Chapter 3: The Multiple Worlds Theory**
Kurotsuchi Mayuri stared at the green gray eyes of Urahara Kisuke peeking at him over his fan, shadowed by his green and white stripped bucket hat. Mayuri shuddered internally, as his body was unable to convey any emotions, the man before him made him uncomfortable.
They were found in this same position five minutes later when Hitsugaya and Matsumoto arrived.
There was that brief awkward interlude where the ex-captain of the 12th division and the current captain of the 12th division kept staring oblivious of the intrusion. Then the moment broke with a flourish of the former's fan. "Hitsugaya-sama, so glad you could join us!" then turning to Matsumoto with a devilish grin. Arms wide to embrace the voluptuous woman, "Rangiku-san!"
"We received orders to come here at once." Toshiro stated, annoyance coloring his tone while the two blonds flirted.
"Yes, well let's get this over with," Mayuri inter cut, "The sooner I get you people out of my lab the better."
Urahara looked at his former 3rd seat. "Yes, yes, very well then. Hitsugaya Taicho, we are requesting that you and Rangiku-san cross into the world of the living to deal with a hollow disturbance we have found."
"Why us?" Toshiro didn't miss the look that passed between Mayuri and Kisuke.
"What's the catch?" He asked watching their faces carefully. "Any ranking shinigami can purify a hollow. I highly doubt you need the services of a vice-captain and captain for this assignment."
True to the nature of those he was addressing the two researchers gave nothing away.
Growing impatient Toshiro turned to leave, "You obviously are scheming something. You will tell me how this concerns me or you will find someone else." He had reached the door when Kisuke responded.
"The explanation will take a moment. We need you because there is a being who has ice powers. You are the highest ranked ice wielding shinigami. Until we know more about what is going on we need to be cautious." This explained nothing but it had made the child prodigy stop nonetheless.
"Nemu!" Mayuri yelled, "Bring refreshments, it appears we're going to have company longer than expected."
The two captains sat across from the vice-captain and the former captain of the 12th division. They all looked at one another. Nemu returned with the tea and wagashi, then Kisuke continued. "We have long believed in a theory of multiple worlds, or parallel universes if you will.
Kurotsuchi Taicho had been tasked to monitor hollow riatsu since before the war with Aizen. Over four years ago his equipment picked up a large disturbance in a place no one expected, the North Sea.
When shinigami were dispatched to confirm the information and purify the hollows they were met with an anomaly." He turned to the black and white stripped face of Mayuri.
The eccentric captain took over, "Yes, at the exact coordinates the instrumentation indicated a large quantity of Hollow riatsu however there was nothing there. Of course being that my instrumentation is flawless those idiots were incompetent."
Kisuke frowned, "Yes, there was hollow riatsu but no hollows. The data and the spirit energy readings clearly indicated hollows in the world of the living but they were not. Then something odd happened."
"Those idiots noticed a shimmering in the air that had nothing to do with the ocean. A ray of sunshine came through this anomaly just wrong. And behold! There was a window in the sky. They did what any good scientist would do, they took measurements and recorded all the information they could about the precise location. It was noted that it was only visible in just one position. When they exhausted their limitations from our side of the anomaly one of them went through..." Mayuri stopped for dramatic flare, "And got devoured by the hollows that were on the other side."
Toshiro did his best not to roll his eyes, "Perhaps it was just a trick of the hollows and not this "anomaly" as you say."
"No. It was not. There is the data for one thing. Also the fact that it is completely different in every shape and form from our world. Sure there is the ocean, but no one in our world would have found it without my instrumentation."
Rangiku asked, "If that is the only "anomaly" you've found, when did you find the being with "ice" powers and how?"
Mayuri glared at her. "Knowing that there is something other was the first step. The data allowed for better and more precise equipment to be engineered. And I created another lab to scan all those frequencies because they resonate much differently than our world does.
Much hope had been lost until about a year ago, right before Aizen went and started his war. Had I not been busy with that mess it would have been detected much earlier. When I finally had a moment to review the data there was a flux in the particle changes. It originated in one point hundreds of miles to the North East of the location of the "window" the term I settled on for the 'anomaly'.
All data indicated it was summer, much like it was here, and then it wasn't. All the temperatures plummeted.
So in order to ascertain what had happened I ran scans to detect patterns that could be windows until I located one and I popped in to investigate."
Kisuke looked impressed, Rangiku wasn't surprised to learn that Mayuri would do such a reckless thing. Toshiro tsk'ed under his breath, abandoning his duties at the time of preparation to battle with Aizen to investigate scientific hunches was irresponsible.
"The land had indeed suffered a winter storm. But it was infused with what could only be magic. In some ways similar to the abilities of a Quincy perhaps manifested with the elements.
I investigated a few hours. There was one large peak of spiritual energy powerful enough to even be considered interesting and it was coming from a large mountain."
Toshiro found himself drawn to the words.
"There on that mountain I found a large castle. And one person, a woman, human...but the riatsu was definitely coming from her. Unfortunately duty called and I had to return before I could abduct the woman and perform any sort of experiments."
Rangiku shared a look of disgust and loathing with Toshiro. Kisuke looked as though he would have considered Mayuri's option but perhaps not his methods. Mayuri continued unperturbed by the judgement.
"When I was able to make it back several days later the land was much changed, the riatsu was cloaked, the lands were green again. Yet, the palace was still there, it is made of ice and it showed no signs of melting."
Toshiro felt a chill go down his spine. "A palace of ice?"
"Yes, are you an idiot? Did you not just hear me say that very thing?" Mayuri could be irritating.
"Okay," Rangiku interjected. "So you found these window anomalies, a palace made of ice and a woman. That doesn't prove anything."
"Perhaps not," Kisuke sipped on his tea. "However Kurotsuchi brought this information to me and we've been performing many more experiments broadening the search radius. We've found out a very curious bit of information.
The "windows" are somehow being closed. As we will find new windows conduct research and when we return they are gone. Someone or something is closing them."
Kisuke got a far off look in his eye as he recalled some detail.
"I went into one in populated areas and came upon a curious sight. Humans with shape shifting animal creatures beside them, except they weren't true animals. They were more like the spirits of our zanpakuto but visible and they had a physicality to them.
The human could not see me but their animal could. And one spoke to me, asking me if I was a 'ghast' as I had no 'daemon'. I asked it what it meant, it said soul. And when it said this, I showed it Benihime and it relaxed, a curious detail that it could see Benihime although I could not."
Mayuri continued, "I came upon a world in which there were only children who ran from things called specters, they were whisps weak like low level hollows. Nothing that wasn't cut down by Ashisogi Jizo."
Toshiro was becoming impatient.
"The point to all of this is, that for whatever reason Hollows have found their way into those worlds and they prey on the souls of the humans much like they do here and in Karakura Town. Yet, we did not encounter anything that could cut them down."
Rangiku stared at them clearly at a loss picking at her nails, "I still don't understand how you make the jump that the human has ice powers."
Mayuri stared at her, eyes straining at their sockets, "We didn't make any jump. We had subtle signs and evidence. The unnatural winter, the palace of ice. Although it is strange to think someone could have constructed that on a whim...there was also the matter of the strange riatsu that I could not study. But riatsu leaves traces. And that is why we need someone intimately acquainted with ice to ascertain whether or not it comes from the woman or if it part of something else."
Hitsugaya stared at the black and white face of Kurotsuchi. "And the hollows?" He asked, voice flat.
"Nothing much had happened with our new found hollows in fact they had all but gone dormant until a ship sailed though their domain and they devoured the souls and grew stronger. They might have disappeared but it coincided with the strange winter phenomenon and now they move and have been moving in the direction of that location devouring anything they come across all the while growing stronger."
"You said the strange winter happened around the time of the war with Aizen. Why haven't these hollows reached this Arendelle yet?" Rangiku asked.
"Ah lets see the last time I had tea with them I asked the very same question." Mayuri retorted.
Toshiro placed a hand on Rangiku's knee as it looked like she might rise to the challenge. Instead she stuck her tongue out and crossed her arms in a huff.
"There is no way of knowing for sure, it might be that they are fighting their hollow nature or they are disoriented." Kisuke continued where Mayuri left off, "We believe the strange winter and the hollows are connected and that when the winter spiked it drew them in. One thing is clear, if left to their own devices many more people are going to die. So we need your help."
Toshiro got up. "You're right the explanation did take longer than I cared for. We'll go."
Standing up Rangiku stretched her hands over her head causing her massive cleavage to rise then fall as she started bending from side to side. Kisuke found himself distracted. "I'm with taicho, show us the way to this "window.""
Kurotsuchi and Urahara both laughed. "Did you miss the point where these windows are being shut?"
Rangiku looked stunned, "Then how are we supposed to get there?"
Mayuri was annoyed now, "Idiot, did you not understand that I've created instruments sensitive enough to detect the frequency of the anomaly. After that it was only a simple matter to tweak the senkaimon in order to open to the right world."
Urahara wrapped Rangiku's pink scarf securely around her neck tucking the extra fabric into her cleavage. She stared at him. "Didn't we mention it's winter there now?" He grinned.
Captain Kurotsuchi stood aside as he opened the senkaimon which glowed purple momentarily instead of it's bright blue white.
"Wait how will we get back?" Rangiku stood frozen in a moment of indecision.
Kurotsuchi smiled his wide teeth smile, "I have made it so that your zanpakuto's can open a senkaimon from your location, all while we were having tea." Rangiku looked at him and Haineko then followed her captain through the world piercing gate. "Also we are sending you without your spirit suppression seeing as if there was any hiccup in communication and you needed your limits lifted it might not get done until after you had died." He waved them off cheerfully.
The gate closed in a flash of light.
Urahara opened his fan with a flourish staring where the two Division 10 members had disappeared. Kurotsuchi stared at the after image of the gate momentarily burned into his sight. After a moment both men disappeared, one to his lab to monitor from his control center, the other back to his shop.
Urahara was confident Rangiku would find the gigai he had tucked into her cleavage when the necessity arose.
a/n: **The idea for the "multiple worlds" or parallel universe idea came from reading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I wasn't going to make this tri-cross over or anything of that nature. However when faced with "how the hell does Frozen come into contact with Bleach universe and stay within it's own time period?" conundrum it made me think of Will and Lyra. And the parallel universe idea that Pullman writes about. The idea that the Senkaimon can act like the "subtle knife" if 'tweaked' correctly. So in essence you can have our world where Karakura Town resides, the world of Frozen where magic still works, the worlds of Philip Pullman, along with Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. Without diminishing story context by saying "because I said it does" I like to ground my stories with as much detail as possible and this is that explanation. So, in short I included much more detail from His Dark Materials than I originally intended, it's not mine, just borrowing the theory. If this counts as plagiarism I'm very very sorry.
