The Noble Sort

A/N: As usual, all the important information is lurking in the notes of the first two parts. From here on out we're AU.

And I apologize for being late on the update; tis' the season to be busy, guys, and on top of it all I'm moving across the US in January. Lots to take care of. I'm hoping to start posting weekly now, though, so I can get everything finished and posted before I move.

Plus, I got married!

So a lot has gone on in the real world. But I'm posting four chapters today, and then everyone will get another four Christmas Eve as a present.

Enjoy!

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"The Noble Sort"

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Three Years Later

"Is that the last of them?" she asked, panting.

"I think so," Akane replied, her own voice harsh and stressed due to the battle they had just fought.

Thank the Kami.

"They're getting stronger every day. This is unbelievable."

"If the fucking shinigami would do their jobs, this wouldn't be an issue."

She shot Akane a look.

"You know better. There's no way they could handle this volume." Minako wiped the sweat from her brow; fighting hollows was tough work—she had taken down the Menos and left the regulars to Akane. "They don't have nearly the manpower needed to handle this."

"Where are they coming from?" the redhead whined, and Minako fought the urge to smack her on the back of the head. "And why are we fighting them?"

"No clue," she spat back, turning on her heel and striding over to the shade provided by the small forest of trees to her right. "And we fight them because I say we do."

Hollows were a huge problem lately. It had been bad ever since Aizen was defeated—with his fall there was no organization in Hueco Mundo, just chaos—but it had been really bad the last few months. The shinigami weren't able to really keep up with the frequent hollow attacks, so many of the exiles and defected shinigami began stepping in, taking out any that got too close to them.

They had no choice; hollows were everywhere, even in their own neighborhoods.

She didn't really mind, though. It was a welcome distraction from the shithole that her life had become. In the years since the battle with Aizen she had lost her friends, her job, her apartment—everything. All because of her uncle.

The hollows were at easy outlet for her anger.

It had all started surreptitiously; he made sure that there was no way she could renege on her end of the deal. First Urahara and Yoruichi were given exemplary status—they were effectively reinstated but stationed in the real world, allowed to do whatever they wanted in return for helping the shinigami out and being a living-world base of operations for them when they visited.

She understood their acceptance of the deal; with Central reformed it was necessary. And it was what they had already been doing. With the hollow problem, they both most likely saw it as something they had to do to protect the human realm.

She never blamed them.

But it wasn't like she could exactly waltz up to their door now like she used to, either. That avenue had been taken away from her completely.

The Visoreds fell off of the map shortly after Aizen's defeat—no one had spoken to them since they received word that Hiyori was recovering and would live. Even Lisa was lost to her. Yet again, she understood. They were not offered any deal by Central and were trying to protect themselves. If she had been told correctly, her uncle had even helped them hide from Central's prying eyes.

They had completed their self-given mission: Aizen was repaid in full. They had no reason to involve themselves in the affairs of shinigami any longer. Especially shinigami that had to listen to Central, which still seemed to think they were too dangerous to live.

And the friends she had in Seireitei—they were just gone. She would most likely never see them again, she knew, not now.

She had lost her job due to her uncle's capture of her three years ago. It was a good job, too, even if she had hated it. Now she was back to the oldest trick in the book: bartending. Her apartment was lost at the same time as her job. She couldn't afford the rent on top of her caring for the house. So now she had only one home and no fall back, no hideout.

She was alone, out on her own. It was what she had promised him—he could tell everyone she had died that day and she would make sure to stay as hidden as possible while trying to fulfill the last mission he ever gave her.

"You think that's the last of 'em? I'd like to head home."

She looked over at the redhead sprawled out on the grass.

"Me, too," Minako said dryly. "I've got to be at work in four hours and I feel like I need a nap first. And a very long shower."

"A nap sounds like heaven right now."

"No shower? I'm sure you stink."

Akane pitched a clump of grass at her that fell far short of the mark.

"I think we're done here. Go on home. I'll see you tomorrow, I'm sure."

They both waved lazily, too tired to put in any real effort, before slipping into the trees surrounding the park and heading in separate directions.

The only good thing to have come out of the last few years was Akane.

Akane had always looked up to her, she knew that. But before it was like she was a distant aunt, one to revere but never come too close to. Maybe even the Rosetta stone to living on the lam—the one to teach her how to be free without getting caught by shinigami. Now, Akane was around all the time. She had become her protégé, really. She had been teaching the young woman everything she knew, preparing her for whatever might come next with Central.

Minako had to give up everything she knew and Akane, for some reason, had come along with her. It kept them from being lonely.

Anything that kept the loneliness at bay was welcome nowadays.

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"Sir! The group of hollows has been destroyed!"

Kurotsuchi-taichou looked at the screens monitoring the soul wavelengths of the area in front of him. Minami was right; where there had been a small horde of hollows in the small city park not three minutes ago, they were gone now.

He quickly switched to a visual but there was nothing but a peaceful park on a sunny afternoon. No hollows, no shinigami.

"Do you know where they went? Did they jump locations, you fool?" he hissed, sure his ignorant subordinate had screwed up somewhere. This would be the fifth time they had put in an order to have a group go to the human realm to dispatch hollows only to have to call them back.

"No, sir. No jumping. They're gone." The woman picked up the printout and handed it over to him, printing at two very fuzzy beacons on line thirty-three. "Two reiatsu came in—none I recognized—and then they were just…gone."

"That's a shinigami wavelength," he muttered, looking closely. He knew this person, he was sure of it. It was on the tip of his tongue.

"If so, sir, we didn't dispatch them there. We actually had to send the order for this group to another group already deployed; there's too many of them popping in at once. It was either one of our stationed shinigami or one of the exiles."

Exiles.

"Never mind," he said absently, waving his hand at her and stuffing the printout in his haori pocket. "I know who it was."

Minako.

His lips curved upward in an insane caricature of a smile.

How interesting.

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"There's no way," Yoruichi hissed, jerking his arm down from in front of her face. The printout didn't mean anything to her.

"Look, though. These aren't random movements. It seems like it, but they can't be." Urahara waved the sheet in front of her and her shorter cousin again. "The time intervals are too perfect—they're sequenced."

"Boss's right," Tessai said, barely looking up from the gadget he was trying to repair at the table.

"What would you know about it?" she asked, her disbelief evident. "You haven't gone out and fought them. You never leave the store!" She kicked the table, upsetting the pieces he had removed from the gadget.

"Hollows don't think like that," he said, his voice firm and unwavering.

"The Arrancar did. The Espada did. Even the Menos do."

"But Yoruichi," Urahara interrupted, "you know as well as I that they are on a different level from the standard hollow. Very few of them are capable of planning. I'm not sure if they can even count, much less tell time!"

"Yes, because we've never seen a hollow smarter than they should be."

"For once," Soifon said haltingly, "I'm inclined to believe them, Yoruichi-sama. Hollows don't move like this. This is too advanced for them."

"The Menos—"

"Can plan, yes. But they rarely lead the weaker hollows like this and you know it."

Yoruichi glared at the shorter taichou of the Second Division, her arms crossed over her chest.

"You expect me to march in front of the sou-taichou and tell him that hollows are not popping into the human realm on their own, that someone is planning this—"

"Ah, Yoruichi," Urahara said, scratching his head through his hat, "I never said there was someone behind it."

The dark-skinned woman sent her lover a scathing glare.

"That's what you just said, actually."

"No, no—look, Yoruichi, I'm just saying this isn't random. Something tells me," he stopped, looking down, and everyone held their breath. They all knew him well enough by now to know his personality was about to alter drastically, which meant whatever he said next was vitally important. "Something tells me the hollow are still leaving Hueco Mundo randomly."

"Which means what?" the younger Shihōin asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

His eyes glittered.

"Which means someone made a very large mistake."

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"Report!"

The nine taichou in front of him snapped to attention, each standing straight and tall and staring forward. With the chaos that reigned after Aizen's fall, this had become a natural part of their evening. No one was exempt without a damn good reason.

As always—they were constantly overtired and ready to head to their own quarters for some well-deserved rest—they were quick and to the point.

"Three of my teams have been left in the human realm overnight, sou-taichou. All day teams returned with minor injuries," Histugaya stated in his calm, level voice.

"My teams are prepared to leave at dawn with the Fifth Division's tracking unit, sou-taichou," Komamura said, his voice booming in the room.

Byakuya, next in line, raised his head and reported without stepping out of his normal spot.

"The Sixth Division is prepared for the Hueco Mundo mission tomorrow. As are," he spared a glance for tall taichou of the Eleventh standing beside him, "the accompanying teams of the Eleventh Division."

Zaraki just snorted and nodded, apparently happy with the report of his division that had already been given.

"We are not scheduled for anything until the weekend, Yama-jii," Kyouraku stated gaily, his teasing smile evident under his sakkat.

Soi fon stepped up next, almost nervous. It had been quite some time since she had to brave the sou-taichou's wrath in this manner.

"Second Division is prepared at all times—but I did receive some information today that I believe we need to discuss." Everyone perked up, intrigued. "Urahara-san and Yoruichi-sama have some…unsettling information for us pertaining to the recent influx of mass hollow attacks."

The sou-taichou grunted.

"Urahara-san believes there is no possible way the attacks are random." As one or two of the assembled taichou began muttering, she cleared her throat and continued. "He says there is evidence that they are…timed, sir."

"Timed?" Kyouraku asked, his disbelief evident.

"You would have to speak to him—I don't truly understand how he figured it out. Apparently there is something wrong with what he termed the 'intermediary medium.' He said the hollows are leaving Hueco Mundo randomly, as normal, but appearing in the human realm in timed sequential intervals."

"Give whatever you have to Kurotsuchi-taichou," the sou-taichou muttered, not even cracking open an eye at the news.

She nodded, bowed slightly, and quickly moved back to her position. But the damage was done—everyone was speaking low tones to their neighbors, discussing the information. Hopefully their gamble paid off and everyone was a bit quicker to think it over since she had given him the information and not Yoruichi.

"Ah, well," Ukitake-taichou said, scratching right above his left ear, "we're on standby, but we haven't been called out. We're not on rotation for several days. The Ninth is on standby as well, although they aren't prepared to go into the human realm. The paperwork has kept them a little busy."

Everyone nodded. The massive amount of paperwork generated by the current situation was something they could all understand.

A somewhat short, stout man stepped forward. He looked middle-aged, but the scars crisscrossing his arms and neck showed that, while small and older than many in the room, he was quite the fighter.

"Third Division currently has over half of the division in the in-between space, sou-taichou."

"And the support divisions?" the sou-taichou asked.

"The Fourth Division is fully prepared, sou-taichou. We have not yet received an influx of casualties that tested our numbers."

"The Twelfth," Kurotsuchi said, examining his fingernails, "has surveillance set up in Hueco Mundo, the in-between, and in the human realm. We are targeting the areas that the hollows continue to return to."

He looked up at the sou-taichou, a nasty grin on his face.

"But we also had our own little surprise today. We followed a horde of hollows through surveillance, and, as we have seen before, they were gone before we could get a group dispatched to the location."

"And that's a problem, Kurotsuchi?" Zaraki asked dryly.

"Not really. But the two little helpers we caught might be." Everyone's eyes shot to his. "We have stragglers. Most likely a pair of exiles or defects, hollows getting too close to home." He locked eyes with the sou-taichou, who now had one eye very slightly cracked open. "Or maybe not."

"Dismissed," the sou-taichou hissed, and while many wanted to stay and discuss the matter they all turned to flee. "Not you, Kurotsuchi." As they all fled the powerful temper of their leader, they glanced at the man still standing in the middle of the room, grinning like a fool.

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Deep underground beneath Central, two men held a somewhat stilted conversation. One was currently contained in a cell so protected, so bordered with layered kidō that his touching the walls just might blow him to pieces. The other, a handsome man in his middle age with grey hair, was outside the cell looking in through the very small window in the door.

"You've created quite the mess," he said, his tone acerbic as he picked a piece of imaginary lint off his peculiar silver haori.

Few in Seireitei had ever seen such a haori.

Seeing it was usually accompanied by a swift death or the offer of an involuntary promotion. The only others to have seen such clothing and lived were very high up in the dictatorial structure of the Gōtei 13, and even then they rarely understood exactly what it meant until the person had explained it to them.

"But it's not my mess. I would be honored otherwise, fuku-taichou."

The man strapped to the chair with only his face and hands visible smiled as he watched his visitor straighten the small tag at his waist.

"As a matter of fact, fuku-taichou, I believe it is your mistake, not mine."

The man straightened, pulling a shimmering cloak around himself. He was almost immediately undetectable, and Aizen longed to know exactly how they had created the spelled items.

"But you started it all. It was supposed to take you and your..associates…exactly where we wanted." The fuku-taichou's eyes were visible for just a moment before he blinked entirely out of existence, his words hanging in the dead, stale air of the prison. "You started it. And you will be the end of it."

Aizen smiled.

If Zero was involved, the Gōtei 13 had much larger problems than one immortal traitor sitting in their underground dungeon. Things would most likely get very interesting soon—thankfully the gossip tended to make it even this far down.

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Two Days Later

"Something doesn't make sense here," Minako muttered, staring at the paper-covered wall.

She sipped at the hot tea in her mug, eyes quickly scanning the hundreds of sheets of paper tacked to her dining room wall. It was there, she was sure, but she couldn't see it. No doubt if she had help, she would notice it—but that was impossible.

"Akane!" she shouted, her voice reverberating through the small home.

The redhead came bounding into the room, the early morning sunlight making her red hair shine like a neon halo.

"Tell me again precisely what he said."

The girl huffed, flouncing over to the dining room table and throwing herself into one of the upholstered chairs.

"He said that it came from Urahara. Something about sequential timing and intermediary mediums." Akane toyed with a small stack of papers on the table in front of her, rearranging them and lining all the edges up neatly. "And that we were cutting it a little close if they were able to pick up our wavelengths. He thinks Kurotsuchi-taichou knows. Actually, he's pretty sure Kurotsuchi-taichou knows, and he was really pissed off about it."

"It doesn't make any sense," she muttered again, shaking her head and squinting at the newest printout added to her collection. "And Mayuri won't say shit, he knows better."

"What doesn't make sense?"

Minako shot her a look over her shoulder.

"What?" Akane said, her tone and posture defensive.

"Suddenly become an expert on formulaic transdimensional physics, have you?" she asked dryly. "I didn't think you liked math—or science, literature, law…I'll be sure to remember your part in this when we finally take the bastards down."

"That's what this is? Physics?" She scoffed. "You sucked at science in college, Minako. You should know better."

"What do you think, shishi?"

I think you need sleep, onna. And math sucks. He yawned loudly. Other than that, I am content to laze about.

She sighed, turning from the wall and crossing to slump down against the table.

"Was he any help, then?"

She spared a glance for the black dog sunning in front of the window and snorted.

"Never is," she said into her mug. It was there. She just kept letting herself get caught up in the numbers and the science and she wasn't seeing it.

"So, what are you lookin' for, anyway?" Akane asked, her finger trailing circles over the wood to the side of the numerous stacks of paper covering the table.

Minako snorted again.

"You never know. Maybe if you two didn't keep everyone in the dark all the time you could get something done for once."

"Oh, Akane," she said, her voice suddenly full of a bitter and teasingly cynical laughter. "There are some things in this world it is better you not know about."

"Like this?" the redhead said as she waved her hand nonchalantly at the paper-covered wall.

"Like this," Minako agreed.

"You could tell me, you know," the redhead grumbled. "It's not like I'm gonna run off and suddenly make tons of shinigami friends to rat you out to."

"Stick around long enough and you'll find out the hard way."

It was a dark promise, almost a threat. But it didn't faze her protégé in the least. The girl sat up straighter in her chair, literally bouncing and vibrating with overflowing excitement.

"Will there be fighting?" she asked the anticipation in her voice clear.

"Most definitely," Minako replied dryly.

"And the guys we'll tear up, this'll lead us to them?"

Minako nodded, amused at her protégé's obvious excitement over the idea of finally getting to run a shinigami through. Although, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise; Akane had been waiting over twenty years to get to take her anger out on one of them. Minako was sure that there were men in business suits that feared the little redheaded spitfire—anyone in all black tended to draw her ire.

Except Sasakibe, although Minako thought that was more due to the fact that she saw him regularly, not him being the exemption to the rule.

"Well, then, what are you looking for?"

Minako looked at her, considering. The girl wasn't smart enough to understand any of this. She was sweet, and she would be a powerful fighter one day—would have, at least, had she not left Seireitei so early—but she was no upper level strategist. She wasn't a problem solver, she was a grunt, a soldier.

But it couldn't hurt, either. Give her a taste and let her chew on it—it might be enough to get her out of her hair for the time being.

Minako waved her free hand at the paper on the wall.

"All of these are wavelength printouts of dimension jumps. You know what that is?" She snorted at her 'pupil's' look of complete ignorance. "A dimension jump—leaving one realm for another. Some are from Hueco Mundo, some from the in-between, and some from the human realm. Separately, they aren't important. But somewhere here," she paused, licking her lips, "somewhere there's a mistake. Something different."

"How different?"

"I don't know."

"Like big different or little different?"

"I really don't know."

Akane glanced at the wall, her gaze that of a dunce trying to understand quantum mechanics.

"Well…"

"Yes, my little Nobel Prize Laureate?" Minako grinned as she said it, hiding behind her steaming mug.

"Will you know what it is once you find it, or do you have to know what it is to find it?"

Minako blinked. It was wordy and hard to understand, but it was actually a damn decent question. She hadn't thought Akane had it in her, not really. The girl had barely scraped through the general education that the academy made you have before graduation. And university in the human realm—well, they saw early on that would be a bust.

"I believe I have to find it, then I will know what it is."

"Well, then you're the idiot." Minako felt a brief moment of anger before the shock of what she was seeing finally hit her. "Good god, Minako, you really do suck at science."

She slammed her mug down on the table and raced to the printout Akane was pointing at. It was a small piece, one of the earlier hordes that she had rarely paid attention to. For that reason it had been shifted further to the left and further to the left, out of the center. She hadn't even noticed it.

"How?" she breathed, staring at her protégé in shock.

"Step back and look at it, idiot. The number line looks totally different." Akane pulled her back, past the table, fighting off the smack Minako sent toward the back of her head. "Look at the whole thing. See it now?"

Minako nodded absently.

"It doesn't match the others. Throws the whole thing off, really." Akane tapped two other pieces on the wall. "See—where it pops up the pattern is thrown off."

She zoomed back across the room, jerking the small piece of paper from the pin holding it to the wall. Even shishi was interested, now, sitting up and watching her every movement.

"Dear Kami," she said, her voice almost too low to hear. "It's been there all this time."

"So do you know what it is now? Can we go kick somebody's ass?"

She nodded her head, her face still showing the shock she felt. But there was dread bubbling up in her stomach, a large gaping pit where her center had once been.

This was bad.

"Fuuuuck," she hissed, hurriedly grabbing a pen and clean sheet of paper. She sketched out the quickest note she could explaining it and threw the note and the piece of printout into one of the plain envelopes scattered about the table.

She handed it to Akane, literally shoving it into the girl's hands and pushing her bodily out of the room.

"You know the drill! Go!"

"B—but Minako!" she cried, trying to twist as the woman pushed her through the kitchen to the back door. "It's daylight!"

"Use that stealth you're so proud of! Go!"

"I won't even get close to him right now!" she exclaimed, terror written on her face.

"You have to! I can't or I would do it myself!"

She pushed the redhead out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

She heard Akane's unsteady steps and profane muttering as she clomped across the yard but ignored it. Sinking down the white wooden door, she let her head bounce and come to rest against it.

All this time.

It had been right in front of their noses since the beginning and it took Akane to find it. Talk about irony. The one shinigami she didn't think had two brain cells to rub together was able to pull off what some of the greatest shinigami scientists hadn't. All because it didn't match the fucking pattern.

The giant black dog trotted into the room, coming to rest in front of her. His golden eyes gleamed in the morning light, and his head titled slightly as he stared at her.

Told you she was worth it, onna.