Part of her was almost reluctant to turn around but she noticed the way the pink-haired child before her seemingly lit up at the appearance of someone out of her line of sight. She swore she could hear her heart pounding in her chest, forcing the rapid heartbeats to echo in her ears. Taking in a deep breath, she slowly started to turn her head to look at whoever was approaching her.

She wasn't really looking for identification on the person, but if the woman knew her name…

Midnight-black hair was pulled back away from her slender face and knitted into a long, loosely-held braid that bounced side to side along her lower back; a small red bead was caught at a second's glance before it disappeared behind the figure. A shortened Shinigami's uniform dressed her form while a white obi sash appeared to be loosely wrapped around her midsection, as though it had been tossed on seconds before. The outfit piece showed signs of a few mild altercations here or there, mostly with how the short hemline had been extended just a few inches so that it dropped to about mid-thigh instead; it still revealing quite a bit of her bare legs though. Her slim arms were left stripped in the absence of the former guards that had once protected her wrists and forearms during combat. But she walked barefoot across the ceramic floors, which did seemed to support the claim that she had been resting just moments ago before their entrance interrupted her; hands were carefully readjusted the slightly sloping neckline of her uniform before they moved to push the wrinkles out of the rest of the material to appear more presentable to the public.

But it was those green eyes that coursed coldly through her mind.

It was those eyes that made her feel as though her entire body was on the verge of collapsing.

... They seemed so different now.

She tried to speak a few times, only to feel her voice fail her again and again until she was just moving her lips to nothing but air. It felt like someone had dropped an entire ocean of cold water on her, she swore she even felt herself shiver lightly.

"Nemu…?"

The name felt numb to her... it had been years since she last said it out loud like this.

This had to be impossible... there was no explanation for how the Fourth Lieutenant could be seated just a small distance away from her at this moment. How could the woman be here in the first place? And why? What reasons were there for her to travel all this way out here...? The questions only seemed to spark up and quickly die away as she paid no real attention to them; which allowed for them to bundle up and grow in greater numbers somewhere else in her mind.

That was the last time she would let Szayel leave without explaining something to her... All he told her was that there was someone here to see her and she guessed, at that moment, she had been too tired to question it. At least until now... when the surprise of this guest was enough to put her on full alert. It was enough to make her slightly irritated at the man, but she figured that he might've just been as clueless about this entire situation as she was right now. The whole matter of it... it was very odd to her, it almost didn't seem real at first.

"Isane." she repeated, feeling her steps slow down just ever so slightly now. "What are you… doing here?"

The Fourth Lieutenant continued to hold on to that feeling of losing words every time she tried to speak, which left her just sitting there, staring at the darker-haired woman. That very same question was racing through her head and practically dying to be asked in return, as though that would solve and/or answer anything between them. It was only when another slight tug, this one at her sleeve, knocked her loose from her thoughts and switched her waning attention back to child beside her.

"That's my mom." Akira whispered, as though the remark was meant to be a secret.

Taking another deep breath, she tried to crack a small smile for the girl but knew it was a failure from the start. "I uh…are you sure?" Isane questioned.

"I have her eyes, remember?"

There was no doubt in it now... she knew those eyes looked familiar for some reason, but part of her still wanted to refuse to believe in this whole situation. Was this really happening? It couldn't be… it had to be some kind of messed up nightmare of hers. This whole thing had to have been impossible.

She died here.

She was one of many who didn't get the chance to escape in time… but she had helped most of the rescue teams get to a place of escape... She remembered watching her get hit with that blast at the very last second, just before the Garganta closed. It was horrifying to witness and she recalled Captain Unohana having to use physical force to pull her back and keep her going onwards towards the Society. This couldn't be her... Could it?

"You're probably asking yourself a lot of questions right now. I am too." Nemu started; watching as the color seemed to have completely drained from the woman's face. She looked like she was about ready to jump over the back of the couch just to get away from her... She couldn't really blame her though, for years the Society had marked her as a casualty of war; something like this just wouldn't go over so easy. She tried to think of an easier way of going about this situation, but knew it would be better just to be blunt with it. "I see you've met my daughter... and more than likely, you've met her father too."

"Is this… is this real? I mean, is this really happening?" Isane questioned, unsure how to dictate the moment. At least she had her voice back though. "I get the feeling this is just another one of my nightmares…"

"Do you not like my mom?" Akira asked, intruding in on their brief conversation. Those same eyes shifted from one to the other as she tried to keep up with the words but had little context as to what happened beforehand.

She looked back to the child, who seemed as equally confused as the two of them. "What? No… no, we were old friends… we go back, I think."

Pushing a brief sigh from her lips, she carefully pushed herself to close the open space between them; it felt like she had to force herself to move at some points before she successfully managed to seal the distance that separated them. "As far as I know, this isn't a nightmare, Isane. Unless it's a shared one, which is next to impossible to do since two separate subconsciousness could not manifest the same images together. Let alone share interactions amongst each other."

"Well it sure as hell feels like one…" Isane replied sharply before it was followed by a long sigh and her fingers pinching the empty space between her eyes "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that in front of your daughter."

"I've heard worse." the younger girl assured with no hesitation.

"Akira, please." Nemu spoke as she carefully leaned down to move the child before she slid into her former seat; settling herself into the same corner of the couch, she let the pink-haired daughter nestle into her lap instead as she gently tucked her legs underneath her. She watched as the girl shifted slightly to find a comfortable spot against her before she seemed to settle with leaning back against her midsection. "... So why are you here?"

"Is that really important right now?" she countered, considering she felt that her appearance here didn't feel as important as knowing how the woman's been alive all this time. With a child nonetheless. And a... a... whatever one wanted to call the father of her daughter.

"Answer that question and I'll tell you everything."

She caught herself almost frowning at the offer... but figured it was the best start right now. After all, arguing back and forth for answers and details wasn't going to get them anywhere anytime soon... And she wanted the answers to this as soon as possible. So perhaps she gave in too easily to the offer, at least it guaranteed an answer in return. Sighing, one hand move to ruffle through her silver locks before she started. "Okay, long story short here. For the past few years, a couple of the Captains have been working on some kind of 'peace treaty' you could call it. They gave it pretty much everything they had but they finally got the notion passed through the council. It took them a few more weeks to get things together, but they're here because… they want to make a deal with the remaining Espadas. It's pretty much outlined to say that both sides suffered causalities and no one wants to go through that kind of pain again; we're hoping to lower the amount of attacks while both sides are weakened and still trying to recover. We want to avoid the same situation that happened years ago and since the Espadas essentially lost all members of command... well, we thought it'd be easier to try and sway them to agree to a pact. So, the Captains came here to propose the idea and so far, everyone's taken a liking to it, which… I guess I find surprising. The two Espadas we met when we got here… they're not how I had imagined them to be."

"I'm assuming you met with Starrk and Harribel."

"Yes… they seemed very… open to the idea, which is pretty much how we got a foot in with talking about this thing. Anyways, somewhere in the middle of the discussions, no one could figure out a proper way to get enough evidence to support this treaty, which is what we need for the full counsel approval. The whole thing was almost dissolved but… Starrk, I'm guessing, said that he had failsafe contribution to the matter. We didn't have any other options and decided it couldn't hurt to bite, so we followed him… that's where we met Akira."

"They seemed to like me a lot." Akira remarked as she snuggled herself against her mother once more, shifting her position all over again until she was comfortable.

"Of course they would." Nemu chuckled; gently running her fingers through those soft pink strands that gave away to her touch. She watched as the motion worked steadily to calm the girl and slowly, but surely, it carefully helped to drift her to sleep. She guessed the earlier attempts to put her to sleep had failed or had been interrupted... it didn't seem to matter now though. Aside from the obvious list of similarities she shared with her father, this was just yet another one to write down. The motion seemed to have the same effect on him as it did with her.

She found it almost difficult to focus on the conversation piece between them when her former, fellow Lieutenant was busy tending to her 'daughter' right in front of her. As odd as the whole situation was going right now, and how she wasn't sure if she could believe the sparse details of it... she had to admit that the interaction between them looked so natural, there was no way it could be fake. "Okay, so I explained my half, where's yours?"

That question was going to come up eventually... but she had her statement prepared. "Do you remember that day when you escaped here?"

That day had been forever singed into her memory. "Yes."

"And how he managed to destroy the Garganta seconds later?"

Another memory she couldn't shake free. "Of course."

"You probably thought I was dead." she started; watching as the silver-haired woman nodded immediately following those words. It was probably a redundant statement to say but she just needed the assurance of it. "If he really had wanted to and had been in the correct mindset, he would've killed me without a second of hesitation because of what I did for your team. But he didn't. Through all the pain and agony he had been subjected to, he lost a part of his stability and tittered on the cracking edge of insanity... When he failed to kill me, I helped pull him back over and away from that brink. And since then… I guess I've been the only thing holding him here."

The words had been picked carefully and spoken with a story behind them, and yet when she waited for the woman to continue... she was only met with silence; nothing else had been set to follow afterwards. "That's it? That's all you have to say?"

She caught the look of almost disappoint on the other woman's face and couldn't exactly pinpoint why. "I'm sorry, was there something more you were looking for?"

"I just… I wanted something more in-depth. I wanted something to explain this… and this and… the whole thing." Isane replied, using a few faint hand motions to get her point across. "And something to explain you."

"Me?"

It was so easy to pick up on differences someone else had rather than realize your own. "You're… you're different. It's so obvious- if you had changed your full physical appearance, I would've been able to successfully convince myself that you were a different person; I don't think I would've been able to even get a hint that it was you underneath all of this. But now… ugh, it just feels like I don't know who you are anymore. You never smiled or chuckled before, you hardly ever showed emotions and yet… you just… you look happy and I… I don't know why."

She watched as the silver-haired Lieutenant seemed caught up in different slurs of emotions and was completely clueless as to which one to follow first; they all seemed to twist together and leave her looking almost… betrayed in a sense. It was a difficult situation, she could understand the woman's mixed emotions with it. "I know it's going to be hard to understand- to some people, this is impossible." she paused briefly with her own words and dropped a quick glance to the sleeping child in her lap. "... I used to try to convince myself that those feelings were just there to keep him from losing himself, from hurting himself again, but… something happened and neither of us can explain it. It started as just a physical touch to keep him under control and through that, I learned more about him. I don't really know how to say this in a way that you'll understand, I don't think it can be explained in words… it feels like it all just happened one day when neither of us were looking."

"I don't think I like that explanation but it's better than nothing." Isane sighed almost tiredly. At least they both recognized the ongoing awkwardness and difficulty of this situation. They were both trying to explain both sides of the story when half of it was essentially blind to the other. They would just have to give it time and maybe speak with her so-called 'significant other' to get some kind of workable explanation. Until then though, she guessed she could say she was somewhat satisfied. "So… what about your daughter?"

"She's the result of one too many nights by ourselves."

It took a moment for the words to register and when they did... she wished they hadn't. "…That was NOT the answer I was looking for." Isane grimaced. "I meant like… forget it."

"Did you want to know how she was possible?" Nemu questioned, watching as it took a moment for the other woman to nod in answer. "Well it took us a while to put it together but we figured out a plausible explanation. When his body regenerated itself inside of my own, our different cells were forced to mix together and after the entire process, some of his cells were left behind. My body didn't recognize them as being foreign, so when I was pregnant with Akira, even though her cells were technically registered as hollow, my systems didn't reject them. Which is why the pregnancy carried on as usual with little to no complications, which was a bit of a surprise because we had expected something within the genetic coding to go wrong but so far, everything seems normal."

"Wait, wait, wait... what do you mean when his body regenerated itself inside of yours...?"

"That's another story that... I'm not comfortable with getting into at the moment."

While she might've found it odd and suspicious for the woman to bring the topic up and then shut it back down, she figured it wasn't her place to ask right now; if she wasn't comfortable with talking about it then there was little else she could do. Instead, she offered a brief, almost nervous chuckle. "I guess I'm still just surprised you could get pregnant in the first place. I kind of figured since you were like an artificial being that… well you know..."

"As far as we've tested, everything works like normal."

Another one of those remarks? "I really don't want to know what you mean by that." Isane replied with a soft shake of her head, before she moved to change the topic matter. "You know, your daughter is really… different for her age."

"She has enhanced mental abilities and last time we checked, she's technically working with a mindset four years in advance and that ability is steadily increasing." Nemu explained, watching as the topic daughter shifted once more in her sleep before she turned to bury herself into her open side. "She has enhanced speaking abilities, problem solving, critical thinking, everything that we tested she excelled at for her age. Given how the both of us function, it seems only reasonable for the same genetics to pass themselves easily down to the next in line. Now, she still acts like a child of her age, don't think we haven't noticed that. She still likes waking us up early in the morning and she still insists on following us around wherever we go- she confuses herself if we split into two different directions though."

The description of the girl seemed to suit well with what she had witnessed beforehand... as well as fit the profile of both her parents. "So she's like a baby Einstein then."

"Only smarter."

Isane leaned against the couch's back cushion and watched as the woman continued to carefully run her fingers through her daughter's hair; pushing the loose strands away from her face again and again. "You know, when they told me that the mother was a Shinigami… this was the last situation that I would ever think of, had I actually thought about it."

She hummed lightly with the woman's remark, seeing yet another glimpse of the secondary story here; the one that she didn't write and could only read right now. "Hmm, you should've seen his face when I told him that I was pregnant. I think it was a bit of shock at first and then he realized that this was technically the first kind of pregnancy to happen- after that, he seemed much more interested."

A light chuckle escaped her once more at the comment as she carefully allowed for herself to be a bit more relaxed now. "So… it's kind of hard to believe this is where you've been for so long."

"You get used to it and the people here." Nemu assured. "I'm sure Soul Society has changed a lot too."

"Let me tell you about it." Isane groaned as she briefly pinched at the space between her eyes once more. "With a lot of the Captains gone, there's been a mad scramble to replace them. It's been a few years and there are still some Divisions that have no one leading them, or they just have a substitute, which most of the time is the Lieutenant, regardless of Bankai achievement or not. Kira, and Hisagi have taken over their respected Divisions in the meantime; Captain Yamamoto ordered for Lieutenant Chojiro to keep with Hinamori since she's still healing from the aftermath of the final battle. For someone who had most of her bones and organs crushed, she's healing pretty well even though the injuries keep lingering even after all these years. Division Six is pretty much empty since Captain Byakuya and Renji both perished in the fighting; Division Eleven was empty for awhile but Ikkaku stood up and took it over- turns out he's had a Bankai all along. So now he and Yumichika serve as Captain and Lieutenant, which is… something that still needs getting used to. Personally, I think it's a bit dangerous but I didn't handle that decision."

She picked up on the light chuckle that went with her ending words and knew the given reason why. "Well at least you'll see Yumichika more now that he's a part of the Lieutenant meetings." Nemu spoke; watching as the woman seemed to blush for a moment but made no move to deny it.

"Yeah well… I'm not getting into this with you." Isane replied with a grin, trying to avoid the topic as quickly as she could. "You know, Akon's been taking care of Division Twelve all this time, but now that you're still alive, you could easily take it back. I mean, he does a good job but you can tell he's not really into it. I think he prefers to be one of those behind the scene workers and not really one to show up all the time. Captain Unohana said that he just seems kind of awkward during Captain meetings, but then again, I guess I can't really blame him. He and the others are so used to just taking commands, it would seem odd to be on the same level as the people you used to follow under. I couldn't imagine what it's like to stand across from Captain Yamamoto and know that you're technically on the same status level in a sense."

"Akon's a good man, he'll continue to take care of Division Twelve." Nemu assured.

"What do you mean by that?" Isane questioned, finding herself a little confused by the words. "You are… you are coming back, aren't you?"

"… No, I don't think I will be."