The next morning it was business as usual. Rise, dress, eat breakfast and then he had to make his way to the first division barracks for the meeting with the Captain Commander. He made his way into the office and politely bowed to his senior officer.
"Captain Kuchiki, what did your investigation find?" The Captain Commander begins in that formal tone of his.
Byakuya launched into his report then. He went over the anomalous spikes then mysterious disappearances of the reiatsu readings they'd been picking up. How for a time the results of the attempted deeper inquiries into the matter had delivered no conclusive results. It was not until a Hollow attack that the mystery at once became clearer and more murky.
"Explain this, Captain Kuchiki." Yamamoto coaxed. Such wording was strange coming from the lips of the captain of the 6th squad.
"The anomaly turned out to be a human woman, Sir. We got another spike in the areas readings just after the Hollow appeared. It was not the Hollow that caused the shift. The young woman has the ability to see spirits and Hollows. There were some young children in the area and she baited the Hollow and led it off so that it would not attack the children. This is where things begin to get strange." Byakuya pauses to select the correct words.
"A split second before the Hollow attacked the girl, there was a blurred shadow that knocked her over… She was still harmed but the wound was not fatal. I arrived in time to watch her attempting to lead the Hollow off. Subsequent inquiries revealed the shadow to be something resembling a panther. Uruhara-san and myself both feel that it is most likely that the shadow panther is an awakened zanpakuto spirit. This is what was causing the anomalous readings."
The Captain Commander regarded the information he'd been given carefully. "It seems to me that more information still needs to be gained. You will return to the human world and inform Kisuke Uruhara that he is to conduct some tests to provide us with more conclusive evidence. If this girl does have an awakened Zanpakuto spirit, we need to find out why. Once we have proof of this, we will decide a more permanent course of action. We cannot afford another incident like the one involving Ichigo Kurosaki. If she proves to have an awakened zanpakuto spirit it will be our obligation to make certain she does not mishandle the power."
Byakuya nods the decision was wise.
"After you inform Uruhara-san and the girl you are to return to your duties here in Seireitei. Once per week until conclusive evidence is found you will return to the real world to pick up the results of Uruhara's tests and report back the findings. Dismissed."
He returned to his office at the 6th squad barracks. He had time until the evening's senkai gate opening so he was going to go and do some of the paperwork that had been collecting while he'd been away. Renji looked up as the door opened.
"How did the meeting go, Sir?" He asks.
"It went well. The Captain Commander wants the matter looked into a bit more. I will have to return this evening to inform Uruhara-san and the young woman of the decision and then I will be returning to my regular duties here in the Seireitei. I will have to return once a week to collect the data Uruhara-san gathers from his research until more conclusive results are gained." He explains. His lieutenant did need to know what was going on after all his leaving once per week would affect his subordinate officer.
"What's going to happen if Uruhara gets better information then?"
"That will be decided depending on the information."
"Right." Renji mutters absently as he begins going through his paperwork again.
The absent muttering under his breath, the flurry of papers when his lieutenant was particularly annoyed were amusing to him - not that he would ever say such or betray it through word or look or deed. At least someone could be so free… Byakuya had no idea what was awaiting him upon his return to the human world.
Lunch came and went and the stacks of paperwork diminished... He dismissed Renji a little after five. The younger man had worked quite hard in his absence and deserved something resembling a break. Internally, Byakuya smiled at the surprised thank you that came from his lieutenant's mouth as the man quickly finished the paper he'd been working on, cleaned up and bolted for the door... The smile might not have touched his eyes, but it was there.
It was something few would ever understand. It was not that he was a cold and heartless bastard. He was not. He had loved Hisana most deeply... He did care about Rukia... He cared about the small handful of people that he would consider himself close to. As lose as he got to people at any rate. It was that he was noble born and raised and he was expected to comport himself in a certain manner. Weakness must never be shown. In the world of nobles, emotions were weakness.
He respected his peers. Though Abarai was brash and foul-mouthed... Byakuya respected the younger man's spirit, his fire... and the way he fiercely defended his friends. His lieutenant was not always a smart man but he was always fiercely loyal and courageous almost to a fault. Perhaps it was that in Renji, Byakuya saw the fire he'd once been reflected back at himself. His mind briefly drifted back to his youth and his games of flash tag with Yoruichi Shihoin... How volatile he'd been then, quick to anger, quick to act... His own fire had been tempered, nearly squashed out by the weight of responsibility on his shoulders... Perhaps that was why though he might chide Renji from time to time, he did nothing to truly diminish that fire.
He even liked Yoruichi... She might grate on his last nerve and she might know all too well which buttons to push to return him to something more like his younger self, but she always challenged him. She knew him perhaps better than any one else could say. She'd seen the fire and she knew the duty and honor that had been placed upon his shoulders with the mantle of Head of Kuchiki house. She was never afraid to remind him of who he'd been. She was never afraid to verbally berate him when he was in the wrong... He would always value that... even if he would never, ever let the demon cat know it.
He had sacrificed himself upon the altar of honor... He had known that in doing so it would strain his interactions with people. However, he had a responsibility, a duty and he had sworn himself to it, knowing full well the sacrifice he was truly making. He had accepted that. However, every now and then, the fire of his past would lick at his heels and some small, well hidden, part of him would protest when he did something for honor when the rest of his being would have rather taken another action.
So why was it that he was interacting with the human girl? Some small voice in the back of his mind had to bring that back up. He could not deny that he had. Rescuing her had been his duty as a shinigami. He was not required to converse with her, as he had when they returned to her home so she could pick up some things to make her stay at Uruhara-san's easier. He should not be bothered thinking of such a thing... but it did bother him... A fact which he could not deny. It was not a warm, heartfelt conversation but it was still more than he'd said to anyone that wasn't an order in quite some time. Probably the most he'd spoken in a casual manner since Hisana passed... But why? His mind flickered over the brief interactions he'd had with the girl named Erisia...
She was nowhere near the disrespectful oaf that Ichigo Kurosaki was. But neither was she yet another stiff, brown nosing to your face, stab you in the back kind of noble. She had the grace and refinement of the nobles but it was somehow oddly balanced by the warmth and geniality of her humanity perhaps? He did not know enough to know what made her such a pleasant young woman... But it was that mix, of a noble's words and a warmer action that struck something within him. Was it envy perhaps? That she could find a way to comport herself in a more noble manner without leaving herself behind a wall of ice while he could not? Or was it something else?
He quickly pushed such frivolous thoughts away from himself. It did not matter anyway. Tonight he would return, he would discuss things with Uruhara and in the morning he would leave again to return to his duties as a Captain of the 13 Protection squads. Unless Uruhara found something interestingly conclusive, he would likely never see the young woman again. So such thoughts were pointless to have and he did not indulge in such frivolity. He rose and made his way back to his estate for dinner and to inform the servants that he would be returning to Soul Society and it would be back to business as usual.