Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Hell Butterfly ❯ Potential for Disaster ( Chapter 4 )

Hell Butterfly

 

o)0(o

 

Bloomake!

 

Arrancar Cup?

 

o)0(o

 

“That was the most awful introduction I have ever seen,” grumbled Ichigo.

 

“At least there was no poetry…” noted Ishida.

 

To submerse the world in devastation!

 

To unite all Hollows within our nation!

 

To denounce the goodness of truth and love!

 

To extend our reach to the moon above!

 

Dondo! Nel! Pesche! Bawabawa that's right!

 

They shuddered at the mental image.

 

Yup. Thank heaven for that.

 

o)0(o

 

Ichigo: Why were you in that whirlwind anyway?

 

Dondo: Oh, Lunuganga attacks with them.

 

Ichigo: What did you do to piss him off?

 

Nel: I made him It. Seems like he hates Eternal Tag…

 

o)0(o

 

Author's Notes:

 

The end of the last chapter was far too sad to have a bloomake. So here it is.

 

Alliriyan~*

 

 

Hell Butterfly

 

Potential for Disaster

~04~

 

o)0(o

 

Inoue perched on a sofa that was only slightly too hard, wrapping her tense and fidgeting arms around the dress that was only slightly too tight; and the air just a chilly breath below skin temperature surrounded her unmovingly.

 

Hueco Mundo is an empty place.

 

No wind. No sun. No stars. No daylight. No life. No plants. No people. No hearts.

 

Empty.

 

Hollow.

 

And these days it felt like her living blood was burning in her veins.

 

Why wasn't she as cold, numb, as bland as everything else in this place?

 

The taste of despair and hopelessness was pervasive yet stale. The regret was there, but the Hollows had no reasoning with which to feel it. It clouded the air, unable to reach inside the cores of those that generated it.

 

Inoue sighed as quietly as she could, and scrubbed her face with her palms. The constant tension was exhausting. She knew she was lucky, fortunate beyond what she could ever have guessed to be left alone. Trapped in this place of privacy, rarely or never requested to perform a healing by Aizen, and never experimented on by the greedy-eyed Octava. It was crazy. The food they forced down her unhungry throat was often far better than the mangled concoctions she lived on when left to her own devices. And it barely seemed like she was hostage in the stronghold of the enemy at all…

 

Until she drew attention.

 

Certain that their patience could end any day now, she stayed quiet and obedient - "I will only serve Aizen-sama," - oh how disgusting. Scared that a cough or a hum might trigger their attacks.

 

And holding her tongue took a lot of concentration, because her mind wandered all the time, and she had been in the habit of filling her lonely apartment with sound when she was alone.

 

Whilst Inoue sat, and fretted, and feared; the rest of her mind followed random tangents aimlessly. Sometimes resulting in a jerk of the leg or body as she imagined walking into a pit, a snatch of song whenever she forgot herself, and the panicked pounding of her heart every time she began to drift asleep. As if her body was warning her away from dying during unguarded slumber.

 

Apart from healing Grimmjaw she had been given no tasks at all, bar aiding a few of the very minor Fraccion to rebuild the demolished areas of Las Noches. Since her kidnapping, Inoue had been largely ignored. At first terrified of being turned into another arrancar, she had waited hour after hour to be called to her doom. But eventually it had become clear that the enemy's interests were not in her personally.

 

The moment she had felt Ichigo's turbulent reiatsu enter Hueco Mundo, far off but never feeble, she had begun to punch herself at her own stupidity. Of course Ichigo would come after her. Of course her friends would never abandon her to the Hollows, just as she had never refused to join them when the going got tough.

 

Of course it was all a diversion.

 

How could she not have realised? Was she that retarded? Yes, when an Espada had trapped her in the rift between dimensions, and dangled the lives of all her friends in front of her for the simple price of her obedience…yes, she had tried to do what was right. But even then she should have realised…what was so obvious now.

 

Yet, and she clenched her fist and jaws bitterly; after weeks of being prohibited from fighting and forbidden to contribute, after so much time being the only person ignored and full of self-derision for being so weak…

 

`Follow me, woman.' And unspoken: Aizen-sama wants to study your powers. And barely thought: your powers are special.

 

And subconsciously: you are special.

 

Orihime was disgusted at her own vanity, despite knowing perfectly well that she had acted to save her friends. The thought had come later, whilst she was shadowing her friends and saying her goodbyes, and being utterly too pathetic to kiss Kurosaki-kun without his permission.

 

I'm not weak, I'm special.

 

Not forbidden to fight, just being protected.

 

To go to this trouble, Aizen must think my rejection abilities can swing the war.

 

If that had been true, she would have been better off committing suicide in that senkai tunnel. Seppuku!

 

Though she didn't have a sword for the disembowelment or a second to put her out of her misery after. Perhaps Tsubaki would have done it, in two swoops. He always seemed quite keen to beat her up.

 

Now she imagined the tiny fairy toting huge boxing gloves and looming over her. She'd need to be even smaller for that to work, so she mentally screamed “eeeee!” in a high-pitched voice. In fact, the rest of the Shun Shun Rikka might take pity and stop the fight…at normal-human-size that would shock quite a few people…

 

Bugger.

 

She had got distracted again.

 

Maybe she should just commit seppuku now.

 

Inoue cringed at the thought, raising her fist for another punch. A steel vice closed around her wrist and she jerked round to stare at the maudlin features of Ulquiorra in horror.

 

I didn't hear him come in at all…

 

“You are required to eat. Do so.”

 

Ah but if she ate then the food would go all over the floor when she did seppuku. Plus Ulquiorra probably wouldn't agree to be her second; he only ever came in to check she was still alive. Beheading her would be counter-efficient.

 

“Who makes this food?” she asked suddenly, forgetting to cower in the Espada's presence as her mind ran away with itself again. And where did all the fancy cutlery come from? Even for her, it was difficult to imagine Aizen doing house shopping.

 

The white-skinned arrancar released her wrist and paused, wondering why she had asked.

 

“…Tousen.”

 

o)0(o

 

“I'm grateful that there wasn't just more sand, but what the hell is this place?” asked Ichigo, breaking the silence after their unexpected drop to a gloomy forest floor. Looking up from his spread-eagled position on the ground, he could faintly see a patch of light that marked the place they had fallen through the sand. As the light slowly grew dimmer, he realised that Lunuganga must be closing the funnel again.

 

“What is holding the sand up?” added Ishida. “Were all those stunted bushes we saw actually the tips of these trees?”

 

And vaster trees had he never seen. The girth of some of them was great enough to dwarf even Bawabawa, making the enormous Hollow look like a common garden slug in comparison.

 

Speaking of Bawabawa, he was trying to climb one of those very same trees. The arrancar trio were clinging to his mask, cheering him onwards.

 

“Running away, ey…” muttered Chad, peering up at them through his mop-like fringe. Ichigo was somewhat more vocal.

 

“HEYY! WHY ARE YOU LEAVING WITHOUT US?” he bellowed, voice carrying far and wide, echoing off the distant trees and distorting in strange ways.

 

“Baka!” wailed Nel in reply. “This is the Menos no Mori…the entire fowest is crawling with Menos Grande! Go away, don't draw attenshun to us!”

 

Ishida backed up against the tree, absently noticing its cold, quartz-like surface whilst focusing on the ink-black gaps between the immense hoar-frosted trunks. The crystallised bark gave off a faint natural glow, yet not enough to see into the far-off shadows.

 

Was that a suggestion of white?

 

Stretching out his right arm, Uryuu allowed the talisman on his wrist to swing freely. Leeching power from the spirit particle-saturated air, he channelled it into the form of a spirit bow.

 

Crawling indeed. Drawn by Kurosaki's shouting, the forest was beginning to swarm with Hollows. Isolated at first, Lunuganga's victims were soon surrounded on all sides by Hollows of every shape and size. It was no wonder now that the guardian of the sands had not bothered to kill them himself - with a death trap like this, there was no need. The shrieks and growls of mindless, malformed monsters that were once men filled the air. When they came too close and Bawabawa had still not burrowed an escape route through the desert suspended above their heads, Uryuu opened fire.

 

The first volley of dense spirit arrows took out a huge swathe of the crowding Hollows; yet failing to make a dent in the overall number.

 

It was the worst situation they could have been in, and they'd been there plenty of times before. Hundreds of Hollows poised to attack, lurking just out of sight and multiplying by the second. It was probably Kurosaki's fault as usual, the way he just attracted them with his ridiculous mass of reiatsu. Ishida just kept firing and firing, mowing down the enemy with Kurosaki firing vast claws of energy and Chad shooting out giant laser beams beside him. But it made no difference.

 

The enemy was legion.

 

And every blast of reiatsu made more arrive in the hopes of scavenging some human souls.

 

“Ahh - stop it stop it, you'll just make more of them come heeere!” wept Nel, Dondochakka and Pesche. “You BAKAS.”

 

“What do you want us to do exactly? Lie down and play dead?!”

 

“Well…yeah...but....okay I see what you mean. But this is pointless!!!”

 

The attack just got heavier and heavier. As some hollows began to break through the relatively small defences, Ishida had to switch to targeting the more agile flying enemies. It was tough going, and they would likely be exhausted in as little as half an hour.

 

A hollow that had lost a limb but not its wings careened into Ichigo; he tossed it aside with an angry slice of Zangetsu and flicked at the bizarre fluids it had dripped on him. It didn't seem to be acid or anything so corrosive.

 

"What were you trying to do? Bleed on me?!" he demanded as it evaporated.

 

"This isn't working," gasped Chad, beginning to tire. His powers had felt a little unstable since entering Hueco Mundo, whether due to the different quality of the dimension he didn't know, but it felt like every time he made a shot he had to pull his punches to prevent a wild explosion. It was irritating, and difficult to work around in the current onslaught.

 

Having failed to dig their way out in the tightly knitted canopy of the shining crystal trees, Nel and crew returned sullenly down the trunk to the shadowy root layer of the forest. "Ob course it won' work," sobbed the girl. She had burst into tears, as Dondochakka and Pesche clung on to her in a sad attempt to comfort. "The cannibals are gonna come soon and then we're all doooomed!"

 

"You've attracted every Hollow for five miles around at least," scolded Pesche, patting Nel's skull-mask in a there - there fashion.

 

"We've been in situations like this before," recalled Ishida. Their continued survival made that a calming thought, he hoped.

 

"Oh what, like when your stupid bait went horribly wrong? Yeah, that was a barrel of laughs, NOT!" Ichigo sent three Getsuga Tensho in quick succession, blasting a patch of Hollows into smithereens.

 

"I think the current turnout proves that it was your ooooozing reiatsu and not my bait that attracted them, Kurosaki!"

 

"I told you not to call it oozing! That's just gross!"

 

"If we kill Itsygo, would they go away?" asked Dondochakka carefully, having picked up Nel's lisped version of the shingami boy's name. The arrancars huddled, debating this whilst battle raged below them. Bawabawa had paused in their descent; the tree trunk seemed safer…

 

"We can't kill Itsygo!" gasped Nel. "Look he's trying to save us!"

 

Pesche nodded gravely. "Ye-es, Dondochakkka, if you noticed, we haven't had to kill any Hollows at all yet. The humans aren't letting them get past to us."

 

"To prevent sneak attacks from behind," thought Ishida.

 

"I don't expect you can fight." mused Chad.

 

"You're welcome to help, anytime, guys!" shouted Ichigo, more than a little pissed off and unnerved by the sheer number of Hollows. This was much closer to what he'd expected to see in Hueco Mundo though. The serene desert had been a façade after all.

 

"Oh no, there's nothing we can do, and Nel's a baby," sighed Pesche, flapping a hand lazily and pooh-poohing the idea. Bawabawa resumed inching down the enormous tree, sensing approaching danger.

 

A ruby juggernaut tore a chunk out of the trunk above them, severing stump from canopy, and leaving the burnt quartz sizzling. Woven eternally with the other trees in the vast network of branches, nothing actually fell down; merely remaining suspended in midair, a tree the size of three radio towers. And somehow, that made it creepier.

 

As one, they all lowered their weapons and stared mutely at the Gillians looming out of the dark.

 

"Well, I've killed one of them before...easily...chased it away at least." Ichigo had gone quite pale. He was again remembering the time when Ishida's Hollow bait had worked altogether too well and summoned a Menos Grande.

 

"And remember the time with the weird Sojiro dude and Hitsugaya-taicho," added Renji. "We killed loads of them then."

 

"Yeah, sure, a few Gillian is no trouble at all." Ishida was sweating.

 

Chad winced, squinting into the depths of the quartzwood. "There's more than just a few..."

 

"Their noses look like flutes, and they've got funny boots and spiky necks..." noted Nel, being less than helpful in this time of doom. She spoke as though she'd never seen them before. "I never did get Gillians..."

 

Countless numbers of the so-called foot soldiers were marching towards them, red spheres of death charging at their open-jawed teeth, eyes blank and staring. The minor Hollows scattered before them, vanishing out of range of the oncoming carnage.

 

“Now would be a good time to flash-run away?” suggested Ichigo, a terrified smile on his face as he just sheathed Zangetsu, knowing attack now would be futile. Dondochakka shook his oversized head sadly.

 

“No, you'd just get caught by adjuchas…” he said, tears streaming down his festively coloured face.

 

Tiny pinpricks of crimson light were the only colour in the barren, monotone and now deserted Menos no Mori. Gradually swelling, the orbs were almost ready to fire as the Gillains stooped as one being to aim at the specks on the ground that had unwittingly drawn their attention.

 

Ichigo leapt up to Bawabawa's helmet, planning to grab hold of their guides and flee as fast as he could. Ishida was already slinging Chad's non-armoured arm over his shoulder in preparation to do the same.

 

As the scarlet lights grew large enough to dye the landscape red, Nel threw her tiny hands wide and let loose a piercing scream. Ichigo took a fistful of her green robe and made as if to run, no time now to grab the others.

 

“STOOOOOOOP!”

 

One by one the baleful lights flickered out, except for one Gillian that had gone past the point of no return and discharged its Cero. It struck a nest of hiding Hollows to the left of the invaders' tree and vaporised them.

 

And yet the true targets remained untouched, gaping in disbelief at their survival.

 

Into the silence, Renji spoke.

 

“Where's Rukia?”

 

o)0(o

 

Yuzu huddled close behind her father's leg, but not too close. She shadowed him everywhere without getting in his way, assisting him with the clinic work as she often had before, but no longer leaving the room when the tasks grew too squeamish. She passed needles, bandages, antiseptic swaps and medical thread; held sick buckets and patted backs, fetched drinks and food and pillows and occasionally heavy tomes of medicine when Isshin needed to refresh his memory.

 

All the time, Karin was in that room.

 

The small, clean, private room with the locked door.

 

For those they couldn't save in time.

 

A coroner would be coming soon. But Yuzu doubted he would believe her about the ghosts. There was a dark bruise on her sister's cold forehead, and another just above her heart.

 

Yuzu couldn't have been more thankful that their father had been away now. Because if he had come under suspicion of hitting his daughter, what would they have done?

 

Yuzu hadn't seen the monster, but she had felt its presence. And when she had chokingly tried to explain to her daddy, he had trusted her and nodded and held her tightly.

 

"Yes…I know about the monsters, Yuzu. With all my brave, brave kids running off to fight them every five minutes, do you think I wouldn't notice? Shhhh, don't worry, I believe you. Daddy has always believed in ghosts, even if he couldn't see them. I know some ghosts are cruel and violent, just like some people are. I'm so sorry I wasn't here to save her, Yuzu..."

 

Yuzu shook her head quickly, clutching at his too-bright and too-cheerful shirt. "Otou-chan, you couldn't have done anything...like me....and, and, she'll be in heaven now anyway, right?"

 

Isshin bit his lip hard to keep from having a breakdown in front of his little one, who needed him to be strong now, just like she was being strong for him. But...

He couldn't tell her....it would be soul-destroying....

 

He could have helped Karin.

 

And she certainly had not gone to heaven.

 

Yuzu felt him tense up and decided not to lie. "I keep dreaming...I keep trying to have naps and sleep until today is over and...I always dream that Karin-chan is somewhere dark and empty. I've been able to tell where she was before now but....oh please, tell me I'm wrong, please…!"

 

The sorrow of just the two of them was not all that had to be contended with.

 

There were some simple facts of life, like the cleaning up that has to be done after a body has died, and scrubbing carpets, and laying a soft white cloth over her face that should not have been there. Isshin had washed his daughter's body as was customary, but he had to leave certain parts undone - the hands, the head, the torso, - anything bruised and anything that might have clawed at an attacker.

 

The coroner was coming soon.

 

Until then they had to cope with informing the neighbourhood, ringing up and explaining to the school that the third Kurosaki would not be attending that Monday, ringing police and insurance companies and governmental registrars.

 

Telling everyone who needed to know. There were no cousins or grandparents to inform, and for the first time Yuzu wondered why.

 

But the worst part was the neighbours. Those who hadn't known them personally, that the Kurosakis were loud and argumentative and play fighting and almost a broken home with cracks barely visible, torn in the absence of the mother, but forever good-natured.

 

The ones that didn't know them, and pointed fingers, and gossiped quietly and snidely about the bolshie father, the rebellious son, the tomboy daughter, and only one of them normal, and she driven like a slave with the running of the house. They gathered and clucked about children living in a drugstore and clinic, abuse of medicines, shrewdly asking the whereabouts of the Yankee ginger boy, and damning Isshin for being so free with his children's upbringing.

 

It was horrible.

 

But somehow the condolences hurt more.

 

There was a short ring of the doorbell, and Yuzu ran to open it. It revealed a suit, and a large steel briefcase.

 

"Are you one of the family?" asked the coroner, and she mutely nodded, knowing why he had come.

 

"Otou-san is working in the clinic and Karin is in the quiet room." She led the way, trying to calm the trembling in her body that would soon turn into shaking and racking sobs. She didn't want that to happen yet. She was hoping that if she could hold it in for long enough she would never have to say goodbye to her twin.

 

Karin had never cried.

 

"Otou-san! The coroner is here..." she called softly. Her father's state was a little worrying. Every now and then he would have to stop and take a break from the stitches he was putting into an old man's arm, because his fingers were so unsteady. But the work needed to be done.

 

Isshin gave a heavy sigh, like the mournful cries of an ocean wind, and handed over to his assistant. The nurse had been called in from a temp agency to deal with patients that had only the Kurosaki clinic to go to, and no way of knowing they were queuing at a mortuary now.

 

Isshin lead the stern-looking man into the 'quiet room', pulling the key from the ring on his belt and unlocking the door with slow movements. Setting his suitcase down on the small side table, the man clicked the locks.

 

"I'm afraid that the examination will need to be carried out here. Due to recent events, such as the citywide gas leak, the city mortuaries are full. Obviously we were unprepared for a spontaneous mass death…"

 

"Some people are saying that was a terrorist attack," noted Isshin. "An airborne bio-weapon that decomposed very quickly. Mind you, others have blamed it on that meteorite strike." He spoke of the tragic day when an Espada had come hunting for his son, and its friend had swallowed the souls of many innocent people using a technique called gonzui. He hoped that ability was limited to Yammy. It was an ability of mass destruction. And there was no way for the wider world to explain it.

 

"Well, until we learn the truth, people will tell themselves anything. To begin with, I need to ask you some questions on your daughter's medical history, and I'm afraid that your other child - Yuzu? - will need to remain in the room as she is a witness."

 

"...okay..." whispered Yuzu quietly.

 

"I heard there was a brother?"

 

"He's on a road trip of some sort," said Isshin quickly.

 

"And Yuzu, was there any suggestion of an attacker in the house whilst you were out on the street?"

 

“…No..."

 

"So..." The investigator pulled out a clipboard and pen, and sat down on one of the plain wooden chairs that furnished the sparse room. "The medical history: is there anything that could have triggered Karin's death, such as a pre-existing condition?"

 

"She was prone to migraines." Isshin placed his hand on a shallow pile of papers also on the table. "These are the records of everything she took for it and any of the migraine attacks she informed me of, but she wasn't the type to take medicine. All my children tend to forget to take aspirins and things, funnily enough, because they don't wish to form a dependence and be tempted by the clinic's stock."

 

"They're clever kids," noted the Coroner.

 

Isshin quirked a smile. "The best."

 

He carried on. "Karin was prescribed some powders for a brief time by a GP at the main hospital, but she'd been off them for a while. The migraines would vary in intensity, from painless eye migraines to head-splitting, hallucinatory...she occasionally would ramble on about ghosts and the like." This was a testing statement. In his experiences, some coroners tended to have a talent for sensing the afterlife due to their daily proximity to death.

 

The current examiner made no indication of agreeing. The pen scurried over the paper.

 

"Apart from that, she is - was a very bright, sporty, healthy girl. This has...come out of nowhere."

 

The coroner nodded, rested his writing apparatus on the table and moved over to the bed, snapping on some disposable surgical gloves as he did so. Gently, with an apologetic glance at Yuzu, he lifted the white shroud from the small cadaver's face.

 

"Bruising on the temple," he murmured to the dictaphone in his pocket. "By the way, Yuzu can leave now if she wishes."

 

"I'm fine," said the girl tightly. She was clinging to her father's arm.

 

"Anytime you feel the need, just go." repeated the coroner. Not to chase her away, but to make sure she wouldn't feel pressured to stay. "And bruising on the chest near to the location of the heart and above the centre of the ribs."

 

Isshin blinked away tears. Karin was meant to be in that body, her own, real body and running around happily. It was no overly-attached gigai like he wore.

 

"Strange bruises..." muttered the man, and Isshin looked up sharply. "I've seen bruises like this before; they're more like shadows on the skin..."

 

The mark of a Hollow's touch.

 

"A certain kind of internal bleeding?" asked the resident doctor, words like lead in his mouth.

 

"Caused by the migraines? A brain aneurysm, perhaps...or a stroke."

 

"A migraine shouldn't really...be connected to a brain aneurysm, when there are no pain receptors in the brain."

 

"Well, you must know as well as I do that there's no smoke without fire. Problems in the body can affect each other."

 

"Should...should a migraine affect your heart? Didn't Karin-chan have a heart attack?" Swallowing her discomfort, Yuzu had spoken up.

 

"No, not really," Isshin hastened to inform her. "The heart beats independently, that's why we have adrenaline to make it speed up. Unless she panicked so much that her heart went too fast and skipped." He raised an eyebrow at the coroner, who shrugged, busy inspecting the bruises.

 

"I could take a blood sample and check for traces of adrenaline...also, I'm afraid that her body may need to stay here until tomorrow. The mortuary really is overrun at the moment. I wouldn't usually ask, but you do have a designated place." The room wasn't chilly by accident. It was actually refrigerated to a low degree by design. "I have to say, you're both taking this rather well. Now, I don't wish to presume, but that may hint at premeditation when the police arrive."

 

Dr Kurosaki gave a shrug of his own. "They should understand that a doctor's clinic makes no secret of death being a part of life. And me and Yuzu, we're putting on a brave face until the punters have all gone home, aren't we sweetheart?" He hugged Yuzu to his side, able to reach out without looking thanks to her new habit of trailing him duckling-style.

 

She dug her hands into his sides, determined not to cry. Karin wouldn't want her to cry. And she understood now, how Karin's decision not to cry was made out of concern so as not to burden her family. She knew how hard it was now. But she would be like Karin, just in this small way. The same as when her mother had been murdered, Yuzu would move to fill in the gap.

 

It was the only thing she could do to keep her here.

 

o)0(o

 

As the cero hit, he felt a presence in the forest. Like a pebble thrown into a loch, its ripples were small but clear.

 

That was not a Hollow.

 

Somehow, after all these centuries, another human had come to the Menos no Mori.

 

The mask he was holding like a shield burned to ash, but the one positioned behind it did not, which was all that saved his distracted life. Spitting a few words of annoyance, the man struck at the Gillian before it could charge up another attack and severed it in two halves.

 

With a morbid scream, the giant vanished. Ashido brushed the ash from the useless mask off of his hands, sighing. Hollow masks rarely remained when the rest of them died - and specimens tough enough to deflect a cero were even rarer. But they were valuable for all that, so he would continue to scavenge them and draw the fire of the Menos Grande, just in the hopes of finding another.

 

The presence chimed again, and he stood for a moment, trying to decide whether to smile or frown, and trying with all his might to figure out whether this new shinigami's arrival was real or another figment of his occasionally fevered imagination.

 

Five hundred years can do that to a person. Over and over again.

 

Slipping into the state of concentration that allowed one to see spirit threads, he found several black, as always, leading to the countless minus spirits in this miserable realm - and the suggestion of a red ribbon curling in the distance.

 

Well, there were Gillians in that direction he could kill, so it wouldn't hurt to check it out, right?

 

"Right, Genji?" he asked aloud, speaking to a long dead best friend before groaning and scrubbing his hand across his face. He had to stop doing this.

 

Well, no one was going to stop him or tell him off, but he vaguely remembered it wasn't a mentally healthy thing to do...

 

-

 

Leaping through the petrified forest, from quartz branch to crystal trunk, Ashido wondered what to do with the thing under his arm. He was pretty sure by now that it was a real person, and the prospect of true company in this barren loneliness was making his sanity kick and claw its way back to the surface of his mind.

 

He would have to test the woman, of course. There was no point in her staying within Hueco Mundo if she would only be eaten alive by week two; and there again she might want to leave anyway. He doubted she had the same shadows of her past clinging to her here.

 

And probably he would take her back to the den, in its hidden nook that the adjuchas had not been able to find for a few weeks now. He hoped she wouldn't be hungry, because the kinds of things he was driven to eat would turn the strongest of stomachs.

 

It was one of the many, many reasons he hid and conserved his reiatsu as much as possible. Less energy used meant less to replace.

 

And that was why she kicked him in the back and escaped as fast as possible, seconds after waking up.

 

Naturally, she couldn't sense his human spirit, it being tucked away inside himself. And Ashido slowly remembered that the masks and furs he wore were not normal, and that strangers would need to see his face even if removal of the skulls might leave him open to an unexpected cero blast.

 

But she should know that a Hollow will not carry its prey away to eat later. It will just devour them immediately.

 

He really would need to test her. And if she was not strong enough to survive alone, he would try to escort her above the sands and hopefully to a Garganta. It would take time, but would be necessary.

 

In two flash steps, he had caught her again.

 

She beat him up all the way back to his hideout, but at least his antelope-like mask hid his silent laughter. The fists of a shinigami were nothing to the jaws of a Hollow.

 

Her kicks, on the other hand, were painful.

 

-

 

The time for an introduction had come. He tried to recall how these things went; how to speak more than three-word sentences.

 

"My name is Ashido Kano, and I am indeed a shinigami. I have lived in this forest for hundreds of years. After my friends died, I followed the duty of a member of the Gotei 13 and tried to exterminate the Hollows at source."

 

Hooking the horned mask up and away from his face, Ashido revealed his messy dark red hair, slim and wary eyes; unsmiling mouth. As they stared at each other, and drank in each other's appearances, he began to believe that this might not be an illusion after all.

 

"I am Kuchiki Rukia, member of the thirteenth division, and-"

 

A blast of power interrupted them, and her one-man audience shot away into the darkness. That was the aura of an adjuchas, one of the most dangerous denizens of the dead woods. And it was one that knew his name far too well.

 

Speaking of names, Kuchiki rang a bell as being quite important and familiar, but the reasons why escaped him. It wasn't his priority right now.

 

Chasing behind him, Rukia tried to take in the fact that she had been found by a five hundred year-old shinigami, who had been hunting his nemeses ever since he and his friends had made the mistake of charging through a Garganta. The striking mask he wore, with its large round eyes and long, twisted, ibex-like horns had formerly belonged to the Hollow that had killed the last of his friends. He had been wearing it ever since, as he sought his revenge. A huge fur hide, which must have been near-impossible to salvage without the previous owner disintegrating into spirit particles, swamped his body and hid his human form. Several more masks adorned it - bone armour plates.

 

She had guessed he was a shinigami before he had proved it. There was kido lighting his cave, and he had carried her with human hands. But his face, so simple and unscarred, had still come as a shock. The dark grey eyes seemed resolute, but how could he have remained alone for all that time without a hint of insanity or injury?

 

It seemed impossible. Perhaps he disguised it well.

 

-

 

Compared to a monotonous eternity in the Menos no Mori; a daily grind of killing, hunting, fleeing, surviving...the frantic action in that single day or night, those few hours, was unbelievable.

 

With the aid of Rukia's icy shikai, one of the adjuchas that had longest eluded him was dead. When they returned to the friends of his new companion - more humans? More new faces and voices? And a Quincy?! - it was like a dream come true. The kind of dreams a loner far from home found to resemble jeering nightmares. He was scared of waking up back in his hovel, and seeing no one. But he said nothing, having learnt over the years that hallucinations had to run their course.

 

The other travellers of Hueco Mundo had been surrounded by Gillians and accompanied by minor Hollows - one had a curiously human face. Unless it was one of those strange, rare and near-legendary arrancars, then Ashido was becoming more and more certain of his doubts...

 

Rukia yelled at her friends for a while, reminding them that a Gillian should no longer be a big deal at any quantity, and that their hesitations were suicidal. When told of the dilemma of alerting more Hollows to their presence and location, she just scoffed and pointed out that such a thing was inevitable when travelling with Ichigo (who was less than pleased at the jibe). When told of Nel's sudden control over the Gillians, she frowned and pursed her lips. Whispering that any arrancar would likely have suspicious connections with - and Ashido didn't catch the name - the petite woman warned them to be cautious of their new acquaintances.

 

The Menos that had regathered were then obliterated in a sudden show of strength from the strangers. An entire herd of milling Gillians was wiped out as they apparently waited for further instructions from the arrancar child.

 

In no time at all, the crowd of people were turning to him and asking for guidance in the direction of the exit. Hoping it was still where he remembered it to be, Ashido saw no harm in showing them the way - so long as this dream didn't cause him to sleepwalk out of his hideout and unwittingly into danger.

 

There was a deep shaft in a cliff that could be crawled through and up to reach the dust-swept surface of the Hueco Mundo desert. It would even leave them fairly close to Las Noches, a place Ashido had avoided more than usual ever since its half-crumbling walls had been repaired and roofed with gleaming white domes.

 

Maybe that was connected to the recent changes in the Hollows. But Rukia had refused to tell him anything definite. He wondered how severe the problem was, that she feared to speak of it. But perhaps she was vague because she wasn't real.

 

None of it felt real until the Gillians gathered at the root of the chasm, brewing their ceros at the will of a stray, vengeful adjuchas; and in a crimson supernova sent the cliff crashing down on his head. He hoped Rukia and her friends had gotten away safely, even if they were figments. Surely he could ask for good news from his own imagination?

 

The unbearable weight of the earth smothered all thoughts from his head, and buried him in inky blackness. It was too painful to be fictional.

 

Shit, came his final, feeble moment of awareness.

 

He must have sleepwalked into a trap.

 

o)0(o

 

Orihime was hustled into a vast and barely-lit hallway, stumbling to an abrupt halt as Ulquiorra stopped pushing her and dropped her arm like it had insulted him. Looking around the room furtively, trying not to draw the gaze of the other inhabitants with her own terrified glances; she hoped to god she hadn't been right.

 

She prayed with all her might that she had not been brought here to be mutated into a Hollow. Had they just been waiting for her to drop her guard and believe that they hadn't desired her personally?

 

But what reason would Aizen have to wait?

 

Hougyoku, whispered the back of her mind. The Hougyoku right there.

 

Within reach.

 

However, when the entire upper bastion of Aizen's forces were in a single room, it may as well have been on the other side of the world.

 

Inoue glared at it, imprinting it on her memory and burning it into her soul by sheer force of will. She would not be left helpless like this forever. She was determined to get her hands on the Hougyoku and...

 

Unmake it.

 

That was her cunning plan, having realised that it was the only thing in this fortress that could not fight back and kill her whilst she attempted to reject it out of time, space; and into oblivion.

 

Ice slush born of fear began to trickle through her stomach.

 

She would never be able to destroy the Hougyoku, the amplifier of Aizen's already prodigious powers, if she was turned into a Hollow here and now.

 

She could not bear to be made Hollow.

 

Not like Sora.

 

Not like Sora.

 

Not like her brother.

 

-

 

Barragan had returned, and nodded curtly to his masters, loath though he was to admit them as such. Aizen returned the gesture with a small smile, and clicked his fingers.

 

A portal appeared in the centre of the widely-proportioned room. It was not a Garganta, there were no spirit particles within, only shadows of dark matter. It was a pathway only pure souls could tread without guidance.

 

"Tousen," said the architect of Soul Society's doom pleasantly. "If you would."

 

Approaching the ragged doorway with no need of eyes to sense the rip in reality, Tousen Kaname, the former Ninth Division Captain, reached out with a delicate hand and stroked the empty air in a come-hither movement.

 

Bidden by the gesture almost as fragile as itself, a hell butterfly fluttered out of the sliver between dimensions and alighted upon his outstretched finger. In a place so tenuous as this, more than a single jigoku-cho was needed, and so the blind man waited until he felt the feather-touch of several more butterflies before stepping forwards into the unknown.

 

Orihime realised she was holding her breath. How did this strange ritual fit into the process of creating an arrancar? Seconds ticked by with no clocks to count them; moments dragged their feet behind each other.

 

"Hope 'e ain't lost," said Ichimaru Gin, dropping the quip into the silence with his kitsune smile. No one returned it.

 

As the time stretched further than was comfortable, the tension was at last broken when Tousen stepped back out of the rift in a cloud of black butterflies. They filled the room, flaunting the deep red-pink crescents at the edges of their wings, the most vibrant colour in all the worlds.

 

There was a small, limp something draped over Tousen's arms. Leaning from side to side, Inoue tried to catch a proper glimpse of it around the swarming butterflies. When she did, her skin drained of all blood, turning as ashen as Ulquiorra's in her horrified surprise.

 

Wrapped in a plain grey yukata and with a dark bruise in the centre of her forehead, the person lying unconscious in the enemy's clutches was inexplicably...

 

Kurosaki Karin.

 

Tousen hefted the little girl upright and set her on the floor in front of Aizen Sosuke. There was only a single link left on her Chain of Fate; now that the obscuring insects had scattered Orihime could see that the bruise was in fact a Hollow hole - driven straight through the core of the child's skull.

 

Released from the support, Karin's soul slumped sideways bonelessly. Not a single twitch of controlled movement troubled her still form. Inoue clutched at the black-bordered white fabric of her dress, falling into a crouch as her stomach heaved with nausea.

 

Ichigo's little sister.

 

Ichigo's little sister.

 

What kind of sick travesty was this?

 

Hadn't they taken enough from Kurosaki-kun already, these Hollows? What purpose could kidnapping and carving out the metaphysical heart of Kurosaki-kun's little sister possibly hold?

 

"Who is this?" asked Aizen, purely as a formality. The king he had usurped shrugged carelessly.

 

"I did not ask. It merely occurred that the first human I came across was of the required calibre."

 

"Kuro-!" shouted Inoue; unable to bite the words back early enough. All eyes in the room fell on her, each pair with its own level of lizard-like disdain for anything not themselves. Tousen tilted his head towards her.

 

"Mmm? You know this li'l chick, Ori-chan?" Gin's voice chirped with false friendship.

 

Chewing on her bottom lip, Inoue straightened up from the floor and pushed her auburn hair out of her face. She stared at the victim's small, prone body with tears in her eyes.

 

"She...she's Ichigo's little sister...Kurosaki Karin...and - she's only twelve, for god's sake!"

 

"You are only three or four years different," Aizen reminded her. He shared a wide grin with his right-hand albino. "Kurosaki's little sister..."

 

"Don't get much better than that," agreed Ichimaru, walking closer to roll the child onto her back with the toe of his sandal. "I love ironic stuff like this - it's hilarious."

 

"It makes sense though." Szayal Apollo had interrupted. "When looking for souls with similar defects to our current invader, the first port of call would naturally be his closest relatives."

 

"She is the correct type, then?" confirmed Aizen Sosuke, resting his chin comfortably in his palm.

 

"The easiest way to demonstrate this," stated Szayel, lifting one of Karin's lifeless arms and exuding reiatsu around his hand; "is to show how the volume of spiritual power grows automatically when the specimen is in a risky situation such as a battle. Take note of her aura." Expanding his own just enough to inconvenience the small human, he broke her little finger with a clinical snap.

 

Karin's reiatsu flared. It was still laughable compared to that of the Espada, but it had increased instantly and noticeably.

 

"Her power can increase in this fashion exponentially, the same as her brother's does." He let go of her hand with a flick. "As such the Hougyoku should present no problem to her."

 

"Wonderful," Aizen applauded him. "Then let us begin, my dear Espadas." The final link hanging from the bracket on Karin's suddenly devoured itself, and he amended his words. "Let us begin immediately."

 

The low, harsh scream of a degenerating Plus was building up inside Karin; a cry of wild suffering dragged from the darkest depths of the soul until it broke free of the throat in a reverberating wail. Her body jerked upright, swaying on its knees.

 

"Way of Binding Number..." said Gin quickly, steepling his fingers and casting the kido; the rest of his words drowned out by the instinctive screams of the blacked out child.

 

Shouting turned to strangled gurgling as white clay started to bubble out of Karin's mouth, harbinger of the future mask as she fully devolved into a Hollow. Aizen touched his fingertips to the fluid surface of the Hougyoku, tiny tendrils wriggling out of it and latching on to him, leech-like. He poured his power into it, donating reiatsu twice that of any captain to the transformation.

 

The Kurosaki girl's struggles ceased when Gin's kido bandages smothered her, trapping in the effects of the scientific magic that was about to occur.

 

Orihime ran to the far corner of the hall, unheeded by her jailor or any other arrancar. She needed to escape this pressure in the air before it suffocated her. Huddling down, she commanded her shield to appear and hoped that her fairies would survive the onslaught.

 

She need not have worried. The ceremony was over almost immediately. The end was heralded by the clatter of a zanpakuto on the floor, one that had not existed before.

 

The mummified figure in the centre of the room shuddered, breathing harshly.

 

Hallibel stepped up to unwrap the bandages, just enough to reveal a face whose eyes were sharper than Karin's had been, whose skin was so pale it made Ulquiorra look grey; and the open, gasping mouth bared needle-sharp rows of piranha teeth. There was nothing of Ichigo's little sister left here.

 

She was almost colourless.

 

And despite the transformation, still mindless.

 

Panicking butterflies darted around the ceiling, some settling on the newborn child soldier with no visible thought for their safety. Unable to resist any longer, Wonderwice ran out of the loose circle of Espadas and Privarons; firing Balas at the pretty targets that swooped so temptingly above his head.

 

Several butterflies were burned to ashes within seconds. As he aimed for one resting on Karin's unmoving shoulder, a hand shot out and clapped against his. Shadowy reiatsu, almost a kind of black light, flickered in the girl's palm. It nullified his Bala much like the green-hatted shinigami had during his visit to the human world. Wonderwice Margera whined in childish irritation at the memory.

 

He opened his mouth to charge up a red Cero, never one to adhere to Aizen's schedules.

 

Karin's hand closed over his mouth, and the dark reiatsu flickered again, matching and cancelling out his Cero faster than he could form it. He fell still, submissive. Even the admittedly mentally retarded arrancar could tell this newcomer was dangerous, despite the pretties that adorned her so innocently.

 

"Success," announced the mastermind of the operation magnanimously. "Instinct is all we need from her. And her instincts are likely impeccable. This time, we shall wait until we are outside before testing her Resurrección capabilities, however."

 

Gin and Stark laughed briefly.

 

Releasing her shield, Inoue hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

 

When Ichigo learned of this, it was going to destroy him...

 

o)0(o

 

Bloomake!

 

Arrancar Encyclopaedia

 

o)0(o

 

Rukia: I'm amazed you've stayed sane for all this time, Ashido!

 

Ashido: Yes…um…can I ask you a favour?

 

Rukia: Yes?

 

Ashido: Will you come to my unicorn's tea party at Las Noches tomorrow?

 

Rukia: Um…no…*cough* You'recrazy! *cough*

 

Ashido: Just Bawabawa and Miss Enid then…I hope they like TimTams…

 

o)0(o

 

Wonderwice is standing in front of a chalkboard, very excited at his first Arrancar Encyclopaedia spot. There is a badly drawn butterfly on the board, Rukia-style.

 

W: *pointing with a stick* Bwaaa! Ehehe!

 

W: *miming something* DOOSH DOOSH BAMMM!!!

 

W: *pulls out giant claymore and decimates chalkboard* Squee e e e !!

 

Gin: Tousen, would ya keep yer pet away from my omakes?

 

Tousen: He's a free spirit. Locking him up would be unjust.

 

W: Many thanks for your wonderful and energising reviews, watch out for the show same time next week! Adios!

 

G&T: O_o;;