17 Months

Chapter 23: I Fought the Law and…

Week 27

The man in the maintenance uniform held up the hack saw to his face. The teeth were filed to the quick, no longer piercingly sharp, but flat and blunt, "I don't get it, sir! This is the third blade I used and I switched to the diamond blade! None of them make a scratch in this material and the bolt cutters didn't make a dent either! What the hell are these things made of?!"

The man used everything in the large red tool box short of an acetylene torch to try and remove the black and silver bracelets on Grimmjow's wrists. The detective lazily sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. He tuned out halfway through the second attempt to cut through the still pristine brushed metal. Grimmjow was smirking smugly and about to open his mouth for a snide remark. Just then, a familiar voice lofted from the left bracelet.

"Ah, I see the first field test of your new alloy was a success, Tessai-san, but please, go no further, gentlemen, I do not want my dear boy injured in your attempts to remove the metallic devices, for you will be unable to. ...Unless you remove his hands from his wrists. I suppose that would be one way around your ingenious material, Tessai, but there should be very few people willing to go that far? Add that to the legal disclaimer, though... As a precautionary measure, a cease and desist letter will be delivered to you shortly along with your orders to transfer Jageraques -san to the police station posthaste."

"Posthaste?" The idle detective drawled. His surprise of the disembodied voice barely registering.

"Yes, detective Fukushima. I wish for my dear Grimmjow's transfer immediately." The astute scientist proclaimed.

"Well, I-," just then, a double rap at the door interrupted the detective's objection.

The officer guarding the exit opened the door swiftly and a man dressed in a cheap brown suit handed papers over to the detective just getting up from his seat. "I am Sonara, from the chief prosecutor's office. I have received a cease and desist. You are to stop the removal of the devices. Here is the transfer order for Jageraques -san. Yamazaki-sensei would see him now." The man bowed and beckoned for two orderlies and two officers to come into the room. They proceeded to get Grimmjow ready for the transfer, attaching his iv bag to the back of the bed and placing a blanket over his body to hide the restraints from prying eyes in the hallways. The officers positioned themselves at the front and the back of the bed to escort the bluenette to wherever he was going.

"I- I see. Well. I will be sure to accompany my prisoner to the station with limbs attached, whomever you are." Detective Fukushima said with a stale tone.

"Quite right, detective. I would not want it any other way. You have worked so long and diligently on this case, you deserve above all, an explanation of my client's innocence," Urahara quipped most honestly to the detective. "All will be understood soon, detective."

With a sigh, the detective followed Grimmjow's processional down the hall to the elevator and up from the basement holding area back to the emergency bay where an ambulance was there to take him to the precinct. Kiba presumed they kept Grimmjow attached to the bed to keep his IV fluids dripping into him until the last possible moment.

When they arrived at the station, the languid detective heard the distant roar of the young orange-head's words through the ambulance walls. Grimmjow called for Ichigo just as loudly, proclaiming his healthy status. After several minutes the back doors were opened, and the detective stepped out to see who was there to greet them.

A very prominent looking, middle aged man with a fancy dark green suit and slicked back blonde hair was standing mere feet away with chief prosecutor Yamazaki. His eyes seemed almost arrogant if not for the jaunty way he was twirling his cain in his right hand like it was a fashion statement rather than something he needed for stability.

The man called out to the ambulance in a sing-song cadence, "Grimmjow-san, not to worry! Papa Urahara is here to put all the wrongs to right! Please, cooperate with these fine gentlemen. Do not put up a fuss as they escort you into the building for our meeting." He leaned over to the prosecutor, "Yamazaki-sensei, he will not be one bit of trouble for you here on out. He usually is rather a playful kitten at home, I assure you." The blonde man quipped with a playful smirk towards the stoic prosecutor.

"Unrestraint him from the bed and remove his IV. Escort him to interrogation room 1," the prosecutor commanded with a twitch of his long white whiskers.

"You are this young man's father?" Fukushima eyed the blonde man but kept his disbelief to himself.

"Detective Fukushima, I presume?" Kisuke bowed respectively to the law man, "only in spirit, as you probably deduced, detective. He is my charge, and my most valuable test subject, amongst other titles. I will also be his counsel for these proceedings, though I usually keep my practice of the law to patents, for which I do own… many." The gleam of confidence in the scientist's eye was too much for the detective.

Grimmjow emerged from the ambulance door's and looked around, "where's Ichi?" He grunted.

"I sent him home, Grimmjow-san. He does not need to be here for this part." Urahara waited for the officers escorting Grimmjow to step ahead of them and lead them into the building.

"Yeah, with who?"

The scientist did not respond.

"What the hell, Brainiac?! You let him go flitting off without an escort?" Grimmjow crowed over his shoulder to the eccentric scientist.

"He will be fine, he is being monitored. We are here to assist you now in your time of need my boy."

"We?" Grimmjow entered the interrogation room. A pair of golden eyes amused herself and a handlebar mustache twitched his annoyance at the blue-haired man's predicament.

Yoruichi sat cross legged in her crisp, black, power suit. The red stilettos she wore looked as deadly as her anken. Tessai, in his navy suit curving around his huge muscles, went back to furiously typing on the laptop before him after a nod of acknowledgement. Grimmjow was prompted to sit in the seat pulled out for him next to Yoruichi and Kisuke sat next to him. Detective Fukushima filed in on the opposite side of the table along with chief prosecutor Yamazaki.

The older, bald Yamazaki started, "the evidence against your client is insurmountable. I have granted you this meeting in good faith because of your long-standing contributions to this community, Urahara-sensei. I should let you plead your case to a jury instead."

"I thank you most graciously, Yamazaki-sensei. You are a paragon of lawfulness in our fair city and I would not let you dispense an expensive, lengthy trial with a defendant who is not the perpetrator of these heinous crimes. That would be a most unfortunate event for all." Urahara gazed with intelligent eyes at the older prosecutor.

The prosecutor grunted and fell silent. Grimmjow rolled his eyes, "God, can we get on with this? So much yapping, sheesh."

Urahara cleared his throat, "yes well, first of all, I know that you do not need to show me any of the evidence gathered against my client at the moment. I can only show you how anything you have gathered is inconsequential to the truth I have in my possession."

The prosecutor stared pointedly at the scientist turned lawman, the detective leaned back in his chair and sighed, "that is true, we do not have to divulge any information to you, what do you think this is? America?"

"No, but I thought we should dispense with the formalities of this tedious process. Here is all the evidence I need to keep my boy out of jail." Urahara nods to Tessai and he turns his laptop around to the prosecutor and detective.

The elderly prosecutor looks down at the laptop with his eyes but doesn't move a muscle, "What is this I am looking at?"

"Proprietary software. I assume since you are both upstanding lawmen, a nondisclosure agreement would be unnecessary, yes?" The law men said no words.

Yoruichi sighed a huge sigh. "You really don't know when to shut up, do you?" She mumbled under her breath.

"Yes, ok then! To the point. The metallic devices my ward is wearing is part of our next technological breakthrough." Urahara waved his hands like he pulled a rabbit out of his butt. The beastly blue man doesn't react to his cue and looks up with a 'what now?!' look on his face. The delusional science man nods and his eyes bug out, mouthing 'come on' to the bluenette. Grimmjow exasperatedly takes his hand cuffed hands out of lap and flashes the bracelets with over exaggerated jazz hands.

"Thank you, son. Outwardly, these are mere pieces of fashion to the discernible eye. Indiscernibly, they are highly sophisticated tracking instruments, made of the thinnest, most impervious alloy known to man. Patent pending. The applications of this alloy are infinite. Our first requisition has actually been government funded." The blonde, rogue Shinigami crossed his arms and smiled broadly.

"The Japanese government is involved in these… what exactly are these?" Detective Fukushima drones.

"Yes! And they can verify my work for we have been sharing our data since my ward has been wearing the technology."

"What? I thought these were- "

"Yes but, they are also more, of course. What did you think? I was merely some humanitarian, handing out free rides to every poor soul to grace my doorstep?" The blue haired man dropped his head to the table in defeat at the scientist's confession. "Oh, boy. Do not be so histrionic. I got mine and you got yours, so to speak. Now, gentlemen, after the first of February this year, that is when Grimmjow-san started using the devices, tell me the date and time one of the victims you seem to think my ward caused to perish?

The old prosecutor and detective looked at each other, then the older man nodded his approval to divulge information. "February 19th, approximately 3 pm," the detective said.

Tessai typed into the computer and a traveling blue blip on a map came up. There was a timer that moved from 12 o'clock pm February 18th to 12 o'clock pm February 20th. He turned the computer back around to the other side of the table. The lawmen's gazes traveled with the blip then back up to the scientist. When a little too much time awkwardly passed, the scientist began, "now, this is the movement of Jagerjaques-san from before to after the aforementioned incident. Is this anywhere near the crime scene?"

"The woman was taken to this sight and dumped," the elderly prosecutor pointed to a point on the map that was not close to Grimmjow's blip," we do not know where she or any other victim was held. Jagerjaques-san could have an accomplice that moves his victims for him."

Fukushima slanted his eyes towards the prosecutor and away. He adjusted his legs and resumed staring dispassionately at the computer screen.

"I do not think your detective agrees with your assessment of the situation, however, to show my complete willingness to cooperate with your investigation, I will now give you the audio pertaining to the time the crime was supposedly taking place."

"You've been recording me! This whole damn time?!"

"You signed the contract, dear, do not make a fuss if you did not bother reading it," the scientist's smiling lips hardly moved as he motioned to Tessai, "about 3pm the 19th you say?"

Tessai clicked away at the keyboard and a sound emerged.

"You're such a gooood boooooy. You like that don't ya, hahaha. Does scratching behind your other ear make the other leg twitch? Yes, it does, it does!"

"Meow, meow!"

"Urahara said we can keep you, would ya like that, boy?"

"Meooooooooww!"

"Yes, you do, cutie! Aww, that tickles! Such a lovey cutie kitty cat- "

"Ok, stop stop stop! You got the gist! I wasn't killing anyone," Grimmjow moaned into his palms as Tessai hit pause on the recording. Yoruichi failed miserably at holding back her laughter.

"As you can see and hear, gentlemen, Mr. Jagerjaques was not in any capacity to commit the crime you are accusing him of that day and I have many other quite colorful examples of his whereabouts at any given time. Either of you are more than welcome to look up any point of your timeline in our system. I can assure you will not find any evidence to the contrary." Urahara patted a still dismal Grimmjow on the shoulder.

"Please, I beg you, don't tell Ichi about the voice recordings. For the love of Kami and yourselves," Grimmjow slumped into his chair, hanging his head back, contemplating to the ceiling, "am I free to go?"

The detective shrugged; the prosecutor kept still. "I will stay here and look up the rest of the timeline, detective Fukushima. You may escort Mr. Jaegerjaques and his counsel out of the building. But as I see it, we will pursue Mr. Jaegerjaques no further."

"Excellent! Then you may do so, chief prosecutor. Tessai will stay here until you are satisfied. Thank you both for your conscientious scrutiny during this uncomfortable situation and I do hope you get your true culprit soon," Urahara bowed slightly to the pair across the table.

The detective got up and opened the door for the group, staring into all their faces as they left the room. They stopped, just before the outside doors and the detective removed the handcuffs from Grimmjow's wrists, "You interested in telling me more about what you know about my investigation? Maybe the redhead?"

"If there is any other information my clients are willing to divulge, we will set up a meeting accordingly with you and the prosecutor but for now we will adjourn for the evening. Jaegerjaques-san and Kurosaki-san have much to recover from. Now, if you please, inform the press of your honest yet false arrest."

And with that, Urahara Kisuke placed a floppy, green striped hat upon his head and opened the door to the police station. He tilted the hat over his brow to obscure his face from the flashing cameras of the press. Yoruichi threw a cloth from her briefcase over Grimmjow's head and ushered him through the opened doors. She raked her golden eyes over the indolent detective and smiled into his handsome face then sauntered out the door. Before the detective could comment on what a pleasure it was to meet her, she seemed to vanish out of sight. Detective Fukushima strolled out the door and looked around for Grimmjow and the group. They were nowhere to be seen. He got a face full of camera flashes and proceeded to inform the reporters a killer was still on the loose.

Yoruichi opened the drivers side door and sat in the soft leather seat of the black sedan they took to the station. She heaved a deep breath as Urahara opened the back door and Grimmjow slid in, the blonde-haired shop owner sat down in the back beside him and closed the door.

"You really know how to keep it lively, Grimmjow," Yoruichi smirked as she leaned her head against the headrest.

"Bite me, Minxy," Grimmjow snarled, "drive me to Ichi. Where did he go? To the shop? Home?"

Urahara stared into the distance with a knowing smirk, seeking out Ichigo's minuscule reiatsu. After the customary 2 seconds it usually takes to locate most people, Urahara's smirk faded, his eyes searched the air before him. Yoruichi turned her head to him with serious eyes.

"What the hell is going on, people?" Grimmjow sat up and looked at them both.

Urahara took out his phone and pressed the screen a few times and the phone dialed on speaker, "Kurosaki- "

"I've been looking for the past hour. He was on his way home and 20 minutes into his walk, it disappeared. Completely. It wasn't the usual way people transition to a ghost. It was different, like, one moment it was there and the next it was gone. I'm downtown about eight blocks from you. Come here now."