"I know just the place to take you for training," Yoruichi said cheerfully as we walked up to the nearest gate. "These people you're going to meet may look a little... strange, but I promise you they;re the best ones for teaching you what you need to know."
"Why's that?" Isana asked next.
"They use a brand of magic that is so similar to yours that it might as well be the same thing. In fact, it might very well be the same thing. The Mi'kotei are a race of people that, once they get old enough, bond themselves to elemental spirits as part of ther religion. They believe that sharing thier spiritual essence with a elemental brings them closer to the Mana, that's this force of magic they believe interweves all things in all worlds. Their bond with the elementals also enables them to use elemental magic, but only of the kind of elementals they bond to. For example a person bonded to an earth elemental would be able to bend trees to their will or shape earth beneath them or manipulate the shape of metal, but they would not be able to fly or move water or create fire."
"I have an earth elemental!" Isana said excitedly. "And Renji won me a fire elemental and an ice elemental too. I also have one that enables me to heal that I took from the earth court."
"Sound's like you have a pretty mixed bag," Yoruichi said, sounding impressed. "You might have several teachers then. The Matriarch owes me a favor or two so don;t worry about how you're going to get teachers. But I should warn you, try not to act surprised by their appearance."
Yoruichi entered three completely new coordinates into empty node-slots on the Gate and activated the world gate. I trailed along after the not-horse magical construct beast with Yoruichi in the lead and Isana right behind her. We exited out into a forest... but what a forest!
"Wow!" I exclaimed in spite of myself as I looked up and up and up.
The trees, covered in moss and vines and flowers were as wide in circumference as some buildings I had seen and the tops of them were obscured by leaf cover so I couldn't tell how far up they went. On the leaf strewn forest floor it felt like there was nothing but interminable pillars stretching from horizon to horizon. Lone beans of golden sunlight slanted through the thick forest cover, while sparkling motes of gold, like fireflies, danced in and out of the beams of light. Here and there I could see the glint of something unknown sparkle up in the darkened heights of the canopy above us but couldn't begin to guess at what it was. The forest floor was covered in large ferns, in strange day-glow colors and what appeared to be giant flowers as big around as some small trees I had seen that glowed softly. There were huge toadstools too that sporadically puffed some kind fo glowing pollen up into the air. There were vines as well, covered also in flowers that have a lambent bioluminescence to it.
"Wow, so pretty!" Isana said excitedly, hopping off from Tanners back and rushing right over to the enormous tree-sized glowing flower as she called over her shoulder
"Renji! Get a picture of me next to this flower!"
Obligingly I held up the memory device and she nudged in closer to the glowing flower to pose.
"Ummm Isana..." Yoruichi said warningly as I focused in on her.
"Smile!" I called as I had heard them say in the mortal world.
It was just as I was snapping the picture that the folded up flower bud burst open and a nearby vine wrapped itself around her waist and hauled her into the center of the flower.
:It figures!: I grumbled to myself. :Of course she wants her picture taken next to the carnivorous plant!:
The glowing petals of the flower folded up over her, it would have been very pretty, like something out of a ballet... if it weren't trying to eat her. I sighed and pulled out Zabimaru. Time to go to work. I flashed in there, shikaing as I went and lopped off the offending tentacle vines so that all I had to deal with would be the heart of the flower. I wondered, as i got in close to her, exactly how it was I was supposed to get her out of there without actually stabbing her. She was struggling like a wild thing, to give her credit.
"So uh, how're we s'posed ta get her outta there?" I asked Yoruichi.
"It is a conundrum," she agreed with me.
"That thing isn't gonna poison her or nuthin' is it?"
"Not right away. It at first administers a general analgesic, sort of like Novocaine, which has the side effect of putting its prey to sleep. Then, once its prey is rendered unconscious and helpless, the plant generates an acidic solution which helps it to digest its prey."
"Sounds efficient. I think I'll let it put her to sleep first," I said grinning over at her. "Less likely I'm going to have to stop her later from making more work for me. She's a nice girl, but a bit of a lightning rod for all kinds of trouble! If she can pick it up, pull it down, bring it in or tumble into it she'll find a way to make my journey just that much more interesting."
Yoruichi looked over at me in amusement.
"Getting tired of babysitting the little mortal are we?"
"Never again will I make fun of Rukia when she complains about how much work it is!" I said fervently. "Mortals are more mischief than a sack full of ferrets!"
I was only joking of course, the next minute I was flashing in there again to try to figure out how to get her out of the plant.
"Maybe if I poke my sword up under it and try to dig it out by the root," I muttered to myself.
Luckily for me, Isana solved my problem for me. There was a fiery explosion and the plant flew apart from around her, little peices of petal coming down in a soft rain for a moment. She emerced from the charred remains of the plant, sticky with plant goop and held bridal-style in the arms of one of her Guardian's, the fire one. She looked bedraggled and somehow managed to convey a sense of terror and irritation at the same time.
"Renji! What took you so long? I was nearly eaten by that thing!"
I opened my mouth to tell her that I'd been working on trying to think of a way to get her out of there without blasting her to a greasy smear on the forest floor but she wasn't listening.
"If it hadn't been for efreet I would have been eaten! What is it with these places and everything trying to eat me? I HATE flowers!"
That last one came out in a hysterical half-sob. Uh-oh, she was working herself up into a state.
"Hey, yer a girl... do something!" I hissed over to Yoruichi, who only looked back at me with the same smile her shopkeeper friend would have been wearing in this situation and said
"Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!"
She even added and evil little chuckle at the end.
"You're no help," I muttered.
I thought desperately to find something to head off the coming storm with... I'd seen Rukia work herself up into a state once or twice before and the results were never pretty, especially for me. I saw something glinting on the forest floor, it looked pretty and shiny, maybe it would hold her attention. I scooped it up and looked at it quickly to make sure that it wasn't something that would hurt her, it was just a big rock-crystal the size of my fist. I shoved it into her hands and said
"Look missy! Lookit the pretty sparkly!" Isana, like most other females I knew of, could be placated with sparkly rocks.
She stared at it for a long moment, turning it this way and that, then looked up at me with an odd expression on her face.
"For me?" she asked.
"Sure, keep it," I said. "Just don't scream and cry at me."
She had a very pretty smile but...
"Let's get this show on the road, I wanna get to where we're going before dark, if it ever gets dark in this Realm."
It could be hit or miss on that one. Yoruichi gave me this lingering look that almost seemed like exasperation as Isana cheerfully mounted up on her noble steed, still playing with the sparkly rock I'd found for her-
:Geeze, she's like a kid really,: I thought.
But she wasn't even five decades old yet, you couldn't expect much out of someone that young.
"You might regret that," Yoruichi informed me.
She curled around my shoulders for a ride this time as I took the lead reigns and led the beast and its burden on our way.
"Hey if it keeps her quiet and not causing trouble, I'm all for it."
Yoruichi sighed as if I were missing the point and said nothing.
"Hey," I said after a while of following what looked to me to be nothing more than a game trail (and not an actual road) through the dense forest cover. "How much further?"
"That depends," Yoruichi said with maddening mysteriousness.
I knew better than to ask 'on what' that was what she wanted me to do and I wasn't interested in playing into her paws.
"If Yoruichi-sama says so," I said with overly-false politeness. "Then I'll have to have faith in that."
She sneezed wetly into the side of my neck.
"Aewww!" I groaned in protest. "That's gross. Go back with the mortal woman if yer gonna do that."
"Aw, but then I wouldn't get to ride up on these broad, strong manly shoulders," she said facetiously. "Is that red hair natural?"
"Wanna check?" I replied by habit, but I belatedly remembered who I was talking to.
"Oh, can I?" she flirted right back. "But seriously, it's such a bright and exotic color. It'll make you popular where we're going."
I wondered exactly what the color of my hair might have to do with anything but decided that where Yoruichi was involved, I'd probably be happier not knowing. I walked along in the direction she guided me absently keeping my senses open for trouble and I don't know how it happened but between one instant and the next I was surrounded! I hadn't heard or smelt or sensed anything at all around me then I look up and there they are, with weapons pointed at me. Some had spears, other bows and arrows or cross bows. I had no idea how they had done it either, the way around me was clear, and there was no cover for them to hide under, even with cover i should have been able to smell them if not sense them but one moment they were not there and the next they just appeared as if from out of the air. It hadn't been flash-step either, I would have sensed that.
"It's me, Yoruichi, ladies," the cat on my shoulder called out. "I wish to speak with your Matriarch."
"Follow, lady Yoruichi," one of the women said.
It took me a moment to get past their weapons, but when i got a good look at the weapon-bearers I goggled a bit. They were all women, they were all extremely attractive women, each of which would have given Yoruichi Shihouin a run for her money in a contest of looks. They were all tall and statuesque, with long shapely legs that they wore in high spiked heels (though how or why in forest terrain was anyones guess). The veiw from the back was definitely worth looking at and I'm the kind of guy who prefers petite, cute, tiny women as opposed to tall bombshells. The forms that were tightly wrapped in revealing leathers were very hour-glass shaped with a graceful swaying walk that did wonders for them. The only thing that seemed a little off about them were their faces, they looked sort of human, but they had an inhuman cast to them and their ears were... bunny ears. Literally, where ears on a normal woman would have been there were tall, white bunny ears, but I could tell that they were not just there for decoration, they twitched and quirked and perked at intervals to sounds that I couldn't hear and to express unspoken emotions.
After a while I asked Yoruichi
"Okay, I give, who are these... er, women."
I had almost said bunny-girls.
"These are the Mi'kote," Yoruichi replied in a soft tone as we walked where they led us. "A race that is descended from the long-ago union of Human and Nature Spirit. They are almost entirely Human in nature by this point, but they are shaped from conception by powerful magic. They have strong spiritual abilities, evidenced by thier ability to bond Elementals to them, but they also have physical mortal shells... and they require mortal men to reproduce."
Naturally, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"How do they get men way out here?"
After all, this was the Dangai, it wasn't exactly like a lucky man could just stumble down a rabbit hole and into their waiting beds.
"I suspect," Yoruichi said with a wry loo and heavy irony in her tone, as well as a significant look at all the extremely lovely swaying back-sides escorting us around. "That they have their methods. As you are well aware of, there are times of the year when the spiritual barrier between the mortal world and... elsewhere, is thinned."
"Yeah, All Hallows Eve," I replied.
"That's the big one for the Soul Reapers," Yoruichi acknowledged.
It was when all the wandering spirits, revenants and unquiet dead and... well, Hollows of course, came creeping out of the woodwork to feast on what they could get. It was the busiest time of the year for all of the divisions, every single last Reaper that was certified for feild work was called into action to stem the tide of hollows and other non-living nasties. There was of course, a friendly competition between divisions to see which Squadron could reap the most kills that night. It went by division and also among individuals by rank. Back when I'd been in Eleventh I'd held the title for most kills in my division for my rank for a straight decade running, and most kills individually out of all divisions for a total of five years here and there. No mean feat let me tell you.
"There are more such occasions that don't attract the same attention from the Soul Reapers though, times when barriers between the mortal realm and different kinds of otherworlds are thinned. Midsummer Solstice for one. Surely even you have heard of the legends about Midsummer night and how the Fae would come out from thier burroughs and dally with mortal men and women."
"Oh, so that's what happens here?"
Yoruichi gave a feline shrug and said
"Who can say?"
At this point we had reached a tree in the center of the forest, the trunk of it looked like one of those trees that looked like a whole lot of thick vines grown all together, it was so massive it might even have been several trees that had grown together. Seriously, I had seen apartment buildings that looked smaller around than it. There were thick ropey vines dotted with hair-thin strands that glowed intermittently like fiber-optic cord in soft green color. I looked up curiously to see if I could see anything among the branches and detected the intermittent glow of what looked like some kind of lantern dotting among the dense foliage.
"Reach out your hand to the vine," one of our guides said with little preamble.
Not knowing what else to do, I obeyed. the instant my hand touched the vine it snapped around my wrist, arm and waist and hoisted my upward unexpectedly. My hand flew to the hilt of Zabimaru ready to slice my way free when I was deposited just as abruptly on what I recognized easily as a floor. It was a wooden floor of course and it looked like these Mi'kote had simply gotten the tree to grow the way they wanted it to. I looked around me once to get my bearings, and then again to get past the strangeness of my surroundings. The sole light came from some kind of glowing... thing, I didn't know what to begin calling it, it looked like a giant flower made of glass but it glowed as brightly as any electric light. The room looked bare of what I would have called furniture, there were shapes here and there of vines woven together, wicker-like that looked like furniture but they were all oddly organic in nature. The very walls of the place looked like they were thin, almost membranous, wood.
Isana appeared behind me looking positively frazzled from the trip, clearly catching her breath from having been delivered in such an abrupt manner.
"Wow, it's like something out of a fantasy movie or something!" she exclaimed, looking around her.
Our whole trip had been like something out of a fantasy movie.
"Be welcome in our village, Walkers of the Ways," a voice called from beyond a curtain of vines that separated the seed pod husk hut with the hole in the floor from the rest of what I supposed must be their village.
I shrugged and shouldered out to see what awaited me.
"I know I've said it before," I said to an equally awed and taken-aback Isana beside me. "But the Realms in the Dangai just get weirder and weirder."
Their village was in the massive branches of an enormous tree. Here and there, on different levels, there were octogonal, tent-hut-like little homes built on top of massive, glowing shelves that exactly resembled tree-fungus. Bunny-women (hard to call those luscious figures "girls!") wandered here and there, some sat in what were clearly communal areas lit by huge flower-crystals that glowed like fire, some polished weapons of the front porch-shelves of their homes oblivious or uncaring of the several story-drops beneath them. Others minded children in a large fenced in area, or cooked meals over small coal braziers on top of large stone flats (a good precaution, probably wouldn't want to risk setting the tree on fire).
"I am Mi'yirin, the Matriarch of this Tree," one bunny woman, buxom but with an aura of command about her, the same one Captains got when they'd been in office long enough to grow comfortable in it. I bowed politely.
"Renji Abarai, Lieutenant of Sixth Squadron, Soul Reaper... turned mortal," I added in reply to her puzzled look. "It's a bit of a long story. This Mortal here is the reason we've come."
"Oi!" Yoruichi called from my shoulder, getting up and arching her back in a kitty stretch.
"Ah, Lady Yoruichi!" Mi'yirin said, her voice saying with out words "I should have expected."
Yoruichi quickly outlined why we were here and what she wanted from the Mi'kote. While the two women talked shop, I looked around me in greater attention.
There was a whole little village woven in among the tree branches, globes filled with some giant luminescent fungus were suspended here and there, a wise precaution since they probably didn't want to risk a fire. There was a bit organic theme going on, but after a little while something odd about what I was seeing nagged at me. It took me a few minutes of greater observation to figure out what it was but...
:Where the heck are all of the men?: I wondered to myself after finally realizing it.
There were bunny-girls here and bunny girls there, but there were no-bunny-boys to match. Don't get me wrong, all of the Eared Ones had amazing figures; tall, lithe with a graceful swaying walk, any one of them could have given Matsumoto or Lt. Kotetsu a run for their money in the body-that-wouldn't-quit department, but still... they were verifiably all women. I looked around to make sure, perhaps they were hiding them in the huts or something, but a quick scent-test of the air verified that all i was was all the souls there was.
"Psst!" I hissed over to Yoruichi.
She glared back at me, irritated at having been interrupted from her conversation with the bunny-queen.
"What?" she demanded.
"There ain't no other men around here?"
"A side effect of the magic that enables the change that gives them a form with enhanced speed, reflexes and magical ability," Yoruichi explained off-handedly.
Well, it looked like magic had it's price after all.
:I sure wouldn't want to be around all these lady-warriors during that time of the month!: I thought. :Or maybe they just go into Season like regular bunnies.:
My mind absently debated which would be easier for all of these women to live with while I examined in minute detail the fine workmanship on a particularly nice bow and arrows set. It looked like they had enough free time to turn to crafting artwork, I hoped they didn't spend it cat-fighting with one another. I knew from listening around that when women kept their fights Civilized, things got uglier than any squad-room brawl down in Eleventh.
:Sound's a little lonely though, sure, they can use magic well enough that even Yoruichi Shihouin acknowledges them,:
Which was a high recommendation indeed as far as I was concerned.
:But even if they do spend time out patrolling their Wood, they must get lonely...:
I blinked a little at that thought and slowly looked around me with a creeping feeling running up my back. The Mi'Kote had seemed to be ignoring us as being too inconsequential to bother with as they all went about the affairs of their own village lives, but the strange feeling of pressure wouldn't go away... in fact it had intensified. I wondered for a moment if maybe I wasn't imagining it, but my instincts for battle were hard-honed by now. I knew when I was being watched.
I couldn't help but notice the fact that I had become the center of a lot of avid attention. I'd seen the same scenario played out in movie-scenes, scenes from manga, books, and other media. The poor, young man, lost on a journey, stumbles across a harem of beautiful, nubile, eager women just waiting to welcome him with open arms... Yeah, well the reality is somewhat different from the average male fantasy. Instead of feeling charmed by all of the admiring, significant glances my way, I felt rather more like the single, hapless mouse thrown into the middle of the cattery. The gazes on these women were avid and hungry. I looked like it had been a while since these ladies had tasted man-flesh. I heard whispers of "so exotic!" and "he's tall!" and "he looks strong and healthy!"
"Hoo-boy..." I muttered to myself.
Half of those who were staring down at me with all of the intensity of a cat at a mouse-hole looked like they were going to devour me on the spot, while the rest looked like they'd take half now and save the rest for later. I swallowed a bit nervously, not wanting to risk stepping on any toes when I didn't know the customs with regard to polite behavior in this Realm, and turned my attention back to Yoruichi and the Matriarch who were just finished haggling over Isana's lessons.
It was agreed that isana would receive three days worth of training by three masters in the fields of their elements, and Lady Shihouin was of course welcome to visit their library or whaever else she would enjoy doing. The male Soul Reaper was free to do as he pleased within the bounds of the village.
"Of course Lady Shihouin, Lady Isana and your exotic young friend are more than welcome to anything in the village. We hope that you will be enjoying our hospitality..."
Was it just me or had she looked very significantly at me when she had said that? Yoruichi's little aside about how they needed men to reproduce suddenly came back to me with frightening clarity. There had been no mention of what I would be doing while Isana got her lessons from the magical bunny girls, but it was now quite clear to me exactly what they hoped I would be doing while my lady-companions were otherwise occupied.
Isana was led off to the training grounds by her new teachers with a backward call of "Stay out of trouble" back at me. She has some nerve telling me to stay out of trouble when she is the one who usually finds it in the first place. Yoruichi gave me a recognizable smirk, despite the fur and whiskers, and leapt off to do whatever it was cats did when there were trees involved, leaving me alone and defenseless to face the hordes. Okay, well, hordes was inaccurate, the village was actually sparsely populated, there were only a few huts and maybe no more than twenty women all totaled that I could see, but still... They appeared silently beside me and around me, crowding in close and a few brave little bunnies even reached out to brush my hair with their fingertips.
"It's natural!" one bunny whispered to the other. "I would give much to mother a child with such exotic coloring."
"And look how tall and healthy he is," another remarked."Such musculature."
"A male in his prime," her neighbor agreed. "He could sire many children and it seems they would all have excellent physique."
"You can sense that he is powerful as well," remarked another. "Such a fortunate combination! His strain will breed the power true."
I honestly couldn't tell whether I should feel flattered by the high praise of me, or if I should feel like a prize bull at auction.
"Look ladies," I said, trying not to betray any sighn of nervousness and hoping they couldn't smell fear. "I'm flattered by the attention, really, but I'm..."
Well, shit, i didn't have any good reason to give them. I wasn't "sword-mate" type (one who sought among their own gender for sexual gratification) and I was not currently involved with anyone. Even if I was in love, there was not even an unspoken accord between us because my little lady-love was completely oblivious to my feelings and to the last of my knowledge had chosen elsewhere. I could dally to my hearts content if I so desired. By all appearances these women were looking for what they could get and certainly were not interested in me as a permanent addition to their little tribe of bunny-warriors. I knew a lot of men who would be over-joyed with the situation, but it didn't appeal to me. Well... not really anyway. I'll admit that I've had my dalliances over the years, I was a healthy young man after all and there was nothing wrong with it when both side's knew the score. There were plenty enough who were willing to have me, especially as my good reputation among women quietly spread. I would certainly be lying if I said that I wasn't proud of that reputation as well, I'd worked at it.
I was a Barai brat, and Madame Amber arranged services often times a bit other than simple cleansing in her bathouse, paid "Nightblossoms" would voluntarily wash a patron extra thoroughly and in all the right places if thier fee was paid. These girls were not the unwilling, dragooned into a life of sin by cruel necessity either... these were paid professionals who took pride in their work and brought lovemaking to the level of art. When I had gotten to be around That Age, before I could get into trouble in my own set (or offend some thug's woman or "sisters" and get my fool self killed) Amber had neatly arranged that I would be "taken care of" by one of her ladies. She felt that any of her boys should at least have a rudimentary education in the proper care of a woman so they didn't go doing it all wrong later. (There were a lot of customs that made sense in the Rukongai that would never have flown within the walls of the Seireitei, and this was one of them.) Over the years i've had more than ample opportunity to expand my education, but I never forgot those first lessons that Nightblossom Jade taught me. Respectful treatment of the gift a woman chose to share with me was showing respect to myself. Manhood is measured not by how many women a man has lain with, but by how many would return to him eagerly.
:Still, I wonder what I'm supposed to make of this,: I thought nervously.
Being desperately in love with a woman who was out of my reach (temporarily) had not been as much a reason in my mind to forgo the joys of the flesh over the years. I was justly proud of my reputations, both for skill and for discretion (and it might be even odds in Fourth which of the two the nurses preferred) and I only ever took to the very willing and eager and at that, only those who were well aware of the score. We'd have our fun, but my heart was engaged elsewhere. Oddly, I often got the feeling that the nurses in Fourth, where I had my primary hunting grounds, were strangely relieved by that, I'd overheard two of them talking at one point about the average lifespan of a relationship for a Healer and it seems that they view most liaisons as temporary... apparently, most Reapers, or even normal types, have a very hard time sharing their mates with their positions as Healers. A Healer was a Healer first and forever, it was a calling for them that took precedence over everything else, most had a hard time accommodating to the extended hours, the night-calls that took their bed-mates away from their beds unexpectedly and at all hours, the dinner-cancellations and postponements because of some emergency or other... and were eventually left by the wayside. Maybe it was a little heartless that I took advantage of that, but it wasn't like I didn't make certain that the women who shared my bed went unsatisfied. I had my pride as a man to uphold after all, and in my world it was showing respect to myself and to the girl to make certain that a good time was enjoyed by all. Despite my unrequited love, I'd never lacked for discrete and eager bed companions once word got around Fourth that I was both enjoyable company and kept my mouth shut about who I shared my bed with after the fact. I wasn't a rooster in a henhouse, but I wasn't exactly a monk either.
However, recently I had been too busy dealing with both my new position as lieutenant and the war to spare any time for amorous pursuits. That, and I sort of got the feeling that Captain Kuchiki would look down upon someone who claimed to be trying to win his sister away from him, and yet dallied about as he pleased. So as a result I'd been going through an unusually prolonged period of chastity since taking up the vice-captaincy of Sixth.
:I suppose most men would be flattered by all the attention,: I thought trying not to edge away from the hungry looks of the women who were now eying me with all of the intent and ferocity of a lioness with a wounded gazelle in its sights.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be on the menu. Sure, it had been a while for me and I wasn't usually adverse to a good roll in the hay when I had the free time, but as far as I was concerned I was right in the middle of a mission. This was no time for dallying about.
One of the taller, more voluptuous and fiercer of the women started to strut right over to me with a slightly smirking backwards look to the knot of other interested females behind her. Something about that smirk just put my back up. It was like she believed herself to be one hundered percent irresistable. Granted, she was... incredible, no denying that one, but I didn't like the idea of being anyone's trophy. I stood taller, pulled back my shoulders to bring myself to my full, broad and (if I do say so myself) impressive height and crossed my arms over my chest, looking slightly down at her as she sashayed her delectible behind my way.
"Can I help you with something?" I inquired in my driest interpretation of Kuchiki... not that Captain in the same position would have had to lower himself to speaking, no, one look and beautiful bunny-girl over there would have bolted for her nearest burrow or risk getting her ears frozen solid.
"Your companions find themselves other wise occupied, perhaps you would like to enjoy some company," the bunny-girl said, deliberately posing to show her numerous assets to best effect.
"And perhaps not," I said firmly. "Thank you for the offer, but I have my own matters to be concerned with."
With that, I bowed politely and walked right past her and the know of others. I could hear her splutter with indignation but... well, there was nothing she could do about it.
I went back to the guest hut that had been set aside for us and pulled out more blank sheafs of paper that were used for writing field reports on. They had an actual desk in the hut, which was a luxury that I hadn't had for most of my field-mission, so Captain should have fewer complaints about my illegible handwriting. I thought about it long and hard, as to whether or not I should write the part about Isana's ability to bind zanpaktou with her powers into my report to the Captain. On the one hand it was a very important and very pertinent peice of information, one that might possibly change the nature of the war, and the Seireitei's strategies towards waging it. On the other hand, it was a very volatile piece of information... if I reported it to my Captain, he would be honor-bound to report it the the Captain-General, Yamamoto, and that might spell trouble for the little missy. I couldn't imagine that the Head-Captain would like the idea of a human walking around with the power to seal away zanpaktou, not only that but with the added result of turning their wielders into Hollows. He'd probably covertly give the order that something needed to be done about that particular ability, and in my opinion the poor little human had already been through enough, and I didn't want to have to try and protect her from any of the Seireitei's scary ninja death-squad hitmen, I had enough on my plate already.
:I guess I'll just add it the growing pile of things that I'll be reporting to him about off the record,: I thought ruefully.
I was still on the bench a little bit about Zabimaru's new form but I was leaning more toward just telling him about it rather than waiting to surprise him with it when we eventually went head to head in our next fight. Frankly, the more I thought about it, the more childish my concealment seemed, I was his lieutenant, if I had an advantage to bring to a battlefield my captain should know about it, anything less would be putting my personal motive above my duty and that was wrong as well as unprofessional. My conscience goaded me about that one and so I added a short addendum to my latest report, saying that I wished to discuss with him a new technique with Zabimaru I had learned while in the field at his earliest convenience after I got back.
I wasn't going to add in anything about Isana being his (reincarnated) wife right then either. She was technically still mortal even if she did have new powers and thus, beyond his reach. If I told him about it now he'd just be distracted by worrying about her, or he might just call me back home early just so he could ream me and I agreed with his original assessment of me being more useful out here in the feild. The binding-mark thing could also wait until I got back as well, it wasn't hugely important, nor was it seireitei business.
The stuff that made it into my report would be plenty interesting for him to read anyway; I discussed the Mortal woman's increasing proficiency with the use of her binding spell against Shadows, my latest encounter with them as well as her growing profficincey with using her elemental magic, and Yoruichi's side-trip for further training. I did detail the Mi'kote and their world but left out the fact that they all seemed a little man-hungry. I'd share that one with Kira or Shuuhei when I wrote them or saw them next. I wrapped the report in a message scroll and added on the most recent Shadow that Isana had bound up for delivery by Yoruichi later. Then, having actual free-time, I decided to write Kira and Momo reply letters to the ones they'd sent me. Momo's I filled the margins with illustrations of the worlds I;d visited recently as well as some of my recent adventures, including the episode with the killer tree that nearly ate the mortal-woman. Kira also got descriptions of the worlds and a depiction of the mi'kote society. I wondered if I should write to Rukia, the last letter I'd gotten seemed to indicate that she was pretty mad at me and I wouldn't put it past her to just rip it up... heaven only knew what her reaction to the sex-crazed bunny-girls would be. Still, it'd probably make her even madder at me if Kira and Momo and her brother all got letters and she didn't, so I wrote her a letter asking her why the hell she was so mad at me, and then went on to tell her that her drawing still stank and finished up with a shortened version of my trip after the last set of letters I'd wrote to her. I left out the bunny girls.
The constant on the go lifestyle of the little road trip I'd been taking had really begun to wear even on me so I decided that I had earned a nice long nap so I washed up quickly in a nearby spring down on the ground below... with over a dozen well-hidden long-eared admirers I was sure and went back up to turn in early.
I am so, so sorry that this one took so long to get posted. First I had finals to study for and take, then there was my actual graduation! I have my degree, yay! Go me! Then my family moved up north so there was all the packing for them to do. Then there was the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and work gave me extra hours since I wasn't going anywhere. I just kept putting the writing off. It was inspired by my playing Final Fantasy 12 again (my very favorite one) and the chapter with the Viera village in the woods, in which there are no men and I always sort of wondered, y'know, where are all the men. I mean, I can understand fanservice, but really now, where do they get more veira from, and that whimsy spawned the opening bit. Part of it was that I had originally had something of a different idea for the chapter but every time I went to write it, it just wasn't happeneing... finally I decided that it was my inner muse raising the red OOC flag at me so I went with Renji sitting down and finishing off his reports and darned if it didn't just flow naturally. You'll all be happy to know that the next chapters will be posted on a regular schedule. I'm back!
~Nightheart.