AN: So apparently the first chapter, which was intended to be a one-shot, confused everyone. So I wrote another which kind of explains things, because I'm sure Nanao would be just as confused.

For the record, Nanao's zanpakutou spirit is the second half of Shunsui's, the girl with the skull in her hair and the ninja garb. I've named her Sakikaze, and Shunsui and Nanao share her. The taller woman is referred to here as Katen, and she belongs only to Shunsui. The point of having them share a sword spirit was based on the idea that like Starrk and Lilynette, Shunsui and Nanao complement each other and are best when they fight together. But since they're shinigami and not arrancar, I had to explain how they share power somehow.

Also, I know that the ninja girl never speaks in the anime, so it probably seems out of character for her to have lines in this story. But her conversation all takes place in Nanao's mind, and someone has to explain things.

For once, Shunsui was distracted from his distractions. The petals of the peach tree above them drifted by unheeded, the sake went untasted, the notes of the shamisen fell on deaf ears.

Without looking up from her instrument, Katen knew that Shunsui was watching his lieutenant and the smaller half of his sword as they strolled through the division gardens in silence. His hat was tilted back from his eyes, and a peach petal fell onto his cheek. Picking it off, he smiled at it sadly.

The strings of the shamisen stilled. "You look like a man whose daughter has just been married off," Katen Kyoukotsu remarked. Her voice sounded almost wistful... or maybe Shunsui was just projecting his feelings onto his sword.

"It's like having both my daughters married off at once," he replied.

Katen huffed gently. "You've not lost the little one. She's no more distant than she ever has been, even if she's no closer."

"She's closer to Nanao-chan," he argued back.

"So are you," Katen reminded him. "And you didn't seem to mind that last night."

Shunsui took a sip of his sake, and silence fell between them.

Nanao had been walking with Sakikaze for nearly two hours, and not a word had been spoken between them. Not audibly, at least, though Nanao's head buzzed with the newfound voice of her sword, and with the many questions she had.

"How is this possible?" Nanao wondered.

Sakikaze shrugged slightly. "Don't know. Not a lot of research exists about zanpakutou, since it's hard to study someone else's soul. But you already knew that."

Nanao nodded. "Yes. I studied everything we had on the zanpakutou in the library when Captain Hitsugaya was suspected of treason. I guess it's not unprecedented for a sword to have two wielders."

Nanao's mind was quiet for a few moments. "Not quite," Sakikaze finally mused, "I'm not the same when you call me as when Shunsui calls me. I think perhaps because he never knew me as well as he knew Katen."

There was affection in the spirit's tone when she mentioned her other half, as if speaking of a sister or a dear friend. Nanao had not realized the two were so close, considering how Katen had ordered the girl off to accompany Nanao on a mission.

"She sent me to you," the girl replied matter-of-factly. "There was always the smallest thing missing in Shunsui's call, but if Katen answered, I would go with her."

"How could Shunsui not know how to call you out properly after all these years? How could he achieve bankai like that?"

The girl quirked her head slightly, a motion Nanao had grown accustomed to over the few weeks since the blossom viewing party when all of this had started.

"Did you know, he did not even know there was a second form to our manifestation?"

Nanao gasped quietly at the revelation.

"When we fought him in the cave, he realized there was 'something else' there, or so he said. Before that, in our battles, I think he thought of me as one of Katen's instincts. He talked of Katen being in the mood to fight, but Katen's ways are subtle, and though she is always in the mood to fight, she sees fights as play. She likes victory, likes toying with her opponents, but she abhors violence if it can be avoided."

"...and for you, playing is fighting," Nanao guessed, disturbed slightly by the idea. "Fights are like a game, and the strategy of defeating your enemy is a thrill."

"Already you know my nature better than Shunsui."

"But how?" Nanao asked again, perplexed. "Hundreds of years together..."

"Hundreds of years of drinking and women," Sakikaze said sadly, turning to look over her shoulder at her older master. He was looking right at her. "Always something missing. Katen needs something, someone, to motivate her to strike to win, to kill if necessary. That is why we are a pair. I think that need for something, someone else echoes into Shunsui's life.

"It became so much easier to fight when Lisa was around," she continued. "Lisa was never afraid to strike a decisive blow, and she pushed Shunsui in a way no one ever had. It was wonderful, to have Katen feel like she didn't have to hold back so much. It was hard, when she left."

Nanao wiped at her glistening eyes under the edge of her glasses with a sleeve.

"And then you were there," Sakikaze stated. "You pushed him, not with aggression like she did, but with duty, and a desire to protect. He, Katen, they would do anything to protect you."

Nanao was glad she had lifted her sleeve to her face because now she used it to hide her blush. "I... I don't..." she stammered. She was sure she could see Sakikaze smile beneath her mask, and it made her relax.

"You were the thing that was missing. Even so young, you demanded his full effort."

Nanao was embarrassed to think of demanding anything of her captain, but she did recall looking up at him, her nine-year-old self lacking the refined tact she had now, the first time he gave her a tour of the division offices. She had bluntly asked "Why is it such a horrible mess? Don't you ever clean it in here?" Nanao chuckled a little at the memory.

Sakikaze went on. "You made us fight our hardest, together. But more than that, you intrigued me. You, for whom every fight is deadly serious, were a mystery to one for whom a fight is a game and an enemy a toy. I could fight for you, with you, without Katen to temper my aggression, to keep me from going too far. From the first time you and Shunsui fought together on a mission, I knew I always wanted to fight together with you."

Nanao's violet eyes widened, startled. "Thank you," she breathed, awed. "I wanted so much to know who you were. All the other officers learned their shikai by learning the names and natures of their swords. It just happened for me, and everyone who knew that was jealous, but I was just disappointed."

"I remember. The third time you sparred with Shunsui... you were so determined. Fierce. I remember wanting you to do well, maybe even to win if you had an unexpected edge..."

"Unexpected is putting it mildly. I was keeping afloat with kidou, trying to figure out how I was going to get close enough to even use my blade, and then suddenly I'm in shikai, and I was so shocked that I just stood there like an idiot and poor Shunsui nearly ran me through before I realized what was happening."

"Sorry about that. I wasn't quite sure how to work with you at first. I thought I knew how to work with a sword like yours and tried to tell you, but I know it wasn't clear at first."

"How did you know how to work with a sword like mine?" Nanao asked.

"Lisa's friend Kensei also had a short, wind-based sword. I can't remember how many of their sparring matches we watched, and how many of those tricks Lisa thought she could use against a wind-based wazikashi."

"So Captain Muguruma had a sword like mine?"

"Has. He's alive in the living world somewhere. Captain Urahara got the message to some of the officers who had thought they lost people forever in the hollowfication attacks, after the initial hype died down. I would recommend training with him if you could find him, but if Shunsui's searches for Lisa revealed anything, it's that the Vizard don't want to be found."

"Vizard?"

"Masked shinigami," Sakikaze explained. Nanao shuddered in distaste. "Don't knock it until you've tried it," the shorter girl quipped, tapping on the skull affixed to her hair.

"But you're not..." Nanao gasped.

"No. Our bones are mere ornaments. But I doubt Urahara, Tsukabishi, and Yoruichi would have abandoned their squads and the Gotei 13 for a group of people who were as bad as all that."

After thinking for a moment, Nanao nodded her assent.

"...So. What happens now?"

"You'll learn to fight with me, to wield my abilities to their full potential."

"And will Captain Kyouraku have to learn to fight without you?"

"No, I expect I'll be pulling double duty." Sakikaze looked over her shoulder at her original wielder and her other other half, and even though Nanao could only see one teal eye, she could tell there was fondness in the girl's expression.

"I expect you'll have to learn to fight beside us, as well," Sakikaze added.