You Are the Miserable [Bambietta, Urahara, Erika]

If she'd been somewhere else when this all started, Bambietta would have been battling for her life. No, no, not for her own life. She'd have been battling for everyone else's lives. That was what she wanted to do here in the Gotei, after all. Instead, though, she'd been on her way to the Third Division to talk to Captain Urahara. Despite her general discomfort around him from his reputation, he'd done a lot to help her, and she tried to keep him updated on her recovery.

Well, this was different now. She could try and sprint back outside, find an enemy to defeat, but that didn't feel like a practical usage of her time. Was Captain Urahara here? Not like Bambietta could ever read him. All she could do was push herself forward, the slow pace she was forced to move at just a touch faster by sheer necessity. Either Urahara was in the lab, or he wasn't. Either way, that was where Bambietta needed to be.

He'd probably understand her intrusion, given the situation.

Once the situation started, there was one destination she rushed to first and most pressingly. They were leaderless, their captain-commander was absent and Erika would not abandon her friend. This was not a duty as the vice-captain of the first division, but from an outside perspective they might rationalise it as simple duty.

"Urahara, where is Murasaki?"

Her words entered before she barged in without a consideration for privacy or professionalism. It was an emergency situation, formalities were not important right now.

She did not need to tell him what was going on. The bastard should be more than capable of figuring that out for himself. However, Murasaki had informed her of where she was going, and the fact she had been sighted by anyone from battlefield reports made her seek answers to the mystery.

Wrapped in his shroud, Kisuke worked quickly and methodically. The safety precautions that he needed to take were considerable and the time in which he had to do them was minimal. Trapping the rings in a vacuum field was something that he would have preferred to do before his departure but even attempting such a thing would have drawn too much attention beforehand. Setting the devices in motion, they whirred into activity as he felt the thrums from the battle above. The roar of a Getsuga Tenshou shook the ground itself, alongside a dozen other earth-shattering reverberations. Yet it was a Getsuga Shikishou that caused him to pause for a moment, it seemed his was not the only scheme in motion today.

He turned, his eyes drawn to the Vice-Captain as she called out into the otherwise empty room. He had been content to ignore Ms Basterbine until she either went away or he completed his task, but this would need an answer. Walking to the door, he blocked it with his body and let the shroud disappear for a moment.

"Ah, Ms. Masamune. Well, you see. The Captain Commander was in the Dangai when the invaders arrived, given that she has not returned I believe that Ichigo Kurosaki has taken measures to isolate her."

A button pressed, the door behind them sealing, as Urahara moved over to a workstation and began to fiddle with one of his devices. His Zanpakuto rested on the table, almost innocently, and yet still within arms reach as the Captain made to look busy.

"Ms Bambietta, if you wouldn't mind, we need to begin lockdown procedures. It will not take long for the Arrancar and their allies to breach this research facility. Begin shielding us, and masking our position. Vice-Captain, I will need you to protect us whilst we work."

Bambietta was a bit surprised to see the Vice Captain of the First here, given what was happening. But when she demanded such a question, it at least drew her attention. Moreso when Captain Urahara explained the situation. Bambietta had to concede that the request made of her at least was hard to argue with, and so she began laying out defensive talismans, wanting to at least keep this place as secure as possible if anything was doing to be happening.

"The Dangai..?"

Though she knew she likely shouldn't pry into affairs between captains, particularly involving the Captain Commander, the fact that she was missing at a time like this did make her feel as though she should ask regardless, or at the very least, offer that faint measure of confusion. Maybe Captain Urahara would be willing to clarify, maybe he wouldn't.

She would prefer it if he would.

"Why did you have her in the Dangai?"

She asked a pointed question, this wasn't anything new. She was the prickly type who asked questions when others might be satisfied with being handwaved away. Erika made it very clear though that she knew who Murasaki was going to see. What did he have her doing in the Dangai at this incredibly inconvenient timing? Wasn't it just a little suspicious, and people like him weren't the types that deserved any leeway with these things.

She knew that well.

"It is a most dangerous place and one that I was wary of venturing alone, but the science demanded I go, so I asked for the best assistant in all of Soul Society. As it concerned a matter quite important to our security and one best kept hidden."

Finishing with his tinkering, Kisuke drifted over to where Bambietta was writing her talismans and began to work on a further barrier spell of his own. He did not deign to use a talisman this time, instead favouring the traditional approach, but perhaps emphasising that he did not wish to talk about further details in the presence of one that was not at a suitable level of clearance. Not that he expected that would dissuade Erika, but it was a nuanced picture that he was painting quite carefully.

"What matters is that we focus on the next steps. I could potentially send someone in there to try to retrieve her, but I cannot guarantee that anything which goes in can be returned. Whatever has been done to it, I haven't got the time to investigate right now."

"I can go, if you need."

Bambietta had to imagine that she would be turned down in this particular matter. After all, she was smart enough to discern that she wasn't necessarily "welcome" in the current point of conversation. At the same time, though, what could this possibly be about? A matter that needed to be kept hidden..?

Her mind returned, however briefly, to that ring she and Alastor had brought to Soul Society a while back. It hadn't exactly been treated like a small matter, and she'd never heard anything more about it even after she asked. Whatever that was, Bambietta had to wonder if it was about that. Not that she could really say for sure one way or another, given everything the 3rd Division got up to.

"Even without a Senkaimon, I find it hard to believe that you don't possess other means or have no considered this possibility ever happening before. You're the one that allowed the ryoka to enter the Soul Society a hundred years ago, the same one who is attacking right now."

She spoke with her usual sharp tongue. Every word that came to mind was said freely and cutting through whatever whimsy people called social cues. If this were a less urgent situation, she might've laced it with a mocking tone to call out his capacity like this, but this was a very serious matter for her on both a professional and personal front.

"Whatever you are doing can wait. This is your highest priority, Captain Urahara."

Erika finished and doubled down, not as the vice-captain of the first division, as the right hand of Murasaki. If he didn't comply then she had no issue with making him do so.

"It is exactly because I have considered this possibility that I can advise upon it. Opening another door to the Dangai is well within my capabilities, but the stability has been disrupted with the destruction of the main Senkaimon gate. It is possible that you could find an exit of your own accord, but given that the Captain Commander has not then we must believe there is more at work."

His expression shifted as she made to order him around, not frustration or annoyance but rather a surprisingly serious look for the usually relaxed Captain. He stopped casting his barrier spells, leaving them in place around a few small areas of the room, and with a sign of seeming resignation reached for his Zanpakuto.

"Being caught up in the waves of the Dangai is a truly miserable fate, Ms Basterbine, and one I would not wish for you to endure. But if the Vice Captain demands it then I can open the way for either of you." Moving aside blocks of workstations to create enough space, Urahara began to work on another incantation. When he spoke again, his voice was a shade more serious than it had ever been. Hardly dry and characterless, but still considerably less whimsical. "You both must understand, it is imperative in fact, that I will do everything I can to stop Kurosaki Ichigo. Be at peace with that at least."

It was just about when Kisuke finished speaking that the device he had originally been tinkering with and had left conveniently near Erica, suddenly and most certainly viciously, exploded. A deafening blast that destroyed years of work in the blink of an eye, confined by their own barrier spells to keep the explosion contained within a much smaller area than it likely could have reached. In that same instant, there was a shift in the Research Captain's energy. He darted across the room to Erika with a Shunpo of such blistering speed that it managed to cause a second, much more contained, shockwave. Then, without pause for hesitation or remorse, made to deliver an Ikkotsu directly to her lower chest.

Any response that Bambietta might have had was cut short by the explosion that momentarily stunned her. Any further response was all the more paused by the sight of Captain Urahara attacking Vice Captain Masamune so suddenly. There wasn't any reason for that- No, there was only one logical reason for that.

Throwing multiple talismans to the ground at her feet, barriers shot up around Bambietta, layered multiple times over as she raised her hands and made to cast something. But what was she even supposed to cast? She didn't know what could reasonably work fast enough to stop someone like him. Should she have prepared kaido for Vice Captain Masamune, instead? No, she was panicking. Even if she'd left that life behind, she had plenty of training as a soldier.

Her eyes grew stern, serious, and every bakudo she knew ran through her mind in short order. She didn't have time for most of them. Too much setup, he was too fast. Tenteikura would take too much time to say anything meaningful. If she couldn't do this with precision, she'd have to do it with brute force. At the very least, Bambietta knew her strengths. She might have been crippled from her operation, but she hadn't stopped bettering herself.

"Bakudo 62: Hyapporankan!"

In such a confined space, most practitioners likely would have lacked the finesse to utilize such a spell practically. But Bambietta was better than that, and in a situation like this, she had no choice but to push herself to her limits. The hundred rods didn't flood the area as typical; they clustered tightly, launching toward Captain Urahara with the same measured precision of a firearm. Even without using the Kido Gun Type 2, those principles of marksmanship certainly wouldn't fail Bambietta now.

Right?