Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
Relations (Name Will Probably Change)
Shunsui/Nanao and Unohana/Ukitake
Unohana left the fourth division a little after nine that evening and was at the thirteenth several minutes later. She hoped Juushiro would still be awake, and when she entered to the bickering of the two third seats they promptly told her that yes, he was. It was not surprising, Ukitake Juushiro loved his third seats with a passion Unohana herself held for those quirky members who invaded her division, but when those two were on a tangent, no one in the thirteenth slept.
What was surprising was that Shunsui was also present.
"Retsu!" Both men greeted when she walked into the captain's office. They were situated out on the deck, which was in view upon walking into the office if both doors were open. Shunsui with semi-drunken content-ness, Juushiro with an unidentifiable fondness. She smiled politely and nodded.
"Join us?" Juushiro asked.
"I would love to." Came her even response. The men made room on the porch overlooking the garden behind Juushiro's office, and poured her a cup of sake. Unohana knew it was only a matter of time before Shunsui passed out - that is, if he continued to drink as he was - or leave in order to check on his fukutaichou. She wasn't too concerned with which occurred, only that when it did she would be free to talk with Juushiro about what had been plaguing her mind. In the mean time, the three fell into easy conversation.
Both Juushiro and Shunsui were intelligent men - despite what most of the general population's opinions were of Shunsui - and both were apt to understanding the nature of their fellow shinigami. They were also not so naive as to miss the slight strain in the movements and mannerisms of their female counterpart. Unohana was the definition of elegance and ease. Neither man was prone to over looking anything that seemed to make the most sensible of all captains uneasy, and they shared a worried glance at the weariness that surrounded their friend.
"Are you alright Retsu?" Shunsui ventured. Her response was a smile that was more a threat to let the matter drop. He smiled nervously and decided that that was his cue to leave his friends to themselves. With a flourish of his pink haori he made to dismiss himself.
"I think I'll go check on my Nanao-chan." He stated. "She'll miss me by now I'm sure, she's very fond of me you know?" Juushiro rolled his eyes with a chuckle.
"That poor girl spends half her life in exasperation at your antics. I'd say her opinion is more that of tolerance than fondness." He teased. Shunsui looked very much like a kicked puppy.
"You wound me, Juu." He pouted.
"If you go to see her and she is asleep, don't wake her." Unohana cut in pleasantly. The implications of pain were not missed by Shunsui.
"Yare, yare, you both are so cynical of me." He whined.
"Only because you're more likely to do something stupid than not." Juushiro stated. Unohana nodded once, bring her cup to her lips and taking a small sip.
"Mean." Shunsui frowned before chuckling, a moment and one step in the direction of the fourth later and the division eight taichou was gone.
.
Nanao remember first waking up that morning, it'd been at her usual time, just before sunrise. The details of her passing out were substantially less clear, but she knew instantly that waking up now, glancing to a clock on the wall that was not her own and discovering it was nearly midnight, that she was not at the eighth, but the fourth.
She figured as much, after all, she'd planned on making a trip to the fourth later in the day anyway. Her reiatsu had been going haywire for nearly a week and it was becoming increasingly harder to hide that fact. She was surprised her taichou hadn't picked up on it, but then, she'd been trying to keep it from him especially. What he didn't know about her was none of his concern. It was unprofessional, she reasoned, but under the facade really she just wanted to make sure that she could function without the crutch that her taichou had steadily tried to make himself.
Nanao was under no illusions that this illness was simply that, an illness. To verify her worst fear she closed her eyes, searching out the pool that was her usually violent reiatsu, for one so calm as Nanao appeared, her inner workings had always been far from controlled, a mass of movement that she'd found very soothing, almost exclusively because it reminded Nanao that she wasn't just a workaholic, she was also a warrior. It wasn't there, and even as her heart dropped to her stomach, Nanao could not deny that she was not surprised. She'd recognized the symptoms, when they'd first started appearing, out of a medical journal she'd read years ago. Just for the benefit of knowledge she also searched out her zanpakuto's voice. He was a distant hum in the background of her thoughts, and Nanao was forced to accept that it was only a matter of time before he, too, left her grasps.
'I'll be forever present. . .' She heard him whisper, and he said no more. She felt the sting in the back of her eyes that could only be the result of being disconnected from that part of her soul. She'd never been very reliant on her tanto, but that was not the case of its spirit, which had nearly always been a nag at her conscious, even when she wished otherwise.
"Nanao-chan?"
Nanao started, realizing belatedly that her room was not unoccupied, she sat up, turning toward the voice to her left.
"You should not be here sir." She stated primly, he feigned hurt, which she studiously ignored, and said "it must be very late, and we've got work tomorrow."
"I couldn't leave my Nanao-chan all alone in the fourth for a whole night!" He countered grinning down at her. Years of practice kept her from rolling her eyes, she glared pointedly. "Besides, you aren't going to work tomorrow, and what reason do I have to be there if you're not?" The command in his voice kept her from arguing the first point. She was a soldier first and foremost, and a solider who could not identify and obey a command ought not to be a soldier at all.
"Your logic is severally flawed, sir. Paperwork does not stop simply because I am not present, and it is your division. I am there to support you, but you are supposed to be efficient even when I am not around." She half hopped he'd understand the underlined meaning. If her reiatsu did not return, and she was suspecting, given how it had left, that it probably wouldn't, she could not continue the life of a shinigami. The ache in her chest was painful and only doubly so when the fleeting look of hurt past her taichou's soft eyes.
"Our division Nanao-chan." He stated. "It would be nothing without the both of us."
.
"And you haven't told Shunsui?" Juushiro asked when Unohana finished her account of Nanao's diagnoses.
"I suspect he's probably already noticed her lacking reiatsu." Retsu stated. "I have yet to determine whether he knows what this means. Though we both know he is smart, and he'll probably already have come to a few conclusions."
Juushiro nodded sadly, noting not for the first time that when Shunsui had first visited earlier in the evening he'd come with a very heavy look in his eyes, and when Juushiro had prompted for a reason, was told that it was something he didn't want to share quite yet, as it could possibly be nothing. . . though to be fair, where Nanao was concerned nothing was nothing to Shunsui. He'd have to talk with his friend again very soon, but first:
". . .This isn't what has got you down?" Juushiro asked kindly. Retsu stared serenely into the distance at the koi pond near the thirteenth's fence. It was a beautiful place, but he rather thought she was doubly so.
"No." She admitted, "but it is a factor."
Am I killing y'all with the complete lack of action? No worries, it'll be here soon. ^^;
I was pleasantly surprised to see only positive reviews for continuation last chapter. :P I promise I read your reviews, but my PM system is a bit fucked up right now and I'm not quite sure why. . . I'll respond when it's up and working though. Promise. :)
So again, I'm always curious to hear your thoughts ((especially because anyone who has read or is going to go read *hint hint* any of my other stuff will know that this style of writing is vastly different than what I've been doing before)) and of course, I'm always looking for corrections and such. So please leave me a review with both? :D