Chapter Text
Peace quickly enveloped as Minazuki launched into the air, rapidly leaving behind the crash and thunders of battling reiatsu on Soukyoku Hill. As they soared over the collapsed towers of the Senkaikyuu from where alien reiryoku still emanated, Retsu held onto Isane until they reached an even altitude, then ensured her fukutaichou was resting comfortably before settling into seiza for the smooth flight. Beneath her, the hide of Minazuki was warm and coarse, a reassuring solidity that centred her and focused her thoughts.
She kept her placid composure as she mastered the pounding worries threatening to overwhelm her. The unnamed anxiety plaguing her for days had escalated with the breathtaking destruction of the Soukyoku. Something was seriously, irrevocably wrong. She had known Jyuushirou-kun far too well for far too long. He possessed not a single reishi of impulsiveness or rashness despite his unshakeable and oft passionate sense of justice and honour. Kyouraku was preternaturally gifted at seeing to the heart of the truth, and had an opportunistic streak to lay in wait observing until he could unerringly strike at the best moment, and he used both his talents to extreme proficiency to uphold the truth. Jyuushirou-kun might have been driven by a personal sense of responsibility towards Kuchiki-san, but she would be very surprised indeed if he had also not thoroughly weighed the grave consequences prior to acting. Yet he had followed through with his fatal decision nonetheless, with Kyouraku unflinchingly right beside him. There was a rot in the heart of this chaos, and she could no longer stand by and watch. She would uncover the truth.
Yamamoto-sama would not pardon this treason. This was an act of stark rebellion by the two most respected and revered taichou of the Gotei Thirteen against the very government they had built and upheld through millennia, a clear challenge to the wisdom and authority of the ultimate governing body of Soul Society by two commanders who represented the legend and institution of Yamamoto-sama himself. The actions of the ryoka threatened the very balance and governance of Soul Society. Whether intentionally or not, the crime justified seditious whispers that their leadership had fallen into arrogance and complacency. Of the four of them, it was Jyuushirou-kun whom Yamamoto-sama depended on the most during the era of establishing this very government they all now served under. If Kyouraku was the extension of Soutaichou-sama’s power and will, Jyuushirou-kun was the extension of his mind and his heart. Jyuushirou-kun knew more deeply than Kyouraku and herself how critical it was to uphold the stature and reputation of the joint government of Gotei Thirteen and the Central Forty-Six Chamber. He knew far better than them the severe implications of impugning this standing. Yet, he had proceeded to seal his fate at fatal cost to himself. And Kyouraku, for all his flamboyance, who shared the same code of honour and justice as Yamamoto-sama, had aligned himself with his soul brother.
It would matter none that the Shihouin Clan had sided with their position by lending the use of their greatest artefact. On the contrary, such a stance by one of Yondai Kizoku only ensured that Yamamoto-sama would believe Soul Society was in danger of sliding back into the bloody chaotic dark ages they had sacrificed so much to end. She had followed his leadership for five millennia and she knew, with unshakeable and dread certainty in her very reishi, that he would be uncompromising in upholding the edict of the Central Forty-Six. The position of a soutaichou was extremely weighty; in every decision, the stakes were always too high to have any luxury for clemency, compassion or personal considerations. Even if the perpetrator was the one whom all knew was his most favoured, the only soul in his ten thousand years of existence who had penetrated the war and strife hardened shell around his heart, it would hurt him to immeasurable depths but Yamamoto-sama would, in the end, uphold the laws he had created.
Herein lay the cause of her mute horror.
Something had nagged at her from the first announcement of Kuchiki-san’s death sentence. Her doubt heightened into unease during her examination of Aizen’s body even though she had found nothing out of the ordinary. Her unease rose into silent alarm when Hitsugaya Taichou brought a catatonic Hinamori-san to her and explained his suspicions, and how his investigations pointed towards Ichimaru Taichou. Though Hitsugaya Taichou’s unsanctioned investigation had been spurred more by personal reasons, she had lived through too much strife and recovery and understood that every justification, no matter how objective, was invariably personal in one way or another. Her silent alarm climbed into an unnamed anxiety when Zaraki broke out of enforced bedrest with his Third and Fifth Seats, broke into the brigs, freed the friends of the ryoka, and fought Komamura and Tousen Taichou to allow the ryoka’s friends to escape. While it was entirely characteristic of Zaraki to pursue his ceaseless desire to ensure a worthy opponent would live to fight him another day, even he with almost zero reiatsu sensing ability could feel the true intent of a person, much less one as reportedly obvious as the ryoka, and he would not have gone against the edict if he had been dealing with someone truly evil.
Since committing her loyalty to Yamamoto-sama millennia ago, Retsu rarely found the necessity to actively disagree with the soutaichou. Yet these past days she had clearly not been alone in her misgivings. The last time she had seen such dissension within the taichou ranks of the Gotei Thirteen had been two thousand years ago, when Yamamoto-sama rode through the gates of the early shiro of the Gotei Thirteen with a near death thirteen-year-old Jyuushirou-kun in his guardianship.
Abject fear rose as she imagined the severe punishment awaiting the one her commander had taken such great pains to raise and nurture. Viciously she quelled the useless emotion before it rendered her incapable of action or thought, and ruthlessly rejected her mind’s conjuring. She knew Jyuushirou-kun’s abilities, had fought alongside he and Kyouraku and healed the pair enough times over the last two millennia through all manner of injuries and illnesses. They would be able to counter the certain and severe wrath of Yamamoto-sama for a while. She also understood Yamamoto-sama perhaps more deeply than the soutaichou was aware and would gamble on Minazuki that regardless of his resolve, he would find a way to hold back a little and delay their executions.
She would have a fair window of opportunity to act.
Hitsugaya Taichou had shared his suspicions of internal treachery and his frustration at the lack of proof. She would aid his investigations and find that proof.
A soft moan from beside her interrupted her thoughts. Isane was shifting slightly in pain. Retsu instinctively laid a hand on her ribcage and sent a tendril of kaidou to gently ease the discomfort and speed up the healing. The ryoka had been surprisingly gentle with Isane but nevertheless had still broken one rib. For what Retsu needed to do next, she would need Isane to regain full function.
So, you wish to learn to heal in order to fight longer, ne? the bemused comment of Tenjirou-sensei suddenly echoed in her mind, as if speaking across time and distance.
Retsu silently smiled at the unexpected spectre. That has not changed, sensei. But now I fight with more than a sword, and for more than myself, she wordlessly informed the memory.
# # # # # #
Several heartbeats after her Third Seat Iemura-san led away the last pallets of the injured, Sentaro-kun and Kiyone-kun, Retsu turned to leave but was halted in her steps when a fiery singeing reiatsu burned the edges of her senses. Almost in synchronisation with that inferno reiryoku she knew so well, she felt the electrified pressures of a raging sea storm and the dark pummelling shadowy forces of a quaking earth. The three reiatsu clashed in an explosion that rent the very air over Seireitei with shivers as the ground beneath their feet shook, even though the forces were extremely far away.
“What is that?” Isane breathed, her grey eyes wide with shock.
“It is very distant,” Retsu replied absently, not wishing to divulge the masters of those battling reiatsu.
Unlike the younger generation who tended to be eager for the fight, those three particular shikai had not been unleashed for centuries. Most shinigami today would not know them.
And they were very distant indeed, far beyond the furthest reaches of East Rukongai.
Even more further out than the District Eighty.
Hold on, Jyuushirou-kun.
“Come with me, Isane. There is place I wish to go.”
“Where, Taichou?” asked Isane.
“To see the Central Forty-Six.” At Isane’s puzzled expression, Retsu added, “Not to make any appeal. I merely wish to observe its current state.”
Isane read her quickly. “Does Taichou suspect something?”
She decided to reveal some of her worries to her trusted adjutant. “Perhaps. But I wish to be proven wrong. We shall have to see what we find.”
The Soukyoku Hill lay between the Fourth Division and the Central Forty-Six Compound, and in order to avoid the massive battles still raging on the plateau, she took the longer way around, passing over the rooftops of the Ninth Division and then over the treetops of the bramble forest at the eastern base of the rocky hill. Upon emerging from shunpo before the outermost gates of the Central Forty-Six Compound, Retsu saw its gates standing ajar with no sign of guards. Alarm growing, she quickly strode through and entered the inner courtyard. It too was also unusually deserted, but what stood at the opposite end of the courtyard sent sharp apprehension spiking through her veins.
There was a jagged hole right in the middle of the large vermillion entrance doors to the Underground Assembly Hall. The force which created that hole had smashed through the security bars as well.
Hesitating no longer, Retsu flash stepped across the courtyard, trusting Isane to keep up, and passed through the tall vermillion panels. It opened onto the bridge over the security moat surrounding the circular hall building, and while the bridge was undamaged, again no guards could be seen. Retsu paused to allow her reiryoku to sense for lingering reiatsu signatures.
There were a few. Hitsugaya Taichou. Matsumoto-san. Kira Fukutaichou. Hinamori Fukutaichou. And, her eyes narrowed, Ichimaru Gin. She stilled in shock when she also detected the reiatsu signature of Kaname Tousen Taichou. And…
She gasped involuntarily. Aizen Sousuke.
In that instant, everything became clear.
The unnecessary harshness of Kuchiki Rukia’s death sentence, the irregular truncation of the mandatory penance period, the unexplained repeated bringing forward of the execution date, leading to Jyuushirou-kun’s decision to destroy the Soukyoku. His intuition was sharper than most, if not the sharpest among the Gotei. She realized instantly that he must have been unconsciously acting upon his instincts in addition to all else that were driving him.
“Hurry!” she urged Isane, breaking into shunpo to cross the bridge.
At the entrance of the hall, she stopped. The stench permeating the hall was nauseating. Swathes of dried blood and corpses fallen in their seats painted the insides of the entire chamber. Its very air screamed murder, its very staleness told her that the heinous crime had been committed weeks ago, at least three weeks, perhaps even a month. The scene told her everything she needed to know.
Beside her, Isane gasped and paled in horror.
“To the Seijoutoukyorin! Now!” Retsu commanded.
Isane followed at her heels without question. Pushing shunpo, Retsu flew towards the highly fortified residential towers where the members of the Central Forty-Six resided.
Waves of killing intent washed over her before she had even reached the main tower. Leaping onto the ground from shunpo, she sped through the entrance of the main lobby as freezing winds shook the air. Slippery ice covered the floors beneath her and instinctively she exerted reiatsu to keep her footing, abruptly coming to a stop at the scene before her.
The vaulted ceilings of the lobby were lost to shadows. A raised platform led to the antechambers. Cold smoking ice covered everything in jagged glistening blue sheets. Hitsugaya Taichou, in full bankai, stood on the left front end of the platform, poised to attack, the ice wings on his back glinting in battle readiness. He faced the far right of the platform where his opponent placidly stood.
Aizen Sousuke.
Perfectly alive and looking as scholarly neat as he always did, with not a single scratch on him. His expression was as warm and friendly as if he had not masterminded the entire chain of devastating events.
And Ichimaru Gin, who stood silently on the lobby floor observing the standoff.
Retsu decided on the spot that her authority with Isane’s witness would suffice as proof.
“Aizen. I’m going to kill you.” There was cold fury in Hitsugaya Taichou.
Aizen smiled indulgently. “Don’t use such strong words. It’ll make you look weak.”
Freezing smoke exploded as Hitsugaya Taichou released his reiatsu in rage. From the swirling icy clouds he burst, flying at Aizen with the deadly point of Hyourinmaru aiming straight at Aizen’s heart. With a resounding crack jagged ice covered the zanpakutou as it plunged directly into Aizen’s torso, the ice springing up around Aizen’s form and encasing him in a glacier block.
Suddenly Aizen’s form within the ice block wavered and vanished.
Retsu gasped at the same time as Hitsugaya Taichou looked up in shock.
Before anyone could react, Aizen reappeared behind Hitsugaya Taichou, completely unharmed, his zanpakutou drawn and blood flowing down its blade onto the floor. A breath later, a thick red fountain sprayed from Hitsugaya Taichou, his ice wings disintegrating as he began to fall. As his body thudded to the floor, his blood freezing in his own reiatsu ice, Aizen looked up into the shadows of the ceilings with a contemplative smile.
“What a beautiful sight,” he remarked to himself, as though commenting on a particularly masterful piece of calligraphy and not having just brutally murdered a colleague. He turned and smoothly crossed the dais. “Ice is not in season,” he mused to Ichimaru Gin as he reached the top of the platform steps. “But it is not so bad to see it at this time of the year.” He began to descend the steps, then halted when he caught sight of Retsu.
“Aizen Taichou,” she greeted coldly.
Ichimaru Gin turned slightly at her voice, his slit, almost closed eyes seeming to see her without opening.
She amended her words. “No, we probably should not call you taichou any longer.”
An old, old, old fury she had not felt in a very long time stirred and began to rise, her mind flashing to the memory of fatal wrath rolling from ancient wizened eyes beneath heavy white brows. If she lost Jyuushirou-kun due to this man, if Jyuushirou-kun was damaged in any way due to this man… memories assailed her. Blood over alabaster skin… blood drenching long white silk tangled in her hand… enraged flames incinerating everything in vengeance… laboured breaths against her neck… slender chest shuddering in pain against her side… blade of blood in her hand bathing all who encroached, slicing all who would dare… Ruthlessly she banished the millennia old images, mercilessly smothering the violence until her fury banked into a simmering anger coiled beneath the iron mantle of peace she had unassailably worn over eight centuries.
Duty resettled in her, reaffirming her, strengthening her. Reminding her, once again, that she had not been alone in her misgivings.
There would be reckoning. Later.
Now, she was needed.
Retsu called out the true name of the evil before her.
“You are just Aizen Sousuke, the traitor.”