Natsu felt that she had been running for much longer than a day by the time that she decided to collect her inner thoughts about the situation. Before she was just focused on the area, on seeing if there was another presence, if an enemy would come out of nowhere. As time had moved on, in this forever, white path, her attention must have slipped without her even knowing because the sense of urgency and tension she had at the beginning seemed to have diminished by now. Her once determined run had slipped to something of a useless jog as she was thinking about the situation at hand. Now that she had given herself a sharper reminder, unfortunately also condemning her to the growls of the lion in her, she took the chance to consider the place that she had been stuck in. How long had she been here?
It really was an endless line of going through a black tunnel, except without seeing the light at the end of it. There were no flames that came up along the walls either to give her any sort of light. Obviously, Aizen had not put a lot of attention in the construction of this particular area of his palace. She had lit up her hand again with her kido to see that she was, at the very least, not backtracking. All she could see around her, though, was a long corridor of pure white. The only marker that seemed to differentiate one slab of white from another slab of white was an off-gray seam that kept the pieces together to create this entire wall. How was she supposed to tell if she was moving forward when there was nothing to give her even a sense of direction? She only felt she was moving forward because she knew she hadn't turned around at some point and gone back the other way. However, visually, there was no way of knowing if she hadn't become lost or if, for some reason, she had gone backwards. Her teeth only gritted when she felt the small flickers of her compatriots reiatsus already spiking a bit as they engaged in their battles, but otherwise she continued along in the only direction she thought to go.
Will you at least release me in advance, Natsu?
… Shuddup, ya annoyin'
Consider it being prepared should the enemy sneak up on you, brat.
Natsu let out a huffy response to the growling the lion was doing and slowed her run down, again, so that she could draw out her zanpakuto from the seal on her wrist. Her words took up the space as if she was in the confines of a dark corner that seeped out any other noise. Her eyes narrowed slightly at that feeling of the words being drawn away from her and sucked into the walls before she could even tell if they left her mouth. In fact, when was it that she had heard anything in the past lifetime that she had been in the space? She couldn't recall if her footsteps had even made a noise as they kept beating against the ground in her run. As she felt the katana and the tanto in both of her hands, she slide the two of them into the sheaths on her back and picked up her pace to where it had once been.
Good instincts brat.
…. Wha'cha talkin' 'bout.
Something's weird about the space we're in.
Natsu halted altogether at the lion growling in her head. She could feel the way her head shifted over to a tilt in a small consideration to this annoyingly worded sensation. Even her own gut was pulsing at her to change up what she was doing. On off occasions, the lion actually made a lot of sense and after years of trying and failing to ignore how the lion was often connected to her gut feelings about situations, Natsu learnt to listen to it. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she held up her left hand out in front of her face. She could make out the electricity that was running through her palm, her fingers, and the energy that the kido seemed to create. Even as she held that electricity to her face, she couldn't make out anything but that small tingle of feeling in her fingers. No sound of the sparks of electricity that were moving along her ligaments. And she only knew her hand was lit because of the way her eyes squirmed at looking too directly at it. This energy, the sounds, the endless corridor all seemed so starkly different from how everything around her should feel. She should have air, and sound, and difference.
She stuck out her hand in the direction she was moving in and loaded up more power to shoot it off. As the light grew stronger and stronger she finally released it up ahead of her. The entire corridor lit up for just a brief moment as the electricity took over the space and then she saw the shot slipping away into the darkness as it traveled too fast for her to keep up with. Not moments later, she forced herself up against the wall as she felt a pressure coming up from her back suddenly. The wall shot small needles of cold up along her back as she pressed closer to it, heightening her sense of awareness about the situation she was in as she grew more awake. She watched as her own kido came back and passing in front of her again. She let out a small puff of air and as it came back around for the second time she used hanki to cancel out the demon art until it fizzled up into a small trail of smoke.
Aizen's got 'is tricks then… An' endless loop.
We going up? Or to the sides?
So muc' fo' not takin' time ta develop tha area... 'E musta put lo's of thought inta this part.
We going up? ... Or to the sides? Brat!
Natsu tapped slightly on the wall but she heard none of the knocks that should have echoed out. It took her a moment to register that she, indeed, hadn't actually heard anything. Now that she could focus on it, she knew that her own brain filled in the information of what it should have sounded like even if the noise hadn't actually been made. She tapped on the wall again to make sure that she wasn't just imagining the sensation of how hollow the wall should have sounded. The skin around her eyes tightened, and she could tell that as her vision grew smaller, her eyes had slanted into a frown. She really had become completely deaf in the looped circle she had been running in. Her brain had been the only thing that had been filling in all the sounds from the way her feet had fallen to the breaths that she had taken, and, now, to how the knocks on the wall should have sounded.
There must have been some sort of illusion placed on the hallway. Aizen must have known how brains can often fill in the gaps of information almost automatically even if it was what was in those gaps that was often that part that was incorrect. How Aizen could do this at the very beginning when she was at her most tense was interesting. In theory, that should have been the time she noticed those differences to begin with. Yet, she hadn't been asking those questions as she stepped further and further into enemy territory. She really should have been questioning such things. Maybe that was just because she was too naive into thinking he wouldn't do something directly at the beginning? It was Aizen, he wouldn't do direct attacks. Natsu blew some air out of her nose to focus her mind a little bit more and to calm down the sensation of her neurons tripping over one another as they ran too fast. She certainly had a lot more things to learn but right now was not the time to be worried about how she was too lackadaisical about the situation. Right now, was not the time to get into a huff about her experience or lack there of.
Righ' now-
You're a crappy fighter but that's why you have me.
Shudup!... Whatta bitch.
Whatever... Let's get moving.
Natsu rolled her eyes at the lion that was letting out more growls about the lack of motion. The lion was all about the urgency that it was feeling to get its blood for the day, and not about problem solving the situation that they had found themselves in. If only she had the woman version of Sekhmet to actually plan accordingly than she would be much better off right now. Actually, Natsu pondered, it was probably because Sekhmet was a lion right now that those observation she should have made, weren't made at all.
Don't blame me for your incompetency, brat.
Oh~ Incompetency. Tha's a big word.
Listen ya damn thing, lion's have great senses. Just because you don't know how to tap into them is your fault. You haven't trained!
Sheesh... ya righ' I don' wanna know.
Then-
Natsu shut down the voice in her head as she turned back to the situation to figure out the best way out of it. She couldn't back track because somehow she had ended up in a loop so she'd only end up back where she was right at this moment. When the door had disappeared she doubted she'd ever find out, but it wouldn't even help to find it at this point. It would just be a waste of time and energy; both of which she really couldn't afford to expend any more of. Now if she burst through the walls either left or right she could either end up back outside of Las Noches or she could end up in another place or nowhere at all inside of Las Noches. If she went up through the ceiling then she probably had the same probability of ending up somewhere completely new or nowhere.
Going down, she pondered, probably wouldn't be good at all. After all, the group had entered on ground level, and she hadn't felt herself moving up a hill or something at any point in time. It could have been another illusion but she had to start getting rid of options. She let out a strong huff before she sent her arm up straight above her. Heading up somehow seemed like the most likely of getting out of the situation, for some reason. Most likely because it was always the last thing that was expected. Humans very rarely had the tendency to look up during situations. But, more logically, every building had a roof, so she was bound to get out of this situation if she went up.
As Natsu felt her own mouth moving, she was thankful that somewhere in the back of her head she could implant how her voice sounded. "Hadou 31: Shakkaho."
The red beam shot out from her hand and burst through the roof of the circular passage way she had been in. The deafness still retained itself as she could only make out the sight of the new passageway that had been formed. There was no sound of the boom as the kido met the wall or the sounds of crumbling walls or rocks falling down and clattering close to her. Even the smoke seemed to lack its usual intensity as it seemed to purely become a visual effect, instead of that odd claustrophobic feeling that it usually created. She flung herself up immediately even as the smoke was still evaporating with her eyes narrowing down to prevent them from watering.
As she grew closer to the top, she gave a final push on some reishi to climb through. She scattered away from the hole and over towards the right as quickly as possible as soon as she was on the on the other side. Her right hand swooped to her back as she placed herself on guard with her knees coming just up from the ground and her left hand falling to touch the ground as she shifted her weight about. The balls of her feet were tense as she rolled onto them so that she could pounce if necessary. Her hand tightened down on her hilt as she began to rove over the entirety of the room that she had gotten into, which appeared to have a lack of people in it. There was nothing that called her immediate attention as the smoke and dust finally began to settle from her explosion.
Her feet shifted and then her legs, as she re-balanced so that she could come up straight and her eyes looked down at it to make sure that she really had moved. She still couldn't make out any of sounds and even though she was certain of knowing how to control her body she needed to make sure. There was still no footfall, and therefore watching as her feet paced became essential to understanding that she was actually moving. Her eyes narrowed slightly since it appeared that deafness was not just an illusion placed on the hallway. It appeared that it might actually have to do with the section of the building she was in. She could be in a noise cancelling part of the building but the more she thought about it, there was really no need for that to actually exist. Deafness became an impediment to those that were actually able to hear, as the learning curve was something that was not easily surmountable; particularly when it happened suddenly or happened too quickly for the brain to register.
Probably got somethin' ta do wit' tha enemy, then.
Assassin?
... Coul' be.
Deafness was probably the first worst thing for a warrior to have, Natsu presumed, second to not feeling pain. Feeling pain was essential only in circumstances of injury to make sure that it was registered that the person was bleeding or if their body was struggling in some manner. Potentially, most people with that affliction probably already knew this and became more cautious with their bodies. Deafness, in Natsu's thoughts, seemed to be more integral to being able to work around a space and to understand it. She'd actual prefer to be blind to losing any other sense if anyone had bothered to ask her about her opinion on the matter. If she had all other senses - touch, reiatsu sensing, smell, and hearing - she'd be able to construct the area even within the limitation of her blindness about the visuals.
Additionally sometimes eyes could play tricks on the holder. Aizen was the most obvious example with his complete hypnosis making the opponent see what he crafted for them. But even a person's own brain could play tricks on them. Deserts were a typical example since when deprived of water the person could end up hallucinating and implanting an image which the other senses would know were not actually true at all. There are occasions of that happening in every day life. In that way, eyes could be more deceiving than any other sense that a person had to use. Hearing, therefore, seemed to hold a lot of useful information about the patterns of the environment around her and Natsu couldn't imagine a situation in which she would have to figure out how to work around it.
Tha hassle of learnin' 'ow ta do tha... Ugh
Why are you thinking about such useless things?
Woul' ya actually shudup?
Her eyes took in what appeared to be a group bathing room. Having the same white color as everywhere else it didn't stand out from what little else she had seen in that aspect. Instead of being made of stones, however, it had white tiles all along it. There was a gloss along the floor, perhaps a recent polish, and she could see her figure standing like a black mass in the reflected image of them. Her eyes then snapped over to the two large baths that were there. They were square in shape and seemed to have constantly flowing water. Though she wasn't able to hear the sound of the running water, or the clatter as the water dropped into its basin, she was able to make out the faucets and the level of water in the tubs; a level which never seemed to rise.
Her eyes trailed over to see if she could find anything else that was remarkable about the sight before her but there was nothing. Whatever passage way she had ended up in appeared to be the inner lining of the walls for the bathing room since the rooms appeared to share that same circular shape. She would have assumed it was where the pipes for the water were but there was no leaking or rush of water which meant it was probably just a trap. She took a glance behind her to see that she was on some sort of ledge just above the room, with windows that faced outwards. Taking a cautious half step toward the glass, after she had finished examining the hole she had come out of, she was able to take in the large dunes of sand inside Las Noches. The only difference from the inside and the outside of the palace had to be the sky. The sky which inside was bright with blue skies and had a sun that was shining down were conviction to everyone in the palace. But Natsu highly doubted it created the same effect.
She teetered back slightly, turning half way around, and felt the hairs on her skin stand upright at the image before her. If the closing door was anything to go by, the arrancar that Natsu was staring at now, had only just entered the room. It was the absence of sound that startled Natsu's brain into overdrive as she tried to make up for the lost few seconds of attention that she had given to her surroundings. Even as she knew the arrancar wasn't going to attack her just yet, the whisper of doubt overshadowed by the calm aura the arrancar gave off, Natsu found her hand wandering towards the hilt of her sword a millimeter per second. Yet, she kept her mask as firmly placed along her features as ever, with only a tilt of her head to give off the sign that she was now addressing her opponent.
This time before her, was a female arrancar who had long red hair going down to the hips in gentle waves. There was a solemn look on the woman's face which was bare of any sort of mask that was commonplace for arrancar. Natsu traced over the sunken black eyes that looked like two holes in the arrancar's face, and the tragedy that was lined in the frown that marred the skin of the face of the arrancar female in front of her. This arrancar was wearing something that looked like a halter dress though its material looked like a bed sheet with its pristine whiteness and the image of appearing non-hemmed or cut for her body in any way. It was flattering in its own way, though; showing off the well endowed form of the arrancar and cutting off to show the shapely legs that she had from the mid-thigh down. Along her shoulders was the proof of her hollowness that Natsu had been looking for. There were the remnants of her bony mask which extended all along her collar bone. It appeared to be like teeth, with the jagged points extending down along her skin. She also had a hollow hole directly through her throat.
Natsu turned the rest of the way around to face the woman as the black eyes blinked at her. Not moments later, a few tears started to fall down from the black pools that were watching her. Natsu felt her grip on her hilt tighten, no doubt leaving her knuckles white in anticipation from the sudden change of emotion, and she slide out her zanpakuto completely; a movement which helped her maneuver the sword in front of her just in time to stop the kick that flew at her. Her second hand landed on the hilt as she went through all of the blocks and dodges to get out of each kick and punch that was sent her way.
She flipped off the ledge, still facing this arrancar, and as soon as she was on the ground she pushed backwards. She inched and inched until she was still on defensive somewhere between where the two baths were in the room. Her teeth gritted down at the force that the arrancar was using and the exponential sadness that seemed to just seep out of the enemy. Tears were running faster and faster until Natsu had to assume that the arrancar's vision had gotten blurred. Using it to her advantage, Natsu got in a long slide at the woman's waist as she ducked under a punch and rushed forward to the other side. When Natsu turned around from her glide through, the arrancar was looking down at the cut that now marked her once white skin with red. When the arrancar had fully turned around, so that they were facing one another once again, Natsu hefted up her zanpakuto to be ready for another onslaught.
I's weird…. She coulda used shunpo an' this figh' would be 'arda.
Why is she crying, brat?
Don't ask me tha'? How'm I suppos' ta know?
The arrancar only stood still as they were considering one another. Natsu felt her smirk slipping back onto her features as she watched that continuous trail of tears along her enemy's face. It was absolutely certain that the arrancar had to have been joking with her in those last rallies of movement. In this deafened area, the use of shunpo would have made her almost untraceable if Natsu wasn't able to keep up; a high probability given the amount of time it took for eyes to translate what they saw and process it through the brain. Yet the arrancar had only gone for slower swipes and had even taken it a bit easy on the strength so that Natsu could keep up with them all.
Natsu took her left hand off the hilt of her sword and beckoned the enemy forward again. The arrancar paused slightly, a jerk moving from the hesitant step she made forward, with her eyes narrowing at the gesture. It seemed that whatever the arrancar had been thinking quickly passed over though, as there was the tiniest of twitches along the arrancar's eyes; usually a physical reaction to being fed up at the situation. Natsu had seen that far too many times to be able to ignore it when she saw it replicated on someone else. Thank kami-sama for Izuru's irritable personality as an underling. The frown on the arrancar's face grew, with a small baring of her teeth as they clenched together, and then fell back into a harsh bridge over her face.
Natsu sunk back into position after she watched the emotional response from the quick taunt that she had thrown give way to something just a bit more deadly. Her body jolted, and she could feel the tension sweep along her shoulders, as she watched the arrancar pull out a sword which had been strapped against the middle of its stomach under its dress. Her eyes sharpened along the arrancar's face as the sunken holes were no longer connected with her own auburn freckled eyes. The blade glinted for just a second before Natsu's attention was piercing the arrancar's lips that were moving. Then there was an increase in reiatsu in the area.
Now before her stood something very similar to the woman except that there were wings that had grown out of her back. The arrancar had taken to floating slightly just above the ground, as the bottom end of the wings were created to make something of butterfly with her body; maybe, it looked a bit more like a moth. A gentle wind started to gush towards Natsu and shallow cuts formed along her skin which had her jerking backwards before she quickly remedied and maintained her stance.
Wind huh? - Tha's tough.
The arrancar's mouth opened up. Except, unlike in normal situations, the mouth never seemed to end. It kept opening and opening as the jaws almost unhinged. A loud shriek echoed out and Natsu ground through her teeth at the sudden explosion of noise. It was high pitched in frequency and shrill like a murder had just happened. Not murder of just anyone, but murder of the arrancar that stood before her. It was a last message from a dying woman as she exacted the only pain she could inflict on the people against her. Natsu could feel the blood tripping over her ears and running down her jaw before it dripped off somewhere into the space before splattering on the floor.
Now I'mma really deaf…. Sucks.
The arrancar came flying at her once its mouth had closed up again and Natsu found it impossible to move. Her eyes narrowed as she took the direct hit to the sternum from a punch and then let herself fall limp down to the ground whilst half hanging onto the wall behind her. Another hit came after and then another, until she felt the wall truly digging into her back. As another kick came, she was bent over to reach her own thighs as she had been shoved into the hole that her own body had dug out for itself.
Fuck.
Natsu groaned and coughed out blood that dropped down onto her thighs when the onslaught finally stopped. The hits had probably cracked a few of her ribs, but, more importantly, the wail just before had paralyzed her completely. The speed at which the arrancar had moved would have been hard to keep up with to begin with, but she hadn't even been able to move anything to bring her guard up. Her brain had told her to do so, but her body had been completely severed from her brain at that moment.
So i's really tha wail I gotta watch fo'…. Wha' a fuckin' 'orrible power.
It was an annoying sound.
…. Tha's a stupid comment. Don't ya got somethin' ta 'elp me shut 'er up.
That's your problem.
Natsu huffed at the lion which was battle stupid like Ikkaku and had none of the intellectual sense that the woman healer of her zanpakuto spirit did. Her eyes peaked up to see that the arrancar had wandered off slightly. It was, however, still in its released state as it was hovering just over the ground as it made small figure eights along the space. Natsu couldn't tell if the arrancar was expecting her to get back up or if it was simply cautious. Or, perhaps, too emotional to go back to a sealed form at the moment. The mournful blue-black wings flapped slightly to keep the body hovering and seemed to have blinking eyes on them, although Natsu knew them just to be patterns after looking at them for a bit longer.
With a little bit of squirming, Natsu crept forward and slunk down onto the ground just under the hole as silently as possible. Old habits were dying hard as she belatedly realized that there was no sound in the area, though she wasn't sure if the arrancar was actually deaf. Maybe she just had the ability to create a vacuum of sound as a way to amplify that shriek of hers. Natsu planted her fingers just ahead of her and whispered out, "bakudou 44: sekisho", and a wall appeared in front of her body. Her fingers then trailed over her ears, taking note of the blood and then the communicator which had somehow stayed in tact through the high resonant sound. Cupping the two of them with one hand each she used a small "bakudou 39: enkosen" to condense her reiatsu over the ears to cover them up as a way to prevent the wails. Hopefully, if the arrancar wailed again, it would mean that the bakudou was destroyed, thereby canceling out the effects of the shriek.
Her zanpakuto had slipped from her grasp just as she was about to be flung into the wall for the last time, but at least it was in reaching distance. She gathered it up in her right hand as she placed her left right onto the kido wall that she had crafted. When her hand was placed firmly enough and her body was ready to spring her lips trailed out the words of, "hadou 58: tenran."
The wall she had erected crashed down and she saw the tornado-like blast sweeping right into the arrancar who had gotten curious and, as such, had gotten a bit closer to her during the wait. Its mouth opened to let out a wail but before it could release any noise, the arrancar got sucked into the movements of the twister. Natsu made out the small tears at the wings of the arrancar as it was flung around in circles and then was slammed up towards the roof. Its body then crashed down onto the ground.
I's kinda disappointin' when I don't got no sound.
There was no way to tell if the bakudou by her ears would work, but Natsu got up from her kneel and dragged her sword up until she was guarding her body again. The arrancar came up with a stumble; staggering over its own feet. Natsu watched as it built up air in its chest, an action that caused Natsu to tense and bring her sword up just a bit more readily, before hearing that shriek echo through the room. There was a pulsation by her ears but the bakudo held up giving Natsu a great, big grin along her face as she rushed forward. Her sword swung out as she edged another slice at the one she had adorned the arrancar with previously. The arrancar tripped backwards at the new hit and Natsu followed through quickly by sending another slash down the woman's chest.
The red-haired woman dropped down easily at the third hit with its mouth wide open. The black eyes slowly trailed off to the side, while Natsu looked at the small trickle of steam that rose from her own zanpakuto at the taste of the enemy's blood. She released the bakudo on her ears and then dragged her tanto out to raise the heat up to her ears. She quickly made her way over to the door and waited by it as she gathered up her breathe and calmed down her heart. Natsu shifted between the healing and testing how the ear felt with her fingers until she could only feel dried blood.
Ya think i's 'ealed?
You might be able to tell if you leave the room.
…. Tha's not a bad idea.
Natsu stowed the tanto away and then twisted the handle down. She tossed a look over her shoulder but could only see the corpse of the dead arrancar before she was pulling the door towards her. As quietly as possible, Natsu slid one foot out and then drifted her entire body through the crack that she had made. When she drew through the rest of her body, she had was never more relieved than to hear the small groan of the door, the heavy thump of it hitting in its frame, and the slink of the door's lock shutting in place.