to notice the change.
"Do you feel hungry?" he asked calmly.
"No, I don't, I just ate..."
"....."
"....."
"..."
She wasn't hungry. For anyone wondering why this was a big thing, the answer was simple: Hollows had this instinct to eat and eat souls in order not to regress, so a Hollow not being hungry is like Somalia not being corrupt... that shit just ain't happening.
It was like someone gaining 700 pounds only eating food in moderation and only eating the healthy stuff. That shit never happens.
"...I am not hungry..." she muttered to herself. She wasn't hungry.
"I destroyed the identities of the sub-souls in your body, turning them into fuel for your main soul/anchor soul. You now only have one soul, and thus, you cannot regress, as regression is caused when you cannot sustain the thousands of souls in your body. You have one soul now, and if you can't sustain it, you would just die of hunger. I kinda removed your ability to turn back into a Gillian."
...
...
He did what?
Wait... did that mean...
The weight of Gabriel's words settled on the group like a sandstorm in Hueco Mundo. The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity.
Mila Rose just... stood there. Processing. Her golden eyes widened slightly, her expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and shock.
Apacci's jaw dropped. Like, fully unhinged.
Sun-Sun, ever composed, merely blinked, but the slight tightening of her grip on her sleeve betrayed her surprise.
Harribel's gaze sharpened, golden irises studying Gabriel with newfound scrutiny.
"...You're saying," Mila Rose finally spoke, her voice unusually quiet, "that I can't ever regress?"
Gabriel nodded. "Yup. If you have the potential you can evolve further, you can never deevolve am I not not just great."
Mila Rose staggered back, gripping her chest as if she could feel the difference within her very soul. Her breathing quickened—panic? No. This was something else. Something deeper.
"...You're serious." She wasn't asking. She was realizing.
Gabriel just shrugged. "I literally ripped my arm off and handed it to snake-lady over there. You think I'd do that for a scam?"
Sun-Sun, still holding his arm, wiggled it slightly between her fingers. "Hmm~ I must admit, I thought this would be a clever deception. But his reaction... He truly believes in what he's done."
Apacci, however, had a different approach.
"Bullshit!" she snapped, stepping forward. "There's no way some random dude we just met has the ability to stop regression! That's— That's like breaking the very nature of Hollows! You think you can just change the rules?!"
Hm... Gabriel wondered if he could transfigure them to the next stage. Considering his control over his power was not the greatest, he doubted he could do much.
They would probably just be eternally in pain and become abomination, and considering he is trying to marry, their leader....wasnt really a good idea.
He could be forceful in his approach to Harribel, but that won't work. He may have around the same, if not more, Reiatsu than her, but that is it; he has zero control over it.
She had more mastery over her power plus Gabriel hadn't master that weird movement technique, so she had him beat in speed.
All in all, she would beat his ass, and he refuse to pull a Barragan or Diddy.
He would try his luck, if it work well, if not.....it would work
A/N The shit pussy does to a man.