Act VI: That Stray Dog Again
- The East Rukongai -
- Somewhere in District 3 -
After leaving her report with Katayama Ryu, Suzume found her squad where she had left them. The four rookie Shinigami were huddled under the relative shade offered by the canopy on the clearing's edge; even the sweltering heat of the moist jungle interior more preferable than the direct sunlight of the clearing. Two of them – Kanasuke and Shunsuke – had shed their kosode and were using their sodden obi in a vain attempt to mop themselves down. The thick, clammy moisture that clung to the men was not perspiration, but water from the jungle air; indeed, the moisture was such that it made losing heat through perspiration difficult.
As she returned to the group, the smell hit her. Trying to keep her nose from wrinkling, she realised how much she must have become acclimated to it during the days crawling through the undergrowth. The stench of body odour was so overpowering that it was almost enough to make her gag, but she fought down her revulsion as her weary team stood to attention; it was something to be expected during this particular exercise. Suzume doubted she smelled much better.
“Fall in,” she instructed waiting for the group to line up as Kanasuke and Shunsuke redressed themselves; the entire exercise having been utterly wasteful, as their kosode were still soaked through and they ended up no drier for the effort. All four of her team, she noted, eyed Yukimura curiously as he lurked over Suzume's shoulder, offering the group a cheerful wave.
“This is Sakon Yukimura,” she told them, not needing to wait for the obvious question to be asked. “He's the fourth seat of the fourth division. He's going to be shadowing our team from here on. Just don't think that means you rooks are getting special treatment. He's not here to put you back together every time you trip over a tree root or get stung by a nettle.”
As expected, the news caused the group visible unease; though Suzume suspected it was less to do with the presence of a fourth division member – for all her rookies knew, this was perfectly normal procedure – than it was with the fact he was a fourth seat. Kanasuke and Shunsuke both eyed Yukimura in open awe while the enormous Yamauchi puffed up his chest and stood to vigorous attention.
Only Natsuo remained relatively unphased. Squinting curiously between Yukimura and Suzume, the ring leader of the motley crew merely shrugged and offered Yukimura a nod.
“Does that mean he's in charge, now?” Natsuo asked, his brown hair slick with perspiration as he raised a hand to try and brush his wet bangs out of his eyes. Not an unreasonable question, considering the disparity in rank between Yukimura and herself.
“No,” Suzume replied before Yukimura could open his mouth – fully expecting that Yukimura would leap at the opportunity to step forward and declare himself the new king of the world if he was given an excuse to do so. “I'm still in command of the unit. Sakon-san is merely here in a support capacity.”
“Yo,” Yukimura offered, effectively usurped as he merely offered the team a wave of his hand. “Nice to meetcha.”
The team responded with grunts that were of varying levels of enthusiasm; their curiosity at Yukimura's addition to the team somewhat overshadowed by the realisation that they were about to set out into the jungle once again. All four men had finished girding themselves while Suzume spoke, and merely waited for the order to resume their weary trek.
“We're heading north,” she told them, quite eager to steer their thoughts away from Yukimura before they asked question that could lead to embarrassing answers. “There are three other Hollows in that direction, and we're to get two of them down before the week is up. Today was a trial run. Let's make sure we get it right next time. Move out!”
There was no great fanfare from the group as they turned northward as instructed. Still exhausted, they merely moved off in a line – one trotting after the other – at the most manageable pace the heat would allow for. Though more than one cast one final curious glance at Yukimura in passing, none of them asked any questions. Perhaps they were simply too tired to wonder.
“Whatever happens,” Suzume told Yukimura out of the corner of her mouth, “don't interfere with the assessment. This operation is about what
they can do. If a fight starts, don't interfere unless it becomes clear they can't handle it.”
“Yessir, Ma'am, Sir,” Yukimura shot back with a grin, raising two fingers to his forehead in the same semblance of a salute he had given her when she had first stepped into the command tent. No sooner had he done so than Yukimura turned to follow after her squad. A jaunty spring in his step as he sauntered after them with his backpack – generously provided by the operation team with what provisions he'd need for the next few days – bouncing happily on his back.
Sighing inwardly, Suzume could only hope that Yukimura's child like exuberance would not cause her team to stop treating the exercise seriously. She would have greatly preferred leaving him behind, but the very definite message had been that he was now 'her' problem, and that her duty was as much keeping him out from under everyone's feet as it was guiding her team through the operation.
'Please, please, please, please, please don't do anything to screw up my chances of promotion.'
Drawing in a long, low breath to prepare herself for what she was sure were going to be an excruciating few days, Suzume quickened her pace to catch up with the rest of the group as they plunged back into the thick vegetation.
*****
As the afternoon wore on, it was hard going through the tangled mess of vine, branch and bush. Even Suzume, well conditioned as she was to the extremes, soon found herself exhausted after two consecutive days of such toil. The brief stop taken in the main camp had provided little in the way of rest, and less than four hours after striking out, the entire group was beginning to feel the effects of fatigue.
All save Yukimura, of course.
At the head of the weary group, Suzume paid more attention to what was ahead than behind. Her eyes scanned the dense vegetation for the easiest path – attempting to provide instruction to her group on how best to pick their way through the jungle. However, it was impossible to ignore the presence of Yukimura behind her. With what seemed to be limitless energy, he bounded up and down the line of recruits to eagerly engage them in conversation. Their whispered exchanges a constant rustle against the background noise of the jungle itself.
It was distracting, but less disruptive than she had feared. And while it was typically the way of the second division to move in relative silence, she felt inclined to allow the group some leeway if it served to distract them from their exhaustion. Indeed, whatever misgivings she may have had about the noise, she couldn't deny that her team seemed to exhibit far fewer grumblings of discontent now that Yukimura was keeping their minds occupied.
Their progress was slow. Across such dense terrain, travelling even a single mile took well over half an hour. Sometimes even longer, if the group encountered impassable terrain that required them to go around before continuing north. However, Suzume's internal map of the local area was sufficiently thorough that these diversions were kept to a minimum and, by the time the sun had begun to sink towards evening, the group had travelled sufficiently far from the main camp that they had breached the locale where their next target was currently lurking.
Like all the Hollows released into the operation zone, it was a fairly low-level creature – too weak and inexperienced to know how to effectively mask its reiatsu. Yet even at a distance, Suzume could detect the faint tingle in the back of her head that was triggered by its spiritual pressure. Even though she could not see the creature, she knew immediately its approximate distance and direction.
Turning back to look at her followers, Suzume noted that the entire group – save the ever perky Yukimura – had visibly begun to wilt. When she turned, they collectively raised their heads towards her in weary resignation – no doubt assuming another order was forthcoming.
“The Hollow's about three miles out,” she told them. “But it's holding position there. If it's not making a run for it, then there's no point force marching for another two hours and leaving you all too tired to fight. We'll rest here for now and pick up the trail in the morning.”
Her decision was greeted with a mix of surprise and relief from the rookies, who eagerly flopped down into the undergrowth essentially where they stood. His hands on his hips, Yukimura looked back and forth between Suzume and the quartet, looking rather caught off guard that his socialisation had been cut short.
“Yuk...Sakon-san,” Suzume called to him, catching herself short of addressing him by his first name, as she unslung her backback and dropped it to the forest floor. “Throw up your hammock. If you need help, have one of them show you how. I'm going to take a look around.”
“You're making camp right here?” Yukimura queried, arching an eyebrow as he glanced at their surroundings; the jungle as closed in around them as it had been every other step of their journey, he wasn't incorrect in thinking it hardly a suitable camp sight.
“Members of the Patrol Corps need to be able to sleep anywhere,” Suzume called over her shoulder as she turned back to the jungle, pressing forward through the undergrowth to leave the group behind. “There's never any guarantee that you'll find a suitable camp site on any given day. You need to be able to make do with what you have.”
She didn't wait for a response, instead turning her attention to seeking out an appropriate vantage point to get an idea of the lay of the surrounding land. Despite having studied the operation theatre in detail, this particular stretch of the third district was not one with which she was intimately familiar; not enough to know
exactly where she was at any given time. Before settling down for the night, she would prefer to have a better idea of what lay about her.
Despite Yukimura's caution against over exerting herself, she was determined not to let her injuries get in the way of doing her job. Scanning the canopy overhead, she squinted through the sparse daylight that managed to pierce the greenery in search of what she was looking for. Though the canopy appeared uniform from the ground, in truth no two trees were exactly the same height; and her expert eye could see, at a cursory glance, where one stood noticeably taller than its neighbours.
'That one!'
Selecting what appeared to be the most suitable candidate, Suzume lifted a leg to place on of her feet on the bark. Shifting her ankle until she was happy with her purchase, the girl at once vaulted upwards to scale the tree in what was essentially a series of vertical leaps; her leading foot anchoring only tentatively against the bark to provide a point to anchor herself before she propelled herself further upwards at a rate of several yards a second.
Although, like most experienced Shinigami, Suzume was capable of air walking, to use the trees as a guideline was by far the wiser course of action than simply blasting skyward. The barrier that surrounded the operation zone stretched overhead to form a transparent dome that inhibited passage through the air as effectively as via the ground. The last thing Suzume wanted was to fly through the air, soar over the treeline, and then knock herself unconscious by colliding with the barrier. The barrier would not, however, be lower that the trees contained within it. Therefore it followed that even the tallest trees had to have been beneath the invisible wall. As such, Suzume could scale these trees almost to their very top with impunity and get a better picture of what lay about the area by viewing the landscape from above the canopy.
Piercing the green veil that hung over the forest, she raised a hand to push aside some of the scratching twigs and branches that impeded her way until she at last broke through to the forest roof. The tree she had selected punched through the crown of the forest by some ten feet, and her ascent came to a comfortable stop on a near horizontal tree branch no wider than her own wrist. Though the slender branch sagged slightly under her weight, it held nonetheless as the young woman lowered herself into a seated crouch upon the bark.
From her new vantage, she could see that the sun hung low in the sky; they had indeed burned through much of the day on their long trek. However the sun was late to set in the East Rukongai – especially at that time of year. It would be close on eleven o'clock before it was
completely dark, though the forest itself would lose most of its light long before then. At best, they only had an hour and a half or so of useful daylight left.
At the very least, the rain had stopped. The dome-shaped barrier was, as Suzume understood, slightly porous to admit in rainwater but little else. In the jungle, spending a miserable night wrapped up in waterproof gear was always a possibility, but the rain clouds from earlier in the day had completely dissipated. It looked as though they could at least look forward to a dry night.
Further north, the terrain looked much as that they had been travelling through thus far. Although a long, sinuous break in the canopy some half a mile north indicates what was likely a river. It was in their way, and thus could represent a chance to show the recruits how to identify a clean water supply.
The thought reminded her, quite unintentionally, of the first time Yukimura had surprised her by demonstrating that very skill. Those long weeks ago, when Reihaii-Fukutaichou had instructed the two of them to fetch clean water, Suzume had been amazed when Yukimura had confidently started rooting through the riverbed for signs of crayfish; their presence being one of the most surefire indications of a water supply that was drinkable.
It was not the only indication that Yukimura had given her that he was not quite the helpless puppy she had initially taken him for. Rather, having grown up in the inhospitable, far flung reaches of District 80, it seemed extremely likely that Yukimura's skill as a woodsman surpassed her own, despite her training as a member of the patrol corps. Certainly, her own time spent in the 80th district had been an experience both educational and harrowing; living and surviving alongside Yukimura's family for few days she had spent there had likely taught her more than her current assignment was likely to teach
any of her rookies.
'There's another team out there somewhere....I can just about feel their reiatsu to the south west. I think they were marching parallel to us earlier on, so they're probably after the third Hollow. Doubt that'll be a problem. Although I can only feel one of the two we're after right now....'
Squinting, Suzume tried to put aside the tingling sensation offered by the presence of the first Hollow – that which was closest to the group – to seek out the second. With so many Shingami in the jungle, and the Hollows themselves to weak, it was not easy to locate
any of the test Hollows until they were within a few miles, but she had hoped to at least come away with some idea of what direction it was in.
Closing her eyes to filter out any distractions, the girl steadied her breath as she focused all her senses upon seeking out even a sliver of the creature's spiritual pressure. Without knowing which direction to look in beyond 'somewhere to the north', she was forced to focus one compass degree at a time as she perched upon the branch. However she found herself drawing a blank, save for the one Hollow that she was already aware of, as she worked her way from north east to north west.
Then, all too suddenly, she felt.....
Something.
The sensation was so sudden and jarring that the girl's eyes flew open, her eyebrows knotting into a frown as she felt as though someone had splashed cold water across her face. It was an unsettling, cold, disquieting sensation. Quite unlike the Hollows that she had already detected slightly to the north east and yet, somehow, strangely familiar.
'What the hell was that....?'
In her surprise, her focus was gone and she closed her eyes again in an attempt to locate the source of the sensation a second time. Yet, although she was certain she was still searching in the same direction, the source of the unusual feeling was no longer immediately present.
'That's strange....There's no way I just imagined it. Is is moving, maybe? If so, what the hell is-'
“Yo, Suzume-chan.”
Suzume very nearly jumped out of her skin as Yukimura's voice sounded almost in her ear. Her surprise such that she wobbled upon the tree branch, swinging her arms in a separate wheel to keep from falling, she whipped her head about to find the source of the voice; Yukimura himself, seated nonchalantly on the same branch, swinging his feet beneath him like a child on a swing.
“When did you g-” she began to demand, before changing direction in mid flow as she realised she hadn't even felt him sitting down. “Wait,
how did you get here?”
“I climbed,” Yukimura offered simply, directing his index finger in a jabbing point towards the ground, flashing the girl another toothy grin. “Anyway, camp's ready. Just thought I'd let y'know.”
“Wha-?” Suzume spluttered, still not entirely convinced that Yukimura had not used some kind of hitherto unrevealed magic trick to appear beside her. “Oh....right....fine. Well, since you're here, see what you make of this.”
Putting Yukimura's unexpected appearance out of mind, she raised a hand to point in the general direction she had felt the curious sensation, squinting as she made another attempt to locate it for a second time. Blinking mutely, Yukimura followed the direction of her point but, if he detected anything she did not, he gave no indication as such.
As before, whatever Suzume had detected in the jungle was now gone.
“Make of what?” Yukimura queried, leaning sideward until he was almost cheek-to-cheek with her, peering curiously in the direction she had indicated.
“.....Nothing,” Suzume replied, swallowing her frustration. “Maybe....just my imagination.”
Without another word on the matter, Suzume swung backwards off the branch to plunge back into the canopy, allowing herself to slip into a freefall that brought her back to the forest floor.
One of the major drawbacks of trying to sleep in the jungle was finding a dry spot to do so. For even when there was no rainfall, virtually the entire jungle ranged somewhere between 'damp' and 'soaking'. This problem could be solved by tents with canvas undersides, but they were bulky and cumbersome to carry for the patrol corps, who could spent weeks or months in the field. Instead, for decades at least, the patrol corps. Members stationed in the East Rukongai had instead deployed hammocks.
Setting up a hammock was itself a skill, though admittedly one that many rookies didn't take altogether seriously. Those who spent their time during the training demonstrations playing around and goofing off usually regretted doing so the first time they had to sleep in their hammocks and found they had to settle for the cold ground instead. As simple as it seemed, setting up a hammock properly to allow for correct comfort and insulation required at least a modicum of understanding.
It was long standing tradition in the second division not to help rookies setup their hammocks, and to only show them how to do it a second time
after they had spent the night in discomfort. It had a way of ensuring that nobody failed to pay attention the second time.
Fortunately, all of Suzume's team possessed the necessary know how. And she returned to find them all having strung up their own hammocks along with her own. Although no specific order had been given to do so, Natsuo was in the process of clearing a space for a fire – having enlisted the help of the massively muscled Yamauchi to tear away large armfuls of foliage to create a stretch of bare soil.
“Don't count on getting too much rest,” she told them as she rejoined the group, Yukimura trailing a half step behind. “Remember that the point of this exercise is to push you to your limits. So consider this me being uncharacteristically generous. Get some food, get some water, get some sleep.”
Stepping through the centre of the makeshift camp, she reached out a hand for the metal clips that bound her own hammock to one of its two anchor points and ripped the clip free. None of her subordinates looked up as she dismantled the hammock, through Yukimura looked in an confusion.
“You're not sleeping?” he asked her, following her across the camp.
“I will,” Suzume replied, bundling her hammock under arm as she scanned the tree line for a more suitable spot, waving her free arm vaguely in the direction of the surrounding jungle. “But somewhere over there. You can sleep wherever.”
Without another word, she scooped up her backpack from where it lay and marched away from the camp to seek somewhere else to setup her hammock, leaving behind a bewildered Yukimura. To the rest of the team, it was not altogether surprising; it was the same way it had been every time the team had made camp.
Pushing through the jungle until she had put some fifteen yards between herself and the camp, Suzume refastened her hammock of a suitable pair of trees she found there. The murmur of conversation from the rest of the group was just audible, and she could only imagine that Yukimura were quizzing the rest of the team about her behaviour.
She was almost certain she heard the word 'bitch' muttered by at least one voice, quiet enough that the speaker probably thought she wouldn't hear. This was fortunate, as if the word had been said at speaking volume she would have had the entire team spend the next half hour jogging in circles around the jungle. However, allowing the rookies their misgivings towards her didn't exactly take the sting out of it.
She doubted Yukimura would understand. Just so long as he didn't do anything stupid to try and defend her, which she knew he was quite capable of doing.
Having secured her hammock, she slipped her zanpakuto free from her obi – having spent most of the day with the long weapon across her back – and propped it against one of the anchoring trees. Taking up her backpack she dexterously swung herself into her hammock and tried to make herself comfortable. She didn't plan on sleeping for long, but at least some sleep was called for. Although she was not quite so effected by fatigue as the rookie Shinigami, she imagined she would soon feel fit to drop if she didn't get at least
some rest of her own.
She didn't altogether have any need for a fire. Even at night the jungle was still warm, and the only reason one would need a fire is if they intended to do something other than sleep. A few bites of trail rations were all she needed to eat before she settled down immediately to try and get some sleep. Long years of conditioning – not to mention her own gruelling swelt week – quickly allowed her to tune out the sounds of laughter and conversation that soon drifted her way from the small group of men nearby.
It didn't take her long to doze off, drifting into a dreamless sleep lulled by the sound of chirping cicada and Yukimura's lilting laughter.
*****
A dull scraping of creaking tree bark was sufficient to rouse her from her slumber, her eyelids flickering open to admit what was, at first, near pitch darkness. However there was still some daylight filtering through the canopy; although what there was of it was little more than a pale, purple glow. The sun was not yet set, but certainly setting. Under the canopy, it was barely distinguishable from night.
Turning her head, she squinted as the glow of the still burning fire momentarily blinded her before her eyes adjusted, Though as her eyes grew more accustomed to the shifting illumination, she instinctively sought out the source of the sound that had woken her; finding a dark silhouette of a man standing between her and the fire, muttering and grunting in frustration as he made a vain attempt to properly set up his hammock on a neighbouring tree.
“Yukimura,” she spoke into the darkness, somehow simply
knowing that the figure was him. “What are you doing?”
Yukimura's silhouette jumped, and he turned to look over his shoulder in her direction. By now she could see him more clearly, and in the murky darkness she could distinguish his the same goofy grin that she had become so used to seeing him wear.
“Sorry,” he told her apologetically. “I didn't meet t'wake ya. I just....thought you were kinda lonely looking way over here.”
“I see,” she responded as Yukimura turned back to fiddle with the anchor points of his hammock. For some reason, it caused her a certain amount of satisfaction to finally see
one thing that she could do better than he could. However the longer the fourth seat struggled to make headway, the more her satisfaction began to turn into pity.
“One side, Yukimura,” she muttered, swinging her legs from her own hammock to bring herself smoothly to a standing position as she moved to join him. “Right...where are you hands. I can't see a thing.”
Feeling around in the darkness she snatched Yukimura's wrists as he continued to paw at the strap. Although he had succeeded in wrapping the anchor point around the tree, his knot was
terrible. It forced Suzume to wonder just how much work Yukimura had actually done on the Outer Rim. You'd think a man who lived in a treetop village constructed entirely of planks and vines would have at least known how to make a decent hitch knot.
Without protest, Yukimura allowed her to lead his hands in fastening the rope securely; looping it around his own fist before doubling the rope back upon itself to form the knot. The hammock itself was secured to the strap with a metal clip, and Suzume stepped back to allow Yukimura to apply what she had shown on the other tree. Retreating back to her own hammock, she reclined into a seated position as the other Shinigami completed his task in a somewhat mute embarrassment.
“The others?” she queried as Yukimura worked – still struggling, but no longer facing the impossible task he had been.
“They're all asleep,” he replied without turning, his concentration on trying to duplicate the last knot. “Stayed up th'last couple of hours talking to 'em, though. They're good guys.”
“I'm glad you approve,” Suzume smirked as Yukimura clipped his hammock to the second tree. The rasp of the adjustable strings indicating that he at least required no assistance in adjusting the hammock's height. “I had a feeling it wouldn't take you very long to ingratiate yourself with them. That's.....one of your talents, I suppose.”
“It ain't a special talent or anything,” Yukimura shrugged. By now, her eyes had become sufficiently adjusted that she could see him in much finer detail. Instead, between the camp fire and the slight twinge of sunlight through the canopy her iris had opened sufficiently that the jungle was now more 'extremely dim' than outright dark. Having moved his hammock to the height he wanted, Yukimura turned towards her, resting his weight against the hanging cloth as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his hakama, facing her directly. “You know....you
could do it yourself if you'd put in some effort. It ain't exactly difficult to make friends.”
“I'm not here to make friends,” Suzume corrected him, crossing one leg over the other as she folded her arms. “Or did you think I
wanted to be thought of as hard, uncaring, and whatever else they've no doubt been calling me all evening?”
Yukimura shifted uncomfortably, rolling his shoulders as though to work out some imaginary crick in his back.
“Well......kinda, yes,” he admitted. “I mean....that
does kinda seem t'be your thing. When we were on the road together, you used t'ride my ass relentlessly. But, y'know, once we started to talk n'stuff, it wasn't so bad was it? I'm sure you'd be fine with these guys too if you just hung out with them a little.”
Suzume allowed herself a slight smile at Yukimura's somewhat colourful phrasing. And a part of her had to admit that he was correct. She
had been standoffish and aloof upon their first meeting, and had in fact remained so for some time afterwards. However, while her attitude to Yukimura had softened, and she had allowed herself to take on a rather less guarded stance with him, the situations were not the same. Clearing her throat, she addressed the senior officer with a satisfied smirk; revelling in a rare chance to show Yukimura that he didn't know everything.
“This isn't a normal field operation,” she told him. “This is meant to be the hardest stretch of training a new recruit faces before entering the corps. It's meant to push them to breaking point, mentally and physically. To make sure they're capable of enduring the very worst conditions that it's possible for a member of the patrol corps to encounter.”
“So?” Yukimura blinked.
“So,” she explained, “I'm not
meant to be supportive, warm or helpful. That's the point. They've got to feel like they're in this together against the world with only each other to rely on, not that I'm holding their hand. An actual operation would be different...but this entire exercise is
meant to make them as uncomfortable and miserable as possible. Because if they can't take
this, then they can't take what's waiting for them in real patrols.”
From his squinting, she imagined that Yukimura didn't quite understand the methodology. In many ways, the Fourth Division was as diametrically opposed to the Second division as it could be. The primary role of the fourth division was the care and comfort of their fellow Shinigami. Although its members were combat trained, they were not considered front line combatants; traditionally, the second and eleventh division fulfilled that role. Yukimura, as fearsome an individual combatant as he was, had never had to train soldiers. Had never
been a soldier. The very painstaking and deliberate practice of breaking someone down in order to build them back up a way that would make them useful to the Soul Society was likely lost on him.
“So, you....” Yukimura eventually pondered out loud, “
want them to hate you?”
“Well.....no, I wouldn't say that,” Suzume sighed, shaking her head. “But the point is to make things as unpleasant as possible for them. And them hating me is pretty much inevitable. Virtually all of the recruits that drop out don't do so because of the physical strain, but because of the mental stress....this exercise is about seeing who's capable of making the final cut, and who'll break when pushed to the limit. If I treated this like a camping trip, and was all buddy-buddy with them, that would diminish the effect.”
“So it's an act, then? That's good,” Yukimura smiled expectedly. “I didn't think Suzume was
really like that. You kinda had me worried.”
Suzume was glad of the relative darkness, hoping that it would serve to hide the sudden warmth that spread across her cheeks as she involuntarily choked. Turning her face aside despite the cover granted by the lack of illumination, she raised a fist to mask what she hoped sounded like an indignant cough.
“D-don't use my first name so casually,” she told him, her voice cracking ever so slightly. “At least use an honourific.”
“Huh?” Yukimura blinked. “But you've been callin' me just 'Yukimura' for a while now. I figured it was okay.”
'What!? Did I call him that? I didn't even realise.....I thought I was being really careful, too. Damn it. Now he's going to get the wrong idea and think......I don't know what he'll think! But I bet I won't like it.'
“N-No I didn't,” she spluttered, keeping her face firmly turned aside. “You must have imagined it.”
Although Yukimura didn't reply, she felt quite sure she heard him give a soft chuckle under his breath. Instead he turned his attention back to his hammock, pressing a hand into the body of the hammock as though to test to make sure it would support his weight; apparently, seeing the gigantic Yamauchi climb into his own hammock had been insufficient to convince him.
Suzume watched him in silence, noting that he lingered rather than climbing straight in. Instead, the other Shinigami continued to roll of shoulders as though to work out a crick, reaching up a hand to itch and claw at the back of his neck.
“Yukimura,” she queried into the darkness. “What's wrong?”
“Bugs,” came the somewhat gruff reply, the fourth seat swatting ineffectually at the back of his head. “How the hell am I meant t'sleep like this? Little bastards are swarming me.”
“Bugs?” Suzume echoed, lifting an eyebrow as she realised for the first time that her evenings on the Outer Rim with Yukimura's family had been surprisingly bug free. Mind you, that was possibly due to the fact that the average insect on the Outer Rim was the size of a human head, and couldn't easily sneak up on a person. “Well, you've got ointment for that. Spread it on and it'll keep them off you.”
“Y'mean that smelly stuff?” Yukimura queried, his back suddenly stiffening. “Is.....is that what it was? Oh....I thought that was dip for my rations. No wonder th'guys were laughing at me.”
Suzume wasn't exactly sure how long the silence that followed Yukimura's admission was; perhaps as long as it took her to try and make sense of what he had just said in the first place. Still sitting with her arms crossed, she began to wonder if her earlier estimates of Yukimura's proficiency as a woodsman were grossly exaggerated.
'Don't ask if he ate it. Don't ask if he ate it. Don't ask if he ate it. Don't ask if he ate it.'
“Well, if...” she began, stumbling over her words slightly. “If you've ran out, then I've got plenty left. You can use-”
“It tasted like armpit,” he told her.
“I wasn't going to ask!” she barked, rather more loudly than she had intended. Snapping her mouth closed, she inhaled deeply through her nostrils in an attempt to regain her composure. It wasn't the first 'Yukimuraism' she had been forced to deal with. She doubted it would be the last.
Sighing, she leant forward to fish a hand into her own backpack, which lay by the side of her hammock. Rummaging around in the dark, her fingertips probed their way through her neatly stacked rations and supplied until they closed over a metal cylinder near the base of the pack. Pulling it free, she unscrewed the case's cap; nearly gagging at the initial blast of the pungent aroma of the oil contained inside.
“Right,” she instructed, rising to her feet as she dipped her index and forefinger into the ointment. “Kosode off.”
“Huh!? What!?” Yukimura started, whipping his head around to look at her before casting what she could only describe as a terrified glance back at the camp. “N-no way. Gimmie the stuff and I'll do it myself.”
“Not a chance,” Suzume smirked. “I've got to make this last a whole three days and if I'm splitting it with you, then
I get to decide how much of it you're using. What's the matter, can't take the shoe being on the other foot?”
“You want me to take my shoes off?” Yukimura squinted.
“What? No, I don't want you to-” Suzume replied, staring blankly as she once again began to wonder just which side of the idiot divide Yukimura fell on. “Just....take your damn kosode off! It's not like I haven't seen you before.”
Although he turned his back on her, Yukimura hesitated only a moment further before he grudgingly complied. Plopping somewhat indignantly into a seated position, he fiddled with his obi to untei the knot before shrugging free of his somewhat sodden kosode. Unlike Suzume, he didn't wear a white shitage underneath, and made something of a show of his displeasure he huffily tugged the garment down to let it hang around his waste before planting his hands stiffly on his knees.
Even in the dim light, Suzume found herself immediately hesitant at what she saw. The memory of having seen Yukimura's bare torso once before not quite preparing her for her second encounter with the ragged scar tissue that laced its way across his ravaged back. The marks of old wounds, healed over but not faded, that she imagined were carved into a great deal of his body.
She wondered, in fact, is the coiling tribal tatooes that snaked their way up both of his arms from wrist to shoulder were in part an attempt to conceal similar scars on his limbs. However she didn't pry, knowing from past experience that it was not a matter Yukimura wished to openly discuss.
The sight was, however, enough to cause her to quietly chastise herself for having earlier mocked Yukimura's lack of trivial survival skills when she was reminded that he had survived more hardship than most members of the Patrol Corp would see in their entire lifetime.
Catching herself, Suzume realised she had been staring and slipped down to her knees to hover over Yukimura's turned back as she set about applying the lotion. As her fingertips make contact with the bare skin between his shoulderblades, both Shinigami jumped.
“Cold?” she queried.
“Kinda,” Yukimura confessed. “But it feels better than it tasted.”
'I'd imagine so.'
“It only goes on cold,” she reassured him, using her fingertips to massage the ointment along his vertebrae. “You'll feel a little clamy at first, but once you get used to it you'll barely feel it. And it'll be better than being bitten all night.”
Yukimura grunted in reply, though he still stiffened as Suzume gathered up another fingerfull of the cold ointment to start applying to the back of his neck. Despite her earlier remarks, she applied the location somewhere generously; reminding herself that one of the very first things she had discovered about her unusual companion was that he was deathly afraid of insects. She distinctly recalled removing a giant centipede that she had found in her sleeping bag on morning, and the terrified gesticulations Yukimura had shown her upon seeing it.
'For someone so strong....He can be a bit of a wimp. Maybe he does need someone like me to look after him. Just a little.'
Suzume didn't have many scars of her own, but where she did have them the tissue was usually soft and pliable. Yukimura's skin was different. The flesh of his back was thick and harm; the contours of his muscles clear and defined seemingly on every inch of his torso. He wasn't bulky like Yamauchi; his build was more wiry, like that of an athlete. She found herself wondering, in fact, if the man had even a scrap of body fat on him. So far as she could tell, Yukimura was composed entirely of muscle and stubbornness.
“Yo,” Yukimura spoke, causing her to jump. “You nearly done back there?”
“Sorry,” Suzume started, realising that she had been lingering on the back of his neck for several seconds and barely made any progress at all. Securing another load of the globular paste, she set about brushing some on the back of his ears – to his visible irritation as he made a half hearted attempt to shake her fingers away.
“I don't usually let anyone see.”
That was what he had said to her, that time. When she had dragged him into the shelter of a cave, unconscious and soaked with blood and rainfall from the battlefield, and been forced to remove his clothes to tend his wounds. She could recall his sombre embarrassment upon waking, and the apology he had offered for his own appearance. It was the first time she could remember seeing the usually jovial and confident Yukimura looking so....broken.
“You don't have t'force yourself to do this, y'know,” Yukimura sighed, causing Suzume to jump once again as she realised, not for the first time, she had lost track of what she was doing. “I'll just make do like this.”
“I-I'm fine,” she stammered. “Sorry, I was just....I was thinking about the next few days of the operation. That's all.”
“Seriously, it's fine,” Yukimura tried to turn his head to look at her over his shoulder. “I don't wanna make you uncomfortable. And I know that my body ain't exactly like other guys.”
“Like
I'd know!” Suzume barked, jagging a fingertip into his cheek to force him to look ahead, granting her access to the back of his ears once again. “You're the only guy I've done this for, so stop accusing me of making comparisons. Most members of the second division aren't dumb ass enough to
eat their own supply. I wasn't uncomfortable until you made me!”
Suzume wondered if the back of her neck was quite as red as Yukimura's as she went back to work. Suddenly finding herself extremely self conscious, she finished smearing the ointment across his shoulders; the neck, ears, back and shoulders being the usual problem areas for the swarms of biting insects, before rubbing off her fingers on her hakama.
“You....you can put your clothes back on, now,” she instructed, rising quickly to her feet and marking back towards her backpack to deposit the ointment; noting with some misgivings that, despite her earlier claims, she had given him almost a quarter of what was left.
For his part, Yukimura slowly shifted his kosode back over his shoulders and slid his arms into the sleeves. Remaining in his seated position, he adjusted the lie of the cloth to try and make himself more comfortable, sighing as though in relief as the effects of the ointment almost immediately dispersed the cloud of buzzing insects that had been harassing him. When he looked back at Suzume, she noted that there was still a noticeable flush to his cheeks. However, unlike her, Yukimura's blush was accompanied by an impish smirk.
“So I'm the only guy you've ever seen naked, huh?” he queried.
“Wha-!?” Suzume's exclamation was halfway between an alarmed cry and a snort of indignation. “I-I haven't seen you
naked!”
“Near enough,” Yukimura admitted, raising a finger as though to emphasise the point. “But you did strip me down t'my fodoshi that one time. That's pretty
close to naked. And now you're seizing your chance t'run your hands all over my body. I should warn you that your superiors probably take a dim view of that kind of thing.”
Suzume was no longer certain if her features were bright scarlet or ghostly white, though she was quite sure she was one of the two. As Yukimura continued to address her with a mischievous grin, the fourth seat hopped nimbly to his feet as he stretched both arms overhead in the semblance of a yawn.
“Well, that's good in a way,” he continued. “I guess that means I don't have any reason t'be jealous.”
“What the hell is
that supposed to mean!?” Suzume demanded as Yukimura languidly poured himself into his hammock, folding his arms behind his head as he appeared to ignore any further questions. “Hey!”
Hesitant to raise her voice any further to avoid disturbing the rest of the group, Suzume merely stood in impotent fury for several long, steaming moments as she watched Yukimura settle down for sleep. Flushing so brightly she was almost certain she now served as the brightest point of illumination in the jungle, she made a few brief attempts to get her head around Yukimura's final, dizzying statement, before stomping her way to his hammock and grasping the edge to tip hammock and occupant upside-down.
“Ow!” Yukimura cried as he found himself tumbling into the undergrowth, the carpet of ferns and shrubs doing little to cushion his heavy landing. Rolling on his his back, his attempt to stand was blocked almost immediately as Suzume firmly planted a foot on his sternum.
“Who said you could sleep?” she asked him, looming over the striking fourth seat and wearing the single most demonic smile she could possibly muster. “You think you can just tag along on this team and not get put to work? Is that how you think this is gonna be? Well buckle up, because if you thought I was riding your ass before, you haven't seen
anything yet.”
“What th'hell are y-” Yukimura demanded, making another attempt to push himself up onto his elbows that was immediately thwarted as Suzume pressed down upon her foot, forcing Yukimura's shoulders to slam down against the soil once more.
“This is swelt week,” she sneered. “Recruits don't
get a full night's sleep on swelt week, and those kids are naive as hell if they think I'm allowing them one. There's a Hollow three miles from our current position. You and I are going to find it and chase it back here to give those recruits a wake up call they'll remember for the rest of their lives.”
Yukimura stared up at her in what she could only assume to be shock, his lips parting to emit little more than a mouthed 'wha?', though he wasn't immediately able to say much else. His hands had been in the process of trying to dislodge her foot from his sternum, but upon hearing her plan the fourth seat appeared to be frozen in place.
“.....Holy shit, Suzume,” he eventually spoke, his lips curving into a grin that was just as macabre as her own. “That actually sounds hilarious.”
- - - Updated - - -
Act VII: Partners in Crime
The East Rukongai
Somewhere in District 3
Yukimura couldn't deny that he felt like something of a giddy schoolboy. More like a youth about to pull an elaborate prank than a soldier engaged in a serious military exercise. It was a part of Academic life that he felt he had somehow skipped over in the Academy; for both Shingen and Hitomi, the only two real friends he had during that time, were both entirely too studious and serious to engage in such horseplay. As much as he would have utterly delighted in using some elaborate combination of hado to cause Hideyoshi sensei's chair to explode when he sat down on it – and to accept the thrashing that would have come afterwards – neither of his contemporaries would ever have allowed him such enjoyment.
Frankly, he had often thought much the same of Suzume. To his mind, the girl had always seemed something of a halfway point between Shingen and Hitomi; not
quite as stuck up as the former but lacing the fiery temper of the latter. Although she had started to defrost during their expedition to Mikawa, she had always seemed far too serious and career minded to drag him off on an adventure.
Of course,
she probably didn't think of it as an adventure. And despite the apparent glee she had shown upon first inviting him to participate, she had taken the entire exercise utterly seriously from that point onwards. Leading him through the jungle, she had set a pace that he imagined her doe eyed recruits could not possibly have matched, covering the three miles between their camp and the resting Hollow in the same time it would have taken their expedition to cover two. Their reiatsu suppressed every step of the way, the pair flitted through the undergrowth like a pair of ghosts as they closed in upon their suspecting prey.
Usually, when a Hollow approached the point of physical exertion, it would return to Hueco Mundo where the very atmosphere itself was capable of restoring the creature's lost fatigue. However, a variety of safeguards woven into the dangai – the dimensional wall that separated the Soul Society from both Hueco Mundo and the living world – made such transportation difficult at the best of times. Surrounded on all sides by the kido corps barriers, it was essentially impossible; at least for the kind of low level Hollow that had been tossed into the meat grinder.
As such, the fatigued Hollows slept instead. Perhaps hoping the hours of darkness would protect them from discovery while they were vulnerable. Though any sufficiently skilled Shinigami could track a Hollow by its spiritual pressure, and it was not difficult for either Suzume or Yukimura to find their way to their chosen quarry.
And so the pair found themselves crouched in waist high grass, flat on their stomachs, as they observed the slumbering creature with – whether Suzume would admit it or not - a sense of excited anticipation.
All of the Hollows that had been captured for the purpose of the exercise where fairly large in size; not only to make them more physically intimidating to the recruits, but also to provide a more obvious trail through the jungle that could be used as a guideline for the recruit. The particular specimen that Yukimura and Suzume stumbled upon was no exception; a gigantic, four legged creature that reminded Yukimura almost of an enormous hairless bear.
Its masked visage, however, was more reminiscent of a human skull; attached to chitinous vertebrae that ran the length of the beast's twelve foot long spinal column like plates or armour. It's Hollow hole, wide enough that Yukimura was quite certain he could wriggle through it if he tried, cut bilaterally through the monster's abdomen, just beneath its lungs that expanded and contracted in a low, steady rhythm.
“How fast d'you think it can run?” he whispered to Suzume out of the corner of his mouth.
“The average speed of examination level Hollows is about forty kilometres per hour,” she replied. “They're so big that they can just tear their way through the foliage. Doesn't slow them down much.”
“So....” he mused. “If we force it t'run flat out, it'll reach th'camp in about seven and a half minutes....”
“That's.....surprisingly fast math,” Suzume remarked, extending an elbow to nudge him in the ribs in what he could only assume was a gesture of approval. “But yes. Although the rooks will probably only hear it coming for three of those minutes. By the time they've woken up, realised what's coming for them and identified the direction, he'll practically be on top of them.”
“And you're sure they can handle it?” he asked, not for the first time.
“They can handle it,” the girl nodded. “I wouldn't spring this on them if they couldn't. Besides, they need to know how to react to an ambush or the sudden appearance of an enemy. Getting attacked in their sleep is a real life scenario that they might encounter one day. With any luck, they'll rally together and deal with this thing. If not, then I guess we'll have to rescue them and I can spend the whole morning mocking them for it.”
“You're....pure evil,” Yukimura remarked with a grin.
“My motivations are entirely for their benefit,” Suzume protested, though Yukimura noticed she wore a smirk while doing so. “Now....how do you suppose we should get this big guy moving?”
Yukimura squinted at the Hollow, raising a hand to thoughtfully scratch his chin. Although Suzume had made no mention of it, he hadn't forgotten the fact that every muscle in her body was only tenuously healed; and brawling with even a low level hollow could quite easily aggravate those injuries that he would much prefer she allow to mend. He also knew, however, that his own abilities didn't allow for much in the way of 'restraint'; the odds were that anything he did to such a weak Hollow was liable to kill it by accident.
“Okay...” Suzume murmured, apparently not content to wait for Yukimura to provide an answer and instead producing one of her own. “One of us can circle around behind it and fire a hado right on its heels. That'll get him moving forward. The other one of us can go ahead to steer it, using hado to keep it from straying left or right while the other keeps up the pressure from behind. With any luck, we'll send him barrelling right into camp.”
“Alright....” Yukimura nodded. “I'll take the front, then. Whoever takes that job is going to have to keep up with that thing barrelling through the jungle at forty kilometers an hour. That'll be me.”
“What? No, it's my plan,” Suzume snorted as she raised a fist with her zanpakuto clenched inside it. “If I use my shikai, I can-”
“No shikia,” Yukimura interrupted, reaching up his own hand to snap his fingers around her fist. “Look, just....trust me on this one. You said you'd take it easy over th'next few days, so let me handle some of th'heavy lifting for you. I mean....it's not like I'm going anywhere.”
Suzume pursed her lips, looking none too pleased, but she nevertheless relented. Grudgingly, the young woman lowered her zanpakuto back to the ground by her side as she directed her gaze back towards the sleeping hollow. Frankly, he had expected her to put up more of a fight on the issue; of the two of them, Yukimura was the more physically powerful. But Suzume was by
far the faster. Her speed was impressive enough that the girl took it as a point of pride, and he had worried that he would have to wrestle her over the issue of who would take point.
The fact that she gave up so easily made him wonder if the pain she was in was, perhaps, worse than he had initially thought.
“Well, you'd better get moving then,” she told him with an indignant scowl. “I'm not going to wait all night for you to get into position.”
“Uh, right,” Yukimura nodded, releasing his grip on her hand as he slid sideways through the underbrush of his belly. Clambering through the long grass, he returned to his feet only once he had slipped back into the treeline to afford him sufficient cover should the Hollow happen to wake up. Whatever else could be said about him, Yukimura had spent almost his entire life in trees; so much so that moving from ground level to the branches was a slick, practised motion.
Although all Shinigami possessed physical dexterity that was at, or more often surpassed, human limitations, Yukimura's arboreal skills were considered somewhat noteworthy. Barely using his feet, he pulled himself upwards almost entirely with his hands as he rose through the branches at startling speed; intending to gain height upon his quarry in order to better manoeuvre ahead of it.
During their trek from the camp, what was left of the sunlight had almost completely faded. Yukimura could now more clearly see by starlight than anything else. So far from civilisation, the heaven swirled overhead as the stars shone brightly without competition from the artificial light of towns and cities, illuminating all that lay beneath them in a pale blue glow. Despite the late hour, the jungle was still stifflingling hot, as Yukimura raised the back of his hand to dab the perspiration from his forehead as he finally wound his way to the top of his selected tree.
'Right.....camp is back that way. Let's see if this guy takes off in a straight line or not.'
Crouching among the branches, he waited for Suzume to launch the attack that would start the chase. Although she had rushed him, he imagined it would take her far longer to get into a suitable position; or for that matter to carefully aim a kido close enough to set the Hollow on a stampede but far enough away not to injure it. Suzume's spiritual pressure was just as high as his; she could quite easily kill the Hollow by accident for all the same reasons Yukimura could.
The hair stood up on the back of his neck as he felt Suzume's spiritual pressure begin to rise – just barely – from its suppressed state. Rising to about a fifth of her maximum, the girl invested only as much as she needed; the pale blue night throwing into sudden and stark illumination as a sizzling sphere of crimson – the thirty first level of hado – flashed from the treeline directly behind the hollow to burrow into the soft jungle soil.
The effect was dramatic and immediate. A cataclysmic spasm of light, heat and noise as the sphere detonated upon impact. Although it was only a low level hado, fired by Suzume it struck the ground like a meteor; a shockwave of force rippling its way through the soil as an expanding circle of heaving dirt that picked up the startled Hollow and tossed it aside as though it were weightless.
'Geez, Suzume....Wouldn't jumping out and saying 'boo' have been enough?'
The tree in which Yukimura was perched shook as the tremors from the explosion rippled their way beneath its roots, but his perch held firm as the aftershock subsided. Though the grain of protesting wood, and the echoing rumble of the explosion reverberated through the jungle, it was the horrified shriek of the Hollow that was the most immediate sound.
All Hollows, regardless of their size and appearance, shared the same mournful cry. To Yukimura, it sounded like air rushing through a tunnel, though at a low, dead pitch. Whatever still passed for sapient thought behind the creature's animalistic mask drove it to the point of terror as no sooner had the shockwave subsided than the Hollow had scrambled to its feet and torn away from the direction of the blast at every bit the blistering pace Suzume had predicted.
'Fast!'
It was a speed that Yukimura could easily match; his own maximum being somewhere just above the sound barrier. However, the need to keep his own reiatsu suppressed was just as pressing as the need to keep up, and so he was forced to simply run to catch up. Raising his arms to protect himself from the worst of the twigs and thorns that barred his way, his every stride carried him from tree branch to tree branch – now stepping, now leaping, traversing the canopy as though it were simply an unusually uneven road.
Mad with fear, the Hollow shredded the underbrush beneath him in an effort to escape Suzume's first attack; crying out once again in terror as she launched a second that blasted into the tree line only a few yards behind the fleeing beast. Fortunately, Suzume's positioning was perfect, and the Hollow was set on a near direct line for the distant camp.
Their seven minute dash through the jungle had begun.
Yukimura felt a curious thrill take over him as he bounded through the trees, splitting his attention beneath the path ahead and the course of the running Hollow beneath him. It reminded him of the many hunts his father had led him on through the wild reaches of the Outer Rim; chasing down the massive mega fauna that made the jungle their home. For while they had mostly subsisted on fruit, and whatever else could be foraged from their surroundings, his family had often felt the need to add red meat to their diet.
Yet he had only been a boy, then. And running in his bare feet through the long grass, brandishing a spear, could hardly compare to dashing among the treetops with two tonnes of supernatural monstrosity threshing its way through the jungle beneath his feet. Despite reminding himself, not for the first time, that the purpose of this exercise was to train the recruits, he could not deny that he felt some primal part of his soul stir in the execution of it.
Beneath him, the Hollow began to turn slightly northward, and he realised the need to set it back on course. Summoning up a sliver of his own reaitsu, he lowered an open palm to the forest floor to blast of a surging blast of his own hado; grinning at himself that he was able to exert rather more restraint than Suzume.
Although he used the same hado, his own Shakkaho merely thudded into the undergrowth to the creature's immediate right, tossing sod, stone and shredded vegetation skyward but not achieving quite the same dramatic explosion as Suzume's opening salvo. The blast was nevertheless enough to turn the creature back the way he wanted – driven ever onward by a third torpedo from Suzume that, launched from somewhere behind, burned with such ferocity Yukimura felt certain it singed the back of his head.
'I guess she's still kinda pissed off I took this job from her.'
If the Hollow was tired, it certainly didn't show in the pace the creature set. Its passage accompanied by the deafening rip and tear of jungle flora, the monster's bear-like body peeled through the thick vegetation as though it were not even there; adjusting its path only to avoid the thick trunks of trees or the occasional impassable boulder. Its path, however, remained steady; its primitive mind not thinking to deviate from the path that Yukimura had set it upon as, in the distance, the warm glow of the Shinigami camp fire peaked through the trees.
In the mad chase through the forest, seven minutes passed as quickly as seven seconds.
Now that they were near their goal, Yukimura slowed his pursuit – allowing the Hollow to overtake him as it howled its way towards the camp. Already he could hear the startled yells of the Shinigami as they were roused from their slumber by the creature's deafening approach, as the first panicked cry as one of them spotted the colossal shape advancing upon them from the darkness.
His hand moving to the hilt of his zanpakuto, Yukimura finally came to a stop upon a branch that afforded him a good enough view of the ensuing chaos. Prepared to leap into the fray if need be, but recalling Suzume's instruction to do so only if absolutely necessary, he watched – poised – as the Hollow at last reached its destination.
Some one hundred yards away, the Shinigami and the Hollow looked almost like toy figures moving within the orange fire light. The Hollow appeared just as surprised to encounter the Shinigami as they were to find it bearing down upon them, and for a moment the huge beast stopped – rearing up on its hind legs to stand at its full dizzying fourteen feet.
One of the Shinigami – Yukimura thought it was Natsuo – stood at the centre of the group of panicking rookies. His voice could just be distinguished; barking orders and calling for calm, even as Shunsuke continued to wail in a panic. The group's junior member continued his crying until the figure next to him – from the large paunch, Yukimura assumed it could only have been the young recruit's uncle, Kansuke – roughly slapped him across the back of the head.
Between them, Natsuo and Kansuke used to tips of their extended zanpakuto to try and warn away the Hollow. Though a single swipe from its enormous forelimb collided with Kansuke's extended weapon and sent the portly man tumbling to one side. It was only when the group was at last joined by the hulking figure of Yamauchi that the Shinigami were at least prepared to mount a more aggressive defence.
The largest of the group shouldered his way forward to swing his oversized zanpakuto at the clawed limbs of the attacking Hollow, even as the creature – still standing on its hind legs – lumbering forward to meet the advance. Supported by Natsuo, who stepping in from behind the giant to agitate the Hollow with sharp, niggling thrusts of his sword, Yamauchi succeeded in landing what to Yukimura appeared to be a decisive blow to the Hollow's right forelimb.
Although his hand remained upon the hilt of his sword, Yukimura found himself relaxing as Shinsuke helped his uncle, the oldest of the recruits, back to his feet. Together, Shunsuke and Kansuke rejoined the collective effort against the Hollow as they fanned out in an attempt to flank the creature on both sides.
'Heh....these kids are all over the damn place. They're way weaker than I was back when I graduated from the Academy. But they're doing much better than I expected.'
Unfortunately, no sooner had the thought occurred to Yukimura than the tide abruptly turned.
Although pestered from all sides, it was still Yamauchi – with his zanbato sized sword – that had inflicted the most damage and represented the most significant threat. Although it was a Hollow of limited intelligence, certainly far short of human intellect, it at least knew enough that its chances of survival increased should it be able to eliminate its largest adversary.
Before the group could complete their flanking manoeuvre, the beast suddenly charged forward. Bellowing in bestial rage, at ploughed into Yamauchi even as the man brought up the point of his zanpakuto to defend himself. Yukimura immediately stiffened, realising even from his distant vantage point that the man's blade had found the creature's throat rather than its mask. Although the weapon bit deep, carving through the Hollow's neck until the tip thundered against the armoured plating that ran down the length of its spine, it was not a wound capable of killing a Hollow.
Only a direct blow to the head could achieve that.
The Hollow either did not notice the injury, or it simply didn't care. Continuing to charge forward, Yamauchi retained a desperate grip on the hilt of his sword as he was pushed backwards. The desperate Shinigami closed around the creature to hack at its flanks, but to no avail as it tossed its head to lift Yamauchi – sword and all – from the ground and slamming the hapless Shinigami against the nearest tree.
'Shit!'
Yukimura was out of his perch in an instant, gritting his teeth as he ripped his zanpakuto free of its scabbard. If he unleashed his tightly held grip on his reiatsu, he could reach and dispatch the Hollow in the space of a heartbeat. However before he could do so, indeed before he was more than a few yards from his tree, Yukimura felt the wind knocked out of him as something fast and heavy crashed into him from above.
His world spinning as he lost control of his movement, he found himself crashing into the undergrowth. Gritting his teeth, he winced in pain as he collided with the wet earth, his head spinning as he found himself pinned down by the same weight that had struck him out of the air.
“Wait!” Suzume hissed through clenched teeth, both her hands closed around his swordarm to pin his weapon in place, the girl straddling his upper body with a knee to either side of his chest. “Give them a minute!”
“What th'hell are you doing!?” he demanded, his surprise at her intervention such that he didn't immediately think to struggle against her. “Your recruits are about to get their asses kicked!”
“No they're not!” she insisted, her eyes directed at the battle rather than at Yukimura. “Just give them a minute!”
Wriggling underneath her, Yukimura craned his neck to try and look in the direction of the fight. Although the ground level foliage obscured much of the view, he could see enough that he could still tell roughly what was going on. Squinting, prepared to try and hurl Suzume from him if he saw the recruits in further trouble, he noted from his new vantage point that Yamauchi's situation was not quite so severe as he had suspected.
Although the large Shinigami had struck the tree, he had twisted his body in midair to strike the bark feet first. His muscular legs straining – the bulging veins in the man's neck clearly visible – the gigantic Shinigami appeared to have found purchase between the tree and the pressure of the Hollow pushing forward against his blade.
“Hold it there, Yama-kun!” Natsuo's voice could be heard, a note of desperation in the young man's voice as he appeared to be in the process of climbing the tree to which Yamauchi was pinned. On the ground, Shunsuke and Kansuke had engaged the creature's remaining good arm – hacking and slashing at its most powerful weapon every time it tried to bring it to bear against the immobile Yamauchi.
“Give them a minute...” Suzume repeated as a whisper, though it sounded to Yukimura more as though she were trying to convince herself than him.
Utterly bent on attacking the largest member of the group, the Hollow barely even acknowledged the other Shinigami that scurried around it, no matter how they interfered with its intention. The blade still thrust into its throat had forced the creature's head to face upwards – its skull like face directed towards the canopy and perhaps leaving it blind to what lay around it. It would be Natsuo, though, who had the most decisive effect.
As Yamuicho immobilised the creature's head with his stuck weapon, the ringleader of the group had succeeded in climbing to the same level as his companion. Exhaling a long, low breath to steady his nerves, the smaller man sprang forward to touch down – ever so briefly – upon the broad shoulders of Yamauchi. Using his companion as a stepping stone, Natsuo brought his own zanpakuto flashing down in a cutting arc that descended unnervingly into the very centre of the Hollow's masked forehead.
It was a perfect cut. A textbook cut. And the Hollow's masked face splintered like porcelain as Natsuo's sword continued on is downward descent; only stopping when it clangled loudly against Yamauchi's own sword still lodged in the creature's neck. Although by then the Hollow's twitching body had already begun to flake away – its head split in two, and the dark spirit that lurked behind its mask exorcised by the cleansing blade of the zanpakuto.
“They did it....” Yukimura murmured, as much astonished as he was impressed. Although the words had barely left his mouth before his gaze was yanked from the group, forced to look up once more as Suzume's hands seized the front of his kosode and emphatically shook him.
“They did it!” she beamed, echoing Yukimura's own statement. “I told you they would!”
Yukimura blinked up at the girl in mute astonishment. Her face was somewhat grubby from what had surely been a headlong charge through the jungle, but her absolute elation shone through nonetheless. Her amber eyes and white teeth almost seemed to sparkle against the backdrop of her mud streaked features, and it occurred to Yukimura that it was perhaps the first time he had ever seen her smile.
Really smile. He had seen her smirk. Sneer. Maybe offer a grin or two. But he couldn't remember ever seeing her so blatantly ecstatic.
'She's.....really proud of them.'
Still smiling, her shoulders rising and falling heavily with each breath as her initial euphoria began to wear off, Suzume released her grip on his clothing to let Yukimura sink back into the soil. Yukimura
wanted to respond to her smile with one of his own but, truth to be told, he found himself rather too unsettled. Now that the adrenaline of the chase was fading, he found himself painfully aware of the fact she was still pinning him to the ground, and of how dangerously close her face was to his own.
'….Damn it...I'm having inappropriate thoughts again. Why the hell does she have to be so god damn beautiful? Couldn't she be ugly? Or a guy! She could have been a guy! I've never had inappropriate thoughts about my guy friends before. That would solve all my problems.'
Her smile fading, Suzume regarded Yukimura's own face searchingly. While her eyes retained the same merry sparkle, she leaned closer as though to give him a more thorough examination – so close that he could feel her warm breath against his lips.
“Are you alright?” she queried. “You look.....weirdly thoughtful.”
“I'm fine,” Yukimura nodded, his voice uncomfortably husky. “Just wishing you were a guy.”
“What?” Suzume blinked.
“What?” Yukimura replied, rather too dazed by the proximity to know exactly what he had said.
Suzume squinted down at him, a flash of confused amusement passing through those amber eyes as she continued to gaze at him. Not for the first time, Yukimura found himself wishing very much that he could tell what she was thinking; although he couldn't imagine it was anything
like what he was thinking.
“You-” he muttered, swallowing. “You should probably get off me, now.”
“Sorry,” she started, pulling away to sit upright on his stomach – inadvertently making the situation worse. “Did I hurt you?”
'No. But if you shift your hips any lower you're going to find out just how difficult you're making things for me. And then I'll probably get castrated.'
“Yeah,” he replied. “A little.”
“R-right,” she nodded, pushing away from him to stand upright. At some point she appeared to have dropped her zanpakuto beside him, and she fished it out of the undergrowth as she stood, swinging the long weapon across her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Uh....yeah, I'm fine,” Yukimura nodded, immediately sitting up and feeling very much as though his cheeks were burning. “Anyway, you should probably go see t'your troops. I expect they're wondering what th'hell's going on.”
“Heh,” Suzume smirked – the same macabre grin she had worn upon first proposing the idea of herding the Hollow to them in the first place. “I bet they are....Just wait till I get done with them.”
Yukimura twisted on the spot to follow her progress as the girl set off at a jog in the direction of the encampment. He watched her topknot bob with every step, noting that the group of exhausted recruits had apparently seen her coming – one of them raising a hand to point her out to the others.
“What the hell are you idiots doing!?” she bellowed out to them as she approached the camp. “Did you just get attacked in the middle of the night without a
single man on watch!? Who the hell taught you to make camp without setting a watch, because it sure as hell wasn't me!”
Yukimura winced, finding the girl's tirade painful even though he wasn't on the receiving end of it. The astounded recruits, having no doubt believed they had performed admirably, could only stand in mute shock as Suzume proceeded to verbally dissect them one by one. He imagined they were angry; in fact, he strongly suspected they were all
furious. But they kept their mouths shut, taking their leader's abuse and standing firmly to rigid attention all the while.
Yukimura couldn't help but wonder how they'd feel if they'd been allowed to see the same smile of absolute pride that Suzume had revealed to him and him alone.