Chapter 4: Gaining Respect
It was fairly late when Kensei returned to his own squad and sat at his desk to make a dent in his paperwork. Lucky for him, his Lieutenant had fallen asleep waiting for him, so he didn't have to put up with her welcome routine.
He scanned through each document separating the ones he could finish that night from the ones he needed to send off to other squads for verification, signatures, or other such irritants. This didn't take him long and at the end of it he could see his pile of work had lost a quarter of its size. Not too bad, but still meant a long night.
So, biting the bullet he got to work. He was making good time when he came across five reports all talking about the same thing. Somehow, Unohana had managed to get Yukiko and her group to finish writing their reports about the mission and make it on his desk before he returned. She was a freakin' miracle worker. Seriously.
Each one started nearly the same, but the moment the group split up it was entirely different.
"It was dark when we entered the world of the living and I checked with our "leader" to see if she was sure she had the right place," Sakagi had written. "Surprise surprise, she stuttered a bit before answering. I didn't have a shred of respect for this whimp, but the Captain ordered us to follow her so we all waited to hear what plan she'd come up with."
"I was a little disappointed when she suggested we should split up," Darui wrote. It was clear from his hand writing that he didn't care to admit it. "I mean granted it was a large area, but we couldn't even feel the hollow. Plus, since it was her fist mission to the human world you'd think she'd at least want one of us with her, but no. She put me with Kouga and separated the rest. I got to admit though, I'm really glad now I wasn't alone."
"So we went our separate ways, her going North alone, Harris heading South, Sakagi heading West, and Darui and me going to the East," Kouga had scratched out. His was really difficult to determine. "It didn't really seem to do any good. We looked everywhere for this so called Hollow but couldn't find a thing. I was starting to wonder if maybe the science department had made a mistake on the location and our fearless leader had failed to check on it."
"I kept my thoughts to myself through this, listening to the bickering from Kouga and Sakagi over the lines," Harris had added. "I had hoped our leader would tell them to stop, but I suppose a timid soul like hers would simply take it. True we had yet to actually sense any sign of our quarry, but a little silence would have been nice. At any rate, the two hour limit came up and we started heading back. I was the first to be hit. It came out of nowhere, jumping from Hueco Mundo to the land of the living at such a speed I did not have time to register he was coming until I had his claws burried into my side. I attempted to alert the others but my hell butterfly was quickly destroyed by a second identical Hollow. We were unprepared and I believed we would all be slaughtered."
Kensei paused at this point and moved the notes around looking for one that told in detail what came next. He settled on Yukiko's, her neat handwriting spelling out carefully the following events.
"We were all heading back to the center of the city as per our agreement." Figures she didn't actually order this. "That's when I heard it, the sound of the Hollow. It almost sounded as if it was screaming in a sort of harmony...but the report said there was only one so I ignored this. I met with Darui and Kouga but there was no sign of Sakagi or Harris. I knew something had happened as Kouga attempted to make contact. There was nothing."
* Scene *
"It's no use they're not answering," Kouga muttered darkly.
"I thought I felt their reiatsu spike earlier," Darui admitted. "Do you think the Hollow got to them?"
"Both of them?" Kouga demanded harshly. "Yeah right. They're tougher than that."
"W-we shouldn't take the chance," Yukiko stuttered. She knew something had gone wrong and wanted to check on them, but her nervousness made her tongue go dry. She couldn't think of what else to say.
"Alright, so what do you want us to do?" Kouga demanded crossing his arms.
"U-um..."
"You are the leader here," Darui pointed out softly. "You have plenty of options. What do you want?"
Yukiko stuttered for a moment finding it difficult to actually make a decision. Moments later, she heard another screech from the hollow and one appeared leaping out between the three and grabbing hold of Darui before rushing off.
"Darui!" Kouga shouted reaching for his sword to assist his friend.
Before he could move, however, a second one popped out and caught him along his back making him collapse in pain.
"Kouga, are you alright?" Yukiko squeaked fearfully. He muttered a few curses under his breath which signaled to her he'd live. Finding him to be hurt but alright, she focused her attention on the Hollow that was carrying Darui off. Then she dashed forward, making it in front of the Hollow before releasing a Hado # 4 directly into its face forcing it to drop the soul reaper.
She managed to catch him and return to Kouga's side as she slowly forced himself into a standing position. "Nice going," he grudgingly complimented as she handing the injured soul reaper over.
"Kouga," her voice was far more steady than she expected but didn't dwell on it. "I need you to take Darui back to Soul Society. Get him to squad 4, he'll need it to survive." She pulled out her sword and opened the gate before turning to him. He was looking at her with surprise and all signs of doubt had vanished. "Make sure you alert the Captain to our predicament. Be sure to tell him we have two Hollows here, not one, and that two of our own are probably down. We'll needed assistance if those Hollows are to be stopped."
He stood frozen in place for several moments staring at her as if she was a complete stranger.
"What are you waiting for?" she demanded. "If you don't move now Darui is going to die."
He nodded having been startled out of his surprise and rushed through the gate. Once he was gone she turned and dashed off to where she'd last felt the two reiatsus spike. When she arrived, she could see both soul reapers sprawled on the ground struggling to return to their feet and obtain their blades.
She made it to Harris' side first and wrapped an arm around him, ignoring his comments of surprise and apology, and grabbed his sword before helping him over to Sakagi. He was worse for wear unable to even sit up on his own power. Blood spilled from wounds on his chest, arms, and head. Gently, she set Harris down next to him where he collapsed again, the wound in his legs making it impossible to stay standing.
"What happened?" she asked them calmly keeping her eyes and ears out for the hollows.
"I was attacked while trying to return," Harris tried to explain. "It caught my legs and side before disappearing."
"I found him shortly after...and tried to help him," Sakagi added panting for air. "But before I could move him anywhere it came again...and this time it took a bite out of me and chucked me to the other side." He had a fit of coughing at this point, blood slipping down his chin, so Harris continued.
"We both pulled out our blades to fight it off, but there was actually two of them," he explained slowly. "They came at us from different angles again and again, cutting deeper and doing more damage until we could no longer hold our swords. Then they just vanished."
"Where...are Kouga, and Darui?" Sakagi gasped.
"They returned to Soul Society," Yukiko explained pulling out a few bandages from her bag. She knew a thing or two about wrapping an injury even if she really didn't understand how to help it. "The Hollows attacked us as well and Darui was injured so I had Kouga take him to squad 4 and call reinforcements. It shouldn't be much longer."
Before she could begin wrapping their wounds to stop the bleeding, the Hollows appeared once again leaping at the group from opposite directions. Yukiko quickly got to her feet having heard them coming and knocked them back using her reiatsu. "You two stay here and try to keep from moving too much, it'll only make the bleeding worse. I'll keep them busy until help arrives." She glanced back at them and smiled as reassuring as she could manage it. "I won't let them touch you again."
With that said, she pulled out her blade and released it sending blasts of wind in all direction. She waited, listening to the wind until she heard the telltale scream and moved her fan just in time to block the attack from one of the Hollows. She held it in place keeping the beast from drawing any closer. Then bringing the other in front of her, the wind it created cutting deeply into the Hollow's chest.
It shrieked in pain and darted off disappearing once more. She took a deep breath and waited, knowing no amount of worrying would bring them back any sooner or allow her to figure out where or when they would reappear. All at once she heard both wail and realized they were aiming for her helpless comrades.
She dove toward them making it just in time to block one attack and throw up the other fan to block the one from the other direction. She and the two injured soul reapers were trapped between the two Hollows who began scrabbling at the blade attempting to reach the holder. They pushed harder and harder at her from both sides until one of her arms bent a little giving the Hollow it was holding enough momentum forward to catch her side with its flailing limbs.
Yukiko grunted in pain and felt the second Hollow claw at her arms and legs tearing into her flesh. In a last ditch effort, she released her reiatsu in a whirl shoving her enemies in either direction where they vanished once again.
Yukiko collapsed to the ground, her sleeves in tatters and blood dripping from her side. "It won't be long," she gasped, tears sliding down her cheeks slowly. "We'll make it...we'll make it." She glanced down at Harris and Sakagi who had both lost so much blood that they'd fully collapsed being unable to move any longer. "I promise...we'll make it. Just hang on...a little longer."
She panted heavily feeling her vision go in and out of focus, hoping to feel the moment when their rescuers would arrive. Instead, she heard the howls again and saw to her horror both Hollows diving at the three of them. She tried to raise her fans to defend them, but her arms were all but useless. She could feel the tears slide faster down her cheeks and drip on the ground, mixing with the pooling blood.
"No...I won't...I won't let anyone else die!" she shrieked throwing herself over the two immobile men.
* End Scene *
Kensei paused again at this point knowing where it had gone. Somehow in her desperate act to save her comrades, she'd managed to form a sustainable barrier with her wind reiatsu. In doing so she kept the two Hollows at bay long enough for him and Mashiro to arrive and then enough to force him to use his own reiatsu and cancel out hers in order to get in.
He'd seen the state they were all in and could remember the look of sheer relief in her eyes when she saw he was there. She managed to save them all from Hollows that anyone else would have lost to without any proper warning.
He glanced over the paperwork again finding it fascinating that she'd mentioned hearing them, but the others did not. They claimed to have no warning whatsoever. How did she hear it?
Scanning the five documents one more time he noticed there was a single comment from Harris and Sakagi at the very end.
"Having only seen and heard of her timidity and lack of confidence and control, I never thought I'd see her look so calm and collected during a crisis," Harris wrote. Each letter of his fancy scroll was filled with long flowing strokes making it a little difficult to read. "Her words of encouragement and surety that help would arrive in time made me believe that as injured as we were, we were going to survive."
"I'd like to say that I didn't need that runt's help but I'd be lying," Sakagi wrote. His writing was rushed and scrunched together. More than likely he wanted to get it out before he lost the nerve. "I was irritated at first needing to be saved by such a weakling, but watching her hold both those Hollows off with those girly fans of hers and then cry while covering us with her own body...I'll never say that chick is weak again. I can't think of a single person that would have stayed there to die just to keep us from getting hit again. I mean, with as much blood as we lost we were as good as dead anyway...but that didn't matter. She stuck around and faced those bastards with more balls than half of Sereitei. I owe her my life..."
Kensei smirked to himself as he read the comments again. Not only had she managed to save their lives, but she turned their doubt into the utmost respect. She'd managed to keep her head, keep control, and even hand out orders left and right like a real leader should. This should allow squad 2 a chance to relax for a change. Maybe he'd finally get a little break. At the very least they should postpone the final decision...he'd just have to make sure she was ready for it.
Shippoman: Yukiko's desperation to save her comrades paid off as all survived and she gained some trust and respect. Even Kensei's proud of how her mission went despite her need to be bailed out. What's next for Yukiko? Stay tuned to find out. And please review :D.