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

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

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

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

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

“Device; diagnostic check”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early morning shift change, perhaps?

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

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

“We’re not even that late! Seriously Josuke, what has you so uptight today?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not a chance.”

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

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

“So Jidanbo lost then?”

“Seems like it, damn think he’d get in trouble for opening the gate?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem, right.

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

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

-o-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---------

-Squad 2 Barracks-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are there any further questions?”

“Ma’am, why are we not sounding the general alert for this intruder?”

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

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

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

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