"Nanao?"

"Hm?" Not looking up from her work, Nanao knew that it had to be Rangiku. No one else had so much time and was willing to spend it with her so readily. (And no one else had her talent of getting out of work.)

"You prepared for the assessment?" Oh crap. It had completely slipped her mind, and to tell the truth, she was considering writing in to Kyouraku-senpai to ask to be exempted. There were no talents that she could exploit. Her skills with a sword left much to be desired, and as for a gun, she had never touched those things before.

A pause as she rationalized out her thoughts. There was no use staying in a society such as this without any skills at all. She was going to need something to be good at, to defend herself with. On the other hand, it was going to be very embarrassing if she did not quite make the cut on assessment day. Perhaps… Yes, that was possible. One could not stay embarrassed around Rangiku. It was simply impossible. And yet, at the same time, one part of her refused to ask for her help. That part might just have something to do with her pride. Wrestling with herself for a while, she quickly came to a conclusion. (It was not polite to keep others waiting.)

Looking up from her papers, she met Rangiku's questioning gaze. "No." She was surprised by the blonde's reaction, which had not been shock, horror or disgust or anything like that. (Then again, this was Rangiku.) A happy grin met her instead. "Need help? Yoruichi's been getting restless from the lack of action. I'm pretty sure we could get her to help you."

Relieved, Nanao nodded. "Then what are we waiting for?" Dragged from her seat for the second time that day, she spluttered something about needing to finish her work, only to be completely ignored by Rangiku. "Maa, Toshiro knows what I'm doing… If Shunsui has a problem with that, he'd have to take it up with Toshiro. That's if he has a problem with that. Kyouraku-san's quite lax about these things."

The basement training room was exactly as she had expected. Cavernous, a part of her was dying to try out if there would be an echo. Only a part. At the same time, relatively dim lights lit the corridor, flickering to life as the walked past, looking for Yoruichi's office. The level of technology in the place was much higher than above ground, rightfully so.

Nanao found it interesting that there was a doorbell outside of the office door, but Matsumoto merely pressed it, and waited. Sure enough, there was quite a lot of shuffling on the other side of the door, before a reluctant. "Come in." Scratch that. A very reluctant "Come in." Smirking at something which Nanao was clueless about, Matsumoto eased open the door, flouncing into the room with as much bubbly happiness as she could manage. (Which was actually quite a lot.)

A disgruntled Yoruichi and a grinning Urahara sat across the table, the latter excusing himself quickly, a cheery wave as he disappeared down the corridor. Matsumoto looked particularly mischievous, and the glare that Yoruichi was bestowing upon the blonde seemed to indicate that something had happened. Something which Nanao had a slight feeling that she knew what it was, but was not absolutely sure of. The huge feline grin she had first encountered was back when she turned to Nanao. "So, what brings you two down here?"

Five minutes later found Nanao donning a loose set of pants, tying her hair back in preparation for training. Rangiku had left earlier, with a wide smile, saying something about Toshiro getting angry. Nanao suspected that the earlier statement about Toshiro being willing to back them up had probably been false. In any case, she was alone when she reentered the enormous empty training room.

Yoruichi was already there, dressed in her usual garb, the orange long sleeved shirt, black tights and a wide smile. She was passed a katana, and her grip was adjusted. The katana was unwieldy in her hands, and one look from Yoruichi had it swapped to a wakizashi. And then a dagger. However, the dagger fit well in her hand, and she found that it was not too difficult to use it. This sparring business was quite alright, actually, although she strongly suspected that Yoruichi was going easy on her. Very easy.

She was getting into the flow of things, starting to understand what was going on. She had never been amongst the most physically fit of people, or even strongest. But what she lacked in brawn, Nanao was pretty sure she made up for in brain. Sparring was like chess. Albeit chess at fifty times the speed and a hundred times the danger. But still, chess. And she was passable at chess. A few exchanging of hits later, Yoruichi stopped, a big grin on her face.

"You'll be needing to come down every so often, so you can practice. But other than that, you're quite good at this." A thoughtful pause as she considered something. "Not good enough for the assessment though. You're not really good at this. Not good enough to take down someone like that Muguruma with Hirako and his gang." Another pause as she surveyed Nanao. "We're going to have to get you something else to be really good at."

Nanao was about to state that she had never been any good at any physical activities, when she was leveled with a happy grin. It reminded her of the Cheshire Cat, and it was incredibly appropriate. There was something almost cat-like to Yoruichi. But in any case, she found herself dragged off somewhere, for the umpteenth time that day. This time, she was brought to a large partitioned room, which was not quite so empty.

A few of the people bowed as Yoruichi passed, before going back to what they had been doing. Thuds and bangs echoed through the room, and Nanao was rather shocked, before they reached the largest room right at the end. A beep, flashing of fingerprint and punching in of a keyword confirmed Nanao's suspicions of Yoruichi and Urahara's relationship being a little closer than what the average person saw. Hm… Interesting.

However, she did not have time to contemplate the implications when she saw the interior of the room. Racks and racks of weapons adorned the walls. A whole wall dedicated to throwing stars, another to throwing knives, and the remaining few all to guns. Guns of every size possible (except the really large ones which would not have fit into the room) were arranged almost artfully along their racks, glinting in the harsh fluorescent light.

Yoruichi had marched right up to the guns wall, and was busy pulling guns off and placing them on the table in the middle of the room. Nanao had only seen pictures of these in the various different submitted forms for approval and subsequent purchase. Pistols, revolvers, rifles and even the odd shotgun or two found their way to the table. She stood there taking in the sheer shiny-ness of the weapons. It made her feel insecure now that there were that many naked blades around. She was a peaceful person, and the knives were… slightly scary.

"Ise-san?" Yoruichi's gleeful voice interrupted her thoughts, and Nanao went over to the table, coming face to face with an assortment of guns. "I was considering starting you on throwing knives, but those don't look like your type. And then I remembered how long it took for us to figure out what to arm Ukitake with before finally settling on revolvers. His two Raging Bulls are amongst the most well-maintained guns in the whole organization, goodness knows how the man does it."

Taking in Nanao's surprised look, Yoruichi paused. "You've never handled a gun, have you?" A shake of the head confirmed her suspicions, though something told her that this one would not flinch when firing. (Which was good, because that would mean increased accuracy, and a greater chance for this one to be really good at something.) "Pick one from the table, Nanao, and we'll proceed over outside to give that a test." Noting her hesitation, she continued. "Don't you worry. None of them are loaded yet, completely free of rounds."

Feeling slightly reassured, Nanao went over to the table, Yoruichi watching closely. Nanao immediately strayed away from the M40, the sniper rifles. The rifles were not given a second glance as she went straight for the pistols and revolvers. Nah, not the revolvers, then. And a good thing too. There were already quite a few of them armed with those things. She was deciding between one of the Glock models, and was that… Oh yes, the Kahr K40. Yoruichi had a feeling she knew which one Nanao was going to pick.

The Kahr K40 was small and suited for concealed carry, the newer model with its .40 caliber bullet able to cause some serious damaged if used well. It was thin, and had been designed for reliability. Albeit a little heavy for its size, close to seven hundred grams as compared to the Ruger LCP's two-fifty, this increased weight would allow for better control. (And besides, the .40 was heavier than the 9mm for more punch.) It would be good enough. Fingers curling around the grip, Yoruichi noted that it did fit well in Nanao's hand. Happily shepherding her out of the room, she grabbed a magazine or three from the shelf.

The firing range was… loud, for the lack of a better word. The slight smell of gunpowder in the air, compounded with the loud bangs gave off the idea of 'danger'. And it was dangerous. Steered into a cubicle, a pair of earmuffs was pressed into her hands. "Put these on, this goes here, you hold it like this, point, aim, shoot." Nanao blinked at the simple instructions. It was precisely because they were that simple that she was confused. She had expected something a lot more complicated, and that must have showed on her face, as the patented Cheshire Cat Grin was flashed her way again. "It's a gun. You gotta learn as you go along. You'll develop your own style, and figure out what suits you best."

Pointing the gun in the direction of the target rather hesitantly, for she was a person who did actually function best with elaborate instructions, Nanao vaguely recalled those documents she had read on gun firing. There had been something about looking down the sights. Peering down the metal prongs, she adjusted the gun a little, pointing it at the center target. And squeezed the trigger. From her vague memory of this gun, she suspected that… oh. It had just fired. (Yep, Yoruichi noted. No flinching. Interesting.)

Motioning for her to go on, Yoruichi sat back in the booth, pleased with herself. This was good. With practice, Nanao would be quite good at this. Already, her first shot had hit the inner circle of the target. The second shot, after a little adjustment, poked a hole right below the X. The subsequent shots were all around that area, poking holes in and around the X. Ten shots were up, and not a single one in the second circle. Yoruichi was very pleased, if a little surprised.

For Nanao, it had been a matter of shoot, examine, correct, shoot. For every shot that left the barrel, she noted how she had been holding it, noted how it had flown, and then estimated from there, adjusting the sights a little. It had been mostly trial and error, which would explain the fifth shot being dangerously close to the second circle. A slight smile came to her face. Seemed like she was good at something after all. Not bad.

Subsequent days found Nanao in the firing range in the evenings, clocking in hours and hundreds of rounds with her new K40. It had been given to her by Yoruichi who had stated that these guns were meant to be used anyway. She was pretty sure that she was perhaps abusing the poor thing, but then again, it was inanimate (and thus had no feelings), and she did do her best to ensure that it was kept clean and proper. But it had paid off. She could now hit the X easily from fifteen feet, twenty feet was a cluster around the X, and twenty five had a spread all within the inner circle.

She was currently working on quick firing, which was not really working. At fifteen feet, rapid firing had only brought about a rather haphazardly messy spread through the inner and second circles. Steadying her hands had helped a little, but that was tiring. Oh well. No pain, no gain. Practice was already making her arm a little sore, and the paperwork was talking a little longer than usual. Then again, she suspected that they did have shotguns for rapid fire, and accuracy was one of the things that shotguns could not claim to have. (Besides, it felt good to justify her own weakness, which she assured herself was only temporary.)

In the meantime, Asia had safely checked in, and business was progressing as usual. The collection of information, the delegation of rooms, as well as the processing of all the extra paperwork, the immigration documents, aliases, identities, everything was in such a mess. Correction, had been in such a mess. Now that she was in charge of all the processing, what had previously had the one leader cowering in his office and the other frantically working away was a breeze. And all it had taken were some simple ground rules.

Like stating clearly the source as well as addressee on whatever document was to be handed in. Like ensuring that if the words were illegible, then that they learnt to type. Simple, simple things like that had Nanao wondering what kind of organization this was. Or perhaps it was simply because none of them wanted to deal with the paperwork, and as such, it had been left somewhere, neglected and rotting away in piles. (Not literally, of course.)

The notices regarding the assessment had been sent out a few days ago, and were to be held in a separate location, away from the city, in the countryside. Most of the members would not be attending, save the few captains of their respective divisions, offices and programs, and of course, the new intakes. Nanao got nervous from just thinking about the assessment, and as such, contented herself with shoving it all the way to the back of her head and not thinking about it, even when she was practicing with the K40.

Happily ignoring the knowledge of the impending doom, cleverly disguised as an assessment, she worked her way through the week, practicing with the daggers as well as the K40.

And then, it was the big day.

My knowledge of guns is minimal at best, so most of the information was gotten from the Internet. If there's anything wrong, go right ahead and poke me. I'll want to know. This chapter is more of a 'filler-esque' sort of thing. The action will start proper in the next chapter. :)

Cheers,
Tan