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Lenalee wasn’t quite sure how to interpret Maki’s question either. It wasn’t that she was too innocent to understand the implication of his words, but they simply seemed so far from reality in her mind that it just didn’t connect in her mind.
“And your front, I bet,” he replied with another cheeky smile, quickly adding. “She is very skilled. I wouldn’t be worried about a thing if I had her by my side and in full focus.”
The compliment caught Lenalee off guard - if he really thought that, then why didn’t he put in a good word for her to be in charge of this operation instead of him? Watching him suspiciously, she slowly nodded while he turned to go and bark some orders at his team, assigning pairs in his squad, then instructing them to head to the edge of the clearing in a few minutes to meet the volunteer they will be guarding.
“Yeah, that was kind of weird…” Lenalee muttered, no longer paying any attention to Maki’s actions and giving a shrug. “I doubt I’ll make captain before you. Not with him around, anyway, he’s clearly next in line, although the Captain has hardly ever mentioned him.” The little sulk that followed was short-lived as she was happy to move on and focus on the task. A bright grin appearing on her little face, she was almost bouncing with excitement. "Alright, let's get this show on the road!"
Shiro nodded as he waved over the chatting squad members, most were considering the cause of this Valley of Screams being so stable… the rest were hiding whispers of Shiro and Lenalee and how good a couple they made. Those whispers however never reached their ears as Shiro had hoisted a bag onto his back and set off down what seemed to be a naturally formed path.
“I’m more than sure you can make it Lena.” Shiro finally said now they had a procession of people following them. In his free hand Shiro was carrying a map, but he was not paying it much mind as his attention was always forward.
“Something feels fishy.” He grumbled, the Valley of Screams was quiet, there were no animals or insects here, only a woodland with a stream. That lack of natural noise and the faint breeze between the branches and leaves made anything he and his mission did too loud. This natural path was too perfect, it shouldn’t exist.
He flashed a frown and then took a hard ninety degree turn to his left and took a big step off of the path, down between the trees. “If there is something here that doesn’t want us here that path is the perfect way to get us ambushed. We’re following a new course.” He spoke softly, motioning for the group that had come with him to follow him. He was going to take them to a new site that could let them collect samples.
Walking beside Shiro, Lenalee didn’t try and fill the silence as she was now concentrating on their path. She would occasionally look around them as her guard was constantly up, but this was usual of Lenalee Saeki. Aware of the risks, she wanted to be fully alert and focussed, and was successfully achieving that goal with each passing moment.
When Shiro spoke once more, however, she allowed herself a momentary distraction and looked at him. She didn’t have anything to say, but merely smiled and gave a little shrug, as although she appreciated his confidence in her abilities, she was sure that the politics of such a big promotion would get in the way.
Then he took a sudden sharp turn after a little grumble that she didn’t quite have the chance to follow up on. “So we’re going off course?” Lenalee asked, quizzically. “Wait, but are you sure you know where we’re going? You’ve barely looked at the map, can I see? We’re going to get lost…” she muttered as her little hands aimed to gently take the map from him and have a quick look at it. Meanwhile, the group that followed them didn’t argue and simply adjusted, following his turn in a rather comical snake-like fashion.
Among the crowd and to the side, ushering them along, Maki paused and looked ahead toward the leading pair with a slight frown. Not wishing to make a big scene, he flash stepped forward to catch up to Shiro and Lenalee easily.
“Too quiet?” He asked in a quiet murmur so as not to cause any alarm. “I’ll instruct everyone to make sure their presence isn’t detectable to avoid any unexpected company lurking about from picking up on our diversion.” Without waiting for a reply, Maki was gone to do exactly as he stated he would, subtly moving through the crowd that followed Shiro’s and Lena’s lead to give the firm instruction to be discreet but prepared.
Shiro offered the still nearly pristine folded up map that had been made using some fancy gizmo that his captain had made. It was good, but it didn’t accurately depict the path that the pair were taking outside of the clearing or trail they had just left. The rest of the work they had to do themselves, with the map as a good reference just in case they got lost.
Shiro chuckled as Lenalee suggested that they were going to get lost. “Lena… we can stand on the air and look down. We won’t get lost.” He said confidently as Maki appeared beside the pair. The young man responded to the quiet question with a simple nod, Maki had experience beyond Shiro’s gut instincts and just from this detour he seemed to be able to tell what was going on in Shiro’s head. He even anticipated Shiro’s next suggestion and went off to make sure everyone was as hard to detect as possible.
The problem there was Shiro… he had a very hard time keeping a solid lid on his Spiritual Pressure. The man in charge genuinely tried and with a good moment of concentration and a funny look on his face he got it. “So… how’s your first mission away from babysitting going?” He asked quietly as he now returned to looking around to try and find a good spot for getting the samples needed to go back to camp. "Nice and exciting?"
Lenalee took the map and stared at it for a few seconds with a look of concentration on her face. It took her a moment to make sense of where they currently were and where they would end up if they carried on with Shiro’s detour off the path.
Her gaze only left the map when Maki appeared, muttered to Shiro, and then was gone again. She didn’t make any effort whatsoever to be a part of that interaction as it was handled well enough without her - not that she had the chance or authority to be barking orders at anyone anyway. Folding the map again, she sighed and looked forward in an uncomfortable stare.
“Sure…” the girl replied, before looking up at him with a bored expression, before she laughed. “I mean it’s okay. I’d have liked to have something more interesting than a science project or fieldwork, collecting some silly samples, but it is definitely a nice break from babysitting. Eri’s cute, but… I guess I envisioned more for myself when we graduated, especially after everything we had to go through. We should have been given medals just for seeing it through that terrible ordeal!”
The mention of her babysitting duties always struck a nerve with Lenalee. It wasn’t fair.
She returned the map. “If we’re heading where I think we are, we should be there within a matter of minutes. Once they collect the samples, we get them all properly stored in their containers, we can head back and move on to something with more meaning than some random anomaly.” It was impossible to hide the sulk in her tone, but that was soon replaced with curiosity. “Hey, what do you think it is anyway? That’s causing the eerie silence that shouldn’t be here… what do you think these samples will reveal? My mother must have said something to you about it before sending you here on this mission, right? Any hypothesis?”
The group had just emerged into the designated clearing as Lenalee finished her sulk, asking for Shiro’s hypothesis as to the reason why this place was just eerily quiet. It was something he was happy to explain to her… it was just finding the right words that would make him sound nice and scientific to the short woman. With a smile he looked at her as he made a hand gesture for the wider group to advance, essentially telling them to split into their groups to gather samples.
“From the briefing your mum gave me… Valley of Screams are just pockets in the garganta, loosely connected to the dangai where souls that are transitioning have gotten slightly lost and deposit their memories as energy. That gathers and forms the space we are in. Because of where they are soul insects and animal souls… can pass through, but it’s usually rare.” Shiro finally said as he started to wander along the edge of the clearing with his eyes peeled for anything that looked odd, this was meant to be the centre.
“The samples should tell us how old this valley is and what’s causing it to be so stable.” He added, looking up into the branches of a particularly large tree, his eyes scanning for details that shouldn’t fit. He saw empty bird nests, the occasional snapped branch a camera lens.
“And if the thing making it stable is unnatural we get a better idea of how to break it- Is that a camera!?” He exclaimed, his eyes darting back to the potion of the tree where it was. His sudden outburst and shock triggered a cascade of events. A garganta breach ripped open behind him and in several other areas of the clearing. Hollows poured out of them and instantly started to attack. The ground beneath the tree Shiro had been inspecting collapsed, causing him to drop a few feet onto a stairway just as a Cero blasé came from the tree, initially aimed at him but missed to hit a Hollow that was mid pounce on Lenalee.
“It’s a trap!” Shiro called, ripping his Zanpakuto out of its scabbard, jumping out of the depression he had found himself in. “Strike The Heavens!” He called, the blade transforming in the blink of an eye to it’s shikai state. “Rairyu!”