Title: Relative Dimensions
Author: darkling59
Rating: T
Date: 8/30/2014
Disclaimer: Bleach and all related characters, plots, etc. do not belong to me.
Warnings: Time (dimensional) travel, language, misunderstandings…um…confusion?
Summary: It's a bad idea to play with artifacts you don't understand...such as the hogyoku. Aizen really should have taken this into account before he accidentally sent his primera (and the vizards he was fighting) to a different dimension. Specifically, a different dimension set eighty years in the past, to the center of Seireitei. Starrk finds the situation inconvenient. Love and Rose feel a BIT more strongly. (Continuation of 'Time' from 'Howling at the Moon')

Please read and review!

As usual, nothing from the current arc will be included – including the revelations and retcons.

Chapter 1:

Far above the streets of False Karakura Town, Sosuke Aizen stood watching the final fights of his soldiers with a vaguely satisfied expression, absolutely confident in his upcoming victory. However, contrary to the beliefs of the other shinigami and the arrancar they were fighting, it was not the victory of his troops that drew a smile to Aizen's face.

If he were entirely honest (which he never was), Aizen would acknowledge that he could not care less who won; the actions and lives of his soldiers meant nothing to him. What he awaited with anticipation was the stirring of an alien reiatsu within his chest, the final sign of the awakening of his greatest, most powerful weapon: the hogyoku.

He could feel reiatsu rising from the battlefield as attacks flew back and forth, every flare from a captain or an espada adding even more intense power to the suffocating atmosphere until it was strong enough to kill beings of lesser might. The first stirrings of awakening fluttered within his chest.

With Barragan's death, and the expression of the last of his power, the feeling intensified. It wasn't quite ready…full awakening would likely not occur until Kurosaki joined the field…but the sensation was a precursor to his godhood.

His smirk widened.

And then everything went wrong.

The hogyoku, trained as it was to absorb and feed off of captain class energy to fulfill Aizen's desires, suddenly expanded with the addition of so much reiatsu, absorbing the power until it was full to bursting and latching onto its host for stability. Aizen shouted hoarsely in pain as it burrowed into him and staggered, clawing desperately at his chest. All around, fights abruptly halted and everyone from both sides turned to watch him in surprise and suspicion.

Stop this! He thought desperately, trying to regain control. Obey me - Cease! But his deepest desire, the most carnal instinct that his body, rather than his mind, communicated to the hogyoku was: Go away! Go away! Go away!

Maybe he meant the pain, or the lack of control, or the indignity…but the hogyoku did not deal in semantics, it dealt in raw intent.

And so, it went away.

Everything went away.

Giant horizontal portals suddenly split through the sky all over the battlefield, each one a circular abyss ringed in purple and black and drawing in everything in the vicinity. Dozens upon dozens of them appeared in all sizes, swallowing any shinigami or arrancar in their way. Anything with an active reiatsu signature was a target.

Competitors previously vying for victory now scrabbled to escape, sparing little if any attention to each other. None of them succeeded.

Harribel and Toshiro vanished into one portal, the shinigami 'medical tent' into another, Tousen and his opponents into a third, and Starrk's battle into a fourth. The scattered running shinigami were taken alone or in couples by the remaining portals opening around them. The only ones left behind were the unconscious, the dead…and the group in Aizen's direct vicinity.

The portals vanished as quickly as they had arrived, leaving silence in their wake and a roiling purple sky still churning with excess interdimensional energy. When they'd appeared, screaming and shouting had rent the air but now there was no one left to make the noise.

With the source of most of its power gone and Aizen's desire fulfilled (the source of the power had indeed gone away), the hogyoku settled back to its previous state and Aizen regained control. He subdued the pain and opened his eyes to find his army gone and the combined glares of the head captain and the leader of the vizards boring into his face, on the verge of losing their tempers.

Whoops.

Starrk fell through empty space, his only point of reference the quickly sealing hole far above and the vizards falling with him. None of them tried to continue their battle – there was no point – though the other two hybrids shouted back and forth in panic, trying to reach each other and twirling and turning dizzily in midair in the process. There was no way to halt their descent – nothing to stabilize their reiatsu and no surface to balance on.

Starrk ignored them, instead reaching out with the instinct that all hollows had for dimensional navigation – that which let them navigate hollow holes and garganta, allowing them to travel easily between the realms. For a while, he could not find a way out; the strange dark purple energy of the hogyoku permeated the abyss and somehow managed to make the dimensional fabric seem slippery, rendering him unable to make a garganta.

However, it did not last forever. He did not know how long it took the energy to thin, or how far away from their own dimension they'd fallen, but eventually he felt them fall beyond the hogyoku's influence. They had traveled beyond anything he knew as familiar but into a part of the fabric of space that he could control. He threw his energy downwards, forcing a garganta to form directly beneath him…and his unwitting companions.

Amidst a chorus of started oaths and yelps from his opponents, Starrk skidded to a halt in midair a few meters below the garganta, looking around curiously to find out where they had ended up. Below him, stretching out into the distance on all sides, was a shining white city, built in the architectural style of ancient Japan in some places and blocky white structures in others. It could only be Soul Society.

"What did you do, hollow?" The sunglasses wearing, star-haired vizard yelled, finally finding his bearings. "What are we doing in Seireitei?!"

Starrk shrugged, unintimidated and unconcerned. "I saved us. Unless you had a way out of the portal…?"

Love scowled and turned to Rose, who was looking down at the city with wide eyes, spellbound. "It looks exactly how we left it…" He murmured. Before Love could address him, the arrancar spoke up again.

"We're in a different dimension." It was said as an offhanded comment.

"WHAT?!" Both of the ex-shinigami whirled towards him.

"I felt it – the hogyoku's control vanished once we passed the border." Nonchalantly, Starrk glanced up towards the location of the portal that they'd fallen out of and froze, eyes widening. The sky above them was a roiling mass of purple and black centered around the now closed location and spreading quickly.

"Holy shit." Love swore softly, following Starrk's gaze to the uncanny sight. "What is that?"

"I don't know but it's blocking my ability to make a garganta back." Starrk frowned, trying to open a garganta, but only encountering that same slippery feeling from the abyss when he tried to pick a destination. He could feel that the passage between realms in this dimension was clear but the signature of their home dimension - Hueco Mundo, the Living World, and Soul Society – was undeniably blocked.

"Then how do we get back?" Love growled. He wasn't trying to attack, though he dearly would have liked to take out his aggravation on the hollow. Unfortunately, his zanpakuto had been left behind, as had Rose's; the only reasons Starrk's guns hadn't been lost as well was because he could materialize them at will and they were small enough to hold close. In contrast, Rose's Kinshara and Love's Tengumaru had proved too unwieldy to fit through the portal, especially tangled together.

Starrk shrugged. "Wait for it to go away, I guess. I can probably find my way back to somewhere I've been before if this goes away." His wide gesture took in the spreading light show above them.

"Will that be possible within the next twenty seconds?" Rose's soft, aristocratic voice addressed him for the first time, a note of foreboding within that drew a worried glance from Love.

"Probably not."

"Then we do not have time."

Both other men looked towards him, then followed his gaze down… and down, down, down, past the cliff they were hovering over, past the buildings, to the streets far below where they could distantly hear alarms ringing and see myriads of black clad shinigami swarming, looking almost like ants from such a height. It took a moment to notice that there were captains flying in their direction in the distance from all directions, but as the reiatsu quickly got closer, their strength became evident and so did their killing intent.

"Shit." Love hissed, wishing for his weapon even as Starrk materialized his guns and stepped away from them, posture wary.

"What's wrong? Aren't they your allies?" He narrowed his eyes, suspicious and confused.

"Not hardly." Love growled.

"It is difficult to determine the definition of friend and foe when historical-." Rose started soliloquizing, to Starrk's bemusement, only to be rudely interrupted.

"Hey, isn't that old Ginrei Kuchiki? I though he died more than fifty years ago!"

"Yes, I believe so." Rose was too shocked and confused to be annoyed at the interruption. The man they were speaking about was still in the distance, but his long grey hair and elegant scarf were unmistakable.

"Hollow!" Starrk looked at Love, startled to be addressed, especially without hostility. He'd been wondering just how he – the only hollow present – was going to survive encountering all thirteen captains plus two vizards. His conclusions so far were depressing. "You said we were in a different dimension, right? Are we in the same time?"

Love grumbled impatiently when Starrk's only response was a bewildered cock of the head.

"Could we have traveled in time?"

"…I guess? Technically, it's just another dimensional coordinate."

Both vizards reacted with grim expressions. Starrk blinked.

"…Does it matter? Aren't they your friends? You were fighting together…"

"No." Love snapped, not bothering to explain further. With a nod to Rose, he yanked down his mask, followed by his companion, just in time for the first shinigami to arrive. Starrk fell back, expecting to be attacked by the vizards or the newcomer, and called the blue glow of a waiting metroletta to his guns.

However, to his shock, the shinigami rushed right past him followed in short succession by two others who moved to surround the masked vizards.

"Hollows!" One of them yelled. "Surrender now and we'll make your deaths quick!"

Shocked, Starrk allowed his weapons to droop. In the form of a gun, Lilynette spoke up for the first time, expressing his inner confusion.

"What the hell…?"

"Let me at them!" A booming roar cut through the battlefield and a new shinigami appeared. This one literally shoved Starrk out of the way on his path to the two vizards.

"Get out of my way – Kenpachi Kiganjo will kill these arrogant monsters!"

The other shinigami – the ones from this dimension – actually seemed amused and tolerant of the demand and backed up, holding a wide perimeter with the vizards and Kiganjo inside. Starrk was notably left out of their circle.

"Hey!" Lilynette squawked, offended. Before she could demand they pay the primera the attention he deserved and assert that they were the greater threat and deserved more respect, Starrk put his hand over the muzzle of his gun, silencing her.

"Let's see what happens."

Everything went downhill from there.

"This would be really funny if it weren't so stupid."

Starrk grunted noncommittally at Lilynette, but really couldn't disagree. He had his right arm crossing his chest, obscuring his mask fragment and hollow hole, and Lilynette's gun tilted back with the barrel against his forehead. His eyes were closed and he was trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Normally, he would not have dared close his eyes in the midst of a battle but it didn't seem like that was going to be a problem here.

After thirty seconds or so of watching the vizards desperately dodge their old friends (enemies?) and being obviously (and somewhat insultingly) ignored, he'd allowed his other gun to dissolve and called an energy sword instead but he hadn't had cause to use it so far.

Across the battlefield, Love and Rose looked equal parts angry, surprised, and desperately worried, with the worry gaining prominence. He could easily read their emotions despite their manifested masks.

The source of their worry was the small contingent of shinigami captains standing between and around the combatants. Some of the faces were familiar to Starrk: both the pink-clad captain and his white-haired comrade were present (though he'd never seen them from this angle). Others were new: the massive bear of a man with long, scruffy black hair and metal piercings beneath his lips who'd referred to himself as Kenpachi Kiganjo, the dignified older gentleman with grey hair and stern features who Love had referred to as Ginrei Kuchiki, a relatively non-descript blonde man wearing glasses, and a middle aged brown-haired man who had not ceased looking confused since his arrival. There were more captains milling around at ground level but they had yet to interfere so Starrk was ignoring them.

The fight Starrk feared had not come to pass; instead of allying with the vizards to attack Starrk, the shinigami had immediately focused on killing Love and Rose. Even after a good minute and a half, the primera was still waiting for someone to realize they were ignoring the biggest threat on the battlefield.

"Hollows!" Kiganjo boomed, his growling voice matching his form perfectly. "You dare show your faces in Seireitei itself?! For your arrogance, I will kill you and display your masks as my trophies!"

"Ouch." This time, Lilynette's grumble was subdued and only for Starrk's ears.

He grunted again, digging the barrel more firmly into his forehead. The situation was confusing and utterly, increasingly ridiculous. What had Aizen even been thinking when he sent them here? Had he done it on purpose? Did he even know how to use the hogyoku?

"Are you alright?"

Starrk, now meditatively tapping the barrel of his gun against his forehead with his eyes closed in an attempt to block out the situation, opened his eyes and blinked at the familiar (but not) white haired shinigami standing before him. He'd branched off from his comrades where they were circling the vizards to tend to the arrancar. He looked almost the same as his future self from the home dimension, except his long hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

"…What?"

"Are you alright?" The captain's expression was sincerely concerned as he drifted closer to Starrk, apparently intent on checking his health. "To fight two hollows of such strength on your own must have been difficult. Especially, and I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, with your reiatsu so low."

It was low because Starrk automatically concealed his reiatsu when he wasn't using it, not because he was tired or weak. The espada simply stared blankly, unsure how to handle such sympathy.

"Mister – I'm sorry, I don't know your rank…?" The shinigami prompted politely.

"Espada." In contrast, Starrk's tone was wooden. When no further explanation came, Jushiro continued, expression a bit more set at the unfriendly reaction but still concerned (with a healthy dose of confusion). "Espada-san, then. If you are feeling up to it, could you please explain how you appeared here?"

"It's pretty complicated." He cast a wary eye at the sky overhead, still colored purple and black. The slippery energy blocking his way home was still strong and showed no sign of dissipating.

"Perhaps we should relocate then." Ukitake turned away (Giving his unprotected back to the arrancar. Starrk's eyebrows rose in disbelief.) to observe the battle going on the other side of the hill, obviously disapproving. "Though I do not believe it will take long for Kenpachi and Kuchiki-taicho to dispose of those hollows."

Starrk's eyes snapped to the scene, startled to realize how far the situation had devolved while he was ignoring it. It had been over two minutes, and the vizards' masks were already cracking around the edges; their three minutes of hollow powers were almost up. Without their zanpakuto (which would take considerably longer to rematerialize), that was all they had to fight with and, at the rate they were being attacked, they might be dead by the time their masks broke entirely.

"That…might be a bad idea." Starrk grudgingly stated.

"What?" Jushiro's expression was almost comical in its confusion. "Why? As hollows, they would normally be destroyed anyway, but their intrusion into Seireitei makes it even more important. It would be favorable to question them for information first, of course, but it is unlikely we'd be able to gain anything of importance; we haven't had much success with applying interrogation techniques to hollows in the past. Killing them immediately is more practical."

The opinion of shinigami about hollows had never been secret but it took Starrk aback to hear it in such a reasonable tone, spoken as a simple statement of fact rather than a condemnation right before an attack. Or a bitter, snarled complaint from a hollow. He sort of wanted to respond with a 'perfectly reasonable' condemnation of his own, but forced the urge away. It really wasn't relevant at the moment.

He supposed he could blame his following statement on his hatred of seeing anyone die, even enemies.

"Shinigami protect the balance between worlds, right?" He inquired. Starrk wasn't sold on the idea, but whatever. For this to work, it only mattered that they believed it, not if it was actually true. Ukitake nodded. "Well, the three of us came through a hole between dimensions." He waved at the purple sky. "If you kill them here, won't the addition of their souls upset your balance?"

Ukitake frowned. "I doubt a couple of hollows would make that much of a difference."

Well hey, if they believed so strongly that the vizards were hollows anyway, he might as well take it to the next level.

"Yeah, but what about the souls they've eaten? They'd be stuck in this dimension too." It was somehow viscerally satisfying to refer to his opponents as such when they had refused to call him anything other than 'hollow' or 'monster'. Which he was, and he didn't regret it, but it had obviously been an insult when they said it. And it rankled that they refused to use his name or rank. He's softened towards them slightly during the mildly peaceful moment they'd shared after arriving, but he had not forgotten how Love taunted him about Barragan's death and how neither one would pay him the basic respect of using his name.

"Perhaps you are correct." Ukitake murmured, thoughtful. "One moment, please." He turned towards the other shinigami, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled: "If possible, try to take them alive!"

"If possible?" Starrk questioned, eyebrow raised.

"I'm sorry, Espada-san, but protecting Seireitei is more important. We will do everything in our power to maintain the Balance but I'm sure the loss of one or two hollows will not have that much of an effect."

"If they surrendered, would you still kill them?"

"I suppose not." The captain looked taken aback by the question, as if he had not even considered the possibility. "We would capture them and send them back with you to be disposed of. But they are hollows; surrender is unlikely."

"Hollows, huh." The primera muttered, watching the fight. Kiganjo had not eased off with Ukitake's command and Kuchiki was holding a perimeter so his targets could not escape. The other shinigami had all backed off to watch. Love and Rose were becoming increasingly cornered and desperate as large mask fragments fell away and their hollow powers deteriorated.

After a moment of silence, he stated bluntly. "I don't get it."

"Hm? Get what?" Jushiro had been standing shoulder to shoulder with Starrk in what he thought was companionable silence, politely avoiding questioning the obviously non-hostile stranger until the fight was over.

"The hollow powers." Starrk allowed the sword in his right hand to dematerialize and jerked a thumb at the vizards.

At Ukitake's absolutely blank look, the primera elaborated. "I get that they wanted power, but it doesn't seem worth it if the rest of you are trying to kill them."

Ukitake smiled uncertainly, half thinking the words were a joke or an inexperienced misunderstanding. "As hollows, they are hardly protected by our laws and they certainly aren't allies."

Lilynette snorted rudely, cutting him off. "Hollows, yeah right! If they're hollows, then I'm a shinigami!" her tone was derisive and scornful.

While Jushiro was staring in confusion and incomprehension at the gun, Starrk shrugged.

"She's got a point, Taicho-san. They're hardly real hollows."

"…I disagree." His confusion was evident. "The masks…"

"…Are going to shatter any second now." Starrk interrupted, tone almost bored. "They can only use them for three minutes." Or so they said. He gestured idly with his gun. "And I've never seen normal hollows without a hollow hole, or wearing clothes like that."

"…What?" Ukitake turned to look and found, on further consideration of the figures beyond the masks, that the espada was correct. "Then what..?"

Starrk snorted, allowing his sword to dematerialize and his gun to fall to his side. "You should know better than me. They were shinigami first, after all."

The words struck a chord and Ukitake immediately turned away and strode closer to the battle, narrowing his eyes in concentration ('they were shinigami first' echoed in his head). He noted the flowing blonde locks on the plague doctor hollow, the signature hair on the other, the familiar way they fought…(they were shinigami first). His eyes widened in horror as he connected the dots.

"Stop!" he yelled, suddenly dashing towards the fight. Everyone froze in surprise at the interference. "For God's sake, Kiganjo, stand down!"

"Eh, Ukitake? What do you want?" the vizards stood back to back, bruised and bloody and just barely clinging to the last vestiges of their masks while the Kenpachi loomed over them with his giant claymore. They eyed Jushiro's approach warily. Or perhaps it was Starrk, whom no one else had noticed tailing the white haired captain, who they were watching.

"Is that…?" Ukitake murmured, tone uncertain. It couldn't be true. He didn't want it to be true…"Otoribashi? Aikawa?"

A collective gasp of surprise overtook the other captains and, previously content to watch the hollow disposal from a distance, they drew closer.

The vizards reared back in shock at being recognized and lost the final strands of control holding their masks. When their faces were revealed, dead silence fell.

"Well damn." Love broke it, eyes hard. "Guess the jig's up."

"But…you're dead." Kiganjo stared with dull confusion, zanpakuto drooping from where it had been poised to swipe through their necks. "The traitor…" he trailed off, then turned and glared at Ukitake, the nearest target. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"I…" But Jushiro was similarly at a loss for words. "I don't-"

"Dead? Is that the excuse given?" Rose's cultured tones were disdainful. "An incomparably dull and plebeian excuse for murder."

"…Murder…?" Uneasy glances were shared between the captains, many more having crept closer at the revelation of their presumed dead comrades.

"I'll say." Love sneered. In contrast to the sudden lack of hostility from the shinigami, the vizards were becoming more aggressive as their 'old friends' drew closer. Most of the captains had not realized the reaction yet; they were staring in wonder. But faint frowns and uneasy expressions were gradually encroaching.

Starrk, left beyond the edge of the crowd, found himself all but ignored. With a disgusted snort, he allowed his final weapon, the left pistol, to dissolve into reiatsu. Instead of vanishing, the energy resolved into a spectral wolf at his side for Lilynette to use as an avatar.

"That didn't take much." He observed, crossing his arms.

"What?" Jushiro, still the closest captain, was barely paying attention.

"For you to stop trying to kill them."

The shinigami felt a hot flush of shame as he realized the reason behind Starrk's earlier words...and his own, now wholly inappropriate, responses.

"Well, they're shinigami…"

"With hollow masks."

"…That's true." Their very existence was illegal and they obviously knew it, if their twitchy behavior was anything to go by. He also had to wonder if they experienced any mental or behavior changes; they never would have dreamed of acting so hostile or aggressive as captains.

"Now what?" Starrk questioned.

"We will need to debrief, then…" he faltered. "It will be up to the soutaicho and Central 46 to decide on a course of action."

"So your versions would be executed. Good to know." He paused for a moment, internally debating, before sighing and continuing reluctantly. He was not fond of his enemies but he didn't want them dead. "Are you still going to sentence them, even though they're from a different dimension?"

"Oh, right. Of course. I'm sure that won't be a problem." It felt like a weight had lifted off Jushiro's shoulders; these weren't his Love and Rose and there was a clean, easy way of dealing with the problem. He turned to the stranger to thank him for the reminder and froze, staring at his chest. For the first time, Starrk had allowed his hands to come to rest at waist level and his hollow hole was now bared for the shinigami to see.

"What…?" Jushiro reached out instinctively, to touch and confirm the confusing evidence of his eyes. Apparently unconcerned, Starrk remained docile and simply watched with a mildly interested expression as the shinigami put a finger, then a fist, then his entire hand through his hollow hole, then leaned over and peered through as if the evidence of his touch might be wrong. When he moved to brace himself on Starrk's chest to look closer, the espada intervened.

"Careful."

"Hm?" Jushiro blinked up at him, still not quite realizing what he was doing.

"My mask is sharp."

"Your…oh." For the first time, he noticed the jagged row of teeth around Starrk's neck as something other than a piece of jewelry and blanched, snatching his hands away. Each inches-long tooth was more than sharp enough to rip his hand open to the bone if he made a wrong move. Hastily, he stood back and his next question was far less friendly, though just as confused.

"So you're…uh…a…hm…" he couldn't bring himself to say what, to a shinigami, would be a horrible insult. Not to someone standing civil and peaceful with whom he'd been holding a productive conversation.

"A hollow, yeah." Starrk didn't bother caring about tact. "My words stand, though. All of us need to go back alive."

"…Oh." Jushiro stared at man claiming to be a hollow. Had he not just had his hand in his chest, he'd have thought it was a prank. But it wasn't and this had just become an even more serious situation; he didn't have time to be confused.

"Why don't we all convene somewhere more comfortable?" He raised his voice so everyone could hear. "I believe we should debrief before our…er…" he shot a glance askance at Starrk. "...visitors must return home."

"Sounds good to me!" Shunsui agreed. He'd been one of the captains observing from the sidelines and maintaining the perimeter but he took the opportunity to come forward to support Jushiro and defuse the situation. "What we all need is a nice cup of sake!"

His cheery statement was met with a chorus of mutters and eye rolls but the tension was broken and everyone descended slowly towards the ground. Except Starrk. When Ukitake realized the espada had been left behind, he turned around. Shunsui immediately noticed and followed.

"Oi, Ukitake! Who's your…friend…" He paused when he got close enough to see the hole in Starrk's chest.

"I'm sure you understand, Taicho-san, why I'm uncomfortable around shinigami. I'll wait up here." Starrk crossed his arms, obviously set on staying where he was. At his side, Lilynette looked up at him, then at the shinigami and sat down just as definitively.

"I really don't think that's a good idea." Jushiro shot an uneasy glance between the crowd of shinigami gathering below and the recalcitrant stranger refusing to move.

"Who's this, Ju?" Shunsui strolled closer, tone as irreverent and cheerful as always and eyes fixed on Starrk's chest.

"This is…uh..." Abruptly, Jushiro realized he'd never gotten that far in the introductions. "…an espada?" he turned a questioning look on Starrk. "Though I'm not entirely sure what that means or what allegiance it signifies."

Starrk gave a half shrug. "My name is Coyote Starrk, this is Lilynette Gingerbuck." he gestured to the spectral wolf at his side, causing both men to blink and look down. "Primera espada of the arrancar army of Las Noches, of Hueco Mundo. An espada is sort of like a captain; for us, anyway."

Both men stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"You're from Hueco Mundo?" Jushiro frowned, latching onto the only piece of information he really understood. "So you truly are a hollow?"

Shunsui eyed him with interest. "Does this mean that's real?" He poked at Starrk's hollow hole, raising an eyebrow when his finger met no resistance.

"I'm as much a hollow as your friends are shinigami. And yes, it's real. Stop doing that. It's annoying."

Sheepishly, Shunsui stopped prodding and stepped back.

"I don't understand." Jushiro frowned. "They're…well, they were shinigami. Their hollow abilities complicate that but they seem to be the same people." He felt a flash of shame at the thought of what they'd almost endured at Kenpachi's hands, while he stood and watched.

"I wouldn't know. But they're hybrids that started as shinigami. I'm the opposite."

"A hybrid that started as a hollow?" Shunsui didn't sound nearly horrified enough in Jushiro's opinion.

Starrk shrugged. "The boss says we have shinigami powers because we have zanpakuto. I'm not sure why… an arrancar's zanpakuto is completely different from that of a shinigami."

At their clueless expressions, he rolled his eyes and elaborated. "Arrancar are hollows that removed their mask." He tapped his mask fragment for emphasis. "Becoming partly cleansed in the process. I won't pretend to understand what that means, but shinigami say we're hybrids now."

"I…didn't know that was possible." Jushiro muttered. In truth, he wasn't sure if he should be disgusted or intrigued by the thought.

"I figured."

"You mentioned an 'arrancar army'." Thankfully, Shunsui was there to pick out the most important details without being bogged down by confusion. Jushiro still couldn't wrap his mind around the stranger's species. "Could you elaborate, please?"

Starrk just stared blankly and Jushiro put a hand over his face.

"You were fighting against Soul Society, weren't you?"

Starrk shrugged.

The white haired captain sighed. "It seems I owe Love and Rose an apology."

"So how long are we stuck here?" Love growled, arms crossed over his chest. Rose was half turned away from him in a position to unobtrusively watch his back. They were both on edge and, despite the assurances of their 'old friends', refusing to follow them inside. Isshin, Kenta, and Kuchiki were staying at a respectable distance, trying to remain friendly even as they very obviously did not want to come close to the hybrids. Mayuri, newly promoted leader of the twelfth division, was less reserved and kept trying to poke and prod at them, coming uncomfortably close until he had to be physically forced away.

However, he was the leader of the science division, so theoretically he was in charge of figuring out what was going on with the purple sky. He'd brought plenty of instruments and machinery to perform that very function and everyone was waiting for his answer. Despite his continued aggressive demands for their cooperation as specimens (and their rejections), Mayuri retained his position and expanded on the results of his investigation.

"If I could examine the-."

"No." the vizards growled in unison.

"Examine the portal, Kurotsuchi." Kiganjo barked. He was still sore about losing his opportunity to gain two new hollow-mask trophies and he kept eyeing the vizards bitterly, as if they had purposely slighted him. He'd be happy to see the last of them.

Mayuri narrowed his eyes but responded in his typical critical fashion. "If you ignorant fools had even a modicum of intelligence, or if you would listen to your intellectual superiors, you would know that I cannot determine the specific duration of the inter-dimensional event without a tissue sample from one of our…guests."

"They are not your experiments, Kurotsuchi-taicho." This time, it was Ginrei Kuchiki's stern tone that arrested Mayuri's rant, more successfully than Kiganjo.

"There is no other way!" He snapped, bristling. However, instead of beginning his rant anew, he tilted his head, an unholy gleam entering his eyes as something else occurred to him. "I had heard…that there was a third potential…?"

The shinigami all turned to look at the vizards who exchanged a glance then shrugged.

"Hey if you can get the hollow to cooperate, go for it." Love dismissed casually, waving an unconcerned hand towards the distant form of Starrk where he was still peacefully talking with Jushiro and Shunsui. At his words, the group that had calmed down immediately tensed again and the eagerness returned to Kiganjo's expression.

"A hollow?" The captain of the tenth division muttered dubiously. "He doesn't look like a hollow…"

"It looks like Jushiro and Shunsui are taking care of it." The captain of the third division put in.

"…A hollow should not wander unsupervised." Ginrei, who everyone was looking to as the eldest and most experienced, at least until Yamamoto arrived or Shunsui and Jushiro came down, finally decided, tone firm.

"I'll help bring it down." Kiganjo interjected eagerly. Before anyone could say anything, he set off towards the trio, long strides rapidly covering the distance. Mayuri followed, too far away to be caught by a stray attack but close enough to scan and record the results.

"Hey! Kyoraku! Ukitake!" Kiganjo yelled when he was halfway there. "Hold the hollow down for me; I'll come take care of it!"

At the interruption, Starrk's conversation and the shinigami's surprisingly successful coaxing of information came to an abrupt end. Jushiro and Shunsui eyed the Kenpachi with unconcealed dismay while Starrk massaged his brow with an irritated grumble.

"Well, that's my cue to leave." His tone was resigned, not angry or surprised.

"Espada-san," The unfamiliar title sat strangely on Jushiro's tongue. "Please do not-." Before the white-haired captain's hand could travel more than halfway to his zanpakuto, Starrk snapped his fingers and a garganta sprang into existence directly behind him. The two shinigami recoiled in surprise and the arrancar stepped inside, a broad white trail appearing under his feet.

"Wh…stop!" Kyoraku and Ukitake started forward but stopped at the edge of the portal, wary of coming any further...especially with Starrk standing in the center, a cero pulsing in front of his mask. If there had been any uncertainty about his species, that dangerous ball of blue energy, fully formed and ready to erase anyone in its line of fire, put all doubts to rest

"Espada-san." Ukitake tried to maintain his calm, coaxing demeanor. They'd already managed to wheedle information and cooperation out of the hollow by simply being nice; hopefully, it would work to draw him back as well. "We do not intend to harm you. However, you must understand-."

Lilynette interrupted with a disbelieving bark. "Ya must think we're stupid, old man!" She yipped. "We saw what ya did to yer friends." Her tone on the last word was contemptuous and Jushiro winced, reminded just what he'd been saying before the fight ended. "And we ain't your friends."

"If we had known who they were, I promise you we would not have reacted so rashly."

"Rashly." Starrk's tone was dry. "You were going to kill them."

In the near distance, Kiganjo's voice boomed out: "Keep him there, Kyoraku! I'll deal with him!"

Shunsui peered over his shoulder and yelled back. "You're most kind. But please be quiet!"

The hollow rolled his eyes and retreated away from the shinigami end of the garganta, knowing neither of them would risk following him in fear of being trapped when he closed it, or being shot point blank by a cero.

"Espada-san…" Ukitake spread his hands, trying to find something inoffensive to say that would motivate the hollow to return. He came up dry.

"Don't worry; I'll come back when it's time to leave." Starrk turned a discerning eye on the still-purple sky, then back to his opponents. "But I'm not going to be your lab rat, and I don't want to fight you."

They had no response for that.

"I think it would be better for everyone involved if I wait it out elsewhere." With that final statement, he backed out of the other end of the garganta and raised a hand in farewell. Before the shinigami could respond, he snapped his fingers and closed the portal.

Alone save for Lilynette at his side, he turned to look out at the silver crescent moon and bare, desolate sands of Hueco Mundo.

Author's Notes:

Once upon a time, I wrote a very short one-shot in 'Howling at the Moon' called 'Time'. I said I might continue it someday and even wrote a bit of a continuation, but it never really got off the ground…until now.

I was hoping to have a chapter of 'Five Years' ready this weekend, but it just wasn't happening and I had this one on my hard drive just waiting to be edited and posted, so... XD

This won't be a very long story; three chapters max; but I hope you like it anyway!

Next chapter….Starrk meets Starrk and naming conventions get really confusing.

(PS. It is currently 4.30am. I am posting this anyway. I will likely return tomorrow and realize how horrible it is, and edit it to within an inch of its life (and change the title).)

(PPS. Another round of editing completed on 3/30/2018. I've mostly corrected typos and punctuation issues; no story content has been added or deleted.)

Please review and let me know what you think!