Natsu let out a small shudder as she thought back to the anguishing wail that had been the only thing that she had heard the entire time since entering Aizen's palace. The shriek rattled in the very front of her ears but the piercing high note that was in the background seemed to make an immersive noise somewhere in the back of her head. She couldn't shake it no matter how hard she tried, or how much she tried to train her focus on something else. Her ears had made a full, physical recovery when the human form of Sekhmet had finally been able to claim a small moment from the angsty, lion. Inner brain damage, which Sekhmet a ruled out, was still on her running list of complaints about this entire ribs which she had proposed were cracked initially, were only bruised, along with the membrane of her lungs, so a conscience decision was made to forgo wasting the healing energy on them just yet. That, however, did not mean that Ichigo would get an earful when she was done with this escapade.

She had been wandering along this new hallway for some time now, as she flickered her eyes up to the area around her. It was much the same as the other ones she had been in maybe only a few moments before and the moments before that; in the long hours she had spent wandering since she left the bathing rooms, actually. She couldn't remember when she had actually left the bathing room for this long, endless stream of monotonous hallways. The only difference had to be that these hallways were finally getting much higher ceilings and looked like she had actually made it inside the official buildings that were Las Noches. There were large windows that came up along one side of the walls, and had the sun coming through so strongly that even the corners had their own amount of light. There was not a single space that didn't have some sort of light in the space. Ironic for a world that was actually cast in the darkness of the moonlight.

Even as she kept her face up front, Natsu couldn't help the knee-jerk reaction of her head as she felt the sudden crash of Chad's reiatsu. From what she could sense it was coming from what appeared to be the complete opposite side of campus and too far away for her to get to even as her pace began to speed up a little bit more along the hallway. In her small jog, her eyes narrowed slightly and she felt the tingle in her own reiatsu as the seal activated. The tense pulse going through her body dulled slightly. He wasn't on death's door, if the seal had been activated.

That being said there were two obstacles she now faced as she couldn't tell if the seal would be enough to stabilize him. In order to improve the technique, Natsu had to put an internal limiter on the seal so that her own personal reiatsu wouldn't be drained too much. The second limitation to the seal, was that she had several active seals that were linked directly to her reiatsu which meant that she had to be careful with the disbursement of reiatsu through each different seal. After another quick scan, Natsu could tell that none of the others had gotten injured enough to use it yet. With that deduction done, Natsu pushed just a bit more reiatsu to his seal to hopefully counter whatever type of injury that occurred to his body. It was obviously bad enough that his reiatsu had dropped significantly from it. If she stretched just a bit more she thought she might have felt something much stronger by him, but it was too shaky to know what type of opponent he was up against.

"You beat Tumula, I see."

Natsu jerked around at the sudden voice, hand flying to the sword that was on her hip as she steadied her stance. Her eyes flickered from the body which was slowly departing from its position by the wall; a hidden door closing behind the thin arrancar. Sekhmet let out a small hiss at her negligence for paying attention to the environment around them. Who knows how many hidden doors she had walked by without any knowledge at this point. Hidden rooms were often the most important ones to check out. After all, why go through the trouble of hiding something that you wanted others to find? However, they usually ended up being the most dangerous as they were the most heavily guarded. The thought of doing it anyway, had the corner of her lip curving as she received another warning from her zanpakuto.

Her eyes fell towards the androgenous being that was in front of her. The voice had been a smooth sound; neither deep nor high. It also had no inflections or pronunciations that would give away the gender. The arrancar was also thin enough to appear female but there was no shape to the figure which might make it a stick like male. In fact the entire body was covered up in another large tarp like cloth; something of a common fabric in Hueco Mundo if Nel and her posse were to go by. Even the arrancar's face was completely concealed as it was shadowed by a large hood that flopped all the way down and covered up the head from the top to the chin. She could only make out a small sliver of the neck which had an old scar along it.

Again her knee jerk reaction had her flipping her head away from the arrancar. It definitely wasn't another injury, much to her relief since Natsu had to focus on Chad's ailments, but someone was compromised. With a small bit of tinkering - the seals were becoming very helpful at keeping her connected to the other members - Natsu realized it was a Rukia. From the blast of Rukia's reiatsu, which was flaring in angry protest to the noble's own opponent, someone or something had made her angry. Whatever the small shinigami was facing had to have done something very bad for the noble to be that upset that it could be felt through her reiatsu and be almost insidious as it tried to strangle Natsu's more calm tempered flow.

The voice called her back a few moments later as Natsu compartmentalized the feelings of reiatsu around her. "Taking your eyes from the opponent is not a good idea."

"I'mma 'ware," Natsu stated as she moved only her eyes to look at the arrancar from her periphery. There was no need to appear surprised by such an unoriginal comment as she slowly let her head drag across the air at a much slower rate. "Yet ya didn't 'ttack me… Takin' pity maybe?"

"Oh I am not so kind as to do that." The arrancar hefted its arms up so that Natsu could see the long fabric that adorned them. The fabric still stretched all the way down to the floor, tipping over the splayed out finger tips which were parallel to the ground, as the arrancar gave a simple shrug. "But I suppose it might seem that way."

"Che… So serious." Natsu turned her head fully to the arrancar as she tried to confirm what the ploy was, since her opponent seemed to be very relaxed about the proceedings leading up to a fight. Perhaps there was something going on with those really long sleeves that it was wearing. She had never heard of fabric as a weapon but there were probably weirder abilities than that. "Ya a pretty bland guy."

The arrancar only shrugged again with the tiniest slump of its shoulders going up and down, though Natsu focused on the sleeves to see if they would move independently from the arrancar's movements. "I'll repeat my former question because it appears you didn't hear me… You are the one that beat Tumula, correct?"

"Tha' was a question?" Natsu smirked slightly as twisted her head to the side. Oddly, there was some comfort in the way her hair seemed to slip along the fabric of her back. "Ain't sounded like a question befo'…. Ya sounded pretty sure it was me."

"Did you or did you not?"

"Neva got 'er name but if ya talkin' 'bout tha redheaded chick in tha bathin' room. Yeah... I beat 'er."

"Wasn't she spectacular?"

Natus blinked several times at the question. She couldn't tell if that was adoration or some sort of childish admiration or even a crush. It was said so blandly but there was a deep tone in the way it was spoken. Not a whisper but something else just at the back of the arrancar's throat. With all her might she stopped her brain from running down the long list of questions that came up about romantic or sexual feelings of hollows. They weren't supposed to have any since they were the more primal instincts in human nature. Not the complex one like desire and love.

She gave another sloppy shrug while her eyes danced over the arrancar's frame to help refocus her attention on whatever ploy it was playing. It was being completely casual and there was no killing intent coming from it just yet. It hadn't even made another move as it stood almost like a statue with its arms dropped by its sides. However being in enemy territory was never a good idea, and it was making her antsy just conversing and staying still. The lion in her was huffing and snorting on its haunches as it was making the same analysis. They were too prone in this position, and while she prefered slower paced fights this was bordering on mental games and anticipation. Let's face it, she hated being on the receiving end of those. She could hear the way her palms gripped onto her hilt just a bit tighter as her sweaty skin rubbed against the fabric there.

"Ya can say wha'eva ya want," Natsu retorted as she made subtle shifts into her fighting stance to make sure they were unnoticed. "She got a bit of a talkin' problem though… Tried 'avin' a conversation wit' 'er but couldn't 'ear a word then she gets ta 'er shriekin'."

"That's what's so fabulous about her. She knows both silence and then her cries are the last lament for the soul that she kills." The arrancar made an easy sway, jerking Natsu's body into attention like a puppeteer does to a puppet, as it began to explain. "It's a pure cry for those that have to die by her hands. A beautiful last sound."

"Ya ain't eva 'eard it 'ave ya? … Tha' shriek ain't anythin' pretty."

By then, the arrancar had danced slowly around until it stood perpendicular to her. "I suppose this what is called a difference of opinion, for I see the banshee's last call as a beautiful sound and you appear to have a different thought." It's hand creeped up again as in gesture to her; whatever hand gesturing to her covered by the long sleeves that slithered along the floor like a snake with each movement of the limb. "What would you consider fitting noise for your departure from life?"

Natsu narrowed her eyes slightly at the tiny pick in the arrancar's reiatsu as she sunk very noticeably into her fighting stance. Forget trying to surprise the arrancar with her preparedness, and just let it know that she was ready. Her sword came up diagonal along her chest, with the blade facing the enemy, and she kept the weight in her thighs as she knocked her knees down a bit more so she would be ready to push off Her hands wrapped more firmly around her hilt, fingers digging in, and she positioned her zanpakuto just that much more on a slant as her eyes peered through the steel that cut between her eyes to see what was happening.

"I gotta say, unfortunately, I'mma bit partial ta jazz maself." Natsu smirked as she ground out the words. "Sucks ta be honest."

"Jazz? I have never heard of such a thing…. When I have finished with you, I will have to do some research."

"Cocky ain't ya? - Who says ya gonna beat me?"

"Because I already have."

Natsu crashed down to the ground, with her chin dropping and clanging down last as tried to keep herself up. The pain ricocheted up and she subconsciously found her eyes closing as she took in the pain. It started with the clatter of her teeth, biting heavily into the insides of her cheeks, and then raced all along her throat as she was tilting her neck at an odd angle to accommodate the pressure. Then it traveled along her head as she felt suctioned down into the ground, while simultaneously being pulled back into the air. Almost as if something wanted to split her in two. Small neurons continued to travel about as they went along her spine, to register and try and describe where the pain was coming from in order to triage the situation. Her toes shook, trying to get rid of the trails of pain and the remnants of electricity, until they too were locked down against the ground so that she lay prone in her pain.

She tossed her cheek to the ground as she tried to peer over her own form to see what was keeping her on the ground but could not see it clearly. Pulling in air became just that much harder as she was pushed further and further down until she felt the pulse around her spine. The weight lifted up just slightly but there was no way for her to move about even still.

"Would you like to know how I've won?" The arrancar called from up ahead.

Natsu grinded her teeth just slightly before she gurgled out, "sure."

"I watched your fight with Tumula and observed all your abilities and came to the conclusion that my own released state would be more than enough to kill you." The arrancar chided and Natsu found herself looking at a black sock and the white sandal that covered it since the body had come a bit closer to her. "I released my form before you had even come into the hallway."

"Cautious fella ain't ya?" Natsu quipped with as much easy inflection as possible as she tested the strength on her body again.

"It is not caution. It is strategy…. And it appears I was correct in my calculations since I have become the victory."

"I ain't dead."

"You will be... Shortly."

Natsu paused slightly and finally popped her wrists around so that they were both face down to the ground. With how she had been standing in her fighting stance, her hands and her zanpakuto had gotten locked beneath parts of her body when she had been forced to the ground by whatever weight was above her. Everything was just uncomfortable about the position she was in, with her zanpakuto edging into her own ribs under all the weight and her wrists awkwardly pressed close to her body. By flipping her wrists around it made the pain worse, a small bleary spark shooting through the numbing feeling she felt all along her body, as she hand her palms now pressed to the ground. The countdown in her head moved on a bit faster than she wanted or should have done, she wasn't even sure if her zanpakuto wouldn't get caught in the crosshairs, but she pushed forward.

"Hadou 32: Okasen."

The floor beneath her cracked and then shuddered and she went falling down into the hollow space beneath her. Immediately, her arm stretched down and gripped onto her zanpakuto as her and this invisible weight began their free fall through the air to the what she could barely register as another floor below her. She swung around and cut through the thing that had been on her back and was immediately rewarded by watching the black, amorphous mass shrink from the cut. The victory of escape couldn't be rewarded as her own back erupted into tingles and then a pulse of heat as she felt a cut being drag through her own skin. She contorted around and made out some of the falling blood just moments before she made a collision with the ground below her. She barely had enough time to make sure that she angled her body in such a way as to minimize the damage.

"You appear confused Shinigami," the arrancar stated as it shunpoed down to the area with her casually.

Natsu tossed her head around as she took in the open space that they were in. It appeared that she had been wrong in her first deduction. It wasn't another floor at all, but grains of white sand that she had landed in. She must have been in some type of bridge section around another part of the building, since she had now landed outside. The white sand fluttered around her feet and clung to her hands even as she dragged herself up to a standing position in front of the arrancar. Her back gave out a small scream at the movement but she remained steadfast in getting up and standing straight.

"I can explain that as well."

Natsu raised an eyebrow. "Ya will?"

"Of course. You will soon be dead so there's no need for me to be worried about you spreading the secrets." The arrancar flapped its hands and gave a small shrug, before wrapping its arms behind its back, sleeves flapping moments after. "My name is Sombro and I am arrancar 101, a former espada of Hueco Mundo. My ability is to control my opponent's shadow."

"Aizen got busy then…. 'Ow many of ya are there?"

"I am a fallen espada but that does not mean I am incapable of taking care of a small bug like you." Natsu narrowed her eyes at the arrancar's easy omission to everything and the nonchalance in the statement to its own power. "Tumula was the last of my faccion. I liked her for her silence because, you see, darkness needs silence to accompany it."

"Tha's jus' creepy." Natsu huffed out and gave the arrancar her a most pleasant smirk, which startled her momentarily. The figure was becoming a bit more recognizable as time seemed to pass. Something about that smirk was sending off warning bells in her head. "She wasn't tha' quiet ya know?"

"Joking even still."

Natsu felt her feet taken out from underneath her and she was found herself flung over and over again through the air. It created a semicircle of a flying body as she was knocked from one side to another. Her eyes could barely make out the mass that was her own shadow. Shadow-Natsu had obtained her exact form, from the whips of her shihakusho as it moved about to the pattern of her sheaths at her back. It appeared though that there might be an amplification of some of her other powers, since she was absolutely positive she didn't have the physical strength to do what Shadow-Natsu was portraying right now.

Natsu scrunched her eyes closed as she brought her hands up to stop her head from knocking down to the ground, as she was left into the sand so that shadow could take a break from overexerting its physical strength.

'ow I'mma gonna do this… Seems if I cut it, I cut maself too. So I ain't gonna use kido on it.

Just cut the arrancar. Stop thinking.

Natsu groaned slightly and then stuck her hand out as she peered up at the arrancar who was waiting patiently. "Hadou 33: Sokatsui."

Her shadow moved on its own right and Natsu gritted her teeth before she felt the blast of the kido hitting her own stomach. She arched up and then flopped down onto the sand as she splattered up some of her blood from the hit that she had taken. Her body shriveled up as she tossed over to the side to hack up more blood and not choke on it. Her eyes scrunched closed as she felt the burn of the blue flames and groaned at the intensity of the pain that was born inside her and then came out through her.

"I said I control your shadow."

Natsu coughed out a bit more and let out a mock laugh. The pain in her stomach pulsed as she eyed the arrancar that was patiently standing, arms crossed behind its back, as it watched the scene. A smirk spread along her face as she choked a bit on the blood that was coming back up her throat. Was she really going to have to figure out a way to fight herself?

"Yeah, yeah… No need ta repeat. I'mma gonna fall ta sleep if ya do tha'. Ain't eva been good at listenin' ta people." Natsu waved off as she spat a little more blood out to the side.

"So now you understand that it is impo-"

"Boke." Natsu flung her hand out again and pointed it directly to the shadow. "Bakudo 63: Sajo Sabaku."

The shadow went crashing down as ropes of light surrounded it and it squirmed and thrashed under the light as it tried to get the ropes away from its chest and arms. Shadows are created when a light source, most often the sun, is blocked by an impenetrable object. In the hallway she had created a shadow simply by standing in the light of the sun and her body being the impenetrable force against the UV rays. It explained why those hallways had such large hallways, and why even the corners had light filling them, when they should have been dark since the hallway had been overexposed with light. It made also sense that ropes made of light would be the most effective at holding down a shadow.

However she hadn't anticipated the burning feeling she would have along her own skin from the constricting bakudo. Who knew that light would even effect a regular humans skin? She gritted down slightly and then pushed out hanki to cancel out the feeling of the binding on her own skin. The shadow was still squirming around, and Natsu to smirk as she played off being still stuck in the bindings for just a bit longer.

'parently I'mma bit betta than maself.

Get to work.

"You poor Shinigami." The arrancar chided as it came closer. "You are taking a remarkably long time to learn everything. Anything you do to your shadow will be immedi-"

"Reflected onta me. Yeah 'lready know tha'," Natsu cut through, as she thrust her arm up at the arrancar once it was looming over her. "Hadou 63: Raikouhou."

The bolts of lightening trailed away from her finger tips and she watched as the cloth suddenly held like a freeze frame in the air and then pooled down into the sands, almost being immediately swept away by the the gust of air from the disappearing form of the arrancar. Natsu gobbled up the air as she went about relaxing a bit into the ground letting the weight of it hug down on her more beaten up frame. Her eyes tossed over to the shadow that was lying still on its side and her eyes narrowed at the binds that were still tightly around it with a faint shimmer still traversing it. Then she flickered over to the cloth that was being tugged up in a flurry of cloth by the wind and traveling further away from her every second she watched it. Finally, it opened up with a sharp flap and then the widened tarp was pushed off into the empty desert behind it.

Her eyes jerked over to the side as she finally tuned back into the larger environment and surroundings. Rukia's reiatsu had all but disappeared from existence sometime during her fight and she hadn't even noticed. Narrowing her eyes, Natsu could feel that tiny little spark going through then noble's body, meaning she was still living but in a dire condition. The seal that she had on Rukia seared into her own reiatsu and she could tell how overworked it was getting from the smoke that was omitting from her body. It was even starting to pulse from how ineffective the treatment was becoming.

She's in bad shape… Shit. I shoul' trans-

Natsu!

Natsu flung herself away abruptly, and skittered into the sun as she saw the shadow breaking through the chains of the bakudo. The energy of breaking such a spell would have cause her a major blow had she been hit. She narrowed her eyes as the shadow drew out a long blade and was holding it out mercilessly as the black form took steps forward toward her.

"I told you to keep your eyes on your opponent, Shinigami."

Natsu let out a small puff of air and stretched up just slightly. Her eyes flickered over towards her sword, which now lay behind the arrancar since she had dropped it beforehand and then resorted to her old habits of kido. Her eyes travelled back over to the arrancar as fast as she could as she tried to figure out a way to get to her zanpakuto. "Ya in ma shadow… Can't go stealin' tha' ya know? Ain't very nice."

"It's been a long time since I was in a form this powerful." The arrancar spewed out and the shadow bent over backwards as long torrents of laughter came out. "I was going to steal your shadow later on, but this works just fine as well. I can finish the fight like this."

A/N: Another chapter! I'm sorry for the delay. It's been a bit of a tough time since I've become pretty busy, but I'm hoping to go back to my regular schedule after this weekend. Please don't hold me to that, but know that I'm working as best as I can to update regularly every weekend. I do want to make sure my audience gets what they want.

In other news, I am working on a Urahara Kisuke story. Some of you expressed interest in seeing that done. What I know right now is it's not going to follow this same pattern that I've put in this story and in Building a Home. Hopefully, it'll be a bit more original! I'd also like to acknowledge the wonderful help of xXFallenSakuraXx52 who's been helping me with the editing of the first chapters of that story, and will continue to help with the rest of the story. Thank you! I appreciate your hard work.

Anyway, please comment/question/review/say 'hi'. Let me know how the story's going! Love hearing from you all.