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Invisibility Cloaks[]
"Heading out already, Captain?" Tenma Suiwana was standing outside the 9th Division barracks, wearing his ceaseless smile, his squinted eyes seeming to narrow as he saw his Captain step out into the cool night air. "The sun is far from rising, shouldn't you be asleep?"
"No." Hajime responded, as he was packing a sack full of his valuables- ready to leave to somewhere. For some reason, he had packed a lot of oranges. "I've got to go check something out, Lieutenant. ...If you're not the lieutenant you're pretty close. I tend to forget these things." With that, Hajime started to leave- awfully quickly, too.
"Oh my...the Captain's quite suspicious tonight. Rushing out so fast he didn't even notice who I was. That hurts, Captain." Tenma smirked. Then again, did he ever do anything else? "I would love to see exact what he's up t-"
"Going somewhere?" A sharp voice cut in behind Tenma, causing the man to swivel around on the spot, coming face to face with Lieutenant Kyūzō Hashidojin.
"Oh...you caught me by surprise, Lieutenant Hashidojin." Tenma quickly put up an air of politeness. "I was just seeing off our Captain, he seemed to be headed out on a late night stroll."
Kyūzō's eyes narrowed. Tenma had always been different than everyone else in the division. "Just return to the barracks. Let the Captain handle his own business."
"Of course, sir." Tenma smiled calmly as they proceeded back into the barracks.
As Hajime proceeded through the quiet streets of the Seireitei, something dark stepped out of the corner, causing him to stop abruptly. It appeared to be a young man, wearing a dark black cloak made of some material that reflected the moonlight. He raised his head up, looking at Hajime as he removed the hood. It was Dyan Arashi, Captain of the 5th Division.
"I'm here, Hajime, like you asked." He said crisply. "You have a reason for calling me out in the dead of night?"
"Huh." Hajime heard a voice, but he couldn't feel a presence- at least according to spiritual pressure. It seemed as if Dyan didn't have any spiritual pressure at all. "...How'd you get here without me sensing you, hm?"
"The Twelfth Division." Dyan replied simply, tossing the man a coat of similar material. "They're Kaito's invention, I managed to get one from his assistant, I believe her name was...Linda?" He seemed unsure, to be honest. "She's always been easy to persuade. Put that coat on, it will mask your spiritual pressure entirely, so we can move unseen. I still need to know why you called me out here."
Hajime looked at Dyan, suspiciously. This cloak smelt of mustard for some reason or another. Or maybe it was his imagination. "Well, Dyan," he sighed. "I need a bit of help with investigation. Something is just...off about this whole thing."
"I know..." Dyan frowned, his jewel-like blue eyes seemed to glisten under the moonlight. "We already expressed our suspicious to each other earlier; this entire situation...it feels wrong." He gestured to the scythe on his back. "Just allowing us to carry our Zanpakutō in the Seireitei to fight these Ryōka means the Captain has declared a state of open warfare on them...and this was before they began to destroy our ranks. A bit premature, don't you think?" To make it worse, the latest Captain's meeting had outright confirmed this. Captain General Kenshin Iaiseiei had declared full war on the Ryōka. Due to the casualties they were suffering, no one, not even Dyan or Hajime, were able to object that time.
"For now, let's just try." Hajime...wasn't sure what to do. Of course clashing against that old guy would be VERY bad for both his job and well, he really didn't want to be on the end of Kenshin's blade. "All we can do right now is try and remain as covert as possible, digging up info on what exactly is going on. We'll need both sides of the argument."
"You speak like finding the Ryōka would be easy." Dyan replied, equally unsure. "The sun has long since set, they're more than likely hiding by this point. And we can't pinpoint every strange spiritual pressure we detect; it isn't as if we know everyone in the Seireitei." He had a point. "I think we should start with the girl on death row."
"Good idea." Hajime agreed with Dyan Arashi. "However, she's heavily guarded. I think." Then again, the might of two captains would be more than able to overpower pretty much everyone there. "How would we get to her without people noticing?"
"This cloak." Dyan said simply, gesturing to their cloaked form. "It does more than simply conceal reiatsu, if you know how to alter it." Dyan removed the cloak with a flourish, folding it and placed his hands over it, which were glowing with bright spiritual energy. "By incorporating Kidō into the cloak itself, it allows us to blend in with the air itself, concealing us from sight." He donned the cloak once more, and his point was proven; he vanished on the spot.
"Interesting." As he put on the cloak, Hajime's voice seemed to echo on for ages- though before he noticed, Dyan had already vanished into thin air. Truth be told, Hajime was rather slow on the uptake. "...Wait, where'd you go?"
Dyan sighed; this man was a Captain, wasn't he? "I told you, apply Kidō to the mantle and you'll vanish. Let me." Dyan placed a hand on the man's shoulder, Kidō spreading into Hajime's own cloak and causing him to vanish completely, leaving the entire area empty. "There, it works."
"That Kidou crap still confuses me." Hajime sighed. "Can't we just launch blasts and crap out of our swords and be done with it, like really?" He was bit of a pragmatist in combat- or rather, he was too dumb to use anything else. Nevertheless, he applied Kidou to the cloak, vanishing into thin air.
"I always had an aptitude for it myself." Dyan replied as they began to move. "Being in a combat-oriented division never afforded me many chances to hone my skills, so I don't have the kind of skill you'd see from someone like Ekei." Dyan tossed this remark about as they slipped into the night, following the sound of their quiet banter.
To Be Execute[]
"Whoever thought the outside world could look like heaven..." Harumi Muruiyama was speaking to herself as she looked out the small window in her sell at the Senzaikyū, staring directly at the Sōkyoku. "The weapon that will be used to kill me is within my sight...by this point, I can't help but wonder what it will be like. I've only heard stories, after all."
Seemingly having gone slightly mad, Harumi was thinking her inner thoughts aloud; by this point, having been alone for quite some time, her own voice was beginning to feel like company; truly a precarious situation to have found herself. "I suppose I've made some sort of accomplishment; no one's been executed by the Sōkyoku for at least two centuries." She let out a sigh, leaning against the walls of her cell. "Even then, there's the matter of the Ryōka...it's not as if these walls block the transmissions from the Captains. It couldn't be....not Ahatake, could it?"
As she kept up her mutterings, events outside her cell were about to take an interesting turn.
"Hajime, we're nearing the Senzaikyū." Dyan whispered quickly under his breath; he had no way of knowing the man was there or not, and only hoped his message was received.
"Ahhh." Hajime didn't seem too concerned with their current destination- truth be told, it didn't intimidate him at all. "I think I'm right in front of you. I kinda wish we could see each other with these stupid cloaks. Ah well. Let's go in?"
"If only it were that simple." Dyan muttered. "Cloaked or not, those guards stationed outside will see the door budge." Dyan motioned an invisible hand towards the guards — a pointless action as Hajime couldn't see his hand, but he could hear him, and his attention would be drawn to the Kidō Corps members stationed outside the cell.
"Well, we can't just take them out." Hajime sighed, obviously irritated. He didn't have any way to actually take them out peacefully. He could use the back of his sword, but that'd still hurt like hell. "So...what do we do?"
"Nothing lethal. Let me handle it." Dyan slipped from Hajime's side, making his way towards the guards, raising his hand towards them. "Hakufuku." As experienced as these men were in Kidō, even a surprise attack would catch them off guard. Unable to react quickly, their eyes began to droop, feeling heavy, as their vision began to blur and quickly disappeared into a purple haze, knocking the guards unconscious. "This is why Kidō pays off."
Hajime, utterly perplexed, couldn't really understand anything about that Demon Way business. There had to be a lot of science and all that put into the magic; and truth be told, he wasn't too bright concerning that stuff. "The hell was that?" Those were the only words that he could really say. "I could do the same thing with the back of my sword hitting their necks."
"That was Hakufuku, a Kidō spell that causes the victims to fall unconscious." Dyan replied simply. "Attacking them with the back of the blade is crude, it causes even the briefest moment of pain, and not all of the guards would have been taken out at once, you would have created a scene." Hajime had to admit, Dyan had a point; if even one of them had known something was up, they could have gotten away, sounded an alarm, any number of troublesome actions could have been taken. "Swinging a sword only does so much. Now, I believe our guest is waiting inside this tower."
"Interesting." Again, Hajime found that Kidō stuff rather...confusing. In any case, he could transmit clustered of spiritual particles through his sword into the air—that was about as powerful as any Kidō spell, at least in his eyes. "Anyway, let's go find her. We don't have much time to waste."
Dyan reached towards the door, pushing it open with a large creaking noise. They stepped inside to a cell immersed in darkness, the only light being the slitted light from the 'window' carved into the side. "So this is it..." Dyan looked around, his eyes blinking rapidly. "This is the inside of the Senzaikyū." He and Hajime removed their cloaks with a flourish, and the moment they did so, they heard a woman's voice.
"I didn't know I had guests." It came from the furthest corner of the cell, away from the light of the window. "Aren't you...Captains Ryūmonki and Arashi?"
Hajime immediately bent over, casting a curious look at the girl. "Ah, you're...Harumi, right? Though I know a lot of Harumis. You certainly look like one of them." Straightening up, he cut to the chase. "Anyway, I'm here to ask...what exactly did you do to be here?"
"You really do cut right to the point, don't you Hajime?" Dyan asked, looking at him with a kind of pity. The man didn't even brace the girl for the question, he simply dove in.
"Oho..." Harumi looked up at Hajime, surprised etched in every line of her. "Now that's something I didn't expect...they kept the Captains out of the loop, did they? Tell me, what is my stated reason for imprisonment?"
"Uh, that's the thing..." Hajime nervously scratched his head. "You were guilty of giving your powers to a human, and you took a long vacation in the world of the living. Neither of those are really punishable by death. The hell is wrong here?"
"I see..." Harumi sighed, slumping down against the wall. "I suppose I'm not surprised that he'd keep you all out of the loop."
"What do you mean?" Dyan shot her a sharp glare, his blue-eyes piercing. "What would be so important the Captain Commander would keep it private from the Captains? You're talking big game here, Harumi."
"You asked why I was in this cell, right?" Harumi asked, looking dead at both men. "Why I'm currently on death row, set to be executed by Sōkyoku?"
"That's correct; this is all far too troubling." Dyan nodded. "Your stated reasons for execution are hardly worth the death penalty; a few years in your division's personal cell would have been enough."
"True, but that would apply if those were my only charges." The woman replied ominously; she looked down at the floor now, her long brown hair obscured her face from view as she spoke the incriminating words slowly and clearly. "My initial charges...are assassination attempts on the Captain Commander."
"...Wait, what?" Hajime was utterly perplexed. "...Did you really? If so, no wonder you were thrown in here."
"Think for a moment." Dyan wasn't about to jump the gun based on this small piece of information. "Assassination attempts are always meant to be public knowledge; worse, they're grounds for a gathering of the Captains. Not even the Central 46 is allowed to cover up an assassination if they follow their own laws. And yet, the only notice we received concerning Harumi here were formal announcements from the Omnitsukidō's Inner Court Troops. But then the Captain Commander went even further, and covered it up. This requires more information, and Harumi, I believe you can tell us what we need."
"Of course." Harumi nodded quickly. Perhaps this could help her escape her fate, if she spilled her story to these two Captains. "I'll tell you everything, Captain, from the beginning."
END