Chapter 11: Ballin'
A few of the zanpakuto spirits, including the twin water dragons, waved goodbye to Kenpachi as he walked away to try and find Xin and get back to the regular graveyard. The moon was starting to descend and he was getting restless, worrying about what Yachiru was doing while he was in the special graveyard. Xin soon popped out from behind a bush, nearly causing Kenpachi to grab him by the throat and strangle him for being so annoying.
"Looking for the exit?" the graveyard guard asked.
"Where-"
"That way!" Xin cut him off and pointed down a small side path he hadn't noticed before that led to a detailed, square arch.
Ignoring his urge to kill, Kenpachi headed towards the exit, finding it strange that the there was a wall of bushes that surrounded from the arch as far around the special graveyard as he could see. He also didn't like the silence he heard, or didn't hear, past the exit.
He stood in front of it for a moment, looking at it and trying to figure out if there was something special about it. He could see nothing but more graves on the other side. It seemed to be made out of old blades, but besides that looked perfectly normal. He took a cautionary breath and stepped through.
Yachiru dodged another attack aimed at her throat. These enemies rather liked to attack that weak point. She spun in the just in time to have a different sword place itself near her back. Her eyes widened and she twisted her body out of the way as the sword was lunged forward, aiming to kill.
When she landed there was so much force she skidded a few feet back, using her left hand to balance herself and regain her composure. She then felt something trickle down her chin. Without even having to wipe it away she knew it was blood. She closed her eyes for a millisecond as she cursed,
"Oh darn. It's no fun if Kenny's not here to see."
Her enemies, noticing her momentary weakness, moved quickly forward, weapons raised in attack. If she could see their faces, she figured they would look something like a zombies, completely void of emotion and understanding, not even comprehending anything.
They way they attacked her gave this impression. They were straight forward and didn't seem to care if they were hit. They were not affected by riatsu very much, and the wounds she had inflicted didn't bleed, just glowed black.
There were two, but first there had only been one, and she was prepared for more to appear. He had come out of nowhere, almost like he just sprouted right out of the ground. She lifted her sword to block her face, then in an offensive move, swung forward quickly to slash across the white mask covering the top half of her enemies face that stopped just below it's nose.
In truth, they wouldn't have been very difficult for her, except for their size. They were thin and short, only a few inches taller than her. Since she was not used to ever fighting something smaller than she, it was hard for her to quickly adapt. They wore solid black jumpsuits that blended in well with the dark and they obviously knew their way around the graves in the cemetery. The most annoying thing, though, had to be their zanpakuto. They were completely invisible.
Well, that was just Yachiru's first thought when she started fighting them. She soon found out that they were not actually invisible, they were simply so thin that when held the right way, became invisible in the dim light of the night. Every now and then the moon light would reflect off one of the blades and give her a better impression of what she was up against, but she still found that not being able to see what she was trying to dodge was awfully troublesome.
The swords were also longer than normal, besides being difficult to see, thin, and sharp. Yachiru had to keep her distance otherwise the weapon would be at her throat once again before she had a chance to defend herself. This was also messing up her style of fighting. She liked close combat offense, and thought defense was for weaklings. The more they pressed on towards her, the angrier she grew until she was snarling back and forth between both as they had cornered her in front of a rather tall headstone. She let loose a harsh wave of riatsu but the energy only distracted them for a minute. She rolled over to another grave then flash stepped quickly to sit, waiting, behind a different grave about 30 feet away from where they were looking for her.
Her chest rose and fell hard as she waited for them to find her. She closed her eyes for a moment then as she opened them, something caught her eye. In front of her, about another 10 feet away, was an arch. As she stared at it, it began to glow. She smiled as Kenpachi stepped through.
"Finally!"
His stronger riatsu instantly attracted the attention of the identical hallow creatures. They quickly made their way over to him, one slower than the other because Yachiru had succeeded in chopping off his leg. The other had a huge scratch across it's mask that almost but not quite made it through and killed him.
Kenpachi raised his eyebrows in surprise, noticing Yachiru sitting behind the headstone before he noticed her enemies. He might not have noticed them at all except that when he saw Yachiru's bleeding lip, he knew to look up to find the cause.
When he smiled he released all the energy he had been hiding, filling the night with an eerie yellow light coming from his very soul. This distracted the two enough so that Yachiru could slice through the both of them in one go, landing on her toes and sheathing her sword as they disappeared into the night.
Kenpachi smiled and nodded his head appreciatively.
"Nice." he said in a cheerful voice. "But how come you didn't let me finish 'em?"
She walked slowly over to where he stood and placed a hand on her hip.
"Can't let Kenny have too much fun." she then glanced around and added, "Besides, there's gonna be more."
Kenpachi watched her wearily for a moment, glanced back at the archway from which he came, then asked,
"So, you not gonna ask where I was?"
She sighed in a defeated tone then replied, "Ken-chan was trying to find his zanpakuto. Again." She spat the last word with a clear touch of venom, but didn't even look at him when she said it, instead stared at the moon with a calm, tired interest.
He hesitated, waiting for her to add more, perhaps give him the reason for her sour tone, but none came, she remained as silent as the dead around them. It was only then that Kenpachi noticed the light pink the sky was turning off in the distance, showing that morning was on its way. He waited a few more minutes for some sort of add-on from her, but again, none came. Finally he became impatient and began asking,
"Why are you-"
He was cut off by Ichigo dropping in unannounced, followed soon by all the others. They all seemed tired, and Kenpachi suddenly felt a bit bad that he hadn't been fighting with everyone else. Not that he was guilty about it, he just hated to miss a good fight.
"How'd it go with you two?"
"I met the bad guys!" Yachiru leaned back against Rangiku's leg as she spoke. "They don't talk much, do they?"
Ichigo just shook his head.
"We don't know why they're here, or what they want, we just know that their presence is not good for all the souls still stuck in this graveyard. All we can do is keep fighting and try to find some clues so we can take them down for good."
Everyone nodded. Rays of light began making their way across the barren land and Kenpachi noticed Yachiru's eyes begin to droop. If he did feel bad about anything, it was leaving her alone all night. When Uryu announced that it was time to return home, he softly picked her up and carried her all the way back to the shop.
After laying her down on the bed he cursed at himself, remembering that he needed to ask her if he ever talked in his sleep. He shrugged as he watched her small chest rise and fall in easy, even breaths.
"Guess I'll just ask tomorrow..."
"So those are our enemies?" he asked after Ichigo filled him in on what he'd missed. No one questioned where he'd been, they just assumed it had been important. "And they all fight the same?"
"Yup." Ichigo yawned sleepily. "The thin swords are the trickiest part, but one you get around them you only have to worry about the numbers."
Kenpachi gave him a questioning look which Ichigo answered with a tired sigh.
"We've been here a few months, and we've noticed a pattern. The more moon in the sky, the more of them we have to fight. Full moon is a bitch, but hey New moon is a cakewalk, so it kind of evens out."
"Seems like a lot of stuff has to do with the moon around here..." he muttered, remembering something Xin had said about the zanpakuto spirits and their connection to the moonlight.
Well I am tired. Then again, when it comes to my writing, that is usually a good thing. Well, it has pros and cons. Late nights equals good plot building and ideas and actually decent writing. But, it also means probably more typos because of laziness and my eyes beginning to droop as I type.
Review pwease!
KeikoPanda102
