Okay, first of all... Seven reviews total. Three new ones in a single day. You guys are seriously awesome and expertly able to get me to stop brooding and start writing a new chapter, aren't you?
So, I read them and I have to tell you guest that I will continue this fanfiction until the end, when that is I don't know. Especially since the canon isn't even over yet!
Though I'm a little put out that no one, as of yet, has commented on the snippets of very important information and spoilers that I placed in the last chapter.
Fun time reading the chapter!
(8/27/15)- I had a terrible time writing this chapter and I finally just gave up and decided to write it like this. A fair warning to you: I am usually that type of person that writes really intriguing plot twists that are only explained at the end! But I promise that there is method in my madness.
Now, I am currently trying different types of explanations as to what I am doing, and attempting as to take a more mathematical approach to it. So sorry if it is too confusing. Feel free to ask me anything.
Lucca walked back to the 12th division in the company of his zanpakutou spirits. It was actually the first time he had met either Zangetsu, if he was correct than they would have been his zanpakutou if he had not died. He could tell they belonged to 'Ichigo' because that's what the aura around them seem to tell him. If he accessed Kaien's memories he could clearly remember Nejibana.
Like how they met and how she would constantly annoy him until he could finally hear her voice. But he feverishly stumped out trying to remember anything because of the other things he remembered.
Miyako...
A sob escaped my lips and I felt Nejibana pressing closer to me.
I gave her a small grimace. Even to me it felt forced. Maybe remembering was not that great of a choice after all...
There was a small huff and I looked over my shoulder to see Zangetsu frowning at me, while the Old Man had this slight air of disappointment around him.
It was strange to see the two sword spirits contrasting so much with one another.
I found Zangetsu presence something alike to Nejibana's but the Old Man's... I wasn't so sure.
There was something grating in the back of my mind that I just couldn't not put my finger on.
Deciding to leave it be unless I actually remembered what it was, I focused on finding what Aizen had requested. Back to that hell hole of paperwork.
Unbidden memories of paperwork on top of his desk made the Kaien part of his soul to shudder.
'Even in death I can't get away from it...' Lucca thought with sarcastic humor.
-" You should look for the papers somewhere else other than the division's storage."- the Old man said.
-" What? "- Lucca asked.
-" You think whatever Aizen wants, which can't be anything good, is open to the public?"- he answered.
Lucca blinked.
-" I hadn't thought of that..."- he bleakly said.
Both Zangetsu and Nejibana snorted, the latter in a very un-lady like way.
-" You know that you were considered a prodigy in your generation, right?"- Nejibana giggled.
-" You think smartness is capable of residing in his head after being struck down so many times by an angry Arrancar?"- Zangetsu hollered in laughter.
-" You're not helping! Besides I died so it's not by generation anymore!"- Lucca shouted at the two.
Passerby shinigamis looked over their shoulders and around them as they thought they were hearing voices so Lucca had to resign himself to quietly glare at his two zanpakutou while listening to other things the Old Man was suggesting.
-" Perhaps you could search those documents in the place where the confidential things are kept?"- he suggested.
-" That's a good idea, but... Where is that place exactly?"- Lucca asked.
-" My guess?"- the Old Man said with a slight frown -" Where their security is tighter."
I hummed in agreement while trying to figure out where that was. And when I did, I'm not proud to say that I tripped over my feet.
-" You want to bust inside the First Division?! That's where the old guy Aizen told us to stay away from is!"- Lucca gasped.
-" It's our best bet."- the Old Man said -" And you can use the Divide to enter inside of it unnoticed."
-" Oh, just in case you're forgetting or were simply distracted at that time but I can be sensed inside of the Divide, apparently, by the captains!"- Lucca hissed.
-" You just have to go deeper into the Divide and blend in."- the Old Man calmly stated.
-" And risk being turned permanently into reishi?! No thank you."- Lucca frowned.
-" You won't turn into reishi..."- the Old Man said.
-" I don't believe you just yet."- Lucca told him.
The older Zangetsu flinched, though no one noticed, and gazed through the corner of his eye his wielder.
Because no matter what 'Lucca' said he was Ichigo. And if only he had stayed in the living world, he would have been able to overpower both hollows and keep their influence to a bare minimum. But no... he had stayed inside a hollow environment and only recently had he gained power to communicate and manifest himself to the boy.
And what was worse was that while he didn't relate with shinigamis, which itself was a good thing, he instead related with hollows. The things he and his kind were meant to destroy and exterminate.
So even if the hollows were allowing him to play along and pretend to be part of his zanpakutou, he knew that the boy understood that something was amiss. Perhaps he would not notice how is presence was different? He knew that was impossible, and had been certain the boy did knew something because he showed peculiar interest in those quincy records.
Though those did little more than gross the pre-teen out.
-" He's right King."- Zangetsu told him-" The First Division is the most probable place."
Lucca gave him a pointed look before he huffed.
What he did to get home faster...
Lucca concentrated more on the tight control he had over the surrounding reishi and with a small nudge of his own reiyoku, he submerged himself in the veins of pure reishi that existed in Seireitei.
In other words, he became one with the very atmosphere that made Soul Society.
It was very risky doing so because at that point, so deep into the reishi, the user no longer had a physical form. It's entire body turned into particles.
Now you can see how a prolonged stay inside of the Divide was going to end. Everything inside of it sooner or later turned into stray particles, and the deeper levels just fastened that effect.
Lucca knew that he could stay almost a full day inside of the Divide if he was not to stray into the deeper levels, but just one layer deeper and his time was cut to mere twelve hours.
And the level after that was only possible for three.
As of yet, he was not able to enter any deeper into the Divide in fear of being permanently stuck there and eventually dissolving.
If the world inside of the Divide was already monochromatic and slow motioned, then in the deeper levels all traces of color faded and everything started to move even slower until it stopped altogether.
As Lucca was in the deepest level he could managed the world seemed really faded and it took about two minutes for a shinigami to take a single step.
But was better about the deeper levels were the doors.
Like I said, the Divide allowed travel to anywhere one wanted as long as it is connected to reishi.
And in a place like Soul Society where everything is made of reishi, there was almost nowhere Lucca didn't have access to. But places that purposely sealed off reishi were off limits.
The doors were the metaphorical way to say instant travel to the desired destination. The only problem was that it took effort and the further the intended place was, the more power it took.
Lucca just hoped that no one was inside of where he intended to go.
Inside of the Divide he simply ordered it to take him to where the most well secured storage was. Which was easy because, if you didn't know, reishi is sentient.
In a sensation close to being tossed, Lucca was ejected out of the Divide and fell face first into the dusty floor of the First Division vault.
Lucca groaned as he sat on the ground and massaged his now bruised forehead. That had hurt.
Zangetsu had returned to where he had come out of, but that didn't mean Lucca didn't hear his laughter and mockery, so only Nejibana and the Old Man were with him.
The arrancar's eyes moved across the room as he analyzed where he was, how it was closed, how he could get out of it and what there was inside of the vault.
Well, first off the room was dark, very dark.
The air inside of the vault was stale and there was a fine layer of dust covering everything that was not protected by something else. The smell of the room was of really old books and something else Lucca couldn't describe.
As he walked around a bit he noticed that we was leaving footprints behind.
That was not good... But if the room was closed and there was dust everywhere then it meant that someone rarely came in here. Or that Seireitei was filled with really lazy people.
Lucca blinked.
He couldn't answer that mental question. He remembered, thanks to Kaien's memories, that there were hardworking people inside of Seireitei like the 13th Division captain. But then there was the 8th captain...
Yeah, there was the possibility that someone just didn't really like cleaning.
Resuming his overlook of the room, he noticed that there were only documents in one section of the vault but deeper inside of it there were also objects and things Lucca didn't know how to explain.
Curiosity and the need to look around and explore everything kicked in.
He just had to see what was inside of this place.
Throughly and in great detail.
Aizen was smiling warmly as he walked towards the meeting hall. His aura the picture perfect of a calm and patient person made his disguise work wonderfully.
No one suspected a thing about who he really was and apart from the 10th captain, who was too nosy and distrustful for his own good, who gave Gin a wide berth, there was nothing wrong.
And even then, the 10th captain distrust was working in his favor and was rather helpful to his plan.
When he arrived at the meeting almost every captain was already there.
With Gin being the last to arrive, as usual.
But before any type of conversation or banter could start the loud sound caused by the cane of the soutaichou silenced everyone. His expression was serious and he started to addresses the several topics they had to discuss.
A good three or four hours passed when there was a prolonged pause in the soutaichou's speech, which caused a few curious gazes, followed by a thunderous amount of reiatsu that overpowered the room.
Reiatsu and killing intent. Lots of killing intent.
The captains inside of the room were in various states of discomposure. They had been caught off guard at the abysmal amount of power that suddenly suffocated the air. Furthermore inside a room where reiatsu shouldn't be able to penetrate unless from inside.
So the fact that an outside source managed to penetrate the room was ludicrous.
Then again, just the weight and pressure that was being emitted was in itself impossible.
So the captains were left shocked when just as fast as it came, it disappeared again.
-" Find out where the source came from!"- the soutaichou ordered, breaking the captains out of their shock and making them leave the room in the blink of an eye.
Once he was certain that no one was near, the soutaichou let a raspy breath and cleaned the bead of sweat that threatened to fall from his brow...
Lucca was like a kid in a candy shop. There were so many things that he found inside of the vault that were useful that it surprised Lucca that they had been put away in the first place.
He had already found what Aizen wanted and had secured the documents inside of a small bag on his person. Of course, only after he had read and reread the paper back and forth to make sure he remembered everything, as per the insistence of his zanpakutous.
The Old Man and Nejibana had been helping him but he didn't know how much time had passed since they had started scavenging for something small enough they could take unnoticed and useful enough it was worth the trouble when Lucca finally came up for air. The other two zanpakutou had returned to his inner world. The pre-teen sighed.
There was only a handful of other things left to be prodded and poked and Lucca was starting to feel tired and hungry.
He gazed at the things that were left and pondered if they were worth the trouble to see what they were.
A wave of insistence flowed through him and Lucca sighed. Of course the Old Man wanted him to see what they were.
He was standing near the back of the room where he had to his left a big shelf filled with old and worn out books, while to his right there was an assortment of things that were simply and plain weird.
A white box made of stone, which had a tag that read 'Ark' of...' (well, something... it was torn off at the end), with a wooden lid was near the corner of the room.
Then there was this red sheathed katana that was bound in chains and weird strips of paper encased in a glass display case. Beside the case there were two cardboard boxes with the weird slips of paper in one of them and in the other there were several black bracelets.
Or handcuffs... they looked like things used to bind someone.
Zangetsu commented they looked cool so Lucca figured taking one or two and placing them inside his bag wouldn't be noticeable to the shinigamis.
That was all there was to the right...
Turning to the left Lucca groaned internally. Don't get him wrong, he didn't dislike books. There were fantastic stories and such that he had managed to read or get in possession off thanks to Gin or Aizen. Even Ulquiorra gave him a book or two to read.
What else was he to do when the Arrancars were assigned to do some mission and he had already pranked the Espada, than to read and hid... huh, rest in Starrk's room.
The problem was that, and he blamed Aizen for it, after so much time spent searching through those endless papers and documents, he was beginning to politely want to flush them down a toilet or something.
Zangetsu and Nejibana snorted at that.
Lucca started to look through the several books in the shelf.
Now, this event as two options...
One, Lucca would read through the books, memorize them and go deliver the documents to Aizen. Thus ending his mission.
Two, Lucca would find something interesting, lose track of time and be a bit late to deliver things to Aizen, and end up staying an extra day in Seireitei.
Oh, well no matter... Who would want things to always go like planned anyways, right?
There's no harm of shaking things up a little. And I like tort... challenge my characters. Oh, well...
'No matter.'
As Lucca was walking to see the titles of the books left to read, there was a soft snapping noise. He looked up just in time to watch as a dusty parcel fell on top of his face. The boy fell back and the parcel fell beside him with a soft thud.
He was totally level headed as he glared holes into it.
It was really old, musty and dust covered, tied with a faded red string. Huffing in indignation at the obvious lack of respect by falling on top of his head, and resolutely refusing to acknowledge the snickers, crackles and full blown laughter and mocking that was happening inside his head at the moment, Lucca reached at picked up the parcel.
He placed it on his lap as he fumbled with the really worn out string and attempted to untangle the knot it had. He was successful but he couldn't say he was happy for his reward.
Books. Two of them, and they were journals to be more precise.
" C'mon..."- Lucca muttered.
They were equally old and worn but one that had a black cover was evidently older than the first. How it was noticeable?
That was one was held secure by strings and the way of writing in the ink made it certain that no brush had been used. More like a feather...
While the other journal looked worn, yes, but much more well kept.
He opened the oldest one.
It's pages slowly turning yellow and the letters were faded. It was bulky and seemed to be written with a very unique and formal antique way of speech. Almost like it was written centuries before common language was developed.
It was hard to make out the characters used and even harder to make sense of what it said.
But that didn't mean Lucca didn't realize something.
There were symbols that repeated in several different pages, along side weird graphics and schemes. Timetables and scribbled notes were everywhere, leaving Lucca very confused. But the further he went into the journal the less weird and more mathematical it became. Though that was not what scared him.
No...
What scared him were the clearly unstable thoughts scribbled with haste at the very last line of a partially torn off page. A big dark red smudge that looked very much like dried old blood was visible on the top corner of the page.
The thoughts themselves seemed random and with no real reason to be there but as soon as his eyes laid upon them, there was this drop on his stomach and Lucca suddenly felt very, very, cold.
The words that were most repeated throughout the page were simple notes rambling on and on stating that 'There are twelve!'.
His head started to hurt and he could not hear his own thoughts. His eyes began to see white and black dots but nonetheless he saw as his hand slowly began to glow.
But just before everything took a turn for the worse, the same bland and slightly mocking voice muttered in his ear: 'So this one was this close into finding us, huh?'
Lucca jerked out of his shock.
Who the hell are you?
'Lil' old me?'
Yes. Lil' old you.
'I'm no one.'
Don't give me that crap! I already have three very weird companions inside my head and I am in no need of a fourth!
'Hahahahaha! Funny thing is you already have four!'
What do you mean?
'Why should I tell you?'
Because I asked you to!
'Really? Because you asked me to? That's your answer?'
Yes!
'Then I see no reason as to why I should tell you...'
Why?!
'...Because you are still too weak... Creation.'
Creation?
There was no response. The voice faded like it was never there. But still he heard the barest of whispers:
'I would hide if I were you... This is only to make you stronger, but sorry if it counts...'
He barely had time to widen his eyes when he saw his hand slowly start glowing and a sensation like fire spread through him.
His world exploded in both light and pain as his reiatsu flared up and devastated the room.
The captains quickly realized where the massive energy had come from and, without caring for the alarm that protected the vault, burst it open and entered the old and supposedly very much safe room only to be left speechless.
The room was in chaos.
Everything was either broken, scattered or utterly destroyed. There was nearly nothing that was still left in place, with the evident exception of the white ark in a corner of the room. Which was made entirely out of sekkiseki stone, just as the one used on the walls of Seireitei. The one that had made that ark was long gone but the ark still remained in the vault for one reason or another.
The captains tried to find clues of how or who had entered the vault or even to what had happened inside of it. But whatever did happen had caused too much destruction and a huge mess that, while not destroying them, it covered up the small footprints in the dust.
When someone finally noticed them they simply attributed them to the small 10th Division captain.
Who would have suggested that another, seemingly, small child had entered the most well guarded vault in all of Soul Society?
Lucca was freaking out.
He was literally hiding inside of this pitch black ark that was made of whatever it was that made his sensing abilities null. He had a massive headache and his movements were sluggish at best. He had two of those bracelets on his wrists that managed to make the rise of his reiatsu stop. The Old Man suggested it and thank kami for it...
But back to his situation.
He was trapped in a room filled with shinigami captains that only hadn't found him by now due to him suppressing his reiatsu, wearing those bracelets and being cowered inside a reiatsu canceling box.
Oh, yes and let's add that the captains didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon.
He. Was. Screwed.
Either Aizen or Starrk would kill him when they found out.
Well... Starrk would probably laugh at first and then he would switch to the more protective and extremely dangerous persona he had whenever Lucca did or caused something big.
And this was something big. Hell! This was gigantic!
What had happened?! One minute he was talking to that creepy voice and the next he was doubling over in pain with only time to put on those bracelets, grabbing his bag and the books and running inside of the box.
Because as soon as he closed the lid the vault door was freaking blown off!
Oh, and he might add that the room looked like it had been run through by a hurricane. Lucca had no words to even try to explain what had happened.
He only hoped that there were no traces of his reiatsu anywhere in the room.
Stopping to take a breath and try to calm his heartbeat, Lucca tried to hear what was going on in the room.
He had heard several captains voices but between a few he knew, there were some he could not place. He recognized the voice of his own once-upon-a-time Captain and the lazy voice of the 8th Division captain.
The calm voice of Aizen and the light hearted attempt of humor of Gin was a positive note since it meant that they still hadn't figured out just who had caused such destruction.
Or maybe they did knew and were waiting for him to show himself to screw him over. Who was he to question the way a mad man worked?
He was dead. So dead. What was he to do now?
He couldn't enter the Divide, or better he could enter but what good would it do? He could still be sensed inside of it and the Captains were now looking for him so no chance of slipping away.
And on the note of slipping away... How could he do that when he was hiding inside of the stone ark? The only way out was through the lid and even the laziest of people would take notice of a wooden lid, of something that has been sealed for I don't know how long, opening by apparently itself and closing again.
Yeah, he was screwed...
Now he had to wait until the Captains left the vault to even try and make a run for it. No use caring if the alarm went off or something. And at least there wasn't a massive door to worry about anymore.
He grimaced. Small victories... really small victories...
He sighed. 'Might as well rest for a while' he thought.
Deep inside Luccas' soul, there was a bland voice that was cracking up from what was happening outside.
'Who knew that this would end up as actually being fun?'- it said to no one in particular -'I should have started doing this sooner!'
Another round of laughter echoed around the dim lit room. Well, if it could be called a room... The floor was made of white marble and you couldn't see any ceiling. And then there were columns.
Big and round littering the place where the voice existed in.
And then there was the darker stone made platform in the center of the room. Two legs were propped up against it.
'He's so going to kill me for this...'- it muttered.
Silence.
A snicker was made.
Then a snort.
Full blown laughter.
'Who cares about what the old bastard will do anyways?! He can't get rid of me!'- the voice laughed -'Worst he could do was sent me back into the cycle for a couple of decades... and even then I would still find a way to screw him over!'
'Oh... You're so going to owe me, Creation...'- it finally murmured before fading altogether.
Lucca fell asleep.
He was in a situation where sleep would have been the last thing on his mind and he fell asleep. So now it was nighttime in Soul Society and the a certain shinigami traitor was getting worried.
He did not know what happened with the boy and he certainly couldn't even fathom to imagine what would happen if he was caught.
Gin was confident in the kid's abilities to enter and exit a place unnoticed but from what he had managed to understand from Aizen, while he was inside of this reiatsu rich environment and around so many shinigamis, his memories would be more susceptible to awaken.
And that big ball of raw power that hit the meeting room was just what a big and shocking revelation would do to someone's reiatsu. And the vault...
A strange room that had been sealed for the longest time, filled with even stranger and powerful things that were meant to be sealed away, was just what Lucca dreamed of exploring.
The kid was a magnet for danger and chaos. So when Gin saw the state the room was in he had to refrain from groaning upon realization of who had caused it.
If the kid was in the room, and he most certainly had to have been there, then it was pretty obvious that they would have sensed some of his energy or a trail to where he had ran off to.
The problem was that there was no such trail. The room was so drunk in reiatsu, which was pretty dense in it's own right, that sensing something in particular was very difficult.
And now there was this situation...
Captain-Commander had ordered them to gather everything and make an inventory to see if whoever had entered had taken anything. And if it did, then what in particular.
So they had cleaned everything up and moved it to one of the 12th Division storage houses, but there was a catch now. What were they to do with the big ark?
They had pondered about letting Kenpachi carry it or drag it but what was most certain to happen was that the man would break it. And sekkiseki stone in that quantity and denseness was rare so trashing it was not an option.
The others had argued that they should simply leave the ark there. I mean who would try to even steal a big box of stone?
When they finally reached the decision of simply keeping watch over the box all the captains backed up quickly enough, of course... except lil' old him that had been taking a new box of stuff down to 12th Division. This was not a high point of his day.
He was worried sick about where the hell the kid was at, 'cuz he knew that Lucca would have to come out of the Divide sooner or later, and if he did. Even outside of Seireitei and in Rukongai, they would be able to sense him.
Not even all his practice ease he had from evading the Arrancar and Espada would help him running away from the whole organization of shinigami.
Sighing he slumped next to the box and hit his fist on the wooden lid.
He suddenly heard a jerk and shuffling happen inside the box.
'He couldn't have...'- Gin thought.
Quickly looking around to see if there was anyone around, Gin sent his reiatsu to sense the area. There was no one nearby.
In a single motion he yanked the lid open and was greeted with the single* wide honey brown eye of the young arrancar.
He couldn't help it.
Gin smiled that sickeningly 'sweet' smile of his.
-" Well, well... What do we have here?"- he asked rhetorically-" It seems I have found a little mouse!"
Lucca was silent. This was not a bad outcome of the situation, because it could have been worse, but this was not one that high on the 'Good Outcome List'. This was near the bottom, above anything that contained the name Tousen Kaname.
A bead of sweat fell down from his brow and he shivered.
-" H-Hi... G-Gin..."- Lucca said in a very quiet voice.
It was official.
He was definitely dead.
Lucca had entered the Divide and ran all the way to Gin's room. And he had ran like hell was on his heels.
Gin had been furious but, fortunately for him, had to refrain from lashing out too severely or risk catching the attention of the Gotei. Unfortunately that 'too severely' didn't include lifting Lucca by the neck of his shikakusho and face the wrath in those cold and furious blue eyes.
He was trembling by the time Gin let him run off to his Division.
While true that he had been Kaien, a shinigami lieutenant and wielder to the strongest water based zanpakutou, who had been a lot older than Gin at that time.
And it was also truth that he now had two zanpakutous, which he was excited to try and use.
It was also true that he was still a kid at heart.
And being reprimanded that badly had left him panicking.
If Gin didn't kill him, then Aizen would. And if neither did kill him, then Starrk and Lilynette would fix that real soon.
Ugh... Lilynette wouldn't just kill him. She would torture him and 'killing' him would be more like putting him out of his misery.
He knew accepting this mission was a bad thing! He knew it!
Gin had to wait for his substitute before going back but he had made it very, very clear to Lucca that he better be inside of that closet by the time he was back or hell would seem the perfect place to spend a vacation in.
Entering the Divide faster than ever and fleeing for his life had been a good decision at the time.
But now, cowering away inside of Gin's closet, with his backpack beside him and staring at the bracelets he still had on his wrists, the pure and unaltered fear of what was going to happen to him finally sank in.
He simply went blank.
Nejibana, Zangetsu and the Old Man were back on Lucca's real inner world.
It was a nice place with all of their favorite things. Well... maybe.
Old Man had his skyscrapers. She had a lot of water. And Zangetsu... he was having a literal blast in wrecking something way off in the distance. The real downside was that there was a lot of sand.
Like a freaking desert of sand that almost buried the skyscrapers and made a nice little beach when met with the water.
But right now, thanks to the damn bracelets Zangetsu had liked so much, they were unable to communicate with Lucca. And the poor boy was having a hard time.
Which was evident because they were being drenched in despair and fear.
Nejibana sighed while the Old Man muttered something about hating rain. Who had she pissed off in a previous life to deserve being stuck with two idiots.
Yes, the Old Man had been OK until he figured out who they were, now he was that shadow over your shoulder every time you said you were leaving to do something.
He did not trust them.
Well, fine by her. She didn't trust completely on the guy either. Nejibana had made a bet with Zangetsu one day that the guy would have sealed their powers for good had it not been that day.
Quincy powers were different than Shinigami powers. While theirs were sentient, the quincies focused on reishi manipulation. Unless their wielder wanted to use them they would not activate.
Well... maybe blut would activate in a subconscious reaction, but for that purpose Lucca had hierro.
And Lucca had been trained in hollow abilities not in shinigami or quincy ones. He knew how to use their zanpakutou but would have to learn from scratch anything about Zangetsu.
Perhaps now her wielder would be able to learn Bankai. Nejibana grinned.
'Oh, yeah... I would love to Bankai the hell out of Aizen.'- she said to herself.
She dropped to the ground and looked up at the sky. Or better yet. At the sideways sky.
The blue haired zanpakutou frowned when she spotted something unusual in it. While yes, a sideways sky was something unusual what had caught her attention was the big white thing that was floating above.
It looked like some sort of ancient temple. Like... like the Greek temples Kaien had seen in the Living World. Though this was was still standing.
Strange...
Gin was fuming by the time he reached his room.
He was going to rip the kid a new one and he was certainly going to drag him all the way to Aizen and have him explain what had happened and what had he been thinking when he released enough reiatsu to alert the whole Gotei 13!
One step through the door and he had already cast the strongest privacy kido he knew. This was going to be a loud discussion and he was certain he would not be the one screaming.
Eyes opened and a fierce scowl on his face he flung the closet door open...
And froze.
Now, let it not be said that Gin was soft or too emotional for the job but when you where face to face with a crying 13 year old that was shaking like a leaf and had suppressant bands, tied so tight that his hands were losing their color, around both his wrists. You certainly lost some of your anger.
Heck, just knowing that Lucca of all people was the one crying made it hard to want to scream at him.
And Lucca was Kaien...
Gin gulped. This was not good.
He tried to reach for the boy but when he noticed Gin he must've saw something else because he tried to hide deeper into the closet, which was not possible because there was a divisor between the two halves of it.
Lucca's eye was wide and there were cracks on his mask. He wasn't concentrating enough to keep the mask partially materialized.
Gin grabbed his arm but he soon found himself with a foot on his face.
He let go and looked at the kid again.
His eyes were blank.
'Oh, hell...'- Gin thought.
This was not 'Lucca'. This was the instinct of someone trapped. And that someone was not going down without a fight.
Yes, he was crying and his vision was most likely muddled but even while trembling Lucca had one strong pair of arms and legs. It was all or nothing.
Gin reached for Lucca again but instead of grabbing an arm or so he reached and yanked Lucca out off the closet and held him down. He needed to cool of before he could see reason again and trying to grab him was not going to help.
True, holding him down was not so helpful either but what was he supposed to do?
Hug him?
Lucca, conscious or not, would bite his hands off if he tried that.
The kid kept trashing for about three hours and when he passed out from exhaustion, the last thing on Gin's mind was to yell at him. All the while he was trashing the young arrancar would either be shouting him to let go of him or to plea for forgiveness.
And that hurt.
He was a double agent. He was only siding with Aizen until he could back stab the bastard in order to avenge what he had stolen from Rangiku. But this. This was something that even he had trouble seeing.
Aizen had searched for the kid for years before finding him with the Primera Espada, and right off the bat he had showed no consideration. Not that he was likely to do so but damn, the first thing the kid was faced with when he woke up was with a group of strange and highly dangerous individuals that didn't want to see hide or hair of him.
A lot of killing intent being thrown around daily.
And of course, his situation.
Yes, the kid was most likely the linchpin for something big but that was no excuse for traumatizing the kid into knowing that one step out of the line and they would kill off his family.
It was a no brainer that the kid had been terrified by the time Gin arrived at his room. He had almost been found out and had attracted the Gotei's attention.
For all he knew, Lucca had just signed his family's death sentence.
And once again Gin had to stifle a shiver when he thought that this was Kaien.
Aizen had already killed him once. His wife. And caused his family name and honor to fall into misery. What else would the kid be robbed of?
Gin blinked.
Probably a lot.
Aizen would keep him safe until it was time to bring Soul Society down but that did not include his family. Both living and hollow.
The kid would go through a war and it was childish thinking that he would be the same afterwards.
A small voice in the back of his head wondered if it was possible to avoid such outcome. The small and annoying voice of the last bit of humanity he had left that begged Gin to change and not go through with this.
He was prepared to die but that voice kept telling him that there was just too much to live for that dying was not an option.
Aizen wanted the Hogyoku, there was no doubt about that. And Urahara had it.
Now Gin was not a genius for nothing so after laying Lucca down in a futon, he'd spare the kid another night in the closet, and removing the bracelets he started to make plans of his own. He was not a mad man but a desperate man with nothing to truly lose was just as dangerous.
This would change many fates.
Kisuke Urahara was someone one would call... interesting.
He was incredibly smart and sly. But was still human enough to see that there were risks not worth taking.
Unfortunately, after a certain event, Kisuke's reasoning of risks had dimmed.
Having one person he called friend yell and plea with him to bring 'him' back or to simply track him down, was like taking a punch to the gut.
It had been his fault. His fault alone.
He was supposed to keep watch over every hollow that entered the Living world so when one managed to slip pass the system, it had been his responsibility to get rid of it.
But he delayed it. 'It wasn't going to do any harm', he had thought at the time.
So when he felt the rise of hollow reiatsu flare spontaneously appear he was shocked and started to dread what had happened.
He had not been fast enough...
Had he reached moments before he would have been able to at least save him. To try and stop the hollowfication. But he had been unable to.
The only comfort he could give the father was that he had attached a cord of his reiatsu to the boys' soul. It would allow him to know that the boy was alive. Now, if he could only get his hands back on him, maybe he could do something now.
He had spent the last seven years searching and studying all he could about hollows and how to stop or change hollows back.
Kisuke could hope to think that the kid evolved and maybe shattered his mask but that was incredibly rare. The worse of his fears, however were others.
Aizen.
If he got his hands on him...
He hated to think what would happen.
His fears about that outcome had been increasing each passing year. It was impossible that the kid survived this long without being caught or killed, and the latter was impossible to not know because his link would have warned him. So it was a possibility that Aizen had him on his side.
He sighed.
The kid would have been incredibly strong. Hell, the kid had been part of his plans even before he was born!
He had been supposed to either carry the Hogyoku or to fight Aizen for it. And neither of his sisters were strong enough to do either.
Not that Isshin would even allow him to dream of doing anything to them. Not after Ichigo...
Kisuke gripped a handful of his hair and tugged. The kid had been everything!
He had showed great promise as a shinigami, his father being a former captain and all, and his mother had been a pure blooded Quincy...
Wait...
Kisuke suddenly sat up straight before rushing out of the lab he had hidden deep within his store, startling the black cat that had been napping atop one table covered in scattered papers.
The cat raised its head and it's golden eyes blinked once before shrugging and getting up to see what had caused the man to act that way.
Funny reaction coming from what seemed to be an ordinary black cat.
And that's a wrap! Finally!
I have been writing and rewriting this chapter for about two weeks now.
Sorry about that actually. Bad family problems and personal brooding time that made me way too emotional to write.
So explanations for things about this chapter:
*- Ichigo/Lucca has a materialized piece of mask that covers his hollow eye. Like Lilynette. But this piece has no power so he has to materialize his full mask to access his powers.
The bland voice- well as you can guess it's an OC. No, I'm not revealing what it's there to do and probably will only fully showcase it during the fake karakura battle.
Yes, I have reached that far into planning for this story. But I'll have to see more about filler arcs.
There will not be a zanpakutou revolution! Muramasa will not appear in this fic. At all. Maybe I will mention something here and there but he will not be important.
The journals- Wait until next chapter.
Gin's actions- Lucca, like Ichigo, has a way to turn people into liking him. Hell, he's even more adorable as a prankster and loud kid than as a head strong teenager. So seeing him suffer, after the kid showed no traces of hating or potentially wanting to harm them, is hard. He kinda sees himself in him by his way of wanting to protect Starrk and Lilynette.
Lucca's role with the Hogyoku- That's a secret!
So, I think that's all...
It's one am right now, so I'm going to sleep. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Favorite, Follow and review! I read and respond to everyone of them as long as I can.
You can ask me for a picture of Nejibana or about any questions you might have!
Bye Bye!