Finally, I've had this chapter in mind for a while and I get to write it up at long last! This isn't quite how I'd envisioned it, but I like how it turned out! Meanwhile, I can't believe how large this has gotten. 21 chapters with no clear resolution in sight? I feel like I should be wrapping it up, but I really don't know how to can do that anytime soon. That's the thing, compared with the last story, these chapters are much shorter and thus the story takes longer to tell.

As ever, please tell me what you think!

Chapter 21: The Tide Turning

Nanao had an immeasurably strong desire to kick something. Karakura was fine, but she was trapped. As she looked around, she saw that the Kotetsu sisters were nowhere to be found – they must still be in Karakura for some reason. Only, of course, they could not get back into Soul Society without fighting Yachiru and Nanao had no one to thank but herself for that. She'd told Yachiru not to let anyone in, but that was simply because she was afraid that Aizen could have manipulated them before they returned. Whether Yachiru would take into consideration that the Isane and Kiyone had not even been near Aizen would be fairly unlikely. No wonder she'd been so delighted – Nanao had given her the perfect type of order to fully take advantage of. Yes, something to kick would certainly be appreciated about now.

In the meanwhile, she at least had the ability to focus in on her comrades now and take stock of the battles. Her fury and annoyance at herself caught in her stomach when she saw Matsumoto and Hinamori. The former in particular was very likely not going to survive for long. The only thing that kept Nanao from assuming she was dead was the fact that Kira was still focusing extremely hard on healing her. Komamura-taichō stood watch over them, giving Kira a little more freedom to work, but Nanao could see it was a losing battle thus far with Matsumoto, and Hinamori was currently entirely unlooked after.

Nanao started towards her fallen comrades when she felt a faint pull to her left. Turning her head, she saw Kyōraku-taichō and Stark fighting. Even though she knew they were engaged in battle, she felt a lump grow in her throat. What had Stark told him about her and Lilinette? Anything at all? Did Kyōraku-taichō even care if he did know?

Shaking her head to refocus her attention, Nanao glanced around her to continue her mental inventory. Communications had been extremely poor in Soul Society, especially after she went into seclusion with Baba, and therefore she could not know if the missing Espada were destroyed, transformed, or simply waiting to strike. For instance, she could not find Halibel's Fracción nor she could she feel their presence. She felt a slight sense of relief and also foreboding at the same time. They did not seem the type to be easily wiped out. Meanwhile, Halibel was in battle with Hitsugaya-taichō, and it looked fierce. Similarly, the second division captain and vice captain were engaged with the elderly Espada named Barragan. Nanao swallowed hard again and turned away. They were hardly succeeding, but neither were they losing quite yet. Soifon-taichō had a few tricks up her sleeves, Nanao knew, although she generally had to be pushed to the breaking point before allowing additional powers to emerge. Nanao would not interfere.

In fact, there did not seem to be much need for her to interfere at the moment with the possible exception of assisting Kira with the two wounded fukutaichō. Nanao knit her brow together and concentrated harder. There was a fierce buzzing coming somewhere to her right. She could succeed in blocking it out for a moment but it only seemed to get louder and more insistent. Was it a mosquito? A machine?

She looked at Yamamoto-Genryūsai. As ever, a quiet determination pulsed from the elderly man. He was a source of power, discipline, and fear to Nanao. As much as the respected the man, she was more than a little wary as well. While her captain seemed blithely determined to maintain a strong sense of devotion to him despite all that had happened between them throughout the eons, Nanao felt she could never let her caution down around him. She trusted him, true, to protect and take care of his shinigami, but at the same time he would not hesitate to sacrifice any one of them to save the others. Even with his two favorites, the eighth and thirteenth captains, he would grieve for them but readily give them up. No, while they were technically on the same side, Yamamoto was not a man to be fully depended upon for one's personal well-being. She wondered what he was pondering as he watched the proceeding battles. He'd been watching Hitsugaya and Halibel for a while, but now he was turning away and keenly observing the captains in turn.

He turned in the direction of the strange buzzing that still had not let up. From her position, Nanao could see his chin tuck down slightly in disapproval and could imagine the quiet harrumph issuing forth from his mouth. She looked up and finally saw the source of the buzzing.

The "buzzing" was not from an insect or a machine, and it technically was not buzzing at all. In fact, it was a very familiar sound that Nanao had long since learned to block out.

"Oi, Nanao-chan! Over here! Na-na-o chu-a-a-a-a-a-n! Huh, maybe she doesn't hear me… OI, NANAO!! MY LOVELY, LOVELY NANAO-CHAN! HELLOOO!"

Nanao's lips pursed tightly as she glared at the pink clad figure of her captain well over a mile away standing and leaning on his swords. Stark simply watched in bored disbelief. Despite the previous passion of their fight, he seemed in no immediate rush to continue. Kyōraku turned to say something to him, to which Stark shrugged passively in reply.

The next thing Nanao knew, he was rushing towards her.

"Nanaoooooooooooo-," he cried as he approached.

"WHAT?"

"-chan. Genki?"

"Of course I'm fine. What on earth do you want?"

He pushed his lower lip out and looked down at her from under the brim of his hat. Nanao noted with concern that the edge was split.

"I missed you. I was also a little curious as to why you decided to come here when I had thought you were going to stay in Soul Society."

"It was a mistake. Are you bleeding?" She reached forward to tilt his hat back.

"My heart bleeds from your disdain," he complained. Nanao dampened her concern. If he could flirt and pout then he was more or less just fine.

"I didn't mean to come. I was escorting the Ikkanzaka brothers here to try to reverse the switch between the two Karakuras. As they flipped back I lost my footing and tumbled down here. I'll find a way back to Soul Society in a moment as soon as I've seen to Matsumoto and Hinamori."

Nanao was about to leave but there was something in her captain's expression that arrested her movement. He was simply staring very hard at her, searching her. She stopped and looked up in his handsome face. There was more intensity that she was used to seeing from him. An edge of fear crept down her spine.

"What is it?" she finally asked, her brow knitting together.

"Nanao, the Karakuras did not reverse. One pillar broke but it was soon fixed. Beyond that, the pillars have been successfully guarded."

She felt the blood drain from her face and her mouth went dry. "But… but that's impossible. I saw for myself the blurring between the towns. We set up sekkiseki walls to send the original Karakura back to Soul Society. Akon, Hiyosu, Rin, they all reported that two of the pillars had broken!" she insisted desperately.

"They did not."

"They must have. I saw the intersection. I walked down the slope from one to another. I felt the ground shake beneath my feet as they reversed. I saw them change." At this point Nanao was shaking. She could not be wrong about this. She could not have fallen for a trap. It couldn't be possible.

Kyōraku looked away. "Before we came down, Yama-ji exposed us to a very newly created counter hypnosis device that should more or less render Aizen's images a little less powerful. We may still fall for them, but they should at the very least appear to us as the mirages that they are. I saw the pretend pillars destroyed and the pretend exchange of Karakuras occur. No one else noted it, and I'd hoped that this meant that Aizen's mind control could not work over us. I found it very cheering. One of the scouts must have seen and fallen for it and reported it back to the command center."

"And then what?" she snapped. "The entire command center as well as myself and the other fukutaichōs, we all fell for an illusion? Is that what you are saying?"

"Yama-ji didn't think it was necessary to provide you all with the same precaution," he said by way of apology.

"What about Baba?" she continued. "She saw it and didn't say anything to the effect that it might not be real!"

"Did she?" he said with a slight note of surprise in his voice. "That is interesting."

"Are you going to tell me that Aizen hypnotized her?" Nanao demanded.

"No, I don't think they ever crossed paths."

Nanao felt a quick pulse of triumph that was dashed a moment later.

"That said, there's a perfectly legitimate reason that Baba could still be deceived without having ever seen Aizen's hypnosis personally," he continued. "I'm not going to go into it right here, but it's more than possible."

"Well then how do you know that you're not deceived?" she cried desperately, doing her best to hold off tears. She felt foolish and was not quite ready to admit defeat. "How do you know that what you took as a mirage was not in fact real?"

"Nanao," he said calmly, "you better than anyone should know that."

She finally had to turn away at this as she bit her lip and tried not to let her tears pour forth. Yes, better than anyone, she should know what was real and what was illusion. That was what made this so hard to believe. If this was an illusion, then by virtue of her powers she should have been able to see through it. She simply did not understand. At the same time, she trusted her captain's instincts implicitly. She might have a power that could, at least potentially, cut through illusion, but Kyōraku-taichō seemed to have that knack intuitively. But then, he'd been deceived by Aizen along with the rest of them… hadn't he? This would not have been the first time that he had not included his vice captain in on all that he knew. If anything, it would be quite fitting for him to keep those suspicions to himself.

Still, it was true. She, more than anyone, should know. She closed her eyes, forced herself to breath and tried to call Morrigan forth. Nothing happened. Nanao's eyes flew open as she continued to call Morrigan. No voice responded. The sarcastic, sly tone she was accustomed to from Morrigan was gone. Even the feeling was not quite there. She did not feel deserted exactly… Morrigan was there still, as was her power, but she herself did not respond. Instead, she felt a small, childish emotion of question and wonder issue forth. In her mind's eye, she envisioned a small girl with black hair, violet-blue eyes, and a Hollow mask.

Nanao suddenly realized what had happened. This was part of the power shift. They had all changed one position. The bird Morrigan became the child. The Morrigan Nanao was accustomed to talking with changed to the position of the taciturn elder. For her entire life until now Nanao had been the child – she had asked questions, questioned her abilities, relied on others. This was the change. She was the child no longer, now she was in the position of the being she had been accustomed to calling Morrigan. Now she was the one who, feasibly, had the answers.

Nanao breathed deeply for a moment and concentrated her emotions. There was something wrong here, that was clear. She looked around her. Things seemed more or less correct. There was Yamamoto, there was Soifon, Kira, Matsumoto, Hinamori, Hitsugaya, Komamura, Iba… she felt Madarame and Ayasegawa from the eleventh…yes, she saw and felt them all. Everything was as it should be. Except, it wasn't somehow. It was the feel. They all looked correct and acted accordingly, but the feel was wrong. They felt… hollow, somehow.

Nanao looked up to Kyōraku, his face full of concern.

"You're not my captain," she finally said with a slight shake of her head.

"He looked at her intensely a moment later then smiled at her.

"Irasshaimasu," he said. It was Aizen.