I am so sorry about how long it's been since I have updated! The comupter got a virus, then my dad was off work for a week, then we got a dog, so a bunch of stuff going on that didn't leave me much chance for this. Anyway here it is now, hope it's worth it.

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Chapter Six

Learning

Karakura, Japan

"How did Urahara know I am an elf?" Holly asked, firing another arrow. Now that she had a feel for pulling reishi from the air she was working on doing so more quickly. She dissipated her bow after each shot, not because she couldn't maintain it, but so that she could practice forming it. Before they left for Hueco Mundo she needed to be able to use it at a moment's notice.

In answer to her question Ishida said, "He's a Shinigami. He founded their Research and Development department. It seems like he knows something about everything. You get used to it once you've known him for a while."

Talking while training was helping Holly learn to gather reishi without having to concentrate so hard. Butler had gone upstairs to talk to Urahara while Tessai looked after the shop. That left Ishida for her to get information from. As Artemis was always reminding her knowledge is power. "How did he end up running a ramshackle candy shop in the World of the Living?"

"Another Shinigami named Aizen Sosuke performed illegal experiments and framed him for it. Urahara escaped and saved the test subjects with help from Tessai and another friend of his."

"Was Aizen ever caught?" was it her imagination or were her arrows lasting longer?

"Yes. He eventually revealed himself as a traitor. He raised an army of Arrancars and kidnapped my friend, Inoue Orihime, then attacked the Soul Society. He lost, Urahara sealed his powers away and he was sentenced to twenty-thousand years in prison."

"Somehow I doubt he's going to wait for his parole to come up;" Holly muttered, firing again.

"Shinigami can live for millennia, but you're right. Especially since Inoue has gone missing again."

"You're trying to rescue the same girl?"

"Yes. From what you say she disappeared about the same time as your friend."

"What does this guy want with her anyway?"

"I don't know, he never gave a straight answer to that. At least not one we could be sure was true."

"But you managed to rescue her before?" the arrows were definitely lasting longer.

"Yes, five of us went after her, myself, three Shinigami, and a Fullbringer."

Holly didn't bother asking what a Fullbringer was. She didn't care if he had help from a mad man with a box. It was good to know she was going with someone who had been there before, even if they were going with less than half the help.

"It's not Aizen," a female voice announced. Holly turned to see a dark skinned woman wearing an orange jacket and skin tight black pants with her purple hair pulled back in a ponytail walking toward them from the ladder. "I just checked. He's still in his cell."

Ishida bowed, "Short-san, this is Urahara's friend Shihoin Yoruichi ."

Holly bowed in greeting then asked, "Does that mean Koboi took them both?"

"Most likely. It seems too much of a coincidence that they went missing at the same time for them not to be connected."

"So now what?" Ishida wondered.

"Now you two take a break from training. Come upstairs, eat, and try to get some sleep." She turned her yellow cat-like eyes on Holly, "Then tomorrow we'll see how you do against real Hollows."

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Desert, Hueco Mundo

Orihime couldn't tell how long they had been walking, it seemed like hours, but the moon hung stationary in the black sky making it impossible to tell for sure. She needed to redo her braid, but she didn't want to take her hair down in front of Artemis. When she had first gotten out of the hospital she left it loose, but the length and strange color attracted stares which made her uncomfortable. Braiding and pinning it up made it less noticeable. She couldn't think of Artemis as anything but a friend after all they had been through together in just the short time since they met, but that was just another reason not to want him staring.

Artemis stopped when their path took them to one of the trees. He looked at it a moment then touched one of the branches. "This isn't wood. It isn't even petrified, it's crystal." Orihime didn't like the way he was looking at it, it reminded her of the way the pink-haired man had looked at her like he couldn't wait to take her apart. Artemis seemed less eager, but he was only studying a tree.

"We should go. There's nowhere to hide out here."

"Don't you realize what this means? You were right, we're on another world."

"What difference does it make if they catch us?"

"But that wasn't the only thing you knew. You said the moon we could see from the window was real, and there it is. You knew where the door was, and you just happened to hit the panel to open it even though it blended perfectly with the wall," that curious studying stare was turned on her now.

"What are you saying?" she whispered.

"You have been here before haven't you?"

"What? No!"

"I tell you an elf is going to try to rescue me and you think I won't believe you when you tell me how you know this place?"

"I don't know it!"

"Then how did you know the way out?"

"I don't know! I wasn't thinking about it!" She realized she was starting to cry and tried to hold the tears back. "Maybe I have been here before, but I don't remember," she whispered to keep her voice under control.

Understanding dawned in Artemis' eyes. "You don't remember." It didn't sound like a question.

"Do you remember the Great Techno-Crash?" she asked. He nodded. "I don't, or anything before it. I woke up in the hospital a few days after. They even had to tell me my name and they only knew that much because I had a student I.D. They never found anything on my family and no one came looking for me. I've been in and out of foster homes since. No one wants to keep me very long because they know I'll be old enough to move out on my own soon." She realized that at some point the tears had escaped and slid down her cheeks, but at least she wasn't sobbing out of control. She turned her face away and started walking, hearing him fall into step behind her.

They weren't sure how long it was before they came to a large bowl-shaped valley lined with caves. They found a path down and slipped into the first cave they came to. "None of this is natural, the shapes are too perfect. This was carved out." Artemis traced what appeared to be claw marks on the wall, "And not by humans."

"Whatever did make it must be huge," Orihime said looking up at the ceiling which seemed impossibly tall.

"Well there aren't any signs that anyone—or anything—has been here for a long time. We should stay here, for now at least," he sat on the floor against the wall. "Of course if we are on another world, perhaps we should wait here. It isn't as if we know where we are going."

Orihime sat against the wall a few feet away from him. "So we just hope that your friend finds us before Koboi does?"

"I don't even know if Holly can get here, but she won't give up easily. If there is a way—and there must be or we wouldn't be here—she'll find it."

"I've never been able to trust anyone like that. Not that I can remember anyway."

Artemis looked at her, his mismatched blue and hazel eyes seeming to consider something. "Do you know why you lost your memories?"

"They said it was a combination of shock and trauma. No one actually said it but I'm pretty sure they thought I saw my family get blown up."

"What do you think?"

She recognized the psychiatrists method of questioning but he seemed to actually be concerned for her so she answered, "I don't know. I have this dream, the same one every night. Two monsters are fighting and when the one wins it doesn't stop, it just literally rips the other one apart. I try to run to him and he's reaching for me, but I always wake up before I get there." It was the most basic version of the dream she could give him.

"Do you know who he is?"

"No, if I see his face I don't remember when I'm awake. I just know I don't want him to die."

"What about the other one?"

"I don't know. I think he was someone I cared about or admired, then found out I shouldn't. Maybe seeing them as monsters is just some weird translation my brain makes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well maybe I thought the one I wanted to help was a monster, but I was wrong, and the one I liked before turned out to be a monster."

"You don't think you might be over analyzing it?"

She shrugged, "They couldn't have actually been like that."

Artemis looked up at the claw marks on the wall and said nothing.

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The Valley's Edge, Hueco Mundo

"Well that was easy, they don't even know how to hide their spirit energy," Grimmjow commented looking down at the cave their quarry was in.

"That's him your sensing. She is hiding, but I don't think she knows it. She just doesn't want to be found," Nel pointed out.

"So now what?"

"We keep an eye on them."

"That's it?"

"If we take them back Granz will want to dissect them right way and at this point they have no reason to trust us," Ulquiorra pointed out.

"She didn't escape last time! Why is she causing so much trouble now?" Grimmjow complained.

"This time she did not have anything to lose. The Shinigami saw to the that." Ulquiorra reminded him.

"Well we might as well take shifts to rest. Only one of us has to be watching to know when they leave." Nel decided. She and Grimmjow settled onto the sand assuming Ulquiorra would take the first watch. If he minded, he didn't say.

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Las Noches, Hueco Mundo

"You let those three go after them? And you expect them to come back?" Rowan struggled to keep his voice even. He knew he couldn't afford to make Koboi angry but for someone who was supposed to be a genius she could be really stupid sometimes.

"Did you expect me to go after them myself? Granz is useless with this sort of thing. Those two are probably going to die out there anyway. What about your project?"

"I managed to get her going again. I promised her she will get what she wants when she finds it."

"Short will still come for Fowl so you'll have her soon enough. I assume you will be killing the archaeologist once she's filled her role."

"Of course. But what are you planning to do with these Arrancars? They seem like a problem."

"That is for me to deal with." In other words she didn't have a plan. It looked like he would have to deal with them himself.

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Well I guess that's it for today. Let me know what you think.

Thanks and prayer,

RAHbooks.