Author's note: I do not own Bleach or its characters. This is AU. I am not very familiar with the Bleach anime, and Katen Kyokotsu's personality is based on the manga and my own suppositions.
Cataloging Rules
Nanao Ise flashed her id badge at the security officer and made her way back to her office. Technically, she was half an hour early for work, but given that Rangiku was once again off dealing with a family emergency, Nanao had decided that she might need the extra time in the office. Quite frankly, she was used to this routine. It was the fifth time this month Rangiku had family emergencies to deal with, and just because she was gone didn't mean the workload decreased. In fact, it was heavier than usual this week. The Kyoto National Museum had just acquired a large number of items at auction, and they all had to be authenticated, cataloged and prepared for exhibit.
She made her way up to her office. The one nice thing about her office was the fact that she had a very nice workspace. It was bigger than most of the offices that her coworkers had. She flicked on her computer before turning to the vault where most of the new artifacts were stored. It took Nanao a mere matter of minutes to unlock the vault and pull out the first set of artifacts for the day. She adjusted her book of cataloging rules and examples for museum collection and opened up the software she needed. It wasn't often that Nanao needed to consult the book, but she liked to have it handy. Once she was set up, Nanao glanced at the information that came with the piece of pottery and got to work.
Quite honestly, Nanao enjoyed her job, and it suited her quite well. Cataloging and researching artifacts for the museum made use of both her Bachelor's Degrees in History and Anthropology and her Master's of Library Science. She was quite aware that she had been lucky to get a job that made full use of her schooling and was something she really enjoyed. Nanao adjusted her radio and started double checking the provenance of a thirteenth century mirror.
By lunch time, Nanao had made quite a bit of headway in getting latest batch of artifacts cataloged. She jumped a little when one of the other women in the department stuck her head in the door.
"Hey, Nanao. A bunch of us are heading to McDonald's for lunch. Want to come?"
She shook her head. "No thanks, Keiko. I want to get this Noh mask finished before I head out to lunch."
Keiko shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Nanao was perfectly happy to have lunch on her own. For one thing, she wasn't that fond of McDonald's. She also tended to go to lunch with Rangiku when she was around. Rangiku really was the only one of her co-workers Nanao was close to. She tended to be a loner by nature, though Rangiku hadn't let that stop her from befriending Nanao. It didn't take Nanao more than fifteen minutes to finish the record. She locked the vault back up and grabbed her purse.
Not feeling like going very far in order to find lunch, Nanao headed to the Mos Burger that wasn't too far from the museum. After an order of coke and onion rings, Nanao headed back to work. She had saved what looked like the most interesting of the artifacts for this afternoon. It was a Friday after all, and her birthday was tomorrow. She deserved something fun and interesting to celebrate the occasion.
And that was why her last artifact of the day ended up being a daisho set of swords. She had seen them when the shipment from the auction came in, and they had intrigued her. Puzzled her and intrigued her to be precise. She carefully unwrapped the silk to pull each of the swords out. They were beautiful works of art. She ran her finger over the smaller sword and frowned. Nanao was not a weapons expert like Rangiku was, but she could tell that the information that had come with it was incorrect. These were not the two swords that were described at all. For one thing, these swords didn't seem as old as they should be.
Nanao carefully drew the shorter sword. It was clean and polished and looked like it was used frequently. This did not look like a historic artifact. She drew the other sword to double check it was the same. With a frown, she laid out the two swords and their sheaths on the silk they had been wrapped in. Time to find out what these swords really were.
Katen Kyokotsu could sense the woman from the second she unwrapped him from the silk. She was bright presence in his mind, and her potential to be a shinigami was clear. But Katen couldn't reach her unless he tasted her blood, and he didn't think that was going to happen. Her presence was too controlled and calm for a mistake like slicing her thumb on him. But he would rather be in her hands than in an enemy's. If there was something he was certain of, it was that this woman was not his enemy. He only hoped that she could get him back where he belonged.
