Chapter Forty
"What is the plan, here?"
Kitsune's question echoed what Dikayumi had been wondering to himself ever since the captain intercepted them. The two of them stood at a distance from the fight; Kitsune so he wouldn't be crushed by the rampant reiatsu and Dikayumi because he was far more useful at long-range then in the middle of a many-man brawl. Even so, Dikayumi had only fired a few shots so far, and those as warnings.
Soi-Fon Taichou was, after all, under the control of Caro. No one but Nnoitra really wanted to kill her, but she most definitely wanted to kill them. Steve and Herald were trying to fight defensively as a result, but Nnoitra and Yylfordt kept almost getting themselves killed by getting within range of the captain's deadly needle-shikai. It was there that Dikayumi's warning shots were aimed – whenever Soi-Fon got too close, he sent a bolt of blue energy slashing between her and her target, giving the latter a chance to beat a hasty retreat.
"This is going nowhere."
So come up with some ideas, Kitsune.
But the mod soul, Dikayumi knew, wasn't there to come up with ideas. As big a help as he could be in certain circumstances, solving the moral quandary of fighting a woman essentially brainwashed into trying to kill you was something he was definitely not qualified for.
Neither, it seemed, were any of the rest of them.
Herald flashed in from one side as she, once again, tried to get that second hit on Nnoitra's left shoulder, his own blow aimed for her wrist. Killing her was out of the question, but no one dared turn their back while she had that deadly stinger. She turned on him, jabbing like a snake, and he jumped back just as Lilynette jumped in. The spirit wolf clamped her jaws around Soi-fon's heel and ground her teeth in hard, taking the two reactionary lightning-stabs in the back with barely a growl. It was Herald who flinched. Lilynette was the manifestation his power as well as a memory of his former life, and, though the venom of Soi-fon's blade could not kill her, he could feel it twisting inside their shared link.
Nnoitra swung his tangled whip of chains at Soi-fon's head and she dragged Lilynette to one side as she dodged, hissing at the pain. Lilynette growled through her mouthful of leg and crouched low to the ground, making herself as heavy a weight as she could be. Nnoitra, of course, charged in again, Yylfordt right behind him, but Dikayumi saw Soi-fon's hand flash and put another arrow in the air.
This is a stalemate.
Soi-fon almost seemed to come to the same conclusion. She straightened, glaring around at the scattered members of the Fourteenth Division as they prepared for another assault.
Then, without a whisper, black-clad men began appearing around them.
Dikayumi's heart sank.
None of them wore red cloaks, but among the simple black-cloth masks he could see a few with pale bone fragments, and all wore a thin red ribbon around their upper arms, where a lieutenant badge would have been tied. These were not allies. There was a mass slither of steel as some twenty Stealth Force members drew their swords, and every single one of those blades was fixed on them. Kitsune slipped around to stand back to back with Dikayumi, sliding his tiny dagger out of its hidden sheath.
"Two behind us, Quincy-san," he said quietly.
Dikayumi's hand went to his belt, and the Seele Schneider hilts there. But these are Stealth Force... we can't outmaneuver the Stealth Force!
"Bakudo them," he muttered back to Kitsune. "I'll finish the job."
"Sounds good to me."
The compromised Stealth Force attacked as one.
Dikayumi began picking off his shots, careful but quick as he could without compromising his aim. The Stealth Force were quick, even for Shinigami, and he had trouble predicting their movements with the accuracy his father would surely have expected. When he felt Kitsune shift behind him, he immediately turned and shot an arrow straight at the nearest attacker, but the man dodged quickly enough for it to just graze his cheek. Kitsune lifted both hands, dagger still clutched in one.
"Bakudo no kyo, Geki!"
Red light flickered around their attacker, stopping him in his tracks. Without a chant, the paralysis would not hold a Shinigami for long, but Dikayumi did not need long.
I'm sorry.
He fired three shots, two shattering the man's ankles and the third aimed for his sword-arm. Kitsune immediately turned his attention on the second Stealth Force attacker, but the black-masked Shinigami was quicker. He flickered from several yards away to right in front of them and slashed upwards at Kitsune, catching him across the side with the tip of his Zanpakuto before the blade cut into the mod soul's raised arm.
Kitsune fell with a cry, his dagger clattering off the roof to the street below. Dikayumi pulled a hilt from his belt even as the man attacked and struck back a moment after Kitsune dropped. He hadn't had time to activate the blade, but simply shoved the blunt hilt into the man's throat with all the force he could muster.
Their attacker went down gasping and Dikayumi did not hesitate. He activated the blade and burst into a flurry of movement, slashing the man's hamstrings and then continuing on to the arms. Ideally, he could have simply stabbed the exact spot in the chest where Shinigami power was anchored, but he did not want to risk actually killing the man by having his aim off by a centimeter. So, instead, he crippled the man, then kicked him off the roof to join his fallen companion.
Kitsune groaned, barely managing to stay conscious. Dikayumi stabbed his Seele Schneider into the roof tiles and took one of his emergency healing capsules from his belt.
He was just kneeling to tend to Kitsune when a snap of air warned him of some new threat. He dropped the capsule and threw out his hand for his blade, but the Shinigami intercepted him. The Zanpakuto flashed downward, and Dikayumi gasped as it stabbed through the back of his hand and into the rooftop, pinning him in place.
"No more shooting for you, Quincy scum," the Shinigami hissed, and his free hand shot down in a clenched fist. Dikayumi was no stranger to pain, but the sudden, bony thunk and then piercing agony as the punch landed right in his face made his legs give out. His nose felt like it had caved in backwards into his skull, and it hurt.
Then he heard a squeaking scream of anger, and a grunt of surprise. His vision began to clear, though the pain did not lessen, and he saw the Shinigami jerking backwards with Kitsune's knife buried in his shoulder.
Good throw.
He grabbed the Zanpakuto pinning his hand, gritted his teeth, and yanked the thing out. His breath left all at once, but he clenched his injured hand against the pain and lunged forward with his left, stabbing the Shinigami through the gut with his own sword.
Kitsune plunked down onto the shingles next to him, his squinty-fox eyes wide. "I accidentally used all the blue healing stuff," he said breathlessly, then glanced at his hands. "Kido is too slow..."
Dikayumi groaned and rolled over onto his side, revealing the row of little Quincy gadgets on his belt. "... got more."
Relieved, Kitsune carefully slid one of the healing capsules out of place and popped the lid off. He delicately dropped a few of the drops onto Dikayumi's skewered hand, then splashed the rest right in his face like a cup of water.
Dikayumi gasped, but his head began to clear again almost at once. He took off his bent glasses and wiped them clean, still wincing as his broken nose began to repair itself, and glared at Kitsune.
"Try and use those a bit more sparingly unless it's a life-threatening injury. They take months to make and are very potent."
The mod soul smiled self-consciously. "Oops."
His head still felt like a rhino was running around inside it, but the continued sounds of battle were close and intense and Dikayumi forced himself to get back to his feet. He climbed back up to the peak of the roof and looked over at where everyone else had been fighting.
The black-clad Stealth Force had separated everyone and hounded them, three or four on one, except Lilynette and Herald. The duo was still trying to keep Soi-fon occupied, and Herald had been forced to call in the cavalry to do it.
Lilynette was now running around as three different spirit wolves, keeping Soi-fon between them like a hunting pack. Herald tried to help, but even from a distance Dikayumi could tell the strain was affecting him. He hadn't been able to give Lilynette more then one physical form ever since the Aizen Incident, but the Second Division now gave him no choice.
Suddenly, Dikayumi realized no one was paying attention to him.
He summoned his bow and snapped his Seele Schneider up to the string.
One.
His mind raced, but there was no way to warn the others without also alerting the Stealth Force that something was up. He reached for his belt again.
Two.
"Kitsune, get well out of the way," he insisted. The borders would be well defined, but Kitsune was a fragile creature compared to everyone else in Seireitei. The mod soul hesitated for just a moment, then obeyed.
Three.
For once, Dikayumi wondered if, maybe, they should have found a way to keep the mental network that had connected them the previous year. It would be handy in a situation like this.
Four.
Steve noticed the streak of blue as it flashed over the shoulder of his nearest opponent. He flung out his hands like a conductor, turning two Stealth Force members against the nearest, and scanned the area. Dikayumi could almost see the realization hit him.
Dikayumi stabbed the final point in place. Below, Steve leapt away from the formation with one hand outstretched, just barely managing to snag Yylfordt from where he was battling two Stealth Force members a dozen yards away. The blonde was yanked backwards with a yelp, but barely cleared the boundaries before Sprenger exploded into blue energy, capturing the Stealth Force, Soi-Fon, Lilynette and Herald, and Nnoitra within the blast.
The roar of it pounded through Dikayumi's head, but he tried to ignore the pain. He watched, concerned, as the blue light began to fade.
They're strong, he told himself. I only used two-thirds power...
The dust settled. A few dark figures slowly rose from the blackened ground of the pentagon, and Dikayumi saw with a surge of relief a flicker of pale energy as Lilynette appeared beside one of them.
Many of the Stealth Force had simply vanished, vaporized by the blast. Not all of them. Besides a blast-blackened Nnoitra and Herald, four Stealth Force members had also survived, and Soi-fon. One of them, the first to rise, flash-stepped over to help her up even as the others tried to recover enough to face the Fourteenth Division.
"Round two," muttered Kitsune as he ran past Dikayumi, heading for the shallow crater. Lilynette was nosing Herald, trying to get her head under his arm, for though he had survived he was still on the ground, apparently unable to get to his feet.
"Be careful," Dikayumi tried to call after him, but his voice failed him. Suddenly, guilt raised its cruel head. Some nasty little voice in the back of his mind laughed at him.
The Black would have been proud.
Then a choked gasp broke the careful silence. Down on the ground, the man who had gone to help Soi-fon twisted a dagger into her heart.
