thirteen. glowing in the dark
A blinding grin broke out on Yuna's face as she set me back on my feet in the sand. "'Sup Kaori?"
I stumbled back a step before I landed on my backside, numb. What the fuck. What the fuck was she doing there? She was supposed to be back in the Seireitei.
The only logical thought I seemed to be having was, Grimmjow was right. She is behind this. The next was, Wait. Where is Grimmjow.
Even though I knew it was leaving me wide open-not like I actually stood a chance against Yuna anyway, especially since she had years of experience under her belt-I risked a look around me. Ichigo was on his feet, a smile pulling at the curves of his mouth, eyes crinkling at the edges at something I couldn't see. And Grimmjow was-
Well. Grimmjow was pushing himself up and out of the sand, trying to comb it out of his hair with a scowl on his face and a red mark on his forehead. Sand caked the front of his shirt, and I noticed that there was a sizeable rut behind him.
It was pretty obvious he had landed on his face and slid a little.
The scowl he wore faded a bit when he looked at me, but returned twice as bad the second he saw who stood in front of me. He must of reached the same conclusion I had had just seconds prior.
My attention quickly went back to the woman before me, sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized that sword-Hideki was no longer in my hands, but lying in the sand at her feet.
How the heck was I supposed to get him without coming into easy striking distance of her?
The female Shinigami didn't seen to notice my dilemma.
"I told you I'd catch one of them," Yuna crowed, tossing a cheeky grin over her shoulder. It was then that I noticed she wasn't wearing the grungy garb I was so used to seeing her in-she was in her Shinigami uniform, honey hair piled in a bun on top of her head and bells hanging off of her ears.
Behind her, I noticed Rukia and Renji both. Behind them was another Shinigami, this one with a white haori over his uniform. I had not seen him before, but I was pretty sure he might have been a hallucination.
But that was only because he looked a little too pretty and carved from ice to actually be real.
"Yeah, but you picked Kaori. She's the lightest out of the three!" My attention shuffled back to Renji.
"And the least likely to land on her feet," Yuna said smugly, turning her blinding smile on me and holding out a hand. I didn't like that she wore sunglasses-that I couldn't see her eyes to see if her smile reached them or not. "And there was never a weight restriction on the bet, Abarai. Need a hand?"
The last part was directed toward me-there was no one else it could be for, since she was holding her hand out to me and I was the only one on the ground. My nerves had calmed, though, especially since Renji and Rukia were there with her. That had to be a good sign, right?
Before I could make up my mind, there was a hand on my shoulder that I knew just about as well as my own. I glanced up with a half nod before looking back to Yuna as Grimmjow hauled me to my feet without me helping.
"What'd they do? Send the whole Sixth Division?" Ichigo asked, unaware of my mental battle.
"Of course not!" Yuna scoffed, eyes sliding from me to the Substitute Shinigami.
"Yeah, we had to leave at least one person there to run the division into the ground," Renji tacked on. Yuna reached out with blinding speed and jabbed two of her fingers in between his ribs, bringing her arm back to her side as Renji jumped away from her and nearly toppled Rukia over.
"No one is running anything into the ground," Yuna stressed. "I mean, we shouldn't be gone long enough for anyone to run anything into the ground. Probably. Hopefully." She smacked a hand over her eyes, scrunching up her face and knocking her massive sunglasses askew.
My eyes flicked to Hideki at her feet, wondering if it was really safe to pick him up. I felt like I needed to have him in my hands, almost like a child would need a teddy bear or a safety blanket or something.
Making up my mind, I stepped away from Grimmjow and out of his reach, covering the small expanse of space between Yuna and I to pick up the asauchi. There was a conversation going on around me, one that I wasn't quite aware of as I reached down and scooped up Hideki.
You really need to have a tighter grip, Ka-chan. I do not like getting flung all over the place like a shoe! I took a step back from Yuna and tucked Hideki through the straps of my backpack so he was horizontal to my back.
Did you miss the part where I was literally falling through thin air and hurtling toward a sand covered ground where I could have died from the impact? Or were you asleep?
I was checking out my ass in the mirror.
I was going to tell him that he had neither an ass or a mirror, since he didn't even have a corporeal form, but I decided against it-locked in my head all day all the time, he needed to have some way to vent, even if it was just passive aggressively.
Everyone seemed to have agreed to something, so I decided to just go with the flow despite having heard not a single word said. For all I knew, they had all just agreed to run off to our deaths or fly by the seat of our pants into whatever dangers awaited us.
Although, considering both Ichigo and Renji were there and had actively been part of the conversation, I could almost assume that that was exactly what we were doing.
So I went along like I had heard and agreed with the plan, staying mostly quiet until I couldn't take the extended silence any longer. I still didn't know the name of the extra party that was with us, and it was beginning to bother me.
Yuna was running next to me, though, and I had decided that she probably wasn't the threat I had thought she had been earlier. And, on top of that, she had caught me when I had nearly crashed to the ground.
"Who's the douche in the white haori?" I mumbled to Yuna, making sure to keep my voice down so that said person would be unable to hear me.
Unfortunately, Yuna squaked loudly before smacking a hand over her mouth, sides shaking and eyes filling up with tears as she tried to keep her laughter to a minimum. I didn't know what she was laughing at-my phraseology? Some inside joke that my words had made surface in her mind?
"Kuchiki Byakuya, Captain of the Sixth Division and, coincidentally, Rukia's older brother. And he's technically in charge of this little foray we're on."
Great. I had just called her boss a douche. Although, she hadn't necessarily disagreed with me, which might have been on the plus side.
At least you didn't say it to his face, Hideki chimed in my head. Although, honestly Ka-chan, you literally could have asked me. I know that kind of shit.
You haven't been in the Soul Society for at least fourteen years, Hideki.
He didn't reply, for all of his earlier bluster. I didn't reply to Yuna, either, eyes scanning what I could see of the horizon that wasn't blocked in my view.
After what seemed like ages of running, the tension in the air was thick with unsaid words and long standing vendettas I only half understood. Like, yeah, so Grimmjow might have almost successfully killed Rukia at one point, but she seemed kind of over it. Captain Kuchiki and Renji, on the other hand, were less willing to forgive that small slight.
Thus, Grimmjow had taken to running in what was the back of the pack, just behind Yuna and I. Renji, Rukia, and Ichigo were all running at the front, with Captain Kuchiki just a ways ahead of Yuna and myself.
I was thinking about how good it was that I had actually remembered to put on extra deodorant that morning when I nearly tripped and landed on my face.
Regaining my footing before anyone had a chance to notice I was falling, I looked around. Our surroundings had changed without me really noticing, so focused on what was ahead of me that I didn't seem to notice what had been around me.
What was once Las Noches was now nothing but ruins, white chunks of stone sticking up out of the sand at awkward angles, edges roughly hewn and poorly shaped. What were once tall, pristine spires were now just dulled teeth sticking out of the ground. Before us rose a massive dune and-based on how Ichigo and everyone else was going-we were going to have to go up it.
The burn in my thighs wasn't exactly pleased with that decision, but I had argued to be there. I was going to keep going until my lungs gave out and my legs fell off.
Of course, I fell behind when we started up the sand covered dune-I mean, really? SAND? I hated running in sand, let alone trying to run up something covered in sand. I was covered in sweat, workout clothes clinging to my body and likely not smelling good at all. To my chagrin, I was the only person who had even broken a sweat.
That did nothing for my ego.
I stopped running with everyone else when I got the top of the dune, mouth hanging open and my heart a jackhammer in my chest as I panted and attempted to get some air back in my lungs.
Stretched out before me was another part of Las Noches, smaller than I remembered it, but no where near as run down as the rest of the rubble we had passed. But it was clean, shining white in a way that nearly blinded me and much better put together than the other ruins. From what I could see, there were no breaches in the walls, no doors that proudly declared 'enter', and-most importantly-there seemed to be no activity around it whatsoever.
"We watched it for a few hours before you guys came," Rukia said into the silence. Her voice was quiet in the desert, and the suddenness of someone actually speaking made me jump. "There was no activity."
"So they might not even be in there?" Ichigo asked.
"It's a possibility," Yuna supplied, sliding her sunglasses off of her face and folding them up. Her eyes were hyperfocused on Las Noches, almost like she was looking for something she was sure was there. "Of course, our official mission is that we're to investigate Las Noches. If nothing happens to be inside related to what y'all have been seeing around Karakura, we go home and hope nothing bad happens."
"And if there is something in there?" I piped up, eyeing the dune's incline warily. It would probably be easier for me to go down on my ass or stomach that it would be to walk-mainly because it was steep, and I would likely end up on either body part either way.
"What is done then is yet to be decided." I nearly jumped out of my skin at the voice I had yet to hear-Captain Kuchiki had finally spoken up about something. I had been sure he was just going to spend the whole trip glowering at everyone distastefully like an adult chaperon at an American Senior Prom who had to stand there and watch everyone grind on each other.
"Who decides what happens?" Ichigo again; Renji and Grimmjow had been weirdly silent thus far, no snide comments from either party or helpful input. I could understand why Grimmjow was quiet-he was, after all, in a place that he had never wanted to be again gazing upon what was once his home.
"Captain does," Yuna replied grimly; her eyes still had not left Las Noches, and I was beginning to wonder just what sort of strain she was putting on her retinas to see basically nothing at all. But the way that her words came out, the weird undertone of worry mixed with determination, had me on edge.
I pursed my lips and looked back to Las Noches, hoping I would never find out why she sounded so grim when she had proclaimed those two simple words. As I stared, I came to realization that surprised me.
There was a part of me that couldn't wait to go inside.
And that-that was the part of me that I was afraid of.
i'm so sorry this took a month but my mental health hasn't been that great and i literally have not been able to make myself sit down and write and i know this is short and like. not up to normal quality but. if you've seen the recent chapter of bleach you'll understand.
thank you all for being so patient with me and encouraging in this venture and leaving encouraging words and suggestions!