Toshiro really felt like the day was strange enough already. He really didn't need to run into his father on his way to the First with Lieutenant Shiba Kaien in chains.
Gin smiled happily at him and waved Kaien's zanpakuto which he'd apparently relieved the lieutenant of and was carrying as though it held no more significance than a walking stick. "Hello, Shiro, look what I've caught this morning. You may have gotten two lieutenants but mine's also a noble!"
"What's going on?" Toshiro demanded, coming to an abrupt stop and staring at the two men in complete and utter disbelief.
"I caught Kaien here helping out the orange-haired Ryoka; can you believe it?"
Honestly, no, Toshiro couldn't, but he looked to Kaien for confirmation, and the lieutenant nodded.
"He's here for Rukia," Kaien said. "He's been with me since his fight with Lieutenant Abarai yesterday. He had nothing to do with Captain Aizen's murder, neither did any of his friends."
Toshiro's frown deepened, but he wasn't surprised. He had doubted the Ryoka could be strong enough to kill Aizen, especially like that, and if the Ryoka were trying to save Rukia it made sense that Kaien would work with them. Everyone knew how the Thirteenth felt about Rukia's sentence. "Is anyone else in the Gotei helping the Ryoka?" he asked, knowing Kaien wouldn't tell him even if there was. "Something more is happening within the Gotei. I think someone is using the Ryoka as a smokescreen, but I need to know what the Ryoka are doing so I can figure out what someone else is trying to hide."
"The Ryoka are not doing anything but trying to rescue Rukia," Kaien answered. "If you want to know what's really happening I suggest you start by figuring out what happened to Captain Aizen."
"I think I should probably get Kaien here properly locked up," Gin said before Toshiro could question the lieutenant further. "But maybe you and I can get together later and have a little chat, and you might even tell me where you've stashed your mom."
Gin was smiling the entire time and even waved before he left with Kaien, but Toshiro'd known him his entire life and was very good at picking up that slight edge to his voice that said he wasn't happy with his son. Maybe asking Kyoraku to add a barrier to Nanao's home that completely hid his mother and siblings' reiatsu from detection had been a step too far.
No, Toshiro told himself as he watched his father disappear down the road, it was necessary. He might be wrong and his father might be completely innocent, but either way, he just couldn't risk it. His parents were just too much the kind of stupid that was willing to do anything for each other. A threat to either one could way too easily make the other do something fatally stupid. It was best to keep them completely separated until everything was over.
Now it was his job to get the whole mess worked out as quickly as possible. He needed to find out what had happened to Aizen. Kaien was right about that.
Toshiro was led at a slug's pace through the Fourth to the room where Captain Unohana was examining Aizen's body by Third Seat Iemura. Iemura was one of those unusual people in the Gotei who'd never thought much of any of the Ichimaru family. He was too much of a snob to approve of so many upstarts from Rukongai. Toshiro, who usually found it annoying to be prejudged by people because of his father, found Iemura's snooty attitude amusing. The man so clearly hated having to treat him well.
"Captain Unohana has been very busy this morning, sir. Our division is already overtaxed with men injured by the Ryoka. We have had dozens from the Eleventh alone, and now this tragedy! Of course the entire Gotei is looking to our captain for answers, but Captain Unohana cannot be rushed. Patience is absolutely necessary at times like these," the Third Seat told Toshiro pointedly. "Captain Unohana has spent the entire morning examining the body, and she is running a test on it currently. Any interruption will only delay her further. If you would be willing to wait-"
Toshiro ignored the man and walked directly into the room where Unohana and her lieutenant stood with two unfamiliar members of the squad. One was a boy barely taller than Toshiro with very worried eyes, and the other was a girl just old enough to have graduated from the Academy. They were all looking at the table where Aizen's body lay, but the girl looked very confused.
"I don't understand, Captain," she said softly. "Where is the captain's body?"
"What?" Toshiro demanded.
Unohana turned calmly to address him. "Young Captain Ichimaru," she said. "How very good of you to join us-Third Seat Iemura, thank you so much for bringing the captain to me. You and Iwai-kun may go."
"But please do not speak of this it anyone," Unohana added as the girl passed Toshiro.
"Yes, Captain," the girl answered, bowing before she left the room.
Unohana turned to Toshiro as soon as the door closed. "My Seventh Seat, Yamada Hanataro, brought me a request this morning, from Captains Kyoraku and Ukitake, to ask my junior division members to take a look at Captain AIzen's body. They have reason to believe there is someone working against the Gotei with the ability to create illusions so powerful it is impossible to see through them, but they hoped that the most junior members of the Gotei have not been exposed to the power and might still be immune.
"Five members admitted to my division from the Academy this year have been brought in to look at this body. and they see nothing.
"I can see Captain Aizen's body here," Unohana said to Toshiro. "I can touch it and sense it. It is absolutely real to me, but if the captains are correct, it does not exist at all. And that is what my youngest division members would tell me; there is no body."
"Is that possible?" Toshiro asked. He stepped closer to Aizen's still form, his face slack, blood dried on clothing in a dark line from the wound that had pierced his chest. It had been a shock to see the man hanging from the tower wall. He had understood Hinamori's grief and rage. If his father had murdered Aizen, who had always treated him with such kindness and given him so much support, who'd really made Gin's entire life possible, if he'd murdered him, then Toshiro would kill him himself.
But if this wasn't Aizen, then what-was he still alive? If he was then where was he? Could someone actually have captured him and set the body as a decoy? What the hell was going on?
"There are many shikai and bankai throughout the Gotei that alter perception," Unohana said. "Captain Tosen can trap his opponent in a world without light, and one hundred years ago there was a Captain Hirako Shinji, of the Fifth before Captain Aizen, who could invert the world not only visually but also affecting a person's perception of the world through every other sense as well. An illusion like this one, affecting every sense, is possible, but no such shikai or bankai has ever been recorded in the Gotei."
"Do you think one of the Ryoka-"
"They're not-" One look from Unohana shut up Hanataro's protest and had him retreating into the nearest corner.
"I tried to break the illusion through force," Unohana said. "Even then I could feel nothing resisting me, the body simply continued to be as it is. If this is an illusion it is the work of a captain or another shinigami of captain level."
"Captain level?" Toshiro repeated. There were fewer than thirty people in the Gotei considered captain level. He knew them all and thought of most of them as friends. He could not imagine any of them deceiving Seireitei like this, not for any reason-for a split second he wondered if has father would think it made a great joke, but he realized he was being absurd-this wasn't a joke. An illusion on this scale, meant to deceive the entire Gotei, had to be some part of a larger plan. This was treason against Soul Society itself. "Aizen is either a part of it or its first victim," he said aloud.
"I do not want to believe Captain Aizen would betray us," Unohana said gently. "But to imagine we have an enemy strong enough to subdue him and to create an illusion like this is even more terrible."
"We cannot let them know we know," Toshiro said, refusing to worry about Aizen any further. "Not until we've found a way to break the illusion. We have to find out who they are and what their plan is before they're aware their distraction failed. Because as long as they have the power of perfect illusion we cannot fight them head on."
"There is one way we may break the illusion," Captain Unohana answered. "It should be within Captain Ukitake's abilities if he is well enough to use his bankai."
Toshiro's eyes widened. In his entire life he had not once heard anything about Captain Ukitake's bankai. He had assumed the Captain was no longer well enough to use it, and everyone else just liked him enough not to complain that he really no longer had the strength to serve as a captain.
"You are wise to suggest that we should not alert our enemy to our discovery until we are prepared to stop him, and asking Captain Ukitake here would likely make our suspicions obvious, as the mastermind of so elaborate a plan must be aware of its most obvious weakness," Unohana said. "So I think it is time for Captain Ukitake's illness to flare most severely."
She walked calmly to a table against one wall and picked up a pen. As she began to write, she spoke again, this time addressing Hanataro. "Yamada-kun, I expect you know a sewer route from our division to the Thirteenth? I need you to deliver this message directly to Captain Ukitake as quickly as you can while avoiding the notice of anyone who might be watching. Even once you reach the Thirteenth you must be sure no one learns of your mission."
"Yes, Captain," the boy said, nodding and bowing nervously.
Unohana handed him the letter and he bowed again. "Good luck," she told him, smiling gently as he left the room.
"You don't think anyone will notice him?" Toshiro asked.
"They never do," Unohana answered.