"Bawabawa, keep it up! We're almost there!"
Nelliel crouched atop its head, patting its enormous skull with gentle encouragent.
Soifon stood beside her, watching the poor creature with a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth.
— Should've just flown here myself.
At long last, they reached the far edge of Hell. Nelliel opened a Garganta at the spot where the Black Cavity would descend, and the great beast — normally so relaxed and unbothered — now had its tongue lolling out at full length, heaving ragged gulps of air.
Finally, Bawabawa let out a moan of sheer relief and keeled over sideways onto the ground, tongue flopped to the side of its mouth, utterly, completely done in.
"We're here, Lady Soifon."
Nelliel pointed ahead. It was still the vast expanse of Hell's territory, but soone of their caliber could already sense it — the fabric of space here was unusually thin.
Even without opening a Garganta, they could feel the direction of Hueco Mundo.
Soifon closed her eyes. Golden markings blood across her skin, and [Enma-ten] rose from behind her before vanishing in a flash of golden light into the space ahead.
Ripples spread outward. The space undulated like the surface of water, parting to reveal the scene on the other side.
The cosmos.
Three planets hung suspended in endless darkness — Soul Society fused with Hell, Hueco Mundo, and the World of the Living. The three worlds ford a stable triangle in the void of space.
Soifon opened her eyes, recalled Enma-ten, and turned back to Nelliel.
"I have a general sense of what's going on now."
"This area has no significant effect on Hueco Mundo — you don't need to worry about that."
"However, this region has already rged with Soul Society. You and Harribel should avoid coming here unnecessarily. If a Shinigami mistakes you for a threat and attacks, that would be trouble."
She finished speaking and moved to turn away — when a soft hand reached from behind and caught her by the wrist.
"Hm? Is there sothing else, Nel?"
Soifon paused and turned back with a mildly puzzled look toward the one who'd grabbed her — Nelliel.
"Mm! There is!"
"Lady Soifon, please — you absolutely must co and see the Hueco Mundo that Harribel and Starrk and I have rebuilt!"
"I even put together so entertainnt facilities based on your personal tastes~~"
Nelliel nodded with boundless energy, raised her free hand, and drew a single stroke through the air. A Garganta opened before them, a doorway to Hueco Mundo.
Soifon was tugged forward, a string of question marks running through her mind.
[— Facilities based on my tastes?]
Since when did she have a preference for any particular kind of entertainnt facility?
Still, Soifon didn't resist. Strictly speaking, she was now the last authority figure of Hueco Mundo, for better or worse.
By every asure of reason and sentint, she ought to go take a look.
Las Noches. Before the main gate.
Soifon and Nelliel touched down, and before them stood a completely renewed palace of pure white — smaller than before in scale, but gleaming and fresh.
Their welcoming party was not Harribel, nor Starrk.
It was a small figure — Lilynette.
She stood at the entrance with both hands on her hips, a violet Hōgyoku embedded in her chest. "Hey, Nelliel — you go out for a bit and co back dragging this one with you?"
Her impression of Soifon was simply that of soone who never got her hands dirty, so she felt neither particular liking nor dislike — just plain curiosity.
Soifon said nothing. She reached into the front of her garnt and produced a half-eaten onigiri, pressing it into Lilynette's hands.
Lilynette blinked, looked down at the onigiri in her hands, then back up at Soifon. "For ?"
Soifon nodded.
Lilynette took a bite, and her eyes lit up instantly. "Mm! That's good!"
With Lilynette neatly handled, Soifon took advantage of the mont while the other was busy eating to ruffle her head. "Did Starrk split you back out again?"
Lilynette swallowed her mouthful and pulled a face. "Because there are so few people around now, Starrk says he's bored... that guy really can't stand being alone."
The three of them talked as they passed through the great gates of Las Noches.
Overhead, the do ceiling of Las Noches had been repaired. Simulated sunlight poured in through the cupola, bathing the entire palace in a warm, bright glow.
What surprised Soifon even more was that both sides of the palace corridors were lined with lush greenery.
They appeared to be varieties from the World of the Living — only far larger than they'd ever grow there.
"The concentration of spirit particles in Hueco Mundo is much higher than in the World of the Living, so they grow extrely fast. Just a few months, and they've already co to this," Nelliel explained beside her.
After that, she took Soifon's hand and led her through the colonnaded corridors of Las Noches, up a spiraling staircase, and finally to the topmost floor of the palace.
"Lady Soifon, please look!"
Nelliel spread her arms wide, presenting the mysterious room to Soifon.
— A hot spring.
Not an ordinary pool — a genuine, proper hot spring.
Steam rose and drifted through the air. The water was crystal clear, the bottom lined with smooth river pebbles, and a few stalks of green bamboo swayed gently around the edges in a simulated breeze.
The only thing missing was the familiar tang of sulfur. In its place drifted a different familiar scent.
Soifon's mouth twitched.
[Hot springs... since when did this beco my favorite thing?]
Nelliel seed utterly oblivious to her bewildernt and continued with enthusiastic comntary:
"Last ti, didn't you spend ages playing around in the hot spring with your two students? So I thought — maybe Lady Soifon likes hot springs."
"So Harribel and I worked together and modeled this one after the hot spring in the Second Division's courtyard — sa design!"
Thinking back carefully — after her two students had been completely outmatched trying to ambush her with [Computer Parts] and she'd taken them to the hot spring to [recover] — Soifon had a fairly good idea of what Nelliel's so-called [playing around] was referring to.
Not really sothing she could explain her way out of.
Suppressing the guilty look threatening to surface in her eyes, Soifon swept her gaze around the room and found herself genuinely curious about this hot spring.
This was the topmost floor of Las Noches... and a normal hot spring relied on geothermal heat and was built at ground level.
What caught her attention even more was that this hot spring bore no Kidō-type formulae or inscriptions of any kind — yet the rising steam was rich with Reiatsu, naturally and effortlessly maintaining the water's temperature.
"Remarkable, isn't it, Lady Soifon?"
Nelliel turned and retrieved two neatly folded yukatas from a nearby cabinet, presenting them to Soifon with both hands, her bright green eyes brimming with anticipation:
"Would you like to soak together?"
"Please... we worked so hard to build this..."
Nearly a plea!
Soifon looked into Nelliel's gaze — so guileless it was impossible to refuse — hesitated a mont, then finally took the yukata.
Surely...
She wasn't going to pull sothing weird and underhanded like those two gremlins Rukia and Momo, was she?
Nelliel still seed pretty wholeso, all things considered.
The mont she took the yukata, a faint vibration reached her from behind.
Soifon turned her head and saw a familiar figure appear in the doorway — Harribel.
After Soifon's Reiatsu had appeared within Las Noches, Harribel had sensed it — but had thought she was hallucinating out of sheer longing, so she'd finished her current work before coming to check. She hadn't expected it to be real.
When her gaze settled on Soifon, a flash of unconcealed delight crossed her face.
On instinct, Harribel stepped forward, her arms opening slightly — she wanted to pull the Soifon before her into an embrace — but in the very next mont...
That damned restraint of hers stopped her in her tracks.
Caught between the choice of being presumptuous and satisfying her own desire, Harribel chose zero.
Soifon watched her like that, curved the corner of her mouth slightly, and took a step forward herself — arms opening to pull Harribel into the embrace.
Rising onto her toes, Soifon leaned close to Harribel's ear and murmured: "Long ti no see, Harribel."
Though only a few days had passed, this week and more had contained events large enough to shake the safety of the Three Worlds.
Calling it a long ti was no exaggeration at all.
"Long ti no see... Lady Soifon..."
Harribel's body went completely rigid the instant Soifon initiated the embrace, then slowly relaxed. Her arms, which had been hanging at her sides, hesitated — before finally rising to rest, a little uncertainly, against Soifon's back.
"Let's wrap up the touching reunion, shall we." Nelliel reached out a hand to each of them, tugging gently at their sleeves, separating the two from the embrace.
She pointed at the steaming pool behind her. "Harribel, go get changed!"
...
A short while later, Soifon changed into her yukata, pushed open the door — and stepped out at exactly the sa mont as two other figures erged.
Soifon's gaze lingered on the two of them for a few extra seconds without aning to. The collars of their yukatas were slightly open, revealing collarbones and a sliver of skin that glowed with a healthy warmth in the soft light.
Particularly Harribel's honey-golden skin, which had taken on a faint, delicate flush.
Soifon perched at the pool's edge and dipped a toe in first to test the temperature. A pleasantly warm sensation traveled up from the tip of her foot — perfect.
Then she slowly lowered her whole body into the clear spring water, leaving only her shoulders and above above the surface.
"Ahh..." A sigh of pure contentnt escaped her lips unbidden.
She closed her eyes, leaned back against the smooth stone wall of the pool, and let the corners of her mouth drift upward. "I'm alive again... this is wonderful."
Nelliel and Harribel exchanged a glance, then slipped into the water one after the other, settling on either side of Soifon, their shoulders pressing lightly against hers.
"Lady Soifon," Harribel's voice ca from beside her, "is the water temperature... to your liking?"
"Mm... it's just right."
Soifon opened her eyes, and her gaze was filled with unguarded ease.
She scooped up a handful of clear spring water, tilted her head back, and let it run down her cheeks.
The water traced the elegant line of her neck downward, slipping beneath the collar of her yukata, pausing a mont at her collarbone before continuing its descent.
"And also..."
"This spring water has a strangely familiar scent."
Soifon lowered her hand, brow creasing slightly. She had the nagging sense she'd slled this sowhere before.
She turned her head toward Harribel, nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly, and slowly leaned in closer.
"Sohow..." Soifon's gaze settled on Harribel. "It slls a bit like you, Harribel."
The mont those words landed, the color in Harribel's face rose with visible, unstoppable speed.
She opened her mouth — and said nothing — then abruptly dunked her face beneath the surface of the hot spring.
Glub, glub, glub...
A stream of bubbles rose up from beneath the water.
Nelliel watched this unfold from beside them, covered her mouth with one hand, her shoulders shaking violently.
Pfft —
She finally couldn't hold back the laughter and leaned in to Soifon's ear:
"Lady Soifon."
"Actually, the main force behind building this hot spring was Harribel~~"
She didn't get to finish. A forceful surge of water erupted upward, splashing directly into both Soifon's and Nelliel's faces.
Harribel burst from the water with lightning speed and clamped her hand over Nelliel's mouth before she could say another word!
The two of them pressed in from either side, sandwiching Soifon's slight fra between them.
Soifon's face was t with a double-sided collision of softness.
Sliding down, diving underwater, she slipped free from the cheese press of warm bodies closing in on both sides — erging with her nose full of the scent of milk.
She watched the two of them wrestling together, then turned over Nelliel's half-finished remark in her mind — and sothing clicked.
Soifon cupped a handful of spring water and brought it slowly to her nose, breathing it in. "Could this be... made from Harribel's [Trident of Scorching Sea] after her Resurrección?"
And so, for the remainder of their ti soaking in the hot spring, Harribel spent most of it with her face subrged beneath the water — only the top of her head visible above the surface, with the occasional string of bubbles drifting up.
So ti later.
The steam gradually dissipated. The three of them stepped out of the water, wrapped in towels.
Soifon toweled her damp hair dry and felt the tension leave her body entirely.
Nelliel retrieved three glasses of cold milk from a small refrigerator nearby, their sides beaded with condensation:
"Please, Lady Soifon! This is a custom I picked up while visiting the World of the Living!"
Glug, glug, glug.
Soifon accepted the glass, tipped her head back, and drank it down in one go. When she set the glass down, a small, inevitable ring of white clung adorably to the corners of her mouth.
She put down the glass, just about to say sothing — when Nelliel's face rapidly filled her field of vision.
The next second, Soifon felt sothing soft and deft brush lightly across the corner of her mouth.
Nelliel ran her tongue over her lips, lingering over the taste with a satisfied little smack:
"This is also sothing I learned in the World of the Living."
"Apparently, when soone you like cos out of a hot spring, this is the sort of thing you do~~"
Soifon's hand lifted on instinct, touching the corner of her own mouth.
The warmth of Nelliel's touch still lingered there.
"...I have a feeling that didn't co from a reputable source."
Soifon's cheeks, beyond her control, began to heat up.
There was really no getting around it — that kind of honest, unadorned directness packed an unreasonably high amount of damage.
"No, Lady Soifon!" Harribel suddenly turned serious. "We found it at a perfectly legitimate bookstore, and we studied it very carefully!"
This apparently touched on an area of professional expertise. Even with Soifon standing before her, she would not yield a single inch.
Harribel turned and walked to the nearby bookshelf, reached between what appeared to be perfectly respectable volus, and pulled out a manga with a rather flamboyant cover.
On the cover, two young won shared a kiss, and beside the illustration ran a title in flowing cursive script: "Hot Spring Rhapsody ~Our Secret Ti Together~".
A classic of the genre!
"It was this one..."
"It felt like it perfectly captured how we feel about Lady Soifon... so we bought it and studied it seriously..."
Soifon closed the manga, handed it back to Harribel, and stood in speechless silence.
Harribel took the book, lowered her head, fingers unconsciously tracing the cover:
"We like you, Lady Soifon. We want to stay by your side always. We want Hueco Mundo to be a place you enjoy coming to..."
The poolside fell quiet again. Only the soft sound of water gently lapping, and the intertwined breathing of three people.
"I..."
Soifon had barely begun when she was cut off again before she could finish.
"Lady Soifon doesn't need to answer right now." Harribel's voice returned to its usual steadiness. "We... just wanted you to know."
Nelliel pressed her lips together and nodded. "Yes — if Lady Soifon is going to refuse, it would honestly be better if you kept your mouth shut."
At last, a gap in the conversation opened up for Soifon to speak.
"You two are way too pessimistic..."
"I never said I was refusing."
Using her trademark strategically ambiguous words, she accepted the confession of both — and three shadows on the ground rged into one.
____
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