Gateway 48

Isane Kotetsu

She had barely any time to think before the Hollow was on her, attacking in a flurry of movement she could barely keep up with.

Hollow bone plating had started to slowly leak from Yurino’s eyes to cover her face, leaving her with the top half of her face under the new Hollow mask.

Thankfully, the Hollow’s skill didn’t increase as much as its speed and power, probably because of Alex’s distraction. Otherwise, she’d be in trouble.

Still, she didn’t have much space to breathe under such continuous assault. As the Hollow’s animalistic claw attacks transitioned to punches and kicks, she spotted her chance and quickly Flash Stepped away, pointing a finger at where she predicted the Hollow to attack next.

“Hado #4: Byakurai!” She cast, the bolt of lightning hitting the Hollow in the chest just as it appeared in front of her, getting pushed back as a result.

If she had the time to charge the attack properly, the fight would have been over already. Still, the increase in power seemed to have given the Hollow a high-speed movement technique similar to Shunpo, making her discharge it before it was ready.

But Isane could work with that. The fact that the attack came from the front when it could just as easily hit her in the back meant that the Hollow didn’t have the skill to properly use it in combat, meaning its movements would be more predictable than if it kept relying on pure speed.

She held back a smirk, Flash Stepping back to the base of her ice. If the Hollow had Yurino’s memories, it would have been able to see her plan from a mile away. It was a technique she was helping Isane develop when she was taken, after all. But it didn’t. And if Yurino were still in there somewhere, she’d be able to finally see the result of their work.

Isane focused. She had to be perfectly accurate for this next attack, otherwise she’d be left wide open for the Hollow’s counter.

The big ice vein was still in its place in front of her, and when the Hollow appeared a few feet away from its side, she knew she had it.

She predicted the Hollow’s next step and, using up the spiritual power in the smaller veins, cast the attack that’d finish the fight.

“Path of Incarceration, Itegumo!”

A vein of ice instantly branched off from the big vein, hitting and encasing the Hollow’s leg in ice.

“Fuck!” The Hollow screamed, its momentum completely halted by the ice. It looked down on its restrained leg with gritted teeth and said, “No matter: Bala!”

But instead of damaging the ice, it only made it grow further up her thigh.

With the Hollow retrained and distracted, Isane Flash Stepped behind it for a final blow, only for the sound of glass breaking and a roundhouse kick strong enough to shatter bone to send her tumbling away.

“Path of Protection: Itegumo…” She gasped while lying down, stabbing her Zanpakuto into the ground. The ice throughout the room broke down into spiritual particles and rushed to form walls of ice between Isane and her enemy. That done, she cast, “Kaido #3: Yawarageru.”

Sighing in relief at the lack of pain, she cast “Kaido #2 Shindan” to start taking stock of her injuries.

‘Shattered pelvis. Broken Sacrum and L5 vertebrae. Torn muscles and organs from the bone shards. Minced thigh muscle at Point of Contact,’ she thought clinically.

That explained her inability to hold herself up or move her legs. Thankfully, she wasn’t hit higher, otherwise she’d have probably lost mobility in her arms and made the next part much harder.

Raising a hand to start the healing process, she heard a loud BANG coming from the wall of ice in front of her.

Looking over, she saw the Hollow staring at the wall in confusion. Which was expected. It was clear to her now that the Hollow had been holding back in their fight, not in its skills, but in its power.

She didn’t understand why it’d do such a thing. It was already in a tight spot with Alex distracting it up top and fighting against her below, but she’d bet it was something stupid like ‘testing itself’ or ‘making her suffer for daring to try to fight it’.

Captain Unohana taught her better. Her goal in a fight should always be to finish it as fast as possible, instead of wasting time playing around with an enemy.

The Hollow kept attacking, but it was pointless. The Path of Protection was made with this kind of situation in mind. The walls of ice were perfected to absorb the maximum amount of spiritual power as possible and use it to strengthen themselves while she healed. It’d take completely overwhelming them for someone to be able to attack her.

So, she got back to work, her lessons in combat healing finally being put to use in a real scenario. Kaido #57 to mend the bones, #60 to regenerate the organs, and #49 to heal the muscle.

It wasn’t perfect, not for a long shot, but it should be enough to finish the fight as long as she avoided being hit in the same spot again.

Isane slowly got up, looking at the thick walls of ice surrounding her and casting the all-purpose regenerating Kaido on herself. It wouldn’t completely heal her. She’d need a few rest days for that. But the influx of spiritual power she expected to get would surely help.

Taking hold of her Zanpakuto’s hilt, she looked at the Hollow, who stopped attacking when she got up, and said, “Path of Fulfilment: Itegumo!”

The ice broke into spiritual particles once more. But this time, it all flowed into Isane. 

She had been low on spiritual power after fighting and healing herself, but now? Now she had more than at the start of the battle.

“Hado #32: Okasen!” She quickly cast, slashing her sword and sending a yellow arc of energy at the Hollow.

The Hollow moved to the side, right into the path of Itegumo.

With a call of “Path of Draining: Itegumo!”, the deep cut on the side of the Hollow’s stomach took with it a large chunk of its remaining power, turning the ground underneath to ice.

Jumping back, Isane started casting Path of Incarceration when the Hollow screamed, “CULL!”

She didn’t have time. She had to finish the fight before the Hollow got its new influx of power! But she didn’t rush, that had almost been her undoing before, and she refused to fall prey to it again.

Raising her arm with her palm facing the Hollow, she started the incantation of the Kido that the Lieutenant of the 13th had taught her.

“Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!"

An orb of yellow lightning formed in front of her palm, growing with every word of the incantation. As she finished, the orb was bigger than her head, with streaks of lightning arcing from it.

“Hado #63: Raikoho!” The orb discharged, a massive bolt of yellow lightning hitting the Hollow dead on, just as the entire ceiling started glowing red from the spiritual power it took from the people above.

Isane held her breath, hoping that the attack was enough to finish the fight.

The red light dissipated, and the dust kicked off by her attack settled, showing that the Hollow had been launched to the other side of the chamber.

Quickly approaching the downed body, Isane couldn’t stop the choked sob that escaped her lips. She knew coming in that this would be the result of the battle if she won, but to see it, to have done it. It was too much.

As she knelt down beside Yurino, tears flowing freely, the first thing she noticed was the charred torso, the opening her cut made allowing for the lightning to vaporise some of her organs.

“I-Isa-ne,” she heard a weak, raspy voice, and suddenly looked at Yurino’s face in shock. Yurino’s eyes were struggling to stay open, her mouth smeared with blood, but still alive.

“Yurino!” She gasped, hand glowing in an attempt to deaden the pain and heal some of Yurino’s injuries. “Hold on! I’ll heal you!”

“I-sa-ne,” Yurino smiled, “T-th-thank y-you.”

“You can thank me later!” She screamed, “Now I need you to fight! Please, Yurino!”

“T-ti-red,” Yurino closed her eyes, before opening them and looking straight at Isane’s. “L-love y-you.”

“I-I love you too, Yurino,” Isane’s shoulders slumped. The damage was too great, not even Itegumo’s most powerful healing could regenerate organs from vapor. And while Yurino’s heart and lungs were failing, almost everything in the stomach area was gone.

“S-sleep well, Yurino,” Isane said, leaning down to give her one final kiss.

As Isane took her lips from Yurino’s, she heard Yurino’s breathing stop, her glassy eyes staring at her, and a smile still on her lips.

And so, Isane cried. For the lover she couldn’t save, and for the future she couldn’t have.

___

Alex

I arrived at the underground chamber to see Isane kissing the downed girl and then breaking down crying.

The fight up top had finished suddenly when 3 of the people I was fighting against, together with half of the ones I had restrained, turned into red particles which were absorbed into the ground.

After restraining the remaining 3 combatants, I got inside the hovel and made my way down.

Even while running, it was a long way down, but I wasn’t particularly worried. Almost immediately after I got into the staircase, I felt her power spike and the Hollow’s vanish, only a tickle of another’s power left in its place.

I sighed at the scene. I wasn’t good at dealing with crying girls, Luna being an exception, so I looked around the chamber to give Isane at least the illusion of privacy.

While most of the chamber was empty, it didn’t take long for me to find something interesting. An alcove in one of the corners where the Hollow left things it might need.

There was sake, strips of cloth, some weird herb paste, a few strings, and the real prize: Isane’s friend Zanpakuto. So I took it and made my way to Isane.

Her crying had subsided into soft sobs when I arrived. Putting my hand on her shoulder to offer what comfort I could, I knelt beside her and let her lean into me.

After a few minutes, she stopped sobbing with a weary sigh. Raising her head to look at me, I extended her friend’s Zapakuto to her.

“Here, I have a feeling she’d want you to have it,” I said softly.

Her eyes widened on her tear-streaked face, and she carefully took it from my hands and slightly opened it to see the still-sharp blade.

“Thanks, Alex,” she muttered, closing it and putting it together with her own at her waist.

“I think,” I said, looking at her and then at her friend’s body. “It’s time for us to go back to the Seireitei.”

She slowly nodded, “Yeah.”

I stood up and helped Isane do the same. From her winces and the way she gingerly moved, I figured she was in desperate need of a stay in the 4th as a patient. But first, there was a very important question I had to make.

“Do you want to bring her with us?” I asked quietly.

“Can we?” She answered, tone hopeful.

“Of course,” I nodded, pulling my wand and casting a stasis charm on the body, before conjuring a wooden casket around it.

I didn’t hold back on the quality. The outside was a dark mahogany with golden corners, while the inside had red pillows and cloth coverings.

Isane gasped, looking at the casket with tears threatening already pooling in her eyes, but with a fortifying breath, she managed to hold back.

“Here,” I said, giving her a handkerchief.

“Thanks,” she said, dabbing her eyes as she closed the casket and conjured a door.

“Let me just fetch Kie and we can go, ok?” I said, and with a nod from Isane, I quickly apparated into the house, grabbed a still-comatose Kie, and came back.

Opening the Door to the 4th division, I quickly put Kie in one of the two beds and let the casked on the ground before turning to Isane.

“You, lie down, I’ll go fetch Captain Unohana,” I told her, closing the Door to the underground chamber and opening normally to the rest of the 4th.

“What!? No! You stay here while I call her!” She exclaimed.

I just poked her hip lightly, eliciting a hiss from Isane.

“You’re injured, go lie down,” I said, already walking out the door without letting her respond.

___

A few minutes later, I was sitting on a chair between Kie’s and Isane’s beds. Captain Unohana was checking Kie first at Isane’s insistence.

The casket had been taken to the morgue, and a hell butterfly sent to the girl’s Captain.

“She’s mostly fine,” Unohana concluded, removing her glowing hand from Kie’s head and moving towards Isane. “She should wake up in a few hours. The infection ran deep, but it didn’t do much damage due to her lack of spiritual power. She’ll be a little weaker than before, but that’s something she’ll be able to overcome in a few weeks.”

“Thank god,” I sighed. “I’d hate for her to be held back by what that Hollow did.”

“Oh? What does that mean?” Unohana asked curiously as she started checking Isane.

“Well,” I started, leaning back on my seat. “I didn’t have much to do in the 80th, so after rescuing her, I taught her some basic exercises to train her spiritual power. Girl’s a natural, she mastered every exercise almost as soon as she learned it.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Unohana said, eyes sharpening in contemplation in Kie’s direction. “Do you plan on keeping her?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I have no idea how to care for a child, and I’m way too busy wrangling the 11th to have time for anything else.”

And I also would be leaving in a few months. It’d be cruel to adopt her just to abandon her a short while later. Much better to find someone else to take her in who’d stay in her life.

“If that’s the case, I may have a few ideas about that,” she said with a smile.

“Thanks, Captain Unohana!” I said, getting up and bowing to her before taking my seat again.

“Now you,” Unohana said, glowing hand over Isane’s hip. “You will have to stay for a few days. And after that, I’ll give you remedial lessons on combat healing.”

Isane whimpered, her face draining of blood as she bore the brunt of her Captain’s unamused glare.

“But I did everything right! I used Path of Protection to buy me time while I healed myself enough to go back to battle!” She whined.

“And you did shoddy work. There are still small bone shards on some of your organs, your muscles are hanging by a thread so thin that a few more minutes standing up would probably make them tear, and your right kidney and intestine are mostly nonfunctional,” she ranted, her glare intensifying with each new point. “But it’s my fault, I was too soft on you. So I will fix my mistake. By the time I’m done, you’ll be able to heal yourself without needing to hide behind your Zanpakuto’s ability first.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Isane muttered, her hands tightly holding the covers as she looked at her lap.

“Good,” Unohana nodded and started moving towards the door. “Lieutenant Lupi, I’ll have to check some things out, but I should have something arranged by the time Kie wakes up.”

“Thank you again, Captain Unohana.”

“Think nothing of it,” she said with a smile, opening the door to reveal Captain Komamura’s massive form. “Ah, Sajin, my condolences.”

“Thank you, Captain Unohana,” the massive man nodded. “I heard that this was where I’d find the ones who brought Kamada’s body home?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Kotetsu and Lieutenant Lupi are just inside,” she said, making way for the Captain to enter and then quietly leaving.

Not wanting to intrude, I got up to quickly explain my part and leave.

“Captain Komamura,” I gave a slight bow. “I mostly distracted the Hollow’s minions while Lieutenant Kotetsu fought it. I’ll leave you two who knew the victim to talk,” I said, making my way to the door in a hurry.

“What are you talking about!? You did half the work!” Isane’s shocked exclamation sounded as I opened the Door to my office on the 11th.

“Please, at most you could say that I did 10% of the work, and even that’s pushing it and you know it!” I called back as I closed the Door.

___

Sighing in relief at having escaped the emotional storm that I feel would happen in that infirmary room, I prepared myself for the exasperation of dealing with whatever the hell Zaraki had been cooking up while I was gone.

Getting out of my office into the 11th proper, the people hurrying to and fro suddenly stopped to stare at me in shock.

Ignoring them, I made my way to Zaraki’s office, but each new person who saw me had the same reaction. It was actually starting to get to me when I saw my lifeline.

“Yachiru! What the fuck is going on?” I asked.

“Lupinin! You shouldn’t be here! Kenny is going to get mad!” She said, jumping on my back and taking a seat on my shoulder. I wasn’t nearly as big as Zaraki, so it must have been pretty uncomfortable for her.

“I’m already mad at him, so you might as well say it,” I rolled my eyes. I had held back from calling him out on what I had found out from Yumichika about the division’s use of magic at the time, but I definitely hadn’t forgotten that I owed the entire division an asskicking using only magic. I was more than willing to throw down with Zaraki over it, especially after the letdown that were my fights in the 80th.

“Come on then, I’ll show it!” She said, pointing me in a direction.

“Fine,” I said, deciding to humor her and going the way she was pointing.

___

“What. The. Fuck.” I said, staring at the ‘project’ that took Zaraki a few days to make.

It had taken over two hours, but we finally reached our destination: The entrance courtyard for the 11th.

Normally, from where we had met up, it’d have taken me no more than 5 minutes to reach it. But since I was following Yachiru’s direction, we went everywhere in the division but there. We even got into the 10th before it!

The courtyard was one of the few that didn’t serve as a training ground, and it was full of people. But I paid no attention to them. My concern was what they were working on.

In the middle of the courtyard, there was a new statue. This statue looked exactly like me: my messy hair slightly too long from what I was used to (since my last haircut had been with Luna at Olivanders), my stubble was on point with how I had it, and I was wearing my shihakusho with a faithful rendition of my Zanpakuto at my hip.

One of the statue’s hands was held at the head’s high, and it was holding a stack of papers.

“5!” I heard someone from the crowd of people call out. There was a group of men wearing priests' robes surrounding the statue, behind them, a group of women wearing shrine maiden garbs did the same. All of them had their palms facing the statue, and I could feel the gathering spiritual power.

The countdown kept going until they finally got the go-ahead and poured all of the concentrated power into the statue.

I heard Zaraki’s laughter from the other side of the statue, but I ignored it to look at what their spells did: the stack of papers was burning with magical fire.

While trying to process why anyone would commandeer this much manpower to make that, I could only ask again:

“What. The. Fuck.”

___

A/N: And that’s that.

I’m not perfectly happy with the latter half of this chapter, and depending on how things go, I might edit it later, so any opinions on it are appreciated!

As always, thank you all for your support, and see you next week!