Sorry for being a lazy ass. I can't believe that I've kept you waiting for so long. Hope you enjoy. This chapter elaborates more on Winry's powers.

I do not own anything.

It hurt to see that everybody feared him. It also hurt to have to justify his existence to a race of people that shouldn't exist. Every look brought more weight to his shoulders. Every glance brought troubled stares to his mind. He wasn't invincible. His fight with that "Aizen" fellow had further proved it.

He hated every single thought racing through his mind. It throbbed with doubt and pain and he couldn't stop his mistakes and—well, it affected him. He cursed the day he'd been reborn in the afterlife, and he cursed there being an afterlife. He hated a lot of things because other emotions hurt too much. It wasn't worth putting himself in anguish because of something that he didn't even like. So, he hated, he loathed... and he fought.

He felt sympathy for their cause, at times, when it didn't feel so wrong to be standing there with people that killed souls and justified it by saying that they were "too far gone". He ignored every fibre of his being that was screaming out that they were going to kill him and his kind.

He realised that they did not know everything about hollows. He knew that the "hollows" of today had a right to that name. The original hollows had had a full body—while the new ones had a hole that represented their misery. It made them empty... hollow... and it left them as nothing more than animalistic instinct-filled monsters. The glory of the originals had fallen far to become a sub-species that was hated throughout the land.

It was useless to kill them off; it just drove them to kill back in fear and anger. But he wanted to stop it. To make sure that they didn't have to go through that would be the first step in the journey to restore them back into something humane.

They were so misguided that it stressed him to even think about it. How they got that way left a bottomless pit in his soul, guilt-filled and melancholy. It was the one thing anchoring him to life, the one thing keeping him from death. He was a... big brother of sorts, to hollows. And because he looked at it that way, thoughts of Al flooded his mind, and the hollows were Al, and he couldn't abandon Al, and—well, it didn't bode well for his mental health. In fact, it wore away at the already thin thread of sanity that he had left.

The old man's eyes narrowed and he was suddenly overcome with the feeling of nervousness that his teacher had given him. He scratched the back of his head in a nervous gesture that showed both his sheepish and laidback feelings. Edward sighed, glancing around at the shinigami that had surrounded him. A rather kind pair of older men—one with long white hair, the other with long dark brown—gazed at him with studying eyes, their kindness replaced with not-so-veiled hostility. A gigantic man (I'm not short, damn it!) with long black hair and tiny bells tied to the ends of it grinned at him, his one eye challenging and wild. He had scars all over his face and what was visible of his body, with an eye patch covering one eye.

They were all odd characters, but then he remembered what he obviously looked like and grimaced underneath the mask. The old man opened his mouth to speak, but ended up turning away to speak to somebody. There was a gust of soothing, familiar reiatsu, but it was gone as soon as it came, leaving him longing to run in the direction it wandered off to. The old man turned back to him, his narrowed eyes accusing him of being something he wasn't. Well, not entirely, at least.

For the first time, having only had himself and his zanpakutou to talk to, he realised how bad his language skills were. When the shinigami spoke, their words were smooth, while his were rather rough and accented. It was like he had learned the language that they spoke overnight. Japanese, was it? But he'd had no practice with it and didn't pronounce everything correctly.

"You, hollow, are guilty of the crime of being a hollow, and must be put to death immediately." Yamamoto spoke gravely, as if he actually thought that it would be a sad thing to kill off just another hollow.

"You know what, old man? This is bullshit!" Edward took a step forward, ignoring the swords immediately drawn and pointed towards him.

"I'm just as human as you are, and admittedly, you guys aren't really human at all, but you used to be! I used to be human too!" Edward pointed an accusing finger at the leader of the shinigami, his unseen eyes flashing furiously. "But we died! It's what we do! I just happened to die and become a hollow, which, I'd like to point out, is an insulting name! We aren't missing anything that you aren't missing yourself! Before you judge me and my kind, you should understand us first!" And with those angry words, he reached upwards, ripping the mask from his face. It dissolved into golden dust that disappeared into the air, leaving the shinigami to gape in astonishment.

"You-you're—" one began to speak, but was abruptly cut off.

"Yeah, assholes, I'm nineteen, and human. Actually, I was nineteen years, sixth months, five days, seven hours, four minutes, and fifty three seconds old when I died. You think you can just pick and choose who to kill? Fat chance!" Edward spat at the ground, sunshine yellow eyes glittering. His argument was sound, and his voice was passionate. It took them all a couple seconds to realise that this was a hollow, and that very same hollow was trying to liberate both himself and his people against the shinigami.

"You have no right to say that! Hollows have killed us off for generations! My little brother was killed just last week! What can you say to justify that? What can you say?" A tall man with dark hair and dark eyes stepped forward ("Piss off, Mustang! I'm not your dog!"). His eyes were blazing and his breath racing. He didn't really look much like Colonel Roy Mustang of the Amestris military, but Edward was suddenly hit with the nostalgic feeling of seeing his ex-commander in front of him.

The man suddenly stopped, his eyes becoming unsure. Edward snapped back out of his dazed gaze, locking eyes with him.

"I'm responsible."

After a bout of shocked silence, the man replied.

"W-what?"

"I said that I'm responsible. It's my fault."

Images of Al being killed by hollows flashed through his mind; he knew what it was like to lose a brother. Al had lost his body—and that was worse than death. It was painful to even think about.

"I was naive. I abandoned them... the hollows, I mean." A shaky breath left his mouth, his eyes suddenly glazed and distant. He wasn't supposed to be there. He was supposed to be out there, fighting—no, wait, saving—hollows from their inner demons. He wasn't supposed to be chatting up some bigoted shinigami that had forced their oppressive ways onto everyone and everything.

In that moment, they froze. His words were so shaky, so human. His eyes were not crazed. They were sad and told the shinigami that he deserved forgiveness even if he didn't want it. The angular curves of his face, the laugh lines that had worn away after being left unused for so long, the soft lips that spoke those condemning words, the eyes that spoke more than he did. He looked human. Yamamoto sighed, looking at the other shinigami for confirmation. Some of them, the ones with power rolling off them in waves, nodded solemnly.

"You will be put in an eight levelled seal until I convene with the Captains and Lieutenants about what to do with you."

Edward snorted, but nodded slowly. His golden hair blew off slightly to the side in the wind, but aside from that, nobody moved.

Then, Yamamoto stepped back, his hands outstretched and his palms facing outward in a pose built for Kido. He started to mumble some unintelligible words, a faint blue glow lighting up his body. After a short pause, Edward relaxed his body, sure that there was no need for him to brace himself. Yamamoto's eyes flashed and a ghost of a smirk twitched at his lips. A whip of fire darted out of his hands, wrapping around Edward. He choked back a scream, the fire seeping into his bones like acid. He found himself unable to move, only lock his jaw and grit his teeth in pain. The old man simply muttered a low, "Seal One: Inoshishi."

Edward almost laughed in relief as the rope of fire simply faded away. Edward knew that it wasn't actually gone. He could feel the slightly burning reiatsu holding him captive. Yamamoto, stoic as ever, started the next seal's chant, Edward kneeling before him, having fallen to his knees after the first seal was applied. Electricity crackled in the air, making him shiver in anticipation. Without warning, the chanting stopped. Three blue bolts of lightning shot out of Yamamoto's hands, one hit each wrist, pinning him in a painful cross, and the last struck him through the abdomen. It left him choking on air and gasping in shock. Edward cried out as his body convulsed in electrical pain.

Yamamoto once again spoke with a, "Seal Two: Inu."

Edward gasped and grunted from the pain, but grinned weakly at them, his eyes blazing with determination. Yamamoto seemed to grimace with respect at the blatant show of fierce pride. Edward did not believe that the pain of the seals was right, but he understood the reasons why they couldn't let him go or leave him without restraints. He was an unknown factor in the middle of a war that could end them for good. He didn't have to like it, though, and he didn't. Yamamoto sighed, his sad eyes briefly meeting Edward's.

"I'm sorry, boy." He spoke with a stiff, unyielding tone. At least he had the decency to apologise for the past and the future. The statement was washed away by the next seal's enchantment, a secretive set of words that made him shiver in fear.

"It's alright, old man," Edward smirked. After the incantation had been uttered, Yamamoto fired eight silver arrows from his palms, one piercing each eye, two in each hand, and two in his stomach. The weird thing was that they weren't exactly solid; he felt the pain of them, but they slid and were absorbed into his skin, impairing his vision to blackness, numbing his hands, and freezing his torso so badly that it hurt to breathe. The old shinigami spoke yet again, "Seal Three: Tori."

Now Edward, unable to see or move, was lost to the endless pain that the next spell brought. He felt wet, like acid was suffocating him. The acidic seal's name was announced, "Seal Four: Saru."

One right after the other, the seals were applied.

"Seal Five: Hitsuji."

"Seal Six: Uma."

"Seal Seven: Hebi."

He couldn't hear the name of the last one, Seal Eight: Tatsu, because it took away his hearing as it was activated. He felt himself being wrapped in chains, the reiatsu that kept him warm being absorbed by it. He whimpered, knowing that they couldn't hear it. They picked him up, carrying him towards what he assumed was a courtroom or meeting area.

It was time to enact justice, apparently.

...

Winry rushed towards the nearest injured shinigami, her long blonde haired tucked into a pony tail. A rather busty girl was beside the man Winry had intended to heal, already starting to speak some sort of Kido to heal him. Her hair was a golden brown, almost orange, and her eyes were a warm gray. She had two blue flower clips in her hair, keeping her bangs to the side, and she was wearing a shinigami's outfit. She was obviously one of the Ryoka that had broken into the Seireitei. The man that she was about to heal was none other than Kuchiki Byakuya, an important noble and Taichou of the Sixth Division.

Winry, however much she wished she could leave the shinigami to the girl, had to intervene. It was not proper to allow her to heal Byakuya, and she could still pose a threat. So, with an efficient hand, she grasped the girl's turning her away from the bloody and torn up Captain. The girl's eyes widened.

"Ne, Miss, I can handle Byakuya-sama." Winry smiled warmly, if awkwardly, and knelt in front of Byakuya, her blue eyes twinkling. She assessed the damage, finding major cuts along his body, bruises, one broken clavicle, a broken scapula, several bruised/broken ribs, and six sprained fingers.

Orihime backed down, her eyes curiously watching Winry work. While most healers used various Kido to replenish the reiatsu of the injured, making healing easier, Winry's zanpakutou allowed her to physically repair the damage made to the person's body. That way she could heal the person until they were stable enough to repair the rest of the damage by themselves, naturally.

Winry drew her zanpakutou, the gleaming silver flashing in the light. "I'll be waiting for you to come home, Yatagarasu!" The first part, Orihime noted, was in a different language, and the name of her zanpakutou was the three-legged-crow of Amaterasu. Her sword glowed white before disappearing entirely. Her reiatsu hugged each tiny microscopic-sized speck of metal, guiding the tiny robots into Byakuya's body.

They focused on getting his body to emit more healing chemicals, generating it at a faster rate than was normally possible. The rest of the bots held the cells together until the chemicals regenerated them. It was a fast process, but it took a large strain on her reiatsu and mind. Once the body was in no danger, the bots helped regenerate reiatsu. So she could use them to replenish her own stock once she was finished. She could usually heal ten people with her reiatsu, but after that, she was dry.

Her offensive capabilities were good too, but not as efficient. She needed to be prepared to utilise the other technique her zanpakutou, Yatagarasu, had. It was her secret weapon, her Bankai. She only ever used it to train or to prove her competence to her superiors. It wasn't nearly as strong as any of the Captains' Bankai, but it was good enough for her to be the third seat of the Fifth Division.

After about five minutes, Byakuya's harsh breathing subsided to a steady rhythm, and the worst of his wounds were almost healed, only vaguely resembling what they had once been.

"Wow, that's amazing!" Orihime complimented her, smiling nervously. A couple beads of sweat had formed on Winry's brow, but she simply smiled back at the girl.

"You have healing abilities?" Winry asked politely.

"Eh, I-I guess. I'm nothing special like you or Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime rambled on, a blush coating her cheeks. She mumbled some unintelligible things afterwards, feeling awkward.

"Gomen, gomen, my name is Winry Rockbell. I'm the third seat of the Fifth Division, and the Fourth Division, too. It's a rather weird arrangement." Winry laughed, making Orihime laugh too.

"I'm Inoue Orihime, a friend of Rukia-chan, and Kurosaki-san." Orihime smiled at the shinigami, obviously proud of her friends. Winry simply got up, moving to the next person that needed healing. A young orange haired boy looked at her with distrust, but stared at Orihime, who had followed her, with the opposite. They were friends, and this was the infamous Kurosaki Ichigo.

"You're a stupid boy." Winry told him, a calm smile on her face. It may have been the start of a war, but the healers were their backbones, and they needed to be reassuring. Ichigo merely scowled, watching with fascination as she activated the Shikai of her zanpakutou. It made him warm, and his body felt full of energy after the brief healing session. He wasn't even fully healed yet, but he felt like he's slept for a year.

"Thanks, I guess." He admitted, grudgingly.

"You're welcome, Kurosaki-san." Winry laughed, but said goodbye, leaving the rest of the healers to do the leftover work. There were some matters that needed tending to.

She summoned a hell butterfly, sending a message to both Yamamoto-soutaicho and Unohana-taichou.

"I will be removing myself from the Fourth Division permanently to deal with the after-effects of Aizen's betrayal on the Fifth Division. Momo-chan will become Captain, I am sure, and as such, will be needing help with the division and healing. I will still offer my services to the Fourth Division whenever Unohana-taichou needs them. This will be effective immediately after you receive this. Thank you. Winry Rockbell."

She grimaced at the formal tone, but dashed off to the division. It was horrible, what Aizen did to Momo. She had trusted him, loved him, and he'd used her. He'd thrown her away because he didn't need her anymore. It really sucked that Momo would have the responsibility of the Fifth Division after all that she'd been through regarding Aizen's betrayal.

As she reached Aizen's—no, wait, Momo's—office, the situation finally hit her. A couple tears leaked out of her eyes, frustration furrowing her brow. She focused on her reiatsu, making it regenerate faster. She was tired from the healing, and although she could've done more, it still made her more emotional. She sobbed, leaning against the wall inside the office, her tears freely falling. Aizen had been such a great mentor, and friend, so it hurt to know that it had all been a huge lie.

It hurt to know that their friendship had been a lie. It hurt to know that she'd been abandoned again. Although she hadn't loved him, they'd been good friends.

People always leave.

...

I'm sorry. I'm SO SORRY. I'm a horrible person. I haven't updated in forever. Wow, I suck.

Some things you might want to know:

Yatagarasu – The three legged crow in Japanese mythology that symbolises the sun. If seen, it means that there's divine interference in your life. I feel that bringing Winry and Edward together like this is divine interference, and so, that's the name of her zanpakutou.

I changed her to third seat because first and second are Captain and Lieutenant. But in the last chapter, it still says first seat, sorry.

This week, I'll try to get not one, not two, not three, but FOUR chapters! To make up for how long I've kept you waiting.