Triumph
Chapter 2: Tipping Point
Shiro looked down at his empty cup balefully, feeling the small weight of the meager number of coins in his pockets and getting angry that he hadn't even worked up a good buzz yet. So much for the night.
"Yo, Shiro."
"What do you want," the Hollow asked as he turned his black-and-yellow eyes to face his visitor, "Renji?"
"Nothing, really," the Sixth Division's Lieutenant replied casually. "I'm just here to deliver a message: Captain Kuchiki would like to have you over for dinner tonight, at the Manor."
"All these years, and you're still Byakuya's little messenger boy, Renji?" Shiro jibed, smiling as he saw the Shinigami flinch. "I guess I gave you too much credit back in the War for surviving as long as you did."
"You motherfucker—" Renji began, clenching his hand around the grip of Zabimaru and beginning to draw it, only to have his action stopped by the Hollow's harsh laughter.
"Jeezus, I was just screwin' with ya, Abarai. What does Byakuya want from me?"
"Just to talk to you," the Lieutenant replied simply, but Shiro could tell from his voice that there were much bigger implications to this meeting than a little chat; Byakuya never wasted time, after all.
But still, intrigue was fine with Shiro, as long as the drinks were on the house. Rising, he narrowed his eyes mischievously and smiled.
"Lead the way."
He had always gotten the sense that there was a level of discontent among the high-ranking Shinigami regarding the truce Unohana had made with the remaining Arrancar, but even Shiro was surprised to see so many faces at the table. Captain Komamura from the Seventh Division was there, flanked by Yumichika and Matsumoto, the latter of whom now wore the haori of the Tenth Division. Hisagi and Kira, Captains of the Ninth and Third Divisions respectively, were present as well, and rounding out the powerful assembly was Byakuya Kuchiki himself, Captain of the Sixth Division.
"You sure have been busy, Byakuya," the Hollow remarked, impressed, as he took his seat and Renji sat down to the right of his Captain. "Does Unohana know about your little brewing insurrection?"
"Of course not," Kuchiki parried calmly. "The Captain Commander is far too preoccupied with rebuilding the power of Seireitei to worry about the possibility of rebellion."
"Of course," the Hollow replied with equal calmness, totally unmoved by Byakuya's blatant show of force. "So, my question to you is, if you have so many people behind you, why not move now? And why drag me in to this?"
"Because numbers do not necessarily equal power, Shiro," Byakuya answered as his steely eyes flickered in the dim candlelight of the room. "Even though several stand with me, there are many who do not, and it would be foolish to disregard their strength. Yet all the same, they are obstacles; obstacles that I will see removed."
Shiro's face split open in a wide grin as he realized where the conversation was going, and he took a long pull on his drink before speaking again.
"Then tell me, Byakuya," he said, "what's the going price on a haori these days?"
A cold smile tugged at the edge of the Captain's mouth, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.
"The head of Kaien Shiba."
The macabre answer drew a laugh from Shiro, but when it had subsided and he broke the heavy silence, the Hollow wasn't looking at Byakuya. Instead, his black and yellow eyes had found a new target in Renji Abarai.
"You know this is going to break her heart, don'tcha?" he said with gleeful malevolence, but Renji said nothing in reply. The Lieutenant's only response was to lower his head in shame, an action that was quickly overshadowed by Byakuya's next words.
"But that's not all," he continued. "I need you to keep an eye on Unohana, and find something we might be able to use as leverage against her."
Shiro's smile shifted to a smirk, his eyes blazing in the light.
"Fine," he agreed after a moment, "but I want your assurance about something in return, Kuchiki."
"What?"
"That after you pull off this little coup of yours, you don't throw me into a jail cell with the rest of the malcontents."
Byakuya's eyes narrowed slightly at the demand.
"And what makes you think I would do such a thing?"
"Are you seriously making a bargain with this Hollow, Kuchiki!?" Komamura's growling voice broke in angrily. "This is the best plan you can think of? He's totally untrustworthy!"
The Captain of Sixth Division silenced Komamura with a quick glance, before turning his attention back to an intolerably smug-looking Shiro.
"I see your point," Byakuya admitted after a moment. "Very well. Remove Kaien Shiba from his position as Captain of the Fifth Division and find me some chink in Unohana's armor, and Shiba's Division will pass into your hands."
"The Fifth, huh?" Shiro said speculatively, drawing out his final decision a bit longer just to grate with Komamura a tad more. "You know, there're some people who think that haori's got a curse on it, after what happened to Hirako and then to Aizen.
"But fortunately for you, Kuchiki," he finished, draining his cup, "I'm not a superstitious man. I'll give you your coup, as long as I get what's mine in return."
"And you will," Byakuya insisted calmly. "Have no doubts about that."
Shiro nodded shortly, rose and left, leaving the conspirators alone in the room.
"Do you really think he can be controlled, Byakuya?" Kira asked, and the Captain nodded.
"There is nothing simpler to keep in check than a beast that desires to prove itself, Kira. Give it a purpose, and it will eat from the palm of your hand.
"Besides, no matter how thick a cloak of humanity Shiro casts over himself, underneath it he is still, and will always be, nothing more complex than a Hollow. Arrancar might have reunited with their humanity, but Shiro is still a creature of pure instincts, and nothing more. As I said, as long as we give him an outlet for those instincts, the odds of him ever betraying us are minimal."
"I just hope you're right, Kuchiki," HIsagi spoke, finishing his meal and rising as the rest of the company soon followed suit and left the Manor for the night. Only Matsumoto lingered behind, turning back to face Byakuya after a moment.
"Can I ask you a question?" she said, and her fellow Captain gave a distracted nod.
"What was the vision Aizen showed you with the Kyoka Suigetsu?" Matsumoto asked, continuing hurriedly when she saw the stark change on Byakuya's face, his expression snapping from distracted to sharply focused and more than a little angered.
"I don't mean to pry," she assured him, "I just… look, I know why the other Captains are behind this, but I can't figure out why it is that you're pushing yourself so hard. And if you're going to be Captain Commander after the dust settles, I'd at least like to know what's driving you. That's all."
Byakuya didn't speak for several moments, but when he did his voice was considerably more open than it had been during the meeting earlier, albeit also carrying an extra edge of bitterness to it.
"I had a family," he said slowly. "Hisana was still alive, and we had a family. For twenty years I lived in that world, and then Aizen died and took it with him. And for that injustice against me, against almost all of us, what was Unohana's chosen retribution? To clasp hands with those who made up Aizen's war machine, and ignore the vengeance that was rightfully entitled to us.
"But what about you, Rangiku?" Byakuya parried back at her. "Of all the people I count among my allies, you have the strongest ties to Unohana; after all, she is the one caring for your child. So why would you turn against her?"
"Because you're not the only one Aizen ever took anything from, Kuchiki," Matsumoto answered pointedly, before walking the rest of the way out of the room and leaving Byakuya alone with his thoughts. A few moments later a man clothed in black flashed into the room by his side, speaking a few words into his master's ear. Byakuya's eyes widened in surprise at the news, scarcely believing it even though it had come from one of his most trusted spies.
"You're absolutely sure that report is valid?" he demanded, and the spy gave a solemn nod.
"And where is he now?"
"He was last spotted by Tosho in Kushajishi earlier tonight; I doubt he's moved far since then."
"You can never make assumptions with someone like him, Aoro," Byakuya replied as calmly as he could, even while the first surge of happiness he'd felt in ages rose up within him.
"Bring me my sword, and the shard of sekki-sekki stone from the reliquary."
"At once, my lord," the spy said and vanished. A grin slowly split the Kuchiki lord's face, and he smiled.
He just hoped his prey hadn't kept up their swordplay since the War had come to a close.
Amara twisted and spun with grace that seemed to befit a dancer moreso than a medic, the sound of her zanpakuto's blade as it whistled through the air providing a beat for the sharp cadence of her movements. Héctor's earlier words had stirred something in her, and as the need to prove to herself that she wasn't losing her edge had become stronger and stronger eventually Amara had snapped. Taking up her zanpakuto, she had walked out into the training fields under the moon for some long-overdue practice.
Her zanpakuto seemed to be enjoying itself as well as its steel sang out into the clear night, and the two of them moved in harmony for several minutes of unbroken kata until the cycle was finally brought to its natural conclusion and Amara ceased her movements with practiced grace. The Shinigami noted with pleasure that her breathing was only slightly accelerated, despite the intense routine.
"Not bad," a voice broke in, disturbing the silence that had fallen over the field. "Not bad at all."
Amara's head whipped around at the sound, her mouth tightening into a frown when she saw who it was that had intruded on her solitude.
"What the hell are you doing here, Héctor?" she spat, and the young man simply smirked at her in a way that was at once inviting and decidedly predatory.
"Just satisfying my curiosity, that's all," he replied easily, leisurely closing the space between them with deliberate steps and putting Amara on the defensive.
"Well, is it satisfied?" she asked, mentally cringing at how simple she had made it for him to assume the dominant position in the conversation. What was it about this kid that made him so insufferably, magnetically cocky?
You seem to forget his parentage, child, the lightly teasing voice of her zanpakuto chimed in, and Amara was quick to squash it. Héctor picked up on her misstep without missing a beat, the smile that grew slowly on his face practically bleeding confidence that bordered on arrogance but never quite crossed the line.
"You could say that, yeah," he answered, continuing to move forward and drinking in the defined curves of the Shinigami's figure. "I knew you were hiding something, Amara. So, tell me—"
Héctor's words were abruptly cut off by the cold feeling of a sword's edge pressed against his throat.
"No," Amara hissed, "you're going to tell me just what the fuck you want, and do it quickly before I decide you'd be more fun to have around without your vocal chords intact."
"So, the healer's got fangs after all," the Vizard said with amusement dripping from his voice, as if the edge of a blade was no more threatening to him than a mosquito.
"Now we're really getting somewhere."
Amara barely had time to draw in a breath before Héctor had vanished, and the next words she heard made her heart rate spike instantly.
"Hado number 4: Byakurai."
A quick dodge turned what would have been a disabling strike through her shoulder into nothing more than a singed sleeve, and when Amara spun to face her impromptu sparring partner with a look of rage in her eyes, all she got in return was that damned smirk.
"What the hell is your problem, you asshole?" she seethed. "That could've gone right through my shoulder!"
"Maybe it could have, true," Héctor began offhandedly, before vanishing again with a whisper,
"But we both know it wouldn't have," he finished, his face suddenly no more than six inches from hers, "and that's the point."
Amara said nothing, letting her instincts speak for her as her zanpakuto lashed out at the Vizard. Héctor jumped back quickly, but not before a thin cut had been etched across his chest.
"Huh," Héctor said as he pressed two fingers to his wound, holding them up in the moonlight to behold the red liquid that now clung to them. "Been a while since someone made me bleed without me letting them, kid," he mused. "So why the hell aren't you a Lieutenant, again?"
"Why do you even care?" Amara shouted back, finally snapping. "Why does it matter to you what rank I am? You don't even know me!"
"I know the look of someone who's holding themselves back when they don't want to," the Vizard parried, his tone shifting down to a level that was decidedly more edged than his normal, cocky way of talking. "I know because I used to be that way, and it was hell. But I didn't have a choice. You do, and it pisses me off that you're still hobbling yourself voluntarily!"
Amara let the weight of the words settle over her, her shoulders shifting into a more pure battle stance as her feet reflexively followed suit.
"Don't talk like you know who I am, you piece of shit," she said, her voice now utterly devoid of anger and instead replete with cold, ruthless killing intent. "Keep running your mouth like you are and I'll cut your goddamn head off."
"As if you could," Héctor shot back scornfully, his hand moving over to clench the grip of his own zanpakuto. "And by the way," he finished, the spite in his tone rising, "I know exactly who you are…
"Amara Ichimaru."
Amara's gray-blue eyes widened in horrified disbelief as Héctor went for the jugular, and by the time she regained her senses he was nowhere to be seen.
"All the reiatsu manipulation in the world can't hide instincts," the Vizard's hard voice came from her left, and the Shinigami had barely locked eyes with him when she felt a sharp pain lance down her arm. Amara hadn't even seen Héctor draw, and yet somehow he had completed an attack and re-sheathed his blade with such fluidity as for it to seem instantaneous.
"Iaijutsu?" she asked as calmly as she could, ignoring the light pain racing up and down her arm. He'd made the cut shallow on purpose… the bastard was just playing with her!
"Yeah," Héctor replied with a glint in his eye. "Nice reflexes, to be able to follow that strike at all. Like I said, your instincts give you away, Ichimaru—"
"Shut up!" Amara shouted, emitting a surge of raw reiatsu that forced her opponent to back off to a few paces away with a quick shunpo.
"Your temper, though," Héctor observed, "you definitely get from your mother."
"That woman is not my mother," the Shinigami hissed, and Héctor's confidence ebbed slightly as he saw from Amara's change in expression that he'd struck a major nerve.
"Enough of this," she continued, holding her zanpakuto out in front of her and squaring her shoulders. "I don't care what you thought you saw in me, but trust me when I say we have nothing in common. For starters, you're a filthy hybrid," she spat, putting emphasis on the last word as though it was poisonous to even utter it.
"Ouch," Héctor replied as nonchalantly as he could, but hearing something like that again after so long in the company of others like him was certainly a rude awakening, and he had to fight not to flinch. "But I guess you have a point; it's not like my father used to serve under Sosuke Aizen just like yours did… oh wait, that's right," he finished, eyes narrowing to icy clue slits,
"He did."
Not wanting to give her enemy any more chances to draw parallels between them, Amara decided to bring this fight to a close.
"Spring, Kousho!"
The zanpakuto in her hands glowed as it was released, and when the light faded the katana had changed into a straight-edged jian.
"You're finished," she hissed, whipping her sword around in a smooth arc as light leapt from the tip of the blade, rushing forward in a crescent shape towards Héctor. He rolled sharply out of the way to avoid the attack, but when the Vizard sprang to his feet Amara was nowhere to be seen.
"Looking for me?"
He spun around and expected to see the source of the taunt, but Héctor's eyes beheld nothing but air.
"What's wrong, little Vizard?" her sharp voice spoke out again. "Can't you see me?"
A sharp pain shot down his arm a second later, a harsh reflection of the blow Héctor had given Amara moments earlier. His Inner Hollow roared with anger at the provocation, but Héctor kept it in check; he was trying to enlighten the Shinigami, not murder her.
"My Kousho allows me to manipulate the light around me as I see fit," Amara's voice broke in again, sounding not more than a few feet away from him, at most."As long as I use it to hide myself from sight, you don't have a prayer."
There were several more jolts of pain, and the Vizard soon found the upper part of his kimono reduced to little more than shreds by the Shinigami's blade as lines of blood appeared across his chest.
"Just give up now, and I'll make it quick."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you," Héctor replied through grit teeth as he tried to track down the source of her voice, "that it's idiotic to reveal the powers of your weapon to an enemy in the middle of combat? Hado number 6: Mizu Ohi!"
A large wave of water materialized in thin air as the spell was completed, crashing down on the area around the Vizard. The sheen of droplets that landed on Amara lasted only for a few seconds before she shook them off, but that was all the time Héctor needed to ferret out his tenacious opponent.
"Bakudo number 63: Sajo Sabaku!"
The golden chains quickly wound their way around Amara, holding her in place despite her invisibility.
"You'd have to be a filthy hybrid like me to even have a shot at breaking out of that," Héctor said sternly as he walked towards her. "Give it up; you've lost."
A few moments later Amara flickered back into view, but the Vizard noticed that her long black hair had been returned to its true shade of silver by his Mizu Ohi. The sight of it shining softly in the moonlight as it framed her eyes, still blazing with defiance, almost caused Héctor's stride to hitch as he continued to approach her. By the time he was within arms-length of her, the anger his Inner Hollow had been feeling had been replaced by something else entirely, a feeling that Héctor had much less of a desire to repress. Reaching out slowly, Héctor brushed a strand of hair out of Amara's face before moving forward the rest of the way and capturing her lips in a kiss.
She was initially taken aback by the intensity of the kiss, but as the chains of the bakudo fell to pieces and her instinct took over for her again, Amara felt her arms snaking around Héctor's waist and pulling him in closer. It had been too long since she'd had any kind of intimate contact, and her body's happiness over having finally found a partner who could keep up with her trumped any weak objections her mind put forward. He was strong-willed and was clearly used to conquering any and all obstacles with relative ease, but Amara decided she was going to make him work for this.
Breaking apart from him before she caved completely, the Shinigami shot the Vizard the crippling 'come-hither' look she'd inherited from her mother and vanished, leaving just enough reiatsu behind for him to follow. Héctor smiled gamely and did just that, keeping one hand near the grip of his zanpakuto in case Amara had any more tricks up her sleeve. He caught up to her some moments later, lunging forward and reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder…
Only to end up grasping nothing but air.
"What the hell?" he exclaimed as the image vanished completely, before he realized what was going on; as realization dawned on him, Héctor's eyebrows knit themselves into a rare frown.
"Holograms, huh?" he spoke out into the clearing, knowing that the fox he was chasing after was probably looking right at him and laughing her ass off. "Real clever, Amara. But we both know you're going to crack first; admit it."
"How do you figure that?" her voice floated over to him, the light and teasing tone a vast improvement over her earlier venom. Héctor smirked, preparing himself for the reaction that was sure to come after he spoke.
"Only people who're desperate kiss like you did back there," he taunted. Amara played right into his hands, appearing heartbeats later in a flash of shunpo and thrusting out with Kousho's blade. Twisting to the side, Héctor drew on his Hollow powers to create a layer of hierro around his hand before grabbing hold of Amara's zanpakuto. He let her momentum do the rest of the work, and soon enough his hand was resting up against the sword's guard while his face was close enough to Amara's that he could see himself reflected in her eyes.
"Like I said," he spoke smugly after a tense moment had passed between them, "you cracked first."
The Vizard moved forward again, but right before he would have made contact the Shinigami disappeared once more, Héctor almost losing his balance completely as he fell through the space that he thought had been occupied by a solid body.
"God damn it!" he snarled, his Inner Hollow letting loose with a string of curses that would have made Grimmjow blush. When he finally found her, Héctor swore, he was going to make sure she would be the one chasing after him from here on out.
"Sounds to me like you're cracking over there, Héctor," Amara called out, her gleefully sadistic tone doing her last name proud.
The Vizard didn't reply with anything beyond a slightly feral-sounding snarl, materializing his mask over his face with a thought. Unleashing the full power of his Inner Hollow, Héctor had sniffed out Amara's exact location in seconds before vanishing in a frighteningly quick flash of shunpo, appearing right in front of her and chuckling shortly as his black-and-yellow eyes narrowed in lust and hunger.
"Gotcha," he hissed, the word all but cutting the Shinigami's legs out from under her. The mask broke apart as Héctor placed one hand on the back of her head, but the last things Amara saw as he pulled her into another kiss were his eyes, still black and yellow with the mark of his Inner Hollow's influence. The restrained intensity of his first embrace had been supplanted this time by sheer power, ripping down the Shinigami's defenses with impunity. Amara was relieved to feel the kiss lessen in strength and grow more tender as Héctor re-asserted his influence over his Hollow; she honestly didn't know how much more of that she could have taken. The Vizard hissed sharply and broke the kiss as Amara's fingernails raked lightly over the cuts she had given him across his chest, his now-blue eyes narrowing in paradoxical pleasure-pain at the action.
The Shinigami pressed her advantage, rejoining the embrace and assuming the dominant position. Héctor let himself coast for a few moments as his partner took the lead; he used the time to strip away the pesky layers of clothing Amara was still wearing above her waist, despite having torn his to ribbons earlier. Guiding the Shinigami in his arms until her back was resting up against a tree, Héctor broke apart the kiss and began to lay down a line of teasingly light kisses going from Amara's collarbone down to her left breast, smiling to himself in complete victory as he felt her shudder and heard her moan above him.
A few more moments of coaxing had pushed Amara past her limit; she shoved Héctor down to the grass and straddled him, sighing in satisfaction as they were joined at last. Héctor could only look up in silent awe at the young woman above him as she moved with spellbinding grace and power, wondering in the back of his mind just what exactly he'd set free inside her psyche. But all of the tension that had coiled in the pit of his stomach reached the breaking point a few minutes later, obliterating all conscious thought in his head as both he and Amara reached the edge of their self-control and happily left it behind them.
Amara sank slowly down to rest on top of her partner, laying her head next to his and just listening to the sound of Héctor's ragged, yet oddly peaceful breathing for several moments.
"Sorry I called you a filthy hybrid earlier," she apologized softly after a moment, but the Vizard just chuckled.
"Don't sweat it," he replied easily. "After all, I'm the asshole who dredged up your most personal and sensitive secrets and threw them back in your face. So how about we just call it even and move on?"
"Deal," Amara agreed with a lazy smile a moment later, still reeling slightly from the afterglow of their coupling. "So," she pressed, "when're we going to do that again?"
Héctor had to fight to keep back a triumphant grin as he realized he finally had Amara right where he wanted her.
"When you win that Lieutenant's armband from that asshole," he said simply, and the Shinigami frowned petulantly in a way Héctor found strangely adorable.
"If I could move either of my arms right now," Amara said, "I'd bust up your jaw, but fortunately for you I can't." She sighed, clearly weighing the options in her head for a moment before coming to a decision.
"Fine," she acquiesced at last, "I'll do it. But I'm holding you to your promise, and if you don't keep it I'm going to carve your face off."
"Is it weird that I find it attractive that you could probably follow up on that threat?" Héctor quipped, and the pair was soon sending peals of laughter up to the stars.
Amara couldn't help but smile as she looked down at Héctor's sleeping face, his black hair falling messily over one eye and moving slightly in and out with every breath he took. It was absurd to think that this was the same person who had been so cocky, indomitable and overpowering the night before; now he just looked like a run-of-the-mill Shinigami recruit.
A recruit with a couple of cuts on his chest that were beginning to fester, Amara noticed with no small amount of guilt. She would have healed them the night before, but, well, getting her brains screwed out had kind of put a halt to that plan. Wanting to make up for it before the wounds turned into scars, she got to work on healing them as her patient slumbered on, his mouth curving up into a small smile.
Héctor woke up feeling oddly refreshed considering what he'd spent last night doing, but his buzz was dampened somewhat as he looked around and couldn't see Amara anywhere. Her reiatsu was also nowhere nearby, either; she'd just left. Then again, she did have duties to perform, and if she'd been late for those because of something like this, that might have been a hassle to explain away.
As he got up and stretched out languorously, Héctor looked down to see a piece of folded parchment resting on top of a fresh Shinigami uniform. Picking it up, he unfolded it gently and read the crisp, neat script.
"Dear Asshole," he began, smiling, "here's a clean uniform, to replace the one I ripped up last night. Tell anyone what happened, or about… well, you know… and I'll murder you in your sleep."
"Well, at least she's honest about it," Héctor mused as he shrugged on the kimono and tied it off loosely. "That's gotta count for something."
The Vizard did one last sweep of the area to make sure he was alone, before vanishing from the field for good.
Kaien Shiba didn't mind being a Captain most of the time, in fact he relished the challenge, but there were moments like this one where the job just sucked. Being woken up before the roosters had even crowed to go check out a Hollow disturbance was bad enough, but when reports indicated that the reiatsu it was giving off was strong enough to be Espada-class, Kaien just knew that today was not going to be his day at all. But duty called and he was obliged to answer it, so the Captain of the Fifth Division soon found himself standing out in the middle of nowhere on the far outskirts of the Rukongai in the freezing cold, with a small detachment of men ready to face an Espada-level enemy that had apparently decided to ditch them at the last moment.
"You sure this isn't a drill, Captain?" the Third Seat piped up. "Or maybe Captain Ukitake's just pranking you again."
"Even if that is the case, don't let your guard down," the Lieutenant admonished the lower-ranking soldier. "For all we know, it's just waiting for a chance to stri—"
The Shinigami's words were cut off by a shrill screech as a thick wave of black-and-red reiatsu blasted into the clearing, engulfing him along with everyone else in the group save Kaien and one other Shinigami. As they watched in shock, the bodies of their comrades fell to the ground limply, dead before they hit the grass.
"Impossible," the Captain breathed out. "That's Getsuga Tensho!"
"Indeed it is, Captain," Shiro's scathing voice answered as the Hollow touched down in a flash of shunpo. "Hado number 54: Haien."
The other Shinigami didn't even have time to react before the concentrated flame slammed into his chest, reducing his ribcage and internal organs to nothing more than ashes and killing him instantly. Kaien's shock turned into rage and he rounded on Shiro, drawing Nejibana as he did so.
"Damn you," he hissed. "What's the meaning of this?!"
"You don't need to know, Shiba," the Hollow hissed as he brought his bankai's bone-white katana up and then down again, launching off another mammoth Getsuga.
"What you need to do right now is shut up and die."
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A/N: So, there's Chapter 2! Byakuya's motivation for the coup comes to light, and the gears of his plan start grinding to life. Hope it was enjoyable, and please review! Also, big ups to JasoTheArtisan as per ususal for beta'ing this chapter like the boss of all bosses; go read his stories, they're rock solid and deserve more reviews than they have.
