Interlude
Kurotsuchi Mayuri waited.
Those foolish lieutenants - or captains now, since Seireitei was clearly desperate - had frightened away all his test subjects. He would have preferred to get them alive, but Caro had forgotten to add a proviso to his orders about 'killing all Shinigami' to accommodate his requirements. Now the human-Arrancar hybrids, a delightfully bizarre creation, were in danger of getting wiped out.
"A shame," he mused aloud. "The rest of them would have been amusing to break. The pink one, especially, would been a good replacement for Secondary."
Oh, right. His assistants were dead. He had carefully limited the base's self-destruct, when designing it, so that it would be too weak to kill his pets, but the puny assistants Caro had let him have were dust by now. There was no one to hear him voice his thoughts.
Where is everyone?
The fighting seemed to be dying down, all at once. Well, not everywhere. He could still sense the most powerful of Caro's Hollow friends finding people to chew, but they were scattered. The Shinigami... he could sense some of them. Perhaps Caro had sent out a new order, but Mayuri saw no butterflies.
Black claws tore through the air nearby and ripped it apart, holding open the hole long enough for a single figure to walk through before withdrawing with a hasty snap. Mayuri glanced at him, eyes narrow but not truly surprised.
"I thought you were moping around the ruins of the Hold, trying to find survivors," he sneered dismissively. "What are you doing here? Caro call you in?"
General Akama did not reply, but stood and regarded Mayuri as if trying to solve some undoubtedly simple problem. His dull-witted eyes were set in a cold fury, and the burn-scars that were usually barely visible across his face had turned red again, awakened by extreme emotion. (Really, the so-called "Generals" Caro forcibly employed were all idiots. Except himself, of course.)
"How about you try to make yourself useful and find me some living hybrids?" Mayuri suggested when he got no response. "The way these new minions are killing everything in sight, I won't have anything left to replace Primary and Secondary with. What a waste..."
"There will be no new pets for you, Kurotsuchi." Akama's voice matched his expression, that inexplicable hatred he always seemed to be harboring coming through in every syllable. Mayuri rolled his eyes.
"What do you want, then? Just making sure you show up before all the work is done so Caro doesn't realize you're a spineless coward?"
"I don't care what Caro thinks." The way Akama said that, a hint of glee sneaking through the hatred, made Mayuri look back at him curiously. A flicker gleamed in his fellow General's eyes as he spoke, a hint of blue amid the dark green. "And as much as I would like to go and find whatever is left of him and say it to his face, just to be sure... you come first."
Mayuri's eyes narrowed. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, fingers curled around the hilt.
Akama smiled at the sight, a wicked, predatory grin that did not match his usual 'puny underling' face. He raised his hand and unlatched his red general's cloak, letting it fall carelessly to the ground behind him as he stepped forward. "Your Zanpakuto is dead," he hissed, grabbing his own Zanpakuto as he spoke. "Your pet Hollows have been defeated. And now... Caro's leash is gone. You are a dead man, Kurotsuchi."
"Why, exactly?" Mayuri snapped his fingers in sudden recognition. "If this is over the matter of your failed-Arrancar minion, the little eel fellow, then you know as well as I do that Caro ordered that experiment."
A wave of pressure crashed down on him, sudden as a meteor. "A hundred and twenty years ago, you set my soul on fire!" Akama screamed, blue reiatsu rising around him in visible fury. He drew his Zanpakuto, the blade screeching as he ripped through the steel sheath in his haste. "You took notes while I burned alive!"
Mayuri frowned. "I don't remember any-"
"Burn him to ash, Hageshihono!"
Wild blue fire encircled them, a living fire hungry for blood.
