A/N: Hello again! I am so happy to see people out there reading this budding fic! Again, it is a joy to read your comments and wonders, and although I may not address each one directly, I think of you reviewers who take the time to write a review as I write the next chapter. I am sorry this one took a while! Without further ado, onwards to the story!

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Lemon. Gin. Triple sec. Lillet. Absinthe. Snaps of cinnamon and anise. All aligned in a straight row.

First, a jigger each of gin, triple sec, and Lillet was poured into the shaker. A towel caressed the bottle, lip to neck, before being recapped after each pour. With a cocktail stirrer, she measured a spoonful of emerald absinthe, which joined the others in the shaker as she gave the mixture a few stirs, fingers conducting the long, thin handle like a wand. Ice and alcohol swirled alongside each other rapidly, without a single brash clang of metal against metal. Lemon juice splashed onto the ice at the press of a squeezer before the shaker was capped. She set it aside, wiping down the work area with a folded towel and sliding forward the saucer on with the cinnamon and anise. Absinthe was drizzled onto it, a lighter flickered and set alight the spices like tinder, releasing its scent with the coiling smoke above it, and she quickly captured it with a wide-mouthed, stemmed crystal glass. The grey wisps gathering inside the dome of the glass was like staring into the foggy depth of a fortune teller's crystal ball, except there was the certainty of an intriguing if not a palate-pleasing cocktail in the near future. As the fire extinguished itself and the spicy smoke further imbued itself into the vessel, ice was placed in the shaker before she began to jostle it in a fluid, rhythmic pattern, the contents chattering and mingling, the flavors melding and complimenting. The cocktail soirée ended as the completed concoction was poured into the smoky glass and capped with a transparent glass lid.

He watched her elegant movements, mesmerized and entranced as if they were from a geisha's performance. Each glide of her hands and flourish of her wrists were refined and uncontrived. Her face was calm and serene like she had surpassed the requirement of concentration, and the formula and its nuances came naturally to her as breathing.

"Smoky Corpse Reviver Number Two. Perfect hair-of-the-dog cure for last night's hangover, or for the headaches of the day." Orihime presented the drink and ended the performance was a bow. "Aromatic, sweet and citrusy, peppered with the scent and spice of absinthe and anise. Goes down easy but never to be underestimated."

"That was incredible, Inoue. You do that for every order?"

"Yes, of course! When a customer orders our signature cocktail or any of our drinks for that matter, we always make sure they receive the best version possible. The Smoky Corpse Reviver is one of our signatures and a bestseller."

Ichigo gently lifted the glass lid and took a sip, beckoned by the aroma that tickled his senses. The taste was intense, well-deserving of its namesake. It was a jolt to the system, a shock of adrenaline, with the burn of a searing kiss and the smolder of a summer twilight. Despite the cocktail being iced, warmth spread throughout his body, from the tip of his tongue to the pads of his feet. It was a surge of rejuvenation, the panacea to a cold drought of desolation and apathy. A Corpse Reviver, with marvels that transcended the purely physical senses. It took only one sip, and he felt like he understood why it was a signature at the Soten Kisshun.

Emotion and the headiness of the alcohol flooded his senses. It took him a second to come back down to earth. "It's even more amazing than it looks. How did you learn to make something like this? You looked like a real natural."

"My brother. My brother was the amazing one, not me." Orihime's smile failed to conceal the hint of melancholy in her voice.

"Sora?"

"Yes. Sora-oniisan, after he stole us away from our parents, took an apprenticeship under the previous owner of this place, before it was known as Soten Kisshun. He was kind, and he housed us and taught Sora the craft in return for our efforts in helping with the upkeep of his bar. As time went by, the barmaster grew older, and he bequeathed my brother with his lifeblood at his passing, who turned it into the bar you see now. Sora-nii's dream was to have a bar that would be a respite from life's weary ways, whether it was with a drink or two or just a place to get away and be greeted with a friendly face. Its doors would be open to anyone who needed it. He rechristened it The Soten Kisshun. And dedicated the rest of his life to making it a bastion of hospitality and contentment.

"The Smoky Corpse Reviver Number Two is his creation. Years ago, he taught me how to make it. He taught me his whole belief system on being a good bartender. And I want to do all I can to keep his dream alive."

Her face said it all— her brother had been the center of her world. She had adored him, admired him, been inspired by him. Ichigo almost felt the gnaw of jealousy at the unadulterated affection that colored her words. Which was utterly ridiculous because it was her brother and he seemed to be no longer of this world.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Ichigo murmured. "Sounds like he was a really great guy. You two must have been very close."

Orihime solemnly nodded.

"Yes. It was all so...so senseless, you know? As we were closing up one night, one minute he says he's stepping outside to check on a disturbance, and the next minute I find him face down in his own blood, and all I could do was just—" The words caught in Orihime's throat. As if she couldn't bring herself to say them out of hurt or out of shame.

Ichigo wanted to open his mouth, to say something, say anything to comfort her and keep her from crumbling. But what words could he even say?

"—Scream. It was all I could do. Scream. I don't remember if it was from my mouth or in my head, but it was all I could hear." Orihime's eyes, gray and a hurricane of emotions—pain, sorrow, and the most heartbreaking thing of all: guilt, pierced his own, and nearly swept him away. She didn't need to say anything further, because her eyes said it all.

Ichigo swallowed a lump. He was relieved that the Soten Kisshun has emptied out already, leaving just the two of them in the room. It never struck him how long he had lingered at the bar or how late it had become, and it was completely lost to him why he had initially decided to pay another visit to Soten Kisshun on his off day, this time alone.

"I'm not very good at comforting people, and I'm definitely not an insensitive idiot enough to tell you how your brother must have felt, but even from an outsider's point of view, you're doing a pretty damn fine job running things."

"Oh!" Orihime let out a breathy laugh and a watery smile. "Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that."

Orihime's smile had returned, and it was like clouds parting to make way for the sun.

"But...you have dreams yourself, don't you?"

"Me?"

"Well yeah. I mean, you can only chase someone else's dream for so long, right? Don't tell me you haven't ever thought about what you've wanted in life."

She bit her lip in pensive. "You know, I've always dreamt that in another life, I could have been a school teacher. And I'd love to be a baker. An astronaut, even! Oh, I have enough thoughts and dreams to fill five lifetimes!"

Ichigo gave a low whistle. "That's a lot of dreams you've got there, Inoue. Not too late to get started on some of them in this lifetime."

"You are so incredibly right, Kurosaki-kun. I have so many wishes: I wish could sprint down to the streets of Seireitei, try every flavor of every cupcake shop there! I would love to even smell the famous chocolate-frosted donut filled with five types of custard and decorated with sprinkles even more colorful than the rainbow that I hear customers sometimes talk about! But I could never bring myself to abandon The Soten Kisshun. It's my brother's dream...it's the reason why I'm alive. I owe my life to it. But don't look so sad, Kurosaki-kun! It's a joy to be here, and I'm so grateful to have been able to meet people like Urahara-san and Yoruichi-san. Tatsuki-chan and Sado-kun, too. And you, of course! To be able to meet so many wonderful people...I think that itself is a dream fulfilled.

"I hope that in every one of my five lifetimes' worth of dreams, I am able to meet someone like you."

•••••••••••••••••••

Ichigo turned Inoue Sora's name over and over like a coin in the palm of his mind. It might have been strange for him to be fixated on someone unrelated to him deceased a few years ago, but everything about his death screamed foul play. And although he knew that justice always being served only existed in stories and miracles, he desperately wanted it to be true for Orihime's case. To press her more about the subject was out of the question, but sometimes being in the police force had its advantages. The expert on foul play himself was only two floors above Ichigo's own office. Problem was, the captain tended to be incredibly private and elusive, and as he was probably knee deep in the recent (coincidental) Inoue case, barging in to rifle through his files was not in anybody's best interest.

So naturally, he turned to Rukia.

"Oi Rukia. You remember when your beat was west of Ame and South of Mayonaka? On the outskirts of Hueco Mundo and Seireitei?" He asked one morning after his shift as he handed his nightly report to his commanding officer. Renji had already taken leave, muttering something about seeing her later anyway. Which was weird since Ichigo had never gotten an invitation to join even though they typically went out as a trio.

"Yes. But that was years ago." Rukia's eyes narrowed. "It's not exactly a peaceful beat, Ichigo. Are you bored or something? And by something, I mean looking for trouble, as we both know."

Well, that didn't take long. At least now he knew the whole playing coy thing wasn't going to work. It was just as well, Rukia was never one for bullshit, whether it was cutting it or calling it, she didn't have a tolerance for it, and it was a point Ichigo greatly respected her for.

"The name Inoue Sora ring a bell?"

Rukia's body visibly stiffened before steeling herself. She tossed onto her desk the papers he had handed her, crossing her arms as she turned to fully face Ichigo. "I didn't think I'd hear that name again. That was quite a while back. Why the sudden interest?"

"We're talking about the same one? Killed in an apparent homicide in front of his bar a few years back?"

"I was one of the first responders to that scene. It was an...emotionally taxing report to write up," Rukia grimaced.

"You think I could take a look at it? For uh...research purposes," his reply was not wholly a lie, but he was unsure of whether or not Rukia would actually buy into it.

"You think you anyone can access investigative archives like it's some kind of public library? And for what, so you can run around and play hero? Do you think you can discover something that my brother has not already?"

Ichigo was left reeling from her words. He wasn't offended so much as confused. When it came to her job, Rukia was unwaveringly cool and collected. But the Rukia in front of him was rattled, and the wall of ice she was raising was bitterly frigid.

"What the hell? Ease up, Madame Commander. I'm just curious about it. Maybe I think there's something to be learned from it. It's not like it's going to kill anyone." Besides the ones already deceased, but who could ever hurt the dead?

"I'm...I'm sorry." She sighed and eased off her hackles and rubbed her arm, deflated. "It's a sensitive case for me. In the course of your career as a police officer, you will inevitably see and encounter things that change you. I will never forget the way that girl wailed like her own life had been ripped from her and not the lifeless body she was cradling in her arms. And as we performed the initial investigation, she was basically catatonic. Didn't speak or move. Her eyes were just staring unblinkingly.

"In some ways, I could understand losing someone you held so dearly in your heart. I felt the same about Hisana. But I was prepared for her last days. That other girl—his sister, I found out—never could have ever fathomed his to be in that way. I followed that case alongside Nii-sama. Religiously. What few leads we had never got us anything substantial. The trail ran cold and the case froze over. I never found out what happened to the girl that day."

"Rukia...I had no idea. I mean, I remember you being especially exhausted for a time back then, but I didn't know it was about this. You never let on anything about it."

"My pains are not affairs to burden others with." She sighed. "Very well. If you insist on laying eyes on case #120085, we'll need to retrieve it from Nii-sama's digital archives. Luckily for you, you're looking at one of only two people who have access to it." Rukia's switch from solemn to smug was almost in a blink of an eye, and Ichigo didn't know which was scarier, how cold she could be or how quickly her mood could change. Dare he even ask if Byakuya was privy to the fact that she could access his computer and files?

They formulated a plan—she would discreetly ask for the key to Captain Byakuya's office as he was leaving for the day, feigning that she had forgotten something important in it when she visited his office to thoughtfully present him with tea made from the finest matcha leaves earlier in the day. Then, she would log onto his computer (never mind how she knew the password), access his database storing the digital reports, copy them to a pocket USB, and quickly make her escape. It was simple as that; the mission would be accomplished in less than ten minutes.

"That's great and all, but...why did you illustrate all of it using Chappy drawings?"

"Because you are taking me to the Chappy Cafe in Seireitei in return for my efforts," Rukia growled. "In return for me lying to Nii-sama, I am demanding two dishes and a Chappy parfait. And we are getting up early to get Chappy soufflé pancakes before they sell out!"

"You know we're going to be the oldest people there by like decades, don't you?"

"My demands will be met if you want your file! Don't forget, I can make your work life a living hell if you dare cross me," she warned.

•••••••••••••••••••

The night of the day Rukia handed him the file, Ichigo asked if his partner had any objections to ending another uneventful night patrol slightly earlier, and Renji was all too willing. Fortunately, their absence would not be felt, as Hanataro, a rookie reserve, was on shift that night and more than happy to sub in for them the remainder of the shift.

Settling down at his cubicle desk in front of the computer, Ichigo's eyes darted the room left and right. Not that anybody could see what was on his screen with a passing glance since it was shielded by a thin sheet of darkened film, but what he was doing felt ethically compromising if not illegal. He could hear his heart beating in his ears and clammy moisture collecting on his palms. Anxiety brewed at the pit of his stomach. Was it because this was supposed to be private information? Or was it because it felt something close to sacrilegious to unscrupulously gain and tread upon final trails of another man, another human being who had lived his days trying to make the best of the cards he was dealt with until someone tore it away from him?

The doubts rushing through his mind steadied Ichigo from instantly opening the file on his computer. Would Sora have wanted it to be this way? Wouldn't he have wanted to be saved from the obscurity of plenty of other cases that have gone cold? His soul may never find peace in bringing the perpetrator to justice, but at least it can find solace in people knowing his story. In any event, the mystery of his death had better chances now than rotting away in a digital abyss, didn't it?

'Playing hero' and 'looking for trouble' in the sound of Rukia's voice echoed in the chasms of his brain, but his mind was made up as he double-clicked the icon on his screen.

Case #120085 splayed open on the screen. The wheel of the computer mouse rattled as Ichigo scanned and scrolled through the many pages. There was the initial report by Rukia, pictures of the body and the position it was in, blood splatters, notes with witness reports. Included was a copy of the official death report signed by Dr. Kurotsuchi Mayuri, stating that the cause of death had been exsanguination caused by gunshot wounds, one to the chest and another that pierced the jugular. Death was rapid.

"Sister of the victim" came up a few times, and Ichigo made sure to read over the sentences containing it carefully. The statements corroborated with Rukia's accounts; Orihime had been so traumatized, she was rendered paralyzed and mute. Some documents that were originally on paper had been scanned into the file, and he could recognize Byakuya's meticulous, inimitable handwriting on them. From the bullets that had been extracted from the body, their unique markings lead the police to be able to trace them back to the gun they were fired from. Byakuya had noted that the gun, coincidentally or not, matched that of an illegal shipment that had made its way into the northern harbors of Seireitei that Gin had seized just a week earlier. Needless to say, it was just as much a surprise to Gin as it was to the investigators, as all seized contraband was kept under high security in the winding lower basements of the police department, where it was difficult to access. If it had been raided prior to police obtainment, then it was news to him. Captain Ichimaru was not questioned any further. The whereabouts of the murder weapon was never ascertained.

The last page of the report only contained Byakuya's handwriting. Except rather than the usual immaculate penmanship, it looked like it was scrawled in a hurry. Ichigo could pick out words like "harbor" and "children" and "Diamond Dust" and a name he had never seen before.

Grand Fisher.

It didn't make any sense to Ichigo. Sure, fishers could be found at the harbor. Sometimes children played there, too, against their parents' wishes. He racked his mind trying to fit the pieces together, but it was like trying to solve a puzzle blind, without knowing what the picture was even supposed to look like. There was a reason why Byakuya was the homicide expert, but then again, Ichigo had been up all night from his shift.

He closed the document and debated on whether or not to obliterate the evidence of his wrongdoing. It wasn't as if he could miraculously blow this case wide open again, so why even bother keeping it? To allow the chance of incriminating himself (or Rukia, actually) for pilfering secret documents? It wasn't a particularly relishing thought, so he permanently deleted it from the flash drive.

Rukia was well determined for Ichigo to be good on his word, as the next morning, she forced Ichigo to take her to the Chappy Cafe on Kompeito Street in Seireitei. (Renji was in tow as well, but Ichigo made it clear his end of the bargain was solely with Rukia.) The place was any Chappy the Rabbit fan's dream as it was stocked from ceiling to floor with Chappy merchandise, from plushies to pencils to fine china. One of its major draws was its cafe, serving various Chappy-featured entrees as well as desserts, including their famous soufflé pancakes with strawberries and marshmallow fluff as the ears and nose.

How multifaceted his commanding officer was was something of a wonder. She could be scary when she wanted to, forceful when she needed to, cunning when she wanting something out of someone, but the face she made as she munched on her Chappy parfait? It was hard to even imagine her as a cop. She was like a kitty on catnip. Even Renji's mouth was agape watching her eat, his spoonful of Chappy curry rice hanging in midair. Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Rukia? his face seemed to say. Ichigo was fairly sure his expression mirrored the same.

When Rukia noticed everyone else at the table had stopped to stare, she quickly regained her composure.

"Damn Rukia," croaked Renji. "How come you never look at m—fffff!"

She silenced him by stuffing his own spoonful of rice into his mouth.

"It's impolite to speak while you're eating, Renji," she snapped. "Ichigo. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah...I think so," he replied, when in reality, the thing he was absolutely sure about was that looking into Inoue Sora's case had raised more questions than it did answers.

•••••••••••••••••••

Another night on duty, and tonight, the still, quiet night was suffocatingly unbearable.

But not nearly as unbearable as the sound of something rattling against Renji's teeth in his mouth. The crunch of it as he crushed it between his teeth was what Ichigo imagined the other man's face would sound like if it were to meet his fist.

Renji, however, was blissfully unaware of any violent thoughts brewing against him as he cooly flipped the head of his dispenser for another piece of candy and popped the colorful morsel into his mouth. It wasn't until he felt the heated glare of Ichigo disdainfully watching him that he spared the other man a shred of attention.

"What? You want some?" Renji extended his candy dispenser towards Ichigo.

Ichigo's face contorted into a mixture of horror and disgust. As if Renji had asked him for a blowjob instead of simply offering him candy.

"Is that...is that what I think it is? You got a fucking Chappy candy dispenser?"

Renji shrugged. "Well, technically it's Yuki. Chappy's a rabbit. This one's a duck. See?" He lifted his thumb, revealing a duck head that opened at the mouth, and nestled in its mouth was a blue piece of candy the shape of a rabbit head. "Candy's Chappy-shaped, though. Soda-flavored."

"So help me God, I swore I would rue the day I saw another Chappy face or a Chappy-related item ever again after leaving that place," Ichigo bemoaned. "Why don't you go ahead and put me out of my misery, just jam that dispenser as hard as you can, right here." He pointed to the area of his brow between his eyes. "Just one clean shot, I'll be gone before you even know it."

"Oi, it's really not that bad. Rukia's got one, too. Except hers is actually Chappy. The candy's kinda effervescent and lemony and helps keep me awake."

"Rukia's really gotten under your skin, you know that? Do you hear yourself right now?" Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard. "Have you two been hanging out a lot lately? How did you already get to the café with Rukia the other day, your apartment is like way in the other direction."

Renji made a gasping noise, but it was abruptly cut off by the piece of candy in his mouth lodging into his airway. He started to choke, gagging and beating his chest as he tried to eject the offending soda-flavored Chappy head from his throat.

Ichigo wasn't annoyed with him enough to witness Renji choke to death in a heated patrol car, so he started walloping his hand on Renji's back, at least until the dispatch radio crackled to life.

"O-officers Kurosaki and Abarai! P...please come in!"

The nervous voice belonged to none other than Hanataro.

"I...I need some backup! Kikuchi Park, b-by the abandoned play area! Male, six feet, maybe over, light blue hair...I don't think I can take him on alone. Please! Come quick!"

"Hanataro! This is Ichigo. We'll be there in five minutes. Out." Ichigo ended the transmission and looked at a watery-eyed Renji, who basically got into a fight with a Chappy candy and nearly lost. "You done dying yet? We actually have a call to respond to."

Renji's only reply was a middle finger in the air.

Once upon a time, Kikuchi Park was a gem, tucked away deep within Rukongai. It was small, but nonetheless, a haven where children could go to after school and enjoy the swings and merry-go-round, or families would have small picnics under the gazebo overlooking the fountain where children would oftentimes splash around in. But when the rumors drifted in, people stopped coming.

In a nighttime bust that resulted in the arrest of five juveniles in the park, families were scared off and forbade their children from stepping foot on its grounds. The park became abandoned and defunct as the city ceased funding for its upkeep and care. The city's final act was a wire fence built around park perimeters. It did little to stop those who wanted entry. Over time, nature reclaimed it, and now, it was tangled with weeds and thorny bushes, and the rusted, faded children's playground casted twisted shadows in the moonlight. Foliage reached out between the wires of the fencing. Upon its decline, the conjecture surrounding Kikuchi Park became true: it was now a haunt for less-than-legal activity and trade. Despite Soul City police department efforts to surveil and curtail such activity, delinquents were undeterred as the thick vegetation surrounding the area disrupted visibility from the outside, but nobody cared enough to trim it down.

When Ichigo and Renji arrived on the scene, they first saw the flashing lights of the patrol car, illuminating the figure of Hanataro nervously keeping watch at a makeshift entrance that someone had made by cutting through the metal wire.

"You saw him coming through here, Hanataro?" Renji inquired.

Hanataro shakily nodded. "I saw his figure from a distance. Male, lean-built about six feet, with frosty blue hair. As I approached, I heard some shouting. I don't think he's alone in there. But then I heard some hits landing like someone was being punched. I was about to go in, but then the fence rattled like someone was being thrown at it! That's when I knew I had to call for backup."

Renji grunted in agreement. "Good call, Hanataro. Wouldn't want you rushing into something you can't handle and end up getting hurt. We'll go in to check it out. You stay out here in case someone else tries to come in."

Honestly, the police force sometimes seemed out of Hanataro's scope of personality, like throwing a puppy into a pack of feral cats. But Isshin said he had heart and there wasn't enough of it in the police department, so he was hired onto the traffic team.

Trying to cross the jagged metal of the cut-up wire fence without being scratched up wasn't a problem. But the brambles behind it proved to be an issue. Ichigo swore he had at least two thorns still pinned to his pant leg, grazing at his skin, after breaching the spiky bushes. Apparently just trying to force their way through was not the best of ideas.

They saw the man that Hanataro had described by the merry-go-round, smashing another man's head against the metal base. The sound of bone and sinew crunching with the echo of metal being thumped, accented by the wet slick of blood, was sickening.

"What-did-I-say-what-the-FUCK-did-I-say-about-fucking-me-over-you-just-don't-do-it!" Each word was punctuated by a clang of the other man's head against the merry-go-round.

"Stop right there, asswipe!"

Renji shined a flashlight like a spotlight on the violent man as Ichigo held a taser poised at the ready.

"I suggest you stop what you're doing unless you like fifty-thousand volts to the nuts," Renji barked.

The other man muttered a quick "Aw, shit," before bolting off.

Ichigo and Renji started to give chase, but he had leveraged himself on the top of a rotting wooden bench to jump to the part of the fence above the hedges and climb out. It left the remaining two with a heavy decision: attempt to jump out as he did, or round back through where they had come in from to get back out.

"Janken to jump or turn back?

"Fuck no! We are jumping this thing," yelled Ichigo. He still had the thorns in his leg to cement his decision. More importantly, time was quickly slipping by as the other man was escaping their grasp.

Back outside of Kikuchi Park, Ichigo could barely make the form of the blue-haired man running about one block north before making a mad dash towards it. His breath and the rapid beating of his heat flooded his ears. They outnumbered the escapee, but the intersecting streets made it hard to try to cut him off somewhere. Moreover, the narrow alleyways worked to their disadvantage and offered even more options for him to evade them.

The street they were running down seemed neverending. Turning the corner, Ichigo nearly lost hope that they would never catch up at this rate. That is until he saw a patrol car blocking the street.

It was Hanataro, facing the man on the run alone, his jaw clenched and staring at him with his taser pointed dead on the miscreant.

"Kurosaki-san! Abarai-san! I've got him!" Hanataro shouted before returning his glare at the man in front of him. "H-hands in the air! I don't want to have to use this against you!"

The other man complied with an incredibly irritated look on his face.

When they were able to catch up, it took a second for Ichigo and Renji to recompose themselves.

"Identify yourself," barked Renji, still heavily breathing.

"Name's Grimmjow. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez," the other man lazily replied. As if this was all a huge waste of his time.

"You want to tell us why you were running away from us?" Ichigo commanded.

Grimmjow merely shrugged. "Takes two to make it a chase. I coulda just been on a stroll."

Renji's brow twitched, temper flaring at Grimmjow's flagrant disregard for authority. "That's it, you chimpira piece of crap. Hands on the vehicle." He shoved Grimmjow against the patrol car and began to pat him down.

"Hey! Fuck, I got rights, ya know!"

"Abarai-san, I ran a check on his background. A few misdemeanors—public intoxication, indecency—but nothing too major," Hanataro chimed in.

Renji's inspection of Grimmjow yielded a wad of cash and a brown paper bag. Inside of the paper bag were numerous small, clear sachets containing a powdery substance. Upon shining light on it, the substance was white with bits that glittered and winked back, with an aquamarine gleam. It was pretty, almost like the craft glitter that Yuzu used for class projects when she was younger, but something about it screamed danger.

"Get your hands off my shit! That's private property!"

Renji scoffed. "The only private thing you'll have tonight is your own cell downtown," he said as he cuffed Grimmjow's hands together. "And this is on top of the assault and battery we saw happening back there. Hanataro, take him away." He stuffed a loudly protesting Grimmjow into the back of the police car.

"We'll have to take this to get tested by Ishida right away." The small packets gleamed back at Ichigo underneath the moonlight. "Might even have to get Gin on this. Gonna be a long report in the morning," sighed Ichigo. "Oi, did you already tell Hanataro to leave?"

"Yeah, why?"

"So...we're just gonna leisurely walk back to where we started?"

"No...Oh. Shit. HANATARO!"

•••••••••••••••••••

"Well, well, if it isn't our old friend, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow's pugnacious temper had fizzled out around five in the morning, and when Renji and Ichigo led Captain Ichimaru Gin down to him three hours later, he was languidly picking his nose and flinging its contents to the far corner of his holding cell.

"You know this guy?"

"Sure do, Officer Kurosaki-kun. We've had a few...scuffles...in the past. This one likes to flirt with the law, but always seems to manage to not get burnt."

"We found him beating a guy half to death last night in Kikuchi Park. But we thought you might be interested in what we found on him," Renji explained.

"Did ya, now? After all those times we told him to be careful, too." Gin's last words seemed particularly venomous, and all of it was spat at in Grimmjow's direction. Grimmjow's face did not show any reaction outside of its usual haught.

"We sent a sample over to lab for analysis, but the rest we placed into the vault awaiting your discretion.

"Well done, officers. I'll take it from here. Grimmjow-kun here has been a very bad boy, and I'll be sure he understands what kind of trouble he's in."

•••••••••••••••••••

Ichigo didn't think he'd see Grimmjow again for a while. At least not in the streets.

So imagine his and Renji's surprise when they saw a familiar shock of blue hair while patrolling Rukongai the very same night.

It was Grimmjow in the flesh, crouched on a stoop and lazily smoking a cigarette.

By all accounts, he was not doing anything wrong. But that didn't stop Renji from halting the car, stomping over to the curb in front of Grimmjow, pointing an accusatory finger at him, or bellowing loud enough to be heard four blocks over, "What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Grimmjow took a long drag of his cigarette and blew puffs of smoke right into Renji's face. "Having a smoke in front of my own damn house. What else does it look like," he said casually.

"But-I don't-I just-how?" Renji could only sputter.

"Labs came back. Guess it didn't flag for anything illegal. Slap on the hand for beating the shit out of some dickhead who tried to stiff me out of my own money, though. Ain't that a bitch?"

From what Ichigo could tell, it indeed did look like Grimmjow sustained some kind of injury on his hand, specifically his fingers. Three of five of his fingers on his right hand were in splints as if someone had tried to shatter or break them, and he was currently teetering his cigarette between two clunky splint-wrapped fingers.

"Yeah, well you should have gotten much more than that, you chimpira piece of crap! You're all the same- worthless, no-good lowlifes who think you're all hotshot, running around and doing whatever you want since you're in the yakuza, when in reality you're just lowest on the totem pole, a fucking menace to society who should just crawl back up the hole you slid out of."

"Hey. Why don't you say that again, cunt?" Grimmjow's voice was dangerous and low. He had stood up from his step and his nose was an inch away from Renji's in the blink of an eye, teeth bared, canines visible even in the low light of the night. He was as close as he could be without being accused of anything, ready for a fight. "I could say just the same about you, cop. You think you're better than us? Huh? You think because you wear that badge, you're a good guy. When you fire that taser, when you shoot your gun, when you put a man in jail- it's all fine because you're a 'good guy'. Sorry to break it to you, motherfucker, the world doesn't work that way. Some people are just doing all they can to make it through the day."

Somewhere from inside the dilapidated home behind Grimmjow, a voice called for him.

"So think about that the next time you wave your badge around. And step the fuck off my yard. That shit is private property."

He spat at the ground next to Renji's feet before turning around and stalking up the steps to his door and slamming it closed behind him.

Ichigo could see Renji seething with fury, jaws clenched. Renji usually had a retort for every curse thrown his way, but this time he was uncharacteristically silent.

He was about to call Renji back into the car so that they could continue doing what they were paid to do, but he was interrupted when his phone chimed with an incoming message.

[SMS MSG] - August 3, 20XX, 22:45

Fr: (blockednumber)

Sub: urgent

come to SK. immediately. this is not a warning. this is a command.

final note: you are not a police officer.

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A/N: Man...Sometimes I'm caught between the desire to release a chapter or to keep pushing myself to get to some action. Sorry if this seems like another transition chapter. When is something juicy gonna happen?! Next one, I promise!