Chapter 12

The echoing sound had seemingly lasted forever in its continued course around the chamber. Each echo was weaker than the last, but eventually, after several minutes, it finally stopped, only to be followed by a deep, guttural boom from the unknown depths of the chamber.

"Now I'm scared." Nyruki said as they both flattened themselves against the wall behind the ruined door.

However, Byakuya didn't answer as he held out his hand, still holding the small ball of light to see their new surroundings. They were in a long, stick straight corridor with high ceilings. The walls were cracked and broken, sprouting liquid filled tubes that all jutted out and disappeared into the unknown distance.

"These tubes lead somewhere. Perhaps if we follow them, we'll find Mayuri Kurotsuchi." Byakuya said as he began to walk once more.

"Sound idea... Not sure I wanna find what's at the end though." Nyruki said, following close behind.

"We either proceed, or risk facing whatever is in there and in our weakened state, I would prefer not to get into combat." Byakuya said simply.

"I agree, Captain." Nyruki sighed.

They continued to walk, stepping over more debris as they reached the first tube that was filled with icy blue liquid and it stormed through it in the same direction they were heading.

"Where is all this stuff coming from?" Nyruki asked as she dared to rest a hand on the clear glass of the tube, "It's freezing." She added lowly.

Byakuya stopped and glanced back over his shoulder at her. His curiosity was peaked, so he too, rested a palm on the tube.

However, the moment his hand made contact, he was suddenly awash with the weight of a spiritual pressure that was familiar. It was cold, icy even, laden with a strong sense of duty and a sheer desire to protect. He had felt this energy before, knew it well even, as it belonged to one of the captains.

"Captain Hitsugaya? This can't be right." Byakuya said quietly as he removed his hand.

"What?"

"This liquid is concentrated spirit energy, but it's been refined... Tainted somehow." Byakuya said, looking down the tube in the direction of the liquid's fast flow.

"So do we go with the flow, or against it?" Nyruki asked.

"With it. This has already been processed, so it must be headed to wherever the experiments are being conducted. That must be where Mayuri Kurotsuchi is." Byakuya said as he started walking again.

Nyruki sighed heavily as she followed, producing her own small ball of light to help keep an eye on behind them. She was nervous about what could have made the sound from earlier and she most certainly didn't want whatever it was to sneak up on them.

As they walked over more debris and crawled under more tubes filled with blue, they came upon another pair of tubes, these filled with yellow and red whose colors radiated in the darkness like a welcomed beacon through a dense fog.

Byakuya placed a hand on the tube of yellow, instantly recognizing it before doing the same with the red.

"These belong to Captains Kenpachi Zaraki and Sajin Komamura." Byakuya said, removing his hand from the red filled tube.

"Is Captain Kurotsuchi experimenting on all of you?" Nyruki asked, trying to hide the horrified thoughts from expressing on her face.

"It would appear that could be a possibility. These have all been refined. I wonder if the others have found something similar." Byakuya mused with a knuckle resting against his chin.

"I guess we'll see. If they have, we'll meet up with them sooner, or later." Nyruki said with a shrug.

The pair turned themselves to the side and started to scoot through the small space between the tubes. The bolts and spurs of metal reached for them, and several managed to find hold, but only of their clothes that snagged and instantly tore without so much as help from those wearing them.

On the other side of the tubes, a few more steps brought them to yet another door, but this one was fully intact and undamaged.

Byakuya grasped the wheel with his available hand and turned, unlocking the prongs and swinging the door open to bathe themselves, and the corridor, in light with a blast of cold air.

Allowing their small red lights to vanish, they stepped through the door into a massive processing facility with giant vats filled with the liquid of the three colors they had come across. They were being mixed, swirled, by giant augers as another tank, hanging from the ceiling, poured a foul smelling, but clear liquid into each vat.

Nyruki cringed as she pressed the back of her hand into her nose, "Holy hells... That's awful." She groaned and gulped, taking in the sight of the massive machines.

"This must be the processing plant. He's concentrating the energies here, or at least a portion of them." Byakuya said, following suit in covering his nose.

Nyruki eyeballed the tubes of already concentrated energy they had been following as they shot upwards through the ceiling and out of sight.

"There is seriously no rhyme or reason to the direction of these tubes. They just go wherever." Nyruki said, keeping her hand in place, which wasn't helping to keep away the stench of the chemicals.

"It does seem that way. Perhaps the liquid needs distance before being ready for whatever the experiment calls for." Byakuya said as he began to head for a catwalk that lead over the gargantuan open topped vats.

Nyruki kept close as she followed, "I guess. The tubes head up though, so maybe we should get to the roof to see where they go?" She suggested, peering down at the vats of swirling liquid that foamed and bubbled against the auger.

"Lets. This stench is going to give me a headache." Byakuya said bluntly.

They reached the other side of the suspended catwalk to a concrete platform whose edges were wrapped with a crumbling guardrail. Gouges had been carved out, evidence of a prior battle and stains of dried blood that had long since turned black peppered all around them. They walked towards a door at the other end of the platform, but the same deep, distant boom erupted like thunder from the clouds, stopping them in their tracks.

"We're being followed." Byakuya said, reaching for his Zanpakutō, only to gasp.

Hearing the sudden choke in his throat, Nyruki glanced at her Captain's hip where his hand hovered over where his sword should be, only to see nothing. They didn't have their Zanpakutōs.

"Son of a... I forgot we didn't have them on us." Nyruki scowled as she immediately began to look for something that could serve as a weapon.

"Would our Zanpakutōs abilities even function here?" Byakuya asked, dropping his hand.

"No. Mine would though, but she's off with Captain Hitsugaya helping to find this clown." Nyruki growled as she balled her fists out of frustration.

"This is a problem." Byakuya said.

"A big one-"

The sudden sound of tearing metal cut her off as the door they had been heading for began to peel like the rind of a ripened fruit. They caught glimpses of claws and gnarled skin the color of dull blue. Small hands and small arms clawed through the metal, but whomever they belonged to seemed small, almost child like as they tore through the metal with surprisingly little effort.

As they watched whatever it was tear the door apart, they stepped back with hearts racing. They were worried about what could possibly possess that kind of strength, worried at what was about to step through and when it did, it sucked the air straight from their lungs.

The creature before them was crouched like a predator on all fours with rapid red eyes and limp hair of white that hung to its shoulders. It snarled angrily at them, bearing sharpened teeth and clawed fingers tipped with razor sharp claws that dug into the concrete. His skin had shriveled into a dull blue hide, patched with areas of thin frost and ice that were marked with frozen cuts. A set of large icy wings on his back rose high above him, folded back against his sickly thin frame and a long, whip like tail snapped back and forth, gouging more marks into the concrete with the large ice spike at the end.

However, what truly caused their hearts to thunder in their chests, was this creature had the face of someone they knew and knew well.

Captain Tōshirō Hitsugaya.

"By the gods... That madman fused him with his Zanpakutō!" Byakuya reeled, continuing to step back from the beast with the face of the young captain.

"This is bad. This is really bad." Nyruki gulped with a quivering voice.

The beast Hitsugaya crawled close, flapping his wings angrily and snarling and growling louder with long tendrils of saliva stemming from his peeled back lips.

"Run?" Nyruki asked with her eyes frozen open.

"Yes."

Not even a second passed by before they bolted back across the catwalk, their feet pounding against the metal, but it was nothing compared to the roar that the beast Hitsugaya produced from his thin throat.

It was a soul shattering sound, loud and shrieking as the beast leapt into the air with flapping icy wings. His tail whipped hard, slamming into the failing guardrail to knock off a large section from its old mountings and sent it plummeting to the concrete floor below with an equally as loud boom.

Byakuya and Nyruki both vaulted over the guardrail on the catwalk and used the side of the huge vat to slow their descent. As they fell, they looked up to see the swooping beast bank into a dive, sweeping his wings back against his thin body to accelerate to a frightening speed.

Their feet hit the floor in time for both to flash step away, darting behind the vat before they ran around towards a door at the far end of the facility. As they ran, Nyruki skidded to a halt when they approached the crumbled piece of guardrail that the beast Hitsugaya had knocked off and crouched down to pick up the longest intact piece.

"Here!" Nyruki called out, tossing the longest piece for him to catch.

Byakuya instantly stopped and spun around, catching the piece with one hand and spun it around his back with a blurring spin before slapping his other hand against it to halt it.

As Nyruki caught up, the beast swooped in to land with a skid behind her, digging his claws into the floor to stop his slide. His snarling and growling sharpened as more saliva dripped from his lips and he began to stalk towards them, ready to pounce. He had his pray cornered.

In a blinding flash step, Byakuya instantly appeared in front of Nyruki with the guardrail staff at the ready.

"Hold onto me." Byakuya ordered, never taking his silver eyes off the approaching beast.

"What?"

"Do it!"

Nyruki instantly stepped close and tightly grabbed onto his bicep with both hands. No sooner had she grabbed on, the beast sprung, reaching forward with claws ready to rend and tear. His teeth glistened with a seething hunger, stained with blood, and his eyes were wide with an unbridled fury.

But at the last second, Byakuya flash stepped away, bringing both of them behind the beast that was just landing from his lunge with claws digging into the concrete floor instead of flesh.

As the beast turned to run on all fours towards them, tail whipping and snapping, Byakuya ran forward and swung, slamming the guardrail staff into the beast Hitsugaya's side and sent him flying into the side of one of the vats.

Nyruki took the opening and sent a weakened Shakkahō racing into the beast that exploded with smoke and a loud blast that was far less than what it should be, so when the beast lunged from the cloud, neither were surprised.

As the beast flew towards Byakuya, he whipped his tail hard to toss spikes of ice that Byakuya dodged, flash stepping in rapid succession to avoid each projectile. Each spike smashed into the side of another vat, some embedding in the thick metal while others shattered into tiny crystals.

Once the barrage ended, Byakuya reappeared, this time on the side of the beast and swung again, but missed as the beast lunged upwards into the air with several powerful beats of his wings. However, as he rose out of reach, he again whipped his tail, but this time, the sharp spike of ice cracked against Byakuya's left shoulder.

With a red spray of mist, blood shot from the wound and Byakuya's shoulder dropped, but he soon regained his posture and powered through the wound. He leapt upwards, guardrail staff ready, but his leap was no match for the speed of a Sajō Sabaku that went flying by him with a scream.

The bands of glowing yellow chain wrapped around the tail and legs of the beast, stopping his assent dead as they yanked down hard to slam the beast straight into Byakuya. The sudden force brought them both crashing into the concrete floor with a quack that shot through the entire facility and a boom so tremendous that it hurt Nyruki's ears.

"Captain!" Nyruki called out as she released her spell and ran for the dust cloud the crash had caused.

She hadn't intended to slam the beast into her Captain, but it had happened anyways, as she wasn't as proficient at Bakudō as she was at Hadō. She couldn't control where the chains took her targets. She needed to practice and she was sure that her Captain was about to give her the scalding of a lifetime for having hit him with the icy beast. That's if he wasn't dead.

However, as the dust cleared, she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Byakuya laying on his back with the guardrail staff still in hand and raised to the ceiling, still breathing and very much conscious. One end had been slammed hard into the concrete next to him, while the other had been thrust through the beast Hitsugaya's chest, just belong the sternum and protruded from his back between his flailing wings.

The beast squirmed and tried to reach for Byakuya, clawing and whipping his tail, but he was out of reach of the small hellion that thrashed for him. The beast snarled, growled, but the sound was pained, dying, with each one weaker than the last.

After a few moments, with black blood seeping from the wound to slowly crawl down the pipe, the beast Hitsugaya went limp, hanging lifelessly on top of the pole.

The threat gone, Nyruki began to breathe again and rushed to her captain's side.

"Are you alright, Captain? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hit you with him!" Nyruki pled as she helped Byakuya to his feet.

"It's alright. It was a good move and I took advantage of it." Byakuya said, his breathing slightly faster from the physical assertion of combat.

"We're at a huge disadvantage here, Captain. With limited power and no Zanpakutō, I just-" Nyruki started again, only to have her chin lightly cupped in a deceptively soft and gentle hand.

"I said, it's alright. I understand we're at a disadvantage, so any opening that makes itself known has to be taken. You did the right thing by bringing that creature down." Byakuya said, releasing her chin.

Nyruki nodded and looked at the blood staining his captain's haori, "Can I take a look?" She asked softly.

Byakuya simply nodded as he knelt down and took the time to calm his slightly faster breathing as she worked. She carefully removed the haori from his wounded shoulder and did the same with his torn top, lowering it down to his elbow to get an unobscured look at the cut in his pale flesh.

To her relief, it was not a deep wound, just a long one and was certainly survivable. It stretched from the top of his pectoral to the top of his shoulder blade, arcing over his shoulder instead of carving through it. It was truly a cut made by a whip instead of a sword.

"It looks worse than it is. We got lucky." Nyruki sighed as she cupped her hands over the wound on his shoulder, hovering just above his skin.

She wasn't good at this. Not even close to even her Captain's level, but she was going to at least try to slow, if not stop the slow bleeding of the wound. That familiar soft blue light began to radiate from her hands, but it was irregular and not at all comforting.

As the Kidō began to work, albeit slowly and a bit ineffectively, Byakuya turned his head just enough to look at her out of the corner of his eye with his familiar blank expression. He knew she wanted to do what she could and it was just yet another proof of that determination he had heard about from Captain Ukitake as well as seen on more than one occasion. If she kept up with it, she would do well in Squad 6.

"I believe it is my turn to thank you." Byakuya said, still looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm only returning the favor." She said with a soft smile.

Byakuya exhaled through his nose and returned to looking down at his hands until Nyruki finished what the weak Kidō was capable of doing. She softly pressed her fingers around the edges of the wound to make sure it had stopped bleeding, and in fact, it had, before she grasped his top to begin pulling it up.

"Not yet." Byakuya said as he grasped the bottom edge of his captain's haori once more.

As he had done before, he tore off a strip of fabric and handed it to her to wrap his wound.

She took the fabric and slipped it beneath his arm and carefully, a bit delicately even, bandaged his shoulder and tied the ends tightly.

"That feel alright, Captain?" She asked, grasping the fabric of his top once more to help him shrug back into it.

"Yes. Thank you. We should get to the roof and hope we don't run into anymore of those creatures." Byakuya said as he rose to his feet.

"Yeah. It looks like there's some stairs over there." Nyruki said, pointing towards the opposite wall.

There was, indeed, a set of stairs that rose back up to the concrete platform where they had first seen the beast Hitsugaya, with the exception that a few segments had collapsed away. They easily hopped over the gaps as they climbed and reached the ruined door where they discovered how the beast had gotten into the facility in the first place.

He had flown in through a hole in the ceiling that allowed them to climb to the roof.

They began to climb the fallen slabs and mangled metal and once again, Byakuya reached the roof first before leaning over to help Nyruki up. He grasped her hand and pulled, easily handling her weight as he helped to bring her up to the roof. They wished it had still been dark because the sight that lay out before them was truly born of nightmare.

The sky had blackened into a stormy gray, swirling with barely contained lightning that streaked across the charcoal clouds. It rolled with distant thunder and the wind angrily whipped through the foul air, which neither really disagreed with, as it helped to keep the stench from creeping into their sinuses.

Their eyes followed the line of the three different colored tubes, and all of them stormed towards the towers of Squad 1. Their eyes were met with more tubes filled with different colored liquids, ranging from pure white, to an all encompassing black and all wound their way through the ruins on their brutal path towards the towers.

"If Mayuri Kurotsuchi's experiments are what I think they are, this is going to get far more difficult." Byakuya said as he released a stiff sigh.

"We should find the others and regroup. We're gonna need numbers if that's the case." Nyruki sighed as a nervous roll shot through her whole body at the mere thought of more of those creatures.

Luckily for them both, one such team arrived, appearing in a flash step behind them.

"There you are! We've been searching for you since we heard that boom." Yelped Captain Ukitake as he instantly approached Nyruki and saw her bandaged arm.

"We're fine, Captain, but we've gotta hurry and find Captain Kurotsuchi. We think he's-" Nyruki started, only to be cut off.

"We know. We ran into a rather nasty little surprise at the library." Kyōraku interrupted, his cheeks lightly scratched and with a few scuffs over his clothes which included a scorch mark through his pink kimono.

"We ran into an ice ghoul Hitsugaya inside the Department of Research and Development." Byakuya said.

"Ooo... That sounds nasty." Kyōraku cringed.

"He was, but there was no intelligence to him. He was animalistic, so we were able to defeat him... Well, Captain Kuchiki did." Nyruki said, shaking her head in disbelief as Ukitake looked at her arm.

"Same with our fire breathing Komamura. All he wanted was to kill and feed." Ukitake said, finally releasing Nyruki's arm and satisfied that it was cared for as adequately as possible.

"What's going on here? This is a bit more than just that madman's desires." Kyōraku said, holding the brim of his hat to keep it from blowing away in the stiff wind.

"That's what I'm starting to fear." Nyruki said.

Byakuya shot her a glance, "You fear he's falling into his desires."

"I fear he's already fallen. This is elaborate. This is progressed. Those tubes of concentrated spirit energy and those creatures created from the captains? He's hooked. This is what he wants above all else; To experiment on the captains and create those... those-" Nyruki couldn't finish as anger began to build in her chest.

Seeing her emotions, Ukitake wrapped her up in his arms and held her close, "We'll figure this out, Nyruki. There has to be a way we can end this."

"We face an uphill battle. Without adequate Kidō, or our Zanpakutōs, we have a very limited way to fight against these creatures. On top of that, we need to avoid getting injured because if we die here, we die in reality." Byakuya said, closing his eyes for a moment as he spoke.

"Is he right, Nyruki?" Ukitake asked, unwrapping his arms from around her.

Nyruki nodded, "Yeah. He's right. We die here, it's for real."

As the wind continued to howl, the other groups, save for Kibōyūwaku and Hitsugaya, found their way to the roof of the Squad 12 facility. They had all been faced with mutilated versions of one of the captains and none had managed to escape completely unscathed. The worst, thankfully, being Byakuya's shoulder.

Soi-Fon and Komamura described of how they had faced off against a demonic Byakuya, whom had been fused with his Zanpakutō in a way that made him the embodiment of cuts. He was a blood thirsty, mindless adaptation, covered in seeping wounds that he continued to lick with a tongue that stretched out to no less than six feet. His canines were lengthened into fangs and his silken hair had dreaded into pink tipped spines that he could fire at will. They told of how deathly thin he was, his ribs sticking out from skin that had turned entirely white and how his eyes were black with bloody red pupils. They had only managed to dispatch the demon when Komamura crushed his skull against the wall with a powerful slam.

Kenpachi and Unohana however, had not only dispatched their creature, but had brought its body with them to show the others, which now lay dead at everyone's feet.

It was a grotesque version of Captain Ukitake, whose long white hair was damp and clinging to his water logged flesh. His eyes, frozen open, were black, entirely black, with no iris and no life. His hands were tipped with claws and he had no legs period, but instead, a long spine covered tail of scales and fins the stretched out nearly four times Ukitake's actual height. It was thick, powerful and painted as if it were a koi's tail. The sight frightened Nyruki so much, that she curled back into that very man whom had been the basis for the creature.

"How did you kill... it?" Ukitake asked, gulping and holding Nyruki close, his hand placed on the back of her head as he studied the myriad of cuts covering the creature from head to tail.

"Broke his neck after throwing him into one of those auger things. That chopped him up good." Kenpachi said, crossing his arms with a grin.

"A truly vial beast. He swam through the sewers at frightening speed simply looking for prey." Unohana said, her hands clasped in front of her.

"I think it's probably safe to say that there's a possibility he's experimenting on more than just the captains." Kyōraku said, drawing the group's attention.

"I agree. That liquid is Ichigo Kurosaki's spiritual energy." Byakuya said, pointing at the tube of raging, jet black and red liquid.

"Pray we don't run into him." Ukitake said, tightening his grip on Nyruki possessively.

"We're as good as dead if Mayuri's managed to complete the fusion with that one." Kyōraku said.

"We need to hurry. Kibōyūwaku and Captain Hitsugaya aren't here and I'm worried they found Captain Kurotsuchi." Nyruki finally said as she pulled away from Ukitake's embrace.

They all nodded in agreement and began to flash step across the Seireitei, using the roofs to move faster than using the ruined streets. They passed more tubes filled with lavender, blood red, purple, blue, and more, and they knew that they belonged to people of Lieutenant ranks and higher, as the blood red liquid belonged to that of Lieutenant Renji Abarai. The mad scientist was experimenting on more than just the captains.

It didn't take long for them to reach the base of the towers, whose smoking stacks pumped more and more black smoke into the storming sky. They stopped and studied the liquid filled tubes that rose along the walls before disappearing into the structure halfway up. Out of all the tubes they had seen, there only rose a total of eight while the others went elsewhere.

Suddenly, as they stared upwards, the howl of the wind was shattered by the most heart wrenching, blood curdling scream that burst from the top of the main tower. The sound was pure pain, undiluted torment. It had burst from the lungs of someone whom was undergoing the worst nightmares that anyone could imagine. It was a male scream, one that broke Nyruki's heart despite not knowing who the scream belonged to and if she was honest, she didn't want to know.

None were able to handle the nightmare inducing scream, so instead of standing and listening to it, they ran, climbing the crumbling stairs and made their way to the top where they were faced with a massive set of iron doors. They were heavy and black with large fist sized rivets along their edges. The hinges on them were large enough to be used as boat anchors and had grown patches of surface rust from the foul air and chemicals that hung in the air.

But despite their vastness, they had been surprisingly easy to open. Kenpachi and Komamura each took a side and pulled the thick rings, swinging the iron doors outwards with a resonating metal groan that sounded like a battle horn off in the distance.

That is when they realized that it all got worse. Much, much, worse.

At the top of the main tower, behind those massive metal doors, they found Mayuri Kurotsuchi in his lab of nightmares.