Pay attention kids because here it is... the moment you've all been waiting for.
Stakeouts had never been exactly my strong point. I lay stretched out and prone on an outcropping the terrain features and my cloak hiding me and my party of three from detection (Isana had long since hauled in and hid her little spooky not-horse). The place that we were watching with all the interest and intensity of a cat at a mousehole was about half a mile below us, located in a deep valley surrounded by rock on all sides with a narrow pass carved into the rock on one side. I had yet to investigate where the pathway led to. The settlement (for lack of a better word) consisted of a few sparse, plain looking buildings (more like huts) made of stone and wood with clay-shingle roofs in a loose ring around a large, perfectly circular area of bare earth in the exact center of the valley. In the center of this perfect circle of bare earth was an enormous, elaborately intricate, casting array. There were many circles within the outer rim of the array, and lines connecting various parts of the circles and the thing had so many unfathomable symbols scrawled through it in strange patterns of mysterious significance that it looked like antique lace. This thing made the array that I'd seen holding the Katschei's Realm together look like a child's scribble in comparison. I didn't know what that array was for, or what it was supposed to do, all I knew was that there were Shadows crawling all over it, so it's purpose probably wasn't a good one for our side.
Yoruichi was down in the valley itself scouting out, listening about and doing her... ninja thing. I'd wanted to go with her originally but I was massively out-voted and out-logicked. After all, she was the one with mad stealthing skillz, I was more of a "bash in there and fight my way to wherever I wanted to get to" sort of rescuer. This mission called for stealth and secrecy; not two of my strong points to be honest. I was a little, okay, a lot, relieved to leave it to her. I stayed up on top of the cliff to babysit the little Missy... who had to be threatened with Binding Spells and being dumped in another world while the two of us rescued her son on our own in order to get her to stay in place. I'd gotten a lot of recordings for my reports; everytime the Shadows that came and went on unknown missions below us did anything that looked remotely interesting or significant I pulled the device out and started recording. So far, I wasn't certain that I'd gotten anything useful.
:How much longer is that woman going to be down there?: I wondered to myself in partial irritation at having been stuck in one position for so long barely able to move from it for fear of detection and partial worry and fear for my team-mate.
Part of me felt like I should be down there with her, but of course that was ridiculous... Yoruichi Shihouin, The Queen of Flash and ex-commander of the Seireitei's secret ops division had forgotten more about stealth and infiltration than the average Reaper would ever learn. I'd leave the infiltration and information gathering up to her and know that it was in good hands.
:Still...: I muttered in my thoughts as the wind from the valley brought another near-snooze-inducing whiff of Shadow scent up to me, laced among all the scents of different Shadows was the one that belonged to the one that had turned me mortal.
I wanted to be up and doing things, all this lying around here waiting and watching was driving me crazy. It felt like we'd been here for ages.
:Hn, they're doing that thing again...: I thought to myself in a mixture of interest and frustratited mystification.
Every so often a group of smaller Shadows with their nebulous matte-black forms like clouds of black smoke from a black incense burner, some of which were shot through with vaguely shimmering cords of strangely substantial dark would emerge from one or more of the buildings and gather in around the edges of the array in the center of the little settlement. They all seemed to have specific places around the circle where they stood, or in their case, hovered. They'd stay there for a long minute, their smokey-black formless forms swaying and billowing in unpredictable patterns, and then, by some unseen signal, they'd all start singing. It actually was more like a trilling sound, or in some cases it sounded like those eighties digitized flute noises from synthesizers I'd heard during the decade. Every time they did it the pattern glowed and it looked like new parts of it were written. Not only that but the Shadows themselves seemed different, it wasn;t anything I could point a finger at directly, but whenever I smelled one of them again afterward it was as though their scent had gotten somehow stronger or thicker. I didn't know exactly what it meant, but I had a feeling that it couldn't be good.
I was concentrating so intently on the activity of the little Shadow village down below me that I nearly missed the subtle movement of something watching me from the cover off to one side. Isana gasped a little in surprise as I blurred out. I broke out of the wind-step just behind the bushes where Isana and I had been observed from, Zabimaru already drawn.
Floating above a spot of inky darkness about the size of a rain puddle was a little, tiny... critter, made of matte and fluid dark with barely perceptible sparks of shimmer along its extremities. It looked a little like someone had crossed a furry cat with those fish that have those long translucent fins sprouting out from it, and then, in a pathetic attempt to make the little critter look ferocious, tacked on a couple of crab-like scythe limbs and fore-pincers. Unlike the massive beast from before, this specimen was about the size of a small lapdog, and just as intimidating. Having already encountered one of the Shadowbeasts before, I knew better than to start off by fighting the creature itself, instead I just materialized Zabimaru in Roar-form and sent the long, chain-blade fishing down into the shadow-puddle. The Shadowbeast, upon sensing my unexpected presence, naturally turned to fight me. Trying to keep my presence low-key and quiet I was thankful that the creature did not appear to be the brightest crayon in the box and didn't think to call out for aid.
::Found it!:: Snakey said in jubilant triumph a moment later.
In the strange little half-dimention that existed inside the Shadows form Zabimaru had located its heartstone, the locus of its essence and was bussy knocking it out of the Shadow. Strangley enough, the tiny stone, no bigger certainly than a large bead, came flying out of the center of the Shadowbeast as the creature disintegrated back into its puddle. The puddle fogged over and drifted up, gathering into a small cyclone that was sucked inside the center of the heartstone-bead. Still not daring to touch it with my bare hands, I transformed Zabimaru over into Howl-form and flipped the little bead towards Isana, signaling silently but frantically that she should bind it up fast. She did so as quietly as possible and I watched carefully down below us for a few long moments to see if our presence had been detected, but it looked like we hadn't been discovered. Just to be safe, I moved Isana and I back to a safer, more easily defensible, location to wait for Yoruichi.
We were kept waiting a while, but that was kinda ta be expected; she was sneaking around after all, and stealth took time. Ya had to be cautious to avoid discovery. I would have liked to have been able to fill my time with practice, I was an active sort (despite all the paperwork I now usually had to do) and if I wasn't actually busy with work I could always be found polishing my skills at the training courts. Enforced idleness did not settle well with me. The little missy didn't seem to mind it though; she pulled a nail-kit out of god only knows where and went to work. Unfortunately, she couldn't seem to find it in her to do her girly thing in silence, oh no...
"Just look at my nails," she commented. "I've lost them one by one. I don't think there is a single one of them that isn't chipped, the paint's completely destroyed, and these cuticles are a mess. I swear, ever since I went on this trip with you it's just run havoc on my features. My skin is a ruin from having to use bar-soap and when I get home I'm going to have to bathe in moisturizer for a week."
My brow furrowed at that last one. It didn't sound very comfortable.
"You're the one that insisted on coming along," I reminded her unsympathetically.
True, there had been some few times when she'd been useful and I'd been glad to have her along, but for the most part she'd been an unlooked for complication.
"Why do you spend so much time and effort on yourself?" I finally broke down and asked her. "I mean, every single morning you take all this time putting make-up on and making your hair perfect and getting your clothes just right and I don't really see why since there's usually only me here to see it and I don't care either way."
She looked at me for a long moment and said
"Taking care with my appearance is a way of maintaining my dignity and self-respect, it a way of showing the world that I'm someone worth paying attention to."
I still didn't get how fussing with her hair and clothes and nails was going to do that and my confusion must have shown on my so very readable face because she added
"Let me put it this way, you take great pride in your strength and your prowess on the battlefield true?"
I nodded. Of course I did.
"You have that strength and your status to let people know that you're someone worth paying attention to. Well, people judge by appearances too, whether they should or not. They're more likely to listen to a person if that person looks like someone worth listening to. You remember that they treated me well in the Court of Genbu, that's because I had the appearance of someone they wouldn't dare to offend. Besides... People in hero-tales and songs from the movies always look fabulous, and so you should always try to look your best, because you never know when it could be your chance to become a legend!"
I snorted to myself, perfect female logic.
"I could do your nails if you like," she said in an enticing tone, like I was going to go for it.
I just gave her a look in reply.
"Maybe later then..."
"Or maybe never," I corrected her.
It seemed to be taking Yoruichi forever to return from her scouting mission. We'd been cooling our heels there for nearly the entire day. Apart from my brief run-in with that tiny, miniscule little Shadow earlier the whole day had been completely uneventful.
:Then again,given all the excitement I've had lately, maybe I should be enjoying myself,: I thought to myself.
It was full dark when Yoruichi at last made it back to our camp. We rose to greet her but she signaled sharply for silence and led us back to the gate we had come from. This world had many different gates scattered around in it, like it was some kind of great Gate-nexus or sumthin' and it was lucky for us that it was so; with this many gates they couldn't possibly keep track of who was coming and going through all of them, so we'd been able to sneak in unnoticed.
The three of us went back across the gate and then hopped to another gate and took that to a neutral Realm. That's when the three of us huddled together and Yoruichi told us what she had discovered spying around in the stronghold of the Shadows.
"First of all," she said. "That world we went in was only one of their bases of opperations but it wasn't the main one. That Realm we were just in was where they had set up an array to pool together much of the energy they harvested from the unraveling Realms in order to prepare to use it to manufacture Heartsblood Diamonds."
"Manufacture heartsblood diamonds?" Isana asked. "But why would they want to do that?"
"Apparently, when Emperor Genbu said they were exceedingly rare he wasn't exaggerating at all. That collection of them that Renji stole back from the Katschei was the largest single collection of those stones in known existence," Yoruichi explained. "They are very highly prized because of their ability to trap and store magic that can be accessed again. Most objects that have the ability to store power in a latent state must also have a purpose set to that power, one that usually reflects the creators natures, Heartsblood Diamonds are different because they can collect power from any magical or spiritual source and convert it into latent usable energy."
I still didn't see what was so special about that. Yoruichi must have seen my look of blankest confusion for she sighed exasperatedly and said
"It's those stones that enable them to harvest power by unraveling the abandoned Realms and sucking off all the latent energy that makes them up. It is that power that augments and increases their own fading power. Pretty soon the Shadows won't be Shadows anymore, they'll have all of thier old mojo back. Not that it matters any to the Soul Reapers if there is a massive civil war raging across the Dangai, but if Aizen uses them as his own personal army like we all think that he will..."
"Yeah, bad news for the home team," I agreed.
"I'm sure this is all big news for you," Isana said shortly. "But what I want to know is, where is my son?"
"I'm getting to that. Where was I?"
"Heartblood diamonds, manufacturing the stones, Shadows harvesting energy."
"Right. Well, as it turns out neither Aizen nor the Shadows can create those Heartsblood Diamonds on their own. They lack a key ability. The ability to harness reishin particles and channel them into usable energy."
My mind flashed back to the time when I'd seen that Ishida brat go all-out with his Quincy powers, he'd literally pulled in the surrounding scenery, roof-tiles and all, and turned it into energy to throw at his enemies. I was sort of beginning to see where she was going with this.
"So Aizen kidnapped all of those Quincy children so that he could use that channeling power of theirs to manufact some more of those Heartsblood Diamons then?" I guessed.
"Precisely," Yoruichi confirmed with a nod. "And he no doubt plans to use those diamonds as bribes to keep his new Shadow Army in line."
"I don't care about Aizen or his army, where is my son?" Isana snapped.
"Impatient," Yoruichi muttered. "Your son is with the other Quincy children that Aizen ordered kidnapped. They were recently ordered to be moved to Hueco Mundo."
"Hueco Mundo?" we both said in surprise for different reasons.
"Where's that?" Isana asked next.
"Why?" I demanded on the same breath.
"Aizen failed in his ploy to gather enough power to create an oh-ken from the destruction of Karakura town because he was prevented by the Soul Reapers, so likely he has planned a different route to it now. Renji, you yourself know how many of the Soul Reapers are stationed there; nearly half of them, including a good portion of top-level officers, and a Captain or two. Plus there's all of the remaining arrancars, and you know it takes a very very great number of souls to create an arrancar, and the rest of Aizen's Hollow Army that was not killed in the earlier clash with the Seireitei. You do the math."
I had already done the math, I was betting the numbers weren't any better now than they had been the first time I'd done it. Thinking about it would only depress me.
"How do the Quincy fit in then?" I asked.
Yoruichi rolled her eyes heavenward as if calling on the patience to explain something terribly obvious to someone who was hopelessly dense. I got that look a lot.
"Those arrays we have been seeing here and there have been feeding power to the Heartsblood Diamonds at the center of the Shadows. That's those stones you've been seeing every time you have isana bind one of them. We can assume that they were sent out by Aizen with the mission to harvest that power. That array you saw earlier today in the center of that town has a similar but different purpose. Think of it like a horde, or a cache, where the harvesting Shadows pour in the power they have harvested to be used to create more Heartblood Diamonds, but in order to do this they needed Quincy children."
"How do you know that?" Isana asked skeptically.
Yoruichi pulled out a collection of scrolls that I had given her that I had grabbed almost at random from the Katschei's collection and stuffed in with the others that I had thought might be useful. I'd even tried reading them, tried being the operative word because they might as well have been written in cuneiform for all the sense they made to me. I hadn't been able to make heads or tails of them, but when Yoruichi offered me one of those delicious real-world cupcakes in exchange for them I felt I'd gotten the better end of the deal. Still did, as a matter of fact.
((Authors Note: comic break... It went something like this...
Renji is sitting next to a campfire staring at a scroll like a monkey doing a math problem, terribly puzzled look on his face, even turning the scroll upside down from time to time to see if it made any more sense that way.
Yoruichi: What are you reading Renji?
Renji: A scroll. I can't make heads or tails of it.
Yoruichi: [takes the scoll and skims down it] [she gasps in shock] Renji! Do you have any idea what this is?
Renji: [brightly] Not a damn clue.
Yoruichi: It's written in an ancient dialect and you can barely read modern so that doesn't surprise me. This text is a treatise on the theory of Hollowfication, but it was written way before Aizen or Uruhara which means that someone tried it before!
[she snatches up another scroll from the pile]
Yoruichi: And this one deals with the early days of the Soul Reapers, back before the Academy or Soul Society as we know it was ever formed, even the archives at the library or at Kuchiki's mansion only have a very few of these kinds of scrolls... And this one here, wow, it's a text on the origins and development of the kido spells and system that we use! This one here talks about Zanpaktou-
Renji: Ooh! I'll take that one. Finally, something interesting!
Yoruichi looks at him in dumbfounded dismay and amusement.
Yoruichi: Do you have any idea how much those scrolls are worth? Where did you get them?
:Renji: No I don't, and I found them. [starts trying to read the scroll about the swords and gets that frustrated look on his face]
Renji: grrrr, why can't they write these damn things in plain laguage so i can understand it.
Yoruichi: [mutters] like pearls before swine. [brightens and looks over at renji] Say Renji... [holds up a plastic-wrapped cupcake in the paml of her hand]
[Renji brightens and eyes the cupcake with the attention of a dog spotting a treat]
Yoruichi: Since you're not able to really read those scrolls, how about giving them to me?
Renji: [Looks dubious about it]
Yoruichi: I'll trade you this cupcake for them.
Renji: But... you can always go back and enjoy the scrolls again and again. I only get one cupcake and once I eat it, it's gone.
Yoruichi: [holds out a twinkie in her other hand] I'll give you two of them for them.
Renji: Sold! One for now and one for later! [dumps the three scrolls, minus the sword one, on her lap and snatches the cakes]
Yoruichi: [to Isana] He really is just a simple creature.
end))
"The spell array in the world we were just in," Yoruichi said pulling out one of the scrolls and unrolling it. "This one here, is a smaller version of the spell used to create heartsblood diamonds. The spell needs an enormous amount of power at the start because what it does to create the stones is use a massive amount of power and the special Quincy abilities then concentrate it down into the size of a pinprick."
"Oh! Like a blackhole!" Isana exclaimed. She to caught my blank look for she hurriedly explained.
"Usually when a star reaches its end it either fizzles out or explodes something called nova, there are rare instances,scientists think, that a star somehow gets to heavy to maintain its own mass so it collapses in on itself and forms a black hole. All that power turns inward and implodes creating a vaccuum that sucks in all available light."
"Except that this spell stabilizes the magic-draining black hole within the core of heartsblood diamond by creating a special variation of a Gate spell, sort of like an inverted Gate spell, allowing only magic to pass through it, and at that, only when the Gate is activated. As a precaution against the stone being destroyed, every manufacted Heartsblood Diamond has the spell written in every speck that makes up the stone so that even if the stone is broken the spell will not destabilize. However, the creation of the stone is a highly dangerous process. If the spell were to become unstable during the process of creating it, there would be the spiritual equivalent of a massive black hole sucking in spirit energy unstopably."
"And that would be bad," I said.
"That's why he took those Quincy children to Hueco Mundo," Yoruichi explained with a slightly gritting tone, like I was really testing her patience. "So that he can unleash the spiritual equivalent of the atomic bomb on all of the spirits gathered there, take in all of the energy to be found on both sides, in the process getting rid of a large number of his most difficult enemies, and as an additional added bonus he gets to harvest all of that power for himself to both create an oh-ken and cement his new Shadow Army's loyalty to him as thier leader with the promise of Heartsblood Diamonds of their own so that they can go out and collect power from other Realms in order to most likely return to thier former glory... and if I know Aizen, he'll eventually go on to challence the respective Elemental Courts just the same as he is challenging the Spirit Court and its guardians, the Soul Reapers."
For about the second or third time since this trip began, my heart dropped down to the region of my toes as Yoruichi laid bare Aizen's real objectives with precise efficiency. Part of me almost admired the way so many different plans and approaches came together to an end of such elegant simplicity. They said real genius in strategy lay in making the complex simple without losing its integrity and if that were so then Aizen was verifiably a genius... but he was a genius who had not the least qualm about killing off all of my friends and destroying everything I cared about, so there fore, I was about to take all of his beutiful, elegantly simple starategies and throw bankai-Zabimaru-sized wrench in them.
Ha ha... betcha didn't see that one coming did you? Well, except for the part about Renji throwing the Zabimaru-sized wrench... Please let me know what you thought of it and I hope it was worth the sixtychapter-plus wait.
And as a side note (and an utterly shameless plug on my part) I'm posting a multi-chapter Byakuya and Hisana fic. If you hadn't guessed, that pairing seems to be the one I'm drawn to most besides Renji and Rukia. It seems there's something about a tragedy that just won't let me leave it alone. It's called Comes the Spring and I hope you will all drop by and tell me your thoughts on it.