See first chapter for warnings. Delayed again, but I think I've figured out how to make this work. Shame I can't edit in situ, but oh well.
Inoue Orihime
Ulquiorra had only scoffed a little at Orihime's timid request for a blank book that she could keep a journal in. He'd coldly pointed out that nothing she wrote would be private, that he would read the book any time he liked and show it to anyone else he wanted. Which was the case whatever he said, so really, telling her that was being kind! And when she said she wanted a journal anyway, he even got a notebook and pen from Twelfth, so it would be more what she was used to, and not the old-fashioned things a lot of Seireitei used!
Ulquiorra was very kind to her, when he wasn't being terrifying. Or creepy. Or cold. All right, maybe it would be more accurate to say Ulquiorra was occasionally kind to her.
Since she had no expectation of privacy, she didn't write down anything about her secret plan to make someone happy every day. She wrote things Ulquiorra would know anyway. She just… wrote about her day.
Orihime was "on call" all the time. Aizen-sama had offered to give her some real downtime, during which he would deal with any critical injuries, but she'd seen people suffering through Aizen-sama's imitation of her powers — they mostly looked like they would rather have stayed injured. The prisoners were going through hell already. She wasn't sure she could live with herself if she just let it get worse.
Critical injuries were easier to deal with in some ways. She could just pretend it was the result of a really ugly battle. And the person was usually unconscious so she didn't have to say anything.
But every evening she made a round of all the prisoners. They were returned to their sekkiseki cells, hosed off, healed by Orihime, and then they got food and were usually allowed to sleep. She tried to tell herself she was ushering in the best part of their day. It never helped as much as she hoped it would.
Tōshirō usually wasn't hurt very badly. He always had bruises, and torn up wrists and ankles, but sometimes that was it. But not always, and sometimes he'd have Luppi days. About half the time Luppi days led to a critical injury; the other half she usually found Tōshirō crumpled on the floor of his cell by the door, unable to move. It was almost more worrying when he was unable to move without any injuries to explain it — he just mumbled something about yokes and Aizen's healing. Overall he never said much, but he always thanked her before she left.
Rangiku spoke more. Sometimes she'd ask how Orihime was holding up, or what the weather was like outside, or she'd make jokes about the Exequias. She sometimes had Luppi days, too, but otherwise her injuries at least weren't life-threatening.
Renji was hurt worse. He was badly beaten almost every day, and there were the internal injuries she didn't need to know about in detail in order to heal. Sometimes he was so angry he could barely speak, but it never did any good. He'd thank her, too, and smile at her, sort of.
Ikkaku was so angry, all the time. Sometimes she didn't think he even recognized her.
Ukitake-san was sick most of the time, and getting sicker, and she couldn't seem to help. He smiled and told her she shouldn't worry too much about it — it was the sekkiseki weakening him, that was all — and her help with the symptoms was more than enough. He usually wasn't hurt much besides being sick.
Suì-Fēng-san and Byakuya-san were like Renji, always hurt badly. Suì-Fēng was… hard to deal with. She seemed to be angry at everything and everyone including Orihime. She acted like she considered Orihime her enemy. It was scary. Byakuya was so cold and remote — he acted like he didn't notice anything around him.
Kyōraku-san was in the middle, not hurt as often as Renji or Suì-Fēng or Byakuya but more often than Tōshirō. But he always had a smile and a terrible joke for her.
Komamura-san usually wasn't hurt as badly, but he was often very upset, because Tōsen-sama would come visit him and try to convince him to… change allegiance. He was polite, except when he seemed to be having trouble finding his words, and even then he was never threatening towards her.
She wouldn't know Sasakibe-san's name if others hadn't mentioned it. He… didn't seem to be paying attention, exactly.
(Ichigo had been worse, before they stopped bringing him to her. She hoped it meant Grimmjow had taken him to Seireitei, and maybe Rukia could look after him. He needed looking after — she'd never seen Ichigo like that.) (Her prayers had not been granted.)
The prisoners who weren't put in the proving ground didn't have such a fixed schedule. Sometimes Aizen or the arrancar would torture them, sometimes they didn't.
Aizen went and talked to, or maybe she should say at, Urahara-san almost every day, she was pretty sure. Sometimes it was just talking, or Aizen would bring a board game? (Aizen was very confusing in addition to being terrifying.) But sometimes Aizen would break his fingers, or choke him. At least the arrancar mostly didn't seem to be allowed to hurt Urahara-san, that was something. Yammy stomped on him once, but that was about it, and the only critical injury he'd had (so far).
Aizen didn't go talk to Shinji-san so much, only now and then, but he sent arrancar to his cell a lot. Shinji-san would be hurt very badly, and then he wouldn't even have a chance to clean up for days and days. Aizen laughed at him and taunted him a lot. ("Did you see this coming, Hirako-taichō?") The other Visored didn't get hurt as much, except when Aizen had them tortured in front of Shinji-san.
Hachi-san told her they'd been told they'd be given to Szayelaporro for experimentation, when he got back from Hueco Mundo. So Orihime had told him about how the reason Szayelaporro was still in Hueco Mundo was he had to catch Kurotsuchi-taichō with a wet-dry vac. That had made him laugh.
(She felt a little bad about using Kurotsuchi-taichō's predicament to cheer up so many people. Only a little, though.)
(She didn't write down what Ulquiorra said about Ichimaru-sama being a traitor, and being imprisoned in the Royal Realm along with the former head captain. She wasn't sure if he was supposed to have told her that, and she didn't want to get him in trouble or anything.)
Kira Izuru
After the latest day fighting far too many Hollows far too close to Seireitei, Isane had wanted to keep Kira at the Fourth overnight, nominally for observation but mostly to rest. Charlotte would have allowed it — as long as you didn't insult Charlotte's self-image he could be very generous — but not Findorr. Isane hadn't been able to overrule Findorr's insistence that Kira return to Baraggan's… lair, but had emphasized that he was still recovering and any "rough handling" could render him unfit for duty in the morning. Findorr had grumbled but agreed to make sure Kira got actual rest.
Sadly this took the form of a sign hanging around Kira's neck which read "hands off tonight or Fourth Division will bitch you out". He vowed silently never to tell Isane about it.
"Maybe I'll ask Baraggan-sama if I can go out and grab a girl," Findorr said grouchily. "I am not in the mood for sarcasm this evening."
Kira winced. He hated that his own reprieves always seemed to be paid for with someone else's suffering. Bad enough when it was Yumichika, but at least Kira could be confident he'd pay him back soon enough. But when the fraccion went out and grabbed some unfortunate civilian… They usually released them at the end of the night, at least. But sooner or later they'd probably find someone Baraggan liked enough to be worth the trouble of yoking someone more fragile.
Not waiting to see whether Baraggan would approve Findorr's request, Kira retreated upstairs. He could probably get some uninterrupted sleep in what had once been the maids' room. He was distracted by Ōmaeda cursing quietly down the hall. That was a surprise — usually he avoided this floor and his family's rooms like the plague.
"Ōmaeda-san? Are you — is this Mareyo-chan's room?" It had to be. "Are you getting something to bring to her?"
For all he'd dragged his heels about going to see her to begin with, seeing his sister seemed to have done Ōmaeda a world of good — made him willing to put in the effort to stay sane under Baraggan's abuse. …Or else it was Kurosaki Ichigo's lecture about the responsibilities of older brothers. That might be more likely.
"They don't have much clothing her size," Ōmaeda said distractedly. "Mostly only older children packed at all, and some of them can fit academy uniforms, but — well, she needs clothes, but I don't know what to bring. I know what her favorite kimono is, but I don't know if I should take it — there's some horrible little Fēng child going around slashing up any clothing they don't think is practical enough."
"Maybe not that, then," Kira agreed. "If they're short on clothes that size generally, maybe just everything plain she has? So she can share with other kids her age?"
Ōmaeda frowned, hopefully not at the thought of sharing. "Maybe… What about toys?"
"Nothing too big. Things she could hide easily if she had to." This wasn't really Kira's area of expertise. "Are they allowed books?"
"Mareyo-chan doesn't have a lot of books." Ōmaeda looked dubious. "There are Marejirōsabu's books, but Mareyo-chan really doesn't like those."
"Maybe just stick to clothes and toys to start with, then."
Kira helped go through the clothes, picking only things simple enough that they wouldn't look out of place on a servant or a child in the inner Rukongai. There wasn't a lot, but Mareyo was young enough to have play clothes. He guessed more modern, Living-World-type clothing would also be allowable, but there wasn't any. The toys were mostly dolls — though hilariously, there was one doll which was clearly meant to look like Suì-Fēng. Since there wasn't any baggage obvious, Kira showed Ōmaeda how to roll up everything in bedding and tie it into bundles.
"Do you have any relatives there?" Ōmaeda asked when they were done.
"Possibly, of some degree. No one I know at all, though." Which reminded him— "Ise-fukutaichō has cousins there, doesn't she? The children of the woman Nnoitra yoked."
"I only met one of them." Ōmaeda frowned darkly. "She'd told Mareyo-chan all sorts of terrifying stories. But I think she knows a little too much about what happened to her mother."
That would be bad. Nnoitra even managed to make Baraggan look… well, not good, but… reasonable, maybe. On the other hand Nnoitra probably didn't invite his fraccion to participate.
As if summoned by the thought, there was a… sex bellow… from downstairs. Nirgge? Oh dear.
Ōmaeda frowned. "Why aren't you down there? Not to imply you're meant to be—"
Kira pointed to the sign.
"…Oh."
Kyōraku Shunsui
After the "demonstration" with Sasakibe and Ichigo, Shunsui put some thought into long-term planning.
Item: Things just carrying on the way they were wouldn't break him. (Or Jū or Suì-Fēng, and the others weren't broken yet.)
Item: Aizen could assuredly break any of them, given sufficient imagination, effort, and Kyoka Suigetsu. He just didn't seem to be interested in doing that, at the moment. Was it more fun to do things the hard way? Or maybe coming up with detailed personalized illusion regimens would actually be the hard way?
Item: Aizen hadn't said what exactly he planned on doing with them when they were yoked. He'd implied he'd have them back at work in the Gotei 13, but he hadn't stated anything.
(Sub-item: Their old positions looked unlikely at this point. Someone as broken as Sasakibe was wouldn't be able to lead anything. And trying to lead the "sworn shinigami" would be… challenging, for anyone. Shunsui wouldn't enjoy it, but he could do it. Jūshirō could probably do it without plotting insidious revenge even. The others… well, it wouldn't be impossible, but it would be difficult and unpleasant all around.)
The best thing for one's mental health would probably be to accept the yoke the first chance one got and get the hell out of the proving ground. Even being an arrancar's toy would most likely be preferable to your own troops— Well.
The trouble was, there wasn't any guarantee they wouldn't be ordered to hurt people. In fact, it would be safer to guess they would. And for the most part those were people who would be getting hurt anyway, but not quite everyone was captured, not quite everyone was under Aizen's control, and being forced to work against whatever resistance there was… Even if it was ultimately unavoidable, not accepting the yoke was a delaying action.
He was probably just mentally inflating his own importance. If Aizen really wanted someone to use against Yoruichi, Urahara was the obvious choice. He should just accept the yoke, if he got the chance.
If.
Kurosaki Ichigo
(Some days were bad.)
"Shit, I'm sorry," Ichigo said. He tried to help Rukia up, but she turned out to be steadier on her feet than he was. (He guessed they'd had plenty of practice hurting her without injuring her too badly.) (Damn them.) "I'm so sorry, Rukia, are you—" He stopped himself. It was a stupid question, and he knew what she'd say anyway.
"Bath time," Rukia said.
"…What?"
"You'll feel better. Or at least I always feel better."
He would have expected sharing a tub to be more awkward, especially under the circumstances, but he was just too tired to be embarrassed. And he did feel better clean.
He didn't feel better about letting that happen to Rukia, though. "I'm so sorry," he repeated a while later. "They wanted me to do chores and I said I wasn't their slave labor, which was… really stupid and probably wrong, but… I won't do it again."
"It's okay," Rukia said. "You're not going to be able to do everything they want, every time. Sometimes they just… want an excuse."
"…I know." He did know — he'd dealt with bullies his whole life. He just… needed to get stronger, to be able to deal with this level of bully. "I'll try harder anyway."
"I wouldn't expect anything else."
Ise Nanao
Nanao couldn't recall visiting the Ninth Division captain's office any time recently, but she suspected it had had some sort of desk, and the long table and chairs were new. Hisagi was just setting out — was that sake? (She'd had more alcohol in the last several weeks than in her entire life before, she was pretty sure, but she refused to drink enough to numb things. She suspected she wouldn't be able to stop.)
"You sent a hell butterfly?" she asked, when he didn't seem to have noticed her.
He jumped. "Sorry, didn't see you there. Yes. It occurred to be that since the meetings with Tōsen-sama tend to be a little, um, tense, it might be helpful to have seperate division leadership meetings, especially beforehand to go over the agenda and what to expect… as much as I know, anyway. Maybe meet more often, since Tōsen-sama is spacing his meetings out more now. I didn't want to, um, presume to use the vice-captains' meeting room, since this isn't exactly formal, and also First Division is… The castle is distracting."
Ah. "Excellent idea."
The castle's oppressiveness was probably why Okikiba was the next one there. He went for the sake immediately. Then Iba arrived, followed by Isane, then Sentarō and Kiyone. Hopefully those two wouldn't be disruptive. Third Seat Aoyama Kintarō was currently leading Tenth, and doing… moderately well at it. Nanao knew he'd been going to Iba for advice often. Out from under Tōsen's… observation, Shirogane Ginjirō apparently felt free to give Hisagi a nasty look. Akon brought his own beverage, something unidentifiable in a bottle.
Kira and Ōmaeda arrived together. They were both wearing hats.
"Uh…" Iba started, but Kira held up a hand.
"Charlotte decided to try shinigami hairdressing. Please don't ask for details."
"And we got off lightly compared to Ayasegawa," Ōmaeda muttered. "I don't get why those two annoy each other so much, they're practically the same person."
Kira cringed. "Never ever say that where either of them can hear you. Or any of the other fraccion, they'd tell."
Personally Nanao guessed that it would get back to Ayasegawa, if not Chuhlhourne, inside of a few days. Not that any of the division leaders were habitually indiscreet, exactly, but they did tend to gossip. Nanao herself was already thinking of relaying it to Lisa, and from there it might spread to Mashiro and Hiyori, and then Harribel's fraccion, and then you might as well put it in the Seireitei Communication. (She hadn't seen that since the takeover, or been asked for a contribution — had Hisagi given up on it? Maybe he just hadn't had time.)
Hinamori trudged in with dark circles around her eyes and a clearly forced smile. "Hope I haven't been holding things up! The children had, uh, a lot of questions about the, um, educational materials Tōsen-sama provided."
"No, we were just getting started," Hisagi said.
Without being asked, Isane handed Hinamori a reiatsu-replenishing pill.
"Wait, what kind of educational materials?" Ōmaeda asked suspiciously.
"Um, I don't think you need to worry about it—"
"If you're making Mareyo-chan listen to, to propaganda about—"
"It's not going to do anything to your sister except possibly put her to sleep," Hisagi interrupted.
"How do you know?" Ōmaeda demanded.
"Because we had to print it," Hisagi said. "It's just all his old Path of Justice articles compiled, Ōmaeda."
That certainly wasn't going to brainwash anyone. Although it seemed like it might be a little — abstract, for children Mareyo's age. (If Noriyo and Katae had the Ise critical attitude, they were probably getting extremely sarcastic right now.)
"All right, business," Hisagi said. "Ōmaeda-fukutaichō, I know Second's not up to field deployment right now, but we're going to need to rotate you and Ayasegawa as shikai reinforcements. Tōsen-sama hasn't decided exactly how to set it up, yet, but it's coming."
"I will be glad to," Ōmaeda said. "Give me something I can smash. Please."
"How's Ayasegawa-san working out in Second?" Nanao asked.
Ōmaeda scowled. "Indecently well, the cunning little bastard. If he didn't make so many people hate him the Stealth Force would want him in charge."
"That's Yumichika for you," Iba said.
"What was he doing in Eleventh to start with?" Ōmaeda said. "He's smart enough to get in a — a proper — in not Eleventh."
"Ikkaku," Iba said simply. "He'd never leave him. And also he likes feeling like the smartest person in a room."
"And the false shikai thing—"
"Setting aside Ayasegawa and his — his shikai," Hisagi said, grimacing. "Twelfth — any progress explaining the Hollow incursions?"
Akon drank from his bottle. "Strange readings everywhere, but especially around the castle, at least from those sensors it didn't break when it showed up. Can't say more about that unless we have a sensor in the castle, which I don't think is going to happen. So we're monitoring the Precipice World."
"So no progress," Hisagi said.
"We got our alert times down to inside a minute, which is pretty good for people living in fear of being eaten as soon as their new boss finishes vacuuming up their old boss." Akon knocked back another drink. That wasn't alcoholic, was it? "I swear he was eying up the lab personnel before he got down to Quincy-torturing this time…"
"…Right." Hisagi looked down at his notes. "A question for everyone — how are things with the sworn shinigami?"
"We're still having problems," Isane said immediately. "Not so much at the Division itself, since Gantenbainne-san started stopping by regularly, but officers are still being accosted elsewhere, especially after dark. If there's going to be an enforced curfew with exception passes, can we just get it set up?"
Nanao was beginning to suspect Gantenbainne-san had a bit of a thing for Isane. Or maybe he was just grateful, because she'd helped save his life in Las Noches? Or both? Well, she'd keep an eye on the situation.
"Are you sure we can't just lose the curfew instead?" Iba asked. "It's… I don't know, do they really even think it's necessary? Do they think we become extra-suspicious after dark or something?"
Hisagi frowned. "Um… technically… there isn't a global curfew for shinigami. Civilians are supposed to be off the streets after dark, and anyone, um, under an Espada's direct command has individual rules to follow, but most shinigami should be free to move around."
Nanao raised an eyebrow. "If that's supposed to be the state of affairs, I think there are quite a few sworn shinigami and arrancar who need to be advised of it."
"So… clarify curfew all around," Hisagi said. "All right, that's no problem to ask for. But people with sworn shinigami in their divisions — how's that going?" He looked around the table.
"Third Seat Enjōji swore, and has been handling all the others at Eighth," Nanao said. "It's… manageable. I suspect there have been some issues he hasn't wanted to worry me with, with the ones who came from other divisions originally, but nothing's gotten out of control so far." After a moment, in the interests of honesty, she added, "It probably doesn't hurt that Lisa-san is around a lot, too, and a lot of them find her intimidating and, um, don't think the Tercera would do anything about it if she flattened them."
"We've been leaning on Yadōmaru-san a bit, too," Kiyone admitted. She was only glaring at Hisagi a little bit. "Her and Kuchiki Rukia. To intimidate the sworn shinigami into respecting our authority, I mean — or at least out of openly challenging us. Do we have the authority to promote people? Because Kuchiki's definitely doing seated officer levels of work."
"If it weren't someone with the name Kuchiki, I'd say something could probably be arranged," Hisagi said. "Since it is, better leave it alone."
"Even though she's adopted? Well, anyway, we're managing."
"We're having trouble," Iba admitted reluctantly. "Nothing I can't handle, but they're acting up."
"I'm not sure I can handle it," Aoyama said bluntly. "Even some of the ones from Tenth originally — I don't know what's gotten into them."
Shirogane just frowned and shook his head, which wasn't very informative.
Okikiba sighed. "I'm sure you've all noticed many of them seem to have the idea that being in First Division confers special privileges…"
"Ayasegawa has them all terrorized into submission, pretty much," Ōmaeda said.
"The sworn shinigami originally from Third are working out fine," Kira said. "The new ones are… pushier. And then the ones from Third push back." He sighed. "And then inevitably someone starts a fight about Ichimaru — do you know what that means, anyway? I mean — the yokes require Aizen-sama, Tōsen-sama, nothing about Ichimaru."
"Oh." Hisagi frowned. "I'm… not completely sure about that. I… think Ichimaru might have betrayed him? Possibly? Tōsen-sama was… cryptic."
"You didn't tell me that," Hinamori said, mildly surprised.
He shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm not completely sure."
Nanao frowned. "If that's the case, it casts a… potentially more ominous light on why they haven't returned Rangiku-san."
"Hmm," Hisagi said. "So how are repairs going?"
Not as ominous a light as Hisagi's evasiveness did, though.
Ishida Uryū
Uryū had no idea why Szayelaporro had to come torment him every time he visited Seireitei. Sure, he was the last Quincy (except for Ryūken, but fuck him anyway), but he couldn't possibly be the most interesting thing in all of Twelfth Division! Wouldn't he at least want to familiarize himself with their ongoing research? And there had to be literally dozens of administrative items that needed the attention of the head of research.
Uryū was lucid enough to realize the shortness of breath and heart palpitations probably meant the Twelfth Division person shouldn't have slathered on the topical analgesic after Szayelaporro left. He couldn't bring himself to care. He hoped some of it did get in an improperly sealed incision, then maybe everything would hurt less. Because shit did everything hurt.
As far as he could tell, his body knew it was wildly inappropriate for someone to be… fondling his internal organs, but none of the normal feedback systems were equipped to report that sort of problem, so it was panicking and reporting pain everywhere, on top of the actual pain from being cut open.
(Why did he even know he didn't have normal pain receptors in his internal organs? He didn't want to be a doctor. Ryūken had probably told him. Sometime inappropriate. Probably over dinner when he was a small child.)
They figured out something was wrong when he started seizing, and hosed him off and sent for Fourth Division. Uryū didn't care. He was still mostly numb.
This time Hanatarō was accompanied by an older woman who specialized in treating overdoses. She did some kind of healing kidō while haranguing the Twelfth Division people. "Anyone who made this kind of mistake under Unohana-taichō would be lucky to walk away with all their skin. You're scientists, you know the importance of following procedure—"
At which point it was revealed that this was the normal procedure for a Twelfth Division officer who'd been experimented on, and they usually just went off and lay down until the overdose symptoms disappeared or they died. The Fourth Division officer was not impressed.
The numbness went away with the poisoning, and Hanatarō's healing dealt with the pain from being cut open but not the weird misplaced pain from his mishandled organs. Uryū wished everyone would shut up. "Can I go back to my cell please?"
Hanatarō and one of the Twelfth Division officers carried him there, and Hanatarō stayed to "help him get settled", which hopefully meant give them some news from the damn outside world.
"Ichigo-san is back in Seireitei," Hanatarō started.
"Is he all right?" Sado asked.
Hanatarō hesitated a little too long. "He's… getting better, I think? The Sexta is— Well, he was very glad to hear you're alive. And about the people who escaped from Karakura."
Sado made an inarticulate noise. He was probably thinking, as Uryū was, that if Ichigo hadn't known his sisters made it out of Karakura then nothing anyone else could do to him would compare to what he'd do to himself.
"And now that Ichigo-san is here, Rukia-san isn't getting hurt — as much, since Grimmjow doesn't let the fraccion hurt her as long as Ichigo-san is fighting how Grimmjow wants him to."
Uryū briefly wondered how much exactly Rukia had been getting hurt before, then firmly decided it wasn't any of his business. "Has Kurosaki gotten his powers back?"
"I think… there's been progress?"
How vague. "Well… tell him good luck from us, I guess."
"Hanatarō-san," Sado said. "Is there anything at all you or Ichigo or anyone else could do to get us out of here?"
What? "I think if there was something they could do, they would already have—"
"Ishida isn't going to last much longer."
What? Uryū glared at Sado, who seemed sadly impervious. "I am not about to die." Honesty compelled him to add, "As long as I get prompt treatment when necessary, which is what happens, so… This is a stupid conversation."
"Szayelaporro always singles him out," Sado went on, as if Uryū hadn't spoken. "He keeps doing stranger and stranger things. Uryū can't sleep because of nightmares—"
"No more than you!" Uryū said indignantly. "I can handle this!"
"The Twelfth Division people think Szayelaporro's behavior is… unsettling."
Hanatarō rocked back. "Ishida-san!"
"I'm fine!"
Uryū rolled over and pulled his thin blanket over his head and refused to pay any more attention to the discussion. He knew it looked childish and he didn't care. He was fine, because there wasn't any other option — what was Sado expecting Ichigo to do, fight all the arrancar and conquered shinigami with maybe-partially-recovered powers and a mind-control device? He was just being realistic!
Despite the lingering pain and the simmering frustration, he dozed off — only the be awakened by an obnoxious clanging noise.
"Quincy-san!" someone called. "Are you awake? Quincy-san!"
Sado grunted. "It's for you." Possibly Sado was a little irritated at him for earlier.
"I can see that." Uryū dragged himself upright and, leaning on the walls, made his way to where the Twelfth Division shinigami was banging on the bars. "What?"
The shinigami at least stopped clanging. "Sorry about the mixup with the topical."
Really? "It's nothing." He'd just been glad of any sort of analgesic.
"We got you something to make up for it," the shinigami said.
"Really." Unless they were offering a way out— Uryū froze, and then snatched up the offered object. "Thank you." The glasses even fit, and the cell came into focus around him— "…Is this my prescription?"
"Oh, yeah, we looked at Kurotsuchi-taichō's data to replicate yours."
That was… creepy, but at the moment — whatever. "Thank you." And he never wanted to be saying this to a shinigami, especially a Twelfth Division shinigami, but— "I owe you."
Kurosaki Ichigo
(Most days were just tiring.)
Rukia shuffled into the room and flopped down on her futon. Ichigo managed to peel open an eye and turn his head to look at her. "Long day?"
"Huge Hollows. East Twenties. You?"
"Edrad and Yylfordt trying to outdo each other. Casualties?"
"Everyone came back alive. Eleven people still at the Fourth. Anything broken?"
"Maybe ribs. I think something in my hand. Nothing that can't wait until morning. Have you eaten?"
"Grabbed some rations in the Fourth. You?"
"Not really, they let me off cooking…" A bundle of rations landed on his chest, right on a bruise. "Ow!"
"Sorry."
"No, s'fine. Thanks."
Shihōin Yoruichi
Yoruichi was digging into her second helping of breakfast when one of the mod souls skidded into the kitchen. "Tessai-san! Yoruichi-dono! Unohana-san wants you to come to the monitor room right away!"
She hoped it would be Kisuke, but it wasn't — Unohana's attention was fixed on a monitor showing another one of those over-desk views of— "Is that Fifth?" She wouldn't have thought Aizen would let that pass — all part of the facade, she supposed. It took a minute longer to identify the two people at the desk from the tops of their heads. The single yoke and two white kosode helped. "That's… Kira and… is that Hinamori? She changed her hair."
"Yes, and I'm actually very glad to see it," Unohana said. "But look at the desk."
The two vice-captains seemed to be looking over the sort of insanely complicated kidō diagram Yoruichi had always been happy to push off on Kisuke or Tessai. Hinamori was pointing to various things, apparently explaining something to Kira. "What's that?"
"It's the plans for the yoke," Tessai said, leaning forward.
"Oh." Yoruichi leaned forward, too, although she wasn't any more able to make heads or tails of it. Judging from the two open kidō reference books on the desk, the vice-captains were in a little over their heads, too. "…What are they doing with that?"
Tessai didn't reply, staring intently at the screen. Yoruichi sighed internally and went back to get the rest of her breakfast. When she returned, Unohana was at another monitor, trying to pull up the start of the meeting. "Anything?"
"They've been trying to understand what part of the yoke is injuring people," Tessai said. "Hinamori-san has evidently been working on it for a while, and wanted Kira-san to verify her conclusions. He made a few suggestions. I believe they are… mostly correct."
"Could this tell us how to get the yoke off?" Unohana asked.
"Potentially. It appears to be sealed with the reiryoku of the… primary yoke holder. I can see how one would go about removing a yoke set by someone with lower reiatsu levels. Yokes set by someone with higher reiatsu levels would be more of a problem."
Yoruichi considered the Espada. "So still a problem."
"Yes." Tessai stroked his chin. "But it is a great help."
On the screen, Hinamori spread out a new set of papers on top of the others — more kidō diagrams, but less professional. "And those would be her notes on redesigning it not to injure people," Unohana said. "Kira seems to think they're promising…"
There was a brief moment of silence.
"They're not promising," Unohana said.
"They… will not have the desired result," Tessai said diplomatically. "I can see how they came to that conclusion — they're doing very well for generalists — but if I understand the notation and the yoke theory correctly that modification would increase the damage substantially."
"Fatally?" Unohana asked.
Tessai paused the monitor to study the design more carefully. "Not to a vice-captain. For the less powerful people — I'm not sure. All the really thorough yoke examination have been carried out where we have no surveillance, so I don't know how the damage happens precisely… The civilians might be in danger."
Or Ichigo, he didn't say.
(Ichigo spent most of his time wherever Grimmjow was based, and moving the surveillance sensors was tricky, so they mostly only saw him arriving for and departing from the daily yoke inspections. Even in those short glimpses they could see he was frequently injured beyond the yoke's effects — bruised wrists, limping, bite marks. Yoruichi strongly suspected Grimmjow was using him sexually. But he didn't seem to be letting the abuse or his lack of powers crush him. They saw him talking more or less normally to Rukia, to Hanatarō, sometimes mouthing off to the fraccion. Yoruichi had eventually decided he probably knew about Karin, Yuzu, and the others making it out of Karakura.)
Unohana pursed her lips. "If you could tell that just looking at it, Aizen should be able to, too. Although I suppose that has very little bearing on whether he will apply the redesign to anyone."
Yoruichi wasn't as good as predicting Aizen as Kisuke or Shinji, and they weren't perfect at it, either. "I don't think he'd let anyone get killed, after he healed everyone at the battle site. Not…" Not anyone of any interest to him, at least. Which might not bode well for the civilians or unseated officers, and which also might mean he'd let people be hurt and then heal them. "Let's keep watching. Someone might catch it before it gets to that point."
Although somehow she thought if they had the opportunity to run it past a kidō master, they would have already.
Yadōmaru Lisa
After three weeks, Hiyori still had not learned how to play nicely with anyone, though she was willing to tolerate Nanao for Lisa's sake and Rukia for Ichigo's. Lisa considered even that much a bit of a miracle and worth celebrating. Fortunately Harribel-sama seemed to prefer an approach of tolerant patience, and Hiyori was fairly cooperative when it came to fighting Hollows.
Mashiro, on the other hand, was adapting quickly. She would work happily enough with just about anyone who was polite to her — shinigami, yoked shinigami, whitecoat shinigami, even some arrancar. She could even (briefly) pull off respectful enough not to annoy the Espada. But there was one inconvenient exception: Tōsen. Which was understandable — with Tōsen it was personal.
But it did mean Lisa had to do all the reporting from the three of them to Tōsen, and it wasn't like she enjoyed that either.
Lisa was cooling her heels in First Division, waiting to give a report on the Menos which had popped up in South Thirty-First, which she and Hiyori had handily dispatched, and another one in South Thirty-Sixth, which Mashiro had managed, and a few dozen basic Hollows in South Fortieth, which the three of them had joined forces on to mop up, and also one more Menos in West Thirty-Ninth, where they'd had to go relieve/rescue Kuchiki Rukia, who'd kept civilians and shikai-less officers intact by baiting the Menos into following her away from them into an unoccupied area. And the Huge Hollows in West Nineteenth they'd helped with on the way back — Kira and his two whitecoat backups could have handled one just fine, two, maybe five, not ten.
When they'd all trooped into the Emergency Relief Station, they'd found Nanao, Ōmaeda, and half a dozen more whitecoats already there, run ragged from dealing with a (fortunately singular) Menos in North Thirty-Eighth.
Another Menos had started to poke its head out of a garganta in East First, but it at least had retreated when Harribel went and menaced at it.
This wasn't normal and it wasn't sustainable. Lisa wasn't planning on saying that, exactly, but she did plan to make clear how… tenuous things were.
Assuming Tōsen ever finished whatever the fuck he was doing in there and saw his other appointments.
She should have brought something to read.
Lisa wandered over to look at the tower which still looked like the Senzaikyū, but which wasn't made of sekkiseki. Had Aizen wanted the sekkiseki for something else? Why hadn't he just conjured it into being like he had the castle? Was there something different about sekkiseki? Or did all his building materials have to come from somewhere? With the tower being used primarily for accessing the castle, had anyone put in some better stairs?
She'd almost talked herself into at least poking her head in to check out the stairs when a whitecoat came hurtling out of the tower and crashed into her. Or no, not an ordinary whitecoat — Hinamori Momo, one of the vice-captains who'd been inducted by Tōsen without the mysterious test.
Lisa wasn't as trusting as Nanao that Tōsen's lieutenants were solidly on the side of the rest of Seireitei, but she knew better than to push — especially with Hinamori, whom Nanao said was fragile.
It was very easy to believe right now, given the hysterical sobbing.
"Hey, hey, take it easy," Lisa said, almost reflexively.
…Oh. 'Vice-captain dealing with a personnel problem' reaction. That hadn't come up in ages. Well, it was as good as anything for dealing with someone crying all over her.
Lisa pulled the girl into the nearest empty room before too many people could notice, and gave her a minute to compose herself, since she seemed to be working on that. She didn't seem to be injured at all. There were specks of blood on her kosode.
"What's wrong?" Lisa asked finally, when it seemed like Hinamori might have calmed down enough to talk.
She hiccuped. "I — it's — I have to—" She broke off and scrubbed at her face. "Could you ask— Are you a kidō expert, Yadōmaru-san? Or Sarugaki-san or Mashiro-san?"
Lisa shrugged. "Well, I'm competent, but I don't think that's what you mean. Hiyori and Mashiro are…" Nominally competent? "Out of practice." Not that Lisa had gotten in heaps of practice in exile, either, but she was still more confident in her own skills than either of theirs.
"Then — then do you think you could ask the Tercera for a favor? I — I have to ask for— I'm supposed to be redesigning the yoke, but I can't, I'm not good enough, I tried and made it so much worse, so I need to get someone else, and Nanao-san is much better than I am, and he said I could ask for anyone but the captains b-but they'd have to be y-yoked — but I thought maybe, th-the Tercera isn't so hard on you, right? That wouldn't be so bad, right? S-so if you could ask the Tercera if she could take Nanao-san…"
Lisa's first impulse was to say she'd rather put up with the current yoke than have Nanao yoked even under Harribel, but that wasn't fair. She had it easy. She knew what the yoke was doing to mostly-powerless Ichigo, to the civilians, even the weaker shinigami. Still… "He said you could ask for anyone but the captains? Ask for Hachi."
"Wh-who?"
"Ushōda Hachigen. He's another Visored, Nanao's good with kidō but he's much better — he used to be second-in-command of the Kidō Corps — and he's currently being held in the castle somewhere, so it probably wouldn't make his situation much worse." Lisa frowned. "Why isn't the Kidō Corps doing the redesign anyway?"
"Because… because I asked about it, I guess…" Hinamori shrugged a little, but then straightened and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Ushōda Hachigen. Yes, that makes sense, that could— I'll ask for him. Thank you, Yadōmaru-san."
"No problem." Lisa grimaced. It might be a problem, actually. If Aizen had been pushing someone unqualified to do the yoke redesign rather than passing it off to the Kidō Corps, it probably meant he wanted Hinamori tearing herself apart over this, and Lisa throwing a wrench in the works could be… taken badly. But the yoke did need to be redesigned, and it would be good to get Hachi out of the castle, and preferable to keep Nanao un-yoked. If that was possible. "And if for some reason Nanao is going to be yoked, I will ask Harribel-sama."
She didn't think she'd be able to shield Nanao like she was Hiyori and Mashiro, if it came to that — didn't think Nanao would let her, even if the arrancar would. She didn't want to see little Nanao getting debauched by the Tres Bestias. But better Harribel and company than any of the other yoke-holding arrancar she'd seen so far.
Kurosaki Ichigo
(A few days were good.)
Rukia got back early — it was light out, and Ichigo was still sitting in the garden.
"Ichigo! I have to tell you about this — the Hollows stood on top of each other, I could not have asked for a better target for Tsukishiro — Ichigo?"
"Hey, Rukia," he said, not opening his eyes.
"Is that an asauchi?"
"Grimmjow-sama brought it this morning," he said. "I told him it wouldn't do any good, but when I touched it — I heard Zangetsu." It had just been a whisper, but he knew it was real. "I've been trying to meditate since then, but all I can hear is my Hollow calling me a loser." And even that was welcome. "Maybe you can give me some… sword meditation tips."
"…Happy to."
They were still in there. They were just waiting for Ichigo to find a way for them to come out.
Shihōin Yoruichi
As per telephoned request, they met at a fast food place near his hotel. He looked mildly irritated when she sat down.
"I was expecting Urahara or Kurosaki."
She wore another disguise gigai, but at this range it wasn't surprising he saw through it. "Captured and presumed captured, respectively." She set a playback device on the table. "Everything we have on Uryū. He's being treated very poorly, but he's alive."
"I see." He neither looked at nor touched the device. "And Kurosaki Ichigo?"
"Also alive, also treated poorly, although in an entirely different way." She let the silence sit for a moment. "I assume you're aware Karin and Yuzu escaped?"
"Yes. Is there a reason you haven't brought them to wherever you're hiding?"
"They know Ururu and Jinta, but not so much me or Tessai. They know and trust Arisawa. And as long as our enemies aren't already searching for them, they're probably safer there, too."
Ryūken made a noncommittal noise that probably indicated his acceptance of the reasoning, since he hadn't tried to pick them up either. (Not that she was complaining about that. The kind of child-rearing which had produced Uryū applied to Karin would probably be… explosive in consequence.) "The government investigation is still ongoing. They've finally decided Don Kanonji is not faking his entire personality to cover up his involvement in a terrorist plot. They never suspected the others."
"Have they given you any trouble? Since you were conveniently out of town?"
"It's under control," he said dismissively. "Are you planning to retaliate or are you cutting your losses?" A big fan of cutting losses, Ryūken.
"We're still evaluating the situation, gathering intelligence, but I expect we'll take action at some point. Why, you want in?"
The silence stretched awkwardly as Ryūken struggled with the prospect of admitting he cared what happened to his only child. Seriously, she'd known Kuchiki clan members less emotionally constipated.
"…Yes," he said finally. "There is no telling what that… shinigami will do to this world."
Yoruichi considered pointing out that Aizen couldn't exactly be considered a shinigami at this point. Instead, she said, "We'll let you know when we have something planned. You let us know if you want an update on Uryū."
(If Unohana was going to needle her about Yūshirō, damn right she was going to needle Ryūken about Uryū.)