The Noble Sort

A/N: This is the actual beginning of the present story, although the prologue is needed to make sense of everything from here on out. Any notes on the chapter are, as always, at the bottom.

I apologize in advance for any errors; I'm checking four or five times but occasionally something slips by me.

So enjoy, hopefully I can as well! And please, leave some feedback if you have it!

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"The Noble Sort"
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Present Day

Sou-taichou Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni sat high in his chair, staring heavily at the assembly of taichou before him. With the battle against Aizen now considered 'imminent,' he would need his best to carry out the mission he was setting before them. The problem was, he could only afford to have three of them occupied on this mission, and he was sure that would still be one body too many outside Seireitei.

The idea of sending three of his most powerful into the human realm for something that could be seen as frivolous, depending upon the person commenting on his actions, was a major worry. But he had little choice; he was forced to make decisions based upon the protection of Seireitei. This was his choice.

He sighed, fingering his long, white beard; he should have taken care of this years ago instead of waiting until it became a looming regret at the end of his life. Now, he was facing a war he knew he couldn't handle without some sort of back-up plan.

Unfortunately, that back-up plan had left the Seireitei almost eighty years ago. Her current whereabouts were unknown, something that plagued him endlessly. She did not know of her mother's death, did not know that Seireitei was going to be ripped apart by a madman.

Looking back upon his decisions, he could see he had sometimes been very wrong, almost to the point of idiocy. Unfortunately, hindsight allowed him a view upon his actions that he did not have the luxury of before. Very little was discernible until it was too late, and this was even true with men as powerful as he.

This was another situation where he had allowed his temper and pride to preside over his actions, and now he was regretting it. But there was only one solution, and he wasn't sure how well he could help them with the task he would lay before them.

He had very little information to offer them. None of it was recent.

But it had to be done. He would take that blasted Urahara's assurances that the other rogues would be present during the war, the ones he wasn't supposed to know about, but there was someone he needed tracked down by his own people, even if he was letting his personal feelings rule this decision.

He had some unfinished business to take care of before facing Aizen Sousuke.

"Most of you have your orders." He shifted slightly, drawing their eyes. "There are three of you that have not been given any further instructions. You will stay."

The others bowed their heads and quickly exited the room, rushing to claim their fuku-taichou and get to work. No one wanted to stick around, either, when he was putting off a vibe that made the small hairs on the back of their necks stand on end.

The three left before him, though, stood silently. He was well aware that they were not bothered in the least by his mood or the level of reiatsu surrounding him.

"Kuchiki, Shunsui, Juushirou…I have a special assignment for you. You will be traveling to the human world with the team dispatched tomorrow, although your teams will not be working together unless necessary."

The three men stared at him, stoic.

"There is…someone…I need you to find. I have some information on the target, but it is at least a decade old. I cannot guarantee its veracity."

"Aa, Yama-jii, who is this target?"

The sou-taichou looked to the side, one of his eyes opening momentarily before he recollected himself.

"She is not technically a target." He cleared his throat, glancing at his former student without really glancing, something only he had ever truly perfected. "The person you are commanded to find is Yamamoto Minako, former fuku-taichou of the Gōtei 13. It is imperative that you find her, and bring her to me."

Shunsui, startled, stared at his old sensei with a dreadful look on his face.

"Are you quite serious, jii-jii?"

"Of course I'm serious!" he boomed, forgetting that one of the taichou present was not used to actually seeing him, just the persona he emitted. He was focused on his students, not the interloper into their private world. "I can't have a taichou-class shinigami running around in the human world, free, and not involved in this war. We will need everyone we can get."

"You told me that she would never be admitted to the Seireitei again," Shunsui countered, his expression sour and unusual.

"Time has made me rethink many of my decisions," he stated, a faraway look on his face. "Not even I am omnipotent, Shunsui."

The room was silent.

"There are many things you do not know about your former fuku-taichou, Shunsui. Things that would greatly change your opinion of her…and of me."

The three assembled taichou continued to stare unabashedly at the decidedly abnormal Commander in front of them.

"Shunsui," the sou-taichou said, eyes dark and glittering, and fully open for the first time all day, "if I told you every wrong I have done that child, you would wish to kill me on her behalf. There are reparations to be made before we march into a battle that may take all our lives. And I will be one of the first to admit that her power would be useful if we have to go to war."

He nodded, apparently satisfied, although everyone present knew that this was, most likely, not the end of this conversation.

"Very well. I suggest you leave at once. The completely inadequate amount of information I have managed to gather has been prepared for you." At this, the First Division's fuku-taichou stepped forward, passing Shunsui a pathetic dossier.

It was little more than a folder with a scrap or two of paper and a picture. It wouldn't be of much help.

The three men nodded, once again bowing slightly to their Commander, before turning on their heels and exiting the room silently. No one dared to broach the subject of their very odd assignment anywhere near the man now sitting silently in contemplation.

The silence continued until they were outside of the First Division's compound, and then, as if a weight had been lifted as they walked underneath the large gate, the discussion lit up.

"I was not aware that he had kept tabs on her," Shunsui said as he browsed the few scraps of paper in the dossier. Juushirou leaned over, giving the dossier a quick, sweeping glance before straightening. There had been nothing of note from what he had seen. There were snippets of information in between large blocks of time that she had not been found by any of his sensei's clerks.

"Nor I. But is it really so unbelievable? He doted on her."

"I know. So did I, really, although we both teased her horribly when she was young."

The two men smiled at each other, memories from the past blurring through their minds.

"Did she ever explain to you why she left?" Juushirou asked.

"Nah. She always had some secrets. Especially those last few months. Something was bothering her, but I couldn't get it out of her at all."

The Sixth Division taichou, Kuchiki Byakuya, stopped, staring at the two men. He felt left out, and while he would normally never bring it to anyone's notice, the only way to get the information needed to complete this assignment was to talk to the two with him. Obviously, from what he had seen as Kyouraku-taichou had flipped through the file, there was little information for him to get by any other method.

"And who is Yamamoto Minako?" he asked, his haughty air still in place.

The two beside him goggled in disbelief momentarily, stunned at the cluelessness of one of the most intelligent and informed taichou, before Shunsui finally came back to life.

He cleared his throat.

"She was Yama-jii's niece. His brother's kid. His brother died when she was young, though, and Yama-jii ended up taking care of the brat and her mother, like they needed it. Yamamoto Arisu, Minako-chan's mother, was taichou of the Fourth Division a long time ago. She trained with Retsu-san, in fact. She was a member of Central until Aizen's mass murder of everyone in the building."

Byakuya nodded, listening, as they resumed their set pace.

"She was a brilliant kid. Her mother trained her well—she was deadly with a sword. She," he chuckled under his breath, "she was horrible at kidō. I once saw her pull off Tozanshō like it was no problem and then falter trying to initiate a low level binding spell. Of course, the situations were very different. "

"We all have our faults, Kyouraku," Juushirou admitted, a small smile on his face.

"Indeed we do, my friend. But she was part of a division that specialized in something she was horrible at."

"Only because he would not let her go the route she wanted. We all knew that," Juushirou said, he eyes focused on the ground in front of him.

"Was she truly taichou level?" Byakuya asked, interested in the skill of the woman they would most likely have to fight to bring back to the Seireitei.

"Yeah. She was my fuku-taichou for about thirty years, until she left, and she had been a member of my squad previously. I know she had achieved Bankai, although I was never able to witness it. She wasn't ever made a captain due to Yama-jii's status; there was a conflict of interest, according to Central."

He stopped, staring off into the distance. The two men with him halted further down the gleaming path, turning back toward him. His pale pink kimono fluttered in the wind, and he turned toward the east.

"We need to talk to Retsu-san's fuku-taichou. She and Minako-chan were close, especially those last few weeks."

Juushirou and Byakuya moved to follow him to the Fourth Division's Headquarters, but Juushirou was skeptical.

"Wouldn't Genryuusai-sensei have spoken to her?" he asked, perplexed.

A dark look passed over Kyouraku's face for a shadow of a moment.

"No. I doubt he even knew how close they were." Juushirou looked shocked. "Aa, he doted on her, but their relationship was strained at the end. Like I said, something was bothering her for months before she finally left."

They continued, silent, for the twenty or so minutes it took for them to reach the Fourth Division's Headquarters.

The three taichou entered the compound, causing a bolt of electric shock to go through the inhabitants in the courtyard. It was rare for those three to be together, much less visiting the Fourth Division. Especially when blood wasn't visibly covering anyone.

A slight shinigami near the back turned on his heel and ran around the left side of the building and straight to the taichou's office. There was only one person they could possibly be there to see.

By the time they arrived, Unohana-taichou was seated at a small kotatsu in her office, a tea service and rice cakes present. Greetings were exchanged, and the three taichou were shortly seated next to her.

"Please, would you like some tea? Perhaps some refreshments?" The serene smile on her face never slipped, even though it must have been somewhat disconcerting for all three of them to be there at once.

The woman they were looking for moved from the adjacent wall towards them, slowly but assuredly preparing their tea and making sure that each one had a small plate with two rice cakes. Her duties finished, she turned to exit through a door on the left side of the room, but Juushirou stopped her.

"Kotetsu-san, would you please stay? It is actually you that we have come to speak to."

Both Unohana-taichou and Kotetsu-fuku-taichou looked surprised, but Unohana gave her a small nod and the fuku-taichou turned around, seating herself behind and slightly to the right of her taichou.

"Unohana-taichou, we have been given an assignment, and we believe your fuku-taichou has information that would be useful," Byakuya said, staring at Unohana the entire time he spoke.

"Oh? I don't know how, but if she can be of any help, Kuchiki-taichou, you may ask her anything you wish." She set her tea cup down on its matching saucer, and smiled at the men. "Of course, I will have to stay in the room, you understand."

While she was soft spoken, none of the men took it as a request. Everyone knew she would not be moving from the room.

"Maa, maa. You're not in any trouble, Isane-san," Kyouraku said once he saw the look of dread on the young lady's face. "We just need to ask you some questions."

"I—of course, Kyouraku-taichou. I'll be happy to help however I can."

Unohana smiled, pleased, and waved her hand as if signaling the beginning of the interrogation.

"You remember my fuku-taichou before Nanao-chan, yes? Minako-chan? I know the two of you were friends."

Byakuya noticed the fine tremor in Kotetsu Isane's folded hands, as well as Unohana-taichou's own flinch at the name. Both of these women were very familiar with their target.

"H—hai, taichou."

"I'm sure you remember; one afternoon I drug you to the Eighth Division and locked the two of you in the office. Something had been bothering her, and I was hoping a friend would help clear the air." He paused and gave her a slow smile. "What happened, hm?"

Isane blinked rapidly, before lowering her gaze to her clasped hands in her lap. "Nothing much, really. I don't remember word for word what was said, but we just gossiped. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong."

Kyouraku slumped a little, but continued.

"So she never told you why she was upset?" All four taichou watched as her hands fisted in her lap. "If it had something to do with her defection from the Gōtei 13, we need to know."

"I—I shouldn't—" she shot a helpless look at Unohana, praying for her taichou to rescue her from the impromptu interrogation, but her taichou was still sitting perfectly serenely and sipping her tea. "I promised I wouldn't say anything about it. And I—I don't know everything."

"Then tell us what you know," Byakuya said, the demanding tone clear in his aristocratic voice.

"I—" Isane squeezed her eyes shut and her hands were fisted so tight the skin was paler than normal. "Oh, Unohana-taichou, you'll be angry, I know it!"

There were tears coming from the corners of her eyes now, and Unohana had lost the serene smile she had been wearing.

"Indeed, Isane? I am sure that whatever you have done is not so terrible."

"But it is!" she cried, aghast at her taichou's easy acceptance of a situation she knew nothing about.

"We shall see if it is as bad as all that. I'm sure that whatever you did, it was done helping a friend," Juushirou said, hoping to calm the girl down. It wouldn't do them any good if she was too distraught to help them, and he couldn't stand seeing a woman cry.

"Yes! But that doesn't make it right!"

"What happened, Kotetsu-san," Juushirou asked gently, hoping to calm her down.

"I—oh, my," she took a deep breath, closing her eyes, before finally calming herself down somewhat and looking at them again. "About two months after that afternoon, Minako came to see me. She hadn't been feeling well, and she wanted me to examine her, see if I could figure out what was wrong."

"It was strange, too. She had been very—standoffish—before that. She hadn't wanted to do anything, go out; we couldn't get her to leave the house. But I was hoping she had finally decided to talk and that the exam was just her way of getting my attention."

She looked at them sheepishly, her shoulders curving inward.

"We all knew she was upset about something. But she wouldn't talk to anyone. When given the chance to finally get her alone and talking, I took it."

"I did a full examination, and I was…shocked…at what I found. As you said, Kyouraku-taichou, I knew her well. I didn't understand how the results could be right. But I reviewed everything and came to the conclusion I was right. Once I told her, it all just…spilled out."

"What was it, then, Isane?" Unohana asked, gently.

Isane closed her eyes, her chest heaving as she took in a large breath. When she reopened them they were glistening with the remnants of her tears and a new fire that none of them could explain.

"She was pregnant," Isane hissed, her voice low. "And there was no way for her to be."

Both Kyouraku and Unohana's eyebrows went up.

There was a loud, jarring noise as someone moved to sit their teacup down. Everyone was shocked at the words that had come out of her mouth.

"She never told me—" Kyouraku started.

"Of course she didn't!" Isane said, looking shocked herself that she had raised her voice to a taichou.

The room was silent for a moment.

"I was never notified of this, either," Unohana said quietly.

Isane looked at the floor, sullen. "No one knew but us. Sou-taichou would have killed her if he found out."

"Aa, but Isane-san, my fuku-taichou was not…with anyone. I'm sure."

"No, she wasn't," she said, hushed. "Even when we weren't…close…I knew that."

"So she left because she was expecting," Byakuya said.

"Not exactly," Isane said shakily. "She was supposed to come back."

"Why don't you tell us everything, Isane," Unohana said, still sweet and polite but with solid steel in her voice, her underlying tone making it very obvious that she was not pleased with the deception of her fuku-taichou.

Isane was shaking now, sure she was going to be in more trouble than she could even imagine by the time this was all said and done.

"It's—it's not really my story." She looked up, eyes flashing. "And I swore to her—I swore—I would never say a word. I don't want to break that promise, but—"

"It's been eighty years since she left, Kotetsu-san. It doesn't really matter, does it?" Juushirou questioned, perplexed.

"It will when Yamamoto-sou-taichou finds out," she muttered. But she straightened, and they could see the resolve go through her. "He knows part of the story, I'm sure. But he didn't believe her; her mother didn't either."

"About three months before she left for the human world, something had…happened. She wouldn't even tell me everything, but she said she was attacked by a fellow shinigami." She paused, gaining her strength once more. "He raped her."

"He," her voice lowered, "it…he was brutal."

Kyouraku's eyes widened in disbelief then narrowed in anger. All traces of the teasing personality he was known for had fled.

Unohana's own had slipped shut, and she bowed her head.

"Obviously, she never sought treatment. I thought it was odd that she hadn't, but she never explained it and I didn't ask. She was already so upset—hadn't wanted to tell me, really, but she had no choice."

He opened his mouth, but she held her hand up to stop him from asking the question she knew was on the tip of his tongue.

"Before you ask, she couldn't identify him. She didn't even remember at first, but Juro specializes in mind control and memory modification, and he helped her explain the missing time she had experienced. She was devastated, and from what Juro said—of course, Kyouraku-taichou, you know he sees the memories as he works—it was ghastly. Juro said she was—she—she was unconscious at first, and restrained. She didn't even have a chance to fight." She stopped, clearing her throat.

"When she found out she was pregnant, she went into hysterics. Her family had dismissed her version of the story, at least some part of it. I don't know all the details. She wouldn't say what happened, only that she had told her uncle and her mother."

She blushed, embarrassed about the next part.

"She wouldn't even consider having the baby. She feared her uncle's reaction, the father, and just the idea of having that man's baby—it would have crushed her. So she decided to abort."

The men, unused to speaking of such things, would have normally been blushing and moving to excuse themselves from the conversation, except two of them were too upset by what they were hearing and the third too stoic.

"But I was never approached by Minako-san," Unohana said.

"No." Isane blushed, and looked down at her lap again. "We—you see, we had a plan."

Isane could feel the heat of their eyes boring into her, and she finally let loose the emotional storm that had been held at bay by sheer willpower.

"She was never supposed to stay gone!" she said, rushing the words. "She was supposed to get a week in the human world, and then find a doctor that could perform the abortion. After, she was supposed to come back and everything would be fine—no one would have known, and everything could go back to normal!"

"But she never—she never came back! I was so afraid something had gone wrong, but I figured she would have come to me if it had."

"I don't know why she didn't come back," she said quietly.

She was crying now, again, and Unohana turned her back to her, closing her eyes and sitting quietly.

"You should not have kept any of this from me, Isane."

"I know," she sobbed, her tears returning with the loss of her control. "We knew. But she was terrified that you would tell Yamamoto-taichou. We didn't know what else to do!"

The men were silent.

"Well, nothing can be done about it now. "

The room was quiet except for the sounds of Isane's continued sobbing, which was now unrelenting. It had been too long since she had been able to unburden herself of the many secrets she held.

"Why did she not tell me? I would have helped her. I never denied anything she asked for." The soft, mournful tone was so atypical of Kyouraku, and it made her sob harder.

"She hid it from everyone after her family's reaction. Only Juro and I knew anything, and that was because she needed our help."

She looked up at him, her eyes glistening through the sheen of tears. Her eyelashes were beginning to stick together, and her face was blotchy and red.

"And you—you," she choked, "her taichou…she would never disappoint you, and she felt all she had done was disappoint everyone, even though it wasn't her fault."

"And then when she did try to get help, no one would help her! She—she didn't think you would be like that, but she couldn't be sure—and—"

She sniffed.

"I know it's hard for you to understand. Her mental state—she was not Minako—I—she wouldn't listen to me. She had stopped thinking the way she used to, but—"

She looked at him, her eyes flashing.

"Don't you see? She already had a back-up plan. Otherwise, she would have come to me and we would have figured out something else. I think she knew there was a chance she wouldn't be able to come back. I think—I think something happened, and she had planned to stay in the human world if anything went wrong. I've wondered, since, if it was just too much. I know that the memories plagued her. "

Isane slowly calmed down now that the entire story was finished, sitting miserably behind her taichou. There was very little discussion between the four taichou, all of whom seemed too surprised by the new information to even bother with pleasantries, and the men got up to leave only a few minutes after she was done.

Before they made it to the door, though, she stopped them.

"There's one other thing. I'm not sure it's helpful—"

She glanced at Unohana, knowing she would have much to make up for and this could be the beginning, and then back at them.

"She didn't leave from here. She went to Rukongai first. I—no doubt you know that your two teams tend to know each other well; the two of you spend so much time together, and your officers see each other quite a bit."

She stared at Juushirou. "She went to see your fuku-taichou's sister before she left. She told me she needed to talk to Kuukaku, that they had a mutual friend she knew how to find that Minako wouldn't even hope to find otherwise."

"Yoruichi-san."

"Hai."

The three left quietly, planning their trip to Urahara's human world shop the next day, and a few minutes later, anyone passing the office would have heard Unohana's quiet recrimination of her fuku-taichou.

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A/N: There's not much to say about this chapter, although I would recommend some attention as far as the honorifics go. They change frequently depending upon who is talking to whom, who is present, etc. They are very reflective of the relationships between these people and how comfortable they feel around those around them. They will change frequently throughout this story.

If there are any questions about what any honorifics mean, I suggest a very good online Japanese guide to them. There are way too many for me to continually explain.

As for the words that might be new to some of you:

Sou-taichou is Captain-Commander

Fuku-taichou is lieutenant

Kotatsu is a Japanese table, usually used during winter

Kidou or Kidō is a form of attack based upon reishi and reiatsu

Reishi is spirit particles or power, in the simplest explanation

Reiatsu is spirit pressure

Tozanshō is a kidou spell (can be found at the Bleach wiki)

Hai is yes

Yare or Yare, yare is an expression, sort of like "my, my"

Sensei is usually used referring to a teacher

Bankai is, as you should all know, an ultimate attack for shinigami

If I missed any, I'm sorry! I tried to catch all of them. You can always message me if you have any questions.

The next chapter should be posted within the next week. I'm going to try to stick to one or two a week and keep them steady!