PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! I would strongly suggest that you read 'Hidden In Plain Sight' before more onto this one. I hope this story takes off. Though given my university workload, it will most likely be a weekly update. I had so many ideas but feared that none of them would do 'Hidden In Plain Sight' justice. I decided to start posting early to see if there is enough interest in this story. I hope you ENJOY!
When Sōsuke woke it was not pleasant, not by a long shot. His body paralysed with his mind on high alert. Yes it seemed that he had entered into a state of panic. This was not like him, he was the calm one, he was the rational one. And seeing as his mind raced not giving him clear answers. He only had to assume that something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. Things did not add up. What was his doing lying on a cold hard floor? Why had he been asleep on the cold hard floor in the first place anyway?
Sōsuke may have not like the paralysis, but what came after, well that was one hundred times worse. The feeling came back, and with it came the pain. Such pain which he could only describe as a thousands knifes driving into his body. Or perhaps swords. Everywhere from his abdomen to his legs felt on fire. The stabbing pains intensified. So much so that Sōsuke had to bit down his tongue to stop himself crying out. Where was the pain coming from? Where was he? Why was he hear? Had he been in some sort of battle? What was wrong with him he did not know?
Unable to come up with any clear answers, Sōsuke decided to break things down. The first thing he needed to do was to figure out where he was. He did this by sitting up and concentrating on his surroundings. All the while, he did his best to channel out the pain. And that was when he saw something else, something else that even rattled him. He was lying in a giant pool of blood, fresh blood. And whilst Sōsuke was struggling to rack his brain for answers. What he saw, only made him ask more questions indeed.
Now he needed to know where the blood had come from, surely it could not be his. Could it? If there was anything Sōsuke prided himself in, it was his observational skills. He could sneak up on his foes but they did not have the skill to do the same to him. But as he tapped down his chest and his legs. He was starting to realise that something like that had happened. Something or someone had attacked him. Though for them to have been successful, well it would have had to be an ambush.
If that was the case then Sōsuke had to hunt them down. Though with bouncing to his feet, he felt an extreme wave of dizziness hit him anew. Ah yes, he should have been careful about that. He had forgotten about his injuries for a while there. Injuries that if he had taken more notice, he would have sought treatment. Especially since they were beginning to reopen again. Things were still hazy for Sōsuke. There was something that was not right. And one of those things happened to be the fact that he realised that he was in none other then the throne room.
No one was there apart from him. Putting two and two together meant, that this was the last place he had to be before the ambush. But who could have snuck up on him in such a way? He did not think the soul king would do such a thing. He and Delilah had been joined at the hips since the twins' birth. That was something that he did not understand. And it was something that even began to irk Gin. Then again, Gin seemed to be somewhat cowed in his sensei's presence. Almost as if his teacher held some sort of hidden sway over the lad.
"Master...Master...can you hear me?"
Now that was a voice he recognised. It went from garbled to clear . The voice, female in nature, seemed worried beyond comprehension. And seeing as they had worked together since the time he could remember. He knew her for what she was:
"What seems to be the matter, Kyōka Suigetsu?"
He heard her let out a loud sigh:
"It's a miracle that you are alive. I thought, I thought that they had severed your soul chain. I thought I had lost you"
Sōsuke found himself taking a double step. It almost sounded as if his zanpakutō was insinuating that he had died. If that was the case how was he alive. Also such a thing would not have been possible. Those bond to the soul king could not die, not really. After all, his sensei would have known about the ambush, he was sure. And his sensei would have not let him go so easily. Or was there something that Sōsuke was missing. Was there something that was interfering or had ceased their connection all together. This was something that Sōsuke did not allow himself to think about. Or his zanpakutō would not let him.
"You must warn Delilah. You must find her immediately"
His zanpakutō seemed to know more about the situation then he did. This was unnerving. His mind came up blank when he tried to put two and two together. The pain was starting to become all consuming if he were being honest. He did not care. He drew on his reserves, he needed them. Even if they ended up being the only thing that kept him alive. Some may have considered him suicidal, though he did not see it that way. He did not engage in bloody battles. Not like Delilah, not like Hiromasa. They resorted to the Kenpachi style of fighting. He did things with finesse. He used kidō, the situation demanded it of him. Most times he would have used ink. He did not have that to hand, he used the next best thing. He began to mark his arms with the squared lines, he draw the symbols on his hands. The box of reiatsu began to flicker in front of him. It was faint, he needed to reach for more of her reserves. He moved his hands left and then right as the chant came soon after:
"Black and white net. Twenty second bridge, Sixty six crown and cincture! Footprints! Distant thunder! Arrow, rotating land, cover of night! Sea of clouds, pale soldiers! Form a circle and then charge through the heavens! Bakudō 77. Tenteikura!"
...
From the moment the kidō command came out of Sōsuke's mouth. The lines began to spread across the air and all across the palace. If Sōsuke had been able to pinpoint Delilah's location, things would have been easier. But as of late, that was not possible. So he sent out empty signals everywhere he could think off. Something would come up, or he would get a clue in which direction he needed to head. The first places he spread his reiatsu towards came up empty. So did the second and the third and the forth. In fact he almost had no luck as his kidō spell began to disintegrate. The pain hit him once more and his wound began to bleed again. Still he held on, and then he received a flicker of reiatsu. It was not Delilah's, it his sensei's. Now this was not the result which he had wanted, that was obvious. But it was not as if he could keep searching, his own body would not let him. So his only hope was that by finding his sensei, he would in fact find Delilah. Then again, if Sōsuke admitted it to himself. Tracking Delilah had been getting more and more difficult. And it all went to back to the twins' birth over a thousand years before.
In his mind, Sōsuke geared himself up to go on his way. But from the moment that he moved one foot forward, every part of his body screamed in agony. His head began to pound and his ears began to buzz. He began to sway to and fro, to and fro. He knew what this symptoms were. These were the steps that would lead him to faint and black out again. This was something he could not afford. He had more important things to do. He had to stay calm. He had to breath in and out. He needed to grit his teeth and find Delilah. His zanpakutō's panicking annoyed him to no end. But then it was also making his fight against the great wave of weakness. Weakness which he swallowed as he continued to put one foot after another. The pain was unbearable. But he told himself over and over again, that what did not kill him only made him stronger. Then again, he did not plan to die. He wanted instead to track down Delilah, and then hunt down those who had dared to ambush him.
He wanted to move quickly, flash stepping would have been ideal. But those options were not available to him. He was not at his best, that was obvious. Yet he was still a captain. He was still trained by the soul king. And he was not about to let something like reopened wound drag him down. So he continued to walk towards the exit. The pain and the dizziness still persisted. But he concentrated on his zanpakutō's panic instead. Even if she was being quite irrational about everything, at least she kept him focused. And kept his mind of the fact that he was in fact leaving behind him another trail, another trail of blood. His blood. In some ways it was a similar situation in which Delilah had found herself with Mimi Ukitake. She had not taken much noticed of her wounds back them. She had only wanted to find her daddy. Sōsuke had been her healer. But with his own reserves depleted, healing himself did not seem possible at the moment. He would have to hope that he would endure and that sooner or later, all would be well.
From the moment he stepped out of the throne room, he immediately surveilled the area. It was the right thing to do, considering how he had yet to remember how the enemy was. The same enemy that his zanpakutō wanted him to want Delilah off. It unnerved him a great deal that there was an enemy with the royal realm. An enemy which could very well be a danger to Delilah, Gin and the children. An enemy which he had yet to realise had been the reason for the near extinction of the Kishimioro clan. Those thoughts were ones that unsettled Sōsuke. He could not believe that such an enemy had been undercover for such a long time. He could not understand why they would decide to strike now. And also it only served to bring Sōsuke more questions then it did answers. After all, had Delilah not avenged the Kishimioro clan by slaying the hollow king. Had she not almost lost her own life to achieve such a prize? Was that not a part of her glory? Or had there been others behind the scenes pulling the strings all along? That was something that terrified Sōsuke. And such a bout of fear brought forth the first set of answers. Answers conveyed through sets of fragmented memories.
For a moment there it was almost as if he was back into the throne room. Even though he knew that he had crossed the threshold. He then returned to the present as he began to make his way down the hallway. Once again, his surroundings flickered back to the throne room. This time though, things were different. This time, Sōsuke realised that he was not alone. He could sense them. Their reiatsu felt familiar yet dark, ever so dark. And they appeared to be coming closer and closer towards him. His vision then flickered back to the present as his mind whirled at the new piece of information. In his current time and place, he followed after the flicker of his sensei's reiatsu. But the futher and further he moved away from the throne room. The more his vision flickered back to the throne room. If those enemy energies had been far away to begin with. Well they were now getting closer and closer. Sōsuke might have reacted, he might have backed away. But they moved fast and it was not as if he could control something that was replaying from memory.
...
These flickers between the past and the present continued as Sōsuke made his way through the palace. It was a huge place, it was once empty especially after the soul king lost his children. But then Delilah came along and so did the rest of her children. The children, those poor innocent children. They lit up the halls with laughter and fun. Though not at that moment in time. It was early afternoon. The young ones were in class. Sōsuke was not on teaching duty. Gin was probably in charge. Sōsuke had pulled away from the day. After all, he now recalled that it had been a note that had lead him to the throne room in the first place. And once he began making his way down the subterranean training halls. The flickers of memories of being surrounded turned dark, it turned violent. As that was when he remembered the first blade piercing him from behind. It caused his past self to cry out. It caused the wounds of his present self to run once again. It made him feel awful. But Sōsuke did not hold those memories back. Not when he was so close to identifying just who the enemy was.
His vision flickered back to the present as he knocked on the first door. There was no answer. There was no way of even opening the door. He knocked on the second door, once again things were silent. Well silent in the present. But as he found himself revisiting the past, he saw flashes of each stabbing inflicted upon his body. He remember how he had tried to push them off with kidō. He then saw that he had been overtaken by their numbers. Thus showing that it was more than one enemy he was dealing with. There were many, many enemies meaning the children were in that much more danger. Children which did not share his blood but saw him as granddaddy and protector. This was a title he cherished, this was a title he fought for. The stabbings happened, happened and happened again. But Sōsuke still pulled through each memory. He knocked on every door, hearing no answer. He was beginning to feel weak once again. His vision was going dark. But he knew that he had to press on. And it was not longer after that, that he began to recall their voices. Their words ringing in his ear as if they were a siren for war.
"Do you really think you can take us down by yourself? Do you really think that your captain status means anything? We have all been captain at one point or another. But we learnt not to be so naive. We learnt that Yamamoto is nothing but an old fool at the beck and call of the noble clans"
By that point Sōsuke recalled how he struggled to breath. They were still plunging their sword into him. But they had slowed down a little. Then again, their words felt more like daggers to the heart then the actual stabbings.
"Your parents thought they could take us on too. But we wiped them out along with the rest of the Aizen clan. The Ichimarus and the Tōsens meet their demise sooner. It did not matter whether they knew who we were. We had been waiting for them, thus they had not stand a chance"
Even though it was a memory, in the present, Sōsuke still found himself gasping for breath. Yes the pain was unbearable, but the fear, the fear superseded everything. He had wanted answers, and he was getting them. Including answers to a past he had never known, a past ripped from him with the deliberate murder of his parents. Something that he had wrongly blamed on his sensei in the beginning. And once again he felt the tingling of the wound in his shoulder. He knew the incident that had caused the pain, but most of all, he remembered the pain from hearing those words.
"Those elite warriors, if only they had chosen the victors then they may have lived. You are in our way. With you gone, that half breed boy will be next. Their children will become our hostages and their mother will have no choice but to give us what we want. Something that should she should have gotten in the first place"
It was as Sōsuke returned to the presence that his entire body starting shaking in fear. He knew who the enemies were, he knew why they had gotten so close. He knew why the Kishimioro clan was near extinction. He would not let his parents' deaths be in vain. He would warn Delilah before the enemies could carry out their plans. As it was then that he proceeded to knock on the last door. There was no answer at first. Sōsuke thought that after everything he had failed. The darkness was beginning to set in, even those Sōsuke did not want it too. Would he not be able to protect Delilah, Gin and the children after all?
The door did open, it was his sensei. He went from serene to worried, very much so.
"Sōsuke, what in the...?"
But Sōsuke did not let him finish. He stumbled in he had to get to Delilah. Delilah was on the floor, mediating by the looks of it. But with him there, she snapped out of it. Sōsuke did not know what the two of them had been doing. He didn't care, his senses were starting to go haywire. His zanpakutō's voice was fading fast. And as he stumbled towards Delilah, he told her in as loud a voice as he could muster.
"The traitors...the royal guard...you must..."
Sōsuke never did managed to finish his sentences before everything went dark. The last thing that made his ears' sting was Delilah's scream that came seconds after. It was so painful that even pierced his very soul and made his zanpakutō shake. Such great power Delilah held over his zanpakutō even though Shiruba Oji had never copied his technique. Where did such a great power come from? How could so simple as Delilah's screams go onto shake the realms to the extreme? More questions instead of answers, this was not how Sōsuke had envisaged his death.
Hello readers and welcome back! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of part two. If it takes off, we will be in for the long haul. Your feedback is crucial so I can make sure that there is interest for me to continue this story. I have a lot of big plans, but what I am looking for is confirmation. Until next time, fingers crossed :)
