Chapter Twenty-One

Vance woke up, wondering if it had all been simply a miserable nightmare.

The sun was bright overhead, and it seemed to him he must be somewhere very peaceful. A bird fluttered past high above, and he could hear other birds singing nearby.

Then he sat up, and caught sight of his legs. Phantom pain suddenly surged through him as he caught sight of the half-healed cuts, the holes where needles had sunk to, and through, the bone. For a memory, the pain was so real and fierce it made him feel nauseated.

He doubled over, eyes closed and arms wrapped around himself, until the pain subsided somewhat. At the same time, the nightmare he was sure he had just woken out of seemed to fade, the details blurring. He felt sure it had something to do with an arena, and Ryohime-

Vance bolted upright again, realizing for the first time that he was sensing Ryohime's reiatsu dimly, just barely enough to identify. He looked around properly, thinking he would be able to get a better fix on her location, only to find that she was lying hardly ten yards away, sprawled out as if she had simply fallen out of the air.

But her reiatsu felt so far away...

He crawled over to her side, alarm shooting through him. "Ryohime! Are you alright?" He shook her lightly, checked her pulse.

Still alive... and apparently not injured, though her robes looked badly burned. So why did her reiatsu feel so very weak?

The essential questions asked, his nausea passed, Vance began considering the less important details. Where are we? How did we get here? What day is it, even?

He had the sense that days had passed he couldn't quite remember. The last thing he could remember clearly was going to school one morning with Ryohime... and that event seemed very long ago, indeed. Now he and Ryohime were in a field somewhere, Ryohime unconscious and Vance himself had been the same until just recently.

And he was scarred. Badly. And yet... he couldn't remember how he had gotten hurt. It was like a word on the tip of his tongue, the knowledge of where he had gotten so many injuries. The memories just slipped away like ice.

He looked back at Ryohime, and was surprised to see her cheeks were glistening with tears. Crying in her sleep? Ryohime was crying?

"Ryohime?" he whispered, reaching out to nudge her shoulder. "Wake up."

She stirred, blinked a few times and sighed... then jerked upright, eyes wide. She stared at him like he was a ghost.

"You're still alive!" she exclaimed, then grunted in pain and fell back to the ground. Vance started, unsure what to do but convinced he could do something, but he had hardly touched her when she sat back up, breathing raggedly.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"I... don't really know. I feel kind of sick." She took a deep breath. "Don't worry, it was just a moment. More importantly, how are you? Feeling... yourself?"

Vance frowned. "Yeah? I mean, what else would I feel like?"

"Nothing," replied Ryohime, a little too quickly for Vance's liking. She stood up slowly, looking around with a bewildered expression. "Where are we?"

"Not a clue. To be honest, I was kind of hoping you could fill me in on what's been going on. I can't seem to put my finger on anything that's happened in the last... I don't even know how long. When was the last time we went to school?"

Ryohime chuckled bitterly. "A long time ago, it seems. So you don't remember anything that happened?"

"No... not properly." Vance looked down at himself, his tattered Shinigami robes, the still-red scars. Something inside him lurched painfully, and his next question was very subdued. "What happened to me?"

Ryohime took a long time to reply. And when she did, it was only to say, "I can't tell you yet. I don't know how to tell you yet. In fact, I don't remotely know..." She took a shuddering breath, then brushed her robes off, suddenly businesslike once more. "Right, we should be somewhere in Seireitei, though where exactly I don't know. My Senkaimon was hurried, and I don't remember where the-"

Her voice faltered, and Vance saw a look of sudden horror cross her face. She rounded on him suddenly, as if to reassure herself of his presence, then looked around them with the same desperate air.

"What is it?" Vance asked, starting to get exasperated. Was he to stay in the dark about everything?

"I mistimed it," she said tensely, though she seemed to be relaxing again somewhat. "I must have forgotten... or maybe they rescheduled?"

"What was rescheduled?!" he exclaimed.

"The Mender! I was trying to get us to Seireitei, but the Dangai was being repaired at the time. We... got hit by the Mender."

This took a moment to sink in. Vance frowned.

"But we're not dead... are we? Or stuck in the void?"

"No... I would guess we actually did make it to Seireitei somehow, anyway." Ryohime closed her eyes. "Or Soul Society, at any rate. It seems quiet around here... I think Seireitei is in that direction," she added, pointing.

Vance took a moment to search out whatever reiatsu Ryohime was using, and his frown deepened. "Wait, I don't sense anything. How do you know it's that way?"

He opened his eyes again just in time to catch the briefest flash of guilt in her eyes. She looked away, not meeting his gaze.

"We... do need to talk," she said quietly. "But I need to warn my dad first, about Caro, Steve and Herald, Dikayumi..."

With each added name, Ryohime looked more and more distressed. Finally she turned back to him, her eyes shining with tears. In a broken voice she whispered helpless, "Everything's falling apart, Vance..."

Suddenly, Vance didn't mind so much being out of the loop. He acted instinctively, stepping forward to embrace Ryohime in a tight hug. She hugged him back with no need for prompting, burying her head against his shoulder.

He wanted to say "It's going to be alright," but he couldn't be certain that was possible. Had something happened to Herald? Steve, Dikayumi...? He couldn't remember, but things were clearly not alright. Ryohime didn't cry unless things were very, very wrong.

And he had the nagging, sickening feeling he was, or had been, a part of what was very, very wrong.

.

Everything hit Ryohime anew, and the sheer volume of their troubles staggered her. Dikayumi had lost his inner battle, his Hollow had taken over completely. Caro's Hollow was still out there, even though Vance was no longer an element. Herald and Steve... she had to assume they had somehow been compromised, turned over to Caro's side somehow? How else could she explain their sudden refusal to listen to reason? Seireitei was supposed to be under siege as well, from what Caro had said last time. And there was still that ache in her heart, the fear and bitterness her own Zanpakuto had raised inside her.

Muramasa.

Suddenly, Ryohime felt a powerful urge to fix the one problem that was in her power to fix. She gave Vance one last squeeze, then withdrew herself from the embrace. Vance didn't know what was going on, she could see it in his eyes, but he also had that look... that stubborn "I will protect my friends" look.

A very Kurosaki expression, Herald had always said. He claimed Vance had picked it up from Ryohime.

Without explaining herself, Ryohime drew her Zanpakuto. She didn't really have the energy to care if Vance thought she was being strange. Maybe she was. But she had to settle this.

"Whisper, Muramasa."

Silence.

Ryohime's throat tightened.

"Whisper, Muramasa!"

Please...

Nothing.

She felt herself tearing up again, and angrily re-sheathed her Zanpakuto, wiping her eyes with a scorched sleeve. Vance was poised, looking ready to swoop in if she started crying again.

No. No more crying, don't be so weak, Kurosaki Ryohime, she told herself, and took another deep breath. She cracked a fake smile at Vance.

"Never mind," she said in reply to his silent question. "Come on, let's go find my dad."

Vance hesitated, then nodded. He fell in next to her as she started off towards Seireitei.

A horrible notion came to Ryohime as they walked. Could it be that, somehow, Kodoku Muramasa had severed the wrong connection? But no... he was her Bankai. It should be impossible for either one of them to accidentally break their bonds, bonds forged over a decade and more. I'm just tired, she thought to herself stubbornly, with forced optimism. I did just use Bankai for the first time.

She almost managed to convince herself that was the answer.