54. Interference (Part 2)

This is continuation of chapter 36, in which the Winter War comes to an unexpected end at the hands of the humans…and both arrancar and shinigami are left picking up the pieces.


Ukitake awoke to pain and familiar voices.

"So what? He's just gonna leave us here?" A young female, annoyed. The sound of her voice sent a pang of sadness and regret to Jushiro's heart.

"Looks like it." A deep male baritone. In contrast to the girl, this voice set off every warning instinct he had.

"Hmph." Something rustled.

The male sighed.

"Don't go to sleep!" the girl snapped. "We need to be ready to leave!"

Even though he was in tremendous pain, the bulk of it radiating from his stomach and lower chest, Jushiro did his best to force himself awake. First, his fingers twitched, feeling the rubble and concrete beneath him. Then, his muscles tensed, starting in his extremities and moving in until he knew he was still in one piece. Finally, his eyes fluttered open.

For a long moment, he lay there and stared with incomprehension at the blue sky and tall human buildings towering overhead. Sunset was just beginning to fall, painting brilliant colors across the clouds from the west and he could hear the crackle of a fire not too far away. There were other voices, too, he realized, close enough to be heard but far enough to be incomprehensible. Eventually, he realized the initial voices had gone silent.

Without thinking about it, he swiveled his head in their direction.

When he found himself staring straight into the curious eyes of Coyote Starrk and Lilynette Gingerbuck, reality returned in a flash. Alarmed, he flinched back and immediately collapsed as the wound in his chest pulled. What happened? He stared at the arrancar in alarm. The last thing he remembered was being stabbed by Wonderweiss and falling from the battlefield.

"That looks like it hurts." The little arrancar leaned towards him and sniffed at him like an animal. Like a hollow, he realized in horror.

"What-." His voice broke, lungs protesting from internal damage and the taste of blood. "What happened?"

"We won!" She gloated, sitting back and puffing out her chest in pride, ignorant to Jushiro's horrified stare. "All the shinigami ran like cowards!"

No…they would never do that; not retreat from a fight nor leave Jushiro behind. Seeking clarification, his eyes flitted to the male arrancar standing several meters away leaning against a railing with a half-lidded disinterested expression.

"Technically," he grumbled. "The humans won. Aizen ran away too."

The humans?

"What?"

Starrk gestured out past the railing and for the first time, Jushiro realized they were on the roof of a building at least several stories tall and the distant voices he'd heard were coming from the ground below, as was the fire.

When Ukitake merely stared in confusion rather than coming to look, Starrk frowned and clarified.

"The humans have reiatsu-powered weapons, somehow. But they don't know the difference between shinigami and hollows."

The girl snickered. "Yeah, but we weren't stupid enough to stick around. The shinigami got flattened!" She said it with obvious relish.

"Shunsui…?" Jushiro managed to choke out.

Starrk gave an indifferent shrug. "I don't see your friend down there; he probably took off with the others. " At Jushiro's stricken expression, Starrk softened slightly. "I doubt he intended to leave you, Taicho-san, but he wasn't given a choice. They were chased away."

"When you say he's not one of the shinigami down there, what do you mean?" His heart settled slightly at Starrk's reassurance, but that was dwarfed by foreboding.

Starrk made a disinterested sound and sat down on the concrete.

Lilynette snickered. "The humans captured, like, tons of shinigami. They've got'em all stood up in tubes and they're using them for power, like batteries." She hung over the railing, waving down and making rude hand gestures at whoever was below.

At her explanation, the taicho's eyes widened and he tried to push himself upright, only to fall back down with a pained gasp.

"Why aren't you healing?"

He glanced at the espada in confusion.

"I was stabbed, Espada-san. It will take longer than that for me to recover."

"Hn." Starrk frowned. "I recovered."

He pulled his shirt collar sideways to reveal a vertical scar, just large enough to have been made by Katen Kyokotsu. It was directly over the left side of his chest, where his heart would have been if he was a shinigami or human. It should have been fatal but was already well on its way to healing.

Jushiro swallowed.

"Unfortunately, I do not have an arrancar's healing abilities."

"I thought shinigami could heal instantly if they used…what's it called…'kido'."

The surreal situation was beginning to sink in but Jushiro forced himself to respond as politely as possible. After all, Starrk could easily decide he was too much trouble to keep alive, and he was in no condition to defend himself.

"Healing kido can be used to speed up natural recovery times, but though it can perform amazing feats, it is not instant. It also must be performed by someone else, preferably a healer from the fourth division. A shinigami cannot heal himself in such a way."

"Hm." Starrk didn't seem impressed. Ukitake did not blame him – at this point, he would have given quite a lot to have an arrancar's healing factor. Even without a basic hollow's high speed regeneration, Starrk's recovery was far faster and more effective than a shinigami's natural healing abilities.

Still eyeing each other, but without anything else to say, they lapsed into uneasy silence.


Author's Notes:

This is the first of two 'sequel-ish' snippets from the Interference verse. The other one's a bit short to post, but I like it so it'll probably get up at some point (it's centered around Starrk and Shunsui, and takes place after this one). Who knows, maybe I'll even expand it a bit to include what exactly the humans have in mind for their captives, or what the shinigami who made it back to Soul Society are up to...

...Aaand this is why I shouldn't update late at night. I inevitably derail my current train of thought and pick up little projects to work on rather than my current big WIPs. XD

(Said current big WIP is 'Five Years' - I've got a decent amount written (about 8.5k), but it's still giving me a lot of trouble. The characters just don't want to work with each other.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!