Chapter 4

"Dr. Day?" Leah calls, her attention having returned to the situation at hand after Dr. Day's shout. She approaches the frazzled redhead slowly, cautious of the staff now pointed menacingly towards The Lord. "Do you know him?" she asks as she begins to think up a way to defuse the situation before Dr. Day ends up impaling The Lord where he stands.

"Yeah, Daisy," a blonde—that reminds Aizen a little too much of Ichigo (a Death God and current eyesore)—yells, an accusing tone to his voice as he makes his way towards the redhead. "You don't, do you? I mean, you apparently knew what the other guy was talking about, but you wouldn't also know who he is, would you? Because that would highly suspicious?"

"Humbert—"

"Don't you dare 'Humbert'me," the boy cuts her off, anger written over every inch of his face as he glares at her. "What the fuck is 'The Central—'?"

A small hand lands on Humbert's mouth before he can say anything else. Aizen doesn't miss the warning glare Leah sends him.

So they're hiding something are they?

"Shut up, you dumbass," the owner of the hand mumbles happily. Even though the words are harsh they sound endearing. That could be because there's a fond smile on her lips as a purple-haired girl pulls the boy back into their circle of friends. A laugh bubbles from her lips, a nervous one while her eyes flicker warily around the room.

And by God, her voice.

That laugh.

It's a gentle summer breeze, the light twinkling of wind chimes during spring, warm and rich and soothing as it caresses everyone's ears.

"What?" Starrk gapes as his attention is pulled to the teen by the bell like voice alone.

Aizen's more or less ignoring everyone by this point. He knows everyone's waiting for him and—apparently—'Dr. Day' to start explaining how they know each other but he refuses to acknowledge it.

Especially, since he can see that Dr. Day doesn't seem to want to, or isn't going to for that matter. So, instead, he chooses to begin sizing up the newcomers. That's when he notices the ribbons attached to purple-haired girl's hat are moving on their own.

They continue to twitch and twirl even as she stops moving. There isn't enough of a breeze for them to float as they do.

"Well, I can't help it if I want fucking answers, Eloise."

It's also then that he notices that it's entirely the ribbon's fault that, when Eloise spins in happiness as Leah grabs Humbert by the neck and glares at him within an inch of his life, the hat floats off her head. Aizen watches it as it glides across the room. Only kept aloft by the ribbons constant spinning the hat flies across the room until it comes to a stop on top of Starrk's head.

"Oh my…."

It is then, as Eloise's and Starrk's eyes meet, that Aizen begins to wonder if maybe he's pissed off a particularly vengeful higher power lately. He watches yet another Clique form before his eyes. Well, form isn't exactly the right word as Starrk already has a pack. Asmall one that only holds one other Arrancar—a young child that Starrk constantly dotes on.

It's not that Aizen doesn't like these little Cliques. Or that he would stop them if he could. It's just that, from what he's seen, the bonds formed in these packs run deep. It's the closest thing to love a soulless creatures can feel in any shape or form. What he doesn't like is that when a bond is broken—when one of them dies—the results can be devastating.

It can drive the surviving Arrancars mad.

With a war coming, there's bound to be a lot of broken bonds to come. But, as he eyes shift to Grimmjow, who stood tall—who stands tall after losing his whole pack in one night, Aizen can't push back the hope that, maybe, everything will be okay.

"Ceci-Anne!"

The shout brings Aizen out of his thoughts just in time to see the purple-haired girl race to her hat that's now pinned to one of Aizen's wall, ribbons jerking as if pain, by a white glowing arrow.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," a dark-skinned woman says as she steps away from the circle of her group. "He's too old for you, Eloise," she mumbles to the young one as she replaces the bow on her back and moves towards a still frozen Dr. Day. Though Aizen isn't sure how she can even tell where Dr. Day is standing as she's blindfolded.

Yes, blindfolded.

"I am Ceci-Anne," she says with a bow before motioning for the lioness to release the now calm She Wolf. A black bandage covers her face, while more white ones cover her torso. Aizen can't quite help himself as he looks towards his dark-skinned, blind, yet still able to see Third in Command, Tōsen Kaname.

Tōsen's stiffens under his Lord's questioning gaze. He shrinks in on himself from his spot next to his Lord's throne. He briefly wonders if he's going to be punished for apparently just looking like one of the intruders. That would be highly unfair if you ask him but, then again, he knows Lord Aizen's itching to get back at him for cutting off Grimmjow's arm as punishment.

Yes, he was the one that cut off Grimmjow's arm.

The blue-haired idiot had disobeyed direct orders and launched an attacked without permission. While Lord Aizen believed the loss of his whole pack was punishment enough, Tōsen did not approve of his disobedience. He stands firm in his opinion that Grimmjow deserved a harsher punishment for having brought the attention and wrath of the Death Gods onto them ahead of schedule.

Because of the brute's stupidity they have to watch every move they make since, now, they're being actively hunted. In his own opinion, Tōsen feels as if he did the right thing so he allows his shoulders to drop slightly. He resigns himself to his fate and stands by his actions, only to jump when the girl in question cries out.

"How racist! Just because I am black and he is too, you think I'm his daughter," she accuses, stomping her foot in frustration. Aizen briefly wonders how she managed to learn that tiny tidbit of information if she can't see and therefore shouldn't know Tōsen's black.

Or that they're looking at him for that matter.

"And blind, don't forget blind."

The voice is high, eerie. It sends a shiver down Aizen's back as it seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

"What the hell, Matilda," Ceci-Anne yells, as she turns to look for the She Wolf. Only to find her once again perched on Ulquiorra. The boy's once more on his back. He's sprawled on the floor as the She Wolf straddles him. Aizen inwardly questions why the boy's putting up with it. Particularly when he sees Ulquiorra run a pale hand through the fur on her tail.

The girl may have him pinned and unable to reach his Zanpakuto but a nicely aim Cero—a Hollow Flash—would solve all of the boy's problems.

"She did not speak," Ulquiorra says as he continues to glare up at the girl. Aizen's inclined to believe him. The girl's mask only covers the top half of her face and if anyone would have seen her lips move it'd be Ulquiorra since she's sitting on him.

"That's what she wants you to think," Ceci-Anne snarls nonetheless as she stomps her way over to them. Again, Aizen wonders how she knows where they are but decides to just let it go when Ceci-Anne effortlessly picks the girl up by the back of her shirt.

You know, it really says something that everyone's seems to be able to pick her up without a struggle but his fourth can't knock her off him to save his life.

"Ceci-Anne. Matilda," Leah calls out warningly when Matilda growls and bares surprisingly sharp canines as Ceci-Anne holds her aloft. Aizen can't help but admire that that's all it takes for Ceci-Anne to let the girl go. Just a call of her name and Ceci-Anne releases the She Wolf without any back sass. That she crashes none too gently onto his Espada is another story.

That has to hurt.

Okay, this has gone on long enough.

"Explain," Aizen says—no, demands as he makes his way back to his throne. "Who are you, how did you get here, and why does Ceci-Anne insist that is her voice," Aizen demands as he sits. Beside him Tōsen stands at attention, ever the faithful third.

"Well, the thing is, we think she can talk," Leah begins, nervousness etched onto on her face because even the intruders can see that The Lord's patience is wearing thin. "It's just that no one's ever seenher do it so we've taught her sign language, though Ceci-Anne claims that voice from before belongs to her."

Lord Aizen nods slowly before motioning to those in Leah's group who have yet to be introduced.

"And they are?"

"That's Duncan," she said, pointing towards a man in a suit armor who stands next to the lioness almost protectively. Aizen hardly gives him a glance. Humans are slow at best, so a man in a suit of armor must move at a crawl. "The lioness is Ariel."

The lioness looks up at him with eyes too bright, too smart—toohuman—to be those of a mindless animal. She even goes so far as to bow—well, bow as well as a lioness can. Head ducked respectfully, chest lowered slightly while her tail—long and metallic and definitely not a normal lion's tail—is kept high.

"And this is Takumi," Leah continues and points to a young man carrying more knives, swords, and weapons than Aizen thinks is strictly necessary. There are knives strapped to his chest and arms and poking out from his boots, Katanas dangle from both hips, and a huge sword that would put Ichigo's to shame is strapped to his back.

Oh yes, this young one is definitely lethal.

There's a tense silence as Aizen waits for Leah to continue. He knows that there's more to it than that and Leah's reluctance to speak only proves him right. Lethal as they might appear he has the upper hand here and they know it.

"We are a team of armed forces," Leah begins grudgingly. It's with some silent order—one Aizen misses and is incredibly surprised at—that her team falls into formation. Even the wolf gives up her spot on his fourth to take her place next to her leader. "Assassins, really. Mostly hired by the government. We take out anyone that's considered a threat to public safety. For a price, of course.

"I am the Leader," she says and bows again. "As for how we got here. I'm not too sure actually," she mumbles and throws a look around the room. "In fact, I don't even know where Hueco Mundo is. Takumi?"

"Never heard of it," Takumi says as he pulls something from his pocket and begins poking at it. "But wherever we are, there's no signal. Not even the inbuilt Global Positioning System on my communicator can pin point our location."

"Are we still in America," Eloise asks as she stares up at Aizen with wide eyes.

"You're pretty fucking far from America," Nnoitra says and probably would have said more if Aizen hadn't thrown him a glare.

These humans obviously know nothing about the war between the Death Gods and his Arrancars. In fact, he's pretty sure they don't even know there are two more realms besides the one humans originate from. Of course, that could be because the knowledge of the other realms is information only certain, special humans are privy to.

Assassins or not, this group has not been informed of the existence of 'The Soul Society'or 'HuecoMundo' and Aizen intends to rectify that. Preferably before The Soul Society learns of their existence and tries to mislead them into joining their side.

"If you don't know where you are, how did you end up here?" Aizen asks. He's honestly curious to find out the answer. Humans who can travel at will between the realms are unheard of and it'd be to his advantage if these humans can.

"We were…."

There's a long pause in which Leah debates with herself over telling the full truth and it's only as Aizen raised a challenging brow that she continues.

"We were, ah, doing an interrogation," Leah says, a scowl coming over her face. "Our home base had just been infiltrated so we had to destroy it and run. Still, we managed to capture one. A man who claimed he was working with 'The Central' and investigating us under the grounds that we were working for you."

And all Aizen can do, as nine pair of eyes stare up at him expectantly, is gape.

Well, shit.