spira_rp | I can't let anyone interfere

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I can't let anyone interfere

Since the day Midgar had fallen, L had been busy.

He'd salvaged everything he could from Shinra's computers, had broken into their security systems, and had quietly and systematically erased all trace of Aizen and the Arrancar, if not outright prevented them being noticed in the first place. Orochimaru's death had been a footnote to his day; he'd barely left the computer except to inform the relevant people.

The following days had been similar. L had slept little, picked over sweets and extremely sweet tea, and divided his time between actually going through all the information he'd taken from Shinra, making arrangements to have someone brought to the Palace, and trying to find out more about the Ryoka and his allies that Grimmjow's party had run into.

The Ryoka were always an anomaly that popped up on his proverbial radars and then dipped under them again with some degree of frequency. He'd mostly heard about Nel's team's encounter from hearsay around the Palace, but he'd looked into it regardless.

From the reports it seemed there was at least one new one among them, but what really had L trying to track them down was the possibility that this one hadn't been encountered before because he was the Ryoka mentioned in Shinra's science and technology division's files. He made a thoughtful noise and bit his thumb as he read over the information about the Ryoka that Shinra had got their hands on. It seemed they hadn't managed to hold onto him for too long, but they'd still managed to gain some potentially useful information.

To hand that information over to Aizen or not, now that was a question. Aizen may want it, and it would certainly be useful for the Arrancar since they kept running into Ryoka, and this one in particular had managed to keep pace with Ulquiorra, who was highly ranked among them, but some bone deep part of L was reluctant to just hand Aizen useful information. It wasn't a question that required an answer now, however; Aizen was still away, and would be for some time yet.

The Berserker and his allies had moved on to Rabanastre, for the time being, but L couldn't be sure if they planned on staying there or moving on once travel got back to normal with the disruption to the airports. He needed to get in touch with his Rabanastre contacts to find out more.

His hand drifted away from his mouth as he reached for the sweets he had on his desk. They were little biscuits, in the shape of animals, and L picked one up and bit its head off without taking his eyes from the screen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For Gin, the past week or so had certainly been an interesting one.

Between the murder of one of Clan Khamja's foremost members at the hands of a subordinate and a relative neophyte and the fall of Midgar, there had been a lot of interesting chatter and conspiracy talk both within and outside the walls of the Palace. Gin hadn't had much of a chance to listen to what was being said in the case of the former, for he had left the Palace for Rabanastre shortly after giving his statement on the subject to Illua, but he had been in the perfect place to pick up plenty of the latter.

He had arrived back in the hub of his Division's jurisdiction scant hours before the news of Midgar broke. Shock had been the initial reaction. After that, blame had flown in all directions. The Archadian Empire had ended up being singled out as the most likely culprit, but there had been plenty of fingers pointed at the Shinra Government, those in charge of Midgar themselves, for the accident. Half of the world seemed convinced that it was a precision strike at the capital of the enemy nation on the part of the Empire's military, and most of the other half seemed dead set on it being an industrial accident and an 'inevitability' due to the sheer number of Mako Reactors bunched within the city limits. Hushed whispers of 'Gongaga' and 'terrorists' could also be heard within the headquarters of the Gotei 13's Third Division and Gin, amused, had done little to quell the wild theories of his men.

Gin ... well, Gin thought it all felt rather more like Nabudis than Gongaga. An entire city had been mysteriously wiped out in a matter of moments and, like Nabudis, nobody could get close enough to the centre of the devastation to ascertain whether there were any trapped survivors, what had happened or how extensive the damage was. Word was, it had not yet devolved into a Necrohol, but the Mako leaks from the destroyed reactors were so numerous that extensive portions of the city were off-limits due to dangerously high levels of radiation. Not even Mistants clad in protective clothing were said to be safe from the high likelihood of poisoning.

The reaction of the public to the dangers of investigation had been mixed. While the majority considered the amount of Mist and Mako a very good reason to steer clear of the city, some considered it lazy and others thought that Shinra simply didn't want to face up to what their Reactors and insane city design had caused.

Such opinions on both the cause and the ongoing investigation had not been unexpected, however. That type of thing was bound to be all over the news following an incident of that scale. Groups of Shinigami from various Divisions had been dispatched to help keep the Hollow population down in the wake of the disaster and a few of them, most notably Captain Yamamoto, the overall head of the organization, and Captain Komamura, the Bancour region's own Captain, had given short, clipped interviews as to their progress and the state of affairs on the radio. Other individuals, such as both Archadian and Bancouri military and government personnel had done the same. Rufus Shinra, the son of the President, had survived the incident thanks to his absence from the Capital at the time and a personal message from him had been broadcast reassuring the people of Bancour that they would be doing all in their power to find out what had happened.

It was all rather exciting, Gin thought, especially since he knew that the cause was absolutely nothing like what was being put forward. Watching public officials scramble around in the dark was certainly rather entertaining. Still, one thing had put a damper the entire affair, and that was the Ryoka. Gin tended to spend some time in what he considered his 'local' pub in Rabanastre. The very same pub, coincidentally, seemed to be the loose headquarters of the biggest Ryoka group on Khamja's radar. How curious. Gin had been very sparse with information concerning them, and had shared little with the Clan at large. He gave away enough to allay any suspicion as to his loyalties and motives, but had kept the fact that they had a relatively new addition to their little team entirely to himself. Not long after the Ryoka boy who had been forced into Khamja's ranks (and subsequently made to destroy Midgar at Aizen's whim) had left them, someone new had popped up in his place. This 'someone new' was called Axel, to the best of Gin's knowledge.

Gin had been very careful to keep the information surrounding his joining the group from Khamja. He was interesting, and quite the unknown quantity. Gin knew that L had operatives stationed in the city to keep an eye on The Order and he had been quietly making them disappear since Axel's arrival. It was a dangerous game he played. Of course, when the newcomer and Grimmjow's favourite playmate had left shortly before Midgar fell to Aizen's scheme, Gin became acutely aware that the good ship Khamja had sprung an information leak that L clearly had no idea about. Gin had already resumed his duties in Rabanastre by the time those two, together with a new and rather interesting girl, returned to their base of operations.

The atmosphere in the bar itself had been rather subdued. The usual upbeat music -- a favourite of the barman -- had been replaced by dreary, droning news broadcasts while the Berserker dutifully listened for updates on the state of commercial Airship travel which had been shut off temporarily due to the incident. That hadn't done much to dampen the conversations, however, and those proved to be very interesting. The girl was from Midgar, that much was certain, and it seemed very likely that Axel knew her. More than that, the three of them had run into one of Aizen's Arrancar groups on the way back from the city. A blue-haired enemy had been mentioned, along with a green-haired woman and two others, undoubtedly Ulquiorra and Luppi, if Aizen had stuck with the groupings he had informed Gin of prior to the mission.

That, as far as Gin was aware, was Clan Khamja's first encounter with the mysterious new Ryoka and that in itself had the capacity to throw Gin's secret foreknowledge of his arrival into a very unfortunate light should any of L's informants still be around with that information. Gin had wasted no time in returning to the Palace to find out whether the fight that he had heard whispers of had actually taken place. His first port of call was Yylfordt Granz. He was, Gin was certain, the easiest one of Grimmjow's associates to squeeze information out while casting the smallest amount of suspicion on himself for doing so. He was easily rattled and Gin didn't hesitate to use his ability to make him squirm to confirm what he had heard. As it turned out, what he had heard from the Ryoka was entirely correct.

That was unfortunate, but it wasn't as though all was lost.

Gin sighed to himself as he made his way from the kitchen where he had accosted Yylfordt, to the library where L was undoubtedly holed up. He felt outwards to pinpoint the position of a certain other resident of the Palace, and smiled to himself before dampening all traces of his own.

Things could be worse.

He silently pushed the library door open and, in a matter of seconds and aided by a certain expertise in high-speed movement, crossed the room to where L was, as expected, seated. He didn't hesitate to reach down and casually pluck one of his little biscuits from the desk beside him, eyes scanning the information on the screen before L had the opportunity to close it down.

"Well, ain't he a scary lookin' character?" Gin said, his words laced with amusement.

L's eyes drew away from the screen for the first time in roughly an hour and fell, not to Gin, but to his biscuits. His frown deepened for a moment, and then, delicately, he moved the bowl to the other side of his workstation, and away from Gin.

That task completed, he answered Gin with a simple, softly spoken, "He was one of Shinra's experiments."

There was no point in minimising the screen now, but if he left it as it was, then Gin would gain no more information than he already had. L didn't know why Gin had come in to the library, nor why Gin was deliberately making a nuisance of himself, which he clearly was.

That was the problem with Gin, from L's perspective. Aizen was always up to something. Gin, however, could be doing things purely for his own entertainment, or for other purposes, or could be doing things that entertained him for other purposes. L didn't trust Gin any further than he trusted Aizen, and if a fine point was put on it, he trusted Gin significantly less.

Aizen could always be relied upon to be Aizen.

Gin could not be trusted even that far.

"Can I help you with something?" L asked, turning his attention to Gin now. His face was always unreadable, and L knew all the body language tricks and tells to discern when someone was being deceitful, and he still could never tell with Gin.

The only thing L could be sure of right now was that Gin hadn't come into the library in search of a book, but whether bothering someone was opportunistic entertainment or served a purpose was harder to judge. L preferred to err on the side of caution, especially where Gin was concerned, and, for now at least, presumed Gin was after something to do with him, which was worrying on another level.

Ah, so that familiar face was one of Shinra's experiments, hmm? Well, that went a long way to explaining a few things. That L referred to him in such a way suggested to Gin that he had not known about him prior to coming across the information here. That was good. Very good. L would likely have come to the conclusion that Shinra's little experiment was the same person that the Arrancar had fought had he heard about that -- and Gin didn't doubt for a second that he had -- but he wanted to confirm that he wasn't aware of his existence prior to finding the file for certain.

Gin decided not to comment on that point for now and instead smiled broadly at L's straightforwardness. He put the biscuit into his mouth, thus stalling his response. The delay would serve to make him seem more suspicious, if that were even possible, and as though he was taking the opportunity presented by eating it to read all of the information on the screen, as though he had not gleaned all he could from it at first glance. That, or that he was giving himself time to come up with a good response to his question.

As it was, Gin had known what he was going to say before L had even asked the question. That fact only served to make his smile a little wider. L was always discomfited when he didn't know what somebody was up to and Gin fully intended to use that uncertainty to his advantage.

"Not really," he said flippantly, his smile evident in his voice. "It's just so nice and quiet in here compared to everywhere else."

He stepped out from directly behind him and turned himself to lean against L's desk. He placed his hands, both of them, against the edge of it and looked down at him with a small sigh, albeit not an unhappy one. It was the breath of someone relieved and apparently glad to be away from people, and voices, and uninvited conversation. L was not likely to bring that to the table today, which was nice, because Gin fully intended to.

"Not much in the way of quiet goin' on everywhere else. Theories here, conspiracies there and panic everywhere else ... It gets kinda tirin', y'know?" He was, of course, referring to the word on the street.

L's expression darkened for a moment as he turned his attention back to his screen, but appeared to be looking through it, rather than reading it.

He was familiar with the word on the street. Other informants from around the world had kept L updated on the prevailing theories in their various quarters. Industrial accidents, government conspiracies, and one particular undercurrent that had cropped up in a couple of places that stated that Midgar had been destroyed by opponents of the Empire to make the Empire look responsible, and rally the allegiances against them.

The conflicting theory was that the Empire had destroyed Midgar in order to make mako energy look unsafe and undermine Shinra's income and political power. That one seemed to be spreading in areas where Shinra maintained their grip, and was vying with a similar theory that blamed terrorists for the attack for the same reasons.

What that told L was that Shinra's own remaining upper echelons had no more idea about the cause of the disaster than the average person on the street. In that, L took a twisted sort of pride that lanced through his gut and made him uncomfortable, but still it remained. Khamja's endeavour had been successful, and exactly as covert as required.

More successful than previous plans that had achieved similarly destructive results.

The Palace itself had been fortunately quiet on the subject of conspiracies and panic, although theories bounced around from time to time, mostly as to how people like Nnoitra and Kadaj had taken down Orochimaru. L paid that rubbish no heed; it was idle gossip meant to occupy time and mouths, nothing more.

And something, L remembered, that Gin had known about before anyone except the two perpetrators.

"I prefer the quiet," L answered, in an entirely un-subtle suggestion that Gin move on. The man gave him the creeps, not that L was about to admit that, but L was also busy.

He minimised the window regarding the Ryoka, and opened up another one that contained less interesting information about their other activities at the time the Ryoka had been brought in.

"Don't we all?" he asked happily, allowing the hint to fall on deaf ears.

Gin stayed quiet for a minute, smile firmly in place. He let the awkward silence spread for a couple of moments. Gin enjoyed wrong-footing people, especially those who liked to be in control of a situation ... those such as L.

"I thought Shinra'd held off on experiments on Licensed species since Hojo went and died," he said, glancing around at the screen. The gesture was an obvious and overblown display of curiosity. He hadn't missed the movement of L's hand and, as such, he wasn't surprised to see that the file that he had been looking over had now been hidden. The replacement was interesting enough to make it look as though L was still working, but it was hardly in the same league as top secret government prisoner files.

L's eyes shifted towards Gin in a movement that told the tale of his relation to Ulquiorra very succinctly. It was L's turn to allow a couple of moments of silence before he turned his attention back to the screen and spoke.

"The number dropped significantly but the practice wasn't curtailed in its entirety," he said, his voice low, and level, "they simply became more adept at hiding it."

Gin was not here for simple conversation, and L couldn't decide if he was genuinely interested in what Shinra had been up to or not.

Could he have found out about the person L was arranging to have brought in, perhaps? It seemed too innocuous, but Gin was good at innocuous, and it was information held by a very tiny and privileged few. It also wasn't going to spread even among the rest of the clan until the individual in question was brought safely and securely into the Palace where he could be better monitored.

L didn't know, and it frustrated him beyond words.

"That makes a whole lot o' sense," Gin said, shrugging his shoulders airily. "And now you know everythin' they were hidin'."

Gin was privy to all sorts of information, whether he was supposed to be or not. As such, he knew that L had been employed to not only erase any and all evidence of Aizen's involvement in Midgar's collapse, but also appropriate all of Shinra's records and data before it could be saved by them.

"I bet you've been wantin' to get your hands on that information for a long time..." he said, letting a small laugh weave through his words. He inclined his head slightly, expression remaining the same, but when he continued it was with a slightly different tone, that of shrewd amusement. "Was it worth it?"

Though his manner did nothing to betray him -- it was, after all, deliberately tailored to disconcert with its incongruous mixture of affable lightheartedness and sinister undertones -- there was something casually pointed about the question.

L felt a sudden and sharp tenseness run through him, as if everything internal had stopped for a moment. Gin was trying to get his back up, and force him into a mistake, that much was clear, and his casual sinister friendliness made that abundantly clear. Gin's mere facial expression discomfited most, although L was largely unaffected, but when he acted like this, L was aware of just how dangerous he could be.

"I prefer to minimise the loss of life where possible," L answered, his voice low.

Some deaths were unavoidable, they always were, and L accepted that, but wholesale slaughter should be avoided if it was possible; he'd learned that much.

L had made no secret of his disapproval of what they'd planned in Midgar. Gin trying to goad him into admitting to profiting from it was curious, and that he was employing his ability to be intensely creepy while doing so put L on a wary edge.

Gin's smile widened very slightly at the nearly imperceptible change in L's demeanour. That question had thrown him. Furthermore, it had made him extremely uncomfortable and that pleased Gin immensely. He relaxed against the desk again, letting the intentional increase in disquieting behaviour abate.

"Of course, of course," he said, allowing himself a quiet chuckle. His overall tone was back to that of not-quite-innocent amusement. All traces of deliberate malevolence had gone, unless you happened to know how much his cheerful attitude conflicted with the way he tended to vote on missions of that nature. The Midgar operation had not gone to a vote on account of the small number of members who happened to be graced with the knowledge ahead of time. For all anybody knew, anybody but Aizen, Zexion and Gin himself, the massacre and total destruction of a capital city was only one possible outcome. The production of the Philosopher's Stone was considered a theory, albeit an educated one, and was not a certain outcome.

"Still, you got a lot o' useful information and Aizen got himself a shiny trinket..." he trailed off, allowing the smile to slip from his face and be replaced by a more honest looking expression of uncertainty. "Have you seen it, yet?"

As he spoke, he felt out for the individual he had pinpointed before entering the library. His inconsistent subjects of conversation were only half for information gathering purposes -- he was also buying himself time.

L was on his guard, now. Gin was needling him for something, and the direction of the conversation made L uncomfortable, which also made L extremely unhappy. Midgar, Aizen, the stone, all of it was an unhappy set of circumstances for L. Gin knew that; L had made no secret of his unease with it, but L, first and foremost, worked for the clan, and while such an atrocity was Aizen's darling, it also worked in the clan's favour.

So L had done his job, despite his disapproval. This time, there had been no vote, but there weren't any prizes for guessing how L would have voted, this time around.

"Yes," L answered, flatly. He'd seen the trinket, the ultimate power source, literally the concentration of innumerous souls, and yet so much more evil a thing to create and use than mako energy, because these people hadn't died first.

L leaned back slightly on his heels, so he was less hunched over his keyboard, and looked at Gin directly. "Why have you come here, Gin? Neither of us waste time on idle conversation, and I don't believe you're genuinely interested in whether or not I've seen the Philosopher's Stone, so explain what you want and get it over with; I have work to do."

Gin raised his eyebrows at L's words, though his eyes remained slitted. His smile reappeared quickly and he held his hands up in a sign of limp-wristed surrender until he had finished speaking.

"Hostile, hostile," he said, threading a laugh through his soft voice. "Feelin' guilty for playin' your part as an accomplice?"

He canted his head and looked thoughtful despite his expression. If those footsteps he could hear approaching the library belonged to that certain somebody he had been waiting for, L's little outburst would play in his favour. If? Gin could have laughed. There was no way they could belong to anybody else -- there was no mistaking the wisps of dark Reiatsu that accompanied them.

"Y'didn't seem to mind the price paid last time one of our members got it into their heads to wipe out a town," he said carelessly.

L's expression grew dark once more, a severe little frown etched into his face. "If you're referring to Gongaga," he said, knowing full well that Gin was, and that needling him on the subject was easy pickings from someone like Gin right now, "my opinion differed from my actions, just as it has here."

The price then had been more personal, but L knew that it would be unfair to the victims in Midgar to consider Gongaga's higher, just because it was also personal.

Too late, L realised the door had opened, and was still open. He turned to look at the entrant, but already had an unpleasant feeling that he knew exactly who it was, and who it was happened to be exactly who L least wanted to have heard something like that.

"Well done, Ichimaru," L said, under his breath. That was what Gin had aimed for, it had to be. His coming in, and prodding at one of the few known soft spots L had, and then backing off, to come back again, he'd played the conversation to time things just so.

And L had played right into his hands.

He knew.

Ulquiorra stood, holding the door open in one hand, his eyes wide. L turned to look at him. “Ulquiorra,” he said his voice trailing off as his throat went dry and his heart thumped in his chest.

Ulquiorra stared at him for a long moment, heart pounding in his ears, and then turned, letting go of the door to allow it to swing shut. Lawliet had known all along; it was too much to process right now.

L hesitated at Ulquiorra's reaction, and then slipped off his perch on the chair and crossed the short distance to the door, catching it, and catching Ulquiorra's shoulder as his nephew moved to leave. “Quiorra-chan,” he began.

Ulquiorra's answer came in a ringing crack, pain blossoming across L's jaw and sending him off balance. “Don't call me that,” Ulquiorra said, in fluent Rozarrian, his gaze fixed on L from the corner of his eyes. His lips were thin and pressed tightly together, and his hand balled into a fist.

L sat himself up on the floor, wincing faintly as he pressed the back of one hand to his face. He could taste blood, and he wasn't sure if this was Ulquiorra's own strength, or if there was a Hollow involved in it somewhere. “You hit harder than I remember,” he said, quietly.

“You knew,” Ulquiorra said, his tone leaden, and reiatsu wavering, restrained but with difficulty.

L looked up at his nephew for a moment before he frowned, nodding his head just the once. “I knew,” he confirmed. He was resigned to having this conversation, after all this time trying to ensure it never came up.

“You did nothing,” Ulquiorra continued. His parents, his family, had gone to Gongaga, had died in Gongaga, and Lawliet had known all along what was going to happen there.

“There was nothing I could do,” L replied, quietly.

Ulquiorra was faster than he remembered, too, he realised, and stronger, as L found himself dragged to his feet by the front of his shirt, held in a grip that was unbreakable, at Ulquiorra's eye level. He struggled to get back onto his feet, but was being held too low to be comfortable once he had.

“You of all people could have done something,” Ulquiorra replied. Aniki, a genius by his own claim, should have been able to do something. He knew; he could, should, have warned them.

“I couldn't have stopped it,” L told him, one hand gripping Ulquiorra's wrist but not bothering to try and pry his grip away. Ulquiorra was so much stronger than L had ever known, stronger than he'd ever realised, even with the Arrancar procedure factored into the equation.

“You could have stopped them going.”

L hesitated. How to explain what he'd thought at the time to Ulquiorra, whose reiatsu betrayed what his level tone tried to hide. “You have to understand, Quiorra-chan, I was in a difficult position.” He didn't get any further, barely registering the movement, but he felt the force to his chest, the ground slipping out from under him. He hit the wall behind him with a crack that ripped through his shoulder, before crumpling to the floor again. There was a sharp pain in his chest when he took a breath, and he knew Ulquiorra had probably fractured a rib or two, as well as his collarbone. L winced, wrapping the arm that it didn't hurt to move over his chest and pushing himself to his feet again. “If I warned them,” he continued, “then what would your mother have done? I couldn't expect them to keep the information to themselves. They were her family.”

Ulquiorra approached, smacking L with the back of a fist that felt more like a brick, making L see stars for a moment as he picked him up and slammed him back against the wall, causing L to give a small cry as a shock of pain tore through his chest again, hand at his throat. “And they were yours,” Ulquiorra replied.

L struggled against the pain that was shooting through his head and his chest, his next words becoming strangled. “Yes,” he admitted, his voice breaking. Ulquiorra was strangling him slowly, but not enough to actually send him unconscious. “They were, as are you, and I did what I thought was the best for you all.”

Ulquiorra's eyes widened again for a moment which seemed to drag on in stunned silence, and then he punched L, so that L felt his nose break, and his teeth loosen, and then dragged him away from the wall again and kicked him, reiatsu flared to its peak for a second as L flew backwards with the kick, landing in a heap on the floor, and struggling to sit up again. He could taste blood and his head and jaw pounded.

“I was supposed to be there. You thought I had been.” Ulquiorra's eyes were still wide with the shock and realisation, that L had admitted as much landed like a rock in his gut, and in his head he could hear the sibilant laughter of something that was enjoying this moment far more than it should.

Edited 2013-04-04 21:04 (UTC)

Nel hadn't been paying much attention to the ebb and flow of reiatsu in the Palace. Things had been reasonably quiet, quieter than usual, even, since Grimmjow was limited as to how much trouble he could cause for the moment.

It had been a surprise to feel Ulquiorra's reiatsu flare, and then flare again, dramatically. She hadn't felt a response like that from him since....

Since he'd snapped and gone for Kuja.

With a frown, she'd abandoned her trashy novel and box of chocolates to go and see what was going on. She was shocked at what she saw, and although she couldn't understand a word that was being said, the tones suggested there was some important conversation going on.

"Ulquiorra!" She approached, but Ulquiorra was on top note, and L was in a pile on the floor, barely managing to sit up.

She slowed at the faint hand signal from L to back off, but didn't stop coming over. He seemed badly hurt.

L heard Nel approaching, and raised one hand at her, weakly. He didn't want her getting involved. This was between himself, and Ulquiorra.

“I'd have found you sooner if I'd known you weren't, I'd have looked for you,” L said, his voice weak, and strained, as he spoke in Rozarrian to Ulquiorra. “I thought I'd be the only one left behind. I'd be the only one who ever knew what I'd done. You were never supposed to lose them, Ulquiorra, you were supposed to be with them.”

Ulquiorra picked him up off the floor again, one handed, and slammed him hard against the wall, head first, hard enough that L's vision blurred and he felt oddly woozy. L felt a hand at his throat, tightening, and through the bleary haze and failing vision, he asked, in mainland Spiran, his voice weak, “Are you going to kill me, Ulquiorra?” That hand tightened for a moment, and he could feel the moment of hesitation. There was a genuine desire there to kill him, perhaps, at least for the moment.

Nel jumped forward when Ulquiorra slammed L back again. She heard the crack of his head, and could see how badly injured L was. He was struggling to stay conscious.

"Ulquiorra, let him go!" She said, but her tone was more urgent than commanding. She reached forward, and took Ulquiorra by the shoulder.

Go ahead, Quiorra-chan. I can feel how much you want to.

Ulquiorra closed his eyes against the voice in his head, and the sickening urge to do so much more harm that twisted in his stomach. Nel's voice and hand barely registered, and he spared her only a brief glance.

Stay out of this, he thought, in response to both of them. Then answered, to L, “You're my only family,” he hesitated for a second, before letting L go, slowly, and watching him drop to the floor, weak, and only just conscious, “and I am not like you.”

He turned, putting his hands back into his pockets and ignoring the call for his attention coming from inside his own head. The Hollow wanted to talk, but it could wait, for now. He left L on the floor, and didn't look back as he slipped away from Nel in a deft movement and headed off in the direction of his room.

He needed time to think.

L felt that parting comment sting as badly as any of Ulquiorra's blows before he crumpled back against the wall and was overtaken by the dizziness and pain as concussion got the better of him.

I hope you're not, he thought, before losing consciousness.

Gin watched L trail after his angered nephew through slitted eyes. He stayed where he was, listening to the beginnings of a conversation he had no hope of understanding. At the first sign of violence he pushed himself off the desk he had been leaning on and turned to face the computer that L had so foolishly left on. He hadn't included this most fortunate of oversights in his plans, but he certainly wasn't going to turn down such an opportunity to investigate.

Computers weren't foreign to Gin, for Gin knew rather a lot about many things that he made no mention of. It made committing crimes like this easier if people didn't think you capable of them due entirely to ineptitude. He dropped all pretence of expression as he sought out files related to the red-haired Ryoka.

Gin quickly established that L had no record of Axel prior to either hearing about the fight from the Arrancar or getting his hands on Shinra's files. Good. He poked about for a little bit longer, looking over files that didn't relate to Axel or the Ryoka directly. Well, information was never to be sniffed at, especially from a source he didn't usually use. Even so, he didn't linger unnecessarily. When he had pushed his luck on timing and gathered all that he needed, and a little more, he closed down L's abandoned computer. He could consider that a favour.

When his work was done and the screen was black, he straightened up and made his way out of the library much more slowly than he made his way in. He looked at the unconscious L and then at Nel, his expression bemused.

"Oh my," was all he said.

Nel was still baffled by what she'd witnessed. It was unusual for Ulquiorra, and L....

They weren't the types to get into a scrap over nothing. Ulquiorra butted heads with plenty of people, he was an arrogant swine when he wanted to be, but never with L.

And Ulquiorra had felt so angry.... And in so much pain.

She knelt down to L, checking his pulse, which was weak, but steady, and then lifted his eyelids. He seemed to be breathing all right, but he was definitely out for the count. Concussion, or something else, she couldn't tell.

When Gin exited the library she looked over at him. "What in the name of all that is holy happened?" She asked him, although it was somewhat rhetorical, because she didn't expect Gin might know any more than she did.

She needed to get L down to the infirmary, too. Szayel was being kept very busy in there at the moment.

Gin dragged his slitted eyes from the unconscious lump that was L and shrugged at Nel's not unexpected question. He affected an expression of smiling bemusement, as though he had absolutely no idea what had gone on, or why, without sacrificing his usual mask to do so.

"Must be something in the water," he said, referencing the other instance of subordinate-on-Member discord a scant few weeks earlier. "I did hear whispers of an argument," he admitted, shrugging, "but I couldn't understand a word."

That, with these two, could mean only one thing.

Nel frowned again, half thoughtful, and half worried. "Orochimaru was just a matter of time," she said, quietly, her tone a shade dark. She was half glad Nnoitra had finally had his shot at him, but with the number of times that creepy old man had put the badtouch on an Arrancar and started a fight, one of them taking him out was almost inevitable. "He'd done plenty to deserve it," she said.

"This is a bit more unexpected," she said, after a moment. They'd argued in Rozarrian; she'd heard some of that, and she'd caught what L had asked, and Ulquiorra had replied before he walked away. "I'm not sure I want to know what this was about," she admitted, "because it's going to be Gongaga again."

And Ulquiorra hurting someone over that, leaving L alive with the words 'I'm not like you', really only meant one thing. "Oh, I hope Szayel doesn't work out what's happened."

Szayel would delight in that information, because Ulquiorra was the favourite little bootlick, and he'd done something very, very wrong.

"What will they do to Ulquiorra?" She asked Gin, realising that, much like Nnoitra, he'd just put himself in a very bad position.

Gin had given the subject of Ulquiorra's fate only brief consideration. In truth, Gin didn't care much whether the boy lived or died, but he knew that Aizen would be irritated should Ulquiorra have to pay for the crime of attacking a member of Clan Khamja, especially one as useful of L, with his life. Should L say anything concerning Gin's ... involvement in the incident, he could incur Aizen's wrath directly. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged. Ulquiorra having attacked L did have one saving grace.

"Likely nothing," he said. "Blood is thicker than water."

It had worked for Ulquiorra in the past, and it had obviously worked for Nnoitra. After what had caused this little disagreement, Gin was fairly confident that L wouldn't do or say anything that would result in anything bad happening to his nephew.

Nel frowned, trying to suppress some dark and slightly mean thoughts that she couldn't help right now. She'd never viewed Ulquiorra as a child, but she'd seen him break over Gongaga before, and it had revealed a vulnerability few had expected.

And Ulquiorra had been stood there, at Aizen's side, while Midgar fell. That, followed by this, and Ulquiorra's inner world could easily be in turmoil. She could only hope he'd be all right, having to contend with a nasty bastard of a Hollow into the bargain.

She picked L up, as gently as she could as she could manage under the circumstances; he hadn't fallen in a good position, but she was pretty sure there were no neck injuries to worry about since she'd seen him standing just before unconsciousness claimed him. It felt like there were broken bones, so it was best to get him checked out before she did anything else.

"I hope that's an opinion they both still share," Nel said, quietly, sparing Gin only a quick glance before she moved off to deliver L to Szayel.

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