Chapter 48, To the tower
Rangiku Matsumoto was relaxing. It had been a long night searching for the ryoka, and nothing had turned up. The only thing that was certain right now was that they were somewhere in the Central District and had probably not escaped. The same walls that had kept the enemy out for thousands of years could keep them in just as well. They'd be found and defeated in detail, especially considering they had been scattered across the southern parts of the Central District.
That being said, everyone was a bit jumpy because no one knew where they were, only that they had defeated the majority of the Eleventh Division. Looking out a window, she wondered if she should stop by Tanya's home. Perhaps she would have an idea of how to handle this situation. After all, she'd served in the military once, assuming the militaries of the modern human world had to deal with invaders in fortified compounds in the past. There probably was some sort of procedural thing that could be used, right?
"Yeah, honey," she said, stretching her back out and pushing her chest forward, trying to remove a little bit of the strain from her back that had been building since waking up. She was about to ask some of the other lieutenants what their thoughts on the situation were when a scream ripped through the air.
It was a blood-curdling scream, and it was a voice she was familiar with: Hinamori. She stood up, worrying, grabbing her blade to hold it in place as she ran out of the room, the other lieutenants following behind her. It was only a turn or two before she was outside the lieutenants meeting room and found Hinamori standing on a bridge between two towers. She was about to ask what was wrong when her eyes caught sight of the horror in front of her.
The captain of the Fifth was hanging from his own blade, penetrated into the wall of the tower, his blood having run down the wall in a massively long streak. She had to ask herself how she'd missed that in the morning, but then again, she'd been rather tired, as had everyone else. Though it did seem odd that no one had noticed it first.
Hinamori appeared to be having some sort of freak out, so Rangiku moved over and put her hand on her shoulder, saying, "Pull yourself together, girl. You're the first lieutenant of Division Five. They're going to need you right now."
Hinamori looked at her, taking a breath before nodding her head. She didn't say anything, though. Rangiku knew that stating something about these mental situations was challenging. To be frank, she understood what Hinamori was feeling right now. She'd had a similar feeling when the captain of the Tenth had died all those years ago. But she also knew that she couldn't let the young lieutenant fall and take her Squad with her. Rangiku reached out, grabbed Hinamori's other shoulder, and pulled her to look at her, saying, "Hinamori, you're the interim captain of Division Five now. Start thinking like one. Don't freeze up. Your people need you."
Hinamori nodded her head in agreement, turning towards the body.
"Oh, what's going on over here?" came an annoyingly familiar and suspicious voice.
Turning her head, she saw Gin approaching, his hands at his side as he looked up at the tower. Shaking his head, he said, "Must have been one of those ryoka who snuck in here last night and struck the captain while he was out for a walk."
Rangiku looked at him with annoyance. Something about the way he said it made him sound suspicious. If it wasn't for his natural tone, she might have thought he'd actually done something.
With an exaggerated, "Sorry," she was considering telling him off. She noted the way that Hinamori looked at him, her eyes basically staring daggers at him. She was probably feeling very suspicious as well, considering that statement.
But before any one of them could make a move to try and tell him off for that, the building behind him exploded.
Gin was tossed forward, as well as his second-in-command, both landing on the bridge and turning to look at it in shock as the tower that everyone had just been meeting in turned into a smoldering inferno, debris flying everywhere. A pillar of wood smashed into the bridge just in front of Rangiku. One centimeter off, and she would probably be going to the medical division.
The burning building was putting a lot of smoke in the air, drawing notice all across central. Staggering to his feet, Gin looked back at everyone and said, "Well, don't just stand there, we've got to get that fire out. Call for someone with a water sword."
"Yes, sir," one of the lieutenants called, running off, seemingly having an idea of who to get for this problem.
Whatever anger Hinamori had seemed to have melted away as she took stock of the situation. Turning to Rangiku, she said, "I'll go get my division to help get Captain Aizen's body down. Thank you, Rangiku."
"No problem," she said before walking away to stand next to Gin, saying, "Well, I haven't seen you this shocked in years. It's a good look," she joked, noting how his eyes were, for once, all the way open, and he seemed to be thinking a lot more.
He nodded his head before saying, "I may like to give off the impression that I know everything, but even this was beyond my comprehension. How the hell were we just attacked like that? I didn't feel any spiritual energy in the air at all."
Rangiku nodded her head before saying, "Perhaps it's some sort of conventional explosive. All I know is if we hadn't been called out here by that scream, most of the divisions would have lost their lieutenants in that attack. It's a severe injury at best."
Gin nodded his head before saying, "This is getting out of hand. The invaders are killing captains, blowing up parts of central, and seem to have the ability to appear and disappear whenever they want. What the hell is going on?"
She shook her head before saying, "Enemy attack and it appears we've not been preparing for this to actually happen, relying on the walls to protect ourselves for a little too long. Either that, or do we have an inside job going on right now?" She joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"An inside job? How unbelievable," Gin said, turning to look at Captain Aizen's body before saying, "Is it me, or does that dagger look familiar?"
"Huh," she said, turning back to look at the body, her eyes scanning over it with confusion before noticing a dagger embedded in the torso. She tilted her head, noting that it did look rather familiar. It kind of looked like the old knife Tanya kept by her side for self-defense.
Shaking her head, she said, "Don't recall seeing it before," but more because she couldn't believe that it really was Tanya's blade. From the relationship she knew about, those two got along pretty well, so it seemed unlikely that Tanya would stab the captain of the Fifth. Besides, Tanya was way too professional to leave behind her own weapon. It just didn't seem likely to be her actual dagger. Or if it was her actual dagger, Tanya wouldn't have left it behind, which meant someone else had used it. She should talk to the captain about that and ask Tanya where her dagger was. But there was no reason to level accusations as far as she was concerned.
Clearing her throat, she turned to Gin and said, "I've got to go report this to the captain. You should have been up here, but he was going to be late today."
"Oh? Then why would the good captain be late? Chaos is reigning; it seems like he should be up here rather quickly."
She smiled before saying, "Just have to give a blade back to an old friend. With the new rule about everyone having to be armed until these invaders are dealt with, Tanya can now have her sword back."
"Oh, good for her. I always thought the whole house arrest thing was a stupid idea, and she is a good warrior. With how these invaders are mincing their way through our divisions, we need every good warrior we can get."
Rangiku nodded her head before saying, "Hopefully, we can get this whole thing done today. There can't be that many places they can hide, can there?"
"We can only hope," Gin said with a nod before turning and saying, "But I need to get back to work. Good luck, Rangiku."
"Good luck, Gin," she said with a nod, turning back to the chaos. What's the first step? She's the lieutenant of her division; she needs to come up with a first step. Well, the building's on fire. She could think of a few people with water-based swords that could be used to try and put this out. Technically, ice isn't exactly water, but it could do the job.
Nodding her head, she looked down at the city below, knowing she'd have to make it all the way to the Tenth division compound to alert him to the situation. That could take a while, but it was necessary to do. Turning to the other lieutenants, she said, "You guys have this, right?"
"As much as we can," the other lieutenant, Kiba, said with a nod. Looking over at the situation he added, "We need to organize some sort of operation to search the immediate area around the central tower. Whoever fired this attack must have been close. They're either still out there preparing another attack like this or falling back, but either way, there's only a short time frame to find them."
Rangiku nodded in agreement before saying, "And we've got to get more people in this area to try and find this attacker. That's another reason to get the divisions organized."
"True," spoke a voice of authority, drawing all eyes towards the lieutenant of the First division as he approached. His demeanor was resolute as he said, "I've already alerted the First division's forces. We're preparing a bucket squad. No one in our division has any water specialties, so we don't have to do it alone. We need people from the other divisions to gather around this Central citadel as soon as possible. Whoever attacked this tower may try again or is attempting to escape, as you pointed out. We cannot spare the people here who need to put this fire out. All of you need to go and get reinforcements now before the enemy senses any weakness and decides to strike out against our Central citadel. Do you understand me?"
Every lieutenant nodded and some saluted, responding in various terms, "Yes sir."
"Good," he continued, "get to work then. Stop standing here and staring off, and do something. Also, someone needs to alert the captain of the Fourth division. We need to inspect Aizen's body to find out how he was overpowered. This is not normal for a captain to be taken out like this. Make sure to alert his second that the body must go to the Fourth division. Understand?"
There was a general consensus of agreement before they all dispersed, heading in different directions to deal with the situation as it stood.
Chad slowly opened his eyes. It had been a long night, a relatively peaceful night, as none of the enemies had found the place they'd been camping. But it was a long night nonetheless. The trees weren't exactly comfortable to sleep on, and though it had not been very cold, it could have been nicer. Perhaps they should have stayed in a warehouse, it seemed, before choosing this little park instead. Oh well, they'd done that, and he probably wouldn't have stumbled upon Akita.
Groaning, he got up and stretched his back. He looked at Akita, who was yawning and stretching her arms as she got up, and said, "Good morning, Chad. How did you sleep?"
"Fine," Chad said. "I had a rather good night's sleep, beyond the aches and pains of the morning. I only had a dream about the first time we'd fought a hollow, the first fight we got involved in together. It was a good dream. It reminded me why I'm here. My friends are counting on me, after all. I'm not going to let them down."
"How about you? How did you sleep?" he asked, looking in the general direction of where they had to assault next.
"I slept fine. I had a dream about my grandpa teaching me how to shoot. It wasn't a bad dream, just a little bit of a memory of some skills, you know how it is," Akita replied.
Chad nodded and said, "I do. So, how are we going to get to the Tower?"
Akita looked in the direction of the Tower and said, "Well, I guess we walk. It's not like we can fly. I wish there was an easier way to get there. We're probably going to run into all kinds of patrols."
Chad nodded again and said, "I'll just have to punch through them. You're good at doing that, right?"
Akita nodded, holding out her hand, and said, "I can probably get enough arrows to get us through the enemy. The question is, what will we face when we reach that Tower and if the others have made it?"
"I think they have," Chad commented, "After all, there's smoke coming from that direction."
"What's that?" Akita said, pulling herself together and moving towards the direction they needed to go. Chad made sure they weren't leaving anything behind before following after her. Quickly, they arrived at the edge of the woods and could get a view of the Tower, citadel, or whatever you wanted to call it – it was important. One of the towers had exploded. "Looks like some sort of war footage."
"That looks hauntingly familiar," Chad said, shaking his head before saying, "I'm going to guess Weiss survived and launched a bit of an assault this morning."
"That's good," Chad nodded, before adding, "That'll distract the enemy. They're probably searching for him, and that'll give us an opportunity to punch through their line. If they are going the wrong way, although if they're in front of us, that just means we have more people we need to punch through."
Akita nodded and said, "We've got to do what we've got to do. It's unfortunate, but Ichigo will need to assault that Tower. We need to be there to back him up. That's just the situation as it stands. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Chad nodded before saying, "Well, then it's better that we get moving. We've got no time to waste," and started moving forward towards the tower, taking the most direct route possible. Akita was hot on his heels as they moved at a quick pace, trying to avoid being noticed by the early morning staff who apparently were not watching the roads.
It was rather smooth sailing as they moved. They went from ten blocks away to about five blocks away, Chad estimated, as they moved as quickly as possible, taking street turns and passages as fast as they could, trying to avoid being spotted by any major groups of patrols, although they couldn't pull that off completely.
When they made their latest turn, they ran into a group of soldiers guarding a road.
"Halt! Present your identification!" one of them called, starting to draw his sword as the others behind him did the same.
"Of course," Chad said, not even stopping as he ran towards them, summoning his fist to full power and smashing it into the face of the man who requested identification.
"There you go," he said dryly as Akita pulled up her bow and fired off a couple of shots, smashing into the shoulders of the other closest reapers, sending them flying into their comrades. There were about a dozen of them, he figured. With three down, that meant there were only nine in his way. He rushed at them quickly, and was able to block their attacks with his reinforced arm before knocking them away and hitting them with his regular fist, sending one guy flying not too far into a nearby building. He didn't smash through a wall or anything; a regular fist couldn't do that. But he did bang his head on a beam and went down like a sack of bricks.
Two reapers rushed at Akita, trying to get past Chad to reach her. The girl watched his flanks, firing off a shot into each one of their throats, knocking them back. Apparently, they were blunt arrows or something because beyond them choking up like they'd been punched, they weren't acting like they were too badly injured.
That was six down so far, six to go, and the enemy made it rather easy to break their formation down to three to go as three rushed him, blades ready to swipe at him. Chad dodged the attacks and then channeled energy into his fist, smashing it into the gut of one man and sending him flying into the others. Those three men did go through a wall; the sounds they made told him they were down and out for this fight.
The last three men seemed confused about what to do. Finally, they seemed to come to some sort of conclusion as two of them turned and ran, seeming to decide that discretion was the better part of valor. They didn't get too far as Akita's arrows hit them in the back of the head, causing them to fall over.
The last one held his ground as he stood there between Chad and the citadel.
Chad slowly moved towards him menacingly, overlooking him. After a bit, the man finally dropped to his knees and said, "Please, don't kill me."
"Leave the blade on the ground and they'll be fine," Chad said, nodding to himself, and then he moved past the man.
The man was a whimpering coward as he did the exact opposite of what was requested. He held onto his blade and turned to face Chad, apparently assuming that he would not be paying attention. Chad would have dealt with him himself, but Akita was faster on the shot, putting an arrow through his shoulder, or rather, an energy arrow through his shoulder. Either way, he lost his grip on his blade and went flying. Chad was able to grab it from the air, placing it against the wall and bending it quite heavily before tossing it as far as he could in the opposite direction.
The reaper looked on in horror before giving up and stumbling to the ground, apparently realizing that he had lost completely.
"Let's go, Akita," Chad said, and she nodded as they moved past the fallen reapers, down the path, and towards the citadel with all the haste they could muster. The sooner they got there, the sooner they could team up with Ichigo and the others, and the sooner they could mount this assault on the citadel and save Rukia. At least that was the plan. It was still a long run from where they were, and there was always a chance they'd run into more patrols as they moved towards the citadel. But they just had to punch through. Hopefully, nothing major would block their way. As Chad moved, he noted that they were changing districts and were moving into an area controlled by what he would guess was the 8th division. He briefly wondered if they'd be better fighters before deciding that he'd have to hope that he wouldn't find that out and that they would be less active than the groups he'd been fighting so far. After all, the more people he had to fight through, the harder it would be to get to Ichigo and the others.
As he moved, though, into the territory, he felt something familiar—a feeling of energy. It was the same energy he felt from that woman with the shovel yesterday. Could she be near here? That was another reason to get through this territory as fast as possible. He didn't need to have a run-in with her.
"Captain is gone." Those words were painful to admit, even more painful to think about. How was that even possible? How could someone so kind and strong have been left impaled like that on the wall? Who were these monsters that had penetrated into the Soul Society and could do such a thing? And why?
Hinamori had some thoughts on the matter. The captain of the Tenth had warned her that Gin was acting weird around her captain, and they had been having some heated discussions. Could Gin have been responsible? It seemed unlikely, but the man had always been suspicious. In fact, he'd let the invaders escape proper justice once. Could he be somehow in league with these invaders, helping them? If so, why? What was the point of it all?
She shook her head, unsure of what to think on this matter. All she knew was that the captain was dead, possibly killed by his own blade. No, it could easily be staged. Why would someone leave them impaled on their own sword? What kind of message was that sending?
Letting out a groan of annoyance, she kicked a nearby chair, sending it twirling about and knocking into the captain's desk.
His body had already been sent to the Fourth Division, and it was her job to make sure that the Fifth was still running. The talk that Rangiku had given her was somewhat helpful in keeping her centered, but it didn't change the fact that everything was wrong. Walking over to the desk, she wondered what she was going to do with his things. Did he have any family in the other districts? She had never gotten any information about it. He was a bit of a private man on those sorts of things. He would talk about work, but he'd always sidestep conversations about his personal life.
Sighing, she looked across his desk before noticing a letter there addressed to her, tied up with a purple bow. Tilting her head, she wondered why it was there. Reaching out and picking it up, she unraveled it and looked at its contents. It was rather surprising information, to say the least.
The implications of the letter were astounding. The captain was looking into corruption and the possibility that someone was trying to aid these criminals to break in. There was also the possibility that they were trying to start a revolution in the outer districts, which was why so many reapers were now cut off due to this attack.
Even worse was the implication of who Captain Aizen thought was behind this, Gin she already suspected was somehow entangled in this mess. But also, who they were going to meet that night. She could feel rage starting to build inside her as she saw that name appear – the one who always seemed to be able to get an office visit with the captain whenever she needed it. That traitor. She must be responsible, and did she have a dagger like that? Now that she thought about it, yes, Tanya did have a dagger very much like the one that had been buried in Aizen's chest.
Folding the paperwork and putting it into her side pocket, she stepped out of his office and looked for nearby reapers, calling them to her. She was going to find Tanya in a restaurant herself. If, of course, she didn't have that knife that she always carried on her side, that would be evidence enough to bring her in. And if she resisted, well, she was already connected to these invaders. She highly doubted anyone would complain if that third seat was roughed up or worse while being brought in for questioning.
"It feels good to be on your hip again," Tasha said to Tanya as they moved through the streets, heading towards the citadel that overlooked the entire Central district.
"It feels good to have a weapon again," she mused, wondering what had ever happened to her dagger. It probably fell off into a bush somewhere just before all this chaos had started. But maybe Visha brought it to have it engraved or something. You never knew what your girlfriend was going to do. Either way, she was on her way to the Central district citadel for one reason and one reason only – that's where Rukia was, but also where these attacks were likely heading towards. If she was going to talk them down into surrendering, that's where she needed to be. Also, she could talk to her and work on their defense case. Perhaps even talk to the captain of the First division and see if he couldn't get the Central 46 to reconsider their efforts to assassinate their character, as they were currently attempting to do.
She sighed as she moved up another flight of stairs, arriving at a courtyard where the fighting had happened yesterday. She thought she could still see some blood from Renji or Ichigo. Either way, the place looked trashed and would take time to rebuild. How the hell had Ichigo done this? Sure, he was no slouch, but taking on a lieutenant and winning? Sure, she had planned to try and help him reach that level in a few months, but he'd done it in what, two weeks? How far had he gone with his training? How had he done this? Had that insane former commander of the Twelfth had some sort of time dilation room like in that one anime? Did he spend like a year in seclusion in speedster time training to the point where he could take on a lieutenant?
Perhaps she was being a little bit too out there with these ideas, but this just didn't make sense. This went beyond her understanding of the Soul Society, let alone the World of the Living. People don't just master skills without extreme training, and where could he get the extreme training necessary to pull this off?
Shaking her head, she turned from the crime scene and started walking up the stairs, noting the billowing smoke from one of the burnt-out towers that had been attacked earlier this morning. She'd seen it while she had been coming this way and even seen it being put out. The captain of the Tenth had been shocked and rushed off to help out in the situation. Where he'd ended up, she wasn't aware – probably called away to deal with one situation or another. But the fact of the matter was, somehow they managed to blow up a tower that would have killed half or more of the first lieutenants of the Court Guard Squads. This was just insane.
Not to mention the story that the Captain of the Fifth division was apparently dead. That was a problem. No, as far as Tanya was concerned, Ichigo did not have that ability. There was no way he could kill a captain, which meant either someone in his party could, or there was someone inside the Soul Society who could. Either was not good because, unless they were caught, it was very likely that this would be another problem in the way of preventing the execution of Rukia.
This was complete and utter insanity. She thought that as she came up to the second layer of defenses and started moving towards the stairway that would take her to the third layer where the tower was currently still smoldering.
It would also give her the best way to block the path from anyone trying to reach the tower where Rukia was currently imprisoned, so she could talk them down.
She was about to reach up onto the next step when she heard someone call behind her, "Tanya."
Confused, she turned to see Lieutenant Hinamori walking towards her with several other Fifth division members right beside her, heading directly towards her.
"Miss Hinamori," Tanya said with an odd tone. "I just heard about Captain Aizen. You have my condolences."
"I'm sure I do," she said, something off about her tone. Tanya tilted her head slightly, confused, as Tasha murmured, 'Something's not right here.'
"Tanya, where is your dagger?" Hinamori asked, looking at Tanya's side, confused. Tanya shrugged her shoulders, saying, "Not sure. It's been missing for several days now."
"Really? The one weapon you've been allowed to have this entire time, and you let it go missing? I find that hard to believe. But I think I found it," Hinamori said, reaching into a bag on her side and pulling the pommel of Tanya's missing dagger out of it. She held it so Tanya could see.
"This is your blade, after all, right, Tanya?" she asked. Seeing no reason not to answer, Tanya nodded her head. "It's mine, I believe so. Why?"
Hinamori dropped the blade, revealing that the blade was covered in blood, as she said, "Because it was found inside Captain Aizen's chest. He always said, 'criminals return to the crime scene.' You're under arrest for the suspected murder of Captain Aizen and for helping the invaders in their invasion of the Soul Society."
Tanya blinked, and Tasha burst out into laughter over her shoulder. 'What the hell is this daytime drama bullshit? Always knew this girl was a little too close to her captain, but this is a bit much.'
Tanya tuned Tasha out, turning fully to face Lieutenant Hinamori and the four reapers at her side, resting her hand on the pommel of her blade. She said, "I'm sorry, my blade has been missing for several days now. It would appear, yes, it has been used in a crime, but I was not involved in this crime, and I have no reason nor motive to attack a captain of the Court Guard Squad, especially one who I have good relations with. Are you sure arresting the third seat of another squad is even the wisest move? Shouldn't you take this up with the higher-ups and have them do an investigation?"
"I'm investigating properly now," she said, pulling out a letter from her side and holding it up. "Captain Aizen left this letter to me in case something happened to him while he was out there last night, and he lists you as the person he was going to come visit, and now he's dead. Am I to ignore the fact that your blade was found in his chest after he was supposed to meet you?"
Tanya tilted her head before saying, "Well, that's an interesting letter, but I didn't meet Captain Aizen. So whoever attacked him did so before he reached my home."
"Do you have a witness to this? That he did not come visit you."
That was a problem, Tanya thought. She did not because last night Visha had not come home, which meant she had been alone, aka no alibi. Clearing her throat, she said, "Do you really expect people to believe that I killed Captain Aizen at my home, dragged his body all the way back to the central citadel, and left it here with a knife in his chest? I didn't even have a blade until this morning. How would I have had the power to overwhelm my captain of the Court Guard Squad?"
"I've seen you fight. You don't need a sword to fight, and to be fair, whoever killed the captain and got their hands on his blade when he was not prepared probably ambushed him in the night. And from what I've heard, you don't fight fair when you get the chance."
"This is ridiculous," Tanya said, shaking her head before looking at the lieutenant and saying, "Listen, I get it. You're in a lot of pain right now because your captain has fallen. But blaming me for his death is not going to find his murderer, and moving outside the proper chain of authority to arrest someone is even worse."
Tanya looked towards the stairs and said, "I'm going to be here. If you have such good evidence that I'm a criminal, take your evidence to the captain of the First and come arrest me. Otherwise, you risk creating conflict within the divisions for a theory at best, for evidence that no legitimate court in the land that wasn't a kangaroo court would convict a person on."
And, of course, Tasha whispered in Tanya's ear, 'Hey, wait a minute. Isn't the Central 46 the kangaroo court?'
Which just caused her to grimace at the thought that, oh right, she could end up being arrested for this just because she avoided it so far.
Well, that was a problem with the future, she thought, expecting this matter to be done and for this conversation to be over. Instead, Hinamori drew her sword and called forth its shikai before pointing it at Tanya. "You are coming with us, or you are not going anywhere at all."
Tanya turned, seeing the other four doing the same, drawing their blades, seeming committed to this course of action. Sighing, she thought for a moment, considering the legal repercussions of beating up a fellow reaper during a time like this. It would not be good. Although if she played the "they challenged me" rule, it might be possible to navigate this and simply say there was no real option in the matter.
Taking a deep breath, she strengthened her grip on her sword before saying, "This will be your last chance. Turn back from this course of action, or I will defend myself against your illegal attempt at arresting me."
"You killed the captain, and there is no turning back for us. You're coming with us, dead or alive."
Tanya snickered before looking directly into her eyes, saying, "You're no RoboCop, but if you really want to fight me, I will endeavor not to harm you too greatly. I'll only bruise your ego to remind you that you need to do things legally and not report this, as you were obviously dealing with the emotional damage from the loss of your captain. What were you two, anyway? You're acting almost like you had unrequited love for him or something."
"Shut up, criminal scum," she said before launching a fireball of some kind directly at Tanya. Tanya raised her free right hand and blocked the fireball with a shield, sealing it up and letting it dissipate on its own lock of air before releasing the shield.
"Cute. I hope that display of my spellcraft might dissuade them a bit." Unfortunately, she was wrong as two of the reapers at the edges had flanked to either side of her during the fireball and came charging, their blades ready to slice her in twain. Tanya pulled the sword up with her left hand and blocked one and used the shield to the right, blocking the other.
She jumped back a few steps, switching the blade from her left hand to her right hand and grabbing the metal sheath from her side, holding it as a metal stick in her left hand, and started channeling energy into the pair of weapons so they slightly glowed. "I will not use my shikai as a point of honor here. Don't want to accidentally kill any of you idiots, after all."
The two reapers, who Tanya had already dodged, looked at each other before letting out battle yells and charging up the few steps toward her, both swiping their blades from either direction. She blocked both attacks and then used a little bit of a charge on the blades to bounce the weapons away, bringing the flat of the blade against one of the reaper's heads and the flat of the sheath to bounce their heads off of each other, putting them rather close together. Taking a few more steps back, she pointed both blades at them and cast Bakudo number 1: Sai on them, resulting in both their arms being tied behind their backs. She then kicked them in the shoulders hard, causing them to tumble down the stairs, and there was a rather satisfying crunch at the bottom. They were moaning in pain but not dead, which meant she was off to a good start. Five attackers, two of which were down. The real problem was the lieutenant. Technically, she should be a better mage or swordsman than Tanya. Granted, with how controlled by emotions she seemed to be at this moment, Tanya could likely use that to her advantage, assuming that she continued to let her emotions guide her path.
Looking down at her opponents, she watched as one of them ran up the stairs. Coming at her one at a time would allow them to not be used against each other. Though she was easily able to block his swipes and cuts at her, he was also obviously trying to keep Tanya focused on him, most likely for the other two threats to do something. And they did do something. The other reaper used some sort of wall climbability to get up and over before jumping down behind Tanya, positioning her in a rather bad position between two opponents on the stairs, one having the high ground, and the third, lieutenant Hinamori, ready to unleash another blast of her superheated fire. Obviously, they were hoping to overwhelm her with strikes and bring her down.
Well, that wasn't going to happen. Tanya blocked the attack from the upper end of the stairway with Tasha without worrying, then used the sheath of her blade to pummel downwards, forcing the man at the lower end of the stairs to take a step back. As soon as one leg was up, she pointed the blade directly at him and fired Hado number 1: Shō, a direct punch straight to the middle of his chest, sending him flying down the stairs. It wasn't as climactic as the other two who had gone down the stairs as he landed on those two, probably breaking his fall, but it did clear the way for Tanya to jump and land directly on top of him, putting her now in a position to strike out against the lieutenant and getting her away from the opponent who was above her.
The lieutenant raised her blade and fired off a blast of fire. Tanya blocked it with her sheath, reinforcing the sheath with a shield spell to make sure it didn't hit her, and pushed forward, stepping as quickly as possible, her sword ready to deal with the fool of a reaper for starting a conflict like this.
But the other reaper returned, jumping down and landing on his own fellows. He came quickly at her. Tanya blocked the blade with her own before backing up a few steps to position herself so that the lieutenant and the still-standing reaper were now in front of her, not surrounding her. It was much easier to face an opponent that way.
Tanya was considering her next action, how to bring down the last reaper and the lieutenant so that she could get on with today's boring wait for one of the invaders and turn these idiots in for causing problems if they didn't acknowledge they'd made a mistake.
Hopefully, that could be accomplished. Hopefully. Though it was seeming very unlikely with the way things were going, especially considering they were looking to be trying to share thoughts of how to strike back. Thankfully, the other three were still down and not getting up, which meant Tanya still had the advantage of whittling down their numbers. And if things got really bad, she could theoretically use her blade's release form. Yes, it was probably not the best idea to do that against a fellow reaper, but it wasn't exactly a fair fight considering the lieutenant was a lieutenant and had her release. Though considering the standards of the fifth compared to the 11th and 10th, Tanya was being more of a third class than anything else.
"Hmm, could I use that to my advantage?" Tanya thought. A weakness like that could probably draw the girl to attack and separate her from her fellow reaper, giving Tanya the opportunity to bring the lieutenant down before any more problems could develop. Nodding in her head, she said, "You know, as lieutenants go, you're not exactly the most powerful one I've ever seen. Perhaps you should consider your options better before you spring into an attack."
It worked like a charm; an angry scowl ran across her face as she charged at Tanya, separating herself just a moment from the fellow reaper. Tanya blocked the attack with both weapons before kicking the girl directly in the stomach. She aimed the weapons at her chest and fired off two chantless kido directly into it, sending her flying into the remaining reaper, who just barely moved his sword out of the way in time to avoid stabbing his own lieutenant in the back.
"Okay, you've been defeated. How about you drop this thing already, and we can get on with our lives?" Tanya said, still holding the blade and sheath in case they refused. They did not. Slowly, they pulled themselves up and rearranged themselves into a combat stance. Tanya was about to make a comment on how foolish this all was before, well, everything got very heavy very fast, as if the very air itself was being filled with a murderous killing intent. It was so heavy that the reaper next to Lieutenant Hinamori stumbled and then fell to the ground, apparently not strong enough to survive what was definitely Kenpachi's spiritual energy.
However, it was a different story with the lieutenant. She stayed standing, looking off towards the direction that the killing intent was coming from, saying, "What's going on over there?"
Tasha made a noise of satisfaction as she said, "He's got the same idea. Ichigo was going to attack the tower, so why not position himself where he can watch over it?" Tanya nodded before saying, "Kenpachi has probably located the invaders. If I didn't feel him when I was coming in, and yet I feel him now, that means he sees them and is ready to attack." She shook her head before saying, "Pity them; they're going to get a beating of a lifetime."
"A beating instead of trying to kill those invaders? Did you make a deal with him to protect your allies?"
"Allies?" Tanya mused, turning her head. "Why do you think these are my allies? These invaders could be anyone." She knew her opponent was going to fall in the next few minutes, so somebody might as well get as much intel out of her as possible.
"I've seen the reports you gave the captain. He had me read them over before he stored them in his personal library to make sure they didn't get seen by Central 46 or the Commander General. He wanted to make sure you weren't planning to cause a revolution, even though you claimed you wouldn't. This all matches what you laid out in those paperwork: create a conflict in the outer regions to draw out our forces and then hit the central district, take the capital, and remove Central 46."
Tanya blinked in confusion and then fear as she realized what was being implied. All the paperwork she'd been giving over the years, in an attempt to prevent some of the chaos she foresaw in her early days, had been filtered by someone's eyes. Some of it had probably never seen the light of day or been seen by the eyes of the General Commander. This girl was giving off the opinion that said paperwork, which was now probably being gone through by an investigator squad from the First Squad, implied that Tanya was interested in starting a revolution instead of figuring out how to defend themselves from a potential communist revolution.
Everything she built could be crumbling down around her. She realized there was evidence that she had killed Captain Aizen, as she had no alibi and had a blade. Now, apparently, she had a motive to do it. If the investigation squad put all these things together, they'd have plenty of reasons to throw her in jail, and she hadn't done anything to deserve that.
All of a sudden, she could feel the sensation she thought the ancient House of France had probably felt before their end—a slow realization that a giant blade is going to take your head off at any moment.
Oh, that meant something interesting, though. Whoever had killed Aizenhad most likely known about her worries of anti-communism had gone out of their way to stage the scene so it would appear that Tanya had been the one responsible. Who would know all she wanted to show in front of her? She guessed the present lieutenant and her captain. Who would he talk to about it? Wasn't Gin a former employee of the captain? He was, after all, the former lieutenant of the Fifth. Perhaps he would have an idea of who would be responsible, or perhaps he was the one responsible. She needed to track him down and ask him a few questions before, well, before she ended up locked in a cell, being prepared to have her life snuffed out by a giant flaming firebird.
But first things first. Letting out a breath, she said, "Well, thank you for informing me about this situation. I was unaware of how big of a threat to my life was happening right now." Taking a defensive stance, she said, "If you really want to kill me because you believe I killed your captain, then think again. I did not do it, and I will prove it by not killing you."
"That doesn't prove anything!" she yelled, pointing her blade at Tanya in an overdramatic way.
"Perhaps not to you, but it proves something to me. If you look at my record, I've never killed a single individual in this world. Only the hollows have something to fear from me. And if you will not listen to that simple logic, well, I'll just have to carve that logic into your back so you remember it."
"Shut up, you psychotic murderer," the lieutenant called before raising her blade above her head and forming another spherical energy of plasma—a rather large one, Tanya noted—as she started to generate a shield around herself, preparing to counter the weapon.
"Die already!" she screamed before launching the flaming attack directly at Tanya's shield. The shield held, though she noted with some worry that it did flicker once or twice. The amount of hate must have led to some extreme power, because that thing was stressing the shield's defenses to the bare limit.
But after that moment, the shield held, and the flames fell away, leaving Tanya still standing.
"Well then, my turn," she said, summoning two kido at either end of her blade before pointing it at the lieutenant.
Pushing the block out of the way, Ichigo pulled himself up out of the sewers and looked left and right, confirming that they were alone. Then, looking up at the tower, he raised an eyebrow. Apparently, while they were gone, someone had attacked. One of the towers on the central citadel was smoking, showing signs of fire damage.
"Hey, come on, move it," Shiba said, encouraging him to step out of the way. This allowed Ichigo, Tatsuki, and Yamada to stumble out of the hole as well. Everyone was in better shape than they had been the day before. They'd need it if they wanted to get to Rukia today.
Looking up at the citadel, he said, "Alright, well, it looks like we're not going to have a better chance to make a move on the place." He took a step forward, but Shiba grabbed his shoulder.
"Shouldn't we wait for the others?" Shiba suggested. "They might be breaking through to this position now. Not to mention, shouldn't we be worried about them? They've been separated for a while. Glasses kid and the orange-haired girl are not exactly top-tier fighters from what I saw."
"We'll be fine," Ichigo replied. "They've got good heads on their shoulders, and they'll avoid combat wherever they are. We'll probably catch up to them as we're leaving, if we're fast enough."
"But what about your big friend and the reincarnate?"
Ichigo paused before saying, "They're definitely fine. I've been feeling their energy since we first landed on this place. They've been moving closer to here at a rather good pace. They'll probably be here within an hour, I think. With any luck, they'll follow us up the tower."
"Well, that just leaves the cat," Shiba said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what appeared to be a walkie-talkie. He clicked it a couple of times before saying, "Hey, brother-in-law, you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here, not too far away from the Central district. Had to pull back after this morning's little firework show."
"Ah, thought that might be you," Shiba said, looking at the structure. "Think you went a little bit too overboard though."
"I think I did just enough to do what was needed. People are out searching the districts away from Central. They would have probably been guarding it, I think. Assuming you guys are about where I think you are, you probably are inside where they're searching. So you should be able to have a clear run up the tower."
"All right, what are you going to do? Are you going to try and join us, or what's your plan?"
"Kukaku told me to stay low, so I'm going to stay low. I'm trying to get in contact with a few comrades inside the wall to get us a way out, if possible. You guys worry about the assault; I'll worry about the exit. Sound like a plan?"
Ichigo nodded, realizing that it could work. "Sounds like a plan," he said as Shiba held the mic in their direction.
"Excellent. You boys look out after each other. I'll try and get the others grouped up with me, see if we can't prepare a good passageway out. Good luck."
"Thank you," Ichigo said as the radio closed. Turning to Shiba, he said, "Alright, well, we know he's okay. I'd bet Yoruichi's okay, so the only thing left to do is to ascend the stairs and make it to Rukia. Everyone ready to do this?"
"Yeah, I'm ready," Yamada said with a tone that suggested he was completely drained of energy.
Everyone raised an eyebrow at him before shrugging their shoulders and turning towards the stairs. "Let's go," Ichigo said, charging up the stairs, followed by Shiba, Tatsuki, and Yamada. As they made their way up the stairs, Ichigo slowly pulled ahead of the group. He was definitely glad that Yamada had been willing to help him after the fight with Renji yesterday. He wouldn't be anywhere near as good of shape if not. The better their shape of themselves, the better the shape of their chances of getting out of here.
Topping the stairs, he took a moment to catch his breath, making sure everyone had arrived. Looking left and right, it seemed they had a clear path to the next set of stairs. Wherever they were, this area of the citadel was a bit weird, making no real sense. It was like there were support structures but no buildings, large walls everywhere but no doors into anything. What was the point of this, he thought? Some sort of labyrinth to confuse people? Turning to Yamada, he asked, "What's the deal? Why is this a maze?"
"Make it harder for people to find their way through in case of an invasion," Yamada replied. "It's never really been used, and I don't think there's been an invasion in the time it's been built. But it exists, and well, we all have to deal with it. Don't worry; I know how to get to the tower from here. Just follow me."
Yamada was off running, and well, after sharing a shrug with the others, Ichigo ran after him, trying to keep close so they didn't lose contact and fall behind.
They made it about 30 feet into the square before a sensation of death washed over them. Massive spiritual pressure was bearing down on everyone, causing some to stumble. Everyone stopped for a second to recover.
"What the hell is this?" Tatsuki said, putting her hand to her forehead. "Why is my sweat running upwards?"
"There's someone with massive spiritual energy around here," Yamada said. "And I don't think they're happy," he added, wiping the sweat from his eyes.
"We can't stay here, then," Ichigo said, cracking his neck. "Doesn't matter that we've got spiritual pressure bearing down on us; we've gotta get up and out of here and into the tower. Hopefully, we'll lose the captain before he finds us."
"Hopefully," Shiba said, following after him, as each of them took off running down the passageway, trying to get ahead of whatever was trying to suffocate them in the spiritual pressure. They kept moving for a good 20 minutes, and it felt like the place just kept getting larger and longer, as if something was stretching time out to prevent them from reaching their destination. Although maybe it's just the spiritual pressure changing their perspective of time. How the hell does this stuff work?
Either way, they were making a corner turn when Ichigo felt something staring him down, as if something was right behind him, as if there was a Grim Reaper about to strike. Out of concern, he stopped and turned, noting somthing falling down the back of the column, and he saw for a moment someone sitting on a nearby wall, looking down at them.
He reached out to grab his blade from his back and then felt as if there was a damn sword going through his chest as he lost contact with the individual on the wall, who simply vanished before his very eyes.
"What did you do?" Ichigo gasped, feeling a voice behind him, giving him a moment of fear that he really had been stabbed through the chest. As he looked down, he realized there was no blade there, and he wasn't bleeding. Carefully, slowly, he turned, seeing that in between him and the other three now stood a tall giant of a man with spiky hair and little bells in his hair.
"I've been waiting for this moment for a good long time, ever since Tanya told me about your little heritage. A chance to fight a reaper of your potential is quite interesting, not to mention one of the few people who never gave me a good fight. This Tanya, and she thinks you're a good fight. Well, I do need to have a piece of that action."
Yamada, who was down on the ground, in fact, everyone who was closer to the individual, was down on the ground, pulled himself together and yelled, "Ichigo, run! That's Captain Kenpachi of the Eleventh! He's a killer!"
"Correct, reaper of the Fourth," Kenpachi said, looking around. "Running around with invaders, how did you manage that, kid?" Kenpachi turned and looked directly at Ichigo.
"A lot of people want to help Rukia ," Ichigo said, trying to center himself as he kept the blade between him and the captain.
"Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Too bad you're messing it up. According to Tanya, wasn't it supposed to be she would do this by the court if necessary? But the whole battle thing was supposed to be a last resort, definitely not an invasion of the Soul Society."
"My options were limited, and I did what was necessary. How do you know Tanya, anyways? I thought she was a member of the Tenth Division."
"Yeah, she is a member of the Tenth Division, but she used to be a member of the Eleventh though, one of the few people to give me a good fight. But when she left, I quite enjoyed our fight. Very few people are able to manage to draw blood. I wonder if you'll be one of them."
"Listen, I don't want to fight you. I need to save Rukia. Can't we, if you're that interested in a fight, come to some sort of, I don't know, deal? I'll fight you after we save Rukia."
Kenpachi laughed before saying, "You know, if I didn't have orders from the higher-ups to stop you, I might be willing to do that. Actually, if they had not gone out of their way to give me an order to prevent you from reaching the tower, I would have possibly even arranged it so that you would fight me at the gates, beat me there, and you could walk right out. But I have orders from higher-ups to stop you, which is very rare, and Tanya's made a deal with me. As long as you don't do anything stupid, I'll let you live at the end of this fight, assuming you don't, you know, impale yourself out of fear. Your knees look a little bit wobbly, though I will admit your stance ain't half bad for a new combat reaper. You could probably go far within the Eleventh. Too bad it has to be the way it is."
Kenpachi shook his head and stepped closer to Ichigo. That step seemed to have some effect on the other three, as they got up, with Tatsuki drawing her blade.
"Now, now," he said, turning to look at her, "this is a one-on-one fight, girly. I might enjoy an out-and-out brawl every now and again, but if this is not a one-on-one fight, I can't guarantee the survival of Ichigo here, now can I?"
Tatsuki nodded, and Ichigo nodded as well, before saying, "You guys go on ahead without me."
"What?" Tatsuki said.
"He's interested in stopping me, not you. That means if you can move fast, you can free Rukia and get her out of here. We can worry about maybe rescuing me at the end of this. Later. He's already guaranteed my life, and there's no reason to draw you into his fight that could end up with your deaths. For all he's guaranteed my life, he doesn't say he's guaranteed the lives of everyone else."
"Yeah, you're sharp, aren't you? Now, to be fair, I did say I'd be easier on all of your little friends. The only one I think would not fall under that category is the one-eyed giant." Kenpachi turned and looked at Yamada. "Remember, he's not on the list, I would think, so his life is not protected by the contract that Tanya made. No, as I said, in a combat, a full-out brawl, none of your lives are really protected for sure. I'm not going to play games when there's four on one. It might be fun, but I have a job to do."
Ichigo looked past Kenpachi and looked to Tatsuki, saying, "Go."
Tatsuki nodded and grabbed Shiba and Yamada, charging off towards hopefully the stairs. With how crowded the path was and how many labyrinthine turns it had, she might end up going in circles if things didn't go the way he hoped.
Taking a breath, Ichigo focused now on Kenpachi. "Alright, Kenpachi, you want to fight? Let's fight."
"Kenny, you meanie," came a little voice as a pink-haired girl popped up from behind Kenpachi. "Now you get to fight, and I don't. The girl ran away."
Kenpachi sighed as the pink-haired girl held onto his shoulder for dear life before dropping down to the ground and brushing herself off.
"You should have spoken up earlier; sure, you two could have had a great playdate if you had bothered."
"Awww, but I was expecting there to be a whole brawl and everything! Alright, I guess I'll just watch the two of you play."
Ichigo took a moment to blink before saying, "Oh, who is this? Is it really safe to bring her onto a battlefield?"
Kenpachi turned to him and said, "Hah, oh, don't worry about that. This is Yachiru, the lieutenant of the Eleventh Division."
Ichigo's expression changed as he realized that whoever this pink-haired girl was, she was probably more powerful than Madarame. Yeah, the odds were not stacked in his favor, even if there had been a four-on-two brawl. The third seat had barely been defeated by Tatsuki and him working together. He didn't like the idea of fighting two individuals stronger than the third seat one bit.
Taking a breath, he readied to stand. "Alright then, let's fight."
Writers note: This is one of those chapters I have concerns about because we're going over territory that's kind of covered in the anime. I'm trying to bring in as many changes as possible but you know some things are just canon events. Hopefully I can avoid too many and just go my own way at some point.
Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Edited by: Coltsguy
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Review
danj0929 good to hear
Spica75 : yeah
Sammy12346 : thank you
DarkPacifist: yeah i made some intreseting choses for this one