Trial of Fire

Chapter 21
Awoken

Kinomi spent most of the evening catching Grimmjow up on what had happened, even though he still didn’t stir in the least. She fell asleep at one point and woke up finding herself tucked onto a futon on the floor, curled up around Kyattsuai and ‘tera.

They made sure to pack light and that they had everything they would need, including half a dozen flash lights and spare batteries.

With one last squeeze of the fingers and a promise to take good care of ‘tera and make Akusesshou pay, Kinomi left to join the others under Urahara’s shop where Leon would be gating them back to the place Hurón had been living when he found Kinomi.

They had decided to use the caves and hope Akusesshou hadn’t discovered them, or if he did think they would not dare to return, let alone use them again. Faces lit with fresh determination and well rested, they walked through the portal.


It was so utterly frustrating. He could hear and feel everything around him, but his body refused to move. He was aware when Kinomi had found him, had tried to tell her to leave him and flee before Monban got a hold of her to, but everything refused to move.

When she had picked him up pain had flashed across his abused body and he had passed out, only to wake up wondering if it had all been a dream. But it was not sticky, cold, blood coated, rock floor he rested on, nor did the place reek of decaying flesh and his hair didn't feel like it was caked to his head with dried blood. There was no twittering of the rats.

He felt warm for the first time in ages and it almost felt like he was drifting on a bed of clouds. He was confused and was wondering if this wasn’t a new torture that Monban had come up with. If the creature was going to wait until he was comfortable and believed this to be real before ripping the dream away.

But no, he could hear familiar voices arguing. It was the arguing that had woken him up. It was Kinomi and Ichigo yelling at each other and if Gimmjow had been able he would have laughed and cheered as Kinomi told her father off. But as it was he was still completely paralyzed and it frustrated him to high hell.

He had felt Pantera laying next to him, the Zanpakuto reaching out to him, but he had pushed the blade away and reaffirmed his earlier command to protect Kinomi at all cost until he himself could do so. With a final pulse the zanpakuto had quieted down and he felt the part of his reiatsu, his very soul, sealed in the zanpakuto envelop Kinomi again.

He drifted off to sleep shortly after things quieted down, the pain of his body still hurting, but he did have a chance to laugh at Akusesshou and Monban for he knew the two creatures had to be bellowing in rage at his escape and the fact they couldn’t break his spirit even after two years of mental torture and two weeks of solid physical torture.

“Although,” he grudgingly admitted to himself, “they had come close.”

It was Kinomi telling him they were going back to deal with the bastards and how they planned on doing it that had him scrambling at the walls in his body, trying to get out. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hug and wish her good hunting or throttle her for daring to go after such dangerous prey.

Pride for how well into adults and warriors they had grown into combated with fear for their lives. After they had left Orihime returned to heal him again. The fact it was taking so long made him appreciate just how much damage he had taken and he really hated the fact her owed the human girl another favor, or dozen or so giving how beat up he was.

Something in his back shifted as she healed him and he bolted up with a gasp, smashing his head on the top of her shield, causing him to flop back onto the bed and Orihime to let out a shout of fright that summoned Nel, Ishida apparently already gone somewhere for the day with their kids.

He cursed as he rubbed the burn on his forehead from where he had hit the shield. The shield dropped and before he even knew it Nel was all over him, hugging him and crying and nearly suffocating him between her breast.

“Nel, I can’t breath.” He protested.

Nel didn’t seem to hear him and it took a while to calm her down. They helped him sit up as he had used what little energy he had when he bolted upright. They forced something resembling soup down his throat and made him eat some sort of strange gummy candy Nel claimed Urahara had specially made for them that was heavy in reiatsu.

He was skeptical of the strawberry flavored thing, but after swallowing it he could feel the energy pour into him, his own healing abilities finally kicking in.

“So you were aware all this time?” Orihime asked, once everything was settled down and he had eating.

“More or less.” He admitted reluctantly.

“Hmm.” Orihime seemed to be thinking. “Your back.” She suddenly jumped up, throwing a fist into the air. “When the spinal cord is damaged or severed it causes paralysis. That must be it.” She declared.

Nel leaped up with Orihime, the two of them sharing a hug and cheer at having figured it out. Grimmjow just sighed. How the hell did someone as stoic as Ulquiorra not go insane taking care of the hyper active girl was beyond him.

“Oh right, he had years of dealing with me.” He realized with a half grin/half grimace. “If my old self could see me now I wonder what I would say to myself.” He wondered in slight amusement.

Thinking about Ulquiorra definitely brought a shiver down his spine. The 4th had always been stronger then him, he hated to admit. To learn that the Aku’s were former Espada made him tremble with terror for the sake of the kids and puff out with pride known that they were standing their own against them.

Except for Akuyami, and Grimmjow had to admit against that one even he would have problems, at least to himself.

He prayed they would not come across that one again. When fighting them he never even stopped to think that his former so called comrades where what he was bashing his head against. It never even occurred to him they could still be alive.

“Hell, for all we know Akusesshou could be one of Aizen experiments gone wrong in his quest for greater power.” He though to himself.

One thing was for sure, he wanted to get back up to full strength as fast as he could so he could join Kinomi, Zan and the others.

“Oi, Hime.” He called, snagging the attention of the two women. “How long until you can have me back at full strength?” He demanded.

“I don’t know.” She admitted hesitantly. “It’s like something is blocking my healing, making it harder. It’s like trying to swim through honey. You can do it, but it take a lot more effort.”

He held back a sigh of frustration. He blinked when the golden shield enveloped him again and he glanced over to a smiling Orihime.

“I am rested enough to keep going for now.” She explained. “And now that you are better your own reiatsu should start healing you as well, right? So your getting healed twice over.”

He nodded, then closed his eyes and let the soothing energy of Orihime’s healing wash over him. God how long it had been since he was pain free? It was so blissful it was almost painful and he wondered if his body hadn’t become addicted to the pain. God he sure as hell hoped not.

“Well, it could have been worse.” He admitted as he found himself drifting back to sleep. “At least the bastard didn’t rape me.”


The caves were as dark and dreary as they remembered them to be. The flash lights were a thousand times more convenient then the torches they had used last time. Once again they got no reception down her and Kinomi wondered if it was something in the rock that was blocking it.

It was so much easier to concentrate now that she knew Grimmjow and Nel were safe, but she already knew that she would probably be suffering nightmares for a while after walking into those torture chambers and seeing so much blood and rotting corpses. At seeing Grimmjow so beaten and covered in rats chewing on him.

She shook the image away, concentrating on the mission. As much as she wanted to tare Akusesshou into a million little pieces she remembered the problem the other five had just fighting Monban.

No their mission was to free the former espada and by doing so hopefully nullify all of Akusesshou’s dolls, making him considerably weaker power base wise. She reviewed what she knew about them and wondered what they would do once free.

None of them would know about the HMKs. None of them would know about Aizen’s defeat. Would they be appreciative of being set free or just see a bunch of foolish Shinigami children that looked tasty, regardless of the fact several of them smelt like arrancar.

Kinomi sighed, realizing that they would probably have some convincing to do assuming breaking the Tsukimono even left the victims coherent. She didn’t think about what soul society would consider this mission as. All she knew was that Akusesshou had hurt her family and anything she could do to make his life a living hell was in her books to do.

Besides, as taught in the academy there was a balance to the three worlds and if all the hollows were destroyed that balance would be thrown off. It was one of the reasons that Soul Society didn’t have missions to go to Hueco Mundo on extermination missions. Hollows were a necessary evil.

It took three days to make it to the castle again. Kinomi made sure no one had a chance to pause to look into the torture chambers. She shuddered when she went past the one that had held Grimmjow, but forced herself to keep moving until they came to the stairs.

They had to turn the radar off because it had gone crazy and flooded the screen with signals. They would have to rely on their own instincts to detect danger.

They went up the rather large flight of stairs, blood splashes on the steps, some black with age, some still red and dry that Kinomi had a strong feeling belonged to Grimmjow. The next floor held more cells, but the doors were opened and the room empty.

They went up another level, and froze. It was one large cavern covered in large test tubes filled with creatures at various stages of development.

“This must be where they make the dolls.” Taka whisper.

“Displeasing indeed.” Reina agreed.

“I am caught somewhere between morbid fascination and abject disgust, you?” Zan asked Leon.

“Same.” He agreed.

There were no machines that they could tell, just the tubes filled with liquid and the dolls. The place felt evil though and it make the hairs on their arms stand up and at the same time gave them the feeling like oil was oozing over their skin.

The room was far more vast then they realized and flipping a coin they decided to follow the right wall until they hoped to find another set of stairs. Shuffling amongst the tubes caught their attention and it was then they realized that there were creatures tending to the tanks.

They froze as one figure shuffled by going from tank to tank. If it noticed them it made no indication. They passed more of the small creatures Zan joked they reminded him of the Jawas from Star Wars, which of course confused the others as they hadn’t grown up in the living world and thus never got to experience the joys of movies.

It was tempting to destroy the tubes, but there were far too many for them to destroy quickly, they didn’t want to trigger any alarms just yet, and if they succeeded in freeing the imprisoned espada then there was a strong chance they would remain lifeless dolls.

They found the stairs about ten minutes later, many of the creatures going up and down them. After the little things had made no notice of them they dared to just join the line and walked up as part of the crowd.

No alarms went off nor did the creatures indicate any distress at their being there and Kinomi figured they were more or less just worker bees set to do one task and as long as nothing interfered with it then all was well.

She also wondered if there was a controlling creature for these ones too and if so then where there more then just the former espada under Tsukimono like they had originally wondered.

The stairs were long and led up into another chamber full of the little creatures sleeping on the floor. As one got up to leave, another laid down to take its place. It was all rather efficient and Kinomi couldn’t help but to think that this was probably what a wet dream to Kurotsuchi-taichou looked like.

They made their way across the cavern full of the rotating creatures and went up the next flight of stairs. Kinomi paused at the last bend, voices drifting down to reach them.


“How much longer will it be?” Akusesshou asked coldly.

“Soon master soon. We lost a lot of dolls on that last assault of that foolish woman’s stronghold. We had no idea the brats would show up there.” Monban snarled. “Any luck on the dark one?”

“No.” Akusesshou snarled in annoyance. “His mind is strong, even if his will is weak. I still can not have more then two dolls of him at a time or I start to loss control, like what happened with that brat.”

“Master?”

“He defied me.” Akusesshou snapped. “I ordered him to kill the stupid thorn but instead he deliberately missed. Then the brat shows up again.”

“He is strong.”

“Indeed. No more dolls will we make of that one. Tsuchi is by far the easiest to control and one of the stronger ones.”

“And of the girl. The one who can control time?”

“I still desire her. Her abilities could be of good use to me.”

“Master, I can see how speeding up time could be a huge benefit to make the dolls born faster, but what can turning it back do?”

Akusesshou smiled.

“It is more then that. There is more to that girl then you realize, more then she probably realizes herself. Soon now we will have destroyed all of Hueco Mundo. From there we will launch our assault on the next realm, and the next until the universe is embroiled in glorious chaos.”

Akusesshou permitted himself a deep chuckle as he though about the fall of order and the rise of terror and disharmony. It would be a glorious thing to rule. To twist the souls into his pets and watch the worlds run red with blood as the helpless were slaughtered.

He frowned when he remembered the arrancar who had somehow managed to escape. Two years of attempting to twist that ones mind had yielded nothing. Two weeks of the torture he had seen many fall in under three days led to nothing.

The will of that one was strong and Akusesshou had no doubt that Monban was desperate to get that one back and finish what he had started. His lieutenant was positive that he could break the creature and hadn't had a challenge since his last pet almost fifteen years ago.

“Pain means nothing to that one.” Akusesshou realized, sitting back in his throne made from the skins, hair, bones and masks of the hollows they had brutally murdered in the beginning. “We could torture that one to the brink of death and back again and all he would do would be to spit at us. The will of that one is strong. How then, to break him?”

He pondered the creature, waving Monban away so he could continue to brood in silence.

“The intruders. He seemed slightly disturbed to see them. Yes, and that girl, the one Akuyami failed to kill. She had his katana didn’t she? There was rage flowing from his mind when he saw her fall.”

He thought of the strange black haired, brown eyed girl. He was positive he had researched all of the taichou and fukutaichou of Soul Society, but none of the intruders had been on the records as such, and yet they all clearly displayed that level of power.

Especially her. To have even stood up against Akuyami, even if it was only one of the two dolls, was a huge accomplishment. Taming her would give him an excellent set of dolls and he had yet to truely experiment with a shinigami.

Standing up Akusesshou waltzed to the room his current puppet masters were being held in suspended animation, trapped in his Tsukimono. He had new orders for his pets.


Kinomi and the others let out a sigh of relief as the room was finally empty. They waited several minutes before venturing forth. Not being able to sense the two men made it that much more dangerous, but at the same time it appeared as if the men could not sense them.

Now the corridors were starting to become maze like and this had clearly once been the throne room and halls of the original tenants, although judging by the state of decay that had been decades, if not centuries ago.

Kinomi wondered who had built the original castle and why. Small villages was the best anyone had heard of from hollows before Aizen had arrived. A Vasto Lorde perhaps? One now long since dead.

Perhaps it had even been brought here, but no that couldn’t be right. Rata knew of the place. If she ever saw the two hollows again Kinomi made a mental note to ask them what they knew of the castle.

Assuming of course Yoruichi and Yachiru succeeded in their mission and the Sotaichou didn’t have them executed for treason. Because god help them they would not stand still for that one.

There were starting to become far too many corridors and they had no choice but to split up to cover more ground. Leon, Zan, Reina and Barbo went in one group. Kinomi, Taka, Azucena, and Galgo in the other.

“Okay, let’s face it. We are hopelessly lost.” Taka murmured quietly in distress.

“How long has it been?” Azucena asked.

“Two hours.” Kinomi sighed. “And we still haven’t covered our half the fortress. I haven’t felt any rise in the others reiatsu either so no one has come across anything.

“Kinomi.” Galgo spoke up for the first time since entering the palace.

“What is it?” She asked, turning to face him.

“Hold still for a sec.” He requested.

Shrugging, she held still as he walked around behind her.

“Turn around again.”

“Alright, but why am I doing this?” She asked confused.

“I just wanted to see if you would do it.” He said once he was behind her again.

She whirled on him in disbelief.

“A joke.” He assured her. “The rest of us never noticed because our Zanpakuto are on our hips, but ‘tera is on your back and as such I have been staring at the charm Urahara-san gave us and notice it seems to keep pulling in the same direction.”

Taka and Galgo drew their own blades and sure enough the trinkets were all leaning the same direction.

“A tracking device.” Taka gasped.

“Trust Urahara to fail to mention that.” Kinomi sighed.

Kinomi drew ‘tera and they followed the pull on the charms, leading them deeper into the fortress. Kinomi wished they had a way to let the others knew what they had discovered, but with no way to communicate they had no choice but to hope they noticed the same thing.

Because she was holding ‘tera in front of her the strike meant to take her head, and would have had she not been using the blade as a radar, sparked off of the Zanpakuto instead.

Her hand went numb and she leaped back as Akuyami followed his strike around the corner. Kinomi felt a tingle of fear run up her spine, chased by a great amount of anticipation at fighting the creature again.

“You three go ahead. I’ll deal with this one.” Kinomi commanded.

Galgo made to protest, but Taka stopped him, noticing the look in Kinomi’s eyes and the slight smile on her face.

The fear had not been for her sake, oh no. The fear had been for her friends sake, especially Azucena. The other three retreated, leaving her standing alone with the shadow creature.

Kinomi noticed this one was different. It seemed more solid and piercing green eyes bore into her soul, the only part of the creature she could see underneath all the darkness. She met those eyes and drew Kyattsuai.

“Bankai.” She declared, knowing better then to play games with this creature.

They met in a shower of sparks and Kinomi quickly realized this corridor was not the best of places to be wielding two swords. With a blast of kidou she destroyed the wall beside her and the two combatants moved from the hall to the open air of the courtyard.

“I wonder if today will be another lucky day.” She wondered to herself in glee as the two combatants crossed blades again.

This was the fight she had been searching for, one to the death where she would live or die on her own blades. A fight to truly do Grimm-ji and Kenpachi-taichou proud. Her only regret was that they were not here to witness it.


Taka and Galgo ran down the hall, or rather Galgo ran and Taka flew. The threat so clear had her merging with Azucena more for the others safety then because she felt she needed the power boost.

Behind them they felt the overwhelming rise of Kinomi’s reiatsu, their friend holding nothing back and not playing games.

“Have fun and come back alive, Pantera-chan.” Taka wished.

They were so worried about her that they almost ran head on into the other group as they rounded a corner. Collision was avoided by Taka rising higher into the air and Leon and Zan jumping off of the wall to land behind them.

“Quickly, the charms act as a radar.” Taka called, not slowing down as she followed the pull of her charm.

“What about Kinomi?” Leon asked.

“She is fine. We got our own mission.” Taka declared.

Nodding the second group turned to follow her.

The charms led her into a large room and they stopped as they stared up at the figures suspending in the air, what could only be described as magical runes and circles glowing and rotating around them.

They were all in their true forms, no elements wrapped around them and for the first time the HMKs got to see what the five former espada looked like in life.

“Whoa.” Leon whistled.

“At any other time, this would seem cool.” Zan noted.

“Pink hair. Wow. Is this suppose to be a guy or girl?” Leon chuckled.

“Everyone pick a target and let’s do this.” Taka ordered.

The others gave her a nod and stood before their respective target; Barbo to Akuho, Leon to Akuawai, Zan to Akutsuchi, Taka to Akukaze, Galgo to Akumizu. Reina stood back.

“Ah, there you are.”

Reina didn’t even have time to move before she was immobilized, Monban holding a blade to her throat with one arm while wrapping the other around her, effectively pinning her arms to her side.

The others whirled on the man, who just smiled at them.

“Oh don’t think I have forgotten you lousy lot. Clearly dolls are useless against you. Lets see how you do with the real things.” He sneered.

Five sets of eyes snapped open as the magical circles disappeared. The former espada touched the ground, a burst of power surrounding them as they changed form into what was no doubt their various resurrections. They didn’t have long to study the new forms before they were enveloped in their element.

“Kill them all.” Monban ordered.

Reina tried to struggle free and for a second it seemed like she had succeeded, only for the hilt of the dagger to land on the back of her head, and the world went dark. Monban caught her before she could hit the floor.

Tossing her over his shoulder he slammed the door shut behind him and left. As much as they wanted to assist Reina, there was a mission to complete and they knew Akusesshou wanted Reina alive. The room was far too small for them to fight in and in wordless agreement the roof was blasted off and they scattered to better fight.


Stay Tuned for Chapter 22: Five Elements

Where the fight with the Aku's both begin and conclude. They are short but sweet IMO.

“I am caught somewhere between morbid fascination and abject disgust, you?” My favorite line in this chapter, I swear to god.

While I try to keep all the cultural stuff Japaneses giving that is where they are from and based on, I am sure they know Star Wars in Japan. You would have to live under a rock, or some other place not on Earth, not to know that movie.

One time special offer going on sale now.

I am writing a sort of In between thingy that takes place between Part 2 and 3, currently the file is called B2.5. Crossbreading is B1, this is B2 and the yet named story is B3 in my file folders.

This is your chance, my reward to my faithful readers and reviewers, to make request of things you would like to see happen with the main cast of bleach, or any of the HMKs if you want to see more of them. You do not need to log in or have an account to review so anyone can make a request or toss an idea.

Some things already slated are:

Toshiro and Karin's wedding
Yachiru and Renji getting into a relationship
Yourichi and Urahara's daughter stalking/terrifying Kurotsuchi
Tatsuki (post Konso) and Ikkaku hooking up
Yuzu (post Konso) and Yumichika hooking up


Please have your request in by Sunday, October, 25, 2009. So send in your request in what way you would like to see someone tortured, I mean, find true happiness. Yeah that's it. Hehe.

Next post will be late tomorrow evening. Curse you work, is this the thanks I get for coming back to you? *grumble