"Legacies are built by actions, not words, echoing in eternity." — Itachi Uchiha.
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The past week had been an active one, and while Itachi wasn't exactly thrilled about the sudden Hollow influx, it did give him something to do. This was hardly the job of the 2nd Division, much less the Onmistukidō, but the rate at which squads of Shinigami were being lost meant that every avenue of help was accepted.
Other than the fact that a few Shinigami had died in the last week, this was nothing new. It was something that happened every few decades or so, so there was no inherent panic of something being afoot.
He ended up going out with Isshin on two separate occasions where the man invited him 'to bond over one of the things they were both good at' as he so aptly put it.
Isshin Shiba, despite his outward frivolous attitude, was quite the serious man when he drew his blade, a sentiment Itachi appreciated.
Compared to the eccentricities of other Captains, Isshin was relatively normal, all things considered.
The two times he went with Isshin was a decent enough exercise to free up his bones. Unfortunately, as much as he might have wanted to, he couldn't cover as much area of the Rukongai as he wanted to with his crows due to its sheer size.
He helped where he could, but where his limits were stretched, Kisuke and the Research Institute supplemented.
Of course, if there was an influx of Hollows in the Soul Society then that meant that parts of the World of the Living were already crawling with them.
He sat cross-legged on the air with his eyes closed and he shared his vision between his crows and used them to identify the Hollow locations and to send in reinforcements where needed.
"Itachi, need your help for a second." Isshin's voice came to him through the crow that was with the Captain.
"What with?"
"Tōshirō's location. A squad said he came through here, but I've scoured the area and can't find him. The last place I sensed his Reiatsu was around this area, but that's where it ends."
The crow following Isshin flew to the sky and when it was high enough, its eyes spun into a reflection of Itachi's Eternal Mangekyō and the world unraveled before their eyes.
He could see the flickering remnants of Tōshirō's Reiatsu along with the strange Reiatsu of the Hollows he fought. With how their Reiatsu lingered more prominently than Tōshirō's, they were likely stronger than him. All three of them.
"Itachi?"
"The trail ends here." Itachi said, the beginnings of a frown showing on his face. "He's not dead. They probably took him somewhere, but that doesn't tell how long they'll keep him alive."
Isshin was outright frowning. Itachi sent a message to his crows and they instantly widened the net of their search, each of them looking for traces of Tōshirō's Reiatsu.
"Can you tell where they took him?"
"No." Itachi said curtly. "It disappeared abruptly. Either they had no way of completely masking their Reiatsu from my eyes, or they used an immediate exit."
"Garganta."
"Precisely." He replied easily. "I've sent for Kisuke. I'm on my way."
When he arrived, the first thing he did was use his own eyes to look around, but there was nothing he could use to find Tōshirō's location, except for their weird Reiatsu which he still could do nothing with.
Isshin's face was calm but there was no mistaking the severity of his Reiatsu. He wasn't livid, but the broiling of the air around him told the story of the worse alternative.
"Anything?" Isshin asked, casual worry in his tone.
Itachi shook his head. The frown was still there but he'd somehow managed to look worried and detached at the same time.
Two clones briefly appeared behind him before they flickered away, at action gaining nothing but a raised brow from Isshin.
"I sent them to check if these Hollows have been anywhere else."
"You think they are specifically targeting us?" The 'us' here being the weaker Shinigami that went sent out for the currently ongoing culling mission.
"It's too soon to draw a concrete motive." Itachi said as he studied the fading Reiatsu intently. "Right now, all we know is that they retreated with Tōshirō. We don't know if they've killed him or if they took him specifically for a reason."
Isshin groaned and dragged a hand over his face. "Spirits, you can really be depressing sometimes."
"Heya, Itachi! Isshin!" A cheerful voice called out to them, along with an animated wave as Kisuke came into the picture. "I got your message, Itachi. You sounded serious, eh more serious than you normally do."
He looked around with half lidded eyes as he took the state of the area around them with a low whistle.
"One of you did this? Shabby work, I'll say." He chuckled and went low to his knees and stuck his finger into the ground, with his smile soon turning into an intrigued expression. "Ho? Quite strange, no?"
A brief look of annoyance passed through Isshin's eyes but he didn't instantly go for a remark, but instead waved his hand around where they were standing. "This is why we called you here, Kisuke. What can you tell us about what happened here?"
Kisuke shrugged nonchalantly, "Eh, nothing new actually. There was a little squabble between a group of friends and an outsider and things got heated."
Isshin looked at Itachi as if saying 'do something about him' and took a step back as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Someone is missing, Tōshirō Hitsugaya. Whatever happened here, it's clear that they took him without killing him. Can you find out where they went?"
Kisuke looked at Itachi with an inscrutable look after hearing what the man had to say. He then looked at Isshin and could already tell that the man was steadily growing inpatient with him. Seriously, he hadn't even done anything yet!
The witty part of his mind, which was basically the whole thing, told him that was exactly the reason Isshin was growing angry with him.
Sheesh. Does no one stop to be considerate of his feelings?
But who knew? Fate really knew how to play its strings. One way or another, everything tends to come back in full circle. He reckoned that was what Itachi was feeling at the moment.
"Well," he drawled sarcastically, "since I'm already out here, might as well help you guys out."
Isshin huffed as Kisuke pulled out a small device from the flaps of his coat and started muttering incomprehensibly to himself as he moved around with his eyes glued to the small screen on the device.
He walked all over the place, sometimes cursing and sometimes giggling to himself, making a full circle before returning to where Itachi stood, smiling to himself as the device started rapidly beeping.
"So? Can we open a Garganta that'll lead us straight to where they took Tōshirō?" Isshin quickly asked as soon as Kisuke finished whatever it was he had been doing.
The smile on Kisuke's face slipped as he regarded both of them. "Technically, but no need to do that as I'm pretty sure that they made their exit from here to the World of the Living."
Seeing the hardness that fell on them, Kisuke held up his hand to stop them from doing anything yet.
"That being that, there's something really weird about the Reiatsu that they emitted, but I still can't put my finger on it. They're not your normal run-of-the-mill Hollows." Kisuke warned.
"Noted."
The three of them wasted no more time and disappeared.
...…
[World of the Living]
The moment they appeared, Itachi and Isshin instantly knew what was wrong.
Their senses covered the landmass under them and yet all they picked up was the faint Reiatsu of the last Shinigami that was alive from the three cells that were sent to cull the Hollows in this town.
An instant Shunpo carried them towards the faint Reiatsu, who was currently surrounded by three of those weird Reiatsu they felt in the Soul Society.
"Good feet on yer." Isshin said with fake cheer as one of the figures narrowly escaped being beheaded from the back.
They moved well, Itachi noticed but didn't care as all he focused on was the incapacitated Momo Hinamori currently held by a cloaked man.
"Shinigami, just who we were looking for." The man said with a flourish, though the tension in his spine that he tried to hide was made clear to Itachi's eyes.
"The boy." He simply asked as he slowly unsheathed his sword.
"He's safe, for now." The man said, bravado creeping up in him as he started speaking. "Though that won't remain certain if you don't come with us…. Itachi Uchiha."
So they came specifically for him, taking hostages as incentives. There was something blatantly wrong with the whole thing but it wasn't important for now, so he kept it at the back of his mind.
"Where's Tōshirō?" Isshin asked calmly.
The cloaked man stared at Isshin with his displeasure worn on his posture. "We'll let the boy go if he comes with us."
Isshin sighed, his drooped shoulders and look in his eyes expressed just how disappointed by the answer.
"That wasn't what I asked."
The man hastily threw a fireball that exploded when Isshin, who was now at his side, cut it. Unlike what the man expected, Isshin effortlessly shrugged off the explosion and promptly cut through it to get to his target, who shamelessly held Momo closer to his body to use as a deterrent against Isshin's attacks.
"That won't save you." Isshin said, completely unbothered as his sword kept trail.
While the man fruitlessly tried to escape a frigid Isshin, the other two— the tall one with the glaive and the bulky brute—stared at Itachi cautiously.
"Just quietly come with us. Fighting is useless." The tall one said as he spun his glaive in a flourish and painted its massive bladed tip at Itachi.
Itachi took the first step.
"Why do you speak of a fight?" His words, his face, his posture — everything about him showed natural indifference. "It insinuates that you can put up a resistance."
He took the second step and stopped.
"You can't."
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