Captain Kurotsuchi was having a bad day. He had very cleverly located two of the Ryoka all on his own, but then, when he had sent for Nemu she hadn't come. The silly thing was dealing with some sort of emergency, and he was stuck using ordinary, run-of-the-mill division members. At least they were cleverer than the hulking idiots from the Eleventh. They were doing an adequate job wrestling the Ryoka away from the Eleventh, and maybe he should have waited for them to bring the Ryoka to him-but a little toxic gas never hurt anyone; he'd run the tests back before everyone got all picky about his methods; it would knock out everyone and he could collect the Ryoka at his leisure-
But the damned girl had some sort of shield, and that moron from the Eleventh went off about everyone being dead-they weren't dead, thank you very much, at worst they were stuck in a non-responsive vegetative state-which they would recover from eventually-so no rules broken, even Nemu's bleeding heart husband couldn't complain.
So now the moron had run off with the girl, and he was stuck with a damned Quincy shooting arrows at him. "I have no interest in you personally," Kurotsuchi told the boy. "I've already completed my study of Quincies. I know everything there is to know about them, and you seem like a particularly dull specimen even anyway-I do wish Nemu was here; I'd have her capture you, but the useless girl's sitting around the Fourth holding her dying husband's hand-again!
"He does always seem to be dying when I need her most. I've told her more than once that if he was really dying she wouldn't do any good just sitting there, and if he isn't then she can just hold his hand some other time-she needs to come to work. I constructed her to be my perfect assistant, not some other captain's sweet little wife. She can bend steel with her bare hands-what could he possibly need a wife like that for?"
Ishida, who'd begun to wonder if the mad scientist had forgotten him, was startled to find Kurotsuchi seemed to be directing the question to him. "What?"
Kurotsuchi flung up his hands. "I tell you it's ridiculous. My Nemu is a super genius. She has a computing capacity beyond any of your silly human computers, and she's stronger than a dozen shinigami. She has been trained in various martial arts and can handle most weapons as an expert. She requires neither food nor sleep to function. She's immune to all disease and most poisons and can survive the removal of any organ you'd like. Does she sound like wife material to you?"
Ishida blinked. "Maybe not?" He offered finally.
"Exactly!" Kurotsuchi declared in triumph. "He's stolen her; that's what he's done. He noticed how useless his own division members are and he's stolen my lieutenant! I refuse to put up with it any longer. As soon as I've dealt with you I'll go and tell him exactly what I think of him, and I won't hear any more of this 'love' nonsense. Nemu's mine, and I want her back."
"Is that what you shinigami do? Treat your women like pieces of property? No wonder Rukia was so happy in our world. At least she was free."
Kurotsuchi rolled his eyes. "Of course the women are free to do as they like, no matter how nonsensical, even Nemu. I let her run off and marry the man, didn't I? But I expect her to come to work. She's a thousand times more useful than any of these fools," he declared, waving a dismissive hand toward the unconscious shinigami that littered the street. "You'll see when you're a father. Children never remember the duty they owe their parents."
Ishida did not particularly appreciate being reminded of his own father and his own frown deepened. "Are you going to fight me or whine about your daughter all day?" he demanded.
Kurotsuchi stared at him for a moment with indecision clear on his face. "Were you trained by Urahara Kisuke?" He asked finally.
"No," Ishida answered. "I'm a Quincy. I would never accept anything from a shinigami, even training."
"Then I have no interest in you," Kurotsuchi declared, turning away.
"Aren't you under orders to capture all of us?" Ishida called after him.
"Orders bore me," Kurotsuchi answered, and with that he left.
Toshiro stood well out of the way as the two captains looked over Aizen's body, and Nemu stood, completely silent, beside him. She had played the part of desperate and terrified wife very well. She appeared suddenly, kneeling beside Ukitake's still form, in the center of the largest of the division's hospital rooms, within the swirling white cloth of Sentan Hakuja.
She'd shouted at the workers to fetch the captain; Shiro'd stopped breathing. He was gray and still as death, laying on the hard floor. Even knowing the whole thing was a farce, Toshiro'd felt a stab of real fear before Unohana came and Ukitake coughed up a flood of bright red blood and managed to take a few deep breaths.
After that, the sickly captain had been taken to his usual room, and the Fourth Division went back to its work, treating all the shinigami injured by Ryoka over the past day.
Hours had passed since his arrival, but that, too, had been to allay any possible suspicion, but Ukitake had finally declared he had to see Aizen's body and Unohana had permitted it, and now, Ukitake and Kyoraku were questioning Unohana as they looked over Aizen's broken body.
Toshiro kept quiet as he listened to them. They clearly knew more than he did about what was going on, but he would wait to question them.
"Looks like there's no other choice," Kyoraku said finally. "If Unohana can't tell, it isn't likely we're going to-you think you're up to it?"
Ukitake smiled. "When I'm not I will consider retiring like everyone is always telling me to."
He took a step back from the table where the body lay, and the two other captains stepped well back. Toshiro raised his head, curious to see another captain's bankai. They were often kept secret, even when the power and type of zanpakuto they carried was known, the details of their abilities were rarely shared.
Ukitake drew Sogyo no Kotowari, raising the single blade in this right hand and meeting the hilt with his left. He spoke the single word, "Bankai," and drew his hands apart, the blade splitting into two, tied together by a length of cord and shining silver charms.
"Waves of the infinite seas, wash away the attacks of my enemies," He spoke so softly and calmly that Toshiro wasn't prepared for the enormity of the power of bankai when it hit. It was not a wave of water but reiatsu, a devastating and utterly overwhelming force washed outward from one of the twin blades, like a tsunami, it simply washed anything that tried to withstand it.
Toshiro knew it would easily have washed away any of Hyorinmaru's attacks, and it would have taken pouring out matching reiatsu to maintain shikai or bankai forms, and he wasn't sure he could have done it without completely exhausting himself. With no one here to maintain it, the illusion had no chance.
Aizen's body crumbled into sparkling reishi in the wave of reiatsu and then the wave withdrew, pulling back to the opposite sword, and drawing the reishi with it. All the reiatsu that had been used to form the illusion had now become Ukitake's. In a fight, his enemy's attacks would strengthen his own. Toshiro suddenly realized Ukitake Jushiro would be a formidable opponent.
But then the captain's knees buckled. and the twin blades fell to the floor and were one again. Everyone rushed to Ukitake, except Toshiro, who stood and stared, realizing that what his father had suggested, which had sounded so cruel and pointless, could in fact have been a part of their enemy's strategy.
"You were getting better," Toshiro said suddenly, "But then you got worse. Could someone have made you worse?"
Nemu was the first to respond, she spun around so quickly it was almost frightening, and her eyes flashed with more emotion than Toshiro'd ever seen before. "Someone made him worse?" she demanded, and her voice promised fierce and immediate revenge.
"I don't know-but he is a threat-and my dad said-" He broke off when every set of eyes was suddenly on him. These people, Unohana, Kyoraku, and Ukitake, he had always considered them the wisest, most clear-thinking, and most trustworthy people in the Gotei, and Nemu was much the same, though she had an oddness that made him a little less certain about her, but he had never seen them looking like they did right now. They had never looked dangerous before.
"What did your father say, Shiro-kun?" Kyoraku asked, gently, but that slow to wake anger was building in his eyes. Kyoraku protected his own. It was the reason Toshiro had chosen to hide his family within the Eighth Captain's division. He knew there was no limit to how far Kyoraku would go to protect those placed in his care-but now he was seeing the other side of that. His father had suggested hurting Ukitake and his first instinct was to point out that he was not on his father's side.
But that instinct came from fear, and Toshiro refused to allow himself to feel any fear. "He was here earlier, poking around like he always does when something happens, and I got mad at him, and I thought he was just messing with me, but he asked me why Captain Ukitake started getting sick again when Nemu had made him so much better."
Unohana frowned slightly. "I wondered, but I thought that perhaps a temporary improvement was the best we could hope for. If there was something more to it," she turned and looked down at Ukitake sitting and breathing deeply, with Nemu standing like a guard over him. "I am sorry, Jushiro. If I had realized. I might have been able to help you."
"He's the traitor, isn't he?" Toshiro said. "My father's the traitor."
Ukitake shook his head. "We don't know, Shiro-chan."
"We know he's involved," Kyoraku said, "But we're not sure what side he's on. You know how hard he is to read. Even what he said to you today, you seem to think he was taunting you, but it could have been a warning. They have already prepared for any possible threat we could offer."
He looked back at Ukitake. "You had a bad spell not long after Miyako ran into that Arrancar, 'bout when you started poking around the Twelfth's records, and you never really got much better, probably would have given up the search entirely if Kaien-kun hadn't gone and talked to Urahara. If he didn't cause it, that downturn of yours was mighty convenient."
"If it's not my dad, then who are you talking about? You all seem to know," Toshiro said. "Who's doing this and why?"
Kyoraku sighed. "According to Urahara Kisuke, he was framed one hundred years ago for experimenting on shinigami by the same man who is now plotting to bring about the death of Kuchiki Rukia to attain ever greater power: Aizen Sosuke."