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

[Azura]

Spirit 2.10

Historically speaking, in most conflicts the defending side has an inherent advantage when it comes to indoor fighting. At least in a confrontation between two similarly armed combatants with no specially prepared options.

The attacker can only enter through certain areas, blindspots caused by doors can be exploited,

Kido gave a big middle finger to that advantage.

Up until this moment, I thought the biggest reason most of the surrounding buildings in the Seireitei were as large as they are was due to aesthetics as the 'capital of the afterlife' thing they were going for.

Now that I was stuck in a relatively tiny room with only one exit and an enemy that was possibly capable of filling said room with fire, lighting, and explosions the thought of having a lot of room to avoid those things suddenly really appealed to me.

While I was making plans on how to confront the Soul Reaper in front of me, I was also checking her over. It was only a day since we fought, yet she seemed completely recovered. Her black hair tied behind her in a simple braid, and dark grey eyes darting between myself and the room.

"You look good," I said casually. "But then I guess your medics have gotten a lot of practice recently."

It definitely was not a good idea to taunt from my position, but finding myself cornered was making me feel a bit more aggressive than I normally would be. And it seems I was expressing that by shoving the fact my group had put dozens of her friends and colleagues into the hospital in her face.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wrestling with my sudden anxiety until I calmed down some.

Once I opened them again I looked directly at Natsumi's face. She had a placid calm expression, but I could clearly see the anger in her eyes.

"Sorry, that was tasteless of me." I said.

"Indeed," Natsumi replied. "You on the other hand, look a bit scuffed up."

The light jab at my appearance was easily ignored. What she was really fishing for was who I fought and the result of the fight. I wasn't really interested in telling her though, so I kept quiet.

"You seem much less talkative, miss Ryoka." Natsumi continued. "I thought you said you were okay with continuing our chat."

She had a point. I kinda wanted to slip the Soul Reapers some more information, and since the last Soul Reaper I talked to was taking a nap for the next few days this would be the best chance.

I opened my mouth to respond, and snapped it shut as I half turned to look at the wall behind me.

The massive spiritual presence that had been hanging over us suddenly cut out. The sudden absence of it startled me with the feeling of 'emptiness' but that one second was enough to distract me.

Natsumi's hand slashed the air in front of her.

"Bakudo #4: Hainawa."

A golden rope burst out of her fingertips and wound its way around my torso, pinning my right arm at the same time.

"Wha the…" I managed to get out before she yanked on the end of the rope. I was pulled off my feet and out into the air.

The bitch threw me off the side of a cliff!

The rope splintered into light as I severed it with the blade in my left hand. Didn't stop me from falling a few hundred feet into a dense forest, but on the bright side I wasn't tied up anymore. Still falling, so that was an issue, but I also wasn't trapped in a room anymore.

Eh, I'll call it a net positive.

The trees were now pretty close and while flight was on the very long list of spells I wanted, it was also one of the many that required too much computation to do without a device. Even floating was kinda had to pull off, and that was when I wasn't in freefall.

Tiny branches started snapping as I passed through them. I grabbed at some of the thicker ones and used them to bleed off some momentum before managing to kick off the trunk of one of the larger trees and land on a different branch big enough to comfortably stand on. I was brought to all fours from the force of the impact but I wasn't smashed into the forest floor so I couldn't complain.

Natsumi appeared across from me with shunpo, a wide smirk on her face. "I apologize," She said. "I feel like our conversation would be better without whatever surprises you had in your hideout."

"So you threw me off a cliff?"

She shrugged, "If that's all it took to take you out I could simply hand you over to the captain. Since you handled it we can either head back to the squad barracks peacefully or I can drag you there by force if you prefer."

"I'm noticing a distinct lack of actual talking in this conversation." I said dryly as I straightened up.

Natsumi tilted her head and glared at me a little, though the smirk remained in place. "In many cases a fight is simply a conversation by physical means. Also surprisingly enough my Captain doesn't trust the word of an invader that showed up out of nowhere, so surrender and you can present your case. Or don't and I drag you back."

So go into the den of superpowered ghost assassins, or refuse and fight an officer I already easily beat. Well that was a hard choice.

"I think I'll pass on both choices, thanks." I replied.

"Drag you back by force it is." Natsumi said, hints of cheerful malice showing through the calm air she had been projecting. She held her sword out to one side and released it with a quick cry. After a few quick spins of the chain, Natsumi threw the now sickle bladed weapon at me.

I tried hacking at the chain to get the whole thing tangled up in some of the branches surrounding us, but while I was able to deflect her weapon the chain squirmed like a living thing and actually nicked me on the way back to her hands. It wasn't much, just a small cut that barely broke the skin on my shoulder, but that it hit me at all was surprising.

This far away my short swords didn't do me much good so I threw both of them at the Soul Reaper while tracing a bow. It didn't do much as they were blown out of the air by dual blasts of blue fire. I growled in frustration while firing an explosive arrow, trying to retake the initiative in the fight.

She managed to block the arrow itself, but couldn't do much about the resulting explosion as she was blown back by the force. A cloud of smoke obscured her from my view as I prepared another arrow. Instead of moving closer like I expected Natsumi fell back a bit, holding her sickle in one hand while the other yanked on the chain that disappeared somewhere in the forest.

I drew the string back and took aim, just in time for a whip to slam into my back with the force of a runaway car knocking me forward.

I bit of a curse and brought my bow up just in time to stop Natsumi from slashing into my side and locked the two weapons together as she landed higher up on the tree I was standing on. With a quick flip Natsumi used my arm as a springboard to send a kick at my head. I let my bow disperse and used my left arm to block the attack. Even with that I was sent skidding down the tree a few feet, though I was able to see that the whip from earlier was actually the other end of the chain on Natsumi's weapon. She must have used the trees to hide it getting behind me and attack me from behind.

Clever. Annoying, but clever.

Kansho and Bakuya once again appeared in my hands as I used Haste to close the distance between us. Rather than clash with me Natsumi began retreating, throwing her weapon at me again and again while I was forced to duck around her blade or deflect it. More small cuts appeared on my arms and legs from where the chain reacted unnaturally when she reeled it in.

Suddenly a white hot lance of pain erupted from my left hip as I missed a block and the sickle bit deep into my side. This time I didn't suppress the stream of curses as blood welled out of the cut. I hissed as I placed a hand over it while I stared at Natsumi.

"What's the matter miss Ryoka? Confused about how this is going differently than you expected?" Natsumi taunted from a little way off. She was also apparently reading my mind.

"You see, unlike most squads in the Gotei 13, Squad 2 rarely specialises in straight forward fights. Unlike last time, I know how you fight, can use the environment against you, and am not tied down by teammates who ran off to be morons." She continued smugly, though I noted there was some real anger when she talked about the two she was with last time.

An ugly thought crept into my mind as I glared at the Third Seat Officer that was so far the most powerful enemy I faced this entire time.

"You're one of those under-ranked officers aren't you?" I accusingly hissed at her.

Natsumi tilted her head, frowning. "Under-ranked?"

"Yeah, like the third and fifth from Squad 11. They would be could be higher ranked if they were in another squad but stayed for whatever reason."

Natsumi's eyebrows raised, "You know about that? Interesting. But yes, you could say I'm in a somewhat similar position to them."

Great, a non-cannon officer that was worth a damn. I knew they probably existed but I was hoping to avoid them until after this mess was taken care of.

During the whole conversation I had turned my injured side away from Natsumi's view, trying to use a healing spell to slow the bleeding. I think it worked, but like most of my healing spells it would take too long to actually heal and was more of a patch job.

"Guess I can't play around anymore can I?" My hand dropped away from my side. A sword fell into my hand, hidden by the rest of my body from Natsumi.

Even if she couldn't see me trace the sword, Natsumi obviously saw my hand shift. "Is that so? Does that mean you will be using that gun again?" Her lips curled into a small sneer, "Don't think you can catch me off guard like that again."

I started just a little, "You know what a gun is?"

Natsumi sighed, her shoulders slumping down as a look of exasperation appeared on her face. "Why does everyone assume Shinigami have no idea about modern weaponry? We do transport souls of soldiers along with everyone else, you know?"

"I guess its a common question?"

"Every few years we get some teenager who died in an accident and finds themselves in the poorer districts. For whatever reason they think recreating guns will put them on top of the pecking order. Then they meet someone who has too much Reiatsu to be hurt by a normal piece of metal and get killed."

I… I didn't know how to respond to that.

"R-right, no, I know it won't work on you now." I stuttered. "But I have other tricks up my sleeves." My eyes hardened and I whipped the sword forward, a crimson fireball racing up the blade and straight toward the shocked Soul Reaper.

Natsumi dodged a direct hit, but the resulting explosion kicks up a thick smokescreen. With a flick of my wrist I trace another weapon and throw it off to the side and rush her. My left arm came down in a powerful chop but Natsumi caught the copied Tobiume in the chains of her weapon. I pressed down on her making her scowl while I smirked in return.

"Surprise!"

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.11

The chain strained under the weight of my copied sword. The links groaning lightly as I added more pressure. Natsumi growled at me as her eyes jumped between the blade and my face, making sure that the sword really was the same one she thought it was but taking care to be on guard in case I tried something.

"How do you have that sword." She demanded as I pushed the blade another inch forward. Her arms began to tremble slightly but she held my sword back just the same.

"Well, that one Liuetenant kept throwing fireballs at me. So I decided I wanted one of my own." I replied. "Yours looked fun too."

I held up the weapon in my right hand, surprisingly Natsumi hadn't noticed how similar it was to her own until now. Her eyes widen as recognition hits her.

"How is th- "

A black chain burst out of the surrounding branches and coiled around Natsumi's leg. I gave a harsh tug on my end that pulled her leg out from under her. With her balance destroyed, she was unable to prevent the copy of Tobiume from continuing forward, biting deep into her right shoulder. Natsumi recovered quickly as she fell away from my sword. Despite the probably incredibly painful wound in her shoulder, she snapped up her hand and with a now familiar cry caused a fireball to rush towards my face.

Shakkahō!

The crimson orb didn't have far to travel so I was only just able to cover my face before I was engulfed in the explosion. I flashed mana through my body, reinforcing it as much as I could to lower the damage dealt. While the heat and force vanished in a painful instant, smoke surrounded my upper body in a thick haze blocking everything from view.

I hastily jumped back, swishing my hands through the smoke to clear my vision. As I did, I noticed that I had lost focus trying to resist the fireball and both my weapons had broken as a result. Tobiume had snapped roughly in half while Kusarihebi was reduced to just the handle, both the sickle blade and chain having been destroyed. With barely a thought I dismissed the broken blades.

Landing on a different branch I quickly traced my twin swords again and looked around for Natsumi. I didn't see her but I did spot her own chain whipping towards me. Dodging was impossible so I merely brought both blades up in preparation to block.

Natsumi clearly had other ideas. There was another flash of red light from a different direction and I suddenly found the branch I was on disconnected from the main trunk. Just in time for the chain to slam into me.

Unable to brace against anything I was swatted out of the air and sent crashing through some of the smaller branches before cratering on the forest floor. I wasn't really injured by either the attack or the crash, even if they did hurt, but the sudden flight had left me disoriented and Natsumi was now thoroughly hidden in the trees.

Shit, that isn't good.

I slowly made my way back to my feet, eyes darting to every twitching branch expecting to see another attack. Ready to react to anything I saw coming my way.

Nothing.

"Are we playing hide-n-seek now?" I called out.

Natsumi's voice echoed out of the surroundings. I wasn't sure if it was just the forest or if she did something but I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

"Apologies Ryoka, but the time for games passed when we found a Captain assassinated earlier today. Now I will simply do my duty, capture you, and find out everything you know about Captain Aizen's death."

Okay, looks like they found Aizen's fake body. That was good and bad for me. Good because Aizen hadn't changed the broad strokes of his plan even with my interference and that the Soul Reapers would definitely have to pay attention to my traitor warning. Well provided anyone other than Natsumi and Soifon knew I had warned them. Bad because Central 46 was certainly dead now and Aizen was running the government.

"So I proved you had a traitor and you still want to fight me? Why not work with me rather than fight?" I asked.

"Because we do not have any proof it wasn't your group anyway." I turned in a circle, slowly making my way back to the treeline. "You told us a Captain was a target. You've said nothing to convince me that it wasn't your group trying to shift the blame to in internal issue, it wouldn't be the first time someone tried that." I jumped back towards the center of the clearing as a blue flash exploded in front of me. Just to duck as the weighted end of a chain slashed through the air where my chest had been a second earlier.

I slashed at the chain as it passed over my head and pinned it to the ground using both blades to catch the chain in an 'X' and stabbing it as far into the ground as I could. Once that was done I followed the chain with a Haste. Only to stop when I saw it twist into the trees and out of sight.

Wasn't going to walk into that trap.

Still no reason not to punish her leaving her weapon vulnerable. A quick trace later I had a sai in my hand and stabbed it deep into the tree, pinning the chain to the wood.

"That won't work"

The only warning I had was the slight sound of feet kicking off bark somewhere above my head. I turned quickly to see Natsumi appear out of a sudden Shunpo and raised the rapier that appeared in my hands to ward off the sudden attack.

I turned away the first slash of her sickle but the following kick landed on my wounded hip, causing me to wince in pain. Natsumi took advantage of the opening, ducking under a retaliatory slash and swiping upwards.

Pain erupted on my right arm before I lost all sensation below my elbow. A quick glance confirmed despite the freely bleeding wound I still had my arm, but she must have severed the nerves or something since I couldn't move it at all. Unwilling to let her get a second attack in, I tried to ward her off while falling further back.

In a spray of splinters, the previously pinned chain whipped around Natsumi to defend against the attack. The tough metal was barely scratched by the enchanted blade but it was enough for me to deter her from following after me for a second.

The two of us eyed each other warily. Neither one willing to make a move just yet.

Natsumi was the first to break the silence.

"I just cannot seem to make sense of you." she said. "You have excellent combat skills and body control. In fact I think you would be a match for a captain in some places. Yet at the same time, -" she vanished with a shunpo.

I glanced up to see her hanging midair chanting under her breath. Too far away to hear what she was saying, the first hint of what she was doing was when fist sized balls of fire started raining down in front of me.

I blanched at the sheer amount of fire raining down and turned to escape with a quick hast- Natsumi had shifted the fire directly in front of where I was facing. I turned in the opposite direction, only for the fire to rain down there too.

Then I was out of time and the majority of the fire swept over me and… didn't really hurt? Hundreds of the tiny balls of fire hit me, but they felt like firecrackers. Sure they stung a bit but even thousands of these wouldn't do much more than maybe give me a light burn.

Natsumi appeared behind me with another Shunpo, but this time I reacted faster and she was forced to block my rapier. The heavy blow lifted the smaller woman off her feet and threw her skidding back over the grassy clearing.

"- your movement skills are far below par." Natsumi continued, as if the whole exchange never happened. "It's obvious you don't use Hohō. Some kind of derivative. Yet the Shunpo equivalent is inferior. You can only move forward with that technique, can't you?" It didn't seem like my input was needed since she continued almost immediately anyway. "Thought as much. Then I will just need to disable a leg now and your defeat is certain."

"You think it will be that easy?" I asked. "Even if you can move faster, I think I'm keeping up alright."

Natsumi's eyes widened as a line of blood burst from a straight cut going from shoulder to shoulder across her chest. It was clear she had no idea how I did it, and I wasn't going to tell her.

'Still, glad the wind-cutter enchantment on the rapier worked. Would have been awkward if I messed up the timing there.'

Other thoughts raced through my mind as well. Natsumi was far more mobile than I was with just the basic shunpo technique. She was able to bleed me slowly with hit-and-run tactics and if I didn't change something soon I might not be able to get away even if I beat her.

I needed a quick way to take her down without getting myself killed so I either needed to cripple her own mobility or find a way to knock her uncon-, 'that could work'.

The rapier burst into light and my hand went behind my back as I tried to get everything in place with one hand. It was doable, but difficult. I would need a sec before everything was ready.

Best way to buy time? Get the enemy talking.

Good thing that was pretty easy here.

"Nothing to say to that Natsumi? Why the sudden silent treatment?"

She scowled at me, "I don't suppose you've noticed, Ryoka. You are more injured than I am. Even if you are stronger with a blade, all I need to do is wait and eventually you will fall. How well do you think you can defend with an arm in that condition?"

Just a little more…

"I think I'll be fine. You're also feeling the strain, aren't you? That last Kido was impressive, but it had no force behind it. You probably can't repeat it if you had to either. I think if it comes down to stamina I'm better off than you."

"That may be the case Ryoka, but I merely need to hinder you and signal for reinforcements. You are required to win our fight. I can settle for a draw if need be."

Finished.

"I don't think I need to win. Honestly I'm just going to run away the first chance I get."

"And that's why you need to be a little less mobile." She replied before kicking off the ground and charging towards me. I wanted to fall back and give myself more time to work with but I felt something coil around my leg and realized Natsumi was buying time as well.

Too bad for her my plan worked just fine even if I couldn't move.

I pulled one of my last spell pistols and fired. The soul reaper must have been expecting the move since she ducked lower allowing the golden beam to pass harmlessly over her head. The pistol was useless now, the matrix would have overheated and warped from the mana flowing through it, but Natsumi wouldn't know that. I adjusted my aim like I was going to take a second shot, and felt her weapon unwrap form my leg and smack into my wrist forcing my arm off to the side.

I let it and felt the spell pistol fly out of my hand into the surrounding woods. Natsumi was now too close to avoid. Instead of trying to retreat, I projected a shortsword and using my right hand brought it straight down in a vertical chop.

Natsumi automatically responded to the incoming attack by sweeping her sickle upwards, easily tearing the blade from my still nerveless fingers. By the way her eyes widened she also realised her mistake but was unable to do anything about being baited as my left hand slammed into her torso.

'I win.'

Natsumi was sent tumbling off in one direction. I sighed in relief as everything worked out, only to collapse when my right leg suddenly gave out. Dammit, Natsumi got another hit in even with the feint.

"He he he"

The sound of laughter snapped my attention back to the Soul Reaper. Natsumi had gotten back to her feet, clutching her right side. With a sharp jerk she pulled something out of her torso and held it up to her face.

"A punch dagger?" Natsumi asked. "You tricked me into thinking you regained the use of your arm and the best you could do with that opening was a punch dagger?" She shook her head. "No matter, with your leg in that condition you can no longer escape before someone else shows up. I don't even need to fight you anymore, simply watching from the sur- huh?"

Natsumi took a shaky step forward and immediately collapsed to her hands and knees. All strength fleeing from her.

"What's wrong Natsumi?" I smirked "Feeling a bit weak?"

"W-what did y-you do?" She was glaring at me but considering she looked like a gentle wind would knock her over at this point really lessened the impact.

"Hollow dagger filled with this." I replied, holding up a near empty vial of green liquid. "Swiped some off a squad four member and figured out some uses for it. It was an interesting conversation."

The vial was something I swiped off Hanataro while we were treating Ichigo after his duel with Renji. I vaguely remembered it being something that acted as a fast-acting tranquilizer for people with low Reiatsu. When I asked him more about he told me it eventually worked for stronger people but you would need a huge amount to get past the natural barrier anyone with high Reiatsu had. Even then it tended to just reduce body control not actually knock the person out.

I pointed out that you could just inject it or coat a weapon with it to get past that if need be, but apparently the liquid evaporated rapidly outside of the sealed containers they were stored in and apparently poison was not something Soul Reapers used outside of Zanpakuto abilities.

That I was able to actually inject enough to make a difference was due to a much larger amount of luck than I would have liked, but it had worked.

Natsumi's face was a picture of shock. "Shinten? H-how did you-"

"-stop it from evaporating while in the dagger?" I interrupted, "Easy, while we both were talking I was filling the blade. It wasn't out of the container for more than a few seconds. You were just unlucky."

"D-damn, guess it's a draw then. I can't continue, and you aren't going anywhere on that leg." Natsumi complained. "So now what."

"Now I heal up and get on with my day." I scoffed. I limped to the closest tree I could and sat down leaning my back on the trunk. Almost immediately after that a yellow circle appeared in my left hand as I began to heal the various wounds I had.

"You k-know Kaidō. O-of course you know Kaidō. Dammit." Natsumi said bitterly. Then she slumped to her side, unconscious I assume.

Some time later, I had patched myself up enough I was confident I could make it to the cave Yoruichi had gone without being completely helpless or collapsing on the way. I was also nice enough to fix Natsumi up so she wouldn't bleed out in the forest. Now I was almost at my destination and was really looking forward to a nap.

I was making my way down a stupidly long ladder when my arm gave out again. While I had managed to restore some feeling to it, I definitely was not fully healed and that was ignoring the several other injuries I had.

Luckily I was near the bottom of the ladder when I fell off, maybe only a few feet, so I wasn't further hurt by the fall.

I was also content just to lay in a heap on the ground.

Eventually two feet entered my vision and I heard Yoruichi's voice.

"What the hell happened to you?!"

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.12

"What the hell happened to you?!"

I glared up at the werecat. Yoruichi managed to look simultaneously concerned and amused about my condition. "Oh I don't know. Maybe it was the Soul Reaper that showed up and had me trapped in that stupid storage room? Y'know the one you told me to 'have fun with'? Ring any bells?"

Yoruichi looked shocked. "The second squad lieutenant managed to push you that far? Huh, we really underestimated him in that case. All of our info said he was a near-useless fighter."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, confused. "It was the third seat of squad two not the Lieutenant."

Now it was Yoruichi that looked confused. "The third seat?" She said, then got a pensive look on her face. "That makes more sense I suppose. If her Lieutenant was as worthless as we heard Soifon would have definitely made sure that the third seat was capable of being her actual second in command."

"That's great, your girlfriend has a competent subordinate. You couldn't have made sure who it was before I nearly got my ass kicked?"

"Well I, uh, actually don't know who the officers in squad two are anymore." Yoruichi confessed, scratching her cheek and looking off to one side.

I shifted so I was at least sitting down rather than crumpled at the base of the ladder. "Wait, you don't know who the officers of your old squad are? I know Kisuke said you guys were kicked out around a hundred years ago, but isn't that kinda a short time for you guys?"

"And how do you know I used to be in squad two?" Yoruichi asked.

"Kisuke leaves things out. Did you know he has a diary?"

She rolled her eyes, "Of course you found one of those. Moron needs to stop leaving personal information laying around." she muttered.

She walked over to me and reached out a hand, "A hundred years is a hundred years. Even if our lifespans are much longer than living people, it's still a long time. Now come on, we can talk more when you get fixed up."

I took her hand and allowed her to pull me to my feet. I'd like to say I didn't need the help, but even after Yoruichi helped me up I still needed her help to limp further into the underground cavern.

Overall it was incredibly similar to the underground training room under Urahara's shop. Large rock outcroppings littered the space, sparse vegetation grew randomly, and the roof was artificially illuminated by some unknown source. Probably some sort of Kido now that I thought about it.

Honestly there wasn't much more to say about the place. It was large, looked like a rocky wasteland, and if it wasn't covered in swords there was nothing of interest in the whole place.

Speaking of swords, the place was COVERED in swords. The show really didn't do this part justice with the sheer amount of blades stabbed into the earth. Though there were some dust clouds being kicked up every now and then.

Looking closer I spotted Ichigo fighting a middle-aged man with glasses in a dark cloak. The two of them didn't seem to notice me or Yoruichi at all. Which was fine. I was at my limits anyway. Talking to people wasn't very high on my things to do list right now.

"So Ichigo's training then? And I suppose that's his Zanpakuto spirit since he is the one running around with Zangetsu?" I asked as Ichigo's blade shattered into fragments. Impressively, the teen got right back up, grabbed another blade, and continued fighting.

"Yeah, if we want him to have any sort of chance against another Captain, he will need to master Bankai." said Yoruichi. "We are out of time and the only chance we have left is the execution itself."

She started steering me to one area of the cavern while I gave her a look. "Out of time? Kisuke never mentioned a time limit other than the actual execution, something I should know?"

"Not an actual time limit." She said waving me off. "But by now we lost the element of surprise. The Gotei will start organizing by now so rushing in will just leave us facing more and more opponents. Oh watch out."

We both stopped as Ichigo crashed into the ground directly in front of us, another broken blade in his hand. Zangetsu dove down on top of him cratering the ground with his blade when Ichigo rolled away.

I covered my face as we were sprayed with dirt and shards of stone while the two of them bounded off to continue their duel.

"Was that really necessary?"

Yoruichi just laughed, "I doubt it was on purpose. Let's go. It's right over here."

A bit further off was a natural hot spring. Or at least it looked natural. Considering this place was apparently made by Yoruichi and her friends at some point I wasn't too sure just what was natural and what would have been added later.

"Here, this spring should help heal your injuries."

"This looks really nice actually. Any chance you have a tow- aah!"

There was a strong shove from behind and I briefly found myself upside down looking at a smirking Yoruichi before I was underwater.

I exploded to the surface coughing and spluttering. I tried to glare at the stupid cat but the effect was entirely ruined by me angrily brushing hair and water out of my eyes.

"What the hell was that for!"

"The girlfriend comment!" Yoruichi laughed. I noticed she had managed to strip the pouches and pistols off my outfit and placed them in a pile by the edge of the spring. "Have fun with the bath, I'm going to go supervise Ichigo."

I splashed some water at her but she was gone in a shunpo long before the water got close.

Even so, I couldn't help the smile on my face from her antics. It was pretty funny.

Of course now I needed to plan my revenge. Couldn't let the cat think she got away with this.

A minute of concentration later and I had managed to shift my clothes into a large white bath towel. While I wasn't uncomfortable being naked in a bath, I wasn't about to give anyone a free show.

Moving over to the edge of the spring myself, I relaxed into the water and closed my eyes. I could feel my cuts and injuries closing while the tension bled out of my muscles.

Today was exhausting. I think I'm just going to soak for a minute.

-o-​

A loud splash startled me out of my nap.

That I actually fell asleep was a bit startling but not very surprising. I was tired. It was actually more impressive I hadn't accidentally drowned myself while I was asleep. Still, seeing another person in the water had me fully awake now.

Ichigo had apparently decided to enjoy the hot spring and going by how he was acting hadn't noticed I had been in the spring as well.

He was splashing around like an idiot yelling about how awesome it was that his injuries were healing. I might have been more forgiving about his excitement normally. But he woke me up!

So rather than give him any sort of warning about what was about to happen, I just adjusted so I was comfortable and got ready for a show.

Ichigo was still playing around in the water, having filled his mouth with the stuff, when Yoruichi made her way behind him.

"Hey Ichigo! How's the water?"

"Mururiri-ran?Omph mirmph mraa! Mro mram ma mram." I had no idea what he said but it sounded pretty positive.

Yoruichi though, apparently had no issues understanding him. "Oh? That's good. Then I guess I'll take a bath too." and started stripping.

Ichigo pulled off a truly impressive spit-take and started panicking. It was incredibly entertaining watching him bounce between coughing, glancing at Yoruichi, and hiding his face practically all at the same time.

"I-idiot! What are you saying?! Why the hell are you taking off your pants?!"

Yoruichi caught me looking over at them and gave me a wink before going back to provoking Ichigo. "Heheh it's not that big a deal, loosen up! Don't be so old fashioned."

"S-stop making fun of me!" Ichigo weakly protested before shouting. "No, wait! Don't come over here, stop!"

"Heh who would have thought you would be so innocent." Yoruichi teased.

"Don't mess with me!"

My hand was over my mouth, trying desperately to keep myself from laughing. Yoruichi had slipped free of the last of her clothing and Ichigo had his hands over his eyes.

The werecat sent another look at me, clearly trying to not laugh herself, before shifting into her feline form and slipping into the water.

"I don't know what you're so worked up about." She said in her now much more masculine voice. Her tail twitched back and forth while she swam lazy circles in front of Ichigo.

My shoulders were shaking with the effort not needed to laugh.

"Eh?" Ichigo replied dumbly. He slowly peeked through his fingers before dropping his hands entirely and just staring at the cat.

"What?" asked Yoruichi smugly. "Are you a little disappointed? You are, aren't you. You little pervert."

Any hints embarrassment vanished from Ichigo and were replaced by an enraged snarl.

"I am going to drown you." He threatened.

That was the last straw. I tried to muffle it but soon I was nearly howling with laughter.

Ichigo damn near jumped out of the water from the unexpected sound which only set me off again.

"Alexandria?! When did you get here?"

"She was here for the past few hours Ichigo. Did you seriously not notice her when you came over?"

"I-I was distracted by the hot spring even being here! It's not like you expect to find something like this in a cave anyway!"

While the two of them bickered, I eventually managed to get my laughter under control.

"Whoo I needed that. Thanks for the comedy show you two." I said.

Ichigo refused to look directly at me, but turned somewhat in my direction. "Uh hmm, if uh, if you want me to come back in a bit I could leave?"

Well that was considerate of him. Jeez Yoruichi was right, he really is innocent.

"Nah, I've been in for awhile. Enjoy the water." I said, "Oh, Yoruichi? When you're done can you come find me? I have a few questions you might be able to help with."

"Of course."

I quickly left the water and made my way over to where Yoruichi had left my stuff when I felt a sudden sharp pain in my chest. It felt like shards of glass were shifting all around inside and then just as fast as I felt it, it vanished.

One hand rose and lightly rested on my collarbone, but nothing else felt wrong.

Odd.

Yoruichi noticed the odd movements though.
"Alexandria are you alright?" She asked, which naturally drew Ichigo's attention.

I just waved her off and gathered up my things.

"It was nothing, probably just spent too much time in the spring." I replied as I walked off to find a place to work. I had limited time before the finale and I needed to make the most of it now.

Besides, it was probably nothing… right?

-o-​

I think my favorite thing about the weird barrier jacket I had going on, and I probably should come up with a better name for it, was that changing clothes was super easy. Yes, it still took a while to do specific clothing but the default Archer uniform took seconds and was perfectly clean every time.

Between that and the healing effects of the spring it felt like I was completely recovered from all the fights I had gotten in.

It was an incredible feeling not to have to compensate for injuries anymore. And so to celebrate I was sprawled out one one of the larger flat rocks in the area, enjoying the feeling of not needing to keep up my guard while I went over several notes I had taken when developing my Haste spell.

Even in the short time I had been going over it, I had found several places where slight improvements could be implemented just by looking at the spell code. The original version was good for what I had in mind, but even with my inherited skills I was only now starting to understand exactly what was needed for real combat now that I had been in some outside of a spar.

I was working on changing the spell from forward acceleration into a more general speed increase when I noticed Ichigo and Yoruichi making their way over.

Both of them looked clean having come out of the hotspring, but Ichigo seemed like he was determined to do something. He was making a beeline right for me with a serious look on his face.

Yoruichi was following behind him back in her human form at a fairly sedate pace looking much more relaxed, so I hope it's nothing super urgent. Any new issues would just take away from what little time I had left to improve my spell.

"Hey guys, how was the water?" I asked when they were close enough.

"It was nice. A relaxing bath was exactly what I needed after running around taking care of this idiot." Yoruichi replied. "We were just about to get back to his Bankai training but he wanted to ask you some things."

"Okay? What's up?"

Ichigo looked between the two of us before taking a deep breath.

"Alex, who exactly are you?"

Well, wasn't this interesting. Ichigo and I hadn't really talked much. I was usually either busy working on a project or doing something for Urahara when Ichigo was running around Karakura so I hadn't introduced myself, and the little training match after he recovered his powers was the only other time I really saw him before we left.

Even after we arrived, Ichigo had preferred to run off and do his own thing rather than talk to me. Not that I really made any attempt myself. In fact I might have been worse since I had run off several times myself to do something and barely let any of Ichigo's friends know what I was doing.

I decided that this conversation was likely meant I wouldn't be able to pay attention to my spell work, so I put down my notes and shifted so I was sitting cross-legged on the stone.

"Um, what exactly are you looking for here?" I asked, "Cause I don't think either one of us has time for long stories."

Not that I would tell him the full story anyway. I still hadn't told Urahara and Yoruichi about where I came from. The fact they had a somewhat accurate guess worked in my favor, and I wasn't going to correct them anytime soon.

"You're right. But I kinda just want to know more about you guys." Ichigo said rubbing the back of his head. "It's just I kinda realized how little we know about everyone from Urahara's shop. I mean I'm really glad you guys are helping us out but I don't really know why."

"And I'm guessing Yoruichi didn't want to talk for some reason" I said looking over at the woman.

She shrugged. "I mentioned some things about myself and Kisuke, but we've known each other for a long time. I'm fine talking about him because I know what he doesn't mind being shared out. You and I aren't like that." She started scratching at her cheek while avoiding looking directly at me. "And I don't want to say the wrong thing."

Ah, she was probably thinking about our conversation before we broke into the Seireitei. I had pretty much forgotten it, but I felt oddly touched Yoruichi took my feelings into account.
"Fair enough." I said, "So you told him you and Urahara were captains, anything else?"

Ichigo was looking between the two of us but my comment made his head snap to Yoruichi. "Wait, you were a captain too?!"

"Yeah, I was the captain of squad two. It's not a big deal." Yoruichi said, giving me a dry look. "And no, no I did not tell him about that."

I winced at that "Sorry."

She just waved me off, "It's not like it was a secret. And it would have come up anyway, so there's no harm in him knowing."

"How about I just stick to myself then." I said, "Though there really isn't much to say. I came to Karakura a little over a year ago. During the first few days I was there, I was attacked by a hollow and Urahara was nearby. I managed to kill it, but got pretty hurt in the process. Urahara offered me a place to stay and once I healed up I started working for him to pay him back."

"Yeah, definitely wasn't because you were bored." Yoruichi scoffed.

I glared half-heartedly at her. "Come on, let me at least sound good."

"So you aren't a shinigami then?" Ichigo asked.

I shook my head, "Nope. Pretty sure I'm unique as far as my abilities go. I can kinda copy a lot of what I see other people do but for most of it I need to work out the how by myself. For example-" I held up some of the notes laying around me, "-I need to do all this to figure out how to do my own version of the Flash Step. What I use right now isn't working out like I need."

I saw Ichigo's eyes glaze over looking over pages of notes and spell equations. I knew he was pretty far from stupid but this stuff gave me headaches and I had the entire theory and knowledge how to do this grafted onto my soul. Honestly without the literal archive of knowledge I had available to me it was likely I would never have gotten even this far in a few decades let alone a single year.

Ichigo handed my papers back to me, his eyes still a little glazed over. "Can't you just, ya'know, do it until you get the hang of it? That's how I've learned all my stuff."

"Eh," I shrugged, "I can a little. Practice helps with the stuff I've already come up with if it's just getting better at using that. But if I want to use something new or change the base of a skill, then I need to start with this stuff." I waved a hand at all the papers. "It can be relaxing sometimes. Others not so much."

"As much as I hate to break this up, we really need to get back to training. Let's go, Ichigo." Yoruichi cut in.

He nodded, said his goodbyes, and ran off to keep up his Bankai training.

On that note, I turned back to my own kind of training. Besides a few places I needed to check for errors, I was making good progress on a new version of Haste. Once I got those ironed out I could give it a test to see what I still needed to work on.

I picked up my notes and got started.

"Okay, let's see now…"

 

[Azura]

AN: Not a chapter I'm particularly pleased with. But I hit the point where I kinda just want to move past this part than fight it until I'm happy.

Spirit 2.13

The surface of the surrounding rock broke into shards as I raced around the cavern. The world blurring into a mess of color as I pushed myself to go just a further without losing control.

I was hesitant to call this version complete, especially since I only had a few days to really get it working, but it was pretty much at the point where I would feel okay with using it during a combat situation.

There were some drawbacks though that I doubted I would have time to fix. The biggest one was that it was a huge mana hog. With the original version of Haste I could chain over a dozen without really feeling a strain on my mana reserves, but now I could do maybe four or five without needing to take a breather. I knew with a few more days I could probably cut some of the cost down, though since we were on a schedule I would just have to be careful to not overexert myself before I could recover.

The second drawback was how physically tiring this stupid spell was. Pretty similarly to when I was first creating Haste I found going instantly to high speeds is incredibly traumatic to the body. Unfortunately, while the earlier spell solution to that problem still worked it was too weak to fully negate the new stresses changing direction could cause. Because of that I had to pay attention or I could tear something pretty easily. It was a good thing I was taking testing comparatively slow or I might have actually hurt myself on a couple versions.

More stone splinters flew through the air as I wove through a set of obstacles.

The second I had a somewhat viable replacement for Haste I had run to Yoruichi for any tips and exercises she could give me. As the former head of the Onmitsukidō she had quite a few of both. I was happy to say I had achieved the lofty rank of 'not terrible' from Yoruichi after practicing all of yesterday.

Normally I would have been proud of the achievement but the general mood in the cavern made it hard.

Renji Abarai had managed to track Ichigo down somehow. I had a sneaking suspicion that Yoruichi somehow pointed him in the right direction because I needed actual directions to find the right area.

Regardless, he had managed to find our little hideout and dropped a bomb that had all of us scrambling to finish our training as quickly as possible.

Rukia Kuchiki's execution had been moved up. She would be executed at noon tomorrow.

My concentration finally wavered and I couldn't keep the spell active anymore. As it ended my surroundings came back into focus and I felt the light ache in my legs from using the spell for so long. I glanced back and saw evidence for the third drawback all over the rocks around me.

Practically everywhere my feet landed the rock underneath was damaged. Probably too much mana being used to grip whatever I was standing on and getting torn up between all the forces I was manipulating to move at high speeds. I was playing a balancing game of speed, control, and simplicity. And right now I was giving up control for the other two. It wasn't a big sacrifice though. I was still moving faster and could use the spell without a device, but I wasn't good enough to perfectly control it, which meant stealth wasn't much of an option when I left a trail showing exactly where I was going.

There were only a few hours left before noon though, so while I could probably fix that issue in the future, it just wasn't worth the time to do so right now.

I lightly shook out my arms as I made my way over to where Yoruichi was still supervising Ichigo. While I enjoyed the feeling of loosening my muscles up, it didn't do much for the anxiety in my stomach.

"How's he doing?" I asked when I was close enough.

Ichigo was still fighting with Zangetsu. But now the two of them were fighting as complete equals rather than earlier where Ichigo was getting thrashed. Honestly the sharp rise in his combat ability was kinda scary. He was getting to a level of strength it took me a year to get close to in a matter of days.

"He's close." She replied, "He only needs one good push to achieve Bankai, but we are nearly out of time." She looked over at me. "You should get going. It's going to take time to reach the execution grounds and I don't have a way for you to keep up if you wait here for him to finish."

I sighed.

She was right. Yoruichi only had a few artifacts that could get us to the execution grounds fast enough if I stayed too much longer. And most of them needed precise Reshi control to even get to function let alone use.

"Right, I guess I'll hang around and jump in when your friends give the signal. Are you absolutely sure I'll know what it is when I see it? Because this could be really embarrassing if I mess it up."

She nodded, "Yeah no doubts about it. Just remember not to jump in beforehand or you're going to have to face everyone there."

"Yeah not going to do that," I said with a shiver. "I kinda like living."

I didn't even want to think about fighting several Captains at the same time.

With that I turned to leave, heading back to the ladder out of this place, when Yoruichi grabbed my arm and forced me to stop.

"Alexandria, remember this is only the opening act. Whatever Aizen has planned in the long run won't end here." She said seriously. "Don't die."

I gave her a small smirk and pulled away. "Like I said, I like living. Just don't be late."

-o-​

The plateau that held the execution ground was a bleak place. There were some dead looking trees at one end where the stairs leading to the bottom were, but other than those nothing else grew on the flat rock. The lack of anything else around made the giant halberd sticking out of the ground seem even larger.

It was beautiful in its own way since it had a near unrestricted view of the surroundings, being the highest natural point in the Seireitei rivaled only by a single white tower.

That was the prison Rukia was in wasn't it? Kinda a shame that I only got close enough to see this place when I really couldn't make a move.

I leaned back against the tree I was hiding in, allowing one leg to hang off the branch while I looked at the gathering of Soul Reapers in the distance. It was a small gathering with only a handful standing around the execution platform, but the amount of power concentrated in that little area was enough to level the Seireitei in minutes if they went all out.

Standing the furthest from me was the Captain of Squad Eight, Shunsui Kyōraku. Definitely one of the more noticable captains of the bunch considering the bright pink kimono thing he was wearing. I also considered him the third strongest captain here even if I ranked both him and his lieutenant as the lowest threat to me. At least I hoped they were the lowest threat. Yoruichi hinted about acquaintances that might give us a hand dealing with the execution and from what I knew of the original timeline I assumed she was talking about Captains Kyōraku and Ukitake, and I was hoping very hard that they were going to take the same actions or we were screwed before this thing even started.

As for his lieutenant, she wasn't really a concern either way. If things went the same she was a non-factor since she follows after her captain and even if she stayed she wasn't an issue since she would be restricted to Kido. Looking her over, she didn't have her sword on her so I marked her as a pure support type. Simply showering her with ranged attacks would keep her busy enough or I just could immobilise her with Kusarihebi and take her out up close.

Next to them was the top officers from Squad Four. A woman with her black hair braided so it ran down her front stood next to a taller woman with short grey hair. Captain Retsu Unohana and her lieutenant. Number two on my most dangerous captain in the area. And luckily enough, she was likely going to be a noncombatant regardless of my presence thanks to her current decision to focus on healing rather than combat. Her lieutenant was a different case though and would likely still try to fight but I wasn't really concerned.

Due to her following Unohana around, and as a result staying out of most fights, I didn't remember her fighting any other time than the quick beatdown with Ichigo where she got one shotted. Hell I didn't even remember her name! So if she wasn't immediately taken out this time, we had a lieutenant level Soul Reaper that I had no idea what she could do. Still probably not much to worry about if she was taken out in one hit regardless.

My inspection of the gathered captains was interrupted by a small procession approaching the execution ground. Four men in white robes surrounded the small girl in the middle. Each one carried a red staff with a chord that attached to the collar around her neck. Rukia Kuchiki had arrived, the execution was about to begin.

I watched as the group of five slowly made their way to their destination passing by the captain I was most uncertain about, squad 2's Captain Soifon. Unlike the other captains Soifon had definite reasons to change her behavior. Afterall I had told her subordinate the main reason Yoruichi left her behind was due to an outside party. In theory she would be open to listening to Yoruichi and working with us right away. On the other hand, she spent one hundred years with a huge grudge against Yoruichi. That might not be forgiven so quickly, so it was entirely possible she would fight us instead. As for her lieutenant. Well... I don't think he would make any meaningful contributions either way so I ignored him.

The only person I considered more dangerous than her was the Captain of Squad One, Captain Commander Yamamoto. If the old man decided to fight here it was an instant game over for my side. Even If we were technically trying to work with him in the future, it wouldn't make a difference if he incinerated us in the present.

Speaking of incinerations, the execution was just about to start. Byakuya Kuchiki had shown up silently while I was lost in thought and Yamamoto had given the signal.

Rukia was escorted to the middle of a large stone platform where her escort removed the collar from her neck. The ropes on her arms disintegrated as her arms were pulled out to the sides and held in place by restraining blocks. Rukia started floating up until she was just below the crossbeam on the huge scaffold.

The men in robes milled around the base of the Sokyoku. With a combination of chanting and hand signs the ropes binding the giant halberd burned at the base and detached. Now freed the giant ropes swung around the pole of the spear in a good imitation of a maypole before straightening into stiff poles themselves and launching off the plateau.

Was there a point to that?

The robed guys already burnt the ends so it wasn't like they were going to reuse the ropes. Maybe it just made collecting them easier? Rather than drag new ones up and still need to remove the old ones, they just designed it so the old bindings could be collected at the bottom.

Right, not the time to be thinking about random things. Time to get into position.

I pulled my legs under me and crouched on the branch. But just before I jumped down I felt something cold and metallic press against my neck.

"Please don't move Ryoka. We need to talk."

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Natsum's voice directly behind me. Looking down I saw a katana with the back of the blade on my neck.

"We don't have much time so I would appreciate it if you listened without making any sudden moves." Natsumi continued. "The Captains investigated your information and the ones we can clear for certain have agreed to ignore your presence for the moment. This depends on you working with us to corner the traitors . Do you agree?"

Damn, this really isn't the time for a negotiation. But I can't jump straight to a fight either without attracting the attention of everyone else here.

"You realise the whole reason we came here was to prevent the execution of Rukia Kuchiki. Saying you will ignore us while you execute her isn't really something I can just go along with." I said as a huge rush of hot air swept by us.

Looking back towards the others I saw the Sokyoku had been released. A massive firebird hovered in the air right before the scaffold where Rukia was. I couldn't see Ichigo anywhere yet so I couldn't risk him swooping in to stop the Sokyoku at the last second. Natsumi's sword wasn't in a position to actually cut me. It would be risky but I could try rushing in and snatching Rukia before the Sokyoku hit. No way was I going to take a hit from it if I didn't need to. Getting away would be hard but-

"The execution is fake."

...

Huh?

Eyes wide, I turned back to Natsumi.

There were so many things I was fighting to say that my mouth did this weird fish impression, unable to make any actual sounds. In the end the best I was able to do was a vaguely questioning noise and gesture incredulously at the execution currently in progress.

She followed my gesture and snorted. "The Commander and the Captain are coordinating so someone from your little group could step in." She waved back at the group. "See?"

Damn, she distracted me. I was too far away to reach Rukia in time.

I looked at the execution site and helplessly watched the firebird surge forward. I had nothing that could stop the colossal bird from hitting Rukia, but right before the two collided a blurry figure dashed in between the two and the firebird suddenly stopped moving forward.

A relieved sigh escaped when I realised Ichigo managed to get here in time. Looks like things were still kinda salvageable.

"We really do not have time, your answer?" Natsumi prodded. "Just know if you refuse the Commander will focus on your group immediately in exclusion to all else."

You really aren't giving me a choice are you?

"Fine, I accept." I said reluctantly. "And the other Captains? Will you have them stand down also?"

Natsumi didn't look at me while she retrieved a simple looking device from a pocket, a plain black rectangular remote with two buttons, one red one green, and pressed the green button twice. Then she simply jumped off the branch we were both on and began walking away.

"Follow me Ryoka, or I will consider the deal off."

One last glance back was enough for me to see the destruction of the Sokyoku and Ichigo holding Rukia on the top of the execution scaffold. After that I turned and rushed to follow the third seat before she followed through on her threat.

-o-​

Soon we were running over rooftops getting farther and farther away from the plateau, heading towards the center of the Seireitei. I was hesitant to speak up earlier when all the Captains were right there, but now that we were on our own I wanted to find out why the hell I was suddenly pressed into an alliance.

Is it even an alliance if one side threatens annihilation if you don't cooperate?

Probably not, but not like I have anyone I can complain to.

"I think I've been pretty understanding so far Natsumi. What is going on, and where are we going?" I called out to the Soul Reaper ahead of me.

"Don't call me so familiarly Ryoka, but very well I shall explain. The Commander suspected something was wrong when Central 46 called for the execution of an unranked Soul Reaper after she was deemed guilty of a B-class crime. Normally this could be written off as political posturing by noble factions looking to pressure the Kuchiki clan, but the use of the Sokyoku, which is only used for S-class criminals or people unable to be executed normally, raised several concerns." Natsumi explained. "All these concerns, however, were responded to with the correct codes and passphrases known only to the members of Central 46."

"When you reported there were potential traitors in our ranks and an acceleration for the execution was ordered both Commander Yamamoto and Captain Soifon decided to send another verification request independently. They received the same confirmation codes."

I waited for her to continue but Natsumi seemed to think that explained everything.

"...So? What does that mean? Wouldn't getting the right codes be normal?" I prodded.

Natsumi glared at me over her shoulder like I was an idiot for asking. Well, sorry I'm not an expert on Gotei 13 security codes. Actually, shouldn't you be happy about that?!

"As the leader of the Onmitsukidō, when Captain Soifon makes a request regarding a judgement from Central 46 she should receive a separate verification code. She is the only Captain that requires an independent code and she has only requested a verification twice in her career. That she did not means that at the very least Central 46 has been compromised." Natsumi said unhappily. "We are going to link up with one of the Captains we have verified as trustworthy and investigate. Until the traitors have been dealt with we will not move against your group if you do not move against us."

An explosion resounded through the air behind us.

"Won't move against us, right." I said dryly. Natsumi had the decency to blush. "And why the cloak and dagger routine if you know there are people pulling the strings behind this? Just storm the place or declare martial law or something."

Natsumi shook her head at my comments. "Politics. The noble faction would look at any aggressive action without proof as a coup and use it as an excuse to grab more power for themselves or even attempt a rebellion."

"And the blatant lie that is 'we won't move against you'?" I asked.

Natsumi refused to look at me. "Captain Kuchiki was not expected to be at the execution. He was specially excused from it due to his relation. Because of that he was not included in this operation."

"So you're saying he showed up against orders and threw the whole plan out of whack because he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place?" I mused.

"Well, not against orders." Natsumi said. "It was more heavily implied that he did not need to be there."

Of course he would. Byakuya probably thought it was his duty to attend even if he was excused. At least Ichigo had a chance against him, pretty much any other Captain there would have crushed him immediately.

We spent some more time in silence making our way towards our destination, which I still didn't actually know. Buildings passed by in a blur before Natsumi eventually started slowing down and soon enough came to a stop at an intersection in the road.

I followed suit and stopped next to her.

"Why'd we stop? I thought we were meeting up with a Captain?" I asked.

Naturally this is when a short, bluish-silver haired figure wearing a Captain's haori walked out from one of the side roads followed by a taller strawberry blonde woman.

"Good, you arrived. Follow me, we are about to enter." said Squad 10 Captain Tōshirō Hitsugaya before turning his back and walking off again.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.14

I watched as the diminutive Captain got further away before what he said actually sunk in.

We were going now? With no introduction or even an explanation about a plan of attack? My burgeoning respect for the Soul Reapers discreetly checking and investigating information, even at the word from an enemy, quickly died a horrible death. In the end they were just going to rush in anyway?

"H-hey! What do you mean about to enter? Do you even know who you're going up against?" I called, reaching out to stop the brat. Before my hand managed to touch him, I suddenly had his lieutenant hanging off my shoulders.

"Mah, don't worry about it Ryoka-chan." Rangiku Matsumoto said happily. "We are just going to poke around a bit. If we actually run into anyone we'll be more than enough to take them on!"

"It's nice you're confident, but you realize you might be facing three Captains at once right?" I said, doing my best to throw the slightly shorter woman off, but she just readjusted her grip and I found her hanging off my neck instead. I glanced at Natsumi hoping she would reign in the blonde. Sadly, going by the smirk she was enjoying my predicament and I was on my own.

"Well yeah but as long as we force them into the open the rest of the Captains can step in so it's not a big deal." My new necklace said as she started dragging me after her Captain.

"We are only investigating in this manner so no one can throw our motives into question later." added Natsumi. "Once we verify the status of Central 46, we will proceed to find the identity of any and all traitors working against the Seireitei."

"Or I could tell you now." I pointed out.

Hitsugaya stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. "You know who we are going up against?" he asked, sounding suspicious.

Did they not tell him I knew who the traitors were?

I sent a questioning look at Natsumi. Shouldn't she have told them I was the one who let them know they even had traitors to begin with? Why would they agree to have me here in the first place?

"No one was informed about the source of the information after it was verified. It was decided that we didn't want anyone acting on the information to be biased because of your group's actions." Natsumi explained when she saw me looking at her.

"Ignoring that for now," cut in Captain Hitsugaya. "You have information on the traitors we are facing? I want to know who they are."

I felt my eyebrow start twitching at the demand. I don't work for you kid.

Still, they did need to know who they were up against.

"Probably the one we need to worry about least is Kaname Tosen."

The Soul Reapers all stilled when I spoke. It was easy to say 'let's root out the traitors' but when you had a name to attach to the label they were no longer a shadowy figure to chase, but a comrade who deceived you.

"You're certain?" asked Hitsugaya, who looked grim when I nodded.

"From the info I have on him, among the captains he is somewhere around the bottom third in direct combat and his fighting style and techniques all revolve around small scale battlefield control. Good for dealing with small groups of weaker enemies, but he struggles with individual opponents of similar strength unless he uses his bankai."

I got some confused looks but kept going.

"Next on the list is Gin Ichimaru, he-" I was finally free from the lieutenant hanging around my neck, but I wasn't much more comfortable since she was glaring at me and still very much in my personal space.

"Hey now, Gin is…questionable with how he behaves, but that doesn't mean he's a traitor!" Matsumoto exclaimed, cutting me off.

Ah right, the two of them were childhood...friends? Honestly didn't remember much about Gin's backstory since he played such a small part in most events. Oh well, not really something to waste time on.

"My group confirmed he was working with the leader of the traitors since at least the time he was a lieutenant which means-"

"Which means he has been working against us long enough to match the scenarios you gave us earlier." This time it was Cap- you know what? I'm getting tired of being interrupted. You've been demoted- Toshiro who cut me off. "It also explains how Aizen was murdered so easily. Ichimaru was his lieutenant in the past, he wouldn't have been on guard around him."

Matsu- No, I was annoyed at her too- Rangiku took a few steps back and bit her thumbnail, eventually nodding but didn't say anything.

I eyed the two of them, waiting to see if they were done before continuing. "Anyway, he-" "We already know how he fights Miss Ryoka." This time it was Natsumi who interrupted me. "You don't need to tell us about people we have seen fight for years."

I felt my left eyebrow twitching severely.

All these interruptions. Considering they basically forced me to be here you would think they would at least take what I say more seriously.

"Fine, the third traitor and the leader of the group is Sosuke Aizen." If I sounded annoyed the others didn't react to it. They just stared blankly at me.

"Um, you know that Captain Aizen was killed, don't you? In fact you were the one who told me he was going to die!" said Natsumi.

Toshiro was next to give his opinion. "So does that mean your group managed to eliminate him already?" He brought a hand to his chin and rubbed at it thoughtfully. "Or was it an internal struggle between one of the other members?"

"Neither." I responded. "Aizen is happily alive and leading his group. I just knew he was going to fake his death so it was a good way to convince you we were telling the truth."

"Bu-but we have his body!" exclaimed the squad 10 lieutenant.

"Zanpakuto created body double." I said.

"Who could even do something like that?!"

"Aizen, obviously."

Fed up with this whole situation I started walking in the direction Toshiro had been going before the Soul Reapers had managed to piss me off for both demanding I answer them and not actually letting me speak. I didn't really bother checking to see if they followed me, but I just wanted this whole thing over with.

There was a scramble of motion behind me as the other rushed to catch up, and eventually we were all walking together. Toshiro had retaken the lead soon after with his lieutenant in tow as we continued in silence.

Natsumi didn't seem content to let the last conversation go that easily however.

"Miss Ryoka."

"My name is Alex Cross, not Ryoka. Come on Natsumi, I thought we were closer than this?" I said flippantly.

"Cross-san then," man she is formal when we aren't fighting. "You said that Aizen created a body double with a Zanpakto."

"Yeah?"

"Can you explain how? That does not seem like an ability he should possess."

"Oh? I thought you 'knew how they fought for years'." I said using air quotes to make my point. Natsumi grimaced, but motioned for me to continue.

"Aizen passed off his true shikai ability as a fake one so none of you know how to deal with it. He used his real ability to create a fake body."

Rangiku slowed down to walk next to us. "Really? What kind of ability lets him do that?"

Well if you hadn't been interrupting me constantly you would already know, now wouldn't you?

"Hypnosis. I don't know exactly how it works but if you see his Zanpakuto release he can supposedly control your senses."

And wasn't that a terrifying thought. Captain level fights relied a lot on being perceptive and either reacting to, or countering your opponent's moves quickly or you would be overwhelmed. Aizen cheated by being able to not only hide any tells with hypnosis, but straight up give misinformation about what he is doing.

I don't believe it's 'perfect' but it's clearly effective, especially if no one noticed what he was up to for a century.

"We're here." said Toshiro. Instantly all conversation died as we looked at the compound we arrived at.

I looked around as we passed the walls surrounding the entrance. It was a rather nice courtyard I suppose, but it was also rather empty. Well manicured lawns and ponds surrounded a white octagonal building. Surprisingly, unlike all the other buildings I had seen lately this one was fairly short and looked more like a bunker than a proper building.

So this was where the Central 46 met? It looked shockingly low key.

The others didn't bother looking around and moved straight to the door. Toshiro immediately cut through the thick wooden doors with his Zanpakuto.

"No alarms. They really have infiltrated." he said.

Without another word the three Soul Reapers rushed through the door and down into the depths of the building. I followed at a more sedate pace, both because I didn't have a clue where we were going and because I wasn't super eager to see what was coming up.

We passed by meeting rooms, waiting and rest areas, and even security checkpoints, but there was no sign of anyone else around.

Jeez, this place was a maze. If I wasn't following Toshiro I would spend a lot of time just wandering around aimlessly.

Eventually we reached another staircase but rather than going down Toshiro froze at the top. Rangiku and Natsumi had similar reactions when they came up behind him.

I really didn't want to see what caused them to freeze up like that, even though I had a pretty good idea of what they were looking at. I walked up behind them and got my first look through the doorway. It was just as gruesome as I was expecting.

The room itself was a plain octagonal meeting room. The high white walls were mostly undecorated, the only exceptions being large cloth posters with single words hung from every second wall. I didn't bother reading any of them with my attention drawn to the middle of the room.

In the middle of the room where the members of Central 46 would normally meet was a massacre. Bodies were still seated in a parody of normalcy, but the pools of black blood and slash marks made it pretty clear everyone in that room was very dead.

"The entirety of Central 46 has been...wiped...out." Toshiro breathed.

-o-​

It was with an almost detached sense of horror I followed the other three in investigating the dead bodies.

I had seen several dead or dead looking bodies during my year with Urahara. Usually it was a gegai prototype he was messing with and would leave lying around. I had a hard time determining if it was specifically to mess with me or if he was just forgetful.

For all that Urahara was meticulous with the process of his experiments. He had a habit of leaving things lying around. One that I happily abused to explain some of my knowledge from the show and sometimes just to avoid random experiments he tended to test on the rest of the shop.

The other times were when we were too slow to stop a Hollow from catching a soul. They were not clean eaters.

I think the biggest reason I disturbed by the killing was that none of the faces had any more emotion on them then faint surprise. Either most of them had been killed simultaneously, which I found doubtful, or Aizen had blocked his presence from everyone in the room before executing them all one by one.

This wasn't death due to a fight or hunger, those I could rationalize and eventually accept. This was simply butchering helpless people and not even letting them know they were in danger until it was already too late.

I wandered around the room barely going near the bodies or trying to find out what happened since I already knew who killed them. Toshiro and the other Soul Reapers were doing a much more thorough investigation anyway. I was happy leaving it to them.

Though I was a little lost on what the next step of the plan was. Natsumi said that they were here to verify the status of Central 46, so I figured we would move somewhere else when we found them all dead.

Maybe go looking for where Aizen's group was hiding out now that I had clued them in to who the traitors were.

I looked over at Toshiro who was examining one of the bodies, if there was more to the Soul Reaper's plan then he would be the person to ask.

Before I could make my way over I heard a cold voice call out from the entrance we had come from.

"I thought you would be here...Captain Hitsugaya."

In the doorway stood another Soul Reaper looking down at all of us. His ice-blue eyes had no emotion in them as he took in the four of us standing in a room of corpses. Well the one eye visible to me didn't. His left eye was covered by blonde hair in what I could only describe as an emo fringe.

What the hell? That was the lieutenant of Squad 3, Izuru Kira. Why was he here?

Unlike in the original timeline Hinamori didn't discover Aizen's fake body and didn't go berserk trying to attack Gin. So Kira shouldn't have had the whole mental breakdown that led him to following Gin for whatever sketchy reasons he had in canon.

Oblivious to my internal confusion, Toshiro began demanding answers why Kira was here and if he knew anything about what happened here. Rather than answer, Kira simply vanished at a full on sprint.

"After him Matsumoto! Hanakage, Cross you stay here!"

And just like that half our number ran out the door leaving me in a room full of bodies, a Soul Reaper I had fought several times, and no idea what to do next.

Lovely.

I turned to look at Natsumi. "Any idea what we should do next?"

She opened her mouth to respond but instead of answering me a large amount of blood poured out of her mouth.

Both of our eyes went wide with surprise before Natsumi recoiled in pain and I saw a long silver line quickly retracting towards the other side of the room from where the two Squad 10 officers left.

Natsumi pitched forward into my arms and I felt even more blood begin to leak from her torso. It was obvious she had been stabbed, but how had both of us been taken completely off guard?!

"Well isn' that a shame? I only attacked once an' she's already done."

Standing in the doorway I assumed led deeper into the Central 46 compound was the traitorous Captain of Squad 3, Gin Ichimaru. With a negligent wave, he removed the blood staining the tip of his wakizashi.

"Oh well," he sighed even as his constant smile stayed in place. "Now would ya follow me, miss Ryoka? Someone wants to talk with ya."

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.15

I glared up at the white haired Soul Reaper. More blood was seeping into my sleeves and I was pretty sure that Natsumi had gone into shock. A quick diagnostic spell revealed that both her lungs were nicked and Gin had gotten her diaphragm at the same time.

Medical situations weren't my best field, but I was fairly confident that if I left her right now, Natsumi would end up drowning in her own blood.

So I needed to stall.

I pulled Natsumi closer to me and got ready to dodge in any direction, while a small spell circle lit up on her chest. I made sure to keep it hidden from Gin's line of sight because I needed every second.

There was no way I could completely heal her. Even if I had several uninterrupted hours the wound was just beyond my skill level, but if I was fast enough I could get enough patched up that she could at least survive until a proper healer got to her.

"If Aizen wanted to talk to me he could have showed up himself." I challenged.

Gin just seemed amused, "Aizen? Didn' ya know Captain Aizen was killed a few days ago? Terrible tragedy, they even found his body pinned to a building."

"Yes, too bad his Lieutenant was too busy fighting me to stumble across that little scene." I said. "The whole scene must have fallen flat without the lead actress."

"It was a bit lacking. The shock an' disbelief were there, but without the heartbreak it did feel pretty dull." Gin nodded.

Natsumi's lungs would probably work fine if she didn't move much. Only a little bit longer.

"Probably didn't help the lead actor phoned in the whole thing and used a stunt double." I pointed out. "If you know the whole thing is staged it loses a bit of the entertainment value."

I was really tipping my hand here, but it wasn't anything Gin and Aizen couldn't have guessed. Unlike the Gotei, I already knew about Aizen being a turncoat so it was easy to assume the whole murder scene was faked. As long as it kept Gin talking for a few more seconds-

"So ya almost done patchin' up girlie there?"

Ice water poured into my veins. He knew?!

"Oh don't look like that. If I wanted her dead I woulda hit her here." Gin said, tapping on his chest right where his heart would be. "Of course if it's too hard for ya, I could give ya a hand." His constant smile dropped to a flat line and one of his eyes cracked open.

I narrowed my own eyes at the offer. "I'll pass on your help. I'm done anyway."

I really wasn't. There was more I could do, but Gin's "help" likely meant another hole in Natsumi. I just hoped she didn't move much and took shallow breaths. I cast another two quick spells, one to hopefully keep Natsumi stable if she was moved suddenly and another for whoever found her.

Dragging her off to a clean section of floor I set her down and turned back to Gin.

"Oh? Well aint you a fast one." he said, smile back in place.

He turned and started walking back down the hall he came from, obviously expecting me to follow. I did, but was still on guard for any sudden moves.

So I was fully prepared when a silver flash burst out of his haori. In a heartbeat Kanshou was in my hand as I slashed the incoming blade off to the left. Sparks jumped from where the two swords collided and a hollow thunk echoed behind me where Gin's blade struck a wall.

The smile broke into a grin as Gin's sword shrunk back down to its normal length.

"You are fast! And ya even managed to keep girlie safe too!" Gin complimented.

I blinked and quickly replayed the short clash in my mind. Gin's sword wouldn't have hit me even if I didn't block it. At most it would have been a shallow cut on my arm, but Natsumi was directly behind me. If I hadn't deflected the blade then it would have pierced her chest and most likely killed her.

I fought back a snarl, simply because it was clear Gin didn't care if he succeeded or not and wouldn't care if I objected to the attack. Instead I just pointed my sword at him. "Didn't you say Aizen wanted to talk with me? You're wasting everyone's time."

"So scary! And I never said it was Captain Aizen." Gin laughed. "But I suppose we should get a move on, we don't want to be late now, do we?"

Grinding my teeth together I followed him through the complex, keeping an eye out for any more surprises. Luckily, Gin seemed to have lost interest in messing with me and just silently guided me through the halls.

After much more walking than I wanted while having Gin as a guide, we eventually came to a massive underground room. Like much of the architecture in the Seireitei I had seen it was very minimalistic with nothing but several square white towers stretching high into the air. It was telling how massive the room was that even as high as the towers went there was still space to the ceiling.

I was inwardly impressed that even here, Central 46 seemed to be pretty spartan with their living conditions. Not the norm when dealing with governments where even the identity of who was in charge was a secret.

I wonder if that would change when they get around to replacing everyone who died.

Gin walked up the stairs to one of the towers and stood next to the door.

"Welcome to the Seijoutou-Kyorin. The residential district for all of Central 46." He said with a flourish, then chuckled, "Well it used ta be anyway. Not getting much use recently."

And whose fault is that? Jackass.

"So where is he?" I asked instead. I was fucked anyway, might as well get the whole thing over with so I don't have to keep talking to the creepy bastard.

"So impatient." he sighed. "Oh well, just look right over there."

I looked at the building Gin was pointing at just in time to see a man with medium-length brown hair and glasses walk out of the doorway. If it wasn't for the captain's haori and the zanpakuto at his side you could easily mistake him for a mild-mannered librarian or accountant.

"Welcome, I'm glad you decided to accept my offer to talk." Dammit. I knew what kind of bastard he was, but I picked up nothing but genuine warmth and appreciation in his voice.

"Couldn't pass up the chance to talk to someone who came back from the dead." I said sarcastically.

Aizen smiled.

"Yes, I suppose the whole event looks rather silly from your perspective. Even if it was more for entertainment, it was impressive how easily you interfered with my plan. But then I suppose it only makes sense for one of his subordinates to be at least that capable."

"I aim to please." I said dryly, glancing between both captains. I was waiting for the inevitable sudden attack when Aizen decided to end the conversation. It was hard to say exactly when that would be since I had no idea what his timetable looked like, but if I was going to lose I'd like to at least make it harder on the two jackasses.

"If that's the case then you certainly succeed." Aizen said. "In fact you did so well that I wanted to give you another test just to see how good you truly were."

He turned to Gin.

"So Gin, were you able to kill the hanger-on she was with?" He said in the same tone people used to ask how someone's day went.

The Squad 3 Captain sighed theatrically, "Unfortunately Captain Aizen, the Ryoka was quick enough to save her life. She even managed to stop my second strike, so I failed."

"Hmm, I suppose if she wasn't at least capable of that I wouldn't have an interest in her. Don't worry about failing then."

Gin bowed his head slightly, smirk still in place.

"That does bring us back to why I wanted to talk to you, miss Ryoka." Aizen said, looking back to me. "Ah, but where are my manners. I am Aizen Sosuke, and once again thank you for agreeing to speak with me."

"Alexandria Cross, charmed." I said curtly.

Aizen nodded indulgently at me. "Well miss Cross, unlike the fools and fossils in the Soul Society you don't have much attachment to the status quo, do you? And since you decided to seek shelter under that man you also clearly know that those that rule over this heap will not tolerate the presence of such a powerful figure outside of their control."

He started walking, gesturing to the surroundings.

"Even with the removal of Central 46, the Soul Society will not accept one such as yourself that does not bow to them. You are too different, too powerful, for them to allow that. They might not make a move against you now that I, along with my companions of course, have made our opening moves. But soon they will see you as another uncontrollable element like myself, and demand you come to heel."

Aizen stopped, turned to face me, and held out a hand.

"But what if you didn't need to fear these lesser beings clamoring for your imprisonment or subjugation simply because you are different? Join me and you would be free to go wherever you wanted without fear of being hunted."

I looked warily at his outstretched hand, half expecting him to fire a kido at me. "I've seen how you treat people weaker than you Aizen. And you should remember I was the one that interrupted your scheme with your Lieutenant. I don't think I'd be able to trust you much if you would just manipulate me against a friend if it served one of your plans."

Aizen pulled his hand back and brought it up to his chin. "Ah, I can see why my methods could be seen as distasteful, but you must remember causing confusion among the enemy is just the basics. While I acted as her captain, I did nothing but my best to make sure she was well cared for."

No, you made her completely dependent on you then got off making her have a series of mental breakdowns before stabbing her and leaving her to die. The worst part was there was no hint of anything false in Aizen's recruitment speech. He sounded like he genuinely wanted to make sure I was making the best decision for myself.

"Considering you wanted to make her think her friend killed her captain I can't help but think your 'methods' might not be all that acceptable to most people." I said dryly.

Aizen smiled gently, "Then perhaps that would be your role if you joined me. I could use someone to help make sure that my future plans don't affect more innocent bystanders than necessary."

So if I say yes and join Aizen's side I would be given the chance to guide him to less objectionable methods than sacrificing a town to make a key or making elaborate plans that result in all his subordinates dying because he betrayed them.

In theory it would be the best choice for me personally. I wouldn't need to get involved in much of the future fighting, I would have the ear of one of the most powerful spiritual beings around, and even though Aizen didn't know I knew about them I would likely have personal servants to do my bidding when he rejoined his Hollow forces. It sounds like the perfect way out from dealing with the rest of the plot.

Of course that's if you ignore the long history of Aizen making similar promises and promptly stabbing people in the back once he no longer needed them.

I told him as much and got ready to react to his next move following my refusal.

But Aizen didn't make a move. He just stood there smiling, but now his eyes were flat and cold.

"It makes me glad you decided to accept my offer.You completed all the tasks I assigned you and even removed you watcher. I know we will work wonderfully together, don't you think so Captain Hitsugaya?"

The surrounding temperature plummeted and my breath started misting.

Looking behind me I saw an absolutely furious Toshiro glaring daggers at Aizen, but his zanpakuto was already in its Shikai release and pointed at me.

If Toshiro rushed directly here from dealing with Kira…

And Aizen had him under hypnosis and just showed me agreeing to work with him. I turned back around to stare at the traitorous captain, arms trembling with how hard my hands were clenched.

It goes without saying but, Aizen you utter asshole!

 

[Azura]

Spirit 2.16

Ice particles swirled as Toshiro raised his reiatsu higher and higher.

Even in just its Shikai form his zanpakuto was powerful enough to cause some noticeable changes to the surroundings. Frost started coating the area around him and creeping outwards and ice crystals started growing where the crescent blade and chain attached to the hilt of his sword touched the ground.

Toshiro looked around the room stopping briefly on me and Gin before stopping on Aizen.

"Aizen, you're alive after all." he said coldly.

"Yes, I'd be surprised if miss Cross didn't tell you that beforehand." Aizen blandly replied before looking at his subordinate. "Although Gin, I do admit I'm surprised Captain Histugaya came back so quickly."

Gin just bowed his head a little and shrugged, "Sorry, I overestimated how effective Izuru would be as a distraction." He didn't sound very upset by it.

Aizen hummed, "I suppose he did manage to split the enemies forces a bit. So it wasn't a complete waste."

Toshiro narrowed his eyes. "And it looks like she was telling the truth about your companions, if Ichimaru is here too."

"I'm right here, you know?" I said, annoyed everyone was talking like I wasn't present.

Toshiro glanced at me before looking back at Aizen. "Is she though? See Cross told us another interesting fact, Aizen. She told us the real ability of your Zanpakuto is hypnosis, so I can't exactly trust what I see right now."

For the first time Aizen actually seemed surprised.

"And how did you know that?" He asked, addressing me directly. "I don't believe I've ever told anyone outside my companions that ability except from…" his eyes widened. "…oh I see. I didn't realise any of that fossil's work was still around. But I suppose that explains where you popped out from then."

I was freaking out internally. Not only did I reveal I knew more than I should, I also had no idea what he was talking about. What fossil? Why did that explain anything about me being here?

To make matters worse Toshiro seemed to be having a slightly different conversation because he suddenly pointed his sword towards an empty space on Aizen's right. He had also been speaking but I hadn't paid attention to what he was saying, so I only caught the last bit.

"... I can't be sure it's you, then I just have to take you all down!"

Fuck, that was probably really important.

"BANKAI!"

Yep! Fuck, I really wished I had payed attention to him!

Ice exploded from the guard on his sword, flowing down his arm and wrapping around him like a living thing. His arms and legs were covered in clawlike ice armour and large crystalline wings extended from his shoulders. In addition to that three deep purple ice formations floated behind his back. Each formation was a segmented cross that somehow stayed in perfect position despite not being attached to anything at all.

Toshiro's Reiatsu skyrocketed, and large chunks of ice also sprang up around him. The air turned frigid and mist began obscuring his feet as it rolled outward in thick wisps.

"Daiguren Hyorinmaru" he intoned.

I was getting a front row demonstration why Captains were considered unbeatable by rank-and-file Soul Reapers. Even with my pathetic sensory abilities I could clearly tell there was a qualitative change in his Reiryoku not only a quantitative one.

Not that I had a whole lot of time to examine what it felt like.

The moment Toshiro released his bankai Aizen frowned.

"Children are so impatient." he sighed, "And I was looking forward to playing with him for a little longer." he sighed again. "Oh well. Gin, kill him before he moves the other pieces out of place."

"Of course, Captain Aizen."

I bristled at the causal order. Aizen wanted him dead not because he was a threat, but because Toshiro releasing his bankai would eventually draw other captains over here. And if they were over here then they wouldn't gather at Sokyoku hill for his declaration of war.

In other words, he wanted Toshiro dead to satisfy his need for theatrics.

With a burst of speed I leaped at Gin, my twin swords whistling through the air as I moved to stop him from attacking the hypnotized captain. The brief look I got of Toshiro before my blades crashed into Gin's wakizashi. It looked like he was reacting to some invisible opponent as he sent blasts of ice at nothing.

Turning my attention back to the Squad 3 captain, I was just in time to notice Gin angle his blade towards my face.

"Shoot to kill, Shinso."

I wrenched my head to the side just in time for the blade to shoot over my shoulder. Judging by the hot line on my cheek I wasn't quite fast enough. Following my momentum, I turned the dodge into a cartwheel as Gin danced backward trying to get me out of his personal space. I refused to give him that time, the second my hands hit the floor I twisted to the side, foot lashing out and catching him in the side I sent Gin skidding back over the floor.

I wanted to follow him but Toshiro's imaginary duel got in the way. I had to quickly raise Bakuya to deflect his sword from cutting me in half, then throw it away before the ice growing on the blade covered my hand. A quick Haste spell let me dodge past him, but Toshiro spun in a tight circle to slash at the space between me and Gin. A wave of ice followed the move forced me to stop or risk getting encased in ice, and I felt something cold and hard slam into my thigh and stagger me.

Toshiro had a goddamn tail made of ice! Worse, I think that hit was accidental too!

There was no time to complain as I threw Kanshou to deflect Gin's extending blade. The thrown sword managed to knock the thrust off target enough to turn into another near miss that would have skewered Toshiro otherwise.

I traced my bow and fired off several shots to force Gin to either block or move. Anything to stop him from simply slashing at Toshiro and taking him off guard. The second I saw him leap backwards to dodge, I traced and modified an arrow with the most powerful fire enchantment I was capable of and Reinforced it as much as I dared. Silently praying it wouldn't explode in my face I spun towards Aizen, took aim, and fired.

There was no chance such a hastily thrown together attack would actually hurt an opponent on Aizen's level so as soon as the arrow was a few feet in front of him, I forcefully destabilized the projection and allowed it to blow up.

Smoke and fire consumed the area Aizen was standing in, but I doubted he was phased all that much. Kusarihebi appeared in my right hand and I hurled the weighted end into the smoke where Aizen had been standing. If I read him right, Aizen wouldn't have bothered to move wanting to show that my attack did nothing.

True enough I felt Kusarihebi brush against something in the smoke and manipulated the chain to wrap around it like a snake before forcing it to stab into the ground, hopefully anchoring it in place. I pulled the chain on my end tight as well and jammed the sickle into the tiles by my feet.

It wouldn't hold for long but hopefully it would delay Aizen enough for me to think of a way out of this mess.

I used Haste to close in with Gin once again now that he had recovered from my last attack, discarding my bow as Kanshou and Bakuya appeared in my hands once again. This time Gin reacted faster, deflecting my double overhead strike with his blade before kicking me away. I think he might have broken a rib.

The unexpected kick sent me skidding across the floor before I was able to force a hand under me and vault back to my feet. Panting heavily, I took the time to quickly scan the surrounding area. Gin was still focused on me, Toshiro was looking at the two of us confused, and the smoke around Aizen was beginning to clear.

As expected Aizen was completely wrapped up by Kusarihebi's chain, but he looked completely comfortable despite them being as tight as I was able to make them.

"Gin, you're taking too much time." he chided. "We do have a schedule to keep."

Gin straightened up and looked at his boss. "Apologies Captain, but ya' have to admit she is a clever one."

Aizen nodded at Gin's words. "Miss Cross is quite a bit more talented than we believed. Unfortunately-"

The chains suddenly snapped like they were made of paper and Aizen vanished before appearing behind Toshiro with his sword raised.

"-we are on a schedule, and we can't spend any more time here."

He brought his sword down, it effortlessly sheared through the ice wings and armour around Toshiro before continuing through his shoulder. Blood burst from the cut and Toshiro fell to the ground, unconscious or dead. In that one attack Aizen had crushed the smaller captain and completely took him out of the fight.

I cursed out loud and prepared to rush Aizen when every instinct I had screamed at me to move backwards. Swords up in a reflexive X-block, I retreated as fast as I could. Aizen appeared a few feet from my previous position but made no attempt to chase me.

Instead he just looked at me with an amused smile. "You truly are much more skilled than I initially believed. I thought I used enough power to end this painlessly, but now it seems you will have to suffer some."

What was he talking about, he didn't do anyth-

Kanshou and Bakuya suddenly snapped in half. The clean break through the middle of each blade told me Aizen cut them, but was he really that fast? I tossed the broken swords to the side and prepared to trace another pair. I would need to push my senses to the limit if I wanted to keep up, but there was no other choice.

"Are you going to continue even in that condition?" Aizen asked.

Condition? I was mostly fine though.

Of course as soon as I thought that I noticed a wet feeling on my chest and a gentle dripping sound. Looking down, I saw a fairly deep cut running diagonally, collarbone to hip, and bleeding pretty profusely.

Guess I didn't dodge Aizen's attack after all.

Oddly, the pain seemed delayed. I was either subconsciously ignoring it, or was on such an adrenaline high that it simply didn't register. My guess was the latter though.

Still the sudden injury and ongoing blood loss made me abandon my ongoing strategy. I couldn't keep relying on stalling tactics and hoping for reinforcements or a way out. At this rate I was going to weaken and make a mistake soon. And going up against two Captain level opponents meant that would likely be fatal.

So I was going to have to take a risk.

Even if my connection to the UBW had deepened since coming to the Soul Society, I had been unable to trace anything on the level of a Noble Phantasm besides Kanshou and Bakuya. Even then I had a feeling they were exceptions due to how strongly they were attached to my Archer soul fragment.

I doubted I would be able to force a trace of one without killing myself in the process even now. But what about something that skirted the line? Something strong enough to be on that level without being a Noble Phantasm on its own?

I formed the image in my mind. Making it as clear as possible, despite the exhaustion now creeping up on me.

"Trace On."

An absurdly long katana formed in my hand. Easily around 4 feet long, the sword had no guard. Instead it had a simple bronze collar that gave way to a purple hilt with two purple tassels hanging from the end.

Monohoshi Zao. The blade of an unnamed assassin from the fifth holy grail war.

It was a relief I was able to actually trace the blade, but I could have gone without the side effects. The instant the blade solidified in my hand all the pain that was mysteriously missing from the cut on my chest made its presence known. On top of that the strain from pouring that much mana into one construct all at once made it feel like every nerve I had was dipped in acid.

Ignoring the feeling as best I could I brought the katana up, the hilt resting next to my face as the blade pointed out towards Aizen.

He seemed amused by my actions. Calmly walking towards me even as blood slowly dripped off the end of his own sword, whether it was Toshiro's or my own was unknown.

"Interesting. I've seen reports of you copying the Zanpakuto of several Soul Reapers, but I don't recognise this one. What can this one do?" he asked.

"Wait a second and find out!" I growled, trying to ignore how much pain I was in and forcing out even more mana.

I launched myself towards Aizen, moving perhaps the fastest I even had as I began my attack.

Hiken: Tsubame-!

A piercing pain erupted in my chest as I slammed to a halt. I looked incomprehensibly at the hilt protruding out between my breasts. The Monohoshi Zao slipped out of my nerveless fingers, clattering to the ground before dispersing into motes of mana.

I slowly brought my eyes up to look at Aizen's face. He looked just as surprised as I did that he suddenly attacked.

With a quick tug he removed his sword from my chest and I collapsed heavily onto all fours. A burning sensation appeared in the back of my throat and I tried to clear it away with a cough.

Instead I ended up vomiting up a large amount of blood.

"Congratulations Alexandria Cross. I actually felt threatened by your attack. Enough so that I unintentionally counterattacked seriously."

Aizen was saying something, but everything sounded like it was underwater. Black was slowly devouring my vision, and I felt really cold.

"It seems like this is the end for you. A shame, you were one of the more interesting things around here at the moment. Oh well."

Distant footsteps made me drag my fading vision off the floor. A blurry white shape was slowly moving away from me.

"Gin, prepare for us to leave. It seems like we're going to receive more visitors shortly."

"Yes, Captain Aizen."

My arms finally gave out and I pitched forward into a growing puddle of my own blood.

And then, everything went dark.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 3.1

When I regained consciousness two thoughts struck me.

One; Holy shit I can't believe I'm still alive!

Two; why am I in handcuffs in a hospital?

I woke up in a fairly nice looking room, even if it was more on the empty side. A quick glance around showed me besides the bed, side table, and a few wooden chairs nothing else was in the room. The bed I was on was pressed up against the wall right under a large window, so at the very least no one was worried about me making a break for it.

Not sure how capable I would be at it anyway.

Moving hurt.

A quick examination with an Analysis spell showed micro tears on practically every muscle I had along with several other injuries like the broken ribs and the damn hole in my chest. While I could probably fix that with a couple healing spells, I lacked the desire to move and since laying still didn't hurt I decided to just let it heal naturally.

For now.

I would probably get bored and fix it eventually, but I just faced off against two and a half Captain-level opponents and didn't die. I deserved to be lazy.

Toshiro wasn't actually fighting me. He doesn't count.

With nothing better to do and no reason to get out of bed, I closed my eyes again and started dozing.

-o-​

Some time later there was a soft knock on the door before it opened and a nurse in a powder pink uniform walked in. Going by the widened eyes and quick departure I think she was surprised I was awake.

A few minutes later she returned with Natsumi, Soifon, and surprisingly Yoruichi.

"Um, hi guys. How did everything go, everyone alright? And, uh, why am I in these?" I limply raised my arms and gave the handcuffs a light shake. Yoruichi gave me a small smile with a complicated expression on her face. Natsumi refused to look directly at me. Thankfully, Soifon decided to answer me.

"Sosuke Aizen, Gin Ichimaru, and Kaname Tosen succeeded in their attempt at stealing the Hokyoku and have retreated to Hueco Mundo with the aid of the Menos Grande."

Not surprising. With all the Captains scattered and not knowing that the Hōgyoku was a thing it would be incredibly easy for Aizen to grab Rukia during all that if he was serious about it.

"While several of your companions were severely injured in your invasion. She stopped to glare at me. I just raised an eyebrow at her, completely unrepentant. I hoped she wasn't looking for an apology. I don't think a single one of us would give her one.

With a defeated sigh, Soifon continued. "Everyone managed to get medical aid in time. They should all completely recover and are currently resting . Unlike a certain officer, who should be doing the same!" she said, glaring at Natsumi.

Natsumi simply looked away. I noticed a slight wince at the movement and that she was lightly holding her side. Definitely still feeling her injuries then.

"So, sounds like things worked out about as well as expected. Does this mean I can take these off then?" I asked, gesturing to the handcuffs.

Going by the awkward atmosphere and uncomfortable expressions on everyone's face, I was going to guess no, I couldn't.

"Guys? Kinda starting to feel like I should be running." I said nervously.

"No! It's just…!" Natsumi started before hissing and grabbing at her side again.

"It's just that Aizen screwed you over before he escaped." Yoruichi finished. "And now the Head Captain needs to decide what to do with you."

I sat up straighter. When the three of them walked in I was feeling pretty relaxed since I thought everything was over, but now I was regretting not healing myself when I had the chance. I slowly started to circulate mana through my arms and legs.

It wouldn't fix the injuries, but it would let me move without cramping up.

"What do you mean 'decide what to do with me'?"

Yoruichi held up a placating hand, trying to keep me calm.

"Aizen might have told everyone you were one of Akihiro Kanou's experiments and I was kinda forced to tell the Captain's what I knew about your past." She said.

"And this is an issue, why?"

Natsumi finally spoke up, "Because all of Akihiro Kanou's experiments were declared bioweapons, and the law says any illegal bioweapons are to be destroyed immediately."

Well...fuck.
"So should I be running right now?" Looking between the three of them I noticed neither Soifon or Natsumi had their Zanpakuto with them. That was either a good thing, or it meant they were confident enough they could deal with me without a weapon and an injured person in the same room.

Considering my current condition, I wouldn't blame them for thinking the latter.

Yoruichi waved her hands in front of her in denial. "We already got the Head Captain to agree to not do anything drastic until we had a chance to talk. But now that you're awake he is going to want more information about Kanou in exchange for ignoring the laws regarding you."

It was kinda hard to describe what I was feeling at the moment. A mixture of incredible rage and mind numbing fear for certain. I was basically being told my reward for helping the Gotei 13 by exposing the whole traitor problem was a temporary stay of execution for existing and it was only an issue because Aizen fucked me over on his way out.

I shifted so my feet were on the floor and I was sitting on the edge of the bed. I absently noticed my hair was down from my normal ponytail and I was wearing a light blue japanese outfit instead of my normal one. A yukata I think?

"Okay, and I guess you guys are here for that information then?" I looked around waiting for their nods. "Can I ask a question first?" More nods.

"Who the fuck is Akihiro Kanou?"

-o-​

After a few wasted minutes arguing that no, I really don't know who that is, I was told that Akihiro Kanou was once a respected scientist that worked for the Soul Society until roughly one hundred and fifty years ago. His studies into soul technology were revolutionary and eventually formed the foundations to things like the Gikongan and Project Spearhead even if he didn't actually participate in those projects.

Instead, he was obsessed with finding a way to craft a 'perfect' soul by growing artificial souls meant to specialise in one area, then frankensteining them together to remove any perceived imperfections. Central 46 approved his work as long as he delivered on making super soldiers to use against the Hollows.

As I expected, eventually Kanou ran into issues. Prototypes were unstable, either not functioning as expected or unstable and prone to falling apart randomly. His experiments grew more and more expensive to maintain with little tangible improvement, so Central 46 ordered his resources scaled back and his projects shut down.

Without the massive amounts of artificial souls he needed for his experiments available, Kanou did what any morally bankrupt scientist would do in pursuit of finishing his work.

He started kidnapping and experimenting on human souls.

This continued for several years undetected before Kanou made a mistake. Confident that no one managed to track anything back to him, he got bolder in his kidnapping. Going after souls that he considered 'higher quality' for his tests. One day, rather than sticking to the lower districts where a soul disappearing was less noticeable, Kanou grabbed a young boy from District 15.

This wasn't new behavior from him. It was later discovered Kanou kidnapped hundreds of children for use in his experiments. The difference this time was the boy was actually part of a minor noble family visiting the area while his father inspected a new business opening nearby.

When his son failed to return, the father immediately demanded the Onmitsukidō investigate.

Eventually they tracked down both the lab and the kid. There they found and fought dozens of monstrosities that the scientist had spliced together from the victims he kidnapped. The mindless creations poured out of their holding cells and into the streets. They tore through hundreds until the Gotei 13 mobilised and killed them all. Akihiro Kanou was forced on the run until he was eventually hunted down and reportedly killed by a freshly promoted Fifth Seat Officer, Sosuke Aizen.

-o-​

"We thought that was the end of him, but now we can't be sure. Any more information on the experiments you went through would go a long way into easing our fears." finished Soifon.

I shrugged at her.

"Not much I can tell you, I had one converstation with the guy who made me. And I didn't even see him before I was declared defective. Practically the next thing I knew I woke up near a riverbank a bit outside Karakura." I said. Technically true, and I was never going to let anyone know I was created by an extra-dimensional entity. If that meant I got labeled a bioweapon I would deal with it.

Worst case scenario would be that I disappear and help from the sidelines, though I didn't expect it to come to that. The Gotei 13 weren't exactly in the position of devoting a lot of resources into hunting me down at the moment.

"Well that's more than we had before." Soifon turned to Natsumi. "Go get a squad to investigate the area around Karakura for any signs of unusual spirit fluctuations. Then get back to your room, I am not going to deal with Squad 4 complaining about you sneaking out before you are officially released."

Natsumi was clearly not happy about the last order but accepted with a simple "Yes, Captain." She turned back to me and bowed as low as she could without aggravating her injuries. "Alexandria Cross, I wanted to thank you for saving my life. I look forward to working together in the future." She said before turning and walking out the door.

I watched her walk out before turning back to the other two. "Um, what did she mean by working together?" I asked.

"We kinda fudged the truth about your situation. As long as you cooperated with telling us what they wanted to know you were off the hook." Yoruichi said with a shrug. "The Head Captain knows better than to make an enemy out of our group after what we just did and with Aizen doing who-knows-what."

"So the implied death threat was just your way of having fun then?"

"Nope, just them wanting to make sure you took this seriously and didn't try dodging out of an answer."

I sighed. Whatever, I was still way too tired to deal with Yoruichi right now. "Can I take these off now?" Gesturing to the handcuffs again.

Soifon started walking towards me.

"Yes, they shouldn't be needed anymore." She said before inserting some sort of card into an opening. The handcuffs popped off and I had my hands back, yay.

"Any other ways you want to mess with me?" I yawned. Now that I wasn't in fight-or-flight mode I was exhausted again.

"I have several I want to try out!" Yoruichi said happily, ignoring my glare. "But those are for later. Just know Orihime will be stopping by soon to help deal with your injuries. She pushed herself too hard helping with everyone else so we forced her to take a break. So don't run off anywhere for a bit."

"I can do that. Anything else?"

"Nope! But I need to go help get in contact with Kisuke. Need to coordinate getting everyone home in a few days."

The two of them walked out the door before Yoruichi looked back at me. "Oh, and Alexandria? You did a great job, feel free to take it easy for a while."

And like that, all the tension I had building up flowed out of my body. I let out a groan and collapsed back onto the bed.

Yeah, taking it easy sounded good.

 

[Azura]

Spirit 3.2

It was weird being able to walk openly through the streets after spending days sneaking around ambushing the occasional Soul Reaper. It had been about a week since Aizen had betrayed the Gotei 13 and made his escape, and I was finally cleared to leave the hospital. After so long stuck inside I took advantage of my newfound freedom to walk around the Seireitei and explore a bit more slowly now that I wasn't running to, or away from, a fight.

Members of various squads were roaming around and enjoying themselves. Which made sense I suppose. They did spend more than a week on high alert due to our invasion. With the alert removed, everyone was taking the chance to unwind and relax for a bit before getting back to work.

What was weirder was the complete lack of hostility from the Soul Reapers as I wandered around, although that might be simply because I didn't stand out that much. Orihime had decided to join me for the walk and due to the loss of her clothes was still in a Soul Reaper uniform. Between that and me reforming my barrier jacket to look like the yukatas I was provided, we fit right in.

Of course that didn't mean we did not draw attention. Two pretty girls walking around still drew looks from several men (and women, surprisingly) but for the most part it was pretty harmless.

"...and if you add maple syrup it gets even tastier!"

Orihime on the other hand, was slowly chipping away at my sanity with her weird food combinations.

Feeling slightly ill at some of her self professed 'recipes' I needed to raise a hand and stop her before this went further.

"Orihime, under no circumstances should marshmallow and maple syrup ever be put into a pasta dish. That just isn't right." I told the cheerful teenager.

"No, really. It's super good! You have to come over and try it sometime!" She said waving her hands a little childishly.

"I think I'll pass on that. But I can still come over and make something else for you!" I panicked when Orihime looked down by my refusal.

Seriously, the girl looks like a kicked puppy when she is sad. It's completely unfair. Luckily she cheered up again when I promised to come over at some point. And better yet, she didn't even notice me reversing it so I would be the one cooking.

Orihime clapped her hands happily, "That sounds great! I can't wait. Oh, hi Ishida!"

I turned to follow Orihime's gaze and found Uryu walking up to us.

"Good morning Inoue-san, Cross-san." He greeted us. "Are you free for a bit?"

Since neither one of us were really doing anything specific, we agreed to follow him. We had some meaningless small talk on the way. Uryu was still very interested in my skills since they had several similarities with Quincy abilities, and I wanted to know more about how Quincies made spiritual weapons. Of course Orihime managed to pull us down several off-topic tangents during the walk to wherever Uryu wanted to go, so we never really made it past the basics of either topic.

Neither one of us minded though since we were being pretty casual with both topics, and her cheerful attitude through the whole thing was infectious.

Our conversation ended when we arrived at the building we had been allowed to stay at while we recovered from our various injuries. Unsurprisingly, Chad was also in the main room. The large teen prefered to stay either with one of his friends or out of the way, so it was rare to see him in the Seireitei.

"Hi Sado! You're here too?" Orihime greeted. It took me a second to remember that was Chad's actual name since no one other than Orihime and Uryu used it.

Chad nodded to us in greeting but remained silent.

Uryu walked over to a basket and lifted the lid.

"Okay! I finally finished these last night and thought it would be good to hand them out." Uryu said, passing Chad a piece of cloth, which turned out to be a sleeveless lavender shirt with a dark red cross on it.

It was shockingly professional looking actually, if a bit plain.

"I was able to borrow some tailoring equipment, so I made some clothes for you guys based on what I remembered you wearing." he explained. "So what do you think, Sado-san?"

Chad just kinda stared at the shirt in his hands for a few seconds before turning back to Uryu, who was digging around for more clothes.

"...It's different..." Chad said eventually.

"I redesigned them a bit based on my own personal style added in." Uryu admitted, removing a few articles of clothing from the basket. "Inoue-san these are for you."

I made my way to a free chair while the teenagers had a mini fashion show. Orihime ended up in black track pants with a white stripe down the side and a beautifully made pink shirt with a line of frills running down the right side and some floral accents on the left. Chad had changed into his provided shirt and a normal looking pair of pants. It was hilarious how much more effort Uryu seemed to put into making female clothing, especially since he revealed he had made a lovely pale blue dress for Rukia as well.

Uryu was a little sheepish that he didn't have anything prepared for me, but considering my clothing could shift to anything I wanted I wasn't broken up about it. Then Orihime decided she needed to show Rukia her new dress immediately and took off in search of her.

I offered to go with her but Uryu requested I stay behind, and Chad wandered off back towards his room.

Now alone with Uryu, I decided to tease him just a bit.

"So, did you have something for me after all? Something you don't want anyone else to see me in?" I said slightly seductively, absently pulling on the collar of my yukata.

Uryu was suddenly blushing furiously after just that. I definitely saw why Yoruichi liked doing the same with Ichigo. The reactions were hilarious!

I would never go as far as her though.

"O-o-of course not!" Uryu denied fervently, adjusting his glasses and looking anywhere but at me. "I h-have a request I wanted to make of you."

Oh? I wonder what he would want. I had spent some time getting to know everyone now that we had nothing better to do, I even hung out with some of the Soul Reapers that stopped by from time to time, but Uryu never gave the impression he wanted something from me.

"No harm in asking, I guess" I said with a shrug.

The Quincy visibly calmed himself down before turning to face me. With a very serious expression, he suddenly bowed at the waist. "Please, teach me to use mana. I beg you."

Well there was only one answer I can give such an earnest request.

"No," I refused immediately. "Also, why? I thought you were super proud of your Quincy heritage, so I can't imagine you giving it up just because I use something new."

Uryu's face twisted into a bitter expression.

"I haven't mentioned it to the others yet, but during our fight I used an ultimate technique of the Quincy. As a result my powers were burned out, I am no longer a Quincy."

Ah, I forgot that happened. Still it's not like it changed my answer.

"I still can't help you. Even if you were able to use mana, it's something that would take years, maybe decades, before you got beyond the basics. I don't have the time to dedicate to a student."

"I understand." Uryu said sourly. "Forgive me for being selfish."

"If you are so concerned about losing your powers, maybe talk to your father? I heard he is actually fairly talented as a Quincy. He should be able to help." I pointed out.

Uryu again had a complex expression on his face. "I will consider it."

I blinked at the reluctant response. But I guess going to his dad for help ran against his pride, or something like that. Meh, he will deal with it eventually.

-o-​

I left soon after that.

While Uryu was quick to reassure me that there were no hard feelings for rejecting him as a student, it was still awkward to be in the same room.

So I was wandering the Seireitei again. Alone this time, unfortunately, since Orihime had run off somewhere and the rest of our group was unavailable for one reason or another.

I considered hunting down Yoruichi since I hadn't seen her in a bit. But she was busy working out an agreement of an alliance between the Gotei 13 and the Urahara group. While it was a given that both would work together, there was still stacks of paperwork for the approval of materials, pardons for the one hundred years as an exile, and other such things that needed to be worked out so no one complained later.

Of course I escaped that initially because I was injured, but now that I was out of the hospital Yoruichi would happily duck out of the responsibility if she knew I had nothing to do.

I was still debating if dealing with paperwork was worth Yoruichi's company when I heard someone calling my name. Turning to look I saw two Soul Reapers making their way towards me.

One was Natsumi, and the other was a girl in glasses with long black hair that she kept pinned back and with her bangs parted to the right side of her face. Based on the serious look on her face and the badge she wore on her left arm, it looked like I was going to be introduced to another Lieutenant.

"Hi Natsumi," I greeted when they were close enough. "I see you're out of the hospital too."

"Miss Cross," Natsumi replied with a nod. "Also please don't use my name so casually."

I shrugged and by the way her eyebrows furrowed, Natsumi realized I was going to ignore her request. "So what's up?"

Natsumi sighed in resignation before turning to present her companion, "This is Squad Eight Lieutenant Nanao Ise. She wanted to talk to you about the information you provided last week."

Said Lieutenant took a step forward while adjusting her glasses, "Good afternoon Miss Cross, congratulations on your recovery." she said politely.

"Thanks, but you can just call me Alex."

"Of course," Nanao said nodding once. "I apologise for this but I have a request I wanted to make. I am the one handling the report made by the scouting group that went to the World of the Living to investigate the possible location of Akihiro Kanou and I asked Hanakage to introduce us."

I see, I guess they didn't find anything and wanted to see if I knew anything else that might lead them to my 'creator'.

"Further upriver from the point that you described we found a Hollow nest that had managed to escape detection for quite some time. After clearing the nest and investigating, we found signs that someone was using the nest as a disposal area for several souls that showed heavy signs of...modification."

...or I could be completly fucking wrong.

"And I suppose you think Akihiro Kanou is behind it?" I asked weakly.

Nanao nodded, "From what the team found, there were several similarities between what was at the site and the records we found of Kanou's work. It could be a successor, but we still will need to investigate."

"Okay, but why tell me?" Wait, Nanao said she had a request. "Unless you wanted me to check out the site when I head back to the World of the Living?" I asked.

"No, Squad 13 is responsible for cleaning up that area and will take care of it." Nanao disagreed. "The Gotei 13 was hoping that you would agree to accompany the team investigating the Senkaimon they found there."

"Again, why? I'm not really sure what I could do for an investigation."

It looked like Nanao was having a hard time answering so eventually Natsumi stepped in. "We want you as a combatant since the Gotei 13 can't spend the manpower at the moment."

Huh?

I looked between the two trying to figure out what Natsumi meant by that. She just looked resigned while Nanao looked embarrassed and avoided looking at the two of us.

"Right now all Captains and Lieutenants are doing damage control after Aizen's betrayal." Natsumi explained, seeing my look. "In addition most seated officers are filling in to handle the normal work piling up because this was unexpected. We simply can't spare anyone strong enough in case this turns out to be a major incident without affecting our preparations for dealing with Aizen."

Makes sense I guess. And I had no real reason to refuse especially if it delayed my trip back through the Dangai.

Anything to avoid the creepy murder hallway.

"I don't mind helping out." I said. "So, is it just me or…?"

Nanao shook her head. "Even short staffed, we can't send you to investigate alone. 3rd Seat Hanakage will be accompanying you."

My eyes lit up as I threw an arm over Natsumi's shoulders.

"This means I get to spend more time with my favorite sparring buddy! Why didn't you say that first!" I cheered, ignoring the elbow grinding into my ribs.

"Please get off of me…" Natsumi said through gritted teeth.

I ignored her too…

 

[Azura]

Spirit 3.3

Furious scribbling sounds filled the air as I worked on another set of equations. While I wasn't working on one of my more advanced projects since there was no way to secure my notes, it was still important for me to keep working at more aspects of my magic to fully understand how to use some of the high forms in my archive.

I didn't want a repeat of my first foray into spell storage with jewel craft. Turns out even 'knowing' how to make a storage crystal and actually doing it are very different things. Though the experience did teach me to learn the foundations of any craft since the first few prototypes crumbled to dust...or melted…...or exploded.

I was just glad I had decades worth of experience available to use as a reference. Otherwise I would never get anywhere in making my various equipment. Even if what I had right now was fairly simplistic at the moment.

Finishing with the last line I started scanning through the pages I had written. Nothing seemed out of place…

Initial defining of spell structure? Check.

Matrix for containing mana input? Check.

Refinement of raw mana into spell sequence? Check

Trigger for spell activation? Check.

Limiter on mana draw? Not check?

Uh, what?

I started shifting back through my pages of notes. Each of the dozen or so pages was methodically scanned while I hoped that I simply had the pages out of order. But nope! Turns out I forgot to add a limiter for this spell formula, meaning if I actually tried to use the thing it would pull out every bit of mana I had at once. Probably killing me in the process.

With a sigh I incinerated the sheaf of papers with a small fire spell and blew the ashes out the window with an equally low level wind spell. Raw elemental manipulation was one of the fields of study I hadn't put a whole lot of effort into developing but this much was pretty easy.

"Please do not play with fire while we are in such a confined space." a disapproving voice said across from me.

With a small start I looked up to see Natsumi looking at me with an annoyed expression on her face.

I winced a little, realising she was right. "Sorry, normally I don't have anyone around when I work. So, I kinda forgot you were here?" Because that definitely makes it better. Note to self: learn to not put your foot in your mouth.

Natsumi looked like she agreed with my internal thoughts.

"You spent the better part of two days working on those notes." Natsumi said, choosing to ignore my comment, "Why suddenly destroy that work?"

"It was the theoretical work for a spell I was working on, but I left out a crucial feature that made the whole thing worthless." I explained with a sigh. "Honestly, it would be easier to just start over than try and insert a feature into the formula at the end."

"Another one of your weird Kido spells then?" Natsumi asked.

"Air walking actually." I replied.

She gave me a weird look, like I had just seriously declared that the moon was made of pudding.

"You...do know that that technique is just a basic Reishi manipulation exercise, right?" She asked slowly.

I sighed again. While the Gotei 13 were allies at this point, I didn't really like putting how unique I was out in the open. Getting on the radar of Captain Kurotsuchi wasn't on my to-do list.

"I don't actually use Reishi for my abilities." I explained anyway. If we were going to work together she would need to know the basics of what I did anyway so we could coordinate. "I use a different energy called mana. Similar in some ways, but not the same."

Of course Natsumi wasn't satisfied with that explanation, so I launched into a full lecture about the differences between mana and reishi, how I used mana, and the basics of several of my abilities. In the meantime, our horse-drawn carriage continued down the road to our destination.

The same day that Ichigo and the others left through the Senkaimon back to the World of the Living, Natsumi had informed me the Onmitsukidō had tracked the illegal Senkaimon near Karakura to somewhere in District 49 of the South Rukongai. We gathered up a few things, then set out as soon as we could.

The first day was spent questioning Natsumi about where we were going and what we should expect from the area.

For once I had absolutely no foreknowledge going into a situation. I was aware of what the Rukongai was like in a general sense, but no specifics other than 'gets worse the higher the district number'. It also didn't help that Natsumi wasn't the most talkative of people. Not to say that she refused to answer me. She would dutifully answer any question I asked as long as it related to the mission, but that was it. She wouldn't volunteer information or answer anything personal.

I got the feeling she didn't really like me being here, and honestly couldn't blame her.

If it was Ichigo or one of the others, she probably would have been less difficult but I had personally beaten her in a fight twice, saved her life, and revealed a conspiracy that had slipped under her entire Squad's nose. Then to rub salt in the wound, she was forced to accept my help because the Gotei 13 was too crippled by Aizen's betrayal to keep this internal.

So I kept any jokes or teasing fairly light. No need to kick her while she's down and all that.

Still, even with the curt explanations I learned a lot about the Rukongai. Turns out that while large areas of the Seireitei have modern amenities, much (if not all) of the Rukongai is stuck somewhere in the middle ages technology wise.

There are exceptions, but these are few and far between.

Another thing I learned was how the districts were numbered. Starting from the Seireitei, each district was numbered in a series of circles that were then split into north, east, south or west. Each district had its own committee of representatives that reported to Central 46 and enforced their laws. Well in theory, anyway. Once you got to the outer districts, laws tended to be enforced only when a Soul Reaper from one of the Court Squads was sent out or when it was convenient to the person in charge.

There were Soul Reapers permanently stationed in each section of a district. These tended to be members so weak they were refused by the academy and trained locally. So very few of them, if any, actually managed to get a shikai let alone techniques like Kido.

Basically, they were local police. Maybe slightly more capable than a normal person. But not even as durable as the grunts we went up against in our invasion. Their only real advantage over the souls in the area was the fact they were still given Asauchi Zanpakuto, which could strengthen and repair themselves with the user's Reiryoku so normal swords would probably break given they were hit hard enough.

Eventually it became too dark for the horses to safely continue, so Natsumi signaled our driver to stop. Similarly to the last few times we stopped there was no town close enough to try and find shelter in a town. Luckily for us, the main compartment was more than big enough for Natsumi and I to sleep in, even if it was a bit uncomfortable. And the driver had a retractable cover that he could use as a tent.

Just before I turned in for the night Natsumi spoke up, "We should reach our destination sometime around midday if nothing happens. Please be presentable and try not to attract too much attention."

I groaned miserably. This far out in the Rukongai there was no such thing as 'presentable' in my opinion. Everything was ancient japanese fashion. I'm sure the rest of the trip would be the two of us arguing about what was considered a proper outfit for this mission.

-o-​

True to Natsumi's prediction, we reached town right before midday. While I was sure the town had a name, I wasn't really paying attention to Natsumi's introduction to the District or the town we were in so it escaped me.

I was more interested in glaring at the Soul Reaper leaving the carriage.

As I expected, neither one of us agreed on what was considered acceptable clothing and not attracting attention. Granted I spent almost two hours arguing there was no point in me changing my look. Being several inches taller than most of the men I met wouldn't change just because I swapped clothes. Let alone my eye and hair color which stood out in the sea of blacks and browns.

Natsumi finally won that argument by pointing out that while my coloring wasn't nearly as rare as I made it sound, I should at least try to blend in and not announce to the whole town I was an outsider potentially investigating something in the area.

Of course she ruined it by trying to pass me off as a local. I was not going to wear the rags the locals were stuck with.

Furious arguments were made for several different choices of clothes from colors to materials. The only reason we stopped was that we arrived.

"Are you coming, or are you just going to stare at me?"

With a sigh, I followed the Soul Reaper into the street. After the driver confirmed that we were off, he snapped the reins and took off in another direction.

I watched him drive off for a bit, but when he turned a corner and vanished from sight I looked back to Natsumi. She was scowling as she looked over the outfit I had chosen, and while I knew why I refused to change anything any further.

My hair was in its normal style when I wasn't expecting any trouble, meaning loose and flowing unrestrained down my back to where it stopped just below my shoulders. The normal black and red outfit I wore was replaced by a slightly modified Soul Reaper Academy uniform where the only difference it lacked the two pinwheel markings on the front.

I hated how loose it was, but it was the best compromise we could come up with. Of course Natsumi had her own issues with my outfit. While not an exact match, it still called me out as someone obviously associated with Soul Reapers and the only fact that I might be required to fight made her give up arguing harder for another outfit.

She hated my footwear though.

I put my (no pun intended) foot down fairly hard on not changing the combat boots I normally wore. No matter how many times Natsumi tried explaining how it would attract attention or clash with the rest of it, I refused to budge.

So in the end, we were both unhappy. Signs of a successful compromise.

"So now what?" I asked.

"Now, we check in with the town leader and stop by the closest Shinigami outpost." Natsumi replied. "I have to meet with the local Onmitsukidō agents to narrow down our search area. You will be posing as my assistant so be sure not to wander off."

'Because there was so much else to do otherwise.'

Looking around at the buildings you would expect to see in a history documentary, I tried to keep the bitter feelings I had being stuck in a place like this for several days from showing on my face.

Low tech living was fun when you were camping. Less so when everyone around you did because it was the norm.

I followed after Natsumi as she walked towards one of the better looking buildings in the area.

This mission was going to suck.