The Visit

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As far as Byakuya could make out, Yachiru wasn't doing anything other then randomly running around the grounds of Squad five. Upon her assignment being explained she had immediately set off towards Squad five. Byakuya didn't have to ask her to know her reasoning. Aizen Souske had always been a member of Squad five, including being the vice-captain of the squad. If there was a hidden passage that could allow the three traitors access into Seireitei, then the entrance to it would be somewhere here. But where and how was it hidden, most importantly how was Yachiru going to find it just by running around randomly? But was it random? Byakuya looked closer; while her pattern of running was somewhat random, she did seem to be passing one section of the building wall more often then others. However, Byakuya couldn't see why that wall would be of any interest. It was merely a thin dividing wall that separated the courtyard from a room Aizen often used for calligraphy sessions. As a fellow member of the calligraphy society, Byakuya had spent many hours in that room. Aizen always made a point of inviting some of his more gifted students from his calligraphy class in the Shinigami Academy. If Byakuya hadn't witness first hand the betrayal of Aizen Souske, he would have had a hard time believing the former captain of squad five was a traitor, just like most of his students didn't believe what they heard, only acknowledging that Aizen had disappeared.

Busy with his thoughts he didn't notice what Yachiru was up to till the last second. Standing on the far-end of the court yard, she lined herself up with the wall and then ran straight towards it, yelling "Weeeee!!!!"

Byakuya expected her to either crash through the wall or crash into the wall, she did neither. She went into the wall and disappeared. One flash step and he was before the wall. It looked and felt solid like it should, but then where was Yachiru. Byakuya had only moments to react as Yachiru ran back out of the wall. Deftly he caught her, causing her to say in delight, "Yay! Bya-kun caught me! Yay!"

"What's going on?" wondered a throughly confused Byakuya.

For a second Yachiru was serious, "Perfect Hypnosis," she replied, then she smiled a big broad smile, "But it's not really perfect. Re-chan could tell that there was something wrong with Aizen's corpse and I could tell that wall wasn't quite right. But I don't know how it works though. I went through it and I ended up in a cave, way, way, way outside of Seireitei!"

"Hmm... hold on a moment," said Byakuya, "Let me see what I can do. It doesn't matter what he calls it, his abilities are still kido based and I am yet to encounter a kido spell I can't undo."

It took him better part of an hour to undo the illusion but when he finally succeeded, he uncovered a portal-like doorway that led to an unidentified cave, "A manipulation of the Kūkanten'i spell," said Byakuya mostly to himself.

"Kukantin?" wondered Yachiru.

"Kūkanten'i," corrected Byakuya, "It is a forbidden spell that allows spatial displacement. I am stunned that Aizen knew how to perform this spell. The incantation for this is passed down orally from Kido corp captain to Kido corp captain. About a hundred years ago now, the Kido Corp lost both its Captain and Vice-captain overnight. As a result, I believe that this spell, along with several other forbidden spells are now lost and unknown even to the Kido Corp," explained Byakuya.

"Well maybe these spells weren't always forbidden, so maybe it was written down somewhere," offered Yachiru, "Maybe Aizen found someone to teach them to him. I mean, we don't know much about him."

"No, no we don't," agreed Byakuya, "Let's go through and see what's on the other side."

"When we investigated the cave," Byakuya was explaining to his fellow captains in a meeting hours later, "We discovered traces of reitsu from both Ichimaru Gin and Tosen Kaname. However, it is impossible to tell how old the traces are. The cave also contained some hollows of inconsequential power that we easily dispatched. However, the hollows did have the ability to conceal their reitsu. From the words spoken by Aizen and as repeated to me by both Renji and Rukia, Aizen was conducted experiments on hollows that enabled them to conceal their reitsu, I conjecture that he either kept some of those hollows in that cave as guards or he used that cave for experimentation, perhaps both."

"Where was this cave located," wondered Ukitake, "Was it anywhere near Seireitei?"

"It is the cave that was the lair of Metastacia," replied Byakuya.

"What!" exclaimed Kyoraku, "The hollow that killed Shiba Kaien?"

"Yes," replied Byakuya, "Once again, from the report of Aizen's words made by Renji and Rukia, it would seem that Metastacia was also an experiment of Aizen Souske. So it is no surprise that, that cave was his lair."

"But this is impossible," cried Ukitake, "We searched that cave throughly after Kaien's death! We found nothing."

"That is because that cave is filled with passages locked by ordinary kido barriers and hidden with Aizen's zanpakuto's perfect hypnosis. Vice-captain Kusajishi ample talents at infiltration allow her to see through the hypnosis enough to be able to locate the passages. But I do not believe we have uncovered even half of the secrets of the cave. Which is why I asked the Vice-captain to continue her investigation while I make my report. She has asked Ise Nanao to assist her. Vice-captain Ise being an expert in Kido is able to undo Aizen's hypnosis once it is pointed out to her, not to mention the kido barriers he put up to seal certain passages," Byakuya explained.

"Hmm... your report fills me with great concern," replied Captain-commander Yamamoto, "Aside from the fact that it would seem that there is a good chance that Ichimaru Gin may well have re-entered Seireitei, although Kira Izuru is hardly a reliable witness and the disappearance of Matsumoto Rangiku's scarf is not nearly proof enough, what concerns me most is that Aizen's perfect hypnosis seems to last forever. As such we may never know the truth of things till he is dead and his Zanpakuto destroyed. Then and only then will we be able to uncover all that he has hidden from us. But I fear that the lingering effects of his hypnosis might just make it that much harder for us to defeat him," changing his tone, he promptly added, "But we must and will find a way to defeat him, for that is what we are here for. Which brings me to my next order of business, I plan to deploy a small team to Karakura town to work with the substitute Shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo..."

"I need to get out of here," commented Rangiku.

"And why is that?" wondered Nanao, she had just finished up with Yachiru and had come to spend what remained of the evening with Rangiku.

"I nearly kissed Shuhie the other day," cried Rangiku, "I drank so much that I couldn't tell up from down anymore and Shuhie was there and I just... I found myself leaning towards him and..." she broke off.

"I take it you remembered that snake in due course and couldn't bring yourself to do it," said Nanao in an utterly bored voice.

"Kira was there too," replied Rangiku, "As I felt myself move forward he just whispered 'Matsumoto-san', which brought my attention to him and... he gave me such a look! It just screamed what the hell do you think you are doing? Don't you belong to my captain?" she said, "It made me want to scream! I just wanted to yell at him and tell him that his damned Captain had abandoned me and so I was free to kiss who ever I damn well wanted to and take them into my bed too!"

"But of course you are not," Nanao said again, in that same bored tone, "I rather doubt you would have done anything except hurt yourself had you actually ended up kissing Hisagi-san. It would have just been like last time."

"I told you never to bring that up again," said Rangiku angrily, "I told you to forget about it."

"Forget about it? How could I forget something like that!" cried Nanao, "You were absolutely hysterical! And you didn't even do anything wrong. You were drunk and that git was the one who was trying to take advantage of you! Had I and Ichimaru not come in when we did, it would have been rape! We could both hear your screams of no and saw how badly you were struggling and you still made Haineku's ash fall on you and cut yourself with it. Why?"

"Didn't you see the look he was giving me, Nanao?" demanded Rangiku, "I mean, the moment the door was thrown open and you two rushed in, I was so happy. But then you were the one who pulled him off me and threw him out the door with promises of retribution. Gin just stood there, looking at me and I knew what was going through his head. Even though he didn't say anything I knew what he was thinking. Why was he in your room Rangiku? Why did you leave whichever bar you were in with him? Why were you not with Nanao like you should have been? What did you get up to while I was away on mission in the living world?" Rangiku sobbed at the memory, "Cutting myself then and there, in front of him was the only way I could think of to convince him that I didn't want it and I only belonged to him. That I was happy he had come to visit me straight after returning to Soul society, that I was glad you had returned to check on me. I was glad that you two had interrupted that git."

"Are you happy Kira-san interrupted you?" wondered Nanao.

Silence, "Yes," admitted Rangiku, "You were right, I would have ended up in my room, cutting myself as atonement for even kissing him. Even though it would be a pointless action this time around because there is no Gin anymore to hold me afterward, to heal me and kiss me, letting me know that he wasn't angry anymore, that he wasn't jealous, that he believed me when I said I didn't mean for it to happen. But Gin probably doesn't even care what I do anymore."

Nanao sighed, "You are right, you need to get out of here. Maybe you can get sent on a mission or something."

"Maybe," said Rangiku, "I'll keep my ears open for news of one."

After awhile Nanao asked, "Whatever happened to that git? Did you report him? I can't remember."

"Officially he died the very next day during in a tragic accident during a routine training session," replied Matsumoto.

"Unofficially?" asked Nanao, but she could make a fair guess at what happened.

"He was 'training' against Vice-captain Ichimaru Gin of Squad five when he died," and that was explanation enough.

Kira sighed, as memories of the other night flooded his tired and worn mind. That had been painful to watch. Matsumoto had been so very drunk and Hisagi too. Hisagi hadn't even realized his dreams of being kissed my Matsumoto Rangiku had come that close to fruition and would have come to fruition had Kira not been there. But what else was Kira to do. He knew Matsumoto would regret it had she gone through with the action. Beside the captain, the captain had come to... something caught his eyes, no... it couldn't be!

Tucked in a corner of his shelf, almost hidden from view was a pink scarf! Matsumoto's pink scarf! Was it then after all he who had taken it? Did he subconciously take the scarf as he imagined the visit from his captain? He hadn't heard about Yachiru finding anything. Maybe that was because there was nothing to find. He had imagined it all! Slowly he pulled the scarf out and tossed it on the ground. Tomorrow he would take it back to Matsumoto and apologize to her for taking it, even if it was subconciously. He shouldn't have stopped Matsumot from kissing Hisagi, he shouldn't have stopped Hisagi from asking Matsumoto out. His captain didn't care and maybe Matsumoto and Hisagi would be happy if they got together.

Author's Notes: Hmm.... both the hit count and the review count for this fic is going up. Which kind of concerns me because I can't help but feel that people are going to be disappointed with this fic. I mean, so far I have been using this fic as a dumping ground for all the ideas I wanted to explore given what I found around the place. I mean, ever since I did that mission in Bleach: Dark Souls, I have wanted to share it in the form of a fic just because it was so sweet and so sad. But it's not really much of fic on its own, which is why I turned it into chapter 3 for this fic after I decided I was going to make this a little longer. It doesn't really add to the plot of the story and in all honesty the plot of this story is quite thin.

Chapter 1 and 2 have really been all about Kira and his relationship with Ichimaru. Which is very interesting and totally different from the relationship between Hisagi and Tosen and Hinamori and Aizen (not to mention every other captain-lieutenant relationship). I mean, while Hisagi's first reaction to Isane's message about the true traitors was "No way, the Captain betrayed us?!" but the next time we see him he is holding a blade to Tosen's throat. A clear indication that Hisagi's personal loyalty always belonged to the Gotei 13 and not to Tosen as such. Not trying to belittle his loss or his feelings at being betrayed by his captain or anything. Just saying that I think Hisagi's relationship with Tosen was not very different from the general relationship between Vice-captain and captain. On the other hand Kira's first words after Isane's announcement was "But he told me he wouldn't hurt Hinamori." Indicating he probably had a good inkling Ichimaru was up to no good but did what he was told anyway. Kira did have a weird zombiesh look on his face as he fought Matsumoto, prompting her to wonder what Gin had done to Kira. I don't think Gin did anything to Kira except give the order to distract Matsumoto and Hitsugaya, and buy him sometime alone with Hinamori. As I said in chapter 1, after reading the colourful bleach chapters I did get the strong impression that Kira was missing Ichimaru the man, despite knowing full well what Ichimaru is. By the same token, Gin does seem to be genuinely happy that Kira isn't wallowing in his misery as indicated by his comment to Tosen during the Fake Karakura town arc. I do think that Kira probably harbor deep affection for Ichimaru, but not a physical attraction, more... idol worship... although it's still not the right phrase... I just think he really, really likes his captain or at least what his captain symbolizes, which is what I ended up exploring in chapter 2 and to a lesser degree in chapter 1. Anyway, point is that I do think that Kira and Ichimaru did probably have a more personal relationship then most of the other captains do with their vice-captains.

Anyway, once again the colourful bleach chapters I have been refering to can be found here: http:// pics. livejourna / tinni/ gallery/ 0001yhet Sorry for the long Author's note. Just had to get a few things off my chest. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and will enjoy the one chapter that remains.