I don't own Bleach.

A House of Artifacts - Part III

ShuNao

Nanao came into her home knowing something was amiss. The kido spells she'd set up around the small building had crackled with something akin to strain that she knew meant someone had recently gone through the trouble of avoiding its more potent side effects. Given enough time, a few hours or so, the kido would restore itself to normalcy and effectiveness, so Nanao knew for certain that the intruder was either still present or very recently gone. She called on the reserve of bubbling power within her core and was all warrior prowess sliding the door open with a precision used in a variety of other ways within her life. Her home was a personal place for her alone and those she chose to associate herself with. Nanao was not often a women of fury, but the cackling purple between her fingers betrayed the anger she felt at such an intrusion into her life.

The crackling, the anger and the instincts honed in a life of military training and execution died with the rising of something Nanao would later come to determine as mortification when she entered her quaint living room and saw – in shock or perhaps betrayal – her captain standing among the meaningless aspect collected as memories of her life, looking thoughtfully at the little red flame. Her reiatsu flared in a way which wasn't unfriendly, but maybe a little hostile than was permitted with a superior to get his attention and he seemed to stiffen, the only indication she'd caught him off-guard, and turned around.

"Such a pretty flame Nanao-chan." He said charmingly, an underlined seriousness that only decades of being in his presence indefinitely had allowed her to identify, coated his words as he spoke.

"Sir." She stated. Shunsui had heard the word on more occasions than he cared to count. The first time she'd ever addressed him as 'sir' was on her first day as a member of the eight division, back when her name had been lost amongst dozens of other names and the only thing he could put stock in was her appearance; large glasses behind eyes almost equally as large. She'd just been transferred, he'd asked her a question meant to address her age – a young age, one of the youngest in the Gotei 13, very nearly matching the prodigy that was Ichimaru Gin – and her response had been a simple 'sir.' In the single word she'd addressed her distaste in his acknowledgment of her status as a child, the word also sounds like a request for more respect (she was, after all, a soldier at this point, and all soldiers deserved the respect they gave when they agreed to lay their lives down for a superior, or an equal, or a lesser.) And in doing all of this, that one little word also managed to bestow upon him her own respect, earned by title rather than any personal knowledge of the man she would come to know as her taichou. 'Sir,' when used by Nanao, could mean a million different things, and Shunsui was hard pressed to find a time he couldn't identify what that meaning was.

This time it was shock, an underlined pain; humiliation. Nanao liked to believe her emotions were very hard to read, and when she remained silent, it was not untrue. Shunsui's worst moments were when Nanao choose to bite her lip – something only done in times of so much rage or sadness saying anything at all made her eyes hollow with something Shunsui still hadn't identified – in those times, his Nanao-chan was unreadable. Blank as an unused journal; they were terrifying times for Shunsui. When Nanao talked, her emotions were betrayed in the ways in which she articulated her words, how she strung them about, even if her posture and mannerisms made it seem (to the untrained eye) as though she had no emotion at all. It had taken Shunsui nearly twenty years to hone the skills necessary to decode her crypt dialect, but he'd done it, and done it in a way that let Nanao believe she'd been on top, or in control, if for no other reason than to preserve her sanity. Life was a long thing, and Shunsui believed Nanao had the right to suspect her emotions were her own to control, whether or not that was the case.

"Please leave." Nanao said, her words icy and clearly range through the small room, but not with distaste or annoyance, rather something a little closer to her heart than she'd like to admit, but Shunsui was not so easily persuaded to leave a conversation he wanted to partake in, as Juushiro and any number of bartenders could attests to, so he stayed put, his eyes moving of their own accord back to the tiny flame; Nanao's cheeks were on the verge of glowing a red which had never graced her pretty face in the time it had taken Shunsui to get to know, and ultimately be enticed by her. "I am not so ill educated to miss your familiarity with this artifact taichou and I'm asking-" something in her voice made Shunsui sublimely replace the last word with begging as it was more appropriate, and closer to her actual sentiments. "-that we not discuss this, and that you leave my quarters, as I did not permit your entrance and do not condone it either." Her words had gone oddly steel-like in quality, which was a new experience for Shunsui, and knowing when to no longer push Lady Luck he sighed good-naturally, hoping to relax the decidedly unfriendly air, and took a couple long strides away from the flame, noticing as he did so the light relaxation of Nanao's stiff shoulders. He stopped just before he passed by her, looking down with very warm, and infinitely deep brown eyes. He said:

"As you wish lovely Nanao-chan, but this is not an indefinite truce. Won't you discuss this with me?"

She said nothing, the deafening silence Shunsui had come to hate so much, and resigned to the current stand off he nodded, took one glance around the room – remembering ever detail he cared to take in at once (and it was a rather large care, so he took in quite a bit) – and smiled sadly down at his second-in-command.

He could faintly here a broken sob-like sound as he slid the door closed behind him. Feeling his previous light-heartedness sour with the swirling reiatsu of his lovely, but currently emotionally-unstable fukutaichou and knowing at this time there was nothing he could do to regain her confidence (at this point he knew that his presence would only bring her more shame, an emotion which she had no reason to feel as the flame was not shameful, but beautiful, but he knew his Nanao-chan well enough to know that's exactly what she would feel, and she would hate him for not leaving her to her thoughts) Shunsui decided tonight was a very nice night to meet his oldest friend – and if there was a god out there willing to pity him – get very, very drunk.

It didn't occur to me until about ten minutes ago that I've got three incomplete ShuNao stories, and one that I haven't even touched in awhile, so I think my next update will be for Relations. Sorry if this seems rushed. I've been in an airport for the better part of an afternoon, and this is what was keeping me busy for parts of it – I was writing short segments at different times.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy, and I would not object to any reviews you might want to throw my way. :3