Hello again, This time we actually get to see the first OC of the series, and don't worry she only has a minor role.
Karin had to take some time away from patrolling for a while. She understood why but at the same time the mundane world around her felt slightly greyer because of it. Her left arm had fully healed but the internal structures of her soul which allowed for the conversion of reiyoku to reiatsu were still slightly damaged. It certainly beat the gnarly state her arm was in after her father removed the ointment Shino put on it though.
The crazy thing was seeing her arm miraculously heal as her father applied kaido to it. As someone who had often worked to help her father around the clinic, she had seen plenty of injuries. Burns like the ones she had would have taken skin grafts, weeks in a cast, and then months of rehab to deal with any nerve damage. Kaido reduced that to a few minutes with a relatively non-invasive procedure.
To say she was impressed would be an understatement. If kaido could do that, what else could it do?
She would have to wait for that, however. Tessai had put her kido lessons on hold until she had fully healed, and until then she was limited to zanjutsu and hoho practice.
While Hiyori was her zanjutsu trainer, teaching her hoho fell to the only qualified individual in the shoten, Kisuke himself. It was clear that he understood how to teach, and how to make sure she learned the best she could. It was also clear that he was an unforgiving instructor. She couldn't argue with the results, however. She was already eclipsing Shino in speed, having to slow herself down so as not to lose her.
In the few spars she and Shino had however, it was clear that she was still the better sword fighter, using a similarly aggressive style as Hiyori. Though the gap was far smaller than the one between her and the shorter vizard.
She had heard from Shino that when she's fully recovered Rukia would assess her for independent operations. In other words, her apprenticeship would end and she would officially be a substitute. She would likely continue her joint patrols with Shino and her training under Urahara, but that would also mean that if Shino had to be rotated out and there wasn't a replacement ready then she had to take on the patrols.
She only hoped she was up to the task when the time came.
Aura found herself visiting the Tsunayashiro estate again. Once again for the same reason she had been for a while. To check in on the health of Hikone.
The fact that Hikone survived against two vasto lorde class arrancar was impressive, but his failure to defeat them hammered home the martial imbalance between them and those they sought to oppose.
As she looked at Hikone undergo a physical to ascertain his recovery, she remembered the pieces in play.
Kisuke Urahara was a significant threat. Information on him was scarce, but what was even worse was his ability to process information and then act on it with both alarming speed and precision. However, that intelligence could also serve to help them. Urahara was the only free man who knew how to make a hogyoku, and that could give Hikone the push needed to serve as a meaningful deterrent for Head Captain Kyoraku's involvement.
Granted said involvement was entirely conditional on the houses not supporting Tokinada's plan. If he got the support of the great houses then the Gotei couldn't get involved as it would technically be a lawful act. However she found this to be less and less likely as time went on. The math simply wasn't there. Yoruichi despised the system as it was, and Tokinada's vision was a move in the opposite direction from where she wanted to take things. The Kuchiki's staunch legalism would at best translate into neutrality, but would more than likely translate into hostility as well. The Shiba were out altogether. Unless Tokinada could work a miracle they would never support him.
Thus the entire Gotei was a threat.
However, there was a threat that eclipsed all of them.
Ichigo.
Sure. Uryu was a wild card, Yoruichi was incredibly powerful, and Zaraki was Zaraki, but Ichigo was incomprehensibly strong. Measurements failed to help in conceptualizing his capabilities, and the abilities of his shikai and bankai were unknowns as well.
Put simply, if Ichigo became involved, she couldn't think of a way to ensure a victory that wasn't a gamble. While others may have been fine with that, Aura didn't like to gamble when there were meaningful stakes.
Tokinada said he had a plan but she found it suspect. It risked turning him against them entirely. However, Toknada insisted that the plan had a form of insurance that would make it so that if Ichigo were to get involved, he was defetable. It was better than nothing, but she found it hard to believe that it would work.
Aura shook her head. Doubt was unbecoming of her. She couldn't control Ichigo's response, and normally she wouldn't give such a matter thought. If it failed she would just improvise, but her thoughts drifted to the young artificial soul. They wouldn't stand a chance against Ichigo. Not only that but it seemed that Tokinada was reluctant to share the details on how Hikone fits into the plan.
Somehow that made her worry, something that Aura normally didn't do. Whatever was causing these new feelings in her, she wasn't sure if she hated it or loved it.
Yoruichi finally got over the many discomforting feelings given to her by Tokinada's handiwork. Well, supposed handiwork. That was the problem with all of this. Nothing pointed back to the current Tsunayashiro head other than his survival.
That and the thoroughness of it all. Almost every name in her notepad was crossed off. It was likely that the clan had so few members now that she could count them on her fingers.
But then an uncrossed name caught her eye. Apparently, Yugure wasn't found in the carnage. While Yoruichi didn't rule out her having been killed in a different manner, her survival seemed odd as Tokinada definitely had no mercy for kin, and she doubted that his own blood was exempt. It was a lead, however, one where there were few others. It seemed Yugure went missing a few months before the massacre.
Yourichi began looking through some old news media she kept for a quick and dirty bit of detective work. It wouldn't give her anything concrete, but it would give her a place to start. Apparently, Yugure went AWOL a month before the massacre. Not MIA, not KIA, AWOL. That piqued her curiosity. If Tokinada had killed her he would have marked her with something that wouldn't arouse suspicion. No this was not his MO. AWOL meant that it was likely that she had slipped through Tokinada's grasp, likely having a hunch about the coming slaughter.
That raised another question though, where would she hide? Yoruichi pulled out some notes from her investigation, these being about the internal structuring of the Visuals department.
What she found was surprising. Yugure was the previous head of the 'Relations Office.' The Relations Office, or just Relations was one of the less secret organizations within the visuals department, primarily working to network with the many mortal polities in the living world so that they can keep the masquerade up by coopting their ability to more successfully cover up the damage from hollow attacks.
If this meant what Yoruichi thought it did, then it was likely that she had taken advantage of her connections in the living world to escape her father's notice. Given comments Tsukishima had recorded about how the new head was 'more hands-off,' that likely meant that she regularly took trips to the living world with her family's senkaimon.
No, she wouldn't use it for this trip though. Senkaimon tracked usage automatically. If she had used it her father would have been able to find her. So now what? How would she be able to leave without notice?
Unless…
Yoruichi palmed her face for not thinking about this sooner. Each family senkaimon was made bespoke to the requirements of the user. When the one used by the Onmitsukido was made, it was requested that it not have that particular feature. That ment that the Tsunayashiro one likely also had that feature removed for the same reasons.
Yoruichi quickly grabbed her phone, flipping it open before she called up Urahara.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
"Moshi moshi?" Urahara picked up before the third ring.
"Kisuke, I need you to do me a favor," Yoruichi was happy for Urahara's prompt response.
"Aw, you never seem to just want to chat anymore," She sighed at her long-time friend's antics.
"Not the time, I need you to find someone for me," She spoke with slightly more authority this time. This was a business call.
"Who?" All of Kisuke's playfulness melted in a moment. Yoruichi needed his help, and he was sure as hell going to give it.
"Yugure Tsunayashiro, daughter of Tokinada. She's the most prominent survivor of the clan's massacre six months ago," Yoruichi glossed over the details she had.
"I'm going to need more to go off of." Urahara was good at finding people, but he didn't know where to start.
"She was the head of Relations, took a hands-on approach, and would speak with world leaders and business magnates. Most likely uses an alias." Yoruichi then hung up and started sending a text with more details.
Urahara sighed. Looking for Yugure was going to be hard. Right now, if someone didn't want to be found, they could avoid being found.
Then an idea crept through Urahara's head. Yugure was blood Tsunayashiro. Not only that, but she had the blood of two great houses. That meant her passive reiatsu would be massive. Even if she sealed herself, she would trip sensors all over, and lucky for Kisuke, he had a backdoor into the Visuals Department's sensor network.
Urahara then went to work. He could likely create a list of likely locations very quickly, and then eliminate them one-by-one.
This wouldn't be easy, but if he could outsmart Aizen, then this would be child's play.
Yugure Tsunayashiro was out on her balcony. Indianapolis was abuzz this time of year. The United States Grand Prix was going to be happening this weekend. Not that Yugure cared. From what she had seen, the utter disaster that was practice and qualifying had resulted in only four cars taking the grid. The new pavement was definitely to blame.
The living astonished her with how short-sighted they could be and how rarely they test things completely. None of this was her concern though. The reason she found herself in the midwestern United States was to avoid her father's gaze. She would likely move back to a city more befitting her tastes after this weekend, but for now, she had to tolerate the meager suite that the hotel they were staying at could provide.
"Lady Yugure, are you sure this is the right decision," One of her retainers asked. She had known he was harboring doubts about the 'plan' for a while. None of her retainers were ones to run away from a fight.
"Discretion is the better part of valor, I believe the saying goes," Yugure took a sip of her champagne. "It is likely my father has already started whatever he has planned, and that means most of the clan is probably dead," Yugure had long suspected her father of having greater ambitions, and his unhinged yet calculating nature meant that it was likely any who stayed had no chance of survival.
"We could have defended you fro-" Yugure raised her hand, silencing her retainer.
"From untrained thugs that call themselves assassins? Yes. From the real assassins my family has in their employ? I am not one to make such foolish gambles," And that was to say nothing of her father's abomination of a retainer. The margins were simply too close to ensure her own survival. She was between her father and whatever he wanted to achieve. It was best to move out of the way and capitalize on the power vacuum that resulted from his inevitable failure.
Yugure was nothing like her father. She was cunning, yes, she could dissect a person like a scalpel when creating a profile, yes, but she had a distaste for violence. Her father did not share this distaste. The murder of her own mother proved that. She had no memories of her mother, she was too young to really know for certain, though if she had to guess, based on the stories she heard, she and her mother shared their abhorrence for violence.
Yugure wondered what could have been more often than she would like to admit. Her life being raised by an uncle was uneventful, but the stories she heard about her mother really made her wonder. What did her psychopath of a father deny her when he killed his own wife?
She sighed before taking another sip. It was no use getting mired in what-ifs. With things escalating and balance still unstable, she simply hoped that whatever her father had planned didn't involve accidentally collapsing reality.
I may take a break to build up the backlog again. But as always, I hope you enjoyed and feedback is always welcome.