Chapter 13: Silver, Steel, Surrender Arc: The Seeds of Unrest

Summary:

Nariko explores Kinsawa and makes a friend--a street rat who sees a ticket out of hell. But since when do good things last? Murder and paranoia overtake the barracks and Nariko is in her commander's crosshairs.

Notes:

Theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMii9q4qz0E ("Finest Hour" by Extreme Music)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It was on mornings like these that I wondered why I'd ever wanted to be a Shinigami. At least as an onmitsu I could've had a little more control over my working hours. Instead I was squinting into the rising sun as the citizens of Kinsawa's fourth ward went about their business. I had the feeling we were supposed to seem imposing, but I couldn't quite manage it. I settled for blank-faced and sharp-eyed. With my face the latter was a given, so I didn't have to do all that much.

Man, I felt like a pretty pathetic excuse for a Shinigami just standing here. Occasionally walking between posts because, y'know, patrolling, but still.

Sure, there'd been a squabble over an understuffed cushion but that'd died down when I'd glared over. I felt a little silly about it—c'mon, how much trouble could come of a pillow?—but Torisei had impressed on us how seriously we needed to treat our posts. Commander Half-knot (a nickname I'd settled on as a contraction of 'half-assed topknot' for his failure to shave his pate) had sneered down on us with an appropriately severe expression and reminded us the proper number of times—seven—what we could look forward to if he heard we'd neglected our duties. Evidently latrine duty would be fun compared to the punishments we'd receive. He'd harrumphed a few times and given us a typically scornful, icy glare.

Suitably cowed by the model Shinigami in front of us, we cadets had gotten right to work.

Work, in my case, had been doing absolutely freaking nothing. I'd kept my eyes out for anyone suspicious or wearing white. The latter proved to be not quite as easy a task as I'd imagined. Anyone could wear white—hell, a white shitagi was visible in every Shinigami shihakushou. It wasn't like the White Spiders had invented the color.

But considering the hush of Minoru's voice yesterday, I decided suspicion and mild paranoia were better than death.

Of course, paranoia was par for the course when my assigned accompaniment was Kurotsuchi fucking Mayuri. Pardon the French, but that bastard deserved it. I'd been keeping one hand on Arashi's hilt the whole time just in case he started playing with syringes.

See, having some common sense, Torisei didn't trust us to do our jobs perfectly. So for the first couple days we got to have full-fledged Shinigami tagging along. I would've been happier about that if, well... you know. Hiyori and Minoru were with Tokugawa, since they counted as half a person each, to take a joke out of Shinji's book. The very one he'd employed, as a matter of fact, which had gotten Hiyori at his throat and promptly yanked back like a dog on a leash by Tokugawa. Hooray for women with strong arms and stronger grips.

So I stood here fanning myself with Kurotsuchi... somewhere. He'd vanished at some point I didn't care to remember. I hoped he'd save me the trouble and walk into the business end of a knife. Not that I'd know if he did; his reiatsu was well-contained like mine, subtle and weak as captains went, and Ashisogi Jizou was both quiet and unintelligible. Not that I cared. Just because he hadn't done anything—had even been a creepy flavor of pleasant—didn't mean I forgave him.

As for myself, I was staying here looking vaguely threatening. We'd been told to pick something to seem intimidating, because borrowed Shinigami uniforms and swords weren't scary enough. I hadn't seen what anybody'd grabbed except for Shinju, who'd apparently come prepared with nails filed to points and lacquered glossy purple. She'd made a point of checking them a couple times, face eerily impassive. I guessed the polish was the kind Makoto hadn't let me buy. Still, her distant facade was convincing enough that I would've bet people stayed well away. Seireitei made a point of employing uniformed onmitsu as reminders of its power, but disguised ones were equally common. Kinsawa would know who not to piss off if they wanted to wake up in their own beds the next morning.

Arashi and I had agreed to keep an eye on Shinju, if only because she put me sharply in mind of platinum: silvery, refined, and very soft. I couldn't help but worry that Kinsawa would leave a dent on her sheltered noble surface that no smith could hammer out.

I had settled for a more trustworthy weapon: a fan. It had metal spokes—iron outer, bronze inner—so it could take and dish out hits. That wasn't anything unusual for a noblewoman away from home, but I doubted whatever clan claimed Kinsawa, if any, often ventured here. The citizens of this district wouldn't have any idea. So I fluttered crimson-flowered silk and let them guess what Shinigami secrets lay beneath it.

Harmless, harmless, harmless. That was all I was, a prissy princess playing at being a death god. Kinsawa was some backwoods swamp that had lost its value with its gold and I couldn't wait to get out of here. Tsk tsk.

Since no one cared to test that, I alternately wondered when I'd be relieved from duty to grab a bite to eat and tried not to fall asleep. It was a day more summery than spring, a slow, soft breeze toying with my hair as wide blue painted the sky without a blot of white in sight. It'd be baking hot later, but for now a pleasant warmth suffused me. With the sky barely high enough above the horizon that all the pinks and golds of the sunrise have faded, only a few people were out and about.

It was surprisingly peaceful for a place predicted to be swept up in rebellion. If not for Minoru, I wouldn't have believed it myself.

Clattering wood. A shack knocked over or something? I roused myself, glanced down the street. Nothing but a hunchbacked man carrying pails of water. The other way- holy shit balls what the heck-

I got a few steps forward before three people burst out from an alley in a pale cloud of plaster dust. Two men, whip-lean but tall enough to need to duck street signs, pounded down the dirt road after a girl screaming her head off. Getting closer. To her and me. My fan clattered to the ground from nerveless fingers.

My job to intervene. Big men. Too young, I can't do this can'tcan'tcan't Arashi help me!

"Extinguish the infernal flames, cleanse the unjust, roar through heaven aand strike down the moon. Turn the tide, Tennyou no Rai'arashi!" Water arced forward and soaked me as I sprinted through it, Arashi barely clearing her sheath before she transformed. More instinct twisted me out of the way of the girl. Blind terror, on the other hand, planted me in the men's path.

Oof. I stumbled back a few steps, scrambling to catch my left fan as it was jostled from my grip. There! I grabbed it, snapped it shut, pointed it at the nearest thug's throat. The other fan I held back at an angle. I prayed its shimmering silk would either distract them or remind them that it could easily slash forward and unleash unknown levels of power. Not much, but hey. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

Oh great, I was joking as I stared down potential child molesters. Real smart, Nariko.

"Step aside, Shinigami," the one on the left said. His eyes glittered glass-bottle green and looked as sharp as its shards. "This little brat's a workin' girl, like. We're ta fetch her back to her whorehouse. Unless yer lot's got a problem with a licensed, official brothel?" He leered, giving me a look up and down like he wanted me to imagine he thought I'd make a good prostitute.

I opened my mouth to tell him I'd seen enough oiran on my relatives' arms to know I wasn't cut out for that, only for a voice behind me to squeak, "Th-that's a lie! I ain't a money-grubbin' leg-spreader! I got outta that life! Shinigami-han, they're tryin' ta kidnap me!"

I made a considering noise. With luck that'd tide them over while I tracked down my alleged partner.

A cold, leaden weight settled in my chest. I can't find Kurotsuchi. His reiatsu was too quiet to begin with, even if I had known him well enough to pick out his spirit ribbon. My special method was out too. Unohana's seals stopped me from getting flooded with the voices of every Zanpakutou in Soul Society by limiting my hearing to, well, whatever was in earshot. If I could barely hear the girl behind me past my thundering heartbeat, I couldn't hear Ashisogi Jizou.

I was an outsider in enemy territory without any friends. I seized the quivering terror that welled up inside me and transmuted it into fury before it could touch my reiatsu. I released it when I felt it buzzing and snapping in my grip. That bastard had all but thrown me to the wolves. Sucked for him. I wasn't going down easy. Ideally, at all.

The color that crackled into existence around me shaded decidedly towards turquoise instead of cerulean. Let them guess what it meant. I knew that it meant the storm was ready to strike.

Please, please don't make me fight, I begged as frigid water coiled beneath my skin. I can't promise that you'll walk away. Or that I'll want to let you.

I tightened still, numb fingers on my fans. The men were starting to shift from foot to foot, glancing about. Even the girl's grip on the edge of my kosode—when had she grabbed me?—faltered. But they didn't budge. And while I probably could've kept going in release for a while, I didn't want to get jumped and be at less than full power.

"You're bluffing," I said with a thick tongue that rasped against a bone-dry mouth. A ribbon of sweat trickled down my spine. They had to be bluffing, right? Safer to assume they were and get in trouble later. "Unless y-you want to come down to the barracks and talk it over with Torisei-sama. I'm sure he'd be happy to return your employee." I resolved to let myself have an extra dumpling at mealtime for that. Only stuttering once when my brain wanted to dribble out my ears was an achievement. Speaking of which, I pulled back the reiryoku in my ear seals. Didn't need to waste it when I could use it elsewhere.

The man on the left shook his head, scattering white dust on his shoulders. "Aw, what's the point? Place's too public to kill 'em both. C'mon, Kinsue. It ain't worth it." The way the muscles in his neck were jumping, I wished my grades were high enough that I could actually pull off even a simple Restrain. "You'll regret helpin' that one, ya damn blackcoat," he snarled at me. "Yer lot always gets what's comin' ta ya."

So saying, they turned on their heels and- well, what do you think they did? Got the fuck out of there, that's what. A wind kicked up as they went back the way they'd come, pushing aside lank hair to reveal-

Crosses. Blue-green Quincy crosses. Oh hell no. Get back here! I started forward, only to feel the girl's fingers tightly wrapped in my clothes. I whirled to pry her off, but she was sniffling. I wasn't getting out of this in time to find the Spiders.

Victim now, gang later, I told myself, pasting on a brilliant smile that even I could feel shaking. "Are you okay? Those two didn't look so-"

She burst into tears, because of course she did, and buried her face in her hands. Dammit, I wished I knew what her base complexion was, because she looked awfully pale. Like, the plaster dust hadn't sapped much color pale. "I-I-I- they were gonna kill me! If I ain't found ya in time-" she broke off into rapid breathing to rival Aizen's.

"Hey, hey." I shuffled towards her, making the most of the back-away-from-strangers instinct to guide her out of the middle of the road. A glance around revealed that what few people there'd been had disappeared. We were alone. "C'mon, you're safe now. No one's gonna hurt you. You did find me in time. That's what matters. Cheer up, okay?" I widened my smile. She didn't mirror it.

The girl gulped down another breath and swiped at her eyes. Sunlight danced around her shuddering form for an instant, outlining her in white. "Y-your power..."

Ah, right. Arashi was still unsealed. Maybe the hyperventilating wasn't just a panic thing. Was I ever going to get a chance to make the most of her? I slid the two fans together, let them do their thing, and slid the resulting sword back into its sheath. How they knew I was resealing them I didn't know, but now was not the time to ask.

The girl's breathing slowed. I gave her a few moments to recover before starting the questioning we'd been instructed to perform if there was a problem.

"Wanna tell me your name?" Okay, so it wasn't the official way to say it, but it worked. "I'm Nariko, in case you wanted to know. Probably didn't." I forced a laugh, spurred on by the ice-lightning in my veins. I could've died there if they'd been armed. Hell, maybe even if they hadn't. A snatch at too-long hair, a yank back and shove forwards to break a skull against rock and hard-packed dirt...

But I was alive and kicking. So far, so good.

"M-Mira," the girl stammered, blinking purple-ringed eyes. Hard to tell if they were the remnants of black eyes or severe lack of sleep. Her hair, waist-length and luxuriously black, was too lustrous and clean for her to be sick, so I could rule illness out. She looked strong in the way Minoru had when I'd first met him, lean muscle stretched along bones that looked like they'd snap if they carried any more weight. At least she benefited from a feminine physique, having some padding here and there. Instead of scrawny, she came off as waifish. Maybe she really had worked in a licensed brothel. If she'd done well, it'd explain her relatively good condition. "M-my stomach." She swallowed hard. "It's so empty."

I racked my brain for what to say that. The script said nothing about hunger. Torisei probably would've told me to let her starve. Any high-spec who didn't make their way to Shin'ou would be worthless in his book.

Okay, so maybe I was judging him a little harshly. And making stuff up. But it wasn't completely implausible.

"I'm sorry, I don't have money. Or food," I said lamely. A mental inventory found that to be true. "Or money for food. Did you try and take some from those men? Is that why they were chasing you?"

She shook her head sharply. Mira was probably around my age, I realized. Teenagers had that particular way of tossing their heads, simultaneously scornful of your opinion and desperate to earn your respect. "I ain't a thief! I never steal." The ferocity with which she snarled the words sounded so bizarre coming from someone so delicate and young, so much like Minoru my heart went out to her. Her head dropped, inky hair shedding fine powder as it formed a curtain across a pink-flushed face. I caught a flash of pale, watchful brown through silky black.

Even while I'm trying to help her, she's on guard, I thought, letting my eyes flick away down the street, then up it. No threats, as expected. My senses were zinging as I came down from the panic-high. If someone turned up, I'd know. But if she thought she wasn't under scrutiny, she might relax. Is this the life of someone without a gang? To always be on the defense because you're the only one who'll watch your back? Then again, she acts just like Minoru, and he had a gang.

No point in wondering. There was a need here and now and I had to meet it. "Mira-chan," I began. Cringed, as the mousy expression that'd just returned tightened. I didn't want to know what had prompted that. "Mira-san, then. My barracks have food and healers." I thought of Abe and decided I'd just have to get up the courage to talk to someone new. Abe'd probably break Mira in two. "If you could identify the men, tell us what was going on, we could help you."

"Yes," she said too quickly, reiatsu elusive and taut like Torisei's. Her eyes gleamed feverishly bright over sharp cheekbones. Had I said she was in good condition? Either Mira used a lot of reiryoku regularly—unlikely, for someone without a gang—or she hadn't eaten in quite some time. How did one calculate the number of calories a high-spec person needed, anyway? We'd learned, but I hadn't thought I'd actually need to know. "If they come back and finish the job-" She sniffled. It was an act and I knew it, but it tugged on my heartstrings all the same. I could forgive a little exaggeration when the alternative was abandoning her to starvation and the streets.

"Stay by me," I ordered, bending to retrieve my fan from the dust. Damn thing was never going to let go of the dust and possible dog shit on it. Or was that mud? I shook off what I could. "When I'm at the nearest post to the barracks, I'll tell you where to go, who to talk to."

"I know who's who," she said. Her oddly pale, ringed eyes shifted, fixing on me hawk-like. No, that wasn't right. Hawks looked like they cared about you, if only because they didn't relish becoming featherdusters. Mira's eyes looked more like lasers, dispassionate and mechanical.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow. If she didn't steal—and from the way she'd said it, I believed her—she wouldn't have had any occasion to go near there. Torisei had eventually settled on having Aizen guard the food stores for a reason: they were the best way for illicit high-specs to get food. The vast majority of farms and fisheries were under Seireitei's control, delivering most of their produce to outposts and Seireitei proper. Wards near rivers or woods were the next best option for high-specs, but anyone anywhere else was out of luck.

Kinsawa was largely forested swampland, pocked with the emptied gold mines that had supplied its name. No way it was one of those fortunate wards. So if Mira didn't steal, why would she know any Shinigami? I could imagine knowing where the barracks were; it was common sense. But either something she'd said wasn't true or I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

Bare feet shuffled. "Summa them," she said lamely, hand going to her wrist. A tarnished silver chain hung there, carrying a slightly newer-looking manji. "When someone's chasin' ya, ya learn who does what real fast. An' if it ain't a Shinigami, ya learn which blackcoat's likely ta listen ta a sob story and which one'd rather lock up every street rat they see, troublemaker or not."

"So I'm the gullible kind?" I said dryly, shaking open my fan and surreptitiously sniffing it. Nothing but mineral tang as far as I could tell. "Gee, thanks."

An impish grin broke her dusty face. "I ain't said nothin', Shinigami-han. Can I go? Them thugs might head somewhere else while you're here. Don't wanna let 'em get some other girl, d'ya?

"No," I agreed rhetorically. "Alright, fine. You think you can get there without getting kidnapped, be my guest." I tossed over the token she'd need to get in.

She caught it and darted off, hair streaming out behind her like a war banner. I shook my head, scattering hair nearly as long.

"Next post, I guess," I muttered to myself as I started for it. Maybe I'd finally find Kurotsuchi there.

"Eh, it was a mixed bag."

Shinji was responding to a question asked by his accompaniment, Ishiura. From a glance I'd guess Ishiura was a member of the Third; he'd secured honey-colored hair with a golden marigold pin and wore a smile that said butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. I would've called him an idiot, except that he kept his tiger-striped nodachi within easy reach and had clearly earned the jagged scar splitting a burnished throat. Shinji couldn't have had a better mentor.

I hummed, shifting position on the bench. The dining room was too small to be called a proper hall, cramped and dusty as it was. "So what disturbed your bright and beautiful morning?"

He beamed. Damn morning people. My darling brother looked as perky an hour after noon as he had rolling out of bed. And somehow his stupid hair hadn't gone stringy with sweat or frizzed with the sweltering heat. "Well, for one, the lack of pretty- Ow!"

Even with her tongue stilled by food, Shinju's hand was free to cuff Shinji upside the head. I flashed her a grin. She swallowed hard, returned it. We were partners in crime, if not anywhere else.

"Hey, no shame in it," Ishiura said around a yawn. His white, chipped teeth made me glance far down the table at Kurotsuchi, whose large yellow teeth were buried in a piece of egg. At least no one was near him to get the inevitable flying egg bits on their uniforms. "Appreciating the feminine figure is only natural for guys. Now, if your eyes decide they like other targets- well, keep it under wraps. Only good woodblock material when the ladies do it."

Had I said Shinji had an ideal mentor? I was swiftly starting to reconsider my first impression. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Hiyori stepped in to save me from my fumbling mouth.

"Shut yer mouth, jackass! Ugh, we shouldn't have ta put up with such a pervert," Hiyori groused. Shinji, summer-hot reiatsu simmering around him, snapped a nod. I suspected we'd have to have a little talk sooner or later from his glower.

Ishiura jerked back, hand going to his gold-brushed cheek as if slapped. "Then I'm not sure what I think of the students the Academy's turning out these days. Feisty!" He tucked into his bento-style ration.

I took it as the battlefield retreat it was meant to be and let my fan whisper over my face to hide the twist in my mouth. No use saying anything more. Someone might say something they'd regret.

Minoru, for his part, shrugged and scooped some rice into his mouth. "Never seen the fun in all that. Datin', foolin' around, 's all pointless."

Ishiura opened his mouth again and was met with the scowls of five sweaty, hungry teenagers. He shut it and mirrored Aizen, who, being the smartest of us, had his eyes firmly fixed on his food where no one could swipe it. I was pretty sure he'd made off with his accompaniment's meal, but the victim hadn't noticed yet.

"Nothing wrong with that," I said, shifting my food into one cheek. "I'm not one for 'foolin' around' either."

Shinji's eyes crossed. He shook his head, golden hair forming a corona in the sunlight trickling through dusty windows. "Okay, this conversation stops there. I don't wanna hear 'bout my sister's sex life. Or lack thereof."

I flushed scarlet. Something in my briefly frozen brain directed my eyes to roll at him. "You perv. I'm your sister!"

"I know that!" He protested, stabbing his chopsticks into his rice bowl. I plucked them out before anyone else noticed the breach of manners. "I just don't need that mental image! Who wants ta thinka their big sister gettin' it on with Aizen?"

It was my turn to break etiquette. I jabbed my chopsticks at him. "I'll say it again: you're a pervert! Who thinks about their older sister screwing their roommate?"

He huffed. "You an' he are always makin' eyes at each other, ain'tcha? 'Sides, he was just in my line of sight."

"Shinji-san." Aizen's glasses were pressed so far up his nose it was a wonder he could see past them, but the rest of his face was a mask of building fury. "Don't joke about that," he snarled, glassy reiatsu smoky like quartz. I can bring you pain, it promised. It might not look it, but if I shatter you'll bleed.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. How was it that I could still feel my ice-water blood when I was half out of my body?

"Shinji-san, shut the fuck up." Minoru, blunt as a spear point to the ribs. Shinju's reiatsu, smooth and fine, enveloped our section of the table like cool water, trying to soothe an edge here or flare there. The other Shinigami on break were starting to glance over. "Ya ain't helpin' things."

"Don't fight," Shinju whispered, staring at the ashen wood of the table. "Please, Shinji-kun, Aizen-san. Everyone's just tired and exhausted. We're friends, not enemies."

The line's so thin, I thought half-hysterically, watching the two glare at each other. Are you all blind? Crazy? It would barely take anything to cross it. My little brother hasn't had his first kiss and if he wanted he could kill everyone around him with his reiatsu. My roommate thinks she's a pacifist but is training to be a killer. The boy who probably likes me is a future omnicidal maniac ready to demolish anything that startles him and the kid I'm tutoring in reading and writing's a former gang member. Hell, if I don't plan right, my cousin's going to turn into a monster. We shouldn't be allies, let alone friends.

We stood on a precipice in that moment. A step in any direction could end it all.

Aizen swung his legs over the bench and snatched his food in one fluid motion. In two buzzing steps he was gone. The double doors swinging behind him made the only sound in the whole hall.

"Shinji, that was a jerk move," I snapped. I stuffed an onigiri in each cheek. "Minoru-kun and Junko-chan were right. We're friends. Friends don't get each other killed." I surged to my feet. "Stay out of trouble. I'm going to find him."

"Provin' my point" followed me as I stormed out of the hall.

I should've found Aizen someplace dramatic. Maybe in a suitably creepy plot of swamp. At the very least in the tiny bathhouse with some dramatic steam.

Instead I rounded the corner of the storehouse and nearly tripped over the kid.

"Wha?" I stammered, stumbling back and landing on my noble butt.

Aizen's head snapped up, eyes sizing me up like a hawk would a mouse. I resisted the urge to scoot away. It was a ridiculous idea anyway. He was scrunched up in near-fetal position. Not a fighting stance, though his lips pulled back in a snarl. He looked like a wild animal, instinctively fending off helping and hurting hands both.

We stared at each other for a long few seconds. I blinked twice. He just stared, pupils huge and dark.

Then his head dropped and the spell broke.

"I can't apologize for him, can I?" I said before he could retreat into his shell again.

Aizen bit his lip. Blood beaded there, refused to fall until he spoke. Which he didn't. Just worked his jaw, like he was keeping a hundred words locked behind pale lips. His frame shook like he had a cough contained with them.

"I can try to take a look at you if you want," I offered, pushing down ruffled hakama and awkwardness both. Curled up like that and with the space his reiatsu should've occupied a void, dark shards pulled beneath his skin, Aizen looked miserable and hurt and Not My Problem. I gritted my teeth. If I didn't make Aizen my problem, he'd be everyone's problem. Might as well give up being a teenager, Nariko. Gotta grow up and take responsibility.

His head lashed from side to side, lank brown swishing in the air. If I ever thought he'd let me get close with a pair of scissors, I would've cut it by now and gotten rid of his veil. "No! Y'can't. I- you can't fix me. No point in trying." His voice escaped high and breathy and so shaky it half-sounded like two people speaking.

I bobbed my head, smoothing my reiatsu to deep waters and clouds. I'm harmless, remember. Just your roommate's sister. "You're right," I admitted. "I can't. Even if we'd learned healing Kidou, I-I'm a handful of points away from failing." I locked eyes with him, focusing on wavering brown instead of the falling feeling inside. C'mon. Accept it. I gave you a weakness, now get out of your shell and exploit it.

Aizen licked the blood from his lips. His eyes flicked over me, like my scrunched-up form could tell him more than my words. "Th-that's a lie. Right? It has to be."

I tucked strands of ash-blond, escaping from their ribbony restraints, behind my ear. "No. It doesn't make any sense. Kidou, that is. Not to me. I figured I'd ask you, honestly." I pulled a smile across my face. Let it fall before it seemed fake.

Aizen's face wore no expression for a handful of seconds, just a blank, sweaty forehead, level brows, slightly-parted lips. Then he seemed to remember the right face to wear and the brows lifted and his lips formed an O. "Me? But I- I'm not even takin'- taking Kidou." His eyes twitched as if to flick away. "Had to repeat Hakuda."

It was my turn to be surprised. Aizen had less body fat than our resident ex-urchin and less muscle than delicate Shinju, but martial arts didn't always require weight and power. "Seriously? How could you not pass it?" Whoops, don't antagonize the maniac. "i mean, it's not like you couldn't be a force to be reckoned with if you wanted."

His lips twisted into a smirk before the blankness reset it. "If I wanted."

"You don't?"

"I've got enough ways to kill someone without making my body a killing machine, too," Aizen said. His eyes crinkled, scrawny form shaking quietly like he was laughing at a joke only he knew.

I'm going to punch the next person who says something like that. Not sure if you or Shinju'd be better. "I'm sorry," I said instead. When in doubt, apologize. It put the other person off guard, made them like you more. At least, it made my parents happy.

Blankness, then a wrinkled forehead. "Why? You didn't do it."

Oops. Hadn't quite thought that far ahead. I shrugged. "I don't know. It's just a thing people say to tell someone they care. So whatever hurts right now, I'm sorry. For Shinji, too. He's still- he hasn't grown up yet. You and Minoru-kun and Nanase-kun have, but Shinji's never needed to. So, I'm sorry. It's no excuse, but it's a reason."

His eyes narrowed. "You didn't say yourself. Or Fujikage-san."

I had to shrug again. "I don't know Junko-chan well enough. Sucks, but it's the truth. I barely know my roommate." I chuckled like it was funny. "As for me, I'm not sure where I fall. Killed a man, but I was annoyed when I didn't get New Year's money. Make of that what you will."

"The first is always the hardest," Aizen agreed. His reiatsu jumped back into existence for an instant, ice-clear and ice-hard. A chill ran down my spine. How had I ever felt comfortable around him with power like that? But it withdrew and left a scrawny kid with finger-traced tear tracks there.

Maybe you were right, Arashi, I whispered, sense of reiatsu numb with cold. Maybe he'll never change. He doesn't even cry. Just fakes it.

She didn't answer, just adjusted her silks. Leave it to the bird-woman to be watching him with eagle eyes.

So Aizen and I sat in silence for a few minutes before I decided I had to make one last attempt to get something out of him. "Shinji doesn't mean anything by the sex jokes, you know. He just likes to embarrass me."

"Is that what I am, Nariko-san? An embarrassment?" His voice was a grating whisper.

I wanted to pitch a glob of mud at his stupid face. "I didn't say that, Aizen-san," I said, just as soft. "And I didn't mean to imply it if I did either. Shinji's an insensitive idiot, is all. Sex doesn't mean anything to him except jokes."

"With that man as your relative, I'm surprised," Aizen bit out. "'A different woman every night,' did you say?"

"Shinji's not his great-uncle," I said, fighting the defensiveness threatening to rise in my voice and hunch my shoulders. "People don't work like that."

"Bad blood will out, Nariko-san," Aizen said tiredly, like he'd said it a hundred times to a hundred people. For an instant I could see the man he'd become in his hooded eyes and still, resigned frame. "That's what everyone said to my-" He stopped, tearing into his lower lip again.

"To your mother?" I asked, carefully scooting back in case I triggered something unpleasant. This Aizen didn't seem to have a calm shell hiding tons of crazy like the one I remembered, but the chance that his apparent shyness concealed a regular flavor of nasty emotions still freaked me out.

And yet he didn't explode. Just nodded, head hung. "She never told anyone who my father was. Typical of her trade."

"That kind of working woman," I murmured to myself. A prostitute. If people had taunted him about his parentage, no wonder he didn't like people joking about casual sex. Or maybe he was the kind of person who flat-out hated those insinuations.

Aizen nodded again. "That kind of working woman," he echoed, half-smiling in a way that didn't look happy. "Kuraizumi dealt a lot in that."

Kuraizumi. Something about that name niggled in the back of my brain. A few of my second or third cousins at the New Year's party had been talking about some sort of tragedy that'd happened in that ward a while back, or rather the rumors surrounding it. Refusal to cooperate with bandits, they'd suggested. Hollow invasion. Infighting. A roaming gang. All they knew was that it'd been bloody, sudden, and left no one alive.

Aizen had nowhere to go back to. The monster or monsters that'd destroyed his home and killed his mother had made sure of that.

"I'm sorry," I murmured again. "I heard about what happened there."

Aizen blanched, arm drawing back as he half-uncurled. "You-"

I jerked away, hands out to block the blow that I knew was coming I should've known-

He stopped, claw-fingered hand shaking by his ear where it could snap forward at any second and tear out my throat. His expression teetered between that terrifying blankness and horror, like he couldn't believe what his body was doing. "Nariko-san. I, I-" He gulped. Maybe he knew no explanation would be enough to stop the ghost-prick of metal at my throat.

"No." I scrambled to my feet. I was done for today. There were a thousand possible reasons flitting through my mind for his bout of insanity, but I didn't want to listen to them. I'd had enough of people with madness behind kind eyes. Right now I just couldn't do this. If it made me irresponsible, better than my fucking the whole thing up by being angry and bitter. "I- not now. Please. Give me time."

I turned away and left him shivering and gasping there. There was only so much I could do.

So I told myself, feet dragging with exhaustion as I slipped through the bustle of Shinigami. My eyes burned and blurred with the seeds of tears. It was too much. Aizen and Shinji's stupid-ass conflict that I kept getting dragged into, the fact that my only distinguishing feature was a span of silk and steel, my distance from the people I was supposed to be closest to, my being so weak that I, a Shinigami, had had to bluff a couple thugs—all too much to handle. I couldn't do it. Not right now.

Arashi's streams rippled. Nariko-daoshi, show some compassion. We can't ignore-

I gouged out a mental trench for her waters to fill. I didn't need a lecture right now. I'm not a compassionate person, Arashi. You know that.

As I stepped into the building where Kurotsuchi and I were due to get our story straight before we filed individual reports, a layer of indifference slid into place over the turmoil inside. For a second I thought it'd give way into a flood of emotion, but soon enough calm settled in my heart and on my face. It was fine, I told myself with no more worry than I might've felt over choosing a hair ribbon in the morning. Nobody had to know I'd messed up. I could fix this, little by little. Aizen and I could keep each other's secrets.

"Sorry, Kurotsuchi-senpai," I murmured as I approached his chalked-off square of workspace. I didn't even want to know why there were scorch marks at the corners. Or why singed silver tubes and a small mountain of scrolls were tucked beneath his desk. Or why there was chalk around his spot at all. You know what, I just plain didn't want to know anything more about that creep. "I got caught up talking to someone."

"Useless." Yellow eyes snapped up to me. I contemplated shoving his brush down his throat, still detached. "That makes less time to work, you silly girl. Either they'll get over it like any well-trained Shinigami or they'll eliminate the problem with themselves."

Oookay. Well, I didn't even know where to start with that. So I didn't, glancing about as I knelt to see if anyone else in the quietly buzzing office was disturbed by hearing that from a coworker. A stout woman waiting to swap paperwork for patrol duty cast a glance that could've eaten through a Zanpakutou at Kurotsuchi. Apart from her—and from the way her reiatsu only faintly twitched and her eyebrows remained level, I read it as distaste for his person, not his words—no one did.

"What are you sitting down for?" His brush stopped its mechanical strokes. Something in my head finally twigged. Kurotsuchi's veneer of arrogance wasn't there. The abrasiveness and dismissiveness were, certainly, but he was reacting to me. Somebody higher-up had ground away his facade of superiority. Even his painted mask wasn't so caked-on, sweat trails visible at the brows.

"I-I'm sorry?" I stammered. "I thought we were-"

"Some imbecile got himself killed." Kurotsuchi's hair-thin lips pulled back in a grimace. "Shame, but the commander's got his hakama in a knot over it for some unfathomable reason. Most of the rest have already been questioned, but your time-wasting means you're still due."

I stared at him for a moment, trying to kick my brain into high gear. It wasn't any of us cadets, was it? Kurotsuchi would've said something if it was. No, that was a lie. Abe had made an offhand comment the other day that she was assigned to the sickbay for the rest of the week. Ishiura, Tokugawa, Ishida, all anybody's guess. Probably someone I didn't even know.

"Well?" Kurotsuchi demanded. "Get to the administration's quarters!"

The polite part of my brain short-circuited, pulling me to my feet and carrying me away without a goodbye. Well, I'd apologize later. Or not.

In the meantime, I made my way to the offices occupied by the highest-ranked members of the outpost. They weren't hard to spot; a short corridor led from the common office space to a series of rooms that housed/provided workspace for people like Torisei.

"Guanyin save you," a Chinese woman, face white with powder and fear, muttered as she swept out of Torisei's office.

I nodded, hoping I'd misheard. My knocking knees clicked the truth to me in anatomical Morse code: You're dead.

Arashi? I asked, hoping she wouldn't hold a grudge.

Fog swirled and settled. I'm an instrument of war, daoshi. I'll be with you as always, but it would take some truly extraordinary circumstances for me to help you against him.

That was a fair point. I took a deep breath, almost choked on the smoke in the air, and stepped into Torisei's office.

It was spartan almost to a fault. The screen that presumably divided his living quarters from his office was the only thing decorated, with intertwined blue camellias and purple chrysanthemums painted just brightly enough to be distinguished as colored. Everything else was bare. No rugs softened the pale, scuffed wood of the floor. One wall held the mounting of his sword. A plain low table served as desk and host to two white blocks. I did a double take as I realized they were sheets of paper, so rigidly shaped into columns that you could barely tell one from another. The only concessions to comfort were the ashy sunken hearth in the middle of the room and the sweat-stained off-white zabuton cushion in front of Torisei's desk.

Torisei himself knelt at his desk, brush resting by his inkstone. A sheet of paper sat in front of him, nearly blank. Nearly blank in that I could see from here the kanji of my name.

Ah, fuck. The layer of calm over my heart trembled. I was totally on Torisei's shit list. Trying to talk to Aizen had only bought me what, a quarter-hour? It'd felt like forever. But Torisei was going to dissect my every weakness now, and he'd take his time doing it.

"You wanted to see me, Torisei-sama?" I said, locking my knees to keep my legs from shaking.

"On your knees," he said, glancing up but not standing. He was the commander. He didn't have to.

And I knelt.

Even kneeling himself, Torisei towered over me. He wasn't broad-shouldered when I measured him against most men from Before, nor was he particularly tall compared to the same, but in a society where the bar was set narrower and lower, it was easy to pick him out as European. Exotic, but not completely out of the ordinary—that tall library aide I'd met had looked biracial, though I wasn't familiar enough with his clan to say which parent's ethnicity dominated. What had brought Torisei, who my gut told me wasn't a noble, to Soul Society after death was anyone's guess. He was a walking mystery.

My brain, finding no helpful information, went quietly numb with terror. I wasn't a murderer, or at least not this Shinigami's murderer, but authority figures always knew how to find fault. I had to have screwed up somewhere, or the commander himself wouldn't be questioning me.

"Hirako Nariko," he said, enunciating every syllable. "Did anyone tell you why you're here, or were you too busy hiding to learn?"

I was well past being irritated at that. "Kurotsuchi-senpai said someone was killed," I said, staring at the camellias that looked from this angle like they were blossoming from Torisei's shoulders into wings. Camellias and chrysanthemums—noble reason and truth, especially in those colors. They were the insignias of the Sixth and First Divisions respectively. I'd only ever seen Kuchikis wearing patterns of those, and then only one kind of flower at a time. "I-is that true, sir?"

"Your file claimed you were intelligent. Perhaps I should remedy it." Torisei selected a paper from the top of one stack and held it up to me. "Please tell me you recognize this man. Your brother reported an altercation with him at the afternoon meal, after all."

My mask of calm shifted ever so slightly to accommodate wide eyes and a dropped jaw. I slid it back into place a second later, but there was no changing the image in front of me. The artist had clearly had a disturbing amount of practice drawing corpses. Ishiura's empty eyes stared straight ahead, chest thrust out in staged pride. Not that he could help it—the tiger-striped hilt of a sword jutted from his forehead, its blade presumably buried in the wall behind him. A massive hole in his chest was picked out in charcoal black—and since the artist had used color, I knew it really was charcoal black. Dozens of smaller burns pockmarked his body.

And above Ishiura's head, the killer had pasted a sign. Four letters, real letters, not kana, smeared in black like some demented memorial. Treu. German, it had to be. French, my second guess, took the word for true from Latin, I was pretty sure.

"Sprechen Sie deutsch?" I said aloud, glancing up from the gore.

Torisei jerked violently, pupils contracting to dots of jet. After a second his brows lowered, lips pursed, cheeks regained some color. "You aren't completely stupid, then. You are aware of what this means?"

Loyal, I thought but didn't say. True. He didn't want the literal meaning. "A Quincy?" I asked, knowing the answer. It couldn't be anyone else.

A little of the color Torisei'd just regained bled away. "Quincies. The matter we're investigating is what traitor let them in. Or if they weren't let in, what traitor tampered with the Kidou-based security system to allow them to break in."

"S-so how am I supposed to help?" I stammered.

He leaned forward. "We both know you're connected, Hirako. You're going to tell me how."

Notes:

As faithful as I like to be about sticking to Nariko's POV, it's fun to explore a scene from other perspectives, or simply tell sidestories. But I don't want to waste time writing those when I could be writing this, so I'll only get a series going for those if a reader expresses interest. Aizen is a walking spoiler, so he's off-limits.