Natsumi and I stayed in the city for a few more days after the situation with Kanou was resolved.

Even with the mastermind dead, his minions defeated, and the mind controlled Soul Reapers released (that was a thing apparently) it still took some time to make sure nothing else was going to crawl out of his hideout and that the local Soul Reapers were okay to go about their duties.

Well the reinforcing Soul Reapers that showed up were taking care of that. Between the fact I wasn’t part of their organization and that I had no desire to go poking around the mad scientist lab, I mostly just stayed out of everyone’s way.

Natsumi was lucky enough to escape with only a few minor injuries that were simple for me to treat and my own injuries, while much more serious than hers, would be healed by the time we made it back to the Seireitei.

Speaking of the Seireitei, I had cornered Natsumi and demanded to know everything about that itty-bitty problem of poisoning me after I worked to help them by exposing three traitors in their midst.

As it turns out, she didn’t know.

She recognized the symptoms from personal experience but there were no orders on her part to do anything to me after I was affected or even a notice I was poisoned in the first place. The only reason she had an antidote was professional paranoia on her part.

Once I learned that, I managed to forgive Natsumi personally. After all, she couldn’t be blamed if she didn’t know. Her bosses on the other hand were on my shit list and would likely remain there without a very good reason.

The other Soul Reapers eventually had everything organized enough that they could handle the rest without Natsumi hovering over them and we made our goodbyes and left the next day. Kimura offered to throw a going away party in our honor but neither one of us felt like winding up in another brothel so we declined.

A few days of awkward carriage rides back to the Seireitei later I found myself standing in front of the captains of squads one, two, and twelve with a host of members of the noble families surrounding us while Natsumi stood awkwardly behind me.

“I’m sorry, what did you say? I must have misheard you.”

Captain Commander Yamamoto didn’t even twitch at the venom in my voice. Granted, given who he was he had probably faced similar situations dozens of times before.

“The actions of squad twelve captain Kurotsuchi were authorized by the emergency council while the positions for the Central 46 are being filled. As such there there will be no reprimand from the Goteijūsantai about his conduct.” he could have been carved from stone for all the emotion he showed.

Soi-fon was resolutely staring straight ahead and not meeting anyone’s eyes.

Kurotsuchi was looking off in the distance with a bored expression. Like the fact he got caught slipping a nominal ally poison after they had fought two traitors and saved the lives of another two officers was an inconvenience.

I guess in that case I shouldn’t be surprised that they would gloss over the fact that there was no emergency council until days after Aizen’s escape because no one knew Central 46 was dead until then, and I had been out of the hospital before it had its first meeting.

Which meant that one of the nobles on the council probably made a request as soon as they heard what happened and they were now on the council. It would be a choice between admitting the noble had overstepped their authority or retroactively approving the action.

Guess which one they chose?

Fine. If they wanted to alienate allies like that just to keep their nobles happy, I would be happy to return the feeling.

I let out a long breath to calm myself down. “I see. Then I will return to the World of the Living now.”

That got minor reactions from everyone assembled. Yamamoto opened a single eye, the nobles started mumbling to each other, and Kurotsuchi frowned looking even more annoyed.

“And your report about the Kanou facility?” Yamamoto asked.

“I have nothing to say” I smiled. “Excuse me.”

I turned to leave but an annoyingly grating voice called out to me.

“Hold it, girl. You have something I need.”

Smile still on my face, I turned back to the captain of the twelfth.

“Oh, what's that?”

“Don’t play dumb,” the ‘you idiot’ was heavily implied. “The encryption key for the data in Kanou’s computers. Did you think I wouldn’t check the camera footage and see you accessing his files?”

Oh yeah, Kanou had used something to keep tabs on me when I escaped from his lab. It makes sense there were more elsewhere in the facility.

I had no idea what he meant by encryption though. When I had rifled through Kanou’s files there was barely a hint of file security…

...because Kanou wanted to know what I was after. He said as much.

And either me messing with the files triggered a security feature or Kanou reactivated them during our fight. He certainly would’ve had the time to do so if he could multitask in his giant slime form when he was chasing me.

Either way I had nothing for them and I had no intention of helping.

My smile turned a bit feral.

“Sorry, I have nothing for you.” I probably was enjoying refusing to help way too much, but this incident hammered something home for me. No matter how much I liked the Soul Reapers as characters in a show, here they only acted for the benefit of themselves. They will use and use and use me until I either have nothing left to offer or simply die. I have no doubt the individuals I’ve met probably wouldn’t do that, but the organization overall had made its position clear.

At my refusal the tension in the room went up a notch. Yamamoto looked at me with both eyes, Soi-fon stood just a little straighter, and Kurotsuchi’s sneer grew a bit more.

“Hi, Alexandria! How was your trip?”

And that tension was obliterated as a dark skinned arm snaked over my shoulders and pulled me down into a loose hug.

“Wha-, hey!”

“Anyway Captain Commander, Kisuke wanted to let you know he’s going to need Alexandria for the next few days. I’ll be taking her back now.” Yoruichi said like she didn’t just interrupt a potential fight between several captain-class combatants. Without giving the Soul Reapers a chance to respond Yoruichi gives everyone a wave. “Bye now.” And we both vanish in a flash step.

One very blurry journey later both of us are standing a small ways away from one of the formal gates between Soul Society and the World of the Living.

I let out a deep breath. “Yoruichi, it's great to see you,” I straightened up and returned the hug. “but isn’t that going to cause us some issues? Running out like that?”

“Nah,” The feline assassin waved off my concerns. “We may be allies but you don’t report to them. That and they need Kisuke way too much to give us crap for anything we do. Just don’t go around blowing things up and they’ll back off.”

“I guess I can do that.” I agreed and we both started walking towards the gate. “So how did you know I needed help? Or were you just waiting for me to get back?”

“Soi-fon tipped me off. Nothing specific but the nobles are pushing to get a leash on you. Me, Kisuke, and Tessai they can leave alone for a bit cause they know us, well, know about us anyway. You? You’re a near unknown, and if there is one thing the high and mighty nobles don’t like it’s something they don’t control.”

Yoruichi laughed.

“Hell, they would be demanding to do something about the kids if it wasn’t for the fact it would piss the rest of us off! So don’t worry about it, just don’t get caught here alone and you’ll be fine.”

Fair enough I guess. Not like I was planning on coming here again without a damn good reason after what they pulled.

“So what does Urahara need?” I asked.

“Well he got absorbed in a project of yours but he has no idea how to make the final bits of it. The only place left to give us an idea what to do is your journals and we definitely don’t want him digging through more of them. So yeah, drop by the lab when you have a sec.”

Wait a second.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “When you say more of my journals, are you saying Urahara took one of my notebooks?”

Yoruichi’s spine suddenly straightened up and she started acting a bit shifty.

“What? No. Of course not!” She deflected. “Ohheythegate’sopenI’llmeetyouontheotherside.”

And she ran off in a flash.

“Yoruichi?”

“Yoruichi!”

“Get back here you damn cat! What were you idiots doing with my notes!”