CONTAGION

CHAPTER SIX

The concussion of forces threw Ishida into a long tumble, tossing him the length of the room. He had enough sense left to land on his shoulder and roll, but he was shaking his head as he came up on one knee, trying to orient himself.

There was madness in the centre of the room. It didn't even look like Tousen Kaname any longer. The person -- the thing -- it was a shifting, pullulating fog of matter at the centre of the room, and the sunlight (where had the roof gone? Oh dear, the roof wasn't there any longer) shone down on it far too clearly, making it an offence to the eyes.

A crimson shield shimmered in the air between it and Urahara Kisuke, following the line that his sword had drawn. It was flaking away at the edges.

If I had a bow and arrows, Ishida thought as he looked for a place to hide. All he was at the moment was a potential hostage or casualty. If I had my powers again, just for a moment --

Dark tentacles whipped out from the heaving mass and slashed against Urahara's shield, driving him a step back.

"Tousen!" Urahara called, pitching his voice to carry. The little girl huddled behind him, head tilted as she watched. "Tousen Kaname! Can you hear me?"

A mouth formed on the side of the creature, and Tousen's features seemed to swim to the surface, moulding themselves there in clay, the eyes wide and blank. "Urahara Kisuke. You must -- there is something wrong with me, I need help." The voice broke off, and the lips moved dumbly for a moment, then began to speak again as though they had not stopped. "-- Aizen-sama but in this case I am uncertain."

"That's right," Urahara said encouragingly. "That's right. Come on, Tousen, Tousen Kaname, come up out of there. I'm talking to Tousen." He kept his blade raised, and the shield shimmered in front of him like a wing of blood. "Tousen Kaname. Tousen Kaname came here to see me. Can you remember that, Tousen?"

Ishida was reassured for a moment, but then he edged a step further to one side and he saw the tension in Urahara's eyes. He's not sure this is going to work. What does he know about this, anyhow?

The creature's boundaries fluxed uncomfortably. Tousen's face seemed to emerge a little more distinctly, lying on top of the creature like a Hollow's mask.

Ishida wished he hadn't thought of that.

His glasses were dusty. He swiped at them with a corner of his shirt, and realised that ash and dust was still drifting down from where the roof had been. There had been so much noise, he hadn't noticed it being blown away. And how were they going to explain this to all the normal people around? Gas explosion?

"Urahara," the creature that had been Tousen Kaname decided, and there was a dreadful finality in its voice as the tentacles lashed out again. A thick crack threaded down the shield, and Urahara hissed between his teeth as he slid several paces back across the floor. "Deceiver. Traitor. This is your fault."

More dust came drifting down in choking clouds. Ishida coughed, then kicked out as a brawny arm grabbed him and hauled him to one side. "What --"

"Stop struggling," the burly assistant -- Tessai, that was his name -- muttered. "This is going to get nasty."

Ishida didn't need to be told that. "Let me go! I can --" help, he was about to say, because it had been reflex for so much of his life to be able to help, and he still kept on forgetting that he couldn't.

"Don't be stupid, respected customer," Tessai snarled. Ishida noticed that he'd got the small girl by the scruff of her neck in the other hand. "I need to get you two both further away. How's the manager supposed to fight with you so close?"

Ishida shut his mouth tightly and nodded, feeling his teeth grate together.

Urahara brought his blade round in a wide sweeping cut, and sliced the ground three times, then backed half a step and paused, as though daring the creature to attack.

"Oh," the little boy said, appearing from nowhere in particular and peering round Tessai's muscular thigh. "This is going to be good."

"No!" Tessai groaned. "Not that --"

The creature pounced, unspecified limbs half-hidden in the mass of dust hunching and sending it leaping forward like a cat. It landed almost on top of Urahara, tendrils swinging.

Urahara thrust downwards with his zanpakutou, a scarlet plume rising again, and the two of them vanished into the earth together.

"My training ground!" Tessai wailed.

"What is going on?" spat an angry female voice from behind them.

Tessai spun round, Ishida and the girl dangling in his arms. Shihouin Yoruichi had apparently been disturbed mid-bath, for she was clutching a towel around her, and was otherwise naked, her hair tumbling round her shoulders, her supple flesh all beaded with sweat . . .

Ishida swallowed and tried not to think about it.

"All this noise," Yoruichi growled. "All this destruction. Kisuke getting into fights without me. Someone. Explain."

"Tousen Kaname showed up," Ishida babbled quickly, "and had some sort of seizure and turned into a weird Hollow thing and now Urahara-san's fighting him."

"What?" Yoruichi's eyes widened, then slitted. "Tessai. Keep these three and anyone else who shows up out of it. This order is not to be countermanded. Understood?"

Tessai nodded with a quick military formality. "Yes, ma'am."

Yoruichi nodded. With a quick turn and pivot that somehow knotted the towel around her, she dived into the hole after Urahara.

Ichigo turned the corner into the lane that led to Urahara's shop. He was conscious of Renji just behind him, and Orihime trailing some way back (and that's probably a good thing, a part of his mind pointed out, as it'll keep her out of the action.)

Then Rukia turned the corner at the other end of the lane, running as fast as he was.

It was ridiculous, ridiculous how many thoughts could be crammed into a single moment's shock. The first one was It's her! and the second one was also It's her! and the third was Renji didn't say she was back too, and the fourth was So what am I supposed to do now, go back to having her sleeping in my closet? and the fifth, competing for space with all the rest, was It's her! and at that point his brain just gave up and concentrated on important things like the crashes and thuds and plumes of smoke and reiatsu disturbance that even he could sense coming from inside Urahara's compound.

Tessai stepped into the open door of the shop. He was dangling a shaken-looking Ishida Uryuu under one arm, and the shop's little girl from the other hand. "Excuse me, honoured customers," he said flatly, "but you cannot enter."

"Don't give me that shit," Renji said, catching up with Ichigo and pointing a finger at the big man. "There's clearly something going on in there --"

"Kuchiki-san! How wonderful to see you again!" Orihime declared between gasps for air.

"-- and we're not going to stand out here in the street," Renji finished.

"Sadly you are," Tessai said. "Can I offer you tea? On the house, of course?"

"Oi. Let us in, we want to help," Ichigo tried. "It'd be pretty fucking stupid to keep us out here --"

There was a weird gargling scream from inside the compound.

Ichigo swallowed. "Please?" he added.

Tessai glanced back over his shoulder. At that moment, Renji and Ichigo caught each other's eyes, nodded, and charged. Ichigo went high, Renji went low, and the two of them thrust their way past Tessai, darting into the room beyond.

Ichigo was fairly sure he could hear Rukia shouting at the two of them. Back to normal, he thought, and found himself grinning.

They skidded to a halt at the edge of a chasm. Down below, in what looked like the underground training area, Urahara was fighting something amorphous and darkly horrible, while Yoruichi skidded round it almost too fast for his eye to follow, flashing quick blows that laid it open and left it bleeding.

"Fuck," Renji said, sword loose in his hand. "That's not a normal Hollow."

Ichigo frowned. "Look, if they haven't already taken it out, then it must be something high up on the scale. Suppose we both attack from above while they're keeping it busy . . ."

"You gentlemen will stand down now," Tessai growled from behind them. There was a thump, as of someone dropping human bodies to the ground so that he could have his hands free, and an aggrieved squawk. "Yoruichi-dono has instructed that nobody interrupt. There is a danger --" He broke off. "I cannot let you interfere."

"Shut it." Renji pointed his blade at Tessai. "I am not standing here while that thing gets away."

"Hold it." Rukia's voice was as cold as ice. "Renji -- sorry, Abarai-fukutaichou -- if that thing down there is infectious in the same way as the one that got Rikichi, then I can see why Shihouin Yoruichi doesn't want us getting near it. And how would you feel if one of us cut into a fight of yours?"

Renji glared at her. "That's not the point."

"Infectious how?" Ichigo asked, frowning.

"We don't know," Rukia cut across Renji's objection. "That's why I'm saying that if the manager of this esteemed establishment knows how to handle it, and Shihouin Yoruichi agrees with him, then perhaps we should stand back and let them do it."

"That sounds very sensible," Orihime put in from the doorway. "Please won't you two wait like Tessai-san wants?"

Ichigo and Renji exchanged glances, then both sighed and turned their attention to the fight below.

The creature seemed to be focusing on Yoruichi now. She struck a blow that seemed to detonate something inside it, spilling organs and seething fluid out onto the rocky terrain in a huge gout of energy that left a crater in the earth under it. It roared and struck at her, but in that moment Urahara darted round behind it, faster than he had done previously, and his zanpakutou cleaved through the mask that swam in its flesh.

There was a sound like thunder, and the whole building shook.

Dust slowly cleared. Below, Urahara and Yoruichi stood over the body of Tousen Kaname.

"Okay," Ichigo began, "now you can't object to --"

Tessai's hand closed over his shoulder. "Not until Yoruichi-dono says," he growled.

Urahara went on his knees next to the fallen man, raising him against his chest.

Tousen seemed to be trying to say something. For a moment, his hand moved, and then it fell back to the ground again, and he was still.

Urahara laid the other man back in the dust. He turned to say something to Yoruichi, but she had turned away to stare at the horizon, separate, untouchable.

The discussion was held in a back room of the shop that still had a roof and that wasn't full of dust. As it was, the room was uncomfortably full, and Tessai had to place his feet carefully while bringing in the tea-tray to avoid stepping on anyone.

Yoruichi had resumed her feline form. She sat near Urahara and groomed herself pointedly.

This was not the atmosphere that Rukia had wanted for an in-depth interrogation and playing on any and all debts that Urahara Kisuke owed her. She decided to fade into the background and see if he'd let out anything useful.

"I'm terribly sorry if we came at a bad moment," Orihime started. "We could always come back later if we're bothering you."

There were smothered mutters and gulping of tea from the directions of Renji and Ichigo.

"Not at all," Urahara said politely, waving his fan. "I'm sorry that you were so inconvenienced."

"What did you really tell that policeman?" Ishida asked in tones of fascinated horror.

"The usual." Urahara sipped his tea. "Tragic explosion of wiring installed by previous owner, combined with selective memory modification. It works wonders. Trust me, the tendency to drool doesn't last long at all."

"That was Tousen," Renji said slowly. "Tousen-taichou as was. Urahara-san, I regret having to ask you this question --"

A hopeless lie, Rukia thought. You don't regret it at all and you don't even look sorry.

"-- but would this have anything to do with weird mutated Hollows that are affecting shinigami and making them turn into Hollows themselves?" Renji finished.

Urahara gave him a narrow-eyed look from under the shadows of his hat. "That's an awfully pointed question, Abarai-fukutaichou."

Renji stared at him. "Well, yeah. So?"

Urahara snapped his fan together and pointed it at Renji. "Could you please give me the details about the problem you've got?"

Renji frowned, then nodded. "Okay. We've had at least one case so far where a shinigami fought a Hollow and then came back affected and looking like a Hollow. Unohana-taichou's treating it like an illness and having everyone inspected. I'm not going to argue with her."

Rukia stared into her cup. Would it have been different if someone had checked your wife sooner, Kaien-fukutaichou? If someone had realised something was wrong with her? But that was possession, not an illness -- even so, if it could have been different . . .

She raised her head. "If you feel that you owe us anything, Urahara-san -- if you feel that you owe me anything -- then I must ask you to help us."

"Ah." Urahara gestured with his fan again. "Well, while --"

"Tell them," Yoruichi growled, "or I will."

Urahara looked down at the cat. The brim of his hat hid his eyes.

Yoruichi looked up at him, and reached out a delicate paw to rest it on his knee. "I left with you because I disagreed with the Council's decision, Urahara Kisuke. This does not mean that I ever acknowledged you as my master. If you do not tell them now, then I shall."

"This is not a good idea." Urahara spoke as if the two of them were alone in the room. "We will all regret this."

The cat brought her paw back and licked it smoothly. "Of course we will. But we will regret the alternatives more." She leapt into his lap. "You tell them. You've always been good at explaining things."

Urahara took a deep breath and drank some more of his tea. "Very well." He looked up again, and this time there was a much more sinister air to the way that his hat shadowed his face, a much more lethal casualness to his posture. "It goes like this --"

"More tea, anyone?" Tessai asked from the doorway.

Urahara flicked a smooth gesture, twisting his fingers as he did so. The door slammed shut.

"It goes like this." He petted Yoruichi with his free hand, but did not look down at her. "A while ago, as some of you may already be aware, I used to be Captain of Twelfth Division. No, save the questions for later. While I was Captain, I inaugurated a project that was supposed to modify the nature of Hollows. Through the use of kidou, technology, reiatsu, alchemy, and several other things which I haven't got time to go into, we created an artifact that we called the Hougyouku."

Ichigo raised a hand. "Wait. That thing? The one you stuck in Rukia?"

"The very same," Urahara said calmly. "The project went quite well at first. We began to, if you like, edit out some of what makes a Hollow a Hollow, trying to reduce it back to a normal soul. We also started to induce some of the more useful potential traits of Hollows into some of our volunteers. We were using mod souls at first, but they became sentient and so that was not feasible."

And was that anything to do with why Project Spearhead was dropped? Rukia wanted to ask, but she had enough sense to keep her mouth shut.

Urahara took a deep breath. "And then -- at first we thought it was controllable. We took precautions, set up quarantines, limited our experiments. Within a few days it became obvious that those shinigami who had attempted cross-grafts of Hollow abilities were beginning to evince the full traits of Hollow pathology. The aetiology was complete. We were forced to order full purification." His words are quicker now, the scientific terminology clipped and precise. "We also disposed of all Hollow specimens. Over the next few days we had more victims. Shinigami who had been involved in the original experiments, shinigami who had fought the infected members of my Division, shinigami whose reiatsu had mingled with infected members while trying to heal them. This was not an airborn contagion. It was carried via reiatsu. Naturally, the experiment was shut down."

Renji let out a long whistle between his teeth. "I don't believe it. I mean, something like that would have been a public disaster --"

"Believe it," Yoruichi cut in. "It was an experiment mostly inside Twelfth in any case. There were some kidou experts from other Divisions, and of course the healers from Fourth, but outside that . . . no, it was easy enough to kill the experiment and seal the records."

"Unohana-taichou was in charge of Fourth at that point," Rukia put in. "That would explain why she's so . . . um, definite about all this."

"Of course it would." Urahara frowned. "Unohana Retsu is many things, but stupid has never been one of them."

There was a scratching noise from Orihime's corner. Heads turned to see her enthusiastically scribbling Urahara's words down.

Ishida sighed. "Inoue-san, are you sure you should be taking notes?"

Orihime frowned at him. "You aren't listening, Ishida-kun. Urahara-san just said that this affects healers if they try to heal people who've got it. I'm going to ask him to show me how you tell if someone's got it just as soon as he finishes." She smiled happily at Urahara. "Please go on."

Urahara coughed. "Well, there really isn't that much more to say. I sealed the Hougyouku, of course, and left Soul Society under what might be described as something of a cloud . . ."

"That's not fair!" Ishida interrupted. "They make you leave for something that wasn't your intention, and they let someone like Kurotsuchi Mayuri stay when he, he . . ." He choked on his own indignation. "It's not fair," he repeated angrily.

"No. It isn't, is it." Urahara poured more tea for himself. "But when you think about it, Mayuri-kun doesn't generally get shinigami killed. And whatever else you may say about him, he has yet to unleash a plague that could have destroyed the whole of Seireitai. Once something like this starts spreading, it's almost impossible to stop."

"That's true." Rukia was surprised to see Ichigo agreeing. "It'd be almost as bad as an airborne contagion. Soul Society works on principles of reiatsu, but if it was the reiatsu itself that was carrying this -- you couldn't heal it or you'd risk being infected, you couldn't fight your friends who had it because they might infect you . . . you'd have to quarantine and pray."

"Does Aizen know about this?" Renji asked. "The actual disease bit of it?"

"We can't know," Urahara answered. "The records were purged after the event. He wasn't involved at the time. I have no way of telling how much he's found out. And even if he knows it's dangerous -- well, he may think that he can control it."

Yoruichi twisted in his lap, rolled over, and stretched. "We can't take the risk," she said bluntly. "You'll need to contact Soul Society."

"Out of the question." Urahara looked down at her and rested a hand on her furry stomach. "The charges aside . . ."

The cat snorted. "You know perfectly well that they were looking the other way when we escaped."

"Beside that, Aizen Sousuke's not a fool." Urahara's eyes narrowed. "He'll already be moving if he knows we're thinking about this."

"So what would he do?" Renji demanded. "You two are pretty damn good at outthinking each other. Come on, Urahara-san. What would you be doing right now if you were Aizen?"

Urahara frowned. "Including the fact that he's now lost contact with Tousen-kun, and that he doesn't know how much information he may have passed on to us? I'd cut all possible avenues of research, and do some damage at the same time. Block off our possible ways of stopping him -- cauterise, if you like -- and try and combine this with a strike of some sort to draw our attention while at the same time concealing his true intention."

"Okay. So that's Twelfth and Fourth Division records -- he can't reach those, can he? And anything that's here. And you said . . ." Rukia frowned. "Other kidou experts?"

"Oh yes." Urahara nodded, and stroked Yoruichi's belly. "Some of the aristocratic Houses have their own records and research. Not Kuchiki, of course, but Shiba . . ." He broke off. "Abarai-kun. Contact Soul Society now. I know what he'll be doing, and he'll already be doing it."