Sigh... filler chapter time. I practically typed this up as a transcript from the manga - I edited details, but you could basically skip this chapter.

ch17 is much more interesting.

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The Striking Snake

ch16

Abduction

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Ganju skidded around the corner, racing at a furious clip to stay ahead of the cluster of Shinigami pursuing him. As he did so, he spotted a haze in the air - and a second later, Gin flash-stepped into existence.

"Ayo, Ganju! Ya should probably duck!" He called, raising his wakizashi. "Shoot to kill, Shinsō!"

The lance stabbed one of Ganju's pursuers straight through the right of his torso. Gin grinned, and twisted his grip.

The blade swung sideways - and the impaled man was lucky to avoid losing his right arm along with a chunk of his lung. The man beside him was not so lucky, and was decapitated instantly by the god spear.

The remaining Shinigami hesitated, severely slowing down... but not stopping

The air began to blur behind Gin, and several dozen more Shinigami materialized. "There he is!" Shouted one of them.

"Aw, and here I thought I'd lost 'em," whined Gin. Then his voice became serious. "I hope you're ready for a fight, Ganju. This ain't gonna be easy."

"You're telling me," muttered the Shiba clansman. "They've seen that spear of yours and they aren't backing down. They've gotta be pretty mean customers..."

Rather abruptly, there was a commotion behind the advancing line of Shinigami. The line split and a short, weedy looking death god rolled forward as if he had just tripped.

The small shinigami looked up to see two faces; one rough and imposing, the other sleek, mirthful and and utterly terrifying.

"New plan," said Gin, grabbing the kid's collar and hauling him up in a single movement. He pointed Shinsō at his throat. "Y'all death gods let us walk, or the kid gets it in the gizzard. What'll it be?"

There was a silence, just long enough for Gin and Ganju to both think the word 'shit.'

"Haha... are you serious?" Guffawed one of the bigger shinigami. "The fuck makes you think us eleventh boys give a shit about some scrawny, useless medic? Kill him if you like - save us the trouble!"

Gin's grin subsided for a moment. "Aw, that's cold."

The shinigami began advancing again. Gin gripped Shinsō tighter.

However, once again, they were saved by an abrupt happenstance - in the form of a violent explosion ripping through the wall of the buildings directly to the right of the shinigami ahead of them. The entire line was blasted aside, and most of them appeared stunned.

Gin didn't waste time wondering what had happened. "Path's clear! Come on, Ganju!"

Still gripping the hapless medic by the collar, Gin flash-stepped away.

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The dust cleared slowly, revealing a very tall man with Latin features as opposed to the Asian faces of most Rukon dwellers. Instead of a shihakusō, he seemed to be wearing a cotton shirt and pants, and he wore tough leather boots instead of sandals.

"Hey!" Yelled one of the shinigami as they stood up. "Who the hell are you? Are you friends with those ryoka who just ran off?"

Chad took a moment to feel the residual reiatsu in the air. The dry, cold, reptilian taste was distinctly layered over the weaker, largely unremarkable signatures of the eleventh division shinigami.

"Probably," he said at last.

"Ah-hah! That means you're a ryoka too!" Said the shinigami. "Consider yourself under arrest! We're taking you back to the barracks, dead or alive - "

"Sorry," said Chad calmly, "but I can't let you do that."

"Eh?" The shinigami looked briefly at his clustered companions. "You don't even have a weapon. What are you gonna do, beat us unconscious with your bare hands?"

"Bare?"

Chad clenched his right fist, and a glowing shell of gray-and-ochre armor materialized over it.

"Not quite."

X-X-X

"Well, Madarame-San?" The arrogant captain's voice cut through the air. "I'm waiting..."

"Please, captain Kurotsuchi..." The nurse behind him said nervously. "Please refrain from disturbing the patients. Madarame-san is still badly injured - "

"Silence, you insolent girl!" Mayuri shouted back. The hapless nurse scurried from the room, completely cowed by the captain's presence.

"Mayuri-sama," said his soft-spoken lieutenant. "Perhaps we - "

"You too, Nemu!" He snapped. "Do you want me to cut you up again?"

"No, Mayuri-sama. I apologize."

The room's principal occupant rolled his eyes. "Oh, lay off them."

Mayuri turned his attention back to Ikkaku, who was lying on the medical cot with bandages around his torso.

"It's not that I don't want to talk," lied Ikkaku. "I don't know anything. I don't know how many there are, what their goal is or where they were headed."

Mayuri's eyes narrowed. "You learned nothing?" He hissed. "You just lost the fight and then crawled back?"

"Yes."

Mayuri clenched his teeth.

"By the way, I don't remember what the ryoka looked or sounded like, so I know absolutely nothing of value."

Mayuri's eyes widened. He knew when he was being mocked.

"Well then," he almost shrieked, "you shall pay the price of failure!

Mayuri raised his hand to strike... and was unable to bring it down. A thin but wiry hand encircled his wrist with a grip strong enough to crack the bones of a lesser shinigami.

"What's this?" Came a deep voice. "Since when do you have authority over soldiers of another division, Kurotsuchi?"

The mad captain turned his head to see the chiseled, scarred, eyepatched face of Captain Zaraki looming over his shoulder.

Mayuri glared. "Well," he huffed, "since your own captain has arrived, I will take my leave. Come on, Nemu!"

The eccentric twelfth captain stormed out, clearly peeved.

Ikkaku sighed tiredly, looking up at the huge Kenpachi. Interestingly, although it was not common knowledge, the eleventh captain was in fact not as imposingly built as he looked - his ripped haori accentuated his wide shoulders, but apart from that, his loose clothing concealed an unusually skinny build.

"Captain," Ikkaku acknowledged.

With a sound like "pyaho!" a pink-haired head popped up over the captain's shoulder, and Ikkaku chuckled slightly. "Ah, you're here too, lieutenant," he said.

"Are you okay?" Piped the tiny girl. "I was so worried about you, baldy!"

"Hey!" Ikkaku's eye twitched. "How many times have I told you, my name's not baldy! Besides, it's shaven, not bald - "

"I heard you lost a fight."

The Kenpachi's deep voice silenced all other noise for a second. Ikkaku's attention immediately returned to his captain.

"Yeah." He said heavily. "I know you have no patience for the weak... but he didn't finish me off, so I came back anyway."

The captain looked down at the third seat. "Get stronger. Don't lose again."

Ikkaku's expression became hard. "I won't."

Kenpachi folded his arms. There was a moment of silence.

"Is he strong?"

Ikkaku turned the question over in his head.

"No," he said at last, a bitter tone in his voice. "He's nothing special. Not yet."

Kenpachi raised an eyebrow.

"... But he's so ruthless, quick and cunning that you'd never know the difference. And he's only going to get stronger."

Kenpachi was silent.

"He's tall, his hair's silver, and he's got a smile that could kill a man at a hundred paces. Always keeps his eyes squinted shut too, probably 'cause they look like blood," said Ikkaku. "His zanpakutō looks tiny, but watch out. She bites, and bites fast."

"Where's he headed?"

Ikkaku smiled. "The Senzaikyū tower," he said. "He said he was here to retrieve Kuchiki Rukia."

"Is that right?" Kenpachi smirked. "That's sure gonna tread on some noble toes. This is gonna go down in a fun way."

Ikkaku coughed. "Yeah," he managed. "I told him to look out for you. He may not have been elite when I fought him, but he weren't no weakling either – I practically carved his arm off, and he barely flinched. And he's gonna get stronger. Much stronger."

Kenpachi grunted. "How much?"

Ikkaku frowned. "Well, just a guess, but... if this guerrilla battling drags out another week or two, he won't be limping away from a fight with one officer; he'll be whacking high seats in threes and fours. Give him a year or three... anyway. By the time you meet him, captain, he will doubtless outclass me. He will be both very strong and very lethal."

The Kenpachi grinned like a madman.

"What's his name?"

X-X-X

"H- Hanatarō," said the shinigami timidly. "Yamada Hanatarō."

Ganju scoffed. "Ugh, that's hard to remember. Why couldn't you have had an easier name?"

"Th- that's funny... most people say I have an easy name..."

"Besides," said Gin, examining Shinsō before returning her to her sleeve sheath. "Aren'tcha our enemy? Why're ya introducing yourself, anyway?"

Ganju snorted. "A better question is why you brought him along. If nobody likes him, what good's he as a hostage?"

"Hey, I was just holdin' him. I wasn't really thinking about it," lied Gin, who was, in fact, far more methodical than he ever let on. "But he's a medic anyhow, so he might be useful that way."

Ganju rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We need to plan our next step. You said Rukia's being held in the tall white tower?"

"Yeah, that's what Ikkaku said."

"Well, the ideal way to get there is one that doesn't take us past any captains." Ganju scratched his chin, pulling out a scroll of paper. "No real way of knowing their movements, though..."

Gin looked over. "Ya have a Seireitei map with no roads on it. What the fuck good's that?"

"Hey, are you saying - "

"Wait - Rukia?"

"Shut up, you!" Said Ganju to their hostage. Gin, however, paused - and opened one eye, focusing the crimson glare on Hanatarō and affixing his most menacing smile.

"What was that ya said, Hanatarō-kun?"

Hanatarō paled. "I... um... it's just..." He swallowed. "Are you two talking about Kuchiki Rukia?"

Gin's other eye opened. "Talk fast, Hanatarō."

"Yes! Um... I mean... the white tower must be the Senzaikyū in the center of the Seireitei, right? I, um, I know a shortcut into the inner citadel," he babbled.

Gin narrowed his eyes again, and smiled.

X-X-X

"A sewer, huh?" Said Ganju. "Guess every city needs plumbing. These lead everywhere?"

"Yeah," replied Hanatarō. "They go just about everywhere in the Seireitei. Many of the richer Rukongai districts, too."

"An' nobody knows this?" Gin said. "I mean, if there's manholes into the sewers all over, ain't somebody bound ta guess we might hole up down here? They can't be a big secret."

"N-no," replied Hanatarō. "Their existence is common knowledge, yes, but I don't think we'll be followed here. The sewers are a giant labyrinth - shinigami have gotten lost and starved to death before. Hardly anyone outside of the 4th knows their way around the maze."

"Huh? Why the fourth?" Said Ganju. "Do you guys use the sewers as emergency deployment routes to get the medics in quickly?"

"N-nothing so glamorous," stuttered the small shinigami. "As the least combatant division, it falls to 4th division greenhorns to clean the sewers, along with various other cleaning duties. Every fourth division officer has spent at least a decade or two scrubbing slime down here - you learn your way around quick, or you get lost and die."

"Pfeh!" Huffed Ganju. "I actually pity you guys."

"Say, Hanatarō..." Gin said, a quizzical tone to his voice. "You're helping us kind of... readily. We're supposed to be yer enemies, aren't we? Yet, you're just gonna take us to the Senzaikyū, no questions?"

"Well... actually," said Hanatarō, "I h- heard a lot about you from Kuchiki-san, when she was in the sixth division holding cells. Y- you're Ichimaru Gin... the shinigami with silver hair and ruby eyes."

Gin raised an eyebrow.

"I know you look evil, b- but Ruki- I mean Kuchiki-san - wouldn't trust someone who was really bad. I honestly believe you can save her, Ichimaru-san."

"Huh." Gin frowned slightly. "I ain't used to being trusted for anything..."

"Rukia's one of the only shinigami who've ever treated me kindly," said Hanatarō with conviction. "She told me many things. Even though she only knew you for a month or two, she has amazing faith in you..."

Gin's eyebrow raised.

"... She also said that she caused you more suffering and difficulty than anyone should have to deal with. She was always sad, because she believed she could never make it up to you, no matter what she did."

Gin's eyes opened, a totally shocked expression on his face.

Then, slowly, he slipped back into his grinning fox mask. "Heh, I see she still worries too much," he said casually. "She shouldn't fuss over me. I'm a snake of a man - heartless, patient, and cold-blooded. What's 'suffering' to me? Ya can't hurt a man with no feelings."

It was Ganju and Hanatarō's turn to stare incredulously.

"Come on." Gin smirked, walking onwards. "Time's wasting. We've got a princess to rescue from her high tower."

Even though she only knew you for a month or two, she has amazing faith in you...

... and she caused you so much suffering an pain... she can never make it up to you, no matter what she does.

It might have been a trick of the light, but Gin smile didn't seem quite as wide as it usually was.

X-X-X

"Several divisions are reporting minor injuries; however, the eleventh division reports a full seventeen KIA and a further ten critically wounded!" The messenger panted. "Among them are the third and fifth officers, Ayasegawa Yumichika and Madarame Ikkaku!"

The assembled lieutenants gasped collectively. The ryoka had effortlessly inflicted twenty-seven combat casualties - on the eleventh division, no less - in a single day. They had to be terrifyingly powerful.

"Witnesses also confirm that two of the ryoka, probably the strongest of them, kidnapped an officer of the fourth division and disappeared into the sewers." The messenger scanned his orders again. "According to third seat Madarame, the ryoka that defeated him stated that their entire party consisted of seven people plus..." He frowned in disbelief. "A cat."

The seventh lieutenant, Tetsuzaemon Iba, stepped forward. "We have also lost contact with our own fourth officer, Ikkanzaka Jirōbō. It seems probable that he was defeated by one or more ryoka."

"The fourth seat? Jidanbō's younger brother?" It was the tenth lieutenant, Rangiku Matsumoto. "He's that 'kamaitachi' character, isn't he? For all his posturing, he's no joke in a fight..."

"What's going on here?" Muttered the third lieutenant, Izuru Kira. "They've almost effortlessly beat down some of our strongest warriors. What kind of monsters are they?"

Momo Hinamori, the lieutenant of the fifth, shivered. "Jeez, the situation keeps getting worse," she muttered to herself. "Don't you agree, Abarai-kun...?"

She turned, only to notice a void where the sixth lieutenant had just been standing. "Abarai-kun?"

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In the middle of the citadel plaza, a single flagstone shifted up and then sideways. A black-haired, pathetic-looking head poked out.

"Okay, looks clear," said Hanatarō. "Come on up."

"Whoo!" Ganju grunted as he hauled himself up. "Feels like forever since I last breathed fresh air!"

"This is as the sewer exits go," said Hanatarō apologetically. "There's no way out in the higher citadel or the Senzaikyū itself. The citadel is small, though, so you don't have far to go - look, there's the Senzaikyū up there!"

And, indeed, the terrain sloped sharply up from the courtyard – there seemed to be only a few layers of progressively higher buildings until only the towering Senzaikyū stood, the bright white standing out sharply against the earth tomes of the huge plateau behind it.

"Wow... we really are close," said Ganju. "Looks like it's only a few stairs and alleys till we reach it. We might even - "

Gin held up a hand, silencing Ganju. His grin stretched slightly wider.

"Someone's here," he whispered, "and their reiatsu smells awfully familiar..."

Gin's carmine eyes scanned the buildings. The main stairway into the central citadel seemed obscured by some kind of haze; he looked closer -

There was a hiss of flash-step.

The haze swirled and dissipated, revealing a shinigami with striking red hair and extensive tattoos on his forehead. Unlike most shinigami, he wore a band around his right bicep, which bore a large wooden badge with the kanji Roku engraved on it.

"Long time no see... Ichimaru Gin." The sixth lieutenant looked up, meeting Gin's slitted eyes. "Remember me?"

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