"My, my, to see so many people in my store," Kisuke Urahara said, a smile hidden from beneath the folds of his fan and the distant burn of poisonous resentment boiling low in his gut. He's been exiled for a little more than a hundred years and now when the world was teetering on the edge of a cross-dimensional war did the Shinigami show up in his living room to discuss victory as if there still wasn't a sanctioned warrant for his arrest.

The ones who came to discuss strategy was Yamamoto-soutaichou, Shunsui-taichou, Ukitake-taichou, Kuchiki-taichou, and Choujiro-fukutaichou. It would make sense for Yamamoto to bring along his two protege and near sons to the meeting because despite their perceived weaknesses to sake and illness respectively, they weren't considered some of the strongest taichous in the history of Seireitei for nothing.

"Let's talk war," Yamamoto-soutaichou said and they did. Or at least the Shinigami spoke of there plans, not letting Kisuke speak a word in between. Obviously, the Shinigami still have a control problem if they would so obviously make battle plans without Kisuke Urahara who had not only known of Aizen's treacherie beforehand but has been making plans for this exact moment for the past hundred years.

Did they really believe that Kisuke spent a hundred boring years in the Living World doing nothing?

Bitch please.

Just when they were wrapping things up to the aftermath, Kisuke let out a single amused hum that interrupted their superior constance.

"Do you have something to add, Urahara?" Yamamoto-soutaichou asked.

"No, no!" he said, a smile covering up the fact that he was mocking them, "Please continue with this riveting plan, I'm sure that you know Aizen Sosuke better than I do, it's not like for a hundred years I've known every move the megalomaniac has made and don't have direct readouts of the Espada's reiatsu output where your own resident scientist could only get second hand accounts. Oh wait, I do."

"How can we make this better?" Ukitake-taichou asked while gesturing to the maps spread out on the table.

"Scrape it," Urahara said, snapping his fan closed, his expression falling to complete seriousness, "Just by the formation of your troops I only see defeat. Aizen is no simple power lusting sociopath. That man is a sociopath that has been able to manipulate the entire Gotei Juu-san for years without anyone's knowledge. He knows your every move, your every thought. In order to defeat a sociopathic genius like him, you need me to think a thousand steps ahead of him. You're not cut out to face him."

"Urahara-san," called out a voice from the backroom, "There's no more-"

Rue Diabolos stepped into the living room and immediately shut down seeing some of the highest ranking Shinigami situated in Kisuke's house.

"Ah, Rue-chan!" greeted Kisuke jovally, "Don't be a stranger!"

"What's all this about?" Rue asked, staring at Urahara and not even greeting anyone in the room. Usually, she would have been respectful and polite when confronted with three taichous and THE Soutaichou but she was forgiven because she looked like she got chewed up, spat back out, and shitted on by a herd of wildebeest. Her skin was so pale they could see blue veins and bruises, her eyes so tired looking her shadows might even scar. It was a testament of her will to even still be standing.

Also, why was she soaked with salt water?

"We're playing Battleship!" Kisuke having already seen Rue in her disrepair state, "Come join us?"

"What do you plan to do with my sister, Agito Diabolos?" Rue asked, her voice cutting and devoid of her usual soft empathy. She was too exhausted to give anything else.

Kisuke giggled and said, "Why don't you answer her, Ukitake-taichou?"

Because he knew. He knew the shit they had planned for Rue-chan's beloved sister.

"Gin, Tousen, and Agito would most likely form a last defense around Aizen, their leader," said Ukitake-taichou as carefully as possible, sugaring his words so as not to upset the heart of the two siblings, "The Espada will most likely be protecting both Aizen and the Commander they've fallen subordinate to. Taichous will team up in sets of two and wipe out the Espada that stands in their way, aiming for the shinigami traitors. Once Aizen's inner defense crumbles, it'll be easy to focus all of our forces on detaining him.

"As we don't know which specific Espada would be guarding who, we've teamed up depending on who would match our opponents skill and be a antithesis. Gin Ichimaru would be faced off with both Shunsui-taichou and myself, Tousen Kaname would fight against Komamaru-taichou and Hisagi-fukutaichou, Agito Diabolos would be up against Soi-Fon-Taichou and Hitsugaya-taichou. Seeing as how-"

"Are you insane?" Rue cut in with no finesse. Everyone was startled by her brash interruption. Urahara cackled.

Rue looked around the room before her eyes rested on Kuchiki-taichou who looked as cold and as immovable as a glacier.

"Everyone else, I can forgive their ignorance but you," she shook her head with disappointment, "You, Byakuya, I'm almost ashamed of. Are you all idiots? Do you really believe my sister can be taken down by Soifon and Toushiro?"

"Diabolos-san," Shunsui tried to placate but she was on a roll.

"Everyone keeps forgetting that my sister, Agito Diabolos, is a genius. She graduated from the Academy in three years and no, not like Byakuya because she trained Byakuya. She. Trained. Byakuya. No, she didn't train with, she actively trained him as an Academy student. Everyone knew that she was stronger than her Ni-Juu-Ban Seat in the First Company and yet she handicapped herself.

"She had to handicap herself to give everyone else a chance. She jumped from San-Ban of the First Company to Taichou of the Third within half a century. She trained some of the strongest shinigami officers, while she was in office all of you have sent officers in need of training for a single day of personalized training with her and they've all turned out stronger, just from that single day. Her curriculum for wartime strategy and history is still being used in the Academy.

"All of this to say, if you think that Agito Diabolos is just some pretty side piece to Aizen, you've got it twisted. Agito probably trained her Espada army for the fifty years that she's been gone. Aizen isn't stupid enough to just make her Queen just because. That was a threat. That means that my sister is an active member of this war and she has Michael as her sp-zanpakuto."

"Her zanpakuto won't be a problem," Yamamoto-soutaichou said in full confidence.

"Oh?" Rue said full of doubt, "Really? You really think so? Tell me, do you know how to fully combat her shikai? What if she doesn't just aim her blade at you? What if she pulls a fucking Sodom and Gomorrah? And let's not forget that nobody knows her bankai."

"Rue Diabolos, mind yourself," rebuked Byakuya. Rue turned to him in a rage, baring her teeth and for once she looked so much like her sister that it was discomforting.

"Don't you fucking dare, Byakuya Kuchiki," she hissed, so adimentally angry that she was ready to spit blood, "I'll mind myself when you're all not being stupid and forgetting one of the most dangerous people in all three dimensions. She will be vicious. You think that just because she's up against Toushiro that she wouldn't kill him? I know my sister. If she really, truly needed to, she would kill me. No one is safe."

The air turned icy from such a chilly truth. Rue got up from her seat and stormed off, absolutely infuriated.

Urahara had stopped laughing a while ago, taking personal notes of the full truth of who Agito really was and already making contingency plans.

"That cannot be true," Ukitake muttered, "Agito would never harm her sister, would she?"

This time they all looked at Byakuya.

Byakuya might have made it very clear that he no longer felt any empathy with the older, more violent twin of the Diabolos siblings. When Agito escaped her execution the first time, the Kuchiki family even cut ties with Rue Diabolos and the young Head of the Kuchiki Clan kept his obligation to scorn the actions of the elder and younger sibling. But despite the disconnect, no one can dispute that Kuchiki-taichou didn't intimately know the twins.

There might be a fifty year disconnect but he had been close to them for over three hundred.

"Diabolos would never harm her sister," Byakuya said, "But that doesn't mean that if she were given the choice between saving her sister and the world, she would always pick family. No, that is ignorantly false. Agito Diabolos would most likely save the world and kill her sister before killing herself.

"'Save the world'," the Soutaichou quoted, "Interesting point of argument. Do you believe Diabolos can be saved?"

"No," Byakuya said, "The Agito Diabolos I know would never follow orders unless they aligned with her own. Somehow, Aizen has found her true desire and aligned it with his own cause. Agito Diabolos is on his side by her own will."

"What would that true desire be? Status? Power? Love?" Shunsui asked.

"War," Byakuya said, "Aizen built this entire war just for her. If that is not her wedding present, I don't know what it would be. Agito is not his Queen for an empty title."

"Yes, war," Yamamoto agreed while remembering the young lady he had trained in her younger years, how much she craved knowledge and tactiques best served for war efforts, not for peace.

"Agito Diabolos must be stopped. Or else she would raze all the worlds to the ground. Urahara-san, what say you??"

Urahara looked around the room, sensing their energy and moods before unveiling his ultimate Trump card.

"Are you familiar with Kurosaki Ichigo?"

...

Agito felt something.

The firey walls of Joukaku Enjou still surrounded her and her enemies. The battle waged outside of it. She could not see nor hear anything but she could barely feel the reiatsu of the Espada fighting against the Shinigami. Most of the fraccion were dead. The Primera, Segunda, and Tier were currently called to war.

But that was not what she was focused on.

Agito raised a hand and pressed it at her ribs, feeling something new, something changed. It took a while for her to understand but when she did, she could barely hide the flare of reiatsu from her surprise.

"Is something the matter, Agito?" mused Aizen. She might still be playing his game, might still be by his side and offering her back to him in some twisted show of trust but he wasn't fooled. She was one of the most dangerous people on the battlefield. He kept both eyes on her every movement. A sudden flare of her power was something to remark upon.

"Cuatro Espada has fallen," Agito said, her tone utterly disinterested in her report, "Hueco Mundo is now under the control of the invading Shinigami."

"And what of Yammy?" asked Gin who never wavered in his smile.

"What of him? I don't particularly care."

Yammy was a failure of an Espada. It was to everyone's knowledge that the Decimo Espada had so too fallen, despite his ability to gain the strength and power of an Espada of the highest rank. He was nothing more than a sledgehammer. Sledgehammers don't win wars.

Agito's hand pressed harder into her side to ease the sudden feeling of an extra beating heart under her skin. A piece of soul struggling to stay alive.

Ulquiorra. Her first Espada and most loyal. She was surprised that Ichigo was able to end his life but accepted it.

There were more deaths to come.

...

Aizen was getting impatient.

Agito could immediately tell just by a single shift of his weight from one foot to the other. Gin and Tousen could as well. They perked up, finally interested in getting back to work.

"Wonderweiss," Aizen said, a single call for reinforcements to aid his Espada generals. He then called out, "Agito."

She knew what to do. She unsheathed Michael, her blade gleaming from the firelight of Joukaku Enjou, the Soutaichou's ability of imprisonment. He wasn't the only member on the battlefield with a ridiculously strong flame zanpakuto.

"Conquer, Michael," she said, unleashing her shikai. The fire of Joukaku Enjou

מִיכָאֵל turned a bright white and screamed. The Soutaichou's power soon became corrupted with Agito's own reiatsu and with a single slice of her blade, the prison broke.

The sun still shined. The sky was blue. The fake town of Karakura lay before them in a crumbled mess, showing signs of fresh battle.

"What an awful smell," said Gin, "As usual."

"I agree," said Tousen, his focus already on his next targets. A more personal goal.

"Smells like death," Agito said, for it truly did.

Blood. Smoke. Flesh. Rot.

The smell of battle.

"That's fine," said Aizen, "The smell of death goes well with this scene."

The Shinigami forces all looked towards the traitors of Soul Society, some of the most powerful souls in all three realms. Their Espada generals had yet to be defeated and here they broke free of their prison fresh and ready to slay them at their weakest.

It was a pivotal point in the war and not for the side of the Shinigami.

~~~

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