Naturally, the Gotei Thirteen was old. For most things that statement didn't mean much in the realm of Soul Reapers, but the Gotei was extremely, magnificently, inexcusably old. Hundreds upon thousands of years had been seen through by the organization, each relevant and sometimes shocking lesson learned by its soldiers promised to not be forgotten.

In the beginning, there had been one massive filing room kept in the first division, which was the home of every record of every shinigami, their squad history, where they were born, what missions they had completed, did they achieve shikai, ectera. But time drew on and each division grew more independent from its brethren, quite an upheaval took place for the complete ownership of their own records. An outside enemy was easy to kill, but interdivision rivalry was much more difficult to terminate.

So each squad took possession of its own files, and was tasked with keeping up with them should they become relevant again. Sadly for Renji, that responsibility was often shared with him.

He wasn't unfamiliar with the Sixth Division record hall. In fact he had spent many a long weeks here on the obligation of his vice-captainship. He could recognize the long, low, elegant building adorned with royal blue, the color of his squad, almost instantly from the outside. Which was a good thing, seeing as how all the lights had been extinguished by now and all the squad members gone home.

Renji took a tentative step forward down the hall, wincing when he heard the floorboard squeal under his toe. He rubbed his temple, willing himself to act less like a nervous child afraid of the dark. The inzuri streets had not been kind to its younger occupants, but after the sun went down the dark alleyways and creeping shadows were as good as death. It was a hard instinct to recover from.

But this wasn't the rukongai, so Renji shuffled on down the hall, his hands feeling against the side of the wall for the door. His fingers skimmed along the wood paneling until they hit a ridge that had to be a doorway. Renji's hands fumbled for the handle, pulling the door open very slowly, very quietly. Even more ridiculous, seeing as Renji not only worked here but knew full well the room was going to be empty, yet still didn't quiet want to disturb the sleeping silence of the building.

The records room was pitch black, and closing the door cheerfully reminded Renji that he hadn't thought to bring a lantern or anything that could have been useful for night-time spelunking through his squad's files. Fine then, he simply had to settle for waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Renji blinked, trying to acclimate to the lack of lighting. Slowly the shapes of shelves and filing cabinets began to stand against the more distant darkness clinging to the walls, the blackness starting to melt away. If Reni concentrated, he could almost-

Almost didn't catch that sudden sound. A flutter of papers, sound like a brush of wind except that there was no breeze to be felt in the dusty records room. Adrenaline shot through Renji like a strike of lightening, his hands spasming as they fumbled to settle protectively on the hilt of Zabimaru.

No one was likely on the list of people willing to sneak onto Squad Six ground after work hours, let alone head for the records room, without confirming these actions with Renji. The lieutenant took a step forward, willing his footsteps to be quiet. He wasn't quiet enough, apparently, because whatever had made the papers flutter was now a soft pitter-patter of footsteps echoing indistinctly around the room.

Renji whipped his head around, still unable to see who or what else what stalking him around the room from the shadows. The impulse of fight-or-flight reared its tempting head, but Renji bit down his excitement and willed himself to concentrate. He wasn't nearly as proficient as his captain or even Rukia at locating spiritual pressure, but maybe if he really pushed himself…

What followed next set off a cascade of events. Renji spun ninety degrees on his heels, the hand on his zanpakuto pulling the sword free and ready to strike. It would have been a perfect swing except Renji, who was a master swordsman in an outdoorsy, spacious setting, had sadly in his snap decision misjudged the depth perception needed to avoid harshly knocking his elbow into the filing cabinet on his immediate side. The metal crate toppled over unceremoniously on the shadowy source of spiritual pressure, pinning a very person-sized shape to the ground. Renji hardly had a second to decide whether this unplanned sequence was worthy of his pride or his mortification when the hand of the person being assaulted by the filing cabinet caught his sleeve in its fist on its descent and brutally yanked Renji off his feet.

Renji yelped indignantly as his face hit the floor, limbs splayed and sore from the impact of the fall. He looked up to see a set of familiar triplet scars running down the face of his intruder glaring at him from under the overturned filing cabinet. "If that was your plan, Abarai, I would have hated to see how the rest of it went."

"Hisagi?" Renji pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked at his friend. "What the hell?"

"I could be asking the same thing of you." Shuuhei said bitterly, twisting underneath the cabinet and prying it off his body. "How do you still have so many recruits if your first impulse to finding anyone on squad grounds is to attack them?"

"Well, usually they aren't sneaking around after-hours in another squad's filing room!" Renji snapped, feet finding purchase with the ground and standing up on bruised knees.

Shuuhei stood up as well, irritably rubbing the spot where the filing cabinet had hit him, "I was here first. You were the one who was sneaking on me. What are you even doing here?"

"I work here, genius. What do you think you are doing here?"

Shuuhei brushed dust off of his hakama, the look on his face comically serious considering the very ungraceful actions that had just occurred, "If you must know, I'm currently involved in an investigation regarding one of your squad members, and naturally this seemed the first place to look. Maybe you can fill me in on why there's a missing girl when according to your own records your squad currently has no active, long-term missions to send soul reapers on?"

"Oh?" Renji crossed his arms defiantly refusing to be cowed by the business-like attitude of his friend. "Investigating a missing person's case, hmm? Sounds kinda like a suspiciously low-maintenance job to assign to a vice-captain."

Shuuhei looked for a second like he might challenge Renji's boldness, opening his mouth but then faltering at the last moment before admitting. "Well, 'assigned' might be kind of a strong word."

"Ah? Why so?"

"It's really more of a… personal favor." Shuuhei scratched the back of his head.

Renji raised an inked eyebrow, "You broke into my division's record room on a personal favor?"

"I didn't break in! The door was open. But that's not the important part." Shuuhei argued, "Maybe, seeing as you did try to attack me, you could at least help me out in locating one of your subordinates."

An eye-roll from the redhead followed this declaration. "If I do, will you promise to stop snooping around like a creep? You could have just asked me for help in the first place."

Of course, Renji knew Shuuhei wasn't likely to ask for anyone's help. Period. Still, it could have saved Renji from embarrassing himself in front of his good- if currently annoying- friend.

"Well, you weren't here at the time. Still, what do you know about the whereabouts of a Sutortsu Rikuto?"

Renji cocked his head, eyebrows furrowed, "Sounds familiar. She have a rank?"

"No, just an ordinary shinigami."

Renji hummed. He had definitely heard the name before, and heard it recently. Shuuhei was correct in that Squad Six hadn't issued any new, important missions so it couldn't be that. Suddenly, a heavy weight dropped in the pit of his stomach, and he remembered what that same was from.

"You said Sutorstu, right?" Shuuhei's nod confirmed Renji's dread. Renji's lips twisted into a grim line, and he turned away from his friend to inspect the shelf a little ways away.

"What are you-" Shuuhei's protest faded as Renji rummaged on through the shelves, coming only to a stop when he found a folder under the 'S' section.

Renji returned with a plain manila folder only a second later, holding it out for Shuuhei to take. The scarred man opened it, revealing a picture of a youthful girl stamped over in angry red letters "DECEASED".

Shuuhei studied the file with narrow eyes, as if he was waiting for the stamp to fade away and the girl would be alive again. "Shit." he said quietly, "What am I gonna tell her father?"

"Sorry." Renji offered weakly. "I only got the list earlier today myself. There must have been a delay in identifying the body…"

Shuuhei's eyes flitted over to Renji, wearing that same look of quiet consideration that Renji has always found the slightest bit unsettling. "A hollow attack?"

"Yeah, but that's sort of what I was investigating here myself." Renji shifted closer as to look at the file over Shuuhei's shoulder, "Turn the page. Look at the death record."

Shuuhei turned the picture, the file now baring a similar document as to the list of deceased reapers that Renji had gotten earlier. "Look at where they place the location of death. Really look."

"…They say she was attacked in District Five." Shuuhei realized, his finger tracing the report as he read, "But that's hardly a hundred miles away from Seireitei. How the hell did a hollow get that deep into Soul Society without the Gotei noticing?"

"I have no idea. Even seeing hollows get into the lower districts is so rare now, I can't think of an excuse for how one could go undetected." Renji admitted, "But wasn't just the one. In the reports, twelve other unranked soul reapers were killed in Districts One through Eight. None of the hollows were even reported by other shinigami, only civilian eyewitnesses."

"That's not possible. It can't be." Shuuhei whispered, one of his hands drifting to cup his mouth as if in deep thought. He flipped the file closed in his other hand and looked up at Renji, "Do we tell the captains?"

Renji sighed, "My captain already knows. He was kinda the one to spell it out for me. He doesn't seem to think telling everyone 'hey, hollows are attacking right under our nose and we have no way of knowing how!' would be a very good idea."

"I see." Shuuhei sighed to match Renji's. He turned to face Renji and placed the file snugly under one arm. "Then I guess it's up to you and me to figure this out."

"… You and me?" Renji blinked, "Woah! Hey! These are my people at risk! If anyone should be looking into how these damn hollows are getting in and then skewering whatever is responsible, it's gonna be me and only me!"

Shuuhei scowled at him. "Well it's not as if I'm not involved already, and if there's been attacks on Sixth Division members I hardly think that there's not anyone else equally at risk. A very good friend of mine is now the father of an ex-soul reaper and I'd really like to be able to tell him why. Besides, if you say no I'll just have to tell the Captain-Commander anyway."

Renji grit his teeth, glaring at the other man. "You wouldn't."

"I would. Technically, I should already just knowing what I know now, but I was thinking I'd hold off on that. When I do, though, I'll be sure to tell Captain Kuchiki who oh-so-helpfully assisted me in piecing the whole matter together."

"Hisagi!"

"Abarai."

Renji sputtered, beginning to regret not taking a swing at Shuuhei with his sword when he had the chance. "Fine! We'll investigate together!"

Shuuhei's grin oozed self-satisfaction, "Sounds good, then."

"But we've got to keep it under wraps until Captain says so-"

"Sure, whatever you say."

"-and it's my squad that we know has been attacked so far so I'm in charge here."

"Naturally. Meet me by the gates of District Five at noon tomorrow."

Renji exhaled heavily as Shuuhei spun on his heels and began walking away, the folder still tucked under one arm. "You're already getting way too invested in this, aren't you?"

"Don't be silly, Abarai, you couldn't hope to find a more professional investigating partner." Shuuhei assured him throwing in before disappearing down the hall. "After all, there's a mission to be done."

Exactly ten minutes before noon, Shuuhei was already sitting at the District Five gates, and was feeling uncharacteristically excited. No, a young woman and at least twelve other soul reapers were dead; there was nothing exciting about this at all. Then again, ever since the beginning of the Winter War, Shuuhei had been placed under one set of careful eyes to another- as acting captain, under which endless amounts of scrutiny and comparisons to Tousen in all sorts of ways were not uncommon to find, now to Captain Mugumura, who couldn't seem to stop treating Shuuhei like the same delicate child he had been when they first met. Maybe doing some solo work would give Shuuhei the breath of independence he had been craving.

No, not solo work, Shuuhei reminded himself. The very reason Shuuhei wasn't out and about right now was because he had promised to work with Renji on this. The fellow vice-captain was obviously disturbed by the deaths of his subordinates, and Shuuhei could sympathize in wanting to tear the head off of whatever creature had killed them.

Shuuhei waited and watched noon pass, growing more and more irritated. Getting tired of standing he scanned the streets for a bench, slumping into it after finding one and trying not to feel impatient. It was chilly out, a faint breeze cutting through the air and digging into Shuuhei's exposed arms. Shuuhei shivered against the cold, but ultimately decided he was unwilling to find a building to go inside of and take shelter in.

There weren't many people outside now, most of them at work or home, so Shuuhei didn't feel as self-conscious about tucking his legs into his chest and wrapping his hands under his knees, essentially curling himself into a ball. He rested his head on the top of his knees, facing sideways so his knee was digging into his cheek. He held this position for a moment or two, enjoying the captured heat of his own body.

"You're late." Shuuhei chastised, recognizing the spiritual pressure that appeared behind him.

"Only by like ten minutes!" Renji said in protest. Shuuhei turned his face the other way to glare at him. Renji chuckled and gave Shuuhei a lopsided grin. "You look as if I stood you up or something."

"A gentleman expects punctuality, Abarai."

"Whatever." Renji joined Shuuhei in sitting on the bench. "So do we have a plan for this investigation junk or what?"

Shuuhei nodded, "Rikuto's report said that there was one eyewitness to the attack. We're gonna ask her about what she saw and decide how to further to look into the matter based on what that tells us."

"Doing some interrogation, I see." Renji chuckled, "You be good cop and I'll be bad cop?"

"We're both gonna be good cop, because we're both going to be polite and professional." Shuuhei stretched out his limbs, yawning before standing up. "An innocent bystander had witnessed a horrible tragedy, and we will treat said bystander with kid gloves in case she happens to be fragile."

"When you said fragile I thought you meant in the mental sense." Renji whispered to Shuuhei. On the other side of the table the two vice-captains were sitting at, an ancient old woman stroked the fat tabby cat on her lap.

"Would you like more tea, dear?" the old woman asked, her voice warbled and the wrinkles on her face multiplying when she spoke.

"I'm fine thank you, ma'am." Renji said, uncharacteristically polite.

Shuuhei subtly rolled his eyes at his companion before addressing the woman, "Mrs. Honda, we were wondering if we could talk to you about a rather serious matter."

"Oh I know." The woman said absently, "You're here about my nieces, yes? That's wonderful- they're lovely girls. We were beginning to get worried about them. Twins, you know? Having two gentleman callers at once I'm sure will-"

"No, Mrs. Honda." Shuuhei said, beginning to feel his patience grow thin. "You reported witnessing a hollow attack about a week ago."

"I did do that, didn't I?" Mrs. Honda asked the cat. "Hmm, yes. Dreadful business. Dreadful business."

Shuuhei met eyes with Renji, who nodded in the direction of the old woman in a "get on with it" motion.

"Well, Mrs. Honda," Shuuhei continued, considering how to go about this, "Could you please tell us what it was you saw on that day?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Can't? Why not?" Renji broke in from the side, earning a sharp elbow to the ribs from Shuuhei.

Mrs. Honda, however, laughed dreamily. "Dear boys, I'm afraid I haven't seen much of anything lately. I've been completely blind for thirty years now!"

Shuuhei and Renji exchanged another look, both now holding an expression bordering on panic. This time it was accompanied by Renji mouthing You didn't know she was blind?! to which Shuuhei mimed How was I supposed to know?

You worked under a blind captain for years!

What part of that means-

"However," Mrs. Honda interrupted the silent argument, albeit unknown to her, "I'm certain I can show you!"

The two lieutenants blinked in unison. Renji, being the first to catch up, tentatively asked. "Show us?"

Without another word, Mrs. Honda stood up from the table, the fat tabby on her cat meowing in displeasure as it was unsettled from its perch on her lap. The old woman slowly began trodding into the back of the house, leaving Renji and Shuuhei peering after her.

Shuuhei's mouth twisted into a frown, "Are we supposed to follow her?"

Renji merely shrugged, then hoisted himself up from the table himself to walk after the old lady, his footsteps thundering after her dainty ones. Shuuhei shared an exasperated look with the tabby cat before going after him.

Renji had followed Mrs. Honda to the back of the house, to the doorway that opened to the back garden. "Hisagi?" Renji bellowed to the soul reaper behind him, "You're gonna want to see this."

Renji stood in the doorway, holding the door open as if he had frozen in midstep. Shuuhei poked his head underneath Renji's arm. 'Honestly, what's so important about the garden.' he thought, before he too froze.

A crater nearly encompassing the entire garden sank at least ten feet into the earth, leaving mounds of unturned earth on the rim. Great chunks of the ground had been pulled free, and what once must have been a pleasant little orchard of cherry trees had been yanked from the ground by their roots and lay about the yard in various states of being shattered and splintered. Great long jagged tears of what was most definitely huge claw marks marred the wreckage, and what must have been liters of dried blood dyed the gruesome scene a rusty brown. The entire area stank of a foul spiritual pressure, the reistu so filthy it seemed a tangible fog laying over the garden.

"So…" Renji said after a minute.

"Yeah." Shuuhei agreed.

"Remember how your plan was that we look into the attacks further based on what we could find out?"

"Yeah."

"What did we just find out?"

Shuuhei tested the spiritual pressure again, and had to fight from gagging. It's reistu was strong- stronger than anything that could have been allowed to go unnoticed by the Gotei. Hell, event he Kido Corps should have been able to easily pick its traces up.

"We found out an obscenely powerful hollow somehow popped up almost in the center of Soul Society with nobody finding out long enough for it to kill one if not more people."

Renji hummed in agreement, "But you know the big question here that we didn't find the answer to?"

"How it got in?"

"Bigger."

Shuuhei looked at Renji suspiciously. "No. What?"

"If a hollow that strong managed to sneak in here so quietly," Renji wondered, his face turning considerately towards the sky, "Where is it now?"

"I'm rethinking your proposal to tell the captains. It still seems like a terrible idea." Renji announced to Shuuhei around his meal. The latter had insisted on a serious discussion about what they had discovered and the former had insisted on lunch, so it seemed an ample opportunity to hit two birds with one shakaho.

Shuuhei raised his brows, "Right, because obviously keeping a potentially life-threatening secret has always been known to work so well."

"Come on, Hisagi, think about this."

"I am thinking about this!" Shuuhei said firmly, pointing his utensil at Renji accusatorily, "I thought that maybe beforehand we had a shot at getting this done ourselves, but so far our current method of spending all day on a wild goose-chase has turned up several more questions and exactly zero dead hollows."

Renji snorted in response, "So you just want to go crying back to the captains because we couldn't catch one measly little hollow? They'd laugh at us straight out of Soul Society if they didn't fire us on the spot for looking like a pair of idiots first."

"If we just tell them-"

"What, tell 'em the truth? Here's the truth." Renji held up his pointer finger, "We've got one hollow that's A) capable of killing," The second finger rose. "B) running around in Soul Society somewhere we think," A third finger joined its brethren, "C) and our only witness can't tell us what it looks like. And we top it all off by admitting that we're incapable of catching the fucking thing without help from the big kids. Do you want chop off your dick right now, or wait until your dignity is completely gone first?"

Shuuhei glared at Renji over his teacup. Loathe as he was to admit it, Renji did have a very good point- Shuuhei had wanted to take on this investigation because he wanted to prove himself capable. Giving up now would only attest to him being incompetent. Still, if Shuuhei and Renji kept up this self-assignment as a mission and something went wrong, Shuuhei would have nobody to blame but himself for not speaking up sooner.

"You know what this really is, don't you?" Shuuhei said, willing himself to sound calm. From Renji's confused stare it was evident he didn't, "You don't really want to keeping doing this because you're afraid of your pride being wounded, you're just afraid of disappointing Captain 'Don't Cause a Scene' Kuchiki."

The reaction was instantaneous. The brash vice-captain's face turned as red as his hair as soon as Shuuhei had spoken. "Okay, here's why that's bullshit!" Renji barked, the frown on his face contorting to a blistering sneer. "I'm not afraid of disappointing my captain! I'm not afraid- period. Maybe you like having a leader again who's willing to coddle you and give you pat on the back because hey at least you tried your best, but that's not how I do things!"

"And what the hell makes you think that's how I do things? It's not like I want to ask for help, Abarai!" Shuuhei shot back with exasperation in his voice. "And in case you didn't notice, my new captain is just as strict as yours, only minus the years of adjusting to your usual insolence, so it's not only your ass on the line here. Captain Mugumura does not 'coddle' me!"

"So what? You're going to go running back because you're afraid you'll fuck up?" Renji growled, now beginning to garner attention from the other patrons in the restaurant, "Please tell me that's not what this is about. Tell me you're not wimping out on me just because you're scared of getting a slap on the wrist, you coward!"

Shuuhei grit his teeth, blood draining from his face at the accusations. Before he could fire back a reply, a small voice tentatively echoed "Excuse me..." from his side.

"WHAT?" hollered both lieutenants in harmony, turning to the trembling form of the restaurant manager. The little man shrunk under the fiery gaze of both shinigami, but addressed Shuuhei.

"Y-you're being just a little distracting to the other patrons…" He said. Shuuhei and Renji glanced around to meet a number of irritated, scared, or pitying eyes fixed on them from the other tables. Shuuhei felt a flush of embarrassment; he hadn't even realized that he and Renji's voices had been growing progressively louder. "If you and you're partner-"

"We're not partners." Shuuhei interrupted, standing abruptly from the table, "In fact, we're not even working together." He shot an icy glare at Renji's irate form, "I'm sorry, Vice-Captain Abarai, but I don't think it would be wise for me to assist you with this mission any further."

Shuuhei walked past the rows of clustered tables to the exit, Renji yelling after him "Fine with me! I didn't want your help in the first place!"