Disclaimer: I don't own the rights.

The Uncertainty Principle

A Bleach Fanfic

Chapter Four: Death

These people just kept on coming.

Yoruichi twisted, planting her foot in the Togabito's chest and shoving. He lost his balance and fell backwards through the Gates. Over her shoulder, a dozen near-invisible blades whistled forward, taking the arm off the one that tried to flank her from the left. He screamed, and she jumped into a roundhouse, cutting off the sound when the side of her foot broke his jaw. She stepped forward when he fell, throwing him back into the portal to Hell, too.

"Thanks, Byakkun," she said with a grin, flicking her hand in a jaunty salute.

Byakuya, of course, did not respond.

Jūshirō and Unohana-san were still working on the kidō. As with most of the big area ones, it was going to take a while longer yet, and it was crucial to make sure they weren't interrupted in the meantime.

A great creaking shudder shook the ground beneath them. Yoruichi's eyes snapped to the Gates. That couldn't be good—the door on the left-hand side had a new crack in it. "Jūshirō!"

"It's destabilizing!" he called back. "Just keep doing as you're doing; the kidō should help!"

Should was not particularly reassuring. Still, Togabito were coming through; they needed to be stopped in any case.

"Yoruichi-san, I have an idea!" That was little Yuzu. "Please step away from the Gate for a moment!"

Unsure if that was a great idea, Yoruichi did it anyway.

Senbonzakura's blades rushed into the place she'd vacated; Byakuya took over the job of stemming the tide from the gate for the moment. Yoruichi easily switched places with him, using shunpō to get at the nearest one on the outside, slamming the heel of her hand into his chin and snapping his head back. Kisuke had said the Togabito were dangerous and difficult to kill—but she didn't know the exact details. She figured shoving them all back in was better.

"Bakudō #42: Midoriami!" The green webbing flew through the air, opening with a snap over the gate. The next Togabito to attempt entrance failed, getting tangled in it and eventually falling backwards.

Apparently, that was not the entirety of Yuzu's plan, however, because she was chanting again—Yoruichi thought it might be a double incantation, but she was too busy throwing her foe into his closest ally to pay close enough attention to be sure. The next one came in, and she swept low. He jumped over her leg, rushing past her and attempting to get to Yuzu.

"Look out!" she warned.

Yuzu was concentrating intently on her task, eyes fixed forward. Yoruichi shifted, adjusting her balance to spring after the Togabito, but before she could jump, a cloud of pink blade-shards swept between Yuzu and her attacker, slicing the unwary Togabito to ribbons.

"Bakudō #63: Sajō Sabaku! Hadō #73: Sōren Sōkatsui!"

A total of three beams of light shot towards the gate. The first, gold tinged with pink, split into a chain net. That was not the normal shape for the spell—Yoruichi had no idea why. The second two, both blue with the same faint discoloration, struck the net spanned over the gates, the fire igniting the chains but producing no explosion.

At least not until the first Togabito hit it trying to get past. Then there was a crack like thunder, rolling and splitting. The net trembled, but remained in place. After several more identical impacts, the other side of the gate fell silent. Yuzu was leaning heavily on her zanpakutō, but smiling slightly.

"Nice work, kid," Yoruichi said.

No doubt if Tessai were awake, he would have been interested to ask her about it.

"Now, take a break and let us handle this part."

Yoruichi glanced at Byakuya. He inclined his head just faintly.

The rest of these Togabito had no chance.

Karin had always wondered if the fact that she was invulnerable to Hisaku's flame meant that she wouldn't be burned by any.

Apparently, when it came to fire controlled by other people, the answer was no. The stinging wound on her left side was proof enough of that. Spinning out of the way of another fire whip, Karin raised Hisaku, bringing her down and slicing through the reiatsu weapon. One end of the whip spun off to the right and fizzled out. Shuren retracted the rest.

The problem was, he could generate them without any effort; it was just a second before the whip was back at its former length. Karin dropped into a roll, coming back up on her feet and throwing a line of fire from Hisaku's blade.

The pressure here made it damn near impossible to keep in the air with shunpō, so she had to remember her ground maneuvers.

Her flames nearly missed, but she used her off-hand to direct them left in time with Shuren's dodge, rewarded when they lit his cloak on fire. He had to drop one of his whips to smother them by closing his fist, and Karin took her chance. Charging forward, she avoided the remaining whip and took Hisaku in both hands, slashing diagonally. He danced away; no more than the very point of her sword dragged down his chest—but she'd made him bleed.

Without warning, Karin's hands were locked against her sides. She yelled raw pain when the abandoned whip wrapped around her—she hadn't known he could control it at a distance. The sizzle of her own skin was loud in her ears; frantically, she lashed out with raw reiatsu, forcing the flames away and dispersing them. Her new wounds were angry red welts, black on the sides—her whole body shuddered.

Gulping down a breath, Karin tightened her shaking grip on Hisaku. She could still fight—this was nothing. She had to keep him busy while Urahara and Amari worked on that kidō, or all of this would be for nothing.

"Try that again, fucker," she hissed, narrowing her eyes.

With a mighty push, she launched herself into a flash step, appearing behind Shuren and thrusting forward with Hisaku's blade. He shifted, and she caught him across the ribs—not deep. Gritting her teeth, Karin stepped in and swung again when he turned to meet her, shortening the whips in his hands to blade-size.

"What's the matter, shinigami? Can't stand the heat?"

"If I didn't believe this was Hell before, that pun convinced me," she snapped back, parrying his left-hand weapon. "Sakebe, Hisaku!"

Red clashed with orange—Hisaku's blade on fire to match Shuren's. Unlike his, however, she had no fear of being burned by her own fire. She struck down; Shuren crossed his swords in front of him to block. She'd seen that move before—it was one of Uryū's favorites. Karin's mouth curled.

"Aoge!" Swords still locked, Karin swept her free hand in front of her, directing Hisaku's flames into a blast—at range this close, they had to hit.

Shuren jumped back with a shout. The technique had caught him square in the chest and neck. Hisaku's fire guttered out, but it left blistering skin behind it. Blood oozed from the cuts she'd inflicted earlier, but she'd accidentally cauterized the top half of one of the wounds. Well, that hardly mattered.

Her arms ached—continuing to swing her zanpakutō with injuries this bad was making her slower and shakier.

Hopefully that kidō wasn't going to take much longer, because Karin wasn't sure how much fight she had left in her.

Rukia had figured out pretty early on that this fight was going to be especially difficult for her. The heat on this level was simply too much for her zanpakutō to operate at full effectiveness, which meant she was left with kidō as far as attacking went. Her hakuda was okay, but her opponent had tentacles for arms—six of them. She wasn't going to get too close to that for obvious reasons.

Firing off a sōkatsui without incantation, she jumped away again, grimacing when it barely put a dent in him. She either needed to pick a stronger spell or start using the chants. From a distance, she heard a scream that sounded like Karin. Worry flared in the pit of her stomach—she'd never really bought into the idea that worrying about a comrade was a form of disrespect—but there wasn't much she could do. Not when she was having this much trouble keeping herself alive.

Her opponent—he'd given his name as Gunjō—moved with surprising speed. Rukia, slowed by heat and fatigue, couldn't quite move in enough time to avoid all of his arms. He caught her by the ankle, lifting her into the air with a sudden rush of displaced air. Rukia let go of Sode no Shirayuki, tapping the tsuka to rotate the blade like a pinwheel. It worked the same upside down as it did any other way, and she needed to stop the rest of the arms surging towards her.

"Hadō #58: Tenran!" She caught her sword, abruptly stopping the spin.

A blast of twisting air burst forward, knocking Gunjō's arms away and throwing him backwards. He lost his grip on her; Rukia hit the ground with a thud. Time—she needed time.

Stabbing Sode no Shirayuki into the ground, she tried to buy it. "Juhaku!"

Ice—thin, too thin from the heat—surged forward along the ground. It reached Gunjō as he was trying to stand, freezing his foot in place. Rukia was already incanting her next spell, knowing the ice wouldn't hold for long. Not here, and not against strength like this.

One of the tentacles escaped the technique almost immediately, cracking and shattering her ice. As though she were preparing to throw a javelin, Rukia raised her hand to her shoulder, finishing the spell as blue light formed in her lifted hand.

"Bakudō #62: Hyapporankan!" With a bounding step forward, Rukia launched the light rod.

Mid-flight, it split, multiplying into hundreds of bright shafts. Probably a few more than she needed, but she wasn't going to take chances when her foe had six very long and flexible limbs to work with.

Gunjō escaped the ice just in time to be hit with the hyapporankan. Planting two of his limbs on the ground, he flipped partially out of the way of the spell, curving his body away from its trajectory. But she still caught half his arms, staking them to the ground with the light-lances.

Taking a firm grip on Sode no Shirayuki, Rukia flashed in from that side. If she could just hit him in the torso between his pinned arms—

"Ah!"

Her flash step hadn't even completed before one of his free arms found her waist, plucking her off the ground like an insect. "Hadō—"

She tasted dirt and… something else vaguely salty. The second tentacle tightened around the lower half of her face, smothering her and preventing her from speaking. She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat out of pure necessity. Her free arm had been pinned to her side, but she still had her sword.

Rukia swung it, hoping to slice through her bonds directly, but Gunjō's final free arm intercepted, wrapping around her zanpakutō's blade. All the limbs tightened, bulging grotesquely, and Rukia groaned as she felt the pressure on her ribcage become enough to strain her bones. Several wet pops and bursts of pain signaled her ribs breaking—she screamed into her fleshy gag, the sound ragged but muffled.

Focus. She had to focus, or she was going to lose all her air and die. She couldn't die, not down here. Not like this.

A twinge in her mind from Sode no Shirayuki brought clarity to her fog, for just a moment. It was enough. Abruptly, she dropped the blade, freeing that hand, and aimed her palm for Gunjō's half-covered face. The blue energy of her favorite kidō gathered, and shot forward. The hold on her loosened for just a moment when Gunjō caught on fire, and Rukia used the opportunity to scrabble at the tentacle over her mouth, pulling it away in enough time to take in a shaky breath.

She strained to hold it back, digging her fingernails into the fleshy limb. Unless she reinforced that spell with the incantation, it was going to do next to nothing. "Ye lord… Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of… man," she rasped, arm trembling against Gunjō's efforts to regain his hold on her. "Truth and Temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws."

The fire, burning Gunjō's cloak, flared. Rukia caught the scent of burning skin and knew it was working. Pushing with her reiatsu, she put everything she had left into the spell, pulling in a painful breath.

"Hadō #33: Sōkatsui!"

The fire spread, flashing bright enough that she had to close her eyes against the glare. Rukia felt Gunjō's hold lapse completely; a second burst of agony and the sudden feeling of stone beneath her were confirmation that she'd been dropped. Rolling onto her back, she forced her eyes open.

Where Gunjō had been, there was only a scorched corpse.

"Ready?" Amari's tone was quite neutral, by comparison to her previous demeanor.

The kidō they held between all four of their combined hands cast a strange reddish light up onto her face. It made her look older—though still not nearly as old as he suspected she was.

Kisuke nodded. "Allow me," he said.

She nodded slowly, carefully retracting her hands from where they supported the roiling orb of light. A completely new bakudō seal, invented and implemented within minutes. Ordinarily, he would have been looking forward to testing it.

This time, he simply hoped it was sufficient to its purpose.

"I can't save that child," she said. Her eyes moved to the cages—he knew what she meant. "The chains are permanent, unless you can find a way around them. But I will grant permission for him to pass safely from here. I do not know how much time that will give you to devise a solution, but it is all I can do."

"You're really bad at apologizing, Amari-san," Kisuke said, his tone devoid of any color.

"Never learned how," she replied. "Now go."

He nodded. Shuren was still engaged with Karin, but she was losing. Slowly, to be certain, but surely all the same. Rukia had just killed her foe, but looked in no shape to be helping. Renji's was missing an arm and staggering—not a threat. Uryū had the big one tied up as well. The shot was as clear as he was going to get.

Manipulating his fingers, Kisuke separated the sphere into two, extending each into roughly the shape of long arrows. He felt it fitting enough, considering the thought that had precipitated the spell's creation. Orienting the arrows with his hand, he aimed for Shuren.

"Jigokujō."

The bolts launched simultaneously, their trajectory bending around to strike from Shuren's blind side. The blow he'd been seconds from landing on Karin never connected—the flames in his hand fizzled out into nothing.

Karin wisely jumped back when a glowing sigil appeared underneath Shuren's feet, the red light growing steadily brighter, then flashing once before it faded, burned into the stone under his feet.

Shuren, too, had become stone, the same obsidian as the rest of the environment was made of. Frozen in an expression of shock and horror—probably forever.

Kisuke's eyes landed on the cages, still suspended from the walls of the castle.

He felt no remorse for what he'd just done, considering.

Flashing to the cages, he cut Jinta's down first with a stroke from Benihime. Catching the thing before it could hit the ground, he sliced the top half off. Sheathing the blade, he reached down into it, sliding his hands under the prone child's back, lifting him carefully. The chain on his chest rattled; a reminder that Kisuke might already have failed.

Jinta felt lighter than he remembered, thinner. From this close, his condition was horrifying—eyes blanked like the dead, skin wan and drawn thin as paper. He was soaked with sweat; it plastered his Urahara shop t-shirt to him like another layer of skin.

Kisuke's breath trembled. Carefully, he braced Jinta against his chest, cradling the boy's hand into his shoulder with one hand, supporting the rest of his weight easily with the other.

"Ururu doesn't have a chain," Uryū reported, cutting down the other cage in a similar fashion. He was bleeding from a gash on his temple.

"Good," Kisuke replied. His voice cracked. "I'm trusting you to get her out of here, Uryū."

Looking vaguely surprised, the young man nodded.

Young. So young, all of them. It wouldn't last—Kisuke knew that. He'd planned for it. They would all be old before their time. Or dead before it.

He swallowed thickly. If Yoruichi were here, she'd tell him to focus on the present. Jinta needed… something. He had to figure something out. The first step was the same no matter the solution—he needed to get him out of here as fast as possible.

"I'm going ahead," he told the others. "Follow as fast as you can."

The Gotei 13 was likely already present; he didn't know how long Yoruichi would be able to convince them that the Gate should stay open.

"Go," Renji replied, hoisting Rukia on his back. "We'll be fine."

Kisuke ran.

Kuchiki-taichō and Yoruichi-san hadn't had any difficulty dealing with the rest of the Togabito in the basement after Yuzu had used her nets. Fortunate, since she really needed the time to recover. She only hoped she'd been useful—they were certainly both capable of much more than she was, even accounting for the limiters that the captains wore in the living world.

The last fell at about the same time as Unohana-taichō and Ukitake-taichō finished the kidō seal. The effects were immediate—the air became easier to breathe, and the heavy feeling of foreboding that had settled over her shoulders seemed to lift.

"Kurosaki-kun. You may remove your kidō now." Her captain addressed her with a tiny smile.

Yuzu nodded. "Yes, taichō." Yuzu closed her fist over. The charged net burst into a shower of harmless sparks and faded away.

That ominous crack in the gates was still there; she was fairly sure it was inching wider. "Unohana-taichō? What happens if the doors break?"

The other woman pursed her lips. "I do not know, Kurosaki-kun. We must ensure that they do not."

Yuzu pushed herself to her feet. She knew what that meant—there was a time limit on Karin, Uryū and the others. If they didn't make it back before the captains were forced to close the Gates… she swallowed.

They might never make it back at all.

The minutes ticked by; Yuzu tried her best not to make it obvious how nervous she was; she thought she was probably projecting it anyway. By contrast, her captain was, as always, the picture of unruffled calm. And of course, even if Kuchiki-taichō was worried about his own sister, he would hide it very well.

Really, the only other person who seemed even a bit anxious was Yoruichi-san, who paced behind her, footsteps steadily scuffing against the dirt of the basement training area. Yuzu's heart lingered in her throat; she couldn't seem to swallow it back down.

Abruptly, the light pouring from the Gates shifted, outlining a shadow. From it stepped Urahara-san, Jinta wrapped tightly in his arms. Yuzu took a step forward—Yoruichi took half a dozen. But Urahara ignored everything, even the presence of the captains, moving somewhat to the side and crouching, carefully lowering Jinta to the floor.

Yuzu pulled in a sharp breath when she saw the chain protruding from his chest. It was black, not like the grey ones pluses usually had. Her fingers tightened on Hasuhime's pole.

"Is that a—" Yoruichi started.

Urahara nodded. Reaching to his waist, he unsheathed his zanpakutō. "I have to cut it," he said, his voice heavy.

There is another way.

"Wait!" Yuzu said, stepping forward again. "You don't have to do that. Um."

Everyone was looking at her. She felt her face getting hot.

Ask them to step away. I will teach you.

"Er… please. Let me try. Hasuhime is… she says we can do it." Yuzu swallowed thickly.

Urahara stared at her for a few long seconds; eventually, he nodded slowly. He didn't put his zanpakutō back, but he stepped away. "The others are on their way," he informed the group, as though only just noticing them. He was quick to return his attention to Jinta, however.

Yuzu knelt next to the boy, laying Hasuhime down beside her. She was careful to point the spear-tip of the staff away from anyone, but she kept her close enough to touch.

What now?

Use the purification kaidō. The one Unohana-san taught you for poison.

But it's not poison, is it?

Trust me, Yuzu.

She couldn't well keep arguing at that point, could she? Yuzu's chest expanded as she pulled a fortifying breath into her lungs. Letting both hands hover palm-down over Jinta's chest, Yuzu channeled her reiatsu into them. Oddly, kaidō was much less precise than regular kidō—she'd have thought it would be moreso. Ordinary medicine was very precise, after all. But with kaidō, it was all about giving the reiatsu the right intent. So she thought of clean, fresh things: mountain springs and rain and the crisp white of new linen.

The light limning her hands turned pink-tinged blue. Yuzu could feel the chain now, in a way that wasn't like feeling with her skin. It didn't correspond to any of the senses she usually had, really—she didn't know if there was a word for what she was feeling. Like… like rot. Slow rot, but right in the soul. Deteriorating the particles that made up everything in the world. Her mental image of water started to blacken, but she focused on it—imagined it clearing again, until she could see the bottom of the pool.

She felt, distantly, soft fingers at her temples. There was a reassuring presence behind her, wrapping her in its gentle warmth. It reminded her of being embraced by her mother; of something she had almost forgotten. She drew from it, from the knowledge that she wasn't alone, and pushed more reiatsu into the kaidō.

The shift happened suddenly. She was pushing and pushing and pushing—and then the resistance gave way all at once, like a snapping twig, and her reiatsu washed over it, dissolving the rest. The chain on Jinta's chest was wreathed in pink light, then burst apart, fading into nothing—as though it had never been there to begin with.

The hands at her temples withdrew, and Yuzu collapsed backwards into an exhausted seiza. She felt unbelievably drained. "I think I—"

She caught sight of the surrounding faces and blanched. "Did I do something wrong?" Momentary panic seized her—not even Ukitake-taicho was smiling.

They all looked somewhere between solemn and surprised, even Kuchiki-taichō. Urahara was staring at her so intently she thought she might wither. She looked back at Jinta—but he seemed fine.

"No, Kurosaki-kun," Unohana said softly. Her face resumed its usual serene expression. "You've done very well."

Oh. Well. That was all right then, Yuzu supposed.

The crack in the Gate was two-thirds of the way across the whole door when the others reappeared. Their arrival only destabilized it further—Yoruichi sensed the containment kidō wavering. Considering who had put it in place, that was not a good sign.

They were in terrible shape to a one: Ishida was bleeding from the forehead and at least one deep cut in his arm. He carried a pale, shaking Ururu, thankfully free of a Hell Chain. Yoruichi wasn't sure Yuzu would be able to do an impossible thing twice. Rukia and Renji were holding each other up—Rukia looked like she could barely breathe. Karin had huge burn welts over most of her visible skin; she swayed on her feet.

"Unohana-san," Yoruichi said reflexively.

The captain of the Fourth was already in motion. "Ukitake-san, Kuchiki-san, would you please close and banish the Gate? I believe we have no more need of it."

They both nodded. Yoruichi saw Kisuke stir for the first time in several straight minutes. He'd lapsed into thought as soon as they'd seen Yuzu's zanpakutō manifest and help her through a kaidō spell that didn't exist. She'd let him think, because now wasn't the time for anything else.

"Kisuke—" She cut herself off when he squeezed her shoulder with a hand on the way past.

"Stick to the plan," he said softly. "And… trust me, if you still can."

She didn't like how that sounded at all. Reaching for him, Yoruichi gritted her teeth when her hand closed over empty air—he'd flashed away, the—

"Kisuke!"

"Please do close the door behind me, you two. Thanks for the help!" He grinned in typical Kisuke fashion, adjusting his hat on his head.

And then, with nothing more than a wink and a jump, he was gone—back into Hell.

Yoruichi threw a fist into the rock face behind her. It shattered.

Damn that man. Damn him.

Damn him for leaving her behind again.

Uryū knocked a few times on the wood frame of Yoruichi's bedroom door. There was a grunt from inside—probably the closest thing he was going to get to real acknowledgement. He took it for permission and stepped inside, sliding the door shut behind him with his elbow.

She was lying on her side on the futon, curled up in the best approximation of a cat she could manage in a fully-humanoid form, he supposed. Far from the picture of despondency, she looked to be seething. He couldn't say he blamed her for it—Urahara had many frustrating tendencies, but by far the worst was his disinclination to share his thoughts with others.

Uryū had always figured Yoruichi was the exception that proved the rule.

Maybe she wasn't, after all.

With a soft clink, he set down the tea tray on the low table at the center of the room. The curtains were drawn, so the room itself was dim despite the afternoon sun outside.

"It's chamomile," he said by way of explanation. "Yuzu made it for you."

It hadn't been more than a couple of hours since the events had reached their conclusion. Or, well—temporary conclusion, anyway. Kuchiki and Ukitake had been forced to close and banish the Gates before they broke open or worse; Urahara had been firmly inside when they did. Without a Gate, or a method of opening one, there was simply no way of knowing when or if he'd make it out.

Uryū settled on the other side of the table, though Yoruichi hadn't moved.

"When we were down there, we met a woman. The King of Hell. She called herself Amari."

She looked like Lucia, except for the scar. And the eye. Her eye was the same color as Yorugen's. Uryū only wished he had the faintest idea what that meant. Yorugen didn't.

"She said that no spirit left Hell without her permission. I don't know if that only applies to Togabito or not. Or if she has enough power left to open a Gate—she seemed drained, especially after the battle."

That wasn't reassuring. He did want to reassure her, but more importantly than that, he wanted to tell her the truth as she knew it.

Her head lifted; she braced a hand on the edge of the table and used it to pull herself upright. "What else do you know?"

Uryū pushed his glasses up his nose. "Not much. It's not like he told me anything."

"Yeah well… he wouldn't, would he? Damn idiot." She scowled.

Pulling the tea tray towards her, she poured herself a cup and downed it quickly enough that Uryū flinched. That was still fresh enough to scald. Yoruichi's scowl became a grimace for a couple of seconds before resuming its previous state. She sighed harshly.

"Do you want me to stay?"

Her eyes snapped to his.

"I know you weren't expecting this. I don't know what you're doing here, to prepare, but if you need my help…" Uryū trailed off.

Yoruichi blinked at him, her expression morphing into something thoughtful. "Do you want to come back?"

He glanced away. "If it better serves our endeavors, I will."

She huffed; it was almost a laugh. "That's not what I asked. But… no. Kisuke told me to stick with the plan. And the plan, as far as I knew it, was to keep you in Soul Society for as long as possible. Tessai and I can handle things here."

Uryū nodded, feeling a sense of relief he could not quite explain. "Very well."

There was a long silence. Yoruichi rotated her teacup in her hands. "You heard about what happened on our end, right?"

"A little." He knew Yuzu had healed Jinta, that the captains had come here without the Sōtaichō's approval. He didn't imagine that it would go unnoticed, even if they were only gone about a day.

"Watch her," Yoruichi said, quietly. There was a firmness to her tone that wasn't usually there. "I'm not Kisuke, but I've known him long enough to know when even he's surprised by something. And he was surprised by what Yuzu did. If it caught his interest, then…" She arched an eyebrow.

Uryū frowned. "I was hoping there was some explanation for that I just didn't know," he admitted. But he hadn't missed the occasional glance the captains threw at Yuzu while they ate. It had happened a few too many times to be coincidence.

"None that I've ever heard of," Yoruichi replied. "I'm sure Unohana will address it, but that's not the kind of thing that stays under wraps forever. It might be nothing, but it might be an issue. At the very least, if it's a power that affects space or time, she'll have the Central 46 to deal with. They keep a tight hold of anything like that. I don't want her being disappeared into the Maggots' Nest for existing."

Uryū's jaw tightened at the mention of that place. "I understand."

This time, Yoruichi's sigh was more fatigued than anything. "Good." A pause. "Some trip back, huh?"

Uryū allowed himself half a smile. "I didn't go into this expecting ordinary," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but did you expect Hell?"

He shook his head.

"I most certainly did not."

Term Dictionary:

Sajō Sabaku – 鎖条鎖縛 – "Locking Bondage Stripes." Bakudō #63. Basically a rope/chain spell. Yuzu forms a chain net with it because her zanpakutō's abilities allow her to, among other things, reshape kidō.

Sōren Sōkatsui – 双漣蒼火墜 – "Twin Lotus Blue Fire, Crash Down." Hadō #73. An advanced form of Hadō #33, Sōkatsui. Typically used as a blasting spell, but again due to her ability to change the shape of kidō, Yuzu alters its typical form here.

Aoge – 扇げ – "Fan." One of Hisaku's special techniques. Using it, the flames generated by Habatake or Sakebe can be directed and controlled even after they separate from the blade. Karin controls their motion with her off-hand, though she can also use the blade itself, or, with great concentration, her mind alone. She can also spread or compress the fire for various effects. In this case, it was just a straightforward blast.

Tenran – 闐嵐 – "Orchid Sky." Hadō #58. By spinning their zanpakutō in a rotating motion, the user generates a tornado-like blast of wind.

Juhaku – 樹白 – "White Tree." A technique where Rukia stabs the ground, beginning a trail of ice which spreads toward her opponent and freezes anything in the way.

Hyapporankan – 百歩欄干 – "Hundred Steps Fence." Bakudō #62. The practitioner throws a blue lance of light at the target. It multiplies into hundreds of thin columns of light, which pin the target to the nearest solid surface.

Jigokujō – 地獄錠 – "Hell Shackles." A new bakudō seal Urahara and Amari invented for the purposes of sealing Shuren, since killing him would just result in his eventual reappearance. The spell in its initial form is a sphere of red light, which is then extended and shot as twin bolts into the Saketsu (鎖結) "binding chain," and Hakusui (魄睡) "soul sleep," the important points of spiritual power in any being. Not to be confused with Jigokuchō (地獄蝶), the "hell butterfly" species.

Kaidō – 回道 – "Turn Way." Blanket term for healing kidō, which don't have spell names or incantations like normal kidō do.

So the scene where Yuzu purifies the chain off Jinta was inspired by a scene in the actual Hell Verse movie where Yuzu, who is the one with the Hell Chain problem, just… spontaneously loses it. Like… at the time no one's doing anything; they've all pretty much just figured she's a goner, and then boom, pink light, chain's gone. The scene is actually kind of (unintentionally) funny because of the look on Byakuya's face. So I decided that was getting incorporated into the powers of CT!Yuzu, because it's kind of a big deal and totally not at all explained. Though there is no explanation here, I have one. And it will be getting some play in Catastrophe Theory.

Anyway… yeah. That happened. As usual, Urahara is planning a bazillion steps ahead. And also as usual, he probably should have taken a second to explain things to his friends, but didn't. Damn stupid genius.

I had a request for some pieces about life in the divisions for our three new shinigami, which I am happy to do. So there will be a bits-and-bobs story up soon—and then, finally, the Winter War fic after that. Stay tuned, if you're so inclined!