Title: An Hour Without Assistance
Fandom: Bleach
Rating: T
Length: It's a miracle, this isn't even 3k~!
Content notes: The only warning I can think of is some brief mentions of IVs getting pulled out, and it's a single sentence.
Author notes: Written for Challenge #1, 'The Lost Hour'.
Summary: What Ishida Ryuuken did, during that hour in Karakura that Aizen had free reign. He'd never step in, never one for self-sacrifice, so what did he do instead?


When he wakes, Ryuuken knows that whatever it is that Isshin and Kisuke have been getting ready for must be here. The world is silent, the normal humans collapsed on the ground in the middle of whatever they were doing, and he knows that it is only the decent size of his reiatsu that has saved him from the coma-like state. However, he thinks sourly, he would have appreciated just a little warning from two of his oldest friends.

He spends the hours he's awake, and alone, in the hospital, cursing the two shinigami idiots for their shortsightedness. Luckily the hospital has its own generator, which is still working, and the machines beat out their rhythms without interruption. Unluckily, several patients had been in the middle of walking or moving somewhere, and he has to tend to several who'd ripped their IVs out when they fell. He also, since he has little else to do with the rest of the town unconscious, checks over everyone in the hospital, arranging them to avoid any further injury, and bookmarking a few in a mental checklist that he'll need to properly check for concussions later.

He can see to the edge of town from the roof of the hospital - where one orderly had nearly fallen off the edge upon passing out - and the sight of grassy green hills is both interesting and quite disturbing. The town has quite literally been moved elsewhere - Soul Society, if the press of spiritual particles is any hint - and the concrete ends quite abruptly at the edge of it.

Idiot shinigami. Surely there were better ways of doing this, more efficient ways. If Aizen Sousuke is as powerful as his two friends seem to be convinced he is, what will moving the town do to stop him?

As it turns out, nothing.

It's hours after he wakes that he feels the gate open. A mile or so away from the enforced edge of the town, but still close enough to be worrying. He can only feel one reiatsu exit it, and it's certainly not powerful enough to be Aizen - perhaps closer to either of his two old friends - but it's also not one he recognizes. It doesn't feel unfriendly, per se, but the chances of the shinigami returning in such a low number is... well, minuscule.

He sighs and heads to his office, keeping his senses on the single reiatsu. It is heading his direction, slowly, and that's enough to convince him that it's worth getting out of its way. He reaches within the closet built into his office wall, with spare sets of his uniform in case of accidents, and retrieves the hanging black cloak. An emergency strategy for Kisuke, given to him years and years ago 'just in case'. He slips it over his shoulders, pulling the hood up, and feels the smothering of his reiatsu with some distaste. He can still reach his senses out, and he'll give Kisuke some credit for that ingenuity, but he dislikes the feeling all the same. It's like being covered in oil, and he restrains the urge to push the cloak back off his shoulders.

The reiatsu signature pauses, stilling. With the absolute worst timing, Ryuuken can feel other reiatsu signatures stirring, mainly the Kurosaki boy's friends. It does make sense that they would awaken first, given their proximity to the sieve of a powerhouse, but it is mildly irritating. They're panicked, it's easy to feel, and the lone reiatsu signature at the edge of town heads for them.

Well, there's certainly nothing he can do. Irksome as it may be to admit, the owner of the reiatsu at the edge of town is stronger. Perhaps not by much, but enough that the difference could be life threatening. More importantly it seems to be singling out those in the town with reiatsu, and that implies that it is not a friendly shinigami. If it is not friendly, and certainly not powerful enough to be Aizen, that begs the question; where is the former captain? It isn't worth heading into a battle against the reiatsu signature, not for the lives of a few brats, and not when he may yet have to be alive to care for Uryuu, whenever his son returns.

It is still only moving slowly, anyway. Perhaps some other shinigami might yet show up to stop the owner of the reiatsu. He's done what he can at the hospital, and without three more cloaks like this one it would be impossible for him to have any hope of hiding the three children even if he could save them.

He sighs again, and steps away from his desk with purpose. Well, it won't do any harm to drop by Kisuke's home. Maybe his friend has a few more of these there, or at least something that might help if he does have to go into battle. He heads down to the basement of the hospital first, slipping into the hidden room he'd had Kisuke install. He hooks several Seele Schneiders to his belt, the cool metal hanging heavily against his thighs and like a declaration of his intent, before leaving and heading outside the hospital. He moves quickly, not stopping to check any of the collapsed humans on the streets, towards Kisuke's store and home.

Pretty quickly he realizes that though Kisuke might be a genius, that intellect certainly doesn't extend to organization. Every box in the storage is shoved beneath at least two others, in a pile that looks sure to topple over at any moment, and there doesn't seem to be any plan to the arrangement of them. He spends roughly five minutes looking at them before mentally throwing his hands up in disgust. He checks Kisuke's room next, but aside from a suspicious looking box in the closet that he refuses to open, it's bare of anything that might be useful. He scans the rest of the house quickly, with the exception of Kisuke's lab. The last time he'd stepped in there without direct permission, and guidance, from the eccentric shinigami he'd ended up dodging flying glass shards, and nearly exploding half the shop.

The reiatsu signature gets closer to the children, and his brow furrows in a slight frown as he looks down at the dirt ground outside the shop, lighting a cigarette and bringing it to his lips. The nicotine soothes his senses, the smoking a habit created to ease stress, and unbidden Isshin's face jumps to mind. His eyes flick shut for a moment, and then he pockets the lighter and heads for the children, taking drags of the cigarette as he walks.

Isshin, the naive idiot that he is, will have his head if anything happens to his son's friends when he could have stopped it. The power difference between him and the owner of the reiatsu signature isn't that large, and a true quincy is always capable of bridging the gap, especially while in a place made of spirit particles, like Soul Society. If it comes down to it, he can probably at least do enough damage to allow the children to escape for the time being.

The reiatsu signatures of the children gather together, completely unaware of what's heading for them, two first, and then the last joining them shortly after. There are others stirring in the town, that foolish resident shinigami for one, and the idiot show man another, but the owner of the reiatsu signature stays steady in his route for the three children.

Ryuuken doesn't get there first, he's on the opposite side of town and the children are heading the wrong direction, but he does feel the sudden flood of reiatsu that breaks out. It catches his breath in his throat for a moment, and he halts in the street, the cigarette dropping from his fingers. The outflow of power is not from the original signature, but a new one, and he knows almost instantaneously that this must be Aizen.

His senses are extremely accurate, perfected from years of keeping track of Kisuke even when the shinigami was hiding his reiatsu, and his inability to sense Aizen is worrying. A power of this monstrous level would be nearly impossible to hide so perfectly that even he couldn't sense it, and it makes no sense for Aizen to have any kind of device to allow him to do so. That brings to mind the unpleasant possibility, that Kisuke had brought up once or twice, that Aizen's power has gone so far beyond any other that only by consciously lowering his reiatsu is it perceptible to those of a lower power level.

Unfortunately, since the shinigami are still absent, that means it's likely that whatever battle they had, the shinigami lost. There is no one in this town capable of defeating a reiatsu like that, and the shinigami doubtless had already brought all their power to try and stop him wherever the original battle took place. Clearly, it didn't work. Well, that is a whole new host of problems.

Karakura was and is on the line, and the most prudent choice would simply be to get out of town before Aizen destroys it. There is still the possibility that the Royal Guard will stop him before he gets to the Soul King, or that Soul Society still has someone left in reserve. He certainly can't do anything about Aizen, likely not even as a distraction, and that is an unpleasant thought. Isshin can have his head if he likes, if his old friend is even still alive, he refuses to enter a battle that is clearly so suicidal.

He heads for the edge of town, steadfastly ignoring the panicked reiatsu signatures of the three children. Others come to their defense, one by one. The idiot show man, a shinigami that comes through a gate - weakened, no match even for the signature at Aizen's side, but he supposes it's a valiant effort - and finally the resident shinigami of the town. When he steps off the concrete and onto grass, the other shinigami has been pulled away by Aizen's minion, and the power signature quickly fades away. He stands about a hundred feet from the edge of the town, and his eyes widen briefly in surprise when Aizen's reiatsu momentarily vanishes, before rapidly dropping down into perceptible range and then even farther.

What could have happened? Something underhanded, certainly. The other signature, the original one, is still standing, as are the children and their two protectors. Perhaps there could be a chance after all. Whatever happened has downed Aizen, and the former captain was certainly the bigger threat. With just the other one left, he might yet be able to save the children.

He takes a single step forward before his intentions cease to matter, Aizen's reiatsu rising once more. It's dark, heavy with something that leaves a foul tingle to his senses. Hollow. The former captain wouldn't, would he? To pollute his own form like that, willingly? Well, clearly whatever he was hit with didn't stick, and that's an end to any start of plans to interfere. The original reiatsu signature plummets, and the pieces key together in Ryuuken's mind.

Betrayal. Whoever was with Aizen attempted to kill him, and it seems they may have very nearly succeeded. Unfortunately for them, they didn't. The signature is close to gone, near death, and now he is sure that the children can't be far behind the owner of that signature.

A gate opens, directly beside the former captain. Ryuuken's brow furrows a little farther when only one reiatsu signature exits it, Isshin. His friend's power is weak, but exhausted as opposed to dying. To his confusion, not more than a minute later Aizen is gone, flying out and far from the city. Someone must have been with Isshin, someone in the same power level as Aizen, where his or her reiatsu wasn't perceptible. That's the only way to explain the sudden influx of strength from Aizen's new location, far away from the town. But then...

Ah, yes.

Undoubtedly, it can't be anyone but Isshin's son. Ichigo, isn't it? Well, things may yet be looking up. With Aizen at least distracted, if not bound for defeat, he should be able to tend to the dying shinigami who'd betrayed Aizen, and to Isshin, the fool. He doesn't get the chance to return to town, a voice turning him before he can take even a single step forward.

"Ishida Ryuuken?" The man asking is tall, with longe blonde hair, and an entirely white uniform. His reiatsu is perfectly hidden, no doubt aided by something, but it's doubtless that he has it, and lots of it. The uniform is clearly military, and it's not difficult to tell which military.

"That would be me," he answers coolly, left hand wrapping around one of the Seele Schneiders hanging from his belt, hidden by the hang of the black cloak, and the man gives a soft smile.

"I've been sent to invite you to our cause, Ishida," the man says with a thin smile. "Juha Bach has returned."

The name stills him, completely. Of course he knows it, how could he not? The King of the quincy, locked away a thousand years ago by none other than the Soul Society's head captain. He's heard the tales, been sung the rhymes, but Soken - his father - hadn't much believed in the eventual conquering of the shinigami. His mother, on the other hand, had.

"You are a full-blooded quincy, Ishida, therefore I have been instructed to offer you the chance to join us. Our plans are not quite complete, but they are close to it. Will you join us?"

Ryuuken's fingers don't release the metal. "My son?" he asks, after a moment. He is well aware of what quincy used to think regarding those others whose bloodlines weren't pure, and unfortunately Uryuu does fall into that category. He will not hunt or kill his son, not for anything.

"He will be offered the same choice," the man says easily, "when our plans are ready to be put into motion. He will be useful to our King, but his loyalty to the hybrid boy is not being overlooked."

Then his answer is not a difficult one to choose. "I will think it over," he lies, equally as easily. "When you ask my son, return to me with his answer." He will not fight his son, and it is as simple as that. If he must stay out of it, or if he must join with the King of the quincy, he refuses to be put head to head with his only living family member.

The man bows his head, smile still on his lips. "Of course, Ishida. I must warn you, as a precaution, that if you inform anyone of our plans our King will be forced to silence you through any means necessary. Even if that does include harming those you consider to be friends, or allies, or family. We will return, Ishida." He fades away, like he was never anything more than a shadow, and Ryuuken's brow furrows a little further.

He releases the metal of the Seele Schneider, raising his hand to adjust his glasses and rub over his forehead with a muttered curse. It is always one thing after another, isn't it? Nothing to be done for it now, he supposes, he'll just have to join whatever side Uryuu chooses. He's got at least a little bit of time. For now, he'll just return to the town. There are injured people to see to, and an idiot shinigami he'll have to berate for his thoughtlessness in not warning him beforehand that this lovely switch was about to happen.

Life as normal, really.

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A/N: I hope you enjoyed! I always kind of wondered what Ryuuken would be doing (though the more likely option is that Kubo forgot about him), so I made it up! Isn't it fun being a writer?