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There Will Be Blood -Chp 4

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-----There Will Be Blood-------

Day 4- Infliction


Kantana opened her eyes to a world of grey.

She could taste blood in her mouth, and feel it crusted in her hair. There was an almighty lump on the back of her skull, and what felt like an angry porcupine in her brain. Her shihakusho was tangled around her limbs, the front of her kosode gapping improperly over her chest.

Where was she? In a large room somewhere, carved straight out of the bedrock judging by the smoothness of the walls and floor. There were two windows in one wall, and a door set deep into another, made of a dull black material that seemed to absorb light, like a tangible shadow.

The room was featureless but for a set of half a dozen stone slabs in the center of the room, standing about as tall as Kantana's hips and cut out of the same rock that formed the surrounding walls. There was a woman sitting on one of the slabs, idly swinging her legs like some overgrown schoolgirl. Her face wore a tired, half-dead expression, but her eyes were full of curiosity as she looked at Kantana.

"You're awake," she said, hopping lightly off the slab and wandering over to Kantana. "I was wondering whether you would wake up."

Frowning, Kantana forced herself to her feet. "Who are you?"

The woman shrugged. "It's all relative." Her long skirt swirled around her legs as she spun on the spot, and ambled back to the slabs. One of them was covered in an array of tools- Kantana recognized a selection of syringes, and what might have been scalpel blades.

"What is this place?" Kantana asked, following her over to the slab. The woman gave her a long look, with grey eyes that, despite the intense curiosity swirling within their depths, seemed more dead than alive.

"This is a laboratory," she said. "Science happens here." She idly picked up one of the hypodermic darts, turning it over in her hands. "That is, when I have the means to make it do so."

She turned abruptly, fluidly, and flicked her hand outwards- Kantana felt a sharp sting on her thigh, and looked down. The dart wagged slightly, needle stuck deep in her muscle. Kantana yanked it out- but too late; she felt dizzy, detached from the world.  

The needle clattered to the floor as her hand went limp. "What-" she tried to say, as she collapsed first to her knees, then all fours.

Neat, nimble hands hooked under her arms, unceremoniously hauled her onto the slab. Obviously the woman was far stronger than she looked. The metal felt cold, almost painfully so. Her head knocked sharply against the surface as the woman neatly arranged her limbs, her feet hanging over the end.

By now, all Kantana could do was watch, head flopped uncomfortable to the left, as the woman picked up a slim plastic tube. The reason soon became apparent; Kantana's chest felt heavy, as though Yachiru was sitting on it. The weight doubled suddenly, and an awful wheezing sound escaped from her throat as she fought to breathe. Her vision darkened as she ran out of oxygen, her world going black around the edges.

"And now… open the mouth…" the woman mumbled, and something forced itself down Kantana's throat, making her gag and retch- and then sweet, clear air filled her lungs. Not a moment too soon, as Kantana gradually realized that she couldn't move anything at all. She was trapped, a prisoner in her own body.

The woman stepped back into Kantana's field of vision, distractedly looked at the strands of blonde-red hair flopping over Kantana's face. Her eyes were beginning to sting, she realized- unable to blink, they were drying out. Then, thankfully, the woman reached out a skeletal hand, and gently closed the lids of Kantana's eyes.

"This, ah, it will probably have to hurt…"

Dimly, Kantana heard the sound of a pair of scissors, then felt the cool steel against her belly- the woman was cutting a hole in her shihakusho! Kantana felt a bit of outrage, and then mentally berated herself. There were more important things to worry about now.

I'll be fine, Kantana thought to herself, trying to fight back the dread rising in the back of her mind. I've survived the Eleventh Division, I've survived the Winter War, and nearly been killed dozens of times. I'll be fine…

Possibly, the little voice of doubt whispered to her. But the funny thing about torture is that you're missing out on the adrenaline rush of battle, and its pain-numbing qualities… You heard Kimura-sensei at the Academy…

Yes, Kantana had, and had scored top marks out of the entire class on that unit's test. Sometimes she really hated her voice of reason…

A line of deep, burning agony scored itself down Kantana's abdomen, from the bottom of her ribcage to near her navel. Without muscles to clench, air in her lungs to scream with, the pain seemed to sear into every remote part of her body, magnified a thousand times… Inside the privacy of her own mind, Kantana shrieked, and howled- it hurt so, so much-

A fresh wave of pain hit, hot on the heels of the first one… and it was far, far worse, agonizingly slow and boiling up through her guts. Something was moving inside her guts, twisting and roiling like an eel caught in a fisherman's net, and every frantic twist sent shockwaves of pain through Kantana's body.

At some point she must have passed out, because everything went black.

At least the pain was gone.

-..-.-.---..-.-..-.-..-.-..---.

The next morning, judging by the faint light slanting through the slitted windows, Kantana woke, spread-eagled on a bare bit of floor in the corner of the lab. And every muscle in her body was screaming at her.

She lay perfectly still for some minutes, jaw and fists clenched as she tried to resist the urge to scream. Then, experimentally wiggling her fingers, she winced as the movement sent sparks of pain shooting up her arm. A tap of her foot against the floor produced the same result. She braced her hands against the cold concrete floor, and slowly pushed herself upright, gritting her teeth as a rush of fire spread through her limbs. Her vision swam, the lab turning to a swirl of varying shades of grey around her.

"Hah… shit…"

Unsurprisingly, the pain was concentrated in her lower gut. Kantana waited while her vision settled, and then brushed the neatly sliced edges of the opening in her kosode and shitagi away from her wound. It was sewn up neatly, with precise, even stitches- but the incision itself was oddly healthy-looking for a new wound. There was no swelling and bruising around it, and the very ends of the cut had even started to heal over, healthy new flesh forming a dark pinkish-purple scar.

How long was I out? Kantana thought, frowning in confusion. Taking shallow breaths in an effort to avoid as much pain as possible, she sat up a bit taller and looked around the lab. The mysterious woman was gone, leaving behind her a deserted room. The slab Kantana recognized as the one on which she had undergone her impromptu operation was clean and white, as was the floor around it. Apart from the various surgical implements laid in neat rows on the slab at the end of the row, the room looked innocent and inconspicuous.

The thought occurred to Kantana that Mayuri Kurotsuchi's labs in Twelfth Division looked more villainous than this, and she had to physically stop herself from laughing before her wound sent more pangs of anguish her way.

Having taken stock of the room, Kantana carefully let herself lay back against the cool stone floor, and no sooner had her head touched the ground than a sudden wave of fatigue swept over her- the aftereffects of whatever the woman had used for an anaesthetic.

Two minutes, and her eyelids could no longer keep themselves open. Five minutes, and she was fast asleep.

.--.-.--….--.--.-.-.--..-.--.-.--.-.-

The next time she woke, Kantana's wound was almost half healed over. A tentative poke established that her stomach was sore and tender, but no longer hurt so severely when she moved. Sitting up engendered a burst of pain, but it wore away after a couple of minutes, and so Kantana attempted to get to her feet. By grabbing onto the nearest operating table and using it to lever herself up off the ground, she managed this feat with a minimal amount of pain.

Resisting the urge to touch her tender stomach, Kantana looked around the room. The surgical instruments were gone, leaving the room bare but for the row of slabs. Two frosted glass windows offered a possible escape route, and in the opposite wall, the only entrance to the room was a solid cinderblock door.

Windows first, Kantana thought. No-one'd be stupid enough to leave the door unlocked.

She carefully paced over to the nearest window, a square metre of frosted glass set directly into the stone wall. She laid her palm against the glass, narrowed her eyes, and then quickly drew back her hand, curled her fingers into a fist, and gave the glass a rapid punch near the top of the window. It cracked, but didn't quite shatter.

Time to be careful then…

Pulling off her black kosode, Kantana wrapped as much of it as possible around her hand, taking care that the cloth covered every inch of skin, and delivered another lightning-fast punch to the glass,

It cracked into several large pieces, and fell outwards out of the frame. Kantana froze, listening for a telltale crash. When she heard none, she leant on the window frame and looked out through the gap.

The window opened onto a massive ravine, the opposite cliff close enough to reach out and touch. The bottom of the ravine was lost in blackness, hundreds of metres down. A quick look skywards confirmed that the surface was only a few metres upwards, but…

Kantana bit her lip. No way I can climb that, she thought. Not as I am, anyway…

Time to try the door.

Abandoning the window, Kantana slowly crossed the room, her eyes fixed on the solid black door. There was no hope of simply busting it out of its hinges- the damn thing looked like it probably weighed a ton at the very least. The hinges that fixed it to the doorframe were heavy-duty types, new steel judging by the dull silver sheen. There was no discernable doorhandle from this side. Kantana guessed that the woman had probably left it unlocked, and simply pushed it open when she was finished.

Kantana sighed, and stepped up to the door. May as well give it a try, she thought, and gave the door a light push.

It swung outwards easily, so well-balanced on its hinges it may as well have weighed as much as a feather. Kantana's jaw dropped open.

"What?!" She said out loud, staring incredulously. "What sort of idiot leaves a cell door unlocked?!"

A loud explosion echoing along the corridors jolted her out of her amazement, and she quickly looked out into the empty corridor. When no-one- Arrancar or otherwise- appeared, she hastily stepped out into it, turned right on a whim, and strode off.

The only thing left to mar such a streak of luck was the loss of her zanpaku-to. Kantana felt Yakuru's loss almost like a physical wound, a phantom limb- she could feel her somewhere far away, but she couldn't find her or speak to her. Biting her lip, she forced herself to forget the zanpaku-to. Concentration was what she needed now.

Another explosion- louder and closer- made the walls shudder, dropping white dust onto the floors. Kantana bit back a sneeze, and when the corridor split into a fork, she chose the left passage. It narrowed slightly as she went, and then widened into an atrium that led onto a door out into the ravine. Kantana spotted steps carved into the cliff face that led upwards and out of sight.

There was an Arrancar in the atrium, between her and certain freedom. Strong too, judging by the unstable reiatsu roiling in the air around her. She had short grey hair, cut in a messy bob, and her hollow mask covered the entire left side of her head, from a vicious-looking tusk at the corner of her mouth to a jagged flange sweeping back from the crown of her head. She stood in the center of the atrium, unmoving, hardly even blinking. Kantana skulked nervously in the darkness of the passage, biting back a frustrated growl.

A faint shout echoed down the passage from behind Kantana, a chorus of cries on its heels growing louder and closer. Kantana narrowed her eyes- had someone discovered her absence? She wished she'd had the presence of mind to swing the door to her cell closed again. In the atrium, the Arrancar guard's expression changed fractionally, from bored to alert.

Then several figures dashed around the corner, and Kantana's heart leapt- figures dressed from head to toe in black, carrying a range of outlandish weapons, and bellowing battle cries in voices she recognized.

"Cover the world, Kurayami!" Kaji bellowed, and a gout of red-edged black flame shot up the hallway towards Kantana. She weighed up the options in a millisecond, and leapt out onto the atrium, diving to the side just ahead of the flame. The surprised Arrancar was engulfed in the blaze.

Then the group of shinigami came racing into the atrium, whooping with exhilaration as they skidded to a halt. As the fire died away, the Arrancar nowhere to be seen- vaporised, Kantana supposed- Rin the Fourth-Divisioner was the first to spot Kantana.

"Oh!" she yelped, green eyes wide. "Kantana!"

As the group stared in shock, Kantana took stock of her subordinates. Yoko was supporting a grinning but unsteady-looking Katsuki, and half of the squad was missing. At that, Kantana narrowed her eyes. What had happened?

"Great! Now we've got everyone!" Kaji grinned, and bent to help Kantana up. "Can you run?" he asked. "Only we're not quite outta the woods just yet."

Kantana nodded. "Probably." Her stomach was behaving itself, for now. "We need to get out of here now."

"You never said a truer word," Katsuki joked. "Nocturne Lucis himself is after us."

Kantana's eyes widened. So it had been him after all. Quickly directing the group to the stairs in the ravine, she sent them up, one after another, following Rin herself and leaving Shanookami as the rear guard.

When they reached the clifftop, they ran for it, as fast as they could. Kantana stayed beside Shanookami, matching her pace with the shorter shinigami's.

"Where're the others?" she asked, her breath coming in short gasps as her stomach wound began to twinge again. Shanookami spared her a glance and a shrug.

"Not sure. We split up at the first big intersection- Yukiya took one group, and I'm leading this one. The plan is for at least some of us to get away- all of us, ideally- and meet up with reinforcements along the mission path. We've been gone two days longer than we should have, so Seireitei's definitely sent someone in after us by now."

"Right," Kantana said. "Who are we up against?"

Shanookami smiled mirthlessly. "Nocturne Lucis, the Tercera, all three of his fraccion. Lumina, the Octava, and her last remaining fraccion. Plus whatever remnants they've managed to scrape together from Aizen's armies."

"Shit," Kantana swore. "So pretty much the worst-case scenario."

Shanookami nodded mutely. There was nothing she could have added to make the situation any worse.

-.-.--..-.-.-..-.-.-..-.--…--.--.-.-

They kept going all through the day, and into the night, outrunning exhaustion and any pursuers they might have had. But the dark stayed, and gradually it took over the entire world, as they walked deeper and deeper into a forest of sorts. Dead white trees turned into shadow-black trees, and something like foliage blocked out the sky from view.

Kantana's scalp crawled. She felt eyes staring at her from out of the darkness, watching her every move. They were in terrible danger, everyone was, from whatever was out there in the darkness.

"Stay calm," she said, in a voice that sounded far steadier than she felt.

A pool of bright moonlight on the ground made her breath catch. The white rock positively glowed in the surrounding darkness. Gingerly stepping around it, she fixed her eyes on the path ahead.

The forest lasted for far too long. When they at last stepped out into the hills and cliffs of the badlands, relief flooded through her veins, so intensely she felt like she was going to collapse.

"Looks pretty good, doesn't it?" Kaji grinned, good-naturedly giving her a light whack on her shoulder.

At that, her belly twinged viciously, and Kantana really did collapse, abruptly falling to her knees on the scree.

Kaji frowned apologetically. "Okay, you're definitely not alright. What's the matter?"

Kantana clutched at her abdomen, grimacing as the pain intensified. It felt a lot like being stabbed, now that she had time to think about it- sharp, invasive, and white-hot. "It's nothing," she managed, forcing a neutral expression.

"Bullshit," Rin said concisely, and delicately pulled Kantana's arm away from her belly. "Let me take a look." Her deft hands pulled Kantana's shihakusho open, kosode, shitagi and all, baring the half-healed scar to the night air. Actually, it was more than half-healed now, Kantana realized- it had shrunk overnight, pink, new skin covering almost the entire incision.

"Oh," Rin said. "I see. Not bullshit after all." She looked up, her deep green eyes meeting Kantana's. "You've had an encounter with Lumina, I think- she's the only one of the Arrancars that bothers using a healing aid. Lucky for us, as well- you'll be as good as new in a couple of days, and you're fit to fight now, as long as you're careful about bothering this."

"If it's so benign, why does it hurt so much?"

Rin smiled. "We think it's pain that would otherwise be felt over a given period stacking up on itself and intensifying as a result. It's nothing to worry about." She muttered a quick spell, and green light condensed around her hands, lancing from herself to Kantana. As the light touched Kantana, it separated into dozens of tiny sparks, and sank into Kantana's skin.

Kantana's eyes widened. "The pain just disappeared. Was that…"

"Me, yes," Rin finished for her, smiling maternally. "I numbed the nerves around the wound, and only them- you should still have all sensation in the rest of your body. If it gets too much for you again, tell me, and I'll numb it again."

Kantana nodded, silently impressed with the Fourth-Divisioner's initiative. She hesitantly braced her hands against the ground, and pushed herself into a crouch. When no sudden pain stabbed into her stomach, she rose to her feet, and stretched- it felt as though a constant weight had been dropped from her shoulders.   

"Thank you, Asaki-san," she said, smiling for what felt like the first time in weeks. The Fourth-Divisioner smiled again in acknowledgement.

"Alright, time to tackle this." Kantana walked to the edge of the slope and looked down- a long way down. The angle of the hill was about thirty degrees, she guessed, but it went on and on, flat and featureless, for almost two miles by her estimate. Most of it was covered in large pebbles and gravel, all made of the same white rock as the rest of Hueco Mundo- it looked almost like a snow-covered mountain.

Twenty miles from the base of this mountain was the Garganta that would take them home to Soul Society.

"Looks like a massive scree run to me," Katsuki said, ambling across to the spot where Kantana stood. "It's just a massive slope of gravel on a clay bed, and because it's clay, the scree doesn't stick too well to it." She bent down and scraped up a handful of the gravel, revealing pale clay underneath. "If we disturb enough of it, the whole slope might go sliding off down the hill with us on top."

Kantana nodded. "Right. If that's the case, have you got any advice for us?"

Katsuki gave her the biggest, most impish smile Kantana had ever seen. "Be careful?"

"Like we need reminding!" Kaji laughed, and started down the slope. Yoko and Rin followed after him, while Katsuki nimbly carved her own path across the scree. The sound of sliding rock began to filter through the air.

Kantana started down the slope, carefully picking her way across the unstable surface. She made frustratingly slow progress, stopping and starting at the slightest hint of sliding gravel.

Someone made an odd noise behind her- almost like a cross between a squeak and a gurgle. Kantana turned to the rest of the squad.

Jotaro Takubatsu stood at the rear of the group, eyes wide and staring at the arrow in his chest. Time seemed to slow down in horror. As Jotaro collapsed to his knees, Kantana dimly noticed that the arrow- which was huge, more like a spear really- had shot Jotaro from behind, yet over a foot of black wooden shaft protruded from the Ninth-Divisioner's chest.

It was a fatal wound- the shaft had squarely pierced Jotaro's heart.

A mad cackling burst into being overhead- Kantana ducked as an Arrancar zanpaku-to split the air where her head had been a split second ago, and smoothly flowed into an attacking kata, reaching out with her open palm and slamming the Arrancar back several feet. She felt no rage, just a deadly, quiet sort of calmness, of the sort she felt whenever someone she loved was threatened. She barely knew Jotaro- but over the course of this mission she had been stretched to her limit, and now that limit had been crossed.

This Arrancar was going down.

A quick shunpo took her to just in front of the Arrancar- she dropped to the ground and kicked upwards, feeling the satisfying crack of ribs as her foot smashed into his chest, lifting him several feet into the air. Kantana sprang up after him, landing a solid punch on his jaw and spinning around to jab her elbow into his gut.

Kantana landed on her feet, and quickly leapt away. The Arrancar landed on his butt, and puked his guts out.

"Feh." Kantana spat on him, and turned her back. The next instant, there was a strange whooshing sound, and a crack. Kantana turned to see what the Arrancar had pulled out now, and blinked. Another massive arrow had buried itself through the Arrancar's chest.

He was well and truly dead- nothing could survive being impaled through the heart with that much wood.  

"Wow," someone said. Kantana turned back to the group, and did an almost perfect double-take.

Smiling sheepishly, Jotaro waved at her, zanpaku-to in hand, sans arrow and completely unhurt.

Kantana sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, her manic energy departing. "Okay- how the hell?"

Jotaro gestured towards his zanpaku-to. "Katakiuchi's shikai ability. It lets me transfer damage from myself to my enemy- the more damage, the better."

"Then how come you aren't dead?" Kantana demanded. "That arrow got your heart dead centre. If you'd been one of the Academy archery dummies, that would have been a 50-point shot."

Jotaro nodded. "Yeah… except he didn't get my heart. My organs are swapped around- my heart's on my right side, not my left."

"Huh," Kaji said, looking confused. "I didn't know that was possible. Lucky for you, anyway."  

Jotaro nodded, and silence fell. The shinigami turned back to the downhill trek, and Kantana mused at just how lucky the squad had been so far.

"Hmm- not bad for a bunch of second-rate shinigami," a low, seductive voice mused. Several metres from where Kantana stood, a shimmer in the air solidified into a monstrous figure- an Arrancar in resureccion, judging by the white plating and remnants of clothes on the thing's torso.

From the waist up, the figure was human- male, tall and solidly built, with a mane of reddish-purple hair falling in loose waves around his shoulders, and an angular, bronzed face that would have been quite handsome if not for the missing flesh on the right side of his face that bared his entire upper jaw- teeth, bone and all- to the world. From the waist down, he was a four-legged animal that might have been a horse, or a cow, or even a goat- long, strong legs, cloven hooves, and a lumpy, angular body covered in dark fur.    

A cruel smile twisted the unmarked left side of his mouth. "Poor things. You nearly got away, you know. We were planning to give up looking if we didn't find you tonight."

"Bad luck for you, then," Yoko shot back at him, gripping the hilt of her tanto so tightly her knuckles turned white. "We wouldn't have had to kill you otherwise."

The Arrancar raised an eyebrow, his expression turning to merriment. "Oh dear, baby bird, you don't realize what a big, dangerous world you've flown into. When did you graduate the Academy, 2040?"

Yoko flushed dull scarlet. "1896," she snarled, sliding Kitenrai out of its sheath and striding forwards toward the Arrancar.

Kantana gave her a steady look. "Stand down, Yoko. Don't let him get you angry."

Yoko's eyes blazed with frustration, but she backed down. The centaur's golden eyes glittered with amusement.

A flash of white in the dull night announced the arrival of six other Arrancars. The combined reiatsu levels of the group was enough to make Kantana's hair stand on end. Two in particular stood out- the centaur, and the blue-haired, pigtailed girl who was issuing murmured orders to the Arrancars around her. A new arrival, the grey-haired female from the atrium, stepped out of thin air beside the fallen Arrancar, miraculously whole and unharmed.

Kaji pointed at her, frowning in confusion. "Hey, I thought I fried you."

The Arrancar stared at him with dead grey eyes. "Not quite," she said simply, her voice a dull monotone that gave away no inkling of human warmth. The Arrancars around her smiled in deadly amusement, arranging themselves in a loose semicircle on the slope. Disturbed scree clattered down the slope, unnoticed underneath the un-noise of the collective reiatsu of the group.

"Well, well, I guess we're all here then," the centaur said, with a polite smile to the shinigami group. "Good manners dictate we introduce ourselves. I am Demas, last remaining fraccion of Lumina the Heartless, now that you've killed poor Marco."

The pigtailed girl shot him a filthy look. "Why bother when they're just gonna end up dead, Demas?" she said loudly. "Not that I'm complaining, but sometimes you take chivalry too far."

Kantana heard Kaji chuckle. "Not likely," he said under his breath. "Oni's gonna make sure of that!"

Demas gave Kaji a long look. "I'd be delighted to meet this 'Oni' of whom you speak, sir Shinigami." To the girl, he added, "Humor me, Elicia. For a little while at least."

"Fuck that," Elicia growled, shifting restlessly. "I'm Elicia de la Rosa, Fraccion to Nocturne Lucis. That's Piero, Gaspar, Lobredo, Mariasha, Zala and Lila-' she pointed to each of the Arrancars in the circle in turn- 'and you must have met Sierra already."

The grey-haired girl nodded, her eyes still blank and soulless.

Demas smiled indulgently. "Isn't that nice. Now you have to introduce yourselves, shinigami, or else the gods of manners will cry in frustration."

Kantana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This Arrancar was a total fruit loop.

"I'm Kantana Masada, Fourth Seat of Eleventh Division. These are my subordinates- Kaji Akuma, Yoko Higure, Katsuki Fujishima, Rin Asaki, Jotaro Takubatsu and Shanookami Yukino. Happy now?"

"Yes, thank you," Demas smiled. "I suppose this is the part where we all break ranks and kill each other, but would you mind terribly if we put that off for a wee while. Our Espada still haven't turned up, you see."

Kantana's stomach turned to lead. How the hell am I going to fight an Espada or three without Yakuru?

"Ah, that's right," Demas grinned at Kantana. "You haven't got your zanpaku-to. Bad luck for you."

Is he prescient or what?

Kantana's annoyance was cut off by the arrival of three new Arrancars- all at the center of a massive of reiatsu. The air churned around them, whipping up little dust storms at their feet. Kantana's heart sank.

The center Arrancar was the most physically imposing- tall, broad-shouldered and thick-limbed, he wore a tight white singlet and loose hakama, and carried his zanpaku-to, a massive claymore, hanging from a strap around his shoulders. Yet the storm of his reiatsu was nothing compared to the other two- a short, grey-faced woman with a hollow mask that resembled nothing more than a disembodied brain, and a tall, lanky, dark-skinned man wearing loose harem pants and nothing else.

Lumina and Nocturne Lucis, Kantana's brain supplied. Two of the four remaining Espada.

Kantana's heart sank.

In a heartbeat, both Espada stood barely a foot away from Kantana.

With a growing horror, Kantana recognized the face under Lumina's mask- the woman from the Arrancar fort.

"You…" she said, her voice beginning to shake with rage. Lumina's dull grey eyes met hers, then slid away disinterestedly, looking out across the landscape. Nocturne, on the other hand, seemed fascinated by Kantana. He reached out a friendly hand, and affectionately brushed away the hank of blonde hair that always fell across her face.

"Oh, so it's you, li'l shinigami," he drawled. "You've got yourself in a real fix now."

The amused disdain in his voice rised Kantana's ire to boiling point, and into frosty territory. She smiled back, just as insolently, and said: "I suppose it's too much to ask you to back off for a bit, is it?" Her voice sounded a lot steadier than she felt.

Nocturne threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, I like this one, Lumina. Perhaps we can keep her? The rest have to go, of course…" The pair stepped into sonido again, reappearing behind the massed Arrancars. "Don't kill the blondie!" Nocturne cackled. "But of course, I don't mind if you rough her up a bit.

The Arrancars laughed, and the whisper of steel against sheaths sounded as they drew their swords. The shinigami- those with swords at least- did the same.

Then the ground suddenly shivered, scree jittering on the surface. Parts of the slope began to give way, sliding down the mountainside with a thunderous roar. For the moment, the ground on which they stood was still.

Then, another massive tremor underground. Kantana glanced down, as did the Arrancars- and the ground in between the two groups exploded upwards, dust and shards of stone flying everywhere. Kantana shielded her face with her forearms, wincing as tiny slivers of rock dug into her unguarded hands. The dust settled slowly, swirling in the disturbed air around several black-clad figures.

"Hey, Kantana," Yukiya said as he sauntered out of the dust, grinning devilishly. "Good ta see ya again. I hope we're not too late ta join th' party?"

-..--.-.-..--.-.-.--.-.-.--..--.-….-.-.-..-.-..-.
“-nothing could have survived being impaled through the heart with that much wood.”
-You don’t know how badly I wanted to add ‘not even Edward Cullen’ at the end there. :rofl:


Chapter 1:[link]
Chapter 2:[link]
Chapter 3:[link]
Chapter 4: HERE
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:

Word Count: 5173!

Soundtrack-
-Gravity (Sound Check), Dirty Harry, El Manana, Intro- [Gorillaz]
-Paper Gangsta [Lady Gaga]
-Down Under [Men At Work]

Just so’s you know, this story is set in 2046… I think. And Jotaro’s not dead because he’s actually got that condition where your internal organs are on the opposite side to where they should be. It’s good for Jotaro, because when people aim to kill, chances are they go for the left side, which is where the heard usually would be, but for him, it ain’t. ^^

Fight scene, woot! And the first big damn heroes moment goes to Kantana, closely followed by Jotaro, and then Yukiya! There was a LOT more I would have liked to fit in this chapter- I had trouble keeping it down to a manageable length. Stuff about Katsuki and the missing guys, that sort of thing… Once I’m finished with the main thing, I may write a side story or two…

-w-‘

I did try to keep the goriness down. I prefer emotion to graphics anyway, and this is a good way to get across what’s happening without being too explicit that it needs a mature content filter. I do feel sorry for Kantana… it’s just that, as far as my apparent sadistic streak goes, I’m far sorrier for Ren. Believe it or not, he’s had worse. MUCH worse. :D

The funny thing about Lumina is that she doesn’t actually mean to hurt people- it’s just that she tends to invent procedures and experiments that involve a whole lotta pain on the part of the guinea pig. I’m not entirely sure what she was gonna do to Kantana, but it doesn’t really matter. Probably just had a look around to see what makes shinigami tick…

Why is it that we all love to torture our- and other peoples’- characters so much?

Bleach is Tite Kubo’s, not mine. I’m just building a shack on his lawn. :XD: All the OCs belong to their respective owners, though two out of three times that owner is me... :D

:bulletgreen: :bulletblue: :bulletgreen: :bulletblue: bulletgreen: Translations bulletgreen: :bulletblue: :bulletgreen: :bulletblue: bulletgreen:

:bulletorange: Katakiuchi: Retribution
Jotaro’s zanpaku-to seems to be a melee-type at first glance, but it has the special ability of reflecting any damage Jotaro takes onto anyone else on the battlefield. (It’s somewhat of a play on his last name- ‘Takubatsu’ literally means ‘suffer much punishment’.) It has no bankai as of yet.

:bulletred: Sagittaria archer (not actually Spanish, I just thought it sounded cool.)
Since centaurs are usually said to be archers, Demas’ resureccion turns him into one. Just not your usual horse-man… Demas is quite a bit more monster-ish.
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FallenAngelicDevil's avatar
:D is there another chapter :)