Chapter 18

A few minutes later, we find a triumphant Nanao standing above a grumbling drinking duo. They had been caught after a few minutes of futile running and fell victims to Nanao's righteous female fury, the large bumps on their heads was a testament to that brutal fact.

Haruto and Shunsui were rubbing the large bumps as they grumbled about 'mean four-eyed ladies'.

Man, this woman hit hard!

"I hope you learned your lesson, you two" she asked with a victorious smile while they grumbled even harder, "Oh, Captain, I forgot I had something grave to report."

"Something grave?" Shunsui asked and rubbed his aching head.

"Yes, it seems Captain Aizen was assassinated last night by an unknown assailant. His body was pinned to a wall by his own Zanpakuto and was found by his Lieutenant, Hinamori Momo this morning." Nanao reported seriously causing Shunsui's eyes to widen in shock, while Haruto looked thoughtful.

It seems he had found his first suspect; he would have to investigate this matter further.

"That is unfortunate. Who could've done it?" Shunsui asked and gazed at the sky, deep in thought. This whole mess was so confusing. Their home being invaded by a few intruders, their kind and quite Captain assassinated by an unknown attacker!

"The assailant is not identified as of right now. Unfortunately, we can't simply launch an investigation at the moment either because of the Ryoka invasion!" Nanao replied and glared at the drinking Haruto.

"You're welcome" Haruto grinned when a giant tic mark appeared on Nanao's temple.

"Why is he here instead of the prison again?!" she asked in irritation.

She was tempted to punch that smug grin off his handsome face. Wait! Did she just call him handsome? Now that she looked at him closely, he was the epitome of physical male masculinity. The bulging muscles, the cheerful attitude and the exotic hair made for a very interestingly handsome man.

"Because I offered him peace and he accepted it." Shunsui replied with a lazy smile while Haruto gave a victory sign.

"That's right," Haruto added and finished his sake with one large gulp.

He suddenly turned serious and closed his eyes as he stood up dramatically, the sky above darkening as lightning flashes several times. "Now that I have drunk my share of sake, there is only one thing left to do…"

Shunsui and Nanao tensed and suddenly jolted up to prepare for an attack when they saw the serious expression on the redhead's face.

Shunsui's hands were hovering over his dual swords, ready to draw it out in a moment's notice, while Nanao had her hands prepared for a Kido. The lightening flashed even harder as sweat trailed down their faces while they waited for the redhead enigma to attack. Though Shunsui couldn't help wondering how the sky suddenly turned cloudy with intimidating lightning flashing around when there was not a speck of cloud in the sky a moment ago.

"The only thing left to do now is….. to find a place to crash down. Man I'm tired." Haruto declared pleasantly, causing Shunsui and Nanao to face-fault.

Nanao stood up with a vain pulsing on her temple and she glared at the grinning redhead.

"I'm going to kill you, you bastard! You almost gave me a heart attack!" she screamed angrily and shook her small fists in front of her face.

"If you love me that much, you could've just said so!"

What happened next caused Nanao to drop her precious book in shock, anger and embarrassment! Haruto slapped her ass and bolted away like bat out of hell with a large dust trailing after him.

"GET BACK HERE YOU BASTARD!" Nanao shouted in outrage, her lips stretched to a thin line, her beautiful eyes narrowed dangerously and her normally stoic face tinted red from embarrassment as she chased after a maniacally laughing Haruto! The bastard dared slap her like that!

Shunsui pulled his large trimmed hat over his eyes as he chuckled softly. Things sure were going to be entertaining around here with him around!

***

Later that Night. Haruto was standing near the tower where this Aizen Sosuke fellow was supposedly murdered and pinned to the wall by his own Zanpakuto no less. The wall of the building appeared to be covered in blood, trailing down from where he had been pinned down to the bottom, but that was all an illusion, not capable of deceiving his eyes. He was disappointed to see that the body had been taken down and was somewhere, but that was a minor setback soon to be rectified.

Everything possesses energy, meaning a soul was no exception to that fact. He was going to absorb the lingering energy on the tower and use that energy to search for a similar one in the Soul Society to see if his suspicion regarding the man were true or simply a product of paranoia.

He walked up the wall leisurely to the point where Aizen had been supposedly pinned and placed his hand in the center of the illusionary blood covered wall. Sure enough, there was some lingering Spiritual Energy. As soon as he absorbed the energy, the blood vanished without a trace, revealing a white spotless wall.

It seems his suspicion were true, the blood was merely a product of a well-placed illusion capable of deceiving the Captains as well as the rest of the Division members. He was quite intrigued over the fact that someone was able to cast an illusion during this era, granted it was not strong enough to fool him—not that any illusion could fool him—but still it was interesting to see.

Whoever this Sosuke Aizen was, he was an interesting fellow and Haruto was dying to meet him.

Closing his eyes in concentration, he searched for the energy similar to the one he absorbed from the wall, all over the Seireitei and the Soul Society. Snapping his eyes open, Haruto grinned widely when he found a similar match.

"Well well, Aizen, you may be able to fool your former comrades with an illusion, but I'm afraid you can't fool me."