That Make or Break Moment (Hephaestus)

Blodeuwen was, ordinarily, a patient woman. In her deliberating, considerate care of the shinigami beneath her in the ranks of the Kidoshu, she spent utmost time ensuring that each shinigami was happy and felt pushed. It wasn't easy, especially not when there were garganta-holes opening up all over the place and people getting hollowfied left-right-and-centre. But she maintained her always sunny, ever optimistic disposition even in the face of such adversity.

But this? This was just taking the mickey. She'd received the message from an over-zealous Jigokucho that had swept into her office in a shower of sparkles. This was clearly the influence of her new Jigokucko Officer, Aoi Sora, and she burst into a fit of giggles at the silliness of it. Her face and mood turned sour, however, when she heard the message. It was from Vanessa Vårjen, her representative in the 12^th division and by extension, the Shinigami Research and Development Institute. Not a bad thing in and of itself though she sensed Nessa was still quite upset with her. No, it was the request itself; for her to come to the SRDI to help intervene in a situation. She donned her Kido Soshi robes, and discarded the ink pen, leaving a trail of ink on her desk which she teetered too and fro, wondering if it would stain before deciding it wasn't important and flash stepping out of the building.

Suppressing her reiatsu it took her virtually no time at all to flash step from the Kido Corps headquarters to the SRDI, where she was let in by surly lab technicians and ushered up to what seemed to be some kind of observation room where a whole hoard of shinigami were watching multiple monitors. The shinigami looked up at her, many doing a double take as she raised her eyebrow menacingly, which wasn't really all that menacing due to her demure face.

"Shouldn't you all be doing research?" she asked with a sternness that scattered them as if she had thrown a stone into their midst. Nessa remained, singled out from the crowd of scientists by her newfound solitude. She bowed deeply to Blodeuwen.

"Mistress Blodeuwen, I'm so sorry." she said coldly, her eyes still steely. Yep, definitely still mad. "Kurotsuchi Taicho had been observing the fight, but then Mayuri- that is to say, Captain Kurotsuchi, said he urgently had to go and attend to something and left me here. And then the others came to watch..." she trailed off, indicating all of the snack foods.

"Well, what's the matter?" Blod asked with a smile. Nessa indicated at the screens, taking in the situation. Well well well. Kuchiki Byakuya, captain of the 6th division. She noted the wounded weaker shinigami; Meilin Tachibana, her name read on the UI. A name she was passingly familiar with from researching Shio Mora. She scanned the rest of the screens. An arrancar. She'd never seen this one before, but he made her blood run cold, just as the rest of them did. She thought of Llew and shuddered. Kuchiki was burned on the face and fought on. "Was Captain Kuchiki there from the start?" Blod asked, seriously.

"No, he just arrived a few moments ago." Nessa responded. She nodded pensively. That possibly explained where Mayuri had gone; to talk to Old Man Yama, who had likely been the one to send Kuchiki after his subordinate. She watched the fight unfold. Mayuri's observational equipment was remarkably good, Blod was glad she'd learned how to avoid picking up bugs after all the years she worked on the Senkaimon. She watched them go at it. Undoubtedly Kuchiki ought to have had the upper hand but... He appeared lacklustre.

The fight wore on; she was scarcely aware of Nessa attempting to get her attention but she raised a finger to indicate silence. Good lord, was this man a captain of the Gotei 13? Undoubtedly strong yes but... It was remarkable how poorly thought through his manouvres were. Shikai, and then Bankai were released; to which the arrancar responded with his Segunda Etapa. She gasped. She had no idea there were other arrancar, except for the late Ulquiorra Cifer, with the ability to reach that level of release. The needle indicating power levels on the monitor setups now showed the two opponents at equal levels of strength.

And Byakuya went from bad to worse. She couldn't believe he had attempted to use bakudo 91 while moving his hands to utilize his zanpakuto, it was scarcely surprising that it hadn't worked. She cast a quick glance down at Meilin to see how she was doing. She needed to be removed as soon as possible and Blodeuwen was angry that Kuchiki had let hotheadedness, arrogance and pride make him leave the injured shinigami to chase an arrancar that was very clearly giving him the runaround.

"Mistress Blod this is really important!" Nessa finally said, snapping the fingers of her metal gauntlets. Blodeuwen blinked and looked up at her, eyes wide. She blinked once, not sure how to react.

"Uhm, yes?" she asked, bemused.

"Look at monitor seven!" she said urgently. Blodeuwen did so, and her heart dropped. There, not 200m away from the fight, was a Hole. Now, of all times!? It was labelled with a series of question marks; Mayuri still had no idea about them. She froze for a second, unsure what to do, when for the second time, a Jigokucho fluttered into the corner of her vision. Nessa froze as she saw it too and they waited as they received its message, however they never got the chance as the monitors pulled them away.

Byakuya had activated his Senkei. Blodeuwen felt a little relief; the fight at least, would be over soon. His bankai truly was beautiful. She automatically started considering to herself how she would attempt to thwart it, or fight it with Kido, her mind analysing what was going on before she was snapped out of it by rapid-fire cussing next to her.

"Oh that fucking idiot, how did someone so stupid get to be the captain of a squad!?" flared Nessa next to her.

"Excuse me Vanessa, but I would rather you didn't use that kind of language. You must respect Captain Kuchiki, such language is tantamount to insubordination." Nessa looked at her like she was stupid for a second before regaining her composure.

"I apologise mistress Blodeuwen, but you see, the Arrancar seems to have some form of technique for making the area around him incredibly hot. Kuchiki-taicho escaped earlier by virtue of getting very far away very quickly; the scanners on monitor three said that the arrancar became hotter than the sun. It happened just before you arrived." She said, and Blod looked at her, her pupils fully contracted with surprise. "The range that senkei traps Kuchiki-taicho and his opponent within is far smaller than the range of that of the arrancar's attack. He's going to get cooked!" Nessa said fearfully.

Blodeuwen nearly cursed herself. How could he have not foreseen this? It was then that the butterfly delivered its message. She had been asked to intervene? Someone had noticed the hole, it seemed- clearly others were watching this battle, most likely a couple other captains of the Gotei 13. Of course; they too had finally noticed the hole. Yamamoto seemed to know what they were- much to the chagrin of Mayuri, who had sent this message; but the old man only knew from speaking with Blod. He correctly ascertained that she would need to go and sew the damned thing up as the last thing anyone needed was an attack from Holers, the name given to the hollows that seemed to hollowfy all they attacked. He had prepared her a senkaimon in the room adjacent. She didn't like the idea of a nearly captain-class shinigami such as Meilin being hollowfied at that moment.

She bade Nessa to send the butterfly back to Mayuri and to explain to him what the holes were when he got the chance to listen; and that she hoped for a good relationship between the Kido Corps and the SRDI in order to have a better chance at tackling this problem. Nessa seemed to flush slightly, but didn't get a chance to respond as Blodeuwen tore into the next room and entered the senkaimon.

And that was why she was upset. Ordinarily, Blodeuwen would have sent an underling, perhaps Kíla and Thíla, or even Junta, to deal with a Hole but she was now, on top of her own work, having to do the grunt work because Byakuya couldn't handle one measly arrancar. She was sick and tired of having to pick up the Gotei 13's slack. She didn't stay angry for long though, it merely faded to a kind of sadness and disappointment as she exited the senkaimon. Of course, an arrancar at the strength of an espada as this one was could be no mean feat even for a captain as illustrious and strong as Byakuya, even Blodeuwen knew that. Her first point of call was to seek out Meilin; which was easy enough. The gate had dumped her close enough to the shinigami.

"Hello." She said kindly to the pretty young shinigami. "Ryodo number... One, I suppose. Keikatsu." she applied the reiatsu to Meilin very briefly, enough to ease her pain, sooth some of the worst of it, though she would require more advanced deep healing later. "Try not to move, okay? You're not better by a long stretch." her bedside manner was impeccably gentle, and she took of her purple cloak and folded it neatly, and if permitted, placed it as a pillow beneath Meilin's head so she wouldn't have to lean on the hard wall. Just because she was annoyed at Byakuya and the Gotei 13 generally didn't mean she had to take it out on a poor shinigami that had probably gotten involved attempting to protect Karakura Town. "Please call for me if you see any hollows. They could be very dangerous, especially in your state present condition." She looked up at the senkei. Luckily, the Hole had fallen outside its boundary, otherwise Byakuya would have been as good as dead. But it was a close call and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to get too close to that dome... No, better to get close enough to smack anything that comes out with a strong hado, and pick up the bits of the arrancar that were left when this all ended... If not the charred remains of Captain Kuchiki.

Blodeuwen looked up as the Senkei faded. She saw not the body of the silver-haired arrancar, as she had expected. No, instead, he stood tall, clutching at the arm of the Rokubantai captain. Blodeuwen gasped, and performed a shunpo to quickly close the distance, plucking the captain's body from thin air, and wrapping the remains of his shoulder in his own Haori so that he didn't bleed out, not thinking just doing. Blodeuwen was not simply a kido maestro, she was a master healer. She knew, however, that restoring the captain's arm would be much simpler if she didn't have to grow him a new one entirely. The arrancar spoke. She flared her reiatsu in response, which would seem to Heph as a sickly sweet aroma of flowers. He was weak from fighting Kuchiki, and Blodeuwen was fresh. She also knew that she was stronger than him- she could take him. But time was of the essence and more importantly, he might know something about the cause of the Holes. If the captain's arm was the price to pay for the information, then she was willing to pay that price.

"If we fought, you would die." she told him coldly, her usually serene face grey with the gravity of the situation. "I'm not trying to be boastful or arrogant; I've seen the battle, I know what I'm up against. Again, I'm just being frank with you. If you want to go, sure. But I want two things. Firstly, I want the captain's arm. Secondly, I want you to tell me everything you know about those." she said, pointing at the Hole that was behind Hephaestus. The dangai could faintly be seen beyond it, and through that, the gaping maw of the garganta into Hueco Mundo. Blodeuwen seldom spoke so much to opponents.

"Hold on Byakuya." she murmured gently to him, her ire having faded for the moment due to his status as a patient as opposed to the one who had caused so much trouble for her lately.

Blodeuwen shrugged. She had no response to his admission. Of course Byakuya had said something so gung-ho. He always did. It was all "pride" and "honor" and whatever else with that guy. The arrancar had seemed to tense at her arrival but was a little more relaxed now, though as she explained why she had him beat she almost thought she saw resignation. As much as she wanted to chase him down and kill him for the damage he'd caused, he might have had information she needed, and she couldn't risk the lives of Captain Kuchiki or Meilin, to do so would be the ultimate dishonor. If he was going to leave that was the best option. She could put Byakuya's arm back on here but it would take a visit to Retsu to really give him a full range of motion back in it. This was no kids' wound. He looked at the Hole, which was oozing the strange time-liquid of the Dangai, but seemed nonplussed. Blodeuwen tensed- he knew something. She listened to his terms, her eyebrows raising as he nodded at Captain Kuchiki, wondering what on earth he was about to request of her.

Her smile spread into a grin as she listened to what he had to say. Hephaestus had just asked her to do exactly what she was originally going to do anyway... But with a cherry on top. She had to stop herself from laughing despite the graveness of the situation, as she couldn't afford to move the captain's impromptu bandage which wasn't even really adequate at all to stop the flow of blood from his torn and distended shoulder. Yes, she found his terms quite agreeable.

"Sure, you're free to go." she told him, gingerly hoisting the slipping captain up further. Her shihakusho was soaked in sticky crimson liquid, she was glad she'd given Meilin her cloak. "And don't worry... It is not in my interests to allow captains of the Gotei 13 to perform so poorly. I have better things to do than clean up their messes. His failure is a dishonor to us all." she paused. "I warn you though; his pride is great. Finding out he was spared by a hollow... He might make sure to kill you next time. You fought him today when only his life was on the line; but should you threaten his pride, Kuchiki Byakuya is a force of nature with infinite determination." she told him the faintest smile playing at her lips.

It was then he threw the arm to her. She caught it in her free hand; she was vulnerable, but he had already opened up a garganta to leave. But he hadn't told her anything. This mystery had been killing Blodeuwen so long, that she almost contemplating dropping the captain and his stupid arm and chasing Heph, but she kept a control of herself. "Wait..." she pleaded, but he was already opening up.

Dread filled her to the core. It was him. The world was washed out in a kind of monochrome. She nearly panicked there and then, but recalled that she was the Grand Kido Chief now. It would be most unbecoming. No; she stood her ground. Even Llew would fall to her magic. None were safe. She was stronger now.

Then why was she still afraid?

He then told her something she knew. In her heart of hearts she had always known it was about more than it seemed and Hephaestus confirmed what her fears were the whole time. Still, this was no time for fear. He stepped through the garganta and Blodeuwen immediately shunpo'd down to where Meilin was, laying Captain Kuchiki out on the floor. She tore his Haori off, she'd have to apologize to Yamamoto for that later, and crammed the worse-for-wear looking arm back into its socket. It would likely be incredibly painful for the captain, who was hopefully passed out from pain this time. She then began to work her Ryodo, binding the bones, and then the sinews, and tissues and muscles. In some places, she was unable to; they were missing entirely and re-growing flesh was a difficult task. In the end, there was still a jagged wound covering the captain's shoulder, that still oozed blood. He'd already lost a lot of blood- it was somewhat terrifying. But hopefully if she got him back to Retsu on time, he would be okay She saw Andrej soar through the Senkaimon nearby, a large needle and a ream of thread on hand, to begin sewing the hole up.

"Meilin can you stand?" Blodeuwen asked, hoisting Byakuya up in a fireman's lift, re-tying the bloodsoaked Haori as a bandage. "I can help you walk if you need me to." she extended her free hand to the shinigami, hoping that her healing earlier had been enough that she could walk at least to the gate, some 30 meters or so away. If she could they could leave, and head back to Soul Society for a nice cup of tea.