Him and Her
Chapter 5: The Search Begins

Hello my fellow fanfictioners, I'm back again! You just can't get rid of me now can you? ;-)

Well I must say that I am really happy with the reviews that I have been receiving for this story. Your reviews are what have motivated me to continue on with this story and continue on I shall.

This chapter is focused entirely on Rin, simply so we can get the plot moving a little bit.

As for timeline, this is set shortly before Ichigo met Rukia. The only difference is that he isn't strong enough to see Hollows yet.

Disclaimer: I do not in any way claim ownership of the Naruto/ Naruto Shippuden or Bleach franchise. They are the rightful and respective properties of Masashi Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

I do however claim ownership of any and all OC's that I create and use in the making of this story. I also claim ownership of any and all fanon (made up history) that I make for the world I have altered. If anyone wishes to use any of these they need only ask.

Now then enough of this senseless prattle! Let's move on with the story shall we?

I proudly present to you the next chapter of Him and Her.

"Must find Obito." She told him, her tone brooking no argument.

Ulquiorra nodded before moving to stand directly in front of her.

"Show me. Think of Obito." He told her, gently placing the fingers of both of his hands on both sides of her head.

The action caused Rin to unsheathe her talons in preparation to strike. In this position he could easily crush her skull without warning.

"Think of Obito." Ulquiorra commanded her with such force that Rin felt obligated to comply.

She thought of his spiky black hair and his eyes as dark as ink. His carefree smile and his always slightly dishevelled Uchiha clothing.

"I see him." Ulquiorra told her, pulling away and gesturing to an empty space of air off to his side.

The air seemed to warp, twisting in on itself with a high keening sound before it ripped itself open into a doorway of pure blackness.

Rin stared at the doorway in apprehension. It felt… strange, as if the place on the other side was familiar to her and yet not at the same time.

She turned her attention to her companion, the now named Ulquiorra Schiffer.

"What is?" She asked tentatively gesturing towards the anomaly as if it might explode at any given moment.

"Garganta" He told her simply as if the word should hold some meaning to her.

"Garganta?" Rin asked curiously.

"Garganta… door." He replied by way of explanation.

"Garganta… find Obito?"

"Maybe." Ulquiorra informed her with a shrug.

Silence stretched between the two. Rin stared into the blackness as if she stared hard enough then she would be able to pierce the veil of darkness and see what lay beyond.
Except that she couldn't see beyond the darkness. In a world filled only with the night and that was truly terrifying.

"Will you go through?" He asked her seriously.

"You… follow?" She asked, trying to keep the nervous inflection out of her words.

Ulquiorra nodded minutely.

Seeing her reluctance to enter the Garganta, he decided to take action.

Stepping slightly in front of her, he extended his hand out towards her, asking for her trust in him.

Slowly, carefully she extended her own bony, taloned hand and placed it gently into Ulquiorra's own. If the crinkling around his eyes were any indication then he was giving her a small smile even as he walked with her through the open doorway… walking through to another world.

There were two things that immediately became apparent to her as she arrived on the other side of the Garganta.

The first was the blinding light, forcing her to immediately close her eyes for fear that she would go blind. Huge spikes of agony searing through her skull, such burning pain.

The second was that there was no ground beneath her feet.

Were it not for the fact that she was still dazed from the blinding light she probably would have howled in terror.

She hated heights.

She fell, plummeting through the sky for a few seconds before her descent halted suddenly.

"Look into the light. Won't take long." Ulquiorra told her, sounding so confident that she couldn't help but comply with his request.

Slowly opening her eyes she was met once again with blinding light. Fighting through the pain in her head she blinked a few times, hoping that that would help to dissipate the source of her aggravation.

It appeared to work as scant seconds later, her eyes adjusted to the light and she could begin to discern shapes within the glow. Gigantic structures, mountains of steel so numerous that she wondered how anything could navigate such a maze of metal and light.

She had been saved by Ulquiorra. He had followed her through the Garganta, racing downwards to save her like some sort of fallen angel, his black wings spread wide to catch the air drift so that he could hold their descent.

What happened next both terrified and excited her. She could almost feel the gusts of spiritual energy used with every beat of Ulquiorra's wings as he swooped down into a shallow dive and began to make their descent into the valley of light.

It took them a little under two minutes before they reached the surface and during the whole flight her eyes remained wide open despite the dull ache that she endured whenever she stared for too long into any source of light.

She felt… happy. This place of noise, metal and light it felt… familiar. Here in this place she felt more at home than she did in Hueco Mundo.

They landed in the middle of a great field, filled with blades of green grass.

"First time here?" Ulquiorra asked her as she stumbled around, clearly unused to flight or her new surroundings.

"Yes." Rin replied simply looking around herself.

"Where do we start?" Rin asked, already feeling the urge to run off and begin searching on her own.

Ulquiorra noticed that her speech was becoming clearer, more coherent as was his own. Their psychic bond was strengthening.

"We start where humans gather most often." He told her, pointing out a bright spot within the city.

"And where is that?"

"Follow me" Ulquiorra told her, making his way towards the lights.

"When were you here?" Rin couldn't help the question from slipping out of her mouth even as she followed behind him.

"Long ago. When homes were made of wood. When mounts were of flesh and bone."

Rin didn't know how long had passed since that time but from the tightening in his shoulders, she thought it best not to ask.

The two had managed to work their way deep into the shining city and eventually found themselves in the centre. A bustling area teeming with humans moving backwards and forwards, going on with their daily lives.

She found their oddly dressed, pink fleshy, puny forms rather revolting. But it mattered little to her, she only cared about finding one human.

The only one that mattered.

But even as she felt revulsion towards the humans she also felt hunger. A strong desire to consume these pink fleshy things, to take them into herself and gain what little strength they had to offer.

Before she knew what was happening she found her jaws wide open, fangs bared and ready to remove a nearby child's head from its body.

As her jaws began to snap shut a bone-plated hand sped forward to grab her mouth, forcing it shut mere inches from the child's hair.

The child laughed with her mother and the two walked away, eating their ice-cream as they went.

Rin's eyes widened in horror as she realised what she had almost done.

"Don't eat humans. They're trash." Ulquiorra hissed out, his voice tinged with anger.

Rin looked over at him and after a few moments, the winged hollow released his grip on her jaws.

"Not mine." She told him fiercely.

Obito isn't trash.

Ulquiorra said nothing and turned his attention back to the crowds of people splayed out in front of them.

"They can't see?" Rin asked him, aware of the fact that none of the humans had pointed them out and screamed or had run away.

"Humans are trash. They see little." Ulquiorra replied with a small snort.

"They can't touch either?"

"They can. They won't." Ulquiorra said this with such conviction that Rin felt she had no choice but to press him for more answers.

"Why?"

"Because they fear us. But they can't see."

It was true. They stood in the city centre and though the place was teeming with people none of them seemed to physically connect with the Hollow's bodies. Instead they seemed to part around them like the Red Sea.

Curious Rin slowly stuck her arm out to see just if and how it would work. Sure enough, the people flowed around her outstretched arm like water around rock.

"Interesting isn't it?"

"Very." She replied, nodding her head slightly in agreement.

"How do we find Obito?" Rin asked after spending several minutes looking out into the crowd.

"What do you mean? We look."

"There are a lot of humans…" Rin stated worriedly.

"Then look harder." Yet again, his tone demanded obedience and in this regard she wouldn't argue.

After several hours the two had decided to wander the city. Rin held onto the faint hope that they would find Obito in this place if they just looked long and hard enough.

"How?" Ulquiorra asked her, the question jumping at her from out of the blue.

"How what?" Rin asked, hoping for clarification.

"How did you heal my wounds?"

"I'm a healer." She told him, clicking her teeth together in happiness.

"But how?"

"I don't know." It was an honest answer. While she was relatively sure that she could perform her healing technique again, she still wasn't sure quite how it worked or why only she seemed capable of doing it.

She felt something brush against her.

Looking around she thought she caught a glance of a strange human disappear around a nearby street corner.

He was tall and lanky, with a head of bright orange hair.

Shaking it off as coincidence she turned to Ulquiorra only to find that his gaze seemed fixed on the same corner where that human had disappeared to.

"We can't stay much longer." Ulquiorra informed her before resuming his scanning of the crowd.

"Why not?"

"Shinigami will come soon."

Rin cocked her head slightly, her gaze questioning.

"Shinigami?" Somehow when she said the word she felt herself swell with feelings of fear and hatred.

"The enemy, Hollow-Killers."

"Strong?"

Ulquiorra seemed to think about it briefly before nodding slowly, as if reluctant to concede such a thing as possible.

"Some, yes."

Rin narrowed her eyes, thinking hard about their position.

"We keep looking."

Kisuke Urahara had no idea what to expect when he woke up that morning. He thought maybe it might storm but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Prehaps a disaster had occurred but the radio was decidedly silent.

He sighed even as he shuffled around his little store in the outskirts of Karakura town. When he fled the Soul Society he honestly didn't expect the human world to be so… boring.

Looking at the non-existent business within his establishment, he sighed and decided that today would be the perfect day to go and get an ice-cream.

Walking through the city he enjoyed the feeling of the sunlight on his face and the taste of the bubblegum ice-cream on his tongue.

And then he froze, his mind and body going still in shock. Amongst the stream of pedestrians moving up and down the sidewalk was the most bizarre sight he had come across in a long time. Two Hollows were walking down the sidewalk side by side, conversing as if for all the world, they belonged with the humans that they towered over. The one on the left was obviously female if the chest plates were anything to go by, though it seemed that she wasn't that powerful if her spiritual pressure was anything to go by. She most likely was still a first stage hollow.

The other one though… Male and from the feel of it, immensely powerful.

I haven't felt pressure like this since… it can't be…

But it had to be, the sleek form, the calm and cold manner in which he took in his surroundings. Kisuke felt a cold chill go down his spine.

A Vasto-Lorde…

It seemed that the two were bickering over something if the waving of their arms were anything to go by.

They were headed his way and there was very little that he would be able to do if they figured him out. Against a Vasto-Lorde, one needed at least two Captains to have a chance of victory, alone as he was, it was suicide.

So Urahara did the only thing he could think of.

He stood still and stared intently at his ice cream and began to pray that they took no notice of him.

He could hear them speaking. Their voices audible in the edges of his mind as they increased their proximity to the Shinigami.

"That one?" The Vasto Lorde asked pointing towards a child holding a red balloon.

"Too short."

"Him?" This time the Hollow pointed towards an old lady in a wheelchair waiting at the nearby bus stop.

"That's a girl."

"Humans all look alike."

"Only to you."

"…"

"…"

The two Hollows had reached him and had come to a stop. Kisuke could almost feel their staring eyes trying to burrow into his skull. He could feel the spiritual pressure coming off of the Lorde and it was beginning to make him sweat.

Focus on the melting ice-cream, Kisuke!

"What's he doing?" The Male wondered, turning slightly to his companion in askance.

"… I don't know."

"Humans are strange." The Vasto Lorde nodded to himself in a sagely manner as the words left his mind.

"Agreed."

A few moments of silence passed between them before the Vasto Lorde spoke up once again.

"… Is this him?"

"He's blonde." The female told him, her tone clearly conveying her exasperation at the other's question.

"How about that one?"

"Where?"

"Over there."

And just like that the two Hollows moved around him and continued on their way. Kisuke let out a shaky breath. Wiping off the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead, he turned in the direction that the Hollows had gone.

That was… strange, definitely strange.

Looking at his ice-cream and the Hollows then back again, Kisuke sighed.

Dropping the ice-cream he moved to follow the pair of monsters as discreetly as he could.

Might as well find out why they're here if not to eat people.

So what did you guys think? I hope that it met with your approval. Now I have to decide whether to focus the next chapter on Obito or on Rin.

Hmmmm… well maybe you guys would like to take a vote? Give me your opinion?

Ah well let me know if you're interested.

I tried to take a lighter tone with this chapter and even tried my hand with some light humour at the end. Can't have the entire fic being dark otherwise the genre would be angst and tragedy.

Anyway if you enjoyed the chapter please review and let me know.

Until next time my fellow fanfictioners with Chapter 6 of Him and Her.

P.S. If you enjoyed this story be sure to check out my other stories, I'm sure that you will find something to your liking.

P.S.S. if there are any glaring mistakes please let me know so that I may fix them. I upload chapters very late at night and as such it is possible that I do miss some things.