The Noble Sort

A/N: Okay, back to serious now.

Once again, everything important lurks in the first two chapters' notes, and everything important for this week's update is located in the previous chapter.

Like I said, three chapters for this update, so be prepared for another this week.

And I once again apologize for any errors; I beta and edit and check these chapters but occasionally something skips through merrily. Feel free to point them out and I'll change them.

Enjoy!

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"The Noble Sort"

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She had been dried off—thank Kami—and fed soon after she entered the house. The maid of the main house, who had been there probably longer than her ancient uncle, had tutted at her condition and sent him a look that could have thawed a polar ice cap.

It didn't bother him; it never did.

Unfortunately, Minako could not dredge up enough courage to do the same, even though her teeth were chattering now.

He had always been like that; she knew it. Part of her almost thought she did it on purpose, to get some normal reaction out of him, something that harkened back to the days when she was still a teen and he was just her uncle. When rank hadn't been between them.

Well, if she remembered right, not even her rank had stopped him a few times.

Hikaru, the elderly maid, bustled her into the large patio room that her uncle preferred, holding a very large kimono over her shoulders and hovering to make sure she didn't drop the tea she had been given.

She arrived to find her uncle seated on a couch, which hadn't been there last time she was here, and her former taichou and his new fuku-taichou seated on another one across from him. Her zanpakutou, still in its sheath, lay across her uncle's knees blocked by his cane.

He would.

They looked up as she entered and she could feel her face heat. Nanao looked just as mortified, although Minako wouldn't even take a guess at why.

As a matter of fact, the only person that looked pleased was her former taichou, whose smile was still a little too large for her taste.

"Sit, Minako."

Her uncle's eyes were pointing to the spot right next to him, and while she really did not want to be so close to him right now, so soon after that, she obeyed.

Hidaruma?

She didn't get an answer.

Hey! You lazy shishi, answer me! Are you alright?

She heard a grumpy huff in the back of her mind, and then she could see the black inu's face in her mind's eye.

I'm fine. I'm just freezing, baka. You had to get yourself thrown into the pond now, didn't you?

Sorry, she replied guiltily.

Well, you're suffering with me.

She felt eyes on her and looked up. All three of them were staring at her.

"Sorry. Hidaruma was…checking on me."

You wish, onna.

Shut it, shishi.

The awkwardness was evident, and she knew it would be up to her to shift the focus of the room onto something other than her, what had just happened, or her zanpakutou. Looking directly across from her at the young woman seated so formally by Kyouraku-taichou, she knew what it would be.

"I—Nanao-chan! Look at you! You've grown up since I was gone!"

The petite woman blushed even harder, although she soon recovered, adjusting her glasses and fidgeting around on the couch. She glanced up at Minako and sent her a tiny smile, though. It meant that things were well, although she was obviously worried.

"We'll have to catch up while I'm here. I'm sure I've missed a lot."

The young woman nodded, her face flushing more than Minako thought was physically possible.

"Ise fuku-taichou, Shunsui will no longer have need of you tonight." Her uncle's voice was no-nonsense, something the woman seemed to pick up on quickly. She bowed at the waist and left through the balcony doors, using shunpo as soon as she had cleared the furniture.

"We are waiting on Retsu, then we will begin."

She looked at her former taichou, so relaxed, and wondered if it was a front. Of course, she had just made of fool of herself and given him something to laugh about, but he had to know what was about to come up.

They sipped tea quietly, and she enjoyed the aromatic brew. One of the things she had missed in the human realm was her uncle's love of tea; he always had the best quality leaves and it was always brewed to perfection. Her own, well, it sucked. She would admit it.

Soon enough the sliding doors she had entered through less than ten minutes earlier opened, with Hikaru-san bowing and presenting Unohana-taichou.

No fuku-taichou with her, either.

She took the seat Nanao had recently vacated, across from Minako, and smiled pleasantly at her.

Well! Here was someone who finally seemed genuinely pleased to see her here, although it was Unohana-taichou and the woman would be polite if she faced down a hollow threatening to rip her hair out.

"Minako-san, it is good to see you well," she said, her musical and polite voice still one of the most soothing—and scary—things Minako had ever heard.

"Thank you, Unohana-taichou. I am glad you are as well."

She could feel her uncle's smugness at her improved behavior. As if he had anything to be smug about; she wouldn't be rude to Unohana-taichou. She was like the favorite aunt, you could never be mean to her!

And, well, she was scary.

Soon enough, he motioned Hikaru over and let her collect their cups, and he waited until she was out of the door and a decent ways down the hall before he shifted in his seat, turning slightly to her.

"Are we going to be able to have this conversation now?"

"Yes, Gen-oji-san," she muttered, feeling like a chastised teenager.

"Without violence?"

"Yes, Gen-oji-san," she said, flushing a bright red.

"With civility and dignity?"

"Yes, Gen-oji-san," she said exasperatedly as she looked down at her hands, which were playing with the sleeve of the kimono that now rested in her lap.

"Yare, yare, Minako-chan, we're not the firing squad."

She looked at the smiling face of her former taichou, and she wondered how long that smile would last.

Did he not realize why they were here? What they were going to be discussing? Not only would they be ripping apart some of the worst events of her life, she would be doing it in front of three of the people she had looked up to her entire life!

They were her mentors, her idols, the people she had wanted to be when she was a kid. And now, they were going to sit there and hear every sick little detail of her life, and he just smiled as if it didn't phase him, shouldn't phase her, didn't even matter.

She could feel the panic start up, the rushing and pumping of her blood, and she fought to control it, to subdue it, at least long enough to get through this. She could fall apart later, in the comfort of her bedroom. If she got to stay there tonight.

"What do you want to know first?" she finally asked, the dread evident in her tone.

There was silence for a long moment as all three tried to figure out what to say.

"Why don't you start at the beginning, Minako-san," Unohana-taichou said gently.

"Ok, then. The beginning." She took a deep breath, readying herself. "The only thing is—I—well, can I ask you all to just let me get it out first? Questions can come later, I promise, I just don't know if I'll make it through if I have to keep stopping."

Unohana, still sitting perfectly straight on the couch nodded, her eyes shining with sympathy, that hated emotion. Her uncle bobbed his head slowly; she knew it would be a fight for him to be quiet throughout the entire thing. And her former taichou, who was now completely comfortable, with an arm slung out along the back of the couch, nodded lazily.

"Ok."

She closed her eyes briefly, images flashing through her mind, before opening them and staring out the window to the lovely purple dusk falling outside.

"One Sunday, seventy-six years ago, I went missing. It wasn't unusual for me, but when I had been gone for over twelve hours, kaa-san was worried. She said I didn't come home until well after midnight, and when I did I just passed through the house…as if I wasn't really…there. The oddest thing, of course, is that I went to her house in the first place; I had already moved in here and I had my rooms in the barracks, so going to her house was not normal behavior for me."

"She just helped me into bed in her spare room and left me there. She didn't know what was wrong and apparently I wouldn't say anything. I didn't look hurt, just exhausted, from what she said. But she worried, because I wasn't—I wasn't me, I guess you could say."

"She was more right than she knew. I wasn't really there, and by the next morning I had no idea what had happened; I couldn't remember anything about the day before. At all. Not where I had been, who I had been with, none of it. I was worried and anxious for a few days, and I finally realized there was only one way to finally find out—I went to one of our unseated shinigami in the Eighth, Ishika Juro."

"He—his zanpakutou—he specializes in mind alteration and illusion. He was able to help me regain my memories of that day by the middle of the week." She stopped, shaking her head. "We were—horrified—we couldn't tell who—"

She choked.

Breathing was becoming impossible.

"It is alright, Minako-san. Slowly, now."

She nodded, biting her lip.

"All I remember was waking up to a man, on top of me, and I finally realized what he was doing—I'm sure I was drugged—and he—he-he continued until…and I couldn't fight back. There was no way to fight! My vision was blurry, I was tied or-or-r chained or—something. Finally, he—"

She felt her body trying to throw up what she had just eaten, the memory getting to her.

"Finally—he—"

Her vision suddenly sharpened. She could see her uncle's hands in her peripheral vision, his grip slowly clenching and unclenching around his cane. And Kyouraku-taichou's grip on the couch was so tight she could almost see the wood that made up its frame.

And Unohana-taichou, still sympathetic, was sitting there, listening quietly, supporting her.

Wasn't this what she had wanted? Someone to believe her, finally? A woman to erase the hated figure in her memory and prove that most women would not watch another member of their gender go through that?

It didn't matter that it hadn't been a woman—she had seen a woman, and it stayed that way in her memory.

She pulled herself back together, breathing in and out slowly.

"Finally he…finished. When he left, a woman came over, and she told me he was done, that I could—could rest. I just remember being so angry, and so much of it was at her. She was a woman! Why would she willingly sit back a-a-a-nd watch?"

She put her hands together in lap, fitting them together so tightly she could see white at her knuckles.

"And then I was unconscious. I don't know how long. It couldn't have been too long, though. What came next—I've been through it since, twice, and it usually takes time. For me to have only been gone fourteen hours—"

She sighed, looking at her uncle.

"You knew I had reached bankai already. You were one of three people that had actually seen it."

He nodded.

"The other two—I had never, ever considered either of them untrustworthy, and it killed me afterward. Whoever had done this—the man that—raped me—knew I had reached bankai and what form it took. The, the woman taunted me about it later."

"But the last time I remember waking up, wherever they had taken me, I remember seeing the woman holding Hidaruma over me, I remember watching as my blade cut into my stomach. The pain—obviously," she chuckled, "it was painful. But it wasn't anything unusual. It wasn't the first time I had been stabbed. But then she, she pushed it further. I kept waiting—there's that-that feeling, when steel slides through flesh, and I never felt it."

"The hilt of Hidaruma was next to my skin and then, I realized it had disappeared. And all I remember of that time was the agony—it-it-it—I can't say anything more than agony. Like fire ripping your body into a thousand pieces. I passed out, apparently, and somehow got home."

She took a deep breath. The hardest part was over now.

Well, most of it. She wasn't sure how much her uncle knew of the next months, and she had a feeling tears might be included in this explanation.

"Shortly after we found out, I came home and told you, Gen-oji-san, and kaa-san what had happened. You were there; I don't need to repeat what happened that night. Suffice it to say, you didn't—you didn't believe me, so I just shut up about it and buried it."

"That rarely works, Minako-san."

"I know," she breathed, "trust me. It didn't. My work was off, I wasn't sleeping, I couldn't eat…I wasn't myself. Taichou called in Isane one day, made her sit and talk to me. I know he was hoping I would tell her what was bothering me, since I had blankly refused to tell him, but I didn't. Instead, I just tried to bury it deeper, hoping that he wouldn't," she chanced a glance up at him and found his eyes locked on her, "notice it was still bothering me. I think I succeeded, at least a little, although I know I was still not up to par."

"And then, about two months later, I was sick. Every morning, every night. I couldn't eat due to the nausea. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep because of the nightmares—I went to the only person—she was the one person I knew I could trust—and she told me I was pregnant."

She heard her uncle's sudden intake of breath.

"I couldn't, no, I didn't want to believe it. And I wasn't going to have the child of some bastard that had only been able to get it there because he had to force me! But the fear—we were scared, not only because we had kept it from you, Unohana-taichou, but because any abor-tion," she heard his breath hitch again, right after her own, and she couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

"Any abortion had to go through you. You would have told Gen-oji-san, and I couldn't—I couldn't let you do that!" she said tearfully, her voice almost too low to hear, staring at the woman across from her.

She suddenly shifted, turning as far away from her uncle as possible.

"I couldn't—taichou would have been disappointed and upset, and oji-san would have killed me. I worked my entire life to get to where I was, the entire time those idiots in Central telling me they didn't need another Yamamoto running things, two was enough, and then this! I would have been pushed out of the squad, I would have dishonored my family, disappointed everyone—"

She sobbed.

"I just couldn't! So we—we made our plan and I got leave to go to the human world. I spent the first four days or so trying to find a doctor to perform th-th-e abortion, and I spent the last three in agony as the abortifacients failed to do anything. In the end, he told me I was obviously not pregnant, so I had gone through all that pain for nothing!"

She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the kimono, trying to calm down. Yet again, the hard part was over. The rest was pain, yes, but she had handled pain before. She could handle talking about psychical pain.

"I went to Urahara and Yoruichi. I got the information from Kuukaku. The foreign reiatsu was still there, but after a few months, it was obvious I was not pregnant. By that time, I couldn't come home. I had been labeled a traitor, a deserter, so I stayed with them."

"Urahara helped me adjust, get a job, and he helped me finally figure out what they had done to me. And Yoruichi—well, it took years, but the two of us finally managed to get me past everything else. I've been over it for decades; I've dated, lived a normal life. The memories c-can resurface, sometimes, but I can usually handle them."

She looked up at them, now, her eyes red and tear tracks still covering her face.

"We tried twice—tried so hard to figure out what he had done. We knew it had to do with my bankai. When I attempt it, though, now, it's not—not normal."

She motioned for her uncle to hand over the blade and he did so surprisingly quickly considering she had been in a cell until earlier today. She called to her sword spirit and felt his brush at the back of her mind, telling her it would be alright, that they were in it together and they would get through it together, no matter what happened.

"When I use bankai, my sword sinks into my flesh—it joins with me. I lose this form and take on—I can't really explain it, and I've never seen it, obviously. We join. We become flame."

"That's not possible," her former taichou said breathlessly, his expression uncommonly serious.

"I promise, it is. And painful. The body isn't meant to do that; rearranging particles on an elemental level hurts. When I go into bankai and when I come out. The first time, I was only able to hold it for a few seconds, and then I was out again, Urahara and Yoruichi screaming at me because I had literally ripped my skin open trying to reform."

"I had burned my retinas, charred every organ—I couldn't breathe at all. I just remember Urahara screaming that my eyes were open, and I couldn't see him and I panicked, and everything went black."

"I had a heart attack, apparently. It was weeks before I woke up, and it took me months to fully recover my reishi."

"So we trained, and trained, and Sh—and my partner beat the shit out of me, trying to get me to toughen up, to be able to take it. Urahara was sure that if they could raise my pain threshold to the point that I wouldn't pass out, I could use the technique."

She shook her head.

"The second time—the second time was worse."

"I was able to hold the form for over four minutes, that's when I stopped counting, and the pain went away after the initial transformation. Unfortunately, my body had no intention of going through the pain of reforming, and I fought to go back—to—to remember what having a body meant."

They were staring at her in horror.

Yes, you finally realized what a freak I am. How do you think I feel?

"I was able to stay conscious, although the pain was, obviously, worse when I was awake. I felt every single part of my body as it reformed. But when I finally did, and Hidaruma and I were separated again, I was once again blind and unable to breathe. I'm completely useless when I come out of bankai. There was no heart attack that time, and it took less time to recover my reiatsu, but the pain is—it's unimaginable. And it stays there, too. I get cold easily in winter—I can feel fire in ways people can't—I'm in tune with it, almost. But I have to watch my temper, because I lose it very easily, and if I lose my temper or my emotional control it fights to come out."

She paused, looking at her uncle.

"And you threw me in a cold pond," she said dryly. "The shishi is pissed at how cold he is right now."

"It's not a separate entity, really, but it feels like one. I always have part of something inside me. Urarhara is convinced it's actually part of Hidaruma inside me, and he might be right. We've never been entirely sure about any of it. But there is an extra reiatsu inside of me, and if I can't keep control—it—it fights me. Goes out of control like kidō."

"Hidaruma has helped, thankfully. We control it well, especially now. But—" she looked at her uncle, who wouldn't meet her eyes, "I haven't attempted it since. I won't, unless I have absolutely no choice."

"Central would have had me put down like a dog. They were always that way—if it wasn't normal, just kill it and cover it up. So I guess it was good I didn't come back, in the end. And I'm not sure if anyone other than Urahara could have helped me learn to control it."

Her breath whooshed out of her lungs, and she felt her entire body deflate.

She leaned back against the couch, finally just pulling her feet up next to her and getting comfortable. They were all staring at her, almost through her, and she could literally hear the cogs turning in their brains. She knew questions were coming, and she wanted to be as comfortable as possible for any interrogation.

"If—if you have questions, I'll answer them the best I can," she stuttered, embarrassed over the whole situation but at the same time, almost light, now that the entire thing was off her chest and out in the open.

"They healed you, afterward," Unohana-taichou asked, her voice very quiet.

"I suppose so," she said, fiddling with the hem of the kimono again. "I was in no pain, from—anything—that had gone on that night. There are some scars, of course."

The room fell quiet.

"You still didn't say who," her former taichou said, his voice harsh considering the man it came from.

She closed her eyes.

"I don't want to, really. It will only cause problems." She opened her eyes and stared at him, though, raising her eyebrows.

"Although, I think you already know who was involved, even if he didn't—even if he wasn't the one. I still have my doubts about exactly who."

"Aizen," her uncle whispered, his voice guttural and low.

She just nodded.

"He knew I had achieved bankai. He had heard Hiyori bitching about it one day, when Shinji was out with us. He would have known. And he had the power to make Gin appear as a female—I knew I knew that voice, that it did not belong to that woman."

"But you have doubts," Kyouraku said, looking at her shrewdly.

She shrugged. There were things she knew she couldn't tell them. If they thought Aizen was behind it everything would be easier for her in the long run. If they knew the truth—things would only get worse. He was involved, in a roundabout way, but if they only knew everything…

There was no telling what the outcome would be.

"Do you know what he was trying to achieve, Minako-san?"

"I wish," she said, giving Unohana-taichou an apologetic look. "Although, you can bet he was testing out something he wanted to attempt on himself. It's all about power with him, right?"

There were distracted nods.

"And it could be powerful, I mean, if he finished it. Becoming your bankai? It would be unreal. Especially for elementals—you can't be stabbed, be put out. But the pain, the toll it takes on the body makes it unusable unless you have no other alternative. It's unstable, extremely unstable. It tooks us almost a decade of focusing on it daily to learn to fight back the urge. And truthfully, I don't see what good it would do on an illusion zanpakutou, really. What would he achieve with it?"

I know what he could achieve with it, my dear. If it had been him.

Hidaruma smiled evilly in her mind.

Shut up, shishi. Not now.

You won't tell them, then?

She ignored him.

Unohana-taichou was looking off to left, perplexed. Hopefully she could figure out what he was attempting to do with it. It would give them a task and get them off her back about it all.

"Well, Minako-san, I will think this over carefully. There might still be something we can do for you." She rose from the couch gracefully, heading to the door after a careful bow to Gen-oji-san, but stopped halfway there.

"Isane is not in any trouble, Minako-san. It was so long ago, and I cannot fault her for trying to help a friend. Of course, that is only true as long as there is no…repetition. I can forgive you both the first mistake, but no secrets from now on, yes?"

"Of course, Unohana-taichou."

"You might also consider dropping by my office tomorrow."

She nodded and the graceful taichou nodded back, continuing on her way.

"Shunsui, is there anything else you wish to say?" her uncle asked, pointedly.

"Most of it we've already cleared up, Yama-jii." He looked at her, very serious. "You should have told me. Minako, I would have helped you in any way possible, and after being in my squad for almost a century, you should have known that by then."

She nodded, abashed and ashamed.

"I was—so scared."

"I understand that, Minako," he said softly. "But do you think you are the first to try and keep something from Yama-jii?" He sent her a lopsided smile. "If it came to it, I would've."

Then he turned to her uncle, his face taking on an emotion she didn't think she had ever seen before. "I'll speak to you tomorrow, Yama-jii. We'll finish our conversation then."

Her uncle nodded at her former taichou, who left swiftly and silently, most likely returning to his quarters and a bottle of sake.

She and her uncle were left sitting there, silent, side by side.

She could feel the fluctuations in his reiatsu as he ran through everything he had learned; surely he knew most of it by now, but it was also different finally hearing it from her. She knew that. She knew it also had to have hurt him more, to actually hear it from her lips, in her voice.

"I am sorry, Gen-oji-san," she said, her voice small and childlike.

"You thought I would berate you for a child?" She heard the cracking in his voice, and her tears were once again on the verge of returning; the idea of reducing this great man to this state…

"I didn't want you to be disappointed in me!" she cried.

His fingers lifted her chin up, making her look him in the eye.

"A child, no matter how it is conceived, would never be a burden to our family."

He leaned toward her, his arm coming to rest around her shoulders as he pulled her smaller frame to his.

"I would have helped you, Momo-chan."

The tears started, as did the sobbing, and she clutched the front of his haori. He let his cane drop to the floor, joining Hidaruma, and brought his other arm around her, engulfing her in his presence. She could feel it all, just waiting to tumble out, and if anyone could help her hold it all, he could.

"I—Why didn't you believe me?" she screamed, sobbing.

His hand rubbed her back, gently, and they stayed there, still, until she had finished crying out the pain she had kept bottled inside the pasty eighty years.

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A/N: Hopefully you all picked up on that—Aizen is being used as a scapegoat. He wasn't the one who actually did it. I've made sure to make it clearer, as there was an issue with that in my first drafts.

Japanese lesson in Ch. 8.