Welcome back!

Here's Chapter 21, after the longest hiatus yet. Midterms are here and the amout of time that I can spend on the story is way down – and the long gaps between when I can write slow it down even more.

Special thanks to apathyninja, Slothman30, Mileryn, perfect beauty, shaggy-bear, Mungetsu, stormcrowley, RangerH, Substitute Deathberry, Nathan J Xaxson, Superforeigner, Silverwriter582, firelarc, koolawantxox4u, Tomas the Betrayer, Orion 101, laughingspider, Richasa, mauralucky7, Shrodinger's Kat, and Writing bunny for the encouragement and reviews so far.

Response to comments:

Orion101: I hadn't seen that yet, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I don't really have anything else to say about it, though. I mean, Kubo can create whatever characters he wants for his story. I hadn't planned on Seinosuke Yamada having a big role in the story, but if I use him I guess I have a bit more to go on.

Writing bunny: Sort of, although I more or less figured that Isane is the kind of proactive type-A personality that would order more ice long before they actually ran out.

Everyone else: Thanks again for the encouragement, and thanks for your patience.

I do not own Bleach, or any part of it.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

Chapter 21 – The anomalous anomaly investigation begins

The desire to understand the unknown is one of the oldest recorded ones in history. For all of civilization and even before it, humans have sought to explain and rationalize the world around them. They seek knowledge and wisdom and preserve it for future generations to analyze and either disprove or expand on. The quest is infinite and diverse, covering all fields of knowledge and all possible skill sets. We want to know the best way to accomplish anything, and how we can make it happen – building, moving, ruling, and of course, teaching all fall under this fervor.

That this would spill over into warfare and subterfuge was inevitable. While "he who dies with the most toys wins" is generally seen as an empty philosophy, he who has the best toys and data in a conflict is much less likely to die at all. 'Knowledge is power' takes on a rather sinister tone in that context.

To summarize it as quickly as possible: warriors love spoilers.

Las Noches, Throne Room - 11:15 a.m.

Tousen raised an eyebrow as the sounds of battle faded away. "So the custom-enhanced Arrancar with hundreds of years of battle experience managed to escape from a fifteen-year old boy and a pair of lieutenants. Even I saw that coming."

"Weird." Gin muttered. "It's almost like he ain't talkin' about justice."

Aizen gazed pensively at the monitor for a moment, his face a neutral mask. "That was not as decisive as it could have been."

Harribel nodded. "But it was still information. I would be honored to view their final confrontation when it occurs, Lord Aizen."

"Certainly." With that, the traitors and monsters went their separate ways. Universal domination required a lot of work, after all…

Karakura Town, Karakura High School - 11:16 p.m.

Ichigo, Rukia, and Chad bolted down the stairs. Isane and Rangiku, still in their spirit forms, took a shortcut and simply jumped to the bottom.

And froze, looking at their inhabited Gigai selves. Isane's Gigai was leaning against the back wall, under the stairway, and had a strange expression on its face. Isane didn't like the fact that it refused to take its eyes off of Rangiku's Gigai. Rangiku's mostly looked bored, but perked up suddenly when the others came down the stairs. "Well hello there."

Everyone looked around, trying to figure out who she was talking to. The Gigai got up and moved over to Ichigo, draping itself on him in a too-familiar fashion. "I didn't know they made 'em like this in the mortal world. Are you busy later?"

"Aren't you going to stop it?" Isane hissed. Are all the soul candies crazy? Who designs these things?

An image of Captain Kurotsuchi popped into her head, laughing maniacally. It was quickly replaced by an image of Kisuke Urahara sporting a goofy grin and waving his fan. Actually, it all makes sense now…

"Not yet." Rangiku smirked. "She's usually good for a few laughs."

Ichigo, meanwhile was stiffly trying to extricate himself from the situation. He looked like he was trying to push the Gigai away without actually touching it, his face turning an odd shade of red. "Actually, I'm kinda busy right now, so…"

"Oooh, gonna make me wait? What will I do in the meantime?"

"Work on your pickup lines?" Rukia offered.

"Tried it." Rangiku's Soul Candy pointed a thumb over her shoulder, at Isane's Gigai. "She doesn't swing that way."

"As I informed you already, I do not 'swing' in any direction…" The other candy was cut off as Isane started climbing into her Gigai.

Rangiku's Candy wasn't finished. "Well, if you won't have me, maybe I'll… supersize." She suddenly ended up clinging to Chad.

He looked down at her while leaning away. "I'm busy too."

Rangiku grabbed Isane's Gigai, apparently under the impression that the Soul Candy was still in there. "You should try to have some fun once in a while." She whispered. "You won't get the chance very often."

"Is that so?" Isane crossed her arms. Rangiku finally caught on to the fact that Isane was back in her Gigai, and quickly got back into her own. "Please stop trying to corrupt my Soul Candy, Rangiku."

Rangiku laughed and stretched. "Oh, you're no fun. It's just an artificial soul. What's the worst thing it could do with a Gigai?"

"…" Ichigo, Rukia, and Isane glared at her. Rangiku blinked a couple of times. "You know, your tracer probably has some data on that Arrancar. We should go check it out."

Isane rubbed at the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off a headache. "I've noticed that these bursts of helpful effort always appear when you manage to screw up a conversation or a mission."

"I know, right? You're lucky I get into so much trouble!"

12th Division, Main/Restricted/Archives - 11:20 a.m.

Hitsugaya walked into the Research and Development Institute like he owned the place. In some ways he did own the place, because in his hand he held a weapon more lethal than any zanpakuto. It was a weapon that would get the attention of even Mayuri Kurotsuchi – a man who, despite his many faults, eccentricities, ambitions, faults, psychoses, horrible mannerisms, and faults, was legendarily hard to distract. It was, in fact, good old-fashioned metaphorical dirt.

He had a briefcase full of blackmail, a half-dozen ninjas, and a mission. No nutjob in clown makeup was going to stop him from getting the lieutenants back.

He waited for a while in the main lobby, before realizing that he was unlikely to get anyone's attention that way. So he simply started walking until he found a sign that read WARNING: RESTRICTED AREA. He considered carefully before blithely walking past it. This is more fun than it should be. He continued on his journey, passing hideous creatures in tanks, hideous creatures that might be tanks, and hideous contraptions that probably belonged in tanks, as well as row after row of complicated-looking equipment modules, most of which were not in use. Our budget at waste.

It was right after he passed a sign saying SEROUSLY, TURN BACK IF YOU DON'T HAVE CLEARANCE that he ran into none other than Captain Kurotsuchi himself. The other captain glared at him. "What are you doing here? Can't you read? This is a restricted area!"

"But how else was I going to find you?" Hitsugaya said calmly. "After all, we have something important to discuss."

"What could we possibly have to talk about? Your understanding of my work is as stunted as your stature!"

Kurotsuchi knew something was wrong when Hitsugaya didn't rise to the bait. "Funny you should bring that up. I wanted to talk about something that you might not have noticed. I rarely overlook things and thought you might be interested."

Mayuri narrowed his eyes. Was that a *short* joke? From Hitsugaya? Impossible! "And what would that be? Quit wasting my time and get to it."

"Very well." Hitsugaya hefted the briefcase. "You may or may not be aware of this, but since I've taken over some of the administrative duties of the Third and Fifth divisions, a great deal of the paperwork in the Seireitei crosses my desk. In fact, most of the requisitions forms are reviewed in my office."

"And?"

Hitsugaya mentally prepared himself for the lie he was about to feed Mayuri. "And I noticed that the Twelfth Division has requested and received a rather large amount of… well… this and that. Mostly, it's the sort of things that go into feeding Hollows, on the rare occasion that they're kept in captivity. However, Hollow experimentation has to be cleared with the rest of the Captains, and as someone who attends nearly every Captain's Meeting, I have to say that I don't remember you ever bringing anything like that up." The lie wasn't about the resources – he had hard proof of that. The lie was his careful omission of the part that subterfuge, theft, and ninjas had played in his acquisition of the data.

Mayuri narrowed his eyes. "And what, you think they'll arrest me? Yamamoto has put up with far worse."

"True. But he'd be obligated to at least launch an inquiry – because if you lied about this, or even conveniently forgot to mention it, then there's no telling what else is going on here at the Institute."

Mayuri's eyes widened as he realized what Hitsugaya was getting at. "You mean…"

"That's right. There'd be people from other divisions – probably the Second Division – crawling all over the Institute, digging through the equipment, mishandling the samples, pawing through the archived data, and randomly taking valued assistants away for questioning. They might keep at it for weeks – and I hear that Captain Soifon is really bored right now. Not only would it be impossible to get any work done, but you'd probably have to spend at least a month fixing the accidental damage."

The taller captain hissed. "Why are you telling me this?"

Hitsugaya blinked, and seemingly ignored the question. "On a completely unrelated note, I was wondering if you'd get me clearance to the Twelfth Division's backup archives. They're not listed as off-limits, but for some reason they're secured against anyone outside the division getting in. I need the computers and files for a side-project."

"Why would I allow this? You've just dared to threaten me with a massive inconvenience!"

"Well, if I was able to start working on my side project, I'd be far too busy to attend the next Captain's meeting, which is where something like your illegal resource garnering would be brought up. That would put a whole seven days between now and the time when I would be able to do anything about your activities. That's quite a bit of time to… compensate for such indiscretions. At that point, there'd be no point in bringing in a formal inquiry, and instead there will simply be a new nasty rumor floating around about what you're doing here, which I know you don't care about."

Mayuri considered it. "You did say the backup archives…"

"Correct. I'm not trying to pry your darkest secrets out of you – in fact, I suspect I'd rather not know about them. I just need some data from one of your old projects."

He stopped considering. "Very well, then. The code to get in is 'Unattainable Perfection.' Now quit bothering me!" With that, Kurotsuchi stormed off.

Hitsugaya resumed his walk, this time toward the Archives room. He wondered if maybe his original assessment of Kawachi's team had been unfair. Despite their dismal performance in back-tracking a mail order, they'd done very well in this particular job – and had come up with the strategy used to get past Mayuri to boot. He remembered their hours-long discussion of how to actually perform a blackmailing that the insane captain would listen to – Kurotsuchi didn't care about his reputation, which was already the worst in the Seireitei. He didn't have any family to present it to – Nemu was his only 'relative,' and she already knew far worse things about him than anyone else. He couldn't be threatened with legal punishment – he was, at the moment, too valuable to lose, and trying to use an offense like this to shut him down would be like trying to put out an inferno by spitting at it. So they had agreed that Hitsugaya would threaten the only thing that Mayuri cared about that they could damage – his schedule.

He passed Nemu in the hallway just outside the lab, and then walked in, only to find Mitsu and two of her ninjas already there. Hitsugaya frowned. "How did you get in?"

[Ten minutes before…]

Mitsu finished punching the number into her mobile phone. It rang once before she heard a voice on the other end. "Hello?"

"Hi, Lieutenant Kurotsuchi? This is Fourth-Seat Kawachi from the Second Division. Could you let us into the backup archives room?"

Nemu thought about it for a moment. Her father had given her clear instructions not to let anyone into restricted areas. The backup archives room wasn't a restricted area, though, even though it was usually locked and sealed, so she didn't see why she couldn't help out a fellow officer. "Certainly."

"Thanks." She thought about calling Captain Hitsugaya and letting him know that there was an easier way in, but then figured that after all of the trouble they'd gone through to work out the blackmail plan, it would be better to just let him move forward with that and give him the usual excuse if he asked any awkward questions.

[Now…]

Mitsu bowed. "An ancient secret, passed down across thousands of years from one generation of ninjas to the next."

"Fine." Hitsugaya moved over to the main terminal – a massive, intimidating piece of equipment. "Given the current size of modern computers, why is this thing so huge? I want to look at some data, not cruise at thirty thousand feet."

He sighed and approached the chair, which promptly opened its mouth and snapped at him. Out of pure reflex, Hitsugaya unsheathed Hyorinmaru and cut the chair in half in one smooth motion. He stood there, blinking at the bleeding pieces for several seconds. "Fourth Seat Kawachi?"

"Sir!"

"Reality check."

Mitsu snapped to attention. "Yes sir! That chair really did try to eat you."

"I hate coming to the Twelfth Division." Hitsugaya put his zanpakuto away and sighed. "Please get me another chair. The non-carnivorous kind, if it's not too much trouble."

"On it!" Mitsu dashed out of the room.

He stepped over the gore and typed in his first search query, silently thanking providence that he'd let Matsumoto badger him into learning basic computer use during the scouting mission to Karakura Town.

[FIND: "humans" AND "capture"]

[FOUND: 60438 results]

He frowned at the staggering list of entries that popped up. His frown deepened as he saw the file topics. He revised his query.

[FIND: "humans" AND "capture" NOT "dissection of"]

[FOUND: 15329 results]

He shook his head as Mitsu came back with a chair that merely growled when he sat on it. This is going to take a while.

"That isn't much to go on." She commented.

"I know, but it's a start, and we can't afford to waste time. We'll have to hope that Matsumoto and Kotetsu can give us something else to narrow the search."

1st Division, Captain's Office - 11:25 a.m.

Unohana sat down across from the most powerful Soul Reaper in the afterlife, uncontested for the last thousand years. He was hunched over his desk, his beard tucked behind it and his scars tilted toward her, wheezing as he finished up with signing a stack of request forms.

He looks so frail from this angle. She mused. She knew better, though – she'd seen him take off the top half of his uniform and release his Shikai, albeit only once. And once was enough. She strongly suspected that he did that purely for intimidation purposes – to show his opponent just how badly their mental image of him clashed with reality right before he flattened them. For her, it wasn't nearly as chilling as his description of how he'd picked up his scars – she had finally worked up the nerve to ask him about five hundred years before. His only response had been, "My master was a big believer in teaching his students not to repeat mistakes."

Her thoughts were interrupted when Yamamoto looked up from his papers and leaned back. "I must say, Captain Unohana, that I'm surprised to see you here. You don't usually come for social visits." This was true – Unohana didn't have the same bond to Yamamoto that Kyoraku and Ukitake did. In fact, she'd sooner stab herself than call him 'Old-Man Yama.'

"True, but I actually came to ask you for advice."

"Advice?" Yamamoto wheezed. "That's even more surprising. There was once a time when you'd sooner suffer for a hundred years than ask me for assistance."

Unohana shrugged. "Times change." There was no point living in the past.

"They do indeed, although the younger Soul Reapers seem to forget that. What is it that you wanted to ask me about?"

Unohana took a deep breath. "Lately, my division has been having serious morale issues. I feel that these issues come from their state of combat readiness as well as the Fourth's reputation as a non-combat unit. I don't know why this is suddenly so important to them, but it may have something to do with the upcoming conflict."

Yamamoto made one of his trademark hrrrrming noises. "So train them. Eventually they'll either be combat ready or the morale issue will go away."

"I've started doing so already. The problem is with the pace of the training. It's rather intensive, for the amount of time that we're able to spend on it, but today I think they've realized just how much work there is to do. I think that this might hurt our performance – both as medics and as warriors – before any noticeable progress is achieved. I need to teach them patience before I can teach them anything else, and I don't know how to do that." Unohana felt better just talking about this, even if it was with Yamamoto.

Her relief was short lived, however. "You can't."

She blinked a couple of times at the blunt response. "Ah… may I ask why not?"

"Patience is learned but never taught. It's one of the few things that gets easier as you get older, as a person's perspective changes."

Unohana narrowed her eyes. "Perspectives can be shared."

"That's a common misconception." Yamamoto rumbled out, "Some of that new-age feel-good crap."

"The idea has been around for centuries!"

"So have I! A great many people have told me that sharing viewpoints and feelings leads to peace, safety, happiness, and stability, and you know what? They're dead."

Unohana stifled a giggle. Okay, that was funny.

Yamamoto chuckled. "It is, of course, more complicated than that. Would you like to take a walk with me?"

She sobered and eyed him suspiciously. "The last time I went for a walk with you…"

He got up, his joints popping as he did so. "It will just be a walk this time, I promise."

"Very well."

Karakura Town, Karakura High School - 11:26 a.m.

What they found on the monitor was information, but not informative. "So, she shows up, moves around on the roof, and disappears." Ichigo sighed. "That's useless."

Isane shrugged. "It's not useless. We just don't know how it's useful yet. That's what Master Kurowa kept telling us at the Academy."

"And this Master Kurowa, is he a popular guy?"

"No." Rukia, Isane, and Rangiku responded in unison.

"That's what I thought." Ichigo sighed.

"We can't stay here and discuss it," Rukia added. "Look, they would have evacuated the school after the big hit during the fight. If we don't get outside before they start taking attendance, they're going to ask a lot of weird questions."

Ichigo hammered the desk, making the monitor jump. "Screw that! I'm not going to just sit around. In case you weren't paying attention, Soto ran off with Keigo."

"But she wants Chad." Rangiku added, for once completely serious as she walked out the door. "That's actually a lot more important. We don't know where she is now, but we do know that she'll probably come after him again."

"Which means that someone needs to stay near Chad at all times." Isane mused, getting up to follow Rangiku along with everyone else. "But there has to be a way that we can be proactive about this."

"And why Chad and Keigo?" Rukia wondered.

Ichigo shoved his hands into his pockets. "Well, Chad for his power, and Keigo… uh…"

"Could see you." Chad finished. "He could see Soto too."

Ichigo scratched his head. "Yeah, that is kinda weird. Y'know, maybe she's only grabbing people who can see spirits. That isn't exactly common, even around here. But what does that get them?"

Silence fell over the group for a moment before Rangiku spoke up. "Some Hollows have claimed that Soul Reapers taste better, or at least are more filling, than regular plusses. Maybe they're stockpiling food supplies?"

Isane frowned at her. "Rangiku!"

"What? It makes sense!"

"Except that Soto claims that they're not going to eat them." Rukia said.

"She could be lying."

"Let's assume that she isn't." Rukia persisted. "What does that get the Hollows?"

No epiphanies were forthcoming. "Well, I guess you should tell Captain Hitsugaya to start with spiritually aware humans the next time you call him, just in case." Isane offered, nodding to Rangiku. Then they were outside, and headed to join the clump of students and faculty. "And stay sharp."

Chapter End

Notes: I've noticed that Isane is a bit out of focus lately. Don't worry, she's still the main character! This chapter also contains the longest single stretch of Hitsugaya in the entire story, past, present, or future, and is the setup for a lot of future action. I still feel bad giving you what amounts to a transitional chapter after all of your waiting. The next one will have some amusing developments in it, though!

As always, questions, criticisms, comments, and the like are greatly appreciated. Please Review!