Summary: We are introduced to the newest Quincy in Karakura. Meanwhile, Mayuri is working to figure out a way to poison Nemu's relationship.

"This is very old."Ryuuken said as he turned the pitted metal cross over in his palm.

"Yes sir. It was given to me by my last living relative. A great uncle. He died in the hospital." The young woman replied.

"Hmm." Ryuuken mused as he studied the small device. He glanced up at his son.

"Uryuu." Ryuuken said. "Instead of sitting there staring uselessly, why don't you make our guest some tea. She looks chilled to the bone."

He handed the pendant back to the girl. She immediately put it back on her wrist. Uryuu frowned, but did as he was told. She was soaking wet and did look cold. They had given her a blanket and a towel to wrap up her hair, but she still shivered. She looked shrunken and considerably less energetic than when they first met in the alley…


"Die shinigami!" the young woman screamed as she ignited her spirit bow.

"What the hell?" Uryuu yelped as he grabbed her wrist. He pulled her arm up so the bolt shot harmlessly into the sky.

"What did you do that for?" He demanded.

The woman's face was twisted with rage and hate. "She's a shinigami. A murderer. They kill Quincys on sight!"

"Not anymore. Besides, she is my friend." He grunted as he twisted her wrist. Through a little known, and up to that point unneeded Quincy technique, he forced her to extinguish her bow.
"And since I'm the only one we know for sure is a Quincy, maybe you should start explaining yourself."

The woman looked back and forth from her wrist to Uryuu's face, clearly trying to figure out how he'd managed to disarm her.

"Huh?" She said.

"Explain yourself." Uryuu said slower. "Let's start with the basics. What's your name?"

"My name?" She said, clearly still confused.

"Yes. What's your name? Where do you come from?" Uryuu asked.

She seemed to gather her wits about her.

"I'm Reiko" she said. "Ijima Reiko. From Hakodate."

"You see, now we're getting along." Uryuu said. "I am Ishida Uryuu, Ijima-san, and this is Kurosutchi Nemu, a soul reaper and a friend."

Nemu bowed politely as she was introduced. Reiko returned it hurriedly, even a bit rudely, fear and distrust written all over her face.

"Um, excuse me." A voice said behind them. "Can I leave now?"

They all turned around to see the soul form of the dead businessman, still clutching the ghostly memory of a briefcase.

"My apologies, sir." Nemu said as she rummaged around in her sleeve. "Give me a moment to find my seal and I'll give you a soul burial."

"Soul Burial?" The man said in a panicky voice. "That sounds pretty final."

"It is." Nemu replied as she put a jade ring on her hand, the seal used to stamp the symbol for soul burial palm side down.

"Now…now wait a minute." The man said while backing up.

"Yes!" A new voice called out. "Wait a minute! Who are all you people and why are you constantly stealing my jobs! This is my beat!"

The group of four looked over to see a shinigami approaching from the end of the alley. He was of medium height and build, and was unremarkable in appearance with the exception of a huge, perfectly spherical afro.

"Hey," Uryuu exclaimed. "I've heard of you. You're that Kura, Kuru….um. Just a minute, it's on the tip of my tongue."

"Kurumadani! Zennosuke Kurumadani!" The shinigami shouted. "I am the only official shinigami for Karakura! Why don't I get any respect around here? And why are all you weirdoes able to see me?"

"More shinigami?" Reiko whimpered as she started backing up to the wall.

"It's all right." Uryuu insisted. "They're not here to kill you."

"I'll just be going." The businessman said as he tried to quietly slip past.

Nemu absentmindedly slapped the seal onto his forehead. His outline blurred and contracted as it transformed to the passing on stage to be carried away by a hell butterfly. Kurumadani watched in disgust at is fluttered past.

"Oh come on!" He groused. "Why do I bother getting out of bed in the morning if everybody keeps stealing my work?"

"Zennosuke Kurumadani." Nemu said coldly. "Is this how the thirteenth division teaches unseated shinigami to address their superiors?"

For the first time, Kurumadani took a good look at Nemu and noticed the lieutenant badge on her arm. His eyes grew wide and he quickly brought himself to attention before bowing low before her.

"Ah, so sorry ma'am. I didn't get a good look at you in this terrible weather. It'll never happen again." He babbled.

"Be sure that it doesn't." She coolly replied. "Attention to detail and diligence are key to rising up through the ranks. That is your goal, is it not Zennosuke Kurumadani?"

"Oh yes, ma'am." He blubbered. "I hope one day to be good enough to be awarded a seat."

"Then perhaps you should resume your patrol." Nemu hinted. "Or people will continue to do your job for you by getting there first."

"Of course ma'am! Of course!" he said with a rigid grin on his face as he backed out of the alley.

"Your advice and guidance are a great inspiration for one such as me. I'll be going now."

He bowed with every step, terrified and transfixed by Nemu's steady gaze. As he was walking backwards, he failed to notice a trash can behind him. He took the resulting fall in stride, rolling backwards after hitting the ground, still bowing and smiling like a maniac as he struggled to take his leave.

"I'm alright, ha, ha! Perfectly fine."He said although he started to limp.

"Goodnight everyone."He said as he reached the street entrance. "I'll just go back on patrol now. I'll um…bye!"

And with that, he vanished from sight.

"Strange guy." Uryuu said as they stared at the spot Kurumadani once stood. Reiko sneezed. Uryuu noticed that she actually looked a little blue. She probably needed to get to shelter quickly.

"You don't look too good." He said. "Why don't you let us walk you home?"

"I don't have a home." She said. "I just got here."

"Well we'll take you to your hotel then." He replied.

"I'm not staying at a hotel." She said. "I ran out of money. All I have is in this bag."

She pointed down to indicate a small duffel bag lying on the ground. She must have dropped it to free her hands to fight.

"Don't you know anyone here?" Uryuu asked. "Isn't there anyone you can call?"
"No." Reiko answered. "I didn't plan that far ahead. All I knew was a possibility that there still might be Quincy in this town. I'm so glad the stories were true. I've been from town to town following old stories and rumors looking for Quincy survivors. This was as far as I was able to get. I just prayed that once I got here, I could find a way to get by."

She sneezed again. She began to shiver as the rain seemed to intensify. She really needed a place to go. Uryuu sighed.

"Tell you what Ijima-san." Uryuu said. "Why don't you come home with me?"

Reiko's face lit up with relief. "Really? You'll let me stay with you? Oh no, I couldn't impose."

"It's no imposition." Uryuu said. "Besides, I'm betting my father will want to take a good look at you."

He faced Nemu through the rain. Understanding passed between them without words. The evening they had planned was not going to happen.

"I'm sorry." Uryuu said. Nemu held up her hand to stop him from saying anymore.

"It's all right." She said. "We'll work something out tomorrow."

"Is everything safe now?" A woman's voice called out.

"Claudia," Nemu said. "I told you to wait where you were."

"Sorry Mum." The artificial soul said. "I thought you might want to pop back into this body now that the rotters have gone."

"Very well." Nemu said.

She walked over to where Claudia stood under her umbrella and merged back into the gigai. She swayed a bit as the body adjusted to the switch in operators. After a moment, her eyes fluttered open. She walked over to Reiko who visibly shrank away from her, shivering violently.

"I don't know what you were told about shinigami, Ijima-san." She said. "You may even be justified in fearing us. Speaking just for me, I hope we can be friends."

Nemu held out her hand. Under Uryuu's stern gaze, Reiko forced herself to reach forward and shake it. She still seemed frightened and disgusted. Nemu pretended not to notice.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" She asked Uryuu.

"You bet." He replied with a smile. It was with some regret he watched as Nemu walked away, disappearing in the rain and gloom…


"Thank you." Reiko said as Uryuu set a steaming cup of tea before her. She wrapped her hands around the cup, allowing the heat from the scalding liquid to warm them. After a few moments, she picked up the cup and after blowing on the tea a couple of times to cool it, took an appreciative sip.

"I have to admit, I'm a little surprised." Ryuuken said. "While it's not impossible for there to be more Quincy survivors in the world, I honestly didn't expect to meet any."

"I've been looking ever since I graduated high school." She replied. "As far as I know, I was the only one on Hokkaido. "

"You say you had an uncle. What about the rest of your family?" He asked.

"My parents died when I was very young." She said. "I'm not sure how it happened. All I was told at the orphanage was they died at the same time. I suppose it was a car accident."

Or a certain mad scientist, Uryuu thought as he adjusted his glasses. He kept his suspicions to himself.

"Growing up, I didn't feel any different from anyone else." She continued. "It was when I turned ten that I started to see them."

"Them?" Uryuu prompted.

"Spirits. People's ghosts." Reiko said. "At first it was just vague shapes. Low noises. After a while, I began to see them more clearly. I tried to tell people, but no one believed me."

She had Uryuu's sympathy there. He remembered himself how it had been when his powers first started to manifest. Unlike this girl, he had his father and grandfather to explain what was happening.

"After a while, I stopped telling people. Ghosts don't really trouble anyone and after I while I learned to ignore them. Then I started seeing the other things. The hollows." She shuddered at the memory from those times. She took another sip of her tea and stared into the cup.

"Their screams were awful when they hunted. I wanted to curl up in a ball whenever I heard it. Seeing them was worse." She looked up from her tea.

"One day, I was watching one as it devoured a soul it had just captured. I had seen it before. It was always bad watching a poor soul torn to shreds right in front of you and you can't do anything about it. But this time was different. It saw me. It knew I was watching it. It knew I could see it. Then it came for me."

"How did you escape?" Uryuu asked.

"I don't know." She said. "I just ran. Ran and hid. In my mind, I tried to disappear."

Probably suppressed her reiatsu instinctively, Uryuu thought. Like a baby duck hiding in tall grass.

"After that, whenever I saw one of those things, I ran." She gave a rueful smile. "You can only do that so many times before people think there's something wrong with you."

"You must have found some way to cope." Ryuuken said.

She shook her head. "No. I didn't. I stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. I was disciplined time and again by the matrons telling me to stop lying, stop causing trouble for the orphanage. One day, after I ran from my classroom screaming about monsters they sent me to a hospital. A sanitarium. That's when the drugs started. They couldn't understand that it just made things worse. I could still see them. Bars and walls couldn't keep them out. My only defense was the patients around me."

She looked down at her tea again. What came out next was barely audible.

"They were easier prey." She whispered.

She took a long drink.

"You spoke of an Uncle?" Ryuuken asked.

Reiko's face brightened a little. "Yes. My great uncle Nori." She said. "The hospital located him while they were cross-referencing my blood type. I was fourteen by then. I think he was almost a surprised as I was. He was a sick man by then and didn't have long. He visited as often as he could. It was he who told me what I was and why I could see those things."

"So that's how you learned you were a quincy?" Uryuu said.

She nodded. "He told me as much as he could remember. The quincy tradition had been dying as our numbers dwindled. He didn't remember much of our heritage. Most of it had been forgotten before it could be passed on. But he did give me this." She held up the old cross hanging from her wrist.
"And he showed me how to use it."

Uryuu sniffed. "He didn't teach you very well." He said.

"No, he didn't." She said with her eyes downcast. "I was just able to form a bow and shoot when he died."

There was an awkward pause. Ryuuken glared as his son for his faux pas.

"I'm sorry." Uryuu said.

"It's alright." She said. "I don't know what you must think of me with my poor skills. I know I still have much to learn."

"You are gracious indeed to my rude son." Ryuuken said. "What happened after your uncle died?"

"I got out of the hospital." She replied. "I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew I wasn't crazy. I had a means to protect myself. And one other thing. He told me that there were others like me. He had a list of towns and provinces he thought might have quincys still alive. He'd been combing through newspapers and gathering old stories all of his life looking for clues that would tell him where a quincy might be. He planned to spend his retirement seeking them out. Then he got too sick. He passed it all on to me. When I got out, I took part time jobs after school. I saved up every yen I could. Once I graduated, I took off for the first city on his list. I decided to spend the rest of my life honoring my uncle by fulfilling his dream to find the remaining quincys."

"Then you have a long way still to go." Ryuuken said. "While there may still be survivors elsewhere, we in Karakura have chosen to let the quincy legacy die."

"No we haven't." Uryuu said.

"Yes we have." Ryuuken said.

"No we haven't." Uryuu said louder.

"Yes, we have." Ryuuken said more emphatically as he looked at Uryuu.

"No we haven't!" Uryuu said even louder.

"Yes we have. Shut up." Ryuuken said in a way that shut down the whole argument. He turned to Reiko.

"With the late hour and bad weather, I would be negligent if I didn't insist you stay the night." He said as if the argument never happened. "Uryuu will see you to the guest room."

She finished her tea, put the cup down and got up from the table. She took the blanket off from around her shoulders and neatly folded it before putting it down on the chair. She bowed to Ryuuken.

"My thanks Ishida-san." She said as she adjusted her glasses. "I don't know how I can repay you."

Ryuuken merely nodded politely in return. Uryuu got up to show her the way to her room.

"This way." He said indicating the staircase. "It's upstairs."

"Thank you." She said as she started towards the stairs. She stopped and turned back around. "This has really been a great day for me. Not only have I found out that the quincy are still alive, I actually saw my first soul reaper today!"

With that said she turned on her heel and, scooping up her duffel bag, went lightheartedly up the stairs. Uryuu hurried after her, but it was too late.

"Uryuu." Ryuuken called after him. "What does she mean by seeing soul reapers?"

His heart pounded in his chest. Ordinarily, he could care less what his father thought about his association with soul reapers. Ryuuken might call him an idiot for allowing the members of soul society for getting him involved in their messes, but it was his life, not his father's. It was his decision to get involved.

No, what he worried about was Nemu. He wasn't ready yet to approach his father with their relationship. About how he felt about her. So what was he going to say?

"A lot of them responded to the hollow invasion. " He improvised. "You must have felt it?"

"That is true." Ryuuken said. "It would have been difficult not to notice."

"The town shinigami showed up after it was all over." Uryuu continued. "Kurama-something-or-another. He was pretty upset we let the arrancar get away."

Well, it wasn't a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth. Ryuuken stared very hard at him for what seemed like a solid hour.

"Very well." He said. "See to our guest and make sure she's comfortable."

With an internal sigh of relief, Uryuu resumed his climb upstairs.


Urahara pulled down the shutters in front of the store as he went about his nightly closing ritual. The receipts were counted up and locked away in the safe. Jinta had swept and mopped the floor. Tessai was bringing up inventory from the back to re-stock the shelves. All was in order.

He went to the back room where he kept his "other" inventory. The secrets of how he obtained goods to and from Soul Society would probably give the Gotei 13 fits, but a good businessman always found ways to keep his customers happy. He pulled a clipboard off the wall and went down the shelves, checking the manifest and making sure it matched the items delivered. Satisfied, he put the clipboard back on the wall and went to the workbench at the end of the room. He frowned in puzzlement at what he found.

"Ururu." He called. "Can you come here?"

He could hear her running down the hall. Soon the sad faced girl jogged into the room, worry written large on her face.

"Yes sir. What can I do for you?" She said.

"Ururu, did you accept the return on this gigai?" He asked. "It's missing the right hand."

"I tried to tell her not to take it." She said looking as though she were about to cry. "I even told her she would forfeit her damage deposit. She said she didn't care. I'm so sorry!"

"There, there." He said as he made comforting gestures. "It's not your fault. Why don't you go and take your bath now."

"Yes sir." She said as she bowed. She left quickly, still a little embarrassed by allowing a customer to damage a valuable gigai.

Urahara rubbed his chin as he held the stump on the mutilated artificial body. Now why would Lieutenant Kurotsuchi want to keep her gigai's right hand?


Nemu had hoped to sneak into the lab unnoticed. No such luck.

Her father was having another of his marathon research sessions. When Captain Kurotsuchi Mayuri stayed up all night working on a problem, everyone else did too. You definitely wanted to be perceived as useful. Those who didn't usually ended up as guinea pigs, knowingly or not. She could hear him yelling as she tiptoed to the door.

"No, no, no, you fools! Do I have to do everything myself?" He shouted.

She peeked inside the lab. His back was turned away as he scrawled formulae across a chalkboard. Akon, Hiyosu and Rin watched as their captain illustrated his point. Nemu figured she wouldn't get a better chance to get to the analysis lab undetected. Suppressing her reiatsu, she began to sneak across behind them.

"So you see, you simply add the numbers from Sample A, subtract the numbers from Sample B, plug them in to this formula and divide by zero!" He lectured. "Now was that so hard?"

He turned around at exactly the wrong moment.

"Nemu?" He said. "What are you doing here? And why are you carrying a hand?"

She was right in the middle of the room with nowhere to hide.

"My apologies Mayuri-sama." She said. "I merely wanted to borrow the analysis lab."

Mayuri glanced around at his assistants.

"Get back to work." he snapped. He approached Nemu with his arms outstretched.

"Nemu," He said in a strange tone of voice, "What's the good of my giving you vacation time if you're just going to keep showing up here?"

Nemu bowed low as she apologized. "I'm sorry Maryuri-sama. I did not mean to disrupt your work."

Mayuri clasped her shoulders with both hands. "Silly girl. That was a joke. I'm just happy to see you."

Nemu jumped a little bit when he touched her. He'd been doing that a lot lately. She realized he'd been making an effort to change and was trying to have more of a normal father-daughter relationship with her. Still, as she looked into his crazily grinning face, the overall effect was…creepy.

"You're looking well." He said. He squinted a bit as he took a closer look at her. "In fact, you seem to have a bit of a glow about you."

Nemu looked down at her hands. She didn't see anything glowing. What was he talking about?

"So you say you need to find out something about that hand?" Mayuri asked as he took her arm and led her towards the analysis lab. "It looks like you tore it off a gigai."

"You are very perceptive Mayuri-sama." Nemu said as she tried to discretely pull away. "There is residue on the hand I wish to analyze."
"Here we are." Mayuri said as they arrived at the laboratory door. He let go of her arm. "I have a few things I need to finish up, so I'll be back at the main lab. Don't hesitate to call if you need anything."

Nemu tried not to stare at him as he continued to smile at her. Probably no one else could have recognized it since his teeth were visible at all times anyway, but to her, it was like watching the sun come up in the west. It was just unnatural.

"Uh, yes Mayuri-sama. I'll be sure to do that." She muttered.

"OK. Have fun!" He said as he left, waving what passed for him as a cheery goodbye.

She watched as he walked down the hall. Really, what had gotten into him lately?


Entering the lab, it didn't take her long to bring the machinery she needed online. Typing in a command, the machine extruded a small glass box. She placed the hand inside and pushed a button. The box retracted back into the machine.

Nemu began to type in the parameters of what she was looking for. Before she was halfway through, a wave of dizziness hit her. She looked around the room and found a wheeled stool. Sitting down, she needed a moment for the dizzy spell to pass. As it went away, it left fatigue in its place. What was wrong with her these days? She just didn't feel like her normal self. Was she really coming down with something? She shook it off and went back to work.

She typed in the instructions to ignore all spiritron particles normally associated with gigai manufacture. What was left over would be the basis of the analysis. It took some time as the machine compiled the results. Nemu waited patiently despite her weariness and a touch of nausea.

The final result when it popped up was both recognizable and familiar. She pulled up some archived examples from the database for comparison. There was no denying what she saw. With only a few variables that could be unique to the individual, the cells that had been on the hand were all baseline quincy normal. Ijima Reiko had been telling the truth. She was a quincy.

"What have we here?" Mayuri said in a jovial tone as he threw his arm around Nemu's shoulders. "Are you looking over old case files?"

Nemu jumped in surprise. She hadn't noticed him entering the lab. She needed a second or two to gather her wits.

"This is a new sample, Mayuri-sama." She said as soon as she was able. "I encountered a strange woman last night who said she was a quincy. I wasn't sure that was possible. I thought the Ishida family was the last."

Mayuri's face reverted to his usual look when presented with a problem as he looked over the data on display. He took hand off Nemu's shoulder and stroked his chin.

"It's entirely possible there may still be pockets here and there." He said. "I stopped looked for them after we dissected that scruffy old man."

Nemu flinched inside as he mentioned their last victim. It still bothered her that she had played a role in Ishida Souken's painful, gruesome demise. Mayuri didn't notice her discomfort.

"I didn't see any point in studying the race after that." He said. "That old wreck was supposed to be the last of their elite class. Humph. He didn't impress me as anything special." He took a closer look at the data readout.

"I see a few variables here, but nothing too unusual. Was there anything particular about this individual that was bothering you?" He asked.

Nemu got up from her stool.

"No Mayuri-sama. I was just curious to see if her claim was true." She moved towards the exit.

"If you will pardon me Mayuri-sama, I don't feel well. I'm going back to my room to lie down."

"What?" he said, "Don't feel well? You're not designed to get sick. How can you not be…uh...I mean... yes, go lie down if you are feeling poorly my dear. You are on vacation after all."

Nemu stared at him. He was really acting strange. For a second there he had reacted like he normally would, but then that odd turn around. If anything he was smiling even wider than before. With a polite bow, she took her leave, completely bewildered.


Mayuri rubbed his hands in glee as his daughter left the room. It was working! Already he could feel their bonds of love and trust building as his plan unfolded. His kind behavior was clearly affecting Nemu who no doubt trusted him more than ever. It would soon be easy to use that trust to manipulate her feelings. And what luck! A female quincy had appeared.

This should make breaking up Nemu and that spectacled twit easy. Even if the new girl didn't like the scrawny fool, and why would she, it didn't matter. A rumor brought up here, a suspicion voiced in Nemu's presence there and, if his research was correct, they'd soon be at each other's throats with jealousy and anger! Then, with Nemu's heart broken and her faith in others destroyed, maybe he could finally get some work done around here. She would go back to worrying about truly important things like science and research instead of mooning over that limp haired buffoon. Honestly, what did she see in him?

He allowed Nemu the regular time off she requested to actually meet with the fool and what did they spend their time doing? Dance lessons. It wasn't easy spying on them. She actually thought he didn't know she was sneaking out to see the boy and was taking precautions to cover her tracks. He couldn't risk putting spy bacteria on either of them. Nemu would spot it immediately. That's didn't stop him from putting a few hidden cameras here and there. Being passive in nature and using hardly any spirit energy, neither Nemu nor the boy spotted them.

It didn't take long to work out their pattern. Several times a week they'd meet at that little spot by the waterfall, walk hand in hand into town and spend the next hour or so at dance lessons. It had been almost a solid month and the fool never tried to take her home or even to one of the numerous pay-by-the-hour hotels. Was it even necessary for him to be concerned? Seriously, between this and the sewing, maybe the boy's only interest in Nemu was someone he could talk to about dress patterns.

Well it didn't matter how the boy thought about women. The important thing was how Nemu thought about him. And with this new piece of knowledge on file, he now had a powerful tool for to turn those thoughts around. He chuckled as he went over in his mind the different ways he was going to tear Nemu's heart to pieces with this knowledge and started to shut off the analysis equipment.

As a matter of habit, he saved the data on the girl called Ijima Reiko. It looked like she was a normal, low level quincy, but it was not in his nature to ever throw data away. He routed it for further investigation for one of the lower seated staff. It would be good training for oh, say Rin. He labeled it priority "C". With the machine shut down, he turned to leave the room.

"Oh Nemu, how's that new quincy girl settling in to Karakura?" He practiced aloud. "Has she already met that one boy? I forgot his name."

With a low pitched laugh, he turned off the light and closed the door.