Chapter Text
Everything around Renji smells like old tap water, vaguely putrid on the edge, pretty sure the Fourth Division should not smell like this, otherwise Captain Unohana will throw a fit. His eyes are still heavy but he forces himself to open them because he was curious about his surrounding. He saw a shadowy figure of Ichigo Kurosaki crouching, on her hand is a clear bag of unfamiliar substances filled with colorful grain in the shape of a ring, and she spoons them into her mouth, letting loud crunches every time she chews.
Is this a dream? A nightmare?
He saw her practically beaming at him.
"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty! It's a good thing that Soul Reapers are durable folks, if not you might have to spend a whole week in a hospital," Ichigo zipped close her plastic bag, "Hanatarou! Renji's awake! Bring the congee for him!"
"... What...are you doing?" Renji's voice is weak and croaking, "Why are you saving me?"
"I'm an intruder, not a murderer," Ichigo received the bowl of warm congee handed by Hanatarou and offers it to Renji. Floating on the congee are two eggs, cooked in two sunny sides up style, and a piece of bacon. The lining of it looked like a smiling face with a pair of bright yellow eyes, "Look, it's happy to see you! I hope you don't mind that we stole the rice from a nearby office building."
"You don't get it, do you? I threw my badge so I can fight you-"
Renji gets up to retaliate only to be shoved in the mouth by multiple spoonfuls of food by Ichigo.
"No time to talk. You must regain your strength to be able to save Rukia. Here have some more."
Ichigo taps Renji's acupuncture points that make his jaw permanently hang and shoves the rest of the food into his mouth. She retaps the same points so Renji can close his mouth, he tried his best to swallow all the force feeeded food.
Naturally, Renji coughed as he felt some of the food get lodged in the wrong pipe. Hanatarou swiftly takes back the empty bowl and hands Ichigo a glass of water, which she gave to Renji. He drank it with the utmost relief.
Are they trying to kill me?!
"Don't worry it's not sewer water, we stole it too. Hanatarou put some painkiller in it," Ichigo helpfully added.
"What the Hell, you Madwoman!" Renji barked back.
"Me? Madwoman? Trust me, this is still in my sanest moment, my dear new friend, " Ichigo hooked her arm around Renji's shoulder, she whispers to his ear, "So tell me about Rukia, what is she to you? A friend? A lover?"
"Yes!" Renji clamps his mouth in reflex, "I mean no! We're old friends!"
"Just old friends or old friends 'friends'?"
"What the Fuck is that supposed to mean?!"
"Oh, you know."
Ichigo made an ambiguous gesture with her hand
In Renji's eyes, the gesture does not look like it means anything at all!
How did Rukia manage to befriend this weird human?!
He's fun to tease. Ichigo nudged a wide smile. She then felt multiple familiars' spiritual signatures from above. Looked like the leaves she chanted with tracking and direction are working well, probably a bit confused about why they cannot go to the ground.
She leaves Renji alone with his existential crisis and went up to greet her friends.
Ichigo opened the tile, surprising her friends because she suddenly popped out of nowhere.
"Hi everyone! Glad you all made it ba- Oh wow, you guys look like shit."
Quite an understatement of the battered appearance her friends possessed.
Renji cannot help but think about his recent fight. Is she the same Ichigo Kurosaki that his captain easily brought down? Her swordsmanship almost had no opening. At the same time, she was using fire and lightning Kidō without chanting. He remembered she can conjure ice out of thin air, shaping them into swords, back in the Human World before Captain Kuchiki decided to release Senbonzakura.
They thought she was using Rukia's Zanpakutou abilities, however when Rukia was interrogated, apparently that was not Sode no Shirayuki being released. Before turning Ichigo Kurosaki into a Soul Reaper, Rukia already had seen the human's doing ice Kidō.
So it was true that Ichigo was hiding her true capabilities as someone told her to hold back when facing him and Captain Kuchiki.
It was not about her getting stronger in a short time.
She was always strong.
Though Renji never heard of ice Kidō in his entire lifetime. Maybe it is because of his lack of knowledge of it but he is sure the fire and lightning Kidō looked different than the one Soul Reapers' studied at Shin'ō Academy.
How old is she anyway? To have such skill in swordsmanship and Kidō must have been a lifetime of training.
That sent him into a reflective state.
Can he even save Rukia with his current skill? When Rukia was adopted by the Kuchiki clan, they started drifting away, and he thought that is fine; she found herself a family. That is why he trains himself every day, to have Rukia at his side again. Yet, not even once did he ever win against Captain Kuchiki. That man is way too strong. Is he that powerless? He sees the reflection of his bandaged face on the glass of water he holds and sees an image of a pathetic man.
"PINEAPPLE HEAD!" Ichigo suddenly appeared, making Renji lose the grip of the glass, the splashed water wetting his hakama, "Come meet my comrades in this invasion!"
"You..." Renji's vein is ready to pop.
"Guys, meet the Soul Reaper I kidnapped, Renji Abarai. You might cross him that day if I didn't tell Urahara-san to pull you away Ishida."
"Kurosaki, why are you holding a hostage?" Uryuu shakes his head in exasperation.
"I don't know, it just kinda happens!" Ichigo had the gall to look cheery.
The Karakura gang are gathering in a circle, using the fire that Ganju used to cook porridge as a campfire, they have a lot of things to catch up on. Ichigo got to listen to their stories; Uryuu and Chad fought this lieutenant from the Seventh Division, Tetsuzaemon Iba, and according to Chad, the man was reminiscent of a Yakuza. Uryuu deemed the man to be weird, saying that he became a lieutenant to please his mother, not out of ambition. Why the lieutenant suddenly gets personal in the middle of a fight is something they never understand.
Ichigo actually kind of understands that. She went through that with all of the Crypters. When the fight starts to hit close to home...
"Anyway, because of that fight, Sado-kun arm was broken. It's not completely healed despite Inoue-san efforts," Uryuu was the one who provides Chad with a sling for his arm. Leave it to the son of a doctor to know how to do it.
"Hmm, quite a story... You look sad Ishida?" Ichigo commented.
"What? What do you mean I look sad?" Uryuu was almost startled by the odd question.
"Why do you think you look sad?"
"I'm not sure... I understand."
"Oh," Ichigo took a sip of water, giving him a calculative gaze, "Do you?"
Everything suddenly fell into an awkward silence.
Uryuu was going to ask again before Ichigo cut him off by turning to her attention Tatsuki and Orihime.
"What about you two then, Tatsuki, Orihime, who you had been fighting with?"
Whoever the two girls had been fighting, giving them extreme burnout. The skill discrepancy is too high between them and their opponent. Must be another high-ranking Soul Reaper officer.
"His name is Shuuhei Hisagi, lieutenant of the ninth division. We didn't win..." Tatsuki looked very disappointed, "His weapon is a two-pair of scythes and if Orihime didn't bury him with those piles of debris, there's no way we can't escape."
Ichigo perked at that, "Pile of debris?"
"I used Tsubaki to cut the building near him," Orihime recounted what she did.
"That's great Orihime, though that's the first you did something that powerful right? Remember you can attack, heal and protect. You choose to concentrate most of your spiritual energy on the attack. That's why you can't fully heal Chad, not enough energy."
Despite the criticism, there is also praise in Ichigo's words, and Orihime evidently blushed because of it.
"Now that I think about it, Orihime was a bit overkill. It's like destroying the whole neighborhood," Tatsuki added.
Well, that explains why Ichigo felt a lot of fluctuating spiritual energies yesterday, the whole Seireitei probably felt it too. It seems Chad and Orihime did their 'ultimate attack', making them unsafe to be involved in a fight tomorrow. Uryuu and Tatsuki are mostly okay, physically. She just hopes tomorrow there were not a lot of fights involved.
"Does any of these lieutenants use Kidō? Chanting spells and fires beam at you?"
"A bit, though he mostly attacks us with his sword," Chad supplied.
Meaning the lieutenant he fought with Uryuu prided his swordsmanship more. They win because Uryuu covers him as a ranged attacker.
"Mine did that a lot, I think the reason why we got overwhelmed was that we got the smart one," Tatsuki is disgruntled and crosses her arm.
If Ichigo cannot control her expression, she would have thrown her childhood friend quizzically. Tatsuki did you hear yourself? The man you fought might be several hundred years older than you. Smart one? More like more experienced.
"But didn't he say something about not liking his Zanpakutou form? Because the shape is to 'reap life itself' he said, but he’s a Soul Reaper and trying to kill us, how was that not an attempt of reaping life?"
It seems Orihime remembered Lieutenant Hisagi's monologue.
By the way, another thing people do when the fight starts to hit close to home; Monologuing.
"Because he got issues Orihime, let him be," Ichigo took a sip of her water again. Instead of just Uryuu, she now gives all of her friends a calculative gaze, "You guys look tense, what's wrong?"
"Tense? We're not tense," Tatsuki answered, looking confused, "Ichigo, what's wrong with you? Why are you being weird?"
To their surprise, Ichigo snorted out loud. The noise is nearly hog-like.
"That's right, I am weird," Her gaze shifted slowly to Uryuu. Once she met his eyes, it is particularly a dead gaze, "But nothing is wrong with me."
The Soul Society's natives did not join in the Karakura Gang's conversation because of their lack of familiarity with them. No one knows where Yoruichi disappeared, Hanatarou is busy changing Renji's bandages, and Ganju is a bit aimless at the moment. The latter sat not too far away from the Renji.
"You're from the Shiba clan are you?" Renji decided to indulge when Hanatarou had finally done.
Ganju is surprised that the injured Soul Reaper decides to start a conversation with him.
"I am."
"Any relation to Kaien Shiba?"
"... He was my older brother."
They were silent for quite a while, hearing the human teenagers laugh (that sounded nervous for some unknown reason) winning over them.
Both of them faintly heard Ichigo finally gets to the part where she was fighting Renji; the said man in the tale faintly hears Ichigo say 'he was like, remember me? It was so dumb!' and wisely ignores the rest of the chatters.
"I heard Lieutenant Shiba was an idol among his men. I'm sorry for your loss."
When the Kuchiki Clan let her graduate early, it was hard for her to fit into the Thirteenth Division because of the blatant nepotism. Of course, Rukia did not mean it and it is not like she can do anything about it either. Renji suspected it was not about nepotism because logically, it does not put the Kuchiki Clan in a good light as Rukia, despite being adopted, is still not an actual Kuchiki by blood.
Do they want Rukia to graduate early since it looked bad for them for a family member not to graduate normally? Because she was not in the advanced class like him, Kira, and Hinamori? That she might have to repeat classes?
Kaien Shiba was Rukia's mentor, he personally took her under his wing and helped her at achieving her Shikai. Ever since then she had never been happier. That one time Renji saw Rukia from afar, looking happy in her workplace, he thought maybe he can be a bit at ease, knowing that she was okay.
Only to be replaced with misery in the next summer with the news of Lieutenant Shiba’s death.
"I came here...because I wanted to know why he loved being a Soul Reaper, even though he was killed by one," Ganju did a dental click.
Renji breathed in, barring himself from lashing at Ganju. Sure his brother's death is unfair but that was not the point. As stated in the law, it is forbidden for a Soul Reaper to acquire or attempt to gain Hollow-like powers. When Rukia killed Lieutenant Shiba, it was unclear whether it was out of sense of duty or, as the rumor mill said, that it was an accident.
The Gotei 13 cannot directly meddle with the affairs of the Five Great Noble Families, they only provide an investigation. The Kuchiki Clan and the Shiba Clan agreed to settle it peacefully; the fuse died down very quickly.
The incident was also classified information, the Thirteenth Division was not allowed to share the details with others.
Then not long after, the Shiba clan lost its status as the Great Noble. Central 46's decision to dismiss the Shiba Clan was also not in the know and nobody dares to question it. Weirdly enough, the Shiba Clan did not put on a fight against the decision. People just assume the clan must have done some great mistake, burying the assumption of Hollow involvement.
Renji can see the connection but since he is not allowed to dig the additional info, resulting him unable to see the actual justice behind it.
"The one who killed Lieutenant Shiba...did they give you their name?"
"I'm not allowed to know. I only remember her cold eyes when she brings my brother's body to the clan compound."
Intertwined into noble politics are sucks. Renji is amazed that Rukia survives it till now.
“And then his blood rained down on my face! It was a bitch to wash!” Ichigo exclaimed.
Renji really wanted to kill this one human.
"The Ryoka kidnapped Abarai-kun?!" Momo Hinamori, lieutenant of the Fifth Division, gasped in horror.
"If I get there a little bit earlier, I could have assisted him in the battle..." Kira said regretfully. The look of emptiness when the Ryoka turns at him, her face washed in the blood, not sure if it is her or Renji's. The lieutenant of the third division almost shivers to remember it.
"Do you see the faces of the criminal?"
"It wasn't that clear, her face was covered in blood. Her hair is very distinct, almost like the shade of a...carrot," Kira was not trying to be funny but he cannot help it, it was the first thing that came up to his mind when seeing the Ryoka's hair.
An amused chuckle resounds in the pair of lieutenants' ears. It is the captain of the Third Division, Gin Ichimaru.
"Carrot huh? Izuru, ya' sure don't describe someone like that every day."
"I- I don't mean it that way," Kira instantly became sheepish.
"Now, now, it's fine. It's good to indulge in humor in this time of crisis. Speaking of crisis there's a lot of things we need to do," Gin prepared himself to saunter away.
"Wait! What about Lieutenant Abarai, shouldn't we search for him?" Hinamori interjected.
"No need," Said Byakuya Kuchiki, the captain of the Sixth Division, Renji's superior, "He was fighting alone, there's no reason that he should have lost."
"Sheesh, Captain Kuchiki no need to be so harsh to your subordinate, even though he's not here," Gin tries to reason with his fellow captain.
"Former subordinate."
And Byakuya went on his way to the captain's meeting.
Kira sees Hinamori is going to shout at Byakuya, he stops her by firmly placing his hand on her shoulder, silently telling her not to pursue it. The situation is already beyond their control, no need to add more fuel to the fire. With a heavy heart, he leaves Hinamori, trailing behind Gin.
"Hinamori."
"Yikes! What is with captains always appearing without making a sound?! Oh, it's you Shiro-chan." Hinamori recognized her childhood friend.
"Don't call me that! I'm a captain now!" Toshirou Hitsugaya was recently made captain of the Tenth Division. The youngest Soul Reaper in history for achieving such a feat, "I'm here to give you some advice, watch out for the Third Division."
"What do you mean? Is something wrong with Kira-kun?"
"I'm talking about Ichimaru, lookout out for Kira as well..."
There has been mistrust among the captains. The timing could not have been more perfect.
The Gotei 13 may soon begin an all-out war.
Ichigo did not sleep right away, instead, she is busy cutting those dead flies with her Swiss Army knife. Urahara forbids the gang to bring a backpack to avoid 'contaminating' Soul Society since most of the human stuff is an unknown concept in said dimension; aside from avoiding leaving evidence, it is also so the resident of Soul Society would not get any foreign ideas about humanity. It was not until they reach Kuukaku that they were given some survival necessities. Even so, Ichigo has a lot of baggage from the start as those are easily hidden in her baggy clothes; if Uryuu prioritized his costume change, Ichigo brought a multi-tool pocketknife; Orihime brought her weird snacks, Ichigo brought fruit loops. Not to mention, the 'magical' item she bought; the assorted gemstones fresh from the Earth especially, which is her ammunition.
"Ichigo what are you doing?" Yoruichi sees the butchered insects.
"What is looks like? Butchering insects. These flies are organic apparently. I thought they were some kind of robot since they were tactically watching me fighting. Someone manages to control these insects from afar despite being a living things. It does seem to be genetically engineered."
Yoruichi stilled. How did she get her hands on Aizen's camera flies?
"Ah, but you already know about that aren't you, Yoruichi-san?"
Of course, Yoruichi knew. It was created by the Twelfth Division to aid surveillance measures, recon, and spying. The flies are bred the same way as Hell Butterflies do.
"Ichigo listens to me, the reason I didn't say anything is that I need you to focus on saving Rukia."
"I am focused and good at multitasking. Don't underestimate me."
Chaldea changes her so much that Ichigo's mind is not crucially single-minded anymore. The running joke was 'fixing the world while doing taxes.
"No! Please, I'm begging you, don't add this to your worries... Kisuke and I dragging you into this place are already asking too much, you and your friends..."
When a cat can sound so desperate...
Ichigo stares at Yoruichi, then lifts her right arm where she never took off that long fingerless gloves. Undid it to reveal an intricate golden seal, Welsh alphabet, and Celtic runes circling the lines, segregated in between by what looks like to be an image of a sword.
Merlin specifically drew it after Caliburn. This is a key to opening Rukia's state of being, with that Yuki can return safely to her master.
"No? I guess we don't get anything to say since none of us has been honest with each other. You see this seal Youruichi-san, this is the reason why I'm saving Rukia, I took a part of her and I have to give it back. This is the proof of my promise to her and don't you dare to say that I'm not focused on saving her," Ichigo practically spats her words at the cat, "If this mission has a hidden layer behind it, I need to know."
Yoruichi gapes at the display of the seal. Never in her lifetime she ever seen anything like it. Just what kind of people did Ichigo know to be able to craft such a seal for her?
"Ichigo...what is that?"
"Rukia's Zanpakutou."
"WHAT?"
Oh, shit. Yoruichi brings her paw to his mouth. Some of the sleeping figures groaned and stirred but not enough to make them awake.
"What do you mean that's Rukia's Zanpakutou?!"
"It's the spirit, she cried when she can't come back to her master. There's a wall between her and Rukia."
"Wall?"
"The Great Wall of China."
Ichigo nearly cackled when Yoruichi growled, not that it is a funny growl. It is the fact that the growl is identical to a normal cat.
The 'wall' between Yuki and Rukia is almost sentient as if it refuses any entities to replace its seat inside the host. If Yuki and that wall are at the same level of power, there would have been a destructive battle between them in Rukia's soulscape. Another thing that supports even more of that semi-sentient's success was the fake body that Rukia uses. Merlin was unsure what it was made of since unlike a natural human body that was started as a simple clump of blood, 'foreign substances' were used in its creation.
The main reason why Mash can become a demi-servant was because of 'foreign substances' too, but unlike Rukia's fake body that was created by Urahara, Mash’s body is still human as a base. This is why during each journey of the Singularity her body was gradually deteriorating; human flesh is fragile, this is a fact.
"Orihime once spoke to me, this world is Rukia's home, if we did rescue her, we're taking her away from her friends and family, then I replied that's fine as long as she's alive, she can always have a chance to meet them again," Ichigo lightly scoffed, and wears back her glove, "What came from the mouth is easy. If there's something else aside from the execution then I want to know if that will hinder this mission or not."
"If you really want to know... How long do you plan to sleep tonight?" Yoruichi hung her head low. There's she said mission again...
"Five hours. I can press it to three."
"Five's enough. Come with me on a patrol tomorrow morning."
Ichigo sees Yoruichi disappear when she turned into a corner. That cat definitely knew the sewer route. As expected from a assassin of Soul Society.
Ichigo goes to Renji and leans down on his ear, "Do you hear that? We have patrol in five hours."
Renji shivered instinctively. She knew that I was eavesdropping?!
"Yes."
Fuck!
"Exactly."
By the time of the stakeout, the sun is barely up and Ichigo informed Yoruichi that they are bringing Renji along.
The cat openly fought facepalm, irritation as a whole; sighing in defeat.
God why is this girl is good at complicating stuff?
She gave them a black cape that was able to hide their Reiatsu, one of the many inventions that Urahara left behind.
"Alright, Crimson, why did you want to join us?"
"... I wanted to know who the real enemy is. For Rukia's sake, I will do anything to have her back."
Ichigo almost smirked. Easy there, lover boy.
Yoruichi hummed thoughtfully, "Here's some advice for you. Forget everything you know about your colleagues."
Renji is dumbfounded. What does that mean?
"When we were fighting someone is watching us with camera flies. When I said flies, it really is those bugs that are fond of garbage. Anyway, here are a lot of them in the air. While it sounds unassuming, I wondered myself; why would there be flies around us? There wasn't even trash near us. In conclusion, unless the Gotei has such surveillance technologies…" Ichigo helpfully supplied.
"I never heard about a fly being a surveillance camera," Then again Renji never knew what the R&D department came up with. Ichigo's right though, what is the need for those camera flies watching their fight?
"Someone is spying on you two." Yoruichi stated firmly, "Let's go, we don't have much time."
Renji is getting more confusion because the way they are going is to the Fifth Division.
When they finally get there, Yoruichi instructed them to hide in a tree that overlooked the barrack. He never sees the barrack from this view. It felt as if the cat knew how to pick a spot for spying on people.
They stay there long enough for the sun getting high until they see Lieutenant Hinamori running fast as she seemingly late for today's schedule.
Strange…
Renji thought that it is so unlike her to be late.
"Follow that girl."
Yoruichi already leaped away when Renji was going to ask why.
What Renji sees at the same time as Hinamori's anguish scream is unbelievable.
The body of Captain Sousuke Aizen was stabbed high on a wall, blood flowing down, painting the building.
"What? What is the meaning of this?" Renji choked on his breath.
"What do you mean?" Ichigo is clueless about what is going on.
"Don't you see the body on the wall?!" Renji stressed.
"Body? There's nothing on the wall. Ah, but there's a sword," Ichigo squinted her eyes, "Why would someone nail their sword up there?"
Renji looked at Ichigo like she was crazy.
It is madness, Hinamori pulled her sword toward Captain Ichimaru who just arrived, and Kira intercepts her. They are having a shouting match that Renji could not quite hear since it is quite far from his position.
Then they released their Shikai!
Holy shit! What the fuck is going on?!
"I too see the body of Sousuke Aizen there," Yoruichi said. Indifferent to the sight in front of her, "The reason why Ichigo didn't see anything was that she never saw the Shikai of Kyouka Suigetsu. Renji, tell me what did Aizen tell the Gotei about his Zanpakutou?"
"That Kyouka Suigetsu is a water type Zanpakutou. It can confuse enemies by using the reflections of mist, causing them to fight among themselves, Captain Aizen said so," Renji winced when he hears a blast sent by Hinamori's Zanpakutou.
The fight ends when Captain Hitsugaya appears, preventing the situation to get even more escalated.
"That's not Kyouka Suigetsu's ability. Its real ability is hypnosis. He showed it very willingly in front of all of you." Like what he did a long time ago... "The flies were from the Twelfth Division since Aizen is a captain it was easy for him to get it" ... And duplicate it. Aizen is quite of a scientist too.
"But why would Captain Aizen do this?! To Hinamori especially!” Renji flared his emotion, “He was the reason why she joins the Fifth Division! This is a bunch of bullshit-“
He then suddenly remembered the cat’s words to him.
Forget everything you know of your colleague.
No, this had to be a lie, it has to be!
Yoruichi is going to snap at Renji, only for Ichigo to beat him into it. Except the girl's expression is serene and holds no emotion.
"That was his intention, Renji. This was all his plan," Ichigo cannot help but lament, "Causing them to fight among themselves may not be Zanpakutou ability but it's sure is one of his skill."
Rukia's execution, camera flies, and today's incident. All of it is a part of this Aizen's guy plot.
Ichigo felt like a certain detective, smoking out of his tobacco with, whispered beside her right now.
Living is a means to encounter mysteries that are beyond our wildest imagination. Now, shall we investigate?
She bemusedly smirked as she crossed her arms and leaned on the tree-wide bark she was perching at. Whatever you say, Sherlock Holmes, whatever you say.