On a tall building overlooking Urahara Shoten, Gin stood cloaked and silent, watching the sliding door open and a column of warm light cut across the dusty yard. A tall figure in a round hat staggered out drunkenly followed by a slender young woman, in the most shapeless possible shihakusho, arm in arm with a bare-armed and muscular young man, who seemed to be almost as drunk as the older man and was clearly using the woman to keep his balance. They all turned back toward the door and waved cheerfully at their hosts, hidden from Gin's view by the angle of the roof.
He could almost hear their words; they certainly sounded friendly, happy, and inconsequential. The visit, from the moment of the captain and lieutenants' arrival, appeared to be nothing more than a social call.
Tosen appeared, suddenly, on Gin's left. "What do you think?" he asked, and as usual there was both suspicion and hostility in his tone.
"He's your lieutenant," Gin said, smiling cheerfully at the irony. He'd never seen Tosen so unhappy as he'd been over the last month. He'd chosen his lieutenant so carefully, determined to find an honest and dedicated young man, a man of unimpeachable character and absolute loyalty, and his perfect lieutenant had gone and fallen in love. And everything that had made him Tosen's choice guaranteed that he would follow Nanao and her captain to the very end, even if this was what Aizen suspected, an investigation into the truth of the hollow experiments of one hundred years ago and his own captain would be implicated in the wrongdoing. Hisagi Shuhei, soon to be Kyoraku, would give his life without hesitation to uphold the laws of the Gotei. "You tell me."
"He believed Kyoraku wanted him to try various human drinks. It is Kyoraku's idea of welcoming him into the family."
"But only a week after Shiba suddenly makes an inspection of the Thirteenth's shinigami based in the World of the Living? Seems like quite a coincidence," Gin answered. He loved this. Tosen had never been as detached as he claimed, and he was very fond of his lieutenant. He did not want to see the boy as a threat, so without realizing it he was downplaying the possibility. Aizen would probably realize that, but when Gin agreed with Tosen that they had nothing to worry about, he wouldn't be suspicious. It really was perfect.
"Shiba visited with Urahara for less than an hour," Tosen said. "His visit could have been to restock supplies, and I believe he picked up a package for you wife as well. There's no reason to believe Ukitake or anyone else has connected the arrancar to the hollowfication experiments."
Gin frowned. No, there really wasn't, except that he had connected the dots for them. He really was annoyed with the whole lot of them, visiting one after another; it really would be just what they deserved if Aizen decided to eliminate them. They wouldn't get any warning from him, that was for sure. He'd spent too much luck on them already.
Hisagi tripped and nearly took down Nanao with him as he stumbled, and they could hear Kyoraku laughing at the couple from where they stood.
"They are very drunk; how many secret meetings do you think end with everyone getting drunk?" Gin asked.
"This is a waste of time," Tosen declared and vanished.
Gin followed him a second later.
Lieutenant Ise Nanao was very aware of the stares as she entered Division Ten. She'd been getting them all morning, even at her own division where it seemed to her like the whole thing should be old news by now. She'd even decided not to change her name so as not to attract attention to her newly married state. She'd also fought tooth and nail to keep her captain from making a big deal out of things within the Gotei, no parties, no announcements; she'd gone into a long and detailed list of things he was not to do-she had not expected him to commission the construction of a home for her and her husband, now legally his son, within the Eighth Division.
She should have known they couldn't keep it quiet. Shinigami usually didn't give much of a damn what the noble houses were doing, but with a captain and two lieutenants involved they were bound to start paying attention. And what a mess it had all been! They should have eloped like Nemu and Captain Ukitake; his family might have been just as upset as hers-after all, what exactly was Nemu?-but there wasn't a lot they could do after the fact. Instead her family had harassed and threatened Shuhei and very nearly destroyed his career with their absurd complaints to his captain and rumors they'd tried to spread about him. It had been awful, and feeling all the eyes on her, Nanao was feeling fairly certain the awful wasn't anywhere near done.
She straightened her back and held her head just a bit higher as she continued to the captain's office. Surely they couldn't make some new awful rumor out of her just going to speak to Rangiku.
She found Rangiku sitting at her desk with a monstrous stack of paperwork, slowly filling out one page at a time. Her younger son was sitting on the captain's desk with a box of markers and a pair of safety scissors from the World of the Living. He also had a pile that looked like division paperwork which he was currently turning into rainbow-colored confetti while he sang a nonsense song about raining paper.
Nanao paused in the doorway for a moment. The contrast between the golden-haired Kinta cheerfully destroying a pile of paper and the memory of his brother at much the same age sitting in a corner carefully practicing hiragana was striking. There really was no way of knowing what sort of child you might end up with.
She took a deep breath and pulled the door shut behind her, locking it carefully. The last thing she needed was an interruption.
"Auntie Nanao!" Kinta shrieked joyfully, launching himself from the desktop and barely hitting the ground before he was leaping up into her arms.
Rangiku raised her head and smiled. Hey, Nanao," she said. "Good to have you back. Did you have a nice honeymoon?"
Nanao gave Kinta a hug. He was a snugly child even if he was impossible. "Probably the worst in the history of Soul Society," Nanao answered, smiling pitifully. "We should never have gone to the main house. At least we wouldn't have had to listen to them tell us how offended they were."
Rangiku smiled back. "I guess there were a few benefits to being an orphan from Rukongai," she said.
Nanao groaned. "There is that. At least he doesn't have a family to disapprove too. I don't think I could take it. I don't know how Shuhei did. Nearly every one of my male relatives threatened him at one point or another, and people kept complaining about the smell-the smell! Shuhei does not smell!"
"I believe you," Rangiku agreed when it looked like Nanao was about to lose it completely. "But it's over now, right? Over and done, and you can just avoid them for a decade or two until they get over it."
Nanao sighed. "As if they'll ever leave us alone," she said softly. She set Kinta back down on the captain's desk and instructed him to color the next paper purple before she sat down on the couch. "The captain says he'll take care of them, but I don't see what he can do. They're all going to be after me to resign and move to one of the family homes. I don't know how Miyako can stand it; I'm sure I would lose my mind."
"Why should you quit? You're not the head of the family or anything like that. You don't have any responsibility to them like Miyako has, not that that's why she resigned, anyway, but why should you? You're a lieutenant and a valuable asset to the Gotei. There's no reason-"
"I'm pregnant," Nanao interrupted. She smiled suddenly. "I'm going to have a baby!"
Rangiku jumped to her feet. "That's wonderful!" She rushed over to her friend and hugged her tight. "Oh, Nanao! I'm so happy for you! Congratulations!"
"Thank you!" Nanao answered, grinning from ear to ear. "I know we're rushing things, but we both want a family so much. Rangiku, I'm so happy! I feel absolutely awful, and everything's been a complete disaster, but I'm so happy. I can't help it. Who knew you could spend all day vomiting and insulted by more relations than you knew you had and still be happier than you'd ever been in your life."
"Oh, I wonder if it'll be a boy or a girl!" Rangiku exclaimed happily. "It's so nice to have a friend who's going to have a baby too! I'll finally have someone to moan to about getting fat and stretch marks and always needing to use the bathroom and you'll actually understand!"
"What?" Nanao said. "Rangiku, what on earth are stretch marks?"
Rangiku grinned. "This is going to be so much fun!"