"Well, he is going to wait for the three-day challenge, am I right, Captain Byakuya?" Instantly, an untimely voice, calm and full of playful mockery, sounded behind them. Both Ukitake and Byakuya's expressions froze, a rare, profound shock washing over their captain-level composure. They slowly turned and glanced in the direction of the bridge pillar.
There, perched casually upon the crumbling pillar like a raven, was a figure looking at both of them with an unnerving, knowing playfulness.
"You are...?" Ukitake asked, his voice betraying his surprise as he looked at another unfamiliar face whose Reiatsu was strangely suppressed and unreadable.
"How did you survive? I didn't expect you to be one of the Ryoka; it seems you know something that I don't know." Byakuya, his usual iciness shattered by this second unbelievable apparition, glanced at Eero and spoke with a genuinely surprised expression on his face.
"Who is he?" Ukitake asked, turning to Byakuya with a puzzled and deeply concerned expression on his face.
"Well, Captain Ukitake, I am Eero, the recruit of the thirteenth division before Rukia; she knows me; you can ask her about me."
Eero replied, his voice a smooth, flat counterpoint to Byakuya's silent, thunderous rage, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at the dazed Rukia beside him.
"W-why are you here?" Rukia asked, stammering in a daze, her whole body shaking with a fresh wave of disbelief and mounting anxiety, looking at him in shock. She was the most shocked one by Eero's arrival; she didn't expect him to show up in front of captains like that. The spiritual sense of a man declared dead... a man from her past... was standing before the two most powerful captains on the bridge.
"As a wanted criminal, you have appeared in front of us. It seems you are mocking us, Captain, as useless, and if I let you leave, then it will be a disgrace to our Gotei Thirteen."
Byakuya spoke solemnly, grabbing his zanpakuto, the grip of the hilt cold and familiar beneath his fingers, and then, in the next moment, he appeared beside Eero using Shunpo and raised the zanpakuto in order to slash his neck.
With a spark flashed, Eero stopped the slash with his own zanpakuto. The sound was a sharp, grating k-shing of metal resisting metal, the raw force palpable.
Byakuya's brow furrowed, a faint tremor running up his arm as he looked at the gray zanpakuto in Eero's hand while he could feel the incoming force... a dense, unyielding energy that defied his expectations.
'Why is his strength different from the information?' Byakuya thought to himself, the question a cold shock in his mind, and then glanced at the Eero and asked solemnly,
"Why did you hide your potential and strength? What is your purpose?'
Eero raised his brow and then, with a sharp, controlled push, sent his zanpakuto forward and slashed toward Byakuya. An afterimage flashed, too fast for Ukitake's eyes, and Byakuya was forced to back away, reappearing next to Ukitake.
Tip!!
Drip. Drip. Drip. Blood drops fell on the ground while releasing dripping and splashing sounds on the dusty stone floor.
"I thought you dodged it," Ukitake spoke, his eyes wide in astonishment, looking at the thin, crimson cut mark on Byakuya's arm and stomach with blood oozing out of it.
Byakuya's brow furrowed, a grimace of pain and confusion crossing his lips as he felt the burning sting of the wound. He muttered, "Even I thought that I dodged it."
Eero glanced at both of them and sheathed his sword with a clean, quiet snick, calmly saying, "Don't worry, it's just a normal injury, Captain Byakuya. I am sorry, but it was important; now you will listen to me patiently."
After speaking, a playful smile appeared on Eero's face, and then he moved his lips without making a sound. The words were perfectly formed, silent.
Instantly, Byakuya's and Ukitake's pupils shrank, their expressions becoming solemn and profoundly shocked, reading the Eero's lip movements... a silent, impossible communication that bypassed all their defenses.
Eero glanced at their shocked expression with a playful expression on his face and then turned around and walked toward the edge of the bridge.
"Wait, are you telling the truth? Is this all? I mean, is he still…" Suddenly Ukitake spoke, wanting to stop and ask him, his voice strained.
Suddenly the Eero figure flickered and disappeared, leaving behind a frozen, stuck Ukitake and a thoughtful, deeply unsettled Byakuya.
...
After a while,
Byakuya glanced at Rukia, her small form still trembling on the ground, and then shook his head, turning around and walking away. He said, "It doesn't matter; if he is telling the truth, we can't go against the Central 46 orders."
After speaking, he left, leaving behind a surprised Ukitake, whose face was a mask of confusion and responsibility.
After a while, Ukitake sighed, the sound heavy with resignation, and then nodded, assigning his two subordinates to take Rukia back inside the prison and wait for the execution day.
On the other hand,
Meanwhile, inside the secret room within Sokyoku Hill, Yoruichi set Ichigo down in the healing field on the floor, the warm, green-tinged spiritual light immediately beginning to mend his grievous wounds.
Falling to one knee as she panted in exhaustion, her shoulders heaving, Yoruichi noted, the words raspy, that she was breathing hard after only two hundred consecutive Shunpo movements because she has been out of action for one hundred years and criticized herself as weak for it.
Yoruichi sat heavily against the wall across from a sleeping Ichigo as night fell, the shadows lengthening around them, and some time later, Ichigo opened his eyes to find Yoruichi standing over him.
As he sat up and wondered where he was, the scent of dust and stone heavy in his nose, Ichigo recalled Yoruichi knocking him out earlier and angrily grabbing her by the collar before shoving her against the rough stone wall. He demanded to know why she brought him back even though he had the best chance of surviving out of anyone on the bridge.
When Ichigo claimed that his friends will all be killed now, Yoruichi berated him for being so vain and asserted with sharp certainty that no one on the bridge had any chance against Byakuya.
With Ichigo only growing angrier at this, his voice rising in frustrated desperation, Yoruichi flipped him onto his back with Taketonbo, the precise move sending a sickening wave of pain through his stomach wound, where he began coughing in pain.
Yoruichi instructed Ichigo in a firm, no-nonsense voice to not move if he did not want to reopen his wounds, and as Ichigo cursed her while rolling over, clutching his stomach, Yoruichi explained how she could only escape from Byakuya while carrying one person, only for Ichigo to question why she did not take Rukia instead.
Acknowledging this, Yoruichi reiterated with cold logic that no one on the bridge had any chance of defeating Byakuya.
…