The Noble Sort

A/N: Look for the next update Monday or Tuesday of next week. Every week from here on out instead of every two weeks like normal.

Enjoy!

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"The Noble Sort"

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It was a quiet, sunny morning, and it was still early enough that very few shinigami were up and out of their own divisions. It was his preferred time of day—there was no one to see him enter the Yamamoto family residence.

He only went on days he knew his sensei had stayed in his barracks, which was becoming more and more common lately. Although the old man seemed to always make sure he was in his ancestral home on Sundays. No one could blame him for that; it was the one day they truly had off of work.

He crossed the grassy yard, sticking closer to the wall than most visitors would, and rounded the pond and the branch home before approaching a spacious walled-in area that made up the Yamamoto family's ancestral shrine.

The family had never been large; there were only about nine memorial stones in the serene space.

The newest—and therefore the one closest to the entrance—was his destination. The stone was smooth marble, polished to a shine except for where the name of the deceased had been carved in memoriam.

Yamamoto Minako.

It was all it read. Many of the stones in Seireitei would give rank, division number, some even gave dates of birth and death. This was not done in the Yamamoto family; just having the last name meant you had achieved a high rank and someone, somewhere, knew exactly how well you had done in your life here.

He came to a stop before the stone, bowing at the waist before sinking gracefully to kneel before the only memorial of the woman that could be found.

He never brought anything—incense seemed too formal and flowers would only make his comings and goings that much more suspicious. Besides, having known the woman as he did, he was pretty sure she wouldn't have cared for it. She would have bemoaned his wasting resources or laughed at such an emotionally revealing action. Only once had he dared to put anything near the headstone, and that had been in the first week of its existence. No one had the temerity to question him then.

He swept his white bangs out of his face before using his hand to trace the kanji carved into the cold stone.

Hers was not the first grave he had visited. There were numerous others before her, many of which rested in his division's own memorial plot. And where he had stopped visiting most of them not too long after their deaths—it did no good to dwell on the past, especially in this manner—he had never been able to stop himself from visiting hers. She and Kaien were the only ones he visited now.

He had his own theories on why this was—regrets, recriminations, self-loathing at not having been able to save them—but in the end it boiled down to the fact that they had been closer to him than the others. He mourned each loss, but these two were special.

He sighed, shifting backwards.

There were many things left unsaid, most of which he could have at least been brave enough to say when he sat by her bedside nightly, hoping she would wake up and come back to them. Instead, he had been cowardly, foolish enough to believe there would be time for it later. After everything he had told his subordinates about making sure everything was said before going into battle, he had made that very mistake.

And she had died. According to sensei, she had known she would.

He spent the first week after her death being angry. She could have told him, could have warned him. Then, when Shunsui finally broke from the weight of having now two fuku-taichou that had died and one he would never see again, he had snapped out of it to help his friend. There was some anger now, yes, but he understood her motives and, if he really thought about it, realized she had warned him in her own way.

He could have died, too. He couldn't blame her for wanting to spend her last night happy.

By the time sensei had set the stone he was just weary of the situation, upset that once again life had kicked him while he was down. He couldn't continue to blame her, so he just mourned her. It made more sense that way.

His ears twitched; there were chimes in the distance.

He stood, brushing off any unseen dirt from his haori and hakama, before bowing once again to the stone and turning to leave the Yamamoto family memorial. His third seats would be up soon and he would have no choice but to be ready when they met him at the office.

He made it halfway to the gate that divided the property from the rest of Seireitei before he realized he wasn't alone.

Stepping into the shadows of the high wall, he scanned the grassy yard in front of him, the sides of the two homes sitting in state amongst the pond and trees. There was no one immediately visible, but—there. On the other side of the pond.

A young woman—more a girl, really, most likely the equivalent of an older teenager—was flitting through the trees. She was heading east, away from the Yamamoto main house; he couldn't tell what she was saying but he could see her lips moving.

She was little more than a shadow crossing the land, not really acting suspicious, but her clothing was definitely not normal. If it wasn't for the human clothing he would have thought her another clerk or messenger of the First Division, mistaken about her taichou's whereabouts.

And she didn't match any description of Urahara's group that he knew of.

He felt the urge to follow her, find out what an intruder was doing wandering about the Yamamoto lands, but he stopped himself. She had left the house without incident. Hikaru-san not only knew the girl was there but had not sent up an alarm, had not tried to alert anyone to her presence.

His eyes lit up with mischievous joy. He loved a good mystery as much as Shunsui did.

Anything to take his mind off things.

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"Pre—preposterous!"

Sou-taichou Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni sighed and leaned back into the chair behind his desk. His upset fuku-taichou was pacing in front of him. His unexpected visitor was perched warily on the large balcony of his office, ready to run at the slightest provocation.

"You have the evidence in your hand, Choujirou. With what we have learned of Nishiori, this should not surprise you."

"But, taichou!" he exclaimed, his hands waving in an uncharacteristic bout of frenzied tension. "It's one thing for them to have done this from Central, another from Zero!"

"If it makes you feel any better, shinigami, she agrees with Urahara. It wasn't totally intentional," Akane said, her voice only slightly mocking.

The fuku-taichou stopped his uncharacteristic pacing, his shoulders slumping as his entire form sagged downwards.

"And Minako-sama thinks this is enough to trace them?"

"We already have three names, right? Nishiori, Ichimaru, and Rashogen. Ichimaru's dead, which leaves only three bodies to take care of."

Neither man was exactly thrilled with the way the girl phrased that.

"And the last one—he's the wild card. He's the link inside Zero." Akane stood, brushing her short red hair behind one of her ears. "Minako thinks they would have used his access code to put it in place. And, most likely, he also recommended both of them for promotions to Zero—how else would they have moved from Central to Zero? It's rare, right?"

The sou-taichou nodded, surprised that the girl had been able to pick up so much from just being their messenger. Minako had been so sure she was an ignorant child—perhaps his niece had underestimated her little protégé.

"What does Minako want?" he asked dryly.

"The last name. You have to get it for her—it's not like she can waltz into your library or vaults, you know."

The sou-taichou tapped a very large, very thick stack of papers bundled at the right of his desk.

"It's in here, somewhere. Choujirou has gathered every bit of information we have on Zero, including their access codes and when they have been used inside Seireitei." His chest shook with silent laughter at the girl's expression of disbelief. "I knew she would ask for them at some point."

Akane just nodded.

"But this—Akane-san, this will at least allow us to begin fixing the hollow problem in the human world." The fuku-taichou paused, an uncomfortable expression of regret crossing his face. "Will you give Minako-sama my thanks? If we can fix this, she'll have saved me a great deal of work, not to mention the shinigami she might have saved."

The redhead waved nonchalantly.

"It's not like she did much anyway, at least that's what she says." She gave the man a dark look. "She's just in it to take 'em out—she owes them one."

The sou-taichou let his eyes slip closed; he didn't want anyone to know exactly how little the fact that his niece was going to murder three Zero members bothered him. He was, after all, the leader of the Gōtei 13—he was supposed to care when laws were being broken. And he would have, but they were akin to Aizen in his eyes—they had broken the laws he upheld long before Minako. Her actions now were akin to him giving the Onmitsukidō an assassination order.

At least in his eyes.

"She also wanted to know how things were going with Central. Would've left it till Sunday, but there's no reason to come back so soon, is there?"

"I control Central now. There is no reason for Minako to fear a backlash once it is done if she is found out. There might be a period of questioning…"

Akane's eyes gleamed. One more thing in their favor. It would be greatly needed if they actually managed to pull this off.

"So we're go, then? And after—"

"Finish it. Quickly, if possible; the strain is getting to my taichou. I'll deal with the aftermath and Zero's taichou."

Akane nodded sharply.

"And us?"

He opened his eyes again, the full weight of his stare resting on the young girl.

"Do you believe I would allow you to languish after you have done that which I could not?" he asked, disdain dripping from his booming voice. "Tell my niece I have learned my lesson. You will both be free—whatever that means for you."

She nodded again, but there was a peculiar look in her eyes. He raised one fuzzy eyebrow, a silent inquiry as to what she was thinking.

She had been doing this too long if she was able to read the sou-taichou.

"Have you ever just asked her—straight up asked her—what she wanted?"

Both men just stared at her.

"Look," she began uncomfortably, "I'll follow Minako through whatever she does. But I think you should ask her what she wants. You might be surprised."

"You believe she would return—" the sou-taichou began before a very loud, insistent knock at his office's large doors interrupted him. Both men shot the woman a look.

"I know, I know."

The girl stepped forward slowly, reaching for the hell butterfly that flitted into the room.

"Just think about it."

Akane was through the door and gone from the room before the taichou outside were even able to realize a door had been opened in their commander's office.

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Four Days Later

"Are you sure about this, Minako?"

She shot the redhead a glare.

"Seriously. I really don't think you should do this alone." Akane nibbled on the side of a fingernail. "They're all former taichou, right? How strong are they gonna be?"

"It's one, actually, and are you worried about me?" she asked teasingly. "I promise I can take him."

"But—" Akane surveyed the area they had set up in, only five miles from what they now knew would be the entry point of Rashogen Jin when he came to get the localized Zero reports. He always entered and exited from the very same spot—stupid for someone of his caliber. "I just don't know, Minako."

Minako stood up, stretching as she did so, and ruffled the younger woman's hair.

"I'll be fine. You just be prepared to get us the hell out of here in a hurry. I can't call the damn butterflies and his squad will realize something's up pretty quickly."

Akane nodded, switching to another nail. By the time this was done they would all be gone.

What was worse was that, only a few days earlier, she had been so happy to finally get to see some real fighting against a shinigami. But Zero—that was a different matter entirely.

"It's almost showtime. Get low and stay there until you get my signal."

The redhead crouched behind a bush, all her attention obviously on any reiatsu fluctuations in the vicinity of the clearing her sensei was headed toward.

Minako shot off into the afternoon sun, her shadow blending with those cast by the trees she was using as camouflage. As the trees rushed by she did the same, channeling her mental focus into the detecting the exact moment the Zero member flickered into existence.

Akane had brought back more information than she had needed to pull everything off, but it was always better to have too much rather than too little. They had easily picked Rashogen as their first target due to the ease of catching him. If the man was truly Zero caliber, she was quickly rethinking her childhood adoration of the elite division members. His movements were predictable for anyone that got his access codes, a stupid move to make with his past.

But there was always the fact that he had gotten the promotion the dirty way, and it wasn't like Zero had been called into battle in centuries. The last time they had come out was before she was born—most of the time they were on special missions, not fighting. And his squad was performing surveillance on a small village outside Rukongai, the perfect place to get him.

He wouldn't be making his reports tonight, that was for sure.

She stopped her shunpo right outside the small clearing Rashogen was using as his door area, perching in a tree in the opposite direction of the village.

Hopefully he could be caught off guard. The man was already making stupid mistakes; one more wouldn't surprise her. If not, though, she wasn't above fighting it out. The only thing anyone could see that could possibly identify her would be her eyes, and it wasn't like she was the only person in the spirit realms with red eyes.

She was literally vibrating with pent up excitement.

Finally.

It had taken eighty years, but she had them. Gin was dead—fucking bastard—but the other three would follow him soon and it would be her pleasure to dispatch them. She didn't have the last name but they would get there soon. First, Rashogen had to die.

Calm down, onna, she heard him say, or you'll be making mistakes.

Oh no, shishi, no mistakes today. He dies, not us.

She felt the hellhound grin darkly in her mind. He was as happy as she was, just as bloodthirsty.

Neither of them had ever been particularly bloodthirsty—both liked battle yet feared it—but this was different. This was personal.

She stilled suddenly. She could feel it, the whoosh as air was sucked into the vortex created by the dimensional door being opened. He was going to appear in front of her at any moment, feeling secure, never guessing that she was waiting on him. She only hoped he didn't have his cloak up; it would make fighting him that much harder. The cloaks were the one thing she hadn't figured out a way around.

The door popped into existence a mere fifteen feet away, and she felt Hidaruma tremble in his sheath. The idiot had his cloak on, but he didn't have the hood up. There was a floating head full of dark hair coming out of the door, accompanied by hands. He wasn't worried about anyone seeing him here, obviously.

She shot from the tree before he even realized there was danger.

He managed to evade her first strike, barely able to jerk his body to the left to avoid the sweeping strike she aimed at his neck. His zanpakutou—a wakizashi of some sort—was jerked out from beneath his haori, but he never pulled the cloak up to cover his head.

It was a stupid move.

She hit the ground and pivoted on her heel, swinging Hidaruma around again. Their blades clanged and met inches from his chest, and she finally got a good look at one of the two men that gave the order for her abduction and the experimentation eighty years ago.

He was disappointing in the daylight, she decided, an old man that shouldn't have ever been given power. As he tried to push her sword backwards she realized his death would be far easier than she had thought; he had only succeeded in sliding backwards himself.

"Rashogen Jin," she growled, putting her full weight behind the force of her blade as it slid even closer to his chest. "Nice to finally meet you."

She reveled in the expression of shock that flitted across his face as he realized who he was talking to.

Were—were his knees shaking?

Moving so fast he couldn't possibly have seen her arm move, she pushed with her sword, putting enough of her spiritual energy behind the move that he flew backward, hitting the ground and tumbling end over end. He came to rest at the bottom of a tall pine.

She converged on him before he could pull himself up off the dusty ground, knees on his forearms and Hidaruma resting against his neck.

"Recognize me?" she asked mischievously.

"Yamamoto…Yamamoto Minako."

She nodded, her red eyes gleaming.

"Did you think you got away with it?"

His eyes darted around, a clear sign of his terror. His right arm was twitching beneath her knee but he made no move to free his arm. She watched as his Adam's apple bobbed, as he swallowed the terror she was sure he was fighting to control. He was failing miserably.

"Nothing to say? Don't want to defend yourself?"

His eyes snapped to hers as she leaned closer.

This man was a member of Zero? Seriously? She'd fought unseated officers braver than this. How long had he been off the battlefield, sitting in Central and casting judgment on those who risked their lives daily before Zero took him? Obviously the shadow division of her childhood dreams was nothing like she had imagined if no one had questioned the corruption that allowed a man like this to gain a position in the elusive division.

"You don't deserve that haori," she hissed, exhilaration shooting through her body when his eyes widened even further.

The muscles and tendons in her hand and wrist flexed as she shoved her blade downward. She felt blood hit her face as she severed his jugular followed by a puff of air as his trachea was opened. Then the blade slid home, cutting through tissue and bone like butter before slicing into the dirt and grass beneath his body.

She rose slowly, not taking her eyes off the two pieces of the man before her until she saw his chest stop rising erratically.

One down, two to go.

She could hear shouting now, the worried observations and muttered questions of the Zero members heading in her direction. She knew the reiatsu fluctuations would end up getting their attention—she just hoped she had timed everything right and was able to reach Akane and get through a door before they reached her.

He might have been a pushover but that definitely did not mean everyone in Zero would be that easy to defeat. In fact, she wholeheartedly doubted they would be.

She shook Hidaruma somewhat clean but kept the blade out just in case—then she pivoted on her heel again and, in the space of a few seconds using shunpo, she was back to Akane. The girl was already standing at attention, a hell butterfly secured in her hand.

"Now!" she half yelled, half whispered as she slid to a stop beside the younger woman.

And they were through the door, chests heaving with the adrenaline and excitement of finally getting to see some real progress in their mission.

Transport didn't take long; it was the main reason she had brought Akane along in the first place. Akane could actually use the butterflies where she wasn't allowed to even think of touching one right now. As they ran through the woods behind Minako's house, chests still heaving and Minako trying to wipe the blood off of her face and neck with her shirtsleeve, both felt the thrill wash back over them. Success.

"Feel better now, sensei?" Akane asked, a very uncharacteristic dark amusement evident in her tone.

"Oh, hell yes," Minako replied, shooting the younger woman a grin that was soon returned.

The danger was over for the moment and both allowed themselves to revel in their achievement.

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"Taichou?"

He looked up at the young woman that had interrupted his work, prepared to remove her head from her shoulders—or an organ for dissection, whichever suited his fancy.

"Yes?" he hissed, fingernails clacking on the surface of his desk.

"You wanted us to inform you immediately of anything…weird…in the communications."

The taichou tilted his head to the left, staring at the shinigami before him.

"We've picked up something you probably want to see." She unfolded a paper printout in front of her, sliding it onto his desk and pointing at a line of incongruent waves halfway down the page. "At first we weren't exactly sure who was transmitting the signal. It wasn't on any of the standard frequencies."

"Zero," he said, the awe in his voice clear.

"We believe so, sir. It was heavily encoded, but we were able to run it through the computer and break the encryption. They were reporting to, well, wherever it is they report to, but we believe they were reporting from an area to the northwest of Rukongai."

"What did it say?"

"There is a squad of them located at a village there—I'm not sure why—but they were sending out a distress signal. They only sent it through their own frequencies, though…I doubt it was a hollow attack." She grinned at him, her green eyes lighting up. "One of their members was found beheaded in the forest near their location."

Very interesting.

"They were quite…panicked…for Zero division members, taichou. Whoever did it, they slipped in and out before Zero could even get a look at them."

"Did they give a name?"

She nodded.

"Rashogen."

He pulled the sheet of paper towards him, folding it again and sticking it in a pocket stitched into the seam of his taichou haori. He nodded at the woman, a rare smile of pride blooming on his face.

"Good work. Keep monitoring their frequencies—he won't be the only one, I'm sure of it. And send someone to look up Rashogen-taichou in our back-up of the library database. They would have removed his information from the library when he was promoted, but I believe I recognize the name. He'll be in the records somewhere in the last hundred years."

She nodded and swept quickly from his office, and his eyes gleamed as he stared off into the ether in thought.

Minako, Minako. What does he have you doing?