Dragon Blade

Making Contact

Light filtered slowly in through the cracks of his eyelids, and he shifted vaguely, his head aching. He felt a hand cup his face, holding his cheekbone between silicone-covered palms, and suddenly there were fingers on his carotid, gently taking his pulse. He snapped to full awareness, mind whirring at breakneck pace, and with a flash of yawning emerald he was awake and looking up into the face of a concerned man wearing what had to be a Halloween costume...in March. In Tokyo. Shit. What had happened this time? He sat up, blinking the blood trickling from a gash on his forehead out of his left eye, quietly observing his surroundings. And then it hit him and he looked up at the man in the yellow and green superhero suit, stricken realization flooding his body with unnatural cold. The man was talking softly to him, the hands on his shoulders trying to push him gently onto his back, and a small crowd had gathered around just outside some unspoken perimeter.

The humans could see him.

"-easy now, you've got a nasty head injury," the man was saying, his voice soothing. "Could you please lay back down until the ambulance arrives? You fell from quite a height."

He remembered then. The flash of gravity and light and spinning color as he'd been pulled across dimensions, away from his Sixth Seat and her squadron of shinigami, their cries of 'Captain!' as he vanished in front of them. A sharp breath passed his lips, everything crystallizing in his mind. He leveled a cold stare at the man touching him, then snapped his body in a single fluid motion, shaking the stranger's hands off him. He could feel Hyourinmaru's sheathed blade resting securely against his broadening back, his haori rustling about his muscled calves, but despite these familiar things he could only focus on one thing.

Humans. Could see him. Which meant...shit.

He shot to his feet, the protesting cry of the superhero-like man in front of him summarily ignored, and turned towards the crowd, already breaking into a run. And then the man in the yellow and green suit reached out, his arms growing to unimaginable lengths like limp noodles. Without thinking, he recoiled, a cry of shock bursting from his mouth, and on instinct built from years of war, he pulsed his reiatsu. The Shunpo carried him at least a mile from the shopping center, and he landed neatly in a tree in a small park, crouching on one of the branches. Finally, he took a calming breath and properly observed his surroundings. Much to his surprise, he was still in Tokyo, but the signs plastered to every wall were of men, women and humanoid creatures dressed in elaborate costumes with advanced gadgetry designed for fighting.

Hitsugaya Toushiro, in that instant, felt the air driven from his lungs. If his suspicion was correct, then in this dimension humans could possess superpowers. And he'd just run from one of them.

Oh, this was brilliant. And people called him a child prodigy.

He sighed, folding his head into his hands. The callouses on his palms were rough against the smooth, soft skin of his face and the sharp angle of his jaw, and the contact was grounding. He knew for certain that he'd been yanked from Soul Society into a new dimension – he'd been through the Dangai enough times to know what interdimensional space felt like – but this was definitely not the World of the Living, and he needed to get back to his Division. Matsumoto couldn't be left in charge indefinitely, after all.

With a rasping whisper, he drew Hyourinmaru from the sheath and pressed the gleaming blade into empty air, calling silently for the Senkaimon. And much to his relief, it appeared. But the doors didn't open. He frowned, reaching out to touch the sliding shoji doors, and shivered at the hollow emptiness emanating from the passage behind the locked gate. The Senkaimon quivered at his touch, reacting to his powerful reiatsu, and abruptly started to fade away. A low curse escaped him, and he sheathed Hyourinmaru again with a scowl.