Chapter Text
Back Then
Sneaking into the Seireitei without a Senkaimon was child’s play, though this was the first time Kaede could recall doing so on her own. Night had already fallen in Soul Society when she returned, and there was a notable tension in the air - or perhaps it was just that every sense she had, spiritual or otherwise, was on highest alert.
She had to get supplies and information - medical aids from the Fourth Division, stealth and evasion tools from the Twelfth, maybe something from the library about Soul pregnancy. Enough to get through the next several months. Beyond that…she would deal with whatever happened as it came.
After getting those supplies, she’d leave Soul Society forever. The Living World, while appealing, was out of the question: it was too closely monitored by the Shinigami. This pregnancy was already messing with her senses - what if it impaired her ability to cloak her reiatsu? And then there was the child itself to consider: there was little doubt in her mind that it would inherit some powerful genes. She didn’t know when or how it would exhibit those genes, and it might be years before it could be taught to hide its presence. Either way, powerful spiritual beings stuck out like sore thumbs in the Living World.
There was the Dangai. Neither Shinigami nor Hollows lingered there if they could help it, making it probably the easiest place to hide out. But the Dangai was uncharted territory, a vast wilderness of tempestuous energy and too many unknowns. Perhaps she could use it as a temporary escape when need be, but it wasn’t a good long-term destination. Besides, someone of her reiatsu would be sure to draw the Cleaner. She’d spend far too much time and energy just trying to stay alive there.
That left Hueco Mundo. There, she at least knew the terrain somewhat. She could deal with Hollows, knew how to evade them, knew how they hunted and behaved. The ambient reishi would provide a form of sustenance for her and her child. She’d still have to earn their survival, but she could manage it there.
Sousuke might try to find her there, of course. What would he think when she simply disappeared after tonight? He didn’t know about the pregnancy - she’d only just realized it herself, after all. A small part of her felt she owed him an explanation…but no. He’d been keeping so much from her; she no longer owed him anything of that regard. It was better that he didn’t know. She could handle him if he came for her; she just needed some time, time to figure herself out, to bring her child into the world, to prepare.
Right now, she needed to grab whatever she could carry and get out.
She went to Division Four first, but stopped short of entering its facilities: Something was happening. All the staff were there, not just the perfunctory crews on their regular shifts. Unohana herself was there, discussing something with a few other members on the second floor platform; some of her staff rushed along the corridors, carrying supplies and preparing rooms.
Kaede slipped back into the shadows and left. There was far too much activity here; she’d have to take what she could get elsewhere.
By contrast, Division Twelve was surprisingly quiet. Kaede headed straight for the storage sheds, pocketing a variety of small incendiaries and other combat tools the researchers had been developing. She could always teach herself to reverse-engineer them in Hueco Mundo; there wasn’t much there in the way of natural resources, but everything was made of reishi. Maybe it was about time she refined that aspect of her raw power. Goodness knew she’d have plenty of time on her hands. Perhaps she should grab a gigai too, just in case she had to visit the Living World for anything…but she decided against it. She’d only take what she could carry easily.
Then she remembered the cloaks Kisuke had in his office, made of a special reiatsu-concealing fabric he’d been developing for years now. Being able to hide her reiatsu - and her child’s - would be invaluable…but could she risk it? The main lab was wide open with few places to hide, and Mayuri kept unpredictable hours in there. Nevermind the challenge of breaking into Kisuke’s office.
But that cloak - just the fabric itself could be the difference between freedom and discovery. It was too tempting, too valuable.
She watched the entrance to the lab for almost an hour before, finally, Mayuri emerged, Akon trailing behind him. Once they were out of sight, she went in. The lab was, thankfully, empty now that they’d left; luck was on her side for the moment. As for the door to Kisuke’s workstation…she stood a few feet back from the door and drew her blade.
“Wither, Mono no Aware.”
First Truth could take care of the physical bolts; Second would degrade the Kido spells. She carefully recreated the sequence she’d seen Kisuke use that very morning, switching back and forth between the Truths until, at long last, the door clicked open.
There was no time to waste. Kaede grabbed the first cloak she saw and threw it around her shoulders. Now, where was the spare fabric? She could use it to make new clothes for her and the baby -
She froze when she heard the bolts of the door turn and release, one by one. Her mind raced; her hand immediately went to her Zanpakuto. She could use a concealment spell - but in the time it took that thought to form, the door opened.
It was Kisuke.
At first, he didn’t seem to notice her, more interested in closing the door behind him. Kaede knew she had to move, had to do something - but she was rooted in place.
He turned, and his eyes locked with hers.
“Kaede?” Shock and confusion were written all over his face. “Why are you here?”
She should attack him, disable him, run - but she just stood there. Kisuke’s eyes swept over her form, and she knew what he saw: the cloak, the small bags that hung from her obi…there was no explanation she could give that would satisfy a man who’d spent most of his career stalking and detaining suspicious people. She saw his expression go from confusion, to something like hurt, and then…resignation.
Kaede finally made her limbs move, grabbing the hilt of her sword - but Kisuke held up his hands.
“I’m not going to stop you,” he said, his tone hushed. “And I won’t ask questions. Whatever your reasons, I understand. I didn’t see you here tonight.”
Kaede stood stock-still, her sword drawn a few inches from its sheath. What? Was this some kind of trick? She waited for the turn, for the attack, for whatever was coming next.
“I just came by to grab a couple things myself,” he told her calmly. “I’m going to take the other one of those cloaks, and then I’m going to leave. Whatever happens after that, happens. Even if I wanted to stop you, I don’t have the time right now, so whatever you’re going to do, please do it now so we can both get on with our night.”
Kaede’s brow furrowed. It could be a trap. He could be trying to lull her into a false sense of security. Her instincts told her otherwise, but how trustworthy were those?
Then she thought of the activity at the Fourth - how they seemed to be preparing for a disaster - and the general tension she’d felt in the air since she returned. “What’s going on out there?”
“The team from the Ninth,” he explained. “Their reiatsu disappeared about an hour ago. There’s another team heading there now. I’m supposed to stay here, but I sent Hiyori out there for samples before I knew the situation. She doesn’t know.”
It was like all the blood drained from her body at once. Hiyori was out there?
There was no question in her mind, no debate to be had. She was going to leave - but she wouldn’t let Hiyori get caught up in all this. Not while she was able to do something about it. After this…she’d have to let go.
But not yet.
She let go of her sword’s hilt. “I’m coming with you.”
Kisuke’s eyes widened a bit, and then his face settled into an almost relieved acceptance. “Thank you.”
Sneaking across the grounds felt surprisingly natural with Kisuke. He was a seasoned Stealth operative after all; they knew all the same signals, all the same patterns and tactics. They just had a little farther to go before they could switch to shunpo and -
“You’ve created something very unusual…Kisuke.”
Kaede froze; Kisuke flinched and gave a wan smile. “Figures you’d find us, Tessai. Surprised you snuck up on us, though.”
He glanced at Kaede, who inwardly cursed. She hadn’t told Kisuke that her senses were acting up, and there was no way in hell she was going to tell him why that was. Your body’s priorities have shifted …Mono no Aware was probably right. Her spiritual energy was being diverted to the growing life within her; no wonder she’d been off lately.
Tessai, clad in his Kido Corps captain’s cape with his staff in hand, wore a grave expression - though when he saw Kaede, his brows furrowed further. “Kaede? You too?”
“I’m sure you can guess why I’m doing this,” Kisuke said. “Hiyori’s my lieutenant. I should’ve been the one to go in the first place.”
“There’s no time, Tessai-san,” Kaede pleaded. She laid her hand on the hilt of her sword. “I won’t allow you to stop us.”
The threat hung in the air among them, tense and heavy. For a second, Kaede worried that Kisuke would side with his old friend - but he didn’t contradict her. Her skin tingled, every muscle in her body coiled to strike if need be.
“I can’t allow you,” Tessai said, “to go alone. I’ve felt an indescribable fear this night as well; I will go with you.”
Kisuke’s gasp told Kaede that he was as surprised as she was; she nearly sagged from the relief that washed over her. It was quickly replaced by nauseating apprehension. Kisuke and Tessai had no idea what they were about to face - or rather, whom. There was so much they didn’t know, so much that could easily get them killed, and with a rush of shame, Kaede realized she didn’t want either of them getting hurt. All her anger and pain at what they’d done to her, how they’d lied to her…none of that mattered anymore.
“Wait,” she said just as they turned to leave. They both looked back at her, and for a second, she couldn’t remember how to speak. She just saw the two men who’d raised her, who’d shown her kindness when the powers-that-be wanted her dead, who’d fought for her life in more ways than she probably even knew of. And what did she do? She betrayed them, and they had no idea just how much.
Right now, she could still see a bit of their care shine through as they looked expectantly at her - and that terrified her, because in a moment, it would probably be gone.
But they had to know.
“I know who’s behind this.”
Genuine confusion flashed across Kisuke’s face. “Kaede?”
She swallowed. Please…please let them be able to hear this… “It’s Sousuke. It’s my husband.”
Tessai’s mustache and glasses made his face inscrutable, which Kaede was mildly thankful for; Kisuke’s face, on the other hand, was perfectly legible, at least for a brief second. She could see him go from confusion to shock before he clamped down with cold determination. How much had just gone through his head? How much did he think he already knew? How much could he possibly know?
“Just tell us what we’re facing,” Kisuke coached her with surprising patience. “But tell us on the move. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
Kaede was never so grateful for her Stealth Corps training before that moment. This wasn’t about her right now; it was about Hiyori and the others. She had to set aside her fears and her shame and focus on the task at hand. That was what Kisuke was doing right now - she recognized the signs of that compartmentalization at work - so she followed suit.
As they flash-stepped across the Rukongai, she did her best to explain. “I think - no, I know he’ll be there. He’ll want to observe and document the…experiment. I - I don’t know exactly what he’s expecting with this one, but the disappearances…the Soul Suicides…”
“Oh, I have a notion of what that’s about,” Kisuke said darkly. “Listen: This is a detainment mission. We’ll intercept Aizen Sousuke at the scene-”
“It’s not that simple-”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you be implicated-”
“That’s not the problem,” she all but shouted. “You can’t fight him. You can’t catch him.”
“Don’t worry about me-”
“Just shut up and listen to me for once!”
Both men shut their mouths.
“His Zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu,” she continued, “its power is complete hypnosis. Once you see its release, you’re caught. There’s no getting around it.”
“Then we don’t let him release his sword,” Tessai said.
“It’s too late,” she told them, her heart already clenching with shame. It’s not about you. Put that aside. “You’re already under it. You have been for years now.”
For a second, no one spoke; the only sound was the wind rushing by their ears as they flash-stepped across the districts.
“I believe,” Tessai offered after a second, “our reiatsu should be enough to nullify whatever effects-”
“It’s not,” she promised. “He’s far stronger than either of you - than probably anyone in the Seireitei. Yours won’t be enough to nullify it…but mine is.”
“Not in your state-”
“I’m not sealed anymore. I haven’t been for over a century.”
The silence between them became deafening. Kaede could practically feel their disbelief and denial before either of them verbalized it.
Tessai was the first to try. “But…that’s not possible…your checkups - I’ve seen them myself…”
Kisuke’s gaze moved from her face to her arms. “So when you say ‘complete hypnosis…’”
“That’s how complete it is.”
He closed his eyes, mouth set in a thin line. “Can you nullify its effects? Just long enough to give us an opening?”
“I will try,” she promised - but doubt wiggled through her insides. If her senses were so compromised by the pregnancy, what about her reiatsu control? “Also-”
A shrill, bone-shivering scream cut through the air, silencing her. The three exchanged an alarmed glance. That was not a human scream. Together, they pushed ahead as fast as they could, each preparing to face what sounded like a whole pack of Hollows.
But nothing could have prepared them for the nightmarish scene.
There were no Hollows. Hollows didn’t wear Shinigami shihakusho - but neither were Shinigami supposed to have bone-white masks smothering their faces, their limbs twisting and deforming right before their eyes. But the true horror was that Kaede knew them. These weren’t nameless, faceless victims of happenstance; these were captains and lieutenants of the Gotei 13, people she’d spoken with, worked with, sometimes eaten and laughed with. She always knew that they might become her enemies one day, but theorizing about it was one thing; actually seeing them suffering and mutilated like this right in front of her…
Her eyes went straight to a lanky figure with pin-straight blonde hair, half his face consumed by the viscous white substance that was already hardening into bone. Shinji… and there, walking up to him with the calm confidence of someone who knew he couldn’t be stopped, was HIM. Her husband. The man she’d trusted and relied on for far too long was now raising his sword to cut the captain down.
Kisuke flashed past her, slashing at Sousuke’s arm and forcing his attention away from the prone Shinji. Only then did Kaede see the smaller figure behind them.
HIYORI!
In a blink, Kaede was at her side. The blonde trembled and moaned in her arms, her voice distorted, the sclera of her nut-brown eyes infected with an unnatural, inky blackness. A full mask covered her face, but Kaede could still see the hair clips she’d given her just weeks ago.
“Hiyori,” Kaede called out to her, repeating her name over and over again. But her friend didn’t seem to recognize her, shuddering violently, her body twitching. Warm, wet blood seeped through her clothes and onto Kaede’s hands from a deep gash across her body. A terrible gurgling sound came from the girl’s throat. “ Hiyori!”
Kaede pulled off part of her cloak and pressed it against the gash, but there was no slowing the bleeding. She tried anyway, holding the cloth firm against the wound and twisting around toward the male voices behind her. “ WHAT DID YOU DO?!”
“I’d think that would be obvious to you, love,” answered Sousuke’s smooth baritone. “Considering how long we’ve been attempting to do this.”
She knew. Of course she knew. She was staring into the face of it, her best friend writhing in agony as her soul was violently turned inside out.
Hollowfication.
Hiyori coughed and gasped again, jolting Kaede from her horrified stupor. She had to stop this - she had to fix this! She reached for her Zanpakuto, muttering the incantation in a rushed whisper.
“Second Truth,” she commanded. “All is Transient!”
She pressed the edge of the blade to the mask on Hiyori’s face. Her sword would intuit the truth of Hiyori’s current state just like it did any weapon or technique, and then she’d be able to force it back, reverse or nullify it and get Hiyori back to normal…but nothing happened. There was no rush of understanding, nothing she could grasp or mould - but why? Why wouldn’t it work?!
“Stop it,” she pleaded, turning wide, tear-filled eyes to Sousuke’s indifferent face. “Stop this! They don’t deserve this!”
“Whether they deserve it or not is immaterial,” he replied, far too casually for someone being held at swordpoint. “They simply happened to be here tonight. I bear them no ill will; on the contrary, their contribution has been invaluable.” He cast a sidelong look at Kisuke. “Granted, I was expecting you to come yourself, Urahara Kisuke. You could say that Sarugaki-san’s current condition is your own doing.”
Kisuke didn’t rise to the bait, but Kaede’s whole body shook with fury. For the first time since the Academy, she felt a dangerous pressure build up within her - but now, there was nothing impeding it, nothing to keep it in check. She let it build, wanting it to overflow as she stared Sousuke down, so overwhelmed with hatred that it seemed impossible she’d ever held affection for the man.
“Careful there, love,” he taunted, his lips twisting into a cruel smirk. “Unless you intend to render everyone around us into spirit particles.”
Hiyori let out a labored gasp then, breaking Kaede’s enraged focus and halting the maelstrom of power within her. She touched a shaking hand to the blonde’s masked cheek. “Hiyori - stay with me, please! We’re going to fix this, just stay with me! ”
“There’s nothing to fix,” Sousuke told her. “She’s too far gone. They all are. Now…” He took a step toward her. “It’s time to go, Kaede.”
Kisuke blocked him with his own body, his voice deathly calm. “Not another step.”
Sousuke’s bemused smirk returned. “What’s this? Actually feeling protective for once? A little late for that, wouldn’t you say?” He leaned in a little closer. “She made her choice a long time ago, Urahara Kisuke - and it didn’t take much convincing.”
“Whatever you told her-”
“I told her nothing that she didn’t already know in her heart,” Sousuke taunted. “The truth works so much better than false hope and empty promises.”
Kaede’s teeth ground together as he spoke - but then she noticed something behind the two men. Tessai…his lips were moving beneath his mustache. With a start, Kaede realized what he was doing. She focused her senses as best she could, scanning for the subtle ripple of distortion that always accompanied kanzen saimin. It was there, hanging in the atmosphere like a faint mist. Whatever spell Tessai was preparing, he wouldn’t release it until he was certain of his target.
That, she could help with.
Her head pounded from the effort, her vision narrowing - but she clamped down on that ripple with all her might. “NOW!”
“ Hado 88! Hiryugekizoku Shintenraiho!”
Tessai’s voice boomed as he released the prepared spell. Kaede instinctively hunched over Hiyori’s body; Kisuke dropped down and covered them both just as a huge, blinding blast of electric energy rushed past them.
“Bakudo 81,” Sousuke’s voice replied calmly. “Danku.”
The spells exploded on impact with each other, sending a cloud of dirt and debris into the air. When it cleared, Sousuke, Kaname, and Gin were gone.
“You okay?” Kisuke asked, shaking off the settling dust.
Her head throbbed; the rest of her body felt like she’d just finished two marathons. “I’m fine. Hiyori-”
“I know,” he said. “We’re going to help them.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she demanded. “There’s nothing we can do, is there? There’s no cure for Hollowfication.”
Kisuke went quiet for a moment, his mouth set in a grim line. “There might be something.”
“I said don’t lie to me!”
She could feel Hiyori’s spirit grasping at its own existence - she was fighting, but the warped, cancerous part of her soul was just as tenacious and she was losing ground fast. Kaede tried to press in with her own reiatsu, wanting to hold her friend together if she could…but Hiyori’s energy was too chaotic now, the Hollowfication too toxic to contain.
Please, please, no, she begged silently - or maybe she said it out loud. The prayer was all-consuming. Please don’t leave me, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll do anything, just please don’t go!
“Kisuke,” she heard Tessai say, “are you sure you can help them?”
“I am,” was Kisuke’s firm reply. “I won’t let them die if I can help it.”
Kaede shut her eyes, not wanting to see either of their faces, not wanting to see any sign of hope that couldn’t be trusted - but the certainty and promise in his voice pierced through the cracks of her heart like slivers of sunlight.
“Then I will transport us back to your lab.”
Kaede’s eye shot open again. “How? In their states-”
“I will use Time Suspension and Space Dislocation,” Tessai stated. “Though both are forbidden spells, so I must ask you both to avert your eyes for a moment.”
The slivers of light widened - not enough to illuminate a room, perhaps, but enough that Kaede could no longer deny their presence. There was still hope. But there was also danger. So long as he was still out there, they would all be in danger.
Kaede gently placed Hiyori down on the ground and wiped her bloody hands on her hakuma as a wave of cold, calm determination came over her. “I’m going after him.”
“Not on your own,” Kisuke protested. “We’ll get him-”
“No, you won’t.” She sheathed her sword. “I’ll try not to kill them right away; we’ll need at least one to get the truth out.” When Kisuke opened his mouth again, she cut him off. “Please…help them. I’ve got this.”
She didn’t wait for his answer.
Kaede flash-stepped through the forest, her senses focused on the trio ahead. She couldn’t differentiate between them, and keeping them in her mind’s sight made her head throb even more, but she kept going. Her eyes were dry, her pulse was steady; all that remained was the dreadful purpose in her heart.
She had to kill him.
If she let him live, he would use Kyoka Suigetsu to twist perceptions, twisting the truth into whatever he wanted it to be. Once dead, kanzen saimin would end. Gin or Kaname could be made to talk, and even if they didn’t, they at least didn’t have the means to continue their treason.
As for her…and her child…she couldn’t think about that right now. When she’d planned her escape earlier, she hadn’t taken into consideration what might happen to those she left behind. She hadn’t allowed herself to do so. But seeing Hiyori like that…knowing that Sousuke was the reason for it…
She couldn’t just run away now. Not until this was ended, once and for all.
Two of the three reiatsu signatures stopped all of a sudden, and the third flickered out of range; Kaede drew her Zanpakuto and whispered the incantation. A blade struck out of the darkness before her, aimed directly at her chest. Kaede stood and let it come, letting the First Truth keep it from ever reaching her. As quickly as it appeared, the blade retracted.
“This is a bad idea,” Kaede warned as Kaname and the ever-grinning Gin stalked out of the forest. “Don’t make me cut you down.”
“Aww,” Gin whined. “And here I thought you liked kids.”
“All due respect,” Kaname responded to her - though the coldness of his tone made her doubt there was much respect behind his words. “The ‘bad idea’ is you trying to interfere tonight. You weren’t supposed to be here.”
“Yeah, I figured that much out,” she muttered coldly. “How long?”
“That is none of your con-”
Kaede let her reiatsu pulse out, making both males buckle. “How long?”
“Whoa,” Gin laughed after the wave passed - though he was noticeably paler than usual. “Seems she’s serious, Tousen. Whaddya think we should do?”
Kaede paid him no mind, keeping her eyes on the blind man. “This isn’t what we wanted, Kaname. This isn’t what Kakyo would’ve wanted.”
“Kakyo is dead,” Kaname stated flatly. “The things she wanted will never be possible in the world as it is. I thought you, of all people, would understand that, that you had the same resolve to change things.” His mouth tightened. “But it seems I was wrong.”
“Change?” Kaede sneered. She swept a hand back behind her. “How is that changing anything?! Who exactly is that supposed to be helping?!”
“Aizen-sama is breaking through barriers to achieve great power,” Kaname said. “And that power will be used to change the whole world. Those who would stand in the way of that must be culled.”
Kaede shook her head, her grip tightening on her Zanpakuto. Gin was an enigma, but she used to think she knew Kaname, understood him, that they shared the same reverence for life and a similar sense of justice. Maybe they had at one point, but he was just as much a product of her husband’s manipulation as she was. Nothing she could say would get through to him now.
“Step aside, Kaname,” she warned him once more. “I meant it when I said I don’t want to cut you down.”
“If you do not have the resolve to do even that,” he replied, “then you are not the person I thought you were - and you are unworthy of standing at Aizen-sama’s side any longer.”
Gin’s blade came at her again then, whistling through the air. Kaede shifted her focus to stop it with First Truth.
“Bankai: Enma Korogi.”
Kaede’s eyes widened when she heard Kaname’s declaration - and then the world went completely black around her, devoid of sight, sound, and sensation. She could no longer feel Kaname’s or Gin’s presence; they could be standing directly in front of her for all she knew. She strengthened the First Truth’s protective field around her, realizing that Gin could strike from any angle right now and she wouldn’t feel it coming.
So Kaname had achieved Bankai at some point…and she hadn’t been told about it. That just drove the point further home: Sousuke had been keeping things from her on purpose for a long time now.
Her eyes narrowed, blood seething in her veins. As far as Kaname and Gin knew, she could only use either First Truth or Second; she couldn’t activate one without disabling the other. They probably expected her to keep First Truth up for defense right now.
Well, Kaname wasn’t the only one with some new tricks.
She opened her mouth, feeling her voice vibrate in her throat even though she couldn’t hear the words.
“Third Truth: All Is Within.”
Two contradictory truths could exist at once. She could want to bring change to Soul Society and not agree with Sousuke’s chosen methods. She could despise the system while loving people who worked within it. She could have all the anger and resentment in the world for what she’d been through…and she could choose to let herself go from it.
All was void of inherent meaning or independent existence - perhaps the only absolute truth of reality. And all was transient, impermanent and ever changing, evolving in an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth that defied the very idea of an “absolute.”
Within both truths, anything and everything was possible.
Kaede closed her eyes and let her power bloom out around her again. At first, she still sensed nothing - but that was incorrect. There wasn’t “nothing” around her; this was simply Kaname’s Bankai, nullifying her senses and plunging her into the sort of darkness he’d experienced his whole life. The understanding of that washed over her, and with that awareness came perception. She didn’t just feel Kaname’s presence: she connected to the very core of his Zanpakuto and comprehended everything about it. With comprehension, came control.
Her reiatsu flared, overcoming his own with ease and forcing his Zanpakuto into submission to her. The black void around her shattered; sound came rushing back to her ears; and Suzumushi was returned to its sealed state under her hand.
All the while, she noticed Gin’s sword striking out at her like a snake, attempting to exploit openings that did not exist. Still subduing Kaname’s blade, Kaede turned her attention to the boy and slashed with her own sword. Her blade connected with Shinso from afar, becoming the snake charmer that slammed the lid down on the basket. Gin’s ever-present grin faltered when he realized his sword would not extend at his command.
It took Kaede two steps and two strikes of her hand to render them both unconscious.
She reached out her senses to find Sousuke once and for all - only to fall to her knees, retching as a rush of vertigo knocked the wind out of her. Dammit! How could one quick battle take so much out of her?! Well, maybe not just the one battle; nullifying Kyoka Suigetsu’ power, even briefly, had taken more focus and effort than she anticipated.
She took a few gulps of air and forced herself to her feet, sliding Mono no Aware back into its sheath. If pregnancy was taking this much of a toll on her, she needed to reserve her energy for when she actually caught up to -
Her eyes widened. He was here. He was standing right behind her, close enough that she could feel his breath against her hair. Before she could move a muscle, she felt a sharp pinch in her neck.
“I must say, love,” he practically purred, “you always find a way to surprise me. I was starting to think you’d never finish your Shikai…congratulations.”
She grabbed at his hand, ripping the syringe from his grasp - but the plunger was fully depressed, the contents already gone. She thrashed as his arms encircled her, kicking and twisting in his grasp as a cold sensation rushed into her veins.
“You shouldn’t have sheathed your sword, though,” he continued, his larger frame easily overpowering her increasingly sluggish attempts at escape. “Once you did, I knew you’d resealed your Zanpakuto, and you’d no longer be untouchable.”
Her vision swam, color and shadow blurring together…her limbs grew tingly, then numb…
“Don’t worry.” His voice was right in her ear now, and as she lost consciousness, she heard him utter a phrase that filled every cell in her body with frozen terror.
“It won’t hurt the baby.”
Pins and needles…everything felt tingly, if she felt it at all…her head pounded behind her eyes and she flinched when they tried to open, nearly blinded by the whiteness around her…
Kaede groaned and tried to move her arms, her legs, anything . Her fingers twitched around something soft, cool, and…granular?
Sand?
“You were out longer than I expected.”
She froze. That voice…that was…
Her heart began to race as she recalled what had happened. She struggled to stand, to do anything, but her body would barely respond and what the hell was going on?!
“Wha’d you do t’me?” she slurred, any sense of dignity overridden by pure fear. “Where’r we?”
“Hueco Mundo,” answered her husband, standing just a few meters in front of her. Kaede blinked hard, wondering why he was so blurry…but then, as her vision cleared, she realized it wasn’t her eyes at all. There was something between them, like a wall of lightly frosted glass. Not just between them - it was all around her, like a dome or…
“You’re inside a Kido barrier right now,” Sousuke confirmed as the thoughts formed in her mind. “There are many sinkholes in this area. The Hollows within them are likely too preoccupied with their cannibalistic frenzies to care about our presence, but I had a few tasks to complete in Soul Society and you were in no state to defend yourself.”
Sinkholes…like where they’d done that last Hollow experiment…“How long…”
“Over a day.”
Kaede pushed herself halfway to her knees, the act taking far more effort than it should have. A day? “What the hell d’you do t’me?!”
“I gave you a fairly mild paralytic and sedative,” he replied. “Though I suppose since your body is reallocating its resources to the baby, it affected you more than anticipated.”
Her heart skipped a beat. The baby . How - how could he know?! She only just realized it herself! Did he do something while she was unconscious, or…
With a chill, she recalled the last thing he said to her before she blacked out in his arms. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the baby.
Her hand drifted almost instinctively to her lower abdomen. “How…? How do you-”
“-know about the baby?” he finished for her. “Of course I know, love. I noticed the symptoms quite early on and confirmed it with a scan while you were asleep.”
“But I can’t - the kaido seal-”
“Was quite simple to remove,” he again interrupted. “Another task I completed while you were asleep, a few days after your last checkup three years ago.”
That’s why she hadn’t been able to sense the kaido seal. There’d been nothing to find…and there hadn’t been for years? How…how did he…without her knowing…
“You may be a light sleeper most of the time, but I’ve found that certain activities, followed by a calming tea blend, tends to knock you out.”
She thought back to every cup of tea he’d handed her with that smile she’d once adored and nearly retched. He drugged her. He drugged her.
“I admit,” he continued, “at first I was under the impression that soul conception would be fairly easy between two powerful beings, but it turns out that was likely a lie propagated by the nobility to further legitimize their breeding privileges. Even the Five Great Noble families require assistance when it comes to fertility. Interestingly, the Tsunayashiro estate has quite a robust supply of supplements for both the male and female parties; it seems they haven’t given up on their attempts at eugenics, though that is neither here nor there. I was astonished at how effective they were. Years of effort, and yet just a few weeks with those supplements was enough for you to conceive - not that I didn’t enjoy our prior efforts.”
Kaede heard him speaking, but barely registered his words. He could’ve peeled back her skin and rubbed sewage along her exposed organs, and she still wouldn’t have felt as rancid and violated as she did now. He’d turned their most intimate moments, and the implicit trust that came with them, into a weapon. He’d removed her birth control, spent years drugging her, took away her agency in her own body .
In her nauseous haze, she could only respond with one word.
“Why?”
He let out a small sigh as he looked down at her matter-of-factly. “Because I knew you would need someone to look after.”
“Wh-what?”
“You have always had a tender heart that requires something external to focus on,” he explained. “Guilt and shame have been so deeply ingrained into you that you cannot prioritize your own life above others; but once you latch onto someone else, you will do anything in your power to keep them. Such was the case with Sarugaki Hiyori.”
Something sparked in her body at the sound of the blonde’s name. “Where is she? What did you do to her?!”
“I’ve done nothing to her,” Sousuke claimed with an infuriating air of innocence. “Central 46, however, has decreed that she and other Hollowfication subjects be disposed of.”
The blood drained from her face. “No…Kisuke won’t let that happen…”
“Urahara Kisuke is in no position to deny them, seeing as he and Tessai were arrested for and convicted of the illegal experiments that effectively took the lives of four captains and four lieutenants. They were sentenced before noon.”
What little strength Kaede had regained disappeared. Her ears started ringing; Sousuke kept speaking, but it was like she was under water. Hiyori…that meant Hiyori and the others…no…she couldn’t be…
“It was a necessary sacrifice, love. The Gotei is weakened; they will scramble to fill the vacancies and cover up what happened. In the interim, we will move into positions of power. I will take over the Fifth Division, an easy transition since I’ve been effectively running it for quite a while now. Kaname has risen from the fifth seat of his division to the first simply by default; when he presents his Bankai to the Captain-Commander in a few days, his captaincy will be secured. I imagine Gin will be ready to take on a division in a few decades; for now I’ll keep him as my lieutenant. The boy develops quickly,” he added with a bemused smirk. “Though I anticipate that our child will surpass him with little effort. They say that the harsher the pregnancy symptoms, the more powerful the child. Given your condition so far, the odds are promising indeed.”
Kaede clawed at the sand around her, her hands curling into shaking fists. Her tongue tasted of burnt copper, her blood boiled in her veins, rage licking through her body like a wildfire. No scream, no roar, no shriek could possibly encompass the fury roiling within her.
“You…fucking… bastard!”
She lurched to her feet and reached for her Zanpakuto. She wanted to tear him limb from limb, to bite and claw her way through his body and soul until nothing recognizable remained, and no Kido barrier was going to get in her way. “ Wither-”
Her hand grasped nothing.
Kaede’s eyes widened. She looked down at her side where her sword usually hung, then to her other side, all the while patting down her hips and torso with her hands. Nothing. It was gone. Her Zanpakuto, all the supplies she’d grabbed for her escape - it was all gone!
“Where is it?” she screamed at him. “What did you do with it?!”
Instead of waiting for an answer, she grasped at her power. She didn’t need a weapon. She’d overwhelm this damn barrier with her own reiatsu, and then she’d rip him apart with her bare hands if she had to! She pushed her reiatsu - only to nearly collapse from pain as it recoiled inside of her. The more she pushed, the more resistance she felt, like trying to force torrents of water through a blocked spigot.
That was when she noticed the burning sensation around her wrists. She lifted her hands up to her face, letting her sleeves fall back - and then she saw them: a pair of glowing cuffs that encircled her wrists. It was Kido, it had to be, but she knew of no spell that did… this. “What the hell is this?!”
“A Kido spell,” he answered simply. “One I created just in case the day came that I had to subdue you. It’s only a temporary measure; I imagine they’re quite uncomfortable, since they keep you from expelling any more than the tiniest trickle of reiatsu. The harder you push against it, the stronger the recoil will be.”
Kaede screamed and threw herself at the barrier, not caring that it was a wasted effort. Sousuke stared calmly back as she slammed her whole body against it over, and over, and over. Then he sighed.
“Bakudo 4: Hainawa.”
A glowing gold rope of energy whipped around Kaede’s body, pinning her arms to her sides and binding her legs together. She fell to her knees, still snarling at him.
“If I wasn’t concerned that you’d hurt yourself and our child with these antics, I’d have allowed you to continue them until you exhausted yourself,” he told her when she stopped for breath. “As it is, you have already endangered both your lives enough for one day. Now, if you’d calm yourself for a moment, I could tell you that your Zanpakuto is in Soul Society. It was located this morning with what is assumed to be your body. As far as Soul Society knows, Sorano Kaede is now dead, killed by her own captain when she tried to stop him from carrying out forbidden Hollowfication experiments.”
She stopped breathing for a second, not sure she’d heard him correctly. A body…dead…he’d framed Kisuke not just for the experiments, but for murder? Her murder?
She sank back as the pieces fell into place like lead weights. She didn’t have to ask how he managed to convince Central of her death, or of Kisuke’s guilt in all of this. It was obvious. Kisuke, with his brilliant mind, powerful Zanpakuto, and penchant for pushing boundaries, was exactly the sort of person Central would be wary of. A mix of hypnosis, a well-crafted narrative, and carefully placed “evidence” would do the trick. Central now had a full-blown scandal on its hands, an ugly blemish that not only crippled the Gotei but showed them to have no control over their own members. There was no covering this up - and Sousuke had handed them a deliciously dressed scapegoat on a silver platter. Kisuke would not only take the fall; they’d want to make an example out of him, and they’d do so swiftly and ruthlessly. Even being friends with the heir of the Shihoin clan wouldn’t be able to save him.
Kaede’s entire body sagged within the Kido restraints. If Kisuke wasn’t already dead, he soon would be. Tessai, as his accomplice, would either share that fate or be imprisoned, possibly after having his reiatsu system maimed beyond repair. And Hiyori…
“I know you will grieve for them.” Sousuke’s voice carried something almost like sympathy. “Even though they would stand against us. They all lived under the same illusion as the rest of Soul Society, and they would have gladly died for that illusion. For that, they should be pitied. But even mindless sheep have their uses. Thanks to their sacrifices, we have gained much: Invaluable information that will help us transcend the limits of Shinigami and Hollows; admission to the upper echelons of the Gotei 13; and, not least of all…your freedom. After all, no one will search for a dead woman.”
Her head snapped up so quickly she thought she heard a crack. Freedom? Freedom? He couldn’t be serious. Her stomach began shaking, and then she was laughing, a deranged, mirthless music to go along with the mad dance of her rage and incredulity.
“You think,” she gasped, “that I want anything to do with you now? That I’m thankful for this? That I’ll just sit here quietly and let you do whatever the hell you want until our child is born?!”
“I think that once you’ve had enough time to mourn and calm down,” he replied coolly, “you’ll be able to examine the situation more objectively, and you’ll realize that it was all necessary - not just for our future, but for your own good. You’ve always been too soft, love. You care so much, have such reverence for the lives of others - even for those who don’t deserve your consideration. It’s quite pathetic, watching you break again and again over the suffering and death of beings that, in the grand scheme, have no importance whatsoever.”
Kaede was caught between wanting to laugh and scoff. “Oh, I’m pathetic for wanting to help people? Who the hell are you to decide which lives matter?!”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he responded, unruffled by the venom in her voice. “Ultimately, the idea that any one person has more value than another is arbitrary and subjective. To you, for example, a person’s life is important as long as that person pays you the slightest bit of positive attention. That, or you perceive them to be helpless and in need of protection. Such an outlook makes one immensely susceptible to distraction.”
He ignored her glare and continued: “I knew it would be difficult for you to let go of Sarugaki Hiyori, though I hoped that time and distance would ease that transition. Then you decided to take Urahara Kisuke’s offer to join Division Twelve. Even then, his influence on you was obvious: you began to buy back into the fantasy, the illusion that every Shinigami lives under. You started to forget our goals, favoring complacency and comfort over reality and purpose.”
He approached the barrier’s edge as he spoke. “That was why this had to happen. You had to be reminded of what was important. I’ll be honest: Sarugaki Hiyori’s involvement was not my preference. I knew there was a chance she’d be entangled, but I thought it more likely that Urahara himself would go to the scene. If you need to blame someone for her death, blame him.”
“I blame you ,” Kaede seethed.
“I removed yet another obstacle from your path,” he countered with such ease that she wondered if he’d rehearsed this whole conversation before. “As I've done countless times before. Did you believe that Central 46 would have agreed to the removal of the Failsafe without my intervention? Or permitted you to complete a normal course of study at the Academy, if I hadn’t forged the necessary documents?”
Her eyes widened. He’d been observing her checkups long before he dismantled the seals.
“Honda-sensei didn’t leak the Failsafe trigger,” she realized. “You did…you set up that mob…”
“And because I did, you no longer had to live with the threat of anyone being able to cripple you with a simple incantation. Moreover, the ongoing harassment you’d endured largely ended, and you were able to graduate in a timely manner.”
Kaede recalled Honda-sensei’s gaunt, manic face, the despair in his voice as he begged for anyone to believe him. Her stomach twisted with guilt. “You got an innocent man thrown into the Nest-”
“That ‘innocent man’ showed his cowardly nature when he beat you down with both Kido and a cane, simply for sparring with another student,” Sousuke retorted, his eyes narrowing. “As for the mob, all I had to do was tell one person, and that one person told countless others. Once they had the means to come after you, they needed no further encouragement.”
“Don’t act like this was all for my benefit!”
“There is no such thing as an altruistic act, love,” he responded. “It is the nature of all sentient beings to use one another.”
“No, that’s your nature,” Kaede retorted. “You just can’t comprehend how one person can look at another without thinking about what they can squeeze out of them.”
“Oh, I understand it perfectly well. After all, isn’t that precisely why you were so attached to Sarugaki-san? She was someone unaffected by rumors, someone who wasn’t afraid of your reputation, who stood by you even when under attack by her own peers.”
Kaede’s teeth scraped together as her jaw clenched harder. “You always wanted her dead, didn’t you?”
“On the contrary: she was a powerful incentive for you for many years. The one time I witnessed you nearly breaking through the seals on your own was when her life was in danger.”
With a lurch, Kaede realized he was referring to the Hollow incident from their Academy days. That was centuries ago! Then something else dawned on her. Immediately after that Hollow incident, when Shinji took her to see Hiyori in the medical ward…Shinji had been surprised that a Hollow attack had happened at all. Something about assuming that Sousuke would’ve had the area secured by then…
“That was you too,” she realized. “Back in the Academy, that Hollow attack…you set that up, didn’t you? Just like you set up the Hollow attack on my first day at Twelve…you were trying to get rid of her even back then…” Her mouth twisted back into a snarl. “You wanted to get rid of the one person I had left who wasn’t you.”
“That ‘one person’ was never going to be around forever. Did you truly expect that when the time came, that girl would abandon every loyalty and personal connection she had for you?” He shook his head with an almost pitying expression. “Her purpose as your incentive wore off long ago. Her very existence was holding you back, rather than pushing you forward. There was no point in continuing to rely on an uncouth monkey like that to rouse your protective instincts - not when I could give you something better.”
Kaede stared at him, stunned into silence. Did - was he talking about the child she was carrying? Some distant, detached part of her mind wondered why she was surprised that the man who’d admitted to drugging her so he could get her pregnant without her knowledge or consent would consider the resulting child to be some sort of consolation prize.
What was worse was that in an ironic and twisted way, he was right. The moment she realized she was pregnant, she’d wanted that baby. She was ready to do anything and everything for its sake, including leaving the man in front of her.
And he’d not only known that - he’d banked on it.
Kaede felt her stomach drop to her feet as the full weight of it all sank in. From the very beginning, he’d played her for a fool. Even when she thought she had him figured out, he was miles ahead, moving her around like just another piece on his game board. All his talk about her being his “goddess,” his “queen”...she should have known what that meant. After all, in chess, the queen was just another piece. A powerful one, yes, but still a mindless tool to be used and, if need be, sacrificed.
And this child… her child…he would use them as another pawn to keep her in line. No, not a pawn; they would be the king itself, the piece she would do anything to protect. Anything Sousuke demanded of her, she would give, because he would have the most precious hostage imaginable. Not only that…every bit of that child’s future would be in his hands, shaped to his liking. He would do to her child what he’d done to her from the moment they’d met, conditioning them into the ideal piece to further his ambitions.
And if the day came that he decided that child was no longer useful, she had no doubt that Sousuke would eliminate them just as unfeelingly as he’d done with Hiyori.
“Why are you doing all of this?” she asked, her body trembling with a mix of rage and horror. “Why keep me around at all?”
To her surprise, he didn’t answer right away, seeming to take a moment to think about his response.
“There are many reasons,” he concluded. “Some of which you are clearly unprepared to hear or accept. But I have put far too much work into you, Kaede. Your potential, slow moving though it’s been in recent years, is as limitless as the Hogyoku. I won’t allow such potential to go to waste, even if it does take more effort to make it work in my favor.”
There it was: all the confirmation she needed. She was no more than an object to him, a high-maintenance tool…an investment. How many lies had she told herself so that she wouldn’t have to examine the ones he fed to her? She thought that because Sousuke had let her peek beneath his own mask, she was somehow privileged. That he valued her, accepted her as no one else ever had before. She thought that because she’d seen who he was from the start, she was protected, exempt from his penchant for manipulation.
In reality, she was probably his easiest target.
Sousuke raised a palm to the barrier, taking it down without a word. Kaede tried to shuffle away as he came closer, but the bindings only tightened and she fell over into the sand.
“Stay away from me,” she warned, though she knew she had nothing to back it up. “Get the hell away from me!”
In response, he pointed a finger at her and uttered another phrase. “Bakudo 61: Rikujokoro.”
Her body was yanked up from the ground, the Kido rope transforming into six beams that locked around her torso. Though her arms and legs were free, she couldn’t move them, could barely even blink, could only watch with growing apprehension and terror as he closed the distance between them.
“You brought this upon yourself,” he told her, reaching out to cup her cheek. “You will be angry with me for quite some time, I believe. I’ve accepted that, and I can wait for you to calm down and come to your senses. Until then, I must make sure you don’t do anything rash.”
His hand went from her cheek to her collar. With a few tugs, he loosened her upper robes and pulled them down her shoulders, exposing her chest and arms. She wanted to ask what he was doing, demand that he stop, beg him to just let her go - but she couldn’t move her mouth. Her eyes burned from staying open; she tried to watch whatever he was doing, but he walked around to her back and she couldn’t move a muscle.
Then she felt the tip of a stiff, slim brush against her skin, something warm and wet left behind in its wake. No…
“I made some adjustments to the original formula,” he told her as he worked. “Using my own blood to lay the symbols allows me to be the only person who can alter, manipulate, or remove them.”
No no no…
“And before you consider attempting to kill me in the hopes that that will remove or deactivate them, let me inform you it would not work. The seals would remain intact. Since my blood shapes their design, my blood - my living blood - would also be required to undo them.”
Nonononononono…
“I would have spared you the pain of this process if I could have, but alas, these cannot be applied under sedation. The seals must etch themselves into your reiatsu system, and that can only be done while you are conscious. I imagine you remember the experience.” He came around to her front, dipping the taut brush into his bleeding palm before continuing to draw on her skin. “I know how you must be feeling right now. You think I'm a monster, even more so than the ones who put these on you the first time. But you've left me with no other options, Kaede. As I've told you before, I will never allow anything to take you away from me...and that includes yourself."
Her eyes watered as much from being forced to remain open as from actual tears. No no no not again… She wanted to spit in his face, to swear that she’d kill him, that she’d never forgive him for this! It didn’t matter what it took, she would ruin him in every way possible!
But even if she could do all of those things, it would change nothing. He would not stop. He was going to seal her power no matter what she said or did. As for his “promise” to release her someday…that would never happen. She’d never come around, and he wouldn’t fall for any faked concession on her part.
Then, once their child was born…
A new fear froze her heart. He’d do this to the child. He could use this as a punishment or a threat, whichever worked to his advantage at the time.
Sousuke finished the final symbol and stepped back. “I call upon the Four Cardinals…”
She felt herself retreating, pulling inward, as though she could escape by simply going into her inner world. In her mind, she stood before that tiny seedling, that new life full of potential and hope. It would never be allowed to grow freely. It would instead be clipped and cowed, twisted and molded into whatever shape was most convenient for him . It would live a life of fear and forced servitude.
Like she had.
A horrifying vision came to her then. She used to dream of the Catastrophe, faint wisps of memory that placed her, a child, in the Rukongai, lost and confused and scared. But now it wasn’t her in the midst of all those doomed people. It was her child.
Kaede couldn’t begin to count the times she’d wished the Catastrophe never happened, or how many ways she used to dream of stopping or preventing it. If she’d only been able to control herself, if she hadn’t been in that district at that time, if she hadn’t been cursed with this power…if she’d never been born in the first place…
Her soul began to burn as the spell took effect. No…she couldn’t let him do this. Not to her, and never to her child. Her child…she’d fallen in love with the very idea of this child so quickly, but now…
Kaede looked down to see a torch in her hand, its flame licking the air with grim eagerness. She looked up and around at the tangled forest of her inner world, and for once, she could see all of it in a glance: the overgrown grove with what was once a sakura tree at its center…the twisting brambles and old growth, all of it pieces of her life and experience, never truly forgotten…this new clearing, so clean and bright, ready to be filled with new life…and that tiny seedling, so delicate and yet filled with so much possibility.
If she let go of this torch, all of it would go up in flames.
She knelt down and ever-so-lightly touched the little sprout. Another vision came to her then: A small, cherubic face blinking up at her, features still indistinct but for its eyes, so brilliant and clear, like sparkling emeralds that reflected the world around them…and she saw her own face in those eyes, soft and smiling, so full of love that she ached in resonance. She wished more than anything that she could bring that vision into reality, give that child the sort of life she’d never had, one where they would be free to grow into whatever form they chose rather than be twisted and molded by power-hungry monsters.
“Is this what you want?”
Kaede looked up into the otherworldly face of Mono no Aware, tears falling freely down her cheeks. “I never wanted any of this.”
She couldn’t use her power to stop Sousuke now - not from resealing her, not from paving a path of further destruction. He’d set the gameboard too meticulously, accounted for every possible move, countering plays before they even happened. She was no more than a piece on that board, and he’d make sure that from now on, she only moved as he directed.
Her eyes dropped back to the sprout, and her whole body lurched with longing and sorrow.
“I’m so sorry,” she gasped, her voice shaking with sobs. “I couldn’t give you more…I’m so sorry…”
She couldn’t change the game he was playing. But she could remove herself from the board.
She dropped the torch.
Her power exploded, pushing out against the barrier of the temporary seals. The seals pushed back just as hard, meeting force for force.
Exactly as she intended.
Scalding hot pain ripped through her abdomen as her power bounced back from the barrier seal and shredded her organs. She couldn’t tear him apart like she wanted to, but she could tear herself apart and leave him with nothing left to play with. She choked as something warm and wet invaded her throat…her vision blurred red, but she could still see his face above her…
GET AWAY FROM ME!
Her power pulsed again, but it was no longer restrained. Everything she had left, all her rage, her despair, her desperation, her pain, released from her, around her. She felt the ground shake, heard a deafening crack and she was falling, falling into darkness.
Finally free.
But not for long. Her body slammed into something, something that writhed and thrashed underneath her, around her, on top of her, and there were hands and claws that grabbed at her and teeth that clamped around her arms and legs. She blinked, and she could see the black sky far above her, the inverted crescent moon still and stagnant…she blinked and he was there again, so far away, but not far enough. She commanded her arm to rise, somehow found the strength to tear it free from the jaws, reaching up like she was trying to grasp his hand.
Instead, a black beam blasted from her palm.
She blinked again…and he was gone.
Her arm dropped by her side, and several sets of teeth began tearing into it. She didn’t care. This was it. She was done. She got away, and now…now she could stop…she could rest…she could fade away…into nothing…
Is this what you want?
Why could she still see the moon? She was so tired…
No…
It hurt, everything hurt so much, but it would be over soon…
Not like this…
Her eyelids lowered, trying to close, but closing took too much effort…
NOT LIKE THIS!
Shadow engulfed her entire being and lifted her from the swarming, ravenous mouths.
And then..she was cold.
She blinked.
Where had the moon gone? It was just there…Something fell onto her eye, making her blink again… large, ice-cold droplets pelted her skin and soaked through her clothes and slithered along her skin, but her body lacked the strength to even shiver…then, at long, long last, she finally faded away…
I’m so sorry…
She was cold. She felt cold, and heavy, like her blood and organs had turned to lead. Her body rebelled against the stiff stillness, but even twitching her fingers took an absurd amount of effort and it hurt .
“ Kaede… ”
That was her name…that was a voice…that was…
Her eyes blinked open, but an impossible brightness burned her retinas. She blinked a few more times, her eyes and mind struggling to make sense of it all…and then there was color, and shape, a face framed by straw-colored hair…and that voice…she knew that voice…
“Kis’ke?”
Was she dead? Was this what happened to Shinigami when they died - they joined their fellows in some other existence? But why did everything hurt so much?
“I’m here,” she heard him say. “You’re safe. You’re going to be okay.”
Safe…why would that matter…”Where…”
“We’re in the Human World. All of us - Yoruichi, Tessai, and I were able to get the others here safely.”
Kisuke…Tessai…Yoruichi? Yoruichi was here too? Did that mean…?
She grasped onto his arm, trying to anchor herself in whatever reality this was. “Others? Hiyori?”
“Hirako-taicho and the other Hollowfication victims,” he confirmed, gently pressing her back down. ”Hiyori, too. They’re all here, and I’m doing everything I can to help them.”
Help them…Hollowfication…then…they weren’t…they were…
“She’s alive?”
“She’s alive - She and the others are all alive, and they’re stable. Tessai has them in stasis while we figure out how to reverse the Hollowfication.”
They were alive…but how, when she was…
She had to see them for herself. They weren’t alive or dead until she witnessed it with her own eyes.
Kisuke went to get Tessai, and upon seeing the muscular giant, Kaede nearly wept with…relief? Disbelief? She still couldn’t understand what was happening, her mind floating in a space between reality and whatever else there was. Tessai lifted her into his arms like a child, and she leaned into his chest, so warm and solid and real …
And then she saw them.
All eight were here - four captains, four lieutenants, slumped up against each other like a pile of dirty laundry. Their faces were obscured by bone-white masks; most had bloody wounds, but she saw no active bleeding. She reached out tentatively with her senses…and she felt them, felt their reiatsu, frozen in time and space, but there. Present.
Alive .
Her eyes zeroed in on the smallest figure among them. She was here. Bloodied, battered, her soul butchered nearly beyond recognition, but she was alive. Hiyori was alive.
Tears blurred Kaede’s vision. He’d lied to her, or he’d let her form the lie herself…but Hiyori was alive! Kisuke, Tessai, Shinji - they survived! They’d escaped, they were all alive!
Which meant…she was, too.
She was alive.
She hadn’t died.
She was brought back to her mat and she sank bonelessly back down into it, staring up at the ceiling without really seeing it.
She was still alive.
Why was she still alive?
“We were able to reconstruct and mend most of the damage,” Kisuke told her some time later. “And for the most part, the rest of your body seems to be healing well enough on its own.” He exchanged a look with Tessai before continuing. “However…”
Not everything had been saved.
Kaede didn’t hear much else of what they said after that. Nothing else mattered.
Her child, the only child she’d ever had, was gone. She’d tried to take them both off the board, yet in the end, she couldn’t even commit to her own death.
It was all her own doing. She’d allowed herself to assume the worst, to assume that once HE got those seals on her, she’d be chained to him for the rest of her existence. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider any alternative. She knew he was a liar and a manipulator, yet she hadn’t stopped for an instant to ask herself if maybe, just maybe, he’d mislead her about Kisuke, Tessai’s, and Hiyori’s fates. She accepted his words at face value and let herself fall into despair. In the end, she didn’t even try to find another route, instead embracing death and taking her child with her.
Yet here she was. Alive, while that child was not. And now, because of what she’d done, she’d never be able to have another.
Nothing existed beyond that room. She barely existed, herself. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could barely roll over on the straw mat. Someone would leave a bowl of food or a cup of tea nearby; she ignored it. Yoruichi came to change her bandages and bathe her; she let the other woman manipulate her like a rag doll, neither helping nor rebelling. Hours, days…it didn’t matter. All her mind could do was circle endlessly around those truths.
She was still alive. Her child was not. It was her own doing.
“You need to eat,” Kisuke said to her one day. Maybe he’d said it before too, but she couldn’t remember. “I can warm this up, if that’ll help.”
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t anything. The only thing she wanted was to be left alone.
“You’re better than this.”
The words pierced her like a knife, making her flinch in spite of herself. No. She was nothing. She just wanted to be nothing.
“You are better than this,” Kisuke pressed. “What he did to them wasn’t your fault. I know you, Kaede. I know that none of that was you.”
Why was he saying these things to her when they weren’t true? Of course it was her fault. She should have seen, should have known, should have done something, anything sooner! Why could he not understand that, and why wouldn’t he just let her disappear?!
“Stop punishing yourself for what you had no control over,” Kisuke demanded. “We can’t do anything about the past; we can only move forward and work with what we have. And that begins with letting your body heal. So eat .”
No, she wanted to say, even if doing so would make her sound like a petulant child. She didn’t care if her body healed or not; in fact, better that it just waste away. It was no less than she deserved.
But even the thought of opening her mouth to speak took more energy than she could bear to muster. She turned away and faced the wall, hoping he would finally take the hint and let her return to her nothingness.
“You don’t have to talk to me.”
He was still there. Why was he still there?
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
Good, because she had nothing to say.
“But I did not work so hard to keep you alive just so you could destroy yourself!”
Her eyes widened, the words penetrating her perfect shield of void. How dare he…He kept her alive, but had she asked him to?! No! She didn’t ask for any of this! Why couldn’t he just have left her there?! Why couldn’t she just stop existing and be done with it?!
But there was a tremble in his voice that she’d never heard before, an intensity that she couldn’t simply write off. Time and time again, he did keep her alive. He didn’t have to - not when she was a child, and not now. He didn’t have to spend time with her, train her, teach her when he knew there was a good chance she’d never be allowed out of the Nest. And he certainly didn’t have to lie to Central time and time again, risking his own life and liberty just to give her a better chance of having her own.
Yet he did. He did all of that, and probably more that she didn’t even know about. And how had she repaid him? She rejected him, betrayed him, deceived him, and now because of her he was banished from his home, his whole purpose in existence dismantled with a single lie.
No…not a single lie. There had been many, too many to count.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was grateful that Kisuke couldn’t see them. She didn’t understand. If he was so disappointed in her - as well he should be - then why keep doing this? Why was it so important to him that she keep living, when she didn’t even want that for herself?
I have put far too much work into you. HE said that to her, too…yet coming Kisuke, the meaning was entirely different. HE had invested in her so that she could serve; but Kisuke…
Kisuke had invested in her so that she could live.
She heard Kisuke rise, heard the creak of the floorboard as he left, closing the door behind him. Yet she didn’t feel abandoned. He was giving her space. He’d said his peace, and now he left it up to her what to do with it.
She couldn’t undo what was already done. She couldn’t take it all back, couldn’t fix it…maybe the least she could do was honor his wish for her. It wasn’t like she had any wish for herself.
With the speed and fragility of an elder on their deathbed, Kaede rolled back over, sat up, and pulled the bowl of porridge into her lap before spooning a bite into her mouth. It was cold and slimy and tasteless, but Kaede chewed methodically, robotically, then swallowed. Then she took another, and another, until the bowl was empty.
She ate the next bowl while the porridge was still warm, and after that, she began to stand and walk on legs as wobbly and weak as a newborn fawn’s. Yoruichi helped her bathe until she could do it by herself. Her senses returned to normal before her strength was even close; she tried not to think too closely about why she had no trouble with them now. She made herself as useful as she could, helping to prepare meals, wash clothes and dishes. She was numb, empty, but she moved and breathed and ate and slept, mimicking life as best she could.
She didn’t dare go back to the shack where Hiyori and the others were. She’d done enough damage to them already. Best not to disturb Kisuke and Tessai as they did what they could to help, best not to upset this little sliver of peace they’d managed to secure for the time being.
Then, one day, that tenuous sliver of peace shattered.
Kaede dropped the tea tray she was carrying when she saw it in Kisuke’s hand: An orb that glowed with an impossibly dark light, that somehow occupied all states of matter and energy at once while being none of them. Her heart pounded in her ears as her mind tried desperately to deny what she was seeing…but the unnatural void in her senses confirmed what it was.
Kisuke looked up in surprise at the disturbance. “Kaede? What’s the matter?”
She pointed a shaking finger at the orb. “What is that doing here? How do you have it?”
His brow twitched in confusion. “I’ve had this since the Catastrophe. I never showed it to anyone before…that night. I tried to use it to help Hiyori and the others.” He sighed, his shoulders sagging with disappointment. “It didn’t work.”
Kaede’s heart slowed a little, but her mind kept racing. If what he said was true, then that meant…they’d been right. All this time, Kisuke did keep a bit of that energy, cultivating it into a near-perfect likeness of her own creation - and he’d done it without knowing that there was another.
Wait…he said he tried to use it to help Hiyori and the others? But that was completely antithetical to what the Hogyoku was! It should have broken them down even further, led them to full Soul Suicide!
Unless…
Kaede cast her senses out beyond the cabin, toward the shack where Hiyori and the seven others still lay. Stasis kept them unnaturally still, but…they were whole. Different, yes, but they were no longer in the midst of self destruction. She could feel the bindings of their existence, and those bindings, while mangled, were in the process of rebuilding, not of breaking down.
“It did work,” she breathed. “What you did with the Hogyoku…it did work. It saved their lives - they’re stable for now, their souls won’t implode. But it won’t turn them back.”
They’d never be what they were - it was impossible to go back. But they would go forward, changed, transformed, but alive.
“Hogyoku?” Kisuke asked. “Kaede…how do you know all this?”
Her heart pounded in her chest. There was no point in hiding anything now. “I made another one.”
She left before he could ask her anything else, unsure she’d be able to speak coherently if he did. There was a small closet off the main room of the cabin; she shut herself inside and slid to the floor, clamping her hand over her mouth to stifle her frenzied breathing.
They’d been right, in more ways than one. Kisuke’s Hogyoku was truly the other side of the proverbial coin. If it was ever joined with the one HE had…its potential would truly be limitless.
A hard lump formed in Kaede’s throat as new fears rose. She had no doubt that HE knew Kisuke was still alive; he’d never outright stated the man was dead, just implied it and let her mind do the rest. But what about her? Would he think she was dead now?
Not without a body.
He was too practical, too meticulous. Without solid proof of her death, he would look for her, probably already was, try to find her before she regained her strength - and if he found her here , he would find Hiyori and the others. He would find Kisuke’s Hogyoku, and he would know it was exactly what he needed.
The idea of him finding her again was terrifying. But if he also found Hiyori, Kisuke, and, worst of all, this other Hogyoku?
She couldn’t let that happen.
These past several days, she’d been wading through a dim dream, her only purpose being to honor Kisuke’s wish that she stay alive. She had no real goal, no real purpose beyond that. But she couldn’t just stay here any longer, not while there was a chance that HE might come for her.
She heard Kisuke rush out of the cabin, probably to check on the others and confirm what she said. Alone once more, she crept back into the sleeping area he and Tessai shared. Yoruichi had grabbed armfuls of Kisuke’s supplies when they made their escape, including a few of his notebooks. Kaede found one that still had blank pages inside and, after locating a pen and a near-empty bottle of ink, she began to write.
Please don’t look for me. I will stay alive and do my best to be worthy of your efforts, but please don’t try to find me. If he comes after me, I’d rather he only find me, and not all of you. I know I have a lot to explain, and I’ll try to do so here.
She’d tell him everything she could fit onto these pages - he deserved at least that much. No, it wasn’t just about what she owed him; he needed to know these things, needed to prepare for whatever came next.
Take care of Hiyori and the others. And keep your Hogyoku hidden. He will want it.
She tore out the pages and folded them. That night, she pretended to sleep until she sensed the others were at rest. Quietly, she gathered what she needed: a reiatsu-concealing cloak, one of the new gigai Kisuke had made just before they escaped to the Living World, a few other necessities to get her through the next few months at least…
And then, just as she was about to leave, she saw it leaning against the wall near her mat. But…how was it here? HE told her it was found with her fake corpse in Soul Society, but there it was, scabbard pristine, its quiet presence calling to her.
Mono no Aware…
Without another thought, she grasped the sword and buckled it around her hips. Maybe Yoruichi had swiped it while she was still unconscious, maybe Kisuke had it the whole time…it didn’t matter. As she ventured out into the cold, wintry rain, cloaked like a thief, her Zanpakuto secure at her side, she heard Mono no Aware’s voice whisper in her mind.
I am with you Kaede…always.