We stared at each other for a long moment, both of us plainly surprised at what our eyes met. She was probably just surprised to see me period, but I was surprised because I had been expecting to see a store-room full of treasure and not some kind of strange glowing bird-woman in a golden cage.

She was beautiful, with hair made of dancing flame and skin that glowed a with a lambent golden light, eyes that shone like two live coals from a fireplace. Her body was elongated and sorts egress-looking, and she was covered in a cloak of feathers that flickered like real flames. She seemed warm and alive and powerful in a way few things were anymore.

"Oh, ah, well..." I said, scratching the back of my neck as she regarded me in a way that didn't seem at all human. "This is awkward."

There was nothing at all in this room that resembled what I was lookin' for.

"Human," she said in a soft voice that nonetheless resonated with an inhuman power. "You have come seeking to free me?"

"Ah, no," I said with awkward honesty. "I'm actually kinda on a mission from the Court of Genbu. I'm lookin' fer his diamonds."

"I see," she said, clearly disappointed. "I am Firebird. I long to be free as I once was, but no mortal who has ever found this place has managed the task."

"Oh, gee, that's too bad," I said, stiffly.

I could hear what she was asking and I really didn't want ta get caught up in the mess. I was kinda busy right then and a side-quest inside of a side-quest would be inconvenient.

::Is that the direction your heart tells you is correct?:: Zabimaru asked.

Well, no, but...

:Ah, what the heck, I'll help her out,: I decided.

I was already there after all. And who knew, maybe she could help me find those diamonds so I could get back to what I was doing.

"Hey, ya need me ta pick that lock for ya?" I offered, pointing to her cage.

"The lock you see is only part of what keeps me imprisoned here," she replied in her beautiful voice.

Of course it was.

"The only way to free me is to find the heartsblood diamond that Katschei the Deathless has imprisoned his heart and magic in. It is the Keystone of this realm. The spell that holds me prisoner in this place drains me of most of my power in order to uphold the spells that maintain this castle. If you break the hold his magic has then the spell that holds me bound will loose its power."

Well it looked like I was goin' after that heart anyway.

"Ya know where I can find it?" I asked her.

It would be a big help if she did.

"The rose maze garden," she replied. "In the center of the garden is the heartstone, the center locus of all the spells that maintain this realm. The window to his workshop and quarters is in the tower above the garden so that he can put his eye on his heartstone regularly."

So I get that heartstone of his an' I can use it ta kill him?"

"Not precisely, in order to kill Katschei the Deathless you must first break his power. It is his magic that renders him immortal."

Well that was...damned inconvenient.

"What you must do is to find a way to sneak inside of his magic circle and grasp his heartstone, then use your own power to displace his magic from within the stone. After you have conquered the stone, making him mortal, then you will be able to destroy his heart and Katschei the Deathless will no longer defy the duties of a Soul Reaper."

Geeze, it seemed like everybody and their gramma knew what I was. Nature Spirits, oi! Still, I appreciated the help.

"Oh, well thanks," I said, listening outside the door and waiting for the second patrol to pass. "I guess I'll help ya out missy, but ya owe me one."

"I thank you," she said, inclining her head regally like some kinda princess.

I slipped back out and down the maze of hallways that made up the castle. Anyone else might have been having difficulties, but I had grown up on the twisting and uncertain streets and back-alleys of Hangdog. This was nuthin', especially when I could just follow my own scent back. Dodging patrols was really the only dicey part and that was more amusing than anything since they all moved in predictable patterns.

The garden was waiting for me and I cut through the faux ruins garden and over to the entrance of the rose hedge maze without tripping any alarms or alerting any patrols. I wondered why the security in that place was so lax.

:Maybe he feels like he doesn't have to fear any sort of enemy attack,: I thought to myself ducking behind a bush and waiting for another patrol to pass.

After all, it would take a being of unusual power to create a Portal to another Realm that couldn't be detected. There was no doubt that Genbu was powerful. Katschei was probably just like the Captan of Twelfth, so secure in his own prowess and power that he never for a moment thought that anyone would dare to challenge it.

:I don't like mazes,: I grumbled to myself.

I didn't like puzzles period, I liked things simple and straightforward and obvious so that they were easy to figure out.

I sighed a bit, looking at the complicated network of passages that turned and twisted in and back on themselves. I'd be here all night trying to figure this place out. I poked at one thorny wall, just to see if maybe I couldn't just cut through it, but the hedges were like steel and they thickened when I disturbed them. Nuts. I entered the labyrinth and got a couple of turnings in when I heard the clanking sound of guards moving nearby. I leapt up to the top ridge of the hedge and stifled my little gasp of pain as the thorns clawed through my clothes and into my skin. The guard passed beneath me and I shrugged, and started leaping from wall to wall, headed straight for the place where I smelled powerful magic on my tongue. I had to move quickly because the Firebird lady had said that the Katschei could see this place from his rooms, at any moment he could look down and see me bouncing along. I couldn't flash-step because that took reiatsu and I had to keep mine hidden to keep a low profile. Still I got there pretty quick, even with ducking down to hide from patrols.

The center of the garden was an enormous stone circle that had to be at least ten feet in diameter. Concentric circles in the stone were laid out that had strange and intricate sigils and nodes and lines painted on them in multicolored glowing light. All of those circles surrounded and centered in on a round stone altar in the center of the array. On top of that altar was a glittering muti-faceted stone about the size of my two fists put together that throbbed with a glowing power in a steady beat like a heartbeat. That had ta be it.

Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. Curled up around the array was a long, deadly-looking dragon with its tail tucked in its snout. There was a harness-collar around it's neck linked to an iron chain (that was as thick around as my own bicep) tied to the bottom of the pilar. I sucked in a breath and tasted the wind, it smelled of that dry, faintly sandy scent of reptile. Still, it didn't seem like the creature could scent me and it hadn't seemed to notice me yet either.

:Huh,: I thought. :Not much of a guard dog if i c'n git this close without it noticing me.:

Yeah, typical miser. Too cheap to buy a real guard-dragon so he binds up a cheap one and keeps it hungry ta make it mean. I didn't have anything on me that would put it ta sleep, mores the pity (could you even drug a dragon?) so I was going to have to find some other way to incapacitate it.

I thought about it for a little while. I was impatient to be getting back, I had wasted so much time dancing around this place already. Part of my just wanted to walk up, pull out Zabimaru and kill it, but... something about that didn't feel right to me. The dragon wasn't my enemy, not like a Hollow or an Espada was, it felt wrong to just kill the beast simply because I found it inconvenient.

:I'm not turnin' inta some kinda wimp or a softy, its just that a guy's gotta have his standards, that's all,: I justified. It just seemed ta me that there was some sort of fine difference between killin' somethin' in the line of duty or because ith threatened me, and killin' somethin' because it was inconvenient. Still... there was more than one way ta skin a cat after all (as I could personally attest to, having skinned plenty of them for food in Rukon).

So how did I take the dragon out of the picture without killing it. If I tried to free it, it would probably try to eat me anyway, if the collection of decaying human bones littering the ground around it was anything to go by. I thought about it for a while and a fun plan occurred to me.

I carefully unbound my lowest chakra and pulled out a small trickle of reiatsu, just enough for me to flash-step with. I darted into the clearing.

"Hey, scaley! Biiiida!" I pulled down my lower eye-lid and made a face at it. "Boggeley-boggley-boggeley!"

The dragon, sighting me after I got its attention, set up a loud howl, rising to its feet and straining on its chain after me. I flashed out in the opposite direction that it had seen me in and hid nearby in the hedges. Sure enough a few minutes later, the scowling old curmudgeon stomped down with a large party of guard-manikins to see what his dragon had found. Seeing no-one nearby and sending his guards in the direction that the dragon seemed to want to go in, the master, after a long wait and no results, berated the beast for being startled by nothing. Katschei left the garden and I waited, patiently, for the dragon to settle back down and for Katschei (presumedly) to go back to whatever he had been interrupted from. Then I did it again, from a different direction this time.

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" I taunted the second time.

The dragon raised the alarm and I flashed to another spot too quickly for it to follow me. The master of the castle came stomping back down, clearly irritated at having been interrupted in whatever he was doing. The guards were sent out in the wrong direction again and after turning up nothing, the dragon was yelled at for the false alarm once more.

I repeated the process, each time waiting long enough for the Katschei to get back to his work before stirring up the guard-dragon again. On the sixth time the sorcerer finally got smart and left some guard constructs behind, and I was tempted to pull out Zabimaru and have a little fun with them, but I was busy right then and it would have given the game away if I had. The guards, even stupider than the dragon was, were even easier to fool.

:Maybe Captain Kuchiki is right about something,: I thought in amusement after the fourth time they were all so easily duped. :It really must be sooo hard to find good help these days.:

It took a few hours but Katschei finally got fed up with the constant interruptions from the beast over what looked like nothing and unchained him, driving him off with slaps and kicks and berrations to another part of the garden so he could finally get some peace and quiet. I waited another hour or so, just to be certain the coast was clear, then I flashed over.

"Howl, Zabimaru!" I commanded. My sword shikaied and we took care of the pathetic specimens that Katschei used for guards in three strokes. Really, it almost wasn't worth the effort.

I stepped onto the stone circle with some trepidation but after a few moments and nothing happened, I strode right up to the heartsblood diamond. It was as big as two of my fists. I followed the instructions that the firebird had given me, unlocking all of my first chakra and opening the floodgate just to be sure I got enough to push out his own power. I gathered a massive amount of power at my highest level. Bright crimson-red power flowed out through my meridians and into the diamond where it coiled like a snake ready to spring, calling up a sourceless wind and a crimson light all around me. When I had seen even high-level captains unleash their own considerable reiatsu, it had done much the same but the highest color they achieved was the powerful blue-white light. The red of my lowest chakra wasn't near as powerful as the golden yellow of Zaraki or the frost blue of Hitsugaia, but it had a density to it that it had lacked before, and since I could access all of my first chakra instead of just the portion that Zabimaru had allowed until now the trickle of power that had gotten me to Lieutenancy was now a full fledged mudslide. I pushed it out, forcing it into the heartsblood diamond, where it began to battle with the power that was already in there, spreading itself out. The two colors vied inside the stone, looking like a bottle of oil and water being sloshed violently around.

The Katschei came running with an enormous pack of his own guards and flung a spell at me the instant he saw me. I just ducked behind the pedestal, using his heart as a shield. He didn't dare pull out his really powerful stuff with that stone in the way. His guards were pathetic, but the sheer number of them entertained me good. They came at me in droves only to be cut down by my sword, thier own weapons as useless as toothpicks compared to Zabimaru's sheer strength. It was a good time!

The guards were fun, but I wasn't actually there to play, so reluctantly I got down to business. With the knowledge of how to do so whispered into the back of my mind, I gathered up more power from within me, the crimson red lightening a bit to a more coppery tone, and pushed it down the tang of the blade, making the knotwork etchings glow like fire as I pushed the power outward and it made a diamond edge of coppery light all along the edge of Zabimaru's blade. I waited for just the right moment. When the crimson colored light of my own reiatsu flared up momentarily in victory, overtaking the greyish-hued light of Kastchei's power, I took up my blade and swung down hard on the stone. It didn't just shatter, it exploded outwards in a grey-white burst like a lightning flash. The whole Realm seemed to cry out a scream of denial even as the Katschei did, his body disintegrated into dust leaving behind his vengeful-looking soul.

I was surprised, I had forgotten that he'd actually been a still-living (or somewhat still living I guessed) mortal! The ghost, naturally, expanded and masked over into a Hollow immediately. Due to the immense power he'd wielded in life, he became a nice big Hollow. I felt happiness well up from within me... At last! Something that actually resembled the world I had unwillingly left behind! I hadn't realized how much I had missed it.

I faced off against the turgid spider-like looking Hollow that the man had turned into after his mask settled with a feeling, almost of gratitude towards it. I was still gonna do my thing, but I was happy to be doing it. It shot one of its scythe-like forelimbs at me, trying to cut me in half but I flashed out of the way and charged in swinging, lopping off the offending limb at the middle joint. The matching limb behind it gave it a try and I met it with Zabimaru, beating it back then reverse swinging around to try to take it off, but was blocked. I leapt and dodged another attack by the scythe-limb on Hollow-Katschei's left side and took that off. He attacked once again and I blocked him with beating blows from my sword. A deadly sort of dance ensued as I used Zabimaru to block and attack the swings of the Hollow's many scythe-like legs and claws. It's face, protected in the center of its body, glared at me balefully with eyes that had lost thier humanity. I quickly came up with the strategy of darting around and under his body, trying to confuse his limbs. He was a noob as far as Hollows went, and it'd be a cold day in hell when I couldn't beat one of his kind with practically one hand tied behind my back. Sure enough, it wasn't long before the Hollow, so very new to his form and unaccustomed to it, became entangled in his own appendages and stumbled. Waiting for just that opportunity I charged in.

"Hup," I panted as I pushed myself into the air, flipping Zabimaru point-down before me.

"Hyaah!" I cried as I fell like a guillotine blade, slicing the Hollow neatly in half. The former Hollow immediately disintegrated and I felt a small feeling of satisfaction at that... right before the magic-circle around me started acting up.

Uh-oh," I muttered, caught off guard by the sudden weird turn that things had taken.

Only then did it occur to me that I might have made quite possibly a fatal error in so carefully shuffling the magician off the mortal coil for good. It was his power (presumedly) that had created the Realm by magic, and it was (also presumedly) his power that held it together... so if I got rid of him, then what happened to the Realm?

The sigils in the stone circle flared up with blinding white power as the earth shook and the air trembled. All the lights inside the castle flared up a bluish color. The glowing stone circle dimmed down and turned from a multi-hued silvery white color to a deep crimson, the crimson light slowly traveled up through the spectrum from orange to gold to green then aqua and finally deepened into ultra violet blue and settled in at an indigo light. The power within it was pulsing steadily and I very much wanted to ignore that its pulsation was in synch with my own heartbeat.

I blinked a few times to clear my vision and looked at the pedestal. The huge fist-sized diamond that had been there was gone... or mostly gone. There was a smaller stone there now that glowed with a lambent indigo light, pulsing steadily. I reached out onto the pedestal and picked it up. It was warm and the power felt like... me.

:I think I've just been had again,: I thought in irritation.

The firebird woman hadn't mentioned that part of my own power would remain sealed inside the stone when she told me ta put it in there. I quickly checked my chakra out, they were basically fine but there was a nice sized chunk of my own personal power missing. I sighed and put the stone in my pocket, no sense in leaving it lying around, and flashed back to the castle. As I darted through the garden and then through the halls of the castle I noted that the manikins that had been tending the place and patrolling it had all dropped wherever they were from whatever they'd been doing like puppets with their strings cut. I opened the door to the room that the firebird was being held in and said

"I got a bone ta pick with ya lady!" I held up the stone, pulsing with power, so she could see it.

"You didn't say nuthin' about my own power being stuck inside this rock."

She looked at me mildly and said

"I wasn't certain that this would be the case. It was one of many different possibilities."

"Oh yeah? Well what were the others?" I demanded, not exactly certain that I wanted to know.

"Everything might have been fine," she enumerated calmly, ticking the possibilities off on her long elegant bird-like fingers.

"The stone might have backlashed on its master destroying the Katschei, it might have destroyed the both of you, or it might simply have drained all of your power, killing you," she recited with disinterest.

I stared at her.

"You risked my life, the life of a perfect stranger who was nice enough ta help you out instead of just leaving you there ta rot, and you don't even care that you might've killed me."

"Mortality among Human's is relative," she replied mildly. "You would simply have been placed back in the cycle of death and rebirth."

"Well I know that," I said in annoyance.

I was a Soul Reaper after all, who else but me would know better?

"The point is that if you're gonna gamble ya should risk yer own skin and not the life of some poor unsuspecting guy who's being a good samaritan."

I was saying this, even as I was picking the lock on her cage. Geeze, I really did seem ta have a stupid weak spot fer women.

"A Good Samaritan?" firebird questioned. " I had assumed that you were helping me out of self-interest."

"I don't got no intrest in you, self or otherwise," I snapped. "I toldja already I'm here fer Genbu's stupid diamonds. I figured they were in here because this was one of the rooms that was so heavily guarded."

"The other three contain other beings like myself, one from each of the four elemental courts."

Great, I supposed I was gonna have ta rescue them next.

"How do I get my power back out of that rock?" I asked of her.

She'd gotten me inta that mess, she could at the least figure out a way to get me out of it. after all, I could have just left her there. She didn't tell me what I was risking when I took up the task so it was partly her fault.

"Katschei the Deathless was an ordinary mortal magician-"

"I know, I wasted his Hollow form when he died," I said.

Firebird regarded me for the first time with something that resembled an expression on her face. I pulled out Zabimaru to show her.

"I'm actually a Soul Reaper," I said.

"A mortal Soul Reaper?" she said, sounding surprised.

"I know. Doesn't happen, does it?" I couldn't help the bitter tone that escaped at the reminder of my current predicament.

The sooner I got that Shadow, the sooner I could go back the the Seireitei, explain what was going on, and finally have someone start working on a way to un-mortalize me.

"Most peculiar," was all she said to that.

"As I was saying, Katschei the Deathless was a mortal magician who, in the course of his research figured out a way to both trap immense magical power, power enough to create his own Realm in the Dangai, and to make his life and youth extend indefinitely. Not only that, but he was truly deathless, because every time some mortal managed to "kill" him by stabbing him through the heart, he had a spell set up that would transfer his spirit to a waiting gigai, thus bypassing the cycle of death and rebirth."

"How nice for him," I said, not really caring.

"The heart with his magic that he imprisoned also acted as the lynch-pin that held all of the myriad spells that he used to create and maintain this Realm together, including the ones that drained me of my power, to help him to maintain his realm."

"Oooo-kayy," I said, not seeing the significance of that.

"It means," she snapped, irritated with my density. "That the Realm, in order to hold itself together, needs some kind of a heartstone. Now that Katschei is gone, and will no longer keep coming back, there needs to be some unifying magical force, to keep the layers and layers of his magical spells that keep this realm in one piece together. The Katschei had always used his own magical power, which he kept inside that diamond, but since he is well and truly dead..."

"The spell just took mine,"I finished for her.

"Making you master of this place and all of its contents," she said in a hinting manner.

She looked like I should be happy about something.

Oh, nice. I was the master of a whole realm full of old human stuff. I wasn't the sort who went around just gathering stuff like some old Rukon bag-lady. What the hell was I supposed to do with it all?

"That's uh, that's really great," I said unenthusiastically.

Maybe I could give it away as gifts? Naaahh, I didn't know that many people!

"I thought you humans dreamed of wealth beyond imagining!" she snapped, sounding irritated. "You look like someone just gave you an unwanted present and you're not certain how to turn it down without being rude."

"Is there anyway to undo it?" I asked impatiently.

I didn't care how the Katschei had managed the trick of living for so long or building his own realm with magic or anything like that. That was magic-type stuff. Boring. I just needed a way to get it undone. It was bad enough that I was already bound into a mortal shell, I didn't need to be the glue that held a bunch of human spells together via a rock that held a chunk of my reiatsu in it on top of all of that.

"The only one who really knew how it was done was the Katschei and he's already gone," firebird said. "You could look in his workroom though, the spells were complex enough that he had to have written them down, maybe you can figure out a way out of them."

Great. Great. Greatgreatgreatgreat. Was she ever barking up the wrong tree there.

"Well that's not immediately useful," I said. "Instead of that, do you know a way to bind a Shadow?"

Firebird blinked and stared at me.

"You've heard of them?" she said in surprise.

I quickly gave her some few details about why I was after them, leaving out all but the very essentials.

"So what do you know about them?" I asked.

"More than you'd think," she said. "If there was one thing Katschei liked, it was gloating to his captive audience."

I smiled wryly at that. Captain Kuro-kookie was the same way. Once he got going on about how brilliant and superior his intellect was compared to the rest of us you couldn't get him to shut the hell up.

"The Shadows were confined mostly to their own Realms, for centuries" she said. "Because, even though they were ancient gods, their power was limited once their Realms started to fade around the edges. They couldn't travel very far from the centers of their personal power for very long, until recently, because they had no way of taking that power with them. They would have to go back and recharge before they faded out completely. But someone, I don't know who, approached Katschei one day with a scheme. The guy had a way of making the Faded, that's another term for Shadows because their power is faded from what it once was, he had a way to enable them to gather up their power and carry it with them instead of being tied to their own realms. The only thing that was needed were heartsblood diamonds. Once they had those they could use them to create a heartstone, that's like a source stone that holds all of their power, making a Shadow able to travel at will without going back to their realm to recharge themselves."

I didn't care much about that, what was important was

"So the Shadows are tied to their own heartsblood diamond now, instead of to their Realm?" I asked.

I couldn't help feeling urgent when I asked next

"So if I destroy their heartstone, I destroy the Shadow?"

"You can't destroy their heartstone," she said bluntly.

"I just destroyed Katschei's diamond!" I protested hotly, frustrated at being so close to victory and having it slip out of my grasp.

"You could do that because he was, after all, still only mortal and so are you... basically. You are a Soul Reaper, so mortal souls are your baliwik. The Shadows are not and never were mortal, you couldn't summon up enough spirit energy to destroy thier mitama if you drained yourself of even the energy you need to exist."

Daaaaammmiiiiiit! I railed inside in frustration.

"The best you can hope to do is to bind their powers and forms back into their heartstone," she replied. "Once you do they'll just be imprisoned, helpless inside the stone, like genies inside of their lamps."

"Really?" I said, hopefully. "How do you do that? What's the spell?"

"First you have to defeat it's physical body, and a lot of them, even though they aren't what they once were, are still very powerful, so it won't be easy. Lower level Shadows won't have any form but a vague shadow, but the more powerful Shadows will have created physical shells that they control like puppets. The weak ones can be defeated pretty easily once you know where to hit them. The more powerful ones will have to have their guardian puppets defeated before you can attack the Shadow itself. Secondly, you have to pull thier mitama from out of inside of them. Only then can you bind them with the spell that will trap them inside their own heartstones."

"How do I get that spell?" I asked next.

I wasn't very good a kido bullshit and I'd never even heard of the other kind of magic they used out there in the Dangai until now, but I was willing to learn if that was what it took.

"The binding spell you are looking for calls on the four elements," she replied. "You'll need permission from all four Courts to use a spell that will enable you to put a bind on Spirits that answer to that element."

I tried to suppress a groan. This just kept getting more and more complicated. Now I had to travel to the other courts and beg them for permission to use their power?

"Luckily for you," Firebird chirped brightly. "Myself and the other three that were imprisoned here are all high-ranked members of our respective Courts. To repay our debt to you for putting yourself at risk for our sakes, we in turn will give you our words to go to our home courts and ask our respective emperors for the talismans that will grant you access to the elemental power."

Well that was more like it.

"I kinda need it in a hurry," I reminded her. "Mortals generally run around working fast."

Firebird looked oddly at me for that but inclined her head regally in acknowledgment. I started picking that lock.

"There," I said after a bit and swung the door wide. "Yer free. Now let's go get the others out and see about getting their help too."

The castle was massive, but the chambers I was looking for were not hard to find, just by the reek of magic emanating from them. The other three captives were all women too, a powerful old crone of the earth, another pretty young woman resting her fishy tail in a large pool of water, and an intellectual-looking older woman who reminded me a lot of Lieutenant Ise Nanao. Each of them were nicely grateful to me for getting them out of there, (the fish-woman was particularly solicitous of me for having been stripped of a portion of my power by the heartstone, but I suspect that empathy was merely a part of her nature) and each of them helpfully promised to quickly go back their respective courts and petition their emperors for permission to use that binding spell to entrap Shadows. Since a verbal promise wasn't worht the paper it was printed on, each of them gave me a talisman that would enable them to find me later to deliver the court sealed permission.

They each Portaled off to their own dimension and I walked off to locate the workroom.

The guy's library was immense, I mean not just huge but... it was so big that I couldn't even seem to wrap my mind around it. I had considered the library at the Seireitei to be large, but this guy's book collection had to have easily been twice that size. The private collection alone that was located in a study just off where he slept (I could tell by the scent) was the size of a good sized humman library. They were all advanced tomes about magic, not just elemental magic, but also the summoning and binding of ghosts in the mortal realm. There was a nice sized section devoted to Soul Reapers and Hollows, and another section off that one that dealt with zanpaktou. There was a section that dealt with Hueco Mundo and Espada, and a relatively slim (though tall) volume entitled "Yl Thyorie and Trieeteeze of Hallouficacion" which I translated to mean it was about something called "hollowfication."

"What's that, I wonder?" I muttered to myself, momentarily sidetracked. I pulled out the volume from the shelf and thumbed it open flicking through the pages, then once I got a handle on exactly what it was my eyes were seeing, nearly dropped the book in shock and disgust.

If I was reading it right, the book was suggesting that a Soul Reaper would gain greater power and access to powers that Hollows had, like cero and sonido, if they developed the ability to take on the attributes of a Hollow temporarily. My lip automatically curled up in a snarl of distaste, my figurative hackles raising at that. Just what kind of idiot would come up with an idea like that? Soul Reapers existed to fight Hollows, not to try to be one of them.

:Didja see that, Zabs?: I asked, still a little shocked. :Some idiot thinks it'd be a good idea to turn Soul Reapers in ta Hollows fer th' sake of a little more power.:

I liked to be strong as much as the next dog, but there were some places that even I wouldn't go.

::When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy,:: Zabimaru replied solemnly.

"Well that's one book that's not making it out of this pile," I said firmly. "The world's got enough problems with regular Hollows and now the Arrancar and Espada, plus this Shadow threat... we don't need to go turnin' th' good guys inta Hollows too."

I firmly put the book back in its place and went back over to the elemental section. It took some while of hunting but I had pulled down a small pile of books and some scrolls that looked like what I was looking for. The guy had a lot of them, my guess would be that he had collected a lot over the years because he had four powerful elementals locked up in his basement fueling his magic spells and that if they ever got loose they'd come after him first. I just picked out all the books that mentioned bindings and Shadows and elementals all in one and left the rest. Out of curiosity I also nipped over to the section that had all of the volumes about Soul Reapers and Zanpaktou and other things related to it (like the Soul Socity, the formation of the academy, and the Spirit King and Court) and scanned down the titles looking for a good read. Most of them looked like they were written in an archaic-type dialect, and a few of them appeared to be private journals from Soul Reapers that had been doing the job since before the Seireitei had been developed. I wasn't a history buff, but I had learned that journals were usually the least boring thing to read, because it had real people in them. There were a lot of books.

"This looks good I guess," I said, stuffing my findings into a nearby pack and slinging it across my chest. "Now to find that chest."

It took me sifting through four neatly arrayed treasure store-rooms in order to find what I was looking for. There was one small mercy about all of this, at least this guy wasn't one of those hoarders that left everything in a huge pile on the floor. No, he had it all arranged neatly on shelves, behind glass... even labeled. In the process I found another of those bag that hold a nearly infinite amount of stuff without getting any fuller or heavier, I placed all of the books and scrolls I'd grabbed out of the library in that satchel and slung it across my chest instead. It took me a little while of searching, I figured that a treasure that valuable would be on the same floor and in the same area that his sleeping chambers were, so I started my search there instead o the treasure rooms down on the lower levels.

I finally spotted the chest, made of hardwood covered in green and white laquer with designs on the top and sides that looked like the lid of a tortoiseshell and the skales of a snake, bound in white gold with decorated locks on all of the sides, in between a redwood chest with feathers carved in it and a blue stone urn chased with silver and studded with blue gems on a pedestal with one other container in a locked room a few paces away from the guys main workplace. Even if it wasn't labeled, it looked like this would be it. Examining the box for damage and to make sure I'd picked up the right item, though when I shook it it didn't sound like it was even half full. Oh well, it wasn't my fault, Genbu had just asked me to bring the box and its contents, it wasn't my lookout if Kastchei had already gotten rid of some of them. I headed back to the gate. The coordinates in the nodes locked onto the ones for Genbu's court and the gate shimmered open revealing the starpath through the Dark Between.

I arrived at the Court of Genbu and revealed the chest I had brought back to the guards guarding the gate. The lizard men all exchanged looks, like they hadn't expected me to come back or something, and escorted me to the throne room. I was surprised when I got there to see Isana perched on a cushion on top of the dais wearing a very very ornate and beautiful kimono in green and white and gold, looking for all the world like she belonged there and wore such clothes as a matter of course. She was playing a lively tune on a violin while the surrounding members of the court clapped or stamped or whistled and a few small earth spirits were capering about dancing. Everyone looked like they were having fun. I snorted to myself, I'm off risking my neck playing "dodge the guard" in some immortal magicians Realm, and she's throwing a party.

"I'm back," I announced.

By this point I had been going for hours straight and I was about dead on my feet. I held up the chest.

"Is this the chest?" I asked.

Genbu looked over, as though mildly annoyed at having been interrupted. He had a nearby servant examine the chest and the servant confirmed that it was the item he had requested.

"And you did not open it?" the servant asked.

"Nah, I'm just the get-backer, it's not my job," I said. "I'm exhausted, c'n I get someplace ta sleep fer a while before I go?"

I figured the guy had more than enough space, he could spare a bed for a few hours as a gesture of hospitality.

"The mortal may stay with me," a wizened and somewhat familiar voice said off somewhere to the right.

"Yours Is A Face We Have Not Seen Grace Our Court For Some Many Mortal Years, Old Woman," Genbu said in surprise.

I was surprised too, because I recognized her! She was the old crone that I had just rescued from the Katschei's lair.

"Your Majesty, I have returned," the old earth-spirit woman. "I was lured into a trap set by that deathless immortal and bound into the magic that maintains his realm by a powerful spell. This boy here set me free when he got rid of Katschei once and for all."

It sounded oddly enough like she was promoting me or something. I was too tired to even want to try to figure out why. I just wanted to go to bed and then get to tracking down that damned Shadow in the morning.

"It Is Difficult For Us To Believe That Your Grace Was Held Prisoner By A Mere Mortal Spell," Genbu said dubiously.

"All of us have our weaknesses outside of our stronghold dearie," the old woman cackled.

"Come boy," she commanded me with all the energy of a commanding granny.

I shrugged at Isana and followed tiredly behind her. I could go longer than yer average mortal, but even I got tired, especially since I was bound in this mortal form and not in my real form.

She led me through the vast and intricate hallways with their lacey stonework arches, the louvered windows, the intricate mosaic tile.

"If you've been gone for so long," I said, suppressing a yawn. "How do you know that yer rooms are still there?"

"No-one," she replied. "Not even His Majesty himself, would dare risk offending this old woman by suggesting that there was not a place at Court held for me."

Oh.

She opened a rather stark unassuming stone door at the end of a hallway. I blinked, too tired to even be surprised by that point, when the doors opened up, not into a room but onto an open space with endless skies littered with stars and a moon and a huge mountain dominating the vista. There was a smooth stone path leading up to an enormous arched entry way carved directly into the side of the mountain, lit with what looked like glowing white crystals. I just trailed behind her. The doorway led to a stone staircase carved directly out of the rock that led down and down and down. The walls of the mountainside on either side of the large stairway were carved with scenes that had been embellished with gold and precious metal inlay and gems. I was too tired to even figure out what the pictures were supposed to be.

"Mistress!"

There was a great cry of joy from hundreds of tiny (and not so tiny) mouths as soon as we emerged from the tunnel. The Queen, it appeared, had returned. There in the central courtyard that led to a massive underground palace that I couldn't make out many details of, were hundreds of tiny little dwarf-like creatures with larger ogre-looking creatures ranged behind them, all bowed over with their heads touching the ground.

"Carry on my dears," she instructed with a regal wave of her gnarled old hand.

I thought I detected a bit of moisture in her eyes though. Her Vassals hastened to do her bidding. She gave instructions that I was to be fed and bathed and given a place to sleep and whatever else I asked for. I tried to thank her for her generosity of course, but she waved me off.

"I especially owe you," she said with a frankness that I appreciated. "You were already on a mission for the Court and you risked your life to set us all free. You could have just left us there, me especially, since you didn't need my help to get what you were after. You could have left the four of us bound in that realm to stabilize it."

"I wouldn't do that," I said honestly around another yawn.

"I can see that," she smiled. "You're good people. I can see why Zabimaru chose to fight at your side. Off with you now boy."

She made a gentle shooing gesture with one hand.

"These old bones have longed for a good rest in our own bed for many years."

"Hey, don' let me keep ya," I said and eagerly followed the tiny servant she had told to show me the way to my own bed. The quarters granted me were more lavish than anything i had ever slept in before, the cavernous vaults of the ceilings were carved with natual scenes and inlaid with precious gems and metals, the tile floors were all mosaic and the appointments and furniture were all sumptuous and luxurious. It should have bothered me being under the ground, but for some reason I found it homey and comforting. It might have been Zabimaru's influence. And speaking of Zabimaru...

"Hey buddy," I said, inviting him out to materialize in solid form. "You wanna go out an' visit yer old friends? I don' mind if ya do. You've been workin' hard all this time ta help me make somethin' o' myself, especially lately with the chakra stuff an' all. You sure deserve a good vaccation, buddy."

"There are a few matters that I wish to look into," he replied.

"Sure!" I said cheerfully, yawning and placing myself at the small table in one of the smaller antechambers to one side that was loaded down with food.

"Go have fun," I encouraged him. "Go out drinkin' with yer buddies an' catch up. Just be ready ta git back on the road tomorrow mornin'."

Zabimaru nodded once at me and took himself off. I remained behind on my lonesome.

The food was tasty and there was plenty of it, the bath felt like heaven, and I was never so happy in all my life to get horizontal. I don't think i even felt my head touch the pillow before I was out like a candle.

Just so you know, the next chapter is still Renji, I haven't had the spare time to write the side-fic, but when i do I will. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next.

~Nightheart.