The next day.

"Hey, I've got you food!" Amargo's voice came through the door to the den and Shunsui sat up with a small wince. Juushiro watched him worriedly. His own injuries were healing much faster than Shunsui's but he hadn't been on death's door. They were both extremely hungry. Dulce had come back with some food but it just hadn't worked.

"Ah, really? What is it?" Shunsui asked with a smile but Juushiro could tell his hopes weren't high. They were both quite surprised as Amargo tore open a bag and offered them… boxes of take out? Juushiro took his and opened it, his eyes widening as he took in the boxes of sushi and sashimi, complete with wasabi and pickled ginger. "Oh heavens! Thank you!" Shunsui sounded equally stunned and Amargo laughed throatily.

"You sound so happy. Whatever did Dulce bring you?" She said merrily and her sister hissed.

"I just… people were eating these! How was I supposed to know they have to be cooked?" She asked, waving the sweet potato she'd gathered. Amargo looked at it then at her sister, tilting her head to one side.

"What's the problem? We can use our ceros to sear things." She said and Dulce hissed again as Juushiro dug into his sushi, ignoring them slightly in favor of sustenance. Shunsui was doing the same. After the healing and their exertions, they were both exhausted.

"That doesn't work! They need to cook for a long time at a lower temperature. I mean, that's what Juushiro said." She said, utterly vexed and he nodded. There was nothing much to burn in Hueco Mundo so the problem seemed insurmountable. Amargo considered the matter for a long moment before speaking.

"Heat up some rocks with your cero, then bury those things in them." She suggested and Dulce stared at the tuber as Shunsui swallowed a bit of sushi, surprised. Juushiro blinked, wondering why he hadn't thought of that. "Keep heating the rocks until they're done."

"Sis, you're brilliant!" Dulce immediately set about doing that. Juushiro smiled, amused, as he set about filling the empty hole in his stomach.

"How did you get this?" Shunsui asked, which was an interesting question. Amargo sat down and began combing out her pelt of golden hair with her claws as she answered.

"I looked around for a bit and saw a place that smelled like food. People would walk up, get a box and leave. So I walked up and told the guy there that I'm a hollow and hungry, and it's either him or two boxes of his food. He couldn't get me out of there fast enough." She sounded smug and Shunsui shook his head with a smile as Juushiro laughed. He knew he probably shouldn't be amused by such theft, but it was certainly better than the alternative. "Did Dulce get the water like she was supposed to?"

"Yes, she did that." They had two jugs of water now, which was plenty. "How long will you be keeping us here?" Juushiro asked, feeling very worried. The hollow just laughed.

"Don't worry! We'll hold to our bargain. Although perhaps we should flesh that out? We'll keep you here and you'll satisfy us for, hmm, four sleeps. That should be long enough for your friend to get better." She said and Juushiro glanced at Shunsui, meeting his gaze. His friend looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. That was about how long he thought his own healing would take. "Then we'll show you the crystal fields and how to avoid them before escorting you to that outpost you wanted to look at. Although I'm warning you, it's totally trashed. Let me show you…" She reached for something before pulling it over her head and dropping it onto her chest. Juushiro stared as Shunsui choked a little. "Pretty, no? I made it."

"It's… it's lovely." Shunsui said faintly as Juushiro's hopes for their mission blew out in a cloud of smoke. The necklace the vasto lorde was wearing was made of red wire, clearly scavenged from a computer. The little circuits that had been so artistically crushed and arranged were from the same source. "So… everything there was… used for things like that?"

"Yes. No one here has much use for such things, if they even understand what they are." Amargo said and they exchanged a glance. "And most of the papers got snuffled off by the minotaur. He likes to do origami." Juushiro had to put a hand over his face as Shunsui took a deep breath. Origami? "And the tiles got taken by the serpent woman, I think she was going to make a mosaic."

"Oh sweet kami!" Shunsui snorted and started to laugh. Juushiro swallowed a bit of his food, wondering if they should even look. It did sound like the place had been thoroughly trashed. But perhaps the hollows had missed something. "I never imagined you vasto lorde could be so… artistic." That was a great surprise. Amargo shrugged.

"Endless time with very little to do. Even if we're not that good to begin with we get pretty decent after a few centuries. Some of us are brilliant. My sister and I do jewelry and singing, mostly. Would you like to hear a song?" She asked and Shunsui shrugged with a smile as Juushiro nodded. "Dulce! Are you about done? They would like to hear us sing."

"Just about! Hang on. There!" The blue hollow came back into the room, blowing on her claws. "What song?"

"How about the vasto lorde one?" Her sister suggested and she giggled as they both began to sing. Their voices were very pure, harmonizing with the ease of long practice.

One comes down to explore the place,
Two more come to make it three,
Play a while and knock each other down.
Before striking with deadly intent,
To see who wears a crown.

Four enters with a bow and grace,
Gains a laugh and a jeer,
As the others pause to mock.

But it's five that rules the place and proves it with a look.
Stopping six and seven in their tracks,
Before they dare to steal his books.

Vasto lorde in the mountains high,
Do you dare to take to the heights and fly?
Raise your pups and play your games,
What makes you so different from the shinigami then?

Shunsui lifted his eyebrows a bit at that, but it made Juushiro wonder. What was the difference, when hollows reached this height of evolution? It was dizzying, the things he'd learned in just this short time. He would never have thought hollows were capable of music.

Eight raises pups to fill the void,
Left by cold mortal pains.
Their little hands grip her paws,
And almost make her whole.

Nine will kill everything,
Because he merely can.
Unless Ten will stop him in his tracks,
For cares of mortal men.

Ten sits upon the mountain high,
Looking into the deep dark sky,
Seeing all that lays beyond,
Three worlds touching, twisting fine.
His knowledge is without peer,
But what good does it do him?

Tell me, what good does it do him?

Vasto lorde in the mountains high,
Do you dare to touch the sky?
You fight to live yet sometimes wonder why.

Tell me, why do the dead crave life so much?
Can you tell me why?

They formed a round then, repeating the final verse and letting their voices trail off. There was a silence as they just looked at each other, absorbing the meaning of the song.

"Although, to tell you the truth, I don't think of myself as dead." Dulce said, breaking the silence. "I was born here, I've never been anything else. Papi doesn't really think of himself as dead either. The sea monster does and it's very sad. He doesn't seem to believe in being happy."

"Not something we can understand." Amargo waved it away with a flick of her claws. "Tell us about Soul Society. We've never really been there, not like papi. And he won't tell us much about it. Something about corrupting our young, tender minds." That part was said with an eyeroll and Shunsui laughed.

"Ah, you want a story? I have plenty. Let me tell you…" He started with a rather off-color story about his escapades in the Academy. Juushiro listened, smiling. He knew all about it, he'd been there. It was a bit embroidered but not too much. Shunsui had been a wild child when he was younger. The two hollows listened, fascinated, and sometimes Shunsui had to pause to explain basic concepts. But how would they know about things like flowers? Oddly enough, they did know about candy. Apparently, their father had given them some when they were children.

The stories were reciprocated and Shunsui and Juushiro both got to hear about Dulce and Amargo's mother and father. Their mother was dead, eaten by another hollow, but they weren't very distressed by it.

"It was a long time ago. And mami… we loved her but she wasn't quite right." Dulce said thoughtfully as Amargo nodded.

"She tried but she was badly wounded by her past. She wanted us more than anything but when she had us, it seemed hard for her to reach out. Papi tried to make up for it but he wasn't too happy with her." Amargo said reflectively. "They parted on good terms but papi definitely wasn't going to make pups with her again."

"Then she lost her territory to a younger male who didn't want to mate her and died trying to take territory from someone else." Dulce said, scratching herself. "There's only so many dens available in the mountains. Half of them are empty now, though."

"Oh? Why is that?" Juushiro asked and Dulce laughed as Amargo chuckled.

"Oh, you should know shinigami! Aizen. He tried to gather us from the mountains so we fled into the barren wastes. Why should vasto lorde be pawns in a shinigami traitor's schemes? But it didn't work very well… we're… fractious, at best." Amargo said with a soft sigh. "We can live on nothing but the reishi in the wastes, it's so thick. Adjuchas can't live there at all, the pressure of it gradually kills them. But even without needing to feed, well, there's always someone who wants to kill. We predated each other."

"We got through by the skin of our teeth. If papi hadn't helped us with the demon…" Dulce shuddered and Amargo nodded. "He needs to get off his duff and kill that bastard. He's evil." She said firmly and Shunsui gave her a small smile.

"It seems odd to hear a hollow speak of evil. I thought you didn't understand that concept." He said lightly and Dulce sniffed.

"You would think so, shinigami. Evil is torturing your prey before you eat it. Evil is abusing your mate for no reason beyond that you can and it amuses you. Evil is killing without even the intention to eat. Evil is destroying lives and hopes for no reason." She said firmly and Juushiro frowned. "You think we are evil for thinking about eating you? But we are young and hungry. Your deaths would have been swift and clean. What is evil in that?"

"I suppose you have a point. But most hollows I've met never cared about that." Juushiro said, remembering Shiba Kaien with a pang. The hollow that had taken his body certainly hadn't cared about such things. It had made its kills as long and painful as possible.

"It's a vasto lorde thing, and not all of us. Only the ones who are close to whole. Because we are born, Dulce and I are truly whole souls, complete in the same way as a shinigami infant." Amargo said before shrugging. "But it hardly matters. We are what we are and we live as we do. Papi likes to think deep thoughts but I wonder, why?"

"He was the Tenth in your story. Who was the Ninth?" Shunsui mused and Amargo sighed.

"You want us to go through them? One was just the first vasto lorde to ever find the mountains. Two and three are just an old story, two hollows who tried to become King of the vasto lorde and killed each other trying."

"Four is for Cynny. He's such a funny bunny! He bows to the girls and kisses their hands." Dulce said with a giggle and Amargo seemed to bristle a bit.

"You might like him but I think he can go die on a crystal nest. Abandoning us when he found out I was pregnant!" She said firmly and Juushiro winced a bit as Shunsui lifted his eyebrows. Dulce just shrugged.

"You lost it so what does it matter?" She asked with callous indifference as her sister hissed.

"What matters is he's a loser. Anyway, five is the sea monster. The only thing he does is read, when he's not hunting. You ever want to drive him to frothing madness? Ruin a book in front of him." She said and Dulce winced.

"Oh don't! You'll die. Anyway, six and seven is no one really. Just the sea monster is so intimidating when he's angry. The only one I've ever seen stand right up to him was papi and that was scary." She said it extremely fervently and Shunsui had a question.

"So this sea monster survived?" He asked and Juushiro knew what he was doing. Getting as much information as he could on these hollows in case it was necessary to purify them. Dulce laughed as Amargo answered.

"Of course. He's a great old one." She paused, looking at him thoughtfully. "Kind of like you. I couldn't tell at first, you were so close to dead, but you're really old and strong aren't you?" She asked and Shunsui smiled and shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. "You're really strong too." She said to Juushiro, who tried to emulate Shunsui, looking down. "And so modest." Her tone was dry. Dulce just shrugged.

"Stronger pups! Whatever. Eight is our mami. Nine is the demon, he's a cocksucking bastard." She said frankly and Shunsui laughed. "Ten is our papi. He knows everything but it's kind of useless most of the time. Even he admits that."

"And he really needs to kill the demon. I wish he'd do it but he says it's not his place to police the vasto lorde. I think he's just a lazy bugger." Amargo said and Juushiro couldn't help but laugh as he gave a glance at Shunsui. His friend and new lover just gave him an innocent smile, as if laziness could be connected to him in no way.

"To be fair, he could be badly hurt. Whatever. The demon will pick a fight he can't win someday." Dulce said with a claw wave. "Hey, let me check those potato things. They might be done." She said and Amargo just lay in the blankets beside them as her sister went to complete that task. "The outside is all black but the inside is gooey. Are they done?"

"I would think so." Juushiro said, a bit bemused as the vasto lorde carried them the potatoes in her hands. "Just put them in the containers." The take out containers would hold the hot sweet potatoes very well. Dulce deposited them before licking off her hands curiously.

"Sweet! Those are nice. You can have them tomorrow. How often do shinigami need to eat? Papi said something about that being really different. We can go weeks between a kill and papi can go even longer." She said, slightly concerned.

"Well, theoretically we can go for quite some time without food. However, that works better for those who are, ah, larger. In normal times we eat several times a day." Shunsui admitted as he finished a last bite of sushi. The two vasto lorde looked at each other.

"Maybe if we made one big trip? Tidbitting it is less safe." Dulce suggested and Amargo nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, but what sort of food?" They discussed it for a moment as Juushiro made a few suggestions. "Okay. We'll find one of those 'grocery stall' things and get enough food to last four days. No meat though?"

"It doesn't keep and you really couldn't hunt down a kido refrigerator." Juushiro said practically and the two vasto lorde nodded. "You could get some for tomorrow but that's all. How will you pay for it?" He asked, knowing they planned to just take it. The two hollows looked at him in disbelief. "You could give the grocer some of those crystals. They might be valuable." He didn't really know that but they would certainly be unusual. The two hollows used them to make all kinds of things. "Just warn them about how sharp they are." That could actually be a positive. Juushiro could easily see someone fashioning the things into knives. They were extremely hard although rather brittle. Not too much use in a real fight, perhaps, but lovely for a showpiece and still quite dangerous.

"Well, alright. It's sort of odd but we do have tons of the things." Amargo said before scooping a few out of a carved stone vase. The work was crude – the girls preferred singing over sculpture – but the crystals inside were pretty enough. "Let's get this done."

"Right!" The two females departed, leaving them alone. For a brief moment Juushiro thought about just leaving… but they would still have to get through that crystal field if they wanted to reach the observatory. Going around would add days to their trip and they had no real supplies. Glancing at Shunsui, he saw the same calculations going through his mind. Then his best friend gave him a smile.

"Well! Since they're gone, you know, I think I might like to explore our new relationship a bit further. What do you say, Juu?" Shunsui said and Juushiro choked.

"Shunsui, they're going to be back! And they'll expect us to…" He couldn't help but blush. But the two vasto lorde wouldn't be amused if their shinigami 'mates' had already exhausted themselves. Shunsui chuckled, his eyes very amused as he pulled Juushiro into a kiss. All his will to resist seemed to dissolve as those warm lips found his.

"I can do two rounds easily, Juu." He murmured and Juushiro swallowed nervously. He'd heard that Shunsui could do far more than that, through the grapevine. But perhaps not easily with his current injuries. "However, I was actually thinking we should talk about it." He whispered so seductively that it took Juushiro a moment to actually comprehend the content of the sentence.

"Talk…?" He said disbelievingly as Shunsui smiled at him. "You… you tease!" He said with a furious blush before punching his lover in the chest. Shunsui winced slightly but didn't pull away. "You really had me going there." He admitted more gently, looking into those warm grey eyes. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I was wondering if you might want to move in with me." Kyoraku said with a shy smile and Juushiro felt like his mind was coming unglued. Was it really Shunsui saying these things to him? "I know it might seem a bit fast but we've both had these feelings for so long. And I'm not ashamed to admit it."

"I – but how will your family react?" Juushiro asked and almost wished he hadn't, from the way Shunsui's expression darkened. But it had to be said. If anything was going to interrupt their bliss, it was Shunsui's family. He took a deep breath before speaking crisply.

"They can all sit in a fire. I've told them a hundred times before that I wouldn't marry some girl for the sake of an heir." He said firmly and Juushiro was sure he meant that. But he also knew the pressure from his clan had been gradually increasing. He had plenty of cousins so for a while they'd humored Shunsui's quest to find the perfect woman. But what was acceptable at one hundred or even five hundred was a lot less acceptable at a thousand. The Kyoraku clan had a great deal of power and were not shy about using it. "Besides, it will be hard for them to convince anyone to take me if I'm obviously with you. Eh?" Shunsui said with a smile and Juushiro couldn't help but smile back. "Although it might mean some trouble for you and your clan." He said, this time troubled. Juushiro shook his head.

"My clan can look after themselves. We have plenty of allies." He said firmly. They might be a minor clan but the Ukitake family had a good amount of influence, even within the Kyoraku clan. Shunsui nodded, his eyes still dark with worry. "If you really want me to move in with you, I would love to." Just the thought filled him with fizzy joy. Shunsui saw that on his face and grey eyes softened before he was soundly kissed. Juushiro melted into the feeling and marveled at the turnings of fate.

Who would have thought that a death trap and a pair of hollows could finally lead him to true love?


"…Now, these are the crystal fields." Amargo gestured to the expanse of sand in front of them. "Does anything look different about it to you?" The two shinigami looked over the land but could see nothing unusual. It wasn't like the sand dunes in Hueco Mundo proper, but that was to be expected. This land led up into the mountains.

"It just seems like a field of rather solid sand." Shunsui said uncertainly as Juushiro frowned, trying to spot what the hollows were telling him to look for. He could see the spot where he and Shunsui had plowed through the deceptively solid ground. He could see little rocks… wait. Rocks?

"Are those trails through it?" He suddenly asked, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. But it seemed like a path had been marked out with rocks making a little border. Dulce clapped her hands in excitement.

"Oh, how clever of you! Yes, that's our path. The others are just dead ends. It takes a lot of patience, marking a new trail!" She said excitedly and Amargo nodded.

"That's true but you can't count on these places being marked. Some are easily avoidable so the vasto lorde near them don't bother. Try again." She ordered and the two shinigami stared at the ground, looking for something out of place. Shunsui was the first to see it.

"Tiny divots." He said and Juushiro blinked. It took him a moment, but then he saw the irregularity too. "It's hard to spot, isn't it? Especially in the moonlight. It looks like a play of shadow, but it's not."

"Well done." Amargo purred, running a hand up his back. Shunsui smiled at her and Juushiro couldn't help but feel a small flash of jealousy. But then a hand was going up his back and he blushed. "That's it precisely. That pattern is characteristic of these fields. When a vasto lorde travels outside their territory, it's one of the things they watch for."

"What are the other things?" Shunsui asked curiously and Amargo tilted her head thoughtfully.

"Waysigns… papi started that. They're very simple symbols and not all vasto lorde know them, but most do." Amargo knelt in the sand and began to sketch with one claw as they paid close attention. Juushiro wished he had something to write with, rather than depending on memory. "We sketch these into the stone. This one means danger ahead. This one means plague. This one – "

"Wait. Do hollows suffer from disease?" Juushiro asked and Dulce shook her head.

"That's kind of a relic from papi's living days. We just use it for a really, really bad place. A place where something bad happened and it's lingering like a smell in the air." She sniffed, rubbing her nose as Amargo continued.

"Hollows do get sick but only when we're badly injured and reiatsu drained. We don't have plagues, normally. Anyway, this means detour and you can put in a direction arrow. That means there's something really annoying but not dangerous ahead and it's better to just go around. This means good hunting…" Amargo went through several more symbols before finishing and wiping the sand clean. "The other big thing vasto lorde look for when they travel is signs of other vasto lorde. We are our own worst enemies."

"Got that right. Want to see how to mark a trail now?" Dulce asked and they both nodded. They were keenly interested in that. "Okay. So you take a cero and you go like this…" They watched as she shot a tiny cero into the crystal field. It failed immediately. "Not a good spot, try again." She tried a different location and the cero shot a decent distance before dissipating. "So you carefully go out…" She demonstrated the technique, carefully shooting off many ceros and marking her backtrail with rocks. Eventually, though, she came to a spot where she could go no further. "Dead end. That happens all the time."

"Yes. But we have a trail already marked. Just follow me." Amargo said as her sister scampered back, following her line of stones. Then they took the marked path, travelling swiftly but not using sonido or shunpo. Even on the path, it would not work so close to the crystals. "One thing… if you know where these things are and an enemy doesn't, you can do real dirt to him."

"Yes! We killed another vasto lorde with these once. He thought he could take our territory and mate us, whether we liked it or not. We showed him!" Dulce said cheerfully and Shunsui smiled approvingly at her.

"Well done. I can see how that would work." He said easily and Juushiro was a touch surprised. After all, they both know how incredibly painful those crystals were. But then, Shunsui deeply disapproved of rape. One of the few times he'd seen his friend completely lose his temper had been over the rape of a young woman in his Division. The man in question had barely survived to receive punishment. Dulce preened a little at the praise but Amargo was startled, glancing at him with big blue eyes.

"Strange. That's almost exactly what papi said. You really are a great old one, aren't you?" She murmured and Shunsui just shrugged with a smile. "Well, up this way." Outside of the crystal field, they broke into sonido and shunpo as the two hollows showed them the way to the observation post.

It was every bit as destroyed as they'd been led to believe. It didn't take long for them to establish that there was absolutely nothing of interest left. Shunsui did amuse himself by taking a rather intricate origami butterfly that the minotaur had left behind. That was about all they could do.

"Even the building isn't worth salvaging." Juushiro said sadly as he saw the ruined tiles, the fixtures that had been torn away and taken. It seemed the vasto lorde had made use of every bit of the place. What was left was nothing but a broken shell.

"Yes. We can't use it. A shame, really. Yama-jii and Mayuri were thinking of establishing a watch on the hollows here." Shunsui said, rubbing his beard before he was interrupted by girlish laughter. "Hmm?" He looked at the two hollows. Dulce just giggled as Amargo shook her head.

"This outpost is in the worst spot for that. Aizen only didn't know because we were all gone, but he put this thing right on the edge of our territory, Cynnbel's and the sea monster's. Cynn might be willing to talk – he's a damned silver tongue – and we're nice enough but the sea monster would be Not Amused by shinigami in the mountains. He'd kill first and talk later. Anyone you sent would be dead meat, unless you wanted to send a great old one. And wouldn't that be kind of a waste? It's not like we're doing anything interesting." She said and Shunsui lifted an eyebrow before nodding.

"I see your point. Well, it seems we have nothing more to do here. But our garganta generator was destroyed with our other supplies. Could we prevail on the lovely ladies to make us one?" Shunsui said lightly but Juushiro's stomach clenched. They'd forgotten this in their deal. Would the hollows use this as an excuse to try to keep them?

"Of course." Amargo said simply and he blinked. Then bright blue eyes met brown, and the blue was laughing. "Did you think we would try to keep you? So silly! You're both well and you burn like beautiful fires now. You would hurt us very badly if we tried, wouldn't you?"

"We like you and want to part on good terms." Dulce said cheerfully and Amargo nodded. "Maybe you can come visit us again someday."

"Perhaps." Juushiro murmured without thinking and Shunsui gave him a startled look as he blushed. "For old times sake." These two hollow girls would always have a fond place in his heart, now. They had brought the two of them together. Shunsui laughed, a full, joy filled sound.

"Ah, Juu! Can you imagine trying to explain the trip to Yama-jii? We just want to catch up…" He said cheerfully as the two hollows opened the hole in reality for them. They stepped inside and Juushiro looked back to see the two vasto lorde waving. Shunsui waved back before the opening closed behind them. They began walking forward, towards the light that was Soul Society.

As pleasant as the past few days had been, Juushiro and Shunsui would both be glad to get home.