Urahara scowled as he looked at the reports from his crew and messages from Hallelujah.

He was beginning to get quite annoyed with his sponsors. They were doing everything they could to downplay and discredit Kurosaki's discoveries. Now they were insinuating that because this was his first mission he was letting his emotions interfere with his objectivity. Urahara thought that could be true. This alien species was both physically and emotionally attractive to humans, with pheromones that could actually affect them to boot. So it would be no surprise if young Ichigo was forging an emotional connection with his hosts.

But that didn't worry him much. The truth was, an emotional connection normally happened in an immersion. How could it not? When you lived with anyone for months on end, you developed likes and dislikes. Urahara was certain Kurosaki would not let his personal feelings affect his scientific data. But his private sponsors' were going so far as to insinuate he would falsify data and that the aliens were sub-sentient at best.

As a response, Hallelujah had sent out a call for a more experienced xenosociologist to join the expedition. Urahara had been given input on that and he hoped, dearly hoped they would get Unohana Retsu. She had been on the very first team to discover sentient life. To say she was experienced was an understatement.

Right now, though, he was dealing with something more picayune and very annoying. Things were going missing. An oddball assortment of items, they included things like lightbulbs, shoes, food and some rather expensive jewelry. One of the meteorologists was quite upset at the loss of her wedding ring, which she'd taken off and put in a little box, setting it on a table for just a moment as she did some heavy labor. The box had vanished entirely.

"Ugh." He likely had a thief on the crew. The lightbulbs could just have been a silly accident, but everything else was the sort of things a person would take. Or it could be a clever animal, or even one of Ichigo's new sentients. He thought the last one was the least likely, though. What were the odds that another of them had found his expedition?

He would set up a trap to catch and humiliate the thief. Hopefully, no harsher discipline would be needed.


The young female licked her lips, sidling closer to the tempting box. She could smell the contents and they smelled like meat, the odd preserved type these strangers favored. She liked that stuff and would gladly take it if she could.

She was quite new to this area. A young female, wandering from band to band in search of… what? Perhaps another survivor from her family. Perhaps just a male that caught her attention. Or perhaps she wanted adventure. Grinning to herself, she admitted it was likely the last. Why else would she be hanging around these strangers?

They were all so odd. They had mud and straw colors for hair, no tails and their ears were very strange, tiny furless things. But their hands were quite familiar if lacking claws, and she'd gotten to see several of them bathing in the river. A few of them were really pretty cute. So she'd followed them home, using her hierro to best advantage, and had found their fascinating encampment.

It reminded her of how her own family had lived, before the rains had swept them away. They'd been a large family and they'd lived in huts made from the tropical leaves and grasses, cemented with mud. These people had huts made of strange fabric and odd metal poles, but it was clearly the same idea. And the numbers were about the same as her old clan, maybe a bit higher. This was a large family indeed.

But there were so many unusual things here! She glanced down at the pretty ring on her finger, grinning. She loved the way the stone caught the light and sparkled. And the funny screw things that made light… when they were unscrewed they stopped making light but she'd learned how to break them and extract bits and pieces from them. The little metal wires inside made excellent fishhooks. There were just so many good things here!

So instead of hunting or fishing she was hanging around, and that meant she needed to eat. Licking her lips she slid out of the shadows and gripped a corner of the box, opening it –

Then she screamed in pain and surprise as a burst of something wet hit her in the face. Howling, she tried to scrub it off and found that it was sticking more firmly than a stale mating mark caught in fur. Whimpering in pain and nearly blind she tried to run, but tripped and fell on her face. Then something landed on her and she yelped, breath driven out of her. She wiggled as someone shoved a knee in her back and tried to hold her down. She was having none of that and swiped out with a violent hiss, making her captor yelp and let go. Then she ran, managing to open her watering eyes enough to see. She could hear cries of surprise behind her but she ignored them, dashing away.

Maybe this had all been a very stupid idea.


"What happened?" Urahara was shocked to see one of Soifon's security team on the ground, nursing what were clearly claw marks. They weren't deep but they were ugly and one of their nursing staff was already cleaning them out.

"We found your thief. It appears to be one of the aliens, a female one this time." Soifon reported and Urahara bit his lip. That posed some serious problems.

"Damn. That paint tag won't wear off." It required a special solvent to be removed. "Soifon, please send out teams to find her. The paint did have a tracker in it?" He hadn't thought it was an animal or sentient, but they'd still taken the possibility into account and spiked the paint with a special tracker. Soifon nodded.

"We'll find her soon." She said and Urahara nodded, going to find the jar of solvent. He'd just found it when he got a message through his earbug.

Sir? I've found the alien, she's down by the river. Uh, sir, you might want to hurry. She's trying to remove the paint tag. The person on the other end sounded very nervous and Urahara frowned.

"She can't, not without the solvent." He said as he looked at the jar. Without it, removing the paint would be quite impossible. Well, unless you were willing to lose skin. That thought would haunt him later as the voice spoke again.

Sir? She's using a knife – Urahara was getting older, but he still managed a good sprint as he ran towards the ATV's. Cursing, he grabbed one of the vehicles, turning it on and racing down to the location of the scout. It needed to be him. He was one of the few people in the camp who had a fairly good grasp of the alien's language. He left the ATV before he got to the river, hoping not to startle the woman too much. But as soon as he saw what she was doing he called out.

"No, stop!" He called to her in her own tongue, making her flinch and look. Her face was covered in orange paint and she was clearly having trouble seeing. Thankfully she hadn't reached that spot yet, but there was blood dripping down her arm and into the water. "I have something that will remove it!" He said, panting, and that stopped the female from bolting. His accent was probably terrible but she understood him and that was all that mattered.

"Please, take it off!" She said, wincing as she lifted her arm. He quickly unscrewed the lid of the jar and dipped a rag in the contents, rubbing away the paint. She hissed but didn't cry out as some of it got into her wound. Urahara wasn't worried about it hurting her, it was alcohol based and completely harmless. If anything it would clean out her injuries. She closed her eyes as he tended to her face, revealing deeply tanned skin and lovely features. His gaze was caught by her lips. They were full and inviting, particularly when a pink tongue flicked out to wet them –

There was a giggle and Urahara yanked his gaze up, meeting big purple eyes. The remains of the paint almost looked like a strange makeup and he blushed before reaching up to remove them. There was more of it in her hair and on her ears, and he worked that out too, noticing that her hair was a dark violet and silky smooth.

"What's your name?" He asked, more to distract her than anything. She gave him a surprised look.

"That is a rude question!" She said and Urahara blinked, taken aback. Ichigo had learned a great deal about the alien's culture but he'd only been with them a few months. He could easily have missed something. "But I don't mind. I'm Yoruichi." She said with a grin and Urahara smiled back.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I am Urahara." He said, resting a hand on his chest. "Why is it rude?" He asked, curious. How could asking for a name be rude? Yoruichi laughed, stroking her hair with one hand.

"Everyone believes that giving someone your name gives them power over you." She explained and Urahara made a mental note. Ichigo had clearly missed something important. "So usually only friends and family know. But my family didn't really believe that. We still didn't give strangers our name because it would make them uncomfortable but we didn't really care."

"Ah, I see." So it was a social convention whether they believed in it or not. "Yoruichi, why were you stealing from us?" Urahara asked and she just shrugged.

"Because I could!" She answered with a cheeky grin before bouncing to her feet, grabbing the obsidian knife and cleaning it on the grass before putting it into a leather sheath. Urahara noticed, with a great deal of interest, that she was wearing only a leather belt and two knives. There was not a shred of clothing to hide her gorgeous body. Then she suddenly dashed away and Urahara stared after her, caught by surprise.

"Hey!" He called after her, but it was too late.

The vision in violet was already gone.


Yoruichi watched the strangers from afar and considered her options.

She was really very curious about them, but now she was wary of stealing from them. That narrowed her options considerably. Some of their activities were rather noisy and the raptors seemed to be afraid of them, so the hunting in the area wasn't too good. She could still catch rodents and birds but those were hardly better than snacks. Vegetables were more plentiful and a few berries were starting to come in. That could keep her going for a while, but she'd have to make a fire to cook the tubers and the strangers might notice.

Of course, there was another option. She could simply walk up to them and ask for a place in their group. They were a very large family so they might not be interested in new members, but she was a young, unmated female. If they had plenty of food, and they seemed to, there was usually some nice man looking for a mate. Yoruichi was quite accustomed to trading her favors to get what she wanted, and these people were so interesting! What were those strange little things they rode around on? How did the lights work? What were their homes made out of?

Yoruichi wanted to know everything. Her whole family had been terrible for being curious and she saw no reason not to continue the tradition. So she decided she would try it and she knew who to approach. The man with the strange thing on his head. She'd been observing these people sometime and she was sure he was the alpha male, the head of the family. That meant he would be mated, of course, but maybe he would want a second or even third mate. If so, Yoruichi had no problems with that. She grinned to herself, licking her lips as she snuck back into their camp.

She was going to make her move today.


"…So Soifon, we should probably… Soifon?" Urahara frowned at the woman in front of him. There was something very odd about the way she was looking at him. Her eyes were very wide, there was a blush on her cheeks and her lips were slightly parted. It actually made the severe young woman look rather attractive but it was strange. "Are you – HEY!" He reached up as his hat was suddenly snatched away. There was a flash of violet and brown and Urahara found himself staring at the young alien woman. She was squatting on her haunches, his hat on her head at a jaunty angle. "Yoruichi!" He couldn't help but be pleased that she'd come back. And now he understood what Soifon's problem was. She was quite openly lesbian and Yoruichi's breasts must have been in perfect viewing range.

"Urahara!" The woman said happily, putting her hands down onto the ground between her legs and bouncing a little bit, still squatting. Urahara wasn't in bad shape but he knew trying to match that pose would have made his legs creak. "Would you take me in your family? I'll be a good mate to one of your sons!" She bounced again and Urahara was a little speechless, his eyes going exactly where she meant for them to go. Soifon made a small choking sound behind him. "Or I could be your second mate, if your mate isn't jealous of me!" She said with a cheeky grin and he tried to sort out his thoughts. She clearly thought they were of her people, or something similar. But then, they did look very much alike and she would have no concept of otherwordly travel. So perhaps it wasn't so surprising.

"I, ah, I don't have a mate." He said and Yoruichi looked puzzled for a moment. "Could I have my hat back, please?"

"Oh sure!" She darted up with alarming speed and set his hat back on his head, all in a single, smooth move. "You don't have a mate? Did she die?" Yoruichi said sympathetically, her purple eyes warm with compassion. Urahara swallowed, struggling to think of a reply.

"No, that's not… I've never mated." He said and the alien woman looked very puzzled.

"Never mated? But you're the leader of a large and powerful group with lots of food! Why wouldn't you mate?" She asked, which was a perfectly logical question from her perspective. Urahara rubbed his forehead for a moment as Soifon frowned at the woman.

"We're not really a family group." He explained carefully, wondering how much she would understand. "We are here to learn about this place and your people. And I had to learn a great deal to become leader of this group. There was no time for mating." Then he decided it might be prudent to change the subject. "Have you been travelling, Yoruichi? Shiro said that it was very dangerous to travel, that other groups drove him away." Belatedly, Urahara realized that he shouldn't have said the white alien's name to her. If giving out your own name to a stranger was giving them power over you, giving out someone else's name to a stranger had to be the height of rudeness. But Yoruichi didn't seem to care.

"He was a male!" She stood up then and stretched, her magnificent breasts riding up with the motion. "I'm a young, fertile female. Males are so easy! Even when they got mad at me I would just…" The beautiful alien suddenly scampered over to Soifon and hugged her legs, sliding down in front of her and looking up with a sorrowful look in her big violet eyes. "And then I would…" Her ears twitched as she parted her lips, then shifted so her breasts were pressed flush to the security chief's legs. Soifon was staring, her blue eyes wide and her face gradually turning pink. "And then I might…" She pressed her face close to Soifon's crotch and the woman's eyes suddenly rolled back. Urahara just barely managed to catch her as she fainted. "Ah! What happened? Did I hurt her?" Yoruichi sounded very alarmed by this turn of events. She leaned over Soifon, her breasts swinging in a way that would probably have put her back to sleep instantly if she'd happened to wake up.

"No, she's fine. Ah, she prefers the company of other females." Urahara tried to explain. Soifon was quite open about her inclination so she wouldn't mind, and the young alien's reaction might be informative. Yoruichi tilted her ears forward, looking slightly astonished.

"Really? I've heard of that but never met one… although I did have one cousin who was weird." Yoruichi backed away, to Urahara's relief. "Well, I like males." She said and Urahara couldn't help but smile. He'd definitely noticed. "So can I stay?"

"Well…" Urahara thought about it hard for a moment. In one way it was an awful idea. They were not supposed to make the natives dependant on them and they certainly weren't supposed to have sex with them. Urahara had no doubt at all that Yoruichi would have company before the week was out.

However, in another way it was an excellent idea. He wasn't a xenosociologist but he was a very experienced researcher. Ichigo was brand new to his work and their critics were using it against him. If he kept Yoruichi in the camp he could examine and question her, probably more in depth than Ichigo could manage with his pair. His reports would lend weight to Ichigo's, and then Yoruichi would be available when a new xenosociologist arrived…

"You can stay." He said to the young female with a smile. She bounced happily and Urahara had to avert his eyes. She really was gorgeous. "Ah, would you mind wearing clothing though? It's… traditional." He said and Yoruichi pouted, but only for a moment.

"I don't like wearing things, but okay! Can you teach me how to talk to people here? And can I ride one of those funny things you have that make the brrrm brrrm noises?" She asked and Urahara laughed, amused at the description of the ATV's.

"I can teach you our language. But the ATV will have to wait. You could hurt yourself." He said with a smile as Soifon sat up with a small groan, holding her head. "Ah, Soifon! Now that you're back with us, could you fetch some clothing for our guest?"

"Uh, yes Urahara." She muttered, trying not to look at Yoruichi as she climbed to her feet. The alien woman grinned, her ears flicking back and forth as she clearly thought of some devilish way to tease Soifon. But Urahara shook his head at her and she stuck her lower lip out in a pout before sighing and squatting on her haunches again. Urahara noticed that that seemed to be her default position when she was waiting for something. That was interesting.

He really couldn't wait to get to know her better. There were so many things to learn.


"…So you dip a stick in it." Shiro demonstrated the technique as Ichigo watched. Grimmjow already had a stick inside the mound, digging up… well, Ichigo wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure what they were doing at all. Shiro had a bowl of an odd, greenish sap that he was rolling a stick in. "Then you put it in the mound and wait for a bit." Shiro stuck the stick in one of the holes as Ichigo watched intently. "You can tell when to pull it out when it starts getting heavy. See, look." He gestured to Grimmjow and Ichigo glanced over.

And had to hold back a moment of horror as he saw the huge, ant like creatures that were swarming on his stick. Grimmjow was licking them off with evident enjoyment and the crunching sounds were more than a little nauseating. Ichigo swallowed hard and reminded himself that bug eating was a common thing in many human cultures. In fact, he'd tried a few candied locusts and grubs in his classes, as the professors tried to broaden their horizons.

"Mmm." Shiro had pulled out his stick and was cleaning it off, licking off the bugs with his tongue and catching them with his agile lips. "These are delicious, crispy and nutty. Would you like some?"

"No, thank you." Ichigo declined politely. "They might make me sick." That was his usual excuse not to try any of their food. And the biochemists hadn't finished their workups, so it was true. Shiro gave him a curious look.

"How can good foods like these make you sick?" He asked and Ichigo frowned. He hadn't fully explained where he was from yet. He'd just said he was from far away, and Grimmjow and Shiro had accepted that, probably due to the storms that had tossed them out of their home.

"I'm from very far away, Shiro." He said, then hesitated before pointing upwards. "I'm from beyond the sky." He knew this would likely be a difficult concept for them. It generally offended religious beliefs. Sure enough, Shiro was looking at him like he was crazy.

"No way. That's where the gods live." He said firmly and Ichigo winced. But Grimmjow's chuckle was a bit reassuring.

"Yeah, and the stars are the spirits of our ancestors." He said as he pulled out his stick again. "This is a good one… yeah, and falling stars are great grandpappy doing a fart!" He began cleaning off his stick as Shiro laid back his ears, then groaned.

"Yer such an idiot." He said severely. "Are you gonna tell him about the gods, too?" Ichigo perked up at that. He hadn't asked about their religion because that could be a very touchy subject, but he was intensely curious. He knew they had multiple gods, since they always referred to them in the plural, but that was about it.

"Why not? I bet he doesn't know." Grimmjow said with a grin and Shiro paused in his eating, looking slightly horrified. "First there's Nadaque. He's the god of beating someone's face in. Then there's Shemania, she's the goddess of fucking your brains out – "

"What!" Shiro yelped, dropping his stick. The bugs kept feasting on the green sap, completely oblivious to the possibility of escaping their fate. "Yer bein' sacrilegious! Yer gonna get hit by lightning!" Grimmjow laughed.

"You believe that? The gods haven't got me yet, I think I'll manage." He said cheerfully before eating some more bugs. Shiro put his face in his hands, clearly suffering some mental pain. Then he looked up with a sigh, before retrieving his bug stick and cleaning it off again.

"Don' listen to that idiot, he'll get ya fried by lightning on a sunny day." Shiro said and Grimmjow laughed again as Ichigo smiled. He loved the interplay between the two of them. "Nadaque is the god of strength. Th' young hunters pray to him for good hunting an' give him pieces of their kills. Shemania is the goddess of fertility, the girls that want babies pray to him. You ever prayed to her, Grimm?" He asked and Grimmjow shrugged.

"Maybe once or twice." He admitted, which made Ichigo feel puzzled. Grimmjow wasn't a female. When they'd explained the terms for man and woman to him, Grimmjow had made some crude illustrations. So Ichigo knew this race was sexually dimorphic, just like humans, and his picture of a woman had been curved in a very familiar way. He filed that away for later. Right now, he wanted to hear about the gods.

"Are there more?" He prompted as Shiro paused to eat more bugs.

"Justa moment." He crunched through his bugs and put more sap on the stick before speaking again. "Yeah, there's two more. Tikimoro, the god of death and Varunder, the god of storms. I almost got sacrificed to them." Shiro said and Grimmjow looked up from his stick sharply.

"What? Sacrificed? What d'you mean?" He asked before Ichigo could. Shiro pulled out his stick before glancing over at them both, his black and gold eyes far away and his face pinched with pain.

"I mean given the sacrificial marks… painted on, there was no time t'let tattoos heal… an' gutted under the twisty tree." He said in an oddly empty tone and Ichigo swallowed hard, glancing at Grimmjow. He was relieved to see the blue alien looked just as appalled as he felt. "Th' only reason I wasn't was they decided I wasn't good enough. The gods want th' best an' I can't make cubs. So it was my li'l sister instead." Shiro began eating the bugs off his stick, slowly this time. "I wish I'd said somethin'… nobody would've listened t'me but… I wanted the rain t' go away." He sounded ashamed and Ichigo reached out to touch his shoulder.

"Don't feel too bad, Shiro. You were desperate." He said comfortingly. He could only imagine how desperate Shiro's family had been and it was natural to see the weather as a punishment from the gods. The muscles under his hand felt very tense but then Shiro let out a long sigh and Ichigo felt the tension go out of him.

"Yeah, we was. Mmm… y'know Grimm, you must be right. Who gives a shit about the gods? They don't give a shit about us." Shiro said before finishing his stick. "An' I'm done. Couldn't eat another one. You about done?"

"Oh yeah, I'm just nibblin'." Grimmjow discarded his stick as Shiro poured out the dregs of the sap. The insects quickly found the sticky mess, feeding as the three of them walked away. "Hey Shiro, you know all those songs to the gods, right? Why don't you sing for Ichigo?"

"Um? Oh sure." Shiro began to sing, which was really a treat for Ichigo. Grimmjow had a nice singing voice but Shiro's voice was lyrical even when he was speaking. When he sang, it was heartbreakingly beautiful. It was hard for him to make out the words – this was clearly a special dialect – but Ichigo was captivated by the sound of Shiro's voice. He was careful to make sure he was getting recordings of it.

It could go into his next report to Urahara.