[DISCONTINUED] Strive | Bleach

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Abaron's Adventures in Hueco Mundo - Part Three!

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Abaron's Adventures in Hueco Mundo - Part Three!

*

Tolo put out his arm, preventing me from entering the next hall. I was aboutto speak, but then he clapped his hand over the bottom half of my face!

"Keep quiet," he ordered me. My mouth fell open in his hand, and I shoved it away, wiping the heat of my breath away with my sleeve.

"What do we do now, O'Cap-i-tan?" I asked, and gave him a weak salute.

"I recommend... a diversion," Tolo whispered in reply. I nodded in agreement.

"Right, okay— so then youcan go out there and be the bait for me, alright?" I said. A pitchy yelp made my ears ring, and Tolo slapped his hand over my mouth again. "Excuse me," I called through his fingers.

"I meant an illusion," Tolo said hastily. His complexion was noticeably more pale. "You should know better than to send me into combat!"

"But I've seen you fight," I reminded him.

"While Lirin was there to pull my strings! I'm a ModifiedSoul, Abaron. Not a Soul Reaper." I sighed in defeat. "But... there isanother way we can get out of here without getting blood on our—""my""—hands."

I grabbed the collar of his robe and yanked him down to my height.

"Tell me."

*

"Seriously? This is your intelligent, Almighty plan?"

Tolo nodded, putting me off-balance. I squealed, and struggled to stay on the balls of my heels to avoid falling on my face. Tolo's arms were wrapped tight around my neck - it was extremely hard to breathe - and because he was nearly a foot taller than I was - and very, very lanky - his legs were like a body-sized noose.

"Yes," he said, "but it won't last for long; my power isn't as strong when I'm away from Lirin."

"I already know that," I snapped, "but why does this plan of yours involve you breakingmyspine?!"

"Your spiritual energy is so dense that it's like a blanket to keep me warm here in Hueco Mundo," said Tolo. "I'm freezing!"

I groaned— for him, andthe strain he put on my body.

Two Arrancar - the two Tolo must've have sensed earlier - appeared in the room ahead of us. For some reason, they didn't quite fit the profiles I expected them to have. One of them had the body shape of a human man, but wore a sharp-beaked, possibly two-foot-long bird mask, while the otherwas abnormally enormous. Its tongue, purple in colour, poked out between its teeth.

Tolo steered me forward to the other end of the room. Thankfully, they hadn't seen, sensed, or heard us, which meant Tolo's camouflage illusion was working. When we reached it, I ducked through the doorway, minding Tolo's head, and sighed in relief when he clambered off my shoulders. I twisted my body, keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground, and cracked my back. Tolo flattened his robe an took in a large breath.

"Up those stairs," he said. I nodded, and started climbing them.

I noticed, as we passed the seventy-second step, that there was a breeze blowing up from below my feet. I stopped running, and Tolo crashed into me from behind.

"Do you feel that?" I asked, turning toward him. Tolo turned the other way, and glared through the darkness.

"N-no," he stammered in a sudden panic, "but I dosee it!" He started to shove me up the rest of the stairs. "Run!"

Bewildered, I broke into a flash step, my fingers wrapped tightly around Tolo's wrist. A small light appeared high above us, and I knew it was the exit. I gritted my teeth, and urged my body to move even faster than it already was. Something cold lapped at my bare heels. I took a quick glance over my shoulder and past Tolo's head, but nothing was there.

"Keep going!" Tolo screamed. I let out a yell of frustration when my hair blew over my shoulders and into my face. I whipped my head, tossing it back over. As we neared the light, the source turning out to be moonlight, I was suddenly swept high off my feet and into the air like a a firework. Tolo screamed, his limbs failing aound. I couldn't help but laugh at his lack of composure, and stopped when he latched onto my right leg.

"H-hey!" I shouted down at him, trying to pry his hands away from my shihakusho. "Let - go!"

"No way!"

A desert came into view when we finally emerged from what I discovered to be a hole surrounded by plains of grey sand. I could see brittle little trees poking up from the ground here and there, and in the far distance, a palace-like building— but my mainconcern was the imminency of our collision with the ground beneath us. Tolo's grip loosened, and he disappeared from sight. The moon highlight our landing zone— I tucked my head into my lap and hugged my knees to my chest. My back was like a spring board against the sand dunes, and I tumbled down them like a ball, my head colliding with the sand itself every chance it had. Unable to hold my body together, I did one last somersault before being launched into the air and onto my face. Dazed, I barely managed to push myself onto my arms to free my face from the sand. I collapsed on my back, and screamed through the desert.

"Yeeeaaah!" I survived! I drove my nails under the sand's surface and threw it away from me, laughing hysterically. I could hear someone wailing from not too far away, and I climbed to the top of the dune to find out where it came from.

A single, knee-high, purple boot stuck out from the sand, and I recognized it to be Tolo's.

"Tolo!" I shouted at it. "I'm coming!"

I trudged through the sand with my shihakusho hiked up away from my ankles. When I finally reached him I dropped to my knees and began to dig.

"Whatever you do, don't stop breathing, 'kay?!" I shouted at him. I uncovered his thighs, his stomach, his chest, and Tolo managed to pull his head from the sand on his own. He took a deep breath, which was a mistake, as he had gotten sand in his mouth, and started choking on it.

"W-water!" he gasped.

I pulled off my bag and untied the knot that kept it closed. I fished for our canteen and handed it to him after twisting off the lid. Before I knew it, he downed the entire thing. He handed me the bottle, and wiped his tongue on his sleeve.

"You... asshole," I hissed, and chucked the container at his head. "You asshole!"

"I'm sorry!" Tolo cried, putting his arms up in front of himself to protect his face from my fists. "I was dying!"

"Oh, not yet, but you willbe!" I snarled, swiping at his face with my nails. "That was all the water we had, you idiot! For an entire month! Are you kidding me right now?!"

"I said I was sorry, what else do you want from me?" he demanded, and managed to grab my wrists and pin me down. He glared down at me, and I blew a raspberry in his face. "Oh, grow up!"