I saw the small figures of the children we had come to rescue up ahead of us some of which were beginning to stir and rise up from the ground. The collapse of the array must have come as quite a shock to them.
"Alex!" Isana cried, moving to urge her mount forward.
"Mom?" one of the boys, a young one of about six or seven years old.
"I'm here! Mommy's come for you!"
"Momma!" he yelled, looking eagerly around, unable to recognize his mother in the form of the armored warrior covered by a helm and mounted on some strange fire-breathing creature out of a legend no-doubt.
She was about to urge her beast into a gallop to close the last few yards remaining when Captain Kuchiki suddenly twitched into a defensive stance, and an instant later I felt it too. A spiritual presence so powerful it was its own gravity, pressing down on top of us. A very familiar presence as well as a powerful one. My heart clenched with dread. I was wondering when he was going to show up.
"Missy!" I grabbed the reigns and pulled her back as the supremely confident form of former Captain Sousuke Aizen appeared in the air before is, staring down at us from on high with a superior little smirk that I just wanted to use Zabimaru to wipe off from his face.
"How interesting," he said coolly in that smooth voice of his.
"I come by to see the results of my little test only to find that the conditions of the experiment I have set up with such careful attention have been meddled with."
I was about to shoot back a smart-assed remark when Isana asked me
"Who is that?"
My voice was a growl as I replied
"Aizen."
"Since you have shown yourself," Byakuya Kuchiki calmly said into the silence. "You are under arrest for treason against the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. You shall lay down your weapon and allow yourself to be brought to trial."
Aizen looked at my Captain like he was a particularly interesting kind of bug and his voice sounded bemused in a superior way as he replied
"Are you still under the delusion that you can arrest me? How quaint. I have moved beyond your power, beyond your reach. Your pathetic skills and petty concerns are of as little interest to me as the concerns of a beetle is of interest to a human. However..."
Aizen's piercing gaze shifted to center on Isana, sitting vulnerably on Tanner's back beside me and I instinctively placed myself in between her and him. I had promised to protect her, and I was a man of my word.
"It seems that there is a new power on the field, and this is of interest to me."
"Back off asshole, yer not gettin' 'er!" I snapped at him.
"Such crude language toward your former mentor, Renji," he chided me gently, shaking his head slightly as if in disappointment.
"You two know each other? What does he mean mentor?" Isana asked me.
"I explained earlier how he betrayed the Court Guard Squads, well back before we knew he was hiding his true colors he was a man I looked up to and wanted to be like."
I brought my sword defensively in front of my, silently signaling my will to stand against him and defend her.
"Mortal woman!" Aizen said, snapping his fingers.
Abruptly snake-like tendrils of darkness appeared beside the form of the boy that Isana had been through so much danger and strife to rescue. They wrapped around him, snapping into place in the form of rope-like bonds made of shadow and he was lifted into the air to hang, struggling, near Aizen. I snarled and tensed, preparing to strike at the enemy and rescue the boy.
"Alex!" she shouted in fear and alarm.
"Mom!" he called, tears streaming down his face. "Momma!"
More shadow-bonds appeared out of thin air beside each of the twenty or so children in the array and tied them all up. Those that had regained consciousness, mostly the older kids, whimpered or sobbed in fear.
"Aizen! Let the kid go!" I shouted at him.
He looked about as unimpressed with my command as he would be. He ignored me completely and addressed Isana
"Mortal woman, if you agree to come with me quietly without resistance, I will agree to let these children go. I give you my personal word that you will be reunited with your son."
Oh they'd be reunited alright... as prisoners under his watch. I saw immediately where he was going with this and opened my mouth to refuse for her when she spoke up from behind me
"I don't believe that you are acting in good faith," Isana said in a clear, carrying voice. "After all, what wise woman would believe the word of a traitor, a man who has foresworn every oath he has made for the sake of his own personal gain?"
"Allow me to state it another way then," Aizen said smoothly. "What choice do you have?"
I raised Zabimaru a fraction of an inch before me and snarled at him, signifying that she had options, not great ones, but options all the same.
Aizen chuckled at me and gave a look that resembled pity
"You? You, Renji Abarai? You think you can defend this woman against me? This mortal who means nothing to you... when you couldn't even stop me from taking away the woman you love?"
I really wished he'd shut up already.
"Leave the wench alone Aizen, she's got nuthin' ta do with this," I said, ignoring the issue of my own helplessness for now.
"Renji," Isana said with a calm and collected note in her voice that instantly had me worried.
She sounded like she had Made Up Her Mind, and when a woman Makes Up Her Mind, there's nuthin' for it, yer done.
"Don't harm my son, Mister Aizen," she called over. "If you will do as you say and let these children go, then I'll go with you quietly."
"Missy-!" I protested, moving to stop her.
She pulled her hood back and reached up to take off her helmet, pulling her thick, dark hair loose and unbound from where she had restrained it to fit inside the helm and sending it cascading past her shoulders and down her back for the breeze to pick up for a moment before it died. She looked down at me with this expression of such gentle strength, as if she understood completely what I was thinking and was glad of it, even as she knew that she was going to do exactly what she felt was for the best. I sensed more than saw my boss stiffen beside me as she turned her gaze our way.
I had never imagined that it could happen, but out of the corner of my eye I watched as all color drained from Captain Byakuya Kuchiki's face. There was a low noise of pain and shock pulled involuntarily out of him and he literally rocked back on his feet, the impact of seeing her striking him like a physical blow. Her own face was unreadable as her eyes met with his and locked, there was an indefinable aura of sadness surrounding them, like two lovers parted and looking at each other from across a river. Even though i didn't always like her, I still considered her as someone it was my responsibility to protect, so I threw my own two cents in.
"Don't do it," I urged her, reaching for her sleeve to restrain her as she moved to slide off the side of the beast.
Isana's face carried a serene resolution. She was not going to be swayed by anyone, least of all me. She gave me a soft, martyr's smile and said
"These children have been through so much already, and they have no-one else to step into the fire for them. At least this way I'll be with my son and can protect him a little. Any mother would do the same."
She dismounted and pressed the jewel on her right wrist and the elven armor I had won for her began to fold away into itself, exactly like magic, leaving her in only her travel clothes. She looked firmly up at me and I felt the power she weilded tug at my collar, the one she and that damned mountain spirit had used to bind me into her service.
"This will be the last command I give you Renji Abarai," she said.
Choiceless, I knelt before her to hear her last directive.
"Don't try to stop me."
I was geas-bound to obey. Isana left me holding Tanners reigns and turned toward Aizen, walking toward where he held her son without a single backward glance. I turned my anger at being made helpless on a handier target, and shouted over to Aizen
"What are you after really? You didn't just come her ta lord it over us, so what's yer game Aizen?"
"It's almost cute the way you think I'll tell you everything because you ask. Even if I explained it to you Renji, you wouldn't understand it. You have always been such a simple-minded, albeit extemely hard-headed creature."
I couldn't argue with that. Then I blinked for a moment as a flash of inspiration struck me. A singular, unexpected flash of insight into a weakness of Aizen's that could be exploited. I was a simple creature, I always had been; simple-minded, straight-forward and hard-working was how most people thought of me and they were not wrong. But that was also what people had come to expect of me.
"Renji," the voice of my mother-figure Amber came back to me in a flash of memory.
I was a young boy helping her out by running messages across town for Barai House into the dangerous areas where the really violent gangs made thier lair.
"I will not tell you to be careful, for in a place such as the ones where you will go today caution is redundant. The only help that I can give you to enable you to survive the trip is this... the best thing you can ever do is to play into what people expect of you. If you know what they expect to see, and you can give them what they expect, then that means you are able to shape the way they see you."
:Aizen looks at me and he sees the hard-working, single-minded and somewhat stupid man he's been accustomed to all these years. He sees a man who concentrates solely on his own goal to the exclusion of everything else. My goal has always been to defeat Kuchiki and get Rukia back, he would never for an instant believe that I'd work with the Captain I so dislike, unless he commanded me to.:
And that gave me, gave us, an opening we could exploit. We'd all fought Aizen before, and even when all of us fought him together at our maximum power the man just did not seem to have any weaknesses, but some how, we had all missed this one. Like any man of great power, Aizen was arrogant. Kuchiki would be the last one to see it because he was the same way, but I'd spent my childhood as sort of the small dog in the heap so I knew how power could make men blind. Aizen just wouldn't believe that someone so clever and thoughful as he could be out maneuvered, especially by someone stupider than him. He might be expecting a trick, but he counted on the nature of the person as he had assessed them to make his plans work. He was counting on my being the same person he had always known, one who concentrated solely on his own goals to the exclusion of everything else... And I wasn't that man, not any more.
Aizen had come to that place for a reason, and even if all the Captains had been present, their forces and powers were so frayed right now, and the Shadow Army that Aizen could bring to bear was so much more powerful and worse still, unknown, that they most likely would not stand a chance. Aizen was going to get what he came for. Period. He was also going to leave for parts unknown with no way for them to track him back to his lair. If that happened, Aizen would be able to fortify his stronghold, amass his forces, make them even more powerful than they already were, all without the ability of anyone in the Seireitei to keep an eye on simply because they could not find where the bastard was hiding.
:He'll disappear and be able to strike at any time, from anywhere, at he leisure and we won't have a way to begin to guess where he is.:
Unless I act.
:Play into his expectations.:
My dislike of Captain Byakuya Kuchiki, the man who had stolen away the girl I loved, the man who continued, by his mere existence alone, to keep us apart was very, very well-known. Aizen had used that enmity himself when he'd set about dividing up the squads during the Rukia Execution debacle.
My thoughts had been racing a mile a second while, unaware of the desperate plan that was forming in my mind, Aizen continued
"But if you must know, I have dropped by to acquire Rukia Kuchiki and Orihime Inoue. I figured that it was most likely that they would be here at this time, seeing as the boy never can seem to resist the siren call of battle, and wherever he goes, those two are never far behind him. I had planned to slip in under all the confusion and simply make off with all of them rather than announce my presence, fighting you all would be so tedious at the moment, but it seems that that notion was not to be. I suppose I shall simply acquire them the old fashioned way."
"Uh-huh." I said a little absently, shifting one or two details in my desperate plan.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than just letting Aizen get away still holding all of the advantages.
:It's risky, and Rukia still might kill me, especially for this one, but we don't have a whole lot of choice.:
"This is a surprise, Renji," Aizen said mildly, raising and inquiring brow. "No exclamations of defiance, no shouts of 'over my dead body' or other such nonsense? You're simply going to let me have them?"
I kept my mouth shut, waiting. As predicted, he kept right on talking.
"It must be frustrating for you to always be so powerless."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that one if I were you," I said to him, keeping my stance just as smugly confident as his own.
If there was one thing I did well, it was the tough-guy bluster.
"Oh?" he asked raising an elegant eyebrow.
"I bet I can tell you exactly what yer after Rukia an' the little mortal missy for Sousuke," I said, deliberately and disrespectfully using his first name.
His look of of bemused intrigue increased.
"Dazzle me."
"Yer after the blueprint of the Hougyoku still imprinted on Rukia's soul," I said.
It was a secret that I hadn't told anyone, not the Captain, not even Rukia. I'd bargained with That Uruahara for some of his secrets regarding the Hougyoku, especially as they pertained to Rukia, first chance I'd got. That was what that whole training with Sado had been about, I'd bargained time spent helping him trian for the answers to some questions, and that was the reason Captain had given me permission to hang around in Karakura for that time. I wasn't the sharpest sword on the rack but I knew that information was power.
There was a slight upturn of his lips and a look of superior amusement on his face as Aizen looked back at me measuringly, I could practically see the reassessment going on behind his eyes.
"And as fer Inoue, well that wasn't too hard ta figure out," I continued, holding his gaze steadily. "Ya wanna use her powers that reject reality within her sphere of influence to simply reject the fact of the hougyoku's removal, causing another one to generate inside of Rukia's soul so you can pull it out of there, like a man harvesting apples."
His assessing look of bemusement deepened.
"I am all astonishment, Renji. A teacher is always pleased when one of his students surpasses his expectations of him."
All during this conversation I'd been keeping my eye on my Captain, who's eyes had not for a moment left the form of his reincarnated wife who was steadily walking away from. He must have been feeling a thousand different things right then, though none of them (of course) showed on his remote and serene surface but for my mad plan to work I needed to set him off so that he would act.
I already knew perfectly well that in order for there to be any chance at all I was going to need more than a my few meager advantages, a couple of surprises, and a bankai (or two), I was going to need my Captains strength and more importantly his intelligence. Kuchiki was sharp on many levels, I needed his superior skills at strategy and planing ahead (neither of which had ever really been my strong point) if there was going to be any success at all. There was no chance that even the two of us working together could prevent Aizen from taking what he wanted... so if we couldn't stop it, we should use it.
:Besides,: I said surreptitiously reaching up for my personal Heartstone pendant around my neck and snapped it off its chain, palming it and hiding the gesture behind a nervous fidget.
:Even if we defeated Aizen here, and there's little chance of that, we wouldn't defeat him permanently.:
He'd shown over and over again that he was not the sort to put all of his eggs in one basket. I'd stake my position on his having made his own heartstone and hiding it somewhere so that even if, on the off-chance that he were ever somehow killed in battle or executed, he could still come back and hit us when we weren't expecting it. If we wanted to truly defeat him, we had to find a way to get back to his heartstone and it was with that in mind that I acted.
"Well, I'm happy I could make you happy," I said, my tone saying fuck-off, pleasantly. "But that's not all I know."
"Do tell."
:Kuchiki's gonna freakin' kill me,: I thought, even as I opened my mouth and said the words I knew would send my Captain straight over the edge.
"That mortal woman you have walkin' toward ya right now... take a good long look, maybe ya recognize her. I think you were still hangin' around, in the days before she found the Wheel."
"How very interesting," Aizen said as he looked into the woman's face, and behind it into the reiatsu, that permeated her being and his face smoothed over into enlightenment.
"It is a pleasure to see you once again, Lady Kuchiki,"Aizen said with all the smooth aplomb of a cat with cream on its whiskers. "If you will be so kind as to come with me, I can assure you that you will be made very comfortable."
He delicately reached a hand out and took her own as I restrained a pang of protective fury and kept my mind on my work.
I pulled speed from Snaketail, anticipating Kuchiki's next move. I knew from personal experience that nuthin' could spur a man inta action, even actions he wouldn't normally take, like some asshole messin' with his woman. I felt bad for him, I did, but at the same time... well, it was necessary. Not pleasant, but necessary.
::Are you sure about this?:: both sides of Zabimaru asked me.
:I think it'll work,: I said, trying for confidence.
His flash-step was in top form, but Snaketail (and the fact that I'd gotten a seconds head-start on him) enabled me to stay just that tiny instant ahead of him as he moved to strike at Aizen. His slice was smooth and perfect as usual, an economy of movement with a restrained spiritual strength behind the blow that I could only envy, and it would have hit directly on target, slicing Aixen in half right down the middle.
Clang!
If Zabimaru hadn't gotten there and intercepted Senbonzakura first.
For one timeless moment we locked blades and I saw his eyes widen in shock and disbelief at my betrayal. I mentally steeled myself for what was to come, I didn't want to play it this way since it went against my nature, but I couldn't see another way that were were gonna be able to find Aizen's new lair, locate his Heartstone without him knowing we knew about it and stopping us. We needed the element of surprise enough to steal the march on him and make it back in one piece (hopefully victorious). Maybe I was crazy ta think that I could pull a fast one on a guy like Aizen, but I wasn't going to let him abscond with Rukia to some unknown corner of the dangai without me there to help her escape. So I was goin' in, one way or another.
"Abarai...!" he said, looking well and truly pissed with me if that sudden flare of murderous intent was anything to go by.
Boy was I ever gonna get it later. That was fine, I was willing to risk it all.
:Here goes,: I said, steeling myself for the act of a lifetime.
"Abarai, what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"What's it look like Bya-ku-ya?" I said drawing out my use of his first name so that it became disrespectful.
He narrowed that intimidating stare of his at me. If looks could kill I'd have been dead through my next ten incarnations.
"It looks like you wish to die this day," he replied coldly.
I could have swore I saw frost actually form on the edge of Zabimaru from the temerature of his voice alone.
"Well, don't you sound confident?" I said cockily.
For this to work I needed to keep them both off balance; it was a proverb on the streets of Hangdog that "if you can fool your friends, you can fool your enemies" and while Kuchiki wasn't ever what I or anyone else who knew us would call my friend, he was someone who knew me significantly well, and if he was genuinely surprised, then Aizen would take the bait. He'd have to.
"You shall lay aside your weapon. Now."
I suppressed the instinct to obey the command given to me in that tone; it was much the same instinct that a child had when his mother shouted his full name at the top of her lungs.
"Naaah," I said instead, countering his next swing. "I really don't think I will."
I noted the way that Aizen's eyes narrowed speculatively from the corner of my eye as I kept up the act of deliberately disobeying my Captain.
"I'm gettin' a little tired o' sayin' how high ev'ry time you say jump," I continued. "I'm thinkin' that this guy here-"
I gestured to Aizen, standing with Isana at his side.
"Is missin' a team of cohorts and might be in th' market fer a new one. He's always been a man who respects strength. Back when I served under 'im, he wasn't so inclined ta treat me like I wuz somethin' th' cat dragged in outta th' rain."
My tone was saturated with long-suppressed frustration and insult over the way I had been treated. I concentrated on sounding and feeling very angry for every condescending remark, every slight that I had been forced to bear with, the frustration of being forced to bow to a thief who had taken from me what I had spent so much time and energy protecting and providing for and raising with care only to have some robber with a sense of entitlement waltz in and act like he owned. I let that feeling of anger and insult bleed into my voice, giving all of my words, no matter how false, that ring of truth that Aizen would hear and believe. He had to believe it. He had to.
"I speak down to you because you are beneath me," Kuchiki replied.
Well, yeah, in terms of both skill and position, it was annoyingly true. That didn't mean I liked it.
"I think its time I changed that," I growled in reply.
Captain Kuchiki pulled one of his favorite moves, a blur-flash to the right side with a draw and slash that would teach me a lesson in humility, or it would have if I hadn't seen it coming. My blade, thanks to Zab's enhanced speed, was already out to counter-strike as I stepped around his movement and disarmed him with a savage twist that would make his arm numb. Boy, was I ever gonna get it later! The blade went flying end over end into the air and buried itself point-down into the dirt a few feet away from us. Kuchiki stared at me with a gratifying bit of shock in his eyes. No-one except Yoruichi Shihouin had ever managed to counter that move, when last we had fought I had been so far behind from countering that move it had been ridiculous.
"You-!" he hissed in anger.
I smirked back at him, not bothering to hide my amusement as I said
"I'm not the same pup who used ta dog yer heels," I told him.
Part of me protested even as I laid the flat of my blade against his neck as a warning not to move. I looked over at Aizen.
"So whaddya say, Aizen? Ya lookin' fer a new second?"
He narrowed his eyes at me, justifiably suspicious of my sudden change of heart.
"You'll forgive me for finding your unexpected request more than a little suspect, Renji," Aizen said smoothly. "You are many things, but a traitor is not among them. You are not the kind of man who can turn his back on his comrades. I can see that you would fight Captain Kuchiki, to fight and defeat him in pursuit of your personal goal is in your character, turning away from your friends is not. Your goal is too important to you."
"Well..." I said, willing my tone to steady and my voice to remain clear and my body not to give away the fact that I was lying through my teeth against my nature.
"About that." I shrugged. "Goals change."
I let the bitterness of my defeat after so very long a time of pursuit saturate my tone as I said
"I found out the problem with hangin' all yer hopes on a star, sure, sometimes they fall ta earth, but most times they just move further outta yer reach. My time o' chasin' stars is over. From now on I'm only gonna follow somethin' that's gonna turn out right fer me. Forget all those stupid high-minded ideals, they just get me nuthin' but pain. I'm tired o' actin' like some kinda sop, let everyone else do fer that, I'm shiftin' fer my self from here on in."
It was a load of complete bullhockey! Nonetheless my voice still had that ring of truth in it, as if I were finally confessing my true feelings. That was because I wasn't lying, not entirely. I had entertained those thoughts from time to time; in my moments of weakness, when despair of ever reaching my goal, of ever being good enough, crept in on me, I had thought those thoughts. I had thought of giving it all up and just being a selfish asshole. I'd always turned away from those thoughts before because they were spoiled and whiney; unworthy of me, unworthy of the man I wanted to become. However, they were still there, underneath the surface. And because they were part of me, they were partly how I felt and thus, partly true. Aizen wasn't the kind of man you could tell a flat-out lie to, so I used that selfish and unworthy part of me to convince him that this was how I really felt. He thought he was hearing a confession, and he partly was... but just because this was how I felt sometimes didn't mean that I intended ta live my life like some whiney brat, always feelin sorry for himself.
"Hmm, Interesting," Aizen noticed. "And your friends? What about them? If you follow this road with me, you'll eventually be forced into a confrontation with them. Can you do that?"
If I didn't answer this question right, the game was up. I had to give him enough of an affirmative ta get the leeway I needed without making him so suspicious that he wouldn't take the bait.
"I dunno what yer thinkin' I'm in for," I replied with a tone of attitude that I would never have tried on a man of rank in Seireitei. "I'll follow ya, as long as it's profitable fer me. Ya got a strong army on yer side. Yer enemies are weak. In the world I come from, the world I know, it's the strong that get the food. I'm tired o' being the little dog on the th' bottom o' the heap. Even when I claw my way up ta th' top of the heap I still got assholes like this guy here-"
I jerked a thumb at Kuchiki.
"Treatin' me like the runt o' the litter. I want to find a place that plays by the rules I know, where I don't have ta waste time on stupid ideals that don't getcha nuthin'. The law of the street says grab whatcha can an' don't give it back. If yer strong enough to take whatcha want then yer respected. I'm tired o listening ta guys like him, that've had everything handed ta them from day one, yap on an' on about utter crap that don't fit inta the world I know. You seem like someone who gets it. You know the law of the street, an' ya at least live by it."
Enlightenment dawned on Aizen's face now that I had given him an answer that fit in with his assessment of my character. He thought he knew what was going on in my head, he thought that I was just looking for a place that more closely resembled the roots I clung to so proudly, he thought he knew that I resented the way the wealthy aristocracy of the Seireitei had it so easy and that I just wanted to follow a man who would give me the world that played by the rules as I understood them.
"So I'll play yer game Aizen," I finished, going in for the coup de grace. "I'll be yer dog, in exchange I want one thing..."
I tapped the captain with my sword.
"I wanna defeat him. Arrange that for me, an' I'll fight fer you."
"You have said yourself that your goal was out of your reach," Aizen pointed out, still a little wary. "There's no point in fighting him if that's true."
I snorted and gave him a look that said he'd utterly missed the point.
"O' course there is!" I said. "If I beat him, then I'm the strongest. It's that simple."
Aizen chuckled in amusement and gestured that I should follow him. One of the Shadows that had come along with him had already nabbed Orihime Inoue and the poor brat Ichigo was laid out on the tiles after trying to get her back. The rest of the Brat Pack and the Vizards were busy fighting off another army of shadelings. Rukia stood there looking like the world had turned on it head and she wasn't sure which way was up.
And speaking of Rukia. There was one final piece I had ta put in ta place if this mad, desperate plan of mine was ever gonna work. I swallowed. When we got back ta Seireitei... she was gonna kill me fer this.
"And speakin' o' being the strongest, " I added, looking over at her.
I surreptitiously slipped the Heartsblood Diamond I'd palmed earlier into my mouth and tucked it under my tongue. Before I could talk myself out of it I advanced on Rukia suddenly.
"Renji, wha-?"
I didn't wait long enough for her to say anything else (or long enough for me to talk myself out of it), I just swooped in on her like a stooping falcon, and held her immobile long enough for me to claim her lips with my own.
Now, I was no stranger to kissing, I might be a man in love but that didn't mean I had forewent the carnal delights. I did enjoy a rather good reputation among the Nightblossoms (the ladies of negotiable virtue that plied their trade to lonely young Soul Reapers just outside the gates) so when I wanted ta kiss a woman I did so thoroughly and with skill. I'd wanted to kiss her for a very long time. A very very long time. Even if it wasn't under the sorts of circumstances I would have liked, it was still a kiss and that was something I resented having ta give away in show fer the sake of getting my job done. I would have liked to start out slow and work my way up, but unfortunately I had both an audience and a mission, so I simply had ta settle for hard and passionate. The poor girl never knew what hit her. She was frozen up in shock, unable to respond and I tried to ignore the despairing voice in me that said it was because she was completely indifferent to me. Before she could think to struggle or try to squirm away I quickly and expertly opened her mouth with my own, deepening the kiss and moved my tongue into hers... along with my heartsblood diamond.
I had not forgotten about it, though its importance to me was diminished for the greater part of my mission while I had fought to deal with everything else around me. Once it was on my person it had stopped being all that important, heaven knew I had reiatsu juice ta spare now that all my chakra were unsealed, so having the core of my power bound up in a stone hadn't seemed all that important, but it was now. My heartsblood diamond would serve an invaluable purpose now. Once I planted it on Rukia it would become a fool-proof tracking device. That stone held the core of my power, an essential piece of myself, my soul. I'd be able to find in anywhere, in any world, no matter what, and once Rukia had it I'd be able to find her. It didn't matter where Aizen sought ta stash her, as long as she had that stone on her, she would never be lost to me. It didn't really matter to me that by giving her my heartsblood diamond I was effectively giving her total and absolute mastery over me. I loved her, I trusted her, she was Rukia, and while she might occassionally (frequently) get pissed off at me, she'd never truly try ta hurt me.
So, with a kiss I literally gave her my heart.
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