CONTAGION
CHAPTER SEVEN
The misty rain damped the banner that hung between the two upraised fists and left it dangling, dreary and sodden. There wasn't even a decent wind with the rain to shake the day into something less dismal and more energetic.
Ganju curried his Bonnie-chan with a sigh. Even if recent events had involved an uncomfortable amount of being attacked, wounded, beaten, and imprisoned, they had nevertheless --
He blinked, then sniffed the air. Something was wrong.
With a slap, he sent Bonnie-chan galloping for her quarters, and rose to his feet, turning in a wide arc to look out at the surrounding fields and forest. He couldn't see anything specific, but there was a tingle in the air, a whisper of something rotten and corrupt and ultimately cold. It wasn't even a physical thing. It was a reiatsu thing.
He didn't hesitate. It might have been different if he had been in Seireitai (let the shinigami take care of their own mess, after all), but this was Shiba turf. This was his ground.
"Koganehiko! Shiroganehiko!" he called.
The two brothers emerged without a moment's pause, looming over him from behind. "Yes, young master?" they bellowed in unison.
Ganju did not wince. He was above such things. He was perfectly used to their behaviour. "Sound the alarm," he ordered, "and alert my sister. Something's wrong."
Ishida watched gloomily as the meeting broke up. Renji had vanished hotfoot back to Soul Society to pass on Urahara's warnings. The shopkeeper was of the opinion that Aizen would want to attack the Shiba household, so that Aizen's own researches couldn't be traced.
Ishida's first thought on hearing that was to ponder how hard Shiba Kuukaku would grind Aizen's face into the mud. His second thought was to wonder just how far Urahara himself would go in order to ensure that his researches couldn't be traced.
He had a headache. This was hardly surprising.
Kurosaki and Kuchiki Rukia strolled out together, already working on grand schemes to protect the neighbourhood, destroy Hollows, save the afflicted, and generally waggle their swords around. He trusted that Kuchiki Rukia could keep Kurosaki in line. The idiot would probably charge straight into a fight and get himself killed or worse, otherwise.
Inoue-san went off with Tessai to learn important facts about how to detect the disease and what to do if she saw it. This was vital, and he could only admire her devotion to healing others . . .
. . . but it left him alone with Urahara and Yoruichi.
"I'm sorry to have neglected you all this time, Ishida-san," the shopkeeper (and previous Twelfth Division Captain, and Ishida knew not to trust Twelfth Division) said with a smile.
A vicious smile, Ishida decided.
"But if I can be of any assistance?"
And for a moment, Ishida could see again. The familiar tangle of white and red threads -- white for normal souls, red for shinigami -- bloomed in the room like a tapestry before fading again.
"Ishida-san?"
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter any more, you don't matter, it's coming back, Ishida would have said, but common sense made him shut his mouth and think, stopped him blurting it all out to the shopkeeper.
There were too many reasons not to trust him as it was. He'd started all this. He'd created the thing. He'd been Twelfth Division Captain (and had he been Captain when the Quincy were hunted down before, had he?) and he'd done things which even now he wouldn't discuss. No. Ishida wasn't going to trust him.
"I'm sorry," he said, glee and caution bubbling through him, and he bowed his head. "I apologise for wasting your time."
Urahara nodded in return, acknowledging the dismissal. "One last thing," he added. "You aren't in danger from the disease, as an effectively normal human and without enough reiatsu to contract it --"
Ishida bit his lip and kept his eyes lowered.
"-- but if you notice anything, kindly inform me or Yoruichi."
"Of course," Ishida said, and inside he was laughing. He knew something that Urahara didn't know. For the first time in his life, he fully understood that knowledge was power.
He would be a Quincy again, and this time there would be no half measures. No weakness.
No foolish stupidity, of course, and no petty brawling, but this time he would show them what being a Quincy really meant.
Kuukaku came through the doorway and out into the open air at the same time as the things fell from the sky, gliding down into a controlled landing. "Not bad, Ganju," she remarked as she inspected them. Her hand was cocked jauntily on her hip. "This is something new."
"Thank you, big sister," Ganju said gratefully.
She was glad to see that he wasn't charging at the creatures right away. Clearly he had gained valuable experience in that recent business, which reminded her, she needed to discuss with him exactly why he'd mispronounced the sphere-directing spell -- wait, she was being distracted. "Explain yourselves," she ordered the creatures.
There were three of them, all dressed in white, with masks that would have been vaguely like a Hollow's except that they were in pieces and scattered around their heads in various ways. One of them was large, one of them had flowing pale hair, and one of them had marked eye patterning.
The one with the eye patterning regarded her as though she was something that he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe and found unworthy of the effort. "Prepare to be destroyed," he informed her flatly. "Prompt submission will result in a swift death."
She didn't like that sort of attitude in shinigami. She liked it even less in whatever these things were. "Well now," she drawled, "you're a bit early for that sort of thing, boy. Come back in a century and you might give me a problem. In the meantime, get off my property or be thrown off."
"Yammi." The eye-patterned one turned to his large colleague. "Destroy her."
Koganehiko and Shiroganehiko moved to stand in front of her, hulking there with their arms folded. "If you want to hurt the mistress --" Koganehiko began.
"You have to go through us first!" Shiroganehiko completed the sentence.
"No problem," the large one growled.
He came charging in like a cannonball. Kuukaku threw herself up in the air to avoid him, curving like a swallow to land on the roof, and watched as below the two servants got smashed into the wall of the house.
She'd take it out of their wages later.
"Oi!" she called down. "You! Yammi! Call that a serious attack, or are you just playing?"
He growled something and gestured. A wave of energy flew at her. She dodged it, and tossed a few fireworks at him to keep him busy while she worked out the parameters on the kidou that she needed. Damn visitors, always turning up at the most inconvenient moments -- "Ganju!" she shouted. "Keep them busy a moment!"
Her little brother whined something about big sister and did he have to, but he was already throwing more bombs at the intruders before he'd finished the complaint. (She'd have a few words with him about that later. Hadn't she always told him that prompt and polite submission to an elder sibling's request was one of the cornerstones of proper behaviour?)
There was a crunch. She looked up. Yammi was standing on the roof opposite her. "Let's see you dodge me now," he said with a wide and toothy grin. Double grin, if you counted the remaining chunk of jawbone clinging to his face.
She went down on one knee and slapped her hand against the roof. There was a moment of mental adjustment as she also touched the roof with the hand that wasn't there -- how strange these phantom sensations always were -- and invoked one of the little bits of kidou she'd built into the structure.
"On your knees . . ." Yammi began, the gloating evident in his voice, and then broke off with a grunt of surprise as the two great hands dropped their banner and bent down to grab him, dangling him between them.
Kuukaku smirked, and the two huge hands slapped themselves together with the creature between them.
A squawk drew her attention to the antics below. Ganju had given up on throwing bombs at the two intruders and was now running around frantically like a chicken with its head cut off. Where, she had to ask herself, was the dignity of the family? Where was the authority? The style? Where --
"Sister!" he howled as the pale-haired one caught up with him. The one with eye-patterning was still standing around and watching.
Well, that was taking matters just too far. In a single quick motion she flicked a knife from her belt, tossed it into the air, and caught it blade first between two fingers as it came down, letting it bite into the flesh of her palm. With three shouted words she activated the warding kidou.
The ground blew up in concentric patterns moving outwards from the house, destroying the carefully cultivated lawn in spiderwebs of fire and concussive force that took the pale-haired creature by surprise -- her little brother had at least memorised the patterns and knew where to position himself so as to take minimum damage -- and tossed him across the grass from explosive nexus to explosive nexus till he slammed into the trees.
The one with eye-patterning had avoided it. Clearly the leader of this little group. "I take surrenders," she called down to him. It'd be amusing to hand him over to the shinigami and see their reaction.
"Unnecessary," he replied. His arms were folded, and there was something curiously uncaring and dead about his face.
Oh, well, if he was going to be like that --
It hit her like a punch from behind, and she went down on one knee again without quite realising what it was, till she saw the blade emerging from her chest in front of her. The trees in the distance were trembling as though with a high wind, and she could feel herself shaking, more irritated by the unexpectedness of the attack than feeling the pain as yet, she hadn't heard anyone come up behind her, let alone someone with a wakizashi, the blade was obvious, her brother had been so fond of swords, she was trying to breathe but now it was hurting, and the blade slid out again and she was falling and slipping off the roof and her hands clenched, but the one that was there and the one that wasn't, and the house held firm but the ground was rising and her little brother was shouting and she should tell him to behave himself . . .
The thing that hit Ganju the hardest, that left him the most shocked, was the look of sheer surprise in his sister's eyes as she fell forward. It was as if one of the supports of reality had decided to take a stroll and have a quiet smoke round the corner -- don't worry, I'll be right back, just keep things going in the meantime -- and left the whole edifice swaying. His big sister didn't do that. She didn't get hurt. She didn't fall and he didn't have to catch her and she didn't bleed all over him and he was going to kill whoever the fuck had done this.
Except, as cold common sense pointed out like a knife running down his spine, he wasn't sure that he was going to be able to survive the next few seconds.
The big one they'd called Yammi was still stuck in the hands, but he was breaking his way out a finger at a time. The pale-haired one who'd been chasing him was still picking himself off the ground. The one with the weird eyes was looking at him.
Ganju felt the reiatsu even before the fourth one of the group rounded the corner of the house. He was strolling, casual as if he hadn't just tried to kill Ganju's sister, and he was in white now rather than in shinigami black, but he still had a Captain's force, a Captain's presence. A Captain's strength. A Captain's sword. Ichimaru Gin.
With an absolute certainty, Ganju knew the only reason he was alive at the moment was that he was more fun alive than he was dead, and that it wasn't going to last long.
The wall of the house was behind him, and there was nowhere to run.
His sister moved in his arms and groaned. There was blood on her clothing and blood on her mouth.
Shit. This was time for Kurosaki and his friends to show up. For all Seireitai to show up. He'd even be grateful for a few fucking shinigami to show up and wave their fancy swords and make themselves useful.
Instead it was just him.
Ichimaru smiled at him, as pale as death in the rain-shrouded afternoon light, and Ganju decided that even the freaky Eleventh Division shinigami with the weird eyebrows hadn't been as frightening. And speaking of the freaky Eleventh Division shinigami with the weird eyebrows --
"Stone Wave!" he called, and activated the kidou as he slapped his hand back against the wall of the house, diving through the hole as stone crumbled to sand around him. He rolled as he landed, trying not to land on his sister more than necessary, and a blast of force hit the interior wall on the other side of the room, shearing through it and carving further into the house like a swordblade, cutting through stone and shoji alike.
He ran through the house like a fox (or a rabbit), dodging blasts. Dim afternoon light leaked in through the hole in the wall and cast dull spears through the rips in shoji and the shattered pieces of interior furnishings, making the glowworm vines in the wall pale in response. He could hear the servants screaming and hiding themselves. Good. They wouldn't stand a chance. Two more walls went down in the face of his Stone Wave, and he spared a moment of thanks for his sister's firm workmanship, because the house was still standing and it wasn't swaying, definitely it wasn't swaying, any little creaks and noises from above were purely his imagination.
Another wave of force blasted to his right. He jumped to the left and used the Stone Wave again. The wall went down, and he tumbled out into the open air, the grass wet and slick under his feet.
"Nice one," the pale-haired creature said, smirking at him. "Time to die."
The afternoon wind blew direct towards him now, whipping the creature's hair into artistic waves and rippling the grass, tangling his sister's scarves as she hung in his arms. Ganju grinned as he smelt something on it. "I don't think so," he said.
"Oh?"
"Yeah," Ganju said, as the black-robed figures came rushing through the trees and down towards Shiba Mansion like a storm wave. "Here comes just what you deserve."
Kira was already invoking his shikai as they burst through the treeline into the open space surrounding Shiba Mansion. Komamura-taichou was in the lead, which meant more trees to dodge than if Zaraki-taichou had been on the expedition, but fewer than if it had been Ukitake-taichou or any of the other experts who made it look so easy to move around things as though they had never been there in the first place.
He concentrated on little things. The shinigami behind them. Komamura's broad shoulders ahead of him. The weight of his zanpakutou in his hand. The fascinating new banner on Shiba Mansion that involved a pair of giant hands being broken to bits by a partly-masked giant in white robes -- wait, that was real.
Combat training took over as he assessed the situation. Shiba Kuukaku (not that they'd ever met, but the description was unmistakeable) down and wounded, Shiba Ganju cornered, three enemies in white robes active and one temporarily incapacitated on the roof.
Then one of the active three in white robes turned to look at him, and it wasn't possible to concentrate on little things any more.
He knew in an academic sense that his Captain was a traitor. He had agreed when people had told him so. He had apologised for his errors in judgement in following him, and he had been told that there was nothing wrong in obeying his Captain, that Ichimaru Gin had used him but that it was not his fault. He had apologised to Hinamori (for the blade through her body, for leading Hitsugaya-taichou away from her, for crossing swords with her) and she had nodded to him politely.
He wanted to apologise to his Captain for all these things, and he knew that he shouldn't, and as his Captain smiled at him, he knew that he should go across to him with his eyes lowered and say, Ichimaru-taichou, I --
"Ichimaru Gin," Komamura-taichou growled. The rumble carried on the wind like thunder. "Surrender."
"Don't think so," Kira's Captain replied, and slid backwards into a parry as Komamura came rushing forwards.
Kira chose not to watch. There were other priorities on the field. One of the other enemies was moving in on the two Shiba siblings. Kira slid across the field in a single flash step and caught the other's blade with his zanpakutou, moving through block and response with the smoothness of practice.
The enemy had long pale hair and a pretty, cruel face; a fragment of bone clung to his head like a broken helmet.
Kira decided that he didn't like the way that the enemy smiled.
"Let's see," the enemy said, head tilted. "You'd be Kira Izuru, right? Vice-Captain of Third? We've heard about you."
Something in Kira's belly knotted and cramped. He shouldn't -- his Captain shouldn't have --
"And I know better than to get hit by your sword," the enemy concluded, bringing his free hand round in a wide sweeping gesture. A wave of force blasted out, and Kira barely parried it by flinging up his zanpakutou. The walls on either side shattered, widening the gap in the wall of the house.
Above him something broke violently and came down in a wave of crashes, breaking tiles and shattering timbers. He couldn't spare the time to look.
Shiba Ganju moved to stand beside him. He wasn't carrying his sister; he must have set her down on the ground behind them. "You're going down," he informed the enemy. "Pretty boy."
The other man -- no, there was something dubious about his reiatsu, something that smelt of Hollow, however human his form -- flipped his hair away from his face. "You may address me as Il Forte while you still have breath to do so."
The air was full of Ichimaru-taichou's reiatsu as he and Komamura-taichou fought. It made it hard for Kira to think clearly. He should be fighting beside his Captain. It was wrong not to be doing so. He couldn't stand being wrong. Being wrong was bad. Making mistakes was bad.
With an effort Kira pulled himself out of the spiral of doubt. He hadn't got his rank because of his looks or any ability to make witty retorts. He'd got it because he deserved it. Even if -- especially if -- Aizen-taichou and Ichimaru-taichou had manipulated them, they'd done it because Kira and Renji and Hinamori were possible threats to them.
(If only he could believe it.)
Shiba Ganju tossed a spray of bombs. Il Forte glided through them, making the motion as careless and fluid as a dance. Kira rushed for him, taking advantage of the brief openings in the enemy's defence that the bombs forced, and Il Forte had to retreat, using a couple of those force blasts to cover his movements. As Kira had thought, it was all very well to know what Kira's zanpakutou did, but avoiding blows from it was harder.
The ground shook as something heavy landed behind Kira. He parried automatically on reflex, and caught a blow on his zanpakutou that would have shattered his shoulder if it had connected. Half turning, he saw that it was the big one who'd been on the roof; dishevelled, damaged, but still in one piece. Unfortunately.
"Be careful, you idiot!" Il Forte called. "He's the one that --"
"He's the trash I'm going to kill," the big one grunted, and brought his bare hand down again in another strike that split the ground in a wide crack when it connected.
"Deal with Il Forte!" Kira called to Shiba Ganju. Of course, it wasn't the best of battlefield situations, with
tag
Ichimaru-taichou and Komamura-taichou exchanging blows
tag
and with Shiba Kuukaku to watch, but there wasn't time to move her at the moment
turn and slice
and if she was still bleeding, then she was still breathing
tag
and he'd apologise to her later
tag
and Il Forte was apparently too busy crushing Shiba Ganju in person to realise that he'd be one partner less very shortly
miss a dodge and get thrown across the clearing and get up again and come in again and tag
and where had that other one gone? There had been another one, hadn't there?
tag
"Hey!" the big one roared. He swayed on his feet, trying to balance his weight. "What the fuck have you done to me?"
"Brought you to your knees," Kira informed him, and slashed at his throat.
The big one blocked it easily with his forearm."You think . . ." He shivered as his weight doubled yet again, growled, and fell to his knees.
Il Forte hit Kira from behind, tumbling him across the clearing and getting a grip on Kira's wrist. They landed together with Kira on the bottom. He struggled, but the other was physically stronger, and at that angle he couldn't use Wabisuke. Kidou, then. If he could just get the words out.
Il Forte twisted Kira's wrist, forcing his zanpakutou (for of course he wouldn't let go of it) back across his own body. "I'm going to cut your throat with your own blade," he said sweetly. "We'll see what he thinks of you then."
Reiatsu spiked on the other side of the building. That wasn't just a Captain. That was a Captain releasing bankai.
Il Forte hesitated, face raised to sniff at the air, and Kira brought his legs up and round, slamming his knees into Il Forte's back and toppling him forward and off balance. The two of them rolled across the wet grass together.
"Kokujou Tengen Myouou!" Komamura-taichou bellowed. His voice rolled like thunder, and the shadow which fell across the clearing was darker than an eclipse.
"Oh dear," Ichimaru-taichou said. "Guess I'm out of time. Ulquiorra! Now!"
Shiba Mansion blew up.
Il Forte was the first to react, detaching himself from Kira and fleeing like a white shadow, vanishing into the trees. Kira came to his feet as the flames bloomed behind him, seeing his shadow flatten darkly away from the sudden light, and moved for the building as quickly as he had ever done, catching Shiba Kuukaku up from where she lay unconscious and carrying her back from the blast radius. Shiba Ganju wasn't moving, but he was distant enough, he'd be safe.
He put Shiba Kuukaku down next to her brother, and turned to look at the clearing again, zanpakutou still ready in his hand. Komamura's bankai loomed above the flaming house, head swinging from right to left as it hunted for prey.
Another flicker of white, like a moonlit candle, and Ichimaru-taichou stood a few paces away from him. "You got no greeting for your captain, Izuru-kun?"
Kira swallowed, and angled his zanpakutou aggressively. "You aren't my Captain any more," he said without conviction.
"Awww." Ichimaru-taichou smiled at him. "Now ain't that a shame. I guess I still think of you as my vice-captain, mm?"
"Get back."
"Or?" Still that smile. Still the naked blade in Ichimaru-taichou's hand.
Kira didn't have any witty retorts. He didn't have anything except barely controlled panic, and the constant reminder that Ichimaru-taichou had lied, lied, lied to him. "Or I'll stop you," he said thinly.
Komamura-taichou's great bankai sword came down and split the ground between them in a deep trench. The earth shuddered; the two Shiba siblings twitched in their unconsciousness, jolted like a pair of sleeping dolls.
"Guess I'm stopped," Ichimaru-taichou said, and sheathed his zanpakutou with a smile. "And I guess I'll be seeing you soon, Izuru-kun. Real soon."
Black light closed around him like a mouth, and he was gone.
Kira should have been reporting to Komamura-taichou. He should have been checking and binding Shiba Kuukaku's wounds. But Ichimaru-taichou's words whispered in his heart, a crawling addiction that he couldn't quite bring himself to release.
Guess I still think of you as my vice-captain.
Guess I'll be seeing you soon, Izuru-kun.
The slow drizzling rain was cool against his skin. He had work to do. He had to remember that.
And he had a sick headache, pounding and pounding, which wouldn't go away.