"Boss, we have a problem."

That was understating it, in Renji's opinion, but he was too tired, too sore to argue. Tessai took one look at the shinigami at the door and damn near launched himself over the counter to examine his wrist. Apparently, Byakuya wasn't exaggerating about the charred redhead thing.

"Oh no," yawned Urahara, scratching the small of his back as he wandered over. "I doubt it's as much of a problem as it is an inconvenience. Much like an alarm clock without a snooze button, eh, Freeloader-kun?" Even half asleep the old man was horrible.

Renji rolled his eyes. "Can you fix it?"

"Do you want me to remove it?"

"Arisawa's—Hakumei's memories. They'll go back to her." Renji felt his throat go dry.

Urahara tilted his head. "That was the intention. I did not expect you to wish to hold onto them beyond the mortal span of her life. Why aren't you all gooey with her right now? Isn't that what you've wanted?"

"Yes. No, that's what I used to want, but it's not like that anymore. Things are different now." Perhaps coming here was not such a good idea. He didn't mind the burning so much, and the right amount of cologne would cover up the smell. . .

Urahara shook his head. "You know, I could tell you if you kept pussyfooting around this, you'd lose your arm. You'd have no choice but to believe me and this could be resolved."

Renji gaped at him.

"If I'd known you would act like this, I certainly would have arranged it. Perhaps I overestimated your affections for young Arisawa."

"Hakumei," Renji corrected.

Urahara frowned, then did what Renji least expected him to do: He smacked him. Hard. He barely had the time to recoil before the shopkeeper was in his face, gray eyes cold. "Is Hakumei a different person?"

"She is another man's wife and the mother of his children."

Urahara smacked him again. "Think harder, Abarai."

Hakumei was hard, haughty, and stubborn. But then, so was Arisawa. "No," Renji said, swallowing. "Arisawa became Hakumei. She's the same, but she's. . . older."

"More mature, you mean? She is another man's widow. That man is not in Sereitei, is he? Are her children in Rukongai? Are they even children? And even if they were, what of it? A marriage promise is until death only, when I last checked. And adults should not cling to their mothers in such a way. Are you absolutely sure the love she had for him is stronger than the love she had for you? Could have for you? Will you not even try to discern this before you give up?" The exasperation in Urahara's voice was just barely seeping through. "I was trying to do you a favor. Stop wasting it."

"Wait a minute! How is it that you get to tell me anything? You put a time bomb in my wrist and never told me!"

"Did you forget who you were dealing with, Abarai? I did it for Arisawa just as much as I did it for you. It was my good deed. And you're wrecking it." Urahara shook his head. "Tessai, give him some balm for that wrist. Abarai, get out of here. You give that woman back what you owe to her, before it's too late. And by too late, I mean before she meets someone else and wouldn't care even if she did get her memories back, do you understand me?" The gray eyes were deadly serious. "It will happen, Abarai. And if it does, your wrist will burn for eternity, along with your heart. I can't help you much more than that, so get the hell out."

Shocked, Renji could only turn and make a quiet exit.

"Boss, you were too hard on the kid," Tessai said.

"Maybe," Urahara said. "But if it plays out like this, it means I made a mistake in helping him. Can't have that."

Renji's reaction to Urahara's command was to dither.

And procrastinate.

And mope.

Byakuya was aware but did not comment. He had finally become bored with needling his vice-captain, who lacked the will to fight back. Rukia noticed but was too wary to speak of it. She knew, just knew, that somehow Renji would turn it around and blame her for it. (While that assumption was the furthest thing from the truth, the hard fact of it was that Renji would indulge her with it if he thought that was what she wanted, so it might as well have been true.) Ichigo heard about it from Ikkaku, who got all of his information from Yumichika, whose ability to detect the lovelorn was preternatural. While all three found it sad, they also found it amusing and their entertainment generally outweighed any feelings of sympathy or desire to give aid to an apparently drowning friend.

With no one to impede him or offer any advice he was willing to listen to, Renji simply crawled back into the bottle he had vacated more than half a century ago. He also began to wear gloves.

This is how the legend of the Renji Wrecker was resurrected. All of Sereitei knew Abarai's heart had been broken, ripped out, and stomped on by a woman. Some of them even pretended to know the particulars. The women all sighed for him; the men would shake their heads knowingly.

The woman in question was not only anonymous, but oblivious. She only knew that Abarai was a terrible drunk who somehow managed to function in his creepy, personal space invader way. The only thing that kept her from being completely repulsed by him was the air of pain and desperation he gave off in the brief time she spent in his company. So when she heard the inflated story of the Renji Wrecker from a couple of her classmates, she was interested despite herself. "So she just left him? Just like that, after he saved her live and pledged his undying love to her? And for his best friend?" Natsumi, a small girl with hair in two messy braids, squealed. "How awful."

"That's not the end of it." Jun, almost a foot taller and a shade more tan, said smugly, crossing her arms. "He swore from that day on he would cherish the smell of her on his hands, and he's worn gloves ever since. Now that's love." Both of them then sighed in fangirl reverence.

Tatsuki had never heard a bigger crock of shit in her life. But upon further consideration she remembered that every lie, no matter how it had snowballed, held an element of the truth. So. Abarai was pining for some woman. Possibly one who had fled due to his habit of hovering. That wouldn't surprise her one bit. . .She shook her head. They were working, and this kind of speculation was meant for prepubescent slumber parties, not training circuits. "Girls," she said, trying to be stern, "this is all just enthralling but we really need to get this paperwork sorted."

Both girls gazed at her, half in admiration, half in annoyance. "Hakumei-san just isn't the romantic type, is she," Jun sighed.

"And proud of it, but that's not the point. We stay until this is done, and I'm not interested in being here all night," Tatsuki said calmly. "Besides, if we do well here, the captain might come by to compliment us."

That was enough to quiet her peers and set them to work. As much as they mooned over the tragic vice-captain of the sixth squad, they outright fawned over the captain of the ninth. And with good reason. Hisagi Shuuhei was a man. And he was familiar with most of the students at the academy, which made him even more loved.

One of the new features of the Shinigami Academy was the training circuit. This was something born out of necessity, as the Thirteen Squads had suffered heavy losses during the war and were still struggling to refill their ranks. At which point the Eighth division captain suggested that students be allowed to test out and train as interns with different squads. This would alleviate the work shortage and also give students and teachers a means to assess both interest and skill. It worked famously, and Hisagi Shuuhei was among the first captains to embrace the process. So invested was he in its success that once a week he spent an afternoon sharing his knowledge of barriers to the kidou classes and overseeing sparring sessions. It was at one of these sparring lessons that he witnessed a fairly large guy being tossed onto his ass by a pissed-off Tatsuki.

She had already forgotten the insult that caused her to lunge and attack. The guy was so shocked by her reaction that he barely managed to guard for the ten seconds before she grabbed his arm and pulled him over her shoulder with all the force in her. As he lay there stunned, she stared down at him and scowled. The rest of the room applauded. Hisagi-taichou calmed them down, clapped Tatsukis's back. "That was impressive, Hakumei," he said, not smiling but tilting his head. "Where have you been hiding that?"

She could only blink at him, then blushed. It had been years since her hoyden days as a vale tudo champion and she worked hard not to stick her head out. When she started at the academy word circulated that she was familiar with at least two captains and the attention she received was unpleasant to her. She did not want anyone telling her she was there based solely on who she knew, so she remained silent. Eventually her classmates forgot and she went about her business as planned. But this—she had to cover for herself. "He just made me mad, sensei," she said. "That's all."

Hisagi still did not smile. In fact, he was no longer impressed. "Hakumei, letting your emotions get the best of you in a fight is the worst thing you could do. Please work on your temper."

Tatsuki knew this already. She just said the first thing that had come to mind, and now the rest of the class was staring at her. She mumbled a "hai," and meekly stepped back into her spot.

Two classes later, she allowed that same guy to throw her. Again, Hisagi-taichou was unimpressed, but he waited until class was over to point it out. He caught up with her as she left the locker room. "Hakumei, walk with me, will you?"

She had been the first out. The others would be coming. She hesitated. "Pardon me, sensei, but I'm not sure I want anyone to see me talking to you outside of class."

"Let them think what they want, Hakumei. You're not the sort to be taken down by talk," he replied.

She bowed his head and stepped to his side as he strode towards the door. They were outside before he spoke again. "You've been holding back. Why?"

"I've been working on my temper," she said, trying to keep the bite out of her voice.

Apparently she failed. "Doesn't sound like it," Hisagi said. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you then, but it needed to be said. You can't rely on your strength coming from emotions during an actual fight. You have to keep your head. But I suspect you know that already. So why are you pretending to be less of a fighter than you actually are?"

"I was trying to avoid unwanted attention," she admitted.

"So you know the Kurosakis. So what? They didn't give you your talents. You already had them."

"You don't understand. I fail, they say I don't belong. I succeed too well, they say someone made it happen for me. I'm tired of it."

"So you're pretending to be average." Hisagi was staring forward, eyes narrow. What was he thinking?

"Hakumei-kun, if you're unhappy with the way things are, why are you at the academy?"

She paused, stared at him. Had she given any sign that she was dissatisfied?

"You said you were tired of it. So change it, Hakumei. Leave, or stay. But stop holding back. Be who you are." And then he left her.

Tatsuki shook her head. He did understand, even if only a little. She had felt restricted in hiding. It bothered her that she knew she easily had most of her classmates beaten when it came to hand-to-hand, but she was afraid to show it. But what had that gotten her? Nowhere, really.

After that, things were different. She excelled where she could, worked hard where she could not. And when the training circuit came up for her, she embraced it with all her energy. The tour at the ninth was her second circuit. She disliked being teamed up with other women, but she was making do. They seemed to turn to her like a mother at times, and that was something she somewhat liked. Here at the ninth the work had been tedious but it was good to be out of the classroom.

And then, there was Hisagi-taichou. As if he'd been eavesdropping, he stepped into the storeroom with a calm look on his face. "You ladies have done some good work here. You're free to go for the day."

Jun and Natsumi vacated the room with alarming speed—preceded, of course, by bows and fangirl style grinning. Tatsuki set her last stack in order. "They're going to squeal all the way back to the dorms, you know," she said.

"Let them. They're young, let them enjoy themselves." He crossed his arms. "But you, on the other hand. . ."

"I start at the eleventh next week." She moved toward the exit and into the hallway. He followed her, the surprise on his face just as delicious to her as his words of encouragement probably were to those girls.

"It hasn't been a full month yet, Hakumei."

"I know. So sign me out, will you?"

He tilted his head. "I know you're ready for it. But I'll miss having you around." They were outside now; the sun was sinking rapidly. Tatsuki's stomach was growling.

She smiled at him. "You said yourself I was best suited for combat. I shouldn't stay here any longer than I need to, and moving me out sooner means you'll get a replacement right away. Unless,"she said as her smile became wicked, "you'll miss more than my outstanding office skills."

Hisagi frowned. "Hakumei. That's quite a presumption."

"I know, but I never get a chance to play like this with everyone else," she said. "I'm quite considerate of your position, you know."

"As I am of yours." He shook his head. "Fine. I'll sign you out. But you need to be present in kidou class every day I'm there, without fail."

"I've never skipped a class."

"People pick up bad habits in the eleventh division," Hisagi said. "I don't want you ruined."

"Hai, taichou," Tatsuki nodded. "I'll be there. Shake on it?"

And they shook hands. Tatsuki would have noticed the slight blush the contact caused to bloom in her mentor's cheeks if she hadn't caught the hint of red in the corner of her eye. Where Abarai Renji had come from, she had no idea. All she knew was that he looked like someone had hit him hard in the stomach as he staggered down the street toward the sixth division compound.

Absently, Tatsuki considered running up to the poor wrecked Renji and giving him a hug. He obviously needed it. But then she shook herself. It had nothing to do with her, anyway.