R was bored. She had woken up and taken yet another shower. It was full daylight. It was with mild surprise that she realised it was still spring here, so she hadn't woken up early. Still, no one had come to look for her. You'd think the Shinigami would be much more efficient than this, to interrogate a supposed threat, she thought, amused. Slipping on her socks and sandals, she stepped out into the sunshine. She missed Odaiba and she missed seeing her mum.
At that thought she started panicking. She needed to be there at her mum's shop! How long were these people going to hold her? Troubled, she started walking faster. She was out of the squad 6 barracks in 5 minutes.
They were watching her. She knew there were Shinigami planted every corner she turned. They weren't all squad 6, but they were all watching her. Walking further, she was soon near Rukongai, only that the great wall separating her from it was shut and it didn't look like she was going to get it open. The smell of red bean buns wafted to her, and encouraged by her growling stomach, she made her way toward it.
The howl was deafening. She would recognise it anywhere. Earth shook around her and she turned, the fright clawing at her, to face the most hideous creature she had ever seen. It had the skull of a feral animal, but it walked on two legs. It howled again and she was pushed back a couple of steps just with the wind generated from its mouth. It dribbled and then made a sound like a giggle. She could hear people scrambling to get away from that area, but she was rooted in fear. A couple of Shinigami rushed to the hollow, trying to slash it. They were sent sprawling back. It shot out a lance from its shoulder and skewered them. Screaming, they went into its huge mouth. R still could not move. It must be the dense reiatsu. If she had thought the captains suffocated her, this creature made her feel like she was being thrown into hell itself. She blacked out.
…
When she came to, she was lying on the ground, and there was a black cat looking curiously at her. It had yellow eyes and—
"Oh. Finally awake I see. The mysterious ryoka girl Ichigo was going on about. But I would say you're a bit too old for that boy, eh?" That neither man-nor-woman voice.
"Yoruichi san?" She queried. "It's really you, Yoruichi san!"
"Tsk. It gets really boring when someone isn't screaming 'talking cat!' at me. So I guess what they told me is true." She narrowed her eyes. "You do know all of us. And probably the future."
"I don't know the future!" R cried in frustration. Seeing the cat take a step back at her outburst, she continued, "Yoruichi san. If there's anyone who could try to make sense of this it might be Urahara San. Please, could you not arrange for me to meet him?"
"Control your reiatsu" Yoruichi said calmly.
"Control my? I don't have reiatsu I'm human. Or is that Soul Society slang for calm your tits?"
Yoruichi looked at her incredulously, and then burst out laughing. "Finally! Someone with a sense of humour in Sereitei!" the cat came closer and put her paw on R's knee. "I will try to do something about Urahara. But before that, get up. Someone is incredibly worried about you."
"Wh—" She did not get time to complete her sentence before she felt and sensed Byakuya san right beside her. Right. Yoruichi san would know all there was to know about Byakuya san's reiatsu.
"What do you think you are doing," He asked her, only it did not sound like a question she wanted to answer. "You are not allowed to roam about Sereitei. Unless you want other squads to capture you instead."
R got up and faced him. "It's your duty though, Kuchiki taichou, to look after me, isn't it?" Internally she was shaking, but she said this to him with her nose up in the air.
If looks could strangle and then stomp on your lifeless body, Byakuya san's look was doing just that. "It will not be my duty anymore if you chose to get eaten by a hollow or beaten up by the Rukongai gangsters," he said coldly.
Flustered, R retorted, "Wouldn't that conveniently rid you of your babysitting duties though? Besides, I was hungry and no one in your squad was even going to look in on me!" No, that wasn't it, but Byakuya san's exasperation was strangely satisfying.
"Exactly how were you planning to purchase food without our money?"
"Not the point, Byakuya-bo," Yoruichi San interrupted him.
Byakuya san looked down at the familiar black cat. "I was not speaking to you, bakeneko. (demon cat)." He said. "Stay out of this, you are ryoka yourself."
"Come down from your high horse once every few hundred years, won't you Byakuya-bo." His veins showed on his forehead, throbbing in complete annoyance. "In fact you should be thanking me for saving your ryoka girl."
"Oh god, Yoruichi San! Thank you so much!" R had always known she had made a good choice by choosing Shihoin Yoruichi as her favourite character. How was she always so cool!
He silenced whatever R could have said following that with an icy stare. "What do you mean. If she were to have been attacked it would've only been her fault and she would have saved all of us the effort of doing anything with her." God the man was cold.
"Is that so? Your rushing here did nothing to reinforce that fluke apathy, though," Yoruichi San laughed. Byakuya san opened his mouth to say something back but she shut him up. "If you don't listen to me quietly like a good boy, I will be forced to transform right here so you will pay attention, Byakuya-bo."
"Don't even think it."
"So shut up and listen. Your ryoka girl is not a normal human being, and I am sure with your experience you can sense it. The hollow was attracted solely by her reiatsu. I am not sure if it's an unfortunate human trait but just like Ichigo, she can't seem to control it and is splashing it all over the place."
"Yoruichi san!" R protested.
"It's the truth, R. Both of you listen carefully. Just now before I came to kill that hollow, I doubt you realised what you were doing, R, but you were holding it in place and trying to wrench its arms off. Without moving a limb." Both R's and Byakuya san's eyes went wide at this revelation. "You were definitely not conscious, which makes it even more of a puzzle."
"That can't have happened," R protested. "I have no special powers. Well, none considered special in this world at least."
"Trust me, R, I know what I saw," Yoruichi san looked at her with those piercing golden eyes. She now turned to Byakuya san. "I think you had better keep her safe. Maybe even from your senseless authorities."
Yoruichi san flash stepped away with that, leaving R contemplating in silence. She snapped out of her reverie when Byakuya san took her hand.
"Chotto! What are you doing!"
"Getting you back in the barracks so you can have your damn breakfast," he said, and then everything blurred with the speed of his shunpo.
