The winter is a terrible one but the inmates of Urahara's Orphan Asylum are able to tide it over with relative ease thanks to the generosity of the Kuchiki group with new heaters and blankets a-plenty.

But the poor old woman, living two blocks down the road is not so lucky. Kind old Hitsugaya-san is best known for the scandal caused by her daughter who had run away only coming back a few months later, unmarried and heavily pregnant. Giving birth to a son with the most unusual coloring, she had run away again.

The boy, now one, is all alone in the world, so the ever generous Isshin Kurosaki brings him in. Yoruichi calls him a bleeding heart but privately confides to her fiancé that it is exactly what she would have done.

Young Toshiro Hitsugaya is what people consider a prodigy, already able to walk and talk as fluently as any two-year-old child, he makes certain that his extreme displeasure about most of his fellow residents known. In fact the only two people he likes or as Kisuke puts it, 'does not despise/ detest/ hate' are Momo and Hisana. He abhors Rangiku with a passion, but she likes him. Generally, the people for whom Rangiku Matsumoto shows even the vaguest bit of affection are stuck with her for life. He tolerates Rukia for the sake of her sister but does not bother wasting his energy socializing with her. Rukia, now four, does not like Toshiro.

For two years, she has been the baby of the asylum, spoiled and coddled. Nee-san, who has been taking care of some of the other kids, is solely hers. Now she has to share, not even sure that Nee-san will still love her as much or make Toshiro her new baby brother, forgetting about her entirely. For that she resents the intruder and goes out of her way to ignore him her only consolation seems to be the fact that there seems to be no love lost between her rival and her precious Nii-sama.

There also seems to be some bad blood between Ichigo and Toshiro. Being almost the same age as his sisters, Ichigo sees the younger boy as competition for his mother's attention. Masaki, being a motherly soul, adores babies with a passion and looking after the surly, white-haired boy is absolutely no trouble. He seems to be warming up to Karin and Yuzu and Masaki chalks it up to another victory for Love. Ichigo resents this. Having already done the whole 'Love' thing to a lesser extent with his frenemy Rukia, he has a fairly accurate idea how it will play out.

However he can't insist that they avoid the asylum forever as much as he would like to. For one thing it is very close to their house now that they have moved and his sisters adore Rukia-nee-san.

Ichigo's complaints are soon swept under the rug, with the arrival of Yasutora Sado. He is quite boy of Mexican descent who surprisingly makes fast friends with Rangiku Matsumoto. He respects Rukia and she likes him back enough not to antagonize him. Renji and friends give hom a wide berth, mistrustful of his appearance. Ichigo and Chad, as he is fondly called by both, friends and foes alike, can be found quietly playing with whatever it is that little boys will play with, usually until Rukia decides to join them. Playing with Renji is fun but tormenting Ichigo is funner. Also, Renji often likes to play with Izuru and Momo putting on airs as five-year-olds are very often prone to do especially around four-year-olds.

Then there are Ikkaku and Yumichika. They are brought in by Zaraki Kenpachi, the not-so-friendly neighbourhood policeman. Around the same age as Nemu, the two are as thick as thieves and while they do interact with other people, they generally keep to themselves thriving on violence, usually against each other. Grimmjow revels in this while Nemu does not enjoy it at all. Her hopes of having an actual friend of her age and the opposite gender are dashed and her interactions with her grow gradually more stilted much to the chargin of Ikkaku. Hisana is extremely puzzled by this, but Nanao solves her dilenma.

"Ikkaku likes her" she says in her most matter-of-fact tone. "So? Even I like Nemu-chan" Hisana says, confused. Nanao smiles at her guilelessness. "No. Ikkaku *likes* Nemu." Nanao explains paitently. Comprehension dawns on her pretty face. "Oh! Like Kyoraku-san likes you!" Nanao is left sputtering. "N-n-no! Nothing, absolutely nothing like that."

Nanao has managed to secure a secretarial position in a small advertising firm belonging to two of Urahara-san's friends where her boss and one of the partners exhibits what alarmingly feels like a crush on her. And he is not shy about it either. Flowers, poetry and several beatings with Nanao's sturdiest fan make up their daily courtship.

Nanao doesn't like it one bit but Kyoraku-san swears up and down that she is warming up to him. The children at the asylum watch this regular show with great delight. It has got enough romance to send Rangiku in raptures on her most starry-eyed days enough violence to make Ikkaku, Yumichika and their prized disciple Grimmjow wince and Enough witherin sarcasm to make Ulquiorra wish for a pen and paper for copious note-taking.

Juushiro Ukitake initially tried to dissuade his partner and friend from pursuing his assistant at least in front of her young and extremely impressionable house-mates, but seeing how all parties involved got a kick out of it, he ceased running interference. He had more than enough assistant problems of his own.

And so, life went on for the inmates of Urahara's Orphan Asylum with four new faces to add to the fun, share in the adventure, Yoruichi to bully and Urahara to ignore.

There. The latest installment is done. Tell me what you think?