Kinji Chapter 25

"Take it off." Sui-Feng commanded. Kinji gave her a vacant expression. He was at his desk slaving over some paperwork dealing with the trade between Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society. The last thing he had expected was his fiance' to kick in his office door and demand he remove his clothes. The situation had caused the spinning hard-drive that was his brain to crash and reboot. He was still putting his thoughts back in order when she marched over and yanked him out of his chair.

"What're you on about?" He complained as he crashed to the floor. Sui-Feng started pulling at his collar to try and expose his shoulder.

"I'm trying to get a good look at something. Now take it off!"

"Hey, quit that!" He grabbed her wrist and tried to twist her hand away from her collar. He did something he couldn't quite see and he wound up flat on his back with Sui-Feng on top of him pulling his shirt apart.

"Nii-sama, we're leaving and wanted to sa-" Isane said as she slid open the door to Kinji's office. She saw Kinji with his shirt open gripping Sui-Feng's yellow sash while she straddled his chest with one hand on his bare shoulder and the other on the side of his face. "Oh, Im sorry. I didn't- I mean I wanted to- Sorry!" she stuttered before sliding the door shut again. After a few seconds Sui-Feng went back to trying to pull Kinji's shirt and jacket off.

"Seriously, what the hell are you doing?"

"I want to see it. Now take your clothes off or I'll tear them off." The meaning of the words could have been taken a number of ways but Kinji had a good idea of what she was talking about

"You can wait until after we're married." he said while trying to grasp her hands and keep her from making good on her threat.

"The wedding is in a week. Don't be such a-" Isane stood there outside the office paralyzed with indecision. Or possibly with embarrassment. Renji walked up to find her red-faced and chewing on her nails.

"What's going on?" he asked with some hesitation.

"They're- I mean I- Nothing. Nothing's going on." Isane said, as if convincing herself that she hadn't seen a single thing.

"Right." Renji walked over to the office door and raised his hand to knock when he heard Kinji yelling.

"Dammit, woman, no means no!"

"Not with me. Now shut up and strip already!" Renji heard Sui-Feng's voice and his hand froze. No one could pay him enough to walk in on the Captain of Division 2 during what he assumed was a little afternoon delight. He stepped back from the door quickly and turned toward Isane. He took her by the hand and walked quickly away.

"You're right. Nothing's going on." Renji said, echoing what Isane had said.

"Shouldn't we let them know about the wedding before leaving?" she asked.

"I'm sure they won't mind waiting to hear about it." Renji said, looking nervously over his shoulder at Kinji's office door. The last time he got between Kinji and Sui-Feng he had been sick for a month. And that was just a joke. If he interrupted them now... the possibilities gave him chills.

"It's just a tattoo. What's the big deal?" Kinji said once Sui-Feng finally had his back exposed. She had seen his bare back before, the first time was in the infirmary shortly after Lin stabbed him. Back then he had a single, if somewhat large, tattoo of a fox on his left shoulder. He had acquired quite a few more since then and they covered a generous portion of his back. Sui-Feng saw the fox, a snake, a lion, a deer, a whirlwind, an oni with a club, some kind of bird, a blue fractal pattern, and a kanji for ocean. But the one that stood out was on the opposite shoulder from the fox tattoo and it was still somewhat red from its recent application. But it was undeniable what the tattoo was. The stylized wasp was drawn to let the stinger curve down onto his back while the head was on his shoulder.

"...Are you a masochist?" she asked after a long pause. Kinji looked sharply over his shoulder at her. She had a light blush on her face but her eyes were steady and she didn't flinch away from his gaze. He thought very hard about the question, and clenched his mouth shut to avoid some smartass comment about marrying her being evidence in support of her theory.

"I don't mind pain, especially for something like this." he rubbed the tender skin with one hand. "This is proof of something very important."

"Something important?"

"Commitment and resolve." Sui-Feng gingerly ran her own fingers over the tattoo. She'd heard about it from Kinji's mother, who happened to disapprove of Kinji's new hobby, but she hadn't quite believed it until now.

"I like it." she said quietly, showing a much softer side of her personality, a side that had been seen by only a handful of people and one black kitten. Kinji held very still. He didn't want to do anything to end this moment. As her hand slid over the tattoo he felt his heart beat quicken. He was suddenly very aware of his lack of shirt and the fact that the woman he loved was touching him. It was something still very new to him and he still found the closeness very stimulating. The scent of her hair, the smooth feel of her fingers, the exciting vulnerability of letting his guard down so completely.

Sui-Feng noticed the hungry look Kinji was giving her but didn't pull back. She ran her hand across his shoulder and over his collarbone then down to his abdomen. She found firm muscle and solid bone wherever she ran her fingers and gave Kinji a sly smile. Kinji, not content to remain passive ran his own hand over her smooth cheek and tangled in her short hair. He pulled her close, the height difference not causing problems because Kinji was sitting down. The kiss was something starving but hesitant, like a man finding water in the desert but afraid to drink it for fear it was an illusion. Sui-Feng leaned into him and he let her sleight weight push his back to the floor. Sui-Feng smiled into the kiss when she tasted the fading notes of whiskey on her future husband's tongue. A little something to make the paperwork go down easier, most likely. She didn't care for liquor but she liked that she'd caught him doing something he shouldn't be doing.

Kinji was too lost in the feeling of what they were doing to realize what Sui-Feng had just learned. He broke off the kiss and moved to her neck, kissing and nipping at sensitive spots and felt his heart soar when she pressed herself more tightly against him, trying to get more contact. Kinji got the base of her neck and growled in irritation when his mouth met the fabric of her uniform. He freed his hand from her hair to tug the collar of her clothes further open while his other hand grasped the yellow sash that kept her coat tied shut. He pulled the knot apart slowly, his mischievous nature enjoying the idea that he was getting away with something right under the spymaster's nose. He appreciated the sudden twitch of surprise that ran through her body when her coat suddenly fell open. She moved down and kissed him firmly on the lips, biting his lower lip a little as a light chastisement for the trick. But she broke the kiss and discarded the Captain's haori herself. Kinji's hands were instantly sliding over her bare back and pulling her down.

The two of them were so lost in each other, lost in the tastes and smells and sensations of their shared moment. The sweet smell of honeysuckle mixed with the smoky scent of incense overwhelmed the two of them and made them blind to their surroundings. They didn't hear Sun-Sun's knock on his office door.

"Lord Kotetsu, you asked me t-" Sun-Sun said as she slid the door open to deliver the most recent missives from Central 46 regarding the tariffs they intended to levy on the products he was selling through the Kotetsu merchants. She didn't notice the position he was in before almost tripping over the two passion-addled soul reapers laying on the floor. She gave them a quick glance, stepped around the two mortified betrothed and put the thin stack of papers on his desk. She made no move to leave the room after delivering her papers. "Don't mind me. Please, continue." she said without shame.

"Sun-Sun. I would deeply appreciate it if you would leave." Kinji said in a voice shaking from a insanity inducing cocktail of emotions. The arrancar stayed where she was for a moment too long and incurred the wrath of the Captain of Division 2. Sui-Feng didn't speak a word, didn't give any warning. In the blink of a startled eye Sun-Sun found herself flying out the very high window of Kinji's office and dropping with alarming speed toward the sand of Hueco Mundo's desert. She wasn't in any real danger of injury but the fact that it happened faster than she could react frightened her. The amount of time it took to pick someone up and throw them was greater than the time it would take to inflict a fatal wound. She had come very close to death.

Kinji put a hand over his face in exasperation. Sun-Sun had just interrupted something he found very enjoyable, but he also acknowledged that it was a mistake. For nobles to have sex before marriage was more than frowned upon, it was strictly forbidden. Unlike the majority of those in the Soul Society nobles were capable of procreation. For them that made sex more than just a bonding experience or something enjoyable to do. It was the action that tied bloodlines and engendered commitments that would last for a thousand years. Making that kind of commitment outside of marriage was considered a betrayal of your family's trust. After all, when you belonged to a noble family you took on the mantle of power, and those with power were given the responsibility that went with it. When he took his hand away from his eyes he saw Sui-Feng glance away from him, refusing to make eye contact. Shame was plain on her face and Kinji couldn't help but feel an echo of it in himself.

Sui-Feng prided herself on control and renunciation of selfish desires. It was even the motto of Division 2. This lapse was a serious one, almost unforgivable in her eyes. Kinji swallowed the bitter sense of failure and opted for damage control. "Sorry. That was my fault. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't do that." she said harshly. "Don't lie to make me feel better."

"...Sorry." Kinji said again. He had a sudden attack of anger directed at himself. Anger that he had momentarily forgotten the promise he made to her, anger that he hadn't known her well enough to not make the mistake, and anger that he'd let his feelings run roughshod over his good sense. But he shoved that away. The anger would do him no good here, the mistake was made and there was nothing passion could do about that. No, all he could do was accept the mistake and move ahead. "I forgot myself for a moment." He stood up and picked up his discarded clothes. "I'm going to take a nice cold shower. Will you still be here when I get back?" Sui-Feng looked back over at him, some of the anger gone after his apology sank in. Her eyes went briefly to his waist then flicked away again, the color in her face now a mix of anger and some essentially feminine emotion she couldn't identify, a feeling triggered by the reminder that Kinji desired her and that desire had made him lose control.

"I'll stay. I need to go feed Kohaku so I'll be in my room," she had named the cat Kohaku for the warm amber eyes he had. Kinji nodded and opened the door. He was about to close it again but he stopped and turned back toward Sui-Feng.

"I love you, I really do. But I'm not perfect, I'll forget things, I'll make mistakes, I might even manage something incredibly stupid from time to time. All I can promise is that I'll never stop trying."

"I know. But don't expect me to go easy on you when you do something stupid." she said with a slight smile. Kinji returned the smile and closed the door.

"Meow" the kitten's voice turned her ramrod straight back to warm butter every time she heard it. She scooped up the kitten and placed him on her shoulder. He sank his forward claws into the thick fabric of her haori and hung off the back of her shoulder while nuzzling close to her neck. She'd never met anything so adorable. She went to her closet and pulled out the bag of food and little dish with a smiling cat face on the side. She had to admit, Kinji was a fairly considerate person. He had bought food, a dish, and a sand box along with the kitten so she wouldn't have to do any of the legwork necessary when getting a new pet.

But he wasn't safe. He wasn't in control enough for her to completely let down her guard. He wasn't Lady Yoruichi. Sui-Feng let out a deep sigh as the thought finally crystallized enough for her to figure out what had been nagging at her. Somewhere deep down she had been hoping for a connection like she had with Lady Yoruichi. But, after what happened in his office, she realized she couldn't get that from Kinji and she wasn't sure if she had been right to expect it. He trusted her, he cared for her, he was probably willing to die for her. But he couldn't be her object of adoration or something for her to aspire to. He was an equal, a peer. She could trust him but she couldn't depend on him, not the way she had depended on Lady Yoruichi when she was still Captain of Division 2. He had her back, but unlike being a subordinate, she would have to have his in equal measure. Which wasn't bad, she decided. It just wasn't what she was expecting.

She took Kohaku off her shoulder and set him in front of the food dish. He ate but he didn't just scarf the food outright. He ate calmly, methodically, and didn't completely finish his dish. Then he jumped back onto her shoulder and purred. She petted the adorable little feline as he rubbed his head on her cheek. Kinji had seemed much happier lately too. He'd told her he had found a way out of the political mess Yamamoto had thrown him into. She supposed that was part of it. The engagement was another part. But the change in him had happened before that and it had been very sudden. She hadn't asked him directly. He had promised not to lie to her and she believed, slip-ups notwithstanding, that he would honor that promise.

But her instincts told her that she shouldn't ask. At least, not for a while. He was happy and he was making long-term plans. She didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth on this one. She scratched behind Kohaku's ear gently and wondered how her Division was getting along without her. She still hadn't appointed a lieutenant and her 3rd Seat was feeling the pressure. She'd have to get around to that eventually. But no one she'd interviewed had been worth the clothes on their backs, not that Omaeda had been of much use either but he had managed to get his work in consistently on time.

Even her own Division lacked the kind of candidate she was looking for. She needed some independent thought from her subordinate but she also needed someone who would back her up no matter what. She pictured Kinji serving as her Lieutenant and suppressed a chuckle. It was impossible with the kind of political enemies he'd made. It was also seen as inappropriate for married soul reapers to be in the same command structure. Although that degenerate Ushii and his arrancar wife somehow managed to get away with it.

Sui-Feng used a cat-tail toy to tease Kohaku and let him get some exercise while she waited for Kinji to get back from his shower. Sadly her day was never destined to go that smoothly.

Kinji had just finished toweling off . He had stayed in the shower until his lips were tinted slightly blue. He had the towel secured around his waist when he stepped out into his room, which was a very good thing since he had company. Reiko Tenshin was standing in his bedroom, between Kinji and his zanpakuto. Kinji froze. He did so on purpose because his gut level reaction could only be described as murderous. Reiko Tenshin was one of the three main conspirators of the Blood Faction and, now that he knew enough to look, he could feel Miko's power in her.

His mind played out half a dozen ways in which he could kill her in the space of three seconds. His heart physically ached with the need to destroy the woman in front of him. His hands were curled into fists so tight he would have bruises on his palms later. His wildly flaring reiatsu reduced any residual water on his body to steam.

"Lord Kotetsu. It has been some time." The elegant woman bowed without taking her eyes off her enemy. "You're faring better than I expected in this harsh environment."

"Lady Tenshin. What an unexpected honor." Kinji said in a mechanically polite voice that had very little connection to his current thoughts which mainly focused on the meaning and variations of the verb "flense". Kinji saw Kitsunebi shaking where she was leaned against the wall. The sword rattled in it's sheath but Kinji couldn't tell if it was resonating with his anger or if Kitsunebi had finally woken up after being restored in his soul space. But that wasn't the point he needed to focus on. "If you don't mind, these are my private chambers. I would appreciate some privacy so I can make myself decent." He wanted to badly to lash out at her. He could, he might even manage to kill her, but that would kick off a war between Soul Society and Hueco Mundo well before he needed it to start. It would effectively draw all attention from the Blood Faction while they searched for the Hogyoku and it would weaken the standing forces of the Seireitei and make a hostile takeover far easier. It was tactically brilliant and had the added benefit of potentially killing him, cutting the head off their enemy and minimizing Hueco Mundo's threat.

But Reiko was too much the politician to do something that would cost her life to benefit others. There was no way in hell she would actually place herself in danger, and after what happened to Lin she would know that simply having the Mirror didn't make you invincible. So, what was the trick? What was the secret that made such a daring ploy possible? She was either supported by a strike team far in superior to Hueco Mundo's standing forces, unlikely, or she wasn't truly here. Kinji decided the latter option was probably the truth.

"I apologize for the breach of manners but I happen to have received a letter from your brother. It was left in front of my estate this morning and I decided time was of the essence in bringing it to you." She indicated a piece of paper on the nightstand next to his bed.

"You have my gratitude." Now that he knew the appearance of his hated enemy was a ploy he was able to forestall his anger with the idea of being manipulated yet again by these people. But then an idea flitted across his mind. These people had been subverting the law in order to protect themselves and lash out at Kinji and Yamamoto, why couldn't he do the same. Soul Society's laws were archaic and extensive, many of them still technically relevant but almost never used or enforced. And one such outdated law struck him as perfectly appropriate for the situation. "However, you have done me great insult by coming here unannounced and an even greater dishonor by entering my private chambers without invitation. I call for satisfaction." Reiko's practiced expression was too good to slip but the paleness of her face told him she hadn't accounted for this possibility. After all, she had probably orchestrated all the legal trouble he'd had since this mess began over a century ago. If someone doesn't learn to fight back against a tactic after 100 years it's a fairly safe bet they aren't going to learn, let alone drag out a convention that hadn't been used for over 600 years.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand." she lied.

"The Code of Honor, as laid down by the Soul King himself, allows for a duel to be called when a noble finds himself harmed in any way by another noble. I take it you came here with an entourage of some kind?"

"I did."

"Then you have one hour to choose your second and meet me on the battlefield of my choosing. As the challenged you have the right to choose the method of combat."

"Zanjutsu." she replied without hesitation. It was the only right choice according to the information the Tenshin had on him. His hakuda rating was very high and his kido mastery was nothing to sneeze at. His official marks in zanjutsu, both in the Onmitsukido and later in the Gotei 13, were marginal at best. "I think you're being foolish but if I recall the code of Honor correctly I don't have any recourse other than to accept your challenge."

"Well, the alternative is for you to commit suicide." Now that the shock had worn off Reiko seemed much less worried, lending credibility to the idea that she had some reason to be confident of her survival. "Now, if you would please get out of my bedroom so I can dress, I will meet you in front of the palace in an hour." Kinji said with a hateful grin. Reiko left and he rushed to get dressed. He pause briefly to try communicating with Kitsunebi but all he got was silence. That troubled him but he pushed it aside for the moment. This certainly wasn't how he predicted the day would turn out but now he had to go fight a duel. And he needed a second, preferably someone powerful.

It only took a moment for him to decide on Sui-Feng and he proceeded down the hallway to her room."

"Under the terms of the duel neither of you are allowed to use hakuda or kido, nor are you allowed to proceed beyond the boundaries of the designated battlefield. If you violate either of these rules their lives will be declared forfeit and it will be the duty of the Moderator, myself, to see to their punishment." Captain Byakuya Kuchiki had been in the middle of a very relaxing afternoon when Kinji had opened a garganta inside his home and asked him for this favor. Byakuya was a little tempted to call for satisfaction himself but Kinji hadn't actually set foot in his home uninvited. Once he heard who Kinji was duelling he immediately agreed to be the Moderator. Now he stood on the white sands of Hueco Mundo for the first time since the Winter War and gave level looks to both duelists. "Should punishment be required I would consider it an injury to my pride if I left so much as a finger in tact."

Kinji felt a slight chill wash over him along with the warning. Byakuya was completely serious. Forget any alliance he had, any personal attachment, and respect he might have had for either of them. If either of them stepped a toe out of line he would turn them into a bloody smear. Byakuya Kuchiki was just that kind of man. Reiko didn't look very concerned. In fact she looked thoughtful, as if the warning Byakuya had just handed down was something that could play out to her advantage.

Reiko didn't look much like a fighter, she was wrapped in a number of fine robes like the old court women of imperial Japan, her long raven hair was piled up and secured with golden ornaments, her hands looked thing an delicate. But the nodachi in her hand said she knew her way around a blade. She had very distinctive and beautiful facial features including high cheekbones, it wasn't hard to see why the 20th head of the Tenshin had married her. But behind those pleasant features were dark eyes of calculating cruelty. If she had been married for her looks then she had married into the Tenshin for the power and status. Kinji wondered for a moment if she had been driven to such a life or if there was something about who she was that had brought her to this point. It didn't matter, he decided. He drew his blade and tried once again to hear Kitsunebi's voice. His connection to his zanpakuto was stronger than it had ever been, he could taste Kitsunebi's presence in his mind, but all he heard was a deafening silence. So be it.

He released his zanpakuto without calling its name, something only a bankai user was capable of, as a show of intimidation. Fire dripped from his sword like burning napalm and turned sand to glass. Reiko, seemingly unimpressed, drew her long blade and took an on-guard stance. Kinji scoured the shape of the blade for anything that might reveal its nature or abilities. The ordinary looking round tsuba gave him no hints, neither did the plain grip. The only unusual thing about it was that it was a nodachi. He shifted his feet into a more aggressive stance and waited for Byakuya to give the signal.

The spectators were all lined on the towers surrounding the battlefield, even Halibel and Ulquiorra had decided to watch the spectacle. Sui-Feng was standing on the roof of one of the towers rather than on one of the balconies. She wanted to be down there but Byakuya had forbidden it. He would pay for that at some point, one didn't forbid Sui-Feng anything, but for the moment she was too intent on the duel. She knew nothing of Reiko Tenshin's fighting ability, the woman had never been part of the Gotei 13 or any other organization of the Soul Society. The Commander of the Onmitsukido viewed this as a golden opportunity to gather intelligence, the fiance' of Kinji Kotetsu just wanted to go down there and stab Reiko Tenshin in the heart.

She had left Kohaku back in her room because she knew that there was no version of this that didn't get messy. After everything she'd seen, after all the unbelievable things that had happened since she'd started running with Kinji, after her cousin had betrayed the Feng family despite the awful things that would result from that action, she couldn't believe that this would end without becoming horribly complicated. She waited, hand on zanpakuto, for the mess to begin.

Byakuya drew his sword and drove it into the sand. The moment the tip of the sword disappeared from sight Kinji flash stepped toward his enemy and attempted to cut Reiko from shoulder to hip. The nodachi stopped his sword after it burned through the first satin red layer of cloth. Kinji had honestly expected to cleave right through her, zanpakuto and all. Despite having the Mirror's power she was even less powerful than Lin was. But not only did she stop his attack she shoved him back and struck his blade with enough force to make his feet slide backward in the sand. In the moment before his attack connected her reiatsu had changed dramatically. Before it had been like wind, changing direction at a whim and about as substantial as air. Now it was like a huge lake, placid but massive and heavy. It was more power than he would expect from the average Captain, more than he expected from most Captains, as a matter of fact.

But this outright power didn't mesh with Reiko's personality at all. She was a manipulator, someone who deceived with her words and enticed with her looks. Something that created illusions or enslaved minds would fit her, this massive and forceful power was completely at odds with the core of who she was. Kinji took a couple of steps back and started circling Reiko. He left a thin trail of fire in his wake, his mind spinning out plans within plans, deception layered on deception. And he had to admit, it felt good to allow his mind to work the way it was intended, but he had to remember where the line was.

As he walked he split into seven transparent copies that spread out evenly along the circle of fire. The real Kinji was just behind Reiko's left shoulder, a perfect point to strike at but that wasn't what he was doing. He just needed to keep her in place for a few more seconds. Lines of fire connected the seven figures and formed a heptagram around Reiko. The fakes disappeared when Kinji switched from using fire for generating illusions to using it as pure offense. Blue fire spiraled inward toward Reiko from the seven points to engulf and incinerate her. She reacted sluggishly but she had her sword in the guard position before the fire struck and combusted. The detonation was impressive and sent a 20 foot pillar of fire into the air. But Kinji didn't stop there, he switched back to illusion and set his image ten yards away from where he actually was. The precaution was because he didn't feel so much as a flinch in that lake of power when his attack struck home. When the sand settled he saw something he didn't expect, something so far from his range of experience that it scarcely seemed believable now that he was seeing it. A scorched ball of green flesh surrounded Reiko Tenshin like a living, pulsing shield. His fire had blackened parts of it and a clear fluid seeped out of open wounds in the mass. The flesh wall parted to reveal a largely unharmed Reiko. The green flesh disappeared back into her nodachi, flowing back into it was like watching healing kido pull spilled innards back into the stomach cavity of a wounded soldier.

The next attack by Reiko Tenshin snapped him out of his morbid interest. A green tentacle emerged from the nodachi and slapped hard at the false image he had left behind. When it simply passed through Kinji's illusion unimpeded it lashed around blindly and managed to smack into Kinji's left arm hard enough to momentarily stun the limb and Kinji could feel a bruise beginning as soon as he jumped out of range. What the hell kind of sword was that? She lashed at him again, the rope of green flesh lengthening enough to reach him. Kinji ducked and cut at the appendage. His sword scorched the thing but the keen edge bounced off like he was striking rubber.

"Engulf, Minazuki." The tentacle split in half lengthwise and expanded into a mouth. Kinji's battle-readiness failed him in that moment. Seeing a massive mouth ready to swallow him surpassed his tolerance for abstract abilities long enough for the the mouth to open wide and engulf him. The onlookers gaped in surprise and revulsion as the Lord of Hueco Mundo was swallowed up and imprisoned in a seamless ball of flesh.

"Well, I guess you're the new ruler of Hueco Mundo, Lady Halibel." Mila-Rose said with a shade of pity in her voice.

"Use your pesquisa. He isn't dead just yet." Halibel said flatly. Her three Fracciones lookd more intently down at the battlefield and they noticed the sudden expansion of the flesh prison. When they did as their master instructed they felt Kinji's power multiply. The prison exploded in a blinding flash of blue fire that left a dark spot in everyone's vision for a few moments.

Kinji emerged from the death trap with his bankai active and all nine tails waving menacingly. He wasn't sure how she had done it, but Reiko Tenshin was using Minazuki, Retsu Unohana's zanpakuto. And now that he'd made the connection he could feel how similar Reiko's reiatsu had become to Unohana's. The Mirror had allowed him to copy another soul reaper's zanpakuto abilities but not their reiatsu. And he certainly wasn't able to just summon them at will. He remembered Lin's bankai and how it had materialized distorted copies of soul reapers along with their zanpakutos. Was this a variation on that power? He could certainly feel the unnatural energy of one of the artifacts pulsing like a living thing inside Reiko and her weapon. He felt his chest pulsing in time with the evil energy in Reiko. No, not his chest. He looked down at the silver fox mask hanging from the thin red thread tied behind his neck. He'd never tried putting it on before, he wasn't sure what would happen. With each pulse the feeling that he should put it on grew stronger.

"What the hell?" Kinji muttered to himself in resignation to what would likely turn out to be a very stupid idea. He grabbed the mask in one hand, wondering why it felt to damn heavy, and placed it on his face. He'd expected it to feel cold. It was something of a surprise when it felt warm, much more of a surprise when he felt it tighten on his face.

In that moment three things happened. First, Kinji disappeared from the spiritual senses of everyone in Hueco Mundo. One moment he was there like a magnesium flare, too bright to be ignored by anyone with their eyes open, and the next he ceased to exist. Second, Akon's surveillance equipment began to short out and the reiatsu detection sensors overheated and died. Third, Reiko Tenshin's skin split open revealing something that looked like a dried out corpse wearing a Captain's haori.

Kinji didn't feel overwhelmed or strained by the sudden change in his power. What he felt was a very intense sense of purpose focused on eliminating the knot of wrongness in front of him. Everything else, all his plans and intentions were pushed so far to the back of his mind that they might as well not have existed. If someone had asked him his name at that moment he probably couldn't have told them. Before the malformed replica of Retsu Unohana could attack again one of Kinji's tails pierced its chest and poured fire into the walking husk.

Soul Society- Tenshin Mansion

Reiko Tenshin opened her eyes in her locked bedroom where she had spent the last day manipulation her double. She hadn't believed the artifact in her hands could control one of its constructs across a dimension but the spirit inside it had assured her it could do that and much more. It had given her the way to set Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society at each other and give her the time she needed to dig up the Hogyoku. But it was still worth it. That idiot Kotetsu had stepped over a line. He had dipped a toe into ascendency without one of the three relics. He would pay a heavy price for that.

Hueco Mundo

Kinji took the mask off once the construct was gone and the irresistible impulse had dimmed to something he could resist. It was hard to take off, clinging to his skin before he let it drop back to his chest. The sudden loss of power made his head swim but he quickly redjusted to his normal level of strength. Kinji seized on that thought, his normal level of power? He felt weaker than he had before he put the mask on. He started to reseal his zanpakuto but stopped when he concentrated on his tails. There were only eight of them. Another wave of weakness hit him and his bankai disappeared. Kitsunebi's sealed form dropped to the sand next to him. Nausea followed the weakness and Kinji was powerless to resist. He vomited onto the sand, his muscles locked up and he couldn't move. When the tears cleared from his eyes he saw blood mixed in with the bile. More blood dripped from his face, from his nose and eyes. He wanted to call for the medics, or Akon, or Isane. But he couldn't move or even speak.

Sui-Feng was there before Kinji collapsed into the stained sand. She barked orders using Kinji's com device and hauled Kinji back toward the main palace along with his zanpakuto. Kinji, still conscious but paralyzed, hung limply in her arms. He could feel his heart slowing down, and not in a good way. His last thought before he blacked out was that he could taste blood in his mouth.

"Kinji?" Sui-Feng shook him when she felt him go completely limp. She put her ear against his neck and didn't hear him breathing. "Kinji!"

A/N: I'm going on hiatus for a while. Not sure how long but it will be for at least a few weeks. Don't worry, I haven't abandoned this story nor do I intend to. As always reviews are appreciated.