A Wandering Soul - Spirit 4.10

It was another nice day in the Seireitei.

Bright blue sky, the occasional cloud floating by, and the decorative trees were all blooming nicely. All combined making a lovely view from the hospital room in the Squad 4 barracks.

And I was bored as hell.

It wasn't so bad at first. After the battle with Aizen, I had spent two days unconscious and then the next several recovering. But after two weeks had gone by I was sick of being stuck in the same room and not being allowed to leave. Unfortunately I was told under no uncertain terms by practically everyone I could talk to that I would not be leaving until the latest bout of stupidity had been handled.

Well, that's what I called it.

They called it 'internal deliberations regarding my unique circumstances'.

Basically, it boiled down to once the Nobles of the Seireitei realised they were safe for the moment and that there was not going to be a follow up to Aizen's last attack, they immediately tried to either call for my death, imprisonment, forced servitude, some combination of all three, and other such 'rewards' for stopping Aizen.

The Court Guards Squads responded by nearly unanimously telling them to fuck off.

At first it had been because I was under the personal care of Captain Unohana. With all the other Captains busy or injured in the wake of the battle, there was no one strong enough that the Nobles could bribe or blackmail into getting her to release me to them. And once they began recovering the divide between the Nobles and the Court Guard only seemed to get bigger.

I might not have been personally close with many of them, actually Soifon was the only one I had more than passing contact with due to her visiting Yoruichi now and again, but turns out a bunch of Nobles demanding for them to go kidnap the girl who just saved their lives and was currently resting in their care didn't sit well for various reasons.

In order, Yamamoto was content to not have my various allies storm the Seireitei in a repeat of their earlier invasion to rescue Rukia. Soifon was, according to Yoruichi, on the hunt for the ringleader behind this movement and would sooner slit their throats than listen to them. Unohana had already denied them and would continue to do so until I was healthily released. Byakuya Kuchiki was also recovering and hadn't officially said no but had refused to allow the Kuchiki clan to support the demands, so it was obvious where he stood on the matter. Komamura, Kyoraku, Toshiro, and Ukitake all said no but I hadn't heard their reasons.

The only captains willing to carry out the order were the 11th and 12th to no one's surprise. And one of those was on technicality.

Kenpachi was apparently raring to fight me since he heard that I took down Aizen. It was actually a little surprising he hadn't tried looking for a fight with me earlier but he definitely wanted the chance now. Of course once he got that fight, he would probably turn around and tell the Nobles to screw off as well.

Which meant that Captain Kurotsuchi was the only one that had thrown his approval behind the Noble's demands...and even then it probably wasn't the endorsement they were looking for. No, Kurotsuchi would be happy to back whatever if it meant I ended up in one of his labs, but at the moment he was far busier with the new toys he had found in Hueco Mundo, so his support was in name only.

Kisuke and Yoruichi would've probably been more receptive to letting me out if they weren't currently bogged down with demands to know what happened to the Hogyoku and where it was. Something that was frustrating those in charge of the Seireitei because they refused to believe the two exiled captains didn't know where it ended up.

To be fair, I wouldn't have believed them either if I didn't know for a fact the universe's most bullshit marble had taken up residence in my soulscape.

Yep. Sometime after I fell unconscious, the Hogyoku had somehow merged with me and was busy with the lengthy process of reversing the damage the fight had caused since as I had noticed before, injecting a fundamental force into your soul wasn't healthy. Large areas of my soulscape were charred ruins, light blue embers of Reishi still burning in the scars. A quick test when no one was around confirmed that while I wasn't completely unable to use my powers, fighting at that level again anytime soon would be...bad.

So a month after the battle I was still stuck in a hospital room. As healed as I was going to get, hiding because of greedy idiots, and fully bored.

I was contemplating how hard it would be to sneak out and avoid the resulting manhunt when there was a knock on my door and Soifon and Natsume walked in.

I was...a little surprised to see them actually.

Soifon had lost her left arm after all and Natsume was practically running the Second Division at the moment. For both of them to be able to stop by was unexpected.

"Oh, hi you two. How's it going?"

Please distract me before I do something that gets everyone mad at me.

Soifon nodded politely and Natsume greeted me with a shallow bow.

"Hello, Cross-san." Soifon said, "We've stopped by to let you know you're free to go after today."

"Oh...really? That's great!" I exclaimed, slightly stunned at regaining my freedom so easily.

"Yes. The last of the objections was withdrawn after the most vocal was revealed to be accepting bribes to influence their latest policies." Soifon sent a meaningful look at Natsume. I guess I'll have to thank her later for finding some dirt on the guy after me. "They've backed off for now but you should be careful, we know for a fact that he was not the main party behind the calls for your imprisonment."

"I'll keep that in mind." I promised. 'For the little amount of time I'm even still in this universe.'

Unless something had gone wrong in the time I'd been away, the final component to my ship's drive system should be finishing up back at the lab. Not much I could do to speed up restructuring a crystal to act as the main processing matrix for a dimensional engine when I was working at near sub-atomic levels, but thankfully it was automatic once it started. When I got back the only thing I should have to do is install the thing and I'd be ready to leave whenever.

"Good, because now you're coming with us."

"What! Why!?" Neither one paid attention to my outburst. They simply forced me into a change of clothes and Natsume dragged me along behind Soifon. In a friendly way. Given who she was, there was no way she would've left me so many opportunities to slip her grasp if she really wanted to force me somewhere, so I simply went with the flow.

The two ended up pulling me along to a rather large building somewhere nearby. Soifon went to open the door-

"SURPRISE!"

-and my ears were instantly assaulted as I was pulled into the middle of a giant drinking party.

"The hell…?"

"It's a party!" A visibly drunk Yoruichi draped herself over my shoulder and waved a drink in my face. "We wanted to celebrate and you're the lasht one outta the 'ospital. Sho grab a drink an' let your hair down!"

"My hair is down." I replied with a smile, amused at her antics. There was no way to tell if she was legitimately drunk or just playing it up for fun, and I doubted anyone was going to figure out which one it was.

Yoruichi pulled back and narrowed her eyes as she carefully studied me. It was true, my hair was out of its usual ponytail and flowing freely down my back and shoulders for once.

"Huh, it is." Was her slightly slurred response before she shoved a bottle into my hand and abandoned me to disappear into the rest of the party.

I took a moment to look around as Natsume guided me to a slightly less crowded area of the room, probably so I could properly join in when I felt like it.

It seemed like the event was made up of mostly female Soul Reapers with a few additions, apparently the whole thing was sponsored by the 'Shinigami Women's Association' so it helped explain the disparity for those attending. I spotted groups playing what suspiciously looked like poker, while others were in the middle of karaoke, most seemed to be sitting around telling jokes and stories while eating and drinking but the cheerful atmosphere was present throughout.

It was nice to see and I quickly found myself getting pulled into the festivities. I ended up bouncing from group to group, drinking with the kind of reckless freedom that comes with knowing I would likely never see this group of people again and didn't need to uphold appearances, getting into a karaoke duel with Nanao Ise of all people which turned out to be a blast, and getting tricked into a game of strip-poker with some of the male Soul Reapers by Rangiku. Though I had the last laugh with that one since while I wasn't all that great at poker, the guys didn't have the advantage of directly conjuring clothes from nothing.

Some people cried foul at that, but were pacified when it resulted in an impromptu fashion show with several of the female officers modeling.

We continued on like that until the sun started to set on the horizon and people gradually made their final farewells and made their ways home.

It was a nice party, I decided. I got to interact with some people I would've liked to know better before leaving without the threat of a disaster or plot around the corner. Well, aside from the tracker a Squad 12 member tried slipping in my drink. But I simply held onto it. Imagining the face Kurotsuchi would make when he realised I slipped his net would be amazing. Other than that it was just a nice way to unwind.

So when Yoruichi and I finally stumbled through the front door of Urahara's shop, considerably drunk and unsteady on our feet, it was no surprise that I collapsed in an exhausted heap on the first comfortable surface I found and promptly went to sleep.

-o-

Waking up was a slow experience. I was warm and comfortable and not exactly in a hurry to move. It didn't help that my body felt like it was made from cotton either.

Something soft laid up next to me shifted slightly and I growled in annoyance. I didn't want to get up!

"C'mon Alexandria, let me go. I'm starving." An amused female voice cut through the haze my mind was currently in.

"Mnmnmnmmm..." was my very coherent response.

"If you don't let go, I'm going to call Kisuke. And he will never let you live this down." the voice threatened.

I groaned again as the threat managed to at least get my brain engaged. I refused on a basic level to allow the smug shop owner any sort of blackmail on me. "Fiiine" I whined and released my grip, shuddering a little as the cool morning air brushed over my body.

…

My eyes snapped open as I realised two things very suddenly.

One. I was completely naked, hidden only by a light sheet covering myself.

Two. Yoruichi was slowly sliding out of the bed we had both fallen asleep on...and she was also naked.

I'm not exactly sure what the look on my face ended up being, but whatever it was, made Yoruichi burst out laughing.

"Wow, Alexandria. Way to make a girl feel special." Yoruichi posed and ran a hand down her side. "If that's your reaction after what last night you're going to hurt my feelings."

I just gaped at her.

Eventually she snorted and stopped posing.

"Relax. Nothing actually happened." the assassin said, finally taking pity on me. "We were wearing the fake clothes you made yesterday. You got rid of them when you started falling asleep."

Ah.

That made sense.

I was in the habit of dismissing any projections I wasn't keeping around for a specific reason before I went to bed. I guess it wasn't that surprising I forgot the clothes from last night fell into that category. Not that it wasn't just as mortifying.

"Heh, it's still weird to see how innocent you are with these things." Yoruichi teased as I made a decent effort to disappear under the sheet even if I was sure I was glowing with how hot my face felt.

"Shut up." I whined.

The assassin just laughed again and padded away, her quest for food more important than embarrassing me more for now.

Once she was gone, I quickly dressed myself and fled to my lab.

-o-

Mercifully, I was undisturbed as I went about installing the drive system into my ship. I was right that the crystal had completed its adjustments so it was really just a matter of putting everything together.

Once I had done that, I wandered to a nearby terminal and ran a systems test. The only things that came back red were the AI core which still didn't actually have the software needed to work anyway and the weapon system.

It was done.

I could leave whenever I wanted to.

Huh. I thought I would feel happier about that, instead I just felt a vague feeling of satisfaction for getting it completed in the first place.

I performed one final check and then wandered out to the main lab.

I had one final thing to do before I could actually leave.

-o-

I found Urahara, Yoruichi, and Tesai in the breakroom looking like they were waiting for me. Considering the cameras wired into the labs I wasn't exactly surprised Urahara had figured out what I was doing.

"So! Finally finished your big project huh?!" Urahara greeted me cheerfully. "Although I feel like I deserve the credit since I'm the one that put most of it together."

"Not on your life."

That got a couple chuckles from the other two in the room.

"But you're right. I did finish it. So I thought I'd at least say goodbye in person." I smiled sadly. This was essentially home for most of my life. The one I lived rather than the memories I had. It wasn't enough to keep me around, obviously, but I still had grown somewhat close with Urahara and Yoruichi.

As bad as I felt about it now, Tessai was more like a friendly co-worker than a proper friend, but I'd still miss him.

I also was going to tell them about the Quincies. No reason to keep them in the dark.

So I revealed everything. My true origin as an extra-dimensional visitor who knew far more than she should, exactly how much I had used that knowledge to my advantage(which was surprisingly little with how much time I needed to put into just learning my abilities), and everything I could still remember from a manga I had read in another life. I left out the method of how I knew so much, stretching the truth that I had simply observed a separate timeline that had been further in the future, and that this one had diverged a bit, but the events were still possible.

And finally, I told them about Gin and the fact I had kinda managed to recruit him right before I went to go fight Aizen.

"So let me get this straight." Yoruichi started. "The reason you decided to tag Gin with the teleportation destination seal was because you knew he wasn't loyal to Aizen and wanted him to work for us?!"

"Yep."

"Why would he even do that?!"

I shrugged. "He had a major hate-on for Aizen after he hurt a certain strawberry-blonde lieutenant he has a major crush on," I assume "when they were kids. I gave him a deal. I beat Aizen, he works for you."

"I don't know if the Seireitei would like that. We only just got a full pardon after this. Why should they let him off?"

"Tell them he was a double agent?" I suggested. "He was the one that kept feeding us info about Aizen's plans and couldn't break cover until his defeat? I don't know how dirty his hands got but I don't think he did anything to anyone still alive, and you'll need people on his level pretty soon."

Everyone was quiet for a bit as they thought it over. I didn't try pressing the issue further. Whatever they decided on was out of my hands.

"Well, on that note. I think it's about time I head off." I stood and brushed myself off.

"What, just going to drop that bomb on us and run off? That's so mean, Alex-chan." Urahara complained. Yoruichi smacked him in the shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. We'll figure things out." She said. "And come back and visit once you find a place to get yourself fixed up."

I was surprised she knew about that since I had hidden my new soulstate from everyone but I supposed that was just the last surprise Kisuke had for me.

"Indeed. It has been a pleasure to be your acquaintance this past year." Tessai stated. "We would enjoy you returning to visit."

"Just give me a call if you have issues piloting." Urahara grinned. "I have a manual if you need one."

I grinned back. "Don't worry about it. I purged your code, no poetry based control scheme to worry about. Nice try though." The pole-axed look on his face was enough to keep me laughing all the way back to the ship.

Then before I lost my nerve, I took the thing out and activated the dimensional drive.

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