Author's note: Chapter 2 (: please review!
Rabbit Ears and Shiny Teeth: Chapter 2
"Do you mean that the Earl and Aizen have joined hands?" Lavi asked, his words expressing what all the Exorcists and shinigami were thinking.
Hitsugaya nodded grimly, looking at the phone in his hands, which was now on standby. He had already switched the Hollow detector to the highest it could go, which was the ability to detect Hollows within a 25-mile radius. "…It's just like what that Akuma said. Now the Hollow and Akuma are under the Earl's and Aizen's command."
The wind blew through the alleyway again, just as the detector rang out an urgent buzzing sound. At the same time, Allen's left eye activated. The two groups stood up, weapons drawn and activated. They sped in single file, one after another, towards the North, the shinigami following Hitsugaya, whose eyes were looking intently at the phone, trusting his feet to guide him.
The Exorcists on the other hand were running alongside Allen in a V-shaped formation. They were nearing the location of the Akuma when there was an explosion to the right, just mere metres away from Kanda. Turning around to face the source, the Exorcists found themselves face to face with a gigantic monster, bigger than the Noah, Skin Bolic, but smaller than the Combined Akuma they had fought in Edo. There was a hole in the monster's chest where the heart would have been. Behind them the shinigami skidded to a halt as they found themselves face to face with a monster of similar build.
"What are these things?" Yumichika shouted over the din of explosions the monsters were creating.
Rukia frowned, tapping the keys on her phone as she dodged a long swipe from the monster in front of her. "Hitsugaya-taicho, did you receive any message from Seireitei?"
Staring intently at the phone, she noticed something amiss. There seemed to be more than just these two monsters, but the Hollow detector had detected Hollow activity only farther North. It had not shown any Hollow movement where they were. What then were these monsters? Before she could think clearly, she found herself face to face with a long claw from the monster, which let out a deep throaty laugh as it brought it down on her.
Without a second thought, she shouted, "Hado 33, Blue Fire, Crash Down!"
Being the kido expert she was, the blue flame hit home in the first try. The monster let out a blood-curdling howl as the flame bore a hole in its chest.
None of the shinigami were prepared for what would happen next, though. The hole in the chest glowed red for a second, before joining back. The monster growled with renewed vigor and charged towards Rukia.
Allen caught the side of the monster with his sword in a swift slash, causing blood to spurt out. The monster's wound healed almost immediately.
Kanda cursed as one of the monster's claws grazed his uniform, tearing the right sleeve. "What the HELL are these things?"
"I don't know either, but I have a feeling we're going to find out." Lavi shouted over the din as he ducked. "Hi Ban!"
The flame engulfed the monster, which let out a deep laugh and leapt into the air, aiming its claw towards Lavi. Lenalee's eyes widened and she took off as well, flying towards the monster on her crystal boots. There was a flash of crimson as the boots found their mark and cut a long wound down the head.
This time, the monster did not recover. It fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
Drawing her sword, Rukia blocked the monster's claws as they came down on her. From the corner of her eyes she saw that the Exorcists had killed the other monster with apparent ease. Smirking at the monster in front of her, she shouted, "Oi, Ichigo! Over here!"
Said Shinigami turned around from where he had been busy slicing away at the horn of the monster, which simply further enraged it. "Yes?"
"Take it from the top! Dance, Sode no Shirayuki. First Dance, White Moon!"
Seeing that the monster had been encased in the pillar of ice, Ichigo took the opportunity to slice the monster into half. Watching the monster fall to the ground with a satisfied look on his face, he did not notice Rukia coming up behind him.
"What do you MEAN by leaving me to face that THING?" she shouted, boxing Ichigo's head. The other shinigami looked on as she continued to bash him up, scolding him for leaving her alone and for enraging an already-angered monster.
"Wow… they sure are some sweet couple, huh…" Matsumoto cooed. The others sweatdropped, especially said couple, whose faces were an equal shade of red.
Before anybody could do anything though, Hitsugaya ordered the lieutenants to check their Soul Pagers, just in case Soul Society had sent any messages. He had apparently dropped his in the fight with the monster.
At last there was a beeping sound from Matsumoto's Pager. The shinigami looked at her with expectant looks as she flipped it open. "Would all shinigami stationed in the real world please locate the nearest inter-dimension communications booth. This is urgent. Repeat…"
A/N: By 'inter-dimension communications booth' I mean that purple thing from Orihime's house that Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were using to communicate to Yama-jii and Hinamori etc. Was too lazy to find the exact name for it.
Komui had rented two rooms for them in a hotel, and Lenalee was sleeping in one by herself, while the other three were sharing the second room. Naturally they had had some trouble deciding who would sleep on the bed and who on the floor, but in the end Lavi gave up and took to the floor. Allen and Kanda then had another shouting match and several staredown matches before reaching an agreement to take equal sides of the bed.
There was silence as Lavi plunged the room into darkness.
All the Exorcists were too pre-occupied to sleep, until weariness took over them and slowly, one by one, they drifted into dreamland. None of them noticed that it was rather cold, but Allen instinctively drew the covers around him, pulling them off Kanda. When Kanda attempted to pull them back, though, Allen held on to them even tighter.
Kanda sighed and went back to sleep. He didn't notice that Allen curled up tighter towards him.
"Jubantai taichou, Hitsugaya Toushirou reporting."
"Ah, Hitsugaya-taicho. I take it that the shinigami under your command are currently unharmed?" Yamamoto queried, raising an eyebrow. Hitsugaya nodded grimly.
"That is good news. Many other shinigami have yet to report to me, and I fear the worst. Our sources have discovered a new kind of monster, which I believe you have faced off against."
"Hai. There were two of them, both of similar build and size. They were able to heal themselves of fatal wounds almost instantaneously, even after Kuchiki Rukia shot a kido spell through one of them. Only by cutting the monster in the head were we able to defeat it."
"…I see. Kurotsuchi-taicho has deduced that these monsters are a lethal combination of Akuma and Hollows. You have met the Exorcists, yes? They would tell you about Akuma, which I have never seen except in books. There is a possibility that they will be able to find a weakness in these monsters. For now, we have labeled these monsters as 'Arkuma.' Exercise the greatest caution if you ever face them. Aizen and the Millennium Earl could have sent those two as signs to warn Soul Society and the Dark Order about their new creation."
"Yamamoto-soutaicho?" Ichigo interrupted.
"Yes, Substitute Shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo?"
Ichigo winced at the name, but pressed on. "How did you know that we met the Exorcists? What do they do exactly? Wh-?"
Yamamoto's voice was tinged with dark humour. "You will find out sooner or later. It is not my lot to tell you. We shall talk another time. Ah, and Hitsugaya-taicho? I believe you lost your Soul Pager. I have sent a shinigami to give you a replacement, and it has some improved features. You should receive it by nightfall. If it is not so, please contact me again."
The transmission ended.
"Well, that was interesting." Renji commented drily.
Lavi woke up the next morning to find Allen snuggled warmly beside Kanda, who was being hugged so hard that he was red in the face from trying to breathe.
Lavi blinked, momentarily stunned by the scene. He found his tongue at last, and in a not-so-controlled voice, muttered something about meeting Kanda downstairs at the dining room and fetching Lenalee.
Following that, he immediately turned on his heels and ran out of the room. His face was purple with trying to hold back his laughter.
Kanda cursed as his only hope of getting out of the moyashi's deathlike grip close the door. "Teme, wake up already, moyashi!"
The volume of Kanda's shout finally made Allen wake up. He blinked once, trying to get a hold on his surroundings. He blinked twice, trying to persuade himself that he was dreaming. He blinked thrice and Kanda hit him on the head.
"What was that for?!" he yelled indignantly, releasing Kanda from his hug at the same time, his face a brilliant shade of pink.
"About time you woke up. Hurry up, Lavi and Lenalee are downstairs already."
Allen noticed, with a pang of guilt, that he had drooled on Kanda's uniform without knowing it. "I must have had a very good dream yesterday, huh..." he muttered, scratching his head.
Kanda snorted as he changed into another uniform. "Must have been some dream about food. Typical moyashi style. What was I, a hotdog bun?"
Beginning to retort, Allen stopped himself. No point wasting energy.
Rukia sighed. She would have to ask Ichigo to move some of his clothes, the closet was getting cramped. What with the Hollow attacks late at night and the frequent calls from the other shinigami to gather at different places, she had hardly gotten a good night's sleep. The end result was that even the faintest creases of Ichigo's clothes were making her annoyed and irritable.
Giving up on being nice, she clambered out of the closet. Ichigo was out, killing some random Hollow or maybe training with the Vizard, and he wouldn't be home till the early hours of the morning. Which meant that she could sleep on his bed.
Two hours later, worn out from his training with Shinji, Ichigo stumbled into the room, thinking of the warm inviting sheets of his bed. He rolled over to one side and promptly fell asleep, blissfully unaware of the petite shinigami he might have squashed had he rolled onto the other side.
That was how Matsumoto and Renji found them later, lying on both sides of the bed. Naturally Matsumoto began thinking... in the wrong direction, but the down-to-earth Sixth Division's lieutenant knew better than that. Sure, the two of them did love each other, although neither of them was willing to admit it, and each would probably die for the other, but there was no way that could happen.
Yumichika groaned as he pulled himself off the bed. Keigo and his sister had very kindly offered him and Ikkaku a spare room that had two beds, and the two battle brawlers had accepted it readily. Now as Yumichika sat up, he hit his head against the beam of the low ceiling -again. Ignoring the throbbing pain, he reached over and poked Ikkaku in the side, waking him up at once. One thing years of battle had not done to Ikkaku was to remove the pachinko's fear of being poked.
Ikkaku sat up and bumped his head against the ceiling as well. He would have to speak to their 'landlady' about this soon. It was tough enough as a Shinigami, he did not have to wake up every morning just to bump his head.
Sending out a great wave of spiritual pressure that the shinigami and Exorcists had grown to recognize, Hitsugaya called all of them to Orihime's house. It was rather cramped, but enough for them to see what was going on. The communications booth had been switched on again, and Yamamoto was issuing orders again.
"Good morning, Exorcists." he greeted. The Exorcists did likewise, noting that this was not a man to be fooled with.
Returning to face the shinigami, he sighed. "We have been receiving disturbing news, but the captains of the Gotei 13 thought it best not to let you know as it might disturb your work. However, circumstances have proved otherwise.
"Several Hollows and Arkuma have laid waste to many districts of Rukongai in the past few days. The latest to be hit by the swarms are Districts 78 and 79. Do not interrupt me-"he ordered as Rukia and Renji opened their mouths to shout. "Let me continue, I have not finished. I have dispatched several capable fighters to ward off these attacks, but they have all returned injured. Luckily, none of the wounds were fatal. Following these, the captains decided to ..."
An explosion racked the entire building. Yamamoto raised an eyebrow as usual and dismissed them, telling them to return as soon as possible.
The shinigami and Exorcists nodded, before hurrying off in various directions.
WOOTS, it's been so long since I wrote A CLIFFIE! Yeps, a cliffie! You know, A CLIFFIE!
Allen: What the heck, why did I snuggle up to Kanda of all people?
Kanda: Damn, no use asking the authoress now, she's gone mad.
abilityPOINT: HAHAHAHAHA YULLEN FTW!
Exorcists: WHAT THE HELL?
Matsumoto: We haven't forgotten Ichigo and Rukia's moment, have we?
Rukia, Ichigo: -blush- .....
Hitsugaya: Whatever, lets go back to work.
-BEEP-
Narrator: We apologize for the sudden lapse in broadcasting. As we are subduing the currently-insane authoress, please continue reading and review.