Author's Note: Yaaaay. Chapter 9. Not going to bother apologizing for time. I'm honestly more excited that I can now work on Chapter 10. Chapter 9 took me a while because it wasn't Chapter 10 if that makes sense. It'll be more comprehensible once you read this chapter and the next one. Again, I'd like to thank all of the reviewers. There are like five of you, but whatever. I enjoy your support and it helps me get the motivation to write the next one. Another yaaay for a short author's note.

TL;DR Here's Chapter Nine. Enjoy.

Chapter 9: Writing on the Walls

Ryuken dropped out of the sky of Hueco Mundo like a rock. His eyes, closed until that moment of weightlessness, opened up again, only to show him that he was going to die. He heard himself curse.

The wind ripped and roared as he plummeted down and down and down, until the ground was only a kilometre away. For the land of the hollows it looked more pleasant than he had expected; endless sand, like an eroded ocean. Though, it was going to kill him regardless of how it looked. He tried to buffer his fall with his reiatsu, but it was no good at this speed. The wind didn't help, attacking his body as plunged down into a new world. He put more energy into his buffer until he was weak from the strain. It slowed him down just enough that he wouldn't die immediately, though the hollows that would come across his paralyzed form probably would.

He heard his own body crunch as it dived into the sand. With that, he passed out.

He awoke what felt like only a minute later, with vomit on his face and underneath his shirt, and a young girl in green torn robes spreading it over the rest of his body. His first thought was I must be in hell. Ryuken scrambled to his feet, instantly feeling the pain in his limbs. He staggered to clean himself off. He glanced up, hoping the girl and the vomit were a deranged hallucination, but found her still standing there and the vomit still clinging to his skin. The girl looked at him with a disappointed face.

"Lie down! I still need to put some saliva on your back!" The girl pouted, showing some of the vomit she had gathered in her hands. Ryuken felt like taking a bath for the rest of his life. When he backed off, he noticed the hollow mask above her eyes. She's an arrancar he thought, alarmed.

"That's absolutely disgusting. Get away from me. I will not be some hollow's play thing!" Ryuken replied. He tried to summon his bow but the girl latched onto his legs pushing him back onto the sand. Ryuken was embarrassed by how pathetic he was. He was so weak that he could be toppled by the tiny hollow behind him. Her reiatsu was tiny compared to the waxing and waning of Hueco Mundo itself.

"When Nel found you, you were really hurt." The girl said. Ryuken tried to wrestle her off by kicking her. The girl dodged it and after a while it became more effort than it was worth. "Stop it! I was helping! You didn't even want to move before, but thanks to my saliva you're doing a lot better now."

The girl was right. He looked at himself. His body was a lot better for having recently fallen a couple kilometres. That by no means meant he was going to let this arrancar put more of whatever it was coming out of her mouth. He pushed against her and finally freed himself from her grasp. To the best of his ability he started running.

"No, come back! You's still really hurt." The arrancar yelled and chased him through the desert as he forced his body along. When he was too tired to run further, he turned around and summoned his bow. It was a feeble summoning, his bow at only half its normal strength. It would be enough to take care of the hollow.

"I don't know what your intentions are and I'd rather not find out. " Ryuken drew an arrow and aimed it at the child's forehead. She started to quiver and glower.

"Don't hurt me Mr. Sky-person! I swear I won't help you anymore!" She cried. She's just a hollow; She's not human. Ryuken told , she could sense his spirit energy. As he had created the arrow, she had fallen back in surprise. She was afraid of him.

"Hey, Nel, if you're going to start a game, remember to call the rest of us!" A voice boomed from far behind the girl. A hollow with a giant face, a humanoid insect and a creature that vaguely looked like a snake were darting across the desert sand to where they were standing. Ryuken increased the energy and density of his arrow.

"Who are they?" He demanded.

"They're my friends. Please don't hurt them. They helped you too! They carried you across the desert to a safe place." She pointed to them and made strange gestures as she talked.

Ryuken checked their reiatsu. It was a lot higher than the girl's but still nothing he needed to worry about. He lowered his arrow and then let it disappear all together. He saw the girl make a sigh of relief. Ryuken turned his back on her.

"Leave me alone." He said and walked off. Whoever they were, they didn't mean him harm. Still, he didn't want to be stuck with them. Las Noches had been looming over the desert since he had arrived, the building more massive than anything else he had encountered. He didn't want to go there, however there didn't seem like anywhere else he could go. He headed towards it, hoping not to see the hollow girl again.

His wish was hardly fulfilled. Every so often he would turn around to see them trailing him, all four of them now. When he did, they would jump into the sand and pretend like they hadn't been there all along. After an hour of this, Ryuken started to get tired. His body was aching too, so he stopped and waited to get close enough that he wouldn't have to yell.

"I said leave me alone! I never gave you permission to follow me." He called to them. They all looked startled, even the snake, as if their plan had been a secret. Are these hollows really as idiotic as they appear? "I think I'm going to regret asking, but why are you following me?"

"We're here to save you!" They announced simultaneously all of them making a pose, like characters out of a sentai television show. Ryuken groaned. He preferred hollows he actually wanted to kill. These ones were just morons.

"I don't need saving. Now go away." Ryuken started to walk again. This time he could literally hear them coming after him. He jumped around, summoning his bow again. He created four arrows and aimed at all of them. "Who are you? What do you want with me really?"

They almost looked happy at their question. The giant face, insect and the girl looked to each other and nodded, before leaping into another pose.

"I'm Nel Tu!" The girl said cheerfully.

"And I'm her older brother, Pesshe." The insect followed up, waving his arms.

"And I'm his older brother Dondochakka!" The giant head leaped in third, before they all grouped together and posed. "And together we are-"

As he heard their title, Ryuken passed out again, the words floating into his head. They were words he had never expected to hear again.


"Urahara, you asshole!" Isshin yelled, almost instantaneously after arriving in Hueco Mundo. At the end of the large stark white hallway was Yasutora Sado. Isshin covered his mouth and hid in the one of hall's side paths. Chad glanced back. Isshin ducked behind the wall.

Isshin didn't expect Urahara to tell the truth. When Urahara had said that there was no one else going he assumed that meant that he had allowed one or two people already through. But, really, of all people he allowed Sado passage. He had hoped for another Shinigami, maybe if he was lucky a Vizard. Instead Urahara let in a fighter that wouldn't be able to hold his own. Chad was strong enough to fight regular hollows, sure, but arrancars were way beyond his level. Isshin sighed. He had left his kids at home only to have to babysit another one. He couldn't just leave Chad on his own. It would be a pain in the ass if this kid died on his watch. Isshin decided against revealing himself. He'd give Chad some time to prove that he wasn't going to be a nuisance. They had only just arrived after all.

Not seeing anyone, Chad headed down the hallway. Isshin let out a breath of relief.

Urahara had dropped them in the middle of some underground building. Isshin didn't have too many assumptions of what Hueco Mundo would look like, but it was nothing like he imagined. Decades of fighting hollows taught him to think of their kind as a source of chaos. They could never construct such an elaborate structure. This had to be Aizen's doing. He put his ear to the wall and heard something rustling behind it. Sand.

Urahara's put us closer to Las Noches than I thought.

Suddenly, he heard something else. It was a rumbling coming from another hallway. He peered down to Chad. He had heard it too. He was standing at the end, an intersection with another path and was waiting for the rumbling to come at him. Isshin sensed its reiatsu. He relaxed a little. The oncoming hollow was mediocre grade, not remotely close to Espada level. Isshin watched Chad, waiting to see how he responded.

Chad looked at the incoming hollow and raised his fist. Isshin felt a surge reiatsu from Chad as the spiritual energy formed around his arm. One punch was all it took.

"El Directo." Chad's spiritual pressure grew as the energy built up in his right arm. He charged forward, his fist landing in the beast's face. A second later light erupted out of the end and threw the hollow beyond Isshin's range of sight. Chad muttered something before bidding the creature farewell. The boy certainly wasn't playing around.

Isshin was impressed. A one-hit knock out was a good feat, though he would need to repeat it soon. Isshin could already feel another arrancar nearby. He assumed Chad felt it too as he went towards the reiatsu the minute it popped up. When he was sure that Chad was gone, he crept through the hall to watch the fight. The room ahead was a grand dome, where in the centre another arrancar guarded the exit. It looked almost human, if not for the extra six arms and spikes protruding from his back.

"You defeated Demora, but don't expect to travel any further. This is where your adventure ends." The arrancar croaked. He didn't wait for a response from Chad. He revealed his extra limbs for the attack, then zoomed towards Chad using Sonido. Chad didn't dodge in time and received three energy blasts. Chad tried to ready himself, raising his arm as he had done before. He still wasn't fast enough. The arrancar speeded past his lumbering form, and struck him another four times.

Isshin was about to look away when he saw the beast go in for a third time. However, the moment he came close, Chad grabbed the creature by the neck. This time he had the right reflex. He lifted the arrancar into the air, aimed for its face for another 'El Directo'. The blast tore the arrancar's mask right off his face. Chad dropped him onto the floor then kneeled close to the body.

"I'm sorry I had to rush through our fight, but I don't have the time to deal with you. I need to find my friends." Chad said. The arrancar started to laugh.

"Sorry? Your stupid pleasantries aren't going to get you into Las Noches. Aizen will have your head, if you're smart enough to survive this room." Chad and Isshin looked up at the ceiling. It was beginning to shake, the pillars trembling alongside them. Huge chunks of debris started to plunge into the ground, followed by a wave of sand. Chad tried to run for the stairs, but didn't make it in time. White sand swallowed him before he could do anything else.

Isshin saw the sand coming and ran. It followed him down the corridor, past the intersecting paths, but stopped short of catching him. His shunpo kept him moving faster than the white ocean. It pursued him through a left turn at the end of the passage, then a right turn, until he made it to another crossroads.

Once the sand settled Isshin stopped running and attempted to survey wherever he was. The sand had blocked out all the light coming from the other routes. Isshin reached into his gi and pulled out his trusty lighter. He flicked the flint wheel. Enough light came that he could see his surroundings. Two or three torches were attached to the narrow walls. Isshin picked up one and set it a flame. With the extra light he now realized how dire the situation had become. There was a wall of sand in front of the exit, the path irrevocably blocked.

He searched for Chad's reiatsu and found it hovering somewhere above him. It looked like Chad had somehow made it topside. The sand must have swept right under him, pushing him straight up to the surface. This was good news. Despite his initial concern, Chad's show of force convinced Isshin that the boy didn't need to be babied. Now, Isshin only worried if the boy had enough sense to not get lost. He didn't want Chad to be another kid he had to rescue.

Speaking of which, where does that put me? The hallway was pitch black beyond his torch. It was impossible to tell where it was going. It was a narrow path too, the torches only a centimetre away from Isshin's shoulders. The ground was layered with dust and now sand. Every twitch Isshin made left some kind of mark on the floor where he had moved the dirt.

Judging by the fact that his were the only footprints around, it looked like no one had used this trail in ages. Isshin could see why. It was depressing as hell. Still, Isshin didn't think he had any choice in the matter. With one hand on the hilt of his zanpakutou and another gripping the torch, Isshin moved ahead.

He continued to walk for what seemed like hours. The alley never got any brighter nor did he ever see any sign of an exit. It simply became narrower and narrower until the walls themselves were rubbing against him. His arms couldn't move apart, stuck somewhere in front or behind him. Isshin kept going. Luckily height was never an issue. The ceiling was always about two feet higher than his head.

It took longer to feel, but after another few hours had passed he could sense reiatsu lingering somewhere above him. After that it was every hour or so that he noticed that the strength of the reiatsu had increased. This made him more confident that he was delving into the heart of Aizen's fortress. Isshin assumed that he was in a forgotten tunnel, built to provide quick access between Las Noches and the exterior world of Hueco Mundo. He had nothing to confirm this. All his bets had been placed on the growing reiatsu above him.

The hours quickly grew as Isshin trudged on. With nothing to tell the time, Isshin wasn't sure how long he'd spent so far in the tunnel, but he guessed it was somewhere in the realm of three days. By now, Isshin was convinced that the path had to lead somewhere. Since the last twelve hours or so the spiritual pressure had started to increase rapidly. The alley was starting to widen again and he was even starting to hear rumbling as the tunnel slowly bent upwards. He was approaching something important. He could literally feel it.


Ryuken was standing in the room with three exits, beside Yasutora Sado, the arrancar girl, and her friends. He stuck with them, and with a decision he didn't want to make.

"Ryuhen, which doors are we taking?" The girl asked. Nel Tu was the arrancar's name, and she was as absurd as the situation he had been thrown into.

"I'm not sure yet. I'll tell you once I make up my mind." Ryuken responded, not bothering to address the horrendous mistakes in her speech. He had told her on multiple occasions to call him, Mr. Ishida or just Ishida if that made things easier. Somehow, she always returned to the butchered version of his first name. Her grammar and language generally annoyed him; however there was no point correcting her. She'd ask why, and then he'd have to explain grammar and seniority, which probably didn't mean anything to a hollow.

Sado was quiet as usual. He hadn't said much since they'd met. Despite his silence, Sado appeared to be making a decision of his own.

He walked over to a quiet side of the room to take out a cigarette and smoke. He was surprised they had survived the initial fall. He poured sand out of the packet, then pulled the cigarette to his mouth and lit it. It had been a while since he had had one, a couple days maybe. Now the compulsion was getting to him. The girl followed him with puppy dog eyes and asked again if he knew where they were going. He rebuffed by reminding her that it had only been ten seconds since she had last asked, to which she replied that he smelled when he smoked. He ignored her.

Three exits, four people, and I have no idea what to do. I haven't been able to make a proper decision since… The image of Nadia's face splattered with blood came to mind. He sighed and took another breath of his cigarette.

He had wandered through Urahara's tunnel out of curiosity, though he had always known where they would lead. He didn't know why he went. He kept telling himself curiosity, but even then it didn't make sense. Regardless, Urahara had trapped him in a cage and had flung him into Hueco Mundo against his will. That much was simple.

Ryuken couldn't decide whether Urahara infuriated him more or that the arrancar and her friends (Ryuken had never bothered to memorize their names) had taken the poor choice of following him. Despite the fact that they acted like malformed children, occasionally pretended they were superheroes, and generally acted in the exact opposite manner a hollow was supposed to, they thought Ryuken was strange. They thought that he needed taking care of. They had even offered for him to ride their giant sentient undead snake, which was disturbing more than relieving. For as long as he had been around them, Ryuken wondered how they could have survived the extreme Darwinist nature of hollow society.

Yet, it wasn't until they tried to introduce themselves that Ryuken was truly disturbed. They had tried to introduce themselves. In unison, they had screamed, of all things, Memento Mori.

He wouldn't say it was the latin words that made him pass out. The combination of exhaustion and being exposed to pure incompetence was where he laid the blame. Ryuken remembered it most recently as the phrase written on the case file Urahara had sent him. He had thought it was out of place then, and it was certainly out of place now. In spite of that it had subconsciously become a signal for him, a reminder of Nadia. He remembered her saying it a couple times when she was around him. She had had a morbid fascination with the dead even greater than that of his son. With that on his mind, he had let them pursue him, though he had made sure to interrogate the two oddly shaped arrancar. They had known nothing about it or Urahara, which wasn't a surprise. They didn't look like knew anything to begin with. This also had the bonus added effect of scaring the two into keeping their distance from him.

Sado, or Chad, as he had heard Uryu call him, had encountered them later on in their walk to Las Noches, and together they had made their way here, to the room with three doors. Of course, there was a fourth door now, if they counted the hole Chad had made in the wall behind them. To get inside 'covertly' Chad had taken it upon himself to punch through Las Noches' walls. It was unnecessary, but Ryuken went along with it, if only to see the boy's endurance.

Ryuken studied the different pathways. It was a perplexing design choice, to have a central room with no purpose at all. You couldn't hold a meeting here, it was too small to fight here, there were no windows or any feature about this area that would make it particularly alluring. It seemed as if it was put here as a way to confuse intruders. This thought nagged at Ryuken. They had picked a random outside wall to break into the facility. If this room was designed to split up a group breaking in, then Aizen had to have planned where they would attempt to break through, and what direction they would travel in.

At the very least it was something to consider. He never tried to stay up to date with the happenings in Soul Society, but from what he understood Aizen was revered as a master strategist. Now that he was in the strategist's own territory, he would have to make his movements carefully.

But, where should I go? Ryuken looked at his unintentional partners. Whichever path he chose, he had to take into account the people with him.

Nel was currently doing some kind of dance with the other two. They picked her up and spun her around, sometimes hopping from one place to another. Chad was making intermittent glances between him and the doors. While he hadn't told Chad this directly, there was enough of a physical similarity between him and Uryu that Chad should have realized that he was Uryu's father once he had said that his last name was Ishida; although, he didn't inquire why Ryuken was there. He probably believed something ridiculous.

At this rate, I certainly can't deny him the absurd.

Ryuken quickly came to the conclusion that his 'teammates' were for the most part dead weight. The girl was useless aside from her healing vomit, which Ryuken detested anyway. Her arrancar friends, while appearing a tad more capable, were also by some glorious feat less intelligent than the girl. Chad could be of some use; however Ryuken wasn't sure of his fighting capability. Without Chad's arm activated, his reiatsu was that of an average human. The only way Ryuken could test his power was by fighting him, something he had no interest in doing.

There was always Isshin. Ryuken had seen Isshin walk into the garganta, though where he was now, Ryuken had no idea. He occasionally felt Isshin's spiritual pressure coming from beneath the ground even when he was in the desert, but he put that up to the sheer chaos of spiritual energy in Las Noches. The building had so many powerful spiritual entities that their reiatsu meshed and melded with each other, preventing him from determining one entity from another. There was also the possibility that Aizen was projecting a reiatsu similar to Isshin's to confuse Ryuken so he had tried not to think much of it.

No matter where Isshin was right now, he could take care of himself.

While he could have, he didn't ask Chad about Isshin. Ryuken had deduced that because of the way he was thrown into the portal, he was launched much further ahead than Chad or Isshin. Despite their time delay in the real world, in Hueco Mundo they should have arrived minutes of each other. If Isshin was smart he would have used that to his advantage and kept himself hidden the whole time. There was no sense in the children knowing who they were. It would only make them lazy, relying on their parents for everything.

"Dondochakka, put me down! You're starting to make me sick!" Nel screamed, interrupting Ryuken's thoughts. The arrancar that consisted of a giant face was spinning rapidly now, going faster and faster as Nel's shrieks increased. The anthropomorphic insect was for some reason helping Dondochakka spin around at greater speed.

Ryuken walked over to put a stop to this. "Control yourselves and put her down. You're clearly scaring her and her voice is getting on my nerves." He commanded. Dondochakka obliged a little too quickly. He let go of Nel, launching her to the other end of the room. She flew into a wall between two exits with a loud smash. Suddenly her reiatsu spiked. It only lasted a second, just the instant her head made a thundering noise against the wall. However, it was frighteningly powerful. He looked over to Chad. He was watching the hollow girl too.

Nel seemed unaware of what had happened, beyond smacking her head into a wall. She lay on the floor. Her eyes were dazed from the impact. Ryuken knelt beside her and tried to check for any abnormalities.

"You felt that too?" Chad asked.

"You're referring to her spiritual pressure increasing forty-fold? Of course I did. I'm trying to understand what happened." Ryuken replied curtly. He put his head on her head and concentrated on her energy. After a couple seconds he found no sign of the energy he had felt a minute prior. He glared at the other two hollow. "You two, what do you know about this?"

"We don't know anything! I'm kinda scared, yo. Our Nel is a lot stronger than she said she was." Dondochakka yelled. He did genuinely look afraid, but of what?

"No, that's our Nel. I knew she had it in her all along. She's the super strong member of our superhero team!" The insect raised a fist above his head and shook it in approval.

"She was at least quadruple the strength of both of you combined. It sounds farfetched that you could miss that."

The two arrancar shrugged. In retaliation, Ryuken stood up and headed towards the nearest exit.

"I'm tired of all this pandering. All three of you are embarrassment as hollows and worse, now you're playing with me. My day had been painful enough as it is, I don't need complications." Ryuken declared, walking straight into hallway. He felt mentally exhausted. He had been tossed from one scenario to another. First was Nadia, then being forced here and now this stupid mystery. He really didn't need this. His life had enough complications as it was.

As he set off, Ryuken felt a tugging at his leg. He looked behind him. Nel was hanging on by his pants.

"Stop following me!" Ryuken yelled, a little too loudly. Nel shrunk back and let go of him.

"We has to follow you. Aizen will kill us if you leave us behind!" She exclaimed. "Plus, Dondochakka, Pesshe and me will be a great help. I have my spit and they can be your mascots. "

Ryuken could sense Pesshe and Dondochakka doing poses somewhere in the room.

"You'll be useless. You'll die just the same if you follow me." Nel was silent for a change. He looked back into the three way room. Everyone was looking at him. He started walking. "Sado, if you're going to stand still like that, watch these three until I come back."

"Actually, I want to go-" Chad started.

"Then go."

Chad ran to an exit, leaving the others behind. Nel reached out and ran after him, but tripped and fell with another smash. The other two arrancars leapt to her aide. Ryuken used the opportunity to leave unnoticed.

Like Chad, he ran. He didn't stop, even when he heard crying coming from the beginning of the hall. In any situation it was better that they all stayed behind. It was true what he said. If they came with him, they would be useless on the battlefield. They would probably be fine if they left Las Noches. Aizen wouldn't bother finding them. Even with the energy jump, they were still too weak to pose a serious threat. Though, he had been wrong in the past.

Somehow there was wind in the hall. Wind that followed him and blew at him as he tried to move forward. It wasn't enough to stop him. It was another tedious challenge put in front of him. Challenges he didn't want or need. As if knowing his annoyance the wind fought against him, blowing at his chest and his face. Ryuken cursed back at it.

Being literally tossed into Hueco Mundo had not made him any more inclined to save his son, although he hadn't seen much choice in the matter. He was already here; he had might as well do something. Urahara wouldn't let him go home either. Ryuken scoffed. He doubted Urahara had actually made an exit strategy. The senile moron's plan was to jump into Hueco Mundo when he thought the job was done and then pull everyone back.

And the chances that would go successfully?

Zero. An Urahara plan was never much of a plan at all. Ryuken resigned himself to this quest. He would find an exit, a way back to normalcy.

The Nadia file was a clear provocation on Urahara's part. Why would Aizen need a new arrancar this late in preparations? Soul Society was planning on attacking any day now. If he was as smart as they said, he would try to encourage a rescue effort as a distraction, not to gain anything innately.

Uryu would be fine. Comparatively. Hopefully his time spent here wouldn't give him too much trauma.

The passageway was a short one. Ryuken found himself approaching another room only fifteen minutes later. It looked to be much larger than the one he was in before. Ryuken slowed down when he saw someone standing there, far into the back of the room. It wore the uniform, or at least the styling, of Aizen's hollows. Its modifications to the outfit were outlandish. Even from within the hallway he could see a circular and oddly flat hood outlining the hollow's head.

Ryuken made careful stunted steps forward. From a distance the hollow looked abnormally tall, an appearance which didn't change as he came closer. He (it was beginning to look distinctly male) had long hair and a patch over his left eye. His reiatsu was immense. Once he got closer he could see another arrancar, lingering beside the one had seen first. He also wore an eye-patch, though over the opposite eye. Aside from that, short blond hair was all Ryuken could see.

"You shouldn't walk so fucking slowly into a fight, especially if the enemy can see you coming." The arrancar with an eye-patch over his left eye barked. "You always got to start running."

Ryuken walked unfazed into the room.

"That sounds like an easy was to get yourself killed." Ryuken replied, using a finger to push up the glasses to the bridge of his nose. Then he pointed to the body the arrancar was stomping on with his right foot. The body looked like another arrancar, with its limbs torn off and scattered around the room. He was still bleeding. Ryuken couldn't help but notice his head and its huge orange hair. "It looks like someone already made that mistake."

"You guys took too long getting here, so I got kinda bored. I was thinking of just killing you all from that dumbass room, but he took up too much of my time." The hollow said, grinning. The creature had been smiling from the moment he had walked into the large white chamber. The walls were tall and far apart. The open space between them was at least 200 meters. It was a room designed for fighting in.

Perfect.

"I really don't fucking like the look in your eyes. I bet you think you're better than me." The creature said, grabbing a strange sword from behind him. It was composed two blades in the shape of crescent moons, bending horizontally away from each other. "We've seen each other for a couple seconds and I already really want to rip your eyes out of your skull."

"That sounds a little too morbid for my taste. It's too bad I don't have the time to kill you." Ryuken replied and summoned his bow to his hand. "However, I'll make sure that you won't have the opportunity to do the same."

The arrancar stopped smiling and charged at him.

The battle was over in a few minutes, with Ryuken walking out mostly unscathed. The room had taken most of the damage, especially after he had blown out the roof. It seems that Aizen made sure that the roofs of some of his rooms would collapse in the case of emergencies. This had made it an easier match to settle than he had expected. A few key shots had dropped the ceiling and most of the back wall on the creature. His partner was still trying to dig him out from underneath the rubble.

It was only unfortunate he was going to have to do it again.


Drip.

Water! I'm finally close to a damn exit to this hell trail. Isshin pushed his torch forward and tried to get a glance at what he was hearing.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He started running. After three days of near silence, listening to the disturbing rumble of Hueco Mundo's stomach above him, he had arrived somewhere. He waved the torch about wildly until he saw what was making the dripping noise.

The body of a tall humanoid arrancar had been nailed to the roof, its body bleeding slowly onto the floor. The body was disfigured, chunks of flesh missing and its mask forcefully ripped off the creature's face. A small puddle had formed beneath the body. Surprisingly enough, the hollow wasn't dead, or not completely anyway. Isshin could hear it whimpering. He had to put his ear close to the thing's mouth in order to hear it, but it was obvious once he did. Isshin did the merciful thing and cut off its head. It plopped onto the ground before being purified into dust. The rest of the body followed suit soon after.

Isshin took the experience as a sign that he was close to another entrance. The hollow couldn't have been there more than a couple hours. Of course, it also meant that there was a third hollow there with him, a hollow which liked to eat its victims slowly. Isshin couldn't sense its spiritual energy, which either implied that the beast was hiding it or was being overshadowed by the ones above ground. Regardless how it was doing it, chances were that it was up ahead.

Within the next half hour, he noticed a light emanating from what Isshin hoped was the end. Once more he ran for it. It never seemed to come any closer, so he used shunpo to push himself forward. The torch quickly blew itself out from his speed, so Isshin dropped it on the ground. The sound of it smashing onto the floor echoed throughout the tunnel. He laughed, but made a misstep, crashing into what like felt like a third wall.

He looked up to see the light ahead gone, replaced by a lumpy wall with no escape. Isshin felt the walls to check for some other kind of exit, fruitlessly.

I ran for three freaking days, and it gets me into a damn dead end.

"Shit! Damn that asshole Aizen!" Isshin shouted, kicking the wall in front of him. "This isn't goddamn right!" He kicked the wall another three times. He went for a fourth, but found that the wall had disappeared. He struck his lighter, the fire showing an empty corridor, with the light hovering at the end. Isshin blinked. He had kicked a wall just now hadn't he? He took a step forward and saw another passage intersecting with the one he was in. Then in the other tunnel he swore he could see something moving. He raised up his lighter.

Crawling far into the other tunnel was a hollow. The hollow was huge, two feet taller than Isshin, and barely wide enough to fit in the passageway. Isshin tried to quiet his breathing. However, the moment he moved, made a mark in the dirt, the hollow noticed. It rammed towards him, its thousands of legs scampering as fast as they could. The odd thing was that it never made a sound. Even as it ran towards him the creature was silent, the only noise coming from the snapping of its pincers. On second glance Isshin saw that the creature wasn't touching the rock. It was using its spiritual energy to form a barrier around itself, hovering its long body in mid-air.

As the charge came closer, Isshin wasn't sure whether he was facing the front of the back of the beast. He could only feel a rumbling and watch as it dived for him.

Isshin used shunpo to back into the corner before could arrive, and then jumped out of its grasp at the last possible moment. It stormed right into him, demolishing part of the wall before veering into the other tunnel. The hollow had Isshin between its pincers, inches away from its mouth, as it charged down the path.

Isshin tried to push himself free but the pincers clamped down on his chest, tightening as they attempted to rip him in half. Isshin wrestled away his arms away. He couldn't reach for his sword, but he was far from helpless.

"Shakkahō!"

His throat was rough when he said it, a symptom of not talking for nearly three days. That didn't stop a massive red ball of energy appeared in his head. He launched it at the hollow. The red flame shot at high speed into the beast's mouth and blew it up from the inside. The blast rippled throughout the rest of its body until all that was left was a smouldering mass. The pincers let Isshin go once it was finally dead. He took out his sword and purified the hollow. It immediately turned to dust, leaving an open path for Isshin to walk through.

He had been avoiding using Kido up until that point. Once Urahara had given him the gigai, Isshin had practiced using his sword again, but not Kido. He had never been very good at controlling his Kido attacks. They were usually all or nothing. And, seeing the way hollow had died, it was definitely on the 'all' switch. He was glad he hadn't tried to make a light for himself. It would've killed him.

Isshin found the way out after only a ten minute walk. At the end of the passage there was a hole in the ceiling. There was no ladder, so Isshin used his own spiritual pressure to push his body upwards. Topside, he groaned. His vision glared now that there was some light for a change. It didn't take long for his eyes to readjust, and once they did, he discovered that he was in another hallway. He groaned again. It seemed to go two ways. The left went on for quite a while, but the right looked to have a sizeable room close by. Isshin headed right. He found it more comforting to head to the place with the most light after being underground for so long.

As Isshin walked towards it, he heard crying. It sounded like it was coming from a child. He moved a little faster. The passage led to a circular chamber, with three other passage ways leading out of it, one of which appeared like it had been created by simply pounding at the wall until it broke. The crying came from a small girl in green rags, who was surrounded by two rather disturbing hollows. One was composed of a giant face, while the other looked like a near-human sized insect.

"Get away from her!" Isshin yelled, his throat still hoarse. He quickly ran over there and tried to shoo them off. He kicked the one with an oversized head and then threw the insect across the room. The insect smashed into the wall, smoothly falling down.

"Hey, what was that for!" The insect yelled, as it got back up to its feet. Isshin walked over and grabbed the hollow from the ground, prepared to kill it in an instant.

"Stop it! Stop hurting them!" The girl shrieked. She ran till she was beside Isshin, and pulled at his gi. "What did we do to you!"

Isshin turned to her, the arrancar still in his hand. "Kid, I'm trying to help-" Isshin stopped talking when he saw the girl's hollow mask. It was cartoon skull, seated right on head like it was a hat. The arrancar squirmed in his grasp as it tried to get free. "Wait, are you an arrancar?"

"Yeah, and I'll kick your ass if you don't let my older brother go!" The girl yelled, now attempting to climb his arm.

"Hey, hey, kid, get off me!" Isshin tried to buck the girl off as she scaled his back until she was standing on his shoulders. The arrancar in his hand used this opportunity to kick Isshin in the balls.

In sudden pain, Isshin tossed both the girl and the insect onto the ground.

"That hurt like hell," Isshin bellowed at the two arrancar. "You don't hit a man there!"

"B-but, you attacked us first!" She cried. Isshin rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to beat them silly.

After everyone calmed down, the three arrancar lined up in front of Isshin and bowed. They looked genuinely sorry. Isshin let them apologize, and then lectured them on proper fighting technique, repeatedly saying that the groin was not an honourable place to hit in a fight. The three arrancar nodded.

"We give you our bestest sorries! I was crying since two of our friends just ran into those doors without letting me follow them. I told them Aizen would brutally murder us if he seed us inside Las Noches! But-t" The girl started to cry again. The giant face and the insect latched on her and started crying too.

"They never think about us!" They said in unison.

Isshin wasn't sure what to do with them. They were arrancar, but they certainly didn't act like them. He tried to say something but wasn't sure what to call them either.

"Don't cry, um, hollows." Isshin stumbled through the phrase. This was getting really awkward. He took in a breath and kneeled down to the girl's level. He looked at them and spoke calmly. "Let's start again, who are you guys?"

They wiped the tears from their eyes quickly and all jumped into position.

It was a mess. It started out a little dumb with each of them yelling out their name but the rest was rotten. They each screamed something different, then started arguing with each other. Isshin sighed. How'd I get mixed up with these idiots? He didn't try to ask how they could possibly be siblings. That would have been too complex a question.

"I'm telling you, the Great Desert Brothers is the only thing worthy of our great being," Pesshe insisted. Dondochakka butted in and gave his own complaint.

"No, no! We gotta do the 'The Three Brothers'!"

"We can't do that. I'm a girl! We're the NellDonPe Bandits! It's got all of our names in it!" Nel pointed out. Isshin wondered how they had lived this long as hollows.

"Give it a rest. I'm not surprised they left you here." Isshin interjected. When they tried to start again, Isshin yelled at them. That seemed to calm them down.

"Just who brought you guys here? You may be arrancars, but you don't look strong enough to make that hole in the wall." Isshin pointed to the collapsed wall. Nel looked up happily.

"That was Chad and Ryuhen!" She announced, while Dondochakka and Pesshe did impressions behind her. Chad's resulted in Pesshe standing on top of Dondochakka with a grim expression on his face, while 'Ryuhen's' involved Nel pretending to have a bow and Dondochakka using Pesshe as arrows.

"Wait, Ryuhen or Ryuken?" Isshin asked eagerly.

"That's what I said! Ryuhen! Though, he kept telling me to call him something else. It's disrespectful to use first names with stranglers! he said." Isshin guessed the girl meant strangers. Excluding the error, it sounded like Ryuken.

Isshin laughed and raised a fist into the air. "So the stubborn idiot made it here after all!" He loved the idea that Ryuken had finally convinced himself to save his son rather than say it was beyond his responsibility. Then he looked at the three idiot arrancars standing before him.

"Yeah, no wonder he left you guys behind." Isshin snickered. The girl looked like she was about to cry again, so Isshin took back what he said. The other two looked a little happier too when he did so.

"Ryuhen was scared of us anyway. Our introduction was too powerful for him." Pesshe said this with pride in his eyes.

"I don't think powerful is the word for it." Isshin replied. Pesshe's pride disappeared. "And I doubt he was scared."

"Well, he said we was really weird 'cause we said somethin' funny." Nel added. She paused, looking thoughtful. Isshin didn't try to interrupt her with a comment. He was curious as to what would make Ryuken scared, or at least appear so. Not much fazed the mule, and hadn't since Isshin had known him. "I thought it was really weird too. We didn't say 'NellDonPe Bandits' or 'Great Desert Bros' or 'Three Brothers'"

"What did you say?" Isshin asked automatically.

"It was something like-"

"It was incoherent nonsense," Ryuken interjected. He walked into the rounded chamber from the third exit, arms crossed. Isshin looked at him triumphant. Ryuken was wearing a dusty and sand covered version of his white suit and blue tie. Nel was ecstatic to see the Quincy again, waving her arms wildly and running up to him.

"Guess even you can't resist the call when there's a crying kid involved," Isshin said with a grin. He was almost prepared to hug this man. He watched as Nel ran into Ryuken and started to knock at his legs, crying about Ryuken leaving them alone. Pesshe and Dondochakka watched too, though they didn't try to approach Ryuken. They seemed apprehensive about getting too close. Ryuken was impassive to the crying Nel, looking straight onto Isshin's face.

"That's hardly the case. I returned to this spot because I forgot to do something." Ryuken drew his bow and aimed at the room's high ceiling. After three shots the roof started to shake and crumble.

Isshin's immediate reaction was to run to where Ryuken was standing. Dondochakka and Pesshe came after him but they never quite made it. Stone slabs dropped in front of them, blocking their entry. Within a few minutes the entire roof had toppled on top of the exit. Isshin found himself hoping that they had made it out alright. They were the strangest hollows he had ever met, one of a kind. Nel ran away from Ryuken a few seconds too late. He fists, once smashing against Ryuken now banged at the rock blocking their path.

"Dondochakka! Pesshe! Bawabawa!" she bawled, almost trying to dig through the plug with her fists. "Can you hear me? Brothers, are you okay?" Isshin made sure that he didn't look happy. He glared at the quincy. Whatever Ryuken was trying to do, he didn't need to resolve it like this. Now, he was stuck in another hallway, except this time it was with a crying arrancar.

"What the hell did you that for?" Isshin said angrily. "You were here for two seconds, and you made the girl cry again."

"Follow me, I'll explain as we go." Ryuken replied and began to run down the corridor. "That includes you, hollow."

Nel's eyes shot between the rock and the man running away from her. She quickly made a choice, bursting for him. Isshin used shunpo to flash by her and sped ahead to Ryuken's side.

"So what's going on here?"

"It's the hollow girl." Ryuken began. "It's difficult to explain, but she's an Espada."

"Are you crazy? The kid can't even form complete sentences." Isshin spat.

"Believe what you like. However, I plan on getting this misadventure finished as soon as possible. Using the hollow is a simple way to do that."

Ryuken ran ahead to a hole in the hallway wall. He said to follow him then ducked and went through. Nel toddled in after him on her own. Isshin sighed and went on after them. The hole led to another hallway, designed as if it were part of a castle. It was clear they had found some obscure shortcut to the centre of Las Noches, beyond the purely plain rooms. The white walls were decorated with objects that appeared to be antiques. They were kept in small glass boxes to keep anyone from touching them. It was as if Ryuken had led them to a museum. Fighting was not meant to occur in these halls.

They had long stopped running. Ryuken seemed to be heading towards a pale steel door at the end of the path. As they got closer, Ryuken motioned for the rest of them to stay back. Isshin stayed cautious and kept an eye on Nel, who looked a little better since they had left her 'brothers'. Ryuken stood outside to door for a couple seconds, then grabbed the handle and opened it. Isshin ran to follow Ryuken inside, but Ryuken shut the door before he could. He grabbed the doorknob but it was already locked.

"Ryuken, what is this? Don't leave me out here with this kid." Isshin muttered. He tried knocking. Nel knocked harder.

"Ryuhen, you shouldn't be an asshole and leave us here!" She pouted. Obviously there was still some resentment there.

"It's unlocked." Ryuken said a minute later, opening the door for them. Isshin went inside with a huff. Ryuken had been acting really weird since Isshin had met him in the hall. Nel went in after Isshin. As he entered the room, Isshin almost immediately began to understand what Ryuken had been talking about. Nel Tu could definitely simplify their journey.