Life quickly settled down into a calm, more or less established routine. Nanao liked routines. Or at least, she greatly preferred routines to bombings. The shallow cut on her head had healed, and the magic of Unohana-san's medical division had removed the scarring. As for the bumped back of her head, she had not noticed anything different from before, she appeared to be the same calm organized Ise Nanao. Paperwork was dastardly boring, and even though she did not like it one bit, she found that this was one of the things which she simply flew through, much like gun training. All in all, she had not changed. In fact, few of them had changed and Nanao was not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

When he had left halfway in the meeting a few weeks ago, Zaraki had not, as everyone thought, rushed off to an obscenely populated place and shouted for the bastard Russian to show his face. No, he had not. Zaraki was violent, it was true, but his violence was a controlled violence. It was a reasoned violence, and now that Yachiru was getting her perkiness back, it was a focused violence.

He had laid the foundations, used his extensive impressively intimidating capabilities to help Ichimaru widen the intelligence framework. Now, the big bulky division head knew almost as much as Ichimaru did on Aizen. But still, there were no signs of the Russian. Nothing was turning up, it was as if they were lighting the fuse to lead to the bomb, but every single time, they would enter a darkened tunnel, and the fuse would dampen and crawl back out on its own. No, they had no leads, and it was trying on Zaraki's team.

Yachiru was now as bubbly as usual, taking the elevator up and down the building, climbing and scampering up stairs two at a time even though one arm was still wrapped tightly in bandages. She returned to plague the Sixth floor offices of, Kuchiki Byakuya and Abarai Renji, again and again and again, such that the latter had had to hoist her up by the collar and deposit her back on the Eleventh floor so many times that the former acquiesced to let her just stay in a corner, play with her crayons, and please be quiet because everyone else had work to do.

Kurotsuchi had woken from a long restorative and rehabilitative rest, body scarred beyond repair. Upon being informed that he was going to be quadriplegic for the rest of his life, he had scoffed in their faces, insisting on being wheeled to his lab while he ordered his most loyal subordinate around, fixing parts of machinery, attached wires here and there on models, testing, testing and testing again. Urahara often joined him in the lab, offering well-thought out ideas which seemingly only served to irritate the junior scientist, although one who knew Kurotsuchi Mayuri enough would be able to see the grudging respect he held for that man.

And after two weeks of intensive laboratory work, he had tested it out on himself to great success. Where he could previously not move a single muscle beyond his neck, he was now able to turn his head, move his arms and wriggle his toes. And though he would appear annoyed when asked to wriggle his toes as show of a miracle, it was plain for all to see that he was incredibly, incredibly pleased with and proud of himself. Of course, Urahara was very happy too, having just witnessed the birth of what promised to be a whole new field of experimentation.

In short, life was back to normal, or as normal as it could get in the organization. Nanao was happy.

But good things never lasted, and peace in the yakuza was simply too good to be true. Everyone knew that. There was no such thing as peace, merely calm. And calm, when was calm really calm? And was calm really calm? Calm in the yakuza was merely the calm before the storm, and as the days grew longer and the weeks flowed past, the atmosphere grew increasingly tense as everyone waited for something to happen. They knew it was going to happen, everyone knew it was going to happen, they just did not know what, or when.

And it was a very small something, much like the other small somethings which had sparked off conflicts and even wars in the past. While gang fights could be stirred up by a mere exchanging of glances, it was in a similar vein that the fighting began. It was something so ridiculously stupid that Nanao could not quite believe had begun the gang war, the war for territory and the war for control.

Someone spat on the road. No one really knew who it was or where that had been, or even whether that road had been within either gang's territory. It did not matter.

And immediately both sides kicked into action, the war machines coming to life in a whir of gunfire and conflicts, of violent fights and strained diplomacy, veiled threats and threatened assassinations. Both sides treaded lightly, though each light step carried with it numerous repercussions. The very way they carried themselves in public, the air around them as they spoke, the opinions that their members had, every single little previously unimportant and insignificant detail now meant the world.

You said the wrong thing, you died.

You wore the wrong color, you died.

You looked the wrong way, you died.

It was getting dangerous, this yakuza business, and Nanao could see the foreign influences already taking root in the very way Las Noches carried itself. There was more cursing, the violence was a little less regulated, the sense of honor and not hitting a person who was already down was gone. They were losing more people each day, both sides were, and this was not a good thing.

It had only been a week since the hostilities had begun, but oh boy, what a week it had been. Both sides now rarely ventured out of their territories, clinging desperately onto various important checkpoints within their own zones. If the enemy could not take the checkpoints, they could not enter their zones, and thus was the assumption that they were safe. It was a war of attrition, and both sides knew that a war of attrition would be won by the more connected, more powerful, and more influential side.

Which was not the side that they were on. Nanao knew that, being the one who processed nearly every single document that was passed around the organization. They would definitely, definitely lose out to Las Noches if all they did was hole out and wait. But would they hole out and wait? Personally, she could not quite identify a single member of the newly dubbed Seireitei who would be willing to do just that.

They were not a passive people, and the raids began once more, with higher and higher-ranked leaders leading the operations, the sub-division heads racking up experience as fast as they gained ground, both sides swiftly covering ground as they estimated and prepared for the clash on Sunday, the day that both Kyouraku and Ukitake both agreed would be the big clash.

Meetings dragged on longer than they usually did, fewer and fewer of the top twenty went home after them, preferring to bunk over in Kyouraku Industries. Even Ryuuken had moved into the compound, bringing with him an impressive set of rifles and ammunition. Hirako's gang was also armed to the teeth, and their Kansai based group was rallying, motorcycles, mini-vans and SUVs were converging upon the city.

Being the secretary, Nanao was privy to all of the plans, being the one in charge of informing all the others, of disseminating information and making sure that nothing went wrong before that day. In a series of swift coordinated attacks, they planned to swarm the southern sector of the middle point between the two cities where the headquarters were kept, a modest little town by the name of Karakura.

The various leaders had agreed earlier on, perhaps two or three weeks back, that it would be best to have their units reassigned under different head commanders. Although some would be displaced from their normal positions, this was seen as a necessary thing for battle. As rather obvious, there were quite a number who were not too pleased.

Zaraki, for one. They all knew that he was no tactical genius, hell, he probably did not think before sending his men in. Even though he followed orders well, and was plenty inventive when it came to protecting his men, this was an attack, and Zaraki attacks tended to go only one way, in. After a quick reexamination of his skills, he was relegated to second in command after Hirako Shinji. Technically, he was still in charge of the division, except that he had to take orders from an acerbic sarcastic semi-genius of a Kansai-ben speaker. That was all.

Ryuuken settled into Lockdown easily, still ignoring Uryuu. This relationship was one that not a single one of them in Seireitei understood, but there was no point in asking. The younger was a little jumpier, and the older was just sheer intimidation. No one even dared to talk to either of them when both were in the room. Unless one was a Kurosaki, in which case, Ryuuken just ignored the both of them, and Uryuu addressed them with a look of extreme annoyance on his face.

Speaking of the Kurosakis, the elder was wreaking havoc over in Kuchiki's sector, alternately driving the noble, and his sector, up the wall and alternately going over to Hirako's sector to bother his son. The junior Kurosaki seemed content with avoiding and ignoring his father, fitting in well with the new bunch of equally fight-loving people. All in all, the allocations fit well, and the atmosphere got increasingly tense as more and more reports came in of both sides closing in on Karakura.

Nanao went half insane with the amount of information passing through her desk, the numerous meetings, secret and not-so-secret which Kyouraku-san and Ukitake-san had to go for, the many internal meetings which all the members had to be gathered for, dates of action, dates of planning, weapons, logistics, locations.

Still everything was kept under wraps, all information was on a need to know basis, and Saturday dawned, a day when Nanao woke up and suddenly found herself to be the singularly most knowledgeable person in the entire organization just below that of the two leaders. Slipping out of bed and out of the building (after getting dressed of course) for her morning cup of coffee, shivers ran up her spine even though she was wrapped in a thick coat. She had a bad feeling about this. A real bad feeling. But feelings later. Coffee first. Although yes, Rangiku had warned her about not leaving the building except for an emergency, the lack of coffee was, in Nanao's book, an emergency.

Warming her hands by the thin paper walls of the cup, she inhaled the smooth coffee scent, feeling it enter her and shake her awake with the start that only coffee could manage. Quickly downing the liquid energy, she remembered what day it was, paling slightly. She was needed back at Headquarters, and she had a feeling that she should leave the shop now. Briskly walking back to Kyouraku Industries, the glass building loomed up ahead rather threateningly. This would be her first glimpse of true action, and she was not sure if she really was ready.

Which was also how she realized, as the van pulled up next to her along the roadside, that she was in a very vulnerable position. A very, very vulnerable position. She could just see Rangiku's unhappy pout. Scowling fiercely at the van driver who just pointedly ignored her, she kept walking. If they wanted anything, and she would bet her job that they did, then they were going to have to fight her for it. And Kyouraku Industries was so very close. Damnit.

She heard he van door slid open, and she picked up her pace a little, trying to draw away from the van, not wanting to run but yet wanting to get away as fast as she could. This was very, very bad timing, she mused. Kyouraku-san had a meeting in half an hour, and since Ukitake-san was already away at a meeting, there would be no one else to tell him to move.

Counting to five to steel her nerves as she prepared to whip around and shoot the nearest person, Nanao's breath grew a tad more rapid. Hands reaching for her K40 which was somehow, not there, she failed to notice the person sneaking up behind her, only noticing when something heavy collided with the back of her skull.

Great.

That Kyouraku was definitely going to be late for the meeting.

Ah, my apologies for the long delay. Here's the next chapter. Hope it's to your liking.

Cheers,
Tan