Chapter Fifteen
Lieutenant Hachiro flashed around the nearest enemy, tripping him neatly before driving both daggers into the man's spine. The prickle of some seventh sense warned him to duck and he dropped low, a Zanpakuto whistling over his head.
Zanpakuto.
Hachiro flipped back, away from the new opponent, and crossed his daggers to block the next blow, the clang reverberating through his arms. It was one of the masked Shinigami, a traitor of Seireitei. Hachiro's eyes hardened.
The Rukongai citizens, he pitied. They were foolish, violent spirits easily manipulated into throwing their lives away against trained soldiers. But the Shinigami who had turned, who had gone over to Caro's side and killed their own former allies... it was all Hachiro could do to keep his anger from showing.
Anger wasn't an appropriate emotion for a specialist like him, not during a battle.
The battle raged on all around, though the most dangerous individuals had already found each other and created, mostly by accident, pockets of empty ground around them where no one else dared fight. Captains, lieutenants, the red-cloaked Arrancar, and some of Caro's Shinigami engaged in high-pressure battles lesser fighters just couldn't interfere with. Hachiro left them to it; he wasn't the officer most suited to take part in these dramatic battles of masters. He was an assassin, and a tracker. His Zanpakuto simply wasn't up to the standards of his peers as far as destructive capabilities were concerned.
Instead, he stayed in the thick of the enemy rabble, helping the lower seats and unseated Shinigami. The Rukongai rebels were dangerous, if easily manipulated, and their brutal nature was deadly for the raw recruits that the Thirteen Court Guard Divisions had been forced to bring in. Most had never faced anything more intense then a practice battle against Hollows with experienced Shinigami watching out for them. This was not a good first battle.
Hachiro's opponent released his Zanpakuto, some kind of earth-manipulating weapon it seemed, and Hachiro leapt away again to gain room, nearly landing on a slick of ice someone had left lying around.
Chaos.
There were too many of them, on both sides. With this much conflicting power in one place, things were quickly descending into a mad-house of confusion. Half a hundred released Zanpakutos were turning the battlefield into something barely habitable, let alone suitable for a battle of this scale. Someone went skidding past, pin-wheeling his arms wildly in a vain effort to regain his balance on the slick ice.
It was ridiculous.
And yet... Hachiro had the sinking feeling that this was exactly what Caro had been hoping for. The recruits, many straight out of the Acadamy, simply couldn't react as they should to a situation like this. Caro's people were forcing the Shinigami back towards the walls, while the champions of both sides were making things worse with their bankais, Resurreccións, and high-level Kido.
And, over everything, the ceaseless pressure. It was distracting to Hachiro, but deadly to the weaker recruits. Some of them, caught too close to the captains, could do nothing but choke for breath, their prone figures easy targets for Caro's army, or at least those who weren't gasping on the ground themselves. If things continued like this...
Hachiro feared for Seireitei's chances. And what was worse, none of the captains seemed to have noticed the problem yet.
.
There were captain-level Shinigami among the red-cloaks. Ichigo had expected the Arrancar to be the biggest problem, but that notion had proven painfully wrong. Almost deadly.
His first opponent had released a bankai almost immediately, trapping the two of them (and a few unfortunate fighters who happened to be nearby) in a cave of unbreakable ice. He was clearly a madman, though, laughing and taunting even after Ichigo gained the upper-hand. Even after Ichigo cut him down.
Where did Caro find these guys? Ichigo thought, jumping out of the crumbling icy ruin. He glanced back at his opponent, saw the dying Shinigami's own blood freezing as it pooled under him.
Captain-level, he might have been... but wherever he had come from, however Caro had gotten a hold of him... it had broken him. His bankai was unstable, his fighting style unbalanced.
Rather like a certain someone we all know, eh? he asked pointedly, but his inner Hollow didn't reply. He didn't have to, really; it had been a long time since Shiro had been weak enough to be bested simply by reason of his overwhelmingly aggressive fighting style.
Ichigo took to the air, ignoring the sting of his various injuries. Some shards of metal, glinting brightly in the sunlight, just barely missed his head and Ichigo hastily retreated. Accidentally stepping into one of Byakuya's fights could be a messy mistake.
He had just spotted his next opponent, a released Arrancar fighting (toying, really) with Rukia's lieutenant, when a familiar tearing filled the air behind the battle. Garganta. From the feel of it, it seemed Caro was coming back with friends.
.
Arrarrico Caro stood in the shadows of the Garganta, his generals at his side and Kurotsuchi's beast pacing behind, and took a moment to eye the battle below.
Things were going well. The officers looked like they were going to be a bit of a handful, but that was to be expected. That was why leaders existed. His stolen officers and Arrancar seemed to be distracting them, at least, which was they were supposed to do. He couldn't count on much more from the results of a second-hand Hogyoku.
"Your turn, my friends," he said, turning slightly to smile at his generals. He wished Akama-kun could have been there; as it was he'd only have two to fight with him properly. And, of course, Primary...
Kurotsuchi and Halibel followed his silent command, jumping down to join the fray. Before his First General could follow, however, Caro held up his hand.
"I don't want the traitors interfering," he said slowly. "Head back to the World of the Living. Do what you have to do, but if Kurosaki Ryohime interferes, just kill her. No games. I'll send you some backup when I have the chance, though I doubt you'll need it."
"I'm not sure 'no games' is the kinder way to die," the General retorted, but he turned to head back to Hueco Mundo. He would need General Akama to make a Senkaimon for him to the World of the Living. "Is there no one else you want me to leave alone?"
Caro hardly had to think about it. "No. The more miserable they are when they die, the happier I will be."
What, exactly, his old, dear friend and highest-ranked follower muttered under his breath, Caro wasn't sure, but it gave him that feeling like a knife was aimed for his back. He smiled, striding out of the Garganta into the sky above Seireitei.
The knife was staying right where it belonged, and would only be thrown when he demanded it. That odd prickle, that warning of ill-intent, hadn't concerned Caro in years.
.
Hachiro beheaded another rebel with crossed knives, then flashed back out of the thick of the fighting to look for another enemy in need of swift assassination. A red-cloak charged at him and the Second Division Lieutenant skillfully knocked the Zanpakuto aside, redirecting the man's charge straight into a slick of blood. Off-balance, the man was easy to dispatch, and Hachiro was allowed a moment to reevaluate the battle.
Reinforcements for the enemy. Not many, but it seemed another set-back to delay the captains helping everyone else.
A knife flashed, and Hachiro threw himself aside just in time. The blade sliced his cheek, and he felt an instant burn like acid. Poison shikai, or just poison...?
Then a familiar reiatsu separated itself from the general chaos, and Hachiro's eyes narrowed. He knew this man, one of the Second Division's former third-seats (and, at one time, Hachiro's commanding officer) who had gone missing years ago. He spotted him a moment later, walking through the struggling forms wearing the red and purple of all Caro's men, a mask covering his face. So you were still alive...
Hachiro felt the acid eating away at his own black mask and quickly ripped the ruined cloth from his face. The cut still burned, but the mask had saved him the worst of the acid. He tightened his grip, watching the approaching traitor warily.
Rukongai madmen and rebel Shinigami were one thing, but now he was facing one of his own kind. An assassin, trained to make use of speed and surprise.
Which begged the question, in a very untimely moment, why had a former Stealth Force member given up the element of surprise so easily?
The two flash-stepped, meeting in midair in an invisible clash of knives. Even as he fought, Hachiro thought. For the first time the entire fight, he suspected something more at play then what was on the surface. What that was, he didn't know, but everything he had ever been taught told him his former superior would never waste his first attack.
As the Captain would say, the very idea of it rubbed his fur the wrong way. It was simply inconceivable for a Stealth Force officer, past or present.
"You wasted your surprise on a long throw," he hissed the next time the fight brought him face-to-mask with the man. "Why?"
"I'm going to kill you, fifth-seat," came the response. "But if I'm going to kill a former comrade, it's not going to be from behind."
Useless sentiment.
Was this truly the same man who had taught him those decades ago, back when Hachiro's brother had held the lieutenancy? What had happened in those years to destroy, so completely, the Second Division mentality? Like the element of surprise, the cold and impersonal approach to combat was a thing he couldn't imagine giving up willingly, whatever the situation. It was a safe-guard for the individual, a sharpening of the tool, and made the Second more efficient then any other Division in Seireitei.
To throw that away...
Caro had done something unspeakable to these Shinigami. And Hachiro was willing to bet he wasn't done yet, unless Seireitei stopped him here and now...