A Wandering Soul [Multicross OC] [Currently in: RWBY]

[Azura]

Spirit 2.1

The Dangai was definitely not the kind of place you want to spend a lot of time in. Even if we weren't trying to outrun the collapsing path behind us, the oozing purple walls, bone strewn floor, and chaotic sky were all enough for me to try getting through as fast as possible.

Yoruichi was doing her best to encourage everyone to move as fast as they could through the narrow corridor, and I, I was trying not to be sick from the nausea that kicked in the second I was through the senkaimon. It wasn't something to do with the surroundings. It actually felt similar to when I first showed up in this universe. Well maybe toned back to like one percent of that.

Still, does that mean that going through the gate is affecting my soul? Cause if so, this could be really bad. I really hope that my soul is not going to come apart at the seams cause I don't have any idea how I would go about fixing something like that.

All of us are trying to move faster to keep ahead of the collapse, but just because things weren't dangerous enough, the Cleaner decides to show up now of all times! A huge mass of whatever exactly this dimension is made up of that reduces anything it caches into dust before merging it into the walls.

Right as we get closer to the exit of the Dangai I feel something shift inside me. The nausea kicking into high gear and paralyzing me, forcing me to stop running or risk falling over. Luckily for me though, Orihime in a move that was either genius or moronic manages to cast one of her shields. When the Cleaner rams into the glowing wall, the resulting force was enough to eject all of us out of the Dangai. Even as we crash into the Soul Society, I feel whatever shifted snap back into place. But it's different. Like some small ache that was constantly out of my perception just went away, and something vast had just made itself known at the edge of my mind.

Ignoring recent developments until I had a safe spot to actually think about what just happened, I brushed myself off and looked around our crash site. Unfortunately our entrance kicked up a bunch of smoke, so getting a look at the surroundings was impossible for now. Looking at the others confirms that everyone made it out of the crash just fine. Well, Yoruichi is tearing into Orihime about what could of happened if the Cleaner actually touched her power directly instead of the shield.

"Relax Yoruichi. She couldn't have known the dangers we might have faced in the Dangai without us telling her. If anything it's our fault for not considering the possibility of running into the Cleaner on our way here."

Yoruichi turned on me, "We would spend hours on the dangers they might encounter if we tried to tell them beforehand! And I know you all heard me tell Ichigo not to use his Zanpakuto lest he never be able to escape the Dangai. That should have been everyone's first clue to not come in contact with that thing." She walked closer to me and continued in a whisper, "And do not think I missed what happened to you, Alexandria. We will be talking about that later."

"She kept her head in a stressful situation and acted to defend her teammates. Remember they might be pretty powerful, but they don't have too much real world experience. I think she did well even if it wasn't the best move." I replied, ignoring the last bit.

"Yeah! We are all fine cause of Inoue. You don't have to get so mad about it." Jumped in Ichigo, apparently having his friend being told off for protecting us all rubbing him the wrong way.

"I feel as if the both of you don't quite understand our current situation!" growled Yoruichi.

Before our argument could get much further we were distracted by Uryu calling out that the smoke was clearing, letting us get our first look at the Soul Society. In a word, the surroundings were… simple. It looked more like we ended up in a historical reenactment village than what most people would consider the afterlife.

"This… this is the Soul Society?" questions Ichigo, sounding shocked by the surroundings. Not surprising considering I'm sure Rukia talked up the Soul Society as a much better place than what we see here.

"That's right." confirmed Yoruichi. "We are currently near the outskirts, otherwise known as the Rukon District. This is where the majority of souls come to live when they first enter the Soul Society. In the center of the Rukongai is the Seireitei where Soul Reapers and the nobility live. Though the Rukongai is the poorest area in the Soul Society it is also has the most freedom."

"Mostly cause anything of value has already been sent somewhere else," I interjected, earning a glare from Yoruichi. Though the lack of argument on her part was damning in its own way.

We wander through the empty streets for a bit before coming to a wide open area. A literal dividing line between the Rukon District and the Seireitei as the buildings in the distance are all in much better repair than the ones surrounding us.

Naturally this means Ichigo feels the need to rush off ahead of the rest of us. "Hey, those buildings all look different! I bet that's the Seirei-whatever where all the Soul Reapers live! Let's check it out!"

With that Ichigo charges across the gap, nearly ignoring Yoruichi's warning and just barely avoiding getting crushed by the descending walls. I looked up towards the sky. Where the hell was the wall suspended from anyway? Seems like a waste to have a wall move like that, especially if you have it set to descend the moment someone tries to cross into the Seireitei. It seems in character though, Soul Reapers were a dramatic bunch if nothing else.

Speaking of dramatic, "Well now. It's been quite some time since someone tried to enter the Seireitei without a travel permit. Come at me however you want, kid!" boomed the giant Soul Reaper.


Looking at the gatekeeper in front of us it was easy to see why people wouldn't try to approach. Hell, I knew I could take him pretty easily and yet the sheer size of him was making me a little nervous. The giant was crouched on the ground but even with that he was over 15 feet tall. The shihakusho marked him as a Soul Reaper even with the left half missing, instead it was replaced by a full arm guard of metal plates. I was a little interested in why he carried an axe instead of a Zanpakuto but might not be the best time to ask since we seem to be invading at the moment.


"He's huge!" exclaimed Uryu, unknowingly echoing my thoughts. "There's no way someone that big is human, right? Who even is he?"

"That would be Jidanbo, one of the elite guards of the Soul Society and the gatekeeper of the western district." explained Yoruichi.

"A guard, huh? Guess that means we need to beat him if we want to get through that gate."

"Well if you wanted to attract the attention of every Soul Reaper here then yeah probably." I said. "Luckily for us we don't really need to pass through this gate."

"True, it's a good thing too. Jidanbo hasn't been defeated once in the 300 years he's been guarding the gate. Hey Ichigo come on back so we can mo- Wait Chad, Orihime, what are you doing!?"

Ignoring Yoruichi, both teenagers rush to meet up with Ichigo. Only to draw the attention of Jidanbo. Luckily, instead of attacking the two of them he slams his axe into the ground causing it to shift and form a rough wall between us and Ichigo.

While I wasn't really worried about Ichigo fighting Jidanbo, I was kinda hoping we could move on to the actual plan without drawing more attention. But the more I thought about it the better this was for us as a group. Ichigo needed actual combat experience, human opponents (or whatever Jidabo actually was) fought very differently than Hollows. In addition to that he needs to get used to attacking people to not freeze up when someone actually got hurt. Urahara put him through a crash try-not-to-die training course, but wouldn't actually condition Ichigo to hurt his opponent since I doubt Ichigo got a single hit in. Uryu needed to see Soul Reapers as something other than enemy soldiers that needed to be taken down or he might just start killing every Soul Reaper he runs across drawing more hostile forces than necessary, and Jidanbo was a known quantity as one of the better personalities in the Soul Reapers.

Chad and Orihime needed an introduction to the kind of opponents they would be facing. Their limited exposure to the spiritual side of things meant that they would need to learn quickly and seeing it first hand would drive that point home better than a lecture from either me or Yoruichi.

So rather than step in, I just watched as Ichigo reduced an over 300 year old giant into a crying mess with one sword swing.

Which was all kinds of awkward.

Luckily Ichigo was the one dealing with that mess. Though the final result got… weird.

"I've been utterly defeated!" bawled Jidanbo. "Not only did you defeat me as a fighter, you have also beaten me as a man!"

He stopped to wipe his eyes, looking over to Ichigo. "I have been the guardian of this gate for the last 300 years. I have never been defeated before now. You are the first."

Giving us all a bright smile, he continued, "You can pass. I, Jidanbo as the Keeper of the Western Gate grant you passage."

Watching the scene before me was kinda heartwarming, as Ichigo and Uryu bickered over the need for a group leader and Jidanbo prepared to open the gate. It felt like one of those tales where the heroes manage to befriend everyone they come across and things just work out.

That feeling went away when Jidanbo's arm was nearly sliced in half after he opened the gate. On the other side of the wall Gin Ichimaru slowly approached the now open gate, a snake-like smile on his face. True to pattern Ichigo rushed ahead of everyone else, this time I was expecting it and made to follow… only for Yoruichi to sink her claws into the back of my skirt-cape.

"Alexandria, we can't fight a captain here. We need to pull back before more Soul Reapers show up. Grab the others before this gets even worse." Yoruichi hissed.

I wanted to argue that Ichigo needed my help more, but Yoruichi had way more experience and this wasn't the time to try and challenge her on that.

While I went to corral the other three Yoruichi tried to get Ichigo to pull back. I doubted that she would have much success considering how stubborn he tended to be. A feeling that was proven accurate when Ichigo was slammed into Jidanbo, causing both of them to fly out of the gate.

Unlike in my memories, the gate did not immediately close when Jidanbo was forced away. The long years without proper maintenance meant the gate door was temporarily stuck open allowing Gin to get a second attack in if he felt like it. And from where he was looking… shit, Orihime.

In an instant I projected a bow and arrow and unleashed a grazing attack. Nothing that would seriously harm a captain, but it was enough to distract him from Orihime.

"A bow? Is she a Quincy?!" I heard Uryu ask in shock behind me.

"Well now, that was pretty dangerous wouldn't ya say miss?" Gin asked.

"Not really, but I don't have time to play with you right now."

The gate was almost closed. Unless Gin wanted to pursue us outside the Seireitei, we should be in the clear.

"That is unfortunate" Gin replied smoothly. Ugh, this guy really nailed the creepy vibe. "Hopefully we can play some other time. Bye-bye!"

He gave all of us a small wave as the gate slammed back closed.

"Well that could have gone better." I commented idly. "Orihime and Chad please go make sure Jidanbo doesn't bleed out on us. Uryu keep an eye on them.

"O-of course, leave it to me!"

"Hmm"

"Wait, you can't just walk away like this!"

Can, and currently am. Not the time for a breakdown of my abilities Uryu. Making my way over to Ichigo and Yoruichi I noticed the locals had finally decided to show themselves. They seemed pretty calm despite facing a group of people that defeated an elite Soul Reaper and stood against a captain. Then again I do remember most Soul Reapers aren't really liked outside the Seireitei.

Hello everyone!" I said brightly. "How has your morning been?"

-0-​

A few hours later we found ourselves in the home of one of the elders of the area. Well at least Uryu, Yoruichi, and myself. Chad had gone off with one of the souls earlier and hadn't returned.

Orihime was still treating Jidanbo's arm and Ichigo had gone to collect her a little while ago.

Uryu for his part refused to let me out of his sight, even when the others had scattered to explore the area a little. Even when I said that I wasn't a Quincy he refused to leave it at that and followed me around.

"Alexandria, you should get set up before the others get back. We will likely need to leave in the morning so you don't have long." Yoruichi said.

I nodded to her and stood up to leave. Uryu again went to follow me, no doubt to pester me about the bow again.

"Ishida just so you know, I need you back here when the others arrive."

Nodding Uryu continued to follow me until we were back in front of the western gate to the Seireitei. Once there, I got to work. Pulling several small tools out of a pouch I kept on hand for this reason.

"What are you doing?"

Looking over to Uryu I saw him looking at my instruments with curiosity. "Well I suppose the best way to put it is I'm marking an area for a spell."

"Marking an area? I see, then I suppose you have another way for us to open the gate then?"

"Nope." I began writing out the spell formula being careful to avoid any mistakes. Good news was, if I did make a mistake I likely wouldn't live long enough to feel it.

Uryu waited for me to explain, but when it became clear that I was content to let the silence stretch out he resumed asking me about what exactly my powers were.

"Why do you reject being a Quincy so much? The others might not know the specifics, but the way you formed that bow was extremely similar to the spirit weapon created by the Sanrei Glove. If you want to reject your heritage so much at least tell me why!"

Finishing the line I was working on, I stopped drawing the spell circle and turned to Uryu. He looked remarkably upset that I continued to deny being a Quincy, and in some respects I could understand why. From what I remember his father also rejected being a Quincy but avoided dealing with anything spiritual, to see another person use an ability with even a small resemblance to Quincy techniques also rejecting being called a Quincy was probably a blow to his ego.

"Uryu care to tell me exactly what a Quincy is? Not a philosophy but the ability that makes a person a Quincy."

He looked confused as to why I was asking this but explained all the same. "A Quincy is a human that can control the Reishi in the air to create spirit weapons to fight with."

"Exactly. And that is why I'm saying I'm not a Quincy." I held up a hand to stop him from interrupting. "There are a couple points I could make to say why I don't fit the definition of a Quincy, but the biggest one is that I don't use Reishi at all. I don't use Reiryoku for that matter either."

"That's impossible! You wouldn't be able to see a spiritual being without Reiryoku let alone fight without it!" Uryu exclaimed.

"Well I don't. I use an energy called Mana. It's similar enough that the two share some traits, but they aren't exactly the same. For instance that bow you saw earlier? It wasn't a spirit weapon. I used Mana to create a physical manifestation of a mental image and used that to attack." An oversimplification of projection maybe, but it should be enough to prove my point.

"Now I know this is going to take some time to complete. You probably should head back to the other unless you want to watch me draw for a few hours. I'll meet up with you all when I'm done."

Uryu nodded hesitantly before walking off in the direction of the Elder's house.

Looking back at the beginnings of the circle I picked up my tools and continued writing.

This was going to take a while.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.2

By the time I had finished with the spell circle the sun had gone down. Since I was sure Yoruichi had finished explaining what our next steps were to the others and we were only going to head out in the morning I took my time returning to the Elder's house.

Which might have been a good thing since as I turned the corner I was forced to jump back to avoid getting trampled by a group of delinquent looking people riding… boars?

Oh right, I guess that means everyone got to meet Ganju. Honestly I kinda forgot about him. Still that reunion should be entertaining, so now I'm looking forward to it. When I made it back to the house Ichigo was raging about some jackass leaving in the middle of a fight while the other either ignored him or tried to calm him down.

I made my way past that mess and headed to the guest room we had been loaned for the night. With any luck Yoruichi would be too preoccupied with Ichigo to remember what had happened in the Dangai.

"Alexandria."

Or she could just be waiting for me to be alone so I don't have an excuse to avoid her.

"What's new pussycat?" Just because I wasn't likely to get out of this talk didn't mean I had to be serious about it.

"We need to talk."

"Well as much as I enjoy your company, I tend to like my girls a little taller and much less fuzzy. Hope this doesn't change what we have between us, I do like you as a friend."

"Would you be serious!" Yoruichi snapped, apparently not appreciating my sense of humor.

"Not if I can help it."

The two of us stare at each other, each waiting for the other to break the silence. Since I didn't really want to talk about what happened, I was fine with not saying anything. Unfortunately Yoruichi is perfectly aware of this and continues probing.

"Is it such a big deal that you really won't talk about it even if it clearly affects you that much?"

I mulled her words over a bit. "It has some implications I really don't want to think about, so I'm using the classic coping method of repression."

"Is it linked to how you were experimented on?"

My head snapped over to Yoruichi. How the hell did she come to that conclusion? I had been very reluctant to discuss my past due to how outrageous it was, but I was confident I had never said anything that would lead someone to think I had a history as a science experiment.

"How…"

"You get really cagey about where you came from, were very focused on Kisuke's background as a scientist when we first met, freaked out about the gegai development lab and never went near it again, and need to be either surprised into medical checkups or physically delivered to them. Kisuke also thinks he saw a few signs of soul modification but they are so slight it's more of a hunch than solid evidence."

I mean, she wasn't wrong about everything she said but all of that could be easily explained away as unrelated behavior. Most people didn't like medical checkups after all, and the gegai lab is literally just covered in dismembered body parts. That Urahara had apparently noticed the soul modifications was new though

"You figured it out with only that?" I said a little weakly.

"Well, no. There are a bunch of smaller details but those were the highlights. So? What happened in the Dangai?"

"Alright, fine." I sighed heavily. "Let me give you some background before we get to that. You're right, I was made as some kinda soul experiment. I was told I was a test to integrate several skills directly into the soul of a single personality to be used as a mass producible soldier. Unfortunately for me, it didn't go very well. So rather than a supersoldier my creator ended up with a barely stable mess. I didn't have the innate understanding of my abilities I was supposed to, and even the knowledge of what some of those abilities might be would have been enough to destabilize me. Rather than be disposed I made my way to Karakura, and ran into Urahara shortly afterwards."

Hopefully that is informative enough that is enough that Urahara and Yoruichi won't try to figure out more about my past. Really not sure how I could give them the whole story without sounding crazy.

"Who exactly was your creator? And could you take us back to where you escaped from after this?" Asked Yoruichi.

Bleh, guess she would want to check up on a scientist hacking souls together to create a mass produced army. Hmm, how to spin this…

"I never actually found out his name. We only talked once. And once I made sure he would never be able to follow me I cleared out the area I was in when I left. As for going back, sorry but I have no idea how I would do that."

All technically true statements. I never found out ROB's name, he flat out told me coming to any one dimension would pop the thing so he can't follow me, I think, and the soul jar I was in would be empty when I was tossed out. With a little luck Yoruichi might think that I killed my creator and burned the lab down before making my escape, but I'm not going to volunteer anything else about that if I can help it.

"So after all that, I figured I that was the end of it and I could just move on with my life. But when we entered the Dangai, I felt my soul shift around a bit. Just enough that when we entered the Soul Society it actually repaired some of the damage I didn't even know was there."

"Damage?" Yoruichi asked leadingly.

"Yep, you know how I do this?" I asked, projecting a simple katana in my hand. "It's actually not the full extent of what I should be able to do. While I was off making the spell circle, I started trying to figure out if anything changed. Turns out, our little trip fixed my ability. Now I can do this."

'I am the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and fire is my blood
I have created over a thousand blades'

[TRACE ON]

In my other hand a new sword formed. The hilt was covered in a simple black wrapping and had a sharp bend where a red tassel hung from the golden endcap. Instead of a more traditional tsuba, there was a golden u-shaped metal piece that extended up a few inches on the perfectly straight blade. Despite the elegant look of the sword, there was a distinct aura of bloodlust coming off the blade making it seem like the sword itself was eager to cut everything around it.

"Alexandria what exactly have you done." Yoruichi hissed dangerously. Her tone alone made it clear it was not a question, and if she didn't like the answer she would make me regret it. Still she was taking this better than Urahara did, it was one of the only times he fought me seriously. Though seeing someone manhandle the manifestation of your soul would rub most Soul Reapers the wrong way, even if the copy I made then lacked the presence of this one.

"I created a copy." I said simply. "A perfect copy nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Although I haven't really mastered it yet."

Yoruichi settled back on her haunches, at least calm enough to hear me out. "And how deep does this copy go? If you managed to get the feeling the blade gives off did you copy the Zanpakuto's spirit as well? Is it as powerful as the real thing?" She pauses for a second, "Did you doing this affect Kisuke at all?"

"Like I said, it's a perfect copy. Well, at least of the sword. Since I only have Urahara's, Gin's, and Ichigo's to go by I'm guessing for some of it."
Yoruichi nodded in acceptance.
"The copy I make seems to have the full abilities at the moment I see it. I don't know if that means all the abilities of the Zanpakuto or just the ones it can perform at that moment."

"Wait, does that mean you can copy the Bankai as well?!" Yoruichi cuts in.

"Doesn't seem like it. I can't use either Gin or Urahara's Bankai, probably due to the nature of Bankai in general. I don't copy the Zanpakuto spirit as it turns out. No idea if that means I can copy a Bankai if I see one though…" I trailed off, distracted by the thought until I was pulled back to the conversation by an impatient cough. "Right, no, me creating a copy won't affect the user at all. The entire thing is sustained through my powers. No input from the original at all."

After my explanation she finally relaxes enough that I don't feel like I'm going to be attacked if I say the wrong thing.

"You never said if they are as strong as the original"

I let out a frustrated snort, "Yeah, well currently they aren't, even if they should be. Annoyingly thats just cause I haven't mastered the ability, not because of an actual restriction."

"That's how most abilities work Alexandria. Why does that bother you?" Yoruichi comments dryly.

"It bugs me cause practice won't help me here. I need to form a deeper connection to the mental plane I have. And its linked to a chant based on me understanding who I am as a person and my soul."

"That actually sounds pretty close to how most Soul Reapers train for Shikai. Though from the sound of it the connection you need is much deeper."

I wasn't exactly looking for sympathy regarding the new troubles I had run into trying to get the full abilities of the Unlimited Blade Works to well...work for me. Still the now unconcerned tone of Yoruichi was getting on my nerves a bit. Now that I explained that I didn't affect her friend with the ability, then everything else was just dependent on training in her mind. But my soul was damaged. Would that mean it was impossible for me to master the UBW until I found a way to fix it? Could I even fix it? I didn't know, and just that alone was frightening. Of course we were also on a schedule so I couldn't even take the time to really adjust to the new changes, I would just have to put my worries aside until our mission here was over.

"Was there anything else you wanted?" I asked somewhat irritatedly.

Yoruichi quirked an eyebrow at my tone, "Not really. Just wanted to make sure you were alright after what happened. Though it seems we got sidetracked a bit.

Will you be ready for tomorrow? The kids and I won't be following you for at least a full day so you could wait a bit if you aren't prepared."

"I'll be fine." I snapped.

Clearly recognizing my worsening temper Yoruichi got up and started towards the door.

"In that case you should get some rest. Goodnight Alexandria."

-o-​

The next morning was a little tense as half of our group were not in good moods at all. I was still a little pissed at Yoruichi for practically accusing me of messing with Urahara's soul at first then dismissing my issues as unimportant. Yoruichi was pissed at Ichigo for wasting time wanting to wait for a full day just to have a rematch with someone he fought last night, partly out of a desire to keep on schedule and at least a little due to realising how she acted last night. She probably realised what she did to piss me off, but was a little too proud to actually apologize about it. Ichigo was in a bad mood for having his fight interrupted but he's getting over it and is currently more concerned about the blood pouring down his face from Yoruichi scratching him.

So basically, now it's down to me and Yoruichi being in bad moods and the other not being sure what to do about it.

While the others finished saying their farewells to the Elder, Orihime made her way over to me, "Um,Miss Alexandria?"

"You can call me Alex, Orihime. I'm not big on formalities."

"Oh okay! So, um, I was just wondering, did something happen last night? Both you and Yoruichi-san seem upset with each other."

Say what you want about her, Orihime was certainly observant of the people around her when she wanted to be.

"It's fine. We had a conversation last night that got a bit out of hand. Nothing to worry about, now you better get ready to leave with the others. Don't want to get left behind do you?"

Orihime gets a confused look on her face, "Leave with the others? Are you not coming with us Alex-san?"

"No, the method Yoruichi wants to use to get inside the walls won't work for me, so I'm going to use a different method and meet all of you inside." I say with a reassuring smile.

With that I push Orihime back towards the rest of the group.

"Now go on! Looks like they are getting ready to head out."

Finally she listens and heads over to the three boys, Ichigo and Uryru arguing about something unimportant while Chad stands impassively nearby. Leaving the perfect chance for Yoruichi to intercept me alone.

"Are you sure you're comfortable heading in there by yourself? It wouldn't be an issue if you waited to catch up with us."

Yoruichi might be awkward about apologising but she does care.

"Yeah, I'm already going to be playing catch-up trying to get to the middle of the Seireitei. If I don't get a head start you guys might be finished before I even get there."

She nods.

"Very well, in that case be careful. We should get a move on as well."

-o-​

Soon after that we all set out for the main road. I would head back towards my spell circle while the rest of the group would head off into the countryside. But for now we were just enjoying a stroll through the streets.

As we walked the town started to wake up around us. People starting their early morning routines or just chatting with neighbors. It was a nice dose of, well not normalcy since it still looked like something out of a historical drama, but it did help improve my mood seeing a bunch of people moving about so relaxed.

Eventually though we reached a crossroad where we would need to head in different directions, so I guess it was time to say goodbye.

"Alright guys, I'm this way" I pointed off towards one of the paths "I'll try to join up with you in the Seireitei, but until then listen to Yoruichi, watch each other's backs and don't let Ichigo do something stupid."

"Hey why am I getting singled out here!?"

"Cause you're the idiot that ran off and fought a gatekeeper when we didn't even need to go that way, then tried to fight a captain, and then apparently got into a fight with a local. All within a day of being here." I mercilessly retorted.

The orange-haired soul reaper looked like he wanted to argue the point but couldn't discount the facts against him. Eventually just grumbling something while everyone else seemed amused.

We said our goodbyes and split off. I finally got back to the spell circle I set up last night and gave it a quick checkover for any errors I might have missed.

Naturally I found nothing considering how many times I checked yesterday. But I was still a bit nervous about actually using the thing. Unfortunately I had a schedule to keep if I wanted to reach the same area as everyone else on time. So I stepped into the middle of the circle, pulled out the proto-device I had created and paused. This was it, no turning back after this.

I sent a wave of mana into the circle around me and connected it to the device in my hand.

The circle lit up in golden light, quickly rising from the ground to above my head. It felt like electricity was dancing over my skin, and then there was a flash and the world vanished into white light.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.3

When the world came back into being, I found myself free falling from about 50 feet in the air and inside the walls of the Seireitei, signifying that the crude teleportation circle I used worked as designed.

Landing as gracefully as I could while feeling disoriented from the teleport, I gathered myself and rushed into a nearby alleyway to recover. Once everything felt settled, I took my first actual look at the buildings surrounding me, plain white warehouse looking things and some white walls topped with orange shingles. Nothing at ground level to tell me where I needed to go. So after a quick check to see if anyone was hanging around I made my way to the top of one of the buildings and looked around.

Naturally, I was still very close to the wall. In fact I was only a few buildings in from the field that existed between the buildings and the wall itself. A bit shorter of a teleport and I would have been completely out in the open. And to the other side, waaay off in the distance was the center of the 13 Court Guard Squads. I had a lot of ground to cover if I wanted to help everyone out.

Though before I started rushing into the thick of things I took another look at the proto-device in my hand. The thing was still smoking from the amount of mana it needed to process to actually safely teleport me the few hundred feet it did, and there was no obvious damage but still never hurts to be sure.

I carefully inspected every bit of the short foot-and-a half baton-like device. No warping, no signs of melted components, and no burning smell. That was likely the best I could ask for concerning the hardware. Now just to check with the software.

"Device; diagnostic check"

After a few seconds a cool female voice replied, "Damage has been detected in the primary emitter matrix. Operational status; Amber. Memory failure in spell recording slot 1. Operational status; Red. No other issues detected. Estimated operational readiness; 83%."

Well that wasn't terrible. Slot one was the teleportation spell, and without another spell circle it was useless anyway. Slots two and three were fine and the emitter didn't melt, looks like I had at least one more use out of the thing before it needed repair or was unusable.

With a sigh, I slid the proto-device into the carrying holster attached to the back of my belt and start off towards the distant tower at a brisk run, taking care to check for any patrolling Soul Reapers, though it seems directly teleporting into the Seireitei means no alarms were set off for now. Now then, Ichigo and the others should get to the Shiba compound sometime around noon. Then, supposing nothing goes wrong, they should be launching first thing the next morning. From there my memory of the timeline gets kinda hazy.

On the first day, Ichigo should fight Ikkaku immediately, Uryu fought some random officer, Orihime hung around Uryu, and Chad did… I don't remember. Maybe just beat on some foot soldiers?

Second day Ichigo fights Renji in a rematch, Uryu and Orihime sneak around a bunch and maybe run into Kurotsuchi, but that might be the third day. Chad…

So, third day. Ichigo runs into Kenpachi. Uryu and Orihime are captured, maybe? Either way I should try and get to them by the second day just to be safe. And Chad…

Did Chad actually do anything or am I just completely forgetting something?

Of course then there is the drama between the officers to remember. At some point Aizen fakes his death, I want to say around day two. Momo looses her mind and starts attacking anyone kinda maybe to do with it. Hitsugaya blames Gin for most of the previous things then eventually finds Aizen in Central 46.

Actually are they already dead? I might be able to mess with Aizen by trying to get in the building. Of course I'd need to know where that is… nah, I doubt I could figure out how to get there without some kinda guide. And Aizen would probably blame me for killing them all somehow, until he pulls his whole 'grand reveal' performance at least.

I had been running in generally the same direction for a while now and it seemed I was coming up to another type of building. The ones I had been passing had all been similar to warehouses and the area had been almost entirely deserted. The one in front of me was a two story building that almost looked like an office. Maybe it was where all the paperwork for what was in the warehouses were stored?

Either way, I decided running straight into the open might be a bad idea, I stopped at the intersection and snuck a peek around the wall I had been following.

The road merged into a wide street leading up to the building I saw earlier. Standing next to a covered gate were two Soul Reapers on guard duty and no easy way around them. I could just start jumping over walls, but that went against my goal of going unnoticed as long as possible.

I could probably snipe the two of them before they could raise an alarm, but do Soul Reapers have check in protocols for guard duty? They seem to switch between using tech and magic based communication methods enough that it's possible. Maybe knock them out and make it look like they were just sleeping on the job? If I was lucky, they would have alcohol on them to really sell the illusion.

I was all but ready to step around the corner and spring my masterful plan (shoot the two of them in the solar plexus with a blunt tip arrow, then rush in and knock them out) when I saw two more Soul Reapers step out of the building and walk up to the ones at the gate.

Early morning shift change, perhaps?

Well no matter what the reason, the new arrivals were enough of a distraction that I was able to step around the corner and use Haste to flash behind one of the open gate doors unnoticed. Sloppy of the guards, but understandable since they hopefully aren't on alert for intruders. Still made it easy to get close enough to listen in on what was being said.

"-be if you didn't spend all night drinking with those chicks from Squad 5 you wouldn't be hungover, moron."

"We're not even that late! Seriously Josuke, what has you so uptight today?"

One of the two standing by the gate scoffed, "He's all prissy cause his idol Jidanbo lost a fight yesterday."

"I'm not pris-" "Wait, what do you mean Jidanbo lost?" The two newcomers seem shocked, guess our incident at the gate still hasn't made its way around.

"Yeah, you know how the perimeter alarms went off yesterday morning? Turns out we had a group try to get in from the West Gate. They beat Jidanbo and and got him to open the gate from what the border groups told us."

"Holy shit, how are we not on alert if we have a group of Ryoka loose in the Seireitei?"

From the sound of it one of the three slapped the speaker, "Dumbass, if they actually managed to get in, we would be. Turns out the Captain of squad three was in the area and stopped them."

"Fucking hells Josuke! What part of hangover didn't you get?! So Captain Ichimaru showed up, is everyone dead then?"

Not-Josuke took over the storytelling, "We don't know. Word from up top is calling for an all-Captains meeting. So who knows what's going on. Just that no one made it through the gate. You guys got it from here, I'm getting breakfast and getting away from Mr. Prissy over here."

"I am not fucking priss-" "Yeah sure thing, say hi to Kimi-chan for me."

"Not a chance."

Sounds like the guards finally switched out and it was back down to two opponents. Good to know that while the rank and file knew our little group was in the area, no one was expecting me to be inside the walls right now.

While I was waiting for the previous two guards to get far enough away any sounds of a scuffle would go unnoticed, the new arrivals seemed to want to continue their conversation.

"So Jidanbo lost then?"

"Seems like it, damn think he'd get in trouble for opening the gate?"

"Hell, I'm wondering if he's even alive. Captain Ichimaru doesn't mess around, the creepy bastard."

"Yeah, hope he's fine though. He's a nice guy. Wonder what would happen if the intruders actually made it inside?"

"Get swarmed by those idiots in squad 11 and picked off by any officer in the area? Come on man, even someone forced the gates there's no way they would get far. If you're looking for a fight, sign up for the next patrol mission, I hear that Hollow activity is picking up a bit."

Ooooh, did I really just hear that? The 'we are too secure for an intruder' cliche? Well then, If the guy remembers this, I hope he learns a valuable lesson.

I was fully aware of the slasher-style grin on my face when I hopped around the door I was hiding behind, two blunted swords in hand. By the way the one guard's face had gone white before I knocked him unconscious, I think I made an impression.

A quick knockout blow to his friend and I now had two guards down for the count. Now then, just had to make sure that they don't wake up and sound the alarm, and like any good mage I had just the spell for that. Well curse technically, but semantics.

I didn't know many curses. The idea of using my powers on someone and giving them a lingering affliction caused by an energy that I think only I was capable of using didn't sit right. Especially if I was the only one capable of removing said affliction. Still there were some minor curses in the Archive that I had no issues using. Schlummern was one such curse since it was basically just enforcing an unconscious state on whoever it's used on. So these two won't wake up until someone else comes by and tries to wake them, and I should be long gone before that happens.

Quickly arranging the two guards so it looked like they were just leaning on the gate and not out cold, I proceeded into the guardhouse. If I was lucky I would be able to find a map, maybe even the patrol detail for the area, but a map would be a godsend. I wasn't super thrilled about running blind through an enemy HQ, and I wanted to mess with Aizen's followers anyway I could. For instance, trashing the squad three barracks? Gin would have to make an appearance to deal with that. Or I could break Tousen's arms… and his legs… and his stupid hypocritical face!

Ahem, right.

So I ghosted through the mostly empty building, it being fairly early in the morning still played to my favor, and ducked into a few rooms to see if any important documents were laying around. Let's see, inventory forms, schedules for up-coming deliveries, forms for requesting materials, forms for submitting workplace injuries, forms for injuries caused by a number of different reasons, forms for creating new forms, and… wow Soul Reapers have a lot of forms.

Looks like there isn't anything worthwhile in this guardhouse. I still have the rest of the day before the others show up, so I'll spend today looking for a map. If I can't find one before the others show up, then I'll head straight to the tower and meet up with Yoruichi. She should know exactly where I could go to cause issues for Aizen.

-o-​

Several hours, three more guard posts, and about a dozen sleeping Soul Reapers later it was getting obvious that my presence was noticed even if an alert wasn't sounded. I started to see less individuals wandering around, and the ones that were, were much more alert than the ones I ran into in the morning.

Finding out the reason no alarm was set off was a bit of a surprise, but when I managed to overhear why, I found it hilarious.

I was hiding out near another chokepoint waiting for the four guards to be distracted so I could slip by, when another Soul Reaper came running up to the group.

"Hey guys, new update for you!" the newcomer shouted out when he was in earshot. "We found another group that was attacked in outpost 47."

"Another one,what is going on?" one of the guards commented.

"Think squad 2 is doing another drill? Last year some of them had a competition who could disable the most guards without discovery."

"Yeah, and the year before it was stealing our incident reports. I got in so much trouble when the Lieutenant asked where they were and I couldn't find any of them!"

The five of them talked for a little while longer, sharing stories about drills, tests, and training events they had participated. While it was interesting, and gave me a slightly better understanding about the normal duties of lower ranking Soul Reapers, nothing else was very relevant to either me or the others.

Although I had a newfound fear of the squad eight lieutenant. Some of the punishments they listed were… inventive to say the least.

Eventually the messenger needed to run off, leaving the four to continue talking. And to my benefit, they were so caught up in storytelling, they missed me slip through the gate and down an alleyway.

Glancing up at the sky, I saw daylight was starting to fade. I was further from the center of the Seireitei than I wanted to be, but it would be better to settle in for the night and start again in the morning. The arrival of the others would allow me to move without needing to conceal my movements as much and I wouldn't be the sole focus of the surrounding forces.

With that in mind I set out to find a resting place for the night.


---------

-Squad 2 Barracks-

Squad two, third seat Natsumi Hanakage was not having a good day. First Captain Soifon received word of an emergency captains meeting tomorrow morning so she was forced to offload her schedule to the Lieutenant in preparation of spending a day meeting with the other captains.

Of course, Lieutenant Marechiyo Ōmaeda considered himself far too important to lower himself to handle that himself, so it fell to Natsumi to handle.

'Though that might be for the best' she mused, 'If the Lieutenant actually tried to manage the Captain's business, we would have complete chaos.'

So Natsumi spent all day rescheduling meetings, handling paperwork, and delegating reports to the rest of the squad. This would normally be nothing new, as she often was asked to handle affairs when the captain was busy. But today was worse than normal, because in addition to the sudden influx of work she was also getting queries from other squads if squad two was running an infiltration drill as a few guards had been found knocked out and under some sort of kido so they wouldn't wake up by themselves.

After scrambling to verify that no, there was no drill going on today, she then had to figure out how to best handle the situation.

It wouldn't be the first time a few guards were attacked by a slighted squad two member getting revenge for some previous grievance. But as the reports kept coming in, and the recovered guards giving a basic description it was clear they had an intruder.

As Natsumi walked towards the briefing room, she was seriously wondering why this couldn't have happened yesterday. As it stood, she could only act on what had been discovered and hope the captain would agree with her choices when she returned.

"All right, are all team leaders present?" Natsumi questioned as she entered the room. Several people perking up as she moved to the front of the room.

"Yes ma'am, all squad two team leaders present and awaiting orders!" one of the men said.

"Good. Now then, this morning the guards at guard post 18-C were found unconscious when their replacements arrived to relieve them. Since then there have been several more guards disabled."

"After investigation, it has become clear that the culprit is not a member of the Court Guard Squads, Kido Corps, or the Stealth Force. As such squad two is to deploy all teams to track down and apprehend the intruder."

One of her team leads raised a hand, "Apprehend, not eliminate?"

"Correct. At this time we have no idea how this intruder infiltrated our defenses or why. In addition to that there have been no fatalities, as such it has been deemed necessary to interrogate the intruder to find out the reason for their presence."

"You will find the combined reports gathered from all the guards in the folder in front of you. Even then, information is light. The intruder is generally agreed to be a blonde female in a red and black uniform. She uses some form of weaponry, but details are unclear. In addition to this she is speculated to know at least some form of kido, since all disabled guards were forced to remain unconscious until they were discovered by other groups."

"Are there any further questions?"

"Ma'am, why are we not sounding the general alert for this intruder?"

"We don't want the intruder to escalate until we have a clear understanding of her goal. If we sound the alarm and alert her as well, she may stop using nonlethal takedowns. To avoid causing unneeded fatalities, only squad two will be deploying at the moment. Though to be clear, all Lieutenants are aware of this matter and can sound the alarm at any time they feel it is necessary."

Natsumi waited a few moments for her team leads to absorb the info.

"In that case, take your teams and search along the projected path of the intruder. I will be joining the search so refer all updates to the messenger corps. Dismissed."

With that, everyone filed out of the room. It was time to hunt down this intruder.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.4

The sound of alarms going off all around jolted me awake, and caused me to fall off the box I was using as a makeshift bed.

"Well, that was graceful" I muttered as I picked myself off the floor.

Stretching to get the kinks out from laying on a wooden box for several hours, I noticed that everything seemed blurry and it was hard to move.

Oh right, I had pushed Astralization as far as it would go and spent the night in Spectre Mode to avoid detection. Pretty much the only use I had for that skill in this universe was for hiding in one spot invisible to everyone else. Though there was the significant downside of not being able to move quickly at all.

Seriously, it felt like I was trying to walk through wet concrete.

I did figure out that tethering myself to an outside source would allow me to move more freely in Spectre Mode, but that would mean tying myself to someone through a Servant Bond, and I wasn't about to hand that kind of control over me to anyone here.

I glanced around the warehouse I was hiding out in just to make sure no one was in the area. While I couldn't make out more than a bunch of colored blobs at the moment, none of them were black or moving around, so I figured I was still alone for the moment.

Shifting back to my more comfortable Spirit Mode I glanced around again, confirming that I was alone before heading outside to try and spot the others.

I doubted that this many alarms would be going off for another reason.

Scanning the sky for the rest of the group, I eventually spotted the others when they crashed into the membrane surrounding the Seireitei. The small sphere of reishi caused the barrier and the shockwaves of the impact to become visible. It was an incredibly impressive sight made even more so by the vortex of reiryoku that appeared when the barrier was breached. Then, in a seemingly coordinated move the vortex exploded into four beams of light that spread out over the Seireitei.

If I didn't know that the entire spectacle was the result of Ichigo being horrible at controlling his energy I would have thought the whole thing was a coordinated breaching action by a highly trained invasion force.

Shaking my head I started running, not really concealing myself any longer, it didn't seem important considering the massive lightshow we just put on.

-o-​

If yesterday was rough, then today was shaping up to be a nightmare in Nasumi's opinion.

The trail of the intruder gone cold late in the afternoon. It was obvious that she had bunkered down somewhere to rest over the night rather than continue on to whatever goal she might have, but even after they had pieced together a rough path by mapping out where they found unconscious squad members they had been utterly unable to find their target in the surrounding area.

Either the intruder had suddenly veered off her projected path, entirely possible due to the lack of knowledge about her goal, or she had managed to hide from an entire squad for a night. One trained in reconnaissance and tracking even!

If that wasn't embarrassing enough, a few mere hours after Natsumi called it a night and allowed other teams to take over the search she was jarred awake as alarms broke out all over the place. Apparently, another group had decided to use a normally suicidal approach of an aerial insertion into the Seireitei, and succeeded in not only making it past the barrier created by the Sekkiseki stone walls that had never been breached in such a manner in the entire history of the Court Guard Squads, but also managing to vanish into the surroundings just like the other intruder.

Well...all except the group that landed in the middle of squad 11. They were methodically tearing that squad to pieces. From the rank and file, all the way up to the 5th and 3rd Seat Officers. And of course they rejected any offers of support from other squads. The overconfident meatheads.

Luckily she had actually received word back from the captain on how to proceed, because Natsumi was very out of her depth. She was simply to continue tracking the first intruder. All other squad two members would be directed by direct order from the Captain.

The intruders themselves had all been labeled Ryoka, and thus priority was now either kill or capture on sight. Things like determining their goal was now a secondary concern. Which meant that the majority of squad members would simply kill the Ryoka if they had the option.

Natsumi had mixed feelings about labeling the invading group as Ryoka. It was nice to have clear rules of engagement and such, but she felt that it was a waste to not prioritize capture since there were so many unknowns.

Where had this group come from, how did they manage to get a member inside with no alarms going off, what was their goal?

Hopefully she would get at least a few answers before the incursion was dealt with. Otherwise the mystery would bother her for quite some time.

Natsumi signaled the two others in her hastily made team to stop as she noticed a Hell Butterfly heading towards them.

"Someone actually find this chick?" wondered Yuusuke while Natsumi checked the message.
Decent guy Natsumi supposed, if a bit too eager to run off on his own and get in over his head. Good close combat fighter, but more of a danger to himself with either long range weapons or Kido.

"More likely they found another batch of idiots she jumped." snarked Hiei.

Him, Natsumi liked considerably less. Quick to point out flaws in others yet not very receptive of criticism himself, Hiei had always grated on her nerves. Unfortunately she was forced to bring him along as her normal team was split up to act as team leaders themselves. Still he was fast and skilled, just barely missing the level a member of the Captain's Executive Militia forces would possess. Not that he would be assigned there even if he had the skills due to his personality. Far too arrogant, the Captain would kill him within a week.

"Quiet you two, we actually have reports of both." Natsumi said, releasing the Hell Butterfly. "The Ryoka has apparently abandoned stealth and is now disabling any squad members she encounters similarly to the situation in Squad 11.

"Good news for us is that we can finally predict she will be passing outpost 9-7 in twenty minutes, bad news is squad 7 is racking up casualties at the same time."

"Our mystery lady start killing any of them?" asked Yuusuke.

"Luckily for us, no. She still seems content to disable anyone she faces. Though it seems she is dealing severe enough injuries that anyone she comes across isn't getting back into action for a few days at least. Maybe longer considering Squad 11 is also taking casualties as well."

"Weaklings probably didn't even notice she was close by until she fed them their teeth." Hiei snarked, "So naturally our squad needs to clean up after them. I could deal with the Ryoka by myself if you two want to go babysit the idiots in squad 11."

"Oh please, you could barely deal with a drunk monkey. If we left you alone with the Ryoka, we would need to track her down again after she kicked your ass."

"Fuck you, Yuusuke. I'll kick your ass first if you want."

Both idiots had stopped and were getting ready to draw their Zanpakuto. Natsumi was tempted to let them go at it and handle the Ryoka alone, but they had already proven they had the ability to defeat a 3rd seat already and Natsumi was not going to risk being unable to capture this Ryoka because they were too closely matched.

"Cut it out you morons" she snapped, "you can finish your argument after we deal with the Ryoka. Now get moving, I want to be in a position to capture this one before we lose her again."

-o-​

The unconscious body of the last guard crashed into the ground, smoking and sparking slightly from being hit by the electrified blade. The bodies of three others littered the area, all of them close together signifying they did barely had any time to react to the first attack before they were struck down.

A sigh escaped me as the sword dispersed into light particles.

I don't know exactly how many guards I ran into, but you would think they would learn after the first dozen or so to pay more attention. Most of the 'fights' if you could even call them that consisted of Haste in front of them, slash with an electricity enchanted sword, rinse and repeat until everyone fell over.

I was actually getting to the point where I was hoping to run into an officer, if only to make it feel like I wasn't just beating up random people instead of the supernatural military force I was supposed to be up against.

Turning away from my latest victims, I continued towards the building in front of me. Another one of those guardpost types from the look of it. I had gone through a few of them looking for a map of the area, and while I found several of nearby sections I hadn't found a detailed one of the entire Seireitei yet.

I picked through a few of the offices where I had found useful documents in other buildings and was rewarded with another map of the local area, but still not a complete one.

Right, just keep heading for the center then.

As I ran I started leafing through some of the reports that had been filtered out about our little invasion. Apparently they had no solid info on the number of intruders, but guessed at least ten or so based on the amount of Squad 11 members being taken out. I realised that as a group we were all abnormally strong compared to the foot soldiers of the Seireitei, but I didn't think they would be so wrong in their assessment.

Only Ichigo, Ganju, and Chad actually faced foot soldiers from what I remembered. Though if Yoruichi was secretly taking out groups, it wouldn't surprise me much.

Squad 11 seats 3 and 5 had been defeated earlier today along with Squad 7's 4th seat who received crippling injuries. Over fifty members of Squad 11 were forced into a Squad 4 recovery barracks with major injuries, but the report was from earlier today so the number has only gone up.

I was forced to look away from the documents when I turned a corner and found myself in a wide open area.

It looked like it might be a staging point or gathering area considering how close it was to the guard post, but for all I knew it was a picnic area for someone. The Seireitei was weird, white walls and warehouses everywhere and oddly empty in places.

All thoughts on the architectural design of the ghost samurai's super fortress were ejected when a Soul Reaper stepped into view, blade drawn.

"Hello Ryoka, this is as far as you go."

He was a few inches shorter than me. With slicked-back black hair and the normal Soul Reaper uniform. I didn't recognize him at all so if he was in the show he failed to make an impression. But he definitely had the casual arrogance most Soul Reapers seemed to have by default.

That he was also the first Soul Reaper to confront me, rather than get ambushed, made me a little more wary of him anyway.

"Yuusuke, you idiot. Just take her out already. We have the rest to deal remember?"

Looking over my shoulder I found another Soul Reaper had stepped out to block the path I had come from. He was much shorter than me, maybe only coming up to mid-chest on me, with spiky black hair held up in a cloth headband. He also had his sword out, but despite his words he seemed in no more of a rush to fight me than his friend.

"Don't be like that, Hiei. We spent more than a day tracking this one down. I want to at least make it worth all that time."

"If you want her to beat you up I can let you fight her first."

"Beat me up!? Like hell! I need to make sure you don't let her get away cause you got a scratch, shorty."

Both of them bickered between themselves for a bit while I was searching the surroundings. No reason to be careless.

"So question for you two." I said, interrupting their insult trading. "Any chance we can hurry this up? I have places to be."

The taller of the two smirked, "Well sorry to say, you aren't getting by us so you don't need to rush."

"Fine, in that case the two of you can come at me. It will be faster that way."

The smirk didn't diminish at all. "Nah, like I said it took a long time to find you. We can take it a bit slower. In fact if you want to go one on one, I'm game."

I risked another glance back at the short one, Hiei I suppose, and found he hadn't moved a bit. Seems like despite his earlier impatience, he was fine with just standing around for a bit. That either meant they were arrogant idiots… or they were delaying me for some reason.

With that in mind, I formed Kanshou and Bakuya and rushed the one in front of me. His eyes widened as he was forced to block a double strike aimed at his shoulder. The three blades sparked under the pressure, but he held of the strike well enough.

I disengaged slightly before pressing him with some probing attacks, going after his arms or legs to slow him down before his buddy decided to jump in. Small scratches appearing on his arms from where he failed to block completely in time. He was good. I had him off guard with my first attack and even while off-balance he was able to fend me off.

I feigned to one side, managing to get him to overcommit to a block and nailed him with a kick to his side, sending him flying a few feet. I quickly turned to face Hiei, bringing my swords up in a defensive position just tin time to catch…

Nothing.

Hiei was still standing where he started. He was visibly more on guard, but made no attempt to approach.

"Not going to help your friend? He's not bad, but he's going to lose."

Short-stuff just smirked. "If he's going to lose to someone as weak as you then I don't see a reason to step in. Better for all of us if he bites it."

I didn't like this. Yeah Soul Reapers were more likely to go for duels over ganging up on an opponent, but these two made a point to ambush me. To go through that effort and then stand around? I started to think they were waiting for something, and I didn't want to hang around to find out what.

"Fuck you Hiei, I'm just getting warmed up." Yuusuke was back on his feet and slowly circling to my right. "Lady here just caught me a bit off guard."

"You can call me Alexandria. That way you know who beat you up."

Yuusuke smiled, "Right guess we forgot to introduce ourselves. I'm Squad 2 special reconnaissance member Kazuhiro Yuusuke, guy behind you isn't important so ignore him. Now then, how about we start round two?"

This time he was the one to charge forward.

I fell back keeping an eye on Hiei, but true to his word he made no move to help Yuusuke. More proof they weren't trying to end this as fast as Hiei made it seem. I eyed the surroundings again but nothing was sticking out.

Dodging under a swing, I dropped to the ground and kicked at Yuusuke's knee. Seeing him off-balance once more I quickly threw both swords at Hiei, startling him out of his somewhat relaxed posture. In the same move I grabbed Yuusuke by the front of his uniform before flipping him over and slamming him on the ground.

Then I took off running at the exit Yuusuke had come from. "Sorry guys I'm not in the mood to play with you right now, maybe later!"

I was almost to the gate when my instincts screamed at me to move. Jumping off to the side I barely dodged getting hit by Hiei's sword before he stood in front of the gate. From the look of it me making a break for the exit pissed him off.

"Figured it out then?" He asked, well snarled more like. I have a feeling he didn't like me.

I smirked at him and settled into a defensive stance, another pair of swords appearing in my hands.

"Tch" Hiei rushed me, staying low to the ground, before attacking in a flurry of swings.

He was less controlled attacks and more 'swing as fast as possible and try and get a hit in' but he was pushing me a little. He managed to scratch the edge of my red outer coat right at my collarbone before he over extended and I managed a counterattack. Our blades met in a flash of sparks, and I quickly overpowered him forcing him to jump back a few feet.

I glanced down at the small cut on my clothing.

"All that effort, and that was the best you could do? That's just embarrassing."

Hiei drew himself up before pointing his sword at me. "You want my best, then here. Burn and rage, Jaō Ensatsu.

The blade shimmered like a mirage before bursting into purple black flames.

"Now prepare to die!"

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.5

'Those idiots couldn't follow a simple plan.' Natsumi scowled to herself as she moved on the next verse of the Kido chant.

'All they had to do was work together and delay the Ryoka for a few minutes. Instead they decide to challenge her one on one and almost let her get away.'

Yuusuke was now unconscious after taking a sudden attack and Hiei was trying to fry the Ryoka...and getting played like a fool in the process.

It might have fooled even her if she was closer to the fight, but this far out Natsumi could easily tell the Ryoka was holding back a lot in terms of strength.

Really obvious when she would use movements on par with a lieutenant at least and back off right when Hiei started to build up momentum.

'This looks like one of the introductory training sessions for the new initiates.' Natsumi thought.

She remembered what it was like when she first joined. A no holds barred sparring match with an undercover elite member. Where the newbie was told they were going up against one of the weaker members of the squad to show how far they had to go even if they passed at the top of the academy.

It would start off simple, the newbie would be able to get some grazing hits in or be able to push their opponent completely to the defensive. They would get overconfident, sure that pushing just that little bit more would let them beat an experienced Shinigami.

All while the opponent was just slowly using more strength to stay above the initiate's best effort until they couldn't keep up and lost.

It was easy to see the parallels from a distance. The Ryoka was emitting such a low amount of Reiatsu it was almost like she was an academy student at best. Presumably that's what gave the two idiots the confidence to disregard the plan and engage her alone.

But Natsumi had seen it.

In that attempt to flee the area the Ryoka had overpowered Yuusuke in an ease she had only seen in officers. Hiei apparently missed the change in behavior since he was acting like he was in control of the fight.

Natsumi watched as the Ryoka dodged around the courtyard. Streams of fire were barely dodged or deflected by the weird longsword the Ryoka had summoned.

At the very least Hiei was doing a good job keeping the Ryoka at a distance. The amount of fire he was sending out with his shikai was buying Natsumi enough time to finish her chant. So he was at least helpful even if he wasn't going to be taking the intruder down.

Natsumi started the final stanza, just in time to hear the Ryoka run out of patience.

"Well this game of keep-away has been fun." Her tone indicating she felt otherwise. "But since you haven't pulled out anything new I'm guessing you're either waiting for reinforcements or just delaying me. So I'm going to end this if you don't mind."

'Oh please be fast enough' Natsumi thought desperately as she watched the Ryoka form yet another weapon out of thin air. 'How many could she possibly have?!' This one was a large black bow. The Ryoka formed and fired several glowing arrows that exploded all around Hiei. Natsumi prayed that the Ryoka was still going easy on him and hadn't just killed a member of her team as she finally finished the incantation.

She slammed her hands to the ground and shouted, "Kekkai no 31: Kuriadōmu Kabe!"

A rippling dome bloomed from Natsumi's hands before expanding to cover the courtyard and some of the streets beyond. Natsumi let out a sigh of relief. While Kuriadōmu Kabe wasn't the most powerful of barriers, it should be enough to slow the Ryoka down until one of the reinforcement squads made it to help. Of course that meant Natsumi herself would need to delay the Ryoka from breaking out before then.

'And I have to do it by myself.' She thought ruefully, as she looked around the courtyard before jumping down to confront the Ryoka.

Yuusuke was still unconscious and now that the dust had cleared from around Hiei it was clear he was also down for the count. Natsumi was relieved to see him breathing, which hopefully meant he was just unconscious as well and not bleeding out or something.

Standing in front of the Ryoka, Natsumi was struck by how tall she was. She was around the same height as Lieutenant Isane, but unlike her the Ryoka was clearly a fighter. Despite the relaxed posture, her sapphire blue eyes were hard and focused.

"And another one pops out of the woodwork. I assume the barrier is your doing?"

Natsumi nodded, "Yes it is, I am Squad 2 Third seat Hanakage Natsumi. I must say that I am impressed by your skill in concealing your Reiatsu. If I hadn't been observing from a distance I never would have noticed you were masking your strength."

The Ryoka frowned, presumably upset she was discovered.

"I wouldn't say I was hiding anything." she insisted.

"Still…" Natsumi continued, "I cannot allow you to continue. Surrender now, or I will be forced to end you."

The Ryoka's lip twitched in an amusement. Natsumi certainly couldn't blame her, she had easily shown she was stronger than any normal Third Seat officer. Listening to one demand her surrender certainly would be amusing.

Luckily Natsumi had some secrets she could use.

"I ask you again. Surrender now or we will fight."

This time the Ryoka didn't stop her smile from showing, "You're much more stiff than the other two. Why don't you just relax and wait for your backup? I'll just be on my way and you don't need to strain yourself."

"Very well, Encircle, Kusarihebi!"

Natsumi's Zanpakuto started glowing brightly. The blade shrank down and curved forward until it formed a sickle-like blade. From the end of the hilt extended a long black chain that ended in a triangular weight.

While she was presenting a confident front, in her mind Natsumi was still cursing her moronic teammates. If the had followed the plan all three of them would be stalling the Ryoka and potentially defeating her, not trying to take her down one at a time.

'After this is over, I'm going to have them running drills until they can do them in their sleep.'

With a sharp flick, Natsumi sent the chain whipping towards her opponent, only for her to duck under the attack and fire several glowing arrows in return.

After seeing what that attack had done to Hiei, Natsumi had no desire to take that attack head on, so she manipulated the chain to divert a few of the arrows so they would collide in midair.

Temporarily hidden by the resulting smoke, Natsumi circled off to one side. Just in time as a few more arrows streaked past where she had just been standing. With a soft curse Natsumi realised she needed to force the Ryoka on the defensive or she wouldn't have a chance. Her ability to quickly attack at long range was too much to deal with for a single opponent.

She grabbed Kusarihebi by the chain and threw the sickle part of her weapon at the Ryoka's legs.If she was lucky she would be able to reduce her enemy's mobility, cripple it if she was luckier, but Natsumi would settle for forcing the Ryoka to be on the move.

Seeing her opponent jump to avoid the blade going for her feet, Natsumi threw the other end of her weapon in pursuit, using both ends of the chain to attack at the same time. A few arrows tried to end her continuous attack but she was able to deflect those as well.

Natsumi pressed forward, trying to cut off any escape routes. Her chain whistled through the air, but was either dodged to reflected by the bow before she could get a hit in.

"You're actually really annoying you know that?" the blonde said deflecting the bladed end with her bow again.

Natsumi smiled, "Well if you want to give up certainly won't stop you."

'Just a little longer.' she thought.

"Nah, I have a certain person's plans I want to ruin first. You might not believe it but you have a few traitors running around."

Natsumi felt her eyes widen. 'Traitors, here?'

"So what, you and your friends decide to invade us to deal with traitors to the Seireitei out of the kindness of your hearts? Do you take me for a fool?"

"Oh no, we don't really care about the Seireitei. In fact if your little problem didn't affect us, then I definitely wouldn't be here. But since I'm going to get involved anyway, I'm going to do my best to upset their plans."

'It couldn't be simple could it?' Natsumi complained in her head.

If there was a credible threat to the Seireitei, then she was duty bound to learn more and report the issue. But that information was coming from an active threat to the Seireitei already. Natsumi couldn't really trust anything the Ryoka was saying but maybe…

"You realize I won't take your word for any of this, right?" The Ryoka nodded easily. "Is there any proof you have to verify this?"

"Hmm, well I don't exactly carry things like that around you know? But I can tell you they are responsible for the old Squad 2 and 12 Captains being driven off, along with the Kido Commander. Not sure if you would know about that or not but it should be of interest to your Captain." the Ryoka eyed Natsumi thoughtfully. "Some other things they've done that are less relevant to your squad... they are responsible for the death of your Squad 13 lieutenant, the incident involving a bunch of your officers being turned into Hollows, and various incidents where Soul Reapers have been ambushed by Hollows. A certain training incident springs to mind."

Natsumi just stared at the insane person in front of her. There was no way most of those incidents were related. Hell, several of them had detailed records corroborated across multiple Squads. Natsumi felt pretty safe dismissing everything as a lie at this point.

Her disbelief must have shown on her face since the Ryoka continued, "I wouldn't tell you that unless I had a way to prove I know what I'm talking about."

"Yeah? And how are you going to do that?" Natsumi asked cautiously.

"Well I'll give you a prediction, in the next few days one Souske Aizen is going to die. Apparently, and here is the fun part, from being stabbed with his own sword. And no one will notice a fight. Naturally, it will be done by your traitors."

Natsumi's blood ran cold. She was saying a Captain was going to die? So either these traitors were real, or the Ryoka were aiming to assassinate one of the most powerful people in the Seireitei and one of them was happily announcing their intentions. Either way she felt she needed to hear everything.

"Okay, you have my attention. Who are these traitors?"

The source of Natsumi's growing headache smirked, "Well you have three of them, and you aren't going to like it. They are…" The Ryoka looked down one of the streets leading to the courtyard. "Well that's just bad timing." She turned to face Natsumi. "Don't suppose you will let me run off after I tell you?"

Natsumi shook her head. She sensed her reinforcements were closing in fast, with two Lieutenant level Shinigami as well.

Suddenly the Ryoka swung her bow to point at one of the streets and unleashed an arrow that positively hummed with power. The attack streaked towards the barrier surrounding the two of them before shattering the thing like it was made of glass instead of a fully incanted kido barrier.

"Sorry, things to do, people to see. Tell your captain about this if you want but don't spread it around if you don't want to die."

The Ryoka took aim down the street the reinforcement team was coming from. Natsumi paled as another glowing arrow formed. If that hit the reinforcement team…

Natsumi hadn't been just standing around while she questioned the Ryoka. She had been subtly using her Reiryoku to maneuver her chains behind her opponent. Unfortunately she was only able to get the chains around her left arm and the bow, but that was enough to prevent the Ryoka from aiming at the others.

"Its over Ryoka! Give up now and we will investigate your claims." Natsumi shouted. Without her ranged option Natsumi was certain this was almost over.

Up until the Ryoka let the bow disperse into light and pulled out some boxy handheld device and pointed it at her.

"Just a heads up? The bow probably would have hurt less."

Natsumi could only watch as golden light erupted from the end of the device and slammed into her, an instant later she collided with the wall surrounding the courtyard and it was a struggle to even remain conscious. Natsumi dimly recognised two more flashes of light before she was able to pull herself to her knees.

Through the haze of in her mind she recognized the Ryoka had run off and the entrance to the street the reinforcement team was coming from was smoking rubble. She wanted to get to her feet, but the effort was too much and she pitched forward, collapsing on the ground.

Her last thought was 'The captain isn't going to like this.' and then everything went black.

-o-​

I stared at the pile of rubble where the gate used to be, then at the pistol device in my hand, then back at the rubble.

Huh.

These things didn't do that much damage to Urahara's training room. Do the Seireitei just use subpar materials? The shots should have collapsed the walls some slowing down the new arrivals, not explode the thing.

Putting the spent devices back in their holsters, I looked back at the Soul Reaper I had been fighting.

Looks like I surprised her having more than one way to attack at a distance, cause the max power I could squeeze out of the one-off models would only inconvenience a fighter at her level if she was on guard.

I smirked, guess I lucked out she was distracted by the reinforcements. Speaking of, I should get moving.

Spinning on my heel, I ran down one of the connecting streets. While I bought time with my stunt, I wasn't confident I could take on two Lieutenants at the same time and get away before even more people showed up.

Dodging down some random side alleys, I thought back on the fight. Despite them tracking me down I wasn't super impressed with the Squad 2 team. I mean yeah, they were skilled and everything, but the boys were only about as strong as Ichigo was before he joined up with Urahara for training. And they called themselves elite!

The girl was kinda scary though.

She had the raw power that the other two lacked on top of being more skilled. If she wasn't consciously moving our fight away from her downed teammates she would have pressed me much harder than she did. And even then she delayed my long enough for her reinforcements to get close!

I hope she isn't too upset by the suckerpunch, if we all live through this I kinda want a rematch.


The scenery continued to stay pretty much the same the entire time I ran. Looking up I saw that the plateau that contained the central buildings was pretty close by. At the rate I was going I would be able to reach the cliffside in a few more minutes.

Not bad if I wanted to continue on my own. But I was reaching the end of my ability to navigate the Seireitei on my own.

I had yet to find a comprehensive map of the place- good security by the soul reapers annoyingly enough -and this close to the tower where Rukia was being held I was losing my easiest navigation point. Simply going towards the tower wasn't really an option when you are already at the tower after all.

Continuing by myself wasn't something I was very interested in. It would leave me fighting several captain level opponents with no backup, no way to contact the others, and nowhere to go. I might be able to manage if I was on my own, but doing any of that with Rukia in tow was likely impossible.
My best bet would be to hide out nearby and wait for Ichigo to show up. I know that his group was the first to get to this area, and if I remember correctly he had a member of squad four who was sympathetic to rescuing a capital offense criminal.

With that in mind I broke the lock on one of the buildings and found myself in some kind of meeting room. Basically just a table surrounded by chairs, but it would do for now.

I sat down in one of the chairs, put my feet up, and prepared for a bit of a wait.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.6

While I waited, I decided to continue working on a design for an AI to integrate into my next upgrade to the proto-device. Nothing super advanced, well super advanced compared to what I might eventually be able to create, but it would be enough to get something that would let me give a command and have it carried out rather than the current setup which was just a fancy interface.

Still it was coming along nicely. Building the thing might be tricky since I will need to add some new hardware to support the new AI, but the design seemed to come together just fine. Maybe I should look into making this version more modular, so when I figure out how to improve something I don't need to rebuild the thing everytime.

Something to think about at any rate.

Sighing, I closed the notebook I was using and slipped it back into a pocket before heading out the door. It had been a few hours since my run-in with the Squad 2 team and I figured it was pretty close to when Ichigo would be passing through the area if nothing butterflied from me being here.

I started making my way back to the stairway from earlier. I planned to cycle past each of the entrances to the plaza until I spotted Ichigo there, but it turns out it was unneeded.

The first corner I turned put me face to face with the orange haired Soul Reaper. Unfortunately for me, both of us were sprinting so I had just enough time to see Ichigo's eyes widen at my sudden appearance before the two of us collided and crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

"Damn it Ichigo! Watch where you're going!" I snapped, throwing him off of me before I got to my feet.

He also jumped to his feet, one hand going over his shoulder to grab the handle of his sword. "Why don't you watch where you're going, you bi-" He shouted back, before recognition set in. "Alexandria? What are you doing here?"

"You know this person Ichigo?" One of the two following Ichigo asked. He was tall and powerfully built. He stood out mostly due to being the first person I'd seen recently not in a Soul Reaper uniform with a green bandanna and vest, white undershirt, and puffy black pants. On his forearms and shins was some kind of abrasive looking guards. The occasional white symbol of the Shiba clan on the outfit would have tipped me off if I didn't already know his name, but Ganju Shiba looked entirely the same from what I remember in the show.

He also looked like a mess. He had large areas covered in blood from sword wounds, and while they looked treated it was clear he wasn't far from exhaustion.

I glanced at the other member of Ichigo's little party.

Standard Soul Reaper uniform, save for a white satchel with a green strap running from shoulder to hip. Limp looking bluish-black hair split down the middle framing his face. Nothing really special looking about him really, except for the fact that he looked extremely weak in terms of both his personality and physically. So much so I partially thought the reason he didn't have a zanpakuto with him was that his wrist would break trying to hold one. And even if that wasn't the case I really doubted he would be able to swing it at anyone seriously.

I frowned slightly. I was expecting him to be here but for the life of me, I just couldn't remember his name.

"Yeah Ichigo, why don't you introduce me to your friends." I said.

"Uh, yeah sure. That's Alexandria Cross. She's a friend of Yoruichi who came to help us save Rukia." He turned back to me, "I thought Yoruichi said you couldn't get past the walls and that's why you stayed behind?"

"No Ichigo, I couldn't use the same method to get by the walls. I came in a different way. And before you ask, no it wouldn't have worked for the rest of you."

Ichigo pointedly closed his mouth.

I turned to face the other two again, "Going by the symbol I assume you are with the Shiba clan? And what's the deal with the Soul Reaper here?"

"Yeah, the name's Ganju Shiba. And um... he uh… he decided to help us out?" Ganju said before trailing off. He glanced over to Ichigo who just shrugged.

Guess they really just kinda dragged Hanataro along and didn't question his motives after his offer to help then?

"Um, excuse me, Miss Cross?"

Hanataro pulled my attention to him, "Yeah? And just call me Alex."

"Oh, okay. I know it might seem strange that a Shinigami would want to rescue Rukia. And your right, even Ichigo asked why I wanted to help...

When she was imprisoned in the 6th squad holding cell, I was assigned there on janitorial duty. Over the past month she told me so many stories about Ichigo and his friends and all about the world of the living. She was so kind to me even when she didn't have to be and even though she is from such a noble clan...

And I don't want her to die, so please, please let me help you!" He exclaimed before bowing deeply.

"Jeez, we already said you could help. No need to get so worked up." muttered Ganju.

Christ, the kid was so earnest it almost felt like I was kicking a puppy if I said no. Good thing I was fine with him tagging along and said as much.

The entire group started walking towards the stairs while we talked about what we had been through today. Hearing about Ganju's fight from his perspective was amusing. Especially since I remembered snippets from the show, and calling it a 'thrilling battle of skill and determination' between him and the 'sissy Soul Reaper' where he managed to triumph when he used a secret technique to knock his opponent out with a powerful explosion seemed like a bit of a stretch.

"So you ran around trying to lose your opponent in the surroundings and blew him up with one of the fireworks the Shiba clan specializes in?" I smirked.

Instantly the bravado vanished from Ganju's face and his shoulders fell.

"Yeah, maybe. Is it wrong to want to sound a little cooler after a battle? I should just be glad you didn't meet my big sis, she does the same thing whenever I tell a story near her too." Ganju admitted.

"She sounds fun. I'll need to drop by after this to meet her then."

"Hey guys, I think I see the way up!" called Ichigo from the front of the group. Looking ahead I could see the cliff was just ahead of us and we would be in the open soon. Ichigo increased the pace until we were at a brisk walk.

Then at a jog.

And again until we were running to keep up with him.

We ran past the walled corridors that had been a constant for most of my time in the Seireitei and made it halfway across the empty area in front of us before we all slowed to a halt.

Towering buildings stood at the top of the cliff. Each had another slightly larger one peeking out from behind. Many of them were either grey boxy buildings or white square towers with orange tiled roofs. But the one that stood out the most was the single circular white tower with a conical roof. It easily dwarfed the surrounding buildings by thirty feet or so. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't reserved for people waiting to die.

It was the closest I had been to the center buildings and the sight of them made me feel insignificantly small. It was the same reason I hated walking around in big cities. When you look up and see buildings towering over you, you just feel smaller somehow.

"We're so close already" Ganju said next to me. "It sure looks enormous… and we'll probably have to fight our way up there from here on out…" He had a smile on his face, but it was obvious he was nervous about our chances.

"If you think it's too much, you can hang out here." I teased.

"Hmph."

Despite the surliness, the teasing seemed to relax him a bit.

I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back for that, only for Ichigo to suddenly tense up.

"What's up, Ichi-"

Ichigo threw up a hand and cut Ganju off, "Someone's there."

Sure enough stepping out the mist hugging the cliff-face was a red haired Soul Reaper with a heavily tattooed face. The only other thing that stood out besides that was the futuristic looking visor. I was a little surprised by the lack of a lieutenant armband, but it was a distant thought.

The Soul Reaper moved through the last bit of the mist before stopping at the base of the stairs.

"Long time no see…" he said, moving the visor to cover his forehead. "I hope you can still remember my face?"

"Renji Abarai..." Ichigo growled.

"That's a surprise… you even remembered my name. You have a good memory." said Renji.

"Thanks for the compliment."

The two of them seemed to ignore the rest of us during their little reunion. Which was probably a good thing.

Ganju was sweating heavily and looked nervous but was holding his composure well enough.

"W-who is this guy? He's not like any of the guys we met before… he's on a completely different level…"

"Aah… t-that… that person is Renji Abarai… Lieutenant of squad six!" Hanataro stammered out.

Looking at him, he was a mess. His entire body was shaking, tears were gathering in his eyes, sweat was pouring off of him, and he was having difficulty breathing.

After he announced that the last of Ganju's composure broke.

"A Lieutenant!?"

In the meantime Renji and Ichigo were off in their own world ignoring the rest of us.

"I must admit I was surprised to see you. I was certain you would be a deadman after I saw Captain Kuchiki attack you like that." said Renji as he advanced on us.

Ichigo also started to move forwards to meet him.

"Hey Ichigo wait! Don't go rushing in!" yelled Ganju, but went unheard.

"Don't bother Ganju," I said. "This is a grudge match for those two."

"A grudge match?"

"Yeah, the two of them fought in the world of the living, but it was interrupted so I guess they want to pick up where they left off."

"I don't know how you managed to survive that, but it seems there is more to you than I first believed," Renji continued drawing his sword. "But as I told you, I'm going to kill the one who stole Rukia's powers. So this is as far as you go."

Ichigo said nothing but grasped the hilt of his sword.

"Because as long as you live, Rukia can never regain her powers!" said Renji accelerating into a run.

Ichigo matched him. "What do you care about that, when you just sentenced her to death!" he shouted, pulling his Zanpakuto off his back and swinging it to meet Renji's.

The two blades met in a fierce clash before the two of them ground to a halt. Both of them pressing against the other trying to physically overpower his opponent. Sparks occasionally flashed where the two blades met, but in the initial clash both of them were evenly matched.

They disengaged briefly before Ichigo pressed the attack, catching Renji on the defensive. With a loud shout Ichigo overpowered him, pushing until Renji was pushed up against the cliff.

"He overpowered Lieutenant Abarai…" said Hanataro somewhat disbelievingly. "Ichigo… what kind of person is he…?"

Ganju seemed stunned as well, "Yeah, I'd like an answer to that myself."

I said nothing, keeping my eyes on the fight.

Sure enough the flow of the battle shifted as Renji shoved Ichigo backwards, releasing his shikai and sending him skidding backwards with a continuous thrusting attack. I watched impassively as Ichigo skidded towards us, held in place by the force of Renji's attack and unable to stop or deflect it.

Ganju and Hanataro dove out of the way, but I allowed Ichigo to crash into me absorbing some of the force, while at the same time I traced Bakuya and swung upwards, deflecting Renji's Zabimaru up into the air. Both Ichigo and I slid back a few more feet from the force of the attack, but we didn't hit the building behind us.

"You alright?" I asked.

Ichigo pushed off of me, getting back into a ready stance. "Yeah, thanks for the save, but leave him to me from now on."

I gave him a quick nod and moved back over to the other two.

"It seems like, you thought you understood my strength after just one fight," said Renji, his sword collapsing back down into itself as he approached. "But let me tell you something. When Lieutenant level Shinigami or higher go to the world of the living severe limits are placed on their powers so they don't adversely affect the souls living there."

He came to a stop.

"Right now, I'm five times stronger compared to the last time we met! There is no chance of you defeating me." He said confidently.

Ichigo smirked at him, "Heh, If that was the best you got, than I think I can handle eleven more like you, no problem."

I gave him a quick look-over. He was definitely bluffing hard right now. Even with me minimizing any damage from the first strike, he was still wobbly on his feet. I wouldn't step in immediately, but I would keep an eye out for when he couldn't continue. Afterall I had no assurances that Ichigo would win this fight, canon or no, but at the very least I would see that he doesn't die from it.

Renji went on the attack again

Zabimaru extended out in a wide arc that crashed into Ichigo's side. Ichigo barely managed to get his sword into position to block before he was launched further away from us.

With a huge leap into the air, Renji followed after him using his extending blade to keep Ichigo on the defensive. Slowly pushing him up against the buildings in the area and penning him in.

Ichigo wasn't making it easy for him though, he deflected and dodged with an impressive level of skill, not allowing himself to overcommit to a block or corner himself.

The flow of the battle was slightly against him however as hits started stacking up. It was pretty obvious Ichigo was hurting in terms of stamina right now. Blood loss generated anemia by the look of it. The signs were more noticable the longer they clashed, Ichigo was taking more hits being slower to get out of the way.

Renji used a crushing overhead attack that kicked up a cloud of dust and debris that forced Ichigo to jump up out of the way only for a sweeping upward attack to intercept him, which he barely managed to block. In fact the attack not entirely blocked as a spurt of blood erupted from Ichigo's shoulder where the block was too shallow and he got nicked.

The battle shifted up to the roof of a nearby building and we temporarily lost sight of them.

Hanataro was shaking again, stuttering out half words without actually saying anything, "...T-this isn't good… he's being completely overwhelmed! T-trying to t-ta-take on a Lieutenant like this? It's madness!" he eventually managed.

"Ichigo will be fine," I reassured him, eyes still scanning the rooftop following the new signs of destruction. "He's too stubborn to be taken out this early in the game."

"He's stubborn alright, but this isn't the kind of game you get second chances in." Ganju said as the building the two had been fighting on collapsed into rubble.

I nodded, conceding his point. I was still waiting for the moment that Ichigo was completely out of the fight, because if he didn't pass his limit here…

Well fighting Zaraki would be interesting if I needed to get involved.

With that line of thinking in the background, I noticed both Ichigo and Renji standing in the rubble shouting something at each other. They were too far away for me to hear them clearly.

"I don't think he can keep this up much longer." said Ganju worriedly.

"Yeah"

"You're one of his friends right? Shouldn't you help him out right about now?"

I gave him a tight smile, "Teammate if anything, and not yet."

"Not yet?! Why the hell not!" he yelled back.

"Ichigo isn't done with the fight just yet. Until he gives up or can't fight anymore I won't step in."

This was hard. I was fighting between the knowledge of a show I had watched in a different universe mixed with the duel mentality everyone seemed to unconsciously follow I picked up at some point, and the desire to step in and not let a fifteen year-old get cut to pieces in front of me.

It was a fine balance between the two, waiting only winning out because I knew saving him now meant he wouldn't be ready for threats down the line.

Renji continued his assault. More hits raining down on Ichigo, even if they were all turned away it had to be burning up the last of his energy.

Suddenly, Ichigo shot forward sprinting at Renji in a bid of going on the offensive. Renji responded with a long distance thrust, Ichigo ducked to the left allowing it to go over his shoulder. Again with a thrust, this time a sidestep to the right. The third thrust was faster than the previous forcing Ichigo to parry it into the air, but once again he avoided the attack.

Renji was left off balance and perfectly open. Ichigo raised his sword for a finishing blow…

Only to miss as Renji shifted to the side at the last moment.

"Ichigo!" both Ganju and Hanataro yelled, as Renji capitalized on the opening to cut Ichigo from shoulder to hip.

More blood exploded out of the battered teen as the Lieutenant stood over him, sword raised for the final blow.

I muttered a curse while tracing my bow. An arrow was ready to go, but that last niggling doubt remained, and I couldn't bring myself to release the string. If I interfered now, Ichigo doesn't consciously use his full power and then he would be entirely unprepared for Captain level combat.

But if I was wrong that wouldn't matter.

Because Ichigo would be dead.

The decision was taken out of my hands when Renji's sword fell. I cursed again, dismissing the arrow before forming one much more dangerous than the enchanted electric one I initially had. If I played this badly then at least I wanted Renji to feel the full impact of his mistake.

Both of our mistake… I certainly didn't feel blameless standing around like I had.

Thankfully, I hadn't butterflied this particular moment as Ichigo caught Zabimaru by one of the spikes that protruded out of the blade. The sudden reversal seemed to stun Renji so badly that he was blown back from the sudden outpouring of power from Ichigo.

Renji was sent skidding back a few feet, still off balance, the shock on his face clear even at the distance between us.

Ichigo was now standing fully upright, all traces of his earlier exhaustion seemingly vanished as he raised his sword in preparation to attack. Thankful that I hadn't killed Ichigo through inaction I dismissed my weapons and turned to Hanataro.

"You have anything that would stop bleeding in that pack of yours?" I asked despite knowing the answer.

Hanataro didn't even look at me, eyes still firmly on the two combatants, "y-yes, all squad four members carry medical supplies during an emergency."

I nodded, "Good, we will need to help Ichigo qui-" the shouts of both Hanataro and Ganju made my head snap back to where Ichigo was fighting.

Both combatants had collapsed. Renji was now covered in blood from the one attack he received and his sword had been shattered. Ichigo wasn't in much better shape, but at least he was alive.

"Okay, move you two. We need to get him treated or he's going to bleed out."

As a group, we all rushed to Ichigo's side and got our first look at how severe the damage really was. It was concerning, naturally, since he was bleeding from several severe sword wounds.

Ganju started to move Ichigo into a more accessible position, but Hanataro was just kinda standing there, staring at the fallen lieutenant.

"Hanataro."

"Hanataro."

"HANATARO!" I ended up yelling.

Finally he started out of his stupor, "Ah, y-yes?"

"Get over here and help!"

"Y-yes! Right awa-" he suddenly stopped and looked off in the distance. If he didn't have a good reason, I'd feed him a greatsword. "Someone's coming. Three people… no four, maybe even five!"

Dammit that's a good reason.

"That's bad, we can't deal with that many people right now." said Ganju.

I nodded to that, "Right change of plans, we're leaving. Ganju, grab Ichigo. Hanataro, I assume you know a deserted place we could go?"

He nodded rapidly.

"Great, we'll follow you then."

With that the four of us disappeared back into the maze of corridors that made up the Seireitei.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.7

It was several hours later until we finally could relax a bit.

I had spent some of the time patching up Ganju, but the majority of our efforts had been on Ichigo. He was better off than expected really. Despite several deep gashes in his torso none of the damage went as deep as his internal organs, even so between all the blood loss and lacerations Hanataro had spent hours just getting him healed enough that he wouldn't die if we left him alone too long.

Even then I spent most of the time as an aide rather than helping directly. Turns out, rather obviously, two healing methods using completely different power sources didn't mix well, so we had to choose which one to use.

And while my healing spells were just as good, I personally was less qualified as a medic so Hanataro took the job as Ichigo's healer.

Not that Ichigo seemed to care about getting healed up. The second he regained consciousness he tried to limp back out to continue deeper into the Seireitei. Luckily for him Ganju knocked him out before he got too far, saying that it was better he did it than leaving it to me. I wasn't sure if I should have been insulted or not. After all, I wasn't really going to hit Ichigo with a frying pan to stop him from being an idiot.

Didn't stop me from getting a few worried glances from the other two every once and awhile though.

Seriously, no one could take a joke.

Once that bit of drama was out of the way, everyone settled pretty quickly. Ichigo was still out for the count, Ganju had fallen asleep against a wall, Hanataro was focusing on healing Ichigo completely, and I was drilling Hanataro for information on the Seireitei.

He was incredibly helpful in pointing out the locations of interesting locations that weren't shown on the maps I had picked up. As it stood, I now knew the locations of nearly all the Squad barracks, hidden routes mostly used as shortcuts by Squad Four, and most importantly where the Captain's offices where. Specifically the office of Squad Five.

I felt a little bad tricking Hanataro into telling me these things since I phrased it that I wanted to know so we wouldn't go anywhere near them if we could help it, just to turn around and use this to break into one of the offices the first chance I got.

The kid was far too earnest, by far.

But this gave me the perfect chance to derail Aizen's distraction plot if I could snatch the letter he left behind before anyone looked at it.

Out of the many plots Aizen had going on during the execution, the one that always bothered me the most was the breaking of his lieutenant. It was cruel, unnecessary, and something I wasn't going to let happen.

So I decided this would be the moment I stopped trying to allow canon to proceed while dancing around the edges and started doing things for myself. Afterall just because I recognized the setting didn't mean things would play out the same way. Things were already moving in different directions just by me being here. The third seat of Squad Two never made an appearance as far as I could tell, so it wasn't like things would change from that point on.

This was me just finally accepting that. Kinda.

Annoying fact about knowing the future, or at least a possible future, you tend to grab onto that future and use it as the guideline for all your current behaviors.

Breaking off into unknown territory was far more frightening. So much so that I think I was delaying this moment subconsciously. Even if I was clearly more powerful than Ichigo at the moment, I had taken great pains to move stealthily for no real reason other than avoiding high level Soul Reapers. But I had already planned to fight three captain level opponents just by helping with this little rescue mission.

So, time to stop putting this off and actually commit.

I stood up and made my way over to Hanataro, who was still laboring to heal Ichigo. This would be the best time to break off since Ganju had passed out a few hours ago.

"Hey Hanataro," I called out to get his attention. "I'll be going out on my own. Just let the others know when they wake up."

Clearly tired from hours of healing, Hanataro blearily blinked at me before actually realizing what I said.

"Wait, going out on your own? Why?"

"Simple, we are probably going to draw a lot of attention for taking down a lieutenant. I wouldn't be surprised if there are guards in place waiting for us tomorrow." I lied through my teeth. "So I'm going to go make sure any enemy attention is on me while you all continue to the tower."

"But what if you need help? Or if you run into another Lieutenant?" He asked.

"I can take care of myself just fine," I chided him. "And I could get away from a lieutenant just fine if needed."

I started walking away from the group, calling back over my shoulder, "Don't worry, I'll meet up with you at the tower. Take care!" before making my way back to the surface.

Some time later I found myself hiding outside the Squad Five barracks. Dawn had come and gone meaning all the high level officers should be off to their duties. Of course that probably meant that Lieutenant Momo Hinamori had found Aizen's "dead" body and was in jail. Not ideal since I wanted to spare her the breakdown, but not something I was in a position to change. Especially since fighting the entire squad to get access to the captain's rooms wasn't a realistic option.

The barracks was hopefully pretty empty by now, all the normal Soul Reapers were off looking for our group, and the officers should be coordinating the reports coming in and trying to keep the other daily tasks needed to run the squads operating as normal even with a bunch of highly destructive people running around causing issues.

So it was simple for me to make my way up to the upper floor of the barracks right outside the officer's area without being spotted. I ducked in and out of a few of the rooms on the way trying to determine which one was Aizen's, until I finally found the rooms I was looking for.

The large brushwork 'five' easily identified the owner of the room since I hadn't seen anything like it in any of the other much smaller rooms. The high quality, if simple, furniture had some fancy writing implements and a few documents laying about but much of the...living room?...sure why not, living room was pretty barren actually.

Outside of a few bookcases, a short legged table, and a desk there wasn't anything else in the room. Not surprising, since Aizen liked to play the humble, helpful, dependable captain. I figured his bedroom was much the same, but had absolutely no desire to go through his stuff so I moved to the table and started going through the papers there.

The letter in question was sitting out in the open, so that was easily snatched up.

Mission accomplished.

Poking around the other papers on the table didn't turn up anything really interesting. Though it turned out Aizen did poetry when he wasn't murdering and/or experimenting on people.

Hidden depths, whaddya know?

I turned and walked towards the door intent on just meeting back up with Ichigo's group when the bedroom door suddenly opened and a diminutive figure rushed out and bowed in my direction.

"I'm very sorry Captain Aizen, I didn't mean to fall asleep!" the small figure, who I now recognized as Lieutenant Hinamori, rapidly said.

She quickly glanced up at me before a confused look appeared on her face. "You aren't Captain Aizen…"

Between the sudden appearance of a person who definitely shouldn't still be here -seriously all the other soul reapers have been up for almost two hours now- and the personal disappointment she actually managed to catch me completely by surprise, I kinda froze up.

"Um...yeah?"

Brilliant Alex, just brilliant.

The Lieutenant slowly straightened up, "You're one of the Ryoka, aren't you."

For whatever reason, my brain was still rebooting, "Well, I've been known to hang out with some of them." I slowly started backing up towards the door. I doubted I was going to be allowed to just walk away, but having a headstart to choose a battleground before she caught me wasn't a bad idea.

Cautious eyes followed the movement reminding me despite fans liking to joke about how useless a lieutenant Hinamori was, she was still one of the more powerful members of the Seireitei and would have needed to face down several powerful hollows over her career.

Just as I reached the door she saw the letter still gripped in my hand. The cautious look morphed into a harder, angry one. "You broke in here to steal Captain Aizen's documents?!" She accused, "Give that back!"

By this point I finally recovered from her sudden intrusion. I gave the smaller girl a smirk. "I went through all the effort of getting it in the first place," I taunted "If you want it back, i guess you will need to take it."

With that remark, I spun on my heel and rushed out the door, pouring on as much speed as I could. The enraged shriek behind me told me everything I needed to know about if I was being pursued or not.

A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that I was indeed being chased by a now very angry lieutenant. Also I needed to dodge.

A sphere of red flame streaked through the air and only narrowly missed me. I mentally cursed of course Hinamori would use Kido, it was what she was supposedly most talented at after all.

A quickly traced throwing dagger was fairly effortlessly deflected but did distract her from finishing another Kido, but all that meant was Hinamori responded with a weaker spell than what she had been casting earlier.

Two streaks of fiery blue light exploded on the path in front of me causing the walls to collapse and blocking off the route. In response I quickly leaped up to roof-level.

Which put me on top of a fairly large warehouse with a nice flat roof. Good enough place as any I supposed. With a lieutenant chasing after me throwing fireballs the whole way I was only going to attract more attention. This was out of the way enough that no one should interfere.

Turning back to face my pursuer, I saw her land on the roof, sword already released, and glare at me.

"A little eager, aren't we?" I called out. "You haven't even introduced yourself and you're ready to go all out. That's poor manners, little miss lieutenant."

If anything her glare intensified.

"Return Captain Aisen's documents and surrender. You can't escape."

Well she's confident. It might have been impressive if she didn't look like a twelve year old with a fancy sword.

I told her as much, adding "and you seem way less of a fighter than the red-head we ran into, so forgive me for not quivering in fear."

Probably the wrong thing to bring up based on how she was now trying to kill me with her eyes. "You were the one who hurt Abarai-kun?! You're going to pay for that." She growled, before launching a series of fireballs at me.

I was a little taken aback that she attacked after coming to that conclusion. Yeah it was wrong, but if you decide the person in front of you nearly killed a lieutenant stronger than you and was seeming fine the next day, you would think attacking head on was a bad idea.

Of course then I remembered in the canon timeline Hinamori decided attacking two different captains head on was a good idea and her actions didn't surprise me as much.

Sidestepping the fireballs, I traced my twin swords and rushed forward quickly closing the distance between us. More fireballs streaked towards me but I was fast enough to dodge them without anything worse than a near miss.

Both my swords came down in a twin strike to her shoulder that was clumsily blocked by the angry lieutenant and she was flung backwards. Odd, I shouldn't have been able to push her back that easily.

"You need to better than that to beat me, miss lieutenant!" I called, if she was going to fight angry than I was going to use that to my advantage.

Though I wondered how much I needed that advantage. I had a very small pool of opponents to compare to Hinamori, but the squad two officer from the other day seemed to be a stronger opponent in every way except Kido. A frown made its way onto my face when I thought that.

I know Hinamori wasn't shown to be as combat proficient as far as lieutenants go, but surely she should at least be on the same level as a third seat officer from another squad?

A growl pulled me out of my thoughts as Hinamori charged me instead of continuing to attack from a distance.

A strike going at my neck was blocked caught by crossing both of my swords and Hinamori twisted her balde in a way that locked all three blades together.

"Are you not taking me seriously or something?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "Cause I think I win in physical stre-"

I was interrupted by a bright red fireball erupting from the base of her blade and exploding in my face that sending me skidding across the rooftop.

As soon as I got some traction on the roof I flipped myself back onto my feet and flung myself off to a side just as even more fireballs crashed into my previous position.

Note to self, even weaker Lieutenants are dangerous if you let your guard down.

Hinamori stopped attacking after seeing me recover from her surprise attack. It looked like she had finally calmed down and was thinking again rather than attacking out of blind anger.

"I'm being very serious, Ryoka." She said, still sounding angry enough. "First all of you run around the Seireitei and hurt all those people, then you injure Abarai-kun to that point and we can't even help him because of his captain, and then you break in to steal from Captain Aizen?! All you people do is hurt people."

Hinamori seemed to tremble with fury.

"I don't want to fight… but if it's to stop people like you, I'll fight with everything I have!"

… well then. Turns out Hinamori is a magical girl when she isn't being super obsessive about Aizen.

Not… not really sure how to deal with that, honestly. Especially since I seem to have been cast as the villain at the moment.

I cocked my head to one side while I considered that. A group of superstrong invaders attacking the Seireitei for seemingly no reason, each one they are aware of strong enough to beat elite defenders at every encounter, and one of the most powerful of them is defeated when he confronts the invaders.
Then by pure chance a kind hearted young girl discovers one of the invaders stealing from one of the highest ranked leaders and is forced to fight to recover what was stolen.
Yeah, that seems kinda like the setup to a magical girl plot.

So I'm the villain now. Yay.

At least black looks good on me.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.8

While I was lost in my imagination the two of us continued to perform a dance well known to any fighter. We set ourselves up to take advantage of perceived openings while moving to guard against potential attacks in a game of mental chess.

For now we were stalemated, as neither one of us were willing to launch the first attack. So I decided to continue talking to see if I could knock her off balance that way.

"Interesting choice of words, considering your side attacked us first."

Hinamori looked a bit shocked but her guard stayed up, "How could we have attacked you first?! The Seireitei only fights Hollows!"

"Tell that to the Quincies." I said dryly. And she did have the decency to wince at the reminder that the Soul Reapers had basically wiped out a sub-race of humanity no matter how necessary it was. "But more recently, your red-headed friend and his captain nearly killed an associate of mine when they came to drag a certain someone off for execution. For nothing more than just being forced into a position where he needed to use her powers to survive.
He'd be dead too, if he wasn't lucky enough to get healing fast enough."

"He was aiding a criminal…" Hinamori said, though I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

"Perhaps," I agreed, "though most people wouldn't just let a friend be executed just because someone else comes along and tells them they are a criminal. So naturally we decided to stop that."

It was a little annoying that despite all the fan comments, Hinamori was actually a competent opponent. Throughout the entire conversation she was keeping her guard up, but it was starting to feel like I might be able to get her to stand down based on her reluctance to fight.

"So you are hurting all these people just to rescue a criminal?"

"To be fair, we are trying to keep the damages as light as we can."

The Lieutenant's eyes widened to an almost comical degree, "How can you call any of what you did light? An entire squad is out of commission because of you! Not to mention what happened to the officers you encountered!" She nearly shouted at me, which was fair if a little naive.

"They aren't dead for one." I pointed out.

Hinamori looked uncomfortable at that, shuffling a tiny bit. "Why are you here…" she said in a near whisper.

I frowned, didn't I just go over this?

"We are here to stop-"

"No, not that" she interrupted me, "why are you here. You said that it was an acquaintance that nearly died that made you come here. Not a friend being taken.

The others you mentioned might be here for that. Not you."

It was my turn to shuffle uncomfortably. I was not expecting Hinamori to be this perceptive. The internet lied to me about her being worthless.

Good thing I was working around to telling her this anyway. A version of it more accurately. There wasn't a chance in hell Hinamori would believe Aizen was anything but someone to look up to.

"Ignoring that you consider me the type of person to stand around when someone is sent to be executed," my annoyance definitely came through in my voice and Hinamori blushed a bit while looking a touch sheepish, "there are certain traitorous elements in the Seireitei that have been causing atrocities for over the past hundred years. As I told the squad two officer last time they had their hands in all kinds of messes. But they have plans that will affect where I live if they are left alone, so I'm here to stop them before they ruin my home. Its where I keep all my stuff after all." I injected some false cheer into the last bit, but it went seemingly unnoticed by my opponent.

"And you decided to invade us instead of just letting someone know because...?" She questioned, it sounded like she was getting less willing to hear me out. Shame. I doubted anything I said would stop us from fighting since I wasn't going to surrender and she didn't look like she would let me go.

"Would you listen to a group of people saying that there were captains commiting crimes around the Soul Society and planning to do worse?" I questioned in turn.

"Captain…? There's no way a captain wou-" "Kurotsuchi" "... we would give any report of such things all the attention it deserves." She finished weakly.

"So it would be brushed off as unimportant if it ever was passed along at all." I nodded.

"T-that doesn't explain why you were stealing from Captain Aizen" Hinamori stammered.

"I had reason to believe Aizen is aware of exactly who the traitors are. I was hoping that he had some proof on who they were or a clue to where they operate." I half-lied, idly twirling one of my swords.

"Then you should surrender! I can talk to Captain Aizen and get him to listen to you about the traitors, I'm sure he would help you if you're really telling the truth."

I couldn't help the rueful smile on my face when I heard the qualifier. Yeah, maybe she didn't want to fight, but she wasn't going to let me go. "What if I can't surrender because Aizen is connected to the traitors?" I questioned, mostly to see how she would react. I know she is fanatical about Aizen but maybe getting her to recognize the possibility would stop her from going completely nuts when he showed his true colors.

What I wasn't expecting was for Hinamori to lose all emotion in her face and prepare to attack. "I see, you were just lying to get me to lower my guard."

Weeell, she wasn't wrong. And clearly I forgot the first rule of dealing with fanatics. Don't try to get them to question their beliefs. They get defensive, or in her case ready to cut me with a sword.

I tried to deny her accusation, but it fell on deaf ears as two fireballs erupted out of Hinamori's palm, curving to hit me from either side as she swung her sword to send yet another fireball right at me.

I jumped back as all three crashed into the spot I was just standing, catching the diagonal downward sword swing between both my swords as Hinamori burst through the resulting smoke cloud.

"Did I touch a nerve?" I said, forcing the blade down to my left and using the momentum to spin-kick the smaller girl in the ribs. She gasped in pain before being sent bouncing across the roof. I considered trying a knockout shot with one of my remaining pistols but, unlike with the third seat, Hinamori had her full attention on me and I wasn't going to hit her with a surprise shot so I doubted it would do any more damage than some light burns.

Instead I charged after the skidding lieutenant, closing the distance quickly and slashing at her with Bakuya and using Kansho to keep her blade pointed away from me, stopping her from using more fireballs to get distance. She recovered slightly but was still forced to give ground as I used my longer reach to keep her on the defensive, a deep cut on her shoulder seeping blood where I managed to slip past her guard.

Despite that Hinamori was still putting up an excellent fight, a sideways strike forced me to back off some which allowed her the space she needed to get her footing. A quick Shunpo and she was suddenly on the other side of the roof with plenty of space to recover.

Kansho was sacrificed as I threw it to detonate yet another fireball flying at me, kicking up a thick smokescreen that hid Hinamori from view.

Bakuya got the same treatment when the Lieutenant appeared off to my right with another Shunpo.

This was bad.

Hinamori's Shunpo was not as fast as my Haste spell, but it was far more maneuverable as I could only go forwards with the current version. She would be free to jump around the battlefield chipping away at me with fireballs forever at this rate.

So I needed to limit her mobility somehow.

Another fireball appeared going for my back that was detonated using a throwaway blade kicking up even more smoke. I decided now was as good a time as any to try out one of my new acquisitions as a black chain formed in my hands.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the squeak of surprise that slipped out of the lieutenant when she was forced to deflect the length of chain heading for her face. Sparks appeared where the links skated over her blade as she redirected the chain over her shoulder and I rushed forwards again trying to close distance while I channeled some mana down the chain, ready to wrap around her as soon as she moved her sword.

Her eyes widened when she saw me coming but rather than try evading like I wanted, her left hand swung forward to point at me and an orb of blue fire raced towards my feet.

I thought she just missed after rushing the shot until I felt the roof give out below me. My eyes widened as I began to fall through the new hole in the structure.

The bitch blew out the floor to stop me from getting close!

Before I fell very far, I sent a pulse of mana through the kusarigama making the chain respond to my will. The chain sprung to life and coiled around Hinamori's leg dragging her down into the hole with me.

Her startled squawk was music to my ears and would have brought a smile to my face if it wasn't in the process of slamming into the warehouse floor.

Thick clouds of dust blocked most of the inside from view but from what I could see the building was rather empty. Only a few large crates placed randomly throughout the place kept it from being totally barren. Though one of them was a splintered wreck I noticed, since it seemed Hinamori was lucky enough to land on it rather than the floor.

Speaking of, the lieutenant was currently staring bloody murder at me while fighting herself free from the remains of the box she was half trapped in.

"How do you have that weapon?" She demanded.

If I didn't run into this issue with Yoruichi I would have been really confused to the increased desire to kill me, but fearing that someone had ripped part of your comrade's soul from them and was going to use it against you was funny like that.

"I picked this little treasure up from the last officer I had the pleasure of meeting. She was much more polite than you by the way. She actually introduced herself." I conveniently left out that I hadn't returned the favor, but we were talking about Hinamori's manners not mine. "It looked like it would be fun to play with, I might try yours out after this." I teasingly finished, tracing a copy of her sword in my off hand.

Her face did an odd combination of paleing of shock and reddening from rage that was actually rather concerning.

"You steal Zanpakutou?" she asked, sounding horrified.

"Nope. Just copy them." I flippantly replied. I had a feeling this was going to come up a lot in the future. Best be upfront about it so the entire Seireitei isn't howling for my head. "A mirror image, if you will."

Hinamori relaxes the tiniest bit at that before growling and launching another fireball from her sword before trying to Shunpo away.

I countered her fireball with one of my own -and holy hell is that so much more draining than using mana based abilities- and interrupt her Shunpo by yanking on the chain still tied around her leg.

Missing a step, Hinamori is sent skidding over the floor and into another one of the crates causing another explosion of dust. Which is unfortunately ignited when my second fireball slams into her and causes a secondary explosion.

Oops, didn't mean for that to happen.

"You still alive miss lieutenant?"

A coughing Hinamori stumbles out of the smoke left behind from her explosive experience, looking incredibly disheveled. Her left shoulder was still bleeding somewhat badly, but now she was covered in slight to moderate burns. The worst being the burned section above her right hip where the fireball hit her directly.

She made a show of getting back into a guard position but we both knew it was more a token resistance than ability to continue the fight. After a few more coughs she was able to meet my eyes and get mostly under control.

She opened her mouth to say something before an overwhelming feeling of bloodlust and Reiatsu even I could easily detect with my horrible sensory skills filled the air.

 

[Azura]

AN: Guess who forgot to upload the a chapter? Whoops

Spirit 2.9

It was moments like this that made me relatively grateful I was so poor at sensing Reiatsu. While I was able to get the broadest strokes of presences once they were strong enough, they still didn't get more accurate than 'there is a lot of it' and 'its that-ish way'. Hinamori on the other hand looked like someone dropped the sky on her. She was sweating like crazy and looked ready to faint from just the effort of standing up.

Moments later the presence cut out and Hinamori collapsed in relief. From the way she just glared at me while remaining on her knees, I assumed that the sudden pressure from what I was suspecting was Ichigo and Zaraki knocked out what little energy she had left.

Good thing too, since I doubted I had time to continue this fight for much longer before someone came to investigate.

I cautiously approached the fallen Lieutenant dismissing both the copy of her weapon and my kusarigama, whose chain had actually been shattered in the explosion. I stopped a few feet away from her and just kinda stood there.

Hinamori continued staring angrily at me from the ground, still lacking the energy to move. I gave her a hesitant smile.

This is awkward.

"So, uhh… sorry this is ending like this, but I think I need to go pickup a teammate, um, better luck next time?"

"Captain Aizen will stop you." She declared. I didn't really have anything to say to that so I simply knocked her out and placed a stronger version of the sleeping curse on her. That way she would remain unconscious for the next five days or so unless someone managed to disrupt the spell or shock her out of it.

I figured leaving the lieutenant to bleed to death in a warehouse wouldn't win me any points with the Seireitei so I also hit her with a quick healing spell. Not nearly enough to fix her up, but it stopped any bleeding and made it so her burns looked a few days old rather than just inflicted.

Basic first aid, magical edition.

Now that the lieutenant had been dealt with, I began speeding towards my best guess of Ichigo's location. I was praying that this wasn't the time I found out that I butterflied something that made everything worse for us, because this was the second of three instances where Ichigo was a hair away from death.

Thankfully once I had gotten past the stairs we were at yesterday, it was very easy to spot the trail of destruction caused by the duel between Ichigo and the squad 11 captain. The skyline with a clearly missing building gave me a good place to start and the surrounding rubble created a trail that led me right to the ending place of the fight pretty easily.

I sprinted around the corner and felt everything crash to a halt as I got an eyeful of a very naked Yoruichi pasting something over one of the many cuts on Ichigo's torso.

"About time you got here! Hurry up and grab him, we need to get him to a safe house now." She snapped.

"Uhhh…"

"Alexandria!"

"R-right! Coming…"

-o-​

A while later after a frantic rush through the streets, ducking in and out of random buildings, jumping rooftops, and me being left behind for several minutes while Yoruichi flew off with Ichigo on a giant skeletal wing until she came back for me, I found myself leaning with my back to the wall and eyes firmly closed while Yoruichi tended to the wounded teen.

"I wouldn't have thought you were this shy, Alexandria. Especially since you spent months around Kisuke with little problem." Yoruichi called over.

I cracked an eyelid, nope still very naked. "I can joke about it, sure. But casual nudity is a little out of my comfort zone."

"Your surprisingly innocent, you know that?" she scoffed, "Anyways, who got you all ruffled? I know you didn't run into a captain, so clearly one of the lieutenants out there gave you a better show than you expected."

I let out a long sigh, "Yeah, Aizen's lieutenant. She caught me going through his stuff and was surprisingly crafty. Really likes fireballs by the way."

"Why were you going through Aizen's stuff?"

"Wanted to see if I could raid his underwear drawer and scatter them all over the place." I deadpanned.

I could practically feel the disbelieving glare coming from the assassin. But I let the silence stretch for a little bit before relenting.

"Fine, I went to raid his paperwork. I found a letter he wrote to try and set up some other captain as his murderer. So he probably faked his death by now and is hiding out somewhere until the execution."

"..."

"What?"

"Why the hell would Aizen try framing a Captain for his murder when we are running around? Let me see that letter."

Yoruichi snached the letter out of my hand while I shifted into a more comfortable position.

"Well, we have been going out of our way to be non-lethal so it's kinda weird for us to just off a captain. But more likely, however Aizen faked his death wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if the rest of the squads aren't focused on something else. We are distracting, sure. But we haven't disrupted enough of the other squads for them to ignore the death of a Captain for us." I theorized while she read Aizen's letter.

Yoruichi hummed in thought, "Its possible," she conceded, "though most likely he's using some throwaway plans to in an effort to remove a few more officer-level Shinigami before he reveals himself."

Eyes still closed, I tilted my head in her direction, "what do you mean?"

"Oh for…" there was a flash of blue light and a much deeper voice continued, "There, better?"

Cracking an eye again I saw Yoruichi went back to her cat form. After giving her a smile and a nod, she continued.

"Aizen's ultimate goal is to get his hands on the Hogyoku." she reminded me, "while I'm sure he feels confident to escape from three or even four captains, he would probably take precautions so nothing goes wrong with actually acquiring it in the first place.

In this case, we can probably conclude his lieutenant isn't part of his main group and was to be sacrificed being sent against Captain Hitsugiya. If by some miracle she takes him out, the squads are down a captain. Otherwise they still need to investigate and Lieutenant Hinamori is either already dead or imprisoned.

In either case, squad five is out both its senior officers and certain duties will need to be handled by other squads and they will need to investigate the assault so even more manpower is tied up."

Yoruichi started to pace around the room.

"You said his lieutenant caught you?" I nodded. "How badly did you put her down? If she recovers quickly enough, Aizen might try to goad her into attacking someone again."

I gave her a quick summary. Nothing more serious than one decent sword wound and some burns, if it wasn't for the curse Hinamori would probably have been fine in a few days.

You would think people would be more appreciative of Squad Four with recovery times like that but nope, Soul Reapers were stupid like that.

"Okay, good news is you probably stopped Aizen from any more attempts to use his lieutenant as a sacrificial pawn. Bad news is Aizen's plan was still partially successful."

I grimaced as I thought that through, "Cause now squad five is out its captain and lieutenant just like he wanted, dammit."

Yoruichi just nodded, "That's how it is dealing with Aizen. Even if his plan fails it still advances his interests somehow. Don't feel too down though, at least you managed to preserve some of the Goteijūsantai's fighting force from whatever Aizen hoped to accomplish in the future."

I lowered my head into my hands and let out a long groan, "Why couldn't this just be a simple rescue mission? Just go in, beat up the bad guys, and leave. Is that too much to ask for?"

Yoruichi put a consoling paw on my knee then went back to monitoring Ichigo.

I sighed and pulled out my idea's notebook. I had some thoughts about that AI I wanted to jot down.

-o-​

Hours later I was unsure whether to be grateful Ichigo's seemingly inextinguishable vitality allowed him to recover so quickly from near fatal wounds, or curse that he wouldn't stay down long enough to actually heal.

Everything started off nice enough, Ichigo woke up with little issue. Though he did surprise the both of us he was up so soon. Yoruichi decided she had enough of playing housepet and decided to kill Ichigo by reverting back to her human form right in front of him. My unimpressed glare was completely ignored by the cat-girl, who proceeded to flaunt her physique in an attempt to fluster me again while pretending to explain how she managed to transport Ichigo in his wounded state.

It was...partially successful, since my face felt like it was on fire when I dragged her into the side room, more of a storage closet really, to find her clothes. Her loudly complaining I wasn't this forceful the last time she reverted to her original form while I did my best to stuff her into an outfit certainly didn't help. Despite that, I could plainly see the amusement in her eyes as she went about getting dressed, taking longer than strictly necessary just to squeeze a bit more enjoyment out of the whole event.

I think Ichigo was ready to pass out from the images Yoruichi implied before I got angry and told her to get back to explaining her little flying artifact she was so proud of. Which she did, fully dressed even!

Until another massive spiritual presence flooded the Seireitei, then everything just went crazy.

Ichigo promptly 'stole' the wing artifact off of Yoruichi and then rushed out to confront what was probably yet another Captain level opponent stating he needed to go rescue his friends, ignoring the two stronger healthy combatants in the room. I just stared accusingly at Yoruichi for allowing it in the first place.

"What? He wouldn't stay put anyway." Yoruichi said, "Now he gets a look at what a proper Captain feels like, not one restricting himself for a better fight." She quickly packed up a few things before handing me a folded piece of paper. "I'll go make sure he doesn't get in over his head and meet you at this location. Don't play too long!" She said, then vanished with a Shunpo.

I stared at the empty space she used to be, -Don't play too long? What is that supposed to mean?- before I went to finish packing up my personal items.

Just as the last of my notes were packed away I heard someone land on the area outside of our little hideout, which instantly put me on edge. The hideout Yoruichi picked out was literally a hole in the wall. A repurposed cave that was used for storage on the far side of Sokyoku hill that was almost completely hidden from view by foliage near the entrance.

If someone was poking around I was either damn unlucky and they needed something in storage, or someone spotted us when we were rushing to get Ichigo to a place to heal up and sent people to investigate.

Since I doubted anyone would actually need anything in this place, I was certain I was about to have some very hostile visitors. With all of my stuff out of the way, I quickly traced my swords i and got ready for my guest to arrive.

There wasn't a door to the storage area I was in. Only a wooden gate that had remained open since Ichigo's sudden exit, so there was no dramatic entrance from the Soul Reaper.

Instead she just calmly walked through the entrance, sword drawn but curiously not released.

"You are very hard to find, miss Ryoka." The Soul Reaper said lightly. "I believe we were interrupted last time. Hopefully we can continue where we left off?"

I raised my swords in a crossed-guard looking for any sudden movements.

"Hi Natsumi. Sure, I have some time to spare."

 

[Azura]

Interlude NH

-Squad 4 Barracks-

Things had not been going well for Natsumi Hanakage ever since the Ryoka decided to launch their little invasion.

What should have been a straightforward tracking mission for an intruder had resulted in a dismantling of her team and her own defeat at the hands of a foe that barely seemed to take them seriously.

Since then, she had been all but imprisoned in the medical area by an increasingly overworked Squad 4. More and more casualties poured in as the majority of Squad 11 was collected from various battlegrounds, their own attempts at stopping the Ryoka not really going any better than hers did and various Seated Officers were discovered after being defeated in duels. As such, Captain Unohana was making her way through the barracks making sure that no one was giving the medics any unneeded stress as they dealt with anything from near-death cases such as Lieutenant Renji Abarai, who had arrived barely an hour after she did, to worms like Sanji Ikari, a member of a minor noble family who severely sprained his ankle and was practically demanding priority treatment from one of the attendants.

At the time Natsumi had been trying to convince her own attendant to let her leave and report back to Squad 2, bruises and concussion be damned. She was even being polite to the clearly overworked girl! Mostly. Okay, her temper was starting to take over but she really needed to contact her Captain.

When Natsumi saw Captain Unohana walking towards her, she thought it would be perfect to explain the urgency of the situation so she could leave. Then Ikari opened his mouth and drew the Captain's attention.

While the conversation between the two didn't carry down the hall, Natsumi suddenly felt very afraid of the gentle Captain. Something about her smile was just sending all kinds of warnings that annoying her would end badly. Luckily for him, Ikari must have felt the same since he gave the attendant no more issues.

By the time Unohana reached Natsumi and politely asked if she needed anything, all thoughts of trying to leave before getting cleared by the medics had been thoroughly suppressed. Instead Natsumi simply thanked the Captain and requested the attendant to alert her Captain she was awake and needed a meeting, as well as to retrieve her reports so she could keep up to date on the situation even if she couldn't leave.

By the smirk on the attendant's face, Natsumi wasn't fooling anyone. But they still granted her request and sent two messengers off, while Natsumi went back to her room.

Minutes later a different Squad 4 member arrived with stacks of paperwork and a message that Captain Soi-Fon was busy dealing with several immediate issues and would only have the time to see Natsumi in the morning.

After thanking the messenger, Natsumi followed him to a different area of the barracks where she was provided with another room. One meant for mostly recovered officers most likely, considering the desk along one of the walls.

She once again thanked the messenger, then sat down at the desk and began shifting through the various reports.

-o-​

Early next morning, Natsumi was finally getting caught up with the full state of the disaster that had happened since the rest of the Ryoka forces had appeared.

Squad 11 was essentially wiped out. The rank and file had run into a few high level combatants and in their normal brain dead fashion simply tried to overwhelm the invaders in a straightforward fight.

Needless to say, it did not go well. Now 80% of the squad was getting patched up along with their third, fifth, and eighth seat officers. Other squads had taken casualties but the 11th was by far the worst. However, the other squads were dealing with other issues than massive personnel loss.

Squad 6's Renji Abarai had been nearly killed facing the invaders. While that wasn't any different from the information Natsumi picked up from the staff's gossip network, what was shocking was that Abarai was promptly imprisoned after treatment on charges of dereliction and acts unbecoming of an officer.

That had the rest of Squad 6 running around like headless chickens trying to organise chain of command, patrol routes, normal day-to-day, and other things without bringing the attention of Captain Kuchiki down on them. Not that Natsumi could blame them, since the captain himself decided that an emergency situation was the perfect time to go insane and personally imprison his Lieutenant.

The other squads were doing a similar dance as various officers were disabled. Luckily most were only wounded, whether those were light or moderate wounds varied, but the officers could still perform most of their duties from a hospital bed if needed.

Squad 7's 4th Seat Jirōbō Ikkanzaka was not as fortunate.

The large man had been found early into the main invasion of the Ryoka with several crippling injuries. Some so grave that his career as a Shinigami was likely over barring a miracle.

Natsumi was so caught up in her paperwork that she didn't realize she was not alone until a cold voice startled her. "While it's nice to see you take your job seriously Third Seat Hanakage, I believe there was a matter that you needed to discuss with me?"

Instantly she snapped to attention and spun to face her captain, launching out of the chair that had been provided to her in the process. "Apologies Captain, I didn't notice you come in."

The commander of the Stealth Force and Captain of Squad 2 Soi-fon was standing in the middle of the office/bedroom Natsumi had been provided when it became clear she wasn't leaving. Thankfully while the captain did seem annoyed, it didn't seem like Natsumi was the direct source of it.

Which was a very good thing since despite being a few inches taller than her captain, the sheer weight of her gaze made Natsumi feel an inch tall. If she was the cause of her captain's mood there was no way she would feel capable of making her report.

'Which might change very soon, anyway.' she thought darkly. After all, her report wasn't good news.

"Report. I want to hear every detail about your encounter with the Ryoka."

Dutifully Natsumi recounted the entire encounter, explaining how a near textbook ambush failed so spectacularly, how a squad containing elites of the unit was taken down like academy initiates, and finally the conversation she had with the red and black clad invader.

Captain Soi-fon's face was a picture of anger by the end of the report. Natsumi was doing her best to look calm, but inside she was trembling. An angry captain wasn't something you wanted to be anywhere close to if it could be helped.

"Do you have any indication the Ryoka was lying about knowing the identity of the traitors?" The Captain asked once she calmed down some.

Natsumi was shocked, "I didn't see any overt signs of lying, but surely you can't be taking this seriously? Three traitors undiscovered for over a hundred years? Its unthinkable…"

"Normally, I might agree with you. However the Captain of Squad 5, Sousuke Aizen, failed to arrive for the morning Captain's meeting. Something that has only happened a handful of times during his time as a Captain. Initially we thought he was delayed by something caused by the Ryoka, but now we will need to locate him immediately and confirm he wasn't assassinated."

Her eyes sharpened and focused on Natsumi, "Third Seat Hanakage, how exactly did the Ryoka manage to defeat you in one attack."

It wasn't a question. Just a slightly more polite demand for an explanation.

"I…" Natsumi began haltingly, fidgeting under the gaze of her captain. "...I let my guard down." She finally admitted.

"When the Ryoka shattered my barrier and I caught her with Kusarihebi, I assumed she couldn't use another ranged attack without either spiking her Reiatsu or freeing herself first. So I relaxed my defences while I waited for reinforcements. Then the Ryoka pulled out a device that was capable of firing something like a Cero and it disabled me."

"She can use Cero?" The captain snapped, looking shocked.

Natsumi shook her head, "In form only, other than that the attack lacked the feel and power of even the weakest Ceros. But I left myself completely open and that was enough."

Captain Soi-fon nodded at the new information, "Very well, under normal circumstances are you capable of defeating this Ryoka?"

Natsumi carefully thought about her answer, "It's hard to say for certain since the Ryoka kept such a tight handle on her Reiatsu level the entire fight, but I don't believe she is out of my capabilities."

Once again, the captain nodded, "Unfortunately, the rest of the squad is tied up so I cannot send any support with you. Even so… Natsumi Hanakage!" Captain Soi-fon suddenly said.

Natsumi straightened up. "Captain!"

"I'm ordering you to track down the Ryoka and capture her. Report to no one other than either myself or Head-Captain Yamamoto until the identities of any traitors has been confirmed."

With that Captain Soi-fon spun on her heel and made her way to the door. Pausing at the entrance to look over her shoulder. "One more thing, do not allow yourself to lower your guard again. Nobility politics may have forced that buffoon Omaeda into a position above you, but I will not accept your skills falling to his level. Is that understood?"

Natsumi bowed deeply, "Yes ma'am. It won't happen again."