Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, or any of its characters. I do, however, own this story.
Torn
Chapter 19: And Now For The Hard Part…
Yoruichi opened her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself after the jarring trip into the Espada's mind. A split second later the Captain had to fight the sudden urge to vomit; the place this memory had occurred in smelled worse than the lowest sections of Western Rukongai.
And yet, like in the lowest sections of Rukongai, those who had been unfortunate enough to wind up here had somehow carved out little niches for themselves in the grime and grit and neglect. This tenacious attitude and desire to thrive was the trademark of any successful urchin, and its physical expression was always the same sound: a sound that was approaching ever closer to the golden-eyed Soul Reaper.
Laughter.
The joyful sound that seemed to spite its dank surroundings, that seemed to strike a spark of warmth in even the coldest and grayest of places.
"Did you see the looks on their faces, Grimmjow? I'd be willing to spend two weeks in solitary for that, and I'd do it all over again once I got out!"
Yourichi's heart skipped a beat as she heard the voice that was forced out between moments of mischievous, joyous cackling. It was unmistakably Soi Fon's, but it sounded younger and, most surprisingly, happy. In all of the years that she had known her former protégé, Shihoin had never heard Soi Fon sound anything other than plaintive or frustrated.
Even when she had praised her student directly, Yoruichi had only seen the faintest glimmer of a smile cross her face. And yet the figure that was just now coming out of the shadowed hallway was unquestionably Soi Fon, and she had a grin across her face to rival even the Captain's famed feline smile. And if that wasn't enough of a shock, she had her arm around the shoulders of the last person Yoruichi would have ever expected: the Espada, Grimmjow. Except this Grimmjow wasn't an Espada, or even a Hollow: he was a teenager about Soi Fon's age, and decidedly human.
"I don't know if you'd be able to take more than a week in there, Shaolin," Jaegerjaques replied smugly, and the dark-eyed girl's grin quickly turned into a thin line of frustration as the laughter in her eyes became mixed with fire at the challenge.
"Oh?" she asked, a single eyebrow rising with pointed precision. "And why's that? You think I don't have what it takes?"
Grimmjow's blue eyes flashed and he gave a wide grin as he replied.
"I think you'd be clawing at the walls four days in, Shaolin, and begging for the pleasure of my company."
The girl broke away from the casual embrace as if Grimmjow had suddenly dangled a scorpion in front of her face, but amidst all of the shock and denial on her face Yoruichi could tell that the boy had clearly struck a nerve.
"Bullshit," Shaolin shot back gruffly, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I say four days?" Jaegerjaques said, his voice dropping an octave. "I meant three."
The dark-eyed girl had to struggle to fight back a shiver, and her defiant pose lost its spine in an instant.
"You're insufferable, you know that?" she groused after a moment, and Grimmjow's smile softened into something more genuine.
"Wouldn't be me if I wasn't," he said softly, drawing Shaolin into an actual embrace and letting his smile widen once more as she rested her chin on his shoulder and let her eyes close.
"Grimmjow?" she asked after a moment, her voice sounding hesitant. "If you could get out of here, but you had to leave me behind, would you do it?"
A frown darkened Jaegerjaques' happy expression and his eyebrows furrowed, but he was careful not to let his grip reflect his change in mood.
"Of course not," he answered. "What kind of a question is that?"
Shaolin broke away from the embrace, but kept her hands on Grimmjow's shoulders.
"A stupid one," she answered with a small smile. "C'mon," she finished, walking ahead of the blue-haired teenager and waving for him to follow, "let's go eat some of that gruel they call food in this dump; I'm starving."
Grimmjow shook his head and jogged after Shaolin, convinced that he would never be able to understand her in a million years and having no problem with that whatsoever.
Yoruichi watched the pair go and could only wonder at the absurd plausibility of it, before curiosity swooped in and she began to puzzle over how this was possible. No one was supposed to retain memories from their human lives once becoming a Soul or a Hollow, so what had caused these to resurface? Could it really be something as rare as zanpakuto resonance? Before her train of thought had a chance to progress much further, however, Yoruichi found herself enveloped by blackness. Suddenly feeling like she'd taken a direct hit from Zaraki using kendo, she was hurled violently from the vision.
The spiritual backlash caused by being forced out of another's thoughts so vehemently was enough to not only throw the purple-haired Soul Reaper halfway across the room, but also to send her spiraling down into unconsciousness. Entering the mind of another was delicate work, after all, and being compelled to exit it so rapidly and bluntly was akin to having brain surgery done on you by a hyperactive chimpanzee wielding a crowbar.
Grimmjow, for his part, woke up feeling nothing more than a nagging ache from where Yoruichi had blindsided him earlier. Snatching up his zanpakuto and rising to his feet on slightly shaky legs, the Espada was about to leave the room when his gaze fell upon the knocked-out Captain lying sprawled on the floor like a rag doll. A smile crossed his face as he thought of a plan so crazy it just might work, and Jaegerjaques slung the golden-eyed Soul Reaper over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before vanishing.
Ichigo's look of exasperated relief upon feeling the last of their group finally approaching was replaced by one of shock as he saw whom Grimmjow had brought along for the ride.
"What're you doing with Yoruichi, Grimmjow?" he asked hesitantly, almost not wanting to know the answer.
"Woman tried to look into my mind," the Espada replied tersely. "Knocked her out cold, so now we got ourselves a hostage."
"Why anyone would want to pry into that thing you call a mind is beyond me," Ulquiorra commented dryly, before Grimmjow turned his now-steely eyes on the Fourth Espada and sneered.
"What happened to you, Ulquiorra?" he shot back. "Tell me you got into a fight with Kyoraku or the Captain-Commander, because otherwise Four is way too high of a rank for you."
"If I didn't have both of my hands full right now, Grimmjow," Schiffer seethed, "one of them would be holding your head."
Before the quarrel could come to blows, a massive wave of reiatsu hit the rebels head-on as every Captain in Soul Society, excluding Unohana and the ones they had fought earlier, materialized in front of them. The shockwave was potent enough to wake up Yoruichi; with a quick maneuver on the part of her captors, however, the Captain felt the white blade of Ichigo's bankai pressing lightly against her neck right as her vision began to clear.
"Sorry, Yoruichi," the orange-haired Soul Reaper apologized in a whisper only she could hear, sounding sincerely remorseful. "I hope you'll forgive me." Turning his attention towards the assembled Captains of Soul Society, Kurosaki raised his voice to a shout.
"I know you're probably thinking about blasting right through Yoruichi to get to me, Captain-Commander," he called out, staring the ancient man down, "but I would really advise you against doing that."
"And why would the words of a coward and a traitor such as yourself ever be heeded by my ears, boy?" Yamamoto growled out, and Ichigo frowned as frustration began to bleed into his voice.
"The Second Division Captain is already in the Human World, and could be struck down by an Arrancar incursion tomorrow for all you know. Kill Yoruichi now, and you would have no one to fall back on. The SMC would rebel and you would lose your eyes and ears, not to mention," the Soul Reaper finished in an acidic voice as he dropped the hammer, " that Kisuke Urahara would be very, very loathe to take up the now-vacant mantle of Twelfth Division Captain if he finds out you melted his former superior officer and best friend to a crisp."
Yamamoto's eyes opened before narrowing to slivers of molten hatred, but in the end it was he who budged and gave the signal for the rest of the Captains to back away. Ichigo nodded to Hichigo, who opened a garganta with a wave of his hand.
"I'll let her go as soon as this thing is sealed," Kurosaki said as the six stepped into the gaping void. "Sorry, but I don't exactly trust you not to blast us all to oblivion the moment I let Yoruichi free."
The Captain-Commander glared daggers at Ichigo, but made no effort to stop him. As the rift closed shut with a whine, the brown-eyed Soul Reaper lowered his blade from Yoruichi's throat with a sigh.
"I'll say this much, Ichigo," the Captain commented as she brushed her shoulders off, "you're the only person outside of Unohana who I've ever seen make that old codger flinch."
"No hard feelings, I hope?" Kurosaki asked, and Shihoin shook her head.
"Believe me, Ichigo," she replied, "I know what desperation can do to someone. Now get out of here before I change my mind and knock your teeth out," Yoruichi finished, her eyes gleaming once more with their familiar mischief. Ichigo nodded solemnly and the five rebels vanished, presumably journeying towards the Human World. Shihion focused and tore open another garganta, finding herself back in Soul Society but faced with a rather unlikely sight.
Her own troops, looking decidedly hostile.
"Arrest her!" Yamamoto's voice boomed out. "Yourichi Shihoin is known to have disregarded the rules and laws of Soul Society before, and until we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not a player in this escape attempt, she is to be detained in the Maggot's Nest."
"What?!" The indignant Captain shouted as she was put into an unnecessarily strong full-nelson by the people who had supposedly sworn allegiance to her above all others. "With all due respect, Sir," she protested straining to keep from snarling, "are you fucking joking?!"
"Bite your tongue, or I will burn it off!" the Captain-Commander barked. Canvassing the faces of her fellow Soul Reapers for support, Yoruichi was at least somewhat relieved to see that at least Ukitake, Kyoraku, Unohana and surprisingly Byakuya seemed to doubt the Captain-Commander's sentiment.
Hopefully they had a serious amount of pull with Yamamoto, or things were looking bleak indeed.
The four conscious rebels and their unconscious comrade touched down onto the soil of the Human World looking like survivors of a volcano eruption. Torn up, bleeding, exhausted wounded and filthy, the last thing any of them wanted was to talk to anyone, let alone someone of a gratingly cheerful, borderline-mocking disposition.
Which is exactly why fate chose to make the place they materialized in be about 50 yards away from the Urahara Shop.
"Hello again, Kurosaki-san!" Kisuke's voice floated over to them, upbeat as ever. "I guess I should up your tally of 'Successful Soul Society Invasions' to two, no?"
Ichigo shot the former Captain a weary death-glare before falling over, the exertion of the day's events finally bearing down on him. Urahara fanned himself to cover a sly smile, and motioned to Tessia, Ururu and Jinta.
"Get them inside, and start patching them up," Kisuke ordered. "I'm sure they have quite the story to tell."
Ichigo awoke what felt like a few hours later with a groan, and tried to get up from his prone position until a strong pair of hands grabbed hold of his shoulders and forced him back down. Blinking a few times, Kurosaki saw that the person currently keeping him prostrate was Neliel, who was glaring down at him like his mother after she'd told him for the third time to clean his room already. It looked as though all of her wounds had healed, and Ichigo's brown eyes lit up with hope.
"Nel," he said, his voice slightly strained, "you're…"
The Arrancar cut him off with a sad shake of her head, though, before letting up on Kurosaki's shoulders.
"That scum Kurotsuchi shattered her zanpakuto," Ulquiorra supplied from the other side of the room, sporting a thick swath of bandages over his wounded, still-healing shoulder. "She can't speak, Ichigo."
The hope in Kurosaki's eyes promptly dimmed, replaced by shock, anger and pity.
"Did you kill him, Ulquiorra?"
"Yes," the Fourth Espada replied evenly, "and he suffered before the end."
"Okay, okay," Kisuke's voice broke in, "enough of this gray talk for today. I have some good news; I made each of you gigai! Except for Kurosaki-san, of course," the shopkeeper added, "because he doesn't need one… yet."
Ignoring the jab at the end of the sentence, Ichigo began to try and gather reiatsu from his surroundings to heal himself as he replied.
"What good will those do us?" he asked, and it was Grimmjow who answered him.
"You don't honestly think we're going back to Hueco Mundo, do you, Ichigo? Until we figure out where we stand in this whole mess, we'll be laying low here for a while."
"Precisely!" Urahara exclaimed, and to the surprise of everyone present it was Neliel who shut him up with an elbow to the face and an exasperated frown.
"To be struck down by one so beautiful…" Kisuke gasped as blood poured from his nose, missing the pointedly murderous glance Ulquiorra gave him in that moment, "I go gladly…"
"What I wanna know is why this joker's helping us," Jaegerjaques finished, and Kisuke sprang back up as if Nel had never knocked him over.
"A few reasons," Grimmjow-kun," he answered, ignoring the growl that issued from Jeagerjaques' throat at the diminutive address. "First, I wanted to see if I could make untraceable, functional gigai for Arrancar in the same way I did for the Vizards. Secondly," he finished as his tone turned decidedly darker, "I feel like a little rebellion is mandatory after what the Captain Commander pulled immediately following your escape."
Urahara explained the situation after a prompt from Ichigo, and Kurosaki was immediately apologetic.
"Urahara-san," he said frantically while Nel shook her head in despair as she watched Ichigo opened up cut after cut with his thrashing, "believe me when I tell you I had no intention of…"
"I know, Kurosaki-san," the former Captain cut him off seriously, "I know. Rest assured that your lack of ill-intent is the only reason why any of you are still alive. The gigai I crafted for you should allow your comrades to access the full range of their Hollow powers and still retain a human appearance; the only glitch is with the functionality of the hierro. As of right now it doesn't work, but I will fix that as soon as I can."
"What are you going to do about Yoruichi?" the brown-eyed Soul Reaper asked, and Urahara gave a vicious smile.
"You worry about yourselves, Ichigo," he answered. "I'll worry about Yoruichi."
Without another word, the former Captain vanished and left the rebels by themselves.
"So…" Hichigo eventually broached into the silence, "what do we do now?"
Everyone was silent for a moment, until Ichigo shrugged and spoke.
"How would you guys feel about slumming it as High-Schoolers for a while?"
Ulquiorra's impassive eyes widened slightly, incredulous.
"You can't be serious." He interjected, his voice struggling to remain even.
"Fuck no!" This from Grimmjow and Hichigo, while Neliel's mouth simply dropped slightly open in a mixture of shock and fear. Ichigo sighed, running his hands wearily through his hair.
"Well, guys," he parried, "it's either that, or get real jobs."
The change in the atmosphere was instantaneous.
"It could be worse…" Ulquiorra grudgingly admitted.
"Sold!" Grimmjow and Hichigo chorused, willing to do anything to keep the specter of a nine-to-five job at bay. Neliel just shrugged plaintively, willing to try it but not overjoyed by any means.
"Trust me," Ichigo commiserated, "the last place I want to be right now is High School. But hey, at least it's not permanent, right?"
"It had better not be," Grimmjow threatened with a crack of his bandaged knuckles, "or your spine is going to be missing a few vertebrae real soon."
Kurosaki swallowed hard to hide his fear at the seriousness of the threat, and could only hope that no one from the Human World expedition team was currently undercover at Karakura High to spare him any further friendly fire.
A/N: Just to give you guys a heads-up, this change of setting is my way of slowing down the action and putting the main plot on a side burner so that I can deal with a ton of character development in this upcoming arc, while the plot continues to brew in the background. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, please review!