It seemed like the downpour would just never stop. The omnipresence of the rain for the past weeks had been so oppressive that it slowly started to contaminate everyone's souls and dreams. Trash was slowly taking the empty streets over, riding on the waves coming from the flooded sewers. The whole city started to look like a blurred draft, like a strange, persistent memory of something formerly known and now half-forgotten. The dreary silence was only broken by cloudbursts; which ended convincing the inhabitants that some sort of ancestral forces awakened to mourn about an unknown loss.

At least, that was Karin Kurosaki's opinion on the matter. She felt restless and tense; a mood she knew was shared by all of her coworkers. She had drunk so much coffee that she felt on the verge of throwing it up, but she stubbornly kept sipping it. It seemed like the only option if she ever wanted to finish filling her damn papers. She could easily sense that the storm was soon about to break in. She remembered how someone once told her that babies and animals were always nervous just before a storm. It seemed in the end that it made all of them hyper sensitive.

Harassed by a never-ending series of sleepless nights, she had quickly found herself aggressive and exhausted, although no significant event had happened to her for several months. She wondered if the unremitting weather indeed had an unusual affect on her, or if she actually was coming down with something. She stretched out a bit and rested her forehead in her hands, rubbing her temples softly. Further than being edgy, she felt as if she worried about something she couldn't identify properly. And that annoyed her very, very much.

"Hey Rukia. I'm taking a break. I'm going to have another coffee, want some?"

"You haven't finished yours yet."

"It's cold. I don't want it."

"Well, yes. Thank you."

The brunette went out at first, sheltered from the rain by the awning. She deeply inhaled the fresh air, and appreciated the humidity for a bit. She hated smoking outside when it rained, but grabbed her pack of cigarette with an annoyed sigh. She needed to relax very badly, this load of work seemed boundless, and for once she felt sleepy as hell.

Karin sat, lying against the wall, smoking in peace. She had been in the police for two years now. She never really knew what she wanted to do "as a grown-up" so after graduation she casually touched a bit of everything, allowing herself to change her mind as soon as she got bored with anything. As she just turned 19, her brother brutally died in a blaze. The shock left her dazed and confused for days, and when she regained a sort of consciousness about it, she realized how frustrating and unexplained the event was. No one came with any start of an explanation as why he was here, or what he was doing. Even though the fire was acknowledged to be of criminal origin, the investigation fell short to provide any satisfactory answer and quickly wrapped up. But, in the end, what bothered her the most weren't the mysterious circumstances. She trusted her brother like no one to get out of any situation. He was clever, resourceful, streetwise, and strong. What could have possibly happened?

He was the second member from her close family to die in an enigmatic way. While she knew she could not avenge them, she decided she wanted to prevent any event of the kind to occur again. And six years later, here she was. On a daily basis, she was very satisfied with her career choice. She was just confusingly weary of all this at the moment. Nothing interesting had happened for a while; it was always the same routine, amends, small infractions, papers, a few complaints, papers, false alarms, papers, always papers, never-ending fucking boring hateful papers. She wanted fucking adrenaline and fucking no papers. That was a lot of fuck.

A deep sigh escaped her as the thought crossed her mind. She was even tired of herself. Why on earth was she so susceptible at the moment?

She decided to come back inside and get these coffees, when she noticed bustle in the corner of the street. She remained still for a second and squinted her eyes. She almost immediately recognized some fellow agents running down to the building. Two of them briskly got in without noticing her, and the last one, Madarame, stopped.

"Kurosaki? What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm taking a break. What's going on?"

"Haven't you heard the order? Get ready to leave in like… Thirty seconds, there is some shooting northward, we're going up there"

"Ok, I'm… Wait, what? Now?"

"Move!"

"Yes sir!"

Some action at last! She shouldn't have been happy. That happy. She decided to work there precisely because she wanted those events to stop, she should have been glad to do papers. But principles could go to hell right now. She needed to be distracted of herself.

Thirty actual seconds later, she was in the car, armed and ready to kick some asses. Well, that wasn't entirely true, but at least ready for action.

She was surprised however, as she saw the parking lot emptying, by the unusual amount of mobilized agents. Ordinarily, only the combat experts from the eleventh division were sent on the battlefield. She knew a few people from the crew, and hoped to join it soon. She trained hard to be admissible into the general drilling, and potentially integrate it.

She had already met Madarame and Yumichika, always stuck together. The sight of them systematically amused her. They seemed to be each other's perfect opposite, and still… She hardly knew two people getting along so well. She had encountered Tatsuki too, whom she enjoyed the company very much. And she had obviously heard about the terrifying Zaraki Kenpachi, although she never met him. Aside his own division, very few people actually did. And if they did, it was generally not good prospects.

He was said to have mastered every imaginable weapon in the world, and made bladed weapon his specialty, which was kind of unusual in the 21st century police. He nevertheless also had a solid reputation as a sniper, and firearms in general, he just blatantly expressed how he hated those, as he associated them with weakness and fear: he enjoyed far more being on the battlefield and directly facing his opponents. The man had acquired a solid reputation as to be a virtuoso of the slaughtering; which led him into rarely actually intervening, unless the situation was said to be "desperate" — meaning when the security of policemen, hostages or civilians was no longer assured. He was not really sent to arrest, frighten or negotiate. When Zaraki entered the game, it was to eliminate.

Karin wondered how likely it was that he was put in charge there to be channeled and under a sort of surveillance. As a matter of facts, if he weren't on their side, he would most definitely be imprisoned, since he appeared to have an animalistic hunger for blood and left a trail of corpses behind him. Being a part of the police seemed to tame his frustration, how much was uncertain. Then, with a shiver, she came to actually doubt that they could have successfully captured and put the man behind bars.

Zaraki… This monster frightened her probably as much as he fascinated her. She dreamt to train with him, to see him execute his art. There was so much to learn. She had to become as strong as possible.

She sighed while the car was hurtling down the dull boulevards of the suburbs. She looked at the black clouds wandering over their heads. It seemed that the light was running away.

When they crossed a tunnel, she suddenly found herself confronted to her own pale reflection in the window. Surprised, she stared at it a few seconds, and before she could turn her head away from the vision, they were outside again, with only the rain for company in the deserted alleys.

By the time they arrived, the sky was even darker. It was something like four in the afternoon, but it looked like twilight. The deluge intensified, making the driving harder; and rendering everyone even more nervous, if that was possible in such a situation. It was a matter of minutes before the sky would be ripped apart.

No one could say if the driver was really stressed and hardly handled the drenched macadam, or if he just wanted to do a sort of movie-like sliding as he almost crashed the car. He eventually managed to immobilize it safely next to the others, and all the cops swept out the vehicle, starting to run in diverse directions. They were dozens.

Imitating the others, Karin crossed the courtyard where they were more or less parked. She covered herself behind a huge trashcan half spilled on the ground and took aim at the open front door. She could see nothing but darkness beyond it. She hadn't much to do; she was just here to guard the exit. She quickly glanced all over the place. It was creepy. It was a disused and abandoned building as she had seen many others, but she couldn't tell why this particular place made her feel uncomfortable. Was it some junky squat or something? Oh, or maybe it was just the weather. The weather made all peculiar and uncanny today. The water infiltrated everywhere. She felt that even her boots were drenched, and could hear her damp feet making soaking noises. She hoped that her gun could actually work. A flash of lightning tore the clouds above them, almost immediately followed by the sinister grunt of the thunder. She focused again on the door. Now she just had to wait the most patiently she could, trying not to think of how her life felt like a movie that day.

There weren't a lot of cops left in the courtyard, most of them being inside, she assumed. She suddenly heard fight-like sounds, screams and shots. Then all was silent again. She kept concentrating, trying to guess from where exactly the sounds were coming. Just like the door, every broken window revealed nothing but obscurity.

Then she heard one of her colleague use the loudspeaker.

"We know you're in there. This is the end. You are surrounded. Please surrender now, and you won't be done any harm."

Karin chuckled. They always tried the pacific option at first, but it just never worked. The thunder threatened them once more. Her eyes widened as she heard a deep and confident voice rumbling an answer.

"Ok. I'll surrender. I'm unarmed anyway, and I am alone. Please wait outside. I'm coming through."

Her first deduction was that despite the elevated number of agents sent inside the building, he had somehow remained uncaught. Whether it was because he defeated them or because he was hiding was yet to discover. However she couldn't find the reason why he accepted to surrender like… Like just like that? Just because he was asked to?

The second thing that drew her attention was his voice. He sounded unexpectedly calm. She was used to fear, anger, fury, despair, madness, or cold resignation. If din of the storm prevented her from hearing him well, she could still tell that his voice was measured, profound, mastered.

She discerned some movement, but she couldn't guess if it was he or her colleagues. And suddenly her blood ran cold. A cold she had never felt in her entire life, a polar cold that froze her members, clutched her heart and cut her breath. A sharp cold so painful she wondered how she had stayed conscious.

"Is Karin Kurosaki among you? I'll surrender, but I want her to arrest me."