After the disaster and an escape to the Living World, the exiles find refuge in a run-down building.
Rose does not mean to listen in on Hiyori's anger management issues, so since she's screaming loud enough to be heard everywhere, he'll just go and sit next to her as she angrily asks her former captain why he won't get angry with the situation when he's the one accused of treason and murderous experiments.
So Rose is the POV here, but the main characters are more Kisuke and Hiyori, in a way. You'll see.
We've never seen Kisuke angry, not really, and the only times we could argue on anger/not anger, it's still pretty ambiguous. Could be anger, could be shock, could be surprise and fear.
Also, I don't think most of the Visored actually hated the Gotei (Aizen and his stooges don't count), even if they had to be angry at some point. Hiyori is the only one who is entirely hostile all along - even Shinji's apparent hostility is implied to be fear of rejection when he gets his discussion with Unohana, or it can be seen as understanding for Hiyori's anger rather than his own when he's talking with her. The thing is, Hiyori's loud and her opinion is the one we hear the most.
as usual, worldbuilding in the background
tags: Sarugaki Hiyori & Urahara Kisuke, Sarugaki Hiyori & Otoribashi Rojuro, Otoribashi Rojuro, Sarugaki Hiyori, Urahara Kisuke, post-TBTP, anger, worry, inner hollows
Anger is only secondary
Hiyori's explosive temper could be heard from all the other rooms of the run-down building the exiles had found refuge in.
"Why don't you get angry like us all, you emotionless liar! You're the one they accused of murder and treason and everything that happened to us! You should hate them too!"
Rose gnashed his teeth, but didn't bother getting up to see what had gotten his short cousin to blow up this time. Guessing was easy enough, especially as Urahara was nowhere to be seen.
Lisa was here, holding her head – whispering harshly "goaway goaway leavemealone goaway monster damnedabomination getoutofmyheadmymindmybody goaway" and Rose could imagine what was going on in her head. Shinji had wandered off to take care of his bandages – because even Hacchi's kaido couldn't get rid of the whitebonemasked fragments that kept creeping across the scar tissue, and none of the others had done any time at the fourth. Kensei had gone outside and was probably punching trees or something just as violent – it was easy to forget, with how he'd built a true sense of duty and justice that didn't care much about fighting for fighting only, but the former notanymoredonewithit hollow can'tbe captain of the ninth division had started in the eleventh. Mashiro had followed her captain usedtobe can't isn't out, blathering about how she didn't like having headaches, managing to be cheerfully annoying even with said headache. Love sat in a corner in jinzen, and his reiatsu kept fluctuating violently burstsofhollow rival dangerdon'tletitgetstrongerdon'tletitlive – he'd said he wanted to see if he could still reach Tengumaru, since the others were having difficulties there.
Rose knew Love – he was his best friend, he'd been invited over to Love's house in Onmukawa, he knew Love's family – and just because he wasn't saying anything – about what he'd lost only a few days ago, about what had been done to them and how it had taken everything from him – it didn't mean the anger wasn't gnawing at his insides.
Hacchi was asleep, after the hollow had tried to take him over again and they'd all needed to knock him out.
Rose, him...
Well.
He'd been staring at the shamisen Urahara had brought back the other day – a sad, damaged little thing that had most likely been left on the side of the road at some point. Where the hell the formerexiledaccused notguilty notgoodenoughcouldn'tsaveusalltheway shouldn'thavehadto captain of the twelfth division had found a damaged shamisen was anyone's guess, but Rose wouldn't pretend he understood much about Urahara Kisuke.
Aside from Tsukabishi – who was by Hacchi's side, waiting for his subordinate no notanymore therewasn'tanythingleft theywereallequalsinmiserynow to wake up – and Shihoin, Shinji was probably the one who understood Urahara the best in their little group. Hiyori knew her captain no hewasn'tanymore shedidn'tatall, of course she did, but that didn't actually translate into understanding.
If it had, she most likely wouldn't be screaming at him right now.
"I hate them all, Aizen, Tosen and the kid, Central 46, the Gotei, all of them! You should too! They didn't doubt anything, they just bought it that you'd done this to us, they exiled you!"
Rose sighed and stood up, tiredly making his way to the door – to the source of the screeching.
Everyone here was tied to the others in some way, and yet.
Kensei, Love, Lisa and Rose were friends – together, as a group, an unit, something. Lisa and Shinji were friends too, but in a separate way. Mashiro was first and foremost Kensei's vice-captain and Hacchi's almost-little-sister. Shinji and Hiyori had a sibling-rivalry thing going on, and Hiyori and Rose were closely related. Urahara looked over Hiyori but didn't quite mesh with the rest of them, though he and Shinji pretended masksmasksandmasksagain obvious barelyhidden honestlydisplayedtosee likeahollowgrinning at each other in ways no one else seemed to understand. Shihoin and Urahara and Tsukabishi knew each other well and probably were the other solid friendship unit here. Hacchi relied on Tsukabishi who trusted him back, commander and lieutenant. Lisa got along with Shihoin, too – they often herded Hiyori and Mashiro into being useful even when those two didn't want to cooperate.
Now there was another distinction, wasn't there?
Those who were still pure souls and those who weren't.
Those who'd been corrupted and those who'd fled for the others.
It didn't make sense, not really, what Aizen thattraitor killer he'dkilledthem thatmonstrousbastard couldhebeguttedandlefttorot had done to them. Rose wasn't an expert – not like Aizen, not like Urahara – but he knew enough. All shinigami who remained awake during classes at Shin'o did.
Humans were full souls – alive, stable – in physical bodies. Their bodies died and the souls destabilized – first as pluses, and if left alone for too long, into hollows. When konso was used on them or when a hollow was purified, they were sent to Soul Society and became pure souls – alive again, stable again – in spiritual bodies.
When a pure soul destabilized again, they simply died – for real this time, dissolving into the ocean of souls to be reborn as new full souls and occasionally as pure souls.
You couldn't mix pure souls – shinigami was a job, in the end, or maybe a way of life, but not a race – and hollows because they weren't at the same stage of the cycle. Hollows were dead, and pure souls weren't.
More importantly, pure souls came after hollows in the cycle. Rose himself couldn't really speak on that – he'd never been dead, had never been a full soul, he'd been born in Soul Society as a brand new pure soul a bit less than a century ago – but while it was possible to skip steps in the cycle – not everyone went through being a hollow, some were born like him, and if a quincy killed someone they just obliterated the soul's core, forcing the soul fragments surrounding it to fall directly into the ocean of souls where they would mix with other fragments and create a new core – it wasn't possible to go back.
That was probably the reason hollowfication was an injection of a hollow's core into a pure soul rather than a distortion of the last one, if he'd understood Urahara's explanation well enough.
What Aizen had done whatUraharacouldhavedonebuthadn't was abominable.
No one was taking it well.
Not Rose himself, who didn't know who he was anymore – who stared at a shamisen and didn't dare touch it. Not Shinji, who didn't know what to make of the fact that he had seen it coming and yet had been entirely blindsided – and who wasn't telling them something about the hollow beating at his skull.
Certainly not Hiyori, who glowered at Urahara in what used to be a kitchen as if it'd get him to rant and vow vengeance on the Gotei and destruction on Aizen himself.
For all that Shihoin and Tsukabishi and Urahara weren't torn to shreds like Rose and the others thosewho'dbeencorrupted rippedapart tornintopieces forcedbackagainstthecycle, it was obvious that they were suffering from it too.
Hiyori could see it, kinda – but not really.
They weren't angry, and that didn't sit well with her.
Rose stood by the door, watching.
Urahara looked like he hadn't slept in days, but he didn't look angry at all, she was right about that. No frustration, no hate, no anger.
Rose didn't know Urahara well enough to say he understood how the man thought, but still.
Hiyori was, and had always been, a small ball of not-so-righteous anger. If she was angry, she considered that everyone else should be too. The hollows theirsandyetnot masksstickingtotheirfaces cloggingtheirlungs hauntingtheirdreams Aizen bleedsufferdie had saddled them with ensured that they were all irritable lately, so Hiyori had found no shortage of similarly angered comrades – but Urahara wasn't like them didn'thaveamonsterscreaminginhismind, and besides...
Rose couldn't remember seeing him get angry, not even once in the nine years since the man had been promoted to captain. Not a bit, not a lot, not at all.
Even Shihoin got angry, sometimes – especially at people who wallowed in self-deprecation or misery. Rose had gotten the honor of a tongue-lashing the day before.
Urahara just... didn't.
Hiyori didn't understand that – would probably never be able to.
It seemed she didn't have more to say – no more accusations, no more demands, because she'd already said it all.
Urahara put down – the thing, Rose couldn't say more about what it was supposed to be – what he had been working on and sighed.
"Hiyori-san..."
Rose saw her spin around and stepped in before she could – what? Throw her sandals at Urahara? That sounded about right – do anything by getting a hold of her wrist.
"Listen to him. You did ask, if you remember."
Mostly, he wanted to keep his own headache to a minimum. Not having Hiyori screaming and throwing things would help with that immensely – it was a testimony to how he wasn't feeling well that Rose hadn't even bothered trying to sound eloquent.
He certainly had no idea of what Urahara was going to say.
The man barely glanced at him for a fleeting moment, before focusing back on his diminutive usedtobe before whentheywerestillnormal stillworthsomething vice-captain.
Urahara sighed.
"I..."
He paused, just long enough for Hiyori to sit back down with a huff, for Rose to go and sit not too far away – where he could grab hold of any flying sandal before it reached either Urahara's head or his own.
"How could I be angry at the Gotei 13, Hiyori-san?"
Wisely, Urahara didn't give the girl long enough to reply. Hiyori had been rather obvious on the matter: she found plenty to be angry with, herself, and even if she were to forgo her own grievances – which would never happen – she'd still care about what had happened to her captain.
Even more so because it had had direct repercussions on the others thecorrupted herandRoseandeveryoneelse, as it meant no one would listen to Urahara about saving them.
"If I hadn't known a thing about hollowfication and had stumbled upon anyone being corrupted in that way... If there had been proof of extreme violence... If I had no way to know any of the things we do..."
Urahara closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
When he looked back at them, it was with a look that Rose had never seen on the man's face.
Slightly apologetic – that was usual, Urahara had made it into an art form, looking awkward in any conversation, unassuming, willing to listen and understand. Exactly what you needed to be underestimated as a captain of the Gotei 13.
A bit like themurderer Aizen.
But not really. Rose had come to know Aizen Sosuke mostly as Shinji's vice-captain. Well-mannered, complaisant, adequately calm and down-to-earth. A lie, of course – Shinji had told them of his suspicions, after... He'd told them what had happened after all the others had passed out, before Urahara had intervened.
Aizen, though – the mask he wore was one of unassuming competence.
Urahara, him, looked like he wanted to be kind more often than not, even when it really wasn't the moment. Like he wanted to help – and he did, in the ways he could. He'd started a program to extract people from the Maggots' Nest by providing them with an environment better adapted to their peculiarities, he'd tried to offer a form to hold onto to disappearing souls, he'd saved them.
Who knew what else he'd done, that Rose hadn't heard of, that he hadn't quite understood or had forgotten about?
Hiyori had often complained – loudly – that her captain was a complete pushover.
A pushover who still got whatever he wanted if he put his mind to it. Central 46 had allowed his rehabilitation program to start, slowly emptying the second's secret prison that Rose only knew about because he was a captain too. The twelfth division had gone from being a regular division to being specialized in less than a decade under his direction, and some Shin'o recruits had started asking to be assigned there out of a real desire to understand and learn and create.
And, the most important thing here: when Urahara Kisuke wanted a solution to a problem, he created that solution himself. Where Aizen lied and twisted what existed already and manipulated his way into having whatever he wanted, Urahara looked at the world and asked it what he could do there that hadn't been done before.
The world never told him "no" for long.
If it did, Rose and the others would be as good as dead. Most likely they'd have disappeared into soul suicide – the fragments around their soul's core slowly falling off until the core itself could only destabilize – or would have been purified by now, and if... if there hadn't another solution – Urahara's solution – then Rose would have liked that better.
He could easily see the ironic tragedy of a shinigami degrading into a hollow, but that didn't mean he wanted it to happen to him or his friends.
So. Rose was getting distracted, but he'd been noting how Urahara looked apologetic – as usual, right – but also dangerously sad, his eyes sharp and his lips emotionless.
"If you had found something like that, Hiyori-san... Would you have believed anything else? Would you have believed me innocent?"
A quick look at Hiyori, and Rose could immediately tell that the girl had already seen that side of her captain before. She wasn't comfortable with it – not at all, and the hollow inside her thescreechingpower likechalkonablackboard likeamonsterlurkingunderwater brought her reiatsu to spike slightly withasharpedge teethgnashingonawhitemask – but it wasn't the first time Urahara spoke to her like that.
Like he knew exactly what she thought of it all, and wouldn't accept any lie on the matter.
Like she wouldn't be able to hide from the truth, like she'd have to admit – even if only to herself – that he knew the truth and now so did she.
Like nothing in the worlds could tell him "no" – not because he was powerful enough to defy the laws of the worlds, but because he was right.
Hiyori, of course, bristled.
"What kind of question is that, dumbass!?"
Urahara didn't look away.
"That's not an answer, Hiyori-san."
"I don't have to answer that! I'm the victim here! Me and Rose and the others! And even you and Shihoin and Tsukabishi too!"
It still wasn't an answer.
Rose, him, could admit it to himself: if he hadn't been a victim, if he'd been an onlooker on such a tragedy...
If there was a believable suspect who could only accuse someone with a foolproof alibi of the misdeed, Rose wouldn't have believed in their innocence. And because he wouldn't have trusted anything the guilty party had to say, he wouldn't have listened to any kind of justification on their part.
Not after what he would have believed them to have done.
Hiyori didn't want to say it, but it was obvious – anything else would be a lie. She wouldn't have been that difficult to convince, either, if she had been standing on the other side.
If Aizen had still been lying about himself to her and to everyone else, if his illusions could still hideabody amurder amassacre dictate anything she would believe in.
Urahara sighed and looked away. His eyes wandered sadly through the kitchen, not catching onto anything in particular.
"Hiyori-san, do you really think you would have believed in salvation for anyone else, if you hadn't been through it yourself? If I hadn't been there to stabilize each of you and also explain it to you? If the one who said they could save those souls was, as far as you knew, responsible for all of it?"
Hiyori didn't answer.
Urahara stood up. The man started looking around the kitchen, pulling out three chipped cups and the tea leaves Shihoin had gotten them yesterday.
"I'm not trying to say that it's right, what happened to you..."
Rose's eyebrows rose up as he noticed – "to you", not "to us", not "to me", and it could mean two things. Either that Urahara didn't think of himself as the same wasn'therightthough as them – a victim – or that he didn't consider the consequences to himself as "not right".
...Rose had enough of a grasp of the man's personality to consider which one was the right guess here, and he wasn't certain of what to make of it. It could become a problem, down the line, and there was nothing he could do about it – because Urahara was too... different.
How did you even handle someone like him?
"...but with the little they know, and the other things that they think they know, Central 46 made the right decision. It's not the right thing to do, ultimately, because they don't know the truth, but they have no way to know because Aizen made it so."
The former captain of the twelfth started a fire to bring the water boiling, and then came back to sit with Hiyori and Rose.
The girl – she was past sixty, now, barely younger than Rose himself, and they'd grown up in the same circles, but somehow she still looked sixteen, literally; he wasn't sure she'd changed in forty-six years – was now glaring at the table.
"Your grandfather is amongst the forty sages of Central 46, isn't he, Hiyori-san?"
That got her to look up, fast:
"And I hate him too! How could he..."
Rose put a hand on her mouth before Hiyori could start badmouthing the head of her family.
"Indeed, Sarugaki Nori was appointed a sage two centuries back. I will not ask how you know of this, Urahara-san."
It was probably wiser not to ask – and wiser yet not to expect a real answer even if you did. Urahara wasn't only a former Onmitsukido head and the best friend of its commander – he also knew things no one should know, period.
Rukongai children like him shouldn't know anything about the identities of the sages and judges of Central 46 – only nobles did, and generally only those in their immediate families; Rose's mother was Hiyori's great-aunt, so Hiyori's grandfather was Rose's uncle – but the fact was, he did.
Maybe Shihoin had told him – who knew what the Five Great Noble Families knew that garden-variety nobles didn't? – or maybe not.
Urahara's eyes moved onto him for a short time – and when they went back to Hiyori, the look in them was harsh and uncompromising.
"As far as your grandfather knows, Hiyori-san, I murdered his granddaughter."
"But you...!"
Hiyori's protest died in her throat, and Rose winced.
It wasn't like he'd never thought of it during the last weeks, but – no one here really wanted to dwell on that. On the things the others – those who had been left behind in Soul Society – had lost, on the lies Aizen had fed them. They were the victims, here, and everything was objectively worse for them, so caring about anyone else?
It was pretty difficult right now. Most of them did, just a little bit, but it was almost instantly killed off by the hollows screeching in their souls and their own anger. Shinji, for his part, seemed too busy worrying about them all and thinking it all his fault to actually stop and accept it, either.
Hiyori couldn't do any of that, at all.
Maybe she'd move on, at some point – but knowing her, it would take a very long time.
The only ones who had actually spent time thinking it out were Urahara and his friends theunchanged thespared thosewhowerestillpure.
"...You've been on missions to the Living World, haven't you, Hiyori-san?"
The girl blinked, the non-sequitur taking her by surprise.
"I... Uh, yes? Like everyone who starts unseated? Not that many times, I got promoted pretty quickly, but maybe three different missions?"
Urahara nodded, as if he'd expected about that much.
...The former captain of the twelfth division and former Onmitsukido member had most likely known it beforehand. There was absolutely no reason for him not to know his vice-captain's experience as a shinigami.
"On those missions, did you ever stumble upon spiritually-aware humans? Not only that, but the kind who have a personal connection to a hollow and beg shinigami not to kill the hollow? It's my mother, my brother, my daughter... Please don't take them away again..."
Rose gulped, tears and prayers haunting his memories for a moment.
Urahara hadn't asked him, but...
"Nah... There was a girl who could see me once, but she had no idea that hollows were dead souls, so... I mean, how would they even..."
"A husband, once. He'd watched over the ghost of his wife for two years, and was there when her hole opened."
Hiyori stared at her cousin as if she'd entirely forgotten he was here to begin with.
Rose was too busy remembering his second mission in the Living World to care.
"Don't kill her, please... I know she's my wife, even if she doesn't look like herself anymore! I'm... I'm not letting her die again!"
The academy hadn't covered what to do in such a case.
He didn't know what look there was in Urahara's eyes, right now – but the man's voice was quiet and aware of what he was talking about. Maybe he'd crossed such a situation, too. Back before Shihoin had taken over the second's captaincy, it had been acting like a normal division, with the usual missions in the Living World.
Or perhaps Urahara had never seen anything like what Rose had lived through, but was able to imagine it all the same.
He'd asked Hiyori that question, after all.
"That man who could see you... Otobirashi-ta... Otobirashi-san, that man, did he ask you to spare the hollow of his wife?"
Rose's teeth shook as Urahara almost failed to acknowledge how everything had changed, but that was soon eclipsed by the memories of that day.
A trauma chasing another, perhaps.
He forced himself to breathe, not to drown in the cries for help of the past – cries he hadn't been able to appease, cries he hadn't known how to handle.
"It... It was worse than that. I didn't even have the time to say anything. She was about to attack him, as any new hollow is wont to do, so I drew my zanpakuto and prepared to strike her down."
Rose had never expected human blood to be rolling down Kinshara. Quincy bellicists had been dealt with before his birth, and very few other humans knew about shinigami, let alone wanted to oppose them. Even then, should it happen... It would be a job for the first or the second division.
"That man threw himself between us, right on my blade."
Hiyori gave him a look, as if she couldn't even fathom that she'd never heard of it before.
"What the hell are you going on about? Why would..."
"Now, now, Hiyori-san. What that man was thinking then is exactly what I'm trying to get you to understand, that people close to a ghost who became a hollow might argue for its survival, that they might think it still salvageable."
Rose let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, as Urahara drew his cousin's attention back onto himself.
He was more than happy not to dwell more on that particular tragedy of his past.
Urahara stood back up and went to fetch the boiling tea.
As he poured some for each of them, he continued:
"The thing is, Hiyori-san, as a shinigami you know that there are no other alternatives. Humans might see ghosts and sometimes hollows and shinigamis, but in the end, most of them don't know better. They wish they could keep that important person, but it's too late for that. No matter how much begging is done, we still purify the hollow, do we not?"
Hiyori made a face – ill-at-ease, partly aware of where her former captain was leading this conversation, but unable to deny its truth.
"...Yeah, I guess."
Urahara nodded.
"Of course we do. It's better that way. The hollow isn't eating souls, and the soul it conceals isn't suffering from destabilization anymore, from hunger, from pain, from despair. Soul Society might not be perfect, Rukongai and Seireitei both, but it's still a better alternative than Hueco Mundo and endless suffering."
Urahara took a sip of tea, his eyes losing focus for an instant – not looking at Hiyori or Rose, barely looking at his cup of tea. It seemed like he was keeping something quiet, a stray thought not worth mentioning – and given the latest subject, Rose could only think of the other option, the one that was perhaps worse than Hueco Mundo and being a hollow.
Being one of those souls condemned to Hell.
Shinigamis didn't know much about Hell. It was a dimension from before their own existence, a realm with rules undiscovered. Sinners were dragged there, either after their time in the Living World and their purification as ghosts, or after their last life in Soul Society.
What decided of a soul's sentencing to Hell, they didn't know. Criminals didn't always end up dragged there, so there had to be some attenuating circumstances, or perhaps a form of balancing between good and evil deeds, but it was impossible to know how it worked exactly.
If there was someone Rose hoped would get sentenced to Hell at the end of their life...
murderer traitor monsterwithsmilesandlies
him
Well.
Before, he'd have said he didn't wish it on anyone.
Now, things had changed. Now, he had a hollow – a ravenous, angry beast – made of someone else's soul embedded into his own, trying to take him over whenever he was weak enough to let it see an opportunity, and it was Aizen murdererbetrayertorturer's fault.
Whatever awaited sinners down in Hell, Rose often surprised himself hoping Aizen qualified.
Urahara shook himself away from whatever thought about Hell had had him looking like that – and asked Hiyori:
"Why is it better that way, Hiyori-san? Why do shinigamis do what they do, even if a hollow's family would beg us not to? Why don't we look for another way, any other way that would allow us not to separate the grieving from the deceased?"
Hiyori glared, hard, at her own cup of tea.
She knew the answer to that question, just like Rose did, just like everyone else in this building, just like anyone who'd gone through Shin'o and had become shinigami.
"...Because there is no other way."
Ghosts – pluses and hollows, unstable souls – were not meant to stay that way. On that path only laid madness, suffering, and victims pilling up upon each other. Pluses that didn't go through konso would become hollows sooner or later, hollows would kill and eat other souls and living humans.
The thing was...
The thing was, Rose and Hiyori and the six others had been turned into hollows, at least partly. It wasn't at the right stage of the cycle, it wasn't in a natural way, it wasn't how it was supposed to happen – but it was.
The natural belief to hold, for anyone who'd gone through Shin'o, anyone who'd worked as a shinigami, for anyone who'd been taught the same things they did, was that it was too late for them.
If Urahara hadn't been there...
"Imagine I hadn't been there, Hiyori-san, or that I had no solution to propose. What else than execution would there be left, then?"
Rose let out a whisper – but Hiyori heard him loud and clear, even though she didn't want to say it herself:
"Better to be dead than to be left in agony with empty promises of painless salvation."
Urahara stared into his cup of tea, again – and with that look, like there was something more, irrelevant to their situation per se but not to this statement in particular.
...Rose certainly didn't want to ever know what could be going through Urahara Kisuke's mind. While the former captain of the twelfth division had not followed up on unethical experiments with hollowfication the way theotherone hated theirkillerandpuppetmaster Aizen had, he'd still thought it through enough to realize where those experiments would lead and that he wanted nothing to do with it.
Not that he'd had much of a choice on the matter, in the end.
Hiyori almost growled, though – and any possibility that Urahara would share his no-doubt disturbing thoughts disappeared. Rose's cousin stood abruptly from her seat at the table, her hands smashing against the rough wood and making her cup jump.
"You were here! You had a solution!"
She banged the table again, and Rose snatched the cups away with a sigh. No need to break the little amenities that rundown place did have.
He didn't feel the need to intervene and try and calm Hiyori down, however. The girl only ever got angrier when a third party intervened in her tantrums – something that Shinji took a lot of pleasure in doing anyway.
Usually.
When he wasn't overthinking all the ways he hadn't handled his traitorous vice-captain, or keeping a soul-invading hollow from trying to scratch its way into the world.
"They had no damned right not to listen to you!"
"Of course they had that right. What Central 46 knew was that I had experimented upon other shinigamis, on people who should have been my friends and who, for some of them, were their families. For your grandfather, I'd murdered his granddaughter, and then I'd taken her corpse back to my lab and used it as a sample. They had evidence of hollow-like destruction on your part, as well as evidence of my theoretical thinking upon the subject of hollowfication. Aizen, with his illusions, destroyed any hint of credibility I could have used to defend you and convince them that your souls were still salvageable."
Urahara shook his head, looking apologetic – as if he could have somehow prevented all this, as if he should be blamed for having thought of hollowfication even without following up on it.
As if that wouldn't mean that he'd have had no way to save them, if he hadn't set his sight upon the very same subject as Aizen's latest research once upon a time.
"No one would trust anything someone like that could say, especially if they were offering salvation for their own victims. At best, it would be a lie, a poor attempt at buying time, and at worst..."
Rose either wouldn't have fallen for it – not that anyone would have asked him his opinion, even if he hadn't been one of the victims. Who would believe the perpetrator, the one who'd made it all happen to begin with?
It didn't matter that it hadn't been a trap in that case, that Urahara really hadn't wanted to abuse his trial and had only wanted to help them.
It would have felt like a lie to Central 46, if they'd even cared enough to listen after all the evidence that pointed to Urahara being one of the worst traitors the Gotei 13 had ever seen.
"...It could be an attempt to keep a hand on interesting specimens, to abuse the victims even after having been caught. A false promise to get more opportunities for horrible deeds."
Hiyori's mouth fell open, but she didn't manage to say anything. She didn't seem to know what to say to the scenarios her former captain had just sketched.
From the little Rose knew about Urahara, neither of those courses of action was something he'd in fact do – but the man had still thought them out.
Obviously, the reason why he could so easily forgive Central 46 was that he knew exactly how they'd seen the situation – eight superior officers butchered by a colleague, with absolutely no provocation.
"They had no reason to trust anything I said. Don't you understand? As far as they knew, executing hollowfied shinigamis was the only solution they had. The only thing they could still do for you."
Urahara paused a moment and looked away.
"Me, I knew what was going on, and even then I couldn't entirely reverse what happened to you. You aren't going into soul suicide, which is great, but... The hollows are still there, aren't they?"
ofcourse
watchme hearme letmeout
Iwilleatyoufromtheinside andthen everythingaroundyoutoo
Rose had tried going into jinzen a few days ago, to talk with Kinshara – to see where the goddamn parasite was hiding, too, to see the damage to his soul.
He'd only found an empty theater in his inner world. Usually Kinshara would dance on the scene, a myriad of tall golden spirits going by silent music until he felt in the mood to communicate – but this time there had been nothing. Echoes of shadows, perhaps, as if the zanpakuto spirit was just on the edge of his perception, deliberately staying out of reach.
The hollow hadn't been there, either, even if its voice could be heard screeching in the distance, and Rose couldn't help but wonder if Kinshara wasn't the one keeping it at bay.
Hiyori scoffed:
"Sure they are! I don't know about the others, but mine is camping in my inner world and I can't find Kubikiri Orochi anywhere! It keeps whispering horrible things in my ears, too!"
Rose couldn't help but look a bit surprised at that, and Urahara took notice of it, if the slight widening of his eyes was anything to go by.
"Otoribashi-san?"
Rose shook his head.
"No, I can't find my hollow at all. Kinshara's gone, too, though. When I go into jinzen it feels like my inner world is almost empty and they are both hiding somewhere far away."
"Hmm... Something to think about later, then. I might have to ask the others, see what stands out as commonalities. It could help in finally subjugating those hollows, then..."
Urahara shook his head.
"Anyway. Hiyori-san, what I'm trying to say is that no, I'm not angry at them, not really. Of course, Central 46 could have been... wiser... and they might have asked the right questions then, but given what they knew I won't blame them for not doing it. However, it worries me, that not one of them saw through it. It worries me, that Aizen-fukutaicho is still back there, free to do as he pleases."
Ah... That was the heart of the matter, finally.
Urahara wasn't angry, not with Seireitei, the Gotei or Central 46... Not even with Aizen, it seemed – but he was worried.
Rose had seen him those last days, and even if he had had a difficult time caring about the man's feelings considering his own struggles, he could believe that.
Gut-wrenching worry.
Yes, that worked with Urahara's attitude, with his apologetic looks, with the way he kept trying to find solutions for everything. He'd saved their lives twice over. He'd found the building they were in now. He was looking to do more, even then, even while most of the victims were still floundering and barely capable of helping in any way.
How can I help? What do you need? Please, tell me how to make it easier for you, let me find a solution.
Something like that.
Hiyori spluttered:
"...You worry?"
Obviously she hadn't had the opportunity to worry about much, engulfed as she was in her anger.
Rose, himself, had barely found the energy to worry about their little group of walking abominations, lost in the cycle and with a gaping maw hiding behind their souls and gigais.
Urahara gave his former vice-captain a tired smile – exhausted, barely recognizable as a smile.
"Yes, I'm worried. For us. For you. Because of Aizen Sosuke. And for them, too."
Them.
theoneswho'dcondemnedthemall enemies
The rest of the Gotei 13, Seireitei, Rukongai, all of Soul Society – perhaps even more.
Whoever was left for Aizen to play with, undiscovered and able to hide anything he didn't want to be seen.
For the first time in weeks, Rose thought of his vice-captain – and fear clenched at his guts. Chikane-san had been left alone to deal with the third division, and of course she was capable, but she wasn't strong enough to do what only a captain could. If something happened, if an adjuchas wandered in their jurisdiction, if Aizen wanted to test a few more of his creations on unsuspecting members of the third...
How many would die?
Rose hadn't been enough to deal with the man's treachery, so how could he expect better of his former subordinates?
The Gotei had lost nearly half its superior officers with Aizen's treachery, and the Kido Corps were left with neither their commander nor their lieutenant. The Onmitsukido wasn't much better off, either.
Aizen murderer had done that.
How much more damage could he do?
Urahara wasn't finished, of course. Hiyori had wanted an explanation, she'd wanted the truth – and now she was getting it all. Even if it wasn't something she wanted to listen to.
"The thing is, Hiyori-san... Yoruichi-san didn't know either, and as commander of the Onmitsukido she was the one who should have known, if no one else. I didn't see it, not until it was too late. Hirako-san saw it, and yet he didn't really understand, he couldn't stop it from happening at all. Aizen-fukutaicho's power is much too dangerous, much too deceitful, and if none of us could see it..."
It was easy to blame others for a mistake you too were guilty of. Easy to get angry at Central 46 for not seeing the truth when no one amongst them had been able to understand it either. Easy to consider yourself a victim – because you were one, of course – and not acknowledge the fact that others were wounded too.
Urahara had been accused of treason, and rather than complain about how unfair it all was, he was taking the time to worry about what could happen to those who now thought him a traitor.
"...Why should anyone else see it back home? How could they, unless Aizen himself shows them the truth? Maybe he'll decide that Kyoraku-san is too perspective, and needs to be dealt with before he realizes too much. Maybe he'll think that Ukitake-san's composure is detrimental to his plans, that he was too much sway over the captain-commander. Maybe he'll want to experiment upon officers from a Great House for a change, and he'll choose Kuchiki-taicho or Kuchiki-fukutaicho."
Rose could see frustration in his cousin's tense frame, restlessness and anger growing in her shaking hands.
She probably didn't want to put names on Aizen's potential and future victims, not when those names were the same she'd grown so angry with. Hiyori wasn't a bad person, not by far, but she could be rather self-centered. When her mother had been concerned with her choice to join Shin'o and become a shinigami, she'd stopped talking with her. When Hikifune had been promoted and Urahara had taken her place, she'd decided she didn't care about her new captain before she'd even met him.
Now that she'd been hurt and burned by Aizen, it would take her a long time to think of others as people who could be hurt too.
"What, that's your big question, you dumbass?! 'Who will be next?' and all that? Why do you even care? For all we know Aizen's done with his little games, didn't he say that his research on hollowfication was complete or something like that? Stop trying to find them excuses, and..."
"You can't truly believe you are the only victims Aizen-fukutaicho made here, Hiyori-san."
Hiyori cringed back – and Rose felt exactly the same way.
There was something in Urahara's voice – almost as if he was warning her off a dangerous cliff, something she wouldn't be able to come back from if she decided to take one more step on the wrong side.
Rose didn't know what that decision could be, or what the consequences would be – but this was the closest to anger he'd ever seen Urahara get. Not quite it, yet – but close.
A very, very cold warning.
thatoneknows he'sseenthemomentofsinbefore hecantellwherethelinelays
What...
But the hollow's voice in his head didn't say anything more, and Rose was once again reminded that, because of Aizen, there was a foreign entity within his soul. Something rotten that didn't belong there at all.
Hiyori looked as uneasy as her cousin felt.
"I... No, I mean, it's not... I know there were... others... before, but..."
Urahara sighed, and all the intensity from the moment before disappeared.
"Don't forget about the Rukongai dwellers who fell in Aizen-fukutaicho's early experiments, Hiyori-san. They are the very reason Muguruma-san went to Fugai, that night, the reason I sent you there, too. Many shinigamis didn't come back, either, and all that time, neither you nor I saw through Aizen-fukutaicho's mask. How many others lost their lives in his path, how many were forgotten, how many deaths were disguised or blamed on something else? I cannot blame Central 46 and the Gotei 13 for not seeing the truth of what happened to us, and not take the blame for not seeing the truth of what happened to all those people..."
Urahara looked one last time at his former vice-captain – but she was biting her lower lip, brow furrowed, and unlikely to say anything more, to answer in any way. Her former captain knew her well enough, Rose guessed, to see that she wasn't ready to give any kind of answer, not after what he'd just laid out for her to contemplate.
Urahara glanced at him, then – at Otoribashi Rose, a family member even if he and Hiyori had never been that close, someone who would care about her doing well even when she was being difficult about it, and someone who wouldn't just antagonize her for the sake of it – and Rose nodded. Of course he'd stay there a bit longer, if Urahara wanted out.
The man deserved it, with all he'd done and kept doing for their sake.
"...I need to look for clothes in the village."
Hiyori's face twitched weirdly, and she blinked twice before asking:
"Don't you need... help...?"
She sounded unsure of herself, of the destroyed dynamics between her and the captain who wasn't hers anymore. She didn't want to go with him – even back in Soul Society, she'd often kicked a fuss about escorting Urahara anywhere, that wasn't new – but she'd been supposed to for years.
Rose interfered, then – it wouldn't be fair to let the other man explain it once again – and Urahara took that opportunity to disappear through the door.
"It's better if Shihoin, Tsukabishi or Urahara go to human places alone, for now, remember? We don't have enough control yet."
No need to say control over what.
The girl sat back slowly.
She still looked tense and ill-at-ease. She still was angry, with everything and everyone – that was who she was, who she'd always been.
"Say, Rose... Do you think I'm wrong? To hate them, I mean?"
Rose took a moment to answer. He wasn't Shinji, who got Hiyori better than most of them, even if they had very different personalities. Hiyori was Rose's cousin, true, but that didn't make them best friends for all that.
Still. His answer was most likely not what Shinji would say, himself, but that was alright.
Different strokes for different people, and there wasn't always a wrong and a right answer. Art was the same – different combinations made different works, but several combinations could be considered exquisite even if they couldn't exist at the same time.
"Not everything in life is about right or wrong, I believe. Healing can take time, and until then, anger can dwell in one's heart. As long as you don't let it fester, you will not wither. In fact, something you resent today may become less jarring as days pass and time goes on, but for now the strength of that feeling might be the one keeping you alive. Hate them if you want, I suppose, but do not let it become your only remarkable point. I think we would all mourn, should our friend disappear for the sake of vengeance."
There, a subtle hint that she wasn't alone.
...Hiyori wasn't very good with subtlety, though. He'd ask Shinji to put another, more pointed layer on that conversation. His cousin might actually listen to her self-proclaimed best enemy.
The girl made a face, huffed, and thuggishly made her way back to the common room where they spent most of their time.
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to forgive them!"
Rose sighed. An absolute lack of class. The Sarugaki family was one of the Shibas', like the Kyorakus and the Obanas, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their oldest daughter's manners.
Ah, anyway. There was no use trying to remake Hiyori now – and at least she was unique, in her own way. That had to count for something.
He'd stay here, in the kitchen, staring at his empty cup of tea, a bit longer.
Today's outburst had brought Rose a deeper understanding of Urahara, which might prove important, considering they were now in similar pits of madness – though the one Rose and the others were in was more obviously dangerous than Urahara's.
Urahara Kisuke didn't get angry, because he was too busy – busy worrying, busy thinking of ways to counter Aizen and all the other problems he'd brought in his wake, busy figuring out something approaching a solution, busy caring about what would happen next – to get angry at what had happened.
At most, the scientist was angry at Aizen himself – perhaps.
Or perhaps he was too busy trying to understand how the monstertraitormurderer thought and what he truly wanted out of all this to even be angry at Aizen.
also, I love when people say things like "everyone's horrible, look at Urahara and Yoruichi, they were the secret police" while failing to mention that the first thing Kisuke did once he had the authority to was to, not only extract people from the Maggots' Nest, but also create a place for them to use their creativity in (hopefully) less problematic ways.
(then those same people, who complained that innocent shinigami were jailed before they'd even done anything, will complain about Kurotsuchi like that one shouldn't have been taken out of the illegal jail too)
or that Yoruichi's first decision after everything went wrong wasn't "welp, the authorities say to shut the hell up and let my best friend and other innocents be executed or exiled", but "actually, on this particular point I trust my best friend and I think I'm going to take them all out of here instead".
Like, neither of them are perfect, sure, but they are trying to do 1) the right thing and 2) something that will actually work.