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They would have been known as the primera espada, if it wasn't for the boy with the orange hair crash landing into the desert.

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It started with silence, punctuated by distant echoing roars and screams- so an average night in Hueco Mundo. Lilinette sat quietly at his side as he dozed, drawing patterns in the sand with her fingers. Occasionally a low wind would moan, erasing all her work, but after a brief pout, she would simply begin again. What else was there to do, after all?

A sound like an explosion rent the air. Before the hollow could do more that open his eyes, a wave of sand engulfed him and his partner.

Starrk thrashed against the reitsu dampening grains of white, clawing in what he hoped was an upward direction. His head broke the surface and he gasped, coughing up lungfuls of sand. He looked around for his companion, but saw only endless white. Not even the piles of dead hollows crushed by their spiritual pressure could be seen.

"Lilinette!" he yelled, voice hoarse from disuse. He stretched out his senses, but couldn't feel her. The only possible reason for that was if she had died (NoNoNo), or-

Frantically Starrk began digging through the sand. Lilinette was so small, if she was buried too deep the weight of the sand would trap her. He would dig up the entire desert to find her if he had to.

"Starrk!" A voice called from just beyond his range of sight. The arrancar abandoned his task to scramble over a sand dune.

There she was, looking shaken at his disappearance, but otherwise unharmed. He flew to her side so fast, to an outside observer he looked as if he had teleported.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" she grumbled as he checked her over for injuries, though she didn't pull away. "This guy saved me from the sand."

Starrk noticed the dark figure at his side for the first time and froze. His first instinct was to run away; after all it would be impolite to accidentally kill Lilinette's rescuer just by being near him. However the figure did not seem to be in any discomfort from their proximity. If anything, Starrk's reitsu felt tamped down, as if the pressure of the ocean were weighing on his shoulders.

The arrancar took a breath and focused on the orange haired stranger. He couldn't sense any spiritual powers from him, yet...it was like sitting in a great cathredral in the dark: you couldn't see the walls, yet the air tasted of an unimagionably large presence.

The stranger smiled calmly as one in complete control of a situation. "It was the least I could do, after all, it was my fall that caused so much trouble."

"Thank you," Starrk said, banishing his musings and bowing his head. "Is there any way I can repay you?"

"She isn't the first green haired little girl I've run into here," the stranger made to brush the comment off, but hesitated. He glanced around and scratched the back of his shaggy haired head. "This is Hueco Mundo, isn't it? Do you know how I can get to Karakura Town from here? It's in the human world."

If Starrk needed any more confirmation that the man was not a hollow this was it; however he did not feel like a shinigami either. He didn't feel like anything, or rather, the hollow's senses were not large enough to encompass what he was.

"We can take you!" Lilinette crowed eagerly. Since when had she ever shown so much emotion? Starrk wasn't sure, though there was little occasion for it alone in the desert, so it didn't concern him much.

"Are you sure? I'm going there to fight, and I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Starrk wondered what kind of enemy would worry the being in front of him. Lilinette held no such reservations.

"Please! Let us come with you! It's the least we can do!"

"Fine," the stranger sighed, "but please stay back when I ask you too." He bowed his head slightly. "I'm Ichigo."

"I'm Lilinette Gingerbuck!" The green haired girl grinned widely and looked at her partner. "He's Coyote Starrk!"

"Pleased to meet you," the stranger said with a smile. "I'm in a bit of hurry, so if you could...?"

Starrk obligingly backed up a few paces before waving a hand to open a portal. The air shattered like glass.

The stranger looked mildly interested, but otherwise unsurprised at the ease with which realities were rent. The arrancar wondered where the stranger had come upon other hollows strong enough to open a garganta as stable as this; as far as he knew one would need to be a powerful adjuca at the very least to be able to do it.

Lilinette clung to his side as they walked through, the stranger just a step behind.

"Ah, that's what it was!" Lilinette hissed triumphantly. Starrk looked at her questioningly. She tapped her nose. "He smelled like something, but I couldn't remember until now. It's this," she waved her hand at the darkness around them, "the in-between place."

He hummed to himself and filed the information away. He could unwravel the mystery of Ichigo later.

The end of the garganta crackled into existance on a grassy knoll well outside of any human settlement. Never in his memory had Starrk ever ventured from the white sands, and Lilynette's curious eyes spoke of similar inexperience.

The stranger confidently walked past them and exited the portal. Starrk hesitated. The human settlement was just barely visible on the horizon, but humans were much weaker than hollows. He didn't want to inadvertently kill any of them simply by existing.

Lilynette tugged at his hand, her eyes pleading with childlike wonder to explore the odd green plants surrounding them. Starrk closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He tried to hold onto the feeling of his reitsu being pressed down into himself instead of floating about, and took a step onto the ground.

He hoped it was enough.

"This is Karakura?" Ichigo said, his voice still calm.

The green haired girl looked up from her investigation of a pink five petaled growth. "It's over there." She pointed to the horizon.

He squinted at the scattering of buildings. "You two should wait here," he said, and made to flash step away.

"You will come back won't you?" Lilinette caught his sleeve haulting his escape.

The stranger looked into her pink eyes and smiled, laying a gentle hand on the top of her mask. "Of course I will."

Her smile could have outshined the sunrise, and Starrk felt a wave of warmth flow through him. Lilinette had grown quite attached to the stranger in their short time together.

One final pat, and he vanished in the direction of the city. Lilinette returned to her exploration, and Starrk settled against one of the thick wood trees for a nap.

Much too soon the sound of hurried voices pulled him back into wakefulness. Ichigo had returned and seemed to be hushing Lilinette's attempts to pester him with questions, his brown furrowed in thought.

"I need to go to Soul Society," he said agatatedly, when it became apparent that the other man was conscious.

Starrk hesitated. "If we do that, the Shinigami will kill us on sight."

Ichigo blinked and looked at them. "Oh right, you're arrancar." He frowned thoughtfully and nodded to himself. "Right, wait here," he said, and vanished back into the human town.

He returned a few minutes later, arms full. "They shouldn't know what you are if you cover your hollow holes," he said, passing them two bundles of clothes. "And if they do...I'll talk them out of it."

Lilinette ended up needing some help putting her outfit on, since she had never worn anything but a green furred cloak, but she adored the pink kimono. Starrk's kimono was a bluish grey, and with a scarf around his neck did a fair job of hiding the mask fragment and hole on his chest. Lilinette refused to hide her mask under a shawl, and Ichigo didn't press her.

"They probably won't know what you are yet anyway," he said distractedly.

This time the garganta dropped them in a wild wood. Starrk might have mistaken it for another location in the human world, were it not for the lack of animals and the thick reshi in the air.

"You two should wait here. I need to find some people."

"Friends of yours?" Lilinette asked, blinking up at the taller orange haired man, affection evident on her face.

A wry smirk tugged at the corner of Ichigo's mouth. "Well, they don't know they are yet."

The green haired girl opened her mouth to question that odd statement, but Starrk reached out a hand and pulled her to his side. He felt antsy with all the weak souls and shinigami around, so the sooner they left the better.

Her ire quickly turned on him. Ichigo chuckled lightly as she rammed her elbow into Starrk's gut, knocking him to the ground.

"I promise to be back soon," he said kindly, patting her head with his bandaged hand. He vanished with a buzz through the foliage.

The arrancar settled his back against a tree, but didn't close his eyes. He couldn't even pretend to relax in this place.

Not soon enough Ichigo returned, face haggard. Lilinette immediately gave him a hug, burrying her face in his robes.

Stark got the faint scent impressions of metallic swords and the sparking zing of kido from his other half.

"Are you all right? They didn't hurt you, did they?" she growled, like a puppy concerned for its master. If Stark didn't already know how much loyalty he felt towards the young man who delivered him from loneliness, Lilinette's behavior would have been a major clue.

The dark look in Ichigo's eyes lightened as he patted her head fondly. "I'm fine."

She wriggled until her gaze turned upwards to meet his own, without loosening her tight grasp around his ribs. "Did you find your friends?"

He chuckled mirthlessly. "No, I'm alone."

Lilinette promptly kicked him in the shin, gaining a sore foot for her trouble. Ichigo looked down at her, one brow raised.

"You're not alone, idiot," she barked, releasing him and hopping on one foot. "You've got Stark and me!"

A small smile pulled the orange haired boy's lips. "I suppose you're right." Ichigo's yellow eyes found Stark's, who abandoned his sloth for an intense soulful stare. The teen huffed embarrassedly. "We should get going before the shinigami catch up to me."

With a crackle of breaking dimensions, the trio returned to the white desert.

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A/N: Depending on feedback, I'll update.