Not-So-Silent Night III
In Hueco Mundo, it was a well-known fact that challenging a Vasto Lorde was suicide.
The Vasto Lordes were far and away the most powerful creatures in all of Hueco Mundo, and their natural strength was even said to surpass that of a shinigami captain. They were the respective kings and queens of the desert, the true masters of this shadowy wasteland and only a complete fool would dare face one in combat.
"Damn…" growled Tyn, sluggishly pulling his arm across the now-crimson sand and using it to push himself up off his stomach and back up to his knees.
Ulquiorra's first move upon releasing his zanpaktou had been to immediately disarm Tyn, knocking Garras Rapaces from his hands and sending it flying out to a nearby sand dune where it still lay. His second move was a near-instantaneous follow-up where he'd used his claws to slash deep into the quinto's thighs to destroy his speed and mobility.
Tyn's greatest strength had always been his overwhelming speed, but the cold and calculating Demon Bat of Los Noches was well-aware of that fact and had made sure to hamstring the outmatched quinto.
"This does not need to continue…" said Ulquiorra from behind him. "Surrender, and we can return to Karakura."
"Not until I kill the human," snarled Tyn defiantly, looking over at his waiting zanpaktou as Ulquiorra moved to stand in his way, blocking Tyn's path to salvation.
His only hope in this fight, however slim, was to reach his zanpaktou and use his own resurrección, but that had been why the clever cuarto had disarmed and crippled him in the first place.
But…
Ulquiorra had always boasted the fastest and most efficient regenerative abilities of all the Espada by far, and while Tyn wasn't quite at his level, he was nowhere near as slow as the others, either.
Ulquiorra's legs would have healed from the wounds already, but Tyn had to buy himself a few more precious seconds for the gashes to close and the muscles to knit themselves back together. He had to continue to act severely wounded and hope that Ulquiorra failed to noticed the wound's status, and when the moment was right he would make a run for Garras Rapaces.
Tyn struggled to get to his feet, making sure to give Ulquiorra an arrogant smirk for good measure as he did so; if the cuarto had one glaring weakness, it was his intolerance for insolence in battle. He believed that the losing party should accept defeat gracefully rather than keep fighting a hopeless battle, and to show any soft of confidence in the face of such overwhelming odds always managed to provoke a quiet fury in Ulquiorra.
Ulquiorra was on him in at instant, one black-clawed hand wrapped tightly around Tyn's throat as he lifted the redhead into the air. The bat spread his giant, leathery wings out dramatically in a ploy to intimidate Tyn into submission, but the raptor maintained his cocky grin.
"Why do you resist?" asked Ulquiorra, a gust of desert wind blowing his now-long, ebony hair out behind him. "Why fight a battle you cannot win? You were the six when Grimmjow held the rank of ninth, and in those days I was the fifth. I have always been more powerful than you, and time has only increased the difference between us."
"The difference between five and six is pretty small, and so is the difference between four and five!" answered Tyn defiantly, slamming a fist in Ulquiorra's chest to no effect other than bruising his own knuckles.
"It is infinitely more than you seem to realize," said the imposing demon, slamming a powerful fist into Tyn's own chest with his free hand as he released his hold on the quinto's throat.
Tyn went tumbling end over in across the sand, his ribs aching as they tried to knit themselves back together despite his body still being in motion. He left a trail of blood in his wake, blood that was seeping from a dozen different wounds of varying sizes across his body.
Except for his legs.
He came to a stop on the far side of the sand dune that held Garras Rapaces, the blade sticking into the sand and the handle pointing skyward as it waited patiently for its master. Ulquiorra seemed unconcerned with having the sword being between them now, an indication that he had indeed missed the fact Tyn's legs were no longer gimped.
"I do not wish to continue this pointless endeavor, Tyn," Ulquiorra was saying as he calmly walked towards the other arrancar who was just now pushing himself to his feet again. "Surrender and let us end this nonsense."
"Pointless?" asked the raptor, standing tall and flashing another arrogant smirk. "I'm not finished yet."
He saw the realization dawn in Ulquiorra's eyes then and the cuarto reacted instantly, making haste to get to the zanpaktou before Tyn could. Still, however fast Ulquiorra's reaction may have been, he could never hope to best a healthy Tyn in a race as the raptor's hand closed around the hilt of Garras Rapaces well before the Demon Bat even got within a meter of the prize.
"Rend, Garras Rapaces!"
The good news was that there were no flashing lights and sirens at the mall, no sign of any police, and no yellow 'crime scene' tape thrown up everywhere. The bad news was that the mall had closed over an hour ago, and Hiroki's car was still parked in the lot, having been seemingly abandoned.
Halibel drove through the almost-empty parking lot slowly, eyes scanning for anything out of place, any patch of red on the snow that shouldn't be there. She even parked and got out of her car to check Hiroki's, making sure that there wasn't a body crammed inside it.
No blood, no body, no evidence of any wrongdoing at all… It should have helped put her at ease, should have been the end of it all…except that she knew Tyn too well; he wouldn't let this pass without spilling blood. The burning question was where was the evidence? What had he done with it all? Surely he hadn't given Hiroki's body the same treatment as the neighbor girl's poor cat…
She climbed back into her own car and drove off slowly, taking the long way home and watching the sidewalks carefully. Maybe Tyn had disposed of the body in one of the many alleyways between the mall and home, maybe he'd taken Hiroki down to the river and dumped him into the freezing waters…
"I never should have left them alone," she sighed to herself.
In an ideal world, Tyn would have the self-control to not do anything foolish and violent. In an ideal world, he would respect the restraint Tia herself had shown by walking away and would do the same. In this ideal world, he would pick up some dinner on the way home and then spend the evening sitting on the couch with her, just keeping her company and showing quiet support.
Of course, in an ideal world, all of this would be a moot point because Hiroki wouldn't have been a two-timing douchebag.
She was about to give up her search and go home to wait for Tyn to finally drag himself in when she passed the Karakura high school and noticed a pair of figures sitting on the roof. It was very odd that anyone would be on the roof of the school at this time of night, on Christmas Eve, in this kind of cold, snowy weather, and 'very odd' translated to 'very suspicious.'
She parked the car on the side of the road and stepped out, squinting her sea-green eyes against the falling snow in an attempt to make out the two figures on the rooftop. Maybe they were just teen vandals, or maybe…
"Tyn and Ulquiorra?" she asked aloud, confused. Where was Hiroki? What was Ulquiorra doing with Tyn, and why were they hanging out on the roof of the high school?
Sighing, she walked onto the campus and past the swinging gate that had been unceremoniously broken, eyeing the two males on the roof and wondering just what the holy hell they were up to. God, why couldn't anything ever be simple with Tyn?
"What the hell are you two morons up to?" called Halibel from the ground, folding her arms across her chest as she waited for an answer.
"Hi, Lady Halibel!" called Tyn cheerfully and Tia froze in her tracks. Tyn, the real Tyn, never called her 'Lady' for anything, not even out of sarcasm, not even when they were still living in Los Noches. She glanced over at Ulquiorra, who was smiling brightly and waving enthusiastically at her, and any remaining doubt she may have had about what was going on evaporated.
Those were simply their gigais, being controlled by artificial souls; the real Tyn and Ulquiorra were somewhere else and since she couldn't imagine them being foolish enough to wander around Karakura in their spirit forms, that meant they had to be at Urahara's shop, safely hidden away behind the barrier.
But why let their gigais wander away from the shop, unless…
"Oh, no…" she breathed, the most-likely scenario forming in her head.
Tyn had taken Hiroki to the shop, had left his gigai and tore open a garganta to Hueco Mundo to ensure that the human was never found, and the high school was going to be his return point. Ulquiorra would never go along with such a plan, so he had to have been following Tyn, which meant…
"Shit!" she snarled, taking off in a sprint back to the car, hopping inside and firing up the engine and heading for Urahara's shop as fast as she could, traffic laws be damned.
The cuarto would try to stop Tyn from breaking their pact of not killing humans, and if the raptor wouldn't listen to reason…
Ulquiorra was going to kill him.
There was something to be said for the joy of watching a child eagerly tear open a carefully-wrapped Christmas present and then to observe the happiness on their face when they beheld their gift. It was a feeling that the primera had never imagined prior to this night, a feeling that simply could not have existed in Hueco Mundo. It was alien to him, foreign…
And he enjoyed every second of it.
Lilynette has wasted no time going to her room and changing into her new soccer clothes, even though it was far too cold to go outside and play at the moment. Instead, she was jogging around the apartment bouncing her new soccer ball on her knee and babbling about how she couldn't wait for warmer weather to go out and play with her friends.
He'd been more reserved when opening his own gift, of course; he had to at least pretend to be a responsible adult, after all.
Still, he couldn't deny a bit of childish joy welling up deep inside when he'd found his gift to be a box set of classic western movies.
Starrk had dreams sometimes, dreams of tumbleweeds and dirt, complete with the sounds of thundering hooves and steam locomotives chugging across a barren landscape and the smells of old leather and gunpowder… He wasn't sure if the dreams were just dreams, or fragments of memories from a life lost long ago; he couldn't consciously remember his human life, and he'd never cared to try and uncover his past out of fear of what he might find.
Who or what he may have once been was irrelevant now, but that didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy a good cowboy movie or two…or ten.
"This 'Christmas' thing is pretty fun…" Lilynette said finally putting a rest to bouncing her soccer ball about as she plopped down on the couch. "We should have gotten everyone together and all had a big party."
"Maybe next year," Starrk said.
"You think the others are having as much fun?"
"I'm sure that they're all having a merry Christmas right about now."
Knowledge.
Knowledge was the one thing Ulquiorra had ever truly craved. Raw, physical power and overwhelming spiritual pressure were helpful items when there were goals to be achieved, but true power came from possessing knowledge on everything from the world itself to the abilities of one's enemies.
A lack of good knowledge could lead one into disaster and ensure defeat.
As the three-fingered, black-clawed hand on the back of his head forced his face into the sand and squeezed his skull tightly as if he meant to crush it entirely, Ulquiorra realized that he'd had a very significant gap in his knowledge regarding the quinto.
Tyn's regenerative abilities had far exceeded his expectations, his resurrección was considerably more powerful than anticipated, and while in his released form, Tyn was much more savage than normal. Ulquiorra reluctantly acknowledged that the quinto's released form might even be slightly more powerful than his own.
"You should have stayed out of it, Four!" screeched the beast on his back, pressing down on his spine with a powerful foot and Ulquiorra could feel the tip of the wickedly-curved sickle-claw on Tyn's foot pressed into his flesh firmly, digging into the skin and allowing blood to pour out and run down his sides to pool in the sand.
Ulquiorra pushed his hands underneath his body and began to push back against Tyn as he tried to extract his face from the bloodied desert sands, but the slow resistance wasn't gaining him any ground in this battle of strength. Not one to give up when he knew he had the true advantage, an ace yet to be played, Ulquiorra ceased struggling for a moment and allowed Tyn to easily slam his face back down into the rough sand.
"Give it up, Ulquiorra!" roared Tyn, his voice distorted by his new form, "In this form, I'm stronger than you are! Just let me kill him and this will all be over!"
"I will not surrender to the likes of you, Five," declared the cuarto, summoning all his strength and shoving himself upwards in one mighty heave, throwing Tyn from his back.
Ulquiorra turned around, wiping a bit of blood from his mouth as he watched the raptor get back to his feet and crouch low, giving an ear-splitting screech of rage and raw aggression.
Gone was any semblance of looking human for Tyn; the pieces of flesh not covered by white, armor-like bony plates, had taken on a dark, steel-gray color that gave all the appearance of being a thick, leathery hide, his digits all ended in black claws, with an exceptionally-large, sickle-shaped talon on each foot that was made for disemboweling prey. The remnants of his mask no longer covered his mandible and instead framed the edges of his snout-like face, and his bloody-crimson hair had become a wild plume of bright red feathers that seemed to be sprouting out from beneath the remains of the mask.
His screech was loud enough to reverberate across the desert for many miles and Ulquiorra could see every sharp, dagger-like tooth inside his gaping maw. The very tip of his snout had a small bony hook to it, curving down just slightly like a primitive beak, and there was little doubt that it could strip flesh from bone with the utmost ease.
Given what little he knew of Tyn's adjuchas-form prior to becoming an arrancar, he suspected the creature before him now was nearly identical save for the lack of a tail and the presence of armor plates covering his torso, thighs, forearms, and shins; he was truly a predatory creature built for overwhelming speed and explosive physical power.
Raptor Prince, indeed.
And yet…
"You do not seem to understand the position you are in, Tyn…" Ulquiorra warned him. "Despite the power you think you possess, you have no hope of winning. If you do not surrender immediately, I will be forced to end you. I do not wish for it to come to that."
Tyn's answer was to vanish and despite Ulquiorra's best attempt to dodge the attack he knew was coming, the raptor was simply too fast as a sharp sidekick connected with the left side of his ribcage, crunching the bones inward to impale his organs as he went sailing into a sand dune.
"End me?" asked Tyn incredulously. "Over a human that you don't even like? Your priorities are confused, Ulquiorra!"
"You are mistaken; I am well aware of what I do," spat the cuarto, picking himself up off the desert floor slowly, favoring his hurt side. "Humans have more ties than we do; if he goes missing, his friends and family will begin looking for him. Eventually their search will lead back to Halibel and to you. It is inevitable."
"If there's no body, then there's no evidence of a crime!" snapped Tyn.
"Absence of evidence is not necessarily absolution for the guilty. You are endangering all of us with this bloody crusade, Tyn, and I cannot allow that," explained Ulquiorra as his body began to knit his broken ribs back together.
"And I can't let you stop me, Ulquiorra; he hurt Tia! He has to pay! I will make him pay!" roared Tyn, crouching low as he prepared to attack again.
"How unfortunate it is that you have no say in the matter… Resurrección, Segunda Etapa!"
"I'm getting too soft…"
Grimmjow scowled as he kicked a small pile of snow ruefully, trudging down the sidewalk towards the nearest store for milk and cat food for his new guest. He'd thought there was plenty, he really had, until he'd fed the strays outside and then realized he had nothing left for the kitten.
And now he was out in the freezing cold, bundled head to toe in heavy winter clothing as he fought against what he was sure was a true blizzard. Stupid snow!
At first, the prospect of going out to fetch more milk hadn't seemed terribly daunting; after all, there was a little neighborhood market down on the corner, just a mere fifty meters from his apartment, and it was generally where he did all of his shopping.
Except with it being Christmas Eve and almost eleven at night, the market was closed. And so was the next market a block over. And if the next one a block away from that was also closed…
Well, he wondered what the sentence for 'grand theft milk' would be.
Stupid holiday business hours! They had an obligation to stay open twenty-four hours a day in case he needed something, damn it! Orihime had said Christmas was about being unselfish, and Grimmjow thought it was extremely selfish for everyone to be closing their stores early for the night rather than staying open for people like himself!
He scowl only deepened when he thought about how all of the others had to be enjoying their own Christmas right about now, all warm and cozy in their homes…
Shit!
It had been surprising enough when Ulquiorra had revealed himself to have a second resurrección form as such a thing was completely unheard of, but the sheer difference between their power now was almost incomprehensible to Tyn.
He'd just barely managed to dodge the green energy lance Ulquiorra had summoned and lobbed his way, his escape so narrow that half the feathers on the right side of his head had been burned away by the blast. The mouth of the cave leading down into the Menos Forest was considerably less fortunate as the blast destroyed it entirely, spitting up a cloud of dust and sand so thick that it obscured his view of the Demon Bat.
A green light could be seen through the swirling haze of debris, albeit just barely, but it was enough; Tyn dropped to the ground quickly, pressing his belly to the sand as the green bolt sailed overhead and scorched away a few more feathers as it continued along its trajectory before impacting into the sand several dozen meters behind him and exploding violently.
"It is not too late to surrender…" Ulquiorra called out to him through the cloud, "There is no shame in accepting defeat at the hands of a more powerful warrior. I do not wish to kill you if it can be avoided."
Tyn growled angrily as he dug himself out of the sand that the blast had buried him in; surrender wasn't an option, but neither was facing the cuarto head-to-head anymore. His best option was to rely on his overwhelming speed to find Hiroki and finish him off before Ulquiorra could catch him.
Not waiting for Ulquiorra to find him through the smoke and haze, Tyn orientated himself in the general direction the human had been fleeing and took off, going straight into his sonido on a path that would take him right by Ulquiorra.
The cuarto had apparently anticipated this move, however, and used his own claws to slash at Tyn as he sailed by, succeeding in penetrating the boney leg plates on the raptor's thighs and cutting into the flesh. The sudden impact threw Tyn off balance and he tumbled to the sand and rolled forward before springing to his feet and taking off again.
He refused to let the wound hamstring him this time and with a determined grimace he ignored the pain and kept running; it wasn't as deep as the last time and in a few short seconds, it wouldn't even exist anymore. Even if it had been as deep as the last cut, stopping wasn't an option, not anymore; given half a chance, Ulquiorra would kill him.
The fourth was on his heels in an instant upon seeing that Tyn wasn't going to stop and much to Tyn's horror, Ulquiorra's new form gave him more speed, enough to give the injured raptor cause for concern. Still, his leg was wounded and Ulquiorra's was not; in a few more brief seconds, the distance between them would begin to grow exponentially as the wound closed.
Death was inescapable now, Tyn knew that much. Still, he wasn't going into Hell without dragging that damnedable human with him.
This was insane.
Of all the ways to be spending Christmas Eve, Hiroki would have never guessed he would be running through a desert full of monsters while two demons battled over his fate. The never-waning moon still shone overhead, and the unchanging nature of the night sky left him disoriented and confused, wondering how much time had passed since arriving in this sandy pit of Hell they had called Hueco Mundo.
A few monsters with white, boney faces had momentarily chased after him earlier and he had been sure that they were going to tear him apart, sure that his life was forfeit regardless of the outcome of Ulquiorra and Tyn's battle.
And then the monsters had stopped, sniffing the air and recoiling away from him in fear before running for their lives.
The blood…
The pale one, Ulquiorra, had sliced his hand open and splashed the blood on Hiroki's face, telling him to smear it in for safety… At the time he'd thought it to be a sick joke, but now he was grateful for the crimson gift.
He just hoped it would be enough to protect him until he got to the pile of rubble that Tyn had said was once a palace.
If it had been a palace, then maybe there were weapons there. Maybe there was a strong-room or bomb shelter to hide in, a vault or something…
The air was thick and hard to breath and earlier an eerie green rain had fallen from the sky for a few seconds, rain that had somehow not made either the sand or his clothes wet. Far behind him now, he could hear the sound of thundering explosions as the pale monster and the redheaded psychopath did battle with one another, and the shockwave from the most recent explosion had been powerful enough to knock him from his feet and send him flying face-first into the sand, even this far away from the fight!
Hiroki slowed down in his running, panting for breath as he looked back at the fight he'd left so far behind, feeling the weight of his own sweat dragging him down. In his exhaustion, he could scarcely pick his feet up anymore and was shuffling through the sands as he tried to catch his breath, and he tripped over a crystalline plant in the ground, falling down once again.
The noise from the battlefield had ceased and he wondered who had been the victor as he rolled over and sat up, looking behind him towards the fight he'd left behind. He desperately hoped Ulquiorra had been the one to win, as the pale creature seemed inclined to spare his life. He was supposedly the stronger of the two anyway, wasn't he? Hadn't Tyn said that Ulquiorra had been ranked fourth strongest while Tyn himself was only ranked fifth?
And then a horrible, terrifying figure materialized in front of him, charging forward with murderous intent, screeching a bloodthirsty cry. It didn't look like anything else Hiroki has seen in the desert so far, but the crest of crimson feathers lining the head gave away the creature's identity.
Tyn.
He didn't know what had happened or why Tyn no longer appeared even remotely human, all he knew was that it was the redhead, come for his life.
"Oh, Jesus…" Hiroki breathed, scrambling backwards in the sand as the nightmarish monster leapt into the air, jaws wide open and clawed-hands splayed wide. In the bright glow of the moon, there was no mistaking the large sickle-claws on each foot that would soon be slicing him open.
The beast was almost upon him when a black, ropelike thing wrapped itself around the creature's neck and yanked it away at the last second, flinging it into the sand.
Hiroki blinked and recognized the ropelike thing to be a tail, long and thin, connected to a very different-looking Ulquiorra than the one he remembered; the new Ulquiorra had large, black wings and long, white horns, the white clothing was gone, revealing a surprisingly muscular torso and a lower body covered in some kind of black fur, and there, in the center of the chest was a gaping hole dripping what he could only guess was black blood.
He watched as a deep gash in Ulquiorra's face began to sew itself shut, a gash caused by the enraged Tyn as the pale demon had sent him flying.
The air was thicker than ever now and it took all of Hiroki's energy just to breathe. He was slowly drowning in the dense, blood-soaked air and he knew it was from being in such close proximity to two powerful creatures, but he couldn't run; the weight of their very existence felt like it was crushing him into the ground.
He had a front-row seat to the monster brawl of the century and he wanted no part of it.
Home…
Despite all the flaws of Hueco Mundo, despite how utterly depressing a place it could be, it was still home, still the birthplace of hollows and there was a tiny part of Halibel that relished finally returning to the endless desert she had once known so well.
Right about now, her gigai should be driving to the high school to join up with the other two and await her return, assuming she wasn't too late already.
She was in the Southern Dune Sea, where Tyn had once told her that he'd spent much of his exile. The cave leading down into the Menos Forest was collapsed and much of the dust and debris still hung in the air. Just enough had settled to reveal several massive craters dotting the landscape along with a few troubling splotches of dark red blood staining the otherwise white sands. The desert winds blew in from the north and a single crimson feather wafted in front of her face, gently riding the breeze.
Tia snatched the feather down, looking at it closely before she became aware of the powerful reiatsu coming from the north, near the the remains of the once-magnificent palace of Los Noches.
Tyn and Ulquiorra had clearly released their zanpaktou and she wondered if she should do the same if she wanted to stop them.
No, she would only use Tiburon if it became necessary; if Hiroki wasn't already dead, the added weight of her spiritual pressure would surely destroy him completely and as much as she now hated her former beau, she had sworn to never kill humans again.
Ulquiorra, however, was certainly not human.
Tia looked down at the feather in her hand, clutching it tightly. If she was too late, then she could only hope that fate would show Ulquiorra the mercy that she would not.
Hiroki was now covered in blood and none of it was his own.
Unable to move underneath the monstrous weight of the very air around him, he could only watch in horror as the two demons slugged it out to decide whether he lived or died, and as copious amounts of blood went flying in the air, much of it landed on him. Only some belonged to Ulquiorra, with most of it belonging to Tyn who, despite his fearsome appearance, was obviously the weaker of the two beasts.
Hiroki allowed himself a small smile, knowing that he was safe. Hell, he would have laughed had it not been for the invisible weight on his chest that made simply breathing a challenge.
There were cuts and gashes of varying depth all along the demonic bat-creature's pale chest that were closing up, but the feathered half-reptile half-bird thing was limping now, its left arm hanging lifelessly at its side after having been yanked from the socket by Ulquiorra.
Tyn was probably lucky to still have an arm after that, even if it was now useless.
A trio of sharp, serrated teeth lay on the ground, having been knocked from his snout a few seconds earlier, and a dozen or so feathers were dancing about on the desert floor as a gust of wind blew in and scattered them about. Tyn was panting hard, his breath coming in ragged, wheezy gasps that left Hiroki thinking his ribs were broken.
One of Ulquiorra's great wings had been split during the last exchange and nearly cut off by the sharp scythe-like talons of Tyn's feet but the black, leathery membrane was now knitting itself back together as if the tear had never existed in the first place.
"Surrender," ordered Ulquiorra firmly. "This is your last chance to be reasonable, Tyn."
Hiroki couldn't believe his ears; a fight like this and he was asking Tyn to simply surrender? What, was his the only life at stake here? Were they playing by some bizarre demonic code of conduct that said they could play God with human lives but not with each other?
"Surrender?" Hiroki choked out, "Just kill him!"
Ulquiorra turned his attention away from Tyn for a brief second, fixing his eerie green-and-yellow eyes on Hiroki.
"Stay out of this, mortal," the Demon commanded, narrowing his eyes. "Do not distract—"
"Too late!" screeched Tyn, his limp suddenly gone as he cleared the distance to the downed Hiroki in the blink of an eye, placing a heavy clawed foot on the petrified human's chest triumphantly before the distracted Ulquiorra had any time to react. With a vicious grin, Tyn began to dig the massive talon into his chest, raking the tip across the surface of Hiroki's breastbone slowly and causing agonizing pain.
"It's over, Ulquiorra!" Tyn declared, the corners of his mouth twisting upward in a perverse approximation of a grin. "I win! All I have to do is apply a little pressure and I'll crush the life from him and there is nothing you can do to stop me!"
"Do it, then!" spat Hiroki, coughing up a mouthful of blood onto Tyn's clawed foot. "Finish it!"
The raptor looked down at him and opened its jaws wide, giving a victory cry that echoed across the desert as he leaned over and prepared to simply bite into Hiroki's skull and crush it…and a black and green ball of light slammed into the Tyn's elongated head, knocking the demon away.
Hiroki had just finished pissing on himself at the sight of the massive jaws coming down towards him and had no idea what had happened. He looked over at Ulquiorra who had only a single clawed finger extended, pointing at the downed monster.
Tyn howled in pain as he climbed back to his feet and as Hiroki looked back at the thrashing raptor he could see that the attack had partially blinded him; the bright amber glow of his left eye had gone out, now replaced with an empty, blackened socket that was bleeding profusely. Ulquiorra raised a clawed hand and tensed his body, clearly aiming to run Tyn through and finish the fight. With a single flap of his massive wings, he was hurtling towards the blinded redhead at such speed that it should be impossible for anything, much less a blind, wounded monster, to dodge.
And yet, Tyn went flying out of harm's way and into the sand…although not by his own doing.
Hiroki recognized the short, blonde hair and three long, braided locks jutting out from behind the newcomer's high collar; Tia had arrived.
She held Ulquiorra's wrist in a death grip, digging her heels into the sand and pushing back against his thrust, but the sheer power behind his attack still managed to force her back several meters. Even so, her grip on his wrist held firm and his deadly claws were kept safely away from piercing her flesh, although the tips did rip open her abbreviated jacket top and reveal her horrific mask for all to see.
"Stand down, Ulquiorra," she hissed, her voice strained as she visibly struggled to hold back his murderous claws with all her might. "This fight is over."
"He will not listen to reason," explained the pale demon, obediently pulling his hand away from the woman.
"He'll listen to me," snapped Tia confidently, fixating a withering stare on the bat-creature that forced him to take a couple of steps back in a clearly submissive gesture, a sight that only intensified the feeling of dread swelling in Hiroki's gut.
Tyn had explained the rankings to him, had explained that Tia had been the third strongest of the group known as the Espada… He had seen the three tattooed on her arm weeks ago and she'd refused to comment on it, and now he could see the three tattooed on the inside of her right breast on a small patch of skin not covered by her mask. She was obviously stronger than Ulquiorra and she had no reason whatsoever to allow him to live.
Hiroki began to silently pray again as Tia calmly made her way over to the still-blinded bird monster that was struggling to get back to his feet.
"Tyn…" she began softly, gently placing a hand on the end of his beaked snout. "It's over. No more fighting."
"He has to pay…" protested the injured spirit, the sound of his voice stronger than it was before, as if his ribs were no longer broken. "He can't be allowed to—"
"It's okay…" soothed Tia, "It's not that important. We all made a promise not to take human life, remember? Don't break that, not for this."
Hiroki watched as the empty eye socket slowly began to fill with an off-white orb that soon began to brighten to a more pure white, with an inhuman amber iris forming in the center. It seemed very similar to the rapid healing Ulquiorra had displayed, though perhaps a bit slower. The newly-regenerated eye locked itself onto Tia's hideously-masked face. Her bony covering was almost as ugly as Tyn's own animalistic face, but somehow the raptor seemed to be calming down as he looked at her.
A face only a monster could love, Hiroki supposed.
There was a flash of red light and the swirling of sands as the feathered demon reverted back to an almost-human form and sheathed its sword. The changing of form had left Tia's hand on his forehead, and now she moved her hand down below his face to cup his chin, gently stroking the remnants of his mask with her fingertips in an almost-affectionate manner.
"It's not worth it," she told Tyn softly. "He's not worth it."
The pressure of the air had lessened slightly, allowing Hiroki to move once more as he placed a hand over his bleeding chest, the pain of Tyn's claws scraping against bone still reverberating through his body. A small part of him wanted to feel insulted at having a woman say he wasn't worth it, but in this case he decided it was probably a good thing.
There was a flash of green and a similar swirl of dust and sand as the Demon Bat faded way into the almost-normal Ulquiorra clad in white as Tia turned to face Hiroki, giving him a full view of her horrific mask.
"And you…" she began as she stalked towards him menacingly, "I'd like nothing more than to kill you myself after what you did. You lied to me, you betrayed me, and I actually felt something for you!"
"I'm sorry…" Hiroki offered weakly. "I didn't mean—"
"Save it!" snarled Tia, green eyes flashing dangerously. "The only thing sparing your miserable life right now is the promise we made to never kill humans again, but if you try and give me some lame excuse, I will kill you!"
"You have been given a second chance at life…" said Ulquiorra from behind the blonde, "I suggest you learn from your past mistakes."
"That's not good enough; I was exiled from Los Noches for far less than what this filth has done!" exclaimed Tyn bitterly as he massaged the bicep of his left arm, willing his inhuman regenerative abilities to heal the damage Ulquiorra had wrought, "At the very least, he should suffer the same kind of fate; he should be exiled from Karakura!"
"Exiled?" sputtered Hiroki, "You're insane!"
"Exile…" murmured Tia, obviously mulling the idea over in her head.
"You can't be serious!" protested Hiroki.
"I believe that seems like an acceptable compromise for all parties concerned…" Ulquiorra reasoned. "It involves no murder yet is considerably more harsh than letting him off with a mere warning."
"It's settled, then…" Tyn growled, nodding his head in agreement with Ulquiorra's assessment. "I'll let him live, provided he leaves town."
"You can't make me—" Hiroki tried to argue but Tia cut him off with an angry growl as she seized him by his shirt collar and hoisted him into the air, his feet dangling helplessly above the desert sands.
"Leave Karakura and never return because if I ever see you again, I swear I will end you myself," she promised darkly. "You have until the New Year to gather your things and flee."
"And don't breathe a word of this to anyone for the rest of your godforsaken life." ordered Tyn, moving to stand beside Tia, "Because if anyone ever comes looking for us and asking about monsters, I will hunt you down. There is no place in the world where I can't sniff you out, human."
"And I will help him," added Ulquiorra solemnly. "It will be my penance for protecting you this time."
"I'll stay quiet, I promise!" agreed Hiroki, tears beginning to roll down his face as Tia held him suspended in the air.
"Good boy," she spat disdainfully, dropping him into the sand roughly.
Forced to move away from Karakura, to leave his home, his friends, his family… It wasn't something Hiroki wanted to do, not by a long shot, but given what the alternative seemed to be, it was an offer he couldn't refuse; he didn't want to die, not here, not now, and not anytime soon. Ulquiorra may have protected him this time, but by his own admission he would not do so again…hell, even if he wanted to, it was painfully obvious that Halibel was considerably stronger, enough so that the pale demon seemed inclined to obey her commands.
Hiroki didn't even want to think about what Tyn would do if given half a chance, though he suspected it would lead to a much more gruesome end than anything Halibel would do herself.
He shuddered as the desert wind blew around them, scattering the sands and carrying the last of the crimson feathers away. Hiroki looked up at the three monstrous beasts that held his life in their hands, feeling more and more grateful for their comparative generosity by the second; starting over in a new city would be a long, painful process, but it was considerably less painful than being torn asunder by heartless demons.
"I trust we can all go home, then?" asked Ulquiorra finally. "I do not wish to worry Orihime any further by being late."
"Home sounds good," Tyn agreed, carefully flexing and testing his now-restored arm.
"Home…" Tia breathed, exhaling slowly as she gazed up at the glowing moon one last time. "Our new home. I think it's time we put Hueco Mundo behind us forever."
"Never really liked this place anyway," snorted Tyn.
Halibel snapped her fingers and the sky split itself apart once again, revealing a long black tunnel leading to where Hiroki could only hope was Earth. Tia took point into the tunnel with Tyn falling in behind her and Hiroki behind him, as he felt considerably safer with Ulquiorra at his back.
He was the only one who noticed the single bloody-crimson feather tied into one of Tia's long, golden braids.