CH 8:

Ashido didn't know how and he didn't know when but from what his senses told him, another human had made their way into Heuco Mundo somehow. It was probably just another freak accident like Ichigo's trip here but that didn't matter. The source of reiryoku he could sense was overflowing with fear and appeared to be right next to the Adjuchas class Hollow that he had been having a scuffle with for the past century. As it was, the person would probably be crushed to death under the Hollows reiatsu.

"Ichigo." Ashido turned to face the young boy.

"Yeah." Ichigo replied, mouth half full of the green moss that grew on the wall. "What is it?"

"There appears to be a slight problem. I'm going to need your help to deal with it." Ashido stated. He did not ask, but he did expect Ichigo to follow through with his request, that much was clear.

Receiving a nod in return after Ichigo swallowed that latest lump of moist organic material Ashido continued. "I don't know how, but I have detected another human in the forest near the Adjuchas Hollow." He told Ichigo causing his eyes to widen in slight shock. "Nothing too bad appears to have happened to the person yet, but I suspect it's a trap to lure me out. I need you to rescue the person while I confront the Adjuchas."

All Ichigo could think at that moment was, "Is there really another person out here?"

Ichigo snapped out of it a moment later, donning a scowl. He nodded a moment later prompting Ashido to smile lightly for accepting the request to help him.

Turning a moment later Ashido took off into the forest, Ichigo hot on his heel.

"Alright," Ashido began mid flight, "I'm going to distract the Hollow and you are going to sneak around the back and grab the person who is trapped there and escape with them. I'll follow soon after."

It was a risky plan. Ashido himself had said that he had never defeated an Adjuchas, then again, he never said that he hadn't held one off before. On top of that they didn't exactly know the Hollow's sensory prowess. For all they knew the human hostage was being kept near the Adjuchas which was going to make things a little difficult if the Hollow refused to budge from his position.

That was where Ashido came in however, as he would more than likely be challenged to a fight to the death by the Hollow. He would accept and Ichigo would sneak in afterwards and snag the hostage. That also depended if everything went to plan. How many subordinates did the Adjuchas have? Were they particularly competent? Was Ichigo fast enough to bypass all their defences and get the human out in time?

The answer to all of these would have to wait. There was not time for careful planning, at least not in the eyes of Ashido, or Ichigo for that matter. They had to rescue them no matter the cost.

The little girls eyes cracked wide open. She hadn't realised it but she had fallen asleep at some point during the night despite the incessant pain that ached in her leg.

Looking at it once again made the girl wince at its unnatural angle. Unless she got it taken care of soon it was likely she'd die of blood loss though she didn't know that. What she did know however was the unbelievably large swell of purple flesh that had made itself apparent in the short time her leg had been broken.

She heard a grunting noise and looked to her side where she spotted the large red skinned monster moving uncomfortably about in his chair. She almost failed to notice the multitude of monster creatures that surrounded her in an almost protective way.

"Just how long exactly will it take for the Shinigami to arrive?" The being pondered.

It was only a few moments later when she felt another pressure on her body. This one though, didn't feel as nearly as twisted or heavy as the one the red skinned creature emanated.

"Ah, at last." The red skinned creature stood from its chair, awaiting the arrival of the source of the pressure.

Just who was it that caused such a reaction from the creature. It almost seemed…happy that the foreign pressure was closing in, its energy slowly twisting into anger and malice as it approached.

"Yes," The monster said to itself, "Come and fight me!"

A moment later a lone person entered the clearing shocking the young girl at the beings appearance. He clearly wore a mask, though it seemed to be more of a decoration than the attachment stuck to the monster's faces. She was overjoyed to just see another person in the forest. Had they come for her? To rescue her?

Surely they had, otherwise he would not face the creature. It just seemed far too dangerous to otherwise face the creature with no reason.

The man wearing the mask and brown fur cloak looked over to her and then back to the monster. It looked as though he was just checking on her condition before he faced the monster.

"Let her go." The person labelled as a Shinigami said in a stern voice. It didn't appear he was in this for fun and games. He likely wished to hurt the monster that brought her here and broke her leg but was trying to get away without a fight. Even the little girl knew that this would not happen.

"You know me better than that Ashido." The monster declared stepping forwards, a sudden pressure enveloping the entire area pushing the girl to the ground and causing her to gag.

Ichigo watched the encounter from way above them in the treetops. He was so high up he was practically touching the ceiling. The reason for this, he wanted to stay out of the Adjuchas sensory range. The best way to do that and stay in line of sight was to get high up and suppress his power as much as he could, though it wasn't much considering he still had a fair bit leaking out. It appeared to be enough however, as the Adjuchas seemed to pay him no mind and confronted Ashido before letting out a torrent of reiatsu.

From where he was he could see the human hostage. They looked to be a little girl, though from his height he couldn't make out much more than the oddly shaped leg that stuck out in front of her…

"Damn it."

Her leg was broken and that made things a little more complicated. He had seen Ashido perform healing Kido on him in the past before he knew of his healing capabilities, Kaido he called it. He knew very little about it, though it may help.

A moment later Ashido appeared to engage the Adjuchas in single combat, immediately flashing into a better position to get a better strike in on the Hollow before his sword barely dug into the skin of the Hollow. Hierro Ashido had called it. The single biggest pain in the ass when it came to slaying anything higher than Gillian class. While the innate skill of each Hollow differed, it was more often than not that a Hollow was literally saved by the skin of their teeth rather than pure skill or ability.

Ichigo took this as his queue to leap from the treetops and free fall to the ground in the middle of the Hollow group to where the little girl was.

On his approach he began to make out more of the girl as he fell. She appeared to be in her school uniform with her rain jacket over the top and a brown pink and white umbrella off to her side. Her school bag was nowhere to be seen, though he supposed that she may have lost it or not had it at the time of her passing into Heuco Mundo. Whatever the case, he was about to reach her.

His sudden entrance only received a reaction the moment he began reaching down to pick the girl up bridal style, while being extra careful not to jostle her legs too much.

She appeared to be slightly panicked at first with the sudden contact, unaware of whom was touching her.

The moment she saw his decidedly human face she hugged him and pressed her face into his chest the moment he launched away from the Hollows that were too slow to react to his sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance.

He raced through the trees and something that felt like blistering winds to crash against her hair causing it to fly about wildly as the scenery passed them.

Slowly but cautiously she peered away from his chest and was amazed to see the world fly by them so fast even as they were moving on foot. Something like this was impossible, she knew that much, yet here it was happening. Surely it was a magic of some kind.

Looking up to her rescuers face she noted the pale complexion and gold sparkles that dotted his brown eyes. His orange hair flew about as he propelled them through the forest to a seemingly predetermined location, though streaks of white had made their way into the mass of orange, barely visible yet still there. On top of that a few lines marked his face with deathly pale pasty white streaks. Contained within were a few pink lines that clearly denoted the scaring of tissue.

In a way it spoke of his strength in the forest that she currently found herself in. In another, it meant that he had many near death experiences, ones that he must have barely escaped from. The context on some of them however failed to reach her as she didn't realise that most of the ones on his face were given to him by Ashido.

Ashido swung his sword with two hands almost managing to lop of the giants red hand as it came in to pummel the Shinigami into the ground. The score was lost however as the blade only made it half way before stopping, forcing Ashido to pull it out in time or face the consequences.

"Arg!" The Adjuchas roared in anger. "Damn you Ashido!"

A red ball charged at the front of the Hollows face as in its anger it wanted to be rid of the infuriating man as soon as possible. Unfortunately for the Hollow Ashido managed to shunpo out of the way just in time for the Cero to go roaring past him, missing by mere millimetres. He could feel the raw heat from the attack trying to burn his skin from close proximity alone.

Tapping back down on two feet Ashido quickly brought his Zanpakuto around to fend off a strike that followed soon after from the massive Adjuchas fist. What he did not expect however was for a conical shaped shockwave to launch out of the Hollows fist the moment it and his sword were about to collide.

It all happened in an instant. He wasn't really sure of what happened, but there was a definite flash of red to it. A Cero?

No.

Cero's weren't that fast. Not so fast that they could cross a gap in that amount of time. Nor could they be charged that quickly, not by this Hollow anyway.

"Haha!" The red skinned Hollow roared in victory as Ashido slammed into one of the fossilised trees after tumbling a good few tens of metres.

Ashido's entire chest had been torn open with that one attack and he was bleeding heavily, not to mention his shattered Zanpakuto lying still in his hand. It wasn't looking good. There was no way he was getting out of this without major repercussions…in fact he might not even be leaving at all. Well, he was a shinigami, and as such it was his job to slay Hollows and protect the innocent or something like that he guessed.

Grunting in a pained voice, Ashido rolled over onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows just in time for a stream of blood to make its way into his left eye effectively blinding it.

He could see the Hollow though, approaching casually as one would when victory was in the palm of their hand, all while swishing its large red tail side to side.

"You know Ashido," The Hollow paused for a moment basking in its own glory as it drew in a deep breath, "Even though those guys over there probably lost the little girl by now, I can't help but feel so overjoyed that I have finally been given the chance to devour you…Me! Of all Hollows in the Menos forest I have finally defeated the single largest nuisance there ever was to run rampant that wasn't an actual Hollow."

"Is that so…!" Ashido heaved heavily at the end of his sentence as blood broke out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

"I know so." The Hollow replied smugly.

"Well," Ashido smiled. "Sorry about this kid." Ashido apologised to the boy that had long since left their presence with the little girl. "You know what they say…"

"…" The red Hollow paused for a moment to look at Ashido in slight confusion. "No, I don't know what they say. What do they say Ashido?" The hollow clamped one of its hands down on Ashido's leg, squeezing tightly eliciting a slight gasp of pain from the Shinigami as his leg was slowly crushed.

"Like teacher like student!" Ashido grinned as even more blood came out of his mouth and he began hacking violently in an attempt to clear his airways of the red fluid that slowly filled them.

That was the last Ashido said as the Hollows other hand came down upon Ashido's head and snapped his neck before proceeding to pull it off for extra good measure.

The Hollow then proceeded to growl lightly in annoyance as it ate Ashido's body.

If that other child that had been with Ashido truly was going to be in trouble it may have been better off to let Ashido live rather than finishing him off with his newly learnt move, 'Bala'. He would have led him back to the boy and he could have finished him off before he became a nuisance like Ashido had been. Letting Ashido go though would have been too suspicious at this point so he had ended things there.

This would spell trouble in the future. He was sure of it.

Ichigo froze for a split second on the branch he just reached before taking off again shaking his head.

It was at times like this that he was thankful for the emotional suppression that the voice in his head seemed to be doing. Even after all this time, the death of his mother still panged in his heart. This too now, the death of Ashido rang heavily in his mind. He could feel it pushing in his head and chest as though one or the other was about to explode so he could let loose his torrent of emotions and release a large amount of power and take it out on his surroundings.

Such an action however would only draw attention at this point in time, attention he could not afford. For that he was thankful of the voice in his head.

Unfortunately, the girl in his arms with the highly decorative umbrella seemed to notice and grew slightly worried from his paused action. The expression of worry did not stay on her face long as a moment later they touched down at Ashido's cave and entered before she was lain down on the bed of moss and stone.

Silently walking around to the foot of the bed Ichigo carefully pulled off the girls gumboots and placed them upside down beside the bed to let them drain better before taking a look at her broken leg.

To be honest, the thing looked really bad. Completely flattened at one section and bent forty degrees in the wrong direction in another spot.

Back in the world of the living it's likely that they would call for an amputation, as they would say it is irreparable. There was almost no way they would ever restore function to the girls leg ever again as the bone had been reduced to dust and the muscle to paste at the section where it had been flattened.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for the girl, depending on how you looked at it, she was not in the world of the living and even now such an injury was still reparable. Granted it would take time, but nonetheless still fixable.

"Does it hurt at the moment?" Ichigo asked the girl before him hoping she would understand.

She nodded numbly, still somewhat bewildered at the superhuman feats this young boy had performed. It was probably for the best as if she had been completely focused on her leg she would only be crying in agony.

Ichigo accepted the answer before grabbing her leg and pulling it straight causing a warbled gasp to come from the young girl before the tears began to run again and she shrieked in pain.

Ichigo winced somewhat at the noise. He couldn't very well tell her to shut up. It would only further serve to induce fear in the young girl. Instead he remembered back to when Ashido had used Kaido on him for the first time.

"Kaido is pretty much just giving others your own reiryoku in a compatible form to restore their own as well as their reiatsu level and accelerating the healing process by taking manual control of the metabolic processes while using their own reserves." Ashido explained.

"…" Ichigo tilted his head to the side a giant metaphorical question mark sprouting at the top of his head as he did so. "Metabolic…processes?"

Ashido sighed, realising once more that this was just a little kid with slightly more firepower to him than your average Shinigami. Knowledge wise, he was still a kid.

"Uh, let's see…" Ashido said in thought, "How about this. You give them your energy." Ashido flaired a slight amount of reiryoku in his palm watching Ichigo nod as he followed along. "And then you think about healing them while pulling their own energy to the site of restoration." Ashido demonstrated again as he put one hand over a light cut Ichigo had received earlier and Ichigo felt his energy moving without him telling it to before new flesh grew over and replaced the old.

Placing his hands over the now straightened limb before pushing his own energy into the girl's leg while trying to heal it.

It seemed to work, if only slightly as the bruising seemed to fade slightly and bones began to reform after about fifteen minutes of non-stop energy feeding. Her leg was still a veritable soup of flesh and bone beneath the skin, but it was a far cry from what it had been not too long ago.

Ichigo himself however had tired rather quickly and was nearing empty. Fixing one leg on someone else's body sure took a lot of energy. Ichigo didn't think it would take nearly this much for him if he were to heal himself.

The girl, now completely silent was staring in somewhat amazed awe. This boy had used magic on his leg to restore it to near complete. It was incredible. She began vaguely wondering if she could do that herself.

"I have to go out for a bit to restore my energy before I can finish your leg." Ichigo stated causing the girl to look up in slight shock.

He was leaving her!? Here? In this forest filled with monsters?

"Don't go!" The girl cried out in a soft voice her voice raw from screaming. She didn't want to be left alone here. Not where she felt so unsafe.

Ichigo noticed this and shook his head lightly. "If I am to fix your leg completely I need to go out and get more energy. When that happens you can come with me where ever I go." Ichigo reasoned, "Until then, you are to stay hidden here. Don't make too much noise."

Ichigo turned and left not noticing the tears that began to run down the girls face again as he left and vanished without a trace.

Ichigo had returned to the top of Sung-sun's head as she yet again went on a feasting frenzy. She had recently discovered a hoard of indistinct Gillian on the fringe of their territory and was mowing through them one at a time, swallowing some whole and others by pieces.

Ichigo himself had taken his fill cutting through the masks of the Gillian with his sword of shadows, a task that had become considerably easier since he first began. He remembered the first time he slew a Gillian. It was near impossible, yet he managed to go through at least three of them before he tired out completely.

Now though, he could kill quite a few. His strength had greatly increased in his time with Ashido as his mentor, though he still wasn't at the point where he could cleave through one with a single hand. That man was still far above him in terms of strength when he had fallen to the Adjuchas. They really were worlds apart.

He had been here only a year and he could kill Gillian. He doubted many could make the same claim. Granted, Gillian are as dumb as they come, only really attacking when commanded to by a superior Hollow or when there was an actual person in charge of the mind of the great hulking constructs.

Ichigo watched absently as Sung-sun charged a Cero and blew the tops off three Gillian in a row before proceeding to consume them.

Come to think of it, it had been some time since Sung-sun had begun devouring other Gillian. When would she evolve? If he had to guess, it would probably be quite some time yet unless she came across another variant like herself and devoured them.

Standing up, having rested in place for long enough he made his way back to the girl he had brought back with him.

As Ichigo entered the cave he noticed the girl had fallen asleep from pure exhaustion. As would be expected from someone who was here for their first time. He had fallen asleep in a similar fashion on his first day as well.

It was only when Ichigo knocked a book off a stone bench that he caught himself staring.

Drawing his attention to the book on the floor he noted that it was the diary that he had found when he had discovered the Quincy hideout.

He hadn't found anything else on the thing so he had let it go, though he still kept the book around in case anything did turn up. The other books however, his vision drawing near them. They were quite interesting to say the least. Supposedly there were ancient ruins on the surface as well as a few artefacts to go along with them. 'The telescope' had shown that particularly well. Supposedly there was an ancient race that constructed a telescope that could see into the far reaches of space but had been long since abandoned.

Shaking his head, Ichigo brought himself back in to focus on the girl before him. He could worry about the wonders of this world later when nothing was trying to kill him.

Bleary eyes opened to an unfamiliar ceiling. The owner of the eyes then yawned, somewhat non-plussed by the sight above them. Perhaps they were daydreaming. After all who wakes up in a cave with a glowing orb above their head…?

Sitting up suddenly the girl gasped when she realised where she was before she hopped out of bed, completely forgetting the state her leg should have been in before she got up. It was in that moment she stopped to stare at her leg for the barest of moments before she raced to the entrance of the cave before skidding to a halt as a sheer cliff drop became apparent when she approached the exit. There was no way she could get down without severely injuring herself.

Taking a few steps back from the edge the girl turned around and walked back into the room, her face white from seeing the height at which she had almost fallen a few moments ago.

"Good morning."

The girl jumped on the spot screaming in surprise at the suddenness of the voice appearing behind her. There was just no way…wait, yes there was, he could fly, right?

Turning on her feet, the girl caught sight of the orange haired boy that had saved her the day before and then proceeded to use his magic to fix her broken leg.

"U-um, thank you." The girl said somewhat nervously despite the person before her meaning no harm.

"She must mean the leg." Ichigo thought as the girl looked at him warily despite him saving her. "No problem."

"Quick, complement her." The voice returned.

It had been gone for quite some time.

"No time to worry about that. Compliment her."

"I couldn't leave a pretty girl to the monsters for lunch." Ichigo said hoping to calm the girl down. Unfortunately she seemed to have only heard the last half of that sentence.

"They were going to eat me!?" The girl paled somewhat in fright. The mere thought of having become the monsters snack was horrifying to the little girl to say the least. In hindsight it was obvious but having the words put in her face like that was just so, so terrifying.

"Idiot!"

"Uh…" Ichigo was at a loss for words. That hadn't come out right. "But I saved you, so everything's going to be ok, alright." Ichigo tried to come back with a placating tone in an attempt to undo what he just did. "They can't hurt you here."

The girl seemed to calm down somewhat after that was said and done. If someone with super powers was here protecting her she should be safe after all.

"So," Ichigo began anew, "What's your name?" Ichigo asked the young girl. "I'm Ichigo, Ichigo Kurosaki." Ichigo offered his name first.

"My name is Neopolitan Spumoni." Neopolitan offered.

Ichigo did a double take just then. "Wait," Ichigo held up his hands shaking his head causing the Neopolitan to giggle slightly at his response. "You're parents named you after ice-cream?"

"Yes." The girl answered causing Ichigo to feel the sudden need to sit down.

He wasn't the only one in his known existence to have a weird name now. It was like a dream come true. After all, how could his parents have known he would be a boy if they wanted it to be a surprise? To name a boy Ichigo was nothing short of lunacy, or so Ashido had told him once, after all one meaning for the name and the most commonly understood was strawberry. Honestly.

And now here he was, faced with the living embodiment of the word that practically meant ice cream, 'Neopolitan', granted of course that the actual name of the ice cream wasn't spelt that way. Never the less, he had come across someone else with an equally profound name. Being name after food, and a fruit at that wasn't easy to some to terms with. But now here was the person who's name meant ice cream.

He could die in peace now, knowing that his parents did not in fact have a case of incredibly bad humour…Well it was that or their parents would get along swimmingly naming babies fruit or ice cream.

It was only a moment later when the girl, Neopolitan waved her hand in front of his face did he come back to reality.

Here he was basking in his righteous glory of not being the only one and there was this confused girl before him. Not to mention Ashido's death…No, Ashido wouldn't have wanted him to think of it as such. He would have wanted him to move on. That was the way he was.

"Yes." Ichigo responded to the girls waving.

"Are you ok?" The girl questioned rightly concerned with the apparent behaviour he had displayed just a moment earlier.

She didn't know?

Oh well, it's best to keep it that way, lest he suffer from someone's endless amusement.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just remembering something." Ichigo responded before getting back up from the place he had sat catatonically for about a minute.

"So," Ichigo began, unsure of how to start, "You want to know about where you are?"

Neopolitan nodded in the affirmative.