Fascination is a strange thing.
It's a fixation, a spark set off in the heart. It's when something or someone is of a nature so intensely interesting that, as if by some magic, one cannot resist its allure. It's the rush of the unknown, the intrigue of a strange game of which you don't know the rules, but you just can't stop playing. It's an addiction to something so strange and so foreign that it threatens to shake the foundation of who you are and what you believe the world to be. It could lead you to rapture or it could lead you to madness.
Fascination is what had driven the life of Aizen Sousuke.
What did it mean to be a shinigami? What did it mean to be a Hollow? How did these two beings come to be? What was the meaning of their existence, of their eternal struggle against each other? Why was it that no one seemed to have the answer? Perhaps only God knew.
Fascination is what drove the life of Urahara Kisuke.
The Universe was a mysterious place, there was so much yet to be understood. What happened to a dead person when they died? What happens to the souls consumed by Hollows? If this was a closed Universe, where did the souls go? Was there really a difference between a Hollow soul and a shinigami soul?
Fascination is what touched the life of Ulquiorra Schiffer.
Inoue Orihime tilted his world, setting herself at the center of his existence. She was an angel, a Goddess, worth more to Ulquiorra than his own eyes. Without a heart, he wondered, could a Hollow ever love?
The answer to Ulquiorra's most important question, perhaps, was the same answer sought by Urahara Kisuke and Aizen Sousuke.
"Damn it, Rukia, pick up," Ichigo whispered into the receiver of his father's shinigami phone, fingers tense around it with frustration. His other palm was pressed down on the kitchen counter forcefully, and he leaned on it as if he somehow wanted to punish the smooth surface. "Where the hell is she?"
Sitting at his kitchen table, Orihime looked worried. Her back curbed and her palms pressed nervously upon the seat of the wood chair beneath her, she turned her gaze to Ulquiorra sitting upright beside her, ignorant to how out of place he looked there. "Sado-kun isn't back yet either…"
It had been an eventful day. Just as the teenagers had been getting back in the groove of their everyday lives, they were bombarded from all sides by the most unexpected people. Grimmjow returned from the abyss, bloodied, dying, and cursing as loud as ever. Hitsugaya Toushiro emerged as a startling and, honestly, illogical obstacle. And making the whole parade of fighting friends and foes even more ridiculous was that Ulquiorra, the former Espada, seemed to be a more reliable ally then anyone from Soul Society.
Just when everyone thought that the battle was over, the group came to a horrid realization: Rukia and Yasutora weren't coming back. They hadn't just suppressed their reiatsu, they had fallen straight off the face of the Earth. No one had felt either of them become injured, neither had ever been on the verge of dying. They had concealed their reiatsu at some point, and just never uncovered it again. It seemed to be impossible to locate their energies anywhere. Just what in the world had happened?
After all the strange events of preceding days, this event caused the tension to crack into full-fledged fear.
"I can no longer sense either of their reiatsu," the Arrancar stated monotonously, his back stiff against his chair. Yuzu placed a platter of cookies at the center of the table, and, sensing that she shouldn't stick around, scuttled timidly out of the room. Isshin was still there, though, leaning casually against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed. His mild eyes never left Ulquiorra, not for a second.
"It's getting late," Uryuu noted, looking out at the falling sun, blue eyes deep with tumult. "We should go search for them. We might be able to find clues in the reiatsu patterns."
"I agree," Ulquiorra said, surprising all. Despite the events of the last few days, Ulquiorra's presence among them was still difficult to adjust to. "It has only been two hours since we have lost track of them. Any battle would have been long over; we have no reason to think that they should not have come back by now. I believe that I could find where they began suppressing their reiatsu. We should depart immediately." The teenagers looked at each other a moment, and abruptly Orihime stood up.
"Let's go right away, then," she exclaimed, determination in her brow and a slight pout on her lips. Isshin watched with apprehension as the search party set off in search of their missing friends.
Isshin wasn't worried about his son, Ichigo. He knew his son's heart was in the right place; Ichigo was tough, and with Orihime there, a few bruises or severed limbs weren't such a big deal. However, a cute little girl like Orihime, whose innocence and integrity so reminded him of his beloved Masaki, shouldn't be getting mixed up with stuff like this, Isshin decided. Even Rukia, who Isshin had a soft spot for but also knew to be a hardened soldier, should never have been pulled into this.
This problem was born in another generation, and yet it was always these children that were left to deal with it. Isshin didn't have the time to sigh before noticing an old friend perched casually on his window sill, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"The portal is almost ready," Urahara Kisuke stated. Isshin's eyes narrowed.
"You realize this is your fault, don't you?" Isshin demanded mildly, still looking steadily out the window across from him.
Kisuke frowned, clenching and unclenching the cane in his hand. "Of course I do."
"I have brought the specimen, as well as two intruders, Father."
"Don't interrupt me when I'm busy. Dump the bodies over there."
"Yes, Father."
"The big one is interesting, but why would you bring me a shinigami? There's nothing special about her."
"She intruded."
"Well, what am I supposed to do with her, you stupid girl?"
"I'm sorry, Father."
"No matter. I'll find something to use her for. Pass me that syringe."
"Yes, Father."
The sun had fallen past the horizon by the time Ichigo, Tatsuki, Uryuu, Orihime and Ulquiorra had tracked down the point where Rukia and Yasutora had begun suppressing their reiatsu. They stood in a loose circle, Ulquiorra standing slightly behind Orihime, as they contemplated the situation.
"The only reason that Kuchiki-san and Sado would have of suppressing their reiatsu," Uryuu stated, "is if they were either hiding from something or sneaking up on something."
"The Hollow they were facing wasn't strong enough to warrant their hiding from it," Ulquiorra noted. "Furthermore, no Hollow has recently left an imprint in this area."
"Maybe they were running from something. Grimmjow did vanish around the time they disappeared, you know," Ichigo suggested, scratching his head as if to encourage its inner working.
"I don't think so," Orihime said shyly. She pointed down the street. "If they were going in a straight line down to here, and they just stopped so suddenly in front of this street, I think that Kuchiki-san and Sado-kun might have sensed something strange in that direction. They must have wanted to check it out, so they suppressed their reiatsu so they could get closer to it without it noticing." Orihime pointed down the street to their left, and Ulquiorra nodded.
"I would have to agree," he stated. "That is the most logical conclusion."
"It will be difficult to trace their reiatsu from this point," Uryuu said. "We will have to search the area thoroughly." The teenagers set off down the street, and split up.
Finally emerging onto the sandy surface, Nel took in a deep sigh of relief. Her muscles ached from the exertion the steep climb had required of her. She looked up at the eternally-crescent moon and swore again to herself that she would protect him. Her eyes hardened again in determination. She summoned Garganta.
Taking a deep breath, knowing that she needed to be strong, Nel's tiny feet took the first steps into the darkness. All sound lost to her the moment the darkness enveloped her ears, Nel didn't notice as Bawabawa dove up from the sand a few hundred meters behind her, followed quickly by Nnoitra, his spidery fingers wrapped around the Hollow's tail.
Nnoitra's quick eyes caught a glimpse of Nel as she faded into the darkness. In a moment she was gone, and Garganta closed up after her. Nnoitra, mouth to Bawabawa's tail, smiled.
His own malicious plans distracting him, Nnoitra was unable to defend himself when Bawabawa's large head smacked him down against the sand, crushing the defenceless insect into the ground.
Panting against the cold night air, Ichigo punch the wall of a warehouse in frustration. He had been searching tirelessly for 2 hours and 23 minutes. He had found absolutely nothing.
No trace of reiatsu. No ice, no holes in the walls. No evidence of a struggle. Not a single hair left on the street.
Yasutora was his best friend. Rukia was his rhyme and reason. The loss of either would be the death of his soul. The loss of both would be the death of the world.
That was why they had to be out there. They had to be okay.
Struggling against his human lungs, Ichigo ran down the lonely street.
"How's the cellular sample?" The voice belonged to man in a face mask, whose skin was of a bruised purple colour. He held a scalpel. A dull ache was felt by the victim beneath the scalpel.
"Fascinating. The volume of mitochondria in the arm tissue is astounding. Packed together like I've never seen! The Captain will be interested." No mouth could be attributed to this second voice. Sharp needles of pain punctuated the dull ache.
"It's great to have a real live human to research," a pig-like man cheered joyfully. He neglected his post at the computers to chat with his coworkers. "Living things have such complex anatomy. Not at all like souls." The needles of pain grew in intensity. The feeling was more akin to stabs than needles.
The man with the scalpel's eyes stared intently into the bloody gash he had made. "You should check the DNA of the mitochondria. It might provide insight into –"
"I was already doing that, Minchin," the second voice snapped. "Could you just back off and let me do my damn job in peace once in a while." The victim on the surgical table wanted to scream out the pain.
"Things are getting testy," the pig-like shinigami noted in a sing-song voice. He almost smiled. The victim wanted to thrash about, but the body and the soul were linked only by pain.
"Geez, why so touchy?" the bruised man, Minchin, asked calmly, still intent on his work. "I was just reminding you. Don't you remember, last week you forgot to –"
"Oh, will you just fuck the hell off?" the second voice demanded. "I'm trying to do my job here, but you just can't stop with the fucking questions. How the hell am I supposed to concentrate with all this noise?" The victim wished, for the first time in a long time, for death. The heart pumped blood like it never had before.
"What's the mitochondria DNA like?" The first man changed the subject.
"Odd," the second man replied gruffly. "There are genes that code for ATP, but other genes code for something completely different... What the fuck's with this protein... It's not on the database?"
"Ohh, how interesting!" The pig-like man glowed, eyes bright with curiosity. The victim's pain became unbearable.
"This is frustrating..." the man in the surgical mask mumbled. "The bleeding has increased radically..." The bruise-coloured shinigami brought his index finger to his subject's neck, pressed firmly against a main artery.
"Wilchuwo," Minchin started slowly. "What is the test subject's heart pressure?" Wilchuwo, the pig-like shinigami, turned back to his station for the first time in half an hour.
"167 over 112," Wilchuwo read carelessly from the machine. "Aaaand, according to the bispectral index monitor, the subject has been continuously rising to surgical awareness... since... 23 minutes ago."
"What?" started the shinigami working the genome decoder and the electron microscope equipment. "All this time and you didn't even notice? What did the Captain ever want with you, incompetent bum!"
"Calm yourself, Dentran," Minchin chided, still dissecting. "It's not such a big deal. He'll apply some more anaesthetic and the subject's heart rate will drop again."
"Why the hell do you always side with Wilchuwo? Because he's banging your God-ugly sister?" Wilchuwo laughed uproariously.
Minchin's grip on his scalpel tightened. "Malentia's a beautiful individual and she could have any shinigami she wanted. If she wants Wilchuwo..."
"No one wants Wilchuwo," Dentran argued, "hideous people settle for Wilchuwo. He's ugly as sin, just like your sister."
"You know, Dentran," Minchin grounded out threateningly through clenched teeth, "I'm really sick of you calling my sister ugly. You know she's had trouble with men. You used to love her, you should have just a little compassion." Wilchuwo laughed again.
"Oh, I have compassion," Dentran claimed, really riled up now. "I'd fuck her if she begged me." He chuckled. "I mean, if she put a paper bag over her head first."
Wilchuwo hooted with laughter. "Ohh, that's a good one!"
Minchin frowned beneath his surgical mask. "Wilchuwo!"
After that, things happened very quickly.
In a second, the plastic binds holding the subject down snapped like lightning. Three screams were heard simultaneously, and all were silenced nearly immediately by a powerful roundhouse kick. Unconscious and bleeding on the floor, the biologists were powerless to stop the powerful man's utter destruction of their laboratory. He destroyed the equipment, the samples, and the surgical tables.
As trained fighters rushed to the scene, the naked man turned slowly towards the door. His arms were cut open and nearly turned inside-out. Holes punctured through his gut continued to bleed profusely, the blood making tracts down his naked body. Only his eyes, covered by a disarray of earth-coloured hair, expressed his agony.
"Where am I?" The man asked simply. Looking upon the strange-looking and oddly-dressed guards, the man was confused. Despite their strange apparel, however, they held very recognizable swords. "Is this... Soul Society?"
Ichigo, Orihime, Uryuu, Tatsuki, and Ulquiorra had split up and searched every square foot in an eight-block radius from the point of disappearance. Four hours later, there was still no sign of Rukia or Yasutora, or anything out of the ordinary, for that matter.
When the teenagers had reassembled, forced to conclude that their friends were definitely not in the area, they went back to the main street and considered where else Rukia and Yasutora might have disappeared to. Panic set in slowly.
"What do we do now?" Orihime asked no one in particular, tears of fear gathered in her eyes. "Where could they have gone? What if they really were –"
"Don't think like that, Inoue-san," Uryuu tried to comfort, looking ahead with unfocused eyes, deep in thought. "We would have noticed if Kuchiki-san or Sado were injured, and Ulquiorra said that no one opened Garganta or any other dimensional gates. They couldn't have gone far, I'm sure that they are both fine." Uryuu looked at Orihime with soft eyes, and she smiled at him in gratitude.
"If she's in Soul Society," Ichigo, standing a few yards away from the rest of the group, cursed under his breath. He fought with the paralyzing fear that tightened more around his neck with every passing minute. The unusually-shaken shinigami punched Renji's name into his father's phone, and the search engine provided the number. Ichigo dialled, grumbling to himself all the while. He couldn't be bothered with courtesies. "Renji, is Rukia in Soul Society?"
In another universe, Renji was relaxing at a bar with his friends when his phone rang. Leaning back against his seat leisurely, Renji flipped open the phone and held it to his ear. Ichigo's words made him freeze. He sat up in his chair. "No, you idiot, she's not here. Wasn't she supposed to be back in the Material world by now? Don't tell me you lost her –"
"We lost track of her around four this afternoon," Ichigo pressed urgently, his tone no-nonsense. "She hasn't come back to Soul Society in that time?" Renji was dumbfounded.
"No, she hasn't, not that I know," Renji stood up and left the bar, to the loud protest of his friends. His tattooed brow furrowed in anger. He just knew this would happen... "Maybe you should ask the freakin' Espada you're harbouring?"
Ichigo's voice rose at his friend's suggestive tone. How dare he suggest that Ichigo wouldn't protect her? "Or maybe it's you fuck-ups in Soul Society who think that we're all some sort of traitors? It's not like it'd be the first time you guys try to kill us all because of your own stupidity."
Renji sneered. "You think we'd kill one of our own before that Hollow would? What the hell's wrong with you, Ichigo, open your eyes! You're keepin' a soul-eating monster, don't be surprised when people start going missing!" Renji couldn't believe it. How could Ichigo just let Rukia disappear like that? What the hell had happened to her? Renji rushed to his division headquarters.
"Ulquiorra has nothing to do with it, idiot! He was busy all day trying to get past Toushiro. The kid just attacked him and Ishida and Tatsuki for no fucking good reason, so who's the fucking suspicious one here?" Ichigo raged, venting pent-up frustration. Suddenly, Ichigo's temper and tone cooled into a hard determination. "If I don't find Rukia and Chad by sunrise, I'm going to go to Soul Society and tear everything down until I do."
"Why the fuck would you come all the way down here when you should be looking for them?" Renji demanded as he entered headquarters. "They've gotta be in the Material world, so don't fucking take out this shit on us." Belatedly, he realized what Ichigo had said. "Captain Hitsugaya attacked you?" Renji hadn't even heard that the young Captain had been dispatched to the Living world.
"Yeah, he did," Ichigo seethed. "Just because Ishida and Ulquiorra wanted to go protect Inoue from Grimmjow!" Renji was taken aback.
"Grimmjow was in the Material wor-" At that, the line was cut. Ichigo stared at his phone, wondering how the hell that had happened. Soul Society, the home of the dearly departed, of the greatest powers in the universe, and of third-rate phone service? Too frustrated to continue thinking about it, Ichigo shoved the phone into his pocket roughly.
Ichigo turned back towards his friends to see that they were all watching him with apprehension in their eyes. Orihime seemed to be on the verge of tears again. Ichigo frowned.
"Let's keep looking," he said grimly.
Garganta opened in the Material world, and Nel fell into a lake. The water was calm, but very cold. She struggled under the weight of her thick clothes and the heavy mask over her head. She was pulled under many times and it was the most she could do to tread water and pull in a few rough gasps of air.
However, Hollows are, if nothing else, slaves to their instincts. Something deep within her shoved Nel down the path of survival. She swam to shore.
Heaving and gagging on all fours, tears burning painfully from her throat, Nel reached dry land. She was in a park. She had no idea where she was or where she needed to go from here.
But time was of the essence. She needed to find Orihime.
Slowly, Rukia's eyes opened and all she could see was white: a white ceiling, white walls, and white bags hanging from white stands at her side that were surely feeding her general anaesthesia. Rukia's world was so hazy. She tried to determine whether there was anyone else in the room.
Rukia knew she needed to escape. She needed to find Yasutora and get the hell out of this place. Was she in the Twelfth Division? If they could only escape the bounds of the division, Rukia and Yasutora would be able to go to the Thirteenth Division just next door and claim sanctuary with Captain Ukitake. And then when she recovered, Rukia would personally make sure this never happened to anyone again.
Vaguely, Rukia realized that Ichigo was probably worried about her. How much time had passed already? She didn't know. Rukia tried to move her arms, and they twitched slightly.
She knew that there was a wall to the right of her cot. It seemed to be a large room, perhaps they were keeping Yasutora here as well. She forced her head to turn to the left, to see down the length of the room.
Rukia saw that the chamber wasn't as large as it had seemed. It looked to be a holding room. There seemed to be about 6 cots in the room, with enough space between them to facilitate movement and the delivery of conscience-killing anaesthetic. More importantly, there seemed to be only one other person in the room with her. Taking in his blue hair, Rukia sifted through her fogged memory for the man's name.
"Grimm…jow…?" Rukia murmured. The Arrancar was simply lying on the stark white cot, stark naked, and his eyes firmly closed. Behind him, there was only white. The other cots were empty.
Where was Yasutora, why wasn't he here? She needed to find him. And to do that, Rukia needed to get out of here, before the next dosing of anaesthetic kicked in.
Rukia brought her left hand over her stomach, painstakingly slowly, for it took much effort to coax her muscles into responding. She reached to her right forearm, where a single silver needle broke her skin, and tried to grasp onto it. Intent on ripping out the intruding object before the drugs forced her back into slumber, Rukia was mildly surprised to have received a sharp shock through her fingers as she approached the needle. She tried again, and the shock was more forceful. It hurt her fingers.
Brow furrowed in determination, Rukia tried again, faster this time. The shock this time was so powerful it sent trembles through her body and Rukia had to withhold the urge to scream out the pain. Teeth clenched tightly, Rukia realized that if she tried this again, she would lose consciousness. She needed another plan. She raised her left hand and slowly brought it towards the white plastic stand holding up her anaesthetic. If it fell, it might rip out her needle, and she'd be freed. Unfortunately, as she suspected, the machine reacted to her approach the same way the needle did. Rukia clutched to the edge of the abyss.
There was only one thing left to try. She just hoped it wouldn't knock her out.
Her mind still a haze, Rukia looked to the unconscious Grimmjow. Could she really just leave him here?
Rukia extended her pale right hand over across the small space between her cot and Grimmjow's cot. She tried to reach to the thick tube she saw disappear into the skin of his arm, straining herself and fighting off the wave of haze that was overwhelming her again. She scooted over on the cot to try to get closer to Grimmjow, her exhausted muscles fighting against every movement. She pushed herself closer to the edge of the short cot, her other hand trying to grip onto the cot for support.
Her heavy breathing heaving her slight chest, Rukia forced her eyes to remain open. A small shiver shook her naked body as she edged closer and closer to the tube filled with numbing anaesthetic. She was just a hair's breath away from it now, she just had to reach a little farther…
The closer she got, the more desperate she became. She fell to the floor, reaching for the tube all the while. She managed to take firm hold of the tube lodged firmly in the unconscious Arrancar's arm and she dragged it down with her to the ground.
Rukia's numb body hit the floor with a dull thump, the impact leaving only a slight sting on her naked skin. The tubing immediately fell onto her, along with a small shower of blood and an onslaught of milk-coloured drugs pouring in copious amounts from the detached tube. Rukia tried to look up from the floor, to see if there was any reaction from Grimmjow.
Just as she had hoped, her own needle had been pulled out as she fell out of its reach. Instead of being relieved, however, she was worried about the amount of blood flowing freely from her arm. That small needle couldn't really have done so much damage, could it?
Hideously deformed shinigami rushed into the room, but Rukia was only mildly aware of them now. She knew she had to fight them off and run, but her body felt so weak. Her muscles weren't responding, and she was beginning to feel dizzy. She felt the plastic of the shinigami's gloves as two of them heaved her back onto her cot, and another one covered her wounded arm with a thick sanitary bandage. Vaguely, she heard their voices.
"…blood isn't coagulating…" one voice said.
"...must be a side effect…" another voice said. "… should take note for Captain… interesting…"
"…Captain will be angry…" a third voice said.
"…IV came off… put it back before Captain…" Rukia couldn't hear anything after that, for what felt like forever.
The unconscious shinigami was startled awake by a chorus of screams. Her eyes wide open in shock, she saw a naked man attacking the misshapen shinigami, his movements as natural and as fluid as if this whole abduction and experimentation episode hadn't happened.
A wide grin splitting his face, Grimmjow brutally shoved his hand through each of the nurses tending to him and Rukia. They were all dead within ten seconds. Only then did Grimmjow pay attention to Rukia, lying naked on her white cot, with an impossible amount of blood still gushing from her right arm.
Grimmjow's hand wrapped around Rukia's neck, and he pinned her to the wall behind her. "Where the fuck am I?" he asked, rather calmly for him.
Rukia opened her mouth to try to speak. "Soul Society," she mumbled out with a heavy tongue.
Grimmjow looked like he wanted to ask something else as he eyed Rukia suspiciously, but he eventually just let her fall back onto her cot, limp as a rag doll. Rukia watched him with careful eyes. Grimmjow busted out the door of the holding room, ready to get revenge.
Rukia lost awareness then, and when she came to later, she noticed that she was still in the same position Grimmjow had left her in earlier. No one had come to readmit her IV, or to stop the unending bleeding in her forearm. She was now lying in a small puddle of her own blood, a sharp crimson staining the whiteness of the room. Vaguely, Rukia could hear the sound of walls breaking and things exploding. In between those sounds, Rukia heard the sound of her own blood falling in large drops to the floor.
With painstaking slowness, Rukia moved her fingers, moved her toes. She touched her index to her thumb, then her middle finger to her thumb, trying to work some feeling back into her body. Rukia pushed herself up by her palms and rose to a seated position. She felt horribly dizzy, but she knew she needed to hurry.
The most urgent thing was the bleeding. It wouldn't stop. Rukia brought her left hand over her right arm and quickly muttered a spell under her breath. A blue light shone in her hands as she put a ration of her remaining strength into her healing spell.
Rukia had to stop before the wound was fully healed. She needed to retain her strength for what came ahead.
Byakuya, understandably, was more than a little distressed over the sudden disappearance of his sister. In light of this, the usual tedious obligations such as Captains' meetings became a chore almost too terrible to bear. However, Kuchiki Byakuya could not simply shirk his duties so nonchalantly , even in the face of this moral imperative.
"Hitsugaya Toushiro," the Commander started in his usual unhurried timber. "You have observed the Espada and his comrades. What do you report?"
The Captain, equally unhurried, stepped forward. His face was pulled down by a frown more pronounced than usual. "The Espada Ulquiorra has a strange relationship with the ryoka. I would not by any means call them comrades, except in the special case of Inoue Orihime.
"Kurosaki Ichigo's feels revulsion towards the Espada, because of his past actions and also his current relationship with Inoue. This disapproval seems to be tempered by Kuchiki Rukia, and so Kurosaki has kept his disdain quiet in public. He has, however, been very verbal in his criticism when alone with Kuchiki.
"As for Kuchiki, she seems to want to trust Ulquiorra for Inoue's sake. This prejudice, however, has not kept her from questioning Ulquiorra's motives for inhabiting the Living World. Her questioning has lead Ulquiorra to reveal insight into the nature of the new "king of Hueco Mundo" that Captain Kuchiki reported on early. The Espada claimed that with the elimination of the top Espada who would seek the title, the Espada Grimmjow and Nnoitra are fighting for supremacy. This, presumably, is not just to fill the Hollow's need for social hierarchy, but also for feeding rights.
"Ishida Uryuu and Sado Yasutora have not verbally revealed their justification, but both seem to be at a point where they are still suspicious of the Espada, but are also trying to be supportive of Inoue and trusting in her judgement. In my opinion, they are becoming more trusting in the Espada as the amount of time spent with him increases. While their quiet on the subject has made analysis difficult, I believe that Sado has a desire to trust the Espada, while Ishida is torn over whether he wants the Espada to be someone worth trusting.
"The Espada seems to have only developed a close relationship with Inoue Orihime. The relationship is undoubtedly of a romantic nature. In public, they are indistinguishable from any human couple. Although this is out of my field of experience, the two seem genuinely happy together. Inoue trusts the Espada completely.
"As for the Espada Ulquiorra, he has been nothing less than completely devoted to Inoue. He routinely goes out of his way to please her. I have witness everything from foot rubs to children's games. Despite sometimes acting as if she was something strange, he has an intense desire to protect her. He wishes nothing else than to be accepted by her for the man he has become and stay by her side for all time," Toushiro's eyes grew almost dull as he tried to convey with his inadequate experience the depth of emotion even he saw shared between Ulquiorra and Orihime. He forced his gaze to sharpen on the Commander as he concluded his report.
"The tolerance of the other ryoka towards Ulquiorra does not seem to be a matter of trust or friendship, but of respect towards Inoue Orihime. I have not witnessed any illicit, illegal or dishonest behaviour on the part of Ulquiorra, and I can only conclude from extensive observation that the Espada does indeed have benign motives for being in the Living World. In addition, Inoue seemed happier now than I had ever known her to be, directly attributable to the Espada. I strongly believe that this man is not our enemy." Toushiro finished, cold eyes trained resolutely on the Commander's. The old man didn't seem happy with the tone of Captain Hitsugaya's report.
The Commander's head bobbed up and down. "What would you suggest we do about the situation, Captain Hitsugaya?" The deep voice almost sounded challenging.
Toushiro remained unmoved. "I believe we should leave the Espada be. We have no valid reason to suppose he is a threat. If ever he becomes unruly, Urahara Kisuke, Shihouin Yoruchi and the ryoka will undoubtedly be able to contain him without help from the Gotei 13."
Commander Yamamoto rumbled deeply. "I will take your opinion into consideration. Thank you for the excellent report, Captain Hitsugaya." The room fell into silence before he spoke again. "Does anyone else wish to raise an issue?"
"With all due respect sir," Captain Kuchiki voiced in his usual melodious monotone. "A problem has materialized in my division in the last few hours."
"What would that be?" Commander Yamamoto asked, suspicious of the look in Captain Kuchiki's eye.
"It would seem," the Captain started, ever poised, "that ever since my fukutaicho was informed by Kurosaki Ichigo that Grimmjow arrived in the Material world today, communication in my division has become virtually impossible. Calls in and out of the Division are simply not going through."
"Grimmjow was in the Material world?" Soi Fong demanded. How had her intel missed it?
Commander Yamamoto considered this. "Shouldn't you be raising this issue with the Institute of Research and Technology? This issue has no place being discussed at a Captain's meeting." His tone was final; he meant that to be the end of the discussion.
"I would have to disagree respectfully," Captain Kuchiki pressed, eyes purposefully diverted from Captain Kurotsuchi, who had been smiling like a happy maniac throughout the meeting. "Especially since this makes efforts to recover my sister extremely difficult." Everyone's eyes shot wide open.
"Rukia's missing?" Captain Ukitake spluttered before he could stop himself. "Since when?"
Captain Kuchiki's sly eyes slid to his sister's Captain. "For approximately 7 hours. Attempts to locate her and Sado Yasutora in the Material world have utterly failed. They are believed to be in the Soul Society."
Commander Yamamoto didn't seem to like where this was going. "This matter is also not fit to be discussed at a Captain's meeting. Issues with the communication technology should be discussed with the Twelfth Division. Missing persons should be reported to the Stealth Forces." Byakuya was silent a moment.
"Something I find strange," Captain Kuchiki said, "is that Captain Hitsugaya seems to have omitted from his report today's invasion of the Sexta Espada Grimmjow Jeagerjacques in the Material world. Knowing Captain Hitsugaya's quality of work," Captain Kuchiki continued, voice nothing but silk, "I have to wonder whether this was a rare instance of grave oversight or a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth."
With hard eyes, Commander Yamamoto adjourned the meeting.