The War of Four: The Alliance of Blood and Shadows

The Meet! Reunion of the Best kind
"Ah...Ah...ACHOO!" Hyōryū sneezed aloud, clinging tightly to her additional black winter cloak as their "transport" the Dragonbird, flew them over the cloudy covered snowy peaks of Aether, homing in on their destination after a good day's flight already. It was only a week ago when Angelika gave Hyōryū notice that she along with Oliver were to accompany her to the Meet with the Black Blood Sect. Having never been to a Meet before, Hyōryū listened long and hard to Angelika's explanation as how the history of V-14's very existence stemmed back to the Sect, as well as its streams of provisitional jobs and reccommendations, as well as the fact that Enrico is a agent of the Sect and has been for a very long time.

Now, after deciding to use the Dragonbird again due to the predicament of the Gotei 13 and the Inner Circle on the look-out for them, they began their long and agonizing flight towards their Meet destination, which this time is at its usual and oldest founding location. Aether, the Land that bordered the Cracked Valley and the mountains that bordered the Soul Society's borders and the glacier vallies nearby. Their flight had been agonizingly long, and cold as they got closer to Aether's mountains, guiding through the cold and wet clouds that held frozen water particles almost constant, creating a perfect camoflauge for those who didn't know the way to where they were going.

"I-I-I d-didn't know w-w-we were go-going t-to the North P-Pole, boss!" Hyōryū tried to joke as her teeth chattered, sitting behind Angelika at the farthest most position of their transport's saddle, with Oliver in front and Angelika atypically in the middle.

"S-s-shows you t-to wear l-less skimpy c-c-clothing, doesn't it?" Despite her speaking to Angelika, Oliver was the first one to retort back to her. However, despite his taunting words, it was clear that he was suffering just as much as she was despite wearing a heavy coat over his usual clothing.

Angelika was breathing steadily, the only sign of her own discomfort in the cold was her own slight shivering. However, her voice maintained a steady pattern. "I did inform you that it would be moderately chilly during our flight path..." She answered, holding her arms close to her body. "If you're that cold, you should have brought a much heavier winter attire."

"I-I-It'd we-wear me d-d-down when I-I hav-have to fight, b-b-boss," she protested, holding the coat over her, burrying her face within its confines to the point of almost muffling her voice underneath its heavy clothing garments, "and I-I di-didn't kn-know we'd actually travel through the m-m-mountains to get to the "unnaturally" w-w-warm Meet area, wh-which y-y-you still remain sketchy on d-d-details!"

Angelika smiled amusedly, turning her head so that she could look over her shoulder at Hyōryū. "Well..." She began, chuckling a little. "If I told you every little thing, then you wouldn't be able to have a good learning experience considering you've never been to one of these meets before..."

"F-f-fuck, I n-need a cigarette..." Gritting his teeth, Oliver reached into his own coat pockets in an attempt to look for one. "Hyō, you happen to have a lighter on you?"

Hyōryū chattered her teeth with a bland look on her face, comically pouting her lips as she heard the question, "D-D-Do y-y-you h-honestly b-believe y-you c-could get a-a l-light with these w-w-winds?! H-Has the c-c-cold frozen y-y-your brain a-a-already?!"

"I c-can t-try, d-damn it!!" Oliver snapped, one of his eyes twitching as he continued to fumble for a cigarette. "Now where the f-fuck did I-- AHA!" He immediately whipped out what he was looking for, twirling one in his fingertips but making sure to keep it so that it wouldn't get blown away by the winds. "G-got one!"

"S-So do I," Hyōryū bit down on her lips to keep her teeth from chattering, but had a cigarette already wedged within the side of her lips while looking smug, "n-now...I have...this...lighter," she unveils a cigarette lighter she kept hidden within her cloak, using her own body heat to keep it from freezing the fluids within, before she began sparking it, attempting to get a flame near her cigarette.

After the 11th attempt, a throaty chuckle of victory came from her as she got her cigarette lit and allowed a enriched puff of smoke to enter her mouth before exiting her nose, "Need...a...light...partner?"

Angelika could only roll her eye, turning her head away from them when Oliver turned to look over at Hyōryū. His grin grew even wider, and he stopped twirling his own cigarette. "Sweet!" With that exclamation, he extended his own cigarette to Hyōryū's light. "Thanks, pally!"

"Nice to see you too actually getting along for once..." Their boss commented.

"He...wouldn't...stop...whining...if...I didn't," Hyōryū said while extending her lip-locked lit cig towards Oliver's, even as he precariously reached around their boss to do it, she successfully shared enough heat to light the paper-rolled source of delusionary warmth.

Once again, Angelika was curious enough to look over her shoulder again to see what was going on.

The scene she was introduced to was rather... cute, to say the least. Instead of reaching with just his arm, Oliver had kept his own cigarette in his mouth out of the fear that the flame would go out quicker if he didn't. He was giving a slight glare towards Hyōryū for her comment, but chose to say nothing towards it. It looked like a kid sharing a scarf with a crush he had. It made her chuckle a little.

"Be thankful Anton wasn't here. God knows what he'd say about this little exchange..."

"W-wait a minute, what--?!"

Oliver's eyes widened in surprise and alarm, not out of embarrassment, but out of the thought that he may have fallen for some sort of joke that had missed his mind. He quickly pulled himself away, directing his shocked gaze and quirked eyebrow towards his boss.

"What?!" Hyōryū spoke out loud, almost losing her cigarette in the process, as a crimson blush ran up her neck and uncomfortably warming her face, albeit slightly welcome considering the circumstances, "y-y-you're not...we're not...I-I mean...errrrrmmm...forget about it please!" Her face steamed as she bowed her head, her bangs hiding her eyes as she uncharacteristically felt very embarassed by the joke tossed her way by her own boss. She wished they were there right about now...to at least save face.

"Ha ha ha ha ha~!!!"

This earned a hearty set of laughter from Angelika, and she turned her eye away from Hyōryū. "Relax, Frau Fūsoku! It was only a joke!" She said lightly, turning back to her frontward view. "I wouldn't have thought you would get so flustered over something so trivial..."

"...yeah..." After giving Hyōryū a questioning glance, Oliver turned his own attention to the front. His eyes widened in surprise, however, and he leaned towards the left and pointed below him. "Hey, boss. Is that the place you were talkin' about?"

Hyōryū's blush receded as she looked past the thinning veil of clouds, behelding a most magnificent sight.

They arrived at their location, would be putting it mildly. Descending the usual pattern of stocky, rigorous snow-capped mountains was a sheet of ice that could pass off as a natural valley, despite it beind at mid-level with the mountains themselves, with deep trenches that had been mined out thousands of years ago and has such set a rythym of manual labor.

Their location for descent was a beautifully enamored, obsidian-white glittering ice fortress, a number of speckled figures around it showed its vastness and true scope of his height. The architecture truly rivaled anything of the current age, and a faint trace of a ancient underground ice-cracked highway could be seen trenched towards another smaller, yet not in the least breathtaking as its bigger counterpart.

Needless to say, the chosen place to have the Meet, was not only out of the way, but also gaining in surprising warmth compared to the rest of the peaks that howled with icy winds and constant snow-packed clouds.