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Refraction
A Bleach Fanfic
Chaos Theory AU
Chapter Eleven: Eyes Wide Open
Faster. Don't tell me you've already forgotten what it feels like to travel the paths.
Lucia had not been miraculously gentled by her time asleep—but Uryū found he didn't mind that so much. Between her instruction and Ryūken's, he couldn't help but feel that he was close to something important.
He grimaced, resisting the instinct to step into shunpō and gathering reishi beneath his feet instead, leaping from the instance of hirenkyaku and flying across the room towards Ryūken.
More. You must not fear this power.
Grimacing, he pushed more reishi into the Schneider in his left hand, bringing it around and down to clash against his father's bow. With a surge in his own power, Ryūken reversed Uryū's momentum and shoved him back, the uneven distribution of force rotating him end-over-end until he stopped himself again with another instance.
She was right, in a sense. Though it had not yet been even a full half-decade since he'd lost the ability to manipulate reishi, something about it still felt unnatural to him now. Unfamiliar. He kept reaching for his reiryoku instead, and Lucia scolded him each time, trying to guide him back to the powers that had once been almost as natural as drawing breath.
It was working, at least to an extent. But maybe she was right to describe what impeded him now as a type of fear. The lesson of the sanrei glove had been that exerting himself to excess could well trap an important part of himself beyond his own reach. He wished he could say that he understood exactly what about the glove had done it. Whether it was something that he might accidentally replicate on his own.
And what? You think I would let you fall with no warning?
Forming his bow, Uryū fitted the Schneider to the string, drawing back until he felt the slight sting of live reishi against his skin. His constructions weren't completely stable yet, and the bow disintegrated as soon as he'd released the arrow. He clicked his tongue against his teeth and flashed away from the retaliatory volley.
That was shunpō.
Yorugen was not particularly helpful at this juncture either. He almost seemed to be deriving some amusement from Lucia's instruction methods, but he also came across as quite… careful, in their interactions. He'd never been especially talkative, but he was downright quiet for the moment. Perhaps just a function of the lesson.
Uryū felt Lucia sigh.
Again. Stabilize it this time. No more swordplay until your bow keeps its shape. And then we're going to talk about your blood.
"Were you planning to start fighting me at some point, or should I set up a straw target and go do something useful with my time?"
It was Uryū's turn to sigh. Two equally exacting teachers was enough for now. He almost missed getting pummeled by a smiling Kyōraku-taichō at this point. But he knew what they were trying to do, and the least he could do in return was put his back into it and give it everything he had.
Yuzu was waiting.
"Ulquiorra."
Coyote slid his hands into his pockets. The other Espada moved around him as they exited the meeting chamber. Aizen had told them to stay put in the central building—but he'd have to know that the chance of most of them doing that was nil. Already he could feel Nnoitra going… somewhere. Szayelaporro's reiatsu had disappeared, which was a sure sign he'd gone to his labs or whatever they were. Harribel would do what Aizen had said.
She might be the only one.
That was probably more or less exactly what he intended anyway.
Ulquiorra paused, turning back over his shoulder to fix Coyote with one deep green eye. There wasn't much to go by on his face, but the fact that he'd stopped at all was telling enough, and the Primera knew there was no way he'd missed the obvious hint earlier. Aizen was onto them. And there was no way they got what they were after here if they both tried to do it alone.
Maybe there was no way they got it anyway, but Coyote had decided it was worth a try.
"We need to talk."
The muscles around Ulquiorra's mouth tightened just fractionally, a frown pulling at him but never quite manifesting. There was no point in trying to leave everything unsaid anymore. Aizen knew. They couldn't un-convince him of the truth by acting indifferent now. The Cuarta had to know that as well as he did, which was probably why he inclined his head, just fractionally, and resumed his walk by turning down a side passageway Coyote had never explored before.
The smell of lotus tea faded as he followed the other Espada through one gleaming, bone-white corridor after another. If he hadn't spent his entire life before on gleaming, bone-white sand, he wasn't sure he could have stood the eyestrain. He wondered how Yuzu dealt with it, sometimes. Then again, it was the least of her problems.
A staircase took them down a level, into a large, empty chamber of some kind. Oddly, it was only dimly lit. More startling was that he lost the sense of reiatsu around him, except Ulquiorra's, like that perceptual ability had suddenly been confined to this room. He remembered an earlier suspicion that the Cuarta might train somewhere—this must be that place.
Quite abruptly, Ulquiorra stopped and about-faced, hands in his pockets in a mirror of Coyote's posture.
"Speak, then."
Coyote blinked slowly. "I think he's made all of us. And he's not gonna let her live much longer, with the intruders on the way. He's not the type to leave a loose end untied. We have to decide what we're going to do."
"What is there to be done?" Ulquiorra replied tonelessly. "None among us is capable of protecting her from him."
Coyote felt his jaw tighten, then suppressed the reaction. This was Ulquiorra being… well, the way he'd always been. But not the way he'd been in the last month or so. He tried to remind himself that things he'd seen with his own eyes as recently as yesterday gave the lie to this line of thinking. He didn't know why the Cuarta clung so tightly to this notion that everything they did or could do was meaningless, but Coyote figured that it was probably the same reason he'd used to cling to his loneliness, used to simply accept that it was the way things had to be.
Because the alternative was difficult in every sense. And risky in every sense. And they were creatures of habit and instinct, deep down. Changing was not a simple matter.
Too late to regret it, though.
Lilynette was right.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm not going to do nothing. Are you?" When there was no response, he sighed heavily. "Even if you're right; even if the result is the same no matter what, do you really want her to know you gave up on her without trying? Could you stand to hurt her like that?"
He knew he couldn't.
"Aizen has shared nothing relevant of his strategy with us. We should not plan without knowing what he will do."
Coyote let out a small breath, almost relieved. There was something… heartening about knowing he wasn't in this alone. "Right. We're going to have to be prepared to adapt as the situation changes. Or, well… you and I will, anyway. Grimmjow's just gonna do whatever he wants, regardless."
Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed slightly. "While Aizen finds none of us remotely threatening, he finds Grimmjow least so."
There might be something of use in that, Coyote supposed. "At least he's not that hard to predict. He's going to go after that Kenpachi guy first chance he sees. If he's still alive after that, Aizen probably won't bother to track him too closely." Which meant his next immediate priority would probably be Yuzu. A lot of hypotheticals in that, though. It was a start regardless.
"I still do not believe we stand a chance of success."
"Yeah, me either. I just… don't care, you know?" It wasn't exactly the right way to put it, because the whole point was that he did care, just not about the odds.
There was a long silence. Coyote was about to shrug and resign himself to the disagreement when Ulquiorra nodded, more an uncomfortable and very slight jerk of his chin than anything.
"I will go see her now. She should know what is coming." He started back towards the door.
Coyote followed. "Sure. Bring her to me if Aizen tells you to go somewhere else. Nnoitra seems to be gone, but…"
The implication was clear enough. Now more than ever, they couldn't afford to leave Yuzu on her own. Not now, not here.
Whether any of it would make a lick of difference remained to be seen.
Happy Christmas/Xmas/Festivus/December 25, friends. One chapter left to go in this one, I think.