It had been a couple days since I had gone to visit Ichigo and his friends and I was enjoying the lack of action for once.

There was no secret plan I was racing to foil, no wandering into a mad scientist’s lab (unless I needed Urahara for something), and no backstabbing nobles trying to flex their personal power.

It meant I was enjoying the peace of manning the front desk of the candy shop and working on my personal projects when I wasn’t dealing with the occasional customer. It was probably the most relaxed I had been since Rukia was taken back to the Soul Society.

“Ninety-nine little bugs in the code~” I sang softly as my hands flew over a keyboard.

“Ninety-nine little bugs~”

“Take one down, patch it around~”

I pressed the compile button on the latest base code for my AI project. I was finally in a place with my initial notes. I was confident I would have a working version soon.

“Two hundred ten little bugs in the code.” I finished flatly as something went wrong with that last change.

“FUCK!” I resisted the urge to throw the keyboard across the room.

“Screw up again, crazy lady?” Jinta taunted from where he was sweeping the floor. “You won’t ever get a boyfriend if that's how you behave!”

He quickly ducked under the random candy bar I threw at him in retaliation.

“I don’t need you worrying about my love life, brat! Get back to cleaning!”

The door opened with a ring of a bell and I turned to greet the new arrivals.

“Welcome to the Urahara Candy Shop! How can we…” I trailed off when I actually saw who walked through the door.

At this point I would have been wary of meeting a pair of Soul Reapers without prior warning. Meeting six all at once? I was very suddenly on edge.

“...help you.” I finished cooly.

“Hi Cross-chan!” an exuberant Rangiku greeted as they all filtered into the shop. Both her and her captain walked up to me while Rukia, Renji, Ikkaku, and Yumichika spread out around the shop and started poking around the merchandise.

“Rangiku, Toshiro.” I returned the greeting.

“It’s Captain Hitsugaya.” the silver haired child in front of me snapped.

“Not a Soul Reaper, don’t care.” I waved off his complaint. “What can our humble shop do for such a large group of officers?”

“We came to pla-” “We were sent as reinforcements to deal with the Arrancar.” Toshiro spoke over his irresponsible lieutenant. “We were told we could acquire a gigai here.”

“Whhhy yes you may!” Urahara sang as he appeared from the back of the shop. “We provide only the best services in town.” he said happily before lowering his little hand fan with a smirk. “For a price naturally.”

I left those three to work out whatever business needed to be taken care of and made my way over to Rukia and Renji.

“Hello you two. Rukia, you seem to be doing much better than the last time I saw you.”

Not exactly hard since the last time I saw Rukia was when she was being prepared for an execution.

“Ah, hello Cross-san.” she replied. “I never got to thank you for coming to save me.”

“Don’t worry about it, and call me Alex. I suppose you’re here because of what happened to Ichigo?”

“We heard he was there during the attack but not much else. Is he alright?”

“Physically he’s fine. Just a little scraped up.” I hedged. “But…”

“So this is the last ryoka? The one that fought two captains at once?”

“Hoh? Her face is wonderful, but those clothes are truly unbeautiful.”

We were joined by Ikkaku and Yumichika. The latter’s comment made me self consciously look at my clothes.

It was just a t-shirt with the shop logo and a pair of jeans. It wasn’t exactly fashionable, but it didn’t look that bad on me, did it?

“Um, yes? The third and fifth seats from squad eleven, right?” I said awkwardly. “Nice to meet you I guess.”

“Forget about that,” Ikkaku said bruskly. “You’re pretty strong, right? Fight me.”

“Hey Ikkaku! We agreed I get to go first!” Yumichika protested.

“I changed my mind!”

“Quit it you two, we’re here for an important mission. Not to play around.” Renji decided to get involved, and then proceeded to get dragged into an argument with the two squad eleven members.

I took advantage of the distraction to slip off to the side and avoid dealing with the three Soul Reapers.

“Well, at least they seem energetic.” I couldn’t help but comment as I watched three top ranked Soul Reapers bicker over whether demanding a spar while on a mission was acceptable.

“It would be nice if they were more professional about it.” Rukia agreed, as she joined me to get a bit further from the noise.

“Like a certain Soul Reaper who forgot to fill out her extended patrol paperwork?” I said, still a little bitter about the Onmitsukidō scare because she forgot.

Rukia immediately blushed at the reminder. “Ah...that was...you see…”

As she stumbled over herself trying to give a valid excuse I felt the last bit of wariness fall away.

The Court Guard Squads as a whole could go straight to hell as far as I cared. But watching the chaos unfolding in front of me caused by characters I had watched dozens of times across a screen reminded me that the people in that uncaring organization were mostly alright.

Of course I was also reminded they could be rather rough on the surroundings.

“Hey! No fighting in the shop!”

-o-

It wasn’t often that Squad Two gathered for a mission briefing. Due to the secretive nature of most of the assignments that were assigned to them were handed out directly to the team or operative responsible by one of the seated officers.

Even with the upcoming conflict with Aizen ready to break out at any moment that had not changed.

Natsumi Hanakage waited patiently as the last group of the squad filtered out after receiving their assignments. Once they had she stood from the low table she was kneeling behind and made her way to the Captain's office.

After a soft knock on the frame, she opened the door and stepped inside to see Captain Soi-fon behind her desk working diligently.

“Third Seat.” her Captain greeted. “I take it all the tasks are handed out.”

“Yes Captain. Though I noticed I was not assigned anything. Was there a reason for that?”

Normally it would not bother her, after all there were plenty of reasons a high ranking officer wouldn’t be needed on an assignment. But after her poor showing with the Ryoka invasion and the following failures with the Kanou situation, Natsumi was hoping to be given a straight forward mission just to reassure herself she wasn’t a disgrace to her rank.

Captain Soi-fon sighed and set aside the paperwork she was working on.

“There was. I have a personal mission for you.” she said gravely. “One that must be kept secret for several reasons.”

If Natsumi had been told this a few weeks ago she would have felt pride at her captain’s trust in her. Now she could only feel uncertain she would be worthy of that trust.

“Is that wise? It shames me to say, but I have not performed to the standards you expect of an officer.”

Captain Soi-fon raised an eyebrow. “How so? I’m not aware of any incidents where you failed my expectations.”

“You do not need to spare my feelings.” Natsumi denied. “I am aware I failed to apprehend Alexandria Cross during their invasion of the Seireitei.”

“Yes, and she went on to dominate the squad five lieutenant, best you in a rematch, and hold her own against two captain class combatants at once.” Her captain replied, catching on to her train of thought. “I won’t say you are wrong to think like that, but Cross managed to hide her strength so thoroughly that even the Captains do not know exactly how powerful she is.”

Natsumi nodded in acknowledgement of that fact. Even if she felt responsible for her failure it was true that no one quite knew what the strange woman was capable of.

“There was also the situation with her poisoning.” she forged on. “I ignored the possibility it was not openly condoned by the Gotei 13. If I had not rushed to confirm it was the same one we had used before the Captain-commander could have disavowed our involvement and we wouldn’t have worsened our relationship with her group.”

If she had given an excuse or even just blamed Kanou for Alexandria’s condition the whole mess might have been either delayed or prevented entirely. But Natsumi’s haste to resolve the immediate issue had caused even more problems in the end.

“Yes, the poisoning situation.” Captain Soi-fon said darkly. “That is an excellent segue into your new assignment.”

Natsumi recoiled a bit at her captain’s tone. It must be especially vexing for her that the hidden machinations of the Gotei were revealed because of her own subordinate.

“Despite what we have told the other seated officers for the sake of unity and our actions regarding Cross, Captain-commander Yamamoto is absolutely furious about the nobles playing games while we are on the brink of the greatest conflict in the last one hundred years.”

A tiny spark of hope kindled in Natsumi’s chest. Could it be that she didn’t mess up a secret maneuver after all?

“Someone is using the current situation to their advantage and the Captain-commander has decided they have overreached.” Captain Soi-fon continued. “You are going to find out exactly who is pulling the threads behind that illegal order, what they plan to accomplish, and no matter who they are, ensure they will not cause the Gotei 13 any more issues.”

At the hard tone of her captain’s order, Natsumi snapped to attention. “Yes, Ma’am!”

“Good. Dismissed.”