[i]Breathe.[/i] Yuzuki was precisely three seconds away from reaching out and snapping the boy’s neck. Her constant state of agitation should’ve bothered her but so far, Yuzuki hadn’t noticed, having been in the same volatile state since leaving Seireitei. Too long had she spent in a gigai. Too long had she been walking as an invisible soul. Too long she had been alone. And now, she had people. Humans, yes, but still people. They could see her. While she felt something akin to relief in the beginning, now she was about to pounce of the boy and rip his tongue out, silencing his complaints. Or perhaps shove the hands bearing a razor-sharp crystal into his face; that’d shut him up equally well. Or maybe not, she added as an afterthought, being in no mood to listen to bloodcurdling screams. Perhaps this was proof that she needed to return to Seireitei; she was certainly losing it and she knew it. And the kid would know soon too, if he didn’t shut his yapper. “Yuzuki, this isn’t working…” The boy muttered, focusing his pale green eyes on the crystal in his hands. It was small, around 3 inches high and a silvery blue color, identical to the one hanging around his neck on a cord, albeit bigger. It vibrated slightly now and then, seemingly straining against its edges. It had failed to do anything, much less move. Yuzuki gave him and exasperated look. “I told you you’re doing fine, considering you couldn’t do anything a few days ago. The fact that it’s moving even a little bit is a huge improvement, meaning you’re moving every singly atom inside it. I told you to go practice with Ciara anyway, didn’t I? And it’s Yuzuki-san!” The boy, Emmett, had an affinity for high-speed movement, something Yuzuki likened to Shunpo, and he thought himself too good already to practice. Naturally, that didn’t sit well with Yuzuki and she constantly nagged him about it, deliberately irritating him enough to make him throw down the crystal and stomp towards Ciara. Yuzuki smirked in victory and bent down, picking up the crystal and pocketing it, making a mental note to return it later. “Go away, Emmett, you’re distracting me.” Ciara’s voice rang out between the trees, bringing Yuzuki’s attention back to the duo who, as always, were arguing about something or the other. “I’m just standing here, what’s your deal?” Emmett shot back before his form blurred, accelerating towards the target tree and back again at the same time as Ciara, reaching his former position four seconds before the girl. Ciara noted this and stomped her foot, growling. “Get away from me.” She hissed, eyes flaring. Her 6’2 form towered over Emmett’s shorter one but he didn’t back down. He stuck out his tongue and sneered, “And what if I don’t? What are you going to do then? You can’t even catch me.” Emmett taunted, watching Ciara grow redder and redder by the second. The moment he saw her hands reaching out towards him, fingers bent in a claw-like motion, he ducked and ran off, turning back only to see her still far behind him. He was yanked back by a strong hand on his arm, a grip that stopped him immediately and he flew backwards, straight into Ciara who was in a similar predicament. Yuzuki stood behind them, a hand gripping each of their arms in an iron-hold. Emmett struggled, trying to pry himself away from her but she was simply too strong, and it was obvious she wasn’t even exerting any effort from the relaxed stance her body took. Glaring at them both, Yuzuki waited until they stopped squirming and let go of their arms. She got hold of their ears before they tried to run off and dragged them both outside the forest, pulling them along with her like they weighted no more than a single feather and all the while grumbling at them, pushing down the urge to just abandon them in an alley somewhere and be done with it. “You two need to learn how to behave. How do you expect yourselves to learn to become master Fullbringers if you behave like this? You need to concentrate! You need discipline and you need to put your differences aside along with those petty fights of yours! I swear to god, if killing you wouldn’t be counter-productive and against my orders, I would’ve done so a long time ago…” Meanwhile, Ciara still struggled, obstinately dragging her feet along the ground in order to slow Yuzuki’s step. However, that proved useless as the woman maintained her steady pace with no problems. The girl huffed and glared at the grass, inwardly cursing Yuzuki to hell and back. Why had she even agreed to training with that demon? While Yuzuki had seemed approachable and level-headed at first, her ferocious temper had quickly taken hold and overpowered Ciara and Emmett. She couldn’t even believe the woman was over a thousand years old; why hadn’t she withered into dust yet? Yuzuki still had the appearance of a woman in entering her late twenties and not the hag she was supposed to be. Surely thousand-year-old women didn’t wear such weird ‘uniforms’, did they? They’d seen several other Shinigami and none sported the uniform Yuzuki wore. Ciara huffed again and dug her nails into Yuzuki’s spine, demanding to be let go. Yuzuki barely flinched, the thick material of her Shihakusho shielding her from the harm fingernails could cause. “Let go! I’m telling the rest of the gang!” Ciara screeched, thrashing her limbs about in an effort to escape. Yuzuki abruptly stopped, turning her head around to lock eyes with Ciara. A chill ran up Ciara’s back, feeling Emmett’s chilly glare. “There are others?” Yuzuki inquired, dumping Emmett onto the grass and whirling around to grip Ciara with both hands. It made sense. Why would there be only two Fullbringers in an area so large? It only confirmed her suspicions and proved that the humans had lied to her. They’d already showed their untrustworthiness to the extent where Yuzuki simply surveyed them with narrowed eyes. Ciara stared back at Yuzuki, refusing to answer, perhaps trying to make up for her slip. However, the game was up. Yuzuki let go and turned around, starting to walk towards the Irish town. Emmett hastily picked himself up off the ground and reached towards Yuzuki, misinterpreting her intentions. “Please don’t hurt them! They haven’t done anything wrong.” He pleaded, his hand closing around Yuzuki’s arm. She yanked her arm away and continued towards the town. “I’m not going to hurt them. I need to know who they are and their abilities. I have orders to train you, [i]all[/i]of you. The fact that you lied to me makes me less likely to listen to you now.” She answered, not once turning to look back at Emmett and Ciara. “We were only trying to protect ourselves. We’re sorry…” Emmett’s voice trailed away as Yuzuki got farther and farther away from him, leaving the two humans behind. His helpless voice didn’t move Yuzuki in the least and she continued on her way, determined on uncovering the rest of the Fullbringers. --- The cut on her arm throbbed and burned, prompting Yue to finally sit down and heal herself. Perched on an elevated platform underneath the outer walls of the Yukihiro compound, she placed her hand on the cut and watched it glow green, healing the injury underneath. Her mind, however, wandered back towards the agent that had visited her shortly before she’d entered the compound to alert the tacticians. The Onmitsukido agent had informed her of important information she couldn’t overlook; the documents sat in her office that very moment. Once the cut was healed, Yue retracted her hand and the very place her injury had been was once again covered by smooth pale skin. Getting up, Yue dusted herself off and Flash Stepped towards the 2nd Division, taking care not to lose her balance as she raced across rooftop after rooftop, wall after wall. In a minute, she dropped down into the courtyard where the 2nd’s Shinigami had assembled pre-battle but was now empty and devoid of life. She picked up her haori that still lay at the locked doors and shrugged it on, once again settling her hands in their familiar, laced-together position. The roll-call and casualty count been taken care of by Hayan long back, leaving the statistics in her office as per her request. This was where she headed to, her steps inaudible on the tiled floors of the corridor. Her office was housed in the 2nd’s Main Barracks, the building bearing a large ‘2’ on its front and the Division’s insignia on the heavy wooden doors. Momentarily extracting her hands from her sleeves, Yue unlocked the doors with a key that had miraculously appeared in her hand out of nowhere. An observant person, however, would note that it probably came from underneath her sleeves, hidden somewhere on her being. As she entered and closed the main doors, several other doors barred her way to her office and each time, she produced a key from somewhere under her sleeves. Finally, when the last door closed behind her, Yue slid the thin bamboo door open and entered her office. One would think that with all its defenses, doors and keys that this was where she kept all her documents and classified information but no. This was just a ‘dummy’ office of sorts, keeping only trivial information. This was unknown to everyone expect Yue herself, not even Hakkin knew. The folders with ‘classified’ stamped across their covers were only temporarily placed there, before Yue decided whether to leave them there or move them. She picked up the folders and opened them one by one, first taking note of the casualty and roll-call folder. The casualty rates were average for such a raid, even lower than usual as they had taken a stealthy approach. Shutting the folder, Yue sealed it with a sticker across both ends and placed it in one of the massive filing cabinets lining the room, locking it after placing the folder inside. Work was no doubt piling up. With her Lieutenant gone for the moment, Yue was met with yet another towering stack of paperwork, probably one she’d been neglecting for the past week or so. She didn’t hesitate to move it to the corner of the room where several other stacks lay, away from her immediate surroundings which made it easier to altogether ignore, as it didn’t nag at her as much. One of the room’s predominant features was the towering stacks of paperwork Yue neglected day after day. The essential paperwork she dealt with but everything else was usually left to her Lieutenant after being moved to his office. The six stacks of paper in the corner told her that a ‘move’ was due. Shaking her head at the paperwork, Yue returned to the other folder in her hands, with several stamps of ‘important’ and ‘classified’ across it. Upon opening it, Yue inspected documents informing her of a hostage captured by the Sixth. She frowned – that was weird, the Sixth weren’t called upon to participate. So where had this hostage been captured. Sitting down at her desk, Yue carefully read through the contents of the folder, scanning it thrice for minute details and once she was sure every piece of information was extracted from the text in front of her, she quickly gathered the documents. She sealed them in a different folder marked ‘confidential’ to be given to Kuroda. With her mind running at a hundred miles per hour and the folder in hand, Yue stood up and left the barracks, emerging out into the darkness beyond. She surveyed the darkening sky with mild surprise – exactly how long had she been engrossed with the folder? It was long, but Yue didn’t see how it was sunset already. Her answer came in the form of the battle. After the several hours occupied by the 2nd’s surprise attack, the 10th’s fighting had taken several long hours as well, nearly spanning in the double digits. Yue had, of course, remained there, watching the fight carefully. She had to admit, Osamu was an impeccable warrior with a blade and had cut down more foes than anyone but of course, that was understandable, as he was a Captain. However, his prowess in Zanjutsu had still taken her by surprise, aweing her for a split second before she turned back to the rest of the battle. However, the folder brought her attention back to the matter at hand (literally). There were several agents in the vicinity of the barracks and though they were well hidden, Yue knew them well enough to pick them out. “Takane?” She called out, her voice barely higher than her usual soft tone and the agent dropped from the roof and bowed. “Yes, Captain?” “There was a report left on my desk about a hostage your squad captured. Would you please elaborate on it, if it’s not too much trouble?” Yue’s unorthodox way of addressing Shinigami of a lower rank have been perceived as highly unprofessional on her part but it was apparent that the agent was already used to it. “We captured him a few hours ago near the 22nd district during the battle earlier today.” Takane explained. Yue nodded along, the bits and pieces falling into place. That’s why they’d returned injured, as was typical of a target-specific attack. Only this time, they’d left the target alive. “He should have been in the Maggots' Nest by now. Why isn’t he there yet?” “The Enforcement Squad showed up near the end and when we tied the hostage down, they attempted to claim him as their hostage and fighting broke out. We took him to Seireitei and obviously the Enforcement Squad tried to take him to their Division and us to ours.” Yue smiled at him, urging him to go along. He was admitting something wrong, as was evident by his slowing words. It was a known fact that Yue disapproved of the Sixth and Second’s childish squabbles but she said nothing pertaining to their rivalry. “But he’s in the holding cells now, is he not?” “Yes, Captain. It was decided he was to be put under the Second’s jurisdiction, where he belongs, for the time being. We waited for your approval to take him down to the Maggots' Nest.” Takane said. “Take him down. If he’s as important as the report says, you should put him in the maximum security cells. There are a few dozen or so free, aren’t there?” “Yes, Captain.” “Thank you very much, Takane-san.” Yue gave him a bright smile and handed him the folder. “Please give this to Captain Kuroda.” “Hai.” This left Yue alone once again, standing the midst of a huge network of barracks and underground facilities. She turned towards the exit, intent on heading back towards the Yukihiro residence to retire for the night.