Chapter 9 – Strategy
Unohana Retsu gingerly lifted her teacup as she sat down in front of Yamamoto Genryuusai, the setting casual enough that they weren't wearing their captain haori.
"Captain-Commander, it's been exactly one hundred days since Lieutenant Abarai's... incarceration," she began delicately, peering into her mentor's eyes. Yamamoto was silent, the only evidence that he was in any way affected by her words through his clenching and unclenching fingers wrapped around his own cup.
"Maybe," Ukitake Jushiro continued in her stead, voice tinted with hesitance to tell what they were all thinking, "maybe he's not what Aizen is looking for, after all." On his side, Kyoraku Shunsui hummed in agreement, sprawled out on the tatami as he gazed to the quaint little garden outside of the Captain-Commander's private residence.
"Aizen is simply biding his time," Yamamoto put forth strongly, his voice tight.
The conversation had begun with small talks that barely mattered, light chatters, and gossips about daily life filled the room. And then the topic progressively grew deeper and more serious. He had a feeling that it was all a set-up, those nasty students of his.
"We don't know that for sure," Shunsui finally added in a drawl to the conversation, his head cocked to the side and rested on his open palm.
Yamamoto rose his head at the remark, narrowing his eyes at Shunsui who immediately raised his hands up in mock surrender.
"What if we are wrong?" Retsu wondered, her teeth worrying over her lips in a long-forgotten childhood habit. A frown marred her deceptively youthful face. It didn't belong there, Yamamoto decided, unused to see the medic so perturbed.
She continued, "what if Aizen already gets what he wants?"
And what then?
Not even a week after their conversation, a scout came in to deliver urgent news.
"There's an attack in the Material World!" he abruptly exclaimed as he barged into the Captain-Commander's office room. It was already filled with the three senior captains and one Kuchiki Byakuya.
"What?" Jushiro frowned, "I thought Aizen is—"
"And apparently he's luring out a different person altogether," the scout interrupted, talking a little too rushed to let the captain finished his words. It seemed that whatever news he wished to deliver was very important. He was Sagaki Fukunoda, one of the only people besides the guards assigned to Abarai Renji's monitoring that were made aware of the situation brewing amongst the Gotei 13.
His and his family's loyalty to Seireitei had been tried time and time again for years, and his resolve unwavering that the Captain-Commander took notice, appointing him as his 'scout' to take on covert spy missions that could not be released even to the Onmitsukido. This mission was no different, with only the Commander of the Onmitsukido, Soi-Fon, and her second-in-command made aware just because of their status as also a captain and lieutenant of the Second Division.
"What do you mean by that, Fuku-san?" Shunsui inquired Fukunoda loosely. Motioning for him to gather his bearings before continuing on.
The scout nodded and gulped. "We will have to look into it further, but from the reports, it seems that," he trailed uncertainly, eyeing Captain Kuchiki and the Captain-Commander back and forth, "it seems that it was someone from Kurosaki's group."
Byakuya stopped whatever he was doing and looked at the scout's direction, who almost flinched.
What?
Yamamoto narrowed his eyes. "Explain."
"When the fighting took place, the Espada that commanded the Arrancar squadron seemed to be focusing on Kurosaki's group," Fukunoda explained, "particularly the girl."
"Inoue... Orihime, is it?" Retsu took a guess. She had the pleasure of meeting and talking with the young woman before. She was a sweet girl; kind and naïve. Retsu feared that naivety might just be her downfall, even more so with her... unique powers. It was a very different form of kido that even she was not familiar with. Either the girl was truly blessed, or it was her curse all along.
"Yes."
Jushiro hesitated. "But then... the Seika...?" Then Abarai was not what Aizen was searching for, after all?
"We're not sure about that yet."
"...I see."
Byakuya remained silent.
It was three days later that Byakuya received the news that Aizen took the human girl. And that Kurosaki—the negligent boor—and his group of teenage friends decided to go to Hueco Mundo to try and rescue her. Foolish, if she really was who Aizen had been searching for, then he would not let her go that easily. She might not even be in Hueco Mundo altogether.
"What did you say?"
Kuchiki Byakuya opened his mouth, "Kurosaki—"
"No, I heard you the first time, Captain," Renji interrupted the raven, raising his hand as a sign for his captain to stop speaking. Regardless of his lieutenant irrationality, Byakuya complied.
The noble just arrived some minutes ago, as he usually did. He stood near the flickering torch, as he usually did. But then he talked, not what he usually did.
And what he said jarred Renji.
"So it's not me, after all, right?" the redhead pressed.
Deeming his captain's lack of response as a sign of defeat, Renji huffed out a breath in satisfaction.
"Then you'll have to let me go."
The Kuchiki once again started, as if a machine spurred to life, "we're still not certain if it is safe, Lieutenant."
It could be a trick. It could be his tactics. He was, as Byakuya would begrudgingly admit, a great mastermind. He would weave webs after webs of deception, clouding his enemies' judgments and deluding them into thinking they knew what he was planning, only to pull the rug under their feet and push them into a dark pit that they could not get out from. A master of illusions, befitting of his powers.
"Aizen took Inoue!" the lieutenant grounded out in frustration, "that's more than enough reason to let me go!"
"Kurosaki and his group are on their way to rescue her," the noble simply said. As If it was a simple matter, a passing thought. A nuisance.
It irritated Renji even more. So the noble hadn't learned at all. Still dismissing others' feelings, still deeming them infinitesimal. Still as insensitive as ever.
Renji banged on the bars that separated him from his captain, the enchanted metal didn't budge even a slight bit, as was the unfazed Kuchiki standing in front of him.
"Then I should go with them!"
"I am of no use rotting away in this cell," Renji reasoned, his appearance suddenly haggard. He slumped back to the billowy cot laid to the corner of the cell, hiding in his hands as he furiously scrubbed his face in frustration.
Byakuya observed his lieutenant's pitiful state, but he dared not say it out loud. It was both hypnotic and sad. The lieutenant's long hair, dull yet shining with the glow emitted by his form was fascinating to see. The tresses falling over his face, curtains of red hiding away his sorrowful expression. His white kimono almost enticing, color clashing with the ever so pale skin that missed the touch of sunlight, the garbs hanging on the bony shoulders, body growing thinner due to the limited space for a proper exercise and lack of abundance of food that he used to have.
In the back of his mind, Byakuya couldn't help but miss the redhead's cooking.
But Renji wouldn't want to hear any of that. He wouldn't want to know.
Renji hated that his captain remained so infuriatingly unchanged, unmoved, unfazed. Renji suspected that the noble didn't even listen to what he said just now. His ears only reserved to hear what he wanted and what he deemed 'correct'.
Renji was pulled out of his captain-hating thoughts when another voice—gentle, sympathetic—pierced through the air. "He's right, Byakuya," Ukitake Jushiro remarked as he walked through the gates that sealed the Muken away from the outside world.
Security had been lax, it seemed. It used to take Byakuya some while to get in, even with his maximum clearance granted by the Captain-Commander. The verification process of the keys given to him was long and arduous before the Muken itself deemed his entrance safe.
We will have to look into that, he thought.
Renji greeted the white-haired captain in almost relief, "Captain Ukitake."
Jushiro nodded to the redhead, silently noting his condition and health. "I talked to the Captain-Commander," the captain started, looking at the only Kuchiki in the room pointedly, "and it seemed that your sister is adamant to help too."
Byakuya jerked his head to the other captain. Within his cell, Renji was showing his shock in a more blatant manner.
"You can't let Rukia go alone, Captain," he stated. It wasn't even about him being free from the blasted cell anymore. He wasn't letting Rukia go alone into Hueco Mundo.
"I will go with her, then," Byakuya decided easily. If anyone was going to assist the stubborn girl, it would be Byakuya, her older brother.
"You are needed here as our line of defense, Byakuya," Jushiro reasoned, "the situation is extremely fragile, Aizen might be planning an invasion. With the Hogyōku and Inoue Orihime in his hands..." he trailed off. Indeed, Inoue Orihime held a unique power that Aizen might just exploit. To be able to 'reject' anything from happening... it's god-like.
But Byakuya was stubborn.
"Please, Byakuya," Renji begged, for the first time calling the Kuchiki by his name.
"Who stayed behind?" Urahara Kisuke asked his partner as she arrived through the Senkaimon in his underground facility.
"Lesser officers, a few medics and the Captain-Commander's personal guards," Shihouin Yoruichi listed off the top of her head. After a little more than a month in Soul Society, monitoring and reporting instances back and forth between the Gotei 13 and Urahara's shop, she got back at a moment's notice when Kisuke told her that Aizen already made his move in Karakura Town. Well, the 'fake' one, at least. It was a good plan to prepare for his invasion. And it paid off.
"The captains?" Kisuke pressed.
The cat sighed and looked at her companion despairingly, "Byakuya-bo went with his sister to assist Ichigo's team, some others were sent to assist them," she explained, "the rest of the captains and lieutenants were all dispatched to handle the Espada and Aizen in the 'fake' Karakura Town."
Kisuke paused his thoughts. "Hold on..." he started worriedly, "then who's guarding—"
"No one," Yoruichi cut him off abruptly, frustration creeping in her voice, "well, there are the guards, and the Captain-Commander had the keys with him. But other than that..."
"Yoruichi-san," Urahara Kisuke looked at the other, distress in his tone and realization in his eyes.
Yoruichi mirrored his expression. "I know, Kisuke."
"Won't you show us your power, Captain-Commander?" Aizen Sousuke taunted as he defended against the forces of Urahara Kisuke and Shihouin Yoruichi at the same time. The rest of his Espada was defeated, Tosen Kaname lying on the ground, and Ichimaru Gin was the only one that was left. Yet he still managed to be so dauntingly arrogant.
Yamamoto grunted in fury. "You will regret asking that of me, Aizen. Even your tricks will not save you from Ryujin Jakka," he growled dangerously, unsheathing his zanpakuto with blazing flames bursting out of the katana.
"My tricks?" Aizen had the nerve to cock his head innocently as if he didn't know what the old commander was talking about.
Kisuke and Yoruichi were panting in exhaustion at the prolonged battle. Yamamoto eyed them wearily, they would not last any longer. As were the rest of his officers, who were all watching on the ground, bodies out of gas that they could not maintain flight anymore. Shinsui and Jushiro were huddled together as the watched in worry at the battle happening above. Aizen was extremely strong. He wished Kurosaki would arrive sooner. He was their only hope for when Aizen activated his power.
"Your shikai," Yamamoto said simply.
At that, Aizen had to suppress a chuckle threatening to burst out of his fine lips.
"Who's to say," he goaded smugly, "that I haven't activated it from the start?"
Yamamoto felt his blood curdled.
Dull red hair flashed in his mind.
"Ichigo!" Kuchiki Rukia called, relief in her voice as she ran to the beaten-looking substitute shinigami, he was cradling his slightly bloodied arm, sleeve torn from when he was fighting before. But he looked well enough, and it was a relief for her.
"Rukia!" the orange-haired shinigami exclaimed, pleasantly surprised to see the small Kuchiki bounding over to his side. Walking at a more sedate pace behind her was the older, not-so-pleasant brother of hers.
He straightened up. "Byakuya."
The Kuchiki barely acknowledged him, however, and instead swiftly turned his head to a sudden appearance of another Espada. No time for chatter now.
Yammy Llargo, he called himself boastfully. The known weakest Espada despite his size, turned into something more grotesque as the fight went on. He was the 'zero' Espada when he once again transformed into a building-sized monster, six legs trailing behind his elongated body like an awfully dysmorphic elephant. 'I'm the strongest Espada now,' he proclaimed arrogantly, stomping his feet around as he swatted the shinigami as if they were flies.
Zaraki Kenpachi came along to join in on the 'party' as he shouted out loud in glee. They even went on to make it a competition between him and Byakuya, the noble irately taunted and easily swayed into Kenpachi's game. Any other thoughts that muddled his mind were set aside, focusing on the thrill of battle instead. A wrong target, sure, but the stupidly large Espada was barely a threat to him, he thought as he dodged another one of Kenpachi's blow, having half the mind to at least throw some attacks to the 'zero' Espada while he was at it.
Ichigo had to yell and scold at the two for them to focus 'some' of their attention to the real threat. Really, even the boy could handle that himself, Byakuya thought, irritated, summoning a blast of glimmering, deathly blade petals to the large monster.
Not long after, Kurotsuchi Mayuri and his lieutenant came to the scene, traumatized looking Ishida Uryuu and Yasutora Sado trailing behind. Mayuri was observing the battle from the sidelines, an unusually serious expression on his face.
Why did Aizen leave this place? he thought, surely, surely he needed to guard against us from taking his prize. Yet he left us with these pathetic excuse of a legion to fight.
Maybe he didn't keep the girl here? A pocket of space, perhaps? Was the Hogyōku capable of that?
After the fighting stopped did he finally approach the four shinigami, a dead giant as their backdrop. It didn't matter, he thought, he just needed to get Kurosaki Ichigo to the 'fake' Karakura Town where everyone was battling it out.
"What are you doing here?" Ichigo finally asked the female Kuchiki, his brain still buzzing from the adrenaline rush, a wolfish grin on his face, reminiscent of his Hollow nature, possibly.
Thriving in battles, basking in kill after kill.
"Rescuing you, you dolt," Rukia punched the substitute shinigami lightly. He sobered up, scoffing.
"What's the situation?" he looked around, seeing his friends lying some meters away, being tended by the just arriving Unohana Retsu and her lieutenant, Kotetsu Isane. They're safe, he thought in relief.
"Gotei 13 are fighting Aizen's forces in Karakura Town right now," Rukia explained, eyeing her brother hovering behind her, "he's there too."
Ichigo nodded his head, and snapped his fingers in remembrance, "what about Renji?"
"He's not who Aizen is looking for, after all," the young Kuchiki mused aloud, reminding herself that Renji was still in the Muken, probably waiting for their return. She wasn't sure yet what his role was in all of this, but she was just glad that he was at least safe from Aizen's clutches.
At the expense of Inoue, but still.
And now she couldn't wait to go back and tell him the news. To tell him that they managed to get Ichigo and the others back safely, and to plan Inoue Orihime's rescue—
"What are you talking about, Kuchiki-san? What happened to Abarai-kun?" a sweet girlish voice of one Inoue Orihime could be heard through the abnormal silence of Hueco Mundo.
She was approaching the group huddling near the battlefield, just finished checking on her two friends that were being tended by the more than capable hands of the Fourth Division captain. Not far away from her were a trio of mismatched looking Hollows that seemed harmless enough, one of them was a mere child.
Ichigo found himself smiling to greet the just arriving girl, who apparently just finished patching up Nel Tu, and ruffled the Hollow child's turquoise mane as she glomped his back. Unnoticing of the shell-shocked faces of the Gotei 13 officers.
Rukia exclaimed in surprise, "Inoue! I thought..." I thought Aizen was holding her captive, why would he just let her—
"Why would he leave his most precious cargo behind in this desolate place with only a fraction of his weaker underlings?" Mayuri muttered, eyeing the orange-haired girl who was torn between worry and confusion.
Unless...
Unohana Retsu's sharp gaze, filled with foreboding knowledge found Kurotsuchi Mayuri's and Byakuya's frozen ones even from her position far away on the sidelines. She too was shocked when she saw the girl approaching and asking her about her friends' conditions. She pieced together the information soon enough. She told Retsu that she was tending to the injuries of the three fairly 'unique' hollows, harmless, and friendly to her knowledge. Retsu remained silent and only smiled to the girl as to not scare the girl as she left to meet with Kurosaki.
Sensing the increasingly concerning atmosphere around him, Ichigo turned his head to Byakuya, striding in close and found his fists jerking the noble's uniform collar once again.
"What did you do?" he questioned frantically at the still noble.
"Where's Renji?"
He was always fond of the human game of chess. The strategic intellect it required drew him into the hours spent playing it. Sure, the games of shogi he played were entertaining, but there was something about holding the chess pieces that drew him in. The elegant curves and grooves of the pieces put his mind in a state of bliss, as he would gleefully take piece after piece from the opposing side. It was too bad that none of his... friends, shared his interest.
So he mostly kept it to himself.
The techniques, the tactics—the strategy.
It was not much different from the game he was playing now. Only this time, he needed to win. He lived for it.
For this moment.
Feints and tricks at his disposal. He had it all. Now he just needed to get that queen piece. The one that could ruin him or bring his greatest victory.
The most powerful piece.
He walked on into the darkness. Stopping just out of reach of the light shining from a single torch. Fire licking lazily on the air, flickering sparks shoot all around from the dust particles that came in contact with it. Illuminating a figure laying in a barred containment.
A golden cage for a sweet, sweet songbird. Would you sing for me?
Unaware of the danger outside of the little safe haven he deemed hell. Despondent. Alone.
Did your king leave you? Did your knights flee?
He watched his prize behind enchanted bars, knowing that it would submit beautifully under his strength, metal bending at his very command.
Did your pawns die?
Trails of blood on the floor invisible under the darkness. They tried. They failed. They were weak.
"It seems that the old man underestimated my prowess," he voiced in his honey-rich, deep baritone in a mock bemusement.
Abarai Renji's eyes opened. He looked around to see where the unsettlingly familiar voice came from.
Sweet songbird, would you show me your wings?
"Leaving you alone like this," the man continued, amusement clear in his voice.
Little songbird, let me set you free.
He showed himself into the light of the lone torch.
Brown hair. White garbs.
A dark smile.
In turn, let me have your feathers.
Renji's eyes widen.
Let me crush your wings.
"You..."
Check.
- to be continued -
What a roller coaster! That last part held a whole another tone than the rest of the chapter, didn't it? And yes, this is by far the very shortest chapter I have ever written for this story, sorry! I just don't know what else to add! And if you noticed, this is based loosely on the Hueco Mundo and Fake Karakura Town arcs. I don't go deep into the actual battle scenes and all that because one, I'm not a good enough writer for that and two, I think reciting the canon battles here would be redundant and boring for you guys :)