The Darkness In Our Hearts (TDiOH Bk1)

Chapter 8: My First Mission, Illegally

Two days later and I was out of hospital, walking casually to Squad 11. 'Walking casually' though meant limping and cursing Kenpachi for the wound he caused me. Even though Unohana assured me it was healing well, it still bloody hurt to breath or to move for that matter.

The wound on my back healed into an ugly scar, with guidance from Unohana's healing spells; however, the one in the centre of my breastbone was being a pain. In the end, Unohana had to stitch it up because it resisting her healing spells. She warned me not to rupture the stitches and I wholeheartedly agreed, before bolting out of the hospital room.

My zanpakuto quivered at my hip, an audible buzzing coming from it. Rolling my eyes, I headed towards a clear place to sit.

Ikari wanted to talk. Finding a tiny clearing surrounded by a small cluster of trees, I unsheathed my sword and planted it tip down into the ground, before sitting cross- legged before it. A hand on the hilt, I let myself be transported into Ikari's world.

The grass on which I sat on morphed into black, shiny stone, an outcrop which overlooked a deep red sky from a sun forever frozen in time and a barren land filled with more black stones and lava rivers snaking around them. The wind whistled in the summits of the mountain as I stood and made my way into the large, cavernous cave at my back.

The vaulted ceilings inside were veined with gold rivulets that glowed, creating a soft natural light to bath the area beneath it. A large, black dragon sat facing the entrance, his tail flicking in annoyance. White Hollow bone on his face and once vulnerable joints were splotched with grey, a sign that he was very angry at me.

You are a stubborn and stupid human, Ikari huffed, leaning down and blowing smoke from his nostrils into my face.

Coughing, I waved it away with a hand. "Calm down, would ya? I was fine."

Fine? It seemed I had said the wrong word. Fine?! You almost died! he growled, shaking himself like a dog as he stood and stared me down. His talons raked along the stone floor, creating sparks, and the cavern rumbled slightly.

"Calm down," I repeated, hands raised in surrender, but I didn't lower my gaze from his, "or you're going to bring the whole world down again."

The world wouldn't matter if you had died. If I need to calm down, then you need to start caring.

"And that means what exactly?"

You need to start caring whether or not you might die the next time you foolishly battle someone ten times stronger than you.

"Kenpachi is not ten times stronger than me!" I argued. "It was one fight, Ikari, in a long list of others. I've fought people a lot stronger than me loads of times and I never died then!"

Yes, but no wound you ever received from them threatened your health like that one before. That attack wasn't about recognising who was stronger; it was an attack meant to kill.

"It was an attack to see who was stronger. Obviously, I was not," I countered. "We had a choice to fight the Captain or not; we both agreed, remember? We knew the consequences of fighting Zaraki would be catastrophic."

I was just trying to make him see reason but what he said echoed in my head. Ikari had been afraid when Kenpachi had shoved his sword through me and created that ghastly wound. If Ilari was afraid, then it really was worse than what I made it out to be.

He sighed, smoke billowing lightly out of his nostrils. Just... be careful, he said, before cutting the link.

I blinked a couple of times and ended back up in the soul society, watching the last glows of the setting sun disappear into the night sky. A chilly breeze began and I stood, stretching my aching and stiff muscles, before sheathing Ikari and day- dreaming about a nice, hot shower.