I know this is a couple days late but here it is, hope you guys like it!

Castle of Glass

Chapter 15: Show Me How to Be Whole Again

The light breeze swayed the trees in the mid-day sun as the swift flash-step footsteps tapped tree branches and the dirt path through the forest. Fire-red hair trailed behind a lieutenant as he made his way to the disappearance hotspot captain Histugaya told him about. Just before he reaches the spot, he stands mere feet away in the cover of bushes and tress to the open field before him, waiting for something. The sound of silence and nature intermingled at this point, unsettling the shinigami, knowing that this could mean someone or something was lurking nearby. Renji tried sensing any spiritual pressures but discovered none and with that he approached the open field.

The open area helped him stay on edge, focused. He approached the blocked off area, where he knew there was a barrier. He raised his hand to remove it and the area that was once completely devoid of any kind of presence was now filled with the bodies of shriveled corpses in shihakushos and kimonos, both civilians and shinigami.

'Like mummies...' Renji thought, as he knelt to examine the bodies.

Each corpse was a brownish wrinkled, shriveled chunk of skin with faces that look like they were screaming right before death, eyes hollowed out and mouth as wide as they could be. Renji grimaced at the sight of them. He was stood and was ready to leave, as he believed nothing had changed from the last time he had been here, when he noticed something sticking out of the mouth of one the bodies of the civilians.

"The hell?" He made his way to body and pulled the object out.

He examined it to see it was a folded piece of paper, ink bleeding through one side of it. Unfolding it, he read the hardly intelligible paper.

"This is-!"

"So we're married, huh?" V smiled, ting the sash around her to the kimono she was wearing.

"Hai, and we were planning to have children in the not so distant future." Byakuya was almost yelling as he stood just outside the door as V was getting dressed.

"But if we're married, why are you standing out there while I'm getting dressed?"

"You don't really know who I am yet, no matter how much I've told you. I refuse to invade the privacy of a stranger. Especially that of a woman."

"Cute and a gentleman, I got the full package, didn't I?" V proclaimed, to which Byakuya lightly chuckled. "Okay, I'm finished."

Byakuya walked back in the room and smiled at the sight of his wife in a dark green kimono with a black sash that cut off just after the knee.

"So, what do you think?" V inquired innocently.

"Beautiful." He replied, causing a deep shaded blush on V's cheeks.

"S-shut up..." V began to feel a self-conscious.

Before the awkward silence could seep in, V and Byakuya gathered their things and began to head out to Byakuya's estate. He had previously said to young woman was to stay there with him for as long as she wanted, a request that V just couldn't turn down seeing as she was the wife of the noble asking her.

"So how far is this house of yours?" V asked, stuffing her get well cards into the pocket of her kimono.

"Just a little ways away from the Seireitei. I like my privacy after all."

"Right."

As the two walked along the corridors heading out of the infirmary, a hell butterfly appeared before them.

"What's up?" V saw the distressed look on the raven-haired man's face s he listened to the butterfly's message.

"I have to go." Byakuya was already turning to leave when V asked him what was going on.

"The head captain is calling for an emergency meeting, something's wrong. Just go to 13's barracks and wait for me there." Before V could protest, Byakuya flash-stepped away, leaving her to find her own way.

When Byakuya entered the meeting hall, he saw that all the other captains had already arrived. As he walked to his position in the line up, he noticed how each captain began to stare at him, almost knowingly. It was as if they knew something he didn't and were waiting to hear or see his response once he had knowledge of it. He ignored the uneasy feeling he got from this and waited for the head-captain to come in the room. When Shunsui arrived, all the captains lined up and waited for him to speak.

"I have some unfortunate news..." He began to speak right before he stood in front of his chair. "This affects all of us now, seeing as she has become a friend to the Gotei 13." When Byakuya heard this, his stomach began to sink.

"Yesterday afternoon, lieutenant Abarai was instructed to go on recon to the site of the recent disappearances and deaths of the civilians and shinigami from exactly 1 month ago."

'What the hell?!' Byakuya thought. 'He sent my own lieutenant out without my knowledge?!'

"What he found can only be described and taken as a threat, not only to us, but to those living peacefully in the Rukongai."

'What is going on?'

"Renji found a note inside the mouth of one of the deceased and it read, "Give us the girl and we won't have to do this anymore. Refuse and these won't be the only souls we take from this world." " Byakuya's stomach nearly fell through the floor.

"We have a decision to make here. I know it's out of character to even ask of such a thing, but because we have such little history with her and what we do have has been rather chaotic, I feel this is necessary. We can give whoever, or whatever this is what they want, or not. I, alone, cannot make this decision, simply because it isn't mine to make."

With those words, Byakuya nearly folded in on himself. 'Is this a joke? He isn't serious, right? We aren't actually thinking of-' his thoughts were cut off by a piano toothed captain.

"Come on, head-captain." He scoffed. "You know dam well we ain't giving up the girl. Why do you have this as an option? She's a bit to attached at the hip to a few of us now so..."

"Right..." A pierced, mohawked captain spoke up. "Even if we had a problem with her, which I'm sure only a select few of us do, too many of us have a reason for her to stick around now. Like...she's necessary."

"Have a reason?" Shinji inquired. "Like what, you big goof?"

"Don't get me started." Kensei warned him.

"Anyways...it's not like we don't have room for another shinigami." Toshiro said.

"You got that right," Love said. "We need lieutenants and assistant adjutants. We're running low on reinforcements and could use help wherever we can get it." Toshiro nodded in agreement.

"Let's not forget, she's a fine specimen, as well...I've yet to figure her out, so she can't go away just yet." Mayuri interjected.

As Byakuya heard all the captains speak about how they wanted V to stay, he felt a warm, familiar feeling. None of them really knew V because he was with her around the time the vizards were gone and the present captains weren't around yet. Each of the reasons people gave as to why people gave as to why she was to stay instead of being given over to whoever was trying to take her was pure bullshit, and Byakuya knew it. But they still stood behind her, for him.

"Byakuya." The sound of his name brought him out of his own thoughts.

"Head-captain."

"What about you? What do you think?"

"I..." Byakuya hesitated for a moment. He was about to honest about his feelings in front of other people. "I need her...to stay with me...for a little longer. I think she's an asset to the Gotei 13 if she would be able to remember who she really is. So, I think we should keep her."

"It's unanimous, then. We will fight to keep her. Of course this means working double time to ensure the safety of the souls and shinigami that are targets for whoever or whatever left this message for us." Everyone nodded in agreement. "Captain Hitsugaya, you and your recon team are assigned to the area where the disappearances occurred, and I want you to scour the area top to bottom and find something, anything to tell us who we're up against. Captain Hirako, Captain Kurotsuchi, I want you both to do a full examination on the bodies in that area, find anything out of the ordinary and report back to me about it. Kensei, Love, Rose, I want you three patrolling the Rukongai's outer districts where the people went missing with your lieutenants. Everyone else, stay focused and on guard. We don't know who or what we fighting and the last thing we need is for someone to be taken or killed." With those final words, the head-captain sent his subordinates off to do their duty.

Just before Byakuya shunpo'd out, Shunsui stopped him. "Byakuya." He called him closer. "I have a special task for you."

"Sir." Byakuya stood confused. "What is it?"

"I need you to do everything in your power to protect V. Everyone just put their lives on the line for her. It's your responsibility to protect her with everything you've got." Shunsui placed a stern hand on Byakuya's shoulder, reaffirming his words.

"Hai, head-captain. I'll do my best." With that, the noble flash-stepped away to the 13th squad's barracks. On his way he began to think to himself.

'It took me far too long to see her again and I absolutely refuse to lose her once more! I will portect you, V!'

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