It was a little late in the evening to be bugging people for information, there was a proper time and a way to go about things if you wanted people to want to help you out. It wasn't a whole lot different from the sorts of dealings that happened at street-level in the Rukongai. The constant bargaining and trading of favors was how people got things done in that part of town, a twist of tobacco for a length of cloth, or a well-repaired knife for a blanket. In the Seireitei, if someone (as they so often did) wanted something done unofficially or to aqquire something off the books, he or she might seek out those who valued certain things and offer a fair trade. There were enough similarities for me to get by well enough, I'd been pretty good at the dicker and deal on the streets and I wasn't out of practice at it here either. I generally kept a mental tab on people who might have information I'd find useful (mainly Ukitake, but there were others too) and acquired items I knew they might like on guard against a time at a later date when I might need a favor or some info. It wasn't a bribe, it was greasing the wheels a bit.

:I think I still have that tin of Silvertip Blue tea, for Ukitake,: I thought running through my somewhat meagre inventory of favored things that could be used to smooth the way.

Ukitake was a well-known tea connoisseur, and in the two months that Rukia had been gone on her first mission in the human world I had choked down forty-nine cups of the various hell-brews he had conjured up for me and did it with a smile on my face too. I detested tea and I really didn't see the appeal of it; all it was was someone taking a bunch of leaves and boiling them in water for pity's sake! If I wanted to drink boiled plant matter I could just as easily throw grass clippings in a pot of hot water; it was the same thing and to my lights it tasted about the same too. Grass clippings didn't cost anything, and for some reason I was unable to fathom, people like Ukitake would spend whole months salaries on a single tin of tea leaves! But Captain Ukitake could wax eloquent (which was one thing he did very well) for hours about the subtleties of the herbs and interplay of the different flavors. It still tasted like boiled plant to me.

If Ukitake didn't know anything about what I was looking for (the man was a famous scholar after all) I'd probably have to approach Twelfth Division. Lieutenant Nemu (no way was I approaching the creepy captain) never socialized with the rest of us lieutenants, she was always trailing along one step behind her captain. Sure, it was the common position for most of us vice-captains to be in; a Captain's back-up , their right hand, their wingmen (or -women) and to be honest, many of us second-seaters took pride in that (Kira, worryingly so) but she took it to the extreme. The rest of us got out from under everything once in a while, but as far as I could tell she didn't. She didn't seem to have much of a personality near as I could tell either, it was "Captain Kurosuchi" this and "Mayuri-sama" that. I had discovered one thing she did seem to like though, Nemu Kurotsuchi had a deep interest in the Human World. Unlike her father it wasn't completely academic either, she really seemed facinated by them. I had brought back some trinkets and strange objects from the living world last time I'd been there, stored against the occasion I might need something to bribe with.

:Who else might know something?: I wondered to myself.

:I could try the archives.: I mentally cringed at having to wade my way through row after row of bookshelves. Even with the organization in it, trying to find something when you were not certain exactly what you were looking for would probably be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Defiantely a court of last resort for me.

:Third Division's out, Kira is as young as I am, even if he is a scholarly kinda guy,: I decided mentally going down my list of candidates based on what I was looking for and who might know best where and how to find it.

Ise Nanao might know something, she was kinda up there in the years. If nothing else she probably knew every book in the library personally and she might be able to point me in the right direction. If the first two didn't pan out, she'd be a good third candidate to pester and bribe. She'd probably have and easy bribe too, just give her a stick with which to beat that Captain of her's off her with!

So I had several possible avenues to pursue-- tomorrow. As for tonight...

:I think it was a good idea that I had earlier to work on strengthening some of my weak spots,: I thought consideringly.

I wasn't going to get any stronger than I was now, having already achieved Bankai, so I guessed I was just going to have to make myself a better fighter. I'd start with trying to find new ways to work around Zabimaru's few weak spots and go from there. The reason weak spots were weak spots for me was because they just didn't interest me, so I didn't learn them. Stuff like Kido and strategy all seemed like mental games and I already knew that cerebral-type stuff wasn't as fun as getting out there and kicking ass. I wasn't a big fan of Kido, and I figured I could wait a little while on that. Zabimaru wasn't going to be releasing his seals on me anytime soon anyway. As for strategy, granted that it was an essential part of fighting, but I'd always figured that I knew enough to get by. The fight with that pink-haired Espada had made me re-think my position. I now felt that it was something I'd better learn if I wanted to be able to beat the really tough guys; people and creatures that had centuries of experience on me had had a long time to learn that shit, so if I wanted to fight them and have a chance of winning, I'd better learn how to out-think them too.

:Unfortunately all that strategy crap is usually written in books,: I thought, cringing internally.

Don't get me wrong, I had nothing against scholars, but spending all my time with my nose pressed in a book trying to absorb and understand a buncha esoteric gobbledygook written by some guy that's been dead for centuries just simply didn't appeal to me. I was more of a go out and attack something kinda guy, spending time trying to be a brain just wasn't my style. Besides, those scholarly strategy tracts were mostly written for other scholars, and as such, they might as well be written in a foreign language. Half of it was weird-ass poetry and the other half some long-winded example of what the damn poem was supposed to be about that made absolutely no sense. Just one time I'd like to see a strategy book written in plain language! Something that said "If the asshole ya wanna take down is too big for ya, go after something he likes an' he'll be so busy rushing around trying to get it back you can easily put him on his ass" instead of "Attack Wei to rescue Zhao" or something like that. Pictures would be nice. Those books all blabbed about ancient battles with weird names between people I've never heard of... not really helpful. It would probably be easier for me to get if I could just see it, but they insisted on throwing a buncha useless names and dates at me like it's supposed to help me.

:Yeah, maybe I'll just put that off fer a while an' see what else I can't come up with for Zabimaru instead,: I thought, fully knowing that I was putting off a boring task.

So decided, I went to a nearby training court and put my mind to thinking about ways to get around that stupid 'three moves' limit of his. Zabimaru was a great sword but he did have one inconvenience; once he was fully extended I could only do three major moves with him before I had to re-coil him into rest position because his momentum was gone. There had to be some way to rebuild his momentum without bringing it back into rest position.

:I guess I'll have to think outside the box.:

I took a few practice swings with Zabimaru fully extended and didn't really see how I was supposed to keep his momentum going when I was the base that held the energy to power his attack. A snake needed to be coiled in order to spring...

:Or does it?: I wondered to myself.

They also found a lot of thier power in motion. What if I used my whole body as a basis for the swing instead of just my arm? I pulled Zabimaru back into rest again and shot him straight out but this time instead of just slashing to the side I spun and rushed to the right, Zabimaru stretching out beside and behind me. I stopped abruptly and watched him shoot in front of me and take out a nearby boulder. The boulder exploded. I cocked my head to the side and considered, it sort of looked a little more powerful but maybe it was just me, it still didn't answer the question as to whether it was going to solve the recoil limit either. I brought Zabimaru in then extended and swung, once, twice, then spiralled him around for the third (and usually final) swing, I could feel most of the power behind Zabimaru's movements drain to almost nothing as usual, but this time I rushed to the front, building up some momentum and then flash-stepped back. Zabimaru snapped forward and took out the target. I grinned.

:Not bad,: I thought, preening a little to myself. :I wonder how long I can keep it going.:

I experimented with flash-stepping to build up momentum but discovered that, instead of building momentum by movement, flash-step, even though I moved, didn't produce any pent-up energy. I was just suddenly in one place and then in another but my state was that of an object at rest. It was still pretty great for when I was already moving and wanted to stop suddenly, it had the same effect as that of a running dog reaching the end of his chain, Zabimaru shot forward with a sudden jerk and the end of his blade snapped the target into dust.

I brought him back in and mentally picked my targets, swung and spiraled three times, as usual, then rushed to one side and snapped back, hitting the first target, then rushed back in the opposite direction and pivoted into a spin on the right whipping Zabimaru to the side snapping the tip into my second target, the momentum wasn't as great as it was when I regularly recoiled and swung again, but it was working. As long as I kept moving, even though I stopped or changed directions suddenly, the energy built at the end of my blade and Zabimaru could keep hitting the targets with a decent amount of force. I whipped and dodged around the practice area, trying to keep in constant motion.

:Looks like I'll have to work on my speed and agility then,: I thought to myself after a little while.

I was winded and a little out of breath, sweat made my uniform cling to my skin and my lungs burned a bit. It had been a while since I'd done any sort of speed trials and I wasn't so much built for them. I was more of a power-fighter.

As a fighter I kept my body in excellent condition because I was going to be expected to be there on the battlefield, but my fighting style generally had me stationary for the most part, swinging Zabimaru from a stable base. All this dancing around and running full speed was a whole different kind of fight from what I was accustomed to. It looked like, if I wanted to master this new way of keeping Zabimaru in the field, I was going to have to train for speed.

:No problem,: I thought to myself. I enjoyed training anyways, physical activity was something I'd always been pretty good at. I'd just work on running. It wasn't as fun as fighting or running obstacle courses, but it had its own kind of savor to it too.

I whipped Zabimaru at one last target before I considered calling it a night and when it was destroyed a piece of rock went flying into a nearby tree, startling a bird out of it. My mind automatically seemed to make an intuitive leap, connecting the bird to my recent recoil-extension experiments and an idea occurred to me. While I was fighting I often had a move where I kept Zabimaru fully extended and coiled around me in a spiral to give him an extra bit of power when I sent him into attack a target, maybe I was being too linear though.

:What if I attacked from the air,: I wondered to myself.

I could sort of see how the idea was supposed to work in my mind, jump up and kip into an axle spin with Zabimaru gathering in a tighter spiral around me, then just shoot him out in the direction I wanted to attack from. It was easy enough to put a little spin on a leap, what if I used that spin to coil energy around me and replenish Zabimaru's flagging momentum?

:Executing it in mid-air could be a bit of tricky business though,: I thought consideringly.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That was pretty much the motto with all of my long practice sessions I had done over the years with Zabimaru. We were a team he and I, and as partners we should stretch ourselves to our fullest potential. We wouldn't get any stronger by resting on our laurels after all.

:Let's give it a shot!: I thought.

It was strange, even after all this time together my enthusiasm for developing a new technique for us to fight with hadn't dimmed a bit.

I extended Zabimaru and swung three times, getting rid of his native power, and then dashed forward, whirling him around my head and shot my body into the air. Kicking out with my leg I pulled my body into a controlled axis spin, Zabimaru curling backwards into a spiral around me from the tip of his tail, which I held in my hand. He gathered in close as I spun...

:Too close!: I thought in a mild panic, seeing one failing in my idea a little too late to stop it. I'd put too much spin in my leap and Zabimaru wrapped fully around me. We went ingloriously crashing into the ground, him wrapped in a tangle around my limbs as I fell pretty much on my ass. It was sort of a world-class fail on my part.

:Ow,: I grumbled a little as I pulled Zabimaru back into resting position. His fangs had bit into me on the way down and I sported a few good sized cuts.

:That's how you know it's been a good practice,: I reminded myself, having made that one of my mottoes early on. If I was gonna be a brute fighter I was going to have to resign myself to gettin' hurt. It wasn't a good training session unless someone was bleeding.

I wasn't about to wuss out over one or two little scrapes, especially when I was trying something new. A warrior didn't grow by giving up at the first obstacle. It had taken me a lot of trial and error to work out Zabimaru's omni-directional attack, and a lot of blood too, but when I finally did make it work for me it increased my versatility as a fighter quite a bit. So this is new recoil was definitely something I wanted in my arsenal.

"Roar, Zabimaru!" I commanded, perfectly ready to keep at it all night if I had to. Such was the way of the warrior.

I might have lost my sole reason for fighting and growing stronger but damned if I was going to let that deter me. I might not have a reason for fighting any more but I had the vague feeling, call it faith, that Zabimaru and I were going to get through this rough patch together and come out even stronger than before.

I want to send a big thank-you to my loyal reveiwers AngelIre, KuraOkami13, War90, and Mavenia (who really needs the post the next chapter of But For The Spring so I can find out what happens next). It's your constant words of praise and curiousity that keep me editing and posting with such regularity... otherwise, I'd probably lose interest and become my usual lazy, procrastinator self and stop posting. So for all of you lurkers out there, you have them to thank for this and any ensuing chapters I post.

Oh! Almost forgot, as a teaser, in the next chapter you get to find out what my explanation for Renji's tattoos is. I'm so excited! I'll see you all Thursday.

~Nightheart.