Chapter 3: Web of Lies
"Come here, Segare," Soujun's voice said invitingly, coaxing his son deeper into the archive...to a sealed door that hadn't been visible until his father had brought it to his attention, "There is something I must show you."
Byakuya followed his father to the door, then watched, wide-eyed as his fingers gently traced the seal.
"One of our greatest responsibilities is to safeguard certain information within the archive. What we seal behind this door runs from that which is too dangerous for the general populace to know, to that which is so dangerous that it can never be loosed on our society. Our duty is to guard the seal, and to make certain that these things remain always inside, where they cannot do harm. As heir, you will only remove that seal to place new items within, or at the behest of the spirit king, himself."
They turned away from the sealed door and walked to the very back of the archive, where another door, this one made of bright gold, decorated the rear wall.
"This doorway," Soujun told him, "represents that greatest of the gifts that his majesty has bestowed upon our family. It is the only way, besides passing through the dimensional wall that anyone may enter the spirit realm. Only members of our clan may pass through the doorway."
"We can go to the spirit dimension?" asked the teen, wide-eyed.
Soujun smiled.
"It is something that we would only do in the gravest of situations, but yes. We may pass through into the spirit dimension to see to our duties to the king."
Byakuya felt the memory fade, and heard the sound of a very distant voice, calling his name repeatedly. He tried to remember whose voice it was...to raise his own voice in return, but try as he might, his body refused to obey him.
What has happened?
Why can't I feel anything?
He felt the oddest sensation of being lifted and carried, and he heard that distant voice return. He couldn't understand the words, but the sound of the voice was deeply calm and inexplicably soothing. Byakuya strained his mind, trying to remember whose voice it was, but the name would not come to him.
Fire seemed to have invaded every corner of his body, and as it wrapped around and consumed him, lights flashed in his fevered mind. Faces appeared and faded. Voices rose up out of the blackness, speaking words he couldn't understand. Through it all, one concerned voice kept returning. And with that voice came cool, healing touches, whispers of encouragement, and the sense that there was something beneath what was happening that was terribly significant. He tried to surface, to make things clear in his shadowed mind, but reason seemed to have departed him and left him in an impenetrable darkness. Despair attacked his mind...the harsh possibility that he might have died already, that his life might have ended and he should really just let go. But just when he seemed to be falling towards an even deeper abyss, that calm, and dare he think, affectionate voice sounded in his mind and brought him back.
He wasn't sure how long he lingered in that odd balance between life and death. He only knew that he hadn't died when a hand slipped into his and someone whispered that he wasn't going anywhere. It was too important that he stay...that he move forward and survive...that he learn the truth.
The truth?
What does he mean?
What truth has been withheld from me?
Everything went still around him again, and in the silence and darkness, he began to feel the deep bonds that connected him to his clan, flare and pulse. And in that removed state, he could feel the presence of others of his kin.
Here?
Within the prison?
But...?
He seemed to have left his body. He looked down at where he laid on the ground, held tightly in Aizen's arms, and listened in silent fascination as the prisoner called his name with an almost desperate edge in his normally composed voice. The man's fingers threaded through his hair and touched his face in a way that belied the truth of their enmity. It struck him forcibly that Aizen really did not want him to die. Another sound shock passed through him as a soft glow rose around the man in defiance of the bonds on his powers.
No, Byakuya thought, what I am seeing is not ordinary reiatsu, but...but his...what?
Sousuke Aizen is...trying to save my life?
He would do this to keep me from dying?
Why?
He took a step towards his pale, unmoving body, intending to return to it, but stopped again as he felt the call of his forebears. The cries of his family seemed, all at once to ring through the ruined corridors, luring him away from his collapsed body and into the dark cells. He passed back in the direction they had come, listening to the pleading cries and following one into a shattered cell.
A body laid beneath fallen stone, deprived of life and nearly buried. At first glance, he did not know the face. But as he looked closer, he sensed something wrong with what he was seeing.
"An illusion?" he whispered, reaching down to touch the dead shinigami's face.
Byakuya's eyes went wide and his heart throbbed painfully in his chest as he watched the illusion face and the face came into focus.
"This cannot be!" he gasped softly, touching the man's face again, "I have to be dreaming..."
He rose and backed towards the doorway, his breath catching as Aizen's arms wrapped around him from behind.
"An illusion?" Byakuya asked, shakenly, "You did this?"
"No," the traitor's voice said softly, "I did not do this. You know I have no power that could do this right now."
"You must have done this before you left," the noble accused him, "How else...?"
He broke away from Aizen's grasp and ran from the room, following the other cries that rose up all around him. And each time he reached one, it was the same. Their dead faces haunted him, and their voices raked his mind chillingly.
What does this mean?
These men are honorable men...councilors, not prisoners! Why are they here? Who is responsible for this?
"Byakuya," Aizen's voice said, breaking into his frantic thoughts, "You are going to be all right now."
The edge of a cup touched his lips, and Byakuya managed a few swallows of water. His eyes cracked open for a moment and looked up into Aizen's questioningly.
"That is better," the prisoner said, smiling approvingly, "though you look distressed. This place is full of nightmares and wicked secrets, ne?"
The air seemed to have frozen around him. He shivered uncontrollably, but even as cold as he was, Aizen's hand felt like ice on his face. He groaned as a cold, wet cloth washed his face, and tried to push away the hand that held it.
"I wish you would have listened to me when I asked you to grant me healing powers," Aizen said unhappily, "I could have helped you to sleep comfortably. As it is..."
Aizen's voice disappeared again, but Byakuya felt himself being pulled close and held against the man's body.
"Perhaps you don't enjoy the closeness, but you need warmth."
Byakuya drifted off again, sinking into the sea of questions that burned in his beleaguered mind. He grappled with them until he could no longer think, then sank down into silence and nothingness...drifting peacefully there until a thin shaft of residual pain broke through. Byakuya groaned at the discomfort that had risen again in his back. But he was pleased to note that the sensation seemed to have lost some of its sting.
"Aizen," he managed in a ragged whisper.
Aizen smirked.
"Goodness, so formal?" he mused, "Even after all of the time I've spent cuddled up to you, trying to keep us both warm?"
"Let go of me, you foul...!" the noble said, pulling free of him and glaring.
"Come now, Byakuya," Aizen said, shaking his head, "Do you really think it's appropriate to say such things to the man who saved your life?"
Byakuya suddenly remembered being outside of his body, watching as Aizen's body glowed in the darkness...as he held the noble close, and some of that glow filled him as well. His eyes widened.
"You...?"
"Well," Aizen said, tilting his head and studying Byakuya's darkly fascinated gaze in the half light, "If I intend to escape this place, I will, at some point, need your powers to break through obstacles and..."
"That is not why you saved me," Byakuya said, frowning, "That is not why you..."
"Shared my life force with you?" Aizen finished, smiling at him in a way that sent a chill down the noble's spine, "It was a rather extreme act. But, I have my reasons. Let's just leave it at that."
"Sharing of one's life force is forbidden!" Byakuya went on in a shocked tone, "Not just because of the extreme danger to the one yielding it, but because of the possibilities for misuse. You are an educated man. I am certain you know of the group that exploited this. They were akin to what the living folk call 'vampires!' Aizen..."
"Byakuya, calm yourself," Aizen said off-handedly, "It is not as though I was feeding on your life force...as sweet as I am sure it would be. I only shared a bit, and shared it carefully because you were, in fact dying. It seems that you had internal injuries. And as you were so persistent about denying me even healing powers..."
"You could have simply let me die!" Byakuya snapped, in an uncharacteristic loss of composure, "It wasn't as though I needed or wanted you to save me! I was more than willing to die if it meant keeping you from escaping!"
Byakuya forcibly reined in his temper, biting at his lips as the echoes of his angry outburst faded. He froze at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, then pushed himself onto his knees, gathering himself. Aizen's arm curled around him and coaxed him back under the cover of some fallen rock.
"It came from this direction. I am sure," a low, malevolent voice said, "It was that bastard noble that interrogated me earlier! I'd love to get my hands on him."
"Me too," said another voice, "but because we are going to need some way of breaking through that seal. You know that none of us have the power to break through."
"Yeah, we have to find a guard or something," muttered the first man, "Too bad those councilors in the conference room were all dead. Could have used their power. I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted to be locked in here to die with us!"
Byakuya felt an anxious swell of memory from his period of unconsciousness. He placed a steadying hand on his abdomen and leaned against Aizen instinctively.
That couldn't be right...he told himself.
"Are you all right?" Aizen breathed in his ear.
Byakuya shivered.
The seal does make sense, but what of the talk of the ones in the conference room? The conference room on this level wasn't being used. We had to use the one a level up, because of maintenance being done. There might have been workers in there, but not councilors!
His mind spun back to the odd dream he had had while unconscious...how he had gone into the cell and found the dead councilor who, to his knowledge, had died when Aizen had slain the other councilors of the time.
It doesn't make sense...
Aizen's hand touched his face, and he turned his head almost blindly. He froze with the other man's hand on his cheek, his face nearly ashen.
"They are gone now," Aizen said softly, "I do not believe that we were sensed."
Byakuya continued to stare at Aizen, his gray eyes intense.
"Are you really so surprised that they opted to seal the prison?" Aizen asked, "The Seireitei's most dangerous criminals are in here. And the ones that did not die are roaming about freely...dangerous, even without their powers. What price is it to pay to allow a captain, who was probably killed anyway to expire in the ruins, when the alternative is the escape of deadly criminals?"
"I understand that," Byakuya said finally, "I am not surprised at being abandoned by them."
"And likely, you don't hate them for it," Aizen said dryly, "Really, Byakuya..."
He trailed off as the noble stood and started for the door, his legs shaking beneath him.
"What are you doing?" Aizen asked, moving to follow, "Those men could still be around here. It isn't safe for you to be...Byakuya!"
The noble ignored him and staggered on, leaning against the wall to steady himself. He worked his way ahead to where the conference room was, pausing to pick up the fallen sign that he had seen earlier.
It isn't my imagination...
He put his hands on the door and pushed, opening the way into the conference room.
The damage to the room was immense, and all of the ones within were unquestionably dead...crushed by falling rock and debris, some thrown away from the table, but some collapsed onto it.
"Byakuya?"
He moved towards the ones at the table, sickness rising up inside as he began to recognize faces. His breath caught, and his legs weakened.
"Oh my god," he whispered, shock flooding his body.
"What's wrong?" Aizen asked, sounding oddly untroubled.
"These men," Byakuya said shakenly, "They weren't killed by the explosion."
He reached out and touched the face of one of his own relatives.
"What do you mean?"
Byakuya's fingers fell to the expensive scarf that adorned the dead shinigami's throat and shoulders.
"They were dead before the blast," Byakuya hissed softly, "They had to be! There were three explosions before everything came down. We are on the lowest level, and there were no bombs on this level. We would know if there had been. They were at the table when everything came down. If they had been alive...if they been conscious, then they would have been trying to reach the corners of the room. They would have been protecting themselves. Sousuke, these councilors were murdered!"
"But by whom?" Aizen asked, in a voice that suggested that he already knew.
Byakuya turned and staggered out the door, ignoring Aizen's pleas for him to stop. He ran back along the way they had come, reaching out with his senses, and feeling tears in his eyes as he registered the reiatsu that had somehow been hidden before. He found the cell that had been in his vision, and burst inside, sliding to a stop as it struck him that the cell looked exactly as it had in his dream. He moved forward to where the dead prisoner laid, and peered down at his face. He wanted to feel relief at the fact that he didn't recognize the man, but he remembered...
"An illusion..." he whispered, as Aizen's step sounded in the doorway.
He placed a hand on the dead man's chest and invoked his power. His heart skipped painfully and his breath caught as the illusion around the man fell away. Byakuya stared at the man speechlessly as Aizen joined him. He looked surprised for a moment as he recognized the man as one of the councilors he remembered killing. Then, realization touched his handsome features.
"I see," he said softly.
Byakuya's shattered gaze struck Aizen forcibly.
"What?" the noble managed in a choked voice, "You know who? Why this was done?"
"I do not know everything," Aizen admitted softly, "But I believe I can cure you of some of your confusion if you are ready to entertain the notion that I can, on occasion, speak the truth."
"This man was supposed to have died when you killed the Central 46 councilors," Byakuya whispered, "The councilors in that conference room shouldn't have been there! That conference room was closed. No one should have been in there but prison maintenance staff. The men were dead before the explosion...cleanly executed. And the prison has been sealed, meaning that there will be no rescue for the ones down here."
"There is something else that I wonder about," Aizen said softly, "Byakuya, who ordered you to come here to question that prisoner today?"
Byakuya looked back at the other man numbly, the truth striking him soundly.
"The head captain said that the order came from the council...and that I was requested personally...by name."
"You understand then," Aizen said, touching his face and staring down into his widened eyes, "This wasn't an attack from outside forces. This was a slaughter...a mass assassination...and you were one of its targets."
