#but aizen likes to rile uryuu specifically because 'riling ichigo is what everyone else does'

[akaluan]

When All Is Known (Nothing Is) Pt 5

Prequel | Prequel |  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

((Uh, this part is really long because Aizen. That’s... that’s basically it. Aizen stole this segment.))

Ichigo stepped from his garganta and glanced around, feeling it close behind him as Uryuu came to stand at his side.

“Feels nice to have reishi around again,” Uryuu said, taking a breath and stretching his arms.

Ichigo made a noise of agreement, then allowed his reiatsu to spike briefly beyond his hold and turned his attention to Seireitei. If Aizen /had/ come with them, that would get his attention easily enough.

It would get everyone /else’s/ attention too, unfortunately. Already he could feel the way the Shinigami were stirring in their city, disturbed by what little he’d revealed.

“Of /course/ you did,” Uryuu said dryly.

Ichigo shrugged and tugged his hood down a bit further. “Got any better idea to get hold of Aizen?”

“Something a little less eye-catching, I had hoped.”

He laughed. “Us? Less eye-catching?”

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Uryuu muttered, though there was no heat in his words. He settled into an easy stance a few feet away, relaxed but still alert.

Shinigami in these peaceful days didn’t understand or practice constant stealth, except for the Onmitsukido. Ichigo was confident that no one able to actually do them harm would be sneaking up on them.

“My, my, I thought we had trained such loss of control out of you by now,” a familiar voice hailed them from one side. Aizen stepped into view, smirk curling at his lips and gaze amused. “Just one night in the past and you’re already slipping into bad habits, Kurosaki-kun?”

“Ah, shut up,” Ichigo grumbled, giving Aizen a /look/. “How else should I have gotten your attention?”

“Why are you asking /me/?” Aizen asked with clearly faked surprise, then flicked a hand as if to brush the question aside. “No matter. Let’s move away from here before any curious ants come to investigate.” With no more warning than that, Aizen vanished.

Ichigo glowered at the spot Aizen had stood, flexing his hands in frustration.

“Come on, before he comes back to mock us again,” Uryuu said. “And before the Shinigami arrive, I guess. If they ever feel like it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ichigo reached out with his senses, latching onto the near-invisible trail that Aizen had left behind, and bolted. Uryuu followed on his heels, covering their trail the way only a Quincy could.

(Only the best sensors would be able to trace them from this place.)

The trail ended nearly a full district over, with Aizen leaning against a tree and staring up at the fruit ripening on the branches. “Good,” he said when they arrived, straightening up and looking between them. “And without any curious ants tagging along, congratulations.”

“That was /one time/,” Uryuu snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “And even /you/ missed that damn Quincy too, so—”

Aizen laughed.

“Okay, okay, enough,” Ichigo said, moving the stand between the two. “Pissing contest over. Aizen, find anything of interest that we should know about?”

Aizen gave him an indulgent smile and pulled a wad of folded paper from his sleeve, offering it up. Ichigo snatched the papers from him and carefully unfolded them, skimming the man’s precise writing. The more he read of the first page, the more sickened he felt; there, laid out in tidy script, was line after line of information on the Quincy as a people.

“This is…” Uryuu murmured, leaning in to read the first page with Ichigo. “Did you take all of this from /him/?”

“I thought it might be of use to you,” Aizen said with a shrug. “Kurotsuchi never truly made use of the information before. Though I can see why.” He grimaced and pushed away from the tree, snagging an apple as he walked past. “Reams of information, and barely a single piece of useful knowledge. That took me until just after dawn to collate, and it’s barely four pages.”

Ichigo flipped the page to the next one and continued reading. Aizen had distilled everything to basic facts and figures; strengths, weaknesses, skills and tolerances, all laid out like any other report the man had ever presented them.

(All laid out in black and white, cold facts distilled from rivers of blood and agony.)

“How many,” Uryuu asked, tearing his gaze away from the report and looking up at Aizen. “How many did he kill to find… /this/?”

Aizen narrowed his eyes and watched them, then abruptly tossed the apple he’d picked at Uryuu, ignoring the glare he got in return. “Eat. I doubt you’ve put much in your stomach besides reishi for the past few days.”

“We ate this morning,” Ichigo answered absently, still reading the report. “Hat’n’Clogs got us some food. Wasn’t the best, but we’ll make due.” Out of the corner of his eye he could see the way Uryuu began to bristle, and silently sighed in exasperation.

(One of these days…)

“/Urahara Kisuke/ fed you?” Aizen asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And you two /accepted/?”

“What?” Ichigo asked, looking up from the report and frowning. “Should we not have? I mean, he let us sleep in the shoten and everything, and he seemed insistent that we eat.”

“You—” Aizen cut himself off, took a deep breath, and resumed speaking, his tone even and deceptively kind, “Setting aside that this is not /our/ Urahara Kisuke, and allowing that his intentions were likely what /he/ viewed as the best… have you forgotten what Urahara and I taught you about kishi and reishi?”

“He said Tsukabishi had learned some tricks,” Uryuu said with a shrug, in the process of carving out a piece of the apple with a reishi blade. He lifted the piece and bit into it, giving Aizen a challenging look as he did.

Aizen frowned. “’Tricks’ are not nearly enough, at the stage the two of you have reached.”

“We didn’t eat that much,” Ichigo said. “And I’m not feeling sick. Uryuu?”

“I feel fine,” Uryuu agreed, before carving another piece of the apple free to eat. “Not like that first time you found us.”

“I should hope so!” Aizen sighed and glanced at the sky as if praying for patience. “/Clearly/ I’m going to need to have /words/ with Urahara about the two of you once this is all over.”

“Hey!” Ichigo protested. “We’re not /that/ bad!”

“No, you’re worse,” Aizen said dryly, then gestured to Uryuu. “Especially /him/.”

Uryuu scowled at Aizen. “And yet you’ve never offered an alternative.”

“Would you trust it if I did?” Aizen asked with an arched eyebrow. He waved a hand as if to brush aside the conversation. “No. Never mind. I’m not getting into this with you again. If the two of you don’t feel sick, then we might as well get moving.”

“Do we have /any/ sort of plan, or has even your mighty intellect fallen to the Ichigo method of problem solving?” Uryuu asked archly, finishing off the core of the apple and flicking the stem aside.

“Given the outcome of the last few times I’ve attempted to give you a plan to follow, I’ve decided to skip the headache and simply agree,” Aizen answered, tone wry. “So, yes. The ‘Ichigo Method’ it is.”

“I think I hate both of you,” Ichigo grumbled under his breath. He shot both of them a dark look, then quickly skimmed the last of the report. Much of it was information he already knew — either from Uryuu teaching him or from experience in battle — but the way Aizen had starred a couple of lines about how Quincy reacted to Hollow reiatsu—

(Uryuu writhing in pain beneath Orihime’s shield. A Hollow hole slowly closing.)

(His fault.)

Ichigo shook the memory free and tapped a claw against the page, looking up at Aizen. “You’re thinking that /he’ll/ fall just like any other Quincy. To this.” He held up his hand and wriggled his fingers, sunlight glinting off his claws. “That he has the same weakness.”

“I do,” Aizen agreed. “Between your strong reiatsu and the Hollowfication poison you inherited from White, even the progenitor of the Quincy is likely to fall.”

Ichigo considered Aizen for a moment, then looked to Uryuu questioningly.

Uryuu hesitated, then gave a shallow nod. “It’s… as good a plan as any. He’s still asleep right now, relying on the Wandenreich and his strength to protect him from harm. But the stronger a Quincy is…”

“The more vulnerable they are,” Ichigo finished. He hated the idea of using that poison, of purposely inflicting that agony on /anyone/, but for the chance to remove Yhwach from the board before the man became a threat… for that, he’d swallow his revulsion and strike. “Alright. Fine. We’ll try it.”

Aizen smirked and inclined his head, stepping to one side and gesturing to Uryuu. “Well? I believe our resident Quincy should lead the way this time.”

“Resident Quincy, tch,” Uryuu grumbled, stalking past Aizen and orienting himself with a glance towards Seireitei. “You realize I was part of their cult for barely a month. That’s not really enough time to memorize everything.”

“Ah, but you do know a way in,” Aizen said, following Uryuu. “Unless you were relying on little ol’ me to get you in?”

“Aizen,” Ichigo growled warningly, resting a hand on Uryuu’s shoulder and holding tight. He snorted when Aizen flashed an innocent smile, hands raised in mock surrender. “Right. Uryuu, let’s get this invasion started, before Aizen decides that fighting us is more interesting.”

“It is,” Aizen agreed calmly, then smiled at the dark looks they both sent. “I know the two of you aren’t looking forward to fighting any of those Quincy either. We should spar later, or perhaps take over Hueco Mundo? I could claim Las Noches from my foolish past self, and the two of you could build another place?”

“We’re not playing rival kings with you,” Uryuu shot back. “/We/ are going to find someplace calm, and quiet, and preferably as far away from you as possible.”

Aizen laughed and snagged another apple from a tree they were walking past, then held out a hand towards Uryuu. He snatched the hurled reishi blade from the air before it could hit his chest and began to carve into the apple as they moved. “I give it a week before the two of you go stir crazy and hunt me down to spar.”

Ichigo groaned at the mulish look on Uryuu’s face. “Thanks. Just… thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Uryuu glared at Aizen while reaching out, threads of reishi trailing from his fingers and hooking into something that Ichigo couldn’t quite see. “You wanted a way in, so I suppose—” Uryuu paused, arms flexing as he /yanked/ at the threads, tearing open a hole through which the white, white realm of the hidden Quincy fortress was visible— “I should give you one.”

Several Quincy froze, staring wide-eyed at the three of them through the torn gateway, before one turned to run. Uryuu didn’t hesitate, just dropped the threads and charged through, bow materializing in one hand and reishi blades slicing down on the stunned Quincy.

“And this,” Aizen said despairingly, “is why I’ve given up on trying to get the two of you to follow a plan.”

“From where I’m standing, this is your own damn fault,” Ichigo said with a shrug. He turned to follow Uryuu through the gateway, drawing his blade as he crossed the threshold. “Maybe if you stopped riling him, he’d be more inclined to follow your plans.”

“But it’s so much /fun/!”

“Then stop blaming us on your plans going sideways.”

“But that’s /not/ fun.”

Ichigo sighed, stabbed a fleeing Quincy, and resigned himself to fighting his way through the entire fortress before they reached Yhwach.

(And they had the gall to call this the ‘Ichigo Method’.)

(Tch.)