"Meep!" he yelled as he reached the ground. It took him a second to realize that he couldn't have just spoken if he was dead. He slowly opened his eyes to reveal that his small body was wrapped tightly, suspended off the ground, by Miyoko's long, thick vine. A big rush of relief hit him, and he sighed. Hysterical laughter broke the silence.
"Wow! You have no idea how funny you look when you're begging for your life!" she laughed, trying to catch her breath. Hitsugaya's eyes immediately narrowed and he opened his mouth to shout phyllipics, but shut it again. She did save his life.
"Well, thanks, anyway. Now could you put me down?" he said instead, struggling against the vine's grasp. He could barely breath it was squeezing him so hard.
"Oh, haha, yeah of course," she replied, dropping him roughly to the ground, getting his white hair all tangled and dusty. "Haha, that was so worth the trouble."
He picked himself and brushed off the dirt. "What trouble? Don't tell me you had this planned?" Hitsugaya glared at the sheepish smile that appeared on Miyoko's face, once again reminding him of Matsumoto's. "MIYOKO!!!"
A few minutes later, the pair of shinigami were trudging up the first of the trails that were to lead them to their destination. Hitsugaya walked behind her, not trusting her enough to let her out of sight. She had refused to put her zanpakuto back into its released form, having her vine wrapped around her head like a desert traveler, which led him to believe that she was afraid of something. He kept his hand on the hilt of Hyorinmaru just in case. They kept going like this for some time, stopping every now and then for a brief rest. The world was so much different than Soul Society and the Real World. The fact that they were walking upside down was very confusing, and in order to keep from being dizzy, he averted his eyes to the trail before him. Miyoko however, didn't seem to be affected and was hopping up and down all over the place. She made sure to touch every flower and every tree they passed, feeling all of the weird new textures and smells. He sighed. She was like a little kid.
When the sun below them reached the bottom of one of the neighboring hills and started to set, the world grew three times as cold. Soon Miyoko had her vine wrapped around her entire body for excess warmth and Hitsugaya, who was used to and unaffected by the cold, worried about her. It must have been at least 5 degrees below zero.
"Are you sure you don't want to stop for the night? You'd probably be warmer that way?" he asked her, after a few more miles. She gave him a shaky smile and coldly stuttered, "No, no, really, I'm fine. I'm just worried about you." He scowled. He'd already told her it had no affect. Besides, he could see that the tips of her fingers were turning purple. A bad sign of frostbite.
"We're stopping," he announced, marching off the trail. He found a small rock formation guarded by a frozen river bank and sat down, motioning for her to follow him. Miyoko rolled her eyes and reluctantly came to him, setting her small bag of belongings next to her. This captured Hitsugaya's interest. He hadn't noticed that bag before. Had she been carrying it the entire time?
"Hey, Miyoko. Where'd that come from?"
She looked to where he was pointing and chuckled, rubbing her hands together for warmth. "I didn't think you noticed that and I was starting to wonder if you were that oblivious!" She smiled.
Hitsugaya scowled, "Just answer."
"When we first got here, I time traveled back to my time to pick up a few things. That's where I got the goggles from, you know," she replied, looking proud.
"Oh," was all he said in return, turning over onto his side to face the other way. The moon of this world was bizarre. Instead of the white back home, it was a crystal blue, and looked as fragile as a piece of glass. There were no markings on it at all, and it shined with almost the same intensity as the sun. He watched it move slowly across the upside-down sky beneath him and eventually he drifted off to sleep.