A/N: I'm sorry this is out so late, LITERALLY right at midnight, but I was out all day having fun~
This chapter may be a bit boring, but it's kind of necessary, so I figured I'd throw it in. This is going on without any proofreading…. Sorry!
Pecking Order
"You called me out here," Ulquiorra said emotionlessly, his hooded gaze locked on Ggio's face, "And you knew about the woman, so I expect this to be worth my time, Ggiovanni Vega."
"Ah, don't be so uptight Ulquiorra!" Ggio grinned, "Can't we make small talk for a bit and at least pretend we get along?"
Ulquiorra didn't deign to answer, only narrowing his eyes minimally, obviously not wishing to engage in Ggio's 'small talk'. Soi Fon secretly agreed with this sentiment, wanting to be clear of the somehow hollow man as quickly as possible. He was almost like a porcelain doll, she thought to herself, pale and blank, but with nothing inside.
"So this girl of yours," Ggio's comment broke the silence like a stone through glass, "She pretty?"
"What business is that of yours?" Ulquiorra asked, his lips barely moving. He seemed extremely irritated by this question.
"Well she must be, to catch the eyes of the Espada's Bat," Soi Fon's companion chuckled, "She's the one who patched up Grimmjow with Szayel, isn't she? She some sort of nurse?"
"Yes," the other man replied tersely.
"What's her name?"
"Inoue," Ulquiorra murmured, his blank features picking up a tenuous amount of emotion when he said her name, "Orihime Inoue."
"'Cage Princess', huh?" Ggio wondered out loud, "What'd your higher-ups want with her?"
"Information,"
"Isn't that your job?" Ggio seemed genuinely surprised.
"I was in charge of keeping her while Zommari ran interrogations," Ulquiorra bit out, his annoyance finally surfacing, "You claimed you had work for me."
"Oh! Yeah, I do!" Ggio grinned, "You're so nice, paying your girlfriend's hospital bill, I'm deciding to contribute to the cause in exchange for some intell…"
"I'm only paying for her because the trash that is her brother can't pay on his own," Ulquiorra announced in his dead voice, "I hope you know that my service doesn't come cheap, even more so considering what Aizen would give to have your head on a platter."
"Aha, thanks for the reminder," Ggio laughed nervously, rubbing his neck in what seemed to be an unconscious motion, "But that aside, you don't even know what I'm asking for yet!"
The other man said nothing, only staring with his deadpan gaze.
"Okay, so here's the deal," Ggio sighed, "Soi Fon's friend got herself a jail cell; we want to get her out. I need to know when the security is lowest in the prison. I've given up sneaking in."
"What?" Soi Fon broke in to the conversation for the first time, causing two sets of eyes, one a warm, familiar ochre and the other an estranged shade of green, to focus on her, "What do expect to do? Go in, guns blazing?!"
"Not quite…" her companion corrected benignly, "More like… start a prison riot and run like hell?"
"You're an idiot," Soi Fon growled, crossing her arms, "How do you expect to handle that the way you are now? Your shoulder-"
"Alright, alright, shhhh!" Ggio shushed her hurriedly and then glanced at Ulquiorra, who gazed back steadily, "You have your secrets, I have mine,"
"I agree with your accompaniment," Ulquiorra said, "You're a fool if you think that will work."
"We'll see," Ggio grinned, looking more feline that ever, "I'm just paying you for the information."
"I'll charge you when I see how difficult it is to procure what you're asking for," the information specialist told him.
"It's true, you miss nothing that goes on, but um, about the money…" Ggio looked a bit uneasy, "Can I get it to you after we have Little Bee's friend? I'm a bit short on funds just now, and I can't go home to beg money off Tes…"
"I'll charge you," Ulquiorra repeated pointedly, "when I see how difficult it is to procure what you're asking for. I'll contact you when I've completed what you've asked…"
With that, he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and walked away without so much as a backwards glance.
"That… went surprisingly well," Ggio said in surprise.
"According to who?!" Soi Fon cried, "How the hell is starting a prison riot going to help us?!"
"Um, you heard me, right?" he asked, glancing at her with a look shockingly reminiscent of Yoruichi, "We start a riot, find your friend, and run like we've got the fucking devil on our heels."
He turned away from her with a wide grin.
"Easy as falling off a log,"
….
"Explain this to me," Soi Fon said suddenly as the two walked back to Szayel's house, a cold, sharp wind biting at their faces, "That man Ulquiorra mentioned Aizen. He means Sousuke Aizen, correct?"
"The very same," Ggio confirmed, his catlike gaze jumping subjects as they walked; one second he was eyeing a bakery window, the next watching a group of boys run down the sidewalk, lighting up as he spotted something interesting, dimming as it lost his attention. He was very like Yoruichi in the aspect, Soi Fon noticed. He missed nothing, saw everything, but cared about little.
"So your information broker works for the mayor?" she asked warily. If that were true, they were walking a fine line, collaborating right under the nose of the man who most likely wanted them in prison.
"Yes…" Ggio proposed reluctantly, "And no."
Soi Fon gave him a pointed look. He was always speaking either too plainly or all in riddles. The man seemed to have to middle ground. He turned to look at her, his clear gold eyes locking on her silvered brown for a moment before darting away again as they halted in front of the apartment building Szayel lived in. They walked through the lobby and stepped into the elevator, Ggio pressing the button and watching it light up.
"Our esteemed mayor," he began dramatically, as if extolling the values of some national hero, "The man who single-handedly crushed the unusually high crime rate in our beloved city! But there are two sides to every coin, of course."
They stepped out of the elevator and Ggio began fishing in his coat pocket for the room key as they went.
"Do I get an explanation?" Soi Fon prodded impatiently as they entered the apartment.
"Of course, just calm down woman," her companion snorted as he shrugged out of his jacket, revealing the tight gray turtleneck he had borrowed from Szayel and heading over to the kitchen, "Want something to drink? I was thinking of making coffee."
"Yes…. Thank you," she added the last part almost grudgingly, "Is this going to be another one of those, 'I'll tell you later' things?"
"No, I'm getting there! Jeez!" Ggio huffed, "I was going to say that our mayor isn't as great as everyone thinks. Crime hasn't gone down at all; if anything, the rates have risen. Crime hasn't disappeared, it's just been covered up, and what can't be covered up is destroyed."
"What does it matter about crime rates?!" Soi Fon cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation, "All I wanted to know was if Ulquiorra works for Aizen!"
"He does, but Ulquiorra doesn't work for Mayor Sousuke Aizen," Ggio sighed, setting the coffee pot on the heating space of the coffee maker and placing grounds in the chute at the top, "He works for Sousuke Aizen of the Espada."
"Wait…. What?"
"Let me explain this from the bottom up," Ggio murmured, searching the counter for a pencil as he tore a paper off a notepad that hung on the refrigerator. He sat at the table, and she followed, watching as he drew a chart.
"The Espada works like this. At the grunt level are those who are simply called Nùmeros, the most base of all of the people in the organization. They do things like steal from drugstores, spy on the average citizens, or purposely instigate gang fights to give the Espada an excuse to crush smaller groups. They could be any Joe Shmoe on the street and you would never know."
The chart he was drawing began to take the shape of a pyramid, and at the very bottom on the widest tier he wrote NÙMEROS.
"Above the Nùmeros are the Fracciòn, or people who have worked their way high enough away from the entry level that they catch the attention of the higher-ups. They get picked up by one of the ten division heads and begin training to take over that particular division, or like in my case if they're too stupid for that kind of thing, they get used as body guards."
He smiled at her, but she didn't return the gesture.
"The people who 'adopt' Fracciones are the Espada themselves; there are ten of them, divided into two separate core systems, each a division head. These ten are something like Aizen's council. They are Coyote Stark who heads smuggling, Luiesenbairn Baraggan who's in charge of drug distribution, Tia Harribel who keeps track of the prostitution business, our very own Ulquiorra Schiffer who deals in information, Nnoitra Gilga who works as a hitman, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques who punishes those who break the rules within the organization, Zommari Leroux who does interrogations, Szayel, of course, who is the Espada's personal medic, Aaroniero Arruruerie who heads up investigations, and last and probably least despite all the faults of the others, Yammy Llargo. I'm not quite sure what he does… he's hella strong, but pretty dull."
Ggio now divided that tier into ten sections. On top of that he drew two boxes, filling in one as JUSTICE and the other as DESTRUCTION.
"This one," he pointed at JUSTICE, "is headed up by Kaname Tousen. He heads over Tia, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, Yammy, and Szayel, keeping the structure in the organization rigid, and the people in it loyal to Aizen. The other one is held by Ichimaru Gin, who presides over Stark, Baraggan, Ulquiorra, Zommari, and Aaroniero on the more intellectual side of things. The man's as crafty as a fox."
He made a small box over all the rest.
"Those two are the closest friends of Sousuke Aizen, our 'mayor'." He finished gravely.
"Okay, so the organization is bigger than I thought," Soi Fon said, narrowing her eyes at the paper before looking back at Ggio, "So what does that have to do with crimes rates?"
"Don't you get it?" Ggio asked incredulously, "Crimes are being covered up because our city leader is a crime lord. This whole city is run by the mafia."
"Oh," was all Soi Fon could say, at a bit of a loss. She had realized this when he had drawn the chart, but she hadn't really registered the implications, which were now slapping her in the face.
"Yeah. Oh," Ggio repeated, handing her a mug of coffee before smiling, "But that's what happens when you walk to the beat of your own drum…."
"This is just like high school. But bigger. And with guns," he grinned. Strangely, and perhaps due to the warm drink in front of her, she found his smile slightly comforting.