Return to Illusion
Unohana made her way through Fourth Division's quiet streets. There was a lull in wounded from the Eleventh Division, creating a pleasant atmosphere on the warm day, something everyone in her squad cherished.
It wouldn't last long.
She sighed. She knew it was only a matter of short time before Captain Zaraki's newly recruited academy graduates would come – staggering – into her ward for medical treatment. It was always the same. New recruits, new injuries flooding her spare beds in every barrack.
She smiled at a few members of her division as they passed her. She had new recruits, too. In the months since Aizen Sousuke had turned Soul Society inside out and been beaten by the shinigami there had been other upsets. Traitorous captains to replace, morale to bolster, egos and trust to rebuild.
She saw it most in Fifth and Third Divisions, but everyone had felt the treason, even the Old Man himself.
"Captain!" Isane called to Unohana as she stepped off the porch of Fourth's last row of medical bunkers. "Captain Unohana, please, a moment."
"Of course, Isane." Unohana stopped, looking far up at her very tall lieutenant as she crossed the yard to the barrack of patients.
"I just heard that Captain Zaraki has ceased training for the day," Isane said. "I guess we'll see no more wounded for a while."
Unohana nodded, sighing. "Very well. He drives those probationaries too hard sometimes," she mused. "They're so young, and fresh out of Academy. Oh, but you mustn't say anything of that to Captain Zaraki, Isane. That's just my opinion. It's Captain Zaraki's division."
"Oh, no," Isane said, paling a little. "I wouldn't."
Unohana smiled demurely at the tall woman. Isane was a trusting, loyal vice-captain, strong yet sensitive. A sweetheart, as Unohana had inadvertently overheard Ikkaku say once when he was drunk. "I know you won't. I'm going off base for a few hours. You'll take care of everything, won't you, Isane?"
"Of course, Captain, but don't you need me with you?" Isane didn't plead, but the appeal was obvious in her face.
"This is not official Society business; it's, it's a smaller task." Unohana's eyes clouded for a brief moment. "I have a grave to visit."
"Oh, a ...grave?"
"I won't be long." Unohana glanced back to the barracks where inside were the least-wounded of their charges. These would be the first patients to be released. She looked to Isane. "I'll be back soon."
"Yes, Captain."
Unohana moved away from the porch and to the lane weaving between the buildings of Fourth. She was a few steps away when Isane called again to her.
"Someone close, Captain?"
Unohana stopped, her gaze dropping to the pebble strewn path before she looked over her shoulder to her lieutenant. "At one time, yes, Isane; someone close. When we were different people."
"Yes, Captain."
Unohana turned back down the path.
The captains of Soul Society enjoyed freedoms not available to most shinigami, and some captains had access to certain areas otherwise off-limits to others. Some of those spots no one wanted access to, such at places Captain Kurotsuchi felt most at home; others, no one much cared about.
Few would have chosen to visit Muken, even if they had permission, but that's where Unohana went. It was hot even at the outer perimeter, blistering exposed skin if the arid winds were caught wrong, and suffocating dry. It was the very spot someone of Aizen Sousuke's caliber should be, she thought, wading deeper into the smoky dark that surrounded the hellish place. The smell of brimstone was strong in the cave as she entered into the back of the yawning cavern that would eventually lead to the inner depths of Muken.
It was a route few knew and no one wanted to explore, even Kurotsuchi. It was the Captain of Twelfth's very nature that prompted Unohana's visit to the deepest of damnation. Only a few days ago word had come from Hueco Mundo that the away team there under Kurotsuchi's lead had found some 'interesting prospects', as it had been termed.
Unohana wasn't one to fear much, but this bit of news spiked her cautions.
That news had led to a rift of speculation, drawing out even Momo and Izuru from their general hibernation of soul-searching. Shuuhei, too, she assumed, but the acting captain of Ninth was dealing a little better with his new responsibilities and feelings of abandonment.
She followed the twisting cave until it narrowed to a corridor, the stone around her hot as her shoulder brushed one wall, no condensation shining on the scorching surfaces. The temperature elevated to sweltering as she continued on, ever aware of the corridor delving deeper, a thousand steps to every level of the rings of hell. She didn't count them; that was why she took the back route.
Well, one reason, anyway.
She unbraided her hair when the heat became too much and tossed it over her shoulder. Around her were the wailings and murmurings, the steam and boiling blood of those unfortunates who still had blood, and the rattle of chains from unseen miserable souls.
She took the next corridor and stopped.
To see the image of Sousuke Aizen after the last year of doing damage control from his meticulously planned battles was unsettling. He was chained to the far wall, chains made of spiritual-suppressing reiatsu that countered anything the man in the thick cuffs could retain.
He was haggard in his torn pants and shirt, a bit gaunt, his hair the unkempt style he'd worn at the trial, but beneath it all he was still the visage of Aizen Sousuke.
It didn't fool Retsu Unohana. It never had.
She stopped a few paces away from his darkened cell of roughly carved stone, out of reach of his length of chain that bound him. Her cool look settled over him, estimating his attitude.
"You took your time," he said.
"Did I?" She smiled softly, a gesture some in the divisions had called motherly, which always made her smile more. "There had been quite the upheaval in Soul Society."
"As planned."
"Yes." Her gaze wandered over his build, the measurement nearly matching what she recalled of the Aizen who had served beside her as captain for decades in the ranks. "Was it worth it? Was it worth whatever he gave you in exchange for taking his place at the trial?"
A low growl came from him, his eyes narrowing on her.
She let one hand gesture to the hot walls that glowed red in some spots. "Was it worth all this?"
"He said you'd be here sooner." He stepped closer, taking up half the length of his chains, still out of her reach.
She smiled, this time with little of the motherly qualities for which she was so well-known. "He said a lot of things." Some of her smile fell away, a harder one taking its place. "Captain Kurotsuchi is busy at the Las Noches laboratories. It's only a matter of time before he's found. I've kept suspicions at bay, but I can only do so much with what he left me."
He shook his head. "He left you with a good deal of quality –"
"This?" She laughed. "You? The finest quality workmanship he could manage is you? If Captain Kurotsuchi had had time to examine the body Sousuke left that was supposed to be him when he faked his death, this would have been over much sooner. Kurotsuchi is a mad man, but he's no fool." She gave a short laugh. "You think I don't know Sousuke's body when I touch it?"
He backed up a step at the chill laugh coming from her. Aizen hadn't mentioned that part of the plan to him.
"The ensuing chaos of his departure made fooling them possible to those who knew him best, but not me," she said levelly, shaking her head. "Never me, and some of them suspected that then."
Namely, she knew, it was Shunsui and Ukitake who gave her the questioning looks, like when she'd stood by at Rukia's execution without lifting a hand, silent without voicing a word of protest.
"I am the ultimate compassionate figure in Soul Society," she said, reaching into her pocket. "My division heals. We make whole again damaged bodies." Her voice lowered to a melodic sound he hadn't heard in the hellish depths in months. "We repair lives and limbs, we comfort and nurture. No one suspects me now."
She pulled something from her pocket and kept it in her hand, seeing his eyes go to her fist. She watched as the expectation slipped over him, the desperate hope that he still clung to. It was interesting to her; she'd seen such looks on the wounded in her ward as they approached an irreversible death, and she relished in pulling them back from that portal.
It was also a look that she knew Aizen would never wear.
"But when he gives me weak imitations of himself," she continued, easing her grip, seeing his hungry eyes watch the movement, "shallow puddles of Aizen Sousuke, like you are, I have no choice but to wonder at Aporro's ability. Are you seriously the best imitation of him Aporro can create?"
He nodded, still looking at her hand. "It was enough to fool everyone else."
Unohana raised her hand, twisting the small object in her fingers. "It won't be long before Captain Kurotsuchi finds him and there is nothing I can do to stop that. You should be enough of a distraction to make the Old Man pull everyone out of Hueco Mundo." She smiled as he looked to her face. "I've kept my part of the agreement."
He nodded, holding her severe stare. "I don't know anything about –"
"No, you don't," she said. She tossed the key into the cinders and ash covering the floor between them. "You know what you're told. That's enough. Now," she said, watching him walk the length of the chain and stoop to where the key had dropped on the floor, "you can stay here stranded with your spiritual powers castrated, or you can make yourself useful."
He knelt, straining at the shackles at his wrists that cut his powers, stretching the arm with the longest chain to reach the key in the ashes. It was barely within reach, his fingertips pressing onto the edge of the key.
"Does the Sixth Espada know about you?" she asked, stepping away to the corridor.
He looked up, grunting as his index finger dragged the key closer. "Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez? Why?"
Unohana watched him strain at the chains to pull the key. "Because no one is quite sure if he's truly dead."
"I don't know."
The key hit an uneven part of the floor and flipped a few inches away. "Damn," he mumbled, reaching again for it.
"Yes," she said, leaving.
He didn't see her go, his freedom and new lease on playing Aizen Sousuke again a measly key away.
Unohana made her way back up the stone corridors, to the lighter air outside Muken, braiding her hair as she went.
As if she would not have known Sousuke's body by mere touch. Fools.
Within the hour she was back at Soul Society, in her division, having dusted the stench of hell off her captain's coat.
To resume the genteel role of the Captain Unohana everyone would recognize and expect.