Ishida Uryū
Intellectually, Uryū figured out fairly quickly that it was possible to breathe the… liquid he was submerged in. His subconscious was still having trouble with it. Every time he woke up, some part of him would not be persuaded he wasn't drowning, and he'd choke and try futilely to hold his breath and end up passing out again in only a minute or so. It was maddening, because he knew it was unnecessary. What was necessary was thinking of a way to get out of this, and fix things.
By 'this', of course, he didn't mean the… pod thing, but the situation in general and his imprisonment by Szayelaporro in particular. The few hours of captivity before the Octava had put him 'in storage' so he could attend to his responsibilities had been… unpleasant. Uryū had fought, persistently, but Szayelaporro had just laughed and staked his hands to the table and carried on… experimenting, if you could call it that. Real scientists would not approve. Some of it could probably be described as exploratory surgery, in the most general sense. The Espada had just… glued all the incisions shut before tossing him in the pod. Everything seemed to be working when he was awake enough to check, even his hands, but the marks were still there and everything was painful.
None of it was as unpleasant as the realization that Aizen had won, and that meant Karakura Town was gone.
Finally, he woke up and breathed air, in between coughing out the goo — the coughing wasn't doing the incision on his torso any good. He wasn't in Hueco Mundo — Soul Society, from the reishi levels. He was somewhere mostly dark, lying on a tile floor, and was surrounded by blurs.
He hated losing his glasses.
All right, going by reiatsu, the blurs were shinigami, not particularly strong ones. Except for— "Sado!"
The Sado-blur moved, probably making some sort of gesture in response, but of course Uryū couldn't make it out.
"Oh," said one of the shinigami-blurs. "It's you."
"Who?" said another shinigami-blur.
"Kurosaki Ichigo's Quincy associate. Kurotsuchi-taichō was monitoring him."
He could do without being referred to as Kurosaki's Quincy associate, but more importantly — Twelfth Division. They were in Twelfth Division. "Why are we in Twelfth Division?" Uryū demanded. "Is Kurotsuchi here?"
"No," said the most talkative shinigami-blur. "He's still in Hueco Mundo, in… some condition."
Well, that was something. Probably not much, though. Uryū tried reflexively to push his glasses up his face (making his hand hurt) and nearly poked himself in the eye. "I don't suppose this was a rescue?"
"Ha. No." The blur moved around. "…I think we'll need to get someone from Fourth Division over. For now, take him to the Quincy cell."
They still had a Quincy cell? Uryū was torn between Naturally and How dare they.
"What about the other one?"
The talkative blur groaned. "Oh, him too, I guess. Might as well."
Speaking of might as well— "Wait!" Uryū said. He indicated the pod he'd just been… decanted from. "Are my glasses in there somewhere?"
"…Doesn't look like it."
Damn.
Uryū managed to walk to the Quincy cell on his own two feet, with a little… incidental staggering. His legs weren't badly hurt. Everything in his torso felt bruised, but his legs worked. Sado, on the other hand, had to be carried. Unfortunately Uryū couldn't see him to assess his condition more than 'somewhat depleted reiatsu'.
He really wanted his glasses.
Maybe he could learn to form reishi corrective lenses. That would eliminate the problem.
The Quincy cell turned out to be one room subdivided with metal grilles. Everything in it was made of… Uryū wasn't sure what it was made of, it wasn't sekkiseki but he wasn't getting any reishi particles off it, either.
"If you two don't cause any trouble, we'll leave the inner gates open," said the lead blur. "And we'll get someone from Fourth."
Using the grilles as a guide, Uryū made his way over to Sado. Up close, he could actually see his condition. "You look like you've been run over by a stampede of wild horses."
"More of a… very large arrancar," Sado said after a moment. "You look…"
Uryū looked like he'd had a Y-incision glued back together, was how he looked. "Yes."
One corner of the cell had a pull-chain shower and a drain, which had worrying implications about just how long Quincy had been held for experimentation in the past, but was useful to rinse off the last of the goo from the 'storage' pod. Uryū offered to help Sado over as well, but Sado refused. He didn't actually say he was refusing because he didn't think Uryū was up to the labor, so Uryū couldn't argue with him.
Probably not more than an hour later, a familiar-feeling shinigami-blur burst in. "Ishida-san! Sado-san!"
It took a moment to remember, but— "Hanatarō," Uryū said. "Can you tell us what's going on?"
"Ichigo?" Sado asked. "Inoue?"
"Abarai and Kuchiki?" Uryū added.
The blur wilted. "I don't know a lot," Hanatarō said. "But if you sit down and let me heal you I'll tell you what I can."
Abarai Renji
Renji woke up gasping, under the golden glow of Orihime's healing. The first few breaths were hard, but his throat opened up to normal and after that he was okay.
Well. His neck was okay. The rest of him still felt like it had before he'd been strangled with a whip, which wasn't okay unless you defined it as 'not dying'.
(Ordinarily Renji wouldn't dream of deliberately goading one of his own men into a violent outburst using his hard-won personal understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, but the nineteenth seat wasn't really one of his men anymore, was he. Besides, no one in the process of swearing allegiance to Aizen got to call him a faithless Rukongai dog. He hoped the asshole got punished for almost killing a useful prisoner.)
(He'd been 99% sure that if the goading resulted in serious injury they'd just heal him, and that 1% didn't really worry him, either.)
"Abarai-kun?" Orihime asked anxiously.
Renji opened his eyes all the way quickly, briefly afraid they'd brought her into the proving ground — she didn't need to see that. (No one needed to see that.) But no, it looked like… just some back hallway somewhere. Ulquiorra was looming over Orihime's shoulder. "Inoue-san," he said. "Thanks for the save."
"I'm sorry — they said — just the neck—"
"I'll probably see you again later," Renji said. "Whenever the… session is over."
"The… session," Orihime echoed faintly. "A few more hours, they said."
Renji felt sorry for whoever'd had to explain the whole proving ground setup to her. (Unless it had been Ulquiorra, then he felt sorry for Orihime. Sorrier.) Yesterday (he thought yesterday) she'd been numb with horror by the time she got to him, barely speaking at all. She looked… well, no, he couldn't really say she looked better now. "Did they at least save someone from Fourth Division for you to swap out with occasionally?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no. I think Fourth Division is needed to do… Fourth Division things? Because most of the Gotei 13 is still supposed to be functioning… as normally as possible, and they don't want Kotetsu-fukutaichō or anyone else finding out about… all this."
"Quiet, woman," Ulquiorra said sharply, dragging her away, barely letting her get her feet under her. "Don't exceed orders."
"Thanks, Inoue-san!" Renji called after them, hoping it wouldn't get her in more trouble. Because apparently they weren't supposed to know that the parts of the Gotei 13 not lining up to abuse their former commanders were alive and just… trying their best to do their duty in horrible circumstances. So every member of Sixth he didn't see, he could imagine was okay.
(He couldn't imagine it about Rukia, though, unseated officer or not. He'd seen the Espada who dragged her away, and the horror on her face when it did.)
Sado Yasutora
Hanatarō's explanations were delayed by a frankly ridiculous argument about who was more injured. Ishida had been cut open. A little trampling couldn't compare with that.
But, "Crush injuries can be very serious, Sado-san," Hanatarō said, eyes wide. "I need to at least check thoroughly." And then he claimed to have found internal injuries and spent at least an hour tending them.
Ishida looked — well, not smug, but it was a very "I told you so" look. And he tried to adjust his missing glasses again.
Of course after that Hanatarō had to check Ishida for internal injuries, and made a number of horrified faces over the incision. "I hate dealing with Twelfth Division," he whispered finally.
"I don't like them either," Ishida said, "but in strict fairness, this wasn't them."
Sado hadn't seen what Szayelaporro had been doing to Ishida — the arrancar had left him lying helpless in the hall — but he'd heard the shouts turning into strangled screams. Whatever it was, it had been bad.
"I think he's left something clamped onto your liver," Hanatarō said eventually.
Ishida tried to sit up, expression outraged. "He what?"
Hanatarō easily guided him back down to the cot. "Careful! But, um, I'm not sure… and if it's really there, I'd have to cut you open again to get it out…"
"And that might get you in trouble," Ishida said, frowning. "Better leave it."
"I could, um, tell Third Seat Akon about it?" Hanatarō said. "He could at least monitor to see if there are any, um, complications…"
"I'm not sure I want Twelfth monitoring me for anything," Ishida said testily. "Just… leave it. Did you say you knew something about Kurosaki and the others?"
Hanatarō gave him a look which was probably supposed to convey his full awareness that Ishida was just trying to change the subject, even if he was going with it, but Sado was pretty sure Ishida wouldn't be able to appreciate the expression unless it was right in his face. "They were saying Ichigo lost all his powers, which I think implies he's alive. I saw Rukia-san and Abarai-fukutaichō being carried off by arrancar, and someone said they didn't need to keep any Fourth Division people in the castle because Inoue-san would be there, so…"
"…Castle?" Ishida said.
"Oh, I guess you haven't seen it!" Hanatarō said. "It's, uh… Aizen-sama's new castle. Well, if you get a chance to look outside, um… It's on Sōkyoku Hill. You really can't miss it."
"Charming," Ishida muttered.
Hanatarō had brought patient robes from Fourth, which was good. Sado's clothing was torn up and bloody; Ishida's was mostly missing. Although he looked at least half-dressed with all the bandages even before he shrugged the robe on.
"…What are they going to do with us?" Sado asked.
Hanatarō slumped. "That… would probably be a question for Third Seat Akon, too. I know the Espada Szayelaporro will be in charge of the… research parts of Twelfth, that's all anyone here was talking about, but you… I'm sorry. I don't know." He lowered his voice. "Actually the rumor I heard coming in is that what Szayelaporro has to do in Hueco Mundo is try to… collect all of the… liquid that Kurotsuchi-taichō turned into. He sent Kurotsuchi-fukutaichō back to get a, um… a… wet-dry vacuum cleaner. To catch him. And sieving equipment, to get the sand out…"
Ishida started laughing and couldn't seem to stop even though it exacerbated his injuries (alarmingly), and then couldn't seem to stop crying (more alarmingly), and finally fell asleep.
"He seems, um…" Hanatarō said.
"Szayelaporro is…" Sado searched for words, and couldn't find them. "It's bad."
"Kurotsuchi," Ishida mumbled into the cot — apparently he wasn't asleep after all. "Wet-dry vacuum cleaner. It may not be much consolation, but I intend to treasure it."
Hinamori Momo
Kuchiki Yorimi, Kuchiki Atsuko, and one more. Ōmaeda had remembered the names of the two Kuchiki girls, but he couldn't place the third one, apart from 'not from an important family'. Sixteenth Seat Utsunomiya thought her family name was Hosokawa; Ōmaeda had agreed that was plausible, since they were an adjunct family to the Kuchiki. Hinamori had, very unfairly, wanted to shake both of them. It wasn't as if there was any other way they could have helped.
It was up to Fourth Division now. Isane had seemed optimistic when the emergency team left.
Hinamori wished she could be there. Or in the side ward with the other children left at Fourth, even if it meant dealing with all Rurichiyo's questions. Or back at Fifth, even if they were all crying again — especially if they were all crying again, the Third Seat wasn't trained to deal with that. Or at the lockup at Second, even if Fēng Xun bit her again.
Or back in the yoke meeting, or on the battlefield, or anywhere other than Aizen's throne room.
She'd preferred it before they'd been told to rise, because then it was easier to keep her eyes on the floor.
He looked so strange. He felt so strange. Aizen-taichō had always seemed warm and comforting, but the… the being standing over them seemed burning hot and burning cold. She wasn't sure which. Maybe both.
She should probably be paying less attention to what Aizen felt like and more to what Tōsen was saying.
"…It appears that individuals of lesser spiritual power may be seriously injured by the yoke," Tōsen said. "It may be prudent to redesign it."
"Hmm, yes," Aizen agreed. "Give Hinamori-kun the design materials. Hinamori-kun, please work on identifying the source of the problem and creating a new version with the same functionality, without serious injuries."
Her? But she wasn't— "H-hai, Aizen-sama," she stammered. "I-if, can I ask — how secret is the design? C-could I request assistance from others?" Nanao could—
"…No, I would prefer you not show the designs to anyone not a sworn shinigami or properly yoked."
"Hai, Aizen-sama." That… would make things harder. Isane at least would have been better able to pinpoint what was causing the injuries to begin with—
"If you particularly need someone's assistance, Hinamori-kun, there are a number of arrancar who would be willing to yoke them."
"No, thank you, Aizen-sama!" she said hastily. She couldn't throw anyone into that. "I'll… I can do it." Maybe she would ask Kira.
"Very good, Hinamori-kun." Aizen turned back to Tōsen. "I'm generally pleased with the progress in Seireitei. I have the first forty sworn loyal shinigami for you to allocate to the divisions. All of these were already shinigami, so should not require additional training."
Hinamori happened to be looking at Hisagi, and so caught the second for which he looked like he was about to throw up, before schooling his face to flat professionalism. What was that about?
Rather than look back at Aizen's feet, she inspected the rows of white-coated shinigami who dutifully trooped into the throne room, zanpakutō at their sides. Some of them looked a little overwhelmed by the ambient spiritual pressure, for which she couldn't blame them, even though Aizen was clearly suppressing it a lot. She spotted five, six… seven Fifth Division shinigami who'd gone up the hill, but none of the seated officers.
None of them would meet her eyes.
"Tōsen is in command of the Seireitei," Aizen said to the sworn shinigami. "He will be counting on you to help enforce the new order. Be worthy of his trust. And finally, you are not to reveal any information about the training of sworn shinigami to anyone not fully aware."
That was kind of odd. Wasn't it?
Hisagi didn't seem to think it was odd. But he wasn't happy with the sworn shinigami in general. Even more than she would have expected.
By the time they made it back down to First Division, Hinamori was certain that Hisagi knew something he wasn't telling her about the sworn shinigami.
Should she ask him?
He would tell her if it was something she needed to know, wouldn't he?
Tōsen had the sworn shinigami — a phrase which it was already getting annoying to repeat — stay out in First Division's practice yard, with actual First Division shinigami eying them from the buildings. He led Hisagi and Hinamori back into the captains' meeting hall. Everyone else was already there, standing in a clump, having an energetic conversation that cut off abruptly when they entered — when Tōsen entered — and the vice-captains and third seats fell into something resembling orderly lines.
"Hisagi tells me most of the divisions are in good order," Tōsen said. "This is good. We will resume normal operations within the next few days."
No one dared object to that openly, but from the way people glanced at the few zanpakutō in the room, Hinamori guessed they wanted to say the lack of shikai was likely to be a problem. But the sworn shinigami would help with that, hopefully…
"The first of those who have willingly sworn allegiance to Aizen-sama have returned," Tōsen announced, which got everyone's complete attention. "Those belonging to an extant division will return there. The others will be divided up evenly."
"So the unaffiliated ones are even, or the… whitecoats overall are even?" Hisagi said. "I don't know what the spread on those forty is, but how many went from various divisions was very uneven."
"…As evenly as possible," Tōsen amended. "Each division is to have at least three shikai available."
Akon raised his hand. "Tōsen-sama, my understanding from Kurotsuchi-fukutaichō — before she had to leave again — is that Twelfth Division is to be reduced to its scientific and research functions, when, um, Szayelaporro-sama takes over. Accordingly, our non-research officers should be reassigned to other divisions."
"Szayelaporro," Tōsen said after a pause. "Yes. That reallocation is approved."
So, add 'Szayelaporro' to the list of Espada Tōsen did not care for and/or respect, along with Nnoitra and Grimmjow.
"We should have gotten a list of names earlier," Hisagi muttered under his breath. "Should I… call in the whitecoats by division?" Tōsen made a gesture that Hinamori wouldn't have known how to interpret, but Hisagi just nodded and stepped out, and she heard, "Sworn shinigami from First Division please enter!"
There was one. One. Third Seat Okikiba looked… concerned. "We had more than—" he started, but Hisagi cut him off and called for Second Division.
There were three from Second Division, or rather Onmitsukidō. (Ōmaeda didn't look overjoyed that they were summarily assigned to him, and they might not either — it was hard to tell.) Another three from Third, then none from Fourth, and her seven from Fifth. Who still wouldn't meet her eyes. Four from Sixth, one each from Seventh and Eighth — Eighth was their Third Seat, whose name she really ought to be able to remember but couldn't. (He never looked away from his zanpakutō for long, but gave Nanao a look that had her frowning deeply.) Eight from Ninth, one from Tenth, one from Twelfth who probably wouldn't be going back to Twelfth, and none from Thirteenth.
The last ten were from Eleventh, and didn't seem quite as… subdued as most of the others.
This was going to be a headache to sort out.
Kurosaki Ichigo
Nothing mattered anymore.
Or, no — it didn't matter anymore what happened to Ichigo.
"I thought you might be bored all alone in this cell, Urahara, so I brought something to show you. I woke him up specially."
It didn't matter that his powers were gone, because he didn't deserve them if he couldn't save anyone. He couldn't stand the thought of facing Zangetsu in failure anyway. His Hollow would devour him whole, and he'd have every right to, but then he might hurt other people, so it was just as well he was gone. Ichigo had no right to feel bad.
"So easy to wind him up and make him go — I'm curious, do you feel bad about doing this to him? Because you know the injuries aren't what broke him."
It didn't matter that he was a slave to the yoke around his neck. He deserved it. It didn't matter that sometimes it hurt so much he thought he would die. He deserved that, too.
"He's not as entertaining as he used to be, is he. But some of the arrancar seem to find a use for him."
Grimmjow showed up in his cell and challenged him to a fight, offered to take it easy on him until he got his powers back. But there was no point. He did resist, feebly, when Grimmjow pinned him down and tore his clothes off and — and — and—
"Do you remember Grimmjow, Hirako-taichō? You have him to thank for Kurosaki's current inability to walk."
But it didn't matter, if Grimmjow fucked him. He was a slave, and god knew he was useless for anything else.
"Do you regret doing this to him, Hirako-taichō?"
He'd failed.
Everyone in Karakura was dead. Worse than dead.
"I have a patient for you to assess, Dr. Kurosaki. I patched over the shock from the power loss, all the internal injuries have been healed, but he's still unresponsive."
His sisters were dead.
That was the only thing that mattered.
Kotetsu Isane
Isane didn't know every single Eleventh Division member by sight, or even all the ones who harassed Fourth Division members (which wasn't really all of them, it just felt like it), but she recognized the worst offenders.
The 'sworn shinigami' previously from Eleventh Division? All but one among that set of worst offenders. Fortunately Tōsen had agreed Fourth didn't have as urgent a requirement for shikai, or she'd have had to bring some of them back with her. As it was, the meeting (vice-captains' meeting? organizational meeting? leadership meeting?) had been over for not quite ninety minutes when the first ex-Eleventh whitecoat swaggered into Fourth looking for trouble.
"Sure, you brushed me off before, but I'm First Division now," he was saying to the beleaguered desk officer when Isane hurried in. "The top loyal officer there. So, you losers had better do what I say now."
"If you have any injuries, we can attend to that," Isane said. "If you have maintenance requests, submit them to Third Seat Okikiba and they will be addressed according to standard procedures."
"I'm a sworn shinigami—"
"Any maintenance requests from Tōsen-sama are of course given top priority," Isane said firmly. He hadn't made any, as far as she knew — he seemed to prefer delegating clean-up tasks to arrancar — but it was still true. "But they have to go through proper channels."
He tried to loom over her, and for once Isane appreciated her height, because he failed miserably and just loomed… at her. He laid a hand ostentatiously on the hilt of his zanpakutō. "I… have my weapon."
To push back or not to push back? If it came down to it, would Tōsen support a whitecoat pushing people around, or come down hard on an ex-Eleventh shinigami pushing people around? He'd never liked Eleventh Division much, but he let them have the sworn shinigami status, and predicting what Tōsen would do was a fool's game these days… "What do you want?"
"I want—"
Hinamori walked in the front doors, followed by Gantenbainne again. "Oh, Isane, you're — what's going on?"
There was a long, awkward silence. The whitecoat looked shiftily from Isane to Hinamori to Gantenbainne, then back to Isane. "…I was just leaving."
Isane, Hinamori, the desk officer, and Gantenbainne watched him sidle out. His walk changed to a swagger before the door even closed behind him.
"What was that about?" Hinamori asked.
"He was just… throwing his weight around." Isane bit her lip. "I don't want to complain to Tōsen-sama. Not unless it gets… much more serious."
"I see," Hinamori said. "Well — if you're sure. Let me know if you want me to help."
"I will," Isane said, and knew she was lying. Hinamori was spread thin already. "If you're here to check on the… patients freed from the yoke, they're doing well. The initial crisis was the worst."
"I'm so glad," Hinamori said. "Yes, I should talk to them, and the other children — I should be able to take them off your hands soon."
"Oh good," Isane said before she could stop herself. "Um — I mean — it's just that we're not set up for such a large number of non-injured children at one time — or even injured children really — um — so where are you going to put them? Not First?"
Hinamori stifled a giggle. "That was discussed, actually! But Tōsen decided that would give them an inflated sense of their own importance. Or it may have had something to do with hearing the crying when he walked past Fifth…"
Isane called a nurse to show Hinamori to the patients, and the other children. Gantenbainne paused before following them, though.
"I think you should talk to Tōsen-sama, Kotetsu-fukutaichō," he said. "I can't speak for shinigami, but Hollows would have to have it made clear to them that they can't prey on the weak or someone stronger will punish them. Even when the weak will help them when they need it most."
Kuchiki Rukia
"So, Kuchiki, was it as good as you imagined?"
No one named Kuchiki here. Just a girl from Inuzuri, where sometimes bad things happened to girls, and they got up and went on anyway. Because they were tough. They endured. She would endure. She would endure.
(No one named Kuchiki ever imagined anything anyway, it would have been wrong—)
Someone else came into the room. Girls from Inuzuri were aware of their surroundings.
"Hey, Aaroniero, I think you broke her."
(That voice was familiar… from a street in the Living World where someone named Kuchiki had been…)
"What are you doing here, Grimmjow? This is my territory! Go… fight with Luppi!"
(Right. Grimmjow. Blue-haired Espada.)
"Convenient for me, though!" A hand smacked down on the back of her neck, and then fire around her neck, across her shoulders, constricting and sinking teeth into her flesh, her sprit energy, her will—
She screamed and convulsed, and then kept shaking. Was this what a seizure felt like?
When she could hear again, Aaroniero was shouting. "She was ours, Grimmjow, we took her, you can't just walk in and—"
"You didn't get a yoke on her, and I outrank you, so fuck off." Grimmjow grabbed her around the waist and heaved her over his shoulder.
"Do you even want her?"
Grimmjow slapped her ass. "She might put up a decent fight when she's not broken… but that doesn't matter. She's mine now. Too slow, you lose. Go find something else to play with."
The door slammed behind them, cutting off Aaroniero's high-pitched frustrated wail.
All right. This was… different.
She still needed to be a girl from Inuzuri, but away from Aaroniero's lies, she could probably be someone named Kuchiki, too. Rukia lifted a shaking hand to her face and rubbed at her eyes. "What… what did you do to me?"
"Yoked you. I've got a use for you."
"I don't… know what that means."
He laughed, very unhelpfully.
Gingerly, Rukia felt at her neck and shoulders. There was… something there? It felt like slightly raised scars, maybe, but in a complex pattern. It didn't go all the way around her neck, there was a gap at the front, but it went about halfway down her shoulders. If it was called a yoke, it was almost certainly for control. Would it just punish her, or actually compel her? Crap.
She peeled her eyes open, then closed them immediately before she could get dizzy staring down Grimmjow's back at the rapidly moving floor. Where were they? Not Las Noches, she didn't think, but there was still a lot of white stone around.
"Hey! Where's the healing woman?" Grimmjow called to someone.
"Uh, in a suite in Ulquiorra's tower — but she's supposed to be, like, resting or something—"
Grimmjow slapped Rukia's ass again. "This is a friend of hers, I'm sure she won't mind."
"But Ulquiorra—"
The world lurched, almost but not quite like being carried in a flash-step — sonido, she assumed — and she had to close her eyes. A minute later, she was being tossed down on — a couch, it was a couch.
"Hey, woman! Come fix up your friend! Don't touch the yoke."
"Rukia!" Orihime sounded like she'd already been crying. "Sōten Kisshun! Rukia, you — what did you do to her?"
"Nothing, yet." Grimmjow sounded very pleased with himself.
"I'm all right," Rukia whispered, even though it was obviously untrue. She could feel the warm glow of Orihime's healing, though, taking the injuries away, and she opened her eyes all the way. Orihime was crying, and it looked like she had been for some time. "I'm all right."
The shield faded before all of the aches and pains did, and Orihime's face crumpled further. "They're just so tired — I'll try again."
"No, that's fine," Rukia said, and managed to smile. Her face was much less swollen. She was cleaner. The rejection had even mended her shredded shitagi, and she shifted to tug it closed. Too bad the rest of her shihakushō was missing. "That's much better. Thank you, Orihime."
Orihime threw her arms around her. "I'm so sorry."
Rukia hugged back, just an uncomplicated painless caring hug, and tried to memorize the feeling because she knew she wasn't out of the fire yet and she didn't think Grimmjow would linger long. "I'm sorry too. It's not your fault. It's not either of our faults. We just have to be strong and keep going." She would not cry. She would not cry.
"All right, shinigami girl, time to go," Grimmjow said. "Come here."
The thing on her shoulders seemed to heat and tighten even as her legs moved without any conscious decision. "Goodbye, Orihime." She gave her friend's hand a last squeeze. "I hope we see each other again."
Orihime cried. Rukia did not blame her at all.
Out in the hall, Rukia was forced to jog to keep up with Grimmjow, and the yoke never stopped its dull burn. "Is it supposed to be punishing me when I'm doing what you say?" she asked.
He waved a hand. "Whatever. Shit, Ulquiorra's back." He picked her up again and launched into another sonido.
When the world stabilized again, she could feel a breeze against her face, it was twilight, and…
Seireitei? Were they on Sōkyoko Hill? That was what the perspective seemed to be. There was smoke rising from—
Sonido again. Again. Again.
They stopped in front of a house, and Grimmjow dropped her on her feet. (Her bare feet.) "So here's the deal, shinigami girl. I want a rematch with Kurosaki, but right now he's in no condition to fight anything and is acting all… wussy."
Considering that Karakura Town had been destroyed, she didn't have any trouble believing Ichigo was… somewhat demoralized. "He was badly hurt?"
"Lost his powers or some shit, I don't know. Bastard should get over it if he tries."
…That was bizarrely likely to be true.
"But from what I saw he's not trying anything, he's just fucking around crying. So he has to be motivated, and Ulquiorra's not letting go of the healing woman even if Aizen's done with her, so that's where you come in."
"You… want me to give Ichigo a pep talk?" She should be so lucky.
Grimmjow laughed. "You can do that if you want, but I think I'll be placing my bets on him shaping up to get you away from my boys. Inside."
She followed him, yoke burning. "Your… boys?"
"My fraccion. Aizen brought 'em all back." He shoved her in the door, and waved at the five arrancar standing in the front hall. "Shawlong Koufang, Edrad Liones, Nakeem Grindina, Yylfordt Granz… and I hope you remember Di Roy Rinker."
Yes. She did.
It looked like he remembered her, too.
Grimmjow shoved her forward. "I need to see what else our glorious leader has for me. Have some fun, boys! But do not break her."
Shit.
Well, at least none of them were wearing the face of someone she admired.
Also, she wasn't seriously wounded anymore, and Grimmjow hadn't actually ordered her not to fight back. Or could the fraccion order her? One way to find out.
As it turned out, the fraccion could only give orders if they actually had a hand on (in?) the yoke, which was definitely close enough for her to get some good hits in, especially when they had to handle her with some care.
Shawlong eventually declared the "fun" over with, probably tired of having to wade in to subdue her — he seemed to be the only one who was any good with the yoke, and he also seemed to feel the whole thing was beneath his dignity. He dragged her to a side room and lashed her wrists to a hook pounded into a support beam.
"Dat bitch broke by dose!" Edrad complained in the hall.
That had been a pretty good shot. Not as good as when she'd planted a heel in Di Roy's hollow hole, though. Their hierro had left her hands and feet scraped up, but the bastards had felt it when she hit them. Ha.
"Grimmjow is going to say you deserve whatever you get dealing with an unarmed shinigami chick…"
"But we couldn't hurt her too bad!"
"We need a better strategy for this…"
For the future. Damn them all.
But at least none of them was wearing a stolen face. She'd endure. And when she saw Ichigo again, she'd make him endure, too.
Unohana Retsu
Unohana had never used a disguise gigai before — one that not only concealed spiritual pressure, but looked nothing at all like the shinigami wearing it. It was quite uncomfortable. According to Yoruichi, you could get a disguise gigai that was more comfortable, but only custom-designed, and Unohana's was one of a bunch of very generic ones. It looked like a very boring middle-aged man. So did Yoruichi's.
"One of us should have taken the provocative foreign tourist lady gigai," Yoruichi said, after they'd checked into the hotel. "We're attracting too much attention like this."
"Hmmm," Unohana said. "I hope we aren't going to be hiding like this too long, Shihōin-san? You did say this was a temporary measure…"
"Maybe a week, to make sure we aren't being followed," Yoruichi said. "I need to be sure we're not leading anyone to the backup site. Tessai would never forgive me if I brought Aizen down on Jinta and Ururu."
Unohana was practically itching to get to the backup site, with Tsukabishi and (Yoruichi claimed) some impressive intelligence-gathering tools that could be aimed at Seireitei, and commence doing something, but she had to respect the sentiment.
…She wished she knew which side of her would be needed, to win the war. It would make it easier to get — or stay — in the proper mindset.
No matter which side she ended up using, though, she would make anyone who laid a finger on Fourth Division in general or Isane in particular regret ever being born.