2/2

"Of course," I said, because that was the done thing. It doesn't have any meaning, I told myself. You aren't lying. It's just to close the deal. "It's fine. I should apologize to you, for being so rude." I hesitated. Did I dare ask and risk taking another blow to the self-esteem? "Fujikage-chan... Junko-chan, is that really what people think of me? Is that how I look? Like someone who doesn't respect anyone or anything?"

She swiped at her eyes. "I-I couldn't presume to speak for other people..."

I heard it in the way she trailed off, saw it in the way the muscles around her eyes jumped. "Oh no. That is, isn't it? People say that? I guess you'd know better than me; no one really... talks... to me." I wrapped my fingers in windblown hair, yanking at it to temper my building headache. They hate me. They all hate me. But wait, everyone thinks that about themselves. But what if it's true? "That's it. Wow. I never- I figured it was just people being awkward, and me reading all the time."

Shinju raised her hands as if to push my rush of misery away from her. "Please, Hirako-chan. It was untoward emotion. Don't pay it any mind."

The snap of cloth being shoved aside rang out over the flat water. The rest of our ragtag band were done. "I don't know what to listen to right now," I said, closing my eyes. I sucked damp air in, let it out. "It's not important." I grinned, fierce and tight. "We've got a job to do, right? Let's do it. And Junko-chan? Can we talk later?"

She nodded sharply, casting a glance over her shoulder at the approaching Shinigami and street rat. "Promise me you'll have my back and I'll have yours?"

I returned her nod. "Promise."

Mira made a noise in the back of her throat. "Promises? Those're fer morons. Y'can only trust self-interest 'round here." She smirked. "I thought Shinigami didn't fight."

I clenched clammy fists as Shiraishi opened his mouth. I did not have the patience for him anymore. Every word he said made me want to sock him in his cutesy little face until he shut up.

"Well, Mira-chan, Shinigami don't fight. Not unless they have good reason." He smiled an iron-jawed smile at us. "I'm sure that Fujikage-chan and Hirako-chan simply differed on the proper course of investigation. Isn't that right, cadets?"

I swallowed hard. That was an Unohana-like smile right there. Not Unohana-caliber, but in that vein. "Yessir."

Shinju forced a wavering smile. "Of course, Shiraishi-senpai. Hirako-chan and I merely disagreed over the proper level of force. She and Kurotsuchi-senpai have Shikai, after all, and Hirako-chan wanted to make use of her talents. I thought it best to adhere to the doctrine of harmonious accord, but this is a nonstandard si-"

"Oh, shut up," Kurotsuchi said, looking as if the mission had taken second priority to relieving his bladder. Which would explain so much. "No one wants to hear it." His head swiveled to fix poor Mira with his yellow permaglare. "Tell them what you told us. Where the first target is."

Mira wilted a bit, back to the safely meek girl she seemed to become around our supervisors. "There's this man, Shinobu. Or he calls himself Shinobu, at least. Everybody knows he belongs t'a chivalrous organization. I heard he took sake with Mari-ane-han." She threw a glance over her shoulder, like a little kid afraid someone would overhear.

Silence hung in the air as we all tried to puzzle that out. No, as everyone but Shiraishi tried to puzzle it out. He wore the totally-not-smug expression of someone with an answer on his tongue. I gave up trying to get it and just waited. Sure enough, after a minute he spoke up.

"Really, Hirako-chan," he chided, wagging a finger at me, "I'm surprised you don't understand her meaning. 'Shinobu' is an alias for an individual in one of the gutter families. Have the Hirako cut their ties after all this time?"

I gritted my teeth. Soon enough I'd be looking back at this like it'd gone by so quickly. "I wouldn't know. I've never dealt with anyone in the yakuza."

"Shh!' Mira hissed. "Ya never know who might be one of them. Anybody could. Call them right proper."

"Okay, okay," I said, shuffling my feet. Why were we still talking? If people stopped talking in circles I could've been done already. "I've never dealt with anyone who belongs to a chivalrous organization. I haven't taken clan responsibilities yet, if we have any involvement with them at all. Now, what about Mari?"

Shinju's skin couldn't decide whether to be crying-pink or terror-white. "Th-The chivalrous organizations?" she said. "What do they have to do with anything? Who's Mari?"

"Indeed," Shiraishi said, smile all but oozing oil. "Who is this Mari, Hirako-chan? I hope you'll enlighten us as to how you're familiar with a woman in a chivalrous organization."

Mira looked like someone had just put a blade to her throat. Could she be Mari's younger sister or something? "You shouldn't be so- so rude," she stammered, matching Shinju's complexion. "Someone might-"

Kurotsuchi's eyes gleamed. Only my loathing for him kept me frozen in place against that dissecting stare. "Maybe not an onmitsu shill, then," he interrupted. I expected him to say more, but he fell silent. Waiting. Damn. Looked like no one would buy me any more thinking time.

"I, I don't think Mari is in a chivalrous organization," I said slowly, letting each word fall out deliberately so the torrent of words in my head didn't flood them. I couldn't tell Minoru's secret, but surely people weren't worth breaking my code. "I don't- ah, that's it." Several months back I'd written a report on the influence of yakuza in Rukongai history. Ane-san, or its Kansai version ane-han, was for yakuza women. "I don't get why you're calling her that," I said to Mira. "I mean, obviously you're not related, but I didn't think she was part of one of those groups."

Shinju's eyebrows snapped together over worry-sharp eyes. "Hirako-chan, you can't be arrested for involvement with chivalrous organizations, if that's what you're worried about. We can class it as mission-essential, right?" She sent a pleading glance at Shiraishi.

"I said I'm not involved with that!" I snapped. Dammit, dammit, dammit! I was going to have to bend the truth as I went along. "Look, I just- I questioned someone and didn't report it, that's all. A former gang member. Just gotten out of the life. He was running from his ex-allies, I guess the word is, and in exchange for me not reporting him he gave up their leader's name: Mari. That's who leads the White Spiders. Mari, the Quincy."

Even through bleary, drooping eyes, I caught each one's reaction in perfect clarity. Kurotsuchi smiled widely, genuinely, an overgrown, yellow-toothed kid opening New Year's presents that'd be in pieces the next day. Shinju's complexion resolved into greenish-pale, hunching forward like she was about to throw up. Mira went stiff and hard, the same way I did when dirty laundry and authority figures made a clusterfuck. Shiraishi's condescending smile soured into a scowl for a single instant.

All these I saw and braced myself against. Somehow I was going to catch hell for it.

Against all odds, Shinju was first to speak. "A Quincy? You interacted with someone who'd touched a Quincy?" She wrung her hands like they were stained cloth. "If I'd known, I would've-"

"Would've what, brat?" Kurotsuchi interrupted. He had a habit of doing that, I was noticing. "Lit some incense to cleanse yourself? Washed your hands? Left Shin'ou?" He sneered. "Imbeciles, both of you. You" -he jabbed a finger at me- "for not mentioning it to me so I could add it to my files, and you" -he stabbed the air in Shinju's general direction, ignoring her scandalized gasp- "for being so superstitious as to ignore potential. The data gathered from a single Quincy could advance the pathetic sciences here immeasurably. At least even now some few know Quincy can't spread their taint that way."

Shinju was too polite to glare at him. So she glared just to the left of him instead. "I would've certainly done the first two! Or something else." She shuddered. "Did you perform any rites, Hirako-chan?"

I tilted my head at her. "First, why. Second, where am I going to get incense here." I could've lifted my voice for questions. Or I could not, so I didn't.

Shiraishi slid in smoothly, saving my crawling skin from further discomfort. I couldn't even begin to try to plan the conversation I'd probably never have about Shinju's weirdness anyway. "You can find a temple later, I hope. For now, that's good. We can finally name primary suspects. Your source, what was his name?"

Oh, hell. But no, a plan slid into place. "I'm not sure. The one he gave me might've been an assumed name." I frowned as if in contemplation. As long as they didn't ask for more detail... "Minoru, he called himself."

You could've replaced Mira with a stone and I wouldn't have noticed a difference. "Like the boy, what talked ta the potter's ward. 's what the washerwomen said he was called. Fugai Minoru."

Alarm bells clanged in my head. My plan, like all those conjured in desperation, had failed. "I don't-"

Shiraishi's smile was incandescent, his dimples like black holes. "Well, I'm sure we can just have a little talk with the boy and clear things up. Maybe in the bathhouse. I haven't observed the unfortunate child visiting. Friendliness might ease his trepidation. Now, if you'd continue with your knowledge of this Spider leader?"

"Of course," I said flatly, hunching my shoulders to keep them from slumping. I closed the mask around my whole body, locking my knees and clasping my hands behind my back. Efficiency personified. "She's a Quincy, like I already said. Ambitions of overthrowing Seireitei. She's been running the Spiders in some form for a while. And... very trigger-happy. I don't know what she looks like, so that doesn't help, or what she can do. Just that she thinks there're more Quincy. Dunno what she wants with them."

Shiraishi stepped in to pat me on the shoulder. "Thank you for the information, Hirako-chan. I hope you'll learn from this and be more forthcoming in the future. Despite this little complication, we can be ready if we encounter it now."

I pressed my lips together. Arashi's feathers puffed up, mirroring the distaste curling through me. "Then we can leave, right? There's stuff to do."

Boy, was I in a mood to chop off some heads.

The house Mira led us to was a real house. My family wouldn't have been caught dead building something so rustic, but it was in fact a house. If not for the fact that one of us was going to have to kill the man inside it, I would've liked it. It looked like a big cat, roof thatched with tawny grasses and arched like it meant to scare off intruders. Damp, splintering rafters beneath would have to be replaced soon enough, but I hadn't signed on to be a carpenter. Pointless to worry.

"Should we take along Mira-san, Kurotsuchi-senpai?" I asked as we approached. My cheeks twitched with the effort it took to hold my smile in place.

He huffed, back to me. "Of course, dolt. Letting her run away would waste all our earlier efforts."

I looked down at the girl all-but-clinging to me. "Sorry, Mira-san. You heard him."

She nodded, expression flat and watchful. "If I gotta."

Well, that was easy. But then, I supposed Mira had seen a lot of death here. We'd passed a few unfortunates on our way here who looked close to it. Youths, mostly, who looked far too young and strong to be dying, except that their reiatsu guttered around them while their eyes burned feverishly bright. I couldn't see what lay under their white bandages, but the way the air around them reeked of something bitter and the way they clutched dark flasks suggested it was nothing nice. They'll die soon, I'd told myself as I hurried Mira past their following eyes. It'll be a better life in the LIving World.

"I hope you all won't miss me much," Shiraishi simpered. "It might be best if someone with experience in dealing with crowds kept the rabble off your back." His eyes drifted to Kurotsuchi. "Someone- personable."

"I know how t'tell which way people're gonna jump!" Mira said, turning her big pale eyes up to him. They were creased, I noted with a start. European, or partly so. Casting my eyes about at the populace, Yamato and Ryukyuan almost to a man, I wondered if her ethnic and domestic isolation were connected. "Please don'-"

"It's quite alright, Mira-chan," Shinju reassured her. "We'll let you step into the next room when it has to be done."

As we proceeded up the pebbled path, I wondered whether I should be glad it wasn't my sword hand being squeezed numb. With luck I wouldn't have to do the deed. Yes, of course. I was a Hirako. Luck was always on our side. I'd do- something else. But Arashi wouldn't spill any blood.

Mist curled. We'll speak on that, daoshi. Just keep this short.

Oh, goody. A lecture to dread.

A gilded gong hung by the door, rust betraying the iron beneath. Typical of the lot, yakuza and merchants and burakumin. Downtrodden, they couldn't afford solid gold. My fingers brushed delicate silver at my throat. Of course, not many nobles would be so ostentatious. I bent to grab the mallet when Shinju's reiatsu nudged mine.

"What?" I hissed, straightening. "Shouldn't we be polite?"

"What if he runs?" She whispered, shuffling away from the screen like he was waiting to ambush us. "Or if he has men waiting? Don't chivalrous men usually employ those?"

"Decide," Kurotsuchi ordered. Ashisogi Jizou couldn't have had a creepier face than its master at that moment. Yellow teeth, strings of drool oozing between them, leered in my mind's eye. Wolf teeth, ready to snap on a challenger's throat. "I'll do the job if you're too weak. And tell everyone how utterly inept you two are."

"Let me do something," I said before I knew what to do. "Then we'll go in, whatever happens."

Shinju's eyebrows twitched. Translation: a single raised eyebrow. Translation: the heck are you doing? I was learning to speak Shinjuese.

Shinobu wasn't a Shinigami. I couldn't strain my ears for his Zanpakutou, even if he'd had one. But reiatsu had a particular look to it, didn't it? Colored light, the sort that bled through paper. And if the shape of some reiatsu was based on Shinigami souls, why couldn't I spot the echoes of souls if I squinted?

I breathed deep, drawing a trickle of reiryoku up into my eye seals. Hang back, Arashi, I ordered as I did it. Maybe if she wasn't involved... now I needed a ping. Supremely conscious of how bare my control was, I dipped into the well of power inside and teased a handful up towards the vent at my right wrist. But no, I needed to think like sonar. My palm was so much easier to point at the door. Now- release!

Color bloomed around me. A silver shell around Mira, lavender veiling Shinju, purple oozing from Kurotsuchi, bright yellow on Shiraishi, even aquamarine from me... And a hole for a door. And a thump like someone falling out of bed. And a person-shaped lump outlined in crackling turquoise.

Oops. Too much lightning.

"Move!" Kurotsuchi demanded, and like terror-fueled robots Shinju and I stumbled forward. I barely registered dragging Mira along, hands tingling like they'd fallen asleep. What had I done?

"It might be best to talk about your marks in Kidou," Shinju panted. We skidded to a halt at two corridors. "Which way?"

No noise to guide me. No light to see by, house dim and dusty. Dammit, it's not enough light what if- There. A moving smudge amid fading turquoise. Got you.

Two, four, six strides took me down the hall. Damn Shinju's legs; they caught her up and had her in front of me-

Lavender solidified and shoved and the screen flew off its frame. I stared as she stepped into the room, careful to avoid crushing the paper. Kidou? But- No, it made enough sense. Not everyone was a failure like me. Numbly, I followed her, marveling at how neat it'd popped off. Pretty sure part of the wall had disappeared with my door. And maybe gotten singed.

"Shinigami can do that?" Mira whispered.

"Yes, you dolt," Kurotsuchi snapped, appearing in a whoosh of pointless flash-step. Asshat. "Where is he?"

"Here," Shinju said, bell-like. That is, muffled, pretty, yet vaguely annoying. "Shinobu?"

The moaning lump at her feet squirmed. "Wha-? Who the hell?" Croaked a man's voice. If you could call the reeking mess there a man.

He's a man, I reminded myself, working my fingers free of Mira's. Her slow, stumbling steps said 'too horrified to run.' If I forget that, how human am I?

"Shinobu-san," I said. "You're charged with-"

"Time to die," Kurotsuchi cut in. "Shame you aren't a Quincy, but then dead yakuza look good enough to get me the post to get my hands on one."

"-being part of the yakuza," I finished, buried terror rolling in the grave. I had to take or enable the taking of a man's life. Of a monster's life, someone who killed and cheated others for a living. But a man, too.

"I shouldn'ta let them in," he slurred. Slightly more awake. Not half-asleep, sick. "I' 'urts. Din't do nothin' an' they got me down, worked it in with their little needles. Din't do nothin', please don'-"

"Hirako-chan, would you retrieve him?" Shinju asked, sweet as sugar.

I resisted the urge to mutter something rude at her, crossing the room to do as she asked. Had to get along, or my time at Shin'ou would be miserable. Almost as miserable as the man whose yukata I wrapped both hands in and yanked up. I got him almost sitting up until hemp popped and tore, depositing him on his back. Great, I thought, sarcasm a shield against pained gasps. Now my back hurts and he barely moved.

"I tried," I said to no one. My face warmed, no doubt pink. "Therefore, no one can criticize me."

The face staring up at me was not what I'd expected from a yakuza. Round, a little pudgy, it would've looked like a harmless shopkeeper's face if it hadn't been eggplant purple in parts. Glazed black eyes looked off, somehow.

"Junko-chan?" I said absently, humor going hollow. "Can you and Mira-san get some light in here?" Don't look at me like that. I was not asking Kurotsuchi.

"Noooo," Shinobu groaned as they went about looking. "O'ject if my class goes spreadin'-" His chest heaved, choking out wet breaths like Aizen's. "Who are you? Tell me, damn you! Ain't no one cheats Kin! 's what ya always done said, old man, don't beat me fer takin' advice, shouldn'ta drunk that-"

Tiny fingers caught a latch and opaque screens flew aside. Daylight burst into the room and screams burst out of Shinobu. I nearly joined him. Had I said he was human? Because he sure as fuck didn't look it. The limbs I could see were swollen black and red, yukata half-open to display a pasty chest crisscrossed by thin red lines. One pupil had shrunk to display brown in a sea of broken red, leaving the other to look vacantly ahead, a black hole in a sweaty white face. His untainted skin was barely darker than oozing bandages clinging to his back.

Kurotsuchi slammed a grimy foot into Shinobu's side. Screams broke into weeping gasps.

"Oh, hell," hissed an Osakan-accented voice. Mine. But staring at a living corpse, I couldn't believe I'd strung words together enough to speak.

Shinobu's arms, covering his chest like a mummy, twitched. I flinched. Defenseless, out of it, dying. Was this what it meant to be a Shinigami?

I swallowed hard, cracking knuckles like a firing gun. I'd done it once. Put a crazy, dying man out of his misery, saved my own life. Yes, there. That was it. I was doing the same thing here.

Behind me, I heard the soft rasp of Shinju's sandals. Behind her, the floor squeaked. I caught Mira craning around Shinju, squinting in the light. "Yer reign of terror's over," she squeaked, one of my novel heroines come to life. Amusement thrilled faintly in the back of my mind.

Shinobu made a strangled yelp, throwing himself back. His working eye's pupil dilated, eating the iris again. My hand dropped to Arashi's hilt, if only because it looked a hell of a lot like Hollowfication. "No! Ge' away from me! You an' yours, ya shouldn't be! They're in us, in you, white in black, bugs eating from the inside. I won' lose! You took it, took it all. I won' go the way o' Yuki an' Ichiro!" He scrambled back, black hand seizing a splintered table leg.

Daoshi! Arashi screamed.

Shinobu shrieked wordlessly, an animal cry. His club swung out from the side, at my frozen self-

Shinju stepped in, sword and silk singing free, and Shinobu's club and body fell.

We stared collectively at the blade, shaking in the air. Blood dripped from its edge onto Shinobu's back. Finally Shinju lowered her arm, reaching into her shihakushou for a cloth to clean the metal. She didn't try to wipe away the red soaking into her waraji and socks.

"So you aren't useless," Kurotsuchi said over the trickle of liquid. His smile dimmed slightly. "Shame he wasn't a Quincy. Get his head and you can lead us to the next, brat," he said to Mira.

"I'll get it," I said automatically. Be of service, be needed. Just meat now. I knelt in the blood, gulping back the nausea of the blood stench. Even I who'd dealt with so much blood Before—though with the quirks of Soul reproduction, not anymore—didn't have an iron stomach. I wrapped my hands in greasy hair and lifted. Or tried to. Shinju hadn't cut all the way.

"Junko-chan?" I said, hating myself for my dull voice. "Can I get some help here?"

Footsteps brushed to a stop. She was too delicate to scuff. Finally blood-soaked feet appeared in my peripherals. "Y-yes?"

"I'm sorry," I blurted, too loud for the corpse at my feet. "His head's not all off." I lifted his head to demonstrate the way you still saw gore, not wall. "I'll hold?"

She made a whuffing sound, like a sigh with more air than intended behind it. But she stepped around his body and drew her asauchi again. Ever so gracefully, she laid its edge against the reeking skin holding Shinobu's head in place.

I yanked up, she pressed down, and viscera splattered my face. I gasped, staggering to my feet and back.

"Oh, Kannon take mercy," I stammered, honestly meaning it. I could use any source. Even if it was just a little blood. I spat on the ground, but acid taste remained. It'd fade as long as I didn't think too hard.

With a severed head dangling from my hand, that might be a while.

We left, no words until we hit the threshold. The barrier between ourselves and our personas.

"Shinju," I said. Small. No honorifics, but no presumption. I had to do something.

She stopped, blotchy-pale face caught between a hundred expressions. She had to do something. "Nariko."

"When this is over," I said, threading words together before I could think them, "I'm giving you a hug."

"Why?" Shinju asked, and I realized why it sounded so wrong. There was no artfully sing-song flow. It was dead, toneless. "I did my duty. He was a criminal. Who consorted with Quincies." Worse than nothing, I heard behind her politeness.

Arashi lacing lightning and water behind me into a wall of no, I felt the dam inside that separated me and Hirako Nariko break. "This is wrong. Gods, call me a rebel, I can't be silent. Too damn long silent." Her jaw dropped, remaining color fleeing, but I plowed on in the stupid regrets-later way of someone without enough sleep and with too much stress. The evil rang in my bones. Like it had for a long time. "That was a man. Who fell in with the wrong people. This, this is all built on death. On evil." My throat was tight, even as the floodgates of my eyes began to loosen. "What are we? Monsters? I can't- I can't-"

"Stop talking," she said, edge of her flat voice turned on me. "Stop talking and I'll forget you said any of that. We don't work for ourselves, Nariko. We represent the law. I won't disobey the law. And the law says to execute traitors. Especially deserters."

"I'm not leaving," I said. The words were polished round and tired in my mouth. "Or betraying anything. I have nothing else." And it was the truth, wasn't it? All I had that was mine was my status as an enforcer of the law. And if I didn't enforce it on others, it would be enforced on me. Something niggled deep inside about that. I tucked it away for later. Shinju needed appeasing. "Doing what I'm told is all I'm good at. And I want too much from the law. But if I didn't say something to someone, I'd scream."

"You scare me," she said, shifting her weight to her heels. "If you can't figure out why, that scares me more."

I nodded. "I have a guess," I said, and I did. Someone who bowed to the ultimate good of Soul Society only because it was their nature to obey rules would turn on it all the second they found rules that superseded them. Internal, the splinters of someone whose morals bent so far they snapped, or external, rules that another order imposed. Among the three other orders, the Hollows and humans and Quincies, one held no power. And who could predict whether a rule-follower leaped to rules that opposed their old ones or to the rule of madness? Someone who was short-sighted about all of this would be even more unpredictable. A greater terror. "That person you're scared of, it might be me. I don't want to be her, but I might be someday."

"If you turn coat, you'll have to kill me." There was some surprise now. Whether it was surprise at the realization or that I'd finally gotten it I didn't know. "I won't stop until I've killed you. Unlike you, I can't see anything more than this world. It's harsh, but it's what we need."

"Agreed," I said, and was equally surprised to find I meant it. Her eyes, glittering with water, went wide. I turned to fully face her, pressing my lips together in an approximate smile. "What? I don't have to agree with the law as long as I can follow it. And make sure it's followed."

I stepped across the threshold before she could answer, picking down the path to Kurotsuchi's tapping foot and Shiraishi's painted-on cheer.

The day passed much the same. Eventually I stopped being surprised when we came to a slightly-nicer-than-usual house and found a dying wretch holed up inside. Eventually I got used to carrying the head out to hang it in the nearest square. And to the whispered curses, the muffled cries, the glares, the addicts who relaxed when their eyes lay on the heads, even the makeshift weapons that I seemed to be the only one giving a shit about.

We were almost to the station when Mira stopped. I barely noticed it until we were several paces ahead.

"Mira-san?" I called, turning around myself. "We can give you shelter tonight, you know."

She had gone still. Listening for something, pale eyes lasers trained on a target I couldn't see. Something was wrong. Something we Shinigami couldn't see, but a native could.

"What is-"

She disappeared as the building whine finally pressed on my ears.

Crushing fire and flying stone ate my warning alive.