It's my very little wonder

[lawlietschiffer]

It had taken L some time to recover from his thrashing from Ulquiorra. Ulquiorra still wouldn't speak to him, and blanked him entirely when he ran into him. L knew he deserved no more, or no less.

He still got headaches, and he felt dizzy if he worked for too long at a computer. That had slowed him down, that, and having to re-establish his communication network from scratch in and around Rabanastre. Several of his key informants were missing, and most likely dead, and L wasn't sure if the Ryoka had found them, or someone else, and the really frustrating part was that he wouldn't be able to find out.

He'd kept a close eye on the comings and goings and activities in Daguerro, however, even while he recovered. He had good reason to, and now, finally, he would have the opportunity to devote his attentions further afield of the place, because he was finally able to move the 'package' he'd been keeping an eye on.

There was another there, that another party had been sent to collect, but this one was L's alone to deal with, not least because anyone else would probably just kill him.

L had been forced to make the last leg of the trip personally to bring his guest under Khamja's roof. There was space for him, at last. L hadn't been present when Aizen's request to claim Orochimaru's labs had been denied, and he wished he could have been, but L had got his request in before Aizen had even returned from his own trip to Midgar. He could be a flagrant opportunist, when he had to be.

L sloped in through the main doors, ushering his guest in before letting them close. Personal effects weren't an issue, at least. Most of what the other man considered important had already been retrieved, and L had a few details he wanted the man to elaborate on for him as soon as they got the opportunity.

"Your laboratories are this way," L said, indicating the direction they needed to head.

Comments

[theedgeofreason]

"He volunteered," he said, which was more than could be said of Aizen when it came to following that up with pertinent information.

He shifted the conversation back onto his Arrancar as a group, not wanting to discuss the origins of one individual any further with Hojo, regardless of the fact that Midgar was no longer a threat to anything.

"Many of my subordinates are currently outside the Palace," he said, quite casually, giving him a thin smile that was neither entirely pleasant, nor particularly threatening. "The ones inside will be warned of the risks of talking to strange men."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Fascinating. A runaway Turk, with all the security risk that posed, made it to Archades, one way or another. Perhaps the Turk in question had employed a scheme similar to that which had brought Hojo from Shinra's secure employment to face life at the whims of Khamj's funding.

Fortunately, Khamja, or at least those within it who wanted Hojo alive, knew better than to try and stop his funding.

He laughed when Aizen brought up his other subordinates again. Of course Aizen didn't want them giving away any secrets to a rival scientist; it would jeopardize his monopoly on the techniques used to create them.

"I have thus far found them to be singularly unforthcoming with anything useful," he said. Though to have Hebira Jiruga's son, and an ex-Turk in the catalog, Aizen had done quite well at selecting uniquely qualified individuals to be his specimens.

[theedgeofreason]

"Good," he said, having expected him to find humour in that. "I shall make sure they continue to keep their mouths shut."

Szayel, at least, would not be likely to divulge anything to Hojo. He was probably still hyperventilating into a paper bag over his arrival at the Palace, but he was a scientist secondmost (first and foremost he was an incorrigible pervert with little regard for his own continued existence), so Aizen was relatively sure that he would not give details of the creation of the Arrancar to someone he would regard as a rival purely based on the fact that he worked on the project before volunteering to join it.

He trusted Stark, Wonderweiss and Halibel to be more intelligent than that and he trusted Apache, Luppi and Nnoitra to be stubbornly contrary. Still, he would have to speak to them, particularly Szayel, and make sure they treated this new scientist like the one he had replaced. Possibly without killing him.

"I expect L was able to salvage some of your old notes from Midgar's computers before they became inaccessible?" He asked, knowing full well he had. Gin had told him as much.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"All of my old, valuable research was retrieved," Hojo answered, slightly stiffly. Some of the less valuable work had been scrubbed, but, Hojo had been quick to notice, everything that had been at the centre of the controversy that led to him having to part ways with Shinra had been kept by them. While he applauded their recognition of the value of the work, it still galled that they would keep it after denouncing it. If they wouldn't admit to its value, they had no right to benefit from the work, in his view.

"There is some he wishes me to elucidate on," Hojo added. He didn't know which parts, yet; L had just said he wanted Hojo's views on some related subjects, "and I understand he recently retrieved a lot of data that was created after I left." Which he also wanted Hojo's opinions on, although Hojo wasn't sure if L was going to hand all of that over or not.

[theedgeofreason]

Aizen nodded, certain that some of the data he had on file was information on the red-haired Ryoka that had managed to cut Ulquiorra Schiffer in the battle that followed the Midgar mission.

They would undoubtedly get more information on this person when Ulquiorra's current mission concluded, should it go well. He saw no reason why it wouldn't, short of those sent on it running into trouble in Nabradia. That wasn't outside the realm of possibility, especially given that it was impossible to go there in an Airship if you didn't want to draw attention to yourself, but he trusted that a team of three Ryoka and the third and fourth ranked Espada would be able to get in and out without dying on the way, even on foot.

"Quite likely," Aizen said, giving him a thin smile. "Science in Midgar didn't stop after you died."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"Science lives on after we're all nothing but dust and pyreflies," Hojo replied, with a wry smile. "The scientists of the future will stand on our shoulders to discover yet more, that is presently beyond our reach." Hojo smirked. He was in the unique position of being able to see what someone had done with his work in the event of his 'passing'. Unfortunately, they wouldn't have done as much as he would have, because they lacked the guts to go far enough, but it would still be interesting to see.

"Unfortunately for Shinra, they employed a lot of hacks and mediocre scientists lacking in curiosity, so my research won't have benefited them as much as they would have hoped." It would be back in his hands again, now, and he could continue it, to the best of his ability.

[theedgeofreason]

Aizen knew Kurotsuchi well enough to know that things like 'lacking in curiosity' meant 'unwilling to sacrifice Hyur lives for the sake of scientific experimentation', so he knew exactly what Hojo meant.

His research and previous work was radical and, it had to be said, far off the edge of inhumane and, more often than not, totally immoral. That was the price of progress, however, and who was Aizen to condemn men who took their ideas a little too far for the sake of a result?

"Some would consider that fortunate," Aizen said, thinking on the fact that, without someone like Hojo at the helm of its scientific advancements, Shinra's governing body was slipping further and further behind the Archadian Empire.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo gave a displeased 'hmph'. "I do science, not politics." The only people who considered it of benefit that Shinra kept a lot of mediocre scientists on its payroll were those who were either too concerned with moral implications, as though hurting a few people now wasn't infinitely better than letting thousands die later, or in the great clash of egos that was international politics.

Hojo didn't care. Hojo famously didn't care, and would lend his expertise to anyone willing to fund his work, and if that meant they also had to be unwilling to ask him too many questions about how he obtained his results for fear of getting uncomfortable, so be it. Hojo would tell them if they asked. If they didn't want to know, then they shouldn't ask.

[theedgeofreason]

"Perhaps not," he said.

Aizen, having greeted the new scientist that would be infesting the laboratory complex he'd had his eye on, decided that it was high time he returned to his notes.

"Anyway," he began, half turning away from him to head back into his office. "I shall leave you to your ...work."

And he would not forget to threaten the Arrancar with death, or worse, should they speak to this man on matters concerning their creation.