Hey guys! Sorry this is WAY late. But I'm glad I got it updated!
Chance O' Neal, I am extremely honored that you read my story. -bows- I appreciate all your criticism, and I sincerely hope that this is up to par with your ideals.
Okay, so, I decided to give Honaga (I hope you guys didn't forget Karin's zanpakto's name) a little more description. I need to find a place to give her an actual height, but I think she'd be about the height of a ten-story building.
Oh. And I don't really care if I've got some names spelled wrong. DEAL WITH IT.
Honaga is the only thing that belongs to me. Unfortunately. I wish Karin and Toushirou would at least meet eyes!
She smelled the place before she opened her eyes. Karin knew she was back in her zanpakto world. She scrambled up and looked around herself. The area she was in was new to her, but a path winded through the bushes and leaves and flowers. Hoping it would lead her to the clearing, she carefully stepped onto the dirt path. Realizing that it didn't hurt to walk and that she didn't stumble, she jogged along at an even pace.
"Welcome, Karin," the dragon greeted her when she arrived. This time, Karin got a better look at her counterpart. The dragon was varying shades of red, the most scarlet at the crown of her head and the deepest blood-red at the tip of her tail. Her eyes were huge, orange, and luminous—scary if caught in them for too long, Karin thought. Carefully, she stepped over to the huge creature and sat down against her side.
The scales felt snake-like in their smooth texture. "Why did I come here?" she asked quietly.
"Your healing rate was taking too long, so I decided to step in. I want you to become stronger too."
"How are you stepping in?" Karin asked curiously.
"I'm burning the sources of your reitsu so it'll regenerate faster. Your body is running through a high fever right now."
Oh. So that's why she was called to the peaceful jungle. The grass under her feet was slowly turning a more luscious green. "Do you know what Urahara had done to me?"
"He had Tessai block the source of your reitsu regeneration place. Only high-level healers or kidou masters know where to find someone's regeneration site, as it's different for everyone."
"Why would he do that? That's stupid."
"Maybe he wants the young Hitsugaya to stay here longer and train you more." The dragon clearly knew another reason, but Karin figured she didn't want to be burnt to a crust, so she didn't badger her. "Aizen doesn't want you to attain shikai, which, if you follow your brother's example, you'll gain by at least the set amount of time Toushirou's here. He's afraid of the team the two of you would create."
"Dragon, how do you know this?" Karin raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"I can talk to other zanpakto, now that you have visited me. It is what I have been able to gather from what I have said to some of the others. When you learn my name I will be able to talk to them more clearly."
"Okay, so, he's afraid of us becoming a really strong tag team. Why would we be strong at all? Toushirou's said before that he has an ice zanpakto. Mine would destroy it."
"You'll be amazed at how well fire and ice work together," her companion told her. She shifted, and suddenly she was standing on her enormous clawed feet. "It's high time I gave you some training."
Karin groaned. "Training? Come, on! You've got to be kidding me!"
"You don't want training?" the dragon asked, surprised. "You've been bugging the poor captain about it."
"But, but… you're a giant beast! A dragon! I'd be burnt to a crisp if I tried training!"
The dragon snorted, puffs of smoke coming out of her nostrils. "Yeah, right. Who said I was going to actually fight you? There are other ways to train, smarty."
An embarrassed look fell across Karin's face. "Um… whoops. Sorry. So, what is this training?"
"This." She blew giant rings of flame, and they settled in a circle around the clearing. "The point is to run or jump through the rings. Each time you pass through one, it will shrink, so as you continuously run through the rings they will get smaller and smaller. Let's see how many times you can run through them without burning yourself."
Karin looked up at her strangely, but ran. She easily jumped through them the first round, the same for the second and third. By the fifteenth round, it was getting quite difficult to jump through the rings. Her twentieth? Please. That's way too small for me to jump through, Karin thought, looking at the ring.
She took a moment of deliberation, and tried diving through it. The fire touched her sleeve, and it burst into flame, scorching her skin. Karin fell, shrieking in surprise, and in a split second all the rings blinked out, followed by the fire burning her arm. "Ow! Ow! What's with that training?" she demanded.
"It is supposed to teach you something. I thought you understood what it was, but apparently, I was wrong." Her voice was sad. "You must trust me."
"I do trust you!" Karin protested.
"If you did, you wouldn't have been burned. Go, sleep again."
Before she could protest, Karin felt her body go limp, and her eyelids became too heavy to keep them open. Without another thought, she fell asleep.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself once more in the company of large red flowers. "I wonder what would happen if I plucked one of those," she thought aloud, reaching for a stem. The flower broke off easily, but Karin remained alert. What would happen here, in a place she didn't know well?
Touching the petals, Karin gasped in pain and dropped the flower. It was burning! It was burning hot! How could she before have thought it comfortable to touch? "What's happening to me?" she screeched, glaring at the flowers.
"You do not trust me… You do not trust yourself…" a deep voice answered. It was her zanpakto speaking. But why wasn't she there, in front of her, to guide her?
"Where are you? What's going on?" Karin cried flailing her arms as the world burst into flame.
As Karin was busy training with her zanpakto and having a nightmare, Yuzu and Toushirou worriedly watched over her as she lay in bed. She was heavily sweating, shaking her head side to side, and groaning.
"No, Karin-chan, please, wake up!" Yuzu sobbed, shaking her sister. She took the cloth off her sister's forehead and dipped it into the bowl she had next to her, squeezing out the excess water and replacing it.
Toushirou was holding her hand, and it was clenching his. Her grip was tight enough that it was puncturing his skin. She was afraid, he could tell. "Karin, please, wake up from your nightmare…" he said softly.
Karin let out a shriek, which made the other two jump. Yuzu's tears began flowing faster as she tried again and again to wake up her sister.
Then, suddenly, she stopped. Karin stopped panting, groaning, and shaking her head. The sweat continued to pour down her face and her neck, but her breathing was barely audible.
"Hitsugaya-kun… is she going to die?"
"No. This isn't sickness. She's undergoing something in her inner world."
"What?" Yuzu looked at him, confused.
"Her inner world. She's doing something with her zanpakto. We shouldn't try to wake her up. Even though it hurts to say this… she's not going to regain consciousness."
Yuzu wailed, throwing her arms over her sister. Toushirou watched, knowing there was nothing he could do.
Karin opened her eyes once more to the clearing. "You're awake. Good."
"What was that?" Karin asked warily, shifting to a sitting position. The dragon landed on the ground with an earth-shaking tremor.
"What will happen if you don't learn to trust me," she said seriously. "This world will burst into unquenchable flame, and you will die. You must trust me."
"I'm not going to learn what you mean by that unless you give me a little hint on that!" Karin shouted irritably. Come on. I hate people who speak in enigmas. It's really annoying.
"Try it again." The rings reappeared, huge and menacing. Karin stood up, annoyed, but began once more to jump through them.
She burned herself at the twentieth round, and again she was made to run through them. Again and again, through the loops, around the dragon. Karin kept getting burnt and starting over that she eventually stopped after a jump.
What am I doing wrong? What do I have to do to trust her, as she says? How long have I been doing this anyway? It feels like forever.
"It's been a week," Yuzu said, voice cracking. "Daddy, when is she going to wake up?" She looked hopefully up at her father.
"I'm sorry honey," he said, sighing. "I don't know." He knew what his daughter was going through, but he didn't think it'd be wise to let his other daughter know. She probably presumed that he didn't know what Karin was now or what Toushirou was.
"Her fever hasn't lowered or risen. It's just the same. Daddy…" Yuzu broke off, not knowing what to say, too afraid to cry again.
Toushirou watched from the doorway, dressed for school. Progress for the play had been slowed, as they were missing the main character. Nearly everyone was worried that she'd never wake up and that they'd need to give the part to another person, which was something none of the guys wanted to do and some of the girls too.
At school, the subject of Karin's health was mostly what everyone was talking about. Rumors that she had cancer, leukemia, the flu, various STDs, and that she was dying floated about the school, and the only two people that knew the truth refused to speak. Toushirou was colder than ever, and talking to him about her caused the room's temperature to drop dramatically. Yuzu burst into tears every time someone asked and ran towards the bathrooms.
"Yuzu-chan, I think you need to get to school. You'll be late." Yuzu looked up at her father. "Don't worry; I'll call the school if she wakes up." Satisfied, Yuzu stood up and left the house with Toushirou.
Her father looked at Karin and sighed. He took the towel off her head, gave her face and neck a few wipes, and left the room. There was nothing he could do to wake her up, and he had other patients to tend to. Watching her hopelessly was wasting their time and lives.
After being burnt and healed thousands of times, Karin knew there was something wrong, something she had missed. But what? It was impossible to tell. This training was stupid. "Trust me," the dragon kept saying. Which was strange; Karin did trust her.
Staring at the ring of flame before her, Karin was surprised. The fire was pretty, and the heat was warm. Why was she afraid of this thing? She reached out to it, unafraid of being burned, and grabbed the ring.
Instead of being burned, the fire tickled. It felt like a cat rubbing its face into her hand. She laughed, threw the ring into the air and caught it. Turning to her zanpakto, she grinned.
"At last, you have learned to trust me. Now go, go and sleep peacefully."
Before Karin could ask what she meant by that, she slumped to the ground, asleep.
I could actually go on, but I felt that this would be a good place to stop. I wrote all of this today, so I'm happy! :D I've also got some of chapter twelve on its way. Happy New Year everyone!