Urahara Kisuke was afraid.

He didn't show it, and not for the first time wished for a hat, a way to shadow his eyes. He would have preferred that his eye movements were invisible, so they couldn't see him sizing them up, noticing their positions and not-quite-hidden weapons. He settled for watching them through his blonde bangs.

"What's this? So many 10th Division wishing a tour of the facilities?"

It made sense that it was 10th Division that had been sent to apprehend him. Most of the Court was deeply involved in the ongoing festivals being thrown by the Five Noble Houses, which was significant on more than one level. The Secret Mobile Corps had their orders and their hands far too full trying to quietly keep the drunk nobles from killing one another or blundering into an assassin. Almost all of the Gotei 13 were obligated in one way or another to one or the other of the Houses for one or the other nights, and niceties had to be observed. It was one big party to celebrate the power of the Houses and their shinigami army.

A tiny part of him almost wished the King were here to see it. Perhaps he'd abdicate that other dimension altogether to put them in their place.

But that, of course, was his job, wasn't it.

Kisuke wondered if now weren't the best time to be distracted by mental rebukes.

The shinigami before him were all seated, though their lieutenant was conspicuously absent. Likely seeing to those mandatory niceties in lieu of his captain. Which, of course, meant the monkey was nearby if not already in the laboratory.

He'd chosen the 12th Division lab most isolated from the center of the Seireitei, closest to the west wall, in the hopes that he'd have fewer shinigami to face if the time came to run. For seated shinigami to have been involved at this juncture, however, indicated several things.

The time to run had come and gone.

Things were quite a bit more serious than he'd anticipated.

Someone else knew. Someone who could pull fairly long strings.

All of these were definitely not positive changes.

And all of them complicated an already complicated process.

He wondered if the Secret Police would be the next line of defense. Obviously the back door was no longer going to be as easy to slip out as he'd originally anticipated.

Any blood spilled tonight would be on his hands.

One of the shinigami, Third Seat Kogan Uzuru, stepped forward. His zanpaktou was at his side, hilt protruding slightly from his robes. It was a rather small sword, more of a kodachi than a wakizashi. He'd be able to draw the blade extremely quickly, and it was short enough to swing freely despite the usually limiting factor of the ceiling. Clearly his technique would rely more on defense than attack, but anyone that could swiftly block could just as swiftly turn the motion into something more offensive. He was stepping forward not to show dominance over the other officers, but to shorten the distance between them. To bring Kisuke into range. He did not smile.

"We are under orders to bring you to the First Division holding cell, Urahara-taichou."

He would have applauded the young man if his arms had not been full of a bright, tightly-wrapped yellow blanket. The young shinigami had managed to say without actually saying that Yamamoto was behind this visit, and possibly without Central 46's blessing.

That at least amounted to something. Then again, Yamamoto Genryuusai wasn't terribly fond of him at the moment, so perhaps he shouldn't see too much in the gesture.

Was it preemptive to help him or to slow him down? With Yamamoto, you couldn't really tell until you felt his reiatsu.

He allowed his face to show surprise and concern. "Oh! Such important business, and on such a lovely evening. What on earth have you done to pull such an unlucky straw?"

"You must come with us, Urahara-taichou." His voice was respectful, but firm. He had clearly been told to bring Urahara Kisuke one way or the other. Behind him, the other two shinigami, the fourth and fifth seats, shifted their stance slightly. Still not threatening, per se, but starting to realize he was going to resist.

Kisuke used the blanket to hide the movement of his right hand towards Benihime, tucked neatly at his waist. He didn't want to have to resort to his zanpaktou for this, but one-handed kidou was not a good idea in a laboratory filled with materials that reacted in interesting ways to spirit energy. If two taichous were to have a serious battle in any one of the dozen 12 Division facilities, they would probably either blow themselves sky-high, or disappear into a hole too deep to measure.

Where was that asshole?

"I am truly sorry, Uzuru-sama, but as you can see I have my arms full." He indicated the blanket, held close to his chest. "I will be done in mere moments, but I so regret asking you to wait when I'm certain you have parties to attend-"

"Oh, can it," a gruff voice called down the round stairwell, and in another moment the captain of the 10th Division made his grand entrance. It wasn't so grand; he hated his captain's white haori to the point that he'd reduced it to something very much like the fukataichous' armbands, a great swath of white on his left arm, with the number almost too folded to read. He hadn't shaved for the festivals, so his stubbly black beard looked exactly as though he'd let it go ten days longer than Kyouraku Shunsui's. His eyes were exhausted, angry, and reflected great disappointment.

Things were indeed more serious than they'd first appeared.

"You have no idea how tired that gets," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck and flexing it rather stiffly. "And I don't want my guys trying to imitate it. You're worse than the street peddlers in Rukongai."

Urahara inclined his head in greeting. "Ah, welcome, welcome, Kurosaki Isshin-taichou. And what a colorful comparison you made, there. While unflattering, I cannot doubt your experience."

His friend's expression changed to one of wariness, though Kisuke kept his face mild. He was more than certain Isshin had seen through his first words to those 10th Division officers, so there would be no putting him at ease.

"What's in the blanket?" Isshin's voice was suddenly sharp.

The problem with Kurosaki Isshin was that he didn't have the same problem most extremely powerful souls did, which was that they deafened themselves with their own reiatsu. Their senses were dulled by the constant roar of their power, and rather than cultivate an ability to ignore their own voice, as it were, they usually chose the easier path of simply becoming incapable of hearing anything at all.

Isshin, on the other hand, was extremely powerful and extremely perceptive. Possibly because he'd been one of the first students of Yamamoto Genryuusai, who wouldn't have permitted any less of him.

Perhaps it was because he wouldn't permit any less of himself. He had been a stubborn boy, a stubborn young man, a stubborn officer, and now a stubborn captain. He was far too much like his sister.

And like his sister, he had a weakness for weakness. And there was nothing in the room weaker than the spirit pressure in the blanket.

It was a tiny, flickering ball of reiatsu. So fragile. Even the slightest of breaths would extinguish it.

If he knew how to feed that flame, he would. He would give his entire being to preserving that life. And he would find a way. He'd find a way to fix this. Sooner or later, at whatever cost, he always found a way.

But later was not an option. Sooner was very close to no longer being an option.

Now was looking like the only option.

"Gods, do NOT tell me-"

"A child," he interrupted softly. "Unohana-fukataichou has already been to see him. You can ask her if you'd like, I'll wait here-"

"A child," Kurosaki growled, crossing his arms across his chest. "Seems an unlikely place for a nursery, Kisuke."

"11th Division was training in the southern slopes, and they stumbled upon him. He showed a bright flash of reiatsu when they approached, but that display nearly killed him." He shifted the bundle in his arms, though more to free up his right arm than because the weight was a burden.

It was so light, it was as though the blanket were empty. As though every second that flame continued to burn it was consuming the very vessel that struggled to keep it alight.

Kisuke didn't congratulation himself on the lie. It was getting far too easy. Too easy to come up with such simple, smart fabrications right off the cuff. The seated shinigami were clearly surprised, and the idea of crossing swords with a shinigami captain holding a dying infant, or the idea that he was resisting so he could save a tiny life . . . he couldn't have stripped them of their resolve more efficiently. Dishonesty was becoming a second skin, and he knew if he stopped to consider it long enough, it would terrify him.

Isshin had every right to be disappointed.

Kurosaki Isshin looked as though he were fighting between wanting to disbelieve and wanting to kick Kisuke in the head. "That Kenpachi's getting downright soft, if he's picking up another kid in front of his men."

Kisuke shrugged eloquently. "The healers have done what they could, and then they turned to the Head of Technological Development Department for assistance. I believe I can stabilize his output of spirit pressure before he exhausts himself, but it will be difficult if I am to be detained."

He knew his eyes had hardened to the same resolve that he saw in Isshin, and he made no attempt to soften them, though the rest of his face looked amicable.

He had fooled the 10th Division shinigami, but he was certain Kurosaki Isshin knew he was lying. The captain knew full well that an infant giving off even that much spirit pressure, without a mother to feed it, would have died long before anyone could have saved it. He was also perceptive enough to determine that the gender of that soul, as faint as it might be, was not male.

The two captains faced each other, Isshin now standing a few lengths in front of his subordinates. The lab itself was just under street level of the Court of Pure Souls, a gigantic, round room with equally spaced antechambers branching off at exactly matching angles. It had been constructed during his geometric phase, before he'd been taught to shed his stupidity, and now his eyes darkened at the thought that he would finally pay for that naivety this night.

Sometimes he had to pay his debts with other people's lives.

He wasn't going to pay with this one.

Lanterns and monitors lit the giant chamber, throwing few shadows and lighting every corner. Good light was necessary for research, and made it very hard for semi-intelligent, semi-mobile experiments to creep into corners, or even worse, up the flight of stairs. The U-shaped counter was only open towards those stairs, effectively surrounding him though this enemies were still only to his north.

He'd long ago realized there had been nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not here. Not in Seireitei. At least that part of the plan had gone without a hitch.

"Not my problem," Kurosaki said brusquely. "Hand him over to Tesssai-fukataichou. Central 46 also thought I'd be in a less than festive mood. Feel grateful they sent me."

Well, that answered the question of whether Yamamoto was trying to help or hinder. So they'd hit him from both sides. Yamamoto had asked, and Central 46 had demanded. It was someone with ties to the 46 . . . Urahara phrased his next sentence very carefully. "Tessai-fukataichou is not here, Isshin. He is making my apologies to the Noble Houses. Though I believe I can find Mayuri-san –"

"Tch," Isshin growled. "That creep wouldn't know what to do with a kid if you handed him a manual."

Another shrug. "I'm afraid that's the best I can do on such short notice."

The second shrug was more than the delicate bundle could tolerate. The protest was soft. No motion came from that cloth. Only a tiny noise, inhuman but trying. In pain.

He'd never heard it before. Pain in that voice. Not like that.

And that reiatsu continued to flicker, mere moments from cold oblivion.

Isshin's resolve seemed to waver at the sound. "Yamamoto-taichou-"

"Is an idiot," he interrupted mildly. "Granted, the modsoul experiment had its flaws, but to ban that type of research altogether-"

Isshin sighed deeply. "Dammit, Kisuke, which part of 'no' is so hard for you to understand?"

"There's nothing wrong with the concept of altering a soul-"

"I'm not here to argue theology with you," Isshin snapped. "You tell me right now if you've been toying with that soul."

Urahara tried not to visibly tighten his hold on the blanket. "Toying would make it sound as though I were being careless." It came out tight despite his attempts to make the words light.

Isshin turned his face, but his eyes never left their deadlock with his. "You three, out. Guard the door. Let no one enter or leave without my expressed permission."

"T-Taichou-"

"Including other captains. Go."

Both men waited until the shinigami had obediently retreated up the winding staircase, both waited for the tell-tale, hollow sound of the door closing. Both waited for the delayed locks to slap into place, for the heavy stone to move.

When no more motion echoed down that stairwell, Kurosaki Isshin put a calm hand on his zanpaktou.

"You're not the Creator, Kisuke!" the captain exploded, quite suddenly. "You can't just go slumming into Rukongai picking up any soul that shines to your liking! Those are lives you're playing with!"

Kisuke finally allowed his emotions to show more plainly on his face, baring his teeth. "What makes you believe that I would, Isshin-san?"

The other taichou made a disgusted noise, but he didn't draw.

"We have a problem, Isshin-san, and no one is heeding the warning-"

"If you would stop pursuing this – obsession of yours, it wouldn't have happened in the first place-"

"But it did!" He couldn't help the volume, it was pretty clear Isshin was settling into one of his 'win the argument with volume' moods, and they didn't have time to stand around debating it all night.

His outburst surprised the other captain, and after a short, tense silence, Urahara drew a careful breath, and tried to make his manner easy. "It's out. Do you understand? They know."

Kurosaki Isshin glared, but didn't start shouting again. "You're running."

Sometimes his ability to suddenly grasp a situation was infuriating.

"Would you be the one to choose which House was the most deserving to have it?" he countered. "At least, knowing you, I can limit your options to four."

Isshin's glare became icy. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to anger me."

Kisuke lowered his chin slightly. "Get out of my way, Isshin-san."

"Tell me what's in that blanket. Did it -?" For the first time there was uncertainty in that rough voice.

Of course. It was so weak he didn't recognize it. "Did the Hougyoku manifest itself? Is that what Yamamoto-sama's so worried about?"

Isshin had changed his stance from one of combat to one of caution, and Kisuke pushed the point, taking a step forward to watch Kurosaki fall back. "The problem isn't the Hougyoku, Isshin! The problem is Yamamoto-sama!"

Something in one of the antechambers popped, and both men jumped. Kisuke had instinctively shifted the bundle in his arms into a more protected position, and he noticed Kurosaki noticing.

It couldn't be helped, now. Isshin either had to play along or be defeated. And standing in a proverbial minefield, with her in his arms, he wasn't sure he could defeat his old friend.

"Did it ever occur to you that he might have a good reason for not wanting to allow soul modification?" Kurosaki was staring at him as though he'd never seen him before. "Did it occur to you there might be a reason for his unwillingness to tolerate these experiments?"

Kisuke almost dropped his eyes. "It's too late for that," he admitted softly.

And suddenly, it was his childhood friend standing in front of him, and not a shinigami captain. Suddenly it was the Kurosaki Isshin that had happily pounced him outside the Academy, laying him flat with a right uppercut. It was the Kurosaki Isshin that had measured just how much sake it took to render him unconscious. It was the Kurosaki Isshin that wasn't a Kurosaki at all.

"Oh, shit, Kisuke. You tried to merge it into a soul, didn't you."

He didn't respond, but he immediately went back to the computer console the three 10th division officers had distracted him from.

Kurosaki Isshin just leaned against one of the desks, shock clearly on his face. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he muttered, "that I needed to put an end to the research, so whoever is digging it up would hit a dead end." It looked as though it were one of the Kuchikis, though with that Byakuya brat as their Clan leader it wasn't as though they were lacking in power. He knew the Shiba and Shihouin didn't care. But he wasn't sure this interest was coming from the Nobles at all.

They had all the power they could ever want. They were walking on the street that lay just above their heads, wallowing in that power.

This interest had to be coming from a person that didn't hold stock in that kind of power.

And someone that had connections to the 46, somehow. Maybe a student? A lieutenant?

And Yamamoto-taichou, in his infinite wisdom, was choosing to handle this by banning the research necessary to combat this new threat rather than actually face it. Confrontation to be avoided at all costs.

The cost of that confrontation was going to be bigger than even the old man could ever dream. They didn't need the Hougyoku destroyed. They needed it kept intact, and hidden, for when that cost came due.

It was the hidden part that had proved so very difficult.

"Was it one of your subordinates?"

Kisuke glanced up, and Isshin nodded towards the blanket.

Urahara almost smiled. If she'd heard Isshin refer to her as a 'subordinate'-

No. Soi Fong would have kicked his ass before Yoruichi had gotten angry enough to use shunpo.

Soi Fong. Shit. He'd forgotten all about her. The next logical choice to command the Secret Mobile Corps and the Correction Corps. She'd have him tracked down in under a month if the truth were to reach her ears.

"Isshin-san, I need your help." He looked straight at the bearded captain, all pretenses gone. "I have to get out of here."

"You're right." Isshin had straightened, his face unusually serious. "Do you want me to lie for you?"

The abrupt change in him surprised Kisuke, and he almost mistyped a password. "Yes."

"Fine. I'm a great liar. Everybody says." The barb was subtle, but then sometimes Isshin could be subtle. Usually it also meant he was in a very, very dangerous mood.

Urahara again wondered if he was helping or hindering. He was going to have to put his faith in the former. "Tell them Yoruichi helped me escape. Tell them she went with me."

"I don't see that she has much choice." Isshin didn't even bat an eye. "I don't think anyone can do much for her, but I have faith that you'll think of something."

Urahara just stared at him. Isshin returned the stare, then nodded his head once.

"I'll clean up here. Take them both with you and go."

Kisuke didn't bother with a chair, typing his series of passwords into the many keyboards that lay strewn in the U-shaped array. At some point he'd started to realize he needed to protect his research as much from his own division as the Noble Houses, but like many of these lessons, had come far too late in life. It was his fate to be permanently jaded from these experiences, but it was a small price to pay for the knowledge he'd recently gained.

His third seat was too cautious, and a lot of the information was backed up, in a directory his subordinate had locked. It wasn't impossible to destroy, but it would take a lot of time. He very briefly weighed the value of leaving it intact vs. deleting it.

It almost wasn't a decision. The quickest way out was the best way. Leave the data. Take the valuables.

It wasn't as if Kurotshuchi Mayuri would willingly share it. If anything, he'd be more protective of it than Urahara himself.

Another flurry of keystrokes, and with a whir and a click one of the walls between those evenly spaced antechambers started to pull itself into the ceiling. He hurried across the room, stepping down into the vault to grab a tiny, rough-sewn bag. Its weight was correct and slightly warm in his hands, but he tore it open anyway, staring at the contents only a moment, just to confirm.

Then he plucked the gem out of the bag and placed it into an inner pocket in his kimono.

It was just as safe there as the bag. As the vault. As inside a soul.

"Tch. You left the door open."

Urahara glanced at the vault, but left it as it was. "One less lie," he tried.

"Hmph," Isshin responded.

He took a mental inventory of the things he had moved to the real world, glancing around the lab for anything pocket-sized that might help him.

"What went wrong?"

Again, the man's eyes were on that yellow blanket. That hadn't made so much as a sound again, not even stirred against his breast. If not for the constant attention he was paying to that reiatsu, he never would have known she was still alive.

What went wrong indeed. A thousand things. The fact that she'd said yes in the first place.

It was the only way he could have kept himself and the Hougyoku in the Seireitei. If she had been the one to conceal it.

It made perfect sense. She was extremely powerful. Extremely alert. The noblest of the nobles, constantly watched by her ever-staunch Secret Mobile Corps and her fervently loyal subordinate Soi Fong. Even if someone had realized that he'd hidden the Hougyoku in a soul – and that was the only place to effectively hide it, real world or not – they'd be hard-pressed to pin down that princess.

But as strong as Yoruichi was, she was not powerful enough to withstand the spirit drain such a merge would put on her. Eventually, probably in less than a century, she would have been noticeably weaker. Maybe not permanently, but noticeably enough that hiding it within her for the long-term wasn't possible.

He told himself he really would have absorbed it himself if he could trust someone else to continue the research. He told himself he'd surrender his power to keep that thing safe and intact. It was the only weapon that could save Soul Society from the others that worked, even now, on the same train of thought.

That was why, ultimately, she'd accepted his proposition. She knew he could hide items within souls and reclaim them without much besides a terrifying but temporary hole in the chest of the container soul. A little boost to her reiatsu, and she could have held it for him for two hundred or more years without showing the effects.

"I don't know," he admitted, surprised that the words shook a little. Now, of all times, before he was even safe –

"That's a problem," Isshin observed.

"I think her zanpaktou resisted at the last second." He didn't mean to phrase it that way, make it sound like she hadn't really mastered her Koukuuneko. Make it sound as though her bankai was not complete and total cooperation of her zanpaktou. "If someone permanently absorbs their zanpaktou in final release it grants a huge, permanent boost in spirit power."

Or, at least, that had been the idea.

"I can see that," Isshin said drily, and Kisuke closed his eyes.

"Why did her form change?"

He didn't ask into what.

From the name of her zanpaktou and the size and sound of the bundle, he supposed it was apparent. Koukuuneko. Flying Cat. Yoruichi had become the image of her zanpaktou's manifestation. The tiny, flickering life in his arms, inside that yellow blanket, was no longer the long-legged, graceful woman with the dark skin and bright eyes. Before his eyes, she'd arched her back, flashed a terrific wave of reiatsu, and in the crater where she had once stood, this form was all that had been left.

When at first he'd laid eyes on her, he thought that perhaps her zanpaktou had absorbed her, and not the other way around.

"I believe that was a symbol of her zanpaktou's resistance."

He had sent Tessai-fukataichou into the real world as soon as he'd returned from his private lab back to Seireitei. They'd found a place there months ago, even procured some of the current time's money to buy a little shop. It was a place to live, and located in a very good part of town to continue research without drawing unnecessary attention.

That particular area was usually under the 13th Division, and he didn't think Ukitake was going to search too hard for him. Even if that part of his plan had somehow unraveled as well, he doubted Tsukabishi Tessai would have to resort to lethal, 90-level kidou. But at least he knew the man was prepared.

Prepared to die without ever looking in the blanket. Without ever questioning him.

So many were willing to die without questioning authority. He wondered if they weren't the wiser.

"Come with us, Isshin." He was still bent over a keyboard, inputting a few more commands, but he fixed his old friend with a piercing look.

"There's nothing more for you here in Soul Society."

The captain was back, a little, it was a set to his shoulders that gave him away. "I have my division, Kisuke."

"Your division will discover the truth, sooner or later," he noted as gently as he could.

Isshin didn't look at him. "That doesn't matter. I got to captain without them. Not in time to rub it in my father's face . . ." He let it trail off ruefully. "But it's enough."

"If it's worry for your Clan that keeps you here-"

"I disowned them." It was a little harder.

"Yes, so you did. In the wisdom of an adolescent, you threw off your family name, took the name Kurosaki, and marched out to Rukongai. You've always been a wanderer at heart, Isshin. The real world holds the same opportunity."

Isshin looked up sharply, and Urahara quickly looked back at a monitor.

"What did you say?"

He debated mincing words, then discarded the notion. It was his last card, he might as well lay it out. "She'll be born again into the real world, Isshin. No one knows when, but as a shinigami in a gigai, you could wait however long it took-"

"I can wait here." It wasn't just his shoulders, now. Everything about him was tight, even the muscles of his jaw.

Urahara looked at him. "But why? I can give you an untraceable gigai-"

"That permanently destroys my reiatsu?" Isshin snorted. "I wouldn't be able to wait forever, then, would I." There was clear warning that Kisuke had stepped well out of the boundaries by mentioning her at all.

Kisuke dropped his eyes as though insulted. "I have perfected that technique," he said, a little admonishingly. "The untraceable gigais no longer damage a shinigami's reiatsu. It wouldn't take long to create it."

He didn't dare raise his eyes right away, knowing he was on very thin ice. Kurosaki's wife had died five years ago last month, a victim of a Hollow. She hadn't been the most powerful female shinigami in the class, but she hadn't been a slouch either. And for Kurosaki she hung the moon every night. They'd been married only about sixty years before that mission, against one of the Hollows he knew had been modified. Kisuke liked to tell himself he'd doubled his work in modsoul research in response to it. There was no doubt it had given him a fighting chance to prove to Yamamoto that the problem was real.

Isshin had been devastated, but had taken the rather healthy approach that since she had not been consumed, sooner or later her essence was going to head back to the real world to live again. No one really knew how much time that would take, or where she would appear. She'd certainly not bring with her her memories as a shinigami, her appearance and even her personality might not be the same as Isshin remembered. A person was shaped by their life experiences, even in death, and contemporarily life in the real world was far different than it had been when she'd first died. Isshin didn't care. He believed they were soul-mates, and he would wait however long, accept any changes, to have his love back in his arms.

But while Kurosaki Isshin may have cast aside his familial name, and all the benefits that came with being a noble, he still cared deeply for his siblings. And he had fought hard to become captain without 'cheating,' as he called it – relying on his noble blood and heritage to open doors that wouldn't be open to him otherwise. He always made his own way, even as a young boy. He wanted to earn what he had on his own merits, and he had worked hard for that captaincy. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Isshin did not join them, but it would be . . . welcome.

He would welcome the company. Yamamoto-sama had a very long memory, and he wasn't sure how successfully he could keep this research – and the Hougyoku – safe. If he were successful, it would be many long centuries before Soul Society called upon him, and the research they had so disgustedly forbidden, to help them combat their enemies.

He was hanging onto that certainty for dear life. That certainty, and that nigh-cold rippling of blue reiatsu.

"Hey, Kisuke?"

He glanced up, making out the pores and dark hairs in the skin of the fingers that had suddenly, inexplicably formed a fist that was far too near his face to dodge.

He went flying, protectively curling around Yoruichi to cushion the shock to her. She didn't cry out again, but as he landed very squarely on a badly placed elbow, he considered doing it in her stead.

"You son of a bitch," Isshin murmured.

He uncurled himself with some effort, wriggling his jaw even as he watched his friend with more cautious eyes. It was what he deserved for daydreaming.

"You knew it would be me to be sent. That's why you timed this experiment with the festival. You knew I'd be avoiding Kuukaku and Kaien. And you knew Yoruichi – for god's sake, Shihouin Yoruichi! – would accept your experiment without question, try something you knew might not work. You knew she had trust in you."

Kisuke got to his feet carefully. He didn't protest, didn't contradict.

"She's nearly dead in your arms, held against your heart, and you try to talk about love. She's almost died for you today, but you'll have me lie in her stead, lie to her near-sister to keep Soi Fong off your back. Break that girl's heart so you're not inconvenienced."

He met Isshin's eyes, but still said nothing.

The other shinigami was almost vibrating with rage. "Yamamoto-sama knew you were playing with souls again, Kisuke. He personally asked you to desist. He won't forget this, no matter how many lies I spin for you. How many of us are you going to draw into your exile? Tessai? Yoruichi? Me? Anyone else, while you're at it? You seem to be on a roll."

He shifted the blanket again, making sure he wasn't pinning the tiny black cat too closely to his chest.

"If I find her, I'll send word."

He stepped towards the other man, not expecting Isshin to give ground. He wasn't disappointed. But the other taichou didn't reach out, didn't try to stop him. He walked directly past the one General Yamamoto had sent to stop him without obstacles.

"Hey. Kisuke."

He didn't turn, but he did stop at the foot of the stairs.

"You're going to send word a hell of a lot sooner than that."

He put his right hand on the rail, feeling the cold stone he himself had melted to make the facility. "I won't let her die." They both knew he wasn't referring to Isshin's late wife.

The briefest of pauses. "You're damn right you won't."

The voice was closer – Isshin had taken his feet, and was directly behind him.

"And no one's going to believe Yoruichi helped you unless all three of my men get hit with shunpo so fast they don't recognize it. So get out of my way."

He hesitated before he moved aside, and Shiba Isshin stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with him.

"I'll take you as far as West Rukongai. And I'm holding you to your word. You find my wife, you owe me a decent, untraceable gigai."

He reached out a hand, laid it ever so gently on the yellow blanket. Urahara wasn't even sure that Isshin could feel the outline of her through the fabric. He knew she wouldn't want anyone to see her like this. "Live, Yoruichi. Live and kick the ass of this sorry excuse for a friend we have."

And then he was gone, up the stairs, through the door despite the fact that the locks hadn't withdrawn.

The problem with Kurosaki Isshin was that he didn't have the same problem as most shinigami with huge reiatsues. He didn't pay attention to such niceties as opening doors before proceeding through doorways.

Fin

Author's Notes: (Edited) I apparently confused WAY too many readers, judging by my inbox. So this chapter has been edited to clarify the points that seemed to have been too vague. Kurosaki (Shiba) Isshin will be dealt with in his own chapter, because we still have to answer the question of why he'd only not been a shinigami for 20 years when no one seemed to draw the correlation between a previous captain and Ichigo The Scary Ryoka. (Wow. I just worded that very, very badly.)

Also, the edits make Kisuke seem a little less of a bastard. ;)

So thank you all for your comments, and your help with this chapter! Teach me to try to confuse you guys . . . and I'm still squeeing at the feedback! (:squees happily:)