Over the days, Keiko quickly realized that she barely had a moment to herself. Every day, she would have at least four visitors on top of her very talkative guards. Soifon-oneesan visited as often as possible, which was no more than once every few days, while Shuuhei would be the one to bring her dinner every night. Her other two meals were brought by at least two of any number of her Squad members. There were also the random visits from the other Captains, including Ukitake-taichou as well as Unohana-taichou, the latter always fussing over Keiko to make sure she was healthy, what with "such an unhealthy atmosphere she was currently living in!"
When night time came around, one or two of her fellow Onimitsukido members would drop by to let her know how the investigation was going. As they had always worked in secrecy, and always -would- work in secrecy, to keep their identities secret, they would be sure to wear only the normal Shinigami uniform and identify themselves to the Squad 11 guards as members of Squad 9. Considering all Squads ranged from 300-500 members, and Squads were never familiar enough with one another to know -every- member of another Squad, the ploy worked easily enough.
And then there was the stragest of all. Every few nights, Kenpachi himself would take over guard duty, every so often bringing Yachiru along because the young girl would beg him to. When those nights rolled around, the young lieutenant would recount her entire day for Keiko, expressing the exciting parts with loud and energetic dialogue. Eventually, though, Yachiru would pass out, what with it being so late at night. The rest of those nights would generally pass in silence, the two Captains fairly comfortable with one another's auras. The nights Yachiru didn't accompany Kenpachi, Keiko would ask him various questions about his training, some times giving advice and always reminding him that she believed he could do it.
Weeks passed, and from the information passed on to her, Keiko knew that no progress had been made. The day of which her seals were to be redone had long past, but Keiko had only briefly worried about it because, like Kenpachi had said, they were only redone as often as they were as a precaution. Sure, overall, being stuck in a prison with hardly anything to do got boring real quick, but she was never alone. It was the one and only thing that caused her to keep her sanity.
One night, some hours after Shuuhei had left, Keiko laid down to finally get some sleep. But, the moment she closed her eyes, she felt a bolt of static run over her skin. Gasping softly, the Captain quickly sat up, rubbing her arms and staring at the goosebumps on her skin. Some thing was not right. Keiko got to her feet and made her way over to the window, golden eyes staring out over Seiritei. Without warning, merely fifty feet away, an explosion went off, smoke mushrooming into the air. From surprise, Keiko literally fell onto her back, groaning as her head cracked against the metal floor.
"Move," she heard Kenpachi's growl nearing her prison.
Scrambling onto her feet, ignoring the throbbing at the back of her head, Keiko ran to the door and stood up on her tip toes to peer out the barred window. "What's going on?" she called out, watching Kenpachi shove the Squad 11 guards out of his way. After a soft jingle, Keiko backed away from the door, which was was pushed open to allow Kenpachi to stand in the doorway.
"Let's go," he said before turning and walking away.
Keiko paused at the door, staring outside and quickly weighing her options. With a groan, because she had a feeling she would later regret it, she ran outside for the first time in over a month. "You going to tell me what's going on?" she asked as she caught up to the big man.
"Stop asking questions you know the answers to," he muttered, not even bothering to look back at her.
So, the feelings she had been having were true - there were Hollow in Soul Society. "How?!" she demanded, but instantly knew it was a stupid question; how would Kenpachi know? With another groan, she just shut up and followed him, her eyes widening as they moved closer to the center of Seireitei. Bodies of various Shinigami lay scattered on the ground, blood soaked into the walls, fires burning every where. How could Hollow do this..? It didn't seem.. normal.
"Keiko?!" The 9th Squad Captain turned to look at Soifon. "What the hell are you doing here?!" the older woman yelled, signaling a troop of her Squad to move out to the west. The older woman was already out of her Captain's haori, her Onmitsukido uniform ripped and bleeding in various places.
Rather than answer, Keiko countered with a question of her own: "What the hell is going on?"
"Forget it," Soifon shook her head, making her way over to her protege. "Get back to the Shishinro before something happens to you! We'll take care of every thing."
"Look around you, Soifon! You need my help! Why else would Kenpachi have gone to free me?" the younger woman shook her head.
Before Soifon could reply, another explosion detonated in the central courtyard. Without another word, the two Captains quickly turned and, with Kenpachi, ran to where the explosion occurred. The first thing Keiko noticed was that every Captain and lieutenant was in the area, all staring up at the roof of one of the larger buildings. Her eyes followed everyone's gaze to see Matsumoto-fukutaichou being held by a silver haired man, a zanpakuto at her throat. "Who the hell is that?" Keiko asked.
Shuuhei, who had arrived shortly after her, muttered: "Ichimaru."
The traitor? What was he doing here? Was this all his doing?
"Heyo!" the man in question called out, his lips turned up in his never-ending smile. "It's good to see ya'll again!"
"Let her go, Ichimaru!" someone in the crowd yelled.
"Nah, can't do that yet!" the traitor replied, moving his zanpakuto so it glinted in the firelight. The look on Matsumoto-fukutaichou's face was a mixture of fear and confusion, but she didn't move or make a sound. "See, I'm here to try a lil' experiment," he continued, his eyes so thick-lidded it was impossible to tell where he was looking.
That's when Keiko noticed it. Eyes wide in horror, she stared at a parchment in Ichimaru's obi. "He's got the scroll!" she gasped, feeling her heart begin to pound.
"What?" Soifon quickly looked at Keiko, then back at Ichimaru. With a quiet curse, she ran towards Yamamoto-soutaichou to let him know of it.
"Ya' see, some time ago, Aizen found out about this -disease-" he stressed the word, "and, well, he wanted to find out a bit more about it!"
Keiko barely realized she was backing up, her eyes wide, staring at the scroll. She never heard Yamamoto-soutaichou and Soifon speaking: "We have to get that scroll away from him." "He'll kill Matsumoto-fukutaichou if we go near him..."
"Well, where's the birthday girl, maybe she can explain it!" Ichimaru laughed.
Keiko had the distinct feeling he was staring at her. Shaking her head slowly, she continued to back up, refusing to believe any of this was happening.
"No? Oh, well, guess I'll do the honors! See, first, Aizen wanted to test this diseased girl, to see if the rumors were true. How could he do that, you might ask? Why, send out large numbers of Hollow! He knew that eventually, you silly people would want to send a Captain to investigate, and who would the most logical choice be but the newest Captain?"
All the Captains and lieutenants, as well as Squad 9 and probably Squad 11, knew about Keiko's condition. Those few Shinigami in the area who had no clue about it turned to stare at Keiko.
"So, when the newest Captain-chan showed up, Aizen sent a large number of Gillian to see what Captain-chan would do! And, oh, boy, she didn't disappoint! Took out those Menos Grande without a second look!" Ichimaru slashed his free hand through the air for effect. "Well, since Captain-chan was living up to Aizen's expectations, he decided to have little old me pay a visit to our dear Seireitei and find a rumored scroll. See, this scroll," he reached for his obi and pulled the paper free to wag in the air, eliciting a cry from Keiko, "has some nifty incantations on it! And -now-" his thumb and middle fingers gripped the top of the scroll and he flicked his wrist to make the old paper unroll, "he wants me to finish the experiment!" Suddenly, the air around Ichimaru grew dark and Matsumoto actually gasped, feeling his malicious intent as though it were tangible. "You don't want to disappoint Aizen, do you, Captain-chan?"
"Get away from me!" Keiko suddenly screamed, gripping her head and bending forward, the few Shinigami around her gasping and immediately backing up. She knew what was coming, and she knew there was no way of stopping it; no one would risk killing Matsumoto when there wasn't even a guarantee that they'd get the scroll back.
Her screams were like a cue, because once people started to move away, Ichimaru began reading from the scroll, the alien language flowing from his traitorous tongue as though he spoke it fluently.
As the first words passed his lips, Keiko screamed in agony, falling to her knees as she continued to clutch her head. Without warning, black flames erupted from her back in the form of her tattoos, her haori literally disintegrating from the heat as she fell forward into her hands, zanpakuto falling from her back and bouncing off to the side. Screams continued to rip from Keiko's throat, her eyes shut tightly, blood beginning to seep out from under her eyelids and pool on the ground before her. Pure and utter pain blinded her vision, and she could feel the world around her disappear.
The First Incantation. The seals were gone.
As quickly as they had formed, the flames were gone, leaving Keiko's back bare and tattoo-less. But she kept screaming because the pain kept washing over her in waves. Slowly, her hair fell from it's clasp and began to grow, changing from its normal black to red. It pooled around her like the blood from her eyes, growing longer and longer as her body began to shake. Her screams suddenly stopped, and it was like a string had been pulled - her upper body snapped up from the floor so that she appeared to be sitting on her knees, her head falling back, lolling from side to side as though all the muscles in her neck were gone. Arms hanging limp at her sides, palms turned upwards, her fingers twitched as her nails grew into long, thick claws, drawing blood from the cuticles. When Ichimaru stopped speaking, silence seemed to cover all of Seireitei except for the crackling of the fires. Keiko's eyes suddenly opened, and a few Shinigami gasped in horror. Her eyes were pure and utter white - no pupils, no irises.
The Second Incantation. The riot released.
Keiko was no more.