Post by Knowledge on Mar 17, 2013 16:21:45 GMT -5
The observation chamber deep within the heart of the Fourth Division headquarters was buzzing with activity as shinigami, young and old, were busy typing at glowing terminals and rushing back and forth with stacks of hardcopies. Someone was shouting strings numbers over the hubbub, and loud beeping was being emitted from a set of speakers across the room, seemingly in response. The reinforced glass of the panorama window facing the adjoining chamber revealed three technicians who were unhurriedly strapping something vaguely humanoid to a table. All these people, and only one sword was present, currently tucked into Kyousuke Tsukimiya's belt.
Kyousuke stood amidst the chaos, arms crossed, glancing at the waists of his colleagues, sighing inwardly at their lack of weaponry. Precautionary measures were so often ignored by the lab rats, it was a miracle the average Fourth Division member survived as long as they did, but then most of them didn't exactly get out much. In that sense, Kyousuke was a bit of a rarity in the Fourth Division. He didn't quite fit into the mad scientist stereotype that many of his fellow division members were perfect examples of; for one, he wasn't a shut-in. He had the sneaking suspicion that most of the people in the room hadn't seen sunlight in a week, whereas Kyousuke hadn't seen the inside of headquarters for the last ten days. He had been out hunting specimens in Karakura, much to the chagrin of the regular duty shinigami posted there.
A sudden change in atmosphere shook Kyousuke out of his reverie and he glanced up in time to see the three technicians finish and retreat out of the adjoining chamber. The cacophony from before had died down to tense whispers, and the lead researcher nodded in recognition as a subordinate whispered something in her ear. "Start the initialization sequences," she ordered, and as someone started typing commands into a terminal, all eyes moved to the room behind the glass.
"Vitals steady, specimen remains unconscious. Particle Emission Aperture open, generators warming up. Ready to begin in 45 seconds."
Behind the glass, a mechanical arm shifted into place, heavy cords dangling off one end of the tubelike object it was holding. Opposite the cords, the tube ended in some sort of aperture, a faint light glowing deep within. Kyousuke recognized it as the Particle Emission Aperture device he had been shown two weeks ago before departing, theoretically it was supposed to be able to subdue spiritual beings from a distance by bombarding them with artificial spirit particles. Kyousuke considered the irony of it, having to subdue a hollow and bring it back only to test another method of subduing it. The technology had been requested by the Sixth Division, no doubt for apprehending rogue shinigami, but development was still in the early stages. The side effects were as of yet unknown, so testing had to be done on hollows before volunteer shinigami.
Only someone from the Fifth Division would be dumb enough to want to volunteer for something like this, thought Kyousuke, a smug grin creeping onto his face. There would be volunteers, no doubt, and in all likelihood they would indeed be from the Fifth. He didn't know what was worse; the fact that the Fifth kept volunteering, or that the Fourth kept accepting their volunteers. No wonder the two divisions got on so poorly.
"Fifteen seconds until generators are at full capacity. Specimen is being chemically woken up."
A malicious-looking pale green liquid snaked its way through a long, thin tube connected to the hollow's arm, and the hollow's eyes fluttered open groggily.
"Ten seconds."
The lead researcher rose from his chair and stared at the hollow as it began thrashing in its confines, clearly upset about the situation it currently found itself in. Across the room, Kyousuke was getting edgy. Something seemed off, but he couldn't quite place it. Intuition, perhaps?
"Five." The clamps were holding—
"Four." The equipment didn't seem to be malfunctioning—
"Three." Nobody else was in the chamber—
"Two." So why did something feel so wrong?
"One."
*
"Generators are at full capacity. Awaiting greenlight."
The lead researcher glanced at Kyousuke for a moment, her look one of acknowledgment accompanying the slightest of nods, and then she turned back to the assistants at the terminals. "You may begin."
Through the glass, the aperture of the apparatus shone, and the hum of the generators could be heard faintly through the thick walls. Somewhere a switch was flipped and a button was pushed, and the hum became a muffled roar. As the light intensified, the hollow began to struggle, flailing wildly to no avail, the cruel clamps holding firm. A beam of light shot out of the tube, speckled with pinpricks of what looked like shining dust, and it hit the hollow square in the chest, just below the telltale circular hole. It recoiled, shrieking, but still the clamps held.
Kyousuke's face remained impassive as he looked at it, and he felt his hand instinctively reach towards Kannaduki as another sound mingled with the shrieks of the hollow and the dull roar of the generators. A girl's giggling, distant, but getting louder as color melted off the world and time ground to a crawl. The voice was familiar, it was the spirit of his zanpakuto, Kannaduki. He glanced to his side, and indeed, there she was next to him, the only speck of color in a black and white reflection of the world. She was looking up at him, her eyes glowing softly in the darkness, her hair a deep brown. She was grinning, and had Kyousuke not known what that meant, he would've thought it was a pleasant expression.
"So what's going to happen now, Kyousuke?" she asked, looking down pointedly at his hand, now resting on the hilt of the short blade at his waist. She took a step towards him, her sandal silent on the hardwood floor. Kyousuke remained quiet, still looking at her eyes. She took another step closer, and he could see that for every step she took, the glow deep in her eyes got a little bit fiercer. "Is it," a pause, her grin widening into an ominous smile before continuing, "something bad? Something terrible?"
"I can't predict the future, Kannaduki. Like you, I can only wait and see."
"You're no fun," her voice echoed out of nothingness as she faded, color rushing back into the world like a riptide, bringing with it the sounds of alarms and raised voices.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!" someone was shouting over the noise. Someone else pointed in horror towards the hollow, and Kyousuke sighed inwardly at the futility of the gesture. Where else would we be looking? On the other side of the glass, the hollow was expanding, muscles rippling underneath its skin as it grew. It seemed as though the artificial spirit particles weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing, this certainly didn't look like any sort of pacification. If anything, the hollow was getting larger, stronger, and above all, angrier. The robotic arm was retracting, the tube no longer emitting the light from before, but the hollow didn't seem to notice as it wrenched free of one of the clamps, shrieking.
Kyousuke turned and stalked towards the door, muttering an unnoticed "excuse me" as he exited. He was met with a clinical brightness in the corridor outside, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he moved down the hallway to the door that would take him into an antechamber that connected to the room with the hollow. Drawing Kannaduki, he punched in an access code into a console on the wall, and stepped inside as people rushed past. Like the corridor, there was no respite from the alarms in here, either. Not a soul could be seen, and he shut the door behind him before moving across the room and wrenching the next door open, the sounds of the hollow's angry wails spilling over him.
*
In the short time it had taken for Kyousuke to there, the hollow had grown to almost twice its original size, and it was in the middle of trying to break through the thick pane of glass as Kyousuke stepped inside the room. The sound of him entering caught the hollow's attention over the racket the alarms were making, and it turned its head in his direction, the white mask expressionless save for the eyes. Inside the control room, Kyousuke could see the other shinigami stop in shock, their eyes widening as they caught sight of him. The lead researcher reached blindly for a receiver, not taking her eyes off the scene in front of her, and she lifted it to her mouth, the intercom crackling to life.
"Tsukimiya, what the hell are you doing?" Her voice was metallic and distant through the speakers, but the it was clear that her surprise was tinged with anger. Cleaning up your mistake, he thought, and gave her a jaunty wave in a display of senseless disregard for his situation. Not only did he stand to get seriously injured by the rampant hollow in front of him, but the lead researcher outranked him. He would have to tread carefully and keep the damage to a minimum.
Pushing away from the window, the hollow dropped to all fours with a thud, the cruel spines on its back raised and ready. Kyousuke barely recognized it from two minutes ago, let alone a week ago when he had caught it—it was as if it had evolved into something new, the next link of a violent chain. There was no time to stare, it had to be purged immediately. He raised his free hand and attempted to bind the hollow with a binding art, but midway through the incantation, the hollow lunged at him, forcing him to dodge to one side. Charging headlong into the wall, it left a sizable dent where Kyousuke had been standing not a moment ago, and Kyousuke was impressed at the sheer force of the impact. It would be a mistake to be careless, that thing could earn him a trip to the Third Division's headquarters without too much trouble, and that was if he was lucky.
He abandoned the idea of trying to subdue it with bakudou, the room was far too cramped to get even a truncated incantation off, let alone a full-strength one. He would be forced to get his hands dirty. He stepped carefully over a power conduit on the floor and edged around the now-wrecked table, and tried to goad the hollow into charging again. It lunged once more, and Kyousuke ducked under the huge mass, Kannaduki extended upwards, slashing at what he hoped was a softer underbelly. He was met with sparks and a sound like nails on a chalkboard, and caught a fleeting glimpse of scale-like skin as the hollow passed overhead. That was out of the question, then—the mask was the only option.
It landed with a thud behind him, lashing out with its tail, but Kyousuke turned and parried before throwing himself bodily at the hollow's mask, careful of the spines on the beast's back. Eager now to end it, he released Kannaduki with a shout, stabbing the hollow square between the eyes with three times the force, and Kannaduki's blade punched through chalk-white mask like a foot through thin ice. It shrieked only once before dissipating.
*
Sheathing his blade, Kyousuke moved to the window, noting the deep cracks that spread like an asymmetrical snowflake from where the hollow had tried to break through. He stared at the lead researcher through the glass, his detached gaze meeting hers, and as she was raising the intercom receiver to her mouth once more, most likely to reprimand him, he spoke, his voice transmitted to them through the tiny microphones evenly spaced throughout the chamber. "This wasn't a random accident. We've both checked the calculations for this—and even if I'm wrong, it's unlikely that you are, Konishi. This was sabotage." He let that sink in for a moment before continuing. "I'm pretty sure that the specimens I collected are all suitable for this, and even the Captain has faith in your theories. Check the equipment, I'm sure you'll find that it's been tampered with. Get some technicians in here right away to double check." He turned away and headed towards the door, pausing as he reached it. "I'll be in my quarters. Send someone to brief me when you find out what happened," he called over his shoulder, and exited.
It wasn't until he reached the end of the hallway that Kyousuke realized the alarms were no longer sounding, and the silence was deafening. He padded his way softly to the division barracks, his movement silently betraying his origins: he didn't move like a scientist, he still moved like an assassin. One of the benefits of getting sent out so much as the Division's eyes and ears was that he could stay in practice, and for that he was grateful to his Captain. The man knew the strengths of his subordinates, that was for sure. To be fair, there wasn't much the Captain didn't know, although that was partly because of the Division members like Kyousuke.
Stopping at the cafeteria on the way, Kyousuke found it almost deserted. The odd hour was probably to blame, but the kitchens stayed open around the clock, and Kyousuke ordered himself a large bowl of rice. He mixed wasabi and soy sauce, and then poured it over the rice, thanked the cook, and headed towards his quarters, mouth watering at the prospect of a light meal before sleep. He was having trouble staying focused on the events from earlier, the promise of food and sleep was intoxicating after such a long day. He reached the seated officer's wing, and found his quarters as he had left them nearly two weeks ago: tidy, organized, well-kept and above all, impersonal.
The room wasn't very spacious—his rank wasn't befitting of any of the larger apartments—but he was thankful at least for the fact that he didn't have to share it with anyone else. In any case, he had lucked out when he had been assigned this room, the sliding partitions of the far wall faced the 4th Division Gardens, a view he shared with several of the higher-ranking seated officers. He crossed the room and slid open the partitions, letting the cool night air in. As he stood there, bowl in hand, the exhaustion finally caught up with him, and he sat down on the wooden walkway outside, removed his sandals and tabi socks, and let his bare feet dangle off the edge as he ate his dinner.
Further down the walkway, he could see where it turned outwards with the buildings, framing the tranquil rock gardens in the courtyard. He could see quarters getting gradually bigger as the ranks increased—fourth seats enjoyed rooms almost twice the size of Kyousuke's, and third seats had two rooms, each one as large as the fourth seats'. The lieutenant had the luxury of three rooms, far off on the corner of the courtyard, but even that paled in comparison to the Captain's apartment and private offices, located elsewhere on the compound.
As he finished his bowl of rice, his stomach thanked him, and he felt a drowsiness coming on fast. He pulled out his futon and extinguished the light, and laid down to sleep.
*
Kyousuke awoke to the soft patter of rain and someone calling his name as they shook him lightly. His eyes opened and on sheer reflex, he shot up to a sitting position, grabbing the figure above him by the neck and swinging them down across his knees. A brief yelp of pain went up, and Kyousuke realized what he was doing and released his grip, lifting his victim to their knees once more.
"Good morning to you too, Tsukimiya," it was a woman's voice, and Kyousuke recognized it as one of his junior seated officers, Haruna Kotegawa. She coughed, and stood up.
"Oh." Kyousuke let a fraction of embarrassment slip into his voice, "Sorry about that, Haruna."
"Bad dream?"
"Yes," he lied. Kyousuke rarely dreamt anymore. His visitor lit a lamp somewhere behind him and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. "What do you want, Haruna?"
"Konishi sent me to get you, she said it was urgent. She wouldn't tell me what it was. Do you know?"
Kyousuke groaned inwardly as he realized it was still dark outside, he hadn't slept for more than a few hours. He pushed his hair out of his face and stood up, remembering too late that he wasn't wearing much in the way of clothing. He looked over his shoulder and met Kotegawa's gaze, her face blank and uncaring.
She was attractive, and in a strange way reminded Kyousuke of a taller, socially inept Kannaduki. She kept her hair in a perpetual ponytail, but had never―to Kyousuke's knowledge―made any conscious effort to look pretty; she just did. There had been advances, of course, and rumor had it that she had met them all with cold gazes and colder words, clearly uninterested in anything but her work. A scientist to the core. Even now, in the presence of a near-naked man, she kept her cool, clearly unaffected. Kyousuke liked that about her, she was all business.
"I have an idea, yes. Bit of a mishap earlier, you may have heard the alarms when it happened," he said, pulling on his uniform with practiced ease. He reached for Kannaduki, slid her out briefly to check for the scratches that were never there, and then nodded to the junior officer who opened the door for him without a word. That irked him; she was, after all, a woman, but he doubted she cared.
The walk to Chisame Konishi's office was brisk, Kotegawa leading the way. As they exited the barracks, she spoke for the first time since they had left Kyousuke's quarters. "You still carry your sword everywhere, I see." He couldn't quite place her tone of voice.
"Some habits are difficult to drop. Besides, you know me, you know what kind of people they have doing my job. We're all either paranoid or psychotic. The best of us are a little bit of both. That's why we're still alive. If we get careless, we get killed."
She snorted in response, the back of her head betraying nothing of her expression, though Kyousuke imagined it was one of derision. It sounded melodramatic, Kyousuke had to admit, but it was the truth.
"It's never bothered you before, why bring it up now?"
"Circumstances being what they are, maybe I'm just uneasy. We haven't had something like this happen in a while." She stopped and spun around, her face a mockery of a helpless damsel in distress. "I'm hoping you'll save us all, Tsukimiya, you handsome devil!" She feigned a swoon, and fell into Kyousuke's arms, studying his face intently. She weighed next to nothing. He frowned, and tossed her back to her feet.
"Don't screw around, Haruna. Konishi's waiting for us."
*
Head Researcher Chisame Konishi's office was, for lack of a better word, cluttered. Kyousuke had a hard time picking between that and disaster when formulating an opinion of its current state. Stacks of paper littered the floor, the desk was buried beneath a mound of binders and assorted equipment, and there was a faint burning scent in the air. He and Kotegawa had arrived just as she was in the middle of reprimanding an assistant. Her language was colorful. She noticed them enter, and took a momentary breather from biting the assistant's head off long enough to shout "Took you long enough, Tsukimiya! I hope for your sake you weren't fooling around with Kotegawa on the way here, I'll be with you in a second!" As she turned back to the terrified assistant, Kyousuke couldn't help but to raise his eyebrows at Kotegawa. She met his gaze, then lowered her eyes and batting her eyelids, she managed somehow to feign a blush. Kyousuke was seriously impressed.
Konishi rounded off her tirade against the assistant, who fled from the room, close to tears. Kyousuke didn't give him a second glance, but Haruna looked sympathetic, craning her neck to watch as he ran down the corridor. Sighing, Konishi sunk into her seat behind the desk, grunting discontentedly when she found that she couldn't actually see Kyousuke or Kotegawa over the pile of debris on it. "Get over here, both of you," she called, clearly unwilling stand up again. Stepping gracefully between stacks of hardcopy, Kyousuke made his way around the desk with Kotegawa in tow, and Konishi gradually came into view. She didn't look happy, but that wasn't exactly surprising.
"You seem to be in an exceptionally bad mood tonight, Konishi," said Kyousuke, almost managing to stifle a yawn.
"Who the hell wouldn't be? We've been preparing for that damn test for the past three months, and when we finally finish the calibrations and get some suitable subjects—thank you for that, by the way—" Kyousuke nodded ever so slightly, "—someone has gone and screwed it all up. Yes, I'm in a bad mood."
"Did you find out what happened? Specifically?"
"I had a team take it apart, they found nothing wrong with the Aperture or any of the cables. Problem came from inside the generators. You were right, it wasn't something that would've happened on its own, the configurations had been changed manually. Someone with systems access and the technical knowledge did this. Sabotage from the inside."
"It's obviously sabotage from the inside, nobody outside Fourth even knows what you're working on. I could've told you that earlier today." He motioned towards Kotegawa, who had remained silent the entire time. "Why is she here?"
"Ah, right. Kotegawa, you were team leader on the generators, you should know who has the technical competence to switch it over. I want you to work with Tsukimiya in finding out who's responsible."
Kotegawa opened her mouth to speak, but Kyousuke beat her to it. "That isn't how it works, Konishi. I don't do internal, you know that. I have very little authority when it comes to these kinds of things, my rank doesn't mean much in here. Get someone else to do it."
"No can do. The Captain put you on it, these are his orders. You have the necessary expertise for solving a problem like this. It isn't a suggestion."
Kyousuke wasn't prone to insubordination, so he nodded, expression neutral, and turned towards the door, motioning to Kotegawa to follow. No point in waiting for better weather, the sooner he was finished with this the sooner he'd get Konishi off his back. As they left the room, he realized that some people would practically kill for the chance to work side by side with Kotegawa, and he smiled, not so much at his own fortune (he didn't quite see it that way), but rather at everyone else's misfortune. Kotegawa spoke up for the first time since they had entered Konishi's office. "Well, this should be fun. Working together with the great Kyousuke Tsukimiya, I'm honored." Her tone was facetious, but Kyousuke didn't find it amusing.
"Don't get overly excited, Haruna. Lead the way, I want to get started immediately."
"Where to?"
"Where else?" Kyousuke figured they'd start where it was most obvious. "The generator room."
*
The generator room was large, warm, and poorly lit. Deep underground, it housed more than just the generators for the test Kyousuke had been watching—the entire facility had access to the generators here. Most of them were old, but they were hardly dated: they had been state-of-the-art at their introduction, and since then, despite everyone's best efforts, nobody had been able to develop anything that could compete. Despite the room's powerful cooling system, the combined heat given off by only half the generators was enough to raise the temperature enough to be uncomfortable. Currently, only a small fraction of them were in active use, but Kyousuke's clothes already felt damp and sticky. Kotegawa was trying to cool herself, fanning her hands desperately at her face as she spoke, but to no avail. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily.
"These three are the ones we were using," she said, pointing at a group of the softly humming machines. "We never turn them off fully unless we're reconfiguring them, and that's usually done remotely. These had been accessed from down here, apparently."
Kyousuke knelt beside one of the generators, touching a panel on the side, and it slid open, revealing a terminal. "This is the one that was tampered with?" he asked, touching the screen lightly.
"Yeah, that terminal controls the entire node. If you wanted to reprogram them without turning them off, you would have to do it from here."
"I thought you said they turned them off when they reconfigured them."
"Only when they do it remotely. It's a safety measure in case the connection between up there and down here gets broken and the software glitches. Down here the risk of that happening is significantly smaller, so no shutdown is required."
He glanced over his shoulder at Kotegawa, who was looking at the monitor intently. "Explain something to me, Haruna." Her gaze shifted to his face, and it seemed as though she recoiled slightly as noticed his expression.
"What do you need to know?" she asked, almost hesitantly.
"You told me Konishi never told you why she sent for me. You didn't seem in the least bit surprised when she mentioned sabotage, and you've been acting out of character ever since we left my quarters. You've been flirting with me. You're the ice queen of Fourth Division, you never flirt. Not with anyone. What is it you're not telling me?"
Kotegawa looked taken aback for a moment, and then got her feet back under her. "It's nothing, I just... I just—you're different than most people here, I think recently you may have caught my eye, that's all." She blushed, and looked abashed. Kyousuke stood up and moved over to her, took her face gently in his hands and looked her deep in the eyes. He moved in close, and whispered softly in her ear.
"You're lying to me."
The change was instant. She pushed away from him and made a grab for his sword, but Kyousuke intercepted her wrist and twisted. Kotegawa shrieked in pain as she spun to face away from him, and Kyousuke forced her to her knees, her arm held firmly behind her back. "All right, Haruna," he said, voice steely. "You're going to tell me what you know. You're a good liar, I'll give you that, but you're not selling the entire act well enough. I know you feel nothing for me since I was practically naked earlier and you didn't bat an eye. You can feign a blush on demand—you did it earlier in Konishi's office—so that little confession just now was a pretty poor attempt at trying to divert suspicion. Who changed the configuration?" He emphasized his question with a little more torque on her arm, and she screamed again.
"Stop! Stop, you're going to break it! It was me, I did it, I changed it!"
"Why?"
"It was a mistake, I didn't think something like that would happen, I swear it!"
More torque, and another scream. "You don't make mistakes, Haruna. Not down here. You have a flawless track record, you haven't made a single mistake since the Academy. Why don't I believe you? Tell me again, why did you do it?"
"They'll kill me if I tell you!" She was crying, tears streaming down her face as she shook her head violently, trying to deal with the pain.
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"They'll kill me!" her cries was desperate now, there was more than pain in her voice, there was fear.
"What makes you think I won't kill you?"
"You wouldn't! I know you, you would never do that!"
"I don't think you know me as well as you think. Do you know which Division I used to be in before I came to the Fourth? I used to be in Second." Kyousuke let that sink in, and Kotegawa fell silent, clearly shocked. He continued, releasing some of the pressure on her arm, still gripping her wrist tightly. "You're a traitor. I've killed a lot of people like you before, there's nothing stopping me now."
*
"So Kotegawa did it?" Konishi looked stern. The mess on her desk had been cleared off, and she was leaning back in her chair examining Kyousuke over steepled fingers. She had calmed down significantly since their last encounter, something for which Kyousuke was thankful. "Did she tell you why?"
Kotegawa had indeed told him why she had done it. "Do you remember the program we tried a while back? Sending researchers to the real world for testing rather than sending someone like myself?"
"Yes, I believe it was cancelled due to the amounts of stress it induced in the test groups. There was an accident, too. What about it?"
"Kotegawa was a part of one of the test groups. They fell under attack, and she was the sole survivor. The official story she told was that she managed to escape as an uncommonly powerful human more or less gutted the rest of her team, but apparently that was a fabrication."
"She lied in her debriefing? Doesn't sound like Kotegawa. What happened?"
"Apparently the human cut her a deal. She would live in exchange for sabotaging Soul Society efforts at hollow pacification. He told her he'd kill her himself if she didn't obey his orders."
"That doesn't sound very likely. A human wanting to stop research into hollow pacification, I mean."
"Exactly. That's why I suspect he was acting under orders from Hueco Mundo. It's possible there are others like her, but I don't think whoever is giving the human orders knows all the details. Removing him from the equation may result in Kotegawa's safety."
"It sounds like you're volunteering. Are you?" Konishi's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kyousuke sighed. "I'd like to see this thing through to the end. Yes, I'm volunteering."
"The Captain would be proud. You may leave immediately." Kyousuke turned to leave, but as he was opening the door, Konishi called out once more. "Is she hurt badly?"
Kyousuke paused as he thought back to the generator room. "Sore shoulder, a bruise here or there. I had to make her believe I'd kill her if she didn't talk. She'll be fine."
"Would you have? Killed her, that is."
"Probably not," he lied, and left.
Kyousuke stepped through the Senkaimon into the cool air of the early evening a some time later. He had spent some time in the archives, looking for details about Kotegawa's previous deployment, figuring it would be as good a place as any to start looking for clues as to where the human could be found. Above all, however, he had slept. He felt refreshed and alert, there had been no interruptions this time. The request for a Senkaimon opening had gone through smoothly at the Kido Corps, and he had indeed found some pertinent information while digging in the archives. Kotegawa had regained consciousness sometime during the day, and a secondary, much gentler questioning had been conducted, the results of which had been given to Kyousuke. They had managed to extract more details about the human, and Kyousuke had worked out the most likely location to run into him. The questioning had included a description, so all he needed to do was suppress his reiatsu and lie in wait.
*
Hours passed, but Kyousuke persevered, suppressing his reiatsu to near-undetectable levels. Any human stupid enough to cross Soul Society would be stupid enough to make a mistake. Sure enough, Kyousuke felt a surge at some time near midnight, someone's reiatsu flared and flickered away. Kyousuke rose slowly from his meditative state and flickered out of visibility as he flashstepped away towards the origin of the surge. He stayed high above street level, his eyes scanning the thronging midnight crowds beneath his feet. That was the thing about humans—they so seldom looked up. Another surge and Kyousuke took off again, wind rushing through his hair as he flitted through the gaps between buildings.
He arrived at the entrance of an alley, and careful to not frame himself in the light from the city, glanced around the corner from the fourth story or so. There was a scuffle going on in the alley, three people fighting. It was a raw kind of fight, no technique or finesse, just throwing their weight around. One of the fighters was clearly winning, even though it seemed the other two were ganging up on him.
It quickly became apparent that the combatant who was winning wasn't quite fighting fair: the sporadic surges of reiatsu Kyousuke had been feeling had been a result of the man enhancing his muscular ability. Right now he was being subtle, his punches simply fracturing bones and causing internal bleeding, but Kyousuke had no doubt this ability had been the one to tear apart Kotegawa's research group. The fight was nearing its conclusion, the man was finishing up. One of his assailants lay on the ground, unconscious or dead, Kyousuke couldn't tell which. The other was locked in the man's grasp, kicking wildly as he was being choked. His legs fell limp and he stopped struggling, and the man dumped him unceremoniously on the ground next to the other man. There was no doubt about it: this was Kyousuke's target.
The man brushed himself and made to leave, and Kyousuke rose to the top of the building, staying out of sight. He would follow him to somewhere they would not be interrupted, and Kyousuke would proceed with his plan. If it went well, Kotegawa would be charged with something minor, given a slap on the wrist, and put back to work where she belonged. If it went poorly, she would probably end up jailed for a long time or even downright executed for Seireitei's protection. Kyousuke was confident, however. This would go well. The reasoning he had given Konishi earlier was sound: the human had probably fallen under the influence of a particularly manipulative arrancar, and once Kyousuke had made sure that any knowledge of Kotegawa had stayed with the human, he would kill the human and Hueco Mundo's influence would be that much smaller.
*
Kyousuke stalked the man through the city, never letting him out of his sight. He was doing a good job of remaining undetected, the man had shown no sign of being aware that he was followed. Scenarios were playing out in Kyousuke's head the entire time: a short, efficient questioning, subsequent execution and disappearance was a recurring theme, though there was a smattering of fights, the outcome varying. As always, it was best to be prepared.
The quarry seemed to have an affinity for walking; he never once set foot in a vehicle during his long trek across Karakura, instead choosing rather scenic routes. Kyousuke surmised that he was coming down from the adrenaline kick. Eventually the man reached his destination: a modest house in a quiet part of town. There were no lights on inside despite the late hour, and Kyousuke guessed the man lived alone. Good, he thought. That means things won't get very complicated.
The man strolled up the path leading to the door at a leisurely pace, fumbled for his keys for a brief moment, and let himself inside. Kyousuke remained above, waiting for the right moment. Letting the man relax and feel secure was important, the break-in and interrogation had to be wildly confusing and disorienting for maximum efficiency. Luckily, Kyousuke was a patient man, and he waited calmly as lights flicked on and off inside as his prey performed his nightly routine.
Then, finally, the last light clicked off, and Kyousuke sprung into action. He descended to the street and vaulted silently over the wall into the man's garden, looking for any convenient access routes into the building. An open window would be best, but Kyousuke had learned to tamper with locks on Earth long ago. Thankfully, he was spared the trouble; he spied a window on the second floor that was carelessly left ajar. He climbed a drainpipe and managed to pry it open far enough to climb through.
He was in.
He surveyed his surroundings in the dim light from the streetlights outside, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It seemed he was in a bathroom, the tub was drained, but the floor was still damp in places. Treading carefully, he crossed the room in silence, sliding the door open and entered a hall. He could hear snoring behind one of the doors, and he couldn't quite suppress a sly smile. Everything was going well so far.
The door opened noiselessly, the hinges smooth and well-oiled. By now, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see the shape of the man in his bed, his chest rising and falling in time with his snoring. Drawing Kannaduki slowly and soundlessly, he reached out and clamped a hand over the man's mouth and nose. He awoke with a start, staring wildly and flailing around with his arms and legs, but Kyousuke held firm, moving out of his reach before brandishing his zanpakuto in the man's face. The flailing stopped and the muffled sounds coming from his mouth faltered, and Kyousuke leaned in close and whispered into the terrified man's ear. "You move, you die. You will answer my questions with a nod or a shake of your head, or you will start to lose extremities." A pause to let it sink in. "If I like your answers, I'll let you live."
It was a lie, of course. The man was going to die no matter how he answered but he didn't need to know that. "Do you understand?"
The man nodded, a look of terror in his eyes.
*
"A few months ago, you attacked and killed a group of Shinigami, but you let one go. Is this correct?"
The man nodded fervently.
"You persuaded her to sabotage something in Soul Society. Correct?"
Another nod.
"It wasn't your idea, was it?"
No movement. Kyousuke sheared off a piece of the man's earlobe and asked again, his hand muffling the screams of pain. This time, the man complied, and shook his head.
"You were acting under orders that were coming from an arrancar, correct?"
A hesitant nod this time. Kyousuke sensed the subject was discomforting, and he was sure that the profusely bleeding ear wasn't helping. "Does the arrancar know any specifics? Does he know about the girl you turned against us?"
Again, he shook his head.
"Tell me his name. The arrancar's." Kyousuke removed his hand from the man's mouth and wincing, he let loose a tiny whimper of pain. Kyousuke slapped him sharply and asked again.
"I—I don't know. I swear, I don't know. He..." his voice trailed off and his gaze fell to the window. Kyousuke looked up for a split second, and the man took the opportunity.
He swung his fist at Kyousuke's face, but the punch came in slow, and Kyousuke managed to shift out of the way, the man's hand whistling past his ear. The reiatsu he had collected in it tickled Kyousuke's ear, and as the man exploded upwards out of his bed, Kyousuke spun away. Not about to let his victim gain his bearings, he skipped back in and lodged Kannaduki deep in the man's chest, puncturing a lung. The man went limp, his arms falling over Kyousuke's shoulders as they stood inches from eachother. A weak, rattling breath escaped the man's lips before he slid off Kannnaduki and collapsed back on his bed, blood seeping from the hole in his pajamas and staining the white sheets a deep crimson. Kyousuke watched him lying there for a moment, cursing his mistake, and wiped the blood off Kannaduki before resheathing her.
That was that. Kyousuke shrugged and exited the way he had come in, and opened a Senkaimon in the man's garden, stepping into the white light and letting it envelop him. The passage went quickly, and he stepped out in Seireitei without a word. He strode through the wide, tiled alleys in the direction of the Fourth Division headquarters, nodding discreetly to those he passed on the way. Finally reaching his destination, he caught a subordinate, ordered him to find Konishi and tell her from him that the problem is solved. "Don't screw up," he called after the Shinigami as he dashed off toward the researcher's office. He watched him go for a moment, then headed off in the direction of the stockade.
Kyousuke found Kotegawa lying on a bunk in one of the smaller cells, and it looked like she was sleeping. He rattled at the bars and yelled her name roughly, and she stirred. When she saw who it was, she didn't look pleased.
"Come to abuse me some more, Tsukimiya?"
Kyousuke would have fun with this. "That's right. Your information didn't check out. This time, you're going to tell me the truth." He produced the key to the cell door and unlocked it, stepping inside. He approached the bunk and Kotegawa shrank back a fraction, and he leaned in close, his mouth mere centimeters from her ear, and he whispered softly into it. "You're free to go."
He drew back to see her face, and she was looking at him with a confused expression.
"What do you mean, 'I'm free to go'? Is this some sort of joke?"
"The man who killed your squad that day... He's dead. You're free of his influence. You're most likely going to be scheduled for a minor correctional meeting with a senior officer, but you are, as of this moment, free to go."
The look on her face was ridiculous, and Kyousuke found it immensely humorous.
"He's dead?" she asked, hesitantly.
"That's right," replied Kyousuke, moving back out of the door, leaving the key to it on the bunk next to her. He stood there, waiting for her to rise.
She got slowly to her feet and shuffled out of the room to come face to face with Kyousuke, who she slapped, a resounding smack to the left side of his face. It reddened, but he remained expressionless. "That's for my arm," she said.
"Well, I can see it's all better now," he replied drily.
"How do you know he's dead?" she asked, staring him in the eyes fiercely.
"Because I killed him myself thirty minutes ago." There was a note of finality in his voice. He turned to leave, but she caught his arm and he laughed. "You don't need to kiss me on the cheek this time, Haruna."
"No, not the cheek," she said quietly, and stood on her toes and planted a kiss firmly on his mouth.
°7,227
This is an old solo thread that was lost twice: once during the purges in mid-March 2011, and once when the Pendulum section was purged. Resubmitted for posterity; the thread has long since been claimed.
Kyousuke stood amidst the chaos, arms crossed, glancing at the waists of his colleagues, sighing inwardly at their lack of weaponry. Precautionary measures were so often ignored by the lab rats, it was a miracle the average Fourth Division member survived as long as they did, but then most of them didn't exactly get out much. In that sense, Kyousuke was a bit of a rarity in the Fourth Division. He didn't quite fit into the mad scientist stereotype that many of his fellow division members were perfect examples of; for one, he wasn't a shut-in. He had the sneaking suspicion that most of the people in the room hadn't seen sunlight in a week, whereas Kyousuke hadn't seen the inside of headquarters for the last ten days. He had been out hunting specimens in Karakura, much to the chagrin of the regular duty shinigami posted there.
A sudden change in atmosphere shook Kyousuke out of his reverie and he glanced up in time to see the three technicians finish and retreat out of the adjoining chamber. The cacophony from before had died down to tense whispers, and the lead researcher nodded in recognition as a subordinate whispered something in her ear. "Start the initialization sequences," she ordered, and as someone started typing commands into a terminal, all eyes moved to the room behind the glass.
"Vitals steady, specimen remains unconscious. Particle Emission Aperture open, generators warming up. Ready to begin in 45 seconds."
Behind the glass, a mechanical arm shifted into place, heavy cords dangling off one end of the tubelike object it was holding. Opposite the cords, the tube ended in some sort of aperture, a faint light glowing deep within. Kyousuke recognized it as the Particle Emission Aperture device he had been shown two weeks ago before departing, theoretically it was supposed to be able to subdue spiritual beings from a distance by bombarding them with artificial spirit particles. Kyousuke considered the irony of it, having to subdue a hollow and bring it back only to test another method of subduing it. The technology had been requested by the Sixth Division, no doubt for apprehending rogue shinigami, but development was still in the early stages. The side effects were as of yet unknown, so testing had to be done on hollows before volunteer shinigami.
Only someone from the Fifth Division would be dumb enough to want to volunteer for something like this, thought Kyousuke, a smug grin creeping onto his face. There would be volunteers, no doubt, and in all likelihood they would indeed be from the Fifth. He didn't know what was worse; the fact that the Fifth kept volunteering, or that the Fourth kept accepting their volunteers. No wonder the two divisions got on so poorly.
"Fifteen seconds until generators are at full capacity. Specimen is being chemically woken up."
A malicious-looking pale green liquid snaked its way through a long, thin tube connected to the hollow's arm, and the hollow's eyes fluttered open groggily.
"Ten seconds."
The lead researcher rose from his chair and stared at the hollow as it began thrashing in its confines, clearly upset about the situation it currently found itself in. Across the room, Kyousuke was getting edgy. Something seemed off, but he couldn't quite place it. Intuition, perhaps?
"Five." The clamps were holding—
"Four." The equipment didn't seem to be malfunctioning—
"Three." Nobody else was in the chamber—
"Two." So why did something feel so wrong?
"One."
*
"Generators are at full capacity. Awaiting greenlight."
The lead researcher glanced at Kyousuke for a moment, her look one of acknowledgment accompanying the slightest of nods, and then she turned back to the assistants at the terminals. "You may begin."
Through the glass, the aperture of the apparatus shone, and the hum of the generators could be heard faintly through the thick walls. Somewhere a switch was flipped and a button was pushed, and the hum became a muffled roar. As the light intensified, the hollow began to struggle, flailing wildly to no avail, the cruel clamps holding firm. A beam of light shot out of the tube, speckled with pinpricks of what looked like shining dust, and it hit the hollow square in the chest, just below the telltale circular hole. It recoiled, shrieking, but still the clamps held.
Kyousuke's face remained impassive as he looked at it, and he felt his hand instinctively reach towards Kannaduki as another sound mingled with the shrieks of the hollow and the dull roar of the generators. A girl's giggling, distant, but getting louder as color melted off the world and time ground to a crawl. The voice was familiar, it was the spirit of his zanpakuto, Kannaduki. He glanced to his side, and indeed, there she was next to him, the only speck of color in a black and white reflection of the world. She was looking up at him, her eyes glowing softly in the darkness, her hair a deep brown. She was grinning, and had Kyousuke not known what that meant, he would've thought it was a pleasant expression.
"So what's going to happen now, Kyousuke?" she asked, looking down pointedly at his hand, now resting on the hilt of the short blade at his waist. She took a step towards him, her sandal silent on the hardwood floor. Kyousuke remained quiet, still looking at her eyes. She took another step closer, and he could see that for every step she took, the glow deep in her eyes got a little bit fiercer. "Is it," a pause, her grin widening into an ominous smile before continuing, "something bad? Something terrible?"
"I can't predict the future, Kannaduki. Like you, I can only wait and see."
"You're no fun," her voice echoed out of nothingness as she faded, color rushing back into the world like a riptide, bringing with it the sounds of alarms and raised voices.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!" someone was shouting over the noise. Someone else pointed in horror towards the hollow, and Kyousuke sighed inwardly at the futility of the gesture. Where else would we be looking? On the other side of the glass, the hollow was expanding, muscles rippling underneath its skin as it grew. It seemed as though the artificial spirit particles weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing, this certainly didn't look like any sort of pacification. If anything, the hollow was getting larger, stronger, and above all, angrier. The robotic arm was retracting, the tube no longer emitting the light from before, but the hollow didn't seem to notice as it wrenched free of one of the clamps, shrieking.
Kyousuke turned and stalked towards the door, muttering an unnoticed "excuse me" as he exited. He was met with a clinical brightness in the corridor outside, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he moved down the hallway to the door that would take him into an antechamber that connected to the room with the hollow. Drawing Kannaduki, he punched in an access code into a console on the wall, and stepped inside as people rushed past. Like the corridor, there was no respite from the alarms in here, either. Not a soul could be seen, and he shut the door behind him before moving across the room and wrenching the next door open, the sounds of the hollow's angry wails spilling over him.
*
In the short time it had taken for Kyousuke to there, the hollow had grown to almost twice its original size, and it was in the middle of trying to break through the thick pane of glass as Kyousuke stepped inside the room. The sound of him entering caught the hollow's attention over the racket the alarms were making, and it turned its head in his direction, the white mask expressionless save for the eyes. Inside the control room, Kyousuke could see the other shinigami stop in shock, their eyes widening as they caught sight of him. The lead researcher reached blindly for a receiver, not taking her eyes off the scene in front of her, and she lifted it to her mouth, the intercom crackling to life.
"Tsukimiya, what the hell are you doing?" Her voice was metallic and distant through the speakers, but the it was clear that her surprise was tinged with anger. Cleaning up your mistake, he thought, and gave her a jaunty wave in a display of senseless disregard for his situation. Not only did he stand to get seriously injured by the rampant hollow in front of him, but the lead researcher outranked him. He would have to tread carefully and keep the damage to a minimum.
Pushing away from the window, the hollow dropped to all fours with a thud, the cruel spines on its back raised and ready. Kyousuke barely recognized it from two minutes ago, let alone a week ago when he had caught it—it was as if it had evolved into something new, the next link of a violent chain. There was no time to stare, it had to be purged immediately. He raised his free hand and attempted to bind the hollow with a binding art, but midway through the incantation, the hollow lunged at him, forcing him to dodge to one side. Charging headlong into the wall, it left a sizable dent where Kyousuke had been standing not a moment ago, and Kyousuke was impressed at the sheer force of the impact. It would be a mistake to be careless, that thing could earn him a trip to the Third Division's headquarters without too much trouble, and that was if he was lucky.
He abandoned the idea of trying to subdue it with bakudou, the room was far too cramped to get even a truncated incantation off, let alone a full-strength one. He would be forced to get his hands dirty. He stepped carefully over a power conduit on the floor and edged around the now-wrecked table, and tried to goad the hollow into charging again. It lunged once more, and Kyousuke ducked under the huge mass, Kannaduki extended upwards, slashing at what he hoped was a softer underbelly. He was met with sparks and a sound like nails on a chalkboard, and caught a fleeting glimpse of scale-like skin as the hollow passed overhead. That was out of the question, then—the mask was the only option.
It landed with a thud behind him, lashing out with its tail, but Kyousuke turned and parried before throwing himself bodily at the hollow's mask, careful of the spines on the beast's back. Eager now to end it, he released Kannaduki with a shout, stabbing the hollow square between the eyes with three times the force, and Kannaduki's blade punched through chalk-white mask like a foot through thin ice. It shrieked only once before dissipating.
*
Sheathing his blade, Kyousuke moved to the window, noting the deep cracks that spread like an asymmetrical snowflake from where the hollow had tried to break through. He stared at the lead researcher through the glass, his detached gaze meeting hers, and as she was raising the intercom receiver to her mouth once more, most likely to reprimand him, he spoke, his voice transmitted to them through the tiny microphones evenly spaced throughout the chamber. "This wasn't a random accident. We've both checked the calculations for this—and even if I'm wrong, it's unlikely that you are, Konishi. This was sabotage." He let that sink in for a moment before continuing. "I'm pretty sure that the specimens I collected are all suitable for this, and even the Captain has faith in your theories. Check the equipment, I'm sure you'll find that it's been tampered with. Get some technicians in here right away to double check." He turned away and headed towards the door, pausing as he reached it. "I'll be in my quarters. Send someone to brief me when you find out what happened," he called over his shoulder, and exited.
It wasn't until he reached the end of the hallway that Kyousuke realized the alarms were no longer sounding, and the silence was deafening. He padded his way softly to the division barracks, his movement silently betraying his origins: he didn't move like a scientist, he still moved like an assassin. One of the benefits of getting sent out so much as the Division's eyes and ears was that he could stay in practice, and for that he was grateful to his Captain. The man knew the strengths of his subordinates, that was for sure. To be fair, there wasn't much the Captain didn't know, although that was partly because of the Division members like Kyousuke.
Stopping at the cafeteria on the way, Kyousuke found it almost deserted. The odd hour was probably to blame, but the kitchens stayed open around the clock, and Kyousuke ordered himself a large bowl of rice. He mixed wasabi and soy sauce, and then poured it over the rice, thanked the cook, and headed towards his quarters, mouth watering at the prospect of a light meal before sleep. He was having trouble staying focused on the events from earlier, the promise of food and sleep was intoxicating after such a long day. He reached the seated officer's wing, and found his quarters as he had left them nearly two weeks ago: tidy, organized, well-kept and above all, impersonal.
The room wasn't very spacious—his rank wasn't befitting of any of the larger apartments—but he was thankful at least for the fact that he didn't have to share it with anyone else. In any case, he had lucked out when he had been assigned this room, the sliding partitions of the far wall faced the 4th Division Gardens, a view he shared with several of the higher-ranking seated officers. He crossed the room and slid open the partitions, letting the cool night air in. As he stood there, bowl in hand, the exhaustion finally caught up with him, and he sat down on the wooden walkway outside, removed his sandals and tabi socks, and let his bare feet dangle off the edge as he ate his dinner.
Further down the walkway, he could see where it turned outwards with the buildings, framing the tranquil rock gardens in the courtyard. He could see quarters getting gradually bigger as the ranks increased—fourth seats enjoyed rooms almost twice the size of Kyousuke's, and third seats had two rooms, each one as large as the fourth seats'. The lieutenant had the luxury of three rooms, far off on the corner of the courtyard, but even that paled in comparison to the Captain's apartment and private offices, located elsewhere on the compound.
As he finished his bowl of rice, his stomach thanked him, and he felt a drowsiness coming on fast. He pulled out his futon and extinguished the light, and laid down to sleep.
*
Kyousuke awoke to the soft patter of rain and someone calling his name as they shook him lightly. His eyes opened and on sheer reflex, he shot up to a sitting position, grabbing the figure above him by the neck and swinging them down across his knees. A brief yelp of pain went up, and Kyousuke realized what he was doing and released his grip, lifting his victim to their knees once more.
"Good morning to you too, Tsukimiya," it was a woman's voice, and Kyousuke recognized it as one of his junior seated officers, Haruna Kotegawa. She coughed, and stood up.
"Oh." Kyousuke let a fraction of embarrassment slip into his voice, "Sorry about that, Haruna."
"Bad dream?"
"Yes," he lied. Kyousuke rarely dreamt anymore. His visitor lit a lamp somewhere behind him and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. "What do you want, Haruna?"
"Konishi sent me to get you, she said it was urgent. She wouldn't tell me what it was. Do you know?"
Kyousuke groaned inwardly as he realized it was still dark outside, he hadn't slept for more than a few hours. He pushed his hair out of his face and stood up, remembering too late that he wasn't wearing much in the way of clothing. He looked over his shoulder and met Kotegawa's gaze, her face blank and uncaring.
She was attractive, and in a strange way reminded Kyousuke of a taller, socially inept Kannaduki. She kept her hair in a perpetual ponytail, but had never―to Kyousuke's knowledge―made any conscious effort to look pretty; she just did. There had been advances, of course, and rumor had it that she had met them all with cold gazes and colder words, clearly uninterested in anything but her work. A scientist to the core. Even now, in the presence of a near-naked man, she kept her cool, clearly unaffected. Kyousuke liked that about her, she was all business.
"I have an idea, yes. Bit of a mishap earlier, you may have heard the alarms when it happened," he said, pulling on his uniform with practiced ease. He reached for Kannaduki, slid her out briefly to check for the scratches that were never there, and then nodded to the junior officer who opened the door for him without a word. That irked him; she was, after all, a woman, but he doubted she cared.
The walk to Chisame Konishi's office was brisk, Kotegawa leading the way. As they exited the barracks, she spoke for the first time since they had left Kyousuke's quarters. "You still carry your sword everywhere, I see." He couldn't quite place her tone of voice.
"Some habits are difficult to drop. Besides, you know me, you know what kind of people they have doing my job. We're all either paranoid or psychotic. The best of us are a little bit of both. That's why we're still alive. If we get careless, we get killed."
She snorted in response, the back of her head betraying nothing of her expression, though Kyousuke imagined it was one of derision. It sounded melodramatic, Kyousuke had to admit, but it was the truth.
"It's never bothered you before, why bring it up now?"
"Circumstances being what they are, maybe I'm just uneasy. We haven't had something like this happen in a while." She stopped and spun around, her face a mockery of a helpless damsel in distress. "I'm hoping you'll save us all, Tsukimiya, you handsome devil!" She feigned a swoon, and fell into Kyousuke's arms, studying his face intently. She weighed next to nothing. He frowned, and tossed her back to her feet.
"Don't screw around, Haruna. Konishi's waiting for us."
*
Head Researcher Chisame Konishi's office was, for lack of a better word, cluttered. Kyousuke had a hard time picking between that and disaster when formulating an opinion of its current state. Stacks of paper littered the floor, the desk was buried beneath a mound of binders and assorted equipment, and there was a faint burning scent in the air. He and Kotegawa had arrived just as she was in the middle of reprimanding an assistant. Her language was colorful. She noticed them enter, and took a momentary breather from biting the assistant's head off long enough to shout "Took you long enough, Tsukimiya! I hope for your sake you weren't fooling around with Kotegawa on the way here, I'll be with you in a second!" As she turned back to the terrified assistant, Kyousuke couldn't help but to raise his eyebrows at Kotegawa. She met his gaze, then lowered her eyes and batting her eyelids, she managed somehow to feign a blush. Kyousuke was seriously impressed.
Konishi rounded off her tirade against the assistant, who fled from the room, close to tears. Kyousuke didn't give him a second glance, but Haruna looked sympathetic, craning her neck to watch as he ran down the corridor. Sighing, Konishi sunk into her seat behind the desk, grunting discontentedly when she found that she couldn't actually see Kyousuke or Kotegawa over the pile of debris on it. "Get over here, both of you," she called, clearly unwilling stand up again. Stepping gracefully between stacks of hardcopy, Kyousuke made his way around the desk with Kotegawa in tow, and Konishi gradually came into view. She didn't look happy, but that wasn't exactly surprising.
"You seem to be in an exceptionally bad mood tonight, Konishi," said Kyousuke, almost managing to stifle a yawn.
"Who the hell wouldn't be? We've been preparing for that damn test for the past three months, and when we finally finish the calibrations and get some suitable subjects—thank you for that, by the way—" Kyousuke nodded ever so slightly, "—someone has gone and screwed it all up. Yes, I'm in a bad mood."
"Did you find out what happened? Specifically?"
"I had a team take it apart, they found nothing wrong with the Aperture or any of the cables. Problem came from inside the generators. You were right, it wasn't something that would've happened on its own, the configurations had been changed manually. Someone with systems access and the technical knowledge did this. Sabotage from the inside."
"It's obviously sabotage from the inside, nobody outside Fourth even knows what you're working on. I could've told you that earlier today." He motioned towards Kotegawa, who had remained silent the entire time. "Why is she here?"
"Ah, right. Kotegawa, you were team leader on the generators, you should know who has the technical competence to switch it over. I want you to work with Tsukimiya in finding out who's responsible."
Kotegawa opened her mouth to speak, but Kyousuke beat her to it. "That isn't how it works, Konishi. I don't do internal, you know that. I have very little authority when it comes to these kinds of things, my rank doesn't mean much in here. Get someone else to do it."
"No can do. The Captain put you on it, these are his orders. You have the necessary expertise for solving a problem like this. It isn't a suggestion."
Kyousuke wasn't prone to insubordination, so he nodded, expression neutral, and turned towards the door, motioning to Kotegawa to follow. No point in waiting for better weather, the sooner he was finished with this the sooner he'd get Konishi off his back. As they left the room, he realized that some people would practically kill for the chance to work side by side with Kotegawa, and he smiled, not so much at his own fortune (he didn't quite see it that way), but rather at everyone else's misfortune. Kotegawa spoke up for the first time since they had entered Konishi's office. "Well, this should be fun. Working together with the great Kyousuke Tsukimiya, I'm honored." Her tone was facetious, but Kyousuke didn't find it amusing.
"Don't get overly excited, Haruna. Lead the way, I want to get started immediately."
"Where to?"
"Where else?" Kyousuke figured they'd start where it was most obvious. "The generator room."
*
The generator room was large, warm, and poorly lit. Deep underground, it housed more than just the generators for the test Kyousuke had been watching—the entire facility had access to the generators here. Most of them were old, but they were hardly dated: they had been state-of-the-art at their introduction, and since then, despite everyone's best efforts, nobody had been able to develop anything that could compete. Despite the room's powerful cooling system, the combined heat given off by only half the generators was enough to raise the temperature enough to be uncomfortable. Currently, only a small fraction of them were in active use, but Kyousuke's clothes already felt damp and sticky. Kotegawa was trying to cool herself, fanning her hands desperately at her face as she spoke, but to no avail. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily.
"These three are the ones we were using," she said, pointing at a group of the softly humming machines. "We never turn them off fully unless we're reconfiguring them, and that's usually done remotely. These had been accessed from down here, apparently."
Kyousuke knelt beside one of the generators, touching a panel on the side, and it slid open, revealing a terminal. "This is the one that was tampered with?" he asked, touching the screen lightly.
"Yeah, that terminal controls the entire node. If you wanted to reprogram them without turning them off, you would have to do it from here."
"I thought you said they turned them off when they reconfigured them."
"Only when they do it remotely. It's a safety measure in case the connection between up there and down here gets broken and the software glitches. Down here the risk of that happening is significantly smaller, so no shutdown is required."
He glanced over his shoulder at Kotegawa, who was looking at the monitor intently. "Explain something to me, Haruna." Her gaze shifted to his face, and it seemed as though she recoiled slightly as noticed his expression.
"What do you need to know?" she asked, almost hesitantly.
"You told me Konishi never told you why she sent for me. You didn't seem in the least bit surprised when she mentioned sabotage, and you've been acting out of character ever since we left my quarters. You've been flirting with me. You're the ice queen of Fourth Division, you never flirt. Not with anyone. What is it you're not telling me?"
Kotegawa looked taken aback for a moment, and then got her feet back under her. "It's nothing, I just... I just—you're different than most people here, I think recently you may have caught my eye, that's all." She blushed, and looked abashed. Kyousuke stood up and moved over to her, took her face gently in his hands and looked her deep in the eyes. He moved in close, and whispered softly in her ear.
"You're lying to me."
The change was instant. She pushed away from him and made a grab for his sword, but Kyousuke intercepted her wrist and twisted. Kotegawa shrieked in pain as she spun to face away from him, and Kyousuke forced her to her knees, her arm held firmly behind her back. "All right, Haruna," he said, voice steely. "You're going to tell me what you know. You're a good liar, I'll give you that, but you're not selling the entire act well enough. I know you feel nothing for me since I was practically naked earlier and you didn't bat an eye. You can feign a blush on demand—you did it earlier in Konishi's office—so that little confession just now was a pretty poor attempt at trying to divert suspicion. Who changed the configuration?" He emphasized his question with a little more torque on her arm, and she screamed again.
"Stop! Stop, you're going to break it! It was me, I did it, I changed it!"
"Why?"
"It was a mistake, I didn't think something like that would happen, I swear it!"
More torque, and another scream. "You don't make mistakes, Haruna. Not down here. You have a flawless track record, you haven't made a single mistake since the Academy. Why don't I believe you? Tell me again, why did you do it?"
"They'll kill me if I tell you!" She was crying, tears streaming down her face as she shook her head violently, trying to deal with the pain.
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"They'll kill me!" her cries was desperate now, there was more than pain in her voice, there was fear.
"What makes you think I won't kill you?"
"You wouldn't! I know you, you would never do that!"
"I don't think you know me as well as you think. Do you know which Division I used to be in before I came to the Fourth? I used to be in Second." Kyousuke let that sink in, and Kotegawa fell silent, clearly shocked. He continued, releasing some of the pressure on her arm, still gripping her wrist tightly. "You're a traitor. I've killed a lot of people like you before, there's nothing stopping me now."
*
"So Kotegawa did it?" Konishi looked stern. The mess on her desk had been cleared off, and she was leaning back in her chair examining Kyousuke over steepled fingers. She had calmed down significantly since their last encounter, something for which Kyousuke was thankful. "Did she tell you why?"
Kotegawa had indeed told him why she had done it. "Do you remember the program we tried a while back? Sending researchers to the real world for testing rather than sending someone like myself?"
"Yes, I believe it was cancelled due to the amounts of stress it induced in the test groups. There was an accident, too. What about it?"
"Kotegawa was a part of one of the test groups. They fell under attack, and she was the sole survivor. The official story she told was that she managed to escape as an uncommonly powerful human more or less gutted the rest of her team, but apparently that was a fabrication."
"She lied in her debriefing? Doesn't sound like Kotegawa. What happened?"
"Apparently the human cut her a deal. She would live in exchange for sabotaging Soul Society efforts at hollow pacification. He told her he'd kill her himself if she didn't obey his orders."
"That doesn't sound very likely. A human wanting to stop research into hollow pacification, I mean."
"Exactly. That's why I suspect he was acting under orders from Hueco Mundo. It's possible there are others like her, but I don't think whoever is giving the human orders knows all the details. Removing him from the equation may result in Kotegawa's safety."
"It sounds like you're volunteering. Are you?" Konishi's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kyousuke sighed. "I'd like to see this thing through to the end. Yes, I'm volunteering."
"The Captain would be proud. You may leave immediately." Kyousuke turned to leave, but as he was opening the door, Konishi called out once more. "Is she hurt badly?"
Kyousuke paused as he thought back to the generator room. "Sore shoulder, a bruise here or there. I had to make her believe I'd kill her if she didn't talk. She'll be fine."
"Would you have? Killed her, that is."
"Probably not," he lied, and left.
Kyousuke stepped through the Senkaimon into the cool air of the early evening a some time later. He had spent some time in the archives, looking for details about Kotegawa's previous deployment, figuring it would be as good a place as any to start looking for clues as to where the human could be found. Above all, however, he had slept. He felt refreshed and alert, there had been no interruptions this time. The request for a Senkaimon opening had gone through smoothly at the Kido Corps, and he had indeed found some pertinent information while digging in the archives. Kotegawa had regained consciousness sometime during the day, and a secondary, much gentler questioning had been conducted, the results of which had been given to Kyousuke. They had managed to extract more details about the human, and Kyousuke had worked out the most likely location to run into him. The questioning had included a description, so all he needed to do was suppress his reiatsu and lie in wait.
*
Hours passed, but Kyousuke persevered, suppressing his reiatsu to near-undetectable levels. Any human stupid enough to cross Soul Society would be stupid enough to make a mistake. Sure enough, Kyousuke felt a surge at some time near midnight, someone's reiatsu flared and flickered away. Kyousuke rose slowly from his meditative state and flickered out of visibility as he flashstepped away towards the origin of the surge. He stayed high above street level, his eyes scanning the thronging midnight crowds beneath his feet. That was the thing about humans—they so seldom looked up. Another surge and Kyousuke took off again, wind rushing through his hair as he flitted through the gaps between buildings.
He arrived at the entrance of an alley, and careful to not frame himself in the light from the city, glanced around the corner from the fourth story or so. There was a scuffle going on in the alley, three people fighting. It was a raw kind of fight, no technique or finesse, just throwing their weight around. One of the fighters was clearly winning, even though it seemed the other two were ganging up on him.
It quickly became apparent that the combatant who was winning wasn't quite fighting fair: the sporadic surges of reiatsu Kyousuke had been feeling had been a result of the man enhancing his muscular ability. Right now he was being subtle, his punches simply fracturing bones and causing internal bleeding, but Kyousuke had no doubt this ability had been the one to tear apart Kotegawa's research group. The fight was nearing its conclusion, the man was finishing up. One of his assailants lay on the ground, unconscious or dead, Kyousuke couldn't tell which. The other was locked in the man's grasp, kicking wildly as he was being choked. His legs fell limp and he stopped struggling, and the man dumped him unceremoniously on the ground next to the other man. There was no doubt about it: this was Kyousuke's target.
The man brushed himself and made to leave, and Kyousuke rose to the top of the building, staying out of sight. He would follow him to somewhere they would not be interrupted, and Kyousuke would proceed with his plan. If it went well, Kotegawa would be charged with something minor, given a slap on the wrist, and put back to work where she belonged. If it went poorly, she would probably end up jailed for a long time or even downright executed for Seireitei's protection. Kyousuke was confident, however. This would go well. The reasoning he had given Konishi earlier was sound: the human had probably fallen under the influence of a particularly manipulative arrancar, and once Kyousuke had made sure that any knowledge of Kotegawa had stayed with the human, he would kill the human and Hueco Mundo's influence would be that much smaller.
*
Kyousuke stalked the man through the city, never letting him out of his sight. He was doing a good job of remaining undetected, the man had shown no sign of being aware that he was followed. Scenarios were playing out in Kyousuke's head the entire time: a short, efficient questioning, subsequent execution and disappearance was a recurring theme, though there was a smattering of fights, the outcome varying. As always, it was best to be prepared.
The quarry seemed to have an affinity for walking; he never once set foot in a vehicle during his long trek across Karakura, instead choosing rather scenic routes. Kyousuke surmised that he was coming down from the adrenaline kick. Eventually the man reached his destination: a modest house in a quiet part of town. There were no lights on inside despite the late hour, and Kyousuke guessed the man lived alone. Good, he thought. That means things won't get very complicated.
The man strolled up the path leading to the door at a leisurely pace, fumbled for his keys for a brief moment, and let himself inside. Kyousuke remained above, waiting for the right moment. Letting the man relax and feel secure was important, the break-in and interrogation had to be wildly confusing and disorienting for maximum efficiency. Luckily, Kyousuke was a patient man, and he waited calmly as lights flicked on and off inside as his prey performed his nightly routine.
Then, finally, the last light clicked off, and Kyousuke sprung into action. He descended to the street and vaulted silently over the wall into the man's garden, looking for any convenient access routes into the building. An open window would be best, but Kyousuke had learned to tamper with locks on Earth long ago. Thankfully, he was spared the trouble; he spied a window on the second floor that was carelessly left ajar. He climbed a drainpipe and managed to pry it open far enough to climb through.
He was in.
He surveyed his surroundings in the dim light from the streetlights outside, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It seemed he was in a bathroom, the tub was drained, but the floor was still damp in places. Treading carefully, he crossed the room in silence, sliding the door open and entered a hall. He could hear snoring behind one of the doors, and he couldn't quite suppress a sly smile. Everything was going well so far.
The door opened noiselessly, the hinges smooth and well-oiled. By now, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see the shape of the man in his bed, his chest rising and falling in time with his snoring. Drawing Kannaduki slowly and soundlessly, he reached out and clamped a hand over the man's mouth and nose. He awoke with a start, staring wildly and flailing around with his arms and legs, but Kyousuke held firm, moving out of his reach before brandishing his zanpakuto in the man's face. The flailing stopped and the muffled sounds coming from his mouth faltered, and Kyousuke leaned in close and whispered into the terrified man's ear. "You move, you die. You will answer my questions with a nod or a shake of your head, or you will start to lose extremities." A pause to let it sink in. "If I like your answers, I'll let you live."
It was a lie, of course. The man was going to die no matter how he answered but he didn't need to know that. "Do you understand?"
The man nodded, a look of terror in his eyes.
*
"A few months ago, you attacked and killed a group of Shinigami, but you let one go. Is this correct?"
The man nodded fervently.
"You persuaded her to sabotage something in Soul Society. Correct?"
Another nod.
"It wasn't your idea, was it?"
No movement. Kyousuke sheared off a piece of the man's earlobe and asked again, his hand muffling the screams of pain. This time, the man complied, and shook his head.
"You were acting under orders that were coming from an arrancar, correct?"
A hesitant nod this time. Kyousuke sensed the subject was discomforting, and he was sure that the profusely bleeding ear wasn't helping. "Does the arrancar know any specifics? Does he know about the girl you turned against us?"
Again, he shook his head.
"Tell me his name. The arrancar's." Kyousuke removed his hand from the man's mouth and wincing, he let loose a tiny whimper of pain. Kyousuke slapped him sharply and asked again.
"I—I don't know. I swear, I don't know. He..." his voice trailed off and his gaze fell to the window. Kyousuke looked up for a split second, and the man took the opportunity.
He swung his fist at Kyousuke's face, but the punch came in slow, and Kyousuke managed to shift out of the way, the man's hand whistling past his ear. The reiatsu he had collected in it tickled Kyousuke's ear, and as the man exploded upwards out of his bed, Kyousuke spun away. Not about to let his victim gain his bearings, he skipped back in and lodged Kannaduki deep in the man's chest, puncturing a lung. The man went limp, his arms falling over Kyousuke's shoulders as they stood inches from eachother. A weak, rattling breath escaped the man's lips before he slid off Kannnaduki and collapsed back on his bed, blood seeping from the hole in his pajamas and staining the white sheets a deep crimson. Kyousuke watched him lying there for a moment, cursing his mistake, and wiped the blood off Kannaduki before resheathing her.
That was that. Kyousuke shrugged and exited the way he had come in, and opened a Senkaimon in the man's garden, stepping into the white light and letting it envelop him. The passage went quickly, and he stepped out in Seireitei without a word. He strode through the wide, tiled alleys in the direction of the Fourth Division headquarters, nodding discreetly to those he passed on the way. Finally reaching his destination, he caught a subordinate, ordered him to find Konishi and tell her from him that the problem is solved. "Don't screw up," he called after the Shinigami as he dashed off toward the researcher's office. He watched him go for a moment, then headed off in the direction of the stockade.
Kyousuke found Kotegawa lying on a bunk in one of the smaller cells, and it looked like she was sleeping. He rattled at the bars and yelled her name roughly, and she stirred. When she saw who it was, she didn't look pleased.
"Come to abuse me some more, Tsukimiya?"
Kyousuke would have fun with this. "That's right. Your information didn't check out. This time, you're going to tell me the truth." He produced the key to the cell door and unlocked it, stepping inside. He approached the bunk and Kotegawa shrank back a fraction, and he leaned in close, his mouth mere centimeters from her ear, and he whispered softly into it. "You're free to go."
He drew back to see her face, and she was looking at him with a confused expression.
"What do you mean, 'I'm free to go'? Is this some sort of joke?"
"The man who killed your squad that day... He's dead. You're free of his influence. You're most likely going to be scheduled for a minor correctional meeting with a senior officer, but you are, as of this moment, free to go."
The look on her face was ridiculous, and Kyousuke found it immensely humorous.
"He's dead?" she asked, hesitantly.
"That's right," replied Kyousuke, moving back out of the door, leaving the key to it on the bunk next to her. He stood there, waiting for her to rise.
She got slowly to her feet and shuffled out of the room to come face to face with Kyousuke, who she slapped, a resounding smack to the left side of his face. It reddened, but he remained expressionless. "That's for my arm," she said.
"Well, I can see it's all better now," he replied drily.
"How do you know he's dead?" she asked, staring him in the eyes fiercely.
"Because I killed him myself thirty minutes ago." There was a note of finality in his voice. He turned to leave, but she caught his arm and he laughed. "You don't need to kiss me on the cheek this time, Haruna."
"No, not the cheek," she said quietly, and stood on her toes and planted a kiss firmly on his mouth.
°7,227
This is an old solo thread that was lost twice: once during the purges in mid-March 2011, and once when the Pendulum section was purged. Resubmitted for posterity; the thread has long since been claimed.
