I know it's been like ancient since I posted a new chapter, and I am greatly sorry! I see people reviewing, subscribing and adding the story to their favourites which I am super, super happy about! Thank you to all those people! :D
I've just been too busy with school and other extra curricular activities - not to mention assignments that I always procrastinate on - that I tend to forget to continue with the chapters. I'll keep doing my best to put up new chapters so bare with me here! Once again, thanks for reading, reviewing, subscribing and liking ECAD!

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. I'll probably stop adding these disclaimers soon; I think we all know I'm not the one that owns Bleach, at all. XD


I've been carefully checking Szayel... 's work (ahem), and stayed true to the promise of looking out for Kaye. Well, he hasn't done anything to her that I would consider harmful but I'm still wary about his methods. I haven't move from my seat since and haven't been doing a thing since either. Not to mention we haven't struck another conversation after the one last time and also, he hasn't even answered that question yet. I'm just bored out of my mind here.

While the Octava currently busied himself in front of his large-screened computer, my eyes wondered around the room, for the sixth time. I've searched the room so many times that I began to create a game of it in my head, calling it the 'spot how many imperfections are in the room of the so-called perfect Octava Esapda' game. The addicting game of mine had spotted already quite many imperfections: clutters of papers on many benches, dusty mechanisms, stained floors, cracked scientific utensils, and a few more. It was a never-ending play as I swore that I would spot more. The game did, however, help me realise that Szayel was no 'perfect-being' in which he claims to be; just a narcissistic and cocky pink-bastard. This news will surely disappoint many of his fangirls.

My time-wasting game had then been distracted by the constant muttering of someone in the room. I immediately looked to Kaye in hope that she was awake but only laid there still, mouth not even twitching. The muttering became lavishly loud as I directed my eyes to Szayel's back frame and heard keys being typed intensely. Since it isn't Kaye who's possibly mumbling, it had to be Szayel. But why?

"Uhh... Szayel... you, okay?" I hesitantly asked, hoping I wasn't distracting his work.

"... What is this... how could..." he whispered to himself as the screen brought up many browsers. The mumbling became a furious growling with him swearing the word 'shit' a few times.

"Hey. What's going on?" I slowly leaned back and raised a brow.

Szayel heavily breathed a sigh and grunted. "This! Your entire beings!" he exclaimed. "I don't have the proper equipments to fully understand your functions and I can't very well tear you to pieces as I please!" The researcher stopped with the key-pressing and tried to maintain his fury by running a hand down his face. He started mumbling again and clicked his tongue. "You two are more trouble than you're worth." He grumbled and it was loud enough for me to hear this time.

'Di- Did he just diss us?' I was surprised at how Szayel could get so riled up over when he's not getting what he wants. But hell naaw! I'm not gonna let him sit there and blame this all on us! No freaking hell!

"What? You think this is our fault that we're here? You think that we made ourselves different to this world? It's not like we woke up one morning and decided to visit Hueco Mundo! We fucking didn't even know how we got here! And it's not like we changed our bodies to something unsolvable or some shit like that just to piss you and Aizen off! Did we want to be here? I'd be lying if I said we didn't, but right now I wish we hadn't arrived here in the first place!" I was on fumes and I could feel rage boiling inside and morphing out into words. It's like these vent up words were dying to be heard.

"You may not bloody trust us but at least get your facts right and put your shit where your mouth is!" I roared.

Szayel stood beside his desk chair and stared at me, eyes wide open. I huffed out air and cleansed my strained throat. Szayel stared at me a second more before fixing up his glasses and walking up to me. Of course, I thought of the worst outcome like him pointing a pistol on my forehead, but Szayel had only walked up to Kaye and detached the wires on her. I watched him with furrowed eyes, 'He's not mad?' even I thought I went overboard with my words. Szayel casually walks to a grey door that I hadn't noticed was there, hidden from the darkness a few metres away behind us. He escapes into the room and turns on the light there.

I breathed out all the tension left in me. 'Breathe. Calm down. Breathe.' I repeated to myself. I patted all around my body to make sure he didn't slice a body part in some ninja way and breathed out happily that everything of me is intact. 'Szayel must be mad...', my face gloomed. He left the room after my outburst so he must be out thinking of some gruelling way to torture me! 'No, no!' I shuddered in fear and shook my head. No time for that. Right now, I need to wake up Kaye.

The machineries were turned off as the wires connecting Kaye were swaying loosely above ground.

"Oi Kaye?" I poked at her cheek. "Wake up, wake up." No response.

"Vanille, Rie" I swiftly turned around and saw Szayel standing on the doorframe. "Come here. It's your turn." My body stiffened as I looked back to Kaye who was still not awake. 'Should I wait till she wakes up?' I thought. But for some reason I had this gut feeling that Kaye would definitely wake up soon and it was all right if I went on ahead... but... where was this sure gut feeling coming from?

"It's your turn." Szayel repeated himself. I flinched at the different tone he had used on that. I nodded to Kaye, walked towards Szayel and into the next room.

The room was an exact replica of the other room, well, minus his personal large-screened computer. Everything was set out just like Kaye's experiment with the silver table, wires and numerous machines. 'Since when did he get so much time to set all this up?' I did notice though that this room was smaller and quite cleaner with less paper clutters and messy surfaces.

"Hurry up, would you?" he rolled his amber eyes. I quickly got onto the silver steel table and laid myself down slowly, taking the feel of pure cold metal to correspond with my body's heat. I looked to my left and cringed. I knew I wasn't lucky.

The sadistic son-of-a-gun picks up the injection and squirts a droplet, trickling down slowly on its needle. Instincts say, "Run, mother fucker!" I say, "You can do this." It was too late to gap it now. I had to be just as strong, for my sake and Kaye's.

"Let's hope you at least show some decent results." He grumbled then pricked the inside of my left elbow.

My eyelids fluttered and became heavy as I felt the liquid streaming through my veins. I did manage to say one final thing to him before I blacked out which I'm sure will get me into trouble when I meet him next time.

"… Who are you all?

And what do you want?

Are you my consciences? … No? … Am I getting signal from ESPN or something?

Then why are you-!

What 'two-worlds'?

And a what?

Look, the things you're all saying doesn't make any sense.

You… You were the ones who bought us here?

Why! W-What?

I swear, quit yellin-

No, I-

What are we suppose to do?

H-Hey! Let go!

Dammit! Stop!

What are you doi-! Stop!

No-ooo!

AAAAAAHHHH!"

"RIE!" I immediately sat up and stayed still until my hazy vision returned to normal.

I looked to my left, "… K-Kaye?"

Her light blue eyes twinkled and her whole faces beamed up. Without a second thought, she stretches out her arms and hugs the living life out of me.

"K-Kaaaye… Can't. Breathe…"

"Oh, sorry!" she stepped back and shook her head to kick out the crystal droplets on her eyes and smiled cheerfully at me, her usual bright Kaye smile. I immediately thought, 'Thank god Kaye managed to wake up back to her normal happy self' as I slowly relaxed my shoulder which felt like they were loaded with much weight.

"We were so worried you might not be waking up at all! Your monitor was beeping a lot, and even though I didn't get what it was trying to say, Szayel was looking worried so it must've been bad. But thank goodness you're okay!" She reaches out for another glomp but fortunately my senses came back fast as I was able to dodge her hug attack.

"Calm yourself down, woman. I'm alive, we got that clarified." I helplessly sighed. I looked to her with troubled eyes, "How about you? You okay?"

"Peachy!" Kaye flicked to a pose with her 'peace' hand against her dimpled cheek. "Mr. Party-Pinky-Pooper made sure I was fine when I woke up. He asked heaps of questions~!" I felt regret when she mentioned it was Szayel that was with her when she had woken up. I regret not being there for her when she woke up. But... my gut feeling-

"Kaye... I-I'm sorry..."

Kaye tilted her head. "Why? Don't be. The both of us were gonna get examined, I knew that!" she says with glee. "Honestly. You're worried about that? You should be more worried about your health! Dr. Geeky-Pinky would think so too."

I couldn't help but grin to this. My gut feeling wasn't wrong after all. I thought for sure she'd be mad but Kaye didn't mind. Stupid Kaye. Happy Kaye. "Jeez, you really need to stop calling Szayel weird names." Kaye blows this comment off by sticking her tongue out. I do commend Kaye though for her many creative nicknames for Szayel Aporro Grantz.

"Speaking of Szayel..." I began searching the room for the familiar pink researcher. "Where is he?" I would have actually thought he'd be the first to greet me to check up on my condition and stuff.

"Szayel? Hmm... After he said 'she'll be awake soon' a couple of minutes ago before you woke up, he went into the other room." Kaye looked to the door that connected this room to the other room, the room where she was examined in. I slowly planted my feet on the concrete but stumbled and Kaye quickly supported my side. I limped; she assisted, as we made our way inside.

There was Szayel in front of his computer staring intensely at these colour-coded graphs and data.

"Pinky~ Rie's up now!" Kaye called out.

The Octava swivelled his chair around and came to a stand. "How are you feeling?" he looked closely at me and spoke in a, surprisingly, a sincere voice.

"Drowzy. Uncoordinated. High." I monotonously replied while giving him a weird look. Szayel sounds all sincere...? Did I wake up right?

"Those will subside in a few of hours." Szayel walks on to the bench and grabbed the clipboard, flipping pages out. "I've gathered enough data for now. I'll file in the report to Lord Aizen. For now, sit still and wait." The Octava then makes his way to the exit of the room. Nevermind, I take 'sincere' back.

"Hey! That's unfair! You asked me more questions about my health and stuff but not much on Rie!" Kaye whined as Szayel holds onto the door handle.

I raised a brow, 'Szayel was asking about Kaye's well-being? Well I don't see what's so bad about that... but its so unlike him.' Both of us waited for his response.

"Judging from her first answer, she seemed well enough for me not to ask further questions. Now stay here and wait." he pushed down the handle and exited the room.

"I said I was fine when you first asked too..." Kaye grumbled and sticks her tongue out at the door as if he was still there. I just rolled my eyes knowing this was typical child-like behaviour of Kaye. "I tell ya, he kept going: 'Oh, how are your muscles?', 'Oh, are you breathing well?', 'Oh, do you feel out of the ordinary?' CHEH. He should've asked whether I liked being asked questions at."

Then at that moment, I had a fleeting sense of remorse towards Szayel Aporro. This guy... maybe... I've been judging him all wrong. I mean, I was really worried about Kaye going up first and how the examination will turn out. Could it be? Szayel asked questions about Kaye for my sake?... Naaah, impossible. Can't be. Szayel's not even sincere, let alone considerate.

"Rie. You should lie down and rest for a while." Kaye unattached herself from me and places me down against the counter.

"Really. I'm fine. I don't need to lie down." I took a deep breath in and tried to maintain my light weight body. 'Guess this is what a hangover feels like' I thought jokingly. While Kaye busied herself with the surrounding gadgets of the room, I drifted into deep thought of the dream I had of those many voices that were somehow trying to speak to me. I couldn't understand them, and why couldn't I? They were way loud enough, but their words just aren't reaching. They spoke English, I'm sure. Gibberish-English, maybe. In the back of my mind I thought it would've been the administered drug but it was just like the last one when we slept in our cell only the time of the dream felt longer. Who did those voices belong? And what were they actually trying to say to me?

My train of thoughts broke as a loud impact boomed the room. Kaye, once again, dropped something of Szayel's. First the glass and now, his gadgets?

"Oh shit...! Oops." Kaye slowly takes steps away from the cluttering mess and moves on to another mechanism. I swear she must have some strong hatred for the guy.

Minutes passed and Szayel arrives through the door while pushing up his glasses.

"Lord Aizen has assigned me to give these to you. Lumina, Verona!" two bouncing, short, round-shaped minions with pig-tails came out through the door carrying a big white cardboard box on their heads. "I suggest you put these on quickly. We have much to go over." The walking white balloons handed over to each of us, a large box. Kaye patted the little one who gave hers on the head and said 'thank you' before both bounced off out of sight. I examined the white parcel and cautiously took out the lid. Well it wasn't a prank since no plastic snakes and confetti popped out. It was more clothes; folded pristine clothing with black streaks.

"Arrancar uniforms?" Kaye got to my question first. There was no doubt about it; the design of modern white and black contrasting Shinigamis, was of an Arrancar… how original.

"Yes. As you can see, Lord Aizen passed the report and sees you as of no threat. Since he decided not to kill you and you've agreed to be under oath of Lord Aizen- you will be treated as an Arrancar. Thus you must appeal in Las Noches as an Arrancar." I meerly shrugged to this but in my head I'm basically having a party while yelling out 'SCORE! I'm an Arrancar now, bitch!', but I can't really show that to Szayel now; he'd think I'm weird.

Kaye can't hold a poker face so she kept hopping with joy and held that huge grin on her face the whole time we walked back to the changing room for the second time.

"Arrancar~ Arrancar~ We're Arrancars~ Yea-haaaay!" she sang terribly as she started tying her brown hazel hair into pig tails before getting changed. I slapped my forehead and sighed; 'gaah... really. Sometimes, Kaye can just be so... UGHHH.'

I sighed once more and left Kaye in her bliss and took out one article of clothing from the box. "What the-", and another article. And another. And pulled out every piece of clothing in that box.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Were they serious? Giving us these... these... pieces-of-cloths? The white three-layered skirt with black edges were like 20 centimetres above the knee, the tube top with one strap only covered the section of the boobs which left my belly completely exposed, the flat boots were only up to the ankles... Fuck man, the clothing only covered thirty-percent of our body! (The long arm warmers did not help one bit). What the hell do they think we are? PROSTITUTES?

"SZAYEL!" I slammed open the door and the pink bastard swivels his desk chair around.

"Ah, I see you wore them. Not bad-"

"I had to wear it! It was either this or that freaking night gown. BUT WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THESE? It's not even the same as your male Arrancar uniform!" I screamed and trying to contain my reddening face, which was failing. These clothes were way too revealing. And breezy.

Of course I wasn't done yet, "Honestly, why do us female Arrancars' have to wear skimpy clothes? Are we like porn on legs for you men? GOD! That is just so low!" And where was this strong belief of women rights coming from, you ask? Two years in my socialology class and each year we'd always cover 'women rights' as essay topics. Don't mean to brag but just so you know-straight A-plus on those, baby!

But back to my final point: "Just 'cause there's more men in Las Noches doesn't mean you can treat the rest of us like play-things!" I barked, keeping my eyes stern and focused. Szayel was... displeased. He simply gave a blank stare and a couple of seconds later, walked away.

"LOL Rie." Kaye commented with a smirk. 'Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm screwed.' Before I could even begin to come up of imaginative ways in what method Szayel would use to torture me, a thick layered clothing with sharp zipper flung its way on my face and made me yelp. I quickly peeled it off my head and opened up the clothing in front of me. 'Coat?'

"This one is for Kaye Persona." Szayel hands it down to my brown-haired friend with both hands. She opened it out as well and we both noticed the coat had different designs. Mine, is a sleeveless-coat with a collar and open gap at the bottom of the coat that showed my layered skirt with pleated sides; while Kaye's one was more of a short chinese cheongsam , the zipper being at the back, sleeveless, tight-neck collar and also has pleated sides. It... wasn't half bad.

"Cool..." the word slipped my mouth.

"May I suggest you keep your cool and put your shit where your mouth is?" he smirked. I blew up my cheeks and tried my best to give him a scowl while getting rid of the red 'embarrassment' that's stamped on my face.

I was blushing for two reasons: one, he just used my words against me and two; he is so hot with his lips curling on to one side and looking all sly and clever.