RegalOneByTheStream

Thanks for positive feedback!

TO CEPS: I suck at fact checks. Left off a zero, so I rolled with it, basing my timings around that. I'm lazy. But no excuses. I'll fix it with this upload. THANKS!

@ Siva Black, Melkor's situation is strange, but I can tell you that his second self is NOT a hollow. It's a facet of himself...if that makes any sense to you? Lol. Like DID disorder; split personalities. But it's definitely not hollow because this being is centered purely on destruction (hence RIP AND TEAR AND BURN AND DESTROY), while hollows are more focused on consuming and rising to the top of the food chain. Hope that helps. As for your other question, Hichigo and Tensa Zangetsu hate hurting Ichigo's mental state (the rain). I mean, it started raining, so they still goofed on that, but I mean any further. I know I would flip my shit if I had a portal in my brain that had monsters behind it. They've got to figure some stuff out before they decide it's safe to tell him.

Tbh, I actually had no intention of adding any Bleach characters. But then i was like, whelp, they're prolly freaking out, right? So, taking into account the differences in Universe clocks and lots of emotional garbage, mostly Rukia's (lowkey ship ichiruki...because fuck no, Orihime, Palcatraz is where you BELONG) I pulled a short one. Like 100 words of Bleach in here. Just for you, Z.C.L.S. Cool name, btw.

Minimal bitchy sassmaster Elrond. Sad face.

To other reviewers, thanks so much for support, questions, and constructive criticism! Review alerts are awesome! And follows/faves make me smile. Thanks! Sorry again for the wait (Costa Rica is freakin gorgeous. VACATION!). I'm probably going to start making shorter chapters. Be patient, please. I'm a lazy newb at this. FIRST STORY FUN, WOOT!

Jesus Christ, that was tdlr. Sorry~~and good for you, to those that skipped it.

And here's the actual content! Yay!

Enjoy!

XXXXXX

The trio following the Fellowship were not having fun.

At first, Elrohir had convinced himself it would be like a camping trip with some stalkery undertones and a hella lot of walking, kind of how their orc hunts were escapades with paper crane head counts and a shit ton of smelly body burnings. But noooo. It wasn't even close. His brother's goddamn leg started swelling up like a balloon, causing Elrohir to start storing more herbs in his pouch for his brother's not-so-secret midnight treatments. That occurrence further solidified Elrohir's belief that they should have just taken horses, goddamnit. What was Ichigo's vendetta against horses, anyways? He'd never even seen the man ride one, not once! And it was getting colder now that the altitudes were getting higher, which sucked ass because when it rained it would sometimes spit wet globs of snow, and they really weren't properly dressed for that kind of heavy precipitation.

Then there was the deal with the supply of comestibles that they had brought with them supposedly drawing thin in the future because they had packed lightly concerning food and instead had focused on bringing ample clothing, knowing that the quest could very well drag into the freeze of February, where water would be provided in full but warmth and food would become scarce. In those times the deer would have to suffice for food, that and any food they could carry with them from the lower altitudes, where the weather was milder and plants still grew. So they were now solely living off of whatever they found in the wild, which was not a huge dilemma, but it was time consuming having to hunt the food and cook it. And just leaving the stored bread in their packs be proved harder than it had first seemed, after a few days of eating pure wildlife.

And then there was the worst problem: something was wrong with Ichigo. And it was very, very bad.

Elrohir and Elladan had both noticed it, and had commentated on it together silently. They had a sort of higher understanding of each other that no one else, not even Ichigo, could breach. A total twin thing. It was extremely useful, especially when pranks and fighting was involved. With this method of communication, the two agreed that Kurosaki Ichigo was either eating the wrong types of mushrooms or was currently not right in the head.

For one, he would sometimes wobble when he walked. In three hundred years, the twins had seen many things, but with the exception of the actions of outside forces (namely, their childish father's foot on a particularly stressful day) they had never seen him so much as stumble. He usually carried himself with extreme dignity and grace, not that of a dancer but that of a martial artist; in other words, a stance that marked him as a warrior through and through.

But they had watched as, over and over, he would trip over a nonexistent rock and just barely catch himself, or he would suddenly stop walking and seem to lose all purpose, staring at the horizon blankly and only starting again with extensive aid. His erratic behaviorisms showed in his eyes, which grew a blankness and a dullness that was so unbecoming of the man that Elladan and Elrohir briefly wondered whether or not he was ill. The worst times were when he mixed up their faces, something he never did, calling either "Yuzu!" or "Karin!" when he wanted Elladan or Elrohir, and mumbling apologies without explanations when the sibling that he had called upon corrected him tentatively, incredulous, because damn, he had known them for almost three millennia, you know? But Ichigo barely ate and slept for longer hours than he usually did, forgoing his usual battle crouch for a position like that of a fetus and whimpering pitifully in the dead of night. Kurosaki Ichigo did not do pitiful. The twins knew they had to change it. Soon.

But as days passed and their gait slowed to the point where the twins nearly dragged Ichigo along, they had lost their nearness to the Fellowship by a full two days. Elrohir hunted for small animals that provided enough good meat for two young elves and one incoherent Death God, yet were light and easy to strip and eat on the go with no remains. Elladan tended to the herbs they found and to their half-delirious teacher, slipping some helpful ones into Ichigo's water cup when he was not looking, which seemed now to be all the time with how inattentive he had suddenly become. Tracking signals were getting slimmer, especially as the precipitation rates rose with the elevation and the distance they traveled; Rivendell was a rather dry area, compared to their route. The twins had tried everything; at this rate, if they didn't get their teacher back to normal, they would completely lose the Fellowship. They had no other means of breaking him out of his rut. And so to try to sharpen his instincts, Elrohir tried to steal the smaller Zangetsu.

Suddenly, it all made sense to Elladan why hymns had never been sung about his brother's intellect.

In milliseconds, the spark of life in their mentor had returned. With a palpable smack, Ichigo's hand whipped across Elrohir's cheek, sending him sprawling away, and curled around the hilt of his sword. A savage snarl ripped from his throat as his eyes, which Elladan and Elrohir had only seen holding an illuminating kindness as they glared people down, shifted to rip across them with a murderous rage they had never witnessed before. It suddenly became so much harder to breath as gravity itself shifted, pulling at the unsuspecting twins, stealing the breath from their lungs, and bringing them to their knees (Elladan with a hiss of pain as the wound in his thigh shifted and stretched suddenly), but leaving Ichigo alone. Black bled into the corners of his furious eyes as he advanced, hands holding his swords in his usual battle position. And Elrohir grinned at him anyways. "Your demons are showing, Ichigo," he said, the tremors in his voice betraying his light tone, and he used an inhuman strength to reach up and tap a finger to his temple.

Ichigo's demeanor shifted, and he prowled towards Elrohir. The twin twitched, but with the power locking him in place he could not move, he was barely even able to scream, as Ichigo leapt forward, clawed fingers poised to rake through Elrohir's throat. Elrohir made a whine in place of a scream, and Ichigo halted. He froze for a second, confused, and then he found himself. His eyes widened, and he tore his harsh gaze away from Elrohir with a flinch and a shameful look, his breaths ragged as he held a hand to his face in shock. Yes, he had been shaken into coherence for the time being, but something was off. His eyes. Why was the black staying? In the times where they had seen it, the twins had only glimpsed it for a second before Ichigo hid it and it receded, usually when he fought and got injured. The healing thing, where the cuts sealed themselves in minutes with no scars, accompanied the change, but so did the gravity. Their ears popped, and Elladan shot Elrohir a warning look. Ichigo caught it, and he visibly wrestled down a choked noise.

But the black stayed.

That was when Elrohir realized that they'd made a dire mistake, and not just because his own mentor had almost murdered him. Ichigo had always managed to control his power, cutting it back to a comfortable level, even if it was always there, wrapping around everyone in the vicinity with a warm, protective embrace. But this was a menacing weight, one that promised to show no mercy and showed no sign of relenting. His eyes were still ringed with black, the chocolate brown of his eye lightened to a yellowing tan and the black halted just before it reached the edge of the sclera, a thin wall of white surrounding the iris. His hair had whitened just by his temple, a symptom that they had never seen, and with a look of horror Ichigo clapped clawed hands to the spot. "Gomen, Errohir," he choked, "watashi wa nani o subeki ka?"

Elrohir glanced at Elladan. They had never heard Ichigo speak his Ancient Language to them accidentally since they had been young--extremely young.

Ichigo was not okay.

Fighting back their questions, the twins shared another look. "Ichigo, my leg hurts," Elladan said slowly, "and it is getting late. The shadows already hide the tracks of the Fellowship. Let us rest."

Their mentor didn't even look at them properly, just plopped down where he stood and sat cross-legged. A second later, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped back. Fine. Whatever. Just ignore them then, why don't you, Ichigo? Elrohir nodded at his twin, then went to gather herbs and edibles as Elladan watched over Ichigo and guarded what they carried with them. The gravity change had done his condition no favors. Saying that his leg hurt hadn't exactly been a lie.

Pulling his pants down again, Elladan looked over the disgusting wound, wincing at the angry purple veins that poked out at him and trying not to gag as the stench of blood, his own, hit his nostrils. The back had been fine, as the puncture wound there had been small. Only the tip of the arrowhead had poked out of that side. Elrohir had severely overreacted. It was even almost healed. But the entrance wound had been worse, seeing as the shaft had left several gruesomely long, painful splinters in the wound. A dissolving agent had been poured into the hole, one that helped to remove the splinters but had had an acidlike effect on the skin, irritating it severely. They had treated it well in Imladris, but not well enough for him to be traveling so soon...the forty days he was given tripled would maybe be long enough.

Since their departure, his leg had swollen to the point where the usually loose trousers became skintight, which was irritating both to the wound and to Elladan's patience, and several stitches had already torn. But the thought of making a pine needle and a strand of hair into a makeshift surgical tool as he had been taught as an elfling made his insides squeamish--Elrohir would have to try his hand at medicine tonight. But that disregarded the massive unsanitariness of the act itself…sighing a cheerful children's tune in the hopes of raising his morale, Elladan administered more of the herbal numbing agent to the site and pressed a helpful plant against the hole, one that was notorious for its sting but was spongy, and known well in medical circles for its prowess in sucking out bad blood.

He glanced back at Ichigo and struggled not to get angry. Elladan opted to stare back down at the leaf as it worked its magic, tinting an ugly brown as the chlorophyll and the red blood cells mixed and sogged the plant. What was the point of him whisking them away them on this quest? That Ring? Because if that was what it was, he was tying Kurosaki up and dragging him straight home, that idiot's feelings be damned. They were warriors, not little girls at a sleepover. They hadn't had sleepovers for decades. There was no way this counted, either. Especially not since this was under the pretense of a mission.

Elladan winced as the plant made a glopping noise and he could feel the blood being sucked from his skin acutely. He was not stupid. He knew he would carry the reprecussions of this wound for the rest of his life if he did not get it treated professionally. With this wound rendering him blissfully abnormal, Elrohir remained as the only remotely ordinary one in the group. Snorting, Elladan shook his head and pulled another spongy plant towards him, since the current one was almost full. That thought, Elrohir being normal, was funnys. In Elladan's long memory, he had always been the one with the most regularity, seeing as Ichigo couldn't possibly be any more abnormal and Elrohir avidly competed against that, taking after him with gleaming eyes, as if the title of least normal was a golden crown. So not being the regular guy (and also the referee)...well, it was weird. Plus, the reason why was a possibly infected wound that was stitched and hastily restitched with unsanitized utensils in a town far back in their trek, utensils that he needed now, plus he was slightly bamboozled through the mans of several medicinal herbs, harmless ones, that caused painlessness but also rendered the intaker slightly woozy and confused.

But it was truly odd, the feeling of being odd. It kind of made him feel closer to Ichigo, knowing that he was strange, just as the other being was. Just as the other man had been, for three thousand years since Sauron's first demise, labeled strange by his exotic hair of flames which marked him apart from the world.

A rustling from the bushes announced Elrohir's return, and Elladan yanked his pants up, not bothering to attempt to fasten them with his mind and his fingers the way they were. Elrohir was stressed enough. He didn't need to see his brother's wounded, disgusting leg on top of babysitting Ichigo. And Elladan was more versed in medicine, considering he hadn't been the one that had slept through their father's little training seminars. His brother put a hand to his forehead and sighed. "You are warm, but there is no sign of sickness. Go to sleep early. I shall wake you when the blood sun rises."

"Thank you, brother," Elladan whispered, smiling.

His only response was a grunt and a pat on the good leg, but that was enough for him. Absently, he felt at some point Elrohir's fingers wiping cool medicine on his brow, but he barely felt it.

His leg throbbing, Elladan fell into a white dream.

XXXXXX

That sonuvabitch portal was gonna effin DIE.

Hichigo gnawed furiously at the bloody, chewed up remains of his thumbnail, staring at the black hole that was already growing, centimeter by centimeter by motherfuggin' centimeter. It had somehow mutated, beginning to consume Ichigo's reiatsu and reaching towards the extra reserves, which were a whopping six percent lower than they should be, what with Ichigo's freaky regenerative power. The only other thing it was being tapped for was the backseat problem: Ichigo's inability to demerge from Hichigo. It wasn't really fun, being half merged; it was a discomfort neither of them really needed but one that was being forced upon them, now that most of Concentration had been smothered by this portal. Especially since his companions, the elf kids, were fucknuggets that couldn't just TAKE A HINT and LEAVE AIBOU ALONE. It was bad enough that Tensa Zangetsu had disappeared into the Control Room and had been forcing Ichigo to move around. It was awesome and all that he had stopped Ichigo just shy of using Hichigo's mindless survival instincts to tear Elrohir's throat out, but Hichigo was not a naturally bred thinker, like the old man, he was a doer.

But this? This could not be solved by hacking and slashing. The weak buildings that Hichigo had sawed in half behind it told that story. The portal had just rippled pleasantly when the getsuga tenshou had hit it, absorbing the impact with a lovely 'fuck you', and the slashes with his cleaver had just passed through it. Punching it didn't work either, not even ones where Hichigo shouted "KAMEHAMEHAAA!", and the edges weren't even solid so he couldn't smash it or push it over. And when he'd finally gotten the old man to goddamn calm down over Ichigo's mental state, eventually just telling the old man to pull Ichigo into a sort of coma so his current retarded state would not endanger them while they worked to fix what had broken, Tensa Zangetsu had tried his little Ichigo Ejection shtick on it--still hadn't worked. Well shit, that left the one option he really didn't like. Bankai was a huge no-no, even in normal times. He'd end up crushing his companions' souls no matter what state he was in. There was no possible way Hichigo could break this thing.

The portal was swallowing up the whole of Concentration. Ichigo had no fucking idea what he was doing anymore. He was lucky that his time as a warrior provided him with a base knowledge of martial arts so ingrained in him that it didn't require much thought, or he would be a sitting duck. Hichigo released his mangled thumb, reluctantly allowing the sinews to meld together again, and let himself wonder as he started again on its destruction, sinking his sharp incisors deep into the digit and letting the blood drip out of his mouth, trying to avoid staining his white shihakusho as he gnawed, so deep in shitty ideas pinging against his brain and worrying about what he'd do once he did what he knew he had to that the pain was barely noticeable. He and Tensa Zangetsu were two separate entities that shared one knowledge. And although the shady Quincy bastard was able to keep some things to himself, Hichigo could tell from the angsty bitching about dumb shit that Mr. Know-All had no other fucking ideas either of how to save their Ichigo. And it was tearing them all apart, this decision.

"Yer a fuckin' disgrace to normalcy, Aibou," he muttered absently around his prey, still wondering, coming up with fanciful ideas and daring strategies that would neither work nor be helpful if they did, even if they would be awesome to try. Finally, Hichigo could not hide his curiosity any longer, nor his horror at this situation, his anxiety that it his last strategy would not work and this shithole situation would never be resolved, and his innate terror that this fucking cancer would eventually eat up everything and revert their Ichigo into a husk, a shell of the spunky idiot asshole he was. Sticking out a hand, Hichigo pulled whatever sparse instincts of self-preservation he had into the pit of his stomach, where it would lay dormant until he pulled his head back out of his ass and finished being stupid. And then he touched the surface of the weed, the ever-growing portal.

Just as it had been the last time he had entered it, the feeling of the entrance was barely noticeable, like putting a hand into a haze of smoke. But in the aftermath of that gaseous feeling came a sharp stab that pricked into his nerves. Hichigo took his thumb out of his mouth, allowing it a moment to heal up, before he submerged completely into the portal with one quick, fluid movement. The sensation was a bit like pulling off a gigantic bandaid, a sensation Hichigo only knew because when he was feeling particularly angry he would calm down by looking into Long Term Memory at toddler Aibou and feel better. Not that Ichigo would ever know that. Tensa was already sworn to silence. The pain hit him all at once for an agonizing second, one in which he was already preoccupied with trying to remember if the old man had any good dirt, and then not at all, leaking away into relief.

The best part about the dark, smelly world beyond the portal was that getting back was fairly easy: the entrance literally followed him around, only allowing him about six meters or so of room before it lagged behind him like a homesick puppy. Either that, or the fact that, by Hichigo's estimates, it never rained there. It had been lightly drizzling in the inner world for a few days, testament that Ichigo either had a vaaaague knowledge of what was going on and was completely unable to fix it either, or that, oh no, Elladan's leg was going to have to be amputated. All signs pointed to the former, since the audio and sight records showed that unless the thousand year old teenage elf warrior was an inner pussy, he would be fine. But the sudden rain had caused Tensa Zangetsu to practically shit himself and send Hichigo all over the damn place searching for error, which had caused Hichigo to start flying as fast as his feet could carry him over the rooftops, checking in Relationships and Short Term Memories and fuck knows where else despite already sensing that everything was fine there. Again, perks of being a zanpakuto spirit; he knew these things. Tensa made him double check anyways.

Hichigo walked for a little while, getting used to the new area. It was a large map, the boundaries of which Hichigo could not tell. But the place was dark, like a cave, only glowing with a dim reddish light that seemed to come from the very air itself. Several large stone pillars were spaced about a kilometer apart each and held the ceiling up with a gargantuan strength. They were decorated with perfect curling designs only marred by huge claw marks and fallen pieces that lay sadly at the bases of the towering pillars. Hichigo rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, hand itching for the blade strapped to his back. He pushed down the urge. There would not be any strange creatures hitting him into those posts this time, and even if there were, he would take it like a bitch and start extracting information like the old man: torture style. Diplomacy, diplomacy. Ichigo's favorite word to scream at him after kicking Tensa a long ways away and using the time that gave him to forcefully take control of their body, if only for the purpose of punching Byakuya in the face. Diplomacy. Hichigo snorted. What diplomacy?

Ugh. This place smelled like Keigo's gym socks.

Looking around, Hichigo nodded to himself. This seemed to be a good spot. He was between two pillars, and the wreckage of what he and Melkor had done last trip in was in the seeable distance. He braced his feet wide apart, glaring around, daring the creature that was making that awful moan to do it again. When it dared, he took a brief hunting intermission.

Flicking some sort of silvery, goopy blood off of his sword, he returned to his place, trying to pull on his inner Zen. Scowling, because honestly he was really bad at Zen, and anyways he would rather do this himself than ask this crackpot for help, Hichigo swallowed his pride, went over a quick study of how much English he understood (not enough for a proper conversation, but fuck it, whatever), and called, "Yo! Mellie!"

XXXXXX

He'd thought that they would turn around ages ago, when his senses, so acutely precise from years of being Strider the Ranger, called the snowstorm. Gandalf had seen his face. He knew that it was no joke. But the old man was also about five and a half feet tall.

The hobbits and the dwarf, on the other hand, barely graced four feet. On multiple occasions, he and Legolas had dug one or two if them out of a particularly large snowbank, one that came to their shoulders unlike only coming to Gandalf's waist, and the old man also had the advantage of his magic to shelter him from the storm's bite. "Gandalf," he shouted over the howling winds, "we cannot go on like this! We have to find a new route!"

"We should take Moria," Gimli grumbled, "we shall find plenty solace there, even with that blasted elf among us--oof!"

"Gandalf!"

The wizard stopped and turned, allowing Aragorn to come up next to him. "You have felt the signs as well, Master Aragorn. The smell of a fire from the way we have come, the curling power spike from the distance that I have felt only once before. That demigod, your friend, he follows us. I do not trust his intentions. We cannot turn back!"

It was no use arguing about the innocency of his swordsmaster. Gandalf would not hear of it; the old being was certain that Kurosaki had no pure intent.

"Would you rather they freeze?" Aragorn snapped instead, jerking his head at his short statured companions. Gimli grunted protest, but was paid no mind as Legolas yet again tugged him out of a deeper spot of snow. Frodo quirked his lips. They were slowly changing from purple to blue. Sighing, Aragorn rubbed his brow. "Let us do as Gimli suggests," he murmured, and the protests stopped as he continued, "Let us take Moria through the mountains. Heavens knows if we will find shelter from the cold in the undergrounds, but at least the Halflings will be able to move quickly should lurking danger find us."

Gandalf pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed, but it was a huff that signaled his breaking resolve. Finally, he sighed, "Alright. We shall change courses. We will go to Moria, to take shelter. Be wary, for the path there is unsafe, and the travel through is a four day's journey."

XXXXXX

The Ring was unsatisfied. Mostly chain it was being held on was ugly and unfashionable, but the beings around it were not helping his plans, and that matter was much more irksome.

Its carrier had the familiar mind of its past wielder, the familiar patterns and layout and habits, but this carrier was younger, much younger, brimming with a youthfulness that made the Ring go cold with delight. Youths were powerful. Young was synonymous to naive. Small green fledglings were perfect for corrupting, and oh, how it would savor every moment that it did, for this would be the last. Then it would be on the familiar iron finger of Sauron, its true master.

The sooner, the better, as well. The Death was catching up to them, and quickly. It had been slowed down slightly for a few days, and at one point the Ring could actually feel the presence of a darkness stronger than Master Sauron, but it had since disappeared without trace, and the Death's gait had sped up. But he would get away, and get back to Sauron, and once the carrier was dead, they would rule.

First, though, it needed to drag the carrier away from the Death.

It was unfortunately Master Sauron's error, allowing the creature free will, even if he had bound him to his own master instead of himself. The creature would able to kill it. Legitimately as well, take the Ring and split it from its consciousness and kill it. That was why it was following them, after all. It may not know why itself, but the Ring knew. It was the Death's most base purpose. Oh yes, Ring knew the intent of the Death. The Ring had touched it once, had seen its mind, his memories. And the Ring had seen much. Three thousand years of blurred happenings of Rivendell, and then the first twenty or so years of the being's life, growing with its sisters and its friends, learning to defend itself, learning its purpose in the spiritual world and how to live with the monsters within itself. Yes, the Ring knew. It knew the being better than it did itself. And the Ring was afraid.

The Death would kill it the next time it saw the Ring, and that was unacceptable.

So the Ring spurred its carrier on, whispering encouragement and lightening his mood and trying to dampen down its aura of wanting, the aura it always automatically gave off that spoke unforgiving volumes of greed to even the most selfless of men. It was affecting the speed of the trip, especially that of the oaf, Boromir. And slowness would not be tolerated, not when the consciousness of the Ring was at stake.

But the Ring was not happy, not happy at all, when the group decided to go into the Mines of Moria and escape from the bitter December storms on the mountains. Especially since the storm reeked of the power of Saruman.

The goblin troops sent to scour the mines and clear the dwarves from them would slow the group down further. The Death would catch them, and that would be the end. So the Ring whispered doubt into the ears of the wizard. But the dwarf with them, no matter how much the Ring persuaded, was oxlike in his adamant decision that the Mines of Moria were the right way. And that determination bred doubt in the minds of the others. That was okay...it seemed...but the Ring could sense its previous holder, the idiot Smeagol, down in those mines. It would be unpleasant to meet with him. The being had been so taken with his spell and so repulsed by his own greed that his goodness and badness had split, his very soul shattering into two parts. And while the kinder side, Smeagol, was incapable of feeling bloodlust, it was easily influenced by Gollum, the darker side, which bled into a murky mix of the parts for only a second until it was completely taken over by Gollum.

Perhaps the Death following them was a good thing. Gollum was prone to sensing when something was after "his precious". There was no doubt that the Death would prevail should there be a scuffle, seeing as it had two disgusting elf brats by its side and it was more than capable of handling a split soul. But the resulting injury would only cause delay, which was very good. Very good indeed.

Its carrier flinched, and the Ring quickly modulated its temperature. It had never had to do that with Master Sauron. Flesh and blood was more temperature sensitive than iron--because skin and bone had nerve endings. The Ring didn't have any of that; it was pure gold and evil sentience. But adjusting the temperature of its small form to be comfortable to that of the carrier was irritating. One more thing to look forward to when it returned to the hands of its master.

But for now, it was time to bring the Fellowship through. Oh yes, they would take Moria. It would influence the Ranger, that would spur the travel. It would take them closer, faster. Closer to the Eye, to the Master.

It was time to lead them to the Land of Shadow, and to seal their doom.

XXXXXX

Tentacle monsters. Cool.

After Ichigo had gone into meditation the last time, his condition had substantially improved in less than a day. His instincts seemed almost sharper, or maybe it was the differences now that he'd pulled his brain back into his head. But it was definitely a good change. He also started wearing a shawl over his head again, most likely because although the mental changes had subsided, the physical ones had not. Plus, during his lapse he'd forgotten how to tie a simple slipknot, and so rather than tie it on him the twins had opted to keep him out of sight of passerby. The twins had tracked the curve of the Fellowship's trek to Moria, the dwarf city that Elladan only remembered because it was one of the few remotely close to Rivendell. That, and their father had taught them to always know the closest permanent location of your enemies. Elrohir, being the brawn of their duo, had taken a few seconds to check that the name was Moria and not Hadhodrond, as it had been in the past. And the two elves had assured Ichigo that they would be fine with entering the dwarrow mines, the black chasm Moria, where sunlight was a myth.

The thought made Elladan want to hurl. The greenish tinge that his brother's face took on was testament that he shared similar sentiments.

But as soon as they had reached the doors, with the great lake in front, Ichigo had gone pale. Very pale. At first, they thought it was the monster rising from its depths, one that looked quite a sight with several hacked off tentacles and an arrow sticking out of its face, the shaft broken but still poking out comically. Then Ichigo whispered something like "Japanese tentacle porn just got real," and Elladan was lost even as Elrohir stifled a laugh.

Elladan nudged his brother as Ichigo sprang forward to fight. Elrohir replied to his unspoken question, "Ichigo's apparent ethnicity is Japanese--do not give me that grimace, I know it is a truly strange word--and he taught me that porn is…" Elladan's eyes widened, a pink glow spreading across his cheeks as Elrohir described in vivid detail what adult videos and books were. In the background, there were several noises of swords stabbing into flesh, the shriek of an injured monster, grunts and yells of exertion from Ichigo, but Elladan was captured by this new finding, this truly terrifying and intriguing "porn". He stared wide eyed at his brother in two parts disgust, one part fascination. "Why has that never been discovered in Imladris?" he breathed. Elrohir shrugged. "Ichigo swears that Father has copies locked away, somewhere. But mankind definitely has it. I asked Estel at the Council and he turned plum and told me something about abstaining from indulgences, meaning that he is simply a...how does Ichigo say it? A wimp? A wimp."

Elladan shrugged. "But maybe he simply thinks that--"

There was a particularly harsh squeal, and a writhing tentacle dropped on Elrohir's head. "Don't teach the innocents about shit like that as if it's good!" Ichigo hollered as Elrohir made a guttural noise of surprise and disgust, "Porn made Ted Bundy!"

"Who is this Ted Bundy?" Elrohir shouted back, "Is he rich in culture?"

"A serial killer! He murdered like a hundred people!"

Elrohir looked at Elladan in confusion. "We do the same to orcs, though," he called, "why is this different?"

"Because they were people! And he was caught and electrocuted to death for it!"

"Ah," Elrohir nodded sagely and turned back to his brother. "Porn is inherently evil. Do not, under any circumstances, use it."

Ichigo laughed, a rather disgusting sliding noise coming from his now shriek-less vicinity, and reappeared next to them. "That was good," he said, running a hand through his waving flames and brushing glistening sweat from his brow. Then he frowned. "I think the entrance is caved in, though," he added, nodding to a particularly tall pile of boulders, "and destroying it might bring more down."

Elladan sighed. "When has reason ever stopped us before?" He muttered.

Elrohir gestured at the rocks, then returned to fumbling in his pouch for that Nightglow...now where was that stinking flower… "Go ahead and blow them up, Ichigo. If it comes down, we can simply take the five day route to the other side."

"Bala."

Long story short, Ichigo shot a little glowing bullet thing, pebbles fell and the ground shook, but the rest of the cave system held.

For about two minutes.

The second the three were inside and through the first doorway, the ground started shaking again, and with several deafening crashes and a white plume of dust that shot through the door like a dangerous cloud, Elladan peeked through at the newly sealed entrance, the only hints that there was any sort of doorway there at all the hints of light through the cracks.

"I think that probably could've gone a lot better," Ichigo mumbled, scratching his head. Elladan sniffed, kicking at a corpse on the ground and hissing as the movement stretched his wound. "We have been sealed into a goblin lair, Ichigo," he retorted, tearing an arrow out of the ribcage of a skeleton and shaking it at his brother, the pointed arrowhead made carefully and artfully, unlike orc arrows which were basically sharp things attached to sticks with feathers on the end. "And you think it could have gone better?" Elrohir snorted and smacked the arrow out of his sibling's hands. "Do not even try to touch sharp things, crip," he commanded teasingly, "You are guaranteed to stab yourself again."

"That was not my fault!" Elladan protested, but by then Elrohir had already bounded forward towards Ichigo, who was holding the Nightglow between his forefinger and thumb like a dead mouse.

"Is this radioactive?" he asked them suspiciously.

The twins shared a bemused glance. "What?"

He opened his mouth to explain, but a sharp roar cut him off, one accompanied by a blast of heat. The twins looked between each other as Ichigo looked between them expectantly.

Elrohir paled as he came up with the answer to their unspoken question. "Balrog," he murmured.

"Balrog?" Ichigo echoed. "Sounds like a type of toad. Or a fungus."

"It is a gigantic fire demon," Elladan stated, ignoring Ichigo's quips and staring at the next doorway, "and by the sound of it, it is about a two day's walk from here."

"And it has probably found the Fellowship as well," Elrohir added bitterly, "Oh, how unlucky. At least they have Gandalf the Grey, those poor bastards. The Halflings must have become like little mice cowering under the folds of his cloak. The Balrog is such a heinous foe...how awful to have encountered it here."

"Are we going to fight it?" Ichigo asked suddenly.

Shit. They had forgotten that Ichigo was in his strange half-Berserker mode still, even if his attention had gone back to normal. "No," Elladan replied firmly, "it's too far. Much too far. We'll never make it and save them."

"I can."

Ichigo's smile was predatory, and paired with those eyes…

"I can bring us to it in a matter of minutes," he said, still grinning like a manic lion on the prowl.

Absently, Elladan wondered why bring them along in the first place if all they were going to do was slow him down, but he shook the thought off.

"Bring us to it," he said decisively, "and do not dare rip another one of my stitches."

XXXXXX

Rukia was pissed.

Urahara's invention, while normally quickly built once he set his mind to the task, had taken a full month to accomplish, and it still wasn't complete.

They were going to get their dumbass Strawberry back, by any means necessary, and then he was going to have to be strapped down as a long line of people took their turns bitchslapping that idiot. Kenpachi included. But for now, they would wait for Urahara to emerge from his playground with hopeful hearts, and wait for the return of Ichigo Kurosaki.

It had almost been three months. It had been a blur, what with waiting for Ichigo's reiatsu signature to resurface and freaking out when it never did, but Rukia knew that months was a long time; almost a fourth of a year. The once peaceful relations between Hueco Mundo and Soul Society were growing antsy.

They could not bear to wait another.

XXXXXX

And SCENE!

Wow! Another chapter! Cool! It's been what, two months? I talked a ton at the top, so I won't say much here. Thanks for staying with the story!

~RegalOneByTheStream

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