The Noble Sort

A/N: Enjoy!

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"The Noble Sort"

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Akane bounded up the three stairs leading to the porch and across the wooden floor before landing right in front of the door.

She was home.

Minako's house really felt like home to her; she had spent more time here than she had ever spent at her own apartment. And it had a feel that the normal temporary housing for exiled shinigami never did—pictures, paintings, nice furniture. It was no wonder she was so protective of the place.

And now others would be wandering through it.

She understood the need, she really did. And the fact that Nanao and Kyouraku-taichou were the ones chosen made it a little easier.

It was the white-haired taichou tagging along that made her uneasy.

Minako would not be happy to know that the man that thought so little of her would now be rifling through her house to find anything that could be used to build her defense, especially in the little matter she was probably screaming about right now. If Akane had timed it right, they had already broken the news about Africa to her.

She didn't blame her sensei. She had seen the world, too, even if she hadn't traveled near as much. Humans were freakin' crazy. They seemed to love war. And the first rule was that you had to assure your own survival; if it came down to her or revolutionaries, she knew she'd choose herself any day.

She turned the key in the lock, swinging the door open, and barred the entryway as soon as the living room was visible to the three people standing behind her. There were ground rules to lay down.

"Okay. Number one: don't touch her shoes. Number Two: there is a car in the garage that is absolutely off limits no matter what you want to do with it. She's threatened to maim me for just looking at the monster the wrong way; she'll kill you if you do anything to it."

Three people stared back at her, their expressions comical.

"Three: she mostly just lets things slide, but certain things are very organized. If you pick something up, put it right back where you found it unless it's coming with us—safer that way." She turned to the big man in pink, scowling. "And Four, just for you: if you so much as think about touching her lingerie drawer, I've been authorized to kill you slowly or have Nanao do it for me."

Nanao smirked as her lover wilted.

"It's not like there's much there anyway," she muttered, "sensei doesn't wear them if she can get away with it."

The fiery redhead gave a peculiar little grin herself when she caught the gargling cough that came out of Ukitake-taichou's throat. It might have been evil, but he deserved it.

Akane stepped into the living room, allowing them to finally enter the house. They all looked around, heads swiveling. She wondered if it was the newness of a human dwelling or the fact that it was Minako's inner sanctum, her home, her personality spread across the rooms.

"And don't damage the furniture. She gets pissy about that."

Akane left them in the living room; it would be a minute before they came out of their stupor. She had to get the keys to the walk-in closet where Minako stored all her information. She dug through the utility drawer and was amazed to find that Zero—who had undoubtedly gone through the thing themselves—had even put the key back where they found it. Amazing.

"What happened here?"

She turned, seeing that Nanao had made it into the dining room, and she sweatdropped.

The table.

The two taichou followed quickly, both with wide eyes and eyebrows raised at the very large stain marring the gorgeous wooden table. Nothing had been able to get the blood out, but they hadn't had time to replace it.

"It became a hospital. There's stuff to do, you know. No more gawking at the table."

None of them moved to follow her into the hallway.

She sighed, then cleared her throat.

Tablecloth. Must buy a tablecloth.

"C'mon! We have a lot to dig through here!"

She moved down the hallway to Minako's bedroom—she glanced into her own and perked up when she saw it was in the same shape she had left it in—and she threw open the door, wincing, expecting to find a whirlwind of crap strewn around. Instead her sensei's room was exactly as she had left it.

She straightened the duvet absently while she waited on the three behind her to catch up.

"Yoruichi brought all the clothes and toiletries we would need already, even the laptops. But she didn't know how to get in the closet to get what we needed, and I'm not supposed to tell anyone where the key is." She moved to one of the two doors on the opposite side of the room; one was a regular closet, one was the "vault."

She slipped the key into the deadbolt and then the actual doorknob, then swung the door open. It was heavy—sensei had reinforced the little room with something she said was fireproof so that everything inside would be safe. She pocketed the key and then swept her hands out in a dramatic gesture.

"The vault, ladies and gentlemen."

"The vault?" Kyouraku-taichou asked, a bit of amusement in his voice.

"It's what we call it. Everything in here is important." She moved into the small room—it had once been the master bathroom—and kicked some of the boxes in the floor out of the way to make a path. "All the financial information is on that wall, second shelf. Bank records, tax information—when she paid—credit card bills, all of it."

"She kept every piece of it?" Nanao asked.

"Every bit." She slapped another group of binders a shelf down. "Identity information. You'll have to pull it by year and see who she was to match it all up."

"Who she was, Akane?"

The redhead looked at the other woman.

"We have many aliases." She gestured to the other wall, which was filled with cubed shelving instead of just long boards filled with binders. "This is all photos, papers, Kami only knows what else. I'm not sure how it's organized, either. But sensei doesn't throw things away, so there's no telling what you'll find in there."

"Good God, Akane-san," Ukitake-taichou said, and she scowled at him.

"It's a lot, yes. But no one said you had to be here." She moved through the boxes on the floor to a group of square things covered by tarps at the very back of the vault. "The boxes are just things we haven't filed yet, or—oh, we did mark them! Some of them are filled with books. We didn't have enough room to put them all out in the living room when we moved them into the house from her old apartment. No extra room here, really, not with two people and all the furniture."

She grinned at the looks on their faces.

"What?"

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Two hours later, they were all still digging.

They had broken it up into sections, each covering one specific thing. Nanao was digging through the financial information to find the receipts for the plane tickets and the hotels. There were most likely also bank account transaction records that would show she was in Ethiopia at the time.

Kyouraku-taichou was going through the binders of identity information. Thankfully it was arranged by date, but he had to find not only her alias but also her passport and other information for the person she had been at that time. It should have been easy, but he kept getting sidetracked. She had slapped his hands away from things more than she thought possible.

Ukitake-taichou, who brought a scowl to her face just by thinking about him, was going through the two file boxes they had found that were just marked "Africa." She had seen him pull out pictures, papers, even some type of sarong garment. He looked at everything as if it would answer every question he had.

That was the only saving grace he had as far as she was concerned.

He was obviously interested in her sensei's life. He took way too long to look at photos and piece together information, deciding what they needed and what they didn't. She realized, in the back of her mind, that this was not the behavior of a man who was not interested in someone. But she was torn, too; he had hurt Minako badly with whatever he had said to her. She didn't want him to be there, digging through her sensei's memories after that.

And she had seen the longing look he had sent towards the other boxes. It was obvious that he wanted to dig through them, but she kept them on track.

He had no right to go through Minako's life, not after what he had done to her.

Still, though…

She couldn't help but be undecided now. She knew her sensei loved him. In an ideal world, she would like for her to be happy. If he made her happy that was fine. Everything she knew about him suggested he was actually a really nice guy. Except—except he had still managed to hurt her sensei.

She wasn't sure what to think, so she just acted as if he was a bug on the bottom of her shoe and went on. If he ever apologized she could clear the air later.

Finally, she was digging through the cd's and even floppy disks that were stacked in one of the boxes. She knew some of the pictures were digitized—they had been working on scanning them all and loading them onto the hard drives. She needed to find the back-ups.

But they'd been in there for hours—her neck was hurting and she could really use a drink.

She stood, stretching, and pushed the box she had been working on to the side. She stepped around the two in the room with her—way too crowded—and then made her way around the large taichou of the Eighth, who was blocking a good portion of the floor in front of the closet.

"I'm going to make some tea. I'll be back with drinks."

All she received were nods as they kept rifling through papers.

She made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on, readying the small tea service they had and getting the tea bags ready to go. The water didn't take long to boil; sensei had invested in an electric stove that could boil water in less than five minutes. When the kettle finally whistled she poured the hot water over the tea bags and made her way, slowly, to the bedroom, intent on just letting everyone fix their own tea and be informal about it.

She almost dropped the tea tray when she rounded the corner.

Kyouraku-taichou had found the things she had made sure to keep them away from, apparently. She should have known better.

"What—those aren't yours!"

He just grinned at her, still rifling through the large canvases at the back of the vault. She set the tea tray down heavily on the small computer desk and stomped her way over, ignoring the attention Nanao and Ukitake-taichou were now giving Kyouraku-taichou and herself. She pulled the painting he was currently admiring out of his hands and set it back against the far wall, moving to throw the tarp back over the whole group.

"Akane-san, Minako still paints?"

"No, I do," she deadpanned. "Of course she does. But they're private—I haven't even seen all of these. The ones around the house, yeah, but these are special! Put it down!"

Now the other two were moving this way, and she felt herself start panicking. Minako would throw a fit if she knew they had seen the paintings. It was why they were covered, the same with the three boxes marked with black x's back in the corner by them.

"I was sure she had stopped long before she left," the man said as he pulled the tarp from her hands. "Let me see, now. Ah, beautiful work."

He held the picture up for the other two to see, and she put her face in her hands.

"She's gonna kill us all," she muttered.

"Now, why would she do that?"

"Uh, because you don't know what private means?" she snapped, blushing as she tried to pull the painting from his hands without damaging the canvas.

"He never learned," Nanao muttered, and she heard Ukitake-taichou laugh.

"Or perhaps because of this?" he said, amused. He held up the very large painting of two young men and one older man, all three on a training ground surrounded by fire.

"That's for the sou-taichou. She did the one in his office, too. So don't get any ideas."

"I didn't know that!" Ukitake-taichou exclaimed, and she shot him a look.

"Because she doesn't want anyone knowing it's hers." She finally got a hold of the painting Kyouraku-tiachou was currently holding and put it back in the pile, quickly throwing the abandoned tarp over them. "Stop nosing around. Next thing you'll be watching all the videos and looking…at…what's that look for?"

"Videos?" he asked, looking like someone had just offered him Christmas in July with Halloween thrown in for good measure.

"No," she said forcefully, nudging the black-marked box behind her even further into the corner with her heel. "No videos, no digging through the sheet music, no. You knew she painted, you probably know she plays, but leave it alone. It's her private stuff."

"Zero will have already looked at most of it, Akane-san," he said, still excited and eying the boxes she was protecting.

"But Zero's squad members don't know her. It's different."

"So some of it is embarrassing, then?" He pulled gently on her shoulders, his grip like steel. She was gonna lose this battle if the others didn't help her. Unfortunately, they didn't look the last bit worried. If anything, they look resigned, as if they were used to this.

Damn.

"Please don't. How would you like it if people went rifling through your things?" she pleaded, but he just continued to scoot her aside, then knelt on the ground and opened one of the boxes. "Oh, shit, she's gonna toast you, you realize that, right?"

"But Akane-san, this is just sheet music! Nothing too bad!"

She quickly sat down on one of the marked boxes he hadn't touched yet, resolute. She wasn't moving from this position. If she had guessed right, this one held the videos. There were people on these videos they had no right knowing about, including Kenta, Isamu, and even Rin and Mori. They were not important to this, and they didn't deserve to be pulled into it.

And then there was the fact that some of them were embarrassing, and not just for Minako. They were both camera people. There were cd's full of video files in these boxes with them dancing, singing, drinking, and just generally making fools of themselves when the mood struck. She wasn't going to let him look at them if she had to stab him to keep him from them.

Thankfully, Ukitake-taichou came to her rescue, pulling his friend to his feet and steering him toward the tea in the bedroom. She sighed, relieved, and boxed the music back up and pushed it to the back.

They had no right to see that side of her sensei. It was private.

She groaned as Elvis Costello, of all things, blared out of the speakers of the stereo in the bedroom—he was touching things again.

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Later that Night

"Well then, old friend?"

He glanced at his oldest friend, who was sprawled out on the porch in front of his quarters with one ear turned towards his rooms. Listening for Nanao-san to finish whatever she was working on, no doubt.

"I don't know, Shunsui," he murmured, his gaze drifting across the garden area in front of them.

"Come now, Juu," Shunsui said, his melodical voice low. "I can tell—your mind has been working overtime since we returned."

Was there any way to really explain it?

He had sat there and accused her of not having a heart. He had let his anger take over, something that was rare for him. He was usually the one who thought everything out, but he would admit his emotions had taken control.

It had been a bad situation. They had all been worried, and the shock of everything just compounded the situation. Then, when he was finally able to confront her about everything he had learned that day, he had been tired and she had been in no mood to take his condescension. He didn't blame her one bit for it—he had known she was different than he, but still he had condemned her for it.

And walking into that house—seeing where she had lived, had bled to get as far as she had—had been too much. He said she had no heart, but a woman with no heart did not paint, did not play the piano. A woman with no heart did not have boxes upon boxes of photos and take-out menus from strange cities and fliers of the places she wanted to remember visiting.

He was an idiot. And he said so.

"I could have told you that, Juu."

"I told her—right after she killed a man she must have cared for at some point—I told her she had no heart, Shunsui. I was angry—no, I was jealous," he admitted, shaking his head. "I let him get to me. I let the fact that he had been part of her life get the best of me."

"It happens to us all, although I can't believe you thought she had no heart. She might be a vicious fighter, but that means she has more heart, not less." The bigger man pulled his sakkat off his head, rotating it in his hands. "Are you asking for advice?"

"Is there any you can give me that won't make it worse?"

"You think I haven't made my share of mistakes with Nanao-chan?" Shunsui chuckled. "I've slept on my couch more in the last three years than I ever did before."

"I'm sure you deserved every bit of it," he muttered, smiling.

"She's a hard woman to love, but then the best always are." His friend sighed, staring at the stars above them. "If you think she's worth it, then you apologize. Do whatever you must to fix it."

"You think it can be fixed, then?"

"I'm sure it can. She's already calmed down from what I hear. Even Nanao-chan will talk to you again," Shunsui teased, and he swatted at the larger man halfheartedly.

"That isn't funny at all!" he groused.

"Usually I'm the one dealing with women running in the opposite direction—I enjoyed seeing someone else get the cold shoulder for a few days!"

"I did not realize—truly, I had no idea—"

"Women are mysterious creatures, Juu. We poor males are best-suited to worshiping them, not understanding them."

"Maybe I have been out of the game too long," he said, shrugging.

"Nah. You just have to get back in the swing of things. Let her get through this trial and then, when everything has settled some, just talk to her. Try apologizing—I know you've not had to say sorry since the Academy, but it works wonders."

Shunsui laughed as Juushirou smacked his hat out of his hands, grabbing it and throwing it like a Frisbee onto the grass in front of them. The men both leaned back against the wall, shoving with their shoulders and grinning like schoolboys.

"Yare, Nanao-chan's gonna have to go get that now—you'll be in trouble," Shunsui teased, and Juushirou just huffed out a laugh.

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The past two days had been tense, but the capital seemed peaceful, so they didn't worry about it. The students had actually stopped protesting this morning; there were no military guards on the corners. Everything was more settled than many countries she had visited. There was little to worry about.

Then everything changed quickly. Marching was gone but the tension turned into rioting, to looting, and fires broke out, flaring across the city with smoke rising like geysers.

She watched as Sara talked on the phone, her father explaining the news they were getting back in Cairo and the tearful shouts for his daughter to come home quickly. She had hung up the phone and contacted their pilot, who told them to hurry. He wouldn't stay past the morning. The late hours of the night had been spent packing, preparing, and planning for the long trip through what had become a dangerous city overnight.

Around three that morning—they had already been up preparing to leave—everything had gotten worse. There was a crashing boom, the hotel shaking and trembling as something exploded a few blocks down and the employees were going room from room suggesting all the foreigners get out as soon as possible. Men in suits and the wives of diplomats and businessmen were being loaded into sleek cars and herded down streets with broken windows, armed guards all around. Children were crying, women were pleading for information, men were tight-lipped and scared.

Everyone was abandoning the city.

Sara pressed a gun into her hand before they ever left the hotel, a small weapon she had bought off one of the employees. The two weapons they carried had cost more than the plane fare.

Everything around them was burning, broken, the car traveling tiny streets at a speed that whipped around scattered paper and forced men and women in the streets to fly sideways. But they had no choice—slowing down meant dying. Neither woman was prepared to stop for any reason.

Then, the airport came into view. It was little more than three hangars and a landing strip, but it was freedom for them.

They abandoned the vehicle and most of their luggage, only taking what they could throw in their small carry-ons, and moved toward the tarmac on foot. They were in sight of the plane when they were overtaken by a small contingent of the Ethiopian military, most likely kids that were just enjoying the anarchy the military was supporting.

There had been little choice. She and Sara were going to walk away unharmed or the military men—set on robbing and killing them for the sport, the money, who knew—were going to win. And both women did what they had to.

She could remember the face of one of the boys when he shot at her and she dodged, rolling, evading his every move before he made it. She could still see the shock on his face as she waved the gun in his face and threw him on the ground, screaming at him in Arabic to just leave them alone. But he didn't, and she shot, and blood covered the dead grass.

And another came at her—she could hear herself screaming at Sara to run to the plane, that she could handle the last few—and she felt more than heard the bullet that whizzed toward her and then through the sensitive skin of her calf. Damn gigai made everything painful. He couldn't shoot, he wasn't trained, it was wrong. It blared in her head but there was no choice—

She woke breathing hard, but not screaming. Apparently Akane had too much experience dealing with her dreams; the girl knew how to make sure others wouldn't be bothered.

She pulled the thick piece of fabric away from her mouth and blinked at the sudden light, then nodded to the redhead. Akane just sent her a tremulous smile and backed out of the room slowly. Most likely the girl wasn't surprised; with everything they had gone through tonight, and everything that had happened the past few days, it was bound to happen. She never made it through such things without her sleep being affected.

Still—she hadn't realized how clear it was in her memory.

She could remember the coup, remember what happened after getting shot for the first time. They had climbed onto the plane and took off into clouds of smoke as part of the city burned, Sara in shock and Minako breathing harshly. She hadn't had to kill someone in years. And poor Sara, she hadn't seen anyone die in front of her since World War II.

They spent the next month in Cairo watching as the Ethiopian government fell and recovering from the shock of wandering into a revolution. It wasn't Minako's first, but she had usually had enough warning to get out of the country before something happened. She had never been there when the chaos broke.

It wouldn't be the last time, either. She had spent much of 2008 traveling as well, a bad year for travelers. She was in Beirut visiting a fellow exile when the city was bombed, then she had gone to China and been at the Olympics when the stabbings occurred. Instead of finishing out her China trip and moving on to Hong Kong, she immediately bought a ticket home and stayed put. Shopping in the famous markets of Hong Kong wasn't nearly as important as getting home to normal life.

Then, Aizen struck and travel was the last thing on her mind.

And now it was all coming back to haunt her. She had never thought a coup she had been part of for less than a day would be the deciding factor in her future so long after the fact that most of the world had forgotten it occurred.