Another experiment fell dead with an arrow lodged in its forehead.

Three more charged past the fallen form without any sign that they noticed the death of one of their own. In a heartbeat three more arrows slammed home. Two in the head, one through the heart, avoiding the armor-like plates growing on the creature.

I strode past the bodies, trying to ignore the way they were starting to melt. My hand tightened around the black bow I had projected.

They aren’t people anymore. I chanted in my head. If I repeated that enough maybe I could bring myself to believe it.

Natsumi and Kimura followed behind me, making sure nothing ambushed us from behind.

“Damn, that girl is fucking terrifying.”

“Naturally. She wouldn’t be a replacement for a Lieutenant on this mission if she didn’t inspire dread on a battlefield.”

“How much shit are we in for what the higher ups pulled? Should we be trying to sneak off when she isn’t looking?”

“I...I don’t think she will take out any anger on us as long as you don’t personally offend her, but I haven’t known her long and this is a bit of an extreme situation.” Natsumi hesitated. “Don’t say anything insulting to her and I believe you will be fine.”

Kimura looked at her before slowly palming his face. “I am soooo screwed.”

We retraced my path back to where I had fled from the other experiments. We would occasionally detour down a side corridor to make sure we weren’t going to have Kanou slip past us, but they all seemed like deadends leading to either a lab or storage. Either there were hidden routes to other places in the compound or they were legitimate deadends. Unfortunately checking would take far too much time so we just needed to hope we didn’t miss him.

Soon enough we were in front of the room I had first encountered. Problem was, there was no sign of the horde of experiments I had run past inside.

“You’re sure this is where they were?” asked Kimura.

I nodded.

“Doctor Kanou is probably massing his creatures to push out into the town.” Natsumi guessed. “We need to either find them or Kanou before they escape or a lot of innocent people will die.”

I resisted saying anything. Of course now they care.

Instead I started scanning the room for any kind of clue that would tell us where a large group of very dangerous creatures may have wandered off to.

There wasn’t much to go on.

The three of us split up to cover more ground.

The room was still lined with heavy metal cages, and that meant they were great at holding things in one place. Not so great at giving away where someone might have gone after they bumped into something.

I knelt by one of the cages, trying to see if they were simply moved on some sort of elevator system. But there were no seams in the floor and the cages were bolted down. So the creatures definitely walked out under their own power and not by some trick of the doctor.

“I found something! Over here!” Natsumi called out from near the center of the room.

I made my way back to the other two and saw them looking at the floor.

A quick glance showed they were looking at the bloodstains left by the two creatures I had fought on my last pass through the area. Nothing immediately jumped out to me so I crossed my arms and waited for Natsumi to explain.

Natsumi sent a few glances at me, probably hoping I would ask a few questions about what she found, but I just started tapping a finger waiting on her.

Kimura looked between the two of us uncomfortably before breaking the silence himself.

“So, uh, what did you find ma’am?”

The third-seat officer looks disappointed but answers the question.

“Look at the area here” She points at the blood pools and the floor surrounding it. “It looks like several of the experiments walked through the blood pools here. We can follow the footprints to wherever they are gathering.”

I had avoided looking directly at the puddles so I hadn’t noticed anything about them. Looking closer at the area I saw there were several footprints heading in various directions where something had wandered through. I’m sure we couldn’t follow the footprints the whole way there but it would be sufficient to get the general direction some of them wandered off.

I wordlessly motioned for the two Soul Reapers to take the lead and went back to scanning for anything trying to sneak up on us.

“So, she hasn’t said a word to us since the hallway.” Kimura whispered. “I know she was pissed about the monsters, but that seems more personal. I really don’t want to keep bringing this up, but are you sure we are safe around her?”

“Until the end of this crisis we are completely fine. She wants Kanou stopped more than anyone here.” Natsumi muttered back. “It’s afterwards that we will need to watch out for issues. I believe we lost whatever goodwill we had with her. I don’t know what form that will take with some of the bigger issues we are facing in the future.”

“Wait, what kind of issues?”

“Nothing you need to worry about unless you plan to transfer out of this area.”

“Haha no thank you, I have a good thing going on here. Not going to go looking for trouble especially if you are pissing off people like her.”

Natsumi huffs but lets the topic drop.

The footprints only led us a short way away before they dried up. Luckily I had nicked a few others when trying to get away from the horde. Individually it probably wouldn’t have been enough to easily track, but with several different creatures leaking from a few wounds it made following much easier.

We followed the path through a maze of cages before the trail ended...

Going directly into a wall.

Well, I remembered the walls were more dividers than actual walls from my last time through here.

I took a breath, focused, and formed an image in my mind. With a twist of mana, the image became a physical thing as the sword materialized hilt first in my hands.

The sword was a german Zwiehander. One of the longest mortal swords I had access to and frightfully sharp due to the enchantments woven into it. With four swings I cut a rough diamond shape into the wall in front of me, easily carving through the material.

With a loud boom the cut section slid out of place and crashed to the floor revealing the room behind it.

Not that much could be said about the room. It was an empty area with two doors on opposite walls. The bloodtrail went off to the right so now the only question was, was it worth checking out the path on the left as well? For all we knew that led directly to Kanou. It could also just be more of the facility and a waste of time.

Kimura steps through the hole and looks around, before turning back to me and Natsumi.

“So what now? Follow the trail or go the other way?” he asked.

Before either of us had a chance to reply we were distracted by someone clapping.

All of us turned to face the left door to see Yuuto Kiba walking out from the passageway still clapping. My face twisted into a snarl just seeing the Soul Reaper.

“Hello everyone. I’m glad you managed to find your way here.” Kiba greeted us with a smile, thankfully he stopped clapping. “The doctor wasn’t convinced you would make it here before the failures were released. It’s not often he is proven wrong.”

I was ready to put an arrow through his heart but Kimura stepped in front of me and started yelling at his traitorous subordinate.

“Yuuto why are you doing this!? How could you betray everyone at the garrison to work for Doctor Kanou?”

Kiba scoffed, “Betray? It's hard to betray someone you were never loyal to to begin with. I’ve been working for Doctor Kanou the entire time. After all-” Kiba’s smile didn’t change but somehow his entire face grew colder, “-you could say he is like a father to me.”

“I see, one of his more successful experiments then?” I mused out loud. The two Soul Reapers looked at me in shock.

“Haha I should have guessed my ‘sister’ would catch on.”

“That doesn’t make sense! You grew up here! You never left the district, how could you be one of his experiments?” Kimura was taking this hard it seemed.

“It was easy enough.” Kiba said with a shrug. “Find some local brat. Separate him out from everyone else then with just a few simple cuts and then suddenly no one can spot the difference.”

“Monster.” Natsumi hissed.

“You would know I suppose.” He looked at me. “Poisoning your allies ahead of time in just to leash them.”

I clenched my teeth at the jab. I suppose Kanou has more hidden microphones throughout the facility.

“If you want, we would be more than happy to accept you back into the fold.” His smirk grew bigger, “After all who knows what else they may have done to you without your knowledge.”

“I’ll pass.” I replied, and I didn’t miss the other’s relief at my refusal. “I already saw what being on your team is like and didn’t like the shock treatment. Also not really a fan of you unleashing a horde of creatures on a defenseless town.”

“Ha! That wasn’t being part of the team. That was being a resource. Team members get much better benefits. And if the town is your concern, simply help me kill the other two. Once they are dead no one will be left to stop us from returning to how things used to operate here.”

Once again I saw the other two tense up waiting for my response. Kimura full on turning to face me, while Natsumi simply gripped the hilt of her sword harder and tilted her head towards me.

I wanted to roll my eyes at them, I was far more frustrated they thought that would be enough to sway me into joining the man who drugged, kidnapped, and tortured me just a few hours ago.

“Not going to happen.” I replied simply. “You're stalling until those creatures get into position or Kanou can escape, aren’t you?”

“Tch, it seems Doctor Kanou certainly made you smarter than the Shinigami as well.” Kiba was no longer smiling. “It doesn't matter. The three of you won’t be enough to stop us. The failures are about to be released and you don’t have the strength to stop us.”

“Like hell!” Kimura exclaimed, then pointed at me. “She replaced a Lieutenant for her mission, even if you think you are stronger than me once she kicks your ass then we can catch Kanou and stop the monsters, no sweat. And that's not even mentioning Miss Hanakage!”

Kiba looked unsurprised at this information which meant they had done a pretty thorough bit of spying on us or were just strong enough to not care.

“Ah yes, Third Seat Hanakage Natsumi. Naturally as a member of Squad Two, there isn’t much information available. Normally a Lieutenant and a Third Seat would be enough to handle any threat inside the Soul Society, but as you can see-” Kiba released his reiatsu, “-I’m twice as strong as the average Lieutenant!”

I was still terrible at judging spiritual energy so I snuck a glance at Natsumi. She looked surprised by the reiatsu Kiba was giving off but not like she was shocked at the level.

“Can you take him?” I muttered to her.

She startled a little that I was actually talking to her, but was professional enough to respond with little delay.

“Yes, he seems strong but his reiatsu is wild and unfocused. I should be fine on my own.” she replied confidently.

“Good. Have Kimura stall the experiments any way he can. Whoever finishes can double back and help him.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going after Kanou.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know he is down that hallway?”

Tobiume formed in my hand. “Kiba is going to tell me right now.”

A fireball shot from the copied sword towards Kiba’s feet forcing him to jump away. In the same breath I launched forwards towards the door while Natsumi gave orders to Kimura.

Just before I reached my destination I was forced to turn and catch Kiba’s Zanpakuto as he ran back to intercept me.

“You aren’t going anywhere.” he growled.

“So something is back there.” I said with a smirk of my own. “Thanks for the tip.”

I lashed out with a kick to force Kiba further away which he narrowly dodged. But before he could rush me again a black chain swung down between us.

“Your opponent is me!” Natsumi called from across the room.

Without another glance back I rushed through the door and poured on the speed.

It was time to end this.