Chapter 10 – An unwanted guest
A giant caterpillar crawled out of the shadows (with a silver halo). 'Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō' poisonous smoke came out of its mouth causing everyone to jump backwards. 'Get them,' said Mayuri. Many blades came out of the caterpillar's body and it rushed towards them. Everyone flash stepped up into the air to move out of the way.
'Split into the two groups, everyone MOVE,' shouted Hikari above the noise. All eight people went into two groups of four, 'as we planned get to the gate, don't attack until tomorrow at this time. Let's move it.' Byakuya's group ran off in the opposite direction to the closest gate.
'He he, you're not getting away,' shouted Kenpachi running after them and disappearing off into the distance.
'Do you think they'll make it?' asked Ratiasu running next to Hikari
'Of course they will, they've got two captains there. I'm sure they'll be fine,' replied Hikari followed closely by Rukia and Haruka.
'Ha ha ha, do you really think you can escape my Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō. You people should think again.' He pointed his sword towards Hikari, the caterpillar instantly sprang up into the air, landed next to Hikari and shot blades towards her. Before the spikes hit she was rescued by Ratiasu who saw the danger and immediately flash stepped Hikari out of harms way. 'Oh? Try escape this then, get her,' he waved his hand in Ratiasu's direction. The caterpillar breathed out massive amounts of poisonous smog over the four girls.
'Oh crap, we have to run,' shouted Haruka. The poisonous gas cloud floated towards them with an increasing pace thanks to the wind blowing in their direction. Mayuri and the caterpillar followed. The path was clear nothing stood in their way, no hollows, people or any foliage. It was as if Mayuri had planned to chase them like this. They ran for a few minutes and realized that running wasn't going to solve anything.
'It's no use, we can't out run the smog. Our only chance is to stand and fight,' said Hikari who stopped running and turned around to face the poisonous cloud.
'Hmph, what ever you say Kari,' said Ratiasu. Everyone stopped and turned to face Mayuri who has also stopped.
'Oh? You're not going to run anymore? The fun ended a bit too early, I was only GETTING STARTED,' he screamed. The caterpillar 'stood' up and shot out its blades at the four.
'Don't think so,' said Ratiasu. Everyone flash stepped to dodge the attack, Ratiasu flash stepped up into the air in front of Mayuri aimed hands at him and shouted, 'Hado number 33, pale fire crash,' many blue streams of thunder shot out of Ratiasu's finger and fired at Mayuri who quickly flash stepped upwards and dodged it.
'Ha, nice shot but not good enough,' as soon as Mayuri said that two blade shot out from behind him. Ratiasu didn't have the time to dodge she was able to block one but the other one cut her left arm. Blood started dripping from the cut, she didn't get time to do anything as another two blades followed the first shot. This time it was Hikari who came up and blocked both shots.
'Get back Terri, you're wounded,' shouted Hikari. Ratiasu obeyed and flash stepped backwards to heal her wound whilst Haruka and Rukia both flash stepped next to Hikari.
'I'll shoot all three of you down with one shot,' said Mayuri. About fifty blades shot out of the caterpillar directed at them three.
Rukia jumped in from of them, 'Dance, sode no shira yuki,' her sword turned to its released state, she spun round and said, 'first dance, white moon.' A beam of ice erupted around her going upwards and any blade that came in contact either was frozen up or shattered, blocking the blades going to Haruka and Hikari.
'My turn,' said Hikari who charged at the poisonous cloud, 'blossom, rozehana.' Blades emerged from her sword's guard and started to encircle the sword. 'Ben dansu' she shouted and aimed the blades at the ground in front of the caterpillar.
'You missed,' said Mayuri.
'Oh did I?' the dust cleared to reveal that the poisonous smog had been blown away by the explosion that occurred after the attack.
'Interesting strategy, well then guess he'll just need to poison you again.'
'He won't have time to,' said Hikari smiling because at that moment Haruka came charging out of no where and stabbed the caterpillar in the face, then flash stepped back. The caterpillar writhed around in pain as Rukia stood in front of it and took this chance to finish the fight.
'Second dance, white ripple.' A wave of ice blasted out of her sword and completely engulfed the caterpillar. Rukia turned around and walked away, she sheathed her sword and as she did, the ice burst into pieces and the caterpillar was no more.
'Ha ha ha, not bad, but that wasn't the end.' laughed Mayuri.
'What?' said Rukia turning round looking surprised. Mayuri raised his sword and the pieces of the caterpillar in ice moved towards one another. For a moment it looked as if the caterpillar was going to be rebuilt, but in actual fact it reformed into a tower shaped object.
'Bye bye,' whispered Mayuri but loud enough for everyone to hear. The tower rumbled a little and without warning, it exploded with a ferocious bang blowing everyone off their feet. Ratiasu was also caught in the blast and before she was blasted into the sky, she saw Mayuri, laughing his head off.
Minutes passed and as they flew into the sky carried by the momentum of the blast. They couldn't land because the velocity of the explosion was still carrying them along. When finally the blast ran out of energy they found themselves pretty high up in the sky. They dived back downwards. It was a safe landing no one was hurt although Rukia did have a few scorch marks on her leg where the flames caught her, but that was easily healed by Ratiasu.
'Where are we?' asked Haruka looking around. It was like a desert, nothing grew, no one was seen, they were alone in an unknown part of soul society.
'I didn't know there was a desert in soul society,' said Ratiasu looking bewildered.
'I did,' said Hikari, 'this is the place where people are trained if they want to enter hueco mundo, the environment here is apparently very similar to those in hueco mundo. Problem is, this place is quite far from the seireitei. I don't know if we can make it in twenty four hours now.'
'Don't worry, if worst comes to worst we can always flash step our way there, though that would leave us with no spiritual energy to spare if we had to fight. So let's just hope we don't fight,' said Haruka, looking rather cheery for some reason.
'Well then let's go, we can't waste anytime here, follow me,' said Hikari leading everyone off into one direction.
'Erm… are you sure this is the right way?' asked Ratiasu.
'Don't you worry, I've had to come here on two occasions to oversee some people train, so I know my way around here. Just follow me and we'll be out of here in no time,' said Hikari leading the way.
'For a desert, it isn't really that hot,' said Rukia.
'Yeah they couldn't make it hot as it's the same temperature as the whole of soul society. So they didn't bother in the end,' Hikari explained and Rukia nodded.
They walked for about an hour with nothing to look at except desert sand and even more sand. It wasn't hot so it wasn't a bad experience, but walking through nothing was quite boring.
The hours passed and they come to a halt when Hikari sees a huge gate shaped object off in the distance .She pointed towards it, 'there it is, that's the divide between desert and normal land, come on, we're nearly there.'
She sped up into a run and ran straight towards the gate until a deep low voice came out of no where and said, 'Not so fast, I need a word with you, woman.' All four of them looked up to the sky and saw a man. He had Mettalic white hair, he was wearing an arrancar jacket, which revealed a hole in his chest, and he had half a mask as his jaws. He slowly glided down and confronted them.
'An arrancar? I thought they died out when Aizen was defeated ages ago,' thought Rukia.
'Who are you?' inquired Haruka.
'Me? I am Plata Acerogarra, I am one of the five Wujian, the top five arrancar. And I have come for you, Ratiasu.'