Hello again my loyal readers! I do hope I didn't make you wait too long. Although, nothing is as bad as years of waiting, I suppose. Thank you to 'guest' for taking the time to leave a review last chapter. I'm not so needy yet that I beg for reviews like I used to in previous stories, because the view and visitor counts alone tell me that people are reading this story and probably enjoying it. Hopefully.

This chapter starts out pretty confusing, but makes sense eventually I hope. I wonder how many people forgot about the purple-haired captain that thoroughly thrashed Tsanoku in the second chapter?

Also, for anyone that wants me to draw what the city looks like or the people, give me a whisper. I've already gotten plenty of concept sketches done for this world and it's characters, and I've been working on a large cover page for this story featuring every main character across a blended landscape of the four main countries.

Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or anything related to that manga/anime. I only borrow the characters and terms for the purposes of fanfiction, which doesn't pay a thing back in return. Yohlis and all things associated are mine, so don't use unless you want to wind up with your head on backwards. ^-^

Resonating Souls

Chapter 5: Learning

An orange flash tore across the azure sky above the blackened industrial landscape. A glittering trail of stardust was left behind in its wake. It passed through a great steel barricade that was nearly one hundred feet high and weaved among granite towers that were tightly packed beyond the wall. Towards the centre of this uninviting city stood a great palace, with walls cast from the thickest metals and painted the darkest of blacks. The flash seemed drawn to this monstrous building and it veered ever higher in altitude until it was level with the top most floor. There it seemed to pause, before it slipped within the wall like a ghostly spectre.

The room it emerged into was imposing, with a polished marble floor and a grand throne positioned on a raised platform towards the farthest wall from the doorway. A deep crimson carpet lined with silver thread and embroidered with an emblem – a cross with a diamond in the centre, with a sphere in the centre of that – ran from the entranceway to the foot of the throne. And striding across that carpet was a young man with lilac hair, with a small girl being tugged along by a rope behind him.

The silent onlooker of light noticed, for the first time, the other being in the room, sitting straight-backed in the throne that was visibly too large for his body-type. His hair was whitened by old age and stress, and his cheeks were so sunken in that he could easily have been mistaken for a corpse. Every inch of his face was covered in wrinkles and signs of wear and tear from over the years. Atop his head sat a silver crown, with the same emblem as on the carpet, with a beautiful red stone embedded in its centre. The crown itself looked remarkably heavy and anyone who didn't know this man would wonder at how he could carry it on his head, for he gave off the air of one weakened from too many decades in this world. Yet, he held his head high and kept his arms firmly in place on the rests of his throne, the picture of perfect calm and control.

The lilac haired youth at last reached the end of the carpet - and the foot of the stairs - where he pulled on the young girl's rope until she fell to her knees, before he showed his own brand of respect and bowed low to his ruler.

"Here is the battery, as requested, my Lord Emperor."

The old man's sharp amber eyes focused on the mop of white hair the little girl possessed, before he smirked and looked to his subordinate, pleasure in his voice as he said, "You've pleased me, young Captain. I have waited a long time for this moment. If our Spellcrafters had not…misplaced it in the first place, we might have ended this war sooner."

The Captain raised his head at last and looked to his ruler, but he didn't make the mistake of meeting the man's eyes. His gloved hand brushed any wayward strands of his purple hair from his eyes, as was the habit of his hair at the moment, and casually mentioned, "If I'd been in charge of it, I never would have lost it at all. Those men were all incompetent fools, my Lord."

The pleasantness in the Emperor's voice faded and annoyance took its place, "Not so incompetent that they failed to train you in their arts, though. Don't you forget that five years ago, you were a snivelling brat with no skills whatsoever. Those 'incompetent fools' you speak of made you, Delcamire. Never forget that. Never forget your place."

"Of course not, my Lord. I was merely suggesting-"

"That you would have been a better guard? More vigilant?" The old man's eyes narrowed to slits and he rose from his chair, his ruby red robes gliding with his body as he moved. He gestured to one darker corner of the dark room and a man stepped forwards into view. This man was dressed in brighter clothing than the other people in the room – a white sleeveless tunic, with green lines weaved into the thread in a wave pattern; golden wristlets and anklets, too; baggy, orange trousers that cut off above the anklets; and straw sandals upon his feet. His skin was pale, almost white and a strange symbol was tattooed to his forehead. His eyes were yellow and slit like a snake's, and they were fixed on the young Captain's location. The Emperor spoke to the newcomer, "Kellonore, I believe you know what happens to insubordinate soldiers in my Kingdom."

It was a statement, not a question, and within seconds the other man – Kellonore – had disappeared and reappeared right next to Captain Delcamire. His right-hand shot forwards and stabbed directly through Delcamire's abdomen. The oddly dressed man withdrew his hand slowly, revealing fingers that had razor-like claws at their tips. The purple-haired youth tried to stay standing and catch his breath, but all he could do was hack out blood and collapse with a gasp. The rope that was clutched in Delcamire's hand slipped free as his grip failed, but Kellonore snatched it from the air in his unbloodied hand.

The cruel Emperor looked on with what might have been pity for the young man, but with all of the lines and cracks on his face it was difficult to tell what he felt. Only his eyes gave any clues, and they were smiling with glee at the proceedings.

"I'm eternally grateful that you brought my creation back to Krutessan soil, but your spoiled little persona has finally worn my patience. Be thankful that I don't order your death, boy. Only your banishment." The old man waved to the doors and two guards – decked out in full battle armour – hastily marched across the floor space and lifted the bleeding boy from the fine carpet. Once he was securely held between the two, the Emperor of Krutessa spoke again, "This shall be the last time that you ever set foot in my country, Kael Delcamire. Whether you die from your wound or from the enemy soldiers, is your prerogative."

With one last dismissive hand motion, Kael Delcamire was carted out of the throne room and removed with all haste from the palace – and then the city borders too.

The little girl, who had been put to one side until now, shivered in fear when the old man spoke to her, his voice dripping with promises of pain in her near future, "Now, my precious battery, I think it's time to end this relentless war."

The orange light flickered by the wall, briefly illuminating the outline of a young woman inside it, before it blipped out of existence as quickly as it had appeared.

Orihime Inoue awoke crying, although at first she couldn't work out why. What was I dreaming about? Was it Kurosaki-kun? She wiped her tears away on her school jumper's sleeve and tried to recall anything at all. Even the smallest detail could explain her sudden fear, anxiety and deep sadness. I remember…a bright light. And there was a city made of stone and metal. Huh…that sounds like pretty much every major city back home. Only I just know that wasn't what I saw. What was it?

She couldn't get any clearer images and gave up in the end. Birdsong filtered through the windows and Orihime guessed that it was well into morning now. Which meant that the other people in the large manor would be awake – or waking – and she would be able to ask some questions at last. It also meant breakfast, and at that thought the orange-haired teen's stomach started to protest at its emptiness. Oh my gosh that was loud! I don't even remember when I last ate some food, but man am I hungry. I wonder if they have wasabi and peanut butter here? I hope so…

Orihime could feel eyes boring into her skull – where did that expression come from? – and she turned to her right and looked across the hall at her unwilling travel companion, whose eyes were quite literally glaring daggers at her. Did my stomach wake him up? Oh gosh, I hope not! He definitely looked even moodier than he did the previous night and Orihime half-hoped it was because he too was hungry, not because he was just angry all the time. Her bright and bubbly attitude would surely sour if he didn't mellow to her soon. If that happened then the young teen would lose hope that they were ever going back to their home world. And she simply couldn't afford to do that.

The heavy door leading to the rest of the house groaned open and a messy mop of onyx hair entered, its owner carrying a substantial dinner tray – all sorts of foreign foods piled on top of it. Orihime's stomach gurgled again and she tried to disappear under the blankets to hide when Tsanoku looked her way in shock.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that you're hungry, huh?" There was amusement dancing across his face as he said it, but if anything it made the younger teen flush even more in embarrassment.

It's bad enough when my tummy talks around my friends! He must think I never eat, with how loud my stomach's talking now.

"Um…I'm a little hungry, Tsanoku-san. What…what do you have there?"

"Here, let me show you," he crossed the few feet from the door to her chair and lowered the tray to the floor. He gestured first to some blue coloured liquid in a bowl, "This one here is Mottle-weed soup. It's got a bit of a kick, but the plants are easy to find around this village so it's kind of popular in these parts. This one," here he picked up a plate with green and yellow strips laid atop it, which looked to have been fried in Orihime's opinion, "is what we call Kreehgon strips. The beasts are raised in the nearby pastures – my family actually had some on their farm before…before last night. Um…right so the green flesh is the upper part of their hides, and the yellow is the much softer insides of the beasts. We fry it in salt and butter to give it a crispy texture. Hmmm what else…"

He'd obviously lost his enthusiasm after mentioning his lost family, so Orihime took the reins and gestured at something that was bright pink and wobbling in a bowl, "What's that Tsanoku-san?"

"That is a breakfast dessert that lots of kids enjoy eating instead of fruit or oats. It's made from the collected local berries that are grown seasonally – right now that's the Roper berries and Strawberries."

"Wait, 'strawberries'? Are they red and covered in seeds?"

"Er, yeah, they are. How did you know that Orihime?"

A huge smile spread across the carrot-top's face and she grabbed both of Tsanoku's hands in her excitement, "We have those too! That means our worlds aren't too different after all! There's a connection Tsanoku-san!"

"R-Really? Well, that's just one more reason that I know we'll find a way to help you get back home."

Orihime's stomach practically roared this time and she nervously released the other boy's hands, before selecting her breakfast, "I think I'll take the dessert, if that's okay with you? I'd better eat before my tummy starts a rebellion and tries to wipe out the Death Star…"

This girl is seriously strange. I don't understand half of the things she talks about. Still, she's nice enough.

"No problem, here." Tsanoku passed over the bowl of jelly and then lifted the tray, walking across to the other, much more silent occupant of the hall.

Ulquiorra was awoken to a horrendous noise – the girl's stomach sounds like a dying animal – and then he was forced to evaluate his own hunger. As a mortal, he knew that at some point he would have to consume mortal food, but he didn't think it would be as soon as he arose from his sleep. Sleep, the other thing that irritated the former Arrancar. Everything about this form was weakness and vulnerability. Without rest, the bodies gave out. Without nourishment, they withered away and then died. To rest meant dropping your guard and losing hours of consciousness. To eat meant stopping and allowing for digesting time afterwards. Both these things Ulquiorra detested, and yet he knew he needed to do them.

The too trusting boy from the village had re-entered the room at some point, a tray of what appeared to be food held in his arms. It wasn't anything that Ulquiorra had ever seen before, but he had been spending countless years in Hueco Mundo as a Hollow, so perhaps the food tastes had changed over time. Although, we're in a different world now, so even the simple things that these people eat will differ from ours. Even the foolish woman doesn't know what those things are.

After watching the girl pick her meal, Ulquiorra tensed when he saw the boy start to move to his side of the room. The Fourth wanted to sneer and make the boy leave, but he was feeling hungry and it wouldn't be the smartest decision to starve when there would no doubt be a long journey ahead of them to get back to their world. Tsanoku stopped a couple of feet away and lowered his body to the ground so that he sat eye level with Ulquiorra. He placed the tray between their crossed legs and gestured at it.

"I'm guessing you heard some of the things I said to Orihime about the food?"

"Hnn…some of it."

"Well then, this makes things easier for me. Do you want the meat or the soup?"

Ulquiorra scanned both dishes with a suspicious emerald gaze, but he elected to eat the meat in the end. He'd never seen blue soup before, unless it was made with fruit or colourings, so he wasn't going to try his luck. It could poison him for all he knew. Tsanoku apparently seemed pleased with Ulquiorra's choice, and he lifted the steaming bowl of soup from the tray and held it in his left hand, using his right to eat it with the spoon.

Ulquiorra raised a sceptical brow at the brightly coloured meat strips, but eventually he picked up one of the green pieces – it was an unconscious decision on his part, being more partial to green than yellow as it happened – and brought it to his lips. He tried to bite off a piece of the strip, but found the meat a lot tougher than it looked. He put more force into ripping off a section of it with his teeth, and he was rewarded with a salty delight as it finally came away and settled on his taste buds.

This is…nice. There are no flavours with Hollow flesh, so I have nothing to compare it with, but it is definitely something I'd prefer to eat in the future.

Something of a contented smile briefly settled on Ulquiorra's face – without his knowledge, of course – and Tsanoku paused in his inhaling of the soup to comment on it, "I'm going to assume that you like Kreehgon strips then? I'll make sure we stock up on those for our journey, seeing as they're easy to store for long periods of time."

All at once, the Quattro Espada's face closed off and he fixed his hard emerald eyes on the boy's red and grey ones. He put down the meat and coldly spoke, "What do you mean, 'our' journey?"

"Hey, don't get testy with me. I just figured that you needed a guide for wherever you want to go in this land, and there's nothing holding me to the village at the moment so I reckon I should be the one to guide you. I'll check with the Mayor, obviously, and Orihime will want to know, but I don't see what the problem is."

"And where is it that you think we should be heading?"

"Um well…the Krutessan Empire was here when you both showed up, so maybe there's a connection there? We could sneak into Krutessa's borders and look for clues and-"

Ulquiorra leant a little closer to Tsanoku, resting a hand on Murcielago at his side, "That's a poor answer. Now try again, without the lies, trash."

"Fine, fine! Before you two fell out of the sky, those monsters took my little sister from me. They might have something to do with your arrival here, but really I just wanted the back-up from your sword skills so I could rescue her."

"The stupid woman and I are not here to help you. So no, you will not be coming with us, boy."

A soft voice spoke up with conviction behind Tsanoku, "Actually, yes, we will help you out, Tsanoku-san."

Tsanoku turned and offered Orihime a grateful smile, but Ulquiorra switched his glare from the boy to the bright-haired girl.

"No, we will not."

"Yes, we will," Orihime's slate eyes displayed a glare too, although hers was not as frosty as the former Arrancar's, "We don't even know how we got here, so we won't be able to work out how to get back either. Let's help Tsanoku-san out and maybe along the way we'll get some answers. How does that sound, Ulquiorra-san?"

How does she know my name?

"Where did you learn my name, woman? I know I never told you – either one of you."

Orihime's glare slipped away and a little sadness moved in as she recalled, "It took me a while, but I remembered when I first met you. That other guy – the big, scary one – kept on saying your name and I guess it just got stuck in the back of my mind."

She's probably remembering how useless she was back then and how weak her so-called hero was too. I don't care about her despair, but I am surprised that she even retained that small piece of information after all of this time. I didn't think her brain held that sort of capacity.

"Very well. We shall waste time with this ridiculous quest, but know this woman," he waited until he was certain that she would take this in and not forget it, "the moment that we are able to return, we will. And then you shall come with me to Aizen-sama, no complaints."

"That's fair, I guess. Alrighty, Tsanoku-san, shall we let Hehréa-san know the plan so we can leave?"

The boy blinked out of his silent stupor and grinned, "Thanks you two. I'll go get the Mayor and see what supplies I can gather too. You won't regret this, I promise!"

He stood quickly from the floor and sped out of the door, all excited energy and joy. Ulquiorra couldn't help but think that they really would regret this decision. Especially because he did not believe that the annoying girl had meant what she said. He would just have to enforce the agreement when they returned to their world.

One way or another, he was finishing his mission.

It had taken a couple of hours to acquire enough supplies for three travellers, without forcing the village to give up too many of their own needed reserves. They each had a satchel across their shoulders that bore food – Kreehgon strips cured in salt and dried out Mottle-weed – and two canteens of water. A blanket was supplied for each of them, for warmth and comfort at night, and flint and tinder was given to Tsanoku – the only one of the three who had any experience building a fire before.

They were also supplied a dry change of clothes, with their own clothes folded carefully at the bottoms of their bags. These they would have to dry over a fire at their first available rest stop.

Ulquiorra was not pleased to be wearing what he would class as peasant clothing – a forest green shirt made from some kind of itchy wool and a pair of sturdy leather trousers. He'd kept his shoes and socks, simply because he wouldn't be comfortable in anything else that these village-folk wanted to give him. The only comfort he had to his new clothing was that it wasn't wet. And they had allowed him to choose the colour of his shirt, which frankly hadn't taken all that long to do when he saw the options – orange, pink, some hideous aqua colour and green. Clearly the styles of this world were very off from his own.

Orihime had gotten lucky with clothing, because the women's clothes were much more varied and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. She'd traded her school uniform for a knee-length floral dress, the flower designs unfamiliar but still pretty. The dress billowed out when she spun around, so she had plenty of movement for if they needed to run for any reasons. The dress itself was sleeveless and it was tied together at the back with wooden toggles. Thankfully, the neckline was fairly modest – because Orihime did not want to flash too much flesh around complete strangers – and it barely past her collarbone. She too, had kept her foot wear, but she'd had to get new stockings because her knee-high socks had been soaked through. The stockings were a simple white and Orihime was glad that they weren't itchy at all.

All three were armed for the dangerous journey – Tsanoku had a new sword because his was too damaged and rust encrusted; Ulquiorra had Murcielago fastened to his sash at his waist; and Orihime had been given a wooden pole. The villagers firmly believed that she would not be safe if they gave her anything sharp or bladed, because right before they had left the Mayor's home, she had walked into a door frame and knocked over two irreplaceable urns. The Mayor had practically forced Orihime to vacate the premises and she'd thrust the pole into the babbling girl's hands to make her go away.

So, they were armed, well-stocked and prepared for a long journey – Tsanoku also bore a map of the regions, although he insisted that it was a few years out of date and some things were a little different. The Krutessan Empire had more land in the East than they used to, and the Litmahnan Nation had started to encroach on Farreanian borders too.

The only thing that worried Orihime – and Ulquiorra to a lesser degree – was what would happen at nightfall. Tsanoku, and the Mayor of Farris, had both assured that the Paraxians would not be able to enter solid domiciles. However, no such protection would exist on the open roads, so what would happen when the day ended and the monsters descended?

Neither foreigner knew the answer, but they both sincerely hoped that their one ally in this land – this strange world the locals called Yohlis – would have a solution.

Otherwise, they would all be food for the reptiles in less than half a day.