Noble Love - Bleach (Kuchiki Byakuya x Oc x A bit of Various)

二十三

The Arrancar knew that he was going to die, and using his final seconds, he held his fists up to the sky and cheered, "Hooray! Hooray! H-Hooray! Aizen-sama... Hooray for Aizen-sama!" With that, his body transformed into a dark purple miasma that soon disappeared.

Byakuya stared at where Zommari last stood before saying, "It's over. Come on out." Behind him, a barrier appeared before it dissipated to reveal a crouching Lieutenant. "Kotetsu Isane, were you ordered here by Unohana-taichou?"

"Yes." she replied. "She sensed 7th Seat Yamada's reiatsu when he was injured, and ordered me to your location."

"I see." he responded before his gaze went to the three unconscious Shinigami. "Take care of them."

Isane wasted no time to get to work where she laid down three mats with a pillow on each. She placed Hanatarou on one of the mats and Rukia laid on another, though the latter didn't need much medical attention. While she was healing Hanatarou, Byakuya went over to Asa and removed the binding spell from her, who immediately dropped Rukia's Zanpakutou to the ground and was caught by him before she could fall. He turned her around to carry her in a bridal style and walked towards the unoccupied mat where he laid her down, with her head resting on the pillow.

Byakuya needn't be present at the scene to know what caused her to be in this state. He knew that she had reluctantly used her Bankai - Kage Butai (Shadow Stage), one of the most powerful Bankai, yet the most dangerous in many ways. It took him a while to understand the concept behind it because the wielder herself would never use it unless necessary, but he could understand why after seeing the side effects hit her after secretly witnessing few of her battles many years ago.

Kage Odoriko was known to be the most playful Zanpakutou, even his Shikai abilities seemed like games to him. Kage Butai became its playground where he messed around with his targets by creating illusions that completely manipulated them. All Asa had to do was play by his rules where she used her reiatsu to activate them, which were the hiltless daggers that rotated along the giant gold ring, and no one knew how they were produced endlessly, because as far as Byakuya knew, he had never seen her run out of those daggers. Sometimes, given the circumstances, Kage Odoriko would conjure on illusion with another to create an illusion that was so powerful that one would think it's reality. When the target was no longer able to differentiate between reality and illusion, that was when Asa attacked. No wonder those who witnessed it said it was a powerful Bankai.

However, Asa would not use it unless she and her enemy were alone. She didn't want the others who weren't involved to be affected by illusionary poisoning, a condition where one would feel nauseous after being exposed to the illusions for too long. If the wilder of Kage Odoriko herself was able to get affected, then all the more reason for her to avoid having audience around her when the Bankai was activated. Not only she would get illusionary poisoning, because she had to transfer her reiatsu to the daggers to activate the illusions, it was easy for her reiatsu to deplete.

By the time she had finished, her body ached all over, she was very sick as she would feel shortness of breath, and had less than half the amount of reiatsu to even fight another enemy. Unless there's a healer around to use healing Kidou, the only way for her to recover was by either idly resting or meditating to charge up her reiatsu. As easy as it sounded, none of those two choices would do any good during a battle, as it would only risk herself to get herself killed.

When Isane was done healing Hanatarou and wrapping his wound, he became conscious and was able to help Rukia, who had also became conscious. "You're awake!" said the latter with relief as he helped Rukia to sit up. "Thanks to Asa-sama, your wounds have been healed before they get infected."