Hello, hello - we are keeping up with the posting schedule, thanking you for your niceties, and we are glad you enjoyed Ulquiorra. Oddly enough, so did we, and it was a rare occasion.
We shall be lyrical again soon, but a bit of action doesn't hurt, from time to time, thus
Chapter 55 - Where Uki's sister gets in trouble, Ukitake gets angry, and - oh my, do I spot a nice Stark?
(I must be dreaming...)
Ukitake Kazumi crept from room to room, carefully shutting doors behind her, with nothing but her own heartbeat and the creaking of the floorboards flooding her ears. The steps of the creature she could neither see nor feel remained behind her, unhurried and heavy.
It was so quiet that she had the illusion that the sound of her breath was as loud as a brewing hurricane; there was no wind, and no rustling of leaves outside, just thick darkness pouring in through the windows, and moonlight so shy that it cut no shadows. From time to time, there was the grating of claws against walls, coming from the inside or the outside…she could not tell.
It hadn't been like this, the first time around, Kazumi remembered, stopping to look about herself in the vain hope of discovering some route of escape. The first time around, they'd been upon her before she had even fully awoken, twisted creatures with bone white masks, reminding her of theatre performers, standing no more than a foot away, with their weapons drawn and their teeth, which reminded her of anything else but the theatre, bared. The first time around she had not had the time to feel trapped, or even frightened.
But then, Kazumi thought, she'd merely been arrested. Now, she was being hunted.
The noises had begun a few minutes before – subtle raps against the windowsill, and footsteps smothered in grass, so faint that her imagination had claimed them, soothingly whispering that birds sometimes sat on the windowsill and the wind had a tendency for drifting through the grass. She hadn't counted how many times she had dismissed it all, attempted to straighten the covers and lay back down, only to breathlessly sit up again, with her heart in her throat and her breath frozen in her chest.
The grating had come next – sometimes, in playful, rushed tones, as if a child who had not been found while playing hide and seek had been attempting to give hints to her whereabouts, but sometimes growing decisive and steady, as if an animal had picked a certain spot along the wall and had been trying to burrow itself in it. She'd heard both sounds coming from the garden side of the house, only to hear them from the street side in the very next second, at first in alternating, short occurrences, but then growing bold and fluent, ribbons of sound wrapping themselves continuously around the walls and windows.
She'd held her knees to her chest, and waited, not knowing what she was waiting for.
The front door had screeched with deceiving slowness, only to be violently jerked off its rails in the very next second – it was only then that Kazumi had slipped out of bed too, barefoot and with her hair unbraided.
She'd taken the chance of crossing the sitting room while the one who hunted her still lingered in the small hallway. She'd even fancied she'd caught a glimpse of its figure, in the murky moonlight, and frozen in terror and indecision for a second that seemed to span lifetimes.
The kitchen led to the garden, but she'd guessed that they already knew that as well; the second bedroom of her small house had large enough windows, but if more hunters awaited her outside, that too would be an ill advised choice. All other rooms were no more than ill disguised dead ends – the pantry, the tea room, the small closet adjoining it…
Beyond the shoji panel which separated the sitting room from the hallway, the shadow had moved, and she'd thought no further. The grating outside had neither stopped nor receded, coming from all directions, as if her unknown assailants had had the ability of seeing her through the walls, and mocked her hesitations.
Kazumi had fled from the sitting room into another small hallway, silently sliding the door in place behind her, then dashing through the second bedroom, noisily pushing the windows open, and quietly dashing back, to close that door as well.
She followed the hallway through to the tea room, leaving its door open and untouched, and once more stood alone, hesitating, and listening to the heavy footsteps behind her.
The young woman managed to insinuate herself in the small closet adjoining the tea room, and pulled the door all but shut, leaving a single, two inch gap between the panel and the door. Behind her, the creature's steps had stopped as well; it was only the grating that continued to mock.
Kazumi shirked away from the single line of light that the opening left, and crammed herself underneath the bottom shelf of the closet, not noticing that she had stepped on the remains of a broken teapot. There, with her face pressed to her knees and her trembling hands clutched together about them, she waited and listened to the approaching steps.
For the first time in months, Ukitake Jushiro discovered that he did not care.
Not for the restrictions placed on his movement, and not for the consequences that flaunting the rules would bring – not even for the fact that his rush caused each breath to claw at the inside of his chest.
The concentration of malevolent reiatsu had been such that it had jerked him out of uneasy sleep; he'd recognized Ggio Vega's energies flaring even before he'd been fully awake, lightning in the storm of many other Arrancars' reiatsu.
He should have seen it coming.
It had all been too peaceful. Too quiet, for far too long.
He should have seen this coming. He'd allowed himself to forget about these, the man pointlessly berated himself – amid the reconstruction efforts, and the mixing of the populations, Findor, Lilinette, Grimmjow Jagguerjaques and Hayoto, he'd almost forgotten that these existed as well, drifting on the edges of a world that was not shaping to their liking, still hungry for the revenge that Stark had denied them and still dwelling on the memory of what they perceived as greatness past. With the weeks that had come and gone, and with the uneasy, but still undeniable truce that had been tacitly forced by the arrival of the new enemy, Vega's influence over the Arrancar contingent had begun looking remote and inconsequential. Though he'd expected that the tiger would find a path of resistance, Ukitake had suspected that it would take the form of hasty a riot or random attack on a Shinigami household, and, in doing so, he'd underestimated both Vega's intelligence and his patience.
Heart in his throat, and taste of blood in his mouth, Ukitake stopped.
There were fourteen or fifteen presences, no more, half standing in the street and some scattered in the distance, but the fact that the relatively even spread of the Hollow across the division had prevented Ggio Vega from organizing more of his troop was little consolation. This particular section of the grounds had not yet been repopulated, due to the Shinigami's reluctance of moving back into a quarter from which their companions had been forcibly removed – neither Stark nor Ukitake had pushed more than they had to, for fear the additional pressure would cause tempers to flare.
The streets and the neighboring houses were, therefore, empty, and the balancing effect that Ukitake had hoped for and even managed to achieve in other sections was not present; there was no natural deterrent to Ggio's actions, and none would arrive. Knowledge of the fact that Ukitake Kazumi was being kept there, in relative seclusion, was not common, and since she had no reiatsu, none, not even her brother, would have sensed her on their own.
She was defenseless, and the set-up of Vega's attack was perfect in its simplicity; Kazumi was a high profile target, but an easy one to reach. Harm to her would have undone the frail sense of balance that Ukitake and Findor had managed to achieve, undermined the Shinigami's reluctant cooperation as well as Stark's authority. With her, unlike with any other target, Ggio Vega would reaffirm himself to his troop, and perhaps to his former commander…Ukitake gritted his teeth.
He should have seen this coming.
Ggio Vega looked over his shoulder and grinned wide.
'Good of you to join us,' one of the other Arrancar said, in his stead.
'…gonna be one hell of a night,' another growled; the sound crawled eerily over the empty streets and empty, lifeless walls.
Ukitake held his breath, then attempted to control it as his fingers curled about Sogyo no Kotowari's hilt; the zanpakutoh's reiatsu tingled between his fingertips, ascending towards his elbow. He simply drew one deep breath after another, trying to keep them even.
He could still not sense her.
As if he could read the Shinigami's mind, Vega turned his feline profile towards the sky and sniffed at the air in implied threat.
'…been entirely too long,' he said, towards no one in particular, and although the night was overcast, his long fangs glowed in the darkness, almost as if they'd been fluorescent.
'You will die here,' Ukitake said, dryly. He did not even consider telling them to back away – something in their stances told him that they would not, and the Shinigami himself found that he was enraged enough not to want them to. He felt no fear of either their strength or their numbers.
'I doubt that,' Vega replied, the confidence in his voice not managing to entice more than a few rounds of nervous laughter; even with his swords still in their scabbards, Ukitake's reiatsu dwarfed that of the entire group, and none among them, not even all of them would stand against him for more than a few seconds if he drew. 'You're too much of a coward, Shinigami.'
He snapped his sword from his belt and slung it across his shoulders, taking a step away from the semicircle of his companions and eyeing Ukitake in open amusement.
'Quite the predicament you are in, Ukitake Jushiro,' the Arrancar shrugged. 'If you don't draw on us, we will get your sister; that,' he chuckled, 'is what we came out to get, and that's what we'll get. If you do draw, you will be attacking us, and we'll finally get your precious division…'
Vega stopped, and spit to the side in disgust.
'Been too long,' he hissed, with animal satisfaction at finally standing close to what he'd been so far denied. 'We've been waiting for this for entirely too long.'
A murmur of frustrated approval rose from the group, making Ukitake hold the hilt of his sword even tighter.
'No,' he said. 'You will achieve nothing here…'
'You think so?' Vega interrupted, arching an eyebrow. 'Who will speak up in your defense, if you harm a single one of us? Are you counting on Carias, Findor?' he asked, mimicking Findor's rigid speech pattern, and drawing another, increasingly menacing round of laughter. 'You think you've made friends?'
'Screw Findor,' another Arrancar muttered. 'Disloyal, slow bastard…'
'Do you know that he actually didn't tell us exactly where your sister was, Ukitake Jushiro?' Vega picked up once more. 'The stupid bastard figured that if he only makes her guard up by the ones he thinks he can trust, he can hide her from me…Well,' he ominously chuckled, 'like he hid her from you – on Stark's orders, of course…'
'Who knows, Stark may even give us a quiet hand over this,' another Hollow chuckled – the laughter of her companions grew ever bolder; Ggio Vega laughed too, turning his sharp canines towards the dark sky.
'Yeah,' he conceded, suddenly turning his amber eyes on Ukitake. 'He just might. Since we're just going to be doing what he himself wishes he would have done when he laid eyes on your…'
The sheer power wave unleashed by Ukitake's draw swept half of the Arrancar away without recourse, projecting their bodies along streets and through walls. Vega himself staggered, and barely dodged the right handed slash; he adroitly parried the left handed sword, however, casting his own sword's scabbard away in the blink of an eye. He caught the Shinigami's wrist securely, averting the next blow, and forcing Ukitake to hastily kneel under his swift high kick.
It was not enough.
Ggio Vega's dexterity and swiftness fell short but a second later, when Sogyo no Kotowari's hooked hilt guard securely latched on to his short blade, jerking his entire body upwards as the Shinigami rose back to his feet. With a mere twist of the zanpakutoh's left handed hilt, the Arrancar's sword flew aside, hissing through the air, only to become lodged in a nearby wall. Vega disappeared to Sonido in the blink of an eye, but he was not fast enough to recuperate his weapon – sensing that keeping his back turned to the Shinigami might have been a fatal mistake, the Arrancar abandoned his initial plan and came at his opponent in an impressive explosion of reiatsu and physical blows, which left Ukitake with no time to wonder why Vega's companions had not stood and joined the fray.
The tiger was fast, more so with his kicks and punches than he might have been with his sword, and even though his reiatsu was hopelessly lacking and his blows failed to connect, his mere drive put Ukitake on uneasy defensive for a few seconds. Blow after blow was parried, but Vega seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, striking and retreating in the same heartbeat, no more than a flurry of movement and cutting reflexes of light upon bone. White light exploded and blood was splattered when Vega's shin connected with Ukitake's left handed blade, yet the lightning sent forth by the right handed sword melted against the sky.
The Shinigami turned, anticipating that Vega would come up behind him, and did not content himself on a mere parry – he withdrew just enough to allow the Arrancar's arm to stretch into thin air, then hooked Vega's wrist with Sogyo no Kotowari's hilt guard, pulling it aside. He fancied he'd heard the Arrancar's bones cracking before Vega could free himself, yet his focus on the next blow was hopelessly dithered.
Releasing Sogyo no Kotowari further would have given him the quick edge he wanted; he would not be able to keep up the Arrancar's pace for longer than a few minutes, and, Ukitake thought, angling his sword to deflect yet another high kick, he did not have minutes. The flurry of reiatsu would draw attention, Hollow attention, and while he had no doubt that no number of opponents would be too great to face, the fact that he could still not sense Kazumi remained terrifyingly true; fending off the instinct of shouting on top of his voice and telling her to run or hide was almost as difficult as keeping Vega at bay.
Kazumi was there, somewhere, in one of the tens of quiet and dark houses, on this street, or perhaps the next; though she could not sense the reiatsu, by now, she would have heard the noise. She would have heard him too, Ukitake was sure, yet attempting to flee would have been unwise. Kazumi could not have outpaced even the most minor Hollow, nor would she have been able to fend them off for even a second. Her best chance at survival now was hiding in the darkness which concealed her whereabouts from him for as long as it took for her brother to finish his fight, and drive the danger away.
Still, her very best chance remained a harsh restriction on Ukitake's movements – but a few streets away, in the midst of the reassuringly strong reiatsu of other Shinigami, he would never have feared releasing Sogyo no Kotowari or employing Kido. Here, he could scarcely afford it. A single misfire, perhaps the reiatsu pressure alone would be enough to crush walls, and crushed walls, in their turn…
Ukitake deflected a Cero against the sky, and sidestepped to catch another along his blade before the scalding light could plow through the dark streets beyond; the Arrancar he'd blown away were standing again, but oddly not advancing, a notion he found as worrisome and draining on his concentration as the fact that although his strikes amounted to nothing, and his Cero failed to do anything more than fizzle, Vega's grin continued to grow.
A slash which cut deeply into the Arrancar's stomach all but made him manically laugh out loud.
Ukitake cringed with unknown fear, but redoubled his speed, sensing that Vega's strength was almost at an end; by now, the blood trails of the Hollow's many wounds made his movements far easier to discern. The broken wrist also assured that Vega could only punch with one arm, and even further restricted his attack angles – it was not hard to guess where the next blow would come from, and it was Ukitake's turn to outmaneuver his slowed and injured opponent.
The Shinigami allowed Vega to re-materialise from Shumpo, only to vanish in his turn in the same blink of an eye. The Arrancar had time to do no more than look over his shoulder as Sogyo no Kotowari's blades crossed over his back, jolting him forward in a mist of blood. Vega turned as he fell, maintaining some grasp on consciousness, but neither that, nor the Cero that he fired in blind even hindered Ukitake from bringing the battle to a close.
Both blades were driven through the Arrancar's ribcage at the same time, pinning him to the ground and causing him to cough up blood; he jolted upwards on the swords, as electricity ran through his body only to fall back along them when the currents stopped, the back of his mask knocking dryly against the pavement.
Victory, however, evaded.
For a while, Kazumi could hear no more grating. The steps grew closer and heavier for a moment, then headed away. She could hear the door to the second bedroom sliding open, then, a few seconds later, sliding shut; the long floorboards of the hallway creaked, giving way to the creaks of the kitchen floor.
The shadow had simply passed the half open door of the tea room, obscuring the bright limb of moonlight which stretched over the back wall of her hiding place for no more than a fleeting heartbeat. Sounds of frail floors protesting the advance of a too heavy creatures continued for long minutes, before the shadow stole the light for yet another heartbeat, as it headed back towards the sitting room.
For another heartbeat, as it spun around, then, for an eternity as the creature stopped before the door of the tea room, without pulling it open.
There was no more sound then – neither footsteps, nor grating.
The arms which entangled Kazumi sprung forth from the floor and from the walls, white clad forearms squeezing the air out of her chest as claws scratched at her stomach and pulled her hair, but though the steps headed straight for her, and murky moonlight, suddenly turned resplendent, flooded the small closet on the side of the tea room, the young woman clenched her teeth and didn't scream.
They liked it when she screamed.
This, above all, she remembered from the first time around.
Vega laughed through bloodied teeth, the heavy gurgle of blood in his chest lending the sound terrifying echoes.
'His Majesty…' the Arrancar heaved, among chuckles, 'his Majesty will be so proud of me!'
The Shinigami did not bother to make sense of the words; he simply twisted his right handed sword, causing the trickle of blood that coursed between Vega's lips to turn into a river, but failing to drown out the laughter.
'What…do you think you have accomplished now, Ukitake Jushiro?' Vega hissed, madness and pain dancing in his eyes. 'You might as well go ahead and kill me – the damage is already done. Do you not see how many of us there are? Do you think…they…all…are going to stop and fight you?'
The Shinigami gritted his teeth, and unwisely looked up at the ten or twelve white clad figures that stood all around them, once more taking note of the darkly pulsing energies of those he could not see.
'How many…houses do you think there are, here?' Vega followed. 'Forty? Eighty? Maybe close to a hundred? How many of them do you think you can search, when you…cannot smell?'
Ukitake straightened, pulling his swords out of the Arrancar's body.
'How many of them do you think you can stop?' the tiger added, his chuckles no more than heavy gurgles of blood.
The first of the white clad figures vanished from view, causing Ukitake to instinctively shadow step in his turn; it was only when the second and third Arrancar disappeared that the full horror of the realization descended upon him, freezing him in place.
They'd headed in completely different directions.
'Despite Findor's misguided efforts, it didn't take ten of us to find your sister, Ukitake Jushiro,' the injured Arrancar whimpered. 'We already have her; the only thing I was hoping for was that you would indeed draw on us, making your unwinnable situation worse… We have her already, and it won't take ten of us to get her, as I told you…we would.'
Fourteen different presences burned in the distance, some in groups of two or three, some alone. The Shinigami could sense them, but he could not sense her ; no matter how fast he was in giving chase, he stood no chance of finding them all within the next minute, and a minute…A minute he did not have.
Vega continued to heave and laugh, the mixture of the two sounds dripping lead into Ukitake's veins. His heart was racing, but his body felt numb and incapable of movement as seconds out of the minute he did not have ticked by.
Both laughter and pained breath stopped, then rolled together into a blood curling shout – the Shinigami turned, expecting that something had torn Ggio Vega asunder. Ukitake turned, only to catch a glimpse of his defeated opponent's desperate efforts of rising to his knees; blood dripping though his clenched teeth, the tiger gazed in the distance with burning, tempestuous fury.
He felt the others but a split second later than Vega had, but he could not bring himself to either care or hope; he simply tried to follow the Arrancar's gaze, and guess which of the silent houses would be the target of his anger, while knowing that no speed that he could muster would match the speed of light.
Ukitake was by Vega's side in a heartbeat, and had the time to feel the scalding heat of the Cero gathering between the Arrancar's fingers, as if Vega's concentration had been robbing the air of all traces of warmth, and dragging minute icicles through the Shinigami's skin.
The Arrancar held his arm out, and Sogyo no Kotowari's scabbard fell over Vega's arm a single breath too late.
'Cero,' Vega cried.
His broken wrist fell limp.
The three pulled her out by her hair; oddly enough, it was only when she did her best to ram her heels into the floor that Kazumi noticed that the soles of her feet were bleeding, and had been bleeding for a while. She slipped helplessly, but nonetheless tried to sink her nails into the wrist of the creature who was dragging her, hoping to draw blood but succeeding in no more than turning her own nails painfully out, as if she'd been trying to scratch polished wood.
She struggled hopelessly for each foot, but her desperate effort was not even a hindrance to her three captors. The young woman was briefly lifted over the kitchen's raised threshold, then propped on her feet against the shabby wooden counter, as if she had been a rag doll. Kazumi staggered, and sought balance by leaning backwards; while she looked up, her outstretched fingers raced over the wood, searching for something, anything that might have been used as a weapon. Her transparent intention caused the Arrancar to laugh in unison - one of them, a female one with bright orange hair which resembled a lion's mane, took a step forward and dryly slapped the young woman across the face, just as her hands had finally found brief contact with a kitchen knife's handle. Kazumi fell backwards, hitting her head on the counter. The wooden planks of the floor felt rough and somewhat warm against her cheek; the knife flew to the side as well, landing a few feet away.
It spun for a few seconds, like the panicked, overly hasted limb of a clock. The white, flat heel of an Arrancar's boot stopped it short.
Kazumi turned on her back, and struggled to focus – a sword hissed by her ear, becoming lodged in the floor but an inch away from her neck. She instinctively shifted away, though the strength of the blow she had just received had dragged a shifting veil of fog across her vision. She felt the stab to her shoulder before she saw the light travelling along a second blade; Kazumi cringed, but gritted her teeth and kept silent. Her bravery did not stifle the Arrancar's amusement. One kneeled by her side, not noticing that he had dipped the tips of his long, braided hair in the blood which had begun to spread underneath her shoulders; he took in the young woman's features for a second, then grinned, causing the two halves of the insect-like mandible which covered his lower jaw to snap apart, and reveal a single, exceptionally long and sharp incisive.
He twisted the sword's handle, causing Kazumi to minutely jolt upwards, and his mandibles clicked rapidly together, in sign of amusement; behind him, the female Arrancar shifted impatiently.
'No time for games,' she said, turning around, to glance out the window. 'Just be done with it.'
The insect Hollow hissed, and clicked his mandibles together once more, this time, in clear annoyance; after a second of consideration, he chose to shrug his companion's words off.
'Coward,' he hissed, his voice coming from his stomach rather than his throat; the Arrancar who'd dragged Kazumi by the hair threw his had backwards and laughed. 'Fun,' the insect added, suddenly drawing his sword clear of Kazumi's shoulder.
He held the blade above her face, causing hot droplets of blood to trickle in her eyes; she looked aside, and rose her outstretched fingers over her face. The blade moved as well, its tip, and the trail of blood descending under Kazumi's chin, and lingering above her throat, before slipping even further down, over her collarbone and over her breast.
Oddly enough, however, the young woman felt no fear.
It was not her mind that refused the feeling; on the contrary, when the voices began to murmur, her thoughts were racing and twisting, acknowledging one threat after the other. She could all but imagine the blade descending, not swiftly, but slowly and purposefully, not once, but many more times until she would finally scream. Despite the soothing whispers, her mind found even more horrid images, in which the blade was replaced by the equally sharp Hollow incisive, she could think of humiliation before death, and yet…
Yet, despite the pain in her shoulder, and the maddening sensation of blood trickling across her cheeks and spreading under her back, Kazumi's heart refused to race. Its beat was slow and steady, driving equally steady, deep breaths. Her hands felt warm and alive, and neither numbness, nor adrenaline coursed through her muscles.
She closed her eyes, sensing the fact that the hand of the Arrancar who kneeled above her had stopped, and that the blade now lingered above her heart; she drew a deep breath, driving all thoughts out of her mind, and listening to the strange calm that enveloped her body. Another might easily have thought that it was simply surrender, the natural acknowledgement that it was simply the end – Kazumi thought and felt nothing of the sort. She simply listened to the familiar voices that whispered to her senses before her mind could truly understand them.
The young woman reopened her eyes, gazing straight into the face of her captor. The Hollow was looking away from her, his attention consumed by something Kazumi could neither see nor feel, but which, she guessed, was the source of her strange calm.
She smiled.
'I guess it would be nice of me to say I am sorry for you,' the young woman said softly.
The Arrancar above her snappily looked down, and hissed, straightening his blade. His companions too drew closer, temporarily more fascinated with the daring of such easy prey than with whatever had held their interest a second before.
'But,' Kazumi considered, suddenly relaxing in full, 'it would be not very courteous to lie.'
The female Arrancar snarled, baring her teeth – blackened, polished fangs, which already dripped yellowish saliva - and drew her own blade, while her dark haired insect companion hissed once more, and gripped his own weapon's hilt with renewed determination.
Kazumi's voices spoke clearly this time, telling her that it was all pointless; Kazumi's voices were never wrong.
As darkness stole above, catching the three Arrancar unprepared, erasing them from both view and existence, Kazumi could smell nothing but the vaguely familiar smell of sea water; with a last remnant of strength, she held her arms out, catching secure hold of Findor Carias' shoulders, and not minding the fact that the boney plates which covered his shoulders scratched her forearms.
Hellfire exploded in the very next second, catching the tips of her hair.
The three heads rolled on the fire-lit pavement, leaving no trace of blood from their severed necks; one stopped against Ggio Vega's bent ankle. The other two rolled for a few more feet before coming to a stop in their turn. On one, the widely parted and cracked jaws of an insect mandible hung limply to the sides.
Ukitake Jushiro could not truly see behind Stark. The bright light of the fire which Vega's Cero had lit was painful, when contrasted with the darkness which had reigned until a few seconds earlier. It was thus that the Shinigami only intuited Findor's presence by the long string of spluttered invectives which rolled off Vega's tongue.
Traitor…Coward…Fool…
The other presences had scattered with great haste, the traces of their energy vanishing as if they had never been – a pack of helpless scavengers fleeing out of the path of the true hunter. Alone, and gushing out blood at each word, Vega still struggled to maintain his balance on one knee.
This will be remembered, Findor…His Majesty…
Stark took a step forward, looking at the defeated feline with what appeared to be a mixture of mild amusement and great boredom. A few feet behind him, Findor straightened, allowing Ukitake to catch a fleeting glimpse of his frail charge; he could not tell whether she was moving. All he could see was the fact that Findor's white pincer was stained with vibrantly red blood.
Vega's mumbled curses stopped abruptly, oddly becoming more poignant in their absence; shadowy figures, clad in both black and white, started appearing all about, but maintained themselves at a distance. Ukitake knew Stark too well by now to suspect that he'd summoned any reinforcements – nonetheless, the balance of the energies in the small crossroads changed, with disbelief, disdain and heavy reproach replacing the triumphant malice of Vega's companions.
'I am not even pissed,' Stark said, with a minute shrug.
The feline Arrancar gritted his teeth and staggered, for a single moment looking as if sheer resolve would bring him to stand; the impression was transitory and all the effort accomplished was even further draining his energy.
'Findor, you bastard…' Vega spat, as if the pointless channeling of fury towards his fellow Fraccion had been the only thing that could still bring solace; the Primera took another step forward, his long, crooked shadow draping over the other Hollow's broken figure.
Vega refused to look up.
'…and you,' he yelped, addressing the multitude of figures which drifted in the shadows. 'All of you! Have you all forgotten what we fought for? ...victor's rights,' Vega whispered, his voice losing strength. 'Victor's rights, not…lingering…here, amid the weakling Shinigami…Not dwelling amid those who should rightfully be our prey! Fighting their enemies for them! Our rightful reward…Have you all…'
The shadows produced no response, and Stark yawned.
'The irony, master Vega,' the Primera said, without haste, 'is that I am sure that not all of them have forgotten what your purpose here was. However,' Stark added, unconsciously shaking his ungloved right hand, as if he'd been attempting to keep his wrist from falling asleep, and giving one of the severed heads a small, meaningful nudge with his ankle, 'those who have not forgotten should, by now, be far more terrified of me than they ever were of His Majesty, Barragan.'
It was only then, when what must have been the ultimate insult had been spoken, that Vega looked up to meet the Primera's glance.
'Don't you dare,' Vega hissed, between clenched, bloodied teeth. 'Don't you dare…'
He swallowed dry and looked beyond the Primera and towards Findor, who'd let Kazumi stand on her own feet. She'd staggered slightly, her face still hidden and all her weight still leaning on the Arrancar's pincer. The sheer hatred that raged in Vega's his eyes, and his impotent frustration at the fact that he'd failed to finish off his innocent target caused Ukitake to shudder, but failed to stifle his joy.
The Shinigami inched forward, away from a fight that no longer regarded him, but though he had not taken his eyes off Vega, Stark hastily stepped to the side, barring Ukitake's path and blocking his view.
'Don't push it,' Stark said, under his breath; somehow, the Shinigami found himself ill prepared for the lingering, cold fury in the Primera's voice. He'd half expected that the obvious gentleness of Findor's grip on Kazumi and the genuine concern on the blonde Fraccion's features would reflect in Stark's disposition – but then, the Shinigami bitterly thought, he'd perhaps allowed himself to expect too much, and mistake the Primera's intervention for help. Adrenaline, and the sudden sensation that the threat had not vanished, but simply taken a new shape caused Ukitake to unconsciously straighten his swords. He realized the danger in his gesture but a second too late, and forced his muscles to relax; Stark frowned menacingly, but pointedly forced himself to look away in turn.
Vega chuckled.
'Fear you…' he picked up once more. 'Who'd fear you, Stark, now, when you are only half of what you were? No wonder that you have no courage to avenge us, when you even lack the courage to avenge yourself…I am sure,' he breathed, 'that you have thought of little else since this worthless insect was brought here…His majesty knows it, and I know it and yet…'
His words melted into yet another blood curling scream, and he was jolted forward as if a myriad hooks had been pulling at his skin.
'I mentioned that it was…ironic,' Stark grinned, stepping forward; the steady river of blue reiatsu particles which flowed from Vega's body and towards the Primera's deceivingly relaxed fingers pulled the Fraccion up to his feet. The sight of his limply hanging body failed to conjure any compassion in either Ukitake or Stark. 'But while I will concede to that particular irony,' the Primera said, slowly, 'the day when you and his majesty Barragan manage to provoke me into anything more than a narcoleptic fit lies far in the future.'
'Kill…' Vega winced.
'Kill you?' Stark hissed. 'I think not. I think I will leave that pleasure to your beloved master, once he finds out how utterly you have covered his name in glory, here.'
Unspoken panic, which far surpassed pain exploded in the tiger's amber eyes and gave him the strength to minutely pull away from Stark's grasp - the flow of energy grew in strength, causing him to yelp.
'You may also convey to his majesty that I am as impressed with his current efforts as I always was with his historical ones,' the Primera continued, with biting sarcasm, 'and that, even if there is only half of me left, he still needs iron teeth if he wants to gnaw at my ankles. Crawl and die somewhere else, if you please.' He concluded dryly.
The reiatsu river dissipated, and Vega fell to the ground, all but unconscious; Stark turned away and slowly put his glove back on, bringing the entire encounter to an irrefutable end.
To Ukitake's surprise, however, the Primera's features reflected no trace of victory – the Arrancar simply looked tired, and, for a moment, even forgot to cut the Shinigami's line of sight towards his sister. The lapse lasted frustratingly little, giving Ukitake no more than a frightening, brief glimpse at Kazumi's torn shoulder.
'Stark…' he began, knowing the plea would be pointless and thus not even uttering it in full; he supposed that the fact that he knew his sister was alive and as safe as anyone could be in this fierce world should have brought some measure of comfort. Yet, the frustration of having her so close and not being able to touch her turned his heart into stone, allowing no sensation of ease. He looked away, and tiredly put his swords back in their scabbards, torn between the desire of insisting, and the fear that any further display of emotion would be unwise.
The night, he bitterly thought, had revealed Kazumi as a shared liability, a weakness that Stark had no reason to preserve. The last thing he wished to remind Stark of now was how dear she was to him, and how much pain he could cause by harming her…and yet, she was there, there, but twenty feet away, injured, and even smaller than he remembered her, probably frightened and cold…For what was even worse, Ukitake himself felt helpless, and knew himself incapable of offering reassurance – what could have said, the Shinigami thought, when he had no power to end her imprisonment or ward off dangers both old and new?
He straightened his chin to meet Stark's glance, which had been upon him the entire time, and though the Arrancar's features expressed anything but benign curiosity, Ukitake offered a short, awkward bow. The Primera's lower jaw tensed, but he did not immediately look away – the impression of tiredness persisted, and the two men sustained each others' glances, both torn between staying and leaving, speaking or remaining silent…
'Onii-san…' Kazumi whispered, causing them both to cringe; neither of them moved however, as if each had feared to take his eyes off the other, and for a second the young woman was the only who dared to do more than breathe.
She shakily stood away from Findor, who seemed too shocked to stop her. Her small hand lingered on the Arrancar's pincer for a moment longer, but though she winced when she fully stood on her own two feet, she did not stop. The two Hollow exchanged an urgent glance, as if the injured, frail woman had been some form of momentous threat, yet both remained immobile – Kazumi slowly staggered towards her brother, succeeding in no more than two steps before having to lean heavily on the forearm Stark had belatedly stretched to bar her path, and transforming the Arrancar's forbidding gesture into a generous one so swiftly that he was left with no time to react.
The young woman only looked up for a second, then attempted to smile; the sheer effort of standing drained the energy away from her features, however, so she only managed a shadow. The fact that her brave attempt did not melt Stark's frozen features did not cause her to hurry, so she rested for a second, her hands entwined over his forearm – when she finally let go, she had no more than a step to go.
Ukitake rushed forward, kneeling to catch her just as her strength faded. Kazumi's arms fell limply over his shoulders, but though he held her with all the despair of a year's worth of worry and guilt, he did not take his glance off Stark. He expected that the Primera would react somehow, in the first second, or perhaps the next one, or as soon as the eye contact would cease, and, as Stark looked on, Ukitake thought of nothing but of how much he simply wished that he could lift her in his arms, and take her away from all threats, and felt nothing but the still warm blood on her shoulders.
The Primera did not move; instead, Kazumi briefly awoke, and returned her brother's embrace. The feeling of her arms tightening around his shoulders was overwhelming enough to drown out all threatening realities, so Ukitake glanced down, finding her smile akin to the first ray of sunlight breaking through the eye of a storm.
He said nothing, because he could think of nothing to say, while she nestled her cheek to his chest and sighed in pleasure and unexplainable relief.
'I missed you too, Onii-san,' she whispered, her tiny fingers gripping his shoulders as painfully as if they'd been built out of iron, just a second before once more falling limp – her hands slipped, and she suddenly felt heavy and lifeless, like a piece of wood.
Ggio Vega's laughter rose madly from behind, laden with wicked, uncontained joy; the Shinigami looked over his shoulder, expecting the Arrancar's eyes would be fixated on his back, or that his gaze would hungrily be weighing Kazumi's body. Instead, Vega had set his blurry glance on Stark, and his cackles were directed to the Primera alone.
'Fool…Nothing…' the Segunda Fraccion managed, the sheer force of his mad amusement feeding his body, and lending him enough energy to push himself up on his elbow, 'you will watch them…this…and do nothing…again…Barragan-sama was right – no matter what you think, you're not screwing that Unohana woman, it's her screwing you, and a worm in your spine…and it won't be long, not long at all until it will chew its way right through your brain…'
It was all he managed to say before Findor's pincer struck him across the face, knocking him unconscious – only part of Vega's words had registered with Ukitake; unwillingly, as if he were seeking to protect a child from a phrase unfit for its ears, he slipped his hands through Kazumi's hair and pressed her head to his shoulder. Instinctual disgust, as thick and sickly sweet as blood filled his mouth and welled in his eyes, darkening the glance he set upon the Primera – disbelief followed, with swiftness which could only be explained by foolish hope.
'You wouldn't…' Ukitake mouthed, knowing that he was frowning with fury and disgust, but not caring about the fact that the time to display such emotions was desperately ill-chosen. 'You would not hurt her. It is only me you hate.'
Not her, he thought, caressing Kazumi cheek, while Unohana Retsu's serene smile drifted before his eyes. Gods, not her…
Stark's distant and cold expression did not change, and Ukitake felt the Arrancar was looking through him, as if he had heard neither Vega, nor the Shinigami.
In the small second of silence that followed, it was only Findor's reiatsu that vibrated with concern, and an odd, subtle sense of sadness.
'I will transport Ukitake Kazumi to the 4th Division,' the Fraccion said.
The Primera seemed to ponder the offer for a moment.
'No,' he said; the tiredness resounded in his voice and stirred in his eyes, like low but punishing winds endlessly dragging cutting shards of ice over a frozen lake. 'I will,' he added, answering no questions.
Up next - more dreamscapes, and a bitter sweet reunion.
