The moonlight shouldn't have been there.
Not in the the ruins of the 4th Division. Not in the broken hallways where healing reishi once wafted like warmth. Not under a roof of stone and dust that blocked the sky.
Yet the pale glow seeped through every crack - dim, wavering, unnatural.
It flickered over the broken tiles as two figures rose from the rubble.
Unohana wiped the ash and frost from her face. Her skin was blackened along the side of her jaw, spiritual burn marks pulsing faintly. Her haori was torn and frozen. Her heartbeat felt off - half a beat late, each pulse echoing as if traveling across distance.
Isane staggered to her side, clutching her bleeding arm. The freezing and rotting of the reishi discoloured her fingers. Her breathing quickened with each inhalation.
Isane whispered:
"Captain... it's everywhere. The frost, no, the moonlight, seeps through the walls."
Unohana did not respond immediately.
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out the trembling vial of blood she had protected during the collapse.
Rukia's sample.
The glass vibrated, reacting to the corrupted light.
No... not reacting.
Answering.
The vial pulsed like a small heartbeat.
Unohana's expression dimmed.
Unohana murmured:
"She's calling, even separated, her spiritual power searches for itself."
Isane's eyes widened:
"R-Rukia is alive?"
Unohana did not respond.
Because the walls began to groan.
A cold wind blew through the corridor, but the 4th Division was underground, sealed, with no way for the wind to enter.
It wasn't air.
It was pressure.
Spiritual gravity bent the floor plates. Frost spread laterally along the walls, streaks of light trailing like roots. The dressing cabinets burst open. Metal trays slid across the floor, drawn toward the source of the glow.
A low hum filled the air - harmonious, mournful.
Isane covered her ears:
"Captain, the resonance, it's like the air is ringing!"
Unohana stepped forward, resolute. The corrupted moonlight intensified around her, as if reaching for her.
And inside her chest, something reached back.
A thin line of ice spread along her neck, forming beneath her skin.
She inhaled deeply.
The infection was accelerating.
Minazuki stirred inside her mind, a screech of metal and frost:
"We... are changing..."
Unohana's fingers trembled on the vial:
"No. Not yet."
A violent tremor ran through the hallway.
Cracked stone. The ceiling shook.
Unohana shouted sharply:
"Isane! Move!"
The entire east wing collapsed behind them in a roaring waterfall of stone and ice.
Isane screamed as a shock wave of corrupted light threw her back, tearing the ground apart. She crashed into an interior trauma room and forced the doors open.
Unohana reached out-
A stone slab crashed between them.
Her heart skipped a beat and then stuttered:
"ISANE!"
Each beat became slower than the last.
Unohana pressed a hand against the rubble.
Her fingers instantly froze on the surface.
She released them, the skin splitting and the blood crystallising as it dripped.
She didn't flinch.
Unohana whispered:
"I'll catch up with you."
A faint sound echoed from the shadows:
"...C...Captain..."
Unohana turned.
Yasochika Iemura was half embedded in a moonlit column of frost. His uniform was torn and his lower body had fused with the crystal, preserved but trapped. His breathing clouded slightly.
Iemura gasped:
"Captain... it's freezing... it... hurts. But I can't scream. Am I... dying?"
Unohana placed two fingers on his neck.
A pulse... weak, suspended. Alive, but not alive.
Unohana quitely:
"Not dying, but not living."
The frost around them shone brighter.
The resonance was getting stronger.
Iemura's eyes widened:
"Captain, behind you!"
Unohana spun.
A wave of corrupted spiritual power hit the hallway - it is not frost, nor flame, but pure solidified moonlight, a liquid glow cascading like water.
Unohana drew Minazuki.
The light froze in the air in front of her, suspended like a captured scream.
Her sword wavered, crystalline edges forming along the steel.
Inside her mind, Minazuki whispered:
"Let it in... let's evolve."
Unohana's grip tightened until her knuckles bled:
"No."
She slashed once.
The moonlight shattered like brittle glass.
But the glow that remained around her... it didn't fade.
It ran up her arm, through her veins, and turned her blood pale as glass.
Unohana staggered for the first time in centuries.
Her knees buckled.
She clung to the wall, breathing hard.
Fracture.
A crack echoed within her ribs.
Her body was breaking down.
But not her mind.
Medical Wing, South Wing
Far away in the ruined corridor of the south wing, a faint glow pulsed within a cocoon of ice.
Kiyone remained preserved inside - mid-step, eyes closed, expression terrified but peaceful.
Corruption erupted around her.
Her eyes snapped open.
For a moment - just one-
Kiyone's lips moved:
"...Isane..."
Then she stood still again.
At the edge of the 1st Division
Three 1st Division officers dragged Yamamoto's body over broken tiles. His haori was half burned, half frozen. Wisps of cold blue flames escaped from his sleeve.
The officers shouted:
"Head Captain! Stay with us!"
His eyes widened - a burning coal now surrounded by icy blue.
A whisper escaped his lips:
"...Kuchiki... girl..."
The black moon in Hueco Mundo faintly reflected in his pupils.
Then he lost consciousness again.
The Seireitei stood still.
Not snowy.
Not frosted.
But bathed in a dim, pale glow - moonlight that had no source, floating like dust.
The bells stopped ringing. The wind stopped. The entire city held its breath.
A city caught between dying and waiting.
Back to the Ruins of the 4th Division
Unohana pressed a hand against her heart, feeling the corrupted cold seeping into her bloodstream.
Her reiatsu flickered - crimson streaked with white and blue.
The most dangerous Soul Reaper in Soul Society was losing control.
She forced her shaking legs forward.
Unohana's voice firm despite the cracks:
"Iemura, remain conscious. I'll come back for you."
She walked past him.
Her footsteps left faint traces of frost.
Medical Wing, Trauma Ward
Unohana reached the inner trauma room, or what was left of it.
The door was hanging on its hinges. Moonlight pooled on the ground like water.
Isane lay against a bed, thrown there by the explosion, unconscious once again. The bandages glowed faintly due to environmental corruption.
Unohana approached-
Her fingers froze when she reached for Isane's cheek.
If it touched her lieutenant...
She would infect her.
Her hand shook.
Unohana whispered:
"No, not you. Never you."
She withdrew her hand.
Her blood split within her veins.
Her breath came out like ice crystals.
She was alone in the pale glow, waging war within her own body.
Unohana looked at the trembling vial of blood still in her palm.
The moonlight inside it pulsed with a heartbeat.
Rukia.
Alive.
Changing.
Evolving.
Unohana closed her eyes.
Unohana's voice was soft, cold, almost broken:
"This moonlight... it's just the beginning."