A/N: I realized belatedly that my timeline was just a ...smidgen... off. I am tweaking this story to prevent anyone from A) getting confused and/or B) calling me an idiot. Yes, I am an idiot. But it verification is just painful. This fic will be set in the future (how far is your guess) instead of "present day", thereby not defying the space-time continuum and possibly rupturing the universe as we know it. Yes, my words have that much power. Mwah ha ha. ^.^

Soul Society. *In the future*

The rumors began a week ago. At first, a new captain would be joining the ranks of the Gotei 13. Then came the tales of her eerie beauty and the vast amount of tattoos she supposedly sported. Renji decided immediately that he liked her.

Yesterday, Yumichika approached him with the newly spun proclamation that, believe it or not-and Renji did have a problem believing this one-she was Komamura's daughter.

She was human.

Today, standing in front of the Captain Commander's high-office door with Byakuya, awaiting the arrival of this fabled minx, Renji found himself more curious about the validity of Seireitei rumors than he thought he'd ever been in his entire life.

A raised voice came from the opposite side of the office door; undoubtedly Komamura's roar of protest-over what, Renji wasn't certain-and the door swung open unceremoniously as Komamura's daunting form stalked from the room. Byakuya simply stepped aside, allowing the intimidating captain passage as he bellowed through the pair, grazing Renji's elbow and knocking him off balance. Had Renji been paying the slightest bit of attention to the huge captain, he would have easily side-stepped the accidental brush; however, Renji's eyes were glued to the only other occupant of the office besides the Captain Commander: a woman he could only imagine was the legendary "Komamura's Daughter."

She was human…or at least, appeared to be. The only tell-tale sign of her lineage being the fleshy points at the tips of her ears, slightly hidden under tufts of ill-cut blonde hair. It was cropped close to her scalp, obviously riddled with heavy curls, and ingloriously, wonderfully, messy. Renji decided immediately, he liked her.

Her skin bronzed from entirely too much time in the sun; curls of ink from what appeared to be some kind of vine-work peaked from the collar of her haori, climbing effortlessly up the side of her neck from her shoulder. The blindingly white haori displayed the kanji for "14" on her back and Renji realized with a start that her shinigami robes were not black like everyone else's in Seireitei. They were just as pristine and white as her captain's robe.

Byakuya recovered his place at Renji's side and gracefully entered the Captain Commander's office, looking behind him once to gain his fukutaicho's attention and Renji hastened to his captain's side. The old man acknowledged their presence and gestured that she should be escorted out with the sixth division pair. It became glaringly obvious that Komamura's previous ire had been at her when her nose turned to the air and she spun on her heel, stalking past the duo and leaving the room in a quick flash-step.

Byakuya turned to Renji and with naught but an imperceptible raise of an eyebrow, turned and followed after her, leaving Renji standing in front of the most powerful man in Soul Society-alone.

All of this was retold with gusto and minor embellishments at the gathering later that evening. The usual culprits decided to get together at the local drinking hole and amid many sips of sake and occasional bites of dinner, Renji recounted the events of that day. Though truthfully, he did not get a very good look at the woman earlier, it did not stop him from giving a vivid account of her beauty and the longing gazes that were surreptitiously exchanged between the two of them. Of course Iba, Ikkaku, Yumichika and the others knew for a fact that Renji was blowing smoke up their proverbial skirts because they had each heard a version of the story from their respective captains that came straight from the report of Byakuya Kuchiki.

"Are you sure her ears were…pointy?" Iba hiccuped, and Renji nodded so vigorously that he nearly shook the sake bottle off the table.

"I swear on my honor! She was pointy-eared!"

The others shook their heads in wonder because none truly knew if they could believe the red-head. And all of them were so drunk that no one noticed when the object of their combined curiosities waltzed right by their table with Rangiku, Rukia, Nemu, and Nanao in tow.

The ladies sat a few tables behind the guys' table, heedless of the boisterous guffaws and clanging coming from said direction. Nanao had met the newcomer-Yuuki-some hours before, and at the behest of her captain invited her out to dinner with some of the girls to get her better acquainted. Rangiku, Rukia and Nemu were all she could find at such short notice, but each equally eager to accompany Nanao in the pursuit of making a new friend…or hearing a tasty piece of gossip, or answering some very tantalizing questions…Nanao thought.

They settled in and ordered sake and sushi, and surprise, surprise! The first presumptuous question came from none other than Rangiku Matsumoto's perfectly painted lips:

"Is Komamura really your father!"

Yuuki leveled her gaze at the larger woman and Nanao would have bet a thousand paychecks at that moment that the petite taicho could break Rangiku's neck with a single right hook. The sake bottles arrived at that precise moment-sparing Matsumoto's life, Nanao was sure-and after pouring herself a liberal amount, Yuuki looked at the voluptuous blonde again.

"You get away with saying pretty much anything you want, huh?" Yuuki's voice was low and gravelly but it had a music to it. Nanao suddenly found herself wondering if Yuuki sang.

Matsumoto tipped her chin in the air and after a thoughtful second, nodded animatedly.

Yuuki shook her head and a smile slid across her features. Rukia and Nemu watched in stunned silence, for they assumed the same thing Nanao had at first-that Yuuki could and would quite easily snap the woman's neck.

"Yes, Komamura is my father. My mother was human. That's all I can divest at this time. Now may I ask you a question?"

"Absolutely!" Rangiku agreed, taking a draw from her sake cup.

"Why is everyone so damned concerned with my parentage and no one has yet to ask me which division I'm to captain-or where I came from? Or even, 'What's with the tattoos?'"

Rukia finally spoke up to the last comment. "Actually, the tattoos aren't all that uncommon around here; we have two other seated shinigami that are very heavily tattooed. And, well, every one fancies they already know the answers to the rest, I suppose."

Yuuki nodded thoughtfully, recalling her brush with the sixth division captain and his vice-captain with the wild red hair and the facial tattoos. "The sixth division captain…what's his name?"

"Oh-that's Byakuya Kuchiki-my brother!" Rukia supplied happily. "And his fukutaicho is my best friend Renji!"

"Well, in that case, your brother is the most beautiful man I've ever seen…." Yuuki volunteered as she took another long draw of sake. "Renji, huh?"

"Yeah, usually he's drinking with me," Rangiku pouted, pointing in the direction of the table of men who had, surprisingly enough, quieted down quite a bit. Yuuki glanced over her left shoulder at the guys who had, for one reason or another, thrown their arms around each other and were swaying from side to side. She had to fight back a shout of laughter. Oh, the evils of liquor!

"When you say 'friend'…"

"I really mean just a friend," Rukia replied, her cheeks warming a little. "I think he used to have something…for me…but I doubt he still looks at me the same now."

Yuuki nodded thoughtfully and took another swallow of sake, remembering the way his eyes had cut through her that morning…and knowing distantly that she knew those hazel orbs from her past. "Did you reciprocate this…something?" she asked off-handedly, not really expecting a negative. Rukia was petite, gorgeous, noble…what could Renji not find attractive? On the flip-side, he was obviously a bad-boy; tribal tattoos, outrageous red hair, sexy…how could Rukia deny that?

Surprisingly, she shook her head slowly, her cup of sake forgotten in her hand. "I never really thought about him that way. We grew up together-I always had a sort of brother complex with him, I suppose. Little punks on the street…stealing to survive and watching each others' backs…guess I never saw him as anything else. Now he's this big, oversexed rebel…and I still can't see much in him!"

Everyone laughed and toasted Renji-the big, oversexed rebel-and downed another round of liquor.

The sushi trays were taken away and replaced, the sake bottles were ushered from the table and refilled, and generally the ladies were getting along famously. At some point, Iba's voice lifted above the din of the tavern and exclaimed, "Renji? That her?" and Yuuki caught a confused expression pass over Rangiku's face for a moment. For a split second, Yuuki assumed Matsumoto had just discovered she was drunk-Yuuki got the same expression herself when she occasionally realized she'd had too much-but she glanced cautiously over her shoulder and caught the blatant finger pointed in her general direction.

She hastily spun back around, wishing desperately she could fit under the table, but that would probably cause an even bigger scene than what was bound to erupt. Rukia's eyes grew even larger, if that were possible; Nanao paused in mid-sip of her drink; Matsumoto's confusion lessened, but there was still a look of distance in her eyes; Nemu's blank expression did not change. Yuuki slowly straightened her shoulders and sat a little taller in her seat. She was a captain! She didn't have to acknowledge this effrontery! But she felt the stares at the back of her head. And one in particular felt as though it was burning a hole through her skull. She plastered a patient smile on her face and turned to meet them head on.

Two tables away-with no customers in between, for it was very late and most had already left-she met the gazes of her drunken comrades. Ikkaku was lost somewhere between their table and hers, judging from the glassy look in his eyes; Yumichika seemed as though he really could care less about her presence, as he was carefully studying his manicured nails; Iba's ever-present sunglasses hid any damage the liquor had done to his eyes-however it did not hide the thin strand of saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth. Yuuki shuddered.

Her eyes locked with Renji's. He looked utterly, painfully…sober. He stared at her as if he recognized her; not from this morning, but from some distant time and place that neither of them could remember. She realized with a start that his eyes were the most beautiful emerald green in this torch-lit tavern and his haori was open to his waist revealing a mass of tribal markings across his chest and stomach. She suddenly found it hard to breathe. She didn't understand why. She knew she was studying him with the same zealous stupor that he trained on her but she couldn't tear her eyes away. His friends carried on around him as if he weren't mesmerized by the flaxen beauty a few feet away. She turned back to her table first-cheeks flushed as if she'd overheated, hand reflexively at her throat. The women wondered at her, heads cocked, confused.

"I don't know what just happened," Yuuki whispered.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Rangiku's beautiful mouth. "I do."

Iba finally grabbed Renji's shoulder and spun him around to face the table. "Dude? You okay?"

Renji blinked, reached for his sake cup and nodded. "Yeah…kinda spaced out there for a sec." He relieved the cup of the last of its contents and reached for the bottle.

"So…is that her?" Iba pressed.

Another nod. Another gulp of liquor. And the sickening feeling in his stomach of déjà-vu-that he knew her from his past; that he knew her from his life.

Yuuki awoke with a start. Clutching the thin sheets over her body she sat bolt upright on the futon drenched in sweat, her pulse racing madly in her chest. She'd had the most frightening dream but the more she tried to grasp at it, the more rapidly it eluded her memory. There were massive crashes, explosions as if bombs were being dropped from the air; a great hysteria around her, a sadness that pained her heart. The large city around her had been quickly reduced to rubble. There had been a man in a strange black uniform, an Iron Cross at his throat. His hair had been frightfully red. His eyes had been startlingly green.

There was a light tapping on the wood frame of her shoji and it slowly slid open a fraction; Komamura's gold eye shined in the dark as he peered through the crack.

"You shouted. Are you alright?"

"Yes Father. I'm fine…I had a nightmare, I suppose."

Let it be said that even a "man" with a wolf's face can smile. Komamura Sajin's mouth turned up at one corner as he slipped through the door into his daughter's room. He settled down next to her sleeping pallet and placed one huge hand over hers. "Your mother was better at this than I am," he began, his thumb slowly stroking the top of her hand. He sighed. "She would have known what to say-to do. She probably wouldn't have taken the news of your promotion to captain class well, however." The smile grew ever so slightly. "She worried about you a lot."

Yuuki nodded, wishing her mother was there; wishing that wishing would bring her back. She turned her hand over under Sajin's and curled her fingers around his giant palm. "Do you have dreams of the living world, Father?"

The huge head shook back and forth twice. "Not that I can remember. You know, its extremely unlikely, but there is a chance you are dreaming of your life as you led it then. One in a million can remember the living world. I would imagine that people like you-with enormous spiritual powers-would have a better chance."

"What's the possibility that someone from the Gotei 13...wound up in Seireitei at the same time I did?"

"Well, I suppose they'd have to go somewhere. We all came from earth and we all wind up here. When this life for us is over, we disperse into spirit particles and begin anew. I've heard many stories about people reincarnating with one another lifetime after lifetime. Sometimes whole families repeatedly end up with one another again and again. So, that, in effect, doesn't sound too unlikely."

Yuuki yawned and nodded; leaned over to her father and wrapped her arms as tightly around his neck as she could. "I'm sorry about earlier today. I shouldn't have been so callous to you-especially in front of Grandpa."

Sajin chuckled. "Grandpa" was Captain-Commander Yamamoto-the man who'd taken him into the squads when Sajin himself was but a child. He alone had known of Sajin's secret marriage centuries ago; of this beautiful woman-child that he and his wife had borne. She had passed long ago and Yuuki had been sent to the other side of Soul Society to an academy out of the ways of prying eyes and suspicions. Komamura was very glad she looked more like her human mother than himself.

"Yamamoto only scolded me a little," he assured her, helping her arrange her sheets as she laid back against the pillow. "Rest and do not let this trifle you. Have better dreams." He leaned and pressed his muzzle into her soft hair; she was already fast asleep.

Berlin, Germany 1939.

Evelyn Yukimura walked as quickly and as gracefully as one could possibly walk in shoes as tall and uncomfortable as the ones she currently had on. They clicked unmercifully against the dark-stained wood of the floor beneath her feet and she distantly wondered if she were leaving tracks behind her down the hallway. She brushed past a tall man in an SS uniform; not an uncommon sight in Hitler's "palace". She didn't give it much thought anymore-the drab surroundings filled with drab people in drab uniforms. If that was what made the fuehrer's clock tick, so be it. She was here by choice, not by force. And as long as her cover held up, she hoped against hope that she'd be the one that knifed the little bastard in his sleep.

Around another corner she veered, past yet more soldiers in those ridiculously drab uniforms; her speed taking its toll on her abused feet. She'd been doing this for months-interning so to speak-for the fuehrer himself. She got lucky, she supposed. Someone had found her in London, very well educated, part Japanese thanks to her father; they had assumed she'd been sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Little did they know her father was as big an English patriot as they came, thanks to his father-an Japanese soldier who'd fallen in love with a English woman; her father still worshipped in the Shinto shrine in the basement of their family home. Her mother had died in childbirth and Evie had found herself in the midst of an anti-Nazi assembly shortly after Hitler had announced himself the dictator of Germany and waged war against the world. So when approached by a man in-yes, one of those drab uniforms-and asked to come back to Berlin with him she agreed before she'd much thought about the consequences. The first idea that came flittering down from her consciousness was that maybe-just maybe-she would single-handedly infiltrate the Nazi party and bring the whole get up down around her feet in ashes!

Kami! My feet! She was never so grateful to see the enormous oak-paneled doors before her. Behind those doors she could sit! In a plush Victorian-style chair before a huge mahogany desk and, true, she would have to withstand his presence while she was in there; but for a seat-she could do that.

She was distantly aware of a person standing behind her as she lifted her hand to knock against the wood. She did not expect the black sleeved arm to reach around her to pound on the door in her stead. She must've spent too much time daydreaming about that chair, she thought. She turned a little to see who it was and out of the corner of her eye she caught two things: the reddest hair she'd ever seen; not orange or auburn as most red-heads were, but actually red-and peering out of the corner of his eye at her, she saw dazzling green orbs measuring her up from head to painful little toe! She wanted to rail at him for looking at her the way he was, but she realized with a start that she was sizing him up in the exact same fashion. He stood nearly a head over her, even with the lift of her four-inch heels, and under the tightly fitted black SS garb he was obviously powerfully built. His hair, though shocking in its color, was slicked neatly back from his forehead, close cropped at the nape and he was clean shaven. A red Iron Cross winked in the folds of his collar. She realized with a start that he was a high ranking member of the RSHA who dealt personally with the safety of important members of the Reich. The medallions on his lapel gave testament.

He cracked a lazy half-grin at her and turned back to the door, taking a step up to stand levelly with her when it opened. "What's your name fraulein?" he asked, not so much as glancing at her-and he said it so quietly she nearly missed it!

With a defiant tilt of her chin she answered, cocking her head slightly in his direction, "Evelyn. And that's all you need to know."

The large door finally swung open with a great groan of the wood and he nearly laughed out loud as he stepped inside the office of Adolph Hitler.

Hours later still found Evie pouring over some personal accounts of the fuehrer's but delightfully tucked away in a plushy wing back chair. The red-headed officer paced back and forth a few feet away carrying on a heated but barely audible discussion with another officer in a gray uniform much like his own. The fuehrer himself sat before a canvas in the distant corner giddily slapping paint over it in his attempt to make some feasible act of art-for which Evie had never been fond of and he had pushed several pieces on her and insisted she hang them in the room he provided for her in the house. She often wondered if the man was not damaged in some way; some inkling of pity often overtook her senses. It was more often than not replaced by a turbulent rage for one or more of his heinous crimes. She smiled prettily at him when he glanced at her, tucking a stray piece of her own blond hair behind her ear and bit her tongue. One day, she mused, I'll bite it off….

She was caught off guard when the red-headed officer suddenly loomed over her, a smirk imbedded on his face. His devastatingly handsome face, she admitted reluctantly.

"Wanna go with me for a bite?" he asked, the grin on his face telling her that he fully expected a "No" but would settle for nothing less than an affirmative.

She flipped the account folders in her lap shut and uncrossed her legs, letting the blood flow back to her toes. She quirked an eyebrow at him and setting the documents aside, gracefully expanded her hand, palm down, waiting for him to help her to her feet. If they start hurting again, though, he's giving me a piggy-back ride home! she thought.

Over sandwiches and bisque in a cafe near the city square, Evie decided a little sadly that she liked him. The idea never occurred to her that one could find similar ground to stand on with one's enemy. Of course, he didn't know she was a covert agent. He only assumed that they were two strangers sharing close cultural ties and having an intimate lunch together. Her mind raced along throughout the meal about the dangers of getting too close to her enemies; going native, as it were. She fought with herself over her attraction to the man in uniform.

"So, you're buying me lunch...you haven't even introduced yourself," she started, lifting the little steaming cup

of tea the waiter had brought to her lips. He smiled that cocky half-smile again and leaned back against his chair.

"Himura. Himura Eberhardt." He immediately looked offended when Evie lifted her hand and giggled behind it.

"I'm so sorry! I'm not laughing because I don't like it! I just think it's such a strangely fitting name for you!"

"Which one?"

"Well, Himura means scarlet and I can't think of anything better..." she trailed off, pointing a finger to his wildly red hair. "As for Eberhardt...I don't think I know you well enough to judge on that count!"

"Give me time, fraulein, and I shall prove it to you," he replied arrogantly.