Chapter Seventeen

Urai awoke with a start, clutching at his heart.

He stared blankly at the sky for a moment, breathing hard, feeling the reassuring thump of his heartbeat against his fingers. It took several seconds for him to recover, and then he sat up, trying to remember what had been happening when the fit struck.

Looking around, however, made him wonder if he had, in fact, come out of his black trance at all.

He was on a building near the wall, the edge of Seireitei. He had been coming to help defend against a sudden rebellion, undoubtedly part of Caro's war against them. But it seemed... from the look of the battlefield, not only was the fighting over, but the entire battlefield had been leveled by some brutal strength. If a dozen people were fighting with bankais in a violent free-for-all, it could just about explain the damage... but that was the only thing Urai could come up with that could account for it.

"What happened here?" he breathed, looking from the destroyed wall, buildings, and landscape to the blood and bodies. The fighting couldn't have ended too long ago, as there were still bodies to be seen... but the sheer number of them staggered Urai. It looked like both the rebels from the Rukongai and the Divisions sent to suppress them had been massacred, almost completely.

Urai's head swam, and he shifted to a more stable position. Only with both hands firmly on the ground could he be sure he wasn't going to collapse again. Once the worst of the dizziness was past, he spared a hand to grab his bottle of medicine from an inner pocket.

It took him several minutes to recover, both from the blind terror of his collapse, and then the horrific sight that had awaited him upon awakening. Finally he rose, carefully watching for enemies as he did so, then hopped down into a street to minimize the chances of being seen.

If Seireitei had won the battle, there should have been Shinigami there, Fourth Division looking for survivors or performing emergency healing on the spot. What exactly it meant that there weren't, Urai wasn't willing to guess, but he had the distinct sense it wasn't safe here anymore. The enemy had breached the wall – best to remain below the radar until after some reconnaissance.

That reconnaissance proved his instinct correct. Fires burned throughout Seireitei; whether intentional or simply from buildings caught in the crossfire, it was impossible to tell. There seemed to be relatively little activity, though, aside from the occasional flash of kido or flare of reiatsu from a minor fight.

Again, Urai wished that there was someone to tell him what had happened. How had Caro's men gotten past the captains?

With nowhere else to go, Urai headed down into the sewers, but merely as a way to stay unnoticed on his way to his real hideaway. The secret training room in Sogyoku Hill. As far as he could tell, no one else ever went there. It'd be a good a place as any, and better then most, to re-center himself, plan out his next move.

.

The Communications Department night-shift in the Twelfth Division was abuzz with frantic energy, with conversation ranging from inane methods of regaining Seireitei, to if someone's cat was still alive, to if they were going to be besieged. Arguments were heated and largely due to the fact that no one had gotten any sleep lately in addition to the sudden disaster.

"We can't use the butterflies, nitwit, they can't possibly tell the difference between one of Caro's Shinigami and one of ours! And telling Caro's men where we are is not part of the plan!"

"They already know where we are, but our guys out there don't. Don't you see? It would merely be leveling the playing field."

"Aaand bring about another massacre, right on our doorstep. That's a brilliant idea... idiot!"

Kaba Naoko, Junibantai Goseki, rounded on the room of jabbering fools, light glinting off both his pairs of glasses.

"Alright, that DOES IT! Everyone, out. Butterflies are irrelevant. You, bring me coffee. You, tell the Captain I threw you all out. And you, especially you, shut your babbling spout. No one cares about your cat!"

The staff froze. "Yes, Kaba Goseki," someone said meekly, and headed off to find coffee. The others slowly began to follow, though not without protests and ideas and the suggestion that they really did have something relevant to say aloud.

Kaba ignored them as best he could. He scribbled away busily until he reached the last line on his report, stuck his quill back behind his ear, and rose from the table just to slam both palms down hard on either side of the paper.

"This!" he declared fiercely. "Is absurd."

The room had recently been emptied, so no one was present to ask him the required follow-up question.

"We were already understaffed, and now there's war draining personnel..." he continued angrily. "I just don't see how we can continue to monitor everything. The Mender check-up is due soon and is anyone working on it? No!"

A staff member tiptoed back into the room, holding a mug of coffee. Kaba rounded on him, taking and setting down the coffee on the table in one swift movement.

"And you lot aren't any help at all! Call yourselves scientists, hah! At the end of the day, you're just stand-ins watching the computers while the real-"

"Sir, we never claimed to be scientists," the night-staff member protested. Kaba stopped mid-rant, thought for a moment, then nodded decisively.

"Right you are. Off you go, then."

He plunked down in a spinning chair, pushed off and then let himself drift for a moment. Then he slammed into the other side of the room, and hopped right back up again, eyes bright.

"Only one thing to do! Check the Mender myself. Easy. Simple solution, take it all one step at a time or you'll burn yourself out."

He was just downing his coffee in preparation when Urahara walked into the room. Kaba tried to greet his captain without putting down his coffee and ended up with a mouthful of hot coffee heading for his lungs.

Urahara waited out the coughing fit patiently. He was well aware of his fifth-seat's oddities, including a surprisingly frequent habit of accidentally inhaling his own coffee, but there were worse ways for a Twelfth Division officer to be odd.

"Captain," wheezed Kaba as soon as he was able.

"Kaba," Urahara replied, then pulled a chair out and sat down. For once, his manner was grim, and he got right to the point. "Akon says you had discovered something that might help explain Caro's takeover."

Kaba nodded, setting his coffee cup down again and swiveling to the station he had commandeered for his own use. "That's what I'm hoping, at any rate," he said, typing away furiously for a moment. Urahara peeked over at the screen and couldn't help rolling his eyes. Kaba was remotely controlling his personal computer again. Whoever used this particular station was in for some cleaning up when this was all over.

"Ah!" Kaba exclaimed, and a series of recordings appeared in a neat sequence. Urahara rolled closer. "I was able to get recordings from the participants in Project Inner Eye, or those that signed the continued-use form after Kurotsuchi was thrown out, at least..." He coughed into his hand awkwardly. "Anyway, I had them activated after the butterfly incident, which is another thing I need to give you my report on, but of course not now."

"You got recordings of Caro during the battle?" Urahara prompted, and Kaba nodded, smiling wolfishly. As Urahara eyed the paused video pointedly, he hurriedly added,

"Oh, but these aren't them. These are videos of Tadataka Yonseki watching the videos that I recorded, but hadn't gotten to yet."

"Now, Kaba, this is not the time to make a play at getting Tadataka fired again."

"It's not that, I swear!" Kaba protested. "Though... no, not important. I may have had my station bugged because I suspected he was spying, but that's not why I bring it up." He played a segment of video, which Urahara noted had been modified to white-out Kaba's screen, then paused it and jabbed a finger.

"Directly after watching that, Tadataka tried to send a message via the butterflies, revealing the secret passageways into our compound."

There was a moment of silence. Urahara leaned back in his chair, playing with his hat.

"I'm assuming he failed? If he succeeded and I hadn't heard anything by now, there's something wrong with the Division's communication."

"He failed. The network was still locked down and the butterflies inactive. We've got him locked in one of Kurotsuchi's old labs; it was the only place we had on hand that could double as a prison."

Urahara hmmed, tucking his hands into his sleeves. "So... Caro was somehow able to get into Tadataka's head from a recording... through someone else's eyes."

"It certainly strengthens the visual hypnotism theory," Kaba said, typing as he spoke to get access to various reports on the subject. "It's a shame we can't risk watching the recordings ourselves... it could prove most educational. As it is, all we have to go on are second-hand reports and third-hand videos."

"We'll just have to make due with those, then," declared Urahara, voice cheerful once more. "The very fact that Tadataka was affected like he was from a simple recording is a piece of the puzzle we didn't have before. Good work, Kaba-kun."

Kaba adjusted his glasses smugly, then plugged a flashdrive into the computer he had been using. His virus would wreck havoc on the system, but any trails he had created back to his personal computer would be thoroughly destroyed by the end. After picking up his folder and clipboard, he looked at Urahara questioningly.

"With your permission, Captain, I was just going to go look over the Mender data. Is there anything specific you need me to do before then?"

Urahara waved a hand. "No, no, go ahead. Though be ready to put it on pause immediately if something new comes up. We're in the middle of an emergency, the Mender can wait if needed."

"A matter of opinion!" Kaba muttered indignantly as he swept out of the room.

.

Ichigo sat on the roof of his office, thinking.

It was driving him crazy.

You and the Old Man are ganging up on me again, Ichigo, and it's really not fair this time. I'm right this time, and you both know it! Why does that snake suddenly mean so much to you, anyway?!

"I don't know," whispered Ichigo, glaring at the First Division barracks. Had Caro faced Kyoraku yet? A tinge of worry came over him. Maybe he should head over there and see, just in case...

I turn my back for one second, one second, and you go switching sides on me. Tch. And now I, and consider for a moment the great sacrifice I'm making for the good of everyone by doing it, have to be the voice of reason among the three of us. Does this not feel wrong to anyone else?

Yes, replied Ichigo, subdued and extremely ill at ease. He clenched his hand, staring at it as if it didn't belong to him anymore. It felt wrong. It was wrong. Caro was the enemy. He was turning everyone on one another.

Yet Ichigo knew he was no longer capable of fighting that enemy. From now on, Caro could call the shots, and Ichigo knew he'd be helpless to disobey. Shiro throwing a temper tantrum wasn't going to change that.

This round went to Caro. Ichigo could only pray, and suffer a twinge of guilt for it, that at least some of the captains had escaped being ensnared as well...