"Seek not beauty in battle. Seek not beauty in death. Consider not your own life. If you wish to protect that which must be protected, then strike while your opponent's back is turned." — Sosuke Aizen.
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Yoruichi was rushing towards Itachi but had to change her direction when Itachi met her halfway through her full sprint.
"Itachi!... A clone." Yoruichi guessed and the clone nodded. "Where's your main body? Are you alright?" She couldn't hold herself and fired rapidly but the clone clearly didn't have time to entertain her questions or whatever worries she had.
"It's a lot worse. I led Kensei towards the main so he's currently facing two Hollowfied Captains, Shinji Hirako and Kensei Mugurama, but they are not the only Captains out. Captain Aikawa and Captain Ōtoribashi are still unaccounted for."
"WHAT!?" Yoruichi's heart seized for a few seconds before it started beating rapidly.
"The Gotei should have been alerted by now so focus on the other Captains to prevent them from slaughtering the squads with them."
Itachi turned to leave but Yoruichi held him back with a deep worry etched to her eyes. "Let me come with you. I'll update Soi Fon and Kisuke on the present situation and they'll know the proper way to–"
Itachi cut her off without so much as a second thought. "I'll be fine. I doubt they can use their Bankai in their current state, so I'm not too worried. Go! And be careful." Itachi turned away to leave after finishing his piece.
"This whole thing reeks of a setup."
"Damn it!" Yoruichi angrily punched the tree beside her which uprooted it and a few other trees. She gritted her teeth and contacted Kisuke to get the coordinates of the other two Captains while delivering the somber news to him.
[There's no denying this, Yoruichi. Someone has tampered with my experiments and research.]
"We'll worry about that later. We have to prevent two Captains from going over the edge." She took a deep breath as she hurried to the location Kisuke gave her. "Itachi is right, you know. This whole thing smells like a setup."
[… Me.]
"Don't over think, Kisuke. Let's deal with Love and Ōtoribashi first, okay?"
[…]
"Damn it, Kisuke!"
[I'm on it. Tessai and Hachigen are en route.]
Yoruichi and Kisuke traded a few words over the hell butterfly as Yoruichi reduced the distance between her and the Captains when suddenly Kisuke said something that completely stole her attention.
[I think I know who did this, Yoruichi. Shinji had his suspicions but this just happening right after he told me is a little too conspicuous and coincidental.]
...
[POV: With Itachi]
A pair of red eyes shone ominously bright on this very dark night as three gales of Reiatsu clashed against each other in this dead landscape.
WRYYYYYYYYY!
Sparks flew off as Itachi faced the two Captains at once.
Enhanced perception, linear prediction, perfectly coordinated reflexes, precise energy manipulation – Itachi had the Sharingan running on maximum as he kept up with the two of them, countering Kensei's attacks and seeing through Shinji's illusion.
For the latter, a few seconds into seeing how Shinji's Zanpakutō weaved Reiatsu to manipulate someone's sense of direction was all Itachi needed to render the Shikai useless against him.
They shouted in frustration as they cut down their 100th Itachi only for him to burst into crows which then turned into shurikens that stabbed into their bodies before going off like little explosives.
'No one yet. Where are they?' Itachi pondered again as so far there has been no feedback from the clones he had patrolling the area.
He took a soft step back before slashing down and Shinji who was a few meters away from him acquired a cut across his chest which forced him to stumble and fall to his knee.
"Bakudō #63: Sajō Sabaku."
Yellow chains appeared and bound the severely injured Shinji and held him there. These yellow chains, like a lot of restraining Kidō spells, can't be broken with physical strength.
"Now, remaining you." Without wasting more of his time, he rushed at Kensei who took a step back in fright and swung his blade randomly. To his muddled despair, Itachi had already substituted with an exploding clone that promptly exploded in Kensei's face.
"RARRRRRRGHHHHHH!" Kensei screamed as a blade slid through the flesh on his back and incinerated where it passed through.
"Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō." Before Kensei could thrash around, six large rods of light struck into his body and sealed his movement but Itachi wasn't done as Kensei was too stubborn for that to safely keep him in place.
"Hadō #63: Raikōhō." Itachi intoned a mid tier lightning Kidō spell and without an ounce of hesitation, shot it point blank at Kensei.
"For one, they are scarily durable." A perpetual frown was on his face as he watched the groaning form of the two Hollowfied Captains. "How did it come to this?"
Unable to pick up whether they were under the perpetrator's influence without the instance of a recent activation was the first disadvantage against him.
His lack of power and influence to move as he pleased within Seireitei was also another disadvantage, albeit a natural one – but that mattered little as Amaterasu still refused to speak with him to this day.
Summoning a hell butterfly, he contacted Yoruichi regarding the status of the other Hollowfied Shinigamis and to confirm if his fears were right.
[Itachi, where are you? Are you alright?]
Before answering, he threw up a barrier Kidō dome to block any outside interference he didn't allow. It didn't take a genius to realize that whatever he had stubbornly gotten embroiled in was way above his current capabilities. Never in his life did he expect they'd target the Captains too.
"I'm fine. Kensei and Shinji have been neutralized for now. How is the situation over at your end?"
He heard her hesitate, which was enough of a heads up for him to prepare himself for whatever he was about to hear.
[Love and Ōtoribashi were Hollowfied… along with Lisa Yadōmaru and 3rd Seat Miyako Shiba, Lieutenant Kaien Shiba's wife.]
That wasn't good. Six Captains are already involved, four directly and two indirectly – well three since Kaien is from a Noble Family and a relative of Isshin Shiba.
"Is there anything you guys can do about this on your end?" Itachi asked but Yoruichi went silent on the other end. "Yoruichi?"
[… We don't know yet.]
"Is there something you're not telling me?"
[Not now, let's meet back at the barrack. Captain Shiba and Lieutenant Sasakibe are en route in your direction. The Head Captain is already notified so we're bringing them in.]
This line went dead leaving Itachi feeling very conflicted. He could almost tell; something was very wrong and it was escaping everyone's notice.
Like a snake in a field of grass.
He sat on the floor and contemplated on his thoughts and all what he knew about the Shinigami and then specific individuals that he was suspicious of.
'Only if I had the authority.' Now wasn't that a humbling thought? He lacked it back then and he still lacked it now. For all his morality and philosophy, he lacked the strength necessary to make true his ideals.
Power, in all its forms - he needed it.
'Really? Itachi Uchiha, vying for political and military power. I am the biggest hypocrite.'
These were his only choices as long as he decided that it affected him – turning rogue and doing whatever he pleases or ascending the hierarchical power system of the Shinigami.
'The Executive Militia and Onmistukidō… Those are my natural habitat, and thankfully the ones I need the most.'
For all his talk of hating nobles and not caring for higher positions of power, he had to accept it, as much as he hated it, that there was little to nothing he could do as a 3rd Seat.
He could of course go rogue, but what would that do? He would no longer be in proximity of whatever was going on in the Shinigami sphere and his movements would be heavily restricted.
He stood up, forsaking his thoughts for a latter time, and watched as two figures arrived at his location and looked around warily.
….
Isshin had been the one to sense the anomaly in the area when they arrived and signaled to Chōjuro Sasakibe to keep alert as they arrived to an empty location.
Before he could do a more aggressive probe, the space around them shattered like glass and revealed Itachi along with the two knocked out and restrained Captains.
The two of them couldn't help but reveal their extremely surprised reactions, Chōjuro more than Isshin at the impossibility of what this meant.
"Did you do this alone, kiddo?" Isshin asked, extremely serious even with his surprised reaction.
Itachi nodded. "They weren't exactly in their right minds which made it a lot easier for me. I'd have had a much harder time had it been otherwise and they could efficiently utilize their Shinigami techniques and Zanpakutō abilities."
"Still," Isshin looked at the two Captains with a difficult expression on his face. "They are Captains and their instincts aren't something anyone can 'easily' combat against, whether or not they were in their right minds."
"We should return right now. The Head Captain is not pleased." Chōjuro said, breaking whatever subtle confrontation was going on between them.
Isshin turned towards the direction of the Seireitei and nodded grimly. "You're right. I can almost feel his Reiatsu from all the way out here."
His words surprised Chōjuro and Itachi as they couldn't feel what Isshin was feeling which Isshin noticed and he chuckled.
"It's too faint from this distance for you to pick it up." That was the last thing he said before going over to Shinji and Kensei and striking their Sanketsu points, effectively knocking them out and sealing their Reiatsu for the two subordinates to carry back without any accidents.
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