Time slipped by—three hours. In the Forest of Menos, the sky remained a permanent dusk; gray-white "trees" loomed in every direction, as if time itself had stalled.
Legs unsteady, Unohana leaned on Cole to stand. "Cole… next time, don't be so reckless," she murmured, cheeks burning. "Even you—I won't forgive you if you push it like that again."
Doing something like that here—in the Forest of Menos—had never even crossed her mind. And yet… she'd done it. The thought alone made her ears burn.
Cole squeezed lightly between her shoulder blades, grinning. "Hana-nee, you sure seemed to enjoy the… 'thrill.'"
"Don't… say it," Unohana whispered, wobbling. Cole laughed and simply swept the voluptuous "yandere big sis" into a princess carry as they moved on.
They walked for another hour. The scenery did not change at all.
"Hana-nee, how big is this forest, seriously?" Cole frowned. With his current speed, in Soul Society he could have gone from Seireitei to District 80 of Rukongai by now. Here, no edge in sight. Plenty of Hollows—palm-sized strays, two-meter rabble, Gillian a hundred meters tall—but no conversation to be had, and any that got close evaporated under a single cero.
Unohana, still flushed, steadied her breath. "I don't know. Hueco Mundo is a little larger than Soul Society. No shinigami has ever measured its borders."
Cole finally understood why the Primera Espada Coyote Starrk was so lonely. Hueco Mundo was too vast; finding a kindred spirit here was a miracle. Las Noches gathered but a fraction of the upper-class Hollows; in a lawless world, its influence was a mere iceberg tip. Most Hollows just drifted—alone.
Cole suddenly stopped. In his arms, Unohana's body trembled; color climbed her snow-white neck.
"Cole, I really can't—my strength…" She shook her head, embarrassed at how easily her body overreacted in this arena where she was usually strongest.
Cole chuckled. "What are you thinking? I want to check the first layer of Hueco Mundo. Or… were you expecting something else?"
Unohana buried her face in his chest again and said nothing.
He tilted his head up to the endless night above. The Forest of Menos was the second stratum—an underground layer. Yet after all this walking, he'd found no passage to the first.
"It can take months, even years, to find an entrance from here," Unohana said, cheeks still pink.
Cole had no time for that.
He raised his index finger; black-crimson light gathered—then he stopped, reconsidered, and drew out the Ruyi Jingu Bang (Golden Staff).
He really didn't want a rain of dirt and rock.
Planting the golden staff into the ground, he grinned and spoke words he hadn't used in a while: "Grow! Grow! Grow! Grow!"
The staff surged skyward in a blink, a blazing golden pillar. With a thunderous boom it hammered into the "ceiling"—the thick strata separating the two layers. It felt like pressing up hundreds of Mount Tai—despairing weight—but present-day Cole was not the boy he'd been. Driven by raging reiryoku, the pillar steadily drilled through.
A rumble rolled through the Forest of Menos. From above, "rain" began to fall—chunks of soil and stone. Cole flicked a hand.
"Dankū (Severing Sky)!"
An invisible barrier bridged the air, effortlessly catching the debris.
"Good thing I didn't use a cero," Cole muttered. "We'd be buried."
The partition between first and second layers was tough—proof of the mass above. The pillar rose higher… cracks webbed the "sky," widening, light leaking through—
With a world-shaking crash, the golden pillar punched clean through the strata, carving a great hole between worlds. Soft white light poured down.
Cole stepped once, springing up through the breach to Hueco Mundo's first layer.
White moonlight fell like rain. His feet sank into white sand. Everywhere he looked: horizonless. A world of white. No greenery. Only stone-quartz "growths," plantlike in shape, but not plants. Overhead hung a white, full moon, bathing the land in a pale glow. Night eternal.
"From horror forest to empty desert, huh?" Cole laughed.
Below, an endless gray-white wood. Above, an endless white desert. No wonder shinigami called Hueco Mundo a barren world.
Barefoot, Unohana stepped onto the sand, legs still a little weak as she leaned on Cole. She gazed at the sky. "This is the true Hueco Mundo: endless desert, endless night—unchanged for a million years."
She had come centuries ago; it looked the same then as now. White sands to the horizon. Quartz-like "trees." Moonlight without dawn. Likely the same, millions of years past.
After a while, she sat and brushed the white grains from her feet.
To her, long familiarity had dulled the beauty. To Cole, every angle was new: white dunes under pale moon, occasional grotesque quartz arbors, silence so complete it felt like walking on the moon.
"Hana-nee, come on—let's check over there," Cole said—then swallowed. Unohana, half-dressed, white haori gone, the delicate black threads of that "lingerie" glinting against alabaster skin, hips and legs nestled in white sand—
She missed his stare and kept dusting herself. "Go on if you like. I'll rest and clean up—recover a bit of strength…"
Her words trailed off as their eyes met. She flushed and crossed an arm over her chest. "Brat, what are you looking at? Didn't you tease me enough just now? If you try anything else—"
"Hana-nee, isn't this scenery perfect?" Cole grinned, stepping forward, pinning her gently to the soft dunes. "A white desert at night. Doesn't that sound… thrilling?"
Hueco Mundo did have one perk: terrifying emptiness. It felt like only the two of them existed; nothing and no one to see.
Unohana shivered, strength seeping from freshly restored limbs. "You call me a yandere, but you're worse…"
He lowered his head—
Under the cold moon, breath rose and fell; life's rhythm washed softly across the white sands. Time flowed—long enough for even Cole to feel a twinge of fatigue before he sprawled back, satisfied.
"Hana-nee, you're the best," he sighed.
Unohana lay atop his chest, fair skin tinged rosy, speechless. Two close moments in such quick succession had drained even her.
After a brief rest, Cole leaned to her ear, whispering a playful suggestion.
Unohana shot him a scarlet glare. This bad child… But if she refused, he'd only wheedle—and that guilty thrill…
....
At the same time—
Las Noches, second palace tier.
Bored, Sexta Espada Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez slouched against a pillar, glancing into the distance.
He glanced once—
and couldn't look away, pupils blown wide at the golden pillar spearing the sky.
"What the hell… is that!?"
…
(End of Chapter)
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