They stood like that
for a moment, just enjoying the comfort of no longer being alone. Deha buried
her head in his torn uniform, savouring the familiar scent of him; cherry
blossoms mingled with sweat from battle and an underlying hint of blood. It was
a scent she loved, more so than when he had just stepped out of a shower, after
all, he was a warrior.
He pulled away from
her and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her up and down for injuries,
his eyes fixed on the blood stained top she wore. She stared down at it and
shrugged. "Not mine...I'm fine."
He looked dubious but
he could clearly see there was nothing more than a few bruises and grazes on
her arms and face from her frequent collisions with the floor, and opted to
trust her. "You on the other hand..."
Deha shook her head
and lifted one of Byakuya's torn sleeves. He had a gash down the length of one
arm and though it wasn't bleeding now, it had been quite heavily at one point.
The man grunted and shook her off. "Forget about that for now. We need to
get out of here and locate the others."
Azdeha nodded, though
begrudgingly, and looked around the partly demolished room. There were 4 doors
and no windows. It was different to the one she had encountered Hisana in so
she had no idea which of the doors let outside. If they even led outside. She
strongly suspected that the moment they opened one of them, they'd end up back
in that underground maze. It probably didn't matter which one. She took a deep
breath and walked over to the nearest one, yanking it open. As she
suspected...compacted dirt caverns. Behind her, Byakuya had opened another door
and was staring out at the same view.
"Guess it
doesn't matter what we choose huh?" Deha kicked her door shut and strolled
over the the captain, her hand on her zanpakuto. "Let's just get out of
here."
Byakuya nodded and
held out a hand, "Keep hold of me. This thing will try and separate us and
I doubt it'll let us find each other again."
Entwining her fingers
around his, the two Shinigami walked through the doorway, the male slightly in
front in case anything decided to ambush them. Deha didn't exactly need
protecting but she couldn't help feeling a little bit girly and giddy at the
small gesture of chivalry.
They found themselves
in another dimly lit cavern, this one at least with flickering torches at
intervals along the walls. "Byakuya?"
"Hmmm?"
"What is this
place?"
He stopped and turned
to face her, the shadows under his eyes far more pronounced in the dim
torchlight. "I'm not sure. As far as I can tell, we're being forced to
live out our worst fears, whatever they are."
"So someone's
trying to scare us to death?"
"I don't think
they're trying to kill us. If that was the case, the illusions we come up
against would be stronger and more difficult to beat."
That made sense.
After all, there was no way she would have been able to beat fake Byakuya so
easily had whoever it was been trying to kill her. "So you think this
person, or thing, is trying to get to us psychologically? Wear us down and make
us second guess ourselves?"
"I suspect as
much. Let's keep moving."
He turned away and
she stumbled after him, keeping a firm hold of his hand and taking comfort in
the warm, calloused familiarity of it. "How come we ended up in the same
place then?"
In the dim light she
saw his shoulders rise in a shrug. "I think we must share a similar fear,
which led us to find each other. Whoever set this up probably didn't anticipate
it."
"So if we share
fears with the others in here...then we might be able to find him?"
"Possibly. But I
doubt that there's anything that we would all class as a nightmare."
