Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
Kaien had to repeat himself twice before the news fully registered. Kisuke: Arrestee. Yoruichi: Arrestor. Yoruichi arrested Kisuke.
It made even less sense when he understood it. As Kaien helped Juushirou to his feet, the wave of thoughts that rushed over him made him even dizzier. He could barely focus on the prostrate form of Shunsui still on the floor. How?
Kiyone rushed up with hot tea. Juushirou sipped, sputtered. Kaien was busy trying to rouse the other captain. Sentaro was nowhere in sight and the room—it was spinning—was flooded with sunlight. Where did the moon go? It was just here. He was just here, with Shunsui, waiting. . . for what? And it was dark then.
"I've lost time," Juushirou murmured to himself.
"What was that, Ukitake-taichou?" Kaien looked up from his task, clearly alarmed. "Are you okay?"
"Let Kyouraku-taichou sleep it off," Juushirou said. "Tell me what you know."
"A hell butterfly came here. It said Urahara-taichou had been arrested, but nothing else," Kiyone said. "It was strange. It waited until I reached the stairs this morning. I always thought privileged information was only for captains."
"Who was it from?" Juushirou asked.
"I couldn't tell, sir. I'm sorry," Kiyone said.
Juushirou looked at Kaien. "How do we know Shihouin-san is the one who arrested him?"
Kaien looked at him, almost disdainfully. "She'd never let anyone else take him. Never."
"You're certain of that?" Juushirou swallowed the bile that seemed to be rising in his throat. He was the one who should be certain. "She is military and she does respect the law."
Kaien shook his head. "Those two go farther back than you could imagine. I know they seem close in public, but it's deeper than that. Almost like sometimes they share a mind. She would never leave him unprotected if she though he needed it."
Juushirou blinked as the picture became razor sharp in his head. Yoruichi and Kisuke, sitting together on the vast green lawn. Laughing.
Kisuke and Yoruichi, sitting across from each other, smiling their secret smile at each other.
Yoruichi standing right here, eyes feral but sane, arms at her sides as Kisuke embraces her, kisses—Juushirou shook his head. He never saw that. And he was not seeing green now, not after all this time. He looked at Kiyone. "Stay here with Kyouraku-taichou. Kaien, could you come with me please?"
Kurosaki was waiting for them outside the Keigun compound. No, he wasn't waiting there. He was just leaving. He merely stopped to exchange information. "He's in there, but he's not talking. Not to me, anyway," he said, scratching his stubbly chin.
"He didn't say a word to you?" Juushirou asked.
"Well—he was friendly and all that, but he just didn't talk like normal. You know how he talks and talks. He just answered my questions and that was all," the captain said.
"What did you ask him?" Kaien asked.
Kurosaki rolled his eyes. "I asked him why he was in there, and he told me Yoruichi grounded him. I asked him how long he'd been there, and he told me all his life. It was like pulling teeth."
Juushirou sighed. "Have you seen Shihouin-san?"
"No. That little attack dog of hers ran me out of her office. Feisty little chica, that Soi Fon."
"Is Shihouin-san there?" Kaien asked, eyes narrow.
"I couldn't tell you. But she'd see the two of you, wouldn't she?" Kurosaki's voice was an odd mix of curiosity and concern.
"I don't know. Thank you, Kurosaki-taichou," Juushirou said as he moved forward toward the place he was certain his questions would be answered. And if not answered, buried.
Kaien shuddered. "Taichou, this reminds me of something."
"What?"
"That training day before I finished the academy. That hollow that cornered us—it had no reiatsu. But we all felt it. But none of us said anything to each other because we didn't want anyone to think we were crazy. It was like the air just got heavy, and there it was."
"You never mentioned that before." Juushirou stared at him.
"There was no sense in it then," Kaien said. "I asked the others later on, and by then most of them felt like they'd imagined it. But it was there. Moving in the shadows, planning its next movement based on ours. That's what this feels like. Is there something going on?"
Juushirou looked at Kaien. Hard. And knew in a split second he did not want to be the one to destroy the marble gods that Kisuke and Yoruichi seemed to be. "I don't know, Kaien. We'll see."
Urahara Kisuke was not being held in a jail cell. Just a few hundred feet from the entrance there was a good sized room with desk, a futon, and a a very comfortable looking chair. When Juushirou and his vice captain found him, Kisuke was draped across this chair in the most dramatic way possible, half his face hidden by an elaborately drawn fan. It had golden dragons on it and a forest green tassel swung from the bottom. Juushirou noted Kisuke bore a striking resemblance to a bored debutante. Aloud.
"Ah, well," Kisuke drawled, "we can't all be pretty. Your hair is untidy today, Ukitake-san. Did you just wake up?" His eyes sparkled with something that could be spite or amusement.
Juushirou began to pace as Kaien took a seat on the futon. "Kisuke-kun, what is this?"
"It looks a lot to me like the captain of the thirteenth squad on a social call," Kisuke chirped.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"Ukitake-taichou! Please be calm. You're turning red," Kisuke responded.
"Why shouldn't I? I wake up to the news you've been arrested. Am I supposed to celebrate?" Juushirou was as close to roaring than he'd ever been. "What is the meaning of this? Tell me what you know!"
"I was tried last night. Yoruichi took me to Central 46. She called in every favor she was owed to bring me back here. Then she told me to sit tight and collect my wits since apparently I've been without them for years. And then you people come in—Aizen, Kurosaki, even Mayuri—interrupting my peaceful meditation." Kisuke's eyes narrowed. "This is all because you never screwed her, you know. That would have been enough to separate our hearts and she would've had the power to just let me go."
As Juushirou felt his face go crimson he noted a choking sound coming from the futon. He 'd have to deal with that later. "Are you finished, boy?"
Kisuke took a breath. The fan tipped a little, exposing a wide grin. "I was finished the day I created Hou Gyoku. I was too selfish to use it on myself. But I didn't realize it until I was standing in front of it and knew I didn't have a soul to use it on. And the gigai that finally got me caught? Too much time in it will make a shinigami a human being, you know that? That's why it's just another abomination." He laughed and it would have been a harsh, hollow sound if there wasn't a distinct ring of mischief under it. Even now, there was not an ounce of regret in him. "Meditation works wonders in times like this, I think."
Juushirou shook his head. "Did—did Shihouin-san plead for your life?"
"She did. They are deliberating as we speak. We'll know when they come for me if I'm to die by Soukyoku," Kisuke said. "Don't look like that. I told you I was willing to face the consequences."
"I'm not," Juushirou said. "I'm sure Yoruichi isn't either."
Kisuke merely smiled again and refused speak anymore until Juushirou, frustrated, prepared to leave.
"It's not up to you, Juu-chan," he said, giving him a brief hug. Then he kissed him lightly on each cheek dramatically, stopping at the left ear to whisper, "It's not up to her, either."
Her eyes are serious now. "He said that?"
"Said what?"
Her nostrils flare. "About the screwing."
"That was crude," Juushirou says. "Was it true?"
Yoruichi sighs and rubs her neck. "I don't think it would have been so crude if he was only joking," she says. "He knew me well enough to know we weren't being honest about each other. It's absurd now to think I believed I could hide it from him."
"Was he jealous?" he asks her.
"No. Just irritated at not being in on it. That's what Kisuke is. He's always wanted to be at the center of things. But his temper is awful."
"Did he make you suffer?"
"Only as much as I let him. He was a complete ass when I took him to Central 46 to see if something could be worked out. I had faith in the system. He's always known better and felt the need to rub my face in it." She chuckles a little. "I deserved that for not listening to him when he needed me to."
"So in the end he was sentenced to death?" Juushirou asks.
"He was."
"Is that where
you were that day?"
"Yes. When they announced their verdict, it felt like my heart was being ripped out and danced on."
"That's when you decided, isn't it." Juushirou doesn't need to hear anything else.
But she keeps going. "He never told me that Aizen was one of his visitors."
"He probably thought nothing of it," Juushirou says reassuringly.
Yoruichi shakes her head. "Believe me, he did. He just didn't bother to mention it."
