Winter War - Ensemble: The Day Before [Bleach]
Title: Winter War - Ensemble: The Day Before
Fandom: Bleach
Characters: Ikkaku, Yumichika, Nanao, Grimmjow, Sasakibe, Sora, Isane, Orihime, Soi Fong, Ukitake, Urahara
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Word Count:
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with incandescens and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe. As with the previous installment, the writing duties were shared by the three of us, with each of us taking a different p.o.v. section.
Summary: It's the day before the battle begins, and there is much to do--and think about.
Index of Links
[...]
15. Isane: Present
16. Nanao: Looking For A Blonde
17. Hanatarou: Underground
18. Lisa: Prisoner's Dilemma
19. Hinamori, Takano, Ichimaru: Taking The Bait
"Goddamn stupid piece of shit lantern... "
Three hours of sleep wasn't much, but it was plenty. Ikkaku had got by on less and been fine the next day. Perfectly fine. Peaches could take her mother-henning and shove it up her ass. He had stuff to do.
Assuming the lantern stayed lit.
"Damn, what the hell exploded in there? Fucking door looks like a hedgehog."
Creeeak.... Clunk.
"Are you fucking kidding me? A multi-bolt crossbow? Sheeee-it. What kinda dumbfuck put it away all cocked and loaded? Smart. Real smart. Now where the fuck is that naginata Kaede said was in here..."
Four-Eyes, Smiley, Yoshino, and Newbie got back okay a while back. Ikkaku thought that shoulda kicked off the whole deal, but no. Only thing it kicked off was a whole bunch of waiting. More waiting. Maybe he should have talked his way onto the expedition, but when he said something Smiley bitched to him that it was boring as hell. They'd found a patrol all right, but the patrol had rabbited back to Seireitei rather than give the group a good fight. No fight, but the head psycho himself should have gotten a nice earful by now. Or now-ish. So that was good.
"Who the hell put this fucking armory together? Squirrels? Can't find a goddamn fucking thing in here, the way it's all fucking thrown together..."
Clatter. Crash. Thunk. Sproing.
The way their luck was going, Ichimaru might just up and throw the patrol into a Hollow pit or something instead of listening to their story. Punish 'em for being a bunch of stinking cowards, maybe. Damned fox-faced nutjob was cracked enough to do something like that just for shits and giggles.
"Ohhhhh, now that's more like it! Come to papa, baby..."
Crash.
"Fuckit."
Soon as they got word that Ichimaru took the bait, Ikkaku and the others would light out to the living world. Half a day at most, Soi Fong had said. Twelve miserable hours. Maybe less. Hopefully less. Then they'd be at Urahara Kisuke's place. Should be interesting. And then...
"Ah, screw it! I give up."
He really should get some rest while the getting was good. At least, that's what Peaches kept telling him. But it wasn't like he was Zaraki-taichou, able to fall asleep just like that between one breath and the next. When he was like this, mind spinning and jumping from thought to thought, three hours was the best he could hope for.
Coming to this rat's nest of an armory at the ass-crack of dawn to root around maybe wasn't the best use of his time, but it was a damn sight better than sitting around stewing in his own juices. Besides, giving up wasn't his style.
Another crash, and he finally pulled the promised naginata clear of the jumble of pikes, halberds, polearms, scythes, and lots of other freaky things he didn't know the names of.
It took him a bit longer to find a jutte. It wasn't exactly right, but it was close enough. He had no idea why it was buried in a stack of things that looked like large fishing weights attached to each other by leather braids. He looked at them for a bit, thinking about what kind of damage they'd do if you swung them around then let them go.
Hell, half the armory was full of weird shit like that. The other half was the kind of stuff that glittered and gleamed but that would bend like putty if you were stupid enough to rely on them in a fight. They were weapons you wore because you were rich--or wanted people to think you were rich--not because you were strong.
There was one sword, though, that caught his eye. He couldn't say what it was that drew him. Something about the proportions of it, maybe, or the detail work on the hilt that was ornate but not ridiculous. It was a western-style weapon, double-edged, small and light and vicious as hell.
He propped the naginata and jutte against the wall, and picked up the sword. When he pulled it out of the scabbard, it slid out smoothly, with a whisper of metal against metal that was more soft than harsh. An experimental twirl or two proved it was perfectly balanced even though the hilt was just a little small for his hand. It was a good blade. Strong. Well-forged. Sharp. Gorgeous.
Yumichika would have loved it.
Ikkaku tossed the sword aside. It struck a single spark as it clattered into the darkness. He'd never find it again, in all that junk. Not that he'd want to.
He picked up the two weapons he'd come there to get and headed off to one of the paddocks. Yesterday, after Four-Eyes and the others left, Peaches started in with some bullshit about skipping their usual session on this last day, but Ikkaku told her they'd meet at sunrise, usual place.
They could all sleep later. When they were dead, they could sleep all they fucking liked.
He waited at the paddock. Then he went up and waited by the main house. Then the stables. Then, he started asking around. And so, just as the sky was turning bloody gray at the east, he wrenched open the doors to the root cellar and looked down.
It was all cozy, what with the lanterns and the cots and two of his people playing cards with their prisoner.
"I swear, one time I'm going to check in on you, and you're gonna be braiding each other's hair. You're late, Peaches. You were supposed to meet me by the paddock 'bout now." Ikkaku did his best to loom, but Hinamori cast a pointed glance up the sky before looking back at him, unimpressed.
"You said sunrise. It's barely even dawn." Still, she stood up and stretched. She grinned and shook out her shoulders. "Did you find what you were looking for in the armory?"
He didn't remember telling her he was going there. Whatever. "Kind of, yeah. C'mon."
"You two are going to spar?"
Ikkaku could've sworn that Boy Blue's ears pricked up.
"Yeah. And you're not invited, asshole."
And of course, Sparkles was quick to suggest another 'barehanded combat practice.'
Ikkaku stalked off while they were still making plans, not bothering to wait as Peaches made cheerful farewells and wished Sparkles and Little Boy Blue a good sparring session. She'd either follow or she wouldn't.
She did.
He jerked his head towards one side of the paddock to where he'd propped the naginata and jutte against the fence. He'd hoped to find a sansetsukon or something else close to Hoozukimaru's second released form, but he could spend days in that armory before going through the whole thing.
Hinamori immediately went for the jutte. She picked it up and pouted. "It looks like poor Tobiume lost a prong."
Ikkaku shrugged. "Not my fault you got a weird sword. That work, or you want to go at it with sealed zanpakutou again?"
Out in the field, they could use their shikai whenever they wanted. They were always on the move, so letting slip a bit of reiatsu now and again wasn't any big deal. The way Ikkaku saw it, it drew attention away from Ukitake-taichou so the more they cut loose, the better. And drawing attention to themselves could be fun.
But now, drawing attention would be a bad thing. Or so Soi Fong said. So, sealed swords it was, no matter how much Ikkaku wanted to feel a different kind of weapon in his hands.
"Let's use these," she said after thinking it over for a minute. "I don't use Tobiume's released form as a weapon as often as I should."
"Damn straight."
Ikkaku had already checked the naginata, finding it close enough in balance and weight to Hoozukimaru that he was ready to give this a go. He picked it up again and made a few practice thrusts and sweeps, switching it from one hand to the other. He watched as Peaches tried out the jutte, frowning a little at first, then relaxing and settling into things as she shifted her grip closer to the end of the hilt.
"It feels weird, using something that doesn't speak to you," she said. It didn't matter how many of these early morning sparring sessions they had, she never picked up that he didn't feel like being chatty. In fact, the more quiet he stayed, the more she talked, like she was trying to fill in for him. "Does Hoozukimaru talk to you as much as Tobiume talks to me?"
"How the hell would I know that?" He wasn't sure what he'd do if his sword kept butting in all the time. Good thing Hoozukimaru only liked to talk if the two of them were about to jump into a fight. "You and Tetsu ready for Ichimaru's people to drop in?"
Peaches did a few more warmup steps. The motion looked natural enough, and she flowed into a series of moves that didn't look like any kata he recognized. The ways her eyes flicked, he guessed she was practicing moves against opponents who weren't there. He noted the sharp twists of her forearm that suggested some nasty tricks happening with Tobiume's prongs. Good, good...
"We'll be ready soon enough," she said, with a short, sharp flash of smile. "I just hope we're right about Ichimaru himself showing up."
"Got plans for him, huh?" He grinned and shifted into ready position. He'd let her take the offensive this time, just for yucks.
She didn't bite. Not yet anyway. She still seemed to be testing things out with her substitute weapon. If this were a real fight, she'd be in pieces already, and he was half tempted to go after her just to drive that point home.
"They're just ideas right now." She stopped her drills, and actually stood up on tiptoe and stretched full-length, like she was trying to scratch the sky or something. Then, with no warning, she dropped into a crouch.
That's when she took the offensive.
"What about you? Do you have plans for Ayasegawa-san?" She jumped. Her first thrust came in wide, the length of her weapon sliding past. If it was a sword, it would've been a miss, but a quarter twist, and that stupid prong nearly got him right in the crease of his shoulder.
He ducked it. A flick of the wrist as she surged past and the butt-end of the naginata connected hard with her shin.
"Why the fuck would I have plans?" he snarled.
She regrouped fast enough, landing without any sign of having been hit. "Because you're going to bring him back, right?" She shouldn't sound so damned cheerful. "You heard what Grimmjow said. He's alive. They've done something to him, but he's alive."
She barely parried his next batch of attacks. Then, before he could do anything more than that, she leapt up and back, landing neatly on one of the paddock rails. "I mean, wouldn't you think--"
"Dammit, Peaches. We're sparring, not having a tea party. More fighting, less talking."
Before he even finished, he lashed out, but she leapt right over his head before he could complete the swipe at her legs.
Time was, she'd have apologized for her chatter. Now, she was on the offensive again, trying to get inside his guard. He nicked her arm, and while she didn't flinch, she did jump back to regroup. She was angry.
"What the hell, Peaches? That was nothing!"
"We don't have that many healers around, and I'm not going to get myself wounded before the battle in a... a silly sparring match!"
"Then fight so you won't get wounded!"
He got her on the defensive for a while after that, but she was fighting like she was looking for just the right opening.
A little cut shouldn't have stopped her.
It wouldn't have stopped Yumichika. Not for a second.
When they used to spar before going on a dangerous mission, it didn't matter if they drew blood. It just got them hot for the main event.
Peaches nearly caught the tip of the naginata in the prong of her jutte, but Ikkaku yanked it up before she could catch and twist. So that's how she was going to play it. He widened his grip. It would slow him down a fraction, but she'd have a bitch of a time getting decent leverage now.
"Where the hell's your mind, Peaches? You're fighting like you ain't really here?" Slash.
"Sorry." Parry.
She was better than this. Lots better. She had never beaten him, but now she could push him to where he really had to work for the win, and it wasn't many people who could do that.
This was pathetic. He should have dragged that blue-haired freak out here instead, got more of a feel for how he would do in a fight. He should have just said yes when Peaches suggested not sparring, and then he wouldn't be dealing with this joke of a fight. He should...
Should, would, could. What-the-fuck-ever.
It should have been Yumichika who got zapped by Inoue and sent back to Soul Society, and not that freak of an ex-hollow. They should have won that fight against Aizen in the first place.
'Should' was just a big pile of horse shit, if you asked him.
What was going to happen was this: he was going to go to Hueco Mundo, and they were going to kill Aizen or die trying. And if he ran into Yumichika, well...
There was something else that should have happened. Something he used to believe had happened.
Yumichika should have died before he let the other side take him prisoner. Before he let them fuck him up to the point where he was swanning after some bitch of an Arrancar.
He'd lost. That much was clear. And here Ikkaku had been assuming that Yumichika would have gone the same way Zaraki did and fukutaichou must have.
Peaches somehow got in a nice shot to his ribs, but he twisted out of the way just in time, clipping her hard with his elbow on his way past.
She made another pass, still trying to catch him with her jutte.
"That move won't do you any good, Peaches."
"Really?" She was treating this like a joke, and he'd had it.
Just to show her, he let her catch his naginata. She tried to twist it out of his hands, but he anticipated it, locking her jutte in place so she could only break free by stepping forward, angling the thing back and putting her in easy grabbing distance. She pressed on, though, even though the point of her weapon was a good eight inches from his face and wouldn't be going any further than that.
"See what I mean?" He'd let her flail for a second or two before disarming her and bringing this joke of a fight to an end.
She stopped struggling, but she held firm. And she smirked.
"Hajike."
Eight inches now seemed real close. A sharp circling of his hands, and he had the jutte out of her hands and halfway across the paddock.
"Very nice, but too late, I'm afraid," she said, polite and pleasant, but kind of chilly for all that.
"This was a real fight, Peaches. No tricks. No fancy stuff. By rights, I should have pulled you in."
Her eyebrows drew down sharply, like she was getting ready to haul off and give him an earful, but she forced herself to relax--he could see it happen, bit by bit--before she said anything.
"If we had our real zanpakutou, then by rights you wouldn't have a head right now."
"Pfft. Like you'd ever go through with that." He hiked the naginata over his shoulder. It didn't sit quite right, but that was no surprise. "Get that little papercut I gave you seen to. An' if I don't see you before I take off, good luck."
He started back towards the main house. Maybe he'd go see what Sparkles and Boy Blue were up to.
"You'll be dealing with people who would go through with it!" she called out. "You have no idea what kinds of weapons you'll be facing!"
A flash of his middle finger was all the answer she was going to get on that one. She yelled his name, but he ignored it. At least she wasn't chasing after him.
She was right, but he wasn't about to admit it.
Thing was, her being right didn't matter. He'd learned his lesson--if he was up against some rank and file piece of shit Hollow, he'd watch out for stupid tricks.
The only fight he actually cared about, he wouldn't have to worry about crap like that.
When he found Yumichika, they were going to settle this--end this--the way they would have in the Eleventh. A real fight. A good fight.
Then, maybe, they'd both be at peace.
The sound of waters was always at the back of his mind, and the touch of waters, the gentle smooth pull of cold waves, the taste of salt in his mouth, as rich as blood, as heady as hot wine.
Yumichika wandered the pale corridors in dream. He seldom woke these days. He slept and he dreamed, and sometimes he dreamed that he was awake and following her, and sometimes he dreamed that he was asleep, and always the sea sounded in the background, great rolling waves far from shore.
It's like being permanently drunk. He hasn't been drunk for years now (I mean, how unsightly, how simply vulgar), even with Ikkaku tipping down jugs of the stuff at his side, and Zaraki-taichou downing casks of it at the head of the table. He'd always been the one to have a few decorous social cups, to share the general entertainment, and then to shoo their vice-captain off to her bed before the furniture got broken any further.
He does remember. He remembers everything. He remembers the battle. He remembers that Fraccion's death. He remembers how it seemed such a good idea to attack that Espada, the one who'd just downed Hitsugaya-taichou, for the battlefield was rife with steam and ice and flames as Yamamoto-soutaichou invoked his own power, and nobody could see him clearly.
"Bloom," he whispered to himself, and giggled a little at the noise that the word made, echoing down the white corridors.
Was this another dream? Yes. The waters ran through him and they washed everything else away.
He had sipped her power, and then drunk it down, swallowed mouthful after mouthful of it, flower after flower, and still it would not stop and it sang in him and rang in him and whispered in him and all the waves came crashing down as finally his flowers fell away and his vines crumpled and she touched his face and said something that he could not hear, and he looked into her deep eyes and shivered at her voice, a boat adrift on her great sea of power.
He has forgotten all other tastes since then. He has seen faces and recognised them -- Aizen, Hisagi, Ichimaru, Kurosaki, Kurotsuchi, the Inoue girl -- but the whisper and flow of the sea has carried all sense and meaning away from them. He is awake when she is with him. He is asleep otherwise, even if he dreams that he stands and walks the corridors, even if he dreams that he speaks with other people.
The ocean is always with him now, and the hunger that moves in it, and anything else is drowned in it, drowned a thousand fathoms deep and far away.
It took some planning by Nanao to manage a completely coincidental meeting with Momo in the corridor. Fortunately, with everyone running round in all directions, it wasn't too difficult to make it look accidental.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, tucking the book still more neatly under her arm. "Hinamori-kun! How convenient, I was actually looking for you --"
"Is there anything the matter?" Momo asked alertly. There was a sparkle in her eyes these days, and Nanao had to admit that however much she herself would have personally disliked being sent out with Madarame's patrol, it had been good for Momo.
It was quite unimportant that she might herself have liked Momo's company. Really it was.
"Nothing serious," Nanao said reassuringly. "It's just that while Kotetsu-fukutaichou and Shirogane were busy preparing the ambush site, they were clearing out the library there." Clearing out was an euphemism. Nanao had needed to control her wrath and bad language when she saw the mess, the disruption, the sheer wanton destruction of books that could perfectly well have been saved with a little care . . .
. . . well, so perhaps it wasn't the first priority at the moment, but she did have standards.
". . . and I happened to pick up this book," she said, offering the volume tucked under her arm. "It's a copy of the Konjaku Monogatarishu, and we never did get round to reading it before --"
Momo's squeal was very undignified and un-adult and not befitting the dignity of a vice-captain, and Nanao might have even said something about that or just satisfied herself with giving Momo a stern look, but Momo was too busy hugging her for that, squeezing her tight enough to make her wince. Kyouraku-taichou had embraced in that way before, not necessarily in a romantic way or even in a passionate one, just hugging for the comfort of touch and to say thank you and I care . . .
"Momo-kun," Nanao said, a little stifled, "Please. I need to wipe my glasses."
It was only her glasses that needed wiping. Really.
"I look forward to discussing this with you afterwards," Momo said. She was chewing her lower lip a little as well, but her eyes were bright and her words made a promise of it.
"Of course," Nanao said, and that was a promise as well.
Pounce now! Bite that! Get in there, idiot!
Grimmjow snarled at the weird voice inside his own head, even as he had to twist to duck a punch from the slender, tall, and graying Hoshibana Akira. He shouldn't be so goddamned fast, and the fucking human was going for targets Grimmjow had fondly imagined were only for Hollows; and that stupid voice had been coming and going at the weirdest times in just the last day. Annoying.
Another flurry of slaps to his head maddened Grimmjow, and he roared as he threw his whole body after the slender man, who simply fell to the side, and then kicked him hard on the hip. Grimmjow tumbled. He managed to just snag the ankle of the foot that had kicked him, and he dragged the other down with him. He rolled on top, cocked an elbow, and a voice behind him barked, "Stop it, shit for brains. Now."
The laughter inside his own head did not help his state of mind.
"Shit, Ikkaku, what the fuck?"
A slap across the back his head made him jump, whirl to face the other, and widen his stance.
"You wanna take me on?" Ikkaku drawled, but there was something off in the way he said it. Grimmjow didn't like that tone at all.
He let himself narrow his eyes. "Fuck that. I want to go fuck Aizen, not get messed up here."
He saw Ikkaku straighten, those beady eyes flickering to the side and then back to him. Thinking. Grimmjow suddenly realized that he'd made the other guy think instead of just fighting him. He shook himself off, not sure if he was going even crazier; but it felt stupid to fight now when there was going to be the biggest fight of his life coming up. Voices and now being a fucking pacifist. Shit.
Akira sat up, and he gave the man a hand up. "Good reflexes there, Jaggerjack-san," Akira said formally. "It would have been a groin shot if you had not turned your hip into it."
Grimmjow barked a laugh. "So you were trying for that!"
Akira shrugged. "It is effective." He cocked his head. "You hungry?"
Grimmjow shrugged. "Not yet. Just had lunch." He suddenly frowned as both men looked at him. "What? I look like I need feedin' or somethin'?"
"You were ravenous the first few days you were here. It seemed like you were going to go through nearly all our rations within a week, and it is hard to get food even in our base camp," Akira said quietly.
"It is?" Grimmjow blinked. This was just... he swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Hey, you okay?" Ikkaku's voice held more jeering than concern to Grimmjow's ears.
"Yeah... yeah... I'm fine," Grimmjow said roughly. He opened his eyes and walked away from the two men. When he was out of sight, he leaned back against a wall and tried not to completely freak out.
The presence in his head felt like it was curling up against him, purring in a deep rumble. Damnit... that was... that was wrong. What the fuck was something doing in his head? Why the hell wasn't he hungry? He'd been hungry so long, so deeply for that to be missing was as disconcerting as not really wanting a fight. Crap. What the fuck was wrong with him?
You're whole. said the amused voice within his own mind. It circled like a cat in a small space. That is what's wrong with you. You've been hollow for so long, you forgot what it's like to not want.
"But I like fighting!" Grimmjow growled softly.
Nearly whacked Akira, not like you're shyin' away from fights.
"But I was a wuss with Ikkaku."
Hey, no pouncing injured Dragons, kitten. Damned things are liable to bite your head off for real. The voice was reflective, and Grimmjow could almost see a pink tongue washing a blue paw thoroughly.
"He... what?" Grimmjow, thoroughly confused now, put his head in his hands.
"Who what?"
Grimmjow startled, but managed to refrain from jumping clear to the other side of the yard. He glanced over and saw the lamed Iba standing there looking at him. Grimmjow put on his deepest scowl. "Nothin'."
Iba held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Right. Didn't hear a thing..." He limped off, glancing back at Grimmjow who just sat there.
Grimmjow studied the ground under his ass, half-expecting it to fall away too. The whole thing was crazier than Szayel with a pack of lab rats. Going back into Hueco Mundo without his Arrancar powers, with a bunch of folks that knew next to nothing about surviving under him, and now he had to deal with know-it-all voices and not being hungry to boot. He ran one hand over the muscles and smooth skin of his stomach, where the familiar hole no longer gaped.
Maybe that was as crazy as the rest of it. That moment when he woke up seeing Orihime's face, as triumphant as she was terrified of what she's just done, was just as nuts as this. He should be getting used to it.
Yeah, that's right. The fun's just startin'.
"Agh!"
Sasakibe Choujirou had a few hours and no pressing tasks due before he was to depart on the mission to Seireitei with Shiba-san and Soi Fong... taichou?
No, that didn't feel quite right.
The question of her rank bothered and confused him. She had put aside her rank, but she was still his commanding officer on their upcoming mission.
There really was no set protocol for dealing with this sort of situation. And Sasakibe liked set protocol, perhaps now more than ever.
In the end, he told himself, the question of rank was not important. It could be sorted out later. Right now, Soi Fong-san (easier to put the rank aside for now) was the best person to direct the mission to re-take Seireitei.
What was Seireitei like, now? How much of what was familiar would have been destroyed, or changed beyond recognition? It had been less than half a year since they had fled the place, but it seemed like so much longer. Ichimaru struck him as the sort to demolish or desecrate out of sheer spite. What else could you expect from a man who had been quick to re-establish the use of the Hollow-pits, who had taken order and civilization and replaced it with brutality and chaos?
Centuries of hard work, everything that Yamamoto-soutaichou had poured all his strength and will into building, undone so fast...
Sasakibe shook his head, and gave up trying to concentrate on Iba-fukutaichou's supply and logistics report. He already knew what it said: they didn't have enough food, they didn't have enough medicine, and they barely had enough able-bodied to support one mission, let alone three.
He left his makeshift desk and headed towards the mansion's Great Hall, giving himself the excuse that he wanted to check on Takano's progress with the explosives. In truth, he simply wanted another look at the place before it was too late.
Even in half-ruin, it was a compelling sight. He knew many of the others found the place too overwrought and too foreign, but he was unashamedly fascinated by it.
Takano was up on one side of the grand double-stair, working to remove one of the treads so it could be replaced with no sign of tampering. Three other slabs of wood were already stacked at the foot of stairs; he'd been busy. As soon as he heard Sasakibe approach, Takano snapped to attention.
"I don't mean to interrupt, Takano," he said, although he did appreciate the attention to military protocol. "How are things proceeding?"
"Good, sir. The other staircase is already mined, and I've figured out where to place the other explosives." He nodded towards a recess near the entrance. The upper part of the niche held an alabaster nymph, her hands coyly posed in a token attempt at modesty. Beneath her, a bronze basin bulged out from the wall, from floor to waist height. Sasakibe had taken a closer look at it the other day, trying to figure out if the elaborate scene of knights and horses was meant to be something out of Arthurian legend or not.
"I took the cover off. The metal's thinner than you'd think, but the wall behind is solid stone. Anyhow, sir, if I pack it with gravel, reinforce the cover, and set the charges right it'll go off like a claymore when Ichimaru's people come through here."
"Claymore?" The first thing that came to mind was a Scottish broadsword, but Sasakibe suspected that wasn't what Takano meant.
Takano confirmed that suspicion when he described exactly what a claymore mine was, and how the arcing pattern of shrapnel would scythe the ground floor clean of life.
Sasakibe looked at the fountain, and at the nymph, and wondered about the people who had put them in this place. It was a shame to have to turn works of art into weapons, and books into garbage, but this counted as nothing against the need to preserve Soul Society. What was left of it.
And then, how much of Seireitei would they have to destroy, in order to preserve it? How much was already past repair? It wasn't the physical destruction he minded so much as what that meant, and what it said about what they were willing to become in their desperation to survive.
Buildings could be rebuilt. People could not be replaced. Center 46 was gone, as were so many captains, vice-captains, friends, students... How much knowledge was now lost to them forever? How much wisdom? How much talent? How much potential?
How much more would they lose in the days to come?
Sasakibe sighed. "I'd better leave you to your work. Good day, Takano."
"Thank you, sir."
The visit to the Great Hall had not been the mental break he had hoped for. So instead, he went back to the pantry he'd commandeered as an office, and pulled out the small packet of Earl Grey tea Hinamori-fukutaichou had brought back for him. He pondered the gift, and the tradition and civility behind the impulse to bring back souvenirs from a journey even in this time of chaos. After a moment, he opened the packet.
There was enough left for three more cups, and after a few minutes fiddling, there was enough left for two.
He sipped at his tea, and the smell and taste brought him back to a better time. Tonight, he would think about the battle to win back Seireitei, and how they would make those who had taken it pay for all they had done.
Now, though, with the thought of what Seireitei had been so very present in his mind, he took a clean sheet of paper and set to listing all of the many, many things they would need to accomplish if they won.
Inoue Sora was trying to find a corner to stand in that would be out of everyone's way. He'd been marched in front of the Captains and Vice-Captains by Shiba-sama (who was much, much scarier than her brother) and stared at his own feet while they looked him over and eventually decided that he would do.
He had only just realised that before all this, he really hadn't met anyone with a high level of reiatsu. The instructors at Shiba-sama's place could exert a level of force if they wanted to, but most of the time they were basically normal, a background hum of presence that he'd got used to. Even Shiba Ganju hadn't been so outright unnerving.
Before all this, he'd genuinely thought that he could make a contribution to helping save Orihime-chan. Now he was less sure.
"Here, you, fellow," a strange voice said. He turned to see one of the interchangeable-in-their-black-robes shinigami, a tall one with greying hair and a rigid look to him. "I am Hoshibana Akira of the Sixth Division. I understand that your name is Inoue Sora?"
Sora nodded and made a little bow. "I am, Hoshibana-san. How may I be of assistance to you?"
Hoshibana glanced around the crowded room, and drew Sora back into his corner. "I am one of the people who will be on the--upcoming mission." He gave the words a heavy weight. "I wondered if you had any questions that you wanted to ask, since Ikkaku-san and Ise-fukutaichou are both busy at the moment."
Sora swallowed nervously. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask. Unfortunately, the stupidest one came out first. "Are Ikkaku-san and Ise-fukutaichou always so--so very--so powerful? They've got such strong reiatsu and Ikkaku-san carries himself with such a lot of strength..."
Hoshibana stared at Sora until he managed to stop talking. Finally, Hoshibana said, "Yes, Ikkaku-san is very strong. But the Captains themselves are stronger."
"Yes, Hoshibana-san," Sora said, and folded his hands behind his back. Maybe if he pinched himself hard before speaking, he wouldn't say anything else as stupid. "I know nothing about this mission so far except that we may be going to rescue my sister, and that I may be helpful with that. I would be grateful for anything that Hoshibana-san can tell me about it."
Hoshibana nodded crisply. "Our mission is to attempt to remove Aizen Sousuke, and to rescue any shinigami who may be held captive in Hueco Mundo. And your sister, of course. It is possible that Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-fukutaichou of my own Division may be captives, so naturally we will be looking for them. I will describe them to you, so that you may be of assistance if we see them."
"Thank you, Hoshibana-san," Sora said. "And, um, I don't really know anything about any of the Captains except hearsay, so if we will be looking for any of the others as well--"
"Of course," Hoshibana said, just a little too quickly and too neatly.
Since Isane was still busy discussing defences and explosives with Momo and Shiba Kuukaku, Nanao took it on herself to bring Ukitake-taichou's evening tea to his private study.
He had retreated there "just for a few moments, to check our potential dispositions." She suspected it was so he could cough in peace, without everyone looking at him nervously and twitching. She was as guilty of that as anyone else. It was...
...well, it was hard not to care. It was hard not to know what it might mean. And she knew Kyouraku-taichou would have found something to say or do which didn't hurt Ukitake-taichou's feelings, but she still didn't know what it was.
She balanced the tray and knocked on the door.
"Come in!" he called.
Inside he was sitting by the fire again, with a casual robe draped over his shoulders. The trees were shaking in the night wind outside, branches rattling against each other like fingerbones. It was impossible to heat this place well enough, old and decrepit as it was: the room had an implacable coldness and dampness to it that even the fire could not drive away.
"Ise-kun," he said. "Thank you! But you really shouldn't have, you know."
"Kotetsu-fukutaichou is still working on the explosives layout, sir," she said, putting the tray down by his chair. "I saw no reason to interrupt her conversation."
He had never been remotely imperceptive, except by choice or out of kindness. "Is anything the matter?" he asked.
Nanao swallowed. She had expected this, but it didn't make it any easier. "Ukitake-taichou," she said formally, "I am concerned about this. That I may have personal bias, that is. That my personal issues--" She cut herself off at the look of wry amusement in his eyes.
He waited for her to go on.
She folded her arms. "It's important to me, sir," she said. "It matters to me. Because if he is there and he is alive," there was no need to say who the he was, "then there is the possibility that it would affect my conduct of the mission. Even if he ordered me otherwise."
"That is the sort of talk I would expect to hear from a very junior officer in command for the first time," he said briskly. "Not from a vice-captain who knows her job."
Nanao clenched her hands tight on her forearms. "But what if I--" The words came hard to her. "What if I make a mistake? We can't afford any more mistakes."
"Then don't," Ukitake-taichou recommended.
She glared at him. He had turned away to pour some tea, but she knew that he was perfectly well aware of it.
Ukitake-taichou sipped his tea. "Very good," he approved. "Just what I need."
"Ukitake-taichou," she said, and she knew that she sounded plaintive, but for that moment of weakness she couldn't help it. "What should I do?"
He looked up at her again. "What your Captain taught you, Ise-kun. Whatever the situation requires. You are fighting to protect others now--actually, you always have done, haven't you? It has always been that way with you. This time you are going to have to decide on your own, and if you have to sacrifice someone, then that person is going to have to die, however much you love them. But we both know that you will do it. You didn't come here for advice, Nanao. You came here for absolution."
She couldn't stop herself now. She was kneeling by his chair, her head on her hands, choking back the pain in her throat and the wetness in her eyes, and he was stroking the back of her head, just as Kyouraku-taichou would have done, just as her captain would have done.
"It's all right, Nanao," he said gently. "It's all right."
Isane sighed as she walked into her darkened room. Her hand went to Itegumo's hilt, and she wrapped her hand about the cool, blue wrapped grip. She felt the spirit within her blade stir at the touch.
She settled on the edge of her bed, unsheathing the blade to let it sit on across her palms. She closed her eyes and took that turn within that brought her to her inner world. Mists surrounded her, and she settled on an rock outcropping below a waterfall half-frozen in a crescent of ice above her. Water still fell in thin veils, some of it spraying out as snow, that glittered and wafted down to snow banks by the ice-rimmed stream that ran before her feet.
A pale youth settled by her, eyes the same color as the ice on the edge of the stream.
"Will you draw me when the time comes?" he asked quietly.
She slumped.
He dug a snowball from the bank and threw it into the water. It plopped, splashing water up onto the ice in a pattern of spray that was intricate and beautiful. The pattern froze. He did it again, waiting for her answer, building the ice into layers of lace.
He chuckled after a while. "Well, there's always your kido and the explosives."
Isane nodded at that, but then reached out to grab his wrist before he could dig another snowball out of the snow. "It's not... it's not that I don't trust you."
Itegumo nodded, and turned his cold hand to touch hers. "No, I know that. It's that you don't trust yourself."
She looked up, startled, meeting those glass cool eyes directly. He looked back at her and the look made a lump suddenly form in her throat as tears blurred her vision. Those slender, hard fingers tightened on her own. "You can do it. I know your heart better than anyone, and you know my name. You hold it within you."
She wiped her eyes, met his gaze again and nodded. "Shiba... Shiba-sama..."
"You talked with her about where and what to lay. She liked your suggestions."
Isane nodded again. Shiba-sama had gone over the whole setup with her, piece by piece, wall by wall. She had even put together a small model to show how one explosion would trigger the next, and how the destruction should be amplified by the order and specific size and direction of each charge. Being able to see it in motion had given Isane the same feeling she got when she combined kido spells, getting effects together that were much larger than the two spells separate. With the dynamics flowing through her head, she had asked Shiba-sama questions that had made the fierce woman widen her eyes in surprise.
They had changed three of the charges together according to her suggestions, and now Isane felt she knew what was going to happen.
Shiba-sama had nodded in satisfaction. "Ukitake will trigger all this. Takano can take care of the physical explosives, but I was worried about who or what might happen if anything went wrong with the kido side of this. Ukitake cannot be fast enough."
"Fast enough?" Isane had asked.
"Right. He'd never be able to adjust any of this if it went wrong, he's strong enough, but he just can't move fast enough anymore. You can."
Isane's mouth had gone dry then, but now...
Itegumo grinned, and she found herself smiling back.
"All right... I guess we can, together." The hard, slender hand held hers tightly, and as she came back up out of her inner world, she found that her hand was holding his hilt, just as firmly.
"Yeah," Kurosaki-kun said. "I wish Zaraki was still alive. Nobody else here understands, you know what I mean?"
Orihime nodded, and poured another cup of wine for him. He drank it as if he had something to prove, swallowing down mouthful after mouthful and then watching her out of the corner of his eyes to see if she was impressed enough.
"You wish to be of use?" Ulquiorra had asked her. "Then you may. Spend the morning with Kurosaki Ichigo. I have important business to see to, and would rather not be distracted by his constant quarrels."
Kurosaki-kun seemed to think that having her sit around and listen to him was some sort of trophy or victory. Even his mask (how does he wash behind it, she wondered) was smirking.
"Understands what, Kurosaki-kun?" she asked. She kept her hands folded in her lap, sitting very straight and neat, like a small child.
"Understands what it means to fight," he snarled. "They all talk shit about how they don't want to fight because they're saving themselves for later, or why do they need to fight when they've already won, or what's the point of fighting because we're on the same side. They don't get it. You don't fight for any of that crap. Sure it can be useful when you want some sort of reason for starting a fight, but it's not the real reason for why you fight." His voice rose and fell in uneven bursts, as if his mind was a radio station broadcasting from far away and his body was having trouble receiving it and getting the words out. "Hey, Orihime-chan. You weren't there to see Zaraki when he went down, were you?"
"No, Kurosaki-kun," she agreed. "I wasn't."
"Now that was a proper fight," Kurosaki-kun said, hardly listening to her. "That was someone who really got it. I bet he'd have done it even if Aizen hadn't done that thing to him. You know." He waggled his fingers. "Hey, Orihime-chan, want to hear a secret?"
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun, please." What else could she say?
He leaned in close. "Aizen still hasn't made me see his zanpakutou. That means I'm the only one here he can't hurt with it. The really only one. He's not going to trick me, you know. Some day he's going to give me a proper fight. He promised."
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun," she repeated. "I'm sure he will."
"You should call me Ichigo," he said. He leaned back in his chair and kicked his heels up to prop them on the table. "It's just us now, Orihime-chan. Nobody's going to hear."
She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. He was idly amused, playing with the idea. It wasn't some sort of complicated trap. Maybe it was a genuine moment of closeness.
There was a time in the past when she would have dreamed of hearing him call her Orihime-chan and knowing that he meant it.
"It's like being the prince," she said, "and standing at the bottom of the tower and calling Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair! Except it's the witch instead."
He stared at her. "What does that mean?"
"I was just thinking," she said. "I'm sorry. Except she cries her eyes out in that story, doesn't she?"
He shook his head indulgently. "It's a good thing you have me to look after you, Orihime-chan."
"Yes, it is," she agreed. "Kurosaki-kun... do you ever get tired of being here?"
"Of course I do!" he said. He swung his feet down again and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "I want to be out of here, finding some real fights, but no, Aizen wants me here. He says he's got something big coming up." He grinned. Such white teeth he had. "I can't wait."
"It must be so very boring," she agreed, as placatory and desperate as she had been all those years ago at school, trying not to give the bullies any reason to hit her again.
At least Tatsuki wasn't here. Tatsuki was safe.
Kurosaki-kun tilted his head, watching her thoughtfully. "You know, Orihime-chan, I've been missing you lately. You spend all your time with Ulquiorra. It's a good thing that I know you don't really like him."
A dozen conversational pitholes opened up round her, any of them large enough for her to stumble in and break a leg. (And they shoot horses, don't they?) "It's Aizen-sama's orders," she said, keeping her eyes down. This conversation with Kurosaki-kun was the closest connection she'd had with him in months. She had to try and encourage it. The little fragment of hope in her blazed up for him as well. If he could feel, if he could care, if there was something of the real Kurosaki-kun in him still...
He sighed. "I'm going to fight him, you know. Some day. Maybe real soon." His eyes burned at the thought.
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun," she agreed.
Soi Fong rubbed the stump of her missing arm. Sometimes she still felt phantom aches in wrist and fingers she could no longer stretch. While she had relentlessly trained her reactions and balance to compensate for the missing mass, the motions and counterbalancing she could no longer do, she still missed the freedom of simply having two hands.
She watched those about her, even as she packed, ate, and slipped through the darkened camp on principle. It never hurt to know how things were going, seeing people when they didn't know they were being watched. She wasn't made to coordinate things smoothly the way Sasakibe did, as he gave orders from around the fire.
Her strength lay in finding the pitfalls, and she saw them everywhere.
If Hisagi betrayed them, the whole team to Hueco Mundo would be lost; but that was why she had argued so fiercely that the strike team be small. It would be a small enough loss, for the huge amount of risk. If the mansion had a betrayer among the bait, there would be no diversion of Gin's forces. If the reports from her people were blinds, then there would be no support for anyone they mustered. There might not be anyone to convince.
Then she and her team would simply fade into the city, and their lives would be as hidden as the shadows she emulated. Everyone she had picked were people that could fit into a Clan, have connections in the city, have a place to hide, a place to live.
Their remaining power would be safe if everything else fell to shit.
It was Yoruichi-sama's voice in her mind that asked, "What would they be safe for?"
She remembered how large Yoruichi-sama used to live, the risks that they took together, the things that they had done just for the sake of doing them.
What would they be safe for? She had spent her whole life ready to die as all her siblings had died, fighting for what mattered; and here she was making a back-up plan that was simply to live. How lost she had become. She wondered if nearly dying had brought her to this.
She laughed softly, opened the fingers of her remaining hand as if to let something go.
Sasakibe turned away from the fire at the sound, looking with eyes still dazzled by the light into the darkness. She slipped to his side, and he started and then stilled. "What is it, Ca-- Soi Fong?"
"Do you think we'll be safe tomorrow?"
She saw those chiseled lips frown. "I hope not."
She laughed again, knowing she sounded ironic, but now not caring in the least. "You know, I hope we aren't, either. I hope our fight is as good as theirs."
White teeth flashed in the light from the campfire. "I hope so too."
Jyuushiro found himself trembling. Luckily, he was now alone in his own rooms with no one to see.
The talk with Ise-kun had drained him more than he liked to admit. He could not dictate what he could not know. She would have to make her own choices, that was what being an officer was all about; and he simply could not show anyone how much this whole enterprise frightened him, and yet... and yet...
He knew he would move forward, just as he had always done. Better to concentrate on the next step forward than the yawning chasm below if all of this did not work. A misplaced step on a stepping stone without solid foundation, and all could end. He knew that Hisagi was that stepping stone for this enterprise, and he wished he found more comfort in that thought.
While he was wishing, he might as well wish the bed was warmer. The sheets were cold and still felt damp, and the size of the mansion made it impossible to heat properly. He finally let himself really miss Shunsui's warm and constant presence. The talk with Ise-kun had finally brought home the possibility, the painful hope. Rather than dwell on the impossible, he forcibly shifted his thoughts: what if Shunsui were one of those being tortured by Aizen? There was ample evidence that Aizen had managed to turn shinigami Hollow: what would the big man be like hollowed out, made to despair?
He huffed a laugh to himself softly as his brain came up blank. The logical side of him could not imagine anything that would make Shunsui give up. Sure, there was much that could turn him sad, make him angry, but... give up? Jyuushiro shook his head, comforted.
He settled into the bed and breathed slowly and evenly, concentrating on each shallow, slow breath. Keeping them even and easy, unclenching his body and his mind from all that lay before them. Gradually he felt his limbs warm under the weight of his covers. Slowly he felt his lungs relax a little and release some of his own tension.
Tomorrow would be. He would do what was in front of him. The rest could wait until they actually hit bottom, or it was all done and they had won through to the other side.
"You're planning something," Yoruichi said.
"Of course I am," Kisuke agreed. The bedroom door was locked, which cut down on the odds of the conversation being overheard by Tessai, Ururu, Jinta, Mashiro, Kensei, or Rose, but didn't make it certain by a long stretch of the imagination. None of them would hesitate to listen at doors, and half of them would consider it their duty (or at least a survival necessity) to do so.
"I mean, something that you're not telling me," Yoruichi clarified. "Which has happened before. And that didn't go very well either, did it?"
The events of a hundred years ago were something which they didn't discuss, by mutual agreement and mutual silence. Once the blame had been settled and the shouting had died down, Kisuke had got on with his work and his research, and Yoruichi had... well, she was even better at keeping secrets than he was. Sometimes she'd mentioned the places she'd been, or the things she'd done, but most of the time she would simply smile at him and tilt her head, with her familiar cat-smooth expression of satisfaction.
One thing he did know, and it lay like a fascinating peppered candy at the bottom of his mind. She wouldn't let him get away with anything like that again. She had been his Captain, once. She still had an inexplicable, illogical feeling of responsibility towards him. (He didn't understand it at all, but then he'd never claimed to care about Hiyori-kun in that way.) If he went too far, then she'd stop him.
Which just meant that he'd have to be very, very careful if he ever did consider going a little bit too far.
But what was the definition of too far? Exploration was where one started, and it never ended. There was always something more to learn, another stone to turn over, another window to open, another path to take. He didn't want the knowledge for power's sake, as Aizen Sousuke did. He wanted it... because. He understood Kurotsuchi Mayuri, he understood him very well, and when it came down to it, he knew in his gut that the only thing which stood between him and some of Mayuri's experiments was the fact that he liked people. And he liked to be liked.
There was something very erotic about lying in the arms of a woman who would (and could) kill you if she thought she had to. He should recommend it to any other Captains he met.
Everyone did what they thought they had to. If more people realised this and accepted it, the world would be a more comfortable easier place, or at least would involve fewer apologies on his part.
Words were such easy coinage. Lies were such easy tools. And yet people believed them. And yet people believed him.
"I'm thinking," he said, and let her stroke his back. "Don't worry. I'd tell you first."
"Liar," she said affectionately.
But she shouldn't worry so much. This time he knew what he was doing, and he knew who his opponents were, and he knew what the stakes were.
He wasn't a vengeful man. Heavens, no.
But some debts were overdue payment.
Next Chapter: Nanao: Going Down
Fandom: Bleach
Characters: Ikkaku, Yumichika, Nanao, Grimmjow, Sasakibe, Sora, Isane, Orihime, Soi Fong, Ukitake, Urahara
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Word Count:
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with incandescens and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe. As with the previous installment, the writing duties were shared by the three of us, with each of us taking a different p.o.v. section.
Summary: It's the day before the battle begins, and there is much to do--and think about.
Index of Links
[...]
15. Isane: Present
16. Nanao: Looking For A Blonde
17. Hanatarou: Underground
18. Lisa: Prisoner's Dilemma
19. Hinamori, Takano, Ichimaru: Taking The Bait
"Goddamn stupid piece of shit lantern... "
Three hours of sleep wasn't much, but it was plenty. Ikkaku had got by on less and been fine the next day. Perfectly fine. Peaches could take her mother-henning and shove it up her ass. He had stuff to do.
Assuming the lantern stayed lit.
"Damn, what the hell exploded in there? Fucking door looks like a hedgehog."
Creeeak.... Clunk.
"Are you fucking kidding me? A multi-bolt crossbow? Sheeee-it. What kinda dumbfuck put it away all cocked and loaded? Smart. Real smart. Now where the fuck is that naginata Kaede said was in here..."
Four-Eyes, Smiley, Yoshino, and Newbie got back okay a while back. Ikkaku thought that shoulda kicked off the whole deal, but no. Only thing it kicked off was a whole bunch of waiting. More waiting. Maybe he should have talked his way onto the expedition, but when he said something Smiley bitched to him that it was boring as hell. They'd found a patrol all right, but the patrol had rabbited back to Seireitei rather than give the group a good fight. No fight, but the head psycho himself should have gotten a nice earful by now. Or now-ish. So that was good.
"Who the hell put this fucking armory together? Squirrels? Can't find a goddamn fucking thing in here, the way it's all fucking thrown together..."
Clatter. Crash. Thunk. Sproing.
The way their luck was going, Ichimaru might just up and throw the patrol into a Hollow pit or something instead of listening to their story. Punish 'em for being a bunch of stinking cowards, maybe. Damned fox-faced nutjob was cracked enough to do something like that just for shits and giggles.
"Ohhhhh, now that's more like it! Come to papa, baby..."
Crash.
"Fuckit."
Soon as they got word that Ichimaru took the bait, Ikkaku and the others would light out to the living world. Half a day at most, Soi Fong had said. Twelve miserable hours. Maybe less. Hopefully less. Then they'd be at Urahara Kisuke's place. Should be interesting. And then...
"Ah, screw it! I give up."
He really should get some rest while the getting was good. At least, that's what Peaches kept telling him. But it wasn't like he was Zaraki-taichou, able to fall asleep just like that between one breath and the next. When he was like this, mind spinning and jumping from thought to thought, three hours was the best he could hope for.
Coming to this rat's nest of an armory at the ass-crack of dawn to root around maybe wasn't the best use of his time, but it was a damn sight better than sitting around stewing in his own juices. Besides, giving up wasn't his style.
Another crash, and he finally pulled the promised naginata clear of the jumble of pikes, halberds, polearms, scythes, and lots of other freaky things he didn't know the names of.
It took him a bit longer to find a jutte. It wasn't exactly right, but it was close enough. He had no idea why it was buried in a stack of things that looked like large fishing weights attached to each other by leather braids. He looked at them for a bit, thinking about what kind of damage they'd do if you swung them around then let them go.
Hell, half the armory was full of weird shit like that. The other half was the kind of stuff that glittered and gleamed but that would bend like putty if you were stupid enough to rely on them in a fight. They were weapons you wore because you were rich--or wanted people to think you were rich--not because you were strong.
There was one sword, though, that caught his eye. He couldn't say what it was that drew him. Something about the proportions of it, maybe, or the detail work on the hilt that was ornate but not ridiculous. It was a western-style weapon, double-edged, small and light and vicious as hell.
He propped the naginata and jutte against the wall, and picked up the sword. When he pulled it out of the scabbard, it slid out smoothly, with a whisper of metal against metal that was more soft than harsh. An experimental twirl or two proved it was perfectly balanced even though the hilt was just a little small for his hand. It was a good blade. Strong. Well-forged. Sharp. Gorgeous.
Yumichika would have loved it.
Ikkaku tossed the sword aside. It struck a single spark as it clattered into the darkness. He'd never find it again, in all that junk. Not that he'd want to.
He picked up the two weapons he'd come there to get and headed off to one of the paddocks. Yesterday, after Four-Eyes and the others left, Peaches started in with some bullshit about skipping their usual session on this last day, but Ikkaku told her they'd meet at sunrise, usual place.
They could all sleep later. When they were dead, they could sleep all they fucking liked.
He waited at the paddock. Then he went up and waited by the main house. Then the stables. Then, he started asking around. And so, just as the sky was turning bloody gray at the east, he wrenched open the doors to the root cellar and looked down.
It was all cozy, what with the lanterns and the cots and two of his people playing cards with their prisoner.
"I swear, one time I'm going to check in on you, and you're gonna be braiding each other's hair. You're late, Peaches. You were supposed to meet me by the paddock 'bout now." Ikkaku did his best to loom, but Hinamori cast a pointed glance up the sky before looking back at him, unimpressed.
"You said sunrise. It's barely even dawn." Still, she stood up and stretched. She grinned and shook out her shoulders. "Did you find what you were looking for in the armory?"
He didn't remember telling her he was going there. Whatever. "Kind of, yeah. C'mon."
"You two are going to spar?"
Ikkaku could've sworn that Boy Blue's ears pricked up.
"Yeah. And you're not invited, asshole."
And of course, Sparkles was quick to suggest another 'barehanded combat practice.'
Ikkaku stalked off while they were still making plans, not bothering to wait as Peaches made cheerful farewells and wished Sparkles and Little Boy Blue a good sparring session. She'd either follow or she wouldn't.
She did.
He jerked his head towards one side of the paddock to where he'd propped the naginata and jutte against the fence. He'd hoped to find a sansetsukon or something else close to Hoozukimaru's second released form, but he could spend days in that armory before going through the whole thing.
Hinamori immediately went for the jutte. She picked it up and pouted. "It looks like poor Tobiume lost a prong."
Ikkaku shrugged. "Not my fault you got a weird sword. That work, or you want to go at it with sealed zanpakutou again?"
Out in the field, they could use their shikai whenever they wanted. They were always on the move, so letting slip a bit of reiatsu now and again wasn't any big deal. The way Ikkaku saw it, it drew attention away from Ukitake-taichou so the more they cut loose, the better. And drawing attention to themselves could be fun.
But now, drawing attention would be a bad thing. Or so Soi Fong said. So, sealed swords it was, no matter how much Ikkaku wanted to feel a different kind of weapon in his hands.
"Let's use these," she said after thinking it over for a minute. "I don't use Tobiume's released form as a weapon as often as I should."
"Damn straight."
Ikkaku had already checked the naginata, finding it close enough in balance and weight to Hoozukimaru that he was ready to give this a go. He picked it up again and made a few practice thrusts and sweeps, switching it from one hand to the other. He watched as Peaches tried out the jutte, frowning a little at first, then relaxing and settling into things as she shifted her grip closer to the end of the hilt.
"It feels weird, using something that doesn't speak to you," she said. It didn't matter how many of these early morning sparring sessions they had, she never picked up that he didn't feel like being chatty. In fact, the more quiet he stayed, the more she talked, like she was trying to fill in for him. "Does Hoozukimaru talk to you as much as Tobiume talks to me?"
"How the hell would I know that?" He wasn't sure what he'd do if his sword kept butting in all the time. Good thing Hoozukimaru only liked to talk if the two of them were about to jump into a fight. "You and Tetsu ready for Ichimaru's people to drop in?"
Peaches did a few more warmup steps. The motion looked natural enough, and she flowed into a series of moves that didn't look like any kata he recognized. The ways her eyes flicked, he guessed she was practicing moves against opponents who weren't there. He noted the sharp twists of her forearm that suggested some nasty tricks happening with Tobiume's prongs. Good, good...
"We'll be ready soon enough," she said, with a short, sharp flash of smile. "I just hope we're right about Ichimaru himself showing up."
"Got plans for him, huh?" He grinned and shifted into ready position. He'd let her take the offensive this time, just for yucks.
She didn't bite. Not yet anyway. She still seemed to be testing things out with her substitute weapon. If this were a real fight, she'd be in pieces already, and he was half tempted to go after her just to drive that point home.
"They're just ideas right now." She stopped her drills, and actually stood up on tiptoe and stretched full-length, like she was trying to scratch the sky or something. Then, with no warning, she dropped into a crouch.
That's when she took the offensive.
"What about you? Do you have plans for Ayasegawa-san?" She jumped. Her first thrust came in wide, the length of her weapon sliding past. If it was a sword, it would've been a miss, but a quarter twist, and that stupid prong nearly got him right in the crease of his shoulder.
He ducked it. A flick of the wrist as she surged past and the butt-end of the naginata connected hard with her shin.
"Why the fuck would I have plans?" he snarled.
She regrouped fast enough, landing without any sign of having been hit. "Because you're going to bring him back, right?" She shouldn't sound so damned cheerful. "You heard what Grimmjow said. He's alive. They've done something to him, but he's alive."
She barely parried his next batch of attacks. Then, before he could do anything more than that, she leapt up and back, landing neatly on one of the paddock rails. "I mean, wouldn't you think--"
"Dammit, Peaches. We're sparring, not having a tea party. More fighting, less talking."
Before he even finished, he lashed out, but she leapt right over his head before he could complete the swipe at her legs.
Time was, she'd have apologized for her chatter. Now, she was on the offensive again, trying to get inside his guard. He nicked her arm, and while she didn't flinch, she did jump back to regroup. She was angry.
"What the hell, Peaches? That was nothing!"
"We don't have that many healers around, and I'm not going to get myself wounded before the battle in a... a silly sparring match!"
"Then fight so you won't get wounded!"
He got her on the defensive for a while after that, but she was fighting like she was looking for just the right opening.
A little cut shouldn't have stopped her.
It wouldn't have stopped Yumichika. Not for a second.
When they used to spar before going on a dangerous mission, it didn't matter if they drew blood. It just got them hot for the main event.
Peaches nearly caught the tip of the naginata in the prong of her jutte, but Ikkaku yanked it up before she could catch and twist. So that's how she was going to play it. He widened his grip. It would slow him down a fraction, but she'd have a bitch of a time getting decent leverage now.
"Where the hell's your mind, Peaches? You're fighting like you ain't really here?" Slash.
"Sorry." Parry.
She was better than this. Lots better. She had never beaten him, but now she could push him to where he really had to work for the win, and it wasn't many people who could do that.
This was pathetic. He should have dragged that blue-haired freak out here instead, got more of a feel for how he would do in a fight. He should have just said yes when Peaches suggested not sparring, and then he wouldn't be dealing with this joke of a fight. He should...
Should, would, could. What-the-fuck-ever.
It should have been Yumichika who got zapped by Inoue and sent back to Soul Society, and not that freak of an ex-hollow. They should have won that fight against Aizen in the first place.
'Should' was just a big pile of horse shit, if you asked him.
What was going to happen was this: he was going to go to Hueco Mundo, and they were going to kill Aizen or die trying. And if he ran into Yumichika, well...
There was something else that should have happened. Something he used to believe had happened.
Yumichika should have died before he let the other side take him prisoner. Before he let them fuck him up to the point where he was swanning after some bitch of an Arrancar.
He'd lost. That much was clear. And here Ikkaku had been assuming that Yumichika would have gone the same way Zaraki did and fukutaichou must have.
Peaches somehow got in a nice shot to his ribs, but he twisted out of the way just in time, clipping her hard with his elbow on his way past.
She made another pass, still trying to catch him with her jutte.
"That move won't do you any good, Peaches."
"Really?" She was treating this like a joke, and he'd had it.
Just to show her, he let her catch his naginata. She tried to twist it out of his hands, but he anticipated it, locking her jutte in place so she could only break free by stepping forward, angling the thing back and putting her in easy grabbing distance. She pressed on, though, even though the point of her weapon was a good eight inches from his face and wouldn't be going any further than that.
"See what I mean?" He'd let her flail for a second or two before disarming her and bringing this joke of a fight to an end.
She stopped struggling, but she held firm. And she smirked.
"Hajike."
Eight inches now seemed real close. A sharp circling of his hands, and he had the jutte out of her hands and halfway across the paddock.
"Very nice, but too late, I'm afraid," she said, polite and pleasant, but kind of chilly for all that.
"This was a real fight, Peaches. No tricks. No fancy stuff. By rights, I should have pulled you in."
Her eyebrows drew down sharply, like she was getting ready to haul off and give him an earful, but she forced herself to relax--he could see it happen, bit by bit--before she said anything.
"If we had our real zanpakutou, then by rights you wouldn't have a head right now."
"Pfft. Like you'd ever go through with that." He hiked the naginata over his shoulder. It didn't sit quite right, but that was no surprise. "Get that little papercut I gave you seen to. An' if I don't see you before I take off, good luck."
He started back towards the main house. Maybe he'd go see what Sparkles and Boy Blue were up to.
"You'll be dealing with people who would go through with it!" she called out. "You have no idea what kinds of weapons you'll be facing!"
A flash of his middle finger was all the answer she was going to get on that one. She yelled his name, but he ignored it. At least she wasn't chasing after him.
She was right, but he wasn't about to admit it.
Thing was, her being right didn't matter. He'd learned his lesson--if he was up against some rank and file piece of shit Hollow, he'd watch out for stupid tricks.
The only fight he actually cared about, he wouldn't have to worry about crap like that.
When he found Yumichika, they were going to settle this--end this--the way they would have in the Eleventh. A real fight. A good fight.
Then, maybe, they'd both be at peace.
The sound of waters was always at the back of his mind, and the touch of waters, the gentle smooth pull of cold waves, the taste of salt in his mouth, as rich as blood, as heady as hot wine.
Yumichika wandered the pale corridors in dream. He seldom woke these days. He slept and he dreamed, and sometimes he dreamed that he was awake and following her, and sometimes he dreamed that he was asleep, and always the sea sounded in the background, great rolling waves far from shore.
It's like being permanently drunk. He hasn't been drunk for years now (I mean, how unsightly, how simply vulgar), even with Ikkaku tipping down jugs of the stuff at his side, and Zaraki-taichou downing casks of it at the head of the table. He'd always been the one to have a few decorous social cups, to share the general entertainment, and then to shoo their vice-captain off to her bed before the furniture got broken any further.
He does remember. He remembers everything. He remembers the battle. He remembers that Fraccion's death. He remembers how it seemed such a good idea to attack that Espada, the one who'd just downed Hitsugaya-taichou, for the battlefield was rife with steam and ice and flames as Yamamoto-soutaichou invoked his own power, and nobody could see him clearly.
"Bloom," he whispered to himself, and giggled a little at the noise that the word made, echoing down the white corridors.
Was this another dream? Yes. The waters ran through him and they washed everything else away.
He had sipped her power, and then drunk it down, swallowed mouthful after mouthful of it, flower after flower, and still it would not stop and it sang in him and rang in him and whispered in him and all the waves came crashing down as finally his flowers fell away and his vines crumpled and she touched his face and said something that he could not hear, and he looked into her deep eyes and shivered at her voice, a boat adrift on her great sea of power.
He has forgotten all other tastes since then. He has seen faces and recognised them -- Aizen, Hisagi, Ichimaru, Kurosaki, Kurotsuchi, the Inoue girl -- but the whisper and flow of the sea has carried all sense and meaning away from them. He is awake when she is with him. He is asleep otherwise, even if he dreams that he stands and walks the corridors, even if he dreams that he speaks with other people.
The ocean is always with him now, and the hunger that moves in it, and anything else is drowned in it, drowned a thousand fathoms deep and far away.
It took some planning by Nanao to manage a completely coincidental meeting with Momo in the corridor. Fortunately, with everyone running round in all directions, it wasn't too difficult to make it look accidental.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, tucking the book still more neatly under her arm. "Hinamori-kun! How convenient, I was actually looking for you --"
"Is there anything the matter?" Momo asked alertly. There was a sparkle in her eyes these days, and Nanao had to admit that however much she herself would have personally disliked being sent out with Madarame's patrol, it had been good for Momo.
It was quite unimportant that she might herself have liked Momo's company. Really it was.
"Nothing serious," Nanao said reassuringly. "It's just that while Kotetsu-fukutaichou and Shirogane were busy preparing the ambush site, they were clearing out the library there." Clearing out was an euphemism. Nanao had needed to control her wrath and bad language when she saw the mess, the disruption, the sheer wanton destruction of books that could perfectly well have been saved with a little care . . .
. . . well, so perhaps it wasn't the first priority at the moment, but she did have standards.
". . . and I happened to pick up this book," she said, offering the volume tucked under her arm. "It's a copy of the Konjaku Monogatarishu, and we never did get round to reading it before --"
Momo's squeal was very undignified and un-adult and not befitting the dignity of a vice-captain, and Nanao might have even said something about that or just satisfied herself with giving Momo a stern look, but Momo was too busy hugging her for that, squeezing her tight enough to make her wince. Kyouraku-taichou had embraced in that way before, not necessarily in a romantic way or even in a passionate one, just hugging for the comfort of touch and to say thank you and I care . . .
"Momo-kun," Nanao said, a little stifled, "Please. I need to wipe my glasses."
It was only her glasses that needed wiping. Really.
"I look forward to discussing this with you afterwards," Momo said. She was chewing her lower lip a little as well, but her eyes were bright and her words made a promise of it.
"Of course," Nanao said, and that was a promise as well.
Pounce now! Bite that! Get in there, idiot!
Grimmjow snarled at the weird voice inside his own head, even as he had to twist to duck a punch from the slender, tall, and graying Hoshibana Akira. He shouldn't be so goddamned fast, and the fucking human was going for targets Grimmjow had fondly imagined were only for Hollows; and that stupid voice had been coming and going at the weirdest times in just the last day. Annoying.
Another flurry of slaps to his head maddened Grimmjow, and he roared as he threw his whole body after the slender man, who simply fell to the side, and then kicked him hard on the hip. Grimmjow tumbled. He managed to just snag the ankle of the foot that had kicked him, and he dragged the other down with him. He rolled on top, cocked an elbow, and a voice behind him barked, "Stop it, shit for brains. Now."
The laughter inside his own head did not help his state of mind.
"Shit, Ikkaku, what the fuck?"
A slap across the back his head made him jump, whirl to face the other, and widen his stance.
"You wanna take me on?" Ikkaku drawled, but there was something off in the way he said it. Grimmjow didn't like that tone at all.
He let himself narrow his eyes. "Fuck that. I want to go fuck Aizen, not get messed up here."
He saw Ikkaku straighten, those beady eyes flickering to the side and then back to him. Thinking. Grimmjow suddenly realized that he'd made the other guy think instead of just fighting him. He shook himself off, not sure if he was going even crazier; but it felt stupid to fight now when there was going to be the biggest fight of his life coming up. Voices and now being a fucking pacifist. Shit.
Akira sat up, and he gave the man a hand up. "Good reflexes there, Jaggerjack-san," Akira said formally. "It would have been a groin shot if you had not turned your hip into it."
Grimmjow barked a laugh. "So you were trying for that!"
Akira shrugged. "It is effective." He cocked his head. "You hungry?"
Grimmjow shrugged. "Not yet. Just had lunch." He suddenly frowned as both men looked at him. "What? I look like I need feedin' or somethin'?"
"You were ravenous the first few days you were here. It seemed like you were going to go through nearly all our rations within a week, and it is hard to get food even in our base camp," Akira said quietly.
"It is?" Grimmjow blinked. This was just... he swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Hey, you okay?" Ikkaku's voice held more jeering than concern to Grimmjow's ears.
"Yeah... yeah... I'm fine," Grimmjow said roughly. He opened his eyes and walked away from the two men. When he was out of sight, he leaned back against a wall and tried not to completely freak out.
The presence in his head felt like it was curling up against him, purring in a deep rumble. Damnit... that was... that was wrong. What the fuck was something doing in his head? Why the hell wasn't he hungry? He'd been hungry so long, so deeply for that to be missing was as disconcerting as not really wanting a fight. Crap. What the fuck was wrong with him?
You're whole. said the amused voice within his own mind. It circled like a cat in a small space. That is what's wrong with you. You've been hollow for so long, you forgot what it's like to not want.
"But I like fighting!" Grimmjow growled softly.
Nearly whacked Akira, not like you're shyin' away from fights.
"But I was a wuss with Ikkaku."
Hey, no pouncing injured Dragons, kitten. Damned things are liable to bite your head off for real. The voice was reflective, and Grimmjow could almost see a pink tongue washing a blue paw thoroughly.
"He... what?" Grimmjow, thoroughly confused now, put his head in his hands.
"Who what?"
Grimmjow startled, but managed to refrain from jumping clear to the other side of the yard. He glanced over and saw the lamed Iba standing there looking at him. Grimmjow put on his deepest scowl. "Nothin'."
Iba held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Right. Didn't hear a thing..." He limped off, glancing back at Grimmjow who just sat there.
Grimmjow studied the ground under his ass, half-expecting it to fall away too. The whole thing was crazier than Szayel with a pack of lab rats. Going back into Hueco Mundo without his Arrancar powers, with a bunch of folks that knew next to nothing about surviving under him, and now he had to deal with know-it-all voices and not being hungry to boot. He ran one hand over the muscles and smooth skin of his stomach, where the familiar hole no longer gaped.
Maybe that was as crazy as the rest of it. That moment when he woke up seeing Orihime's face, as triumphant as she was terrified of what she's just done, was just as nuts as this. He should be getting used to it.
Yeah, that's right. The fun's just startin'.
"Agh!"
Sasakibe Choujirou had a few hours and no pressing tasks due before he was to depart on the mission to Seireitei with Shiba-san and Soi Fong... taichou?
No, that didn't feel quite right.
The question of her rank bothered and confused him. She had put aside her rank, but she was still his commanding officer on their upcoming mission.
There really was no set protocol for dealing with this sort of situation. And Sasakibe liked set protocol, perhaps now more than ever.
In the end, he told himself, the question of rank was not important. It could be sorted out later. Right now, Soi Fong-san (easier to put the rank aside for now) was the best person to direct the mission to re-take Seireitei.
What was Seireitei like, now? How much of what was familiar would have been destroyed, or changed beyond recognition? It had been less than half a year since they had fled the place, but it seemed like so much longer. Ichimaru struck him as the sort to demolish or desecrate out of sheer spite. What else could you expect from a man who had been quick to re-establish the use of the Hollow-pits, who had taken order and civilization and replaced it with brutality and chaos?
Centuries of hard work, everything that Yamamoto-soutaichou had poured all his strength and will into building, undone so fast...
Sasakibe shook his head, and gave up trying to concentrate on Iba-fukutaichou's supply and logistics report. He already knew what it said: they didn't have enough food, they didn't have enough medicine, and they barely had enough able-bodied to support one mission, let alone three.
He left his makeshift desk and headed towards the mansion's Great Hall, giving himself the excuse that he wanted to check on Takano's progress with the explosives. In truth, he simply wanted another look at the place before it was too late.
Even in half-ruin, it was a compelling sight. He knew many of the others found the place too overwrought and too foreign, but he was unashamedly fascinated by it.
Takano was up on one side of the grand double-stair, working to remove one of the treads so it could be replaced with no sign of tampering. Three other slabs of wood were already stacked at the foot of stairs; he'd been busy. As soon as he heard Sasakibe approach, Takano snapped to attention.
"I don't mean to interrupt, Takano," he said, although he did appreciate the attention to military protocol. "How are things proceeding?"
"Good, sir. The other staircase is already mined, and I've figured out where to place the other explosives." He nodded towards a recess near the entrance. The upper part of the niche held an alabaster nymph, her hands coyly posed in a token attempt at modesty. Beneath her, a bronze basin bulged out from the wall, from floor to waist height. Sasakibe had taken a closer look at it the other day, trying to figure out if the elaborate scene of knights and horses was meant to be something out of Arthurian legend or not.
"I took the cover off. The metal's thinner than you'd think, but the wall behind is solid stone. Anyhow, sir, if I pack it with gravel, reinforce the cover, and set the charges right it'll go off like a claymore when Ichimaru's people come through here."
"Claymore?" The first thing that came to mind was a Scottish broadsword, but Sasakibe suspected that wasn't what Takano meant.
Takano confirmed that suspicion when he described exactly what a claymore mine was, and how the arcing pattern of shrapnel would scythe the ground floor clean of life.
Sasakibe looked at the fountain, and at the nymph, and wondered about the people who had put them in this place. It was a shame to have to turn works of art into weapons, and books into garbage, but this counted as nothing against the need to preserve Soul Society. What was left of it.
And then, how much of Seireitei would they have to destroy, in order to preserve it? How much was already past repair? It wasn't the physical destruction he minded so much as what that meant, and what it said about what they were willing to become in their desperation to survive.
Buildings could be rebuilt. People could not be replaced. Center 46 was gone, as were so many captains, vice-captains, friends, students... How much knowledge was now lost to them forever? How much wisdom? How much talent? How much potential?
How much more would they lose in the days to come?
Sasakibe sighed. "I'd better leave you to your work. Good day, Takano."
"Thank you, sir."
The visit to the Great Hall had not been the mental break he had hoped for. So instead, he went back to the pantry he'd commandeered as an office, and pulled out the small packet of Earl Grey tea Hinamori-fukutaichou had brought back for him. He pondered the gift, and the tradition and civility behind the impulse to bring back souvenirs from a journey even in this time of chaos. After a moment, he opened the packet.
There was enough left for three more cups, and after a few minutes fiddling, there was enough left for two.
He sipped at his tea, and the smell and taste brought him back to a better time. Tonight, he would think about the battle to win back Seireitei, and how they would make those who had taken it pay for all they had done.
Now, though, with the thought of what Seireitei had been so very present in his mind, he took a clean sheet of paper and set to listing all of the many, many things they would need to accomplish if they won.
Inoue Sora was trying to find a corner to stand in that would be out of everyone's way. He'd been marched in front of the Captains and Vice-Captains by Shiba-sama (who was much, much scarier than her brother) and stared at his own feet while they looked him over and eventually decided that he would do.
He had only just realised that before all this, he really hadn't met anyone with a high level of reiatsu. The instructors at Shiba-sama's place could exert a level of force if they wanted to, but most of the time they were basically normal, a background hum of presence that he'd got used to. Even Shiba Ganju hadn't been so outright unnerving.
Before all this, he'd genuinely thought that he could make a contribution to helping save Orihime-chan. Now he was less sure.
"Here, you, fellow," a strange voice said. He turned to see one of the interchangeable-in-their-black-robes shinigami, a tall one with greying hair and a rigid look to him. "I am Hoshibana Akira of the Sixth Division. I understand that your name is Inoue Sora?"
Sora nodded and made a little bow. "I am, Hoshibana-san. How may I be of assistance to you?"
Hoshibana glanced around the crowded room, and drew Sora back into his corner. "I am one of the people who will be on the--upcoming mission." He gave the words a heavy weight. "I wondered if you had any questions that you wanted to ask, since Ikkaku-san and Ise-fukutaichou are both busy at the moment."
Sora swallowed nervously. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask. Unfortunately, the stupidest one came out first. "Are Ikkaku-san and Ise-fukutaichou always so--so very--so powerful? They've got such strong reiatsu and Ikkaku-san carries himself with such a lot of strength..."
Hoshibana stared at Sora until he managed to stop talking. Finally, Hoshibana said, "Yes, Ikkaku-san is very strong. But the Captains themselves are stronger."
"Yes, Hoshibana-san," Sora said, and folded his hands behind his back. Maybe if he pinched himself hard before speaking, he wouldn't say anything else as stupid. "I know nothing about this mission so far except that we may be going to rescue my sister, and that I may be helpful with that. I would be grateful for anything that Hoshibana-san can tell me about it."
Hoshibana nodded crisply. "Our mission is to attempt to remove Aizen Sousuke, and to rescue any shinigami who may be held captive in Hueco Mundo. And your sister, of course. It is possible that Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-fukutaichou of my own Division may be captives, so naturally we will be looking for them. I will describe them to you, so that you may be of assistance if we see them."
"Thank you, Hoshibana-san," Sora said. "And, um, I don't really know anything about any of the Captains except hearsay, so if we will be looking for any of the others as well--"
"Of course," Hoshibana said, just a little too quickly and too neatly.
Since Isane was still busy discussing defences and explosives with Momo and Shiba Kuukaku, Nanao took it on herself to bring Ukitake-taichou's evening tea to his private study.
He had retreated there "just for a few moments, to check our potential dispositions." She suspected it was so he could cough in peace, without everyone looking at him nervously and twitching. She was as guilty of that as anyone else. It was...
...well, it was hard not to care. It was hard not to know what it might mean. And she knew Kyouraku-taichou would have found something to say or do which didn't hurt Ukitake-taichou's feelings, but she still didn't know what it was.
She balanced the tray and knocked on the door.
"Come in!" he called.
Inside he was sitting by the fire again, with a casual robe draped over his shoulders. The trees were shaking in the night wind outside, branches rattling against each other like fingerbones. It was impossible to heat this place well enough, old and decrepit as it was: the room had an implacable coldness and dampness to it that even the fire could not drive away.
"Ise-kun," he said. "Thank you! But you really shouldn't have, you know."
"Kotetsu-fukutaichou is still working on the explosives layout, sir," she said, putting the tray down by his chair. "I saw no reason to interrupt her conversation."
He had never been remotely imperceptive, except by choice or out of kindness. "Is anything the matter?" he asked.
Nanao swallowed. She had expected this, but it didn't make it any easier. "Ukitake-taichou," she said formally, "I am concerned about this. That I may have personal bias, that is. That my personal issues--" She cut herself off at the look of wry amusement in his eyes.
He waited for her to go on.
She folded her arms. "It's important to me, sir," she said. "It matters to me. Because if he is there and he is alive," there was no need to say who the he was, "then there is the possibility that it would affect my conduct of the mission. Even if he ordered me otherwise."
"That is the sort of talk I would expect to hear from a very junior officer in command for the first time," he said briskly. "Not from a vice-captain who knows her job."
Nanao clenched her hands tight on her forearms. "But what if I--" The words came hard to her. "What if I make a mistake? We can't afford any more mistakes."
"Then don't," Ukitake-taichou recommended.
She glared at him. He had turned away to pour some tea, but she knew that he was perfectly well aware of it.
Ukitake-taichou sipped his tea. "Very good," he approved. "Just what I need."
"Ukitake-taichou," she said, and she knew that she sounded plaintive, but for that moment of weakness she couldn't help it. "What should I do?"
He looked up at her again. "What your Captain taught you, Ise-kun. Whatever the situation requires. You are fighting to protect others now--actually, you always have done, haven't you? It has always been that way with you. This time you are going to have to decide on your own, and if you have to sacrifice someone, then that person is going to have to die, however much you love them. But we both know that you will do it. You didn't come here for advice, Nanao. You came here for absolution."
She couldn't stop herself now. She was kneeling by his chair, her head on her hands, choking back the pain in her throat and the wetness in her eyes, and he was stroking the back of her head, just as Kyouraku-taichou would have done, just as her captain would have done.
"It's all right, Nanao," he said gently. "It's all right."
Isane sighed as she walked into her darkened room. Her hand went to Itegumo's hilt, and she wrapped her hand about the cool, blue wrapped grip. She felt the spirit within her blade stir at the touch.
She settled on the edge of her bed, unsheathing the blade to let it sit on across her palms. She closed her eyes and took that turn within that brought her to her inner world. Mists surrounded her, and she settled on an rock outcropping below a waterfall half-frozen in a crescent of ice above her. Water still fell in thin veils, some of it spraying out as snow, that glittered and wafted down to snow banks by the ice-rimmed stream that ran before her feet.
A pale youth settled by her, eyes the same color as the ice on the edge of the stream.
"Will you draw me when the time comes?" he asked quietly.
She slumped.
He dug a snowball from the bank and threw it into the water. It plopped, splashing water up onto the ice in a pattern of spray that was intricate and beautiful. The pattern froze. He did it again, waiting for her answer, building the ice into layers of lace.
He chuckled after a while. "Well, there's always your kido and the explosives."
Isane nodded at that, but then reached out to grab his wrist before he could dig another snowball out of the snow. "It's not... it's not that I don't trust you."
Itegumo nodded, and turned his cold hand to touch hers. "No, I know that. It's that you don't trust yourself."
She looked up, startled, meeting those glass cool eyes directly. He looked back at her and the look made a lump suddenly form in her throat as tears blurred her vision. Those slender, hard fingers tightened on her own. "You can do it. I know your heart better than anyone, and you know my name. You hold it within you."
She wiped her eyes, met his gaze again and nodded. "Shiba... Shiba-sama..."
"You talked with her about where and what to lay. She liked your suggestions."
Isane nodded again. Shiba-sama had gone over the whole setup with her, piece by piece, wall by wall. She had even put together a small model to show how one explosion would trigger the next, and how the destruction should be amplified by the order and specific size and direction of each charge. Being able to see it in motion had given Isane the same feeling she got when she combined kido spells, getting effects together that were much larger than the two spells separate. With the dynamics flowing through her head, she had asked Shiba-sama questions that had made the fierce woman widen her eyes in surprise.
They had changed three of the charges together according to her suggestions, and now Isane felt she knew what was going to happen.
Shiba-sama had nodded in satisfaction. "Ukitake will trigger all this. Takano can take care of the physical explosives, but I was worried about who or what might happen if anything went wrong with the kido side of this. Ukitake cannot be fast enough."
"Fast enough?" Isane had asked.
"Right. He'd never be able to adjust any of this if it went wrong, he's strong enough, but he just can't move fast enough anymore. You can."
Isane's mouth had gone dry then, but now...
Itegumo grinned, and she found herself smiling back.
"All right... I guess we can, together." The hard, slender hand held hers tightly, and as she came back up out of her inner world, she found that her hand was holding his hilt, just as firmly.
"Yeah," Kurosaki-kun said. "I wish Zaraki was still alive. Nobody else here understands, you know what I mean?"
Orihime nodded, and poured another cup of wine for him. He drank it as if he had something to prove, swallowing down mouthful after mouthful and then watching her out of the corner of his eyes to see if she was impressed enough.
"You wish to be of use?" Ulquiorra had asked her. "Then you may. Spend the morning with Kurosaki Ichigo. I have important business to see to, and would rather not be distracted by his constant quarrels."
Kurosaki-kun seemed to think that having her sit around and listen to him was some sort of trophy or victory. Even his mask (how does he wash behind it, she wondered) was smirking.
"Understands what, Kurosaki-kun?" she asked. She kept her hands folded in her lap, sitting very straight and neat, like a small child.
"Understands what it means to fight," he snarled. "They all talk shit about how they don't want to fight because they're saving themselves for later, or why do they need to fight when they've already won, or what's the point of fighting because we're on the same side. They don't get it. You don't fight for any of that crap. Sure it can be useful when you want some sort of reason for starting a fight, but it's not the real reason for why you fight." His voice rose and fell in uneven bursts, as if his mind was a radio station broadcasting from far away and his body was having trouble receiving it and getting the words out. "Hey, Orihime-chan. You weren't there to see Zaraki when he went down, were you?"
"No, Kurosaki-kun," she agreed. "I wasn't."
"Now that was a proper fight," Kurosaki-kun said, hardly listening to her. "That was someone who really got it. I bet he'd have done it even if Aizen hadn't done that thing to him. You know." He waggled his fingers. "Hey, Orihime-chan, want to hear a secret?"
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun, please." What else could she say?
He leaned in close. "Aizen still hasn't made me see his zanpakutou. That means I'm the only one here he can't hurt with it. The really only one. He's not going to trick me, you know. Some day he's going to give me a proper fight. He promised."
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun," she repeated. "I'm sure he will."
"You should call me Ichigo," he said. He leaned back in his chair and kicked his heels up to prop them on the table. "It's just us now, Orihime-chan. Nobody's going to hear."
She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. He was idly amused, playing with the idea. It wasn't some sort of complicated trap. Maybe it was a genuine moment of closeness.
There was a time in the past when she would have dreamed of hearing him call her Orihime-chan and knowing that he meant it.
"It's like being the prince," she said, "and standing at the bottom of the tower and calling Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair! Except it's the witch instead."
He stared at her. "What does that mean?"
"I was just thinking," she said. "I'm sorry. Except she cries her eyes out in that story, doesn't she?"
He shook his head indulgently. "It's a good thing you have me to look after you, Orihime-chan."
"Yes, it is," she agreed. "Kurosaki-kun... do you ever get tired of being here?"
"Of course I do!" he said. He swung his feet down again and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "I want to be out of here, finding some real fights, but no, Aizen wants me here. He says he's got something big coming up." He grinned. Such white teeth he had. "I can't wait."
"It must be so very boring," she agreed, as placatory and desperate as she had been all those years ago at school, trying not to give the bullies any reason to hit her again.
At least Tatsuki wasn't here. Tatsuki was safe.
Kurosaki-kun tilted his head, watching her thoughtfully. "You know, Orihime-chan, I've been missing you lately. You spend all your time with Ulquiorra. It's a good thing that I know you don't really like him."
A dozen conversational pitholes opened up round her, any of them large enough for her to stumble in and break a leg. (And they shoot horses, don't they?) "It's Aizen-sama's orders," she said, keeping her eyes down. This conversation with Kurosaki-kun was the closest connection she'd had with him in months. She had to try and encourage it. The little fragment of hope in her blazed up for him as well. If he could feel, if he could care, if there was something of the real Kurosaki-kun in him still...
He sighed. "I'm going to fight him, you know. Some day. Maybe real soon." His eyes burned at the thought.
"Yes, Kurosaki-kun," she agreed.
Soi Fong rubbed the stump of her missing arm. Sometimes she still felt phantom aches in wrist and fingers she could no longer stretch. While she had relentlessly trained her reactions and balance to compensate for the missing mass, the motions and counterbalancing she could no longer do, she still missed the freedom of simply having two hands.
She watched those about her, even as she packed, ate, and slipped through the darkened camp on principle. It never hurt to know how things were going, seeing people when they didn't know they were being watched. She wasn't made to coordinate things smoothly the way Sasakibe did, as he gave orders from around the fire.
Her strength lay in finding the pitfalls, and she saw them everywhere.
If Hisagi betrayed them, the whole team to Hueco Mundo would be lost; but that was why she had argued so fiercely that the strike team be small. It would be a small enough loss, for the huge amount of risk. If the mansion had a betrayer among the bait, there would be no diversion of Gin's forces. If the reports from her people were blinds, then there would be no support for anyone they mustered. There might not be anyone to convince.
Then she and her team would simply fade into the city, and their lives would be as hidden as the shadows she emulated. Everyone she had picked were people that could fit into a Clan, have connections in the city, have a place to hide, a place to live.
Their remaining power would be safe if everything else fell to shit.
It was Yoruichi-sama's voice in her mind that asked, "What would they be safe for?"
She remembered how large Yoruichi-sama used to live, the risks that they took together, the things that they had done just for the sake of doing them.
What would they be safe for? She had spent her whole life ready to die as all her siblings had died, fighting for what mattered; and here she was making a back-up plan that was simply to live. How lost she had become. She wondered if nearly dying had brought her to this.
She laughed softly, opened the fingers of her remaining hand as if to let something go.
Sasakibe turned away from the fire at the sound, looking with eyes still dazzled by the light into the darkness. She slipped to his side, and he started and then stilled. "What is it, Ca-- Soi Fong?"
"Do you think we'll be safe tomorrow?"
She saw those chiseled lips frown. "I hope not."
She laughed again, knowing she sounded ironic, but now not caring in the least. "You know, I hope we aren't, either. I hope our fight is as good as theirs."
White teeth flashed in the light from the campfire. "I hope so too."
Jyuushiro found himself trembling. Luckily, he was now alone in his own rooms with no one to see.
The talk with Ise-kun had drained him more than he liked to admit. He could not dictate what he could not know. She would have to make her own choices, that was what being an officer was all about; and he simply could not show anyone how much this whole enterprise frightened him, and yet... and yet...
He knew he would move forward, just as he had always done. Better to concentrate on the next step forward than the yawning chasm below if all of this did not work. A misplaced step on a stepping stone without solid foundation, and all could end. He knew that Hisagi was that stepping stone for this enterprise, and he wished he found more comfort in that thought.
While he was wishing, he might as well wish the bed was warmer. The sheets were cold and still felt damp, and the size of the mansion made it impossible to heat properly. He finally let himself really miss Shunsui's warm and constant presence. The talk with Ise-kun had finally brought home the possibility, the painful hope. Rather than dwell on the impossible, he forcibly shifted his thoughts: what if Shunsui were one of those being tortured by Aizen? There was ample evidence that Aizen had managed to turn shinigami Hollow: what would the big man be like hollowed out, made to despair?
He huffed a laugh to himself softly as his brain came up blank. The logical side of him could not imagine anything that would make Shunsui give up. Sure, there was much that could turn him sad, make him angry, but... give up? Jyuushiro shook his head, comforted.
He settled into the bed and breathed slowly and evenly, concentrating on each shallow, slow breath. Keeping them even and easy, unclenching his body and his mind from all that lay before them. Gradually he felt his limbs warm under the weight of his covers. Slowly he felt his lungs relax a little and release some of his own tension.
Tomorrow would be. He would do what was in front of him. The rest could wait until they actually hit bottom, or it was all done and they had won through to the other side.
"You're planning something," Yoruichi said.
"Of course I am," Kisuke agreed. The bedroom door was locked, which cut down on the odds of the conversation being overheard by Tessai, Ururu, Jinta, Mashiro, Kensei, or Rose, but didn't make it certain by a long stretch of the imagination. None of them would hesitate to listen at doors, and half of them would consider it their duty (or at least a survival necessity) to do so.
"I mean, something that you're not telling me," Yoruichi clarified. "Which has happened before. And that didn't go very well either, did it?"
The events of a hundred years ago were something which they didn't discuss, by mutual agreement and mutual silence. Once the blame had been settled and the shouting had died down, Kisuke had got on with his work and his research, and Yoruichi had... well, she was even better at keeping secrets than he was. Sometimes she'd mentioned the places she'd been, or the things she'd done, but most of the time she would simply smile at him and tilt her head, with her familiar cat-smooth expression of satisfaction.
One thing he did know, and it lay like a fascinating peppered candy at the bottom of his mind. She wouldn't let him get away with anything like that again. She had been his Captain, once. She still had an inexplicable, illogical feeling of responsibility towards him. (He didn't understand it at all, but then he'd never claimed to care about Hiyori-kun in that way.) If he went too far, then she'd stop him.
Which just meant that he'd have to be very, very careful if he ever did consider going a little bit too far.
But what was the definition of too far? Exploration was where one started, and it never ended. There was always something more to learn, another stone to turn over, another window to open, another path to take. He didn't want the knowledge for power's sake, as Aizen Sousuke did. He wanted it... because. He understood Kurotsuchi Mayuri, he understood him very well, and when it came down to it, he knew in his gut that the only thing which stood between him and some of Mayuri's experiments was the fact that he liked people. And he liked to be liked.
There was something very erotic about lying in the arms of a woman who would (and could) kill you if she thought she had to. He should recommend it to any other Captains he met.
Everyone did what they thought they had to. If more people realised this and accepted it, the world would be a more comfortable easier place, or at least would involve fewer apologies on his part.
Words were such easy coinage. Lies were such easy tools. And yet people believed them. And yet people believed him.
"I'm thinking," he said, and let her stroke his back. "Don't worry. I'd tell you first."
"Liar," she said affectionately.
But she shouldn't worry so much. This time he knew what he was doing, and he knew who his opponents were, and he knew what the stakes were.
He wasn't a vengeful man. Heavens, no.
But some debts were overdue payment.
Next Chapter: Nanao: Going Down