ICE HEART
xii. away
❝THEN AGAIN, A KONSŌ SOUNDS GOOD.❞
Ayame's blue orbs widened as she felt a sharp pain strike her back and something cold dripping down it a few seconds later. Hastily, the blonde-haired female snapped her head around to see the familiar, smirking, white-haired female flash step away from Ayame with blood covering the tip of her zanpakutō.
"You managed to defeat all of my duplicates. Impressive." Kōri no Joō commented, praising her master's abilities, "Even though your spiritual pressure was being drained dramatically, it was like you didn't even notice. That's good. It means that you have grown to fight well even when you're weak and have barely any spiritual pressure remaining."
At that, Ayame's eyes widened as she noticed how weak and fatigued she felt and the female mentally face palmed herself for forgetting that whenever she brought out her duplicates to fight, it drained her spiritual pressure massively. The blonde-haired female was brought back to reality when she saw that Kōri No Joō had raised her blade and she had smirked lightly, telling the blonde that she was going to strike again.
"However, will that be able to last against me?" Kōri no Joō asked as she charged towards the blonde with inhuman speed and they clashed blades.
The paid both added more force into their zanpakutō, for no result to be made of it. Both of them pulled back and flash stepped away from each other with a smirk plastered on their faces. Kōri no Joō flash stepped behind the blonde and just as she was about to strike her down, Ayame snapped her head around and blocked the attack. The petite woman quickly kicked Kōri no Joō's stomach and sent her flying against the wall. The zanpakutō threw her hand out in front of her, causing ice shards to rocket towards the blonde, who flash stepped away from the flurry of shards and sent her own towards Kōri no Joō. The zanpakutō' eyes widened as she hastily flash stepped away before sending a blast of ice towards Ayame, who rapidly formed an ice wall in front of her, blocking the ice blast, before she flash stepped towards Kōri no Joō's weakened state and slashed her across the chest again, making blood fly out of the deep wound. Kōri no Joō fell to the ground, clutching her chest and panting heavily. She threw more ice shards at Ayame in an attempt to harm me, but they were quite weak considering how distracted she was by her injuries. She crawled to her knees and coughed before shakily standing up. Suddenly, she clapped her hands together, making Ayame's blue orbs widen with shock, already knowing what was coming.
"Wave one, Shi No Kurappu." She commented as several swords surrounded Ayame.
"Wave two, Furīzu." The blonde spoke as her skin turned paler and paler till it reached a pale blue. To anybody else, it would've looked like she had frozen to death.
As the several swords began to approach the blonde, she quickly formed an ice wall around me to reduce the amount of damage that would be done to her body. The swords flew through the ice, shattering it completely, but as soon as they came in contact with the female's body, they froze and fell to the ground as ice began to cover them.
"Good thinking, my Queen. I expected nothing less. This training session is over." Kōri no Joō complimented the blonde-haired as she disappeared.
Slowly, Ayame increased her body temperature, therefore allowing her skin to return to it's normal colour. The blonde-haired female was panting heavily and felt like she was on the brink of exhaustion. Just as she was about to fall to her knees, a muscular arm grabbed hold of her and helped her to maintain my balance. With wide eyes, Ayame snapped her head around to see Toshiro glancing at the female with a worried expression.
"You work yourself too hard." He stated.
"Toshiro, what are you doing here?" She asked with a confused look on her face.
"We came here because we felt your spiritual pressure decreasing and increasing and decided to find out what the heck was happening." A familiar voice spoke up as Ayame saw Yumichika and Ikkaku enter the cave.
"I'm sorry if I worried you all." Ayame apologised, scratching the back of her head sheepishly.
"Don't be. Your zanpakutō enjoys to torture you though, doesn't she?" Ikkaku replied.
"Your zanpakutō may be beautiful, but how she treats you is very ugly." Yumichika added.
Before the female could respond, a loud whistling noise filled her ears and she could sense a weak hollow near where Rangiku was located. It seemed that the others could hear it as well as their eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion.
"I was hoping for an arrancar to fight, not a lousy hollow." Ikkaku complained, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest.
The whistling suddenly stopped and they all gazed at each other in confusion while Ayame's blue eyes narrowed slightly in curiosity and suspicion.
"The whistling has stopped, but how come I can still sense the hollow's spiritual pressure?" Ayame thought to herself while blocking out the other's conversation.
"-self. Captain Kireina, are you even listening to us? It's very ugly to ignore somebody." Yumichika spoke up, bringing the female back to reality and forcing her to look at him.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" The blonde asked.
"We th-" Yumichika began, but was cut off when the hollow's spiritual pressure increased massively, making Ayame's eyes widen.
"An arrancar?" Ikkaku spoke.
"Looks like your wish came true." Yumichika chuckled lightly.
"Rangiku." The blonde female breathed out before flash stepping towards the location of the hollow.
"What are you? Your spiritual pressure is pretty tame for an arrancar." Ayame heard Rangiku ask.
"Beat it. You're interrupting my meal." The sinister voice of the hollow responded as he gazed towards a soul.
"Hurry! Run!" Rangiku cried out.
"Stay out of this!" The boy yelled as he began to climb up a set of bars.
"What, are you crazy?" Rangiku asked as she flash stepped towards him and grabbed him. "It isn't safe!"
"LET ME GO!" The boy cried out as he squirmed into Rangiku's arms.
The hollow let out a loud roar and charged towards Rangiku and the soul, so the blonde female decided to step in and block the attack, easily slicing through the hollow's hand. Ayame could feel Ikkaku's spiritual pressure above her and knew he would be infuriated if Ayame didn't let him attack the hollow, so she flash stepped away and in a few seconds, she heard that Ikkaku had let out a large battle cry and saw him charge down on the hollow.
"YOU'RE DEAD!" The hollow yelled out in pain.
"NO, YOU ARE!" Ikkaku retorted as he cut the hollow in half like it was soft butter.
"Ikkaku, Captain Kireina." Rangiku acknowledged the pair of them.
"How boring. I wouldn't even consider that a good warmup." Ikkaku whined.
"Hm. It looks like it was no match for Ikkaku and Captain Kireina." Yumichika spoke up from behind Rangiku.
"Yumichika, Captain." Rangiku breathed out as she turned to face the two.
"We saw a sudden change in the hollow's spiritual pressure pattern so we hurried over here as fast as we could. Rangiku, you let your guard down." Toshiro scolded her.
"I'm sorry sir, but this little boy-" Rangiku began.
"Hah, you're an old hag but you just got scolded by a kid." The boy chuckled lightly.
In retaliation, Rangiku squished the poor boy into her huge boobs, making him squirm in hopes of being released from her death trap.
"Being called an old lady is one thing, but old hag is a no no!" Rangiku lectured.
"Was that really an arrancar?" Yumichika questioned once Rangiku had released the boy from her boobs.
"Yeah, but it's spiritual pressure was murky. It wasn't fully matured yet." Ikkaku informed them.
"Whatever his level was, he was an arrancar. Therefore, we have to assume that Aizen sent him here intentionally." Toshiro explained.
"It's about time." Yumichika smiled lightly.
"I'm reporting this to the Soul Society right away." Toshiro told the group.
"Fine, and I'm gonna perform a konsō on this cocky little brat." Rangiku replied.
"Did you say konsō old lady? What is that?" The boy asked with an interested expression on his face.
"It's a soul burial, and enough with the old lady, ya' got it?" Rangiku told him.
"Wait a minute Rangiku. I want to find out what he knows about the arrancar first. You can take care of him later." Toshiro spoke up.
"Huh? Well, okay. If you say so, Captain." Rangiku responded, slightly disappointed that she couldn't get rid of the annoying child at that very moment.
"What? Hey kid, you're a captain?" The boy asked.
"That's right." Toshiro replied.
"I don't believe you. You're almost the same age as me!" The boy exclaimed, making Ayame chuckle slightly as Toshiro got an irk mark on his head.
"Then again, a konsō sounds good."