While I was lost in my imagination the two of us continued to perform a dance well known to any fighter. We set ourselves up to take advantage of perceived openings while moving to guard against potential attacks in a game of mental chess.

For now we were stalemated, as neither one of us were willing to launch the first attack. So I decided to continue talking to see if I could knock her off balance that way.

“Interesting choice of words, considering your side attacked us first.”

Hinamori looked a bit shocked but her guard stayed up, “How could we have attacked you first?! The Seireitei only fights Hollows!”

“Tell that to the Quincies.” I said dryly. And she did have the decency to wince at the reminder that the Soul Reapers had basically wiped out a sub-race of humanity no matter how necessary it was. “But more recently, your red-headed friend and his captain nearly killed an associate of mine when they came to drag a certain someone off for execution. For nothing more than just being forced into a position where he needed to use her powers to survive.

He’d be dead too, if he wasn’t lucky enough to get healing fast enough.”

“He was aiding a criminal…” Hinamori said, though I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

“Perhaps,” I agreed, “though most people wouldn’t just let a friend be executed just because someone else comes along and tells them they are a criminal. So naturally we decided to stop that.”

It was a little annoying that despite all the fan comments, Hinamori was actually a competent opponent. Throughout the entire conversation she was keeping her guard up, but it was starting to feel like I might be able to get her to stand down based on her reluctance to fight.

“So you are hurting all these people just to rescue a criminal?”

“To be fair, we are trying to keep the damages as light as we can.”

The Lieutenant’s eyes widened to an almost comical degree, “How can you call any of what you did light? An entire squad is out of commission because of you! Not to mention what happened to the officers you encountered!” She nearly shouted at me, which was fair if a little naive.

“They aren’t dead for one.” I pointed out.

Hinamori looked uncomfortable at that, shuffling a tiny bit. “Why are you here…” she said in a near whisper.

I frowned, didn’t I just go over this?

“We are here to stop-”

“No, not that” she interrupted me, “why are you here. You said that it was an acquaintance that nearly died that made you come here. Not a friend being taken.

The others you mentioned might be here for that. Not you.”

It was my turn to shuffle uncomfortably. I was not expecting Hinamori to be this perceptive. The internet lied to me about her being worthless.

Good thing I was working around to telling her this anyway. A version of it more accurately. There wasn’t a chance in hell Hinamori would believe Aizen was anything but someone to look up to.

“Ignoring that you consider me the type of person to stand around when someone is sent to be executed,” my annoyance definitely came through in my voice and Hinamori blushed a bit while looking a touch sheepish, “there are certain traitorous elements in the Seireitei that have been causing atrocities for over the past hundred years. As I told the squad two officer last time they had their hands in all kinds of messes. But they have plans that will affect where I live if they are left alone, so I’m here to stop them before they ruin my home. Its where I keep all my stuff after all.” I injected some false cheer into the last bit, but it went seemingly unnoticed by my opponent.

“And you decided to invade us instead of just letting someone know because...?” She questioned, it sounded like she was getting less willing to hear me out. Shame. I doubted anything I said would stop us from fighting since I wasn’t going to surrender and she didn’t look like she would let me go.

“Would you listen to a group of people saying that there were captains commiting crimes around the Soul Society and planning to do worse?” I questioned in turn.

“Captain…? There’s no way a captain wou-” “Kurotsuchi” ”... we would give any report of such things all the attention it deserves.” She finished weakly.

“So it would be brushed off as unimportant if it ever was passed along at all.” I nodded.

“T-that doesn’t explain why you were stealing from Captain Aizen” Hinamori stammered.

“I had reason to believe Aizen is aware of exactly who the traitors are. I was hoping that he had some proof on who they were or a clue to where they operate.” I half-lied, idly twirling one of my swords.

“Then you should surrender! I can talk to Captain Aizen and get him to listen to you about the traitors, I’m sure he would help you if you’re really telling the truth.”

I couldn’t help the rueful smile on my face when I heard the qualifier. Yeah, maybe she didn’t want to fight, but she wasn’t going to let me go. “What if I can’t surrender because Aizen is connected to the traitors?” I questioned, mostly to see how she would react. I know she is fanatical about Aizen but maybe getting her to recognize the possibility would stop her from going completely nuts when he showed his true colors.

What I wasn’t expecting was for Hinamori to lose all emotion in her face and prepare to attack. “I see, you were just lying to get me to lower my guard.”

Weeell, she wasn’t wrong. And clearly I forgot the first rule of dealing with fanatics. Don’t try to get them to question their beliefs. They get defensive, or in her case ready to cut me with a sword.

I tried to deny her accusation, but it fell on deaf ears as two fireballs erupted out of Hinamori’s palm, curving to hit me from either side as she swung her sword to send yet another fireball right at me.

I jumped back as all three crashed into the spot I was just standing, catching the diagonal downward sword swing between both my swords as Hinamori burst through the resulting smoke cloud.

“Did I touch a nerve?” I said, forcing the blade down to my left and using the momentum to spin-kick the smaller girl in the ribs. She gasped in pain before being sent bouncing across the roof. I considered trying a knockout shot with one of my remaining pistols but, unlike with the third seat, Hinamori had her full attention on me and I wasn’t going to hit her with a surprise shot so I doubted it would do any more damage than some light burns.

Instead I charged after the skidding lieutenant, closing the distance quickly and slashing at her with Bakuya and using Kansho to keep her blade pointed away from me, stopping her from using more fireballs to get distance. She recovered slightly but was still forced to give ground as I used my longer reach to keep her on the defensive, a deep cut on her shoulder seeping blood where I managed to slip past her guard.

Despite that Hinamori was still putting up an excellent fight, a sideways strike forced me to back off some which allowed her the space she needed to get her footing. A quick Shunpo and she was suddenly on the other side of the roof with plenty of space to recover.

Kansho was sacrificed as I threw it to detonate yet another fireball flying at me, kicking up a thick smokescreen that hid Hinamori from view.

Bakuya got the same treatment when the Lieutenant appeared off to my right with another Shunpo.

This was bad.

Hinamori’s Shunpo was not as fast as my Haste spell, but it was far more maneuverable as I could only go forwards with the current version. She would be free to jump around the battlefield chipping away at me with fireballs forever at this rate.

So I needed to limit her mobility somehow.

Another fireball appeared going for my back that was detonated using a throwaway blade kicking up even more smoke. I decided now was as good a time as any to try out one of my new acquisitions as a black chain formed in my hands.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the squeak of surprise that slipped out of the lieutenant when she was forced to deflect the length of chain heading for her face. Sparks appeared where the links skated over her blade as she redirected the chain over her shoulder and I rushed forwards again trying to close distance while I channeled some mana down the chain, ready to wrap around her as soon as she moved her sword.

Her eyes widened when she saw me coming but rather than try evading like I wanted, her left hand swung forward to point at me and an orb of blue fire raced towards my feet.

I thought she just missed after rushing the shot until I felt the roof give out below me. My eyes widened as I began to fall through the new hole in the structure.

The bitch blew out the floor to stop me from getting close!

Before I fell very far, I sent a pulse of mana through the kusarigama making the chain respond to my will. The chain sprung to life and coiled around Hinamori’s leg dragging her down into the hole with me.

Her startled squawk was music to my ears and would have brought a smile to my face if it wasn’t in the process of slamming into the warehouse floor.

Thick clouds of dust blocked most of the inside from view but from what I could see the building was rather empty. Only a few large crates placed randomly throughout the place kept it from being totally barren. Though one of them was a splintered wreck I noticed, since it seemed Hinamori was lucky enough to land on it rather than the floor.

Speaking of, the lieutenant was currently staring bloody murder at me while fighting herself free from the remains of the box she was half trapped in.

“How do you have that weapon?” She demanded.

If I didn’t run into this issue with Yoruichi I would have been really confused to the increased desire to kill me, but fearing that someone had ripped part of your comrade’s soul from them and was going to use it against you was funny like that.

“I picked this little treasure up from the last officer I had the pleasure of meeting. She was much more polite than you by the way. She actually introduced herself.” I conveniently left out that I hadn’t returned the favor, but we were talking about Hinamori’s manners not mine. “It looked like it would be fun to play with, I might try yours out after this.” I teasingly finished, tracing a copy of her sword in my off hand.

Her face did an odd combination of paleing of shock and reddening from rage that was actually rather concerning.

“You steal Zanpakutou?” she asked, sounding horrified.

“Nope. Just copy them.” I flippantly replied. I had a feeling this was going to come up a lot in the future. Best be upfront about it so the entire Seireitei isn’t howling for my head. “A mirror image, if you will.”

Hinamori relaxes the tiniest bit at that before growling and launching another fireball from her sword before trying to Shunpo away.

I countered her fireball with one of my own -and holy hell is that so much more draining than using mana based abilities- and interrupt her Shunpo by yanking on the chain still tied around her leg.

Missing a step, Hinamori is sent skidding over the floor and into another one of the crates causing another explosion of dust. Which is unfortunately ignited when my second fireball slams into her and causes a secondary explosion.

Oops, didn’t mean for that to happen.

“You still alive miss lieutenant?”

A coughing Hinamori stumbles out of the smoke left behind from her explosive experience, looking incredibly disheveled. Her left shoulder was still bleeding somewhat badly, but now she was covered in slight to moderate burns. The worst being the burned section above her right hip where the fireball hit her directly.

She made a show of getting back into a guard position but we both knew it was more a token resistance than ability to continue the fight. After a few more coughs she was able to meet my eyes and get mostly under control.

She opened her mouth to say something before an overwhelming feeling of bloodlust and Reiatsu even I could easily detect with my horrible sensory skills filled the air.