I fell from high above

Hoping I was here to stay

Track Three: The Descended One

Kazui didn't get any reprieve the following day. First thing in the morning and he was having to figure out how Maki kept getting into his room without anyone noticing. She clung to him in earnest and the only reason she removed herself from him was due to needing to get dressed (the girl somehow finding a negligee that left little to the imagination).

After breakfast, instead of being able to laze around like he believed, Kazui and Maki were escorted to the Sixth Division barracks by his father. At the gates were Captain Kuchiki and Lieutenant Maeda. Maeda was about as ordinary as you could get. His hair was in a perpetual state of unkempt, he never had any less than a day's worth of stubble on his chin, and his spectacles were as plain as could be. Then you got a glimpse at those brilliant, emerald eyes of his which were like looking at a pair of cut gems.

"Yo, Kurosaki, see you're holdin' up well." He adjusted his spectacles and then looked to Maki. "And this is the li'l lady I heard so much about."

"Greetings." She gave a curtsy.

"Come, we should get down to business." Captain Kuchiki turned on as heel and walked to the barracks.

Kazui spent the next hour having questions lobbed at him by Lieutenant Maeda. Kazui told him everything about that night right down to what album he'd been listening to on his head phones. Maeda would just write down his responses, nod his head, and ask him to continue. It was only when Kazui finished that Maeda finally started asking more questions. He looked at the notes he'd been writing.

"Kurosaki, you said before you passed out you heard a voice, right?"

"I think so, though it was too faint to tell what it was saying."

"If you had to say what it sounded like, wouldja say it was male or female?" Kazui tried to remember.

"I can't quite say, but it was really light, almost like I was hearing the wind talk."

"Interesting. And the man who attacked you, did he ask anything about you? And was there another person with him?"

"No, he was alone. As for the other question, he just got my attention and we started fighting. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say there was something about my face he didn't like."

"I see." Maeda wrote down what he heard. "That's enough for now. Don't hesitate to come to me if you think if you remembered something. And…keep what happened under wraps for now."

Kazui was thankful to be out of this, even if it didn't take that long. And as soon as he was out the door he was tackled with reckless abandon.

"Ah, I thought they were never going to stop! C'mon, let's get out of here and have some fun, isn't it happy hour at Midorizaruya?"

"Not so fast, missy." Ichigo pulled Maki off his son. "You also have some answers we need to hear. Head on out if you want Kazui, this could take awhile."

"Don't need to tell me twice."

"Kazui-san, wait for meeeeeeee!"

Where in the hell did she keep all that energy? She was like a perpetual perkiness generator. So, it was right around noon on a weekday, meaning next to nothing to do. Though Maki had a point in saying it was lunch hour at Midorizaruya. He was feeling a bit puckish and made his way through the streets.

"Well, you had the same idea as me." Ichika had been waiting for him outside the gates.

"They give you the same treatment?"

"Yup, I could recite everything from memory if I felt like it. Your friend acts like she went through a case of Lipovitan."

"And a bag of oysters while she was at it. I'm not gonna be able to look Mom in the eyes for weeks."

"Well at least it won't be boring."

The pair went through the streets into another district while chatting about things not pertaining to what had happened in the human world and Maki. They needed a distraction far away from the drama of the past few days.

Eventually they arrived in from of a small shop in one of the older streets. Luckily it wasn't too busy this time of day despite it being the lunch hour. However, there was one thing Kazui was far too familiar with.

"Yo!" A swift kick to the ass got his attention. She did this every goddamned time. And the pointed toes of those cowboy boots hurt like hell.

"Doesn't that ever get old, Senpai?"

"Not fer as long as ya keep makin' that face."

The woman who had just struck Kazui was a little shorter than Ichika, though no less fierce. Her cobalt hair was cut into a sloppy bob which brought out her brilliant, violet eyes. Atop her head was a wide-brimmed cowboy hat while she wore a leather jacket over her uniform. A pair of katana was at her hip.

Her partner by her side just shook his magnificent head of long, evergreen hair. His face was delicate, effeminate, with a pair of beautiful silver eyes. Under his shihakushou was a high-necked shirt and on his back a long sword in a shirasaya.

"How the heck have you kept up with her so long, Munashii-san?" Ichika turned to the pretty man.

"The heat needs the cold to keep it in check." He said as he walked in.

It had been awhile since Kazui had been with his senpai. When he and Ichika had been admitted to the Academy Munashii Issou and Ryuuhai Setsuna were names everyone on campus knew for good or ill. Ryuuhai because of her fiery personality and sheer contempt for convention and Munashii for wooing girls on accident whenever they so much as glanced at those two beauty marks below his right eye and for scaring the hell out of every ego-waving idiot on campus by wielding a sword like it was second nature.

The party sat down in their favorite booth in the back corner which had a lovely view of the sakura orchard across the river. Ryuuhai and Munashii started with their usual drinks despite it being in the afternoon while Kazui and Ichika stuck with tea.

"Goddamn, it's been too long since our schedules synced." Ryuuhai said as she blew out a cloud of smoke from the cigarette she just rolled. "Remember in the academy when we would hang out here after classes were done, Kazu-chan?"

"Yeah, you'd try to find ways to skip out on assignments and bum off me and Ichika."

"Hey, Icchan and me didn't grow up with silver spoons in our mouths like you and the Princess here."

"Hey guys!" In came another old classmate.

"Hey Take-chan, you're late." Ryuuhai moved aside so the short, black-haired girl could get in.

"Sorry, I got help up in the infirmary. Orihime-san insisted I get some hands-on experience." She looked in earnest to Kazui. "By the way, Tatsuka-chan said something about you having a girl at your house?"

"Oh-ho, so Kazu-chan does have a penis. Didja get to kissing or did you skip the pleasantries and hit a grand slam?"

"Senpai, learn to speak a language appropriate in public." He would die before saying what sort of libido-crazed maniac Maki was to Ryuuhai.

"I heard something about a strange, white woman being brought into the Fourth Division." Munashii spoke up for the first time. "Who is she, Kazui?"

"Can't say. Even without the confidentiality clause we really don't know anything about her, just her name."

XXXXX

"Maki."

"Maki…?" Maeda asked.

"Just Maki, written with the kanji for 'spiral.'"

Ichigo and Byakuya stood in for this session due to the unique nature of the girl. They left it to Maeda to ask the actual questions though as neither of them were good for interviews.

"Maki-san, one of my men was injured and you are the only witness to what actually happened. So, please, just describe things as best you can."

"While I appreciate you at least acting like you're concerned over Kazui-san, I do believe we can dispense with pretenses. Kazui-san is fine, what you're really concerned over is that snake-faced, silver-haired man, right?" Maeda adjusted his glasses at Maki's brusque manner.

"I ain't denyin' it. The man you encountered is a dangerous individual and it would be helpful if you can detail anything about it."

"Look, I don't know where he is. Period. One second he was there, the next he was gone. Zilch, zero, nothing, just vanished. I can only tell you that he used a method similar to one I can use. Which is why you can't find him and why you couldn't tell where I came from."

"And what method is that?" Ichigo spoke up to take over.

"It's a far more advanced form of the Senkaimon you use, or maybe I should say the Senkaimon is a less sophisticated version of it. Basically you rip open space-time and fall through a dimension into the next layer. You can't track it, you can't replicate it in order to follow it, and you certainly can't contain it."

"So do it right now."

"Certainly, Father."

And with that she was gone in the blink of an eye. Space opened like a zipper and she fell in. Maeda stood bolt upright. Ichigo and Byakuya scanned for her. Nothing. It was like she completely vanished.

"Don't give me that look." Ichigo felt something hit his head. He picked it up, seeing that it was a box of orange chocolate Pocky. Maki went back to her chair.

For a few seconds that girl had completely vanished. He couldn't feel any trace of her for those few seconds she was gone. It definitely explained how she managed to get out of the Fourth Division's barracks without alerting anyone.

"Well that's a couple mysteries down. It still doesn't explain how you knew where my house was."

"I just knew. Wherever Kazui-san goes, I go." The way she sighed was like a girl in high school.

"What happened anyway? You said the man attacked Kazui, but why didn't he follow through?"

"Kazui-san was calling for me. I have to respond if he does that and the first thing I did was drive the man off." That was a bold claim to make. Ichimaru was a Captain-level Soul Reaper but it did explain the blood at the scene that wasn't Kazui's. Ichigo didn't see any reason to doubt her.

"Maki, where did you come from?"

All she did was point to the ceiling.

"Above."

Ichigo and Byakuya went to the Captain's office in the barracks after Maki's session. Byakuya was already writing his report.

He was back. Ichigo knew he would see him again eventually. Before Kazui was even born Ichigo had been searching for the traitor and not just because of his crimes against Soul Society but because of the wealth of information that only he had. Why now though? Ichigo had searched high and low for him across Hueco Mundo, Soul Society, and the human world and yet now he came back.

"I believe this incident falls under your jurisdiction now." Byakuya dipped his brush once more. "That's what the SEU was founded for."

"Yeah, sorry about this, but Kyoto's gonna be under investigation for awhile."

"Rules are rules, I merely comply. What about the girl?" Maki was just outside, likely bored out of her mind. She was definitely hiding something despite being so frank during the questioning. Her comment about coming from "above" also raised some red flags. Ichigo couldn't let her out of his sight, especially not with how his family had become involved.

"She'll be under my personal watch from now on. I don't think she's a threat, but she warrants investigation and surveillance."

"Don't be surprised if the Captain-General gets involved soon. That girl said she came from 'above.' You know what that is."

The Royal Realm. Just what the hell had Kazui stumbled into?