Despite the company, the forest itself was actually rather nice to walk through. The trees were tall and straight, the undergrowth was lush and very picturesque. I could see why people might stray off the path to enjoy sitting in a clearing if they were traveling through. Of course I could also see why people could go missing if they wandered too far. The same vegetation that made the place look so nice also did a great job of making you lose your bearings if you lost sight of the road.

It didn’t help that most of the sky was covered by branches and leaves so trying to navigate by the position of the sun was only possible on rare occasions. And even when we saw the sky there was no guarantee the sun was even visible from where we were.

Several times we would have wandered slightly off course after investigating the clearings and different places of interest Kimura knew about if I hadn’t used a mana trick to mark where the road was. Just a simple imprint on one of the trees by the road to use as a beacon, but it did save us from wandering parallel to the road in several cases.

The first three days yielded absolutely nothing. Kimura was a pain to be around but other than the constant innuendos and ‘advice’ he took the investigation seriously enough for a person who had no interest in finding a problem. Which is to say, he followed me over every bit of the forest pointing out which clearing had the softest grass, which rock curved just right to support your back, and which tree had… the point is I got the feeling Kimura was a bit of an exhibitionist and had been out to this forest several times. I could see him being popular with the local girls if he never opened his mouth or let them meet his personality.

“So how long we gonna waste our time out here sweetheart?” Kimura asked on the fourth day. We had combed through most of the area along the road and were going a bit further of the path. Apparently there was a group of rocks further up ahead that was used by bandits occasionally, but it was checked enough that no one stayed there for long.

“As long as it takes to find out what is disappearing travellers or until we search the whole forest.” I replied.

“Pfft, ya gonna be out here forever if you’re gonna go looking after every traveller that doesn’t make it through these woods.” he scoffed, “Wandering of the path, bandits, the occasional Hollow. All kinds of reasons they don’t make it. And they happen enough that it could be any of them at the same time.”

“Then maybe your group should comb through here more often so that doesn’t happen.”I said scornfully.

He shrugged. “Not my job. I just have to keep the town safe. No point risking my neck if I don’t need to.”

“And the rest of your subordinates are fine with that?”

“Well, Yuuto complains enough. Not that he ever does anything himself.”

With a lazy bastard like him at the top, I wasn’t surprised. Independent action was more likely going to be ignored or added to his normal duties rather than be rewarded.

For once we walked in relative quiet where Kimura simply grumbled about getting caught on the occasional bush rather than try and convince me I should sleep with him simply because he is so awesome.

Kimura was the first to get to the clearing where the rock formation was supposed to be. With a quick flourish, he gave me a mocking bow and presented the area behind him.

“And here we are! A lovely pile of rocks off the beaten path, occasionally filled with all kinds of miscreants but as you can see, completely empty.” he sneered at me a bit, “Just like the last dozen places.”

“You didn’t have to come with me. I would have been fine with anyone else.”

“If I knew how uptight you were sweetheart, trust me I wouldn’t have. Definitely would have let someone else go on the nature walk, but you seemed like the fun one. Shoulda known it was the quiet bitchy one. That type always gets freaky in the bedroom.”

Pretty sure Natsumi would rather break every bone in his body than sleep with him, but I certainly wasn’t going to discourage him. Who knows, if he gets his ass handed to him maybe he would shape up? Or if he gets put on medical long enough someone else would get put in charge.

Ignoring him, something I was getting a lot of practice at doing, I continued towards the rocks. A quick poke to confirm things were fine and then head off to the next site.

Noticing a natural cave leading under the rocks I went to take a look. Turns out the opening was much larger than I originally thought. You could drive a semi through the opening with little effort.

Besides being larger than I expected, the inside of the tunnel was also pitch black. The only exception was two small yellow lights glowing in the darkness.

That were slowly getting closer.

And looked awfully similar to eyes.

That was a Hollow wasn’t it?

A bestial roar echoed out of the tunnel as I jumped back to avoid the Hollow surging towards me. It’s fists slammed into the ground right where I had been standing kicking up dirt and creating a small dust cloud but that was it.

“Oh hey look! There’s something here trying to kill me. How odd since this place is completely empty!” I called back to Kimura.

“Whatever newblood, just kill it already.”

“Not going to help?” I asked, drawing the katana on my hip.

He scoffed, “What’s wrong sweetheart? Too hard without the Academy instructors holding your hand? Though I can take care of it, if you do me a bit of a favor later?”

The Hollow made another leap at me. This time instead of jumping back, I stepped into its jump, slicing its foot off as it landed.

It howled in pain and tried to swat me away with a backhand, but I simply jumped over it’s arm and hacked at its mask covered face. Blood splashed out of the cut before the Hollow fell over.

Dead.

While the Hollow slowly started to dissolve, I made my way back to Kimura. “I’m starting to think you're only good at mouthing off.” I mocked him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Besides, I’m more interested in you mouthing me off. You got your blood pumping after that didn’t ya? Bet you wanna- LOOK OUT!”

The same time I heard his shout, something crashed into my side and tossed me into one of the trees nearby. The collision splintered the bark and knocked the wind out of me, but I was practically uninjured.

I did find that I was pinned to the tree by some kind of white goo that solidified pretty quickly. It was going to take me a bit to get out of this without breaking character.

Looking back towards Kimura, I saw that another two Hollows had made their way out of the tunnel. Unlike the first one, neither of these were very humanoid. One of them looked more like a naga with spikes sticking out of its arms, and the other looked like a giant slug with three tails. Going by the color of the slug Hollow, I’d bet it was the one that managed to stick me to a tree since it was the same whitish color as the stuff covering me. The naga on the other hand, was a sickly greenish grey.

“You still alive, newblood?” Kimura called out, drawing his own sword and turning to face the two Hollows.

“Yeah, but I’m kinda stuck. You’re on your own for a bit.” I yelled back.

He cursed and then dodged under the swipe of the naga.

The slug Hollow looked in my direction but seemed content that I was incapacitated for now. It turned towards the other two and lifted up its tails. Before I could say anything it shot out several more white globs from each of the tips.

Kimura dodged around them easily enough at first but when one blob flew straight at him he made to cut it midair-

“Don’t touch it! It dries almost instantly!”

-before throwing himself on the ground to avoid it.

I was straining at the goop holding me little by little, weakening it so my escape would look natural enough, but if it looked like Kimura was going to die I would just go full strength and finish off the Hollows. I could just make him figuring out I wasn’t a student Soul Reaper Natsumi’s problem.

I also miiight be dragging out how long I needed to escape because I enjoyed seeing Kimura run around in a panic.

No one could prove it though.

The naga-like hollow charged Kimura and swiped at him with its claws. Kimura rolled on the ground to avoid its hands and slashed at its fingers to get a bit more space. Springing back to his feet, the Soul Reaper quickly dodged more balls of goo from the slug.

“Anytime now newblood!”

“Working on it!”

Truth was I was ready to break out at any time. One good shove should shatter the stuff around me pretty easily.

The two hollows were doing a good job keeping pressure on Kimura though. If he wasn’t diving out of the way of more of those goo projectiles, he was being harassed by claws and spikes. Even if he managed to avoid the majority of their attacks, if he couldn’t counter attack he would eventually make a mistake.

Of course as soon as that thought went through my head, one of the blobs landed on Kimura’s foot trapping him in place. Taking advantage of his newly trapped status, the naga Hollow pounced at him.

I was ready to rush over but before I could Kimura started shouting.

“I’M NOT GONNA GO DOWN LIKE THIS! DANCE ON THE WIND, ODORU TONBO!

To my surprise, not only did a Soul Reaper not a member of the Gotei 13 in a remote place like this have a shikai, it was actually somewhat impressive.

Nothing changed about the blade itself, but when Kimura thrusted at the naga Hollow to keep it away the blade continued to extend out before sharply changing direction midair to pierce the Hollow’s wrist.

Howling in pain, the Hollow tried to escape, but the blade continued to change direction. It would extend swiftly in one direction before changing direction just as fast. The naga Hollow was suddenly pierced through the arm, its tail, its flank, the chest, before finally the blade pierced the back of its head and through its mask.

With its target dead the knot of bladed metal that looked more like a 3D art sculpture than a sword, glowed white and suddenly returned to its normal appearance. Without missing a beat Kimura turned and thrust at the other Hollow, blade extending and changing direction midair the whole time, and neatly skewered the slug Hollow between the eye holes in its mask.

Surprisingly with the slug Hollow dead, the goop holding me to the tree(even if only by a wish and a prayer at this point) crumbled to dust, freeing both me and Kimura when the blob on his foot dissolved as well.

Huh, self cleaning badguy. That was convenient.

Walking back to the clearing I brushed the bits of Hollow that remained off of my clothes.

“You okay?” I asked. I didn’t see him take any hits, but I was polite enough to check. And he had collapsed after he finished off the second Hollow.

“I think snakey might have had poison on his claws.” Kimura said gravely. “My leg is getting all stiff. You might need to suck out the poison.”

Moving a little faster, I strode over and started looking over his legs. Poison wasn’t something I had a lot of experience with. If I couldn’t heal it then I would need to make sure it was at least contained until I could get him to a professional. We were several days from the town so additional medical help was not an option anytime soon.

“Which leg?”

“The middle one.” I looked at his face and saw the grin, “I think the poison’s getting deeper in, sweetheart. Gonna have to give it a gooood sucking to get it out.”

Wordlessly, I angled my sword towards his crotch and stabbed down. I didn’t actually stab him, but I came close enough that he scurried back and let out a shill scream.

“Oh no, the poison is too deep. Guess we need to amputate.” I said.

“Okay, okay, okayokayokay! No need for anything drastic! Hell newblood, would it kill you to loosen up?”

Ignoring him I got up and started heading back to the tunnel the three Hollows came from. I wasn’t about to assume it was empty after three Hollows managed to fit inside.

I slowly made my way down the tunnel, keeping an eye out for any side paths or nooks something could be hiding in. But it was just a simple straight pathway into a large underground chamber. I looked around for any sign of people being held here or moved. Aside from the occasional graffiti carved into the walls, it looked like no one had stayed here for some time.

Another site with no lead to the lab. I hoped Natsumi was having better luck.

Returning to the surface I walked back to Kimura.

“Nothing left in the cave. Should we head to the next location?” I asked.

Kimura looked at me, incredulous. “We just cleared out a den of Hollows and you want to go looking for more?”

I shrugged. “I don’t wanna have to come back out here. And the faster we finish looking, the faster we can go back to town. Besides it's not like the Hollows hurt us, so quit complaining.”

“Says the one who spent half the fight watching.” he grumbled. ”I was the one that had to fight two of them. Dammit, the whole reason I stayed in the trash heap was because I didn’t want to deal with things like that.”

“Wait you chose to be stationed out here?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t know being an Academy brat, but occasionally the Gotei comes out to recruit anyone who stands out in the local guards. I turned them down cause I’m the top of the pile out here, why would I want to go back to being a small fish?”

I gave him a sideways look, “So the recruiter got a sight of your personality and left you here?”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I beat a tenth seat officer on the last recruitment drive!” He said, offended. “Out here, everyone knows I’m the one at the top. I’m not giving that up just to join some squad for no benefits.”

“If you say so. Now let's get this over with, I don’t want to be out here with you longer than I need to.”

“If it’s because you can’t contain yourself around me, don’t be shy. I’ll take you anytime anywhere.” Kimura said lecherously.

I was starting to think it would be a miracle if I didn’t castrate him before we returned. I was sure nothing of value would be lost.