After War: 5. Exchange
5. Exchange
Matsumoto heard about the new surge of discord brewing throughout the Academy before she even got to the Tenth Division office the next morning. In light of the upsets sweeping the Seireitei, each student was undergoing additional screening before entering their second stage of study, and those in the classes preparing to graduate were subjected to a rigorous set of new examinations.
She sat at one of the couches, awaiting Hitsugaya's arrival. It was unlike him to reach the office after her, but it was also unlike her to be prompt. She looked up as he came into the room, then stood.
"Good morning, Captain."
His scowl lifted a notch when he saw her. "You're up early."
"Ah, yes." She watched him fidget with the edge of his captain's robe.
"Eleventh Division has employed an eight member team to Karakura Town and Osaka City to fight the influx of Arrancars that's been detected." His grim expression narrowed on her. "Did that information come out of your meeting yesterday?"
She nodded, hesitant to say more. She'd not kept much from her captain, and what she did, on occasion, hadn't been anything of a Society matter. "Captain Soi Fon verified it immediately."
"I suppose you're not at liberty to discuss yesterday."
She was surprised by his roundabout query. He'd always been so direct about issues, especially ones that could possibly involve Momo Hinamori. "Captain Soi Fon didn't expressly forbid me to speak of the... questioning," she said slowly, frowning as she recalled the Second Division captain's exact wording. "I suppose I shouldn't say too much."
He nodded. "Are you going back today?"
Her eyes softened, watching his troubled expression. "She said I'd be called when I'm needed again."
Hitsugaya looked to the divider between their offices. "Then you can get started on your paperwork."
"Yes, Captain."
But Matsumoto didn't get far in the stack - a rather short stack, she noticed - before there was a knock at the office door, and Junana summoned her back to the Second Division complex.
Hitsugaya gave her leave without an argument to the scribe, but Matsumoto had worked with the young captain long enough to know he had much more to say on the matter.
This time her pace was quicker as she followed the scribe through the streets to Second Division. Along the way Junana offered no conversation, and Matsumoto didn't try to start any. The dry heat of the day was already finding its way into the streets, more than enough to sap the air vapid, making already sensitive issues on the minds of every resident concentrate into more forced opinions.
No one gave her anything other than empathetic looks - except for Kira - as she passed them. The temporary acting captain of Third Division crossed her path, following another scribe, who unerringly resembled Junana. Upon seeing Matsumoto, Kira nearly halted.
She paused, but he didn't stop, only sending her a brief glance of disturbed defenselessness before following the scribe.
Matsumoto sighed. She'd rarely seen Kira look so uncomfortable, and she'd seen him troubled much of the time lately. She wondered if Hisagi would be implicated as well.
Junana led her down the halls of the Second Division complex until they found the interrogation room. They had waited for only a few moments before the door opened and Soi Fon came out. The captain looked to the scribe.
"You may go."
Junana bowed to her captain and Matsumoto and left down the hall, as she had the day before.
Soi Fon turned to Matsumoto, appraising her coolly. "Our questioning yesterday proved that your presence in the room supplies better responses from Ichimaru. We've tested the validity of much of his information, and he seems to be more apt to truthfulness." The shorter woman's fingers closed over her sword hilt, tensing on the leather-wrapped grip. She stepped closer to the lieutenant. "Your place in this investigation is not to weigh his innocence, Vice-Captain Matsumoto, or to ease your own conscience in any manner. It's to find out the degree of truth to his testimony. We are talking about levels of involvement. Do you understand that?"
Matsumoto bowed, wishing her knees didn't feel like they were going to buckle beneath her. "Yes."
"Do you think you can undertake this with the necessary detachment?"
A hundred thoughts coursed through Matsumoto's head, from the anguish at those final few words on Soukyoku Hill to the fleeting, incensed regrets at not having drawn that blade across his throat moments before he'd left her. To other moments.
"Yes, Captain Soi Fon."
The shorter woman's head tilted, a flash of approval hinting her face. "Good. Then your report will be most beneficial to the Gotei Tribunal that is being assembled. You'll be called in when you're needed."
Matsumoto took a seat at the bench after Soi Fon had gone back into the room. The captain had seemed pleased with her answer. Perhaps Soi Fon's own brush with desertion gave her an insight into the matter.
Matsumoto sighed. Or maybe it only added bias. She laced her fingers together, tightening them until the bones stressed to the breaking point.
Could she? Was she really able to step back from their lifetime together to give a dispassionate report on Gin's honesty?
She sighed. Was there even any honesty in him?
She thought back on his words from the previous day. He'd told the truth, even about several damaging, outright damning areas. She knew Soi Fon probably had most of the answers, probably had answers to many questions by which to gauge Gin's remarks. But even the Second Division captain had her reservations, otherwise she wouldn't have called anyone to observe his account.
Surprisingly, Soi Fon returned to the corridor half an hour later. Matsumoto had expected a lengthier wait. She stood immediately.
"Come in. Take your seat in the back, and don't speak."
"Yes, Captain Soi Fon."
The room was occupied as it had been the preceding day, with the guardsmen from Second Division, and the four Kidou Corpsmen. Gin sat in the chair, facing the table.
Matsumoto stood at her assigned chair, remaining standing as Soi Fon walked to the back of the room and took her place at the table. Matsumoto slowly sat, judging Gin's posture, estimating his lowered head, the bend of his neck, his hands slack in the cuffs behind the chair.
He straightened when Soi Fon sat down, and then he turned nearly completely to see behind him, before the Kidou Corpsman shoved the end of the bo to his shoulder blade. Even then Gin didn't react immediately. The Corpsman raised the bamboo stick and brought it down on the side of Gin's shoulder.
Matsumoto flinched at the impact, as if physically struck herself, fingers of one hand clenching the sword hilt at her obi.
Gin turned back around, without pinpointing her exact location in the room. He looked to Soi Fon, who appeared encouraged by his response.
"You will do best to remain seated forward, Ichimaru," she advised, looking down at her ledger. "We will begin again."
Matsumoto saw his head raise, attention on the captain. She released the sword hilt, her breath slowing.
"We will establish your influence over Third Division Vice-Captain Kira, Ninth Division Vice-Captain Hisagi, and others you were known with which to associate."
"I think you'd be wanting to know more pertinent information, Captain," Gin said. "Things of a more timely manner."
"I'll decide what the timely manner is, Ichimaru." Soi Fon snapped. For a few moments she read silently from her notes, and then looked back to him. She finally asked, "Are there other Arrancar loose on the Living World you haven't told us about?"
"No."
"Espada?"
"No."
"What do you hope to gain, Ichimaru, by being forthcoming with any information now, after the battle has been won?"
"It was my intention to be forthcoming earlier, but you managed to win without much help."
Soi Fon's tone dropped lower. "Don't toy with me. No one is in any mood to defend you."
"I expect not."
Matsumoto's heart fell at his words. He'd already given up?
"You're a known fraud. You think you can possibly explain away your traitorous actions?"
"No. I fully expect to be executed no matter what I say," he said slowly, half shrugging. "Nothing can be said to make a Gotei Tribunal spare me."
Soi Fon stiffened at his deliberate wording. "Then why try?"
"I'm telling you what I did, Captain. I went to Las Noches to collect information for Soul Society to use against Aizen, and that's what I'm doing." He settled back in the chair. "Unfortunately, it's all coming out after the war has been won. Not an easy spot for an unused spy."
Soi Fon fingered the pen in her hands, eyes narrowing at him. "What are these timely matters you mentioned?"
"Aizen had agreed to an exchange for the hougyoku contained in Rukia-chan's gigai."
Soi Fon frowned. "An exchange? From whom?" Her head lifted, her focus sharpening. "You mean -"
"Yep. Urahara."
"With their past, you expect me to believe Urahara would knowingly work with Aizen?"
"They didn't work together, not in so many words. They had a few cooperations that benefited mutually," Gin said, sitting back in the chair to a less awkward position. "If Aizen could offer Urahara something he needed, Urahara would aid him. Time diluted their differences, Captain."
"The hougyoku was one such example?"
"Yep. Not a particularly successful one."
"And you allowed all this to happen without interfering. This does nothing to help your plea, Ichimaru." Soi Fon opened the ledger. "What was your role in it?"
"Aizen had Rukia-chan sent on her first mission as a Soul Reaper to the Living World alone, without any experience, without any backup, and without telling her brother. Does that sound like standard procedure?"
"You know it's not."
"He had her sent to retrieve the gigai from Urahara and bring it back. He knew she wasn't able to defeat a Hollow by herself, that she'd fail, and Urahara would come to her aid with the offer of a gigai. When she didn't come back on her own, loitering around the Kurosaki house, she was collected, and, well, you know the rest."
Soi Fon had pushed the pen harder on the ledger at every mention of Urahara, and now when she wrote in her ledger for a few moments her movements were jerky, annoyed. "Your role in this, Ichimaru?"
Matsumoto saw Gin's hands fold over each other behind him, a sign she knew well.
"Aizen wanted Tousen to bring her back. I insisted that Captain Kuchiki go. I knew Rukia-chan would willingly go with her brother, and I didn't think he'd allow Aizen to carry out her execution." He sighed. "Aizen went along with it, confident Captain Kuchiki would uphold his noble promise."
"You weren't?"
Gin straightened in the chair, nodding. "I thought he'd set that promise aside for Rukia-chan's life. If he didn't, I knew Abarai would step in, even if it meant defying his captain."
Soi Fon considered her notes for a long moment.
Matsumoto watched Gin's fingers weave together behind his back. She'd saw Soi Fon bristle at each mention of Urahara, and so had he.
Soi Fon closed the ledger. "Unless there's -"
"Don't you want to know what the exchange was?"
Soi Fon stared at him for a long moment. "What was the exchange?"
"Aizen wanted Urahara to work for him at Las Noches. When Urahara turned him down, time and again, Aizen dangled an opportunity before him the deposed captain couldn't pass up." Gin shifted in the chair, holding Soi Fon's attention. "He offered Urahara what he'd been wanting since the last war."
"The last ..." Soi Fon's interest was piqued. "Clarify yourself, Ichimaru."
"Urahara was disillusioned with Arrancars and anything Hollow-related. Hollow-fication was proving more limiting and unmanageable than first thought. Aizen had been promoting a back-up plan for months, in case the Arrancars failed, which they did."
Soi Fon's face hardened. "What did he offer Urahara?"
"Four breeding pairs of Quincy."
At this statement the guardsmen's posture flinched. Matsumoto frowned at the mention of the extinct race of humans. She saw Soi Fon lean over the table, her hands pressing on the surface.
"Impossible. No one is left, but the two males from the Ishida clan. You mean them?"
Gin shook his head. "No. I mean four males, four females. Reproductive ages." He shrugged. "In fact, they're probably getting hungry about now. You might want to have them fed."
Soi Fon remained motionless for several moments, and then she stood and looked to one of the guardsmen. She rounded the table wordlessly and approached Matsumoto at the front of the room, the guardsman behind her.
"Out here," she told the Tenth Division lieutenant almost inaudibly.
They met in the hall and waited for the thick door to shut.
Soi Fon's voice was pinched when she spoke. "Vice-Captain Matsumoto, is this the truth? Is he telling the truth?"
Matsumoto nodded. "In my opinion, yes."
Soi Fon looked to the guardsman. "Send word to Captain Kurotsuchi."
"Yes, Captain."
The man left, and Soi Fon turned back to Matsumoto. "We're going back in to get the details. You will remain silent. Junana is assigned to you for reports. I want a full report on everything you've witnessed today by tomorrow."
"I understand."
"Everything. You'll be sitting in tomorrow, too, so come prepared, Vice-Captain."
Matsumoto nodded, an overwhelmingly surreal feeling slipping over her. "Yes, Captain Soi Fon."
"Good. We're going back in now; pay close attention."
The next three hours were filled with details supplied by Ichimaru on Aizen's alleged plans to raise a new crop of Quincy that knew neither their own history or their powers. Plans had been made to provide a lurid account of the slaughter of the Quincy whole by the Soul Reapers, embellished where Aizen thought necessary, promoting himself as their last bastion of hope, and cultivate an uprising within them, should the Arrancars fail. As they had.
To develop the untapped, innate spiritual powers gleaned from Aizen's artificial environment, he had planned to recruit one of the few possible candidates that could be made sympathetic to his needs, namely Ishida Uryuu.
The proceedings hadn't started until Mayuri Kurotsuchi arrived, and he spent a few moments silently reading the notes in Soi Fon's ledger before he took a second chair behind the table at her side. He offered no comment or question, but watched Ichimaru with growing interest, and suspicion.
Matsumoto listened intently, dividing her time that afternoon between being sickened by what had been planned for the nearly extinct human strain, and awed by the magnitude of Aizen's reach.
When she was dismissed into the empty hall - which was void of even Nemu Kurotsuchi or Omaeda - ordered by the one of Second Division guardsman before the hood was pulled over Gin's head, Matsumoto hesitated with Junana by the end of the hall, where it met the double doors to the covered walkway.
"Wait," she told the scribe as she opened one of the doors.
"We should leave now," the young girl said without any inflection in her tone.
Matsumoto looked back to the interrogation room as the door opened and a guardsman emerged, followed by Gin and the second guardsman, and then the Kidou Corpsmen.
The men didn't pause, prodding Gin down the hall opposite from where Matsumoto stood. He went without problem, but turned as they followed the corner, looking to where he knew her to be.
A simple hood didn't block anything, Matsumoto knew, as the troop of men disappeared around the corner, out of sight. She knew, even in the thickest night or darkest room, she could find him. She had before, many years ago, so many times.
She looked back to Junana. "We have a lot of paperwork. Let's go."
It wasn't until well after dark that Matsumoto eased into the warm rose-scented bathtub behind the shouji that divided her bathing quarters from the other living rooms beyond. The water had been poured for some time, awaiting her as she'd found one reason after another to put off the bath. She settled in, letting her strawberry-blonde hair fall over the back of the tub, the sides cool on her shoulders.
As much as she enjoyed her baths, the time in the warm water led her to thinking, and that led to reminiscing, and wishing, and then to hoping.
She didn't want to do that tonight, but neither did she want to go straight to bed. She removed the locket from her neck and placed it in the lidless bento box by the tub. She smiled at memories of the box.
It wasn't much to look at, the box, a discarded piece from someone else's lunches. The sides had at one time been fancy, lacquered in brown, black, red, and gold, most of the flower motif rubbed off over the years.
Rubbed off by her own young fingers as she had touched the smooth sides - for it was minus the cover - over and over again as a child. Gin had laughed at her, claiming she would rub all the color off and have nothing but a hollowed piece of wood left. She hadn't cared. She was young, so was he, and it was his first gift to her that she hadn't been able to eat.
She sighed. Aside from the wild flowers he'd bring home, of course. She hadn't tried to eat those, either. The shack they'd shared wasn't an ideal home, but it was theirs, and that was all that mattered at the time.
She lowered the necklace into the box, her only jewelry box. It had been decades before she had a piece of jewelry to put in it, and that had come from him, too.
The scented water grew tepid, but she made no effort to find the wash cloth that had made its own ascent into the water earlier. Matsumoto's thoughts strayed far from the tub.
The last sentence at the bottom of Soi Fon's report - the page that she'd let Matsumoto review - hung in her mind. It was a brief assessment.
'Horyo Two makes no appeal. Information is given willingly, without compromise, demanding no recompense for statements made. Negotiations have not been entered. No conditions have been established.'
What little Matsumoto knew of interrogation - which was only what had trickled out of Ikkaku and Renji, on occasion - contrasted with what she saw in Soi Fon's assessment. Generally, prisoners of war gave up information in order to better their immediate circumstances. Gin hadn't done that. He'd answered every question thoroughly, offered information Soi Fon hadn't asked for, and requested nothing in exchange.
She sighed. Soi Fon's words replayed in her mind from when the captain had stopped her and Junana at the Second Division main administration building, after she'd been dismissed for the afternoon.
"You may be required to take an active role in Horyo Two's interrogation," the shorter woman had relayed in no uncertain terms. "I suggest you get any preliminary visit out of the way before that. I want no setbacks."
Matsumoto had assured her she would be ready. Soi Fon had told her she would be given a day's notice of any such interrogation.
She had held herself together at the time, following Junana through the Seireitei until they reached Tenth Division quarters, until they'd spent three hours recounting the day in their reports.
But now, as she sank into the cool waters, Rangiku gave up, and wept.