Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach in any way at all
The light stung my eyes as I clambered out of the parking garage. I stood up, dusted myself off and took in my surroundings. I stood on top of the garage, surrounded by ruined cars and rubble. I turned around to see the wrecked terminal that I had emerged from. It looked nothing like what one normally would, resembling a child's pile of rocks more than a building. Upon closer inspection I felt Halibel's reiatsu coming from atop the terminal.
I sighed, not liking the thought of the chaos to come. I glared at the rubble and slowly walked up to it. Slothfully, I reached my hand up and slowly started climbing up. I could feel my wounds with every movement, how they flexed and contracted with every movement.
"Banged up, battered and bruised. After we defeat Aizen, I'm going to have one hell of a nap," I thought, "I hate everything. This rubble, the sky above, the town below, I hate it all." This anger wasn't real though, just the pseudo-hatred that comes from a bad, frustrating day. After all, seeing you're comrades go down in battle and being betrayed by a person who gave you a gift you desperately wanted definitely makes for not the greatest of days.
When I got to the top of the ruined terminal I swore at my current condition and flopped onto my back panting like the worn out dog I was. My chest wounds, while nearly healed, still ached with every breath. My right arm still ached even though the wound was gone. I still had the various scratches I received in my scuffle with the Hollow.
"Starrk? I was wondering how long it would take to drag yourself up here," Halibel said followed by a coughing fit.
I groaned and slowly picked myself off the ground. Halibel was about five meters in front of me, lying on a slab of rubble staring at the sky, no longer in her released form. I slowly walk over to her, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly while doing so.
"Sorry, but I had to take some time to deal with a particularly annoying nuisance."
"So why are you here? Frankly, I'm surprised you even survived the last blow that captain gave you."
"As am I. It still hurts like hell. I came here to propose an alliance of sorts."
"So you also want Aizen's head, eh? I thought you were his most grateful soldier."
"Well, that was before he lead us on this death march and betrayed us."
She grunted her acceptance of the answer and then sat up, hissing and digging her nails into the area surrounding her abdominal wound. She looked at me with hatred as if to say, "If you laugh at my weakness, I will make a whole new circle of hell just for you". I was in no better shape than her in my opinion. We both were extremely far off from the peak of our power and had our fair share of injuries, speaking of which…
"How are your injuries?" I asked as I sat down next to her, watching the Shinigami clash with Aizen.
"The stab wound from Aizen is nearly closed, as for the slash wound, it's still open. I received no major injuries from my fight with the Shinigami, they were mainly just exhausting me."
I nodded pondering what our next course of action should be. I observed the battle between the captains and Aizen. The major factor that would adjust our tactics was Halibel's rate of regeneration. If the wound closed soon enough, we could join in with the captains. The potential for them to try and take us down before we could explain our purpose was high, so that was worrisome.
I continued to watch as Aizen demonstrated his physical prowess, and superiority over the Shinigami. I could see Gin sitting on the sidelines, no doubt having a riot watching the opposition struggle against Aizen. I looked across the battlefield and saw the strawberry blonde haired Shinigami that I had recaptured Orihime Inoue from. He was standing to the sidelines, sword drawn and watching with incredible focus.
"What's the kid from Las Noches doing here?"
This caught Halibel's attention, she looked wildly around the war zone to find him and then focused on him.
"It would seem as the captains are using him as a trump card," she said after a fair amount of time and observation.
"What makes you say that?" I asked, feeling too lethargic to figure it out myself.
"If he was of no use then the captains would have told him to go away. If he was a healer, then he would obviously be healing everyone. He's just on the sidelines, with his sword drawn, waiting for an opening. Compared to the captains, he's an abundance of energy and power. Since they are all weakened, it stands to reason he has the best shot of killing Aizen," she explained. I nodded to show my understanding.
"How long do you think it will take for your wounds to heal?"
"Around two hours."
It didn't look like the captains were going to last another twenty minutes. The captain that Halibel fought was in a fit of blind rage, leaving himself wide open. They all struggled so hard to kill him, I had to commend them on their tenacity. I analyzed Aizen's fighting style, trying to perceive any patterns or openings. He left none. He fought using everything he could to his advantage. Combine that with his colossal base power and I had my doubts about if Halibel and I would be able to change the tide of battle. I looked down at my left hand visualizing the number on it.
"I don't even know if I can release anymore. Heck, right now Halibel is probably more fit to be the Primera than me," I thought.
"Where's Lilynette?"
I winced on the inside, not quite ready to face the world completely on my own.
"She's gone."
I saw Halibel widen her eyes slightly, looking as if she wanted to ask more questions. She kept her silence. I guess because she might've been reminded of her own loss today as well. We sat in silence trying regain our composure after that precarious emotional moment. We could go and wallow in our self-pity later, after we had either died or accomplished our goals. Until then we just had to try and keep a strong vice grip on our emotions.
I laid back onto the ground, looking vertically at the passing clouds to try and clear my head. I starting to zone out when I realized Halibel had asked another question.
I turned my head so that I was looking at her and said, "Sorry, I was zoned out there. Mind repeating yourself?"
She shook her head in a somewhat exasperated manner, muttering, "Should've figured" before asking her question again.
"I asked if you were still able to release with her gone."
I turned my head back to its original position and thought about it for a few minutes before giving my answer.
"I don't think I can. We released by uniting our souls, not by unleashing the Hollow powers sealed in our zanpakuto. I guess, at this moment, you're now the Primera."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Starrk. At this point I'd say rank is pointless. Given that the kid Ulquiorra fought is here, that must indicate his business in Las Noches is finished. He has rescued Orihime Inoue and since she isn't here, we can infer there are no longer any threats to her safety back at Las Noches. There are no more Espada. We are the last. To call one of us Primera would just be an arrogant title."
I nodded, letting her words sink in. I felt a sense of relief of no longer having the official title of Primera. I was no longer bound to anyone. I wasn't in an organization, I wasn't compared with anyone. I was Coyote Starrk. Independent and free. While part of that scared me, being on my own again and all, it felt kind of good to not have the title and to know I wasn't the strongest. The fear of being alone was still present in my mind. After this Halibel and I would most likely part ways. We wouldn't have anything to really keep us in touch. I decided not to focus on that now. I could deal with this later, there were more pressing matters at hand.
"What are you going to do after this?" I asked.
She took a thoughtful pose and said, "I'll do what I think is best."
"Transparent as always."
"What, and you can tell me exactly what you're going to do after this?" she asked, her voice losing some of it's serious tone.
"Haha, guess not."
She laughed as well, it was soft yet, it still helped to relieve a bit of the tension. It was a nice moment in all the hatred of the surrounding atmosphere. We sat in a comfortable silence, and I laid back down, putting my hands behind my head.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't focused, I was just looking. Similar to how one looks at a painting, you just absorb it. I saw her just… existing, trying to keep existing. The raw survival instinct. It was all I could see in her eyes as she continued to analyze the battle. I shifted my gaze over to the battle. Not much had changed, everyone was about the face just far more bloodied.
"How long do you think it will take for you to heal your injuries?" I asked, feeling need for rest catching up to me.
"About an hour or two."
"I'm pretty drained from the trip here, so I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me if either have to run for our lives, or when you're fully healed." I said as I closed my eyes and prepared to have to the best damn nap of my life.
She nodded. For an instant I thought I saw a small note of sympathy in her eyes before it was swallowed by her usual stare of indifference. I gradually drifted off and found myself in the familiar realm of dreams. It was warm and there was no killing. Everything was at peace. I would see brief images, faces, or just things I had seen on the street, even a few things I had never seen. This peace was broken all too soon when I felt Halibel wake me up.
I winced and kept my eyes closed, wanting to go back to the peace.
"Come on, Starrk. We have to get moving. Now."
"Can it wait five more minutes, please?"
How y'all doing? I'm back once again with more exposition, YAY, cause you all just freakin' love exposition, now don'tcha? Sorry if it came a bit later than some of you would have preferred, but I'm still within the bi-weekly schedule. I've kinda been banking on schedule a bit more because I've had a pretty busy week. Some friends and I got together and we've just been jamming. Soo thats been keepin' me a bit busy. We're meeting up again tomorrow so hopefully we can get some good stuff done and all. As per usual I beg of you all for reviews and that whatnot. I know the chapter wasn't that exciting, but it was pretty important because it gives you the standing of their current relationship. Pretty impersonal and kinda awkward and weird. But I need the reviews so when the time comes for you lot to read the good juicy bits, they will actually be really good and juicy. I'll need tips on how to write good fights, and how to write good fluent, realistic conversations and not the trash I think I've been giving you. I try hard to give you all something great, but it won't ever be amazing if you never help me out here and give me some feedback and tips on how to write better. Now that I'm done with that, I think I should inform you that the next chapter or so is probably going to be one of the last majorly obvious expositional chapters to set everything up. After that the story should start to take some kind of shape and just practically start writing itself(Hopefully). If you guys have any suggestions for little things I could add in to the plot feel free to let me know. Well that's my long-winded spiel today, I'll get out of your hair now. As usual, all you amazing people have a wonderful day and I'll see you all when I post the next installment of Beautiful Charlottel Cuhlhourn's Sweet Ultra Funky Fantastic Dramatic Romantic Sadistic Erotic Exotic Athletic Dangerous Psychedelic Valuable Economical Continental Incredible Unbelievable Slow Burn.
