A/N: Sorry 'bout that - been more than a week, already, seriously? The procrastinator within me is sure rearing. On another note, all of the schoolteachers in my province are striking for what must be incredibly serious reasons that I don't really know of. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, no school. Five-day weekend? Sweetness! 8D
Anyhow, onwards...
Shinji peered at Ichigo from the corner of his eyes, "Do you know how Kladias got recruited to the Gotei 13?"
"No." Ichigo answered curtly, though he was eager to hear. Finally, he thought, he's about to pass on information. The two of them were now quickly weaving through the series of walkways of the tunnel, senses alert for any sounds out of place.
Minus the sense of smell. Ichigo's nose has been numbed to uselessness the first few minutes of breathing underground. At least he couldn't smell the stench either.
Shinji had manipulated Ichigo to following along with promise of information. After they got away from the opening for a bit. After he figured out which way to head to. After he found the landmark he was looking for. Ichigo's patience had run out to the point he seriously considered shoving Shinji into the river of crap, but thankfully for the captain, conversation's lit up.
"Then you have to know. Keep your opinions to yourself 'till I'm done recapping, since I'd be able to get through it faster-"
"Is that really the most important thing happened in Soul Society while I was stuck in the human world?" Ichigo cut through, completely ignoring the point in making.
Shinji shot him a glare and then sighed, "There's a reason I'm choosing to explain that first."
"Why?" But Ichigo did indeed decide to listen, since it occurred to him that his question would be answered soon enough.
"After Aizen got shoved into prison, while the Central 46 kept bashing each other about their two cents on Kensei, Rose and my return to captaincy," Shinji started, "stronger-than-normal hollows were popping up all over in Soul Society. Nowhere near strong as Arrancars, but enough to be too much for the majority of the shinigami force to handle with ease." he added when he saw the horror flick across Ichigo's face.
"The captains gathered up strong fighters from their divisions to form elimination squads to deal specifically with those hollows. The initial order from the old man was for the squads to be a mix of members from various divisions to balance out the strength or whatever," an annoyed flick of a hand, "but who gave a damn, we all stuck to our divisions. The shinigamis of 13 squads couldn't get along if the Spirit King himself ordered them to. Anyways, that's irrelevant.
"So we had the elimination squads, half a dozen high-class fighters each, roaming the countryside and the city roads alike. Then an unexpected trouble smacks one of Soi-Fon's stronger squads in the face, middle of March."
Shinji signaled Ichigo to a stop, and after a moment, he rounded a corner. He continued on,
"Long-winded incident report made short - the the 2nd division's top elimination squad, all above 10th-seats, responds to hollow presence in the North Rukongai District seventies-forest. When they get there, the hollow's gone and instead they bump into a civilian who apparently took the matters into her own hands before the squad came. What the squad described as a 'strange quality' with her provokes the entire of the six-man squad enough to try to arrest her."
"Why would they want to capture Kladias?" Ichigo didn't bother asking if it was her - it was her story after all. Not to mention she did have a hell of a mouth.
Contrary to his previous irritation, Shinji didn't really seem to mind the interruption, "They left it at that - one part of the report that could've used more detail, they kept it simpler." he tut-tutted, "It could have been the fact a non-shinigami was strong enough to deal with a hollow that gave trouble to trained shinigamis, and they saw her as a potential threat.
"Anyhow, as you could guess, no way Kladias went down without putting up a decent fight. It actually would have been a spectacle, since three of the six shinigamis were rendered unconscious by the time they managed to knock her out." Shinji fixed a silent stare on Ichigo with raised eyebrows. When the latter stared back in confusion, he widened his eyes even more and gave a slight nod. As if expecting a spontaneous reaction from the clueless orange-head.
"What?" expression unchanged, Ichigo snapped at Shinji - he actually had no idea what there was to react to. Kladias made it to 3rd seat, so no surprise there?
"Oh, come on!" Shinji threw his hands up in exasperation, "Don't tell me you can't see the significance! Or.. never mind. You've never spent any time training with average shinigamis." the last part had been somewhat apologetic. Then he continued, "Though they would certainly seem weak to you, powers of any officers above 10th seat are on a whole different dimension from the ones below. Soi-Fon's squad specialize in hand-to-hand combat, and for a civilian to beat down one, let alone three, in what they specialize, was enough to throw the offices of Gotei 13 into a mild havoc."
"How was I supposed to know!" Ichigo retorted, "Not my fault that your government underestimates just about everything. They underestimated me, a mere human-turned-shinigami, too, remember?"
Shinji mumbled something under his breath. They rounded another corner, stepped up a few stairs onto another walkway, and Shinji turned back to the recap, "So they drag unconscious Kladias into the barracks, throw her to jail because that's what they do with whomever they're not sure what to do about. Then the Central 46 call in the captains to take time to argue about whether sending out an invitation for her to join one of the squads would be appropriate. The logical practical thinkers argued that we needed every strong warrior we could get our hands on, especially when everyone had been unsettled by the whole ordeal with Aizen Sousuke. The oppositions' opinions was that it would be an injury to Seireitei's pride to invite an unruly, disrespectful civilian in." the blond captain tossed his head up and let out a scoff.
"What was there to be disrespectful about?" Ichigo threw his two cents in as he kicked aside an unidentified-round-object on the ground, "Soldiers jump you for no reason, you defend yourself with all you got." Common sense lands you in jail? The world was getting more and more screwed up. Both the human world and this one.
Shinji defended himself, "Hey, don't generalize - I was all for the invitation! Majority of us were. Decision was made to attempt to recruit her, and an order was given out to get Kladias out of jail and send her over to the 12th for analysis, to determine which squad she'd do best in.
"The next thing we know, she's sentenced to Maggot's Nest for life. No official report issued on it." abrupt silence came after that, only interrupted by the churning of the river from the side.
Was that bitterness Ichigo detected in the voice?
The silence stretched on few more seconds than necessary.
"You know," Ichigo drawled, "from how you overly dramatize the way you speak of the place and the name itself, I get the idea that it's not the greatest happening ever, but what the hell is the Maggot's Nest?"
Shinji flickered a wary look from the corner of his eyes, "It's a special type of prison we have in Seireitei. If the Central 46 deduces someone as a potential threat to Soul Society, Maggot's Nest is the place to go. Insanity's the most often the reason, but sometimes it's an unfathomable, unfamiliar talent of a sort that we have no idea what would become of. Half the members of 12th Division had been there at one point or the other. But in Kladias's case, it was neither."
They rounded yet another corner into yet another tunnel. Ichigo was beginning to wonder just how much longer they had to travel through this place... And how many more times Shinji was going to use silence as a way of dramatizing what he was going to say?
Ichigo glared and made sure that disapproval and sarcasm was dripping from his voice, "You got me. I'm curious, I'm intrigued, I'm dying to hear what you say. Now get on with it, will you? And how far 'till we get out of this shithole?" Yup, he was getting tired of being in here. He saw that they were walking towards what he thought was a dead-end, but upon further inspection, there was yet another tunnel branching off to the side. "How'd you know the way through this place?" he muttered quietly.
Shinji grimaced and didn't even give out a smart-aleck retort,
"Turns out the Central 46 landed her along with the insane and the notoriously dangerous because she had some Hollow in her."
Ichigo whipped his head towards Shinji - that was not what he was expecting to hear. At all.
"She's a Vizard?" was the first thing that came to Ichigo's mouth, "What the hell-" he cursed as he tripped over his own feet. He caught himself just in time not to fall off into the river of crap beside them.
Shinji gave Ichigo a smack on the back of the head as he passed by, almost knocking him into the river, "No."
Ichigo flinched at the smack and scrambled to follow - damn, where'd his dignity go - "Then what do you mean-"
"She's not a Vizard. Yet. Whatever. She just has a small, tiny, miniscule amount of hollow reiatsu in the core of her soul that she doesn't even know of. Most shinigamis don't know - it was only under the scrutiny of the 12th's latest technology it was discovered." Shinji's tone was explanatory, "Nowhere in the entire library of Soul Society's records said anything about natural part-hollow Rukongai residents. Central 46 freaked the hell out."
"But how... Wha... Dammit!" Ichigo stammered and swore under his breath as he caught up. The jumble of frantic thoughts crisscrossing his mind didn't seem to want to form themselves into comments nor questions. Kladias? Hollow? NOT. Funny.
"How'd she get out?" was surprisingly the first coherent sentence that came out of Ichigo's mouth.
Shinji sounded insulted, "You think we'd let her rot in there after hearing the reason she got in there in the first place?"
"You lost me - who're we? Just explain. Straight-forward. I HATE the riddles and meaningful silences you seem to love so much." Ichigo grumbled the last part more to himself.
A sigh, "Us, the Vizards, dumbass. Who else? There was no way we were going to let someone close to our kind to be discriminated to a life's sentence in an asylum."
A quiet "Oh." was Ichigo's admission that that had been quite obvious.
Shinji scoffed and continued, "I doubt the Central 46 was caught off-guard. If they are half less stupid as they used to be, the would have been expecting us to argue, hence the initial secrecy. But boy, the look on their faces when the eight of us crashed their little gathering." A quiet chuckle, "Long story short, we won the case - one that should not have been a case in the first place. Kensei was the one who was the most, uh," Shinji cringed and gingerly rubbed a palm over an ear, "vocal about the matter, so he was put in charge of the 'trouble,' as they put it. Hacchi came up with a kido to mask the Hollow part of her as to mask the reiatsu for the time being. From then on..."
The sentence faded to silence as Shinji ducked into a narrow, dark tunnel that looked like they would have to single-file through, Ichigo followed few steps behind. "Shouldn't be long now until we see light of the day again." former mumbled. Ichigo waited to see if the he would continue, but the silhouette ahead of him stayed wordless. Drippings of water got louder and sounds of river faded.
It was strangely comforting, how Vizards stuck up for Kladias, Ichigo thought. There hadn't been a choice for him when it came to being part-hollow, and he was pretty sure it had been the same for the rest of the Vizards after hearing the recount of what happened a century ago. Then something occurred to him, an answer to a question he asked Shinji a while ago,
"Was that why?" Ichigo asked.
Shinji briefly threw a glance back, "Why what, Ichigo?"
Ichigo spoke up louder this time, "The reason you guys, the Vizards, returned to Soul Society. Was it to stand up for your-" he caught himself in time, remembering that he was a Vizard too, "our kind, in the case more showed up? I mean, it's not entirely our fault we have hollow power in us, and apparently Seireitei's still opposed to the idea of working together with individuals other than us..." he had absolutely no idea how to end his long-winded question and it wasn't in his nature to want to babble on about politics and whatnot, so he let the last sentence fade. He resisted a strong urge to slap himself in the forehead.
Fortunately, Shinji didn't comment on the lack of eloquence. The blond glanced back again, and when he spoke, his tone wasn't judging, "Good one, Ichigo; now thinking, partially, yes. Though I kind of wish I came up with that on my own."
Baffled by the uncharacteristic show of kindness, Ichigo frowned. Shinji wasn't insulting him or anything, but... the response had been too mild to be normal. Might as well get back to point - he yelled out, "Hey - so what? Kladias has hollow in her. Just how much does that have to do with what happened today?"
Instead of answering, Shinji ducked out of the narrow passageway they had been traveling through to an enormous, empty chamber, Ichigo following closely behind. The former trotted up to a stop in front of a shiny steel ladder that looked out of place on the grimy wall. Ichigo looked up, and to his horror, the ladder faded into the start darkness above and he couldn't make out where the top was.
"We're here. Up, up, up and out, I'll let loose the theory I have, to you and to rest of the crowd." Shinji hopped up onto the first rung of the ladder, and started going up.
Confusion, questions, muddled truths and the general screw-ups of the current situation aside, Ichigo screamed inwardly at the thought of climbing up the damn ladder - who knew how far up the thing went?
He sure hoped his arms would fare the journey up. He grabbed onto the rung with a groan and started up.
Next chapter'll be up quicker than how long it took to put up this one - I promise :(
