Rukia wasn't quite ready for the two hour drive with Ichigo the next morning. She'd calmed the slight hangover with a double dose of aspirin and promises never to drink so much again at once, but was still not exactly up to speed as they secured a car from the auto rental agency and headed out to the countryside east of Paris.
The bright sunlight mocked the burden in her heart, that eking notion that things weren't right at home, that nothing ever would be the same again. She'd called Michael that morning, seven in the morning hometown time, and he'd answered, still half asleep, unlike him to not be fully awake and dressed.
It was also unlikely that Rukia should hear the soft giggle in the background as Michael tried to make a conversation with her. His voice had suddenly sharpened, a "Hush" to someone else.
She hadn't pushed it, Rukia hadn't. She'd simply hung up on him. There wasn't anything more to say by phone.
"We can wait until later," Ichigo said two hours into the drive as the crops and farms became more spaced, each a mile or more from the last. He'd watched her during the drive, her dark eyes fastened on nothing out the window, his few attempts at conversation falling on her deaf ears. He didn't know her well enough to determine her moods, but he could read the wounded expression in her eyes easily enough. "Want to put this off until tonight?"
She shook her head, sweeping a strand of dark hair to one side that hung in her face. "I drank a bit much last night." She sighed, smoothing her plum skirt and brushing her lavender blouse with her hand. She glanced to him, studying his profile as he looked back out over the road in front of him, the sunlight making his hair seem especially bright. "I want to see some of this money you say these stones are worth."
He nodded, sparing a glance at her. "What happened with Michael last night?"
Rukia's eyes went back to the windshield, lips pursing. "My imagination."
Against his better judgment he nodded and let the topic slide. "... Okay."
Aizen was likewise visiting an auto rental agency in Paris, the same one Ichigo had earlier patronized, with Esparo, Shoren, and Grimmjow in company. The leasing agent had been little help, living up to the snobbish opinion Aizen had of most clerks he considered inferior but beyond his control.
He leased three cars and sent Shoren by taxi on a round of visits to the airports with orders to have Ichigo Kurosaki held by the authorities, or, failing that, by any other means she could. He'd also ordered her to have a helicopter and pilot from the Division Five detach unit at their disposal near the Germany border, something that had been greeted with only too much enthusiasm from the detach operator, making Aizen wonder how sharp the detach pilot could actually be. But he didn't think she'd have to prove her resourcefulness. According to the tracking monitor, Kurosaki's chip was en route east, by common roadway.
He stood with Esparo and Grimmjow outside the auto rental building awaiting their cars in the mid-morning sun. "We're on frequency B," he told them as they adjusted the hand-held monitors. "Track Kurosaki only; keep radio silence unless it's necessary. Any non-movement for over thirty minutes or if the signal goes blue, you contact me before moving in. Got it?"
Esparo nodded, but Grimmjow frowned at the monitor he was tuning.
"We just all three follow him? What's the point of separate vehicles?" the lighter-haired man asked.
Aizen nodded to the monitor. "I want him intercepted after he's made his contacts here. After his initial contact I want someone on him in all directions; Shoren's got the airports, but I'd rather take him to Germany ourselves, without any French interference."
Three rental cars pulled up to them beneath the agency awning and the drivers got out, each giving the keys to Aizen before leaving. Aizen handed a set of keys to Esparo and Grimmjow.
"You both follow me, and once Kurosaki has made his first contact, we'll split from there and take him, and maybe his contact." Aizen looked to the three modest sedans in drab beige and grays. "As soon as we get a confirmation that it's him, I'll have the helicopter released for the rendezvous point near Brichein. That's close enough to the border to get him into Germany and us back to any contacts he has here. Whoever is closest can take him or his contact, and we'll see to his other French contacts after he's in our custody."
"You're sure he has others?" Esparo asked, pushing his sunglasses father onto his nose in the bright day.
"Kurosaki has clients in every worthy European country, Ryan. He's got them in France." Aizen opened the door of the gray car. "My guess is this will be only the first of many. Once we've established that he's Kurosaki and still in business, we'll approach Ichimaru with how best to proceed."
Esparo looked to Grimmjow, who was watching Aizen suspiciously. "This wasn't in the parameters of our assignment, Aizen."
The older officer shrugged slightly, stare unwavering. "It is now. Let's go."
Ichigo looked around at the weedy overgrowth of shrubs and trees that lined the road, a mere car path making a dark indentation in the thick green and brambles at the edge of the road. By all accounts the path looked more abandoned as a trail than the entry into one of the more eccentric households he'd ever encountered, in any country. He'd only met with the man a handful of times, and only few times here. Most were Stateside.
Rukia was looking with apprehension down the unkempt drive as Ichigo turned the car down the two-track, the radio playing a pop tune in French. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Yeah," he said, slowing advancing the car into the tall tufts of grass and weeds that scraped the car's undercarriage. "This guys a real weird customer, but he knows his stuff."
The coniferous trees and tall bushes closed over the car greedily, long pine needles and thorny branches brushing the top, scratching piercing noises along the doors.
Ichigo muttered under his breath, eyes rising to the limb of a tree where an owl was perched, its mechanical head turning to look at the car as it passed, blinking yellow eyes. The car radio went dead.
"Dammit," Ichigo said, turning the knob on the radio. "Still up to his old tricks."
Rukia frowned, easing away from the door side toward him as a pine branch slapped at her through the open window. She zipped the glass up. "What do you mean by tricks?"
He leaned forward on the seat over the wheel as the foliage grew thicker. "This guy's a real inventor nut-type. Gadgets and gizmos, always tinkering with stuff." He groaned as they passed another owl, which also watched them, blinking. The car engine cut out. "I knew it."
Rukia's eyes grew wide as they sat in silence, Ichigo putting the car into park.
He turned the key, but there was nothing save a clicking sound from the starter. He sighed and pulled the key from the ignition. "We'll have to walk up. He's disabled the engine."
They got out of the car and left it in the weedy two-track and followed the overgrown path farther into the woods, the trees growing ever thicker, mosquitoes buzzing alongside them. Rukia watched Ichigo squash one of the insects behind his ear, seeing the slight redness there, neither aware of the tracking chip just under the skin.
She held her purse strap closer, keeping to his side as she stepped over the tall grass and weeds. She looked up at the low hanging green of the trees hovering over her, the sunlight only intermittent now, making the two-track appear dusk. She tripped over a mound of tangled vines creeping across the trail, and Ichigo caught her hand before she fell to her knees.
"Thanks," she said, letting him keep her hand as she tried to match his longer strides. "Does he know we're coming by?"
"Yup. Otherwise he probably would've shot us by now." He grinned at her look of alarm. "Probably shot us with salt rock, but shot us."
After ten minutes the winding two-track opened to a clearing where an enormous stone house squatted near a pond, weeping willows covering much of the grassy grounds, the sunlight here filtered through a black netting that obscured the entire open sky from view, held by thin poles arching overhead and the taller of the willow trees.
"It's like something out of a fairytale," Rukia said, unconsciously walking nearer Ichigo as she looked up. "Or a nightmare."
He nodded, eyes searching the grounds that appeared vacant. "Nightmare is more like it."
"Ha!" A small red-haired boy leaped from a stand of shrubs to their right, blocking their way, an air-rifle in his hands, barrel raised to his face to sight them in. "What's your business?"
Ichigo stopped them, glaring at the boy. "Where's your old man, Jinta?"
The boy's face screwed up into a more lethal frown. "He's not my old man, idiot! What do you want?"
"Go tell him Ichigo's here. We've got business."
Jinta considered this, gun lowering. He looked to Rukia's side and nodded. "Come on, Ururu. They're okay."
Rukia followed the boy's gaze to see a small dark-haired girl looking up at her from beside her. She yelped, startled, nearly stepping on Ichigo at seeing the girl. "Where'd you come from?"
The girl offered a small smile. "Welcome."
"Come on!" Jinta hollered, brandishing his gun. "You, too, Stateside!"
Ururu caught up with Jinta, avoiding his hand as he tried to poke her side, and took off for the house. Rukia watched with growing interest as the mammoth stone structure rose before them, seeming out of place in the forest, especially the menagerie of metal weathervanes sticking out, twisting in different directions above the tin roofing.
"If there's ever someone I'd thought would've cooked up a cleaner for the chemical wash for stones, it's this guy," Ichigo said more to himself as they reached the stone slab of a porch running the length of the front of the house and around one side beneath the arched windows. "Or maybe he has."
Rukia's fingers tightened in his hand, her violet eyes looking to a window as she saw a shadowy movement in it. "How do you know him?"
"My dad and him go way back," he said as they stood at the open doorway where Ururu was holding the door open for them. He caught himself from saying more. "Nothing you really need to know about, Rukia."
She nodded, wanting to ask more, but deciding against it.
"Come in," Ururu said meekly as they entered the sparse hall, the putty colored stucco walls stretching high around them, a wrought iron chandelier overhead burning with real candles.
To either side of the entryway open doors let into other rooms, muted light playing through the high arched windows, making more shadows on the wooden flooring. Rukia sniffed, detecting something earthy, fragrant like an herb, but unable to identify the scent.
"Well, well, I see you found us again," a woman's voice said from the doorway to their left.
Rukia flinched, her hand jerking in Ichigo's as they looked to the woman while the two children disappeared farther down the hall to a staircase. The dark-skinned woman's white blouse and tight yellow pants appeared luminous in the semi-light of the house, a smile on her lips as she looked from Rukia back to Ichigo.
"Walked?" she asked with a slight giggle.
Ichigo growled. "You know we did. Yoruichi, this is Rukia."
"Yoruichi is it now?" she said with a fuller laugh. "Not miss?"
Ichigo shook his head as Rukia looked up at him, curious. "We're here about --"
"I know what you're here for." Yoruichi crossed the hall to them, her smile turning affable. "Hello, Rukia. Welcome." She extended her hand, which the smaller woman shook. "Come in. Leave this guy to him." She nodded down the hall as another figure approached.
Rukia had never seen anyone quite like the man nearing them, wearing raised sandals and a billowing hunter green coat flowing behind him, absurdly striped pants in green and white, and a matching canvas hat on his head. He nodded to Yoruichi and then them.
"Hey, Stateside! Whatcha got? Ooh, who you got with you?"
Ichigo introduced Rukia to the man in the hat, who nodded, shaking her hand eagerly while waving a finger at Ichigo. "'Bout time you settled down, pup. You're no good on your own."
Ichigo glared at him. "I said client. Get it right, Urahara."
The man with the hat nodded, grinning at Rukia, who was blushing faintly. "So you did. Well, anyway, nice to meet you, Rukia." He turned to Ichigo again. "Come down and see what's on the slab."
Rukia balked at the idea, but when Ichigo took her arm and retreated down the hall with Urahara, she went, Yoruichi falling into step at her side.
They descended into the cavernous basement of the stone house that outdistanced the floor plan two-fold. The main room was a menagerie of workshop and lab equipment, experiments and devices half-done, hybrid organic creations in progress at different tables. To Rukia's relief the slab turned out to be just that, a large slab of granite with stools set around it like her old art room in high school.
Ururu and Jinta were already perched on two of the stools, a collection of small glass bottles and cloth rags in front of them, both tugging on a loupe, arguing.
Urahara gestured to the slab as Yoruichi stood to one side, leaning against another table, watching them in the fluorescent lighting from overhead. "Standard stones, typical cuts?"
Ichigo nodded, pulling out a stool for Rukia. She climbed onto it, settling her skirt better as Yoruichi looked on.
"She wants her money now, before we leave," Ichigo said as he and Urahara took stools at the slab.
The man with the hat nodded. "That's why you're here in person and not using a currier. Kinda thought that odd." He leaned on his elbows on the smooth slab, grinning at Rukia. "Let's see what you got."
She placed her purse on the slab and opened it, setting two pouches on the granite, looking to Ichigo. "Is he safe?" she asked in a low tone.
He nodded, grinning, easing the concern in her eyes a notch. "You can trust him. I won't let him rob you, Rukia."
She nodded, and passed the pouches over to him.
Urahara drummed both sets of fingers on the slab in front of him, smiling congenially below the hat. Ichigo looked into one of the pouches, and then cinched the drawstring tight and set it back beside the purse. He pushed the other to his host.
Rukia put the pouch before her back in the purse, watching Urahara pull out the cosmetic containers with the petroleum jelly and gemstones.
"Using the Vaseline? Good idea." Urahara nodded as he opened a jar marked face cream. He slid it and the pouch to Jinta and Ururu at the other end of the table. "Take that goo off those and quick."
Jinta crossed his arms, giving the man a pout. "How much?"
"How much?" Urahara scratched the back of his head, making his hat tilt. "How 'bout I don't take your rock salt away from you, how 'bout that much?"
Jinta's pout increased, but Ururu pulled the pouch closer and picked a soft rag from the pile before them.
"Good job now, kiddies," Urahara said, smiling.
Jinta grumbled something, and then grabbed a rag and one of the jars and set to work removing the slick jelly.
"Oh, hey, I want to show you something," Urahara said, standing and hurrying to another table where a sheet was draped. He lifted it just enough to pull a tray from beneath, and set it before Ichigo on the slab. On it two clear bottles of colorless liquid rattled, a sponge, tweezers, and a cotton swab nearby.
Rukia leaned closer to the slab as Ichigo blocked part of her view of what lay before Urahara.
"You've developed a cleaner?" Ichigo asked hopefully, watching as the other man set out the tray's contents.
"No, but this is close." Urahara opened one of the bottles. "Give me a hundred Euro bill."
"Now wait a minute," Ichigo began, warily seeing Jinta chuckle.
"I'm gonna make it undetectable," Urahara said, refraining from using Ichigo's last name as he looked to Rukia watching intently. "Fork it over."
Ichigo pulled his wallet from his pants, making Rukia move to avoid his elbow. He handed the other man a bill from his wallet. "How undetectable?"
Urahara sighed. "Sadly, only temporarily. Nothing permanent, but permanency isn't my ambition. What good would it be if you can't use it at all?" He dipped a cotton swab in the bottle of clear fluid and drew the cotton end along the metal strip in the Euro bill, lending an acidic smell to the air that dissipated quickly. He reached under the table and produced a cashier's scanning gun and zipped it over the monetary note, grinning when the gun didn't beep in recognition.
Ichigo nodded. "They've been doing that with pumice soap for six month."
"Ah, but this doesn't have to be washed off, Ichigo, and it doesn't abrade the strip inside." He held up the note, waving it. "It has a twelve hour lifespan, after which it fades and is usable -- and detectable -- again. Long enough to get you out of almost any country in Europe."
"Not bad," Ichigo said, nodding as Urahara handed the note back to him.
Rukia looked across the table to where Ururu and Jinta were rubbing the jelly off the stones, a small pile amounting to one side in front of the girl, both of their heads bowed, concentrating on their work. She looked to her side as Yoruichi stepped there, leaning one elbow on the table, smiling at her.
"How about we go up and have some tea? Leave these two jokers to their parlor tricks," she said with a nod at the men hunched over another tray of chemicals Urahara had brought to the slab.
Rukia looked to Ichigo, who nodded.
"How long will this take us?" she asked, moving closer to him, eyes on the children at their own work.
He looked from the stones to her, watching her eyes as they followed the stones being cleaned. "Maybe an hour. Don't worry about them. I'll watch them."
She nodded hesitantly, hovering between complete trust and taking Yoruichi up on her offer of tea.
His eyes went to her lips, pausing before rising to meet her eyes again. "Trust me, Rukia. No one here is going to cheat you."
At the word her face stiffened, and she made a conscious effort to nod, sighing. "Okay."
He grinned, squeezing her hand briefly. "Good. Get your tea."