UraIshi AU Ch.18
Title: Unravelling Threads of Fate
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: UraIshi
Summary: AU. Ishida has had a hard life. With the help of some friends, it finally looks like things are going to work out. When he meets a bizarre and cheerful man named Urahara Kisuke, the two are inexplicably drawn to each other. But when Ishida discovers the truth about Urahara's past and its ties to his own, difficulties arise.
Notes: I keep on forgetting to thank kirstian for her quick beta-read every time. XD You rock.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the genius KT. ♥
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17
Urahara sat back with a large sigh, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes. Notes lay scattered across the countertop, amongst pens and pencils. The box that sat at his feet had been all but emptied within the first few days of trying to find the information he needed.
It had already been a week since his conversation with Ryuuken. He had progressed nowhere.
The laboratory had been mostly empty when Urahara had entered that night, box of notes in his arms. The few researchers still there had merely blinked at him as he had settled down in an empty corner and started pulling out stacks of paper. He had barely noticed when the night had turned to day or when the people who had been there disappeared. No one joined him after that and Urahara had guessed that Ryuuken must have said something, perhaps telling his researchers to stay away from him. Whatever it was, he had kept to himself and had reviewed the notes for two days straight, finally taking a small break to mull over the information and give himself some rest.
The next morning, Urahara had gone to collect some blood samples from Ishida. He had been required to wear a full-body suit to enter the room, unless he had wanted to risk catching the virus himself. Ishida had stared at him blearily, face pale but covered in sweat, sticking strands of hair to it. Urahara had guessed that his fever had begun to break some time overnight and had reached out with a cloth to gently wipe away the perspiration.
“Kisuke…”
“Good morning, Uryuu,” Urahara had said with a bright smile. “I’m here to collect some blood so I can run a few tests.”
“You’re going to fix me?” Ishida had asked wearily, holding out his arm obediently.
Tying the arm and swabbing an area clean, he had expertly inserted the needle and first plastic vial for collection. “Yes… I’m going to fix you.”
But it was now days later and the tests showed the same results as the ones fifteen years ago… and he still didn’t know what would stop the virus’ progression.
Stretching out of his hunched position, Urahara frowned as his muscles complained. He wasn’t as young as before; day after day of endless work wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Eyeing the papers, he stood up and idly stacked them into a pile - not that it really mattered, since they’d end up strewn across the counter by the end of the day anyway.
Urahara paused to mentally run through the tests he had done and realized that he would need some new blood samples. For one, he didn’t have enough and for another, Ishida’s condition would have changed and may have resulted in something new appearing in his blood. Picking up his hat, he set it on his head and made his way towards the elevators.
The hospital was quiet on this floor in the early morning hours; the lower levels would be occupied with patients, doctors and nurses but this one held the laboratories and vast majority of medical imaging equipment. There were still a couple of hours before the first appointments of the day would arrive for their scans so, for the moment, the floor felt deserted. Urahara found that there were times when he liked it this way, being surrounded by research and technology, while other times he desired the company of some good friends. Only twice in his life had he not cared what his surroundings were like: fifteen years ago and right now.
Urahara hadn’t expected Ishida to be awake when he stepped into the room, but when the doors slid open, a pair of blue eyes watched him enter. He was glad he didn’t have to wake him.
“Hello, Kisuke,” Ishida said, his lips lifting into a faint smile.
“Hello, Uryuu. How are you feeling?”
He shrugged slightly. “Fair. Better than I did earlier in the week when the fever finally broke.”
“That’s good,” Urahara replied brightly. It was, but at the same time, it wasn’t. All that meant was Ishida would have a few days of feeling almost normal before the true onslaught began. During the epidemic, this was what all the employees at MOD-SOUL had come to refer to as the calm before the storm. “I’m here to collect some more blood.”
The smile on Ishida’s lips vanished and his eyebrows furrowed into a light frown, his lips parting as he came to a realization. “… you don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Urahara froze on his way back to the bed after collecting the needle and vials. He had been dreading the moment that Ishida would realize something wasn’t right.
“I just need a little more time,” he said with a smile, reaching out to extend Ishida’s arm. “It’s nothing serious.”
“Then why am I in an isolated room that requires everyone to wear a suit to come in and see me?” Ishida demanded, snatching back his arm with a glare.
“Uryuu… please,” Urahara sighed. “Just cooperate with me. I promise you that I am doing whatever it takes to get you healthy again.”
Staring at the man carefully, Ishida slowly held out his arm and allowed him to collect the blood samples. After placing a small bandage where the needle had been inserted, Urahara touched a gloved hand to his cheek, lingering for a moment, then exited the room.
He went back to the seventh floor, plastic vials in a sealed bag, and continued on down a hall to an isolated laboratory. Any tests involving highly infectious diseases had to be performed here, away from the other labs. Leaving his hat just outside the doorway, he stepped past the first set of doors to don another body-suit before entering the lab itself. Urahara laid the bag down and stopped, hands pressed against the countertop.
A week had passed with nothing and there were potentially only two weeks left. Was it really worth risking Ishida’s life in the hopes that he would be able to find a cure this time?
Sighing, Urahara knew it was time to go see Mayuri and find out what he wanted. But as he eyed the vials, he frowned. To simply leave them would be wasting time that could have been used to run tests and what if the meeting ended up useless? And the tests he had planned to do were not ones he could leave unsupervised. However, meeting Mayuri later would possibly waste time in getting the treatment to Ishida if whatever deal was offered could be agreed upon.
Meet Mayuri now or meet Mayuri later. Run the tests now or run the tests later.
Deliberating a moment longer, Urahara finally left the blood samples and proceeded on to remove the suit. The tests would have to wait.
~~~
Nostalgia washed over Urahara as he walked up to the front doors of MOD. The building looked almost like it had when he had left, only much bigger. On the other hand, the atmosphere when he stepped inside was nothing like it used to be.
He ignored the receptionist sitting at the lobby desk, heading straight for the elevators from memory. She blinked at him curiously, calling out a hesitant, “Excuse me, sir?” as the elevator chimed and he moved forward, turning to press the button for the top floor. He saw her pick up the phone before the mirrored doors closed, leaving him staring at his own reflection.
Urahara watched the number slowly light up floor by floor and idly adjusted his suit. His pants were hopelessly wrinkled but his jacket was still decent seeing as he had simply left it hanging by the laboratory door for the past week. Grey eyes flickering up as the elevator doors opened with a chime, he smoothly stepped off and towards the open doorway in his view. Urahara entered his old office without a sound and calmly observed Mayuri who stood with his back facing him, half bent over the desk with the phone pressed to his ear.
“Who did you see?” the MOD president demanded. “… are you stupid, girl? Was it him or not?”
“Hello, Mayuri-kun.”
The man froze, his shoulders visibly tightening, before slowly putting the phone back in its cradle. He straightened and turned to look at Urahara, his lips twisting into a smirk.
“So, you’ve finally decided to come,” Mayuri said. “I would have expected you sooner.”
Urahara flashed him a bright grin. “Aw, did you miss me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, stepping around the desk to sit down. “Your sudden departure was the best thing that ever happened for this company.”
“Such harsh words, Mayuri-kun! And all this time I thought you liked me.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Am I bothering you, Mayuri-kun?” Urahara said smoothly. The smile still curved his lips but his voice hinted at something darker - something much more dangerous.
Eyes narrowing at the tone, the president sniffed in disdain. “It’s pathetic how much you let that Ishida boy affect you.”
The playful attitude disappeared and Urahara stared at him silently for a long moment. “What did you do to him?”
Mayuri slowly smiled as he realized that the upper hand was his once again. “Oh, come now. Do you really expect me to believe that you haven’t figured that out yet? Since he’s already isolated and you haven’t left the labs for days, I think you know what it is.”
“Spying on me, Mayuri-kun? How touching.” Urahara picked up a chair and shifted it closer to the desk before taking a seat. “Yes, I know what it is - three months surrounded by its symptoms tends to make it easier to remember. What I want to know is how you did it.”
“Interesting. If the boy had told you the details of our meeting, you might have been able to figure it out; but considering he didn’t even tell you about the invitation, I suppose he wouldn’t have said anything. Such a trusting relationship you two have, Urahara,” Mayuri sneered.
“Enough taunting, Mayuri. I’m risking valuable time by coming here and I intend on getting answers. How did you do it?”
“Very well.” Mayuri sat back in his chair, fingers steepled before his face. “Ishida-san had a bout of pneumonia, didn’t he? That was courtesy of one of my former employees.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you delayed the virus’ effects,” Urahara replied with a frown.
“You answered it yourself. It’s a virus,” he paused with an eerie smile, “and sometimes viruses don’t quite disappear.”
Urahara’s mind raced to make the connection, pulling out information from Ishida’s time in the hospital and past history to his own days as a student, before slamming into the answer.
The virus that had spread through the Quincy Corporation’s community so many years ago had simply lain dormant after Ishida and Ryuuken had received treatment for it from Mayuri. It had been a cure, yes, in the sense that it had stopped the virus and let them recover; however, the treatment had only suppressed it, hiding it until something caused it to reveal itself.
In Ishida’s case, getting infected with a case of pneumonia had dropped his immune system’s defenses. When he had started receiving antibiotics for the pneumonia, it had been the final push to set off the virus again. Somehow, Mayuri had encoded its genetic make-up to react to specific types of antibiotics and that, combined with the lowered immune system, had been enough to leave Ishida vulnerable to its attacks again.
“I see…”
“Yes, of course you do,” Mayuri said quietly, gaze intent on the man across from him. “You never required much effort to attain greatness; but now things have changed, haven’t they? I’ve surpassed you and your knowledge and you need my help if you want that boy to survive.”
Urahara lifted his eyes to stare back at him through the shadows from his hat. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you created those viruses?” he asked. “You wanted to outdo me?”
The president blinked at him before letting out a sharp laugh. He stood and wandered over to the window that looked down on the city streets, busy with the morning traffic.
“You think that’s why I did it? I’ll admit that that was part of the reason - always in the spotlight, always praised for your research. No matter what I did, you were always five steps ahead of me,” Mayuri bit out harshly before taking a deep breath. He turned to smile slowly at Urahara who watched him from across the room. “But that wasn’t my main reason. I realized that if fame could turn someone so brilliant into someone so careless, I didn’t want it. I found it intriguing how the human race could be so weak when faced with something as simple as attention; everyone pushing themselves so hard to gain that little bit of validation of their own self-worth.”
His gaze drifted back out the window, unfocused as if he were remembering the events of so many years ago, and his lips curled into an eerie smile.
“So I wondered, why not test both? Test their resilience, give them their attention and see what happened.”
“You didn’t have to kill them all!” Urahara said, staring at him in bewilderment. “What sort of justification is there for killing hundreds of innocent people - thousands even, in the case of the Ishidas?”
“Justification? For science, of course! How would people react when hundreds became ill and died, the hospitals useless in helping them? What about thousands? And just how far would someone be willing to go in order to get treatment?”
Urahara could only shake his head in disbelief. “Research is no excuse for death.”
“Or so you say,” Mayuri said, eyes gleaming from his chance to finally reveal everything to the man he used to admire. “I’ll admit to something else - the entire Ishida community wasn’t supposed to die. I had wanted some to survive if only to be able to test the second part of my experiment. So you can imagine how pleased I was to discover that one of the two who had received treatment in the past was still alive; and not only that but he had connections with you and had decided to come walking right into my hands.”
Urahara felt his frown deepen as he listened to the president speak. “What experiment, Mayuri?”
“You disappoint me, Urahara. It should be obvious enough - if it was possible for me to bring the virus back after it had been dormant for so long, of course. And it did work, so my experiment was a success. The only question now is…” he trailed off, waiting for Urahara to finish the sentence.
“… what do you want for the treatment?”
“There are two things I want, one of which I’m sure you already know about.”
Urahara leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “You want all of MOD.”
“Yes, though I wonder… are you really going to give up so easily?” Mayuri asked with a sneer.
“I want to know what this deal will entail, Mayuri. That doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to it.”
“So you might not agree? Then what - you’ll let Ishida Uryuu suffer and die?”
“No - if I have to, I’ll find the treatment myself,” Urahara noted calmly.
“You think you can?”
Gaze falling away to the dark carpet, he appeared to think for a moment before carefully picking his words. “I’ll do whatever it takes for him to survive.”
“Then here are my conditions if you want the cure. One, you renounce any claim on MOD, effectively giving me full power.” A slow smile stretched Mayuri’s face as he watched Urahara lift his eyes to stare back at him. “And two…” His lips parted to show perfectly white teeth as he laughed darkly. “Well…”
~~~
Urahara removed his hat and let it fall to the countertop with a sigh. Reflecting back on the meeting with Mayuri, he shook his head. No; he couldn’t agree to those conditions right now, not when there was still a chance for him to find the cure on his own… and if he was forced to accept them, he would need a written contract to ensure that both sides of the bargain would be upheld. He needed to talk to Yoruichi.
So caught up in his own thoughts, Urahara almost didn’t notice the pile of results sitting beside his notes. Picking them up, his eyes scanned the data and his eyebrows drew together in confusion as he realized that these were the tests he had been planning to do after seeing Mayuri. Whoever had done them had certainly known what they were doing. Deciding not to question it, Urahara sat down and began to go through the results. If he ever found out who had done them, he would make sure to thank them… and he already had an idea about who it was.
However, now wasn’t the time. He would talk to Ishida later but needed to see what he could find out from analyzing the new data first. Urahara was determined to not give Mayuri the satisfaction of getting what he wanted and to do that, he could only hope to find the cure.
A/N: Mayuri's crazy. 8D
Okay, seriously. There is something about the impending doom of exams that makes me write. Hence why this chapter came out so quickly as well. Perhaps it can also be combined with the fact that this fic is nearing the end - like a "second wind" or something. XD Estimate: 2 chapters to go!
I just realized... OMG 50,000+ words. CRAZY. My last attempt at NaNo barely went over the halfway mark. Then again, this has taken almost a year rather than a month. lol XD
To Chapter 19
X-posted places
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: UraIshi
Summary: AU. Ishida has had a hard life. With the help of some friends, it finally looks like things are going to work out. When he meets a bizarre and cheerful man named Urahara Kisuke, the two are inexplicably drawn to each other. But when Ishida discovers the truth about Urahara's past and its ties to his own, difficulties arise.
Notes: I keep on forgetting to thank kirstian for her quick beta-read every time. XD You rock.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the genius KT. ♥
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17
Urahara sat back with a large sigh, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes. Notes lay scattered across the countertop, amongst pens and pencils. The box that sat at his feet had been all but emptied within the first few days of trying to find the information he needed.
It had already been a week since his conversation with Ryuuken. He had progressed nowhere.
The laboratory had been mostly empty when Urahara had entered that night, box of notes in his arms. The few researchers still there had merely blinked at him as he had settled down in an empty corner and started pulling out stacks of paper. He had barely noticed when the night had turned to day or when the people who had been there disappeared. No one joined him after that and Urahara had guessed that Ryuuken must have said something, perhaps telling his researchers to stay away from him. Whatever it was, he had kept to himself and had reviewed the notes for two days straight, finally taking a small break to mull over the information and give himself some rest.
The next morning, Urahara had gone to collect some blood samples from Ishida. He had been required to wear a full-body suit to enter the room, unless he had wanted to risk catching the virus himself. Ishida had stared at him blearily, face pale but covered in sweat, sticking strands of hair to it. Urahara had guessed that his fever had begun to break some time overnight and had reached out with a cloth to gently wipe away the perspiration.
“Kisuke…”
“Good morning, Uryuu,” Urahara had said with a bright smile. “I’m here to collect some blood so I can run a few tests.”
“You’re going to fix me?” Ishida had asked wearily, holding out his arm obediently.
Tying the arm and swabbing an area clean, he had expertly inserted the needle and first plastic vial for collection. “Yes… I’m going to fix you.”
But it was now days later and the tests showed the same results as the ones fifteen years ago… and he still didn’t know what would stop the virus’ progression.
Stretching out of his hunched position, Urahara frowned as his muscles complained. He wasn’t as young as before; day after day of endless work wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Eyeing the papers, he stood up and idly stacked them into a pile - not that it really mattered, since they’d end up strewn across the counter by the end of the day anyway.
Urahara paused to mentally run through the tests he had done and realized that he would need some new blood samples. For one, he didn’t have enough and for another, Ishida’s condition would have changed and may have resulted in something new appearing in his blood. Picking up his hat, he set it on his head and made his way towards the elevators.
The hospital was quiet on this floor in the early morning hours; the lower levels would be occupied with patients, doctors and nurses but this one held the laboratories and vast majority of medical imaging equipment. There were still a couple of hours before the first appointments of the day would arrive for their scans so, for the moment, the floor felt deserted. Urahara found that there were times when he liked it this way, being surrounded by research and technology, while other times he desired the company of some good friends. Only twice in his life had he not cared what his surroundings were like: fifteen years ago and right now.
Urahara hadn’t expected Ishida to be awake when he stepped into the room, but when the doors slid open, a pair of blue eyes watched him enter. He was glad he didn’t have to wake him.
“Hello, Kisuke,” Ishida said, his lips lifting into a faint smile.
“Hello, Uryuu. How are you feeling?”
He shrugged slightly. “Fair. Better than I did earlier in the week when the fever finally broke.”
“That’s good,” Urahara replied brightly. It was, but at the same time, it wasn’t. All that meant was Ishida would have a few days of feeling almost normal before the true onslaught began. During the epidemic, this was what all the employees at MOD-SOUL had come to refer to as the calm before the storm. “I’m here to collect some more blood.”
The smile on Ishida’s lips vanished and his eyebrows furrowed into a light frown, his lips parting as he came to a realization. “… you don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Urahara froze on his way back to the bed after collecting the needle and vials. He had been dreading the moment that Ishida would realize something wasn’t right.
“I just need a little more time,” he said with a smile, reaching out to extend Ishida’s arm. “It’s nothing serious.”
“Then why am I in an isolated room that requires everyone to wear a suit to come in and see me?” Ishida demanded, snatching back his arm with a glare.
“Uryuu… please,” Urahara sighed. “Just cooperate with me. I promise you that I am doing whatever it takes to get you healthy again.”
Staring at the man carefully, Ishida slowly held out his arm and allowed him to collect the blood samples. After placing a small bandage where the needle had been inserted, Urahara touched a gloved hand to his cheek, lingering for a moment, then exited the room.
He went back to the seventh floor, plastic vials in a sealed bag, and continued on down a hall to an isolated laboratory. Any tests involving highly infectious diseases had to be performed here, away from the other labs. Leaving his hat just outside the doorway, he stepped past the first set of doors to don another body-suit before entering the lab itself. Urahara laid the bag down and stopped, hands pressed against the countertop.
A week had passed with nothing and there were potentially only two weeks left. Was it really worth risking Ishida’s life in the hopes that he would be able to find a cure this time?
Sighing, Urahara knew it was time to go see Mayuri and find out what he wanted. But as he eyed the vials, he frowned. To simply leave them would be wasting time that could have been used to run tests and what if the meeting ended up useless? And the tests he had planned to do were not ones he could leave unsupervised. However, meeting Mayuri later would possibly waste time in getting the treatment to Ishida if whatever deal was offered could be agreed upon.
Meet Mayuri now or meet Mayuri later. Run the tests now or run the tests later.
Deliberating a moment longer, Urahara finally left the blood samples and proceeded on to remove the suit. The tests would have to wait.
~~~
Nostalgia washed over Urahara as he walked up to the front doors of MOD. The building looked almost like it had when he had left, only much bigger. On the other hand, the atmosphere when he stepped inside was nothing like it used to be.
He ignored the receptionist sitting at the lobby desk, heading straight for the elevators from memory. She blinked at him curiously, calling out a hesitant, “Excuse me, sir?” as the elevator chimed and he moved forward, turning to press the button for the top floor. He saw her pick up the phone before the mirrored doors closed, leaving him staring at his own reflection.
Urahara watched the number slowly light up floor by floor and idly adjusted his suit. His pants were hopelessly wrinkled but his jacket was still decent seeing as he had simply left it hanging by the laboratory door for the past week. Grey eyes flickering up as the elevator doors opened with a chime, he smoothly stepped off and towards the open doorway in his view. Urahara entered his old office without a sound and calmly observed Mayuri who stood with his back facing him, half bent over the desk with the phone pressed to his ear.
“Who did you see?” the MOD president demanded. “… are you stupid, girl? Was it him or not?”
“Hello, Mayuri-kun.”
The man froze, his shoulders visibly tightening, before slowly putting the phone back in its cradle. He straightened and turned to look at Urahara, his lips twisting into a smirk.
“So, you’ve finally decided to come,” Mayuri said. “I would have expected you sooner.”
Urahara flashed him a bright grin. “Aw, did you miss me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, stepping around the desk to sit down. “Your sudden departure was the best thing that ever happened for this company.”
“Such harsh words, Mayuri-kun! And all this time I thought you liked me.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Am I bothering you, Mayuri-kun?” Urahara said smoothly. The smile still curved his lips but his voice hinted at something darker - something much more dangerous.
Eyes narrowing at the tone, the president sniffed in disdain. “It’s pathetic how much you let that Ishida boy affect you.”
The playful attitude disappeared and Urahara stared at him silently for a long moment. “What did you do to him?”
Mayuri slowly smiled as he realized that the upper hand was his once again. “Oh, come now. Do you really expect me to believe that you haven’t figured that out yet? Since he’s already isolated and you haven’t left the labs for days, I think you know what it is.”
“Spying on me, Mayuri-kun? How touching.” Urahara picked up a chair and shifted it closer to the desk before taking a seat. “Yes, I know what it is - three months surrounded by its symptoms tends to make it easier to remember. What I want to know is how you did it.”
“Interesting. If the boy had told you the details of our meeting, you might have been able to figure it out; but considering he didn’t even tell you about the invitation, I suppose he wouldn’t have said anything. Such a trusting relationship you two have, Urahara,” Mayuri sneered.
“Enough taunting, Mayuri. I’m risking valuable time by coming here and I intend on getting answers. How did you do it?”
“Very well.” Mayuri sat back in his chair, fingers steepled before his face. “Ishida-san had a bout of pneumonia, didn’t he? That was courtesy of one of my former employees.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you delayed the virus’ effects,” Urahara replied with a frown.
“You answered it yourself. It’s a virus,” he paused with an eerie smile, “and sometimes viruses don’t quite disappear.”
Urahara’s mind raced to make the connection, pulling out information from Ishida’s time in the hospital and past history to his own days as a student, before slamming into the answer.
The virus that had spread through the Quincy Corporation’s community so many years ago had simply lain dormant after Ishida and Ryuuken had received treatment for it from Mayuri. It had been a cure, yes, in the sense that it had stopped the virus and let them recover; however, the treatment had only suppressed it, hiding it until something caused it to reveal itself.
In Ishida’s case, getting infected with a case of pneumonia had dropped his immune system’s defenses. When he had started receiving antibiotics for the pneumonia, it had been the final push to set off the virus again. Somehow, Mayuri had encoded its genetic make-up to react to specific types of antibiotics and that, combined with the lowered immune system, had been enough to leave Ishida vulnerable to its attacks again.
“I see…”
“Yes, of course you do,” Mayuri said quietly, gaze intent on the man across from him. “You never required much effort to attain greatness; but now things have changed, haven’t they? I’ve surpassed you and your knowledge and you need my help if you want that boy to survive.”
Urahara lifted his eyes to stare back at him through the shadows from his hat. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you created those viruses?” he asked. “You wanted to outdo me?”
The president blinked at him before letting out a sharp laugh. He stood and wandered over to the window that looked down on the city streets, busy with the morning traffic.
“You think that’s why I did it? I’ll admit that that was part of the reason - always in the spotlight, always praised for your research. No matter what I did, you were always five steps ahead of me,” Mayuri bit out harshly before taking a deep breath. He turned to smile slowly at Urahara who watched him from across the room. “But that wasn’t my main reason. I realized that if fame could turn someone so brilliant into someone so careless, I didn’t want it. I found it intriguing how the human race could be so weak when faced with something as simple as attention; everyone pushing themselves so hard to gain that little bit of validation of their own self-worth.”
His gaze drifted back out the window, unfocused as if he were remembering the events of so many years ago, and his lips curled into an eerie smile.
“So I wondered, why not test both? Test their resilience, give them their attention and see what happened.”
“You didn’t have to kill them all!” Urahara said, staring at him in bewilderment. “What sort of justification is there for killing hundreds of innocent people - thousands even, in the case of the Ishidas?”
“Justification? For science, of course! How would people react when hundreds became ill and died, the hospitals useless in helping them? What about thousands? And just how far would someone be willing to go in order to get treatment?”
Urahara could only shake his head in disbelief. “Research is no excuse for death.”
“Or so you say,” Mayuri said, eyes gleaming from his chance to finally reveal everything to the man he used to admire. “I’ll admit to something else - the entire Ishida community wasn’t supposed to die. I had wanted some to survive if only to be able to test the second part of my experiment. So you can imagine how pleased I was to discover that one of the two who had received treatment in the past was still alive; and not only that but he had connections with you and had decided to come walking right into my hands.”
Urahara felt his frown deepen as he listened to the president speak. “What experiment, Mayuri?”
“You disappoint me, Urahara. It should be obvious enough - if it was possible for me to bring the virus back after it had been dormant for so long, of course. And it did work, so my experiment was a success. The only question now is…” he trailed off, waiting for Urahara to finish the sentence.
“… what do you want for the treatment?”
“There are two things I want, one of which I’m sure you already know about.”
Urahara leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “You want all of MOD.”
“Yes, though I wonder… are you really going to give up so easily?” Mayuri asked with a sneer.
“I want to know what this deal will entail, Mayuri. That doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to it.”
“So you might not agree? Then what - you’ll let Ishida Uryuu suffer and die?”
“No - if I have to, I’ll find the treatment myself,” Urahara noted calmly.
“You think you can?”
Gaze falling away to the dark carpet, he appeared to think for a moment before carefully picking his words. “I’ll do whatever it takes for him to survive.”
“Then here are my conditions if you want the cure. One, you renounce any claim on MOD, effectively giving me full power.” A slow smile stretched Mayuri’s face as he watched Urahara lift his eyes to stare back at him. “And two…” His lips parted to show perfectly white teeth as he laughed darkly. “Well…”
~~~
Urahara removed his hat and let it fall to the countertop with a sigh. Reflecting back on the meeting with Mayuri, he shook his head. No; he couldn’t agree to those conditions right now, not when there was still a chance for him to find the cure on his own… and if he was forced to accept them, he would need a written contract to ensure that both sides of the bargain would be upheld. He needed to talk to Yoruichi.
So caught up in his own thoughts, Urahara almost didn’t notice the pile of results sitting beside his notes. Picking them up, his eyes scanned the data and his eyebrows drew together in confusion as he realized that these were the tests he had been planning to do after seeing Mayuri. Whoever had done them had certainly known what they were doing. Deciding not to question it, Urahara sat down and began to go through the results. If he ever found out who had done them, he would make sure to thank them… and he already had an idea about who it was.
However, now wasn’t the time. He would talk to Ishida later but needed to see what he could find out from analyzing the new data first. Urahara was determined to not give Mayuri the satisfaction of getting what he wanted and to do that, he could only hope to find the cure.
A/N: Mayuri's crazy. 8D
Okay, seriously. There is something about the impending doom of exams that makes me write. Hence why this chapter came out so quickly as well. Perhaps it can also be combined with the fact that this fic is nearing the end - like a "second wind" or something. XD Estimate: 2 chapters to go!
I just realized... OMG 50,000+ words. CRAZY. My last attempt at NaNo barely went over the halfway mark. Then again, this has taken almost a year rather than a month. lol XD
To Chapter 19
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