The Pact

Uryuu was just starting to wake, shaking the fog of sleep from his mind. It had been a very long night for him, Nyx, Ama and Ryuuken. Plans had been made in secret for him and Nyx to go looking for the AWOL Empress, it was really the only way they were going to head off Ryuuken being executed and stop any and all assassination attempts on Uryuu and Amaterasu. The Empress elect had bought them some time by informing the Council in no uncertain terms that she was going to spend some time with her father whether they liked it or not. They hadn’t liked it if the late night grumblings had been any indication but they really couldn’t do anything about it since Amaterasu was next in line for the throne and had been more or less the acting Empress for the past two years as it stood. Unlike the title of queen or princess an Empress in the Amazon world held the title not only by birth but by show of force as it was a military title. Nyx figured that it would give them close to a week before Alexa and the rest of the Council started to get restless and began trying to take other actions. He just hoped it would be enough time.

The whole situation, first being kidnapped, finding out he had a half sister, then learning Ryuuken was probably going to be killed, added to the fact that he himself was a target, had not made for a very restful night. He was also worrying about his friends even though Ama had said they were fine and settled into their rooms for the night. She’d also informed him and Nyx that someone from Soul Society had come to negotiate the release of Sado, Ichigo and Renji. For some reason though, Uryuu didn’t like the look in her eyes when she’d told them that. It seemed to him that he recognized the look. He knew it both from Ryuuken and his own mirror. The one that said someone was going to be hurting by the end of a certain situation. Badly.

Being in a strange place didn’t help the attempt to sleep and it barely seemed he’d made his brain shut up long enough for him to relax into dozing. He’d slept fitfully at best, waking off and on to feel more exhausted than he had before going to sleep.

He had just thought to roll back over and try to get a little more sleep when he felt a very serious wave of power coming at him low and fast. He’d barely managed to sit up in bed before being flattened again by a small hurricane.

Uryuu made a very undignified noise which sounded suspiciously like “Ooof!” before staring wide eyed at Nyx’s daughter, Cyan. The little girl had hit him squarely in the chest in a flying tackle most professional wrestlers would have envied. She rolled away from him and started bouncing on the bed almost immediately.

“Mama and Aunt Ama call you the Quincy, is that your name?” she said without greeting or preamble.

“Uh . . . No. It’s like your mother and aunt being Amazon. My name is Uryuu.”

“Kay. Grandpa says you sew.”

Uryuu blinked, trying to process the rapid fire change in subject matter. “I do.”

“Cool! Can you fix Shigure?” Cyan said, shoving the stuffed dog she’d had with her last night at him.

Uryuu noticed that one of the seams on the stuffed animal had ripped and should be an easy fix. He leaned over the side of the bed to grab his clothes, rummaging around for a moment before finding the travel sewing kit he always carried with him. He picked up the dog and started sewing the seam while Cyan kept up a steady stream of chatter.

“Are you really Aunt Ama’s brother?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“But not Mama’s brother,” she asked, frowning.

“No. Your Aunt and mother have the same mother but different fathers so they’re half sisters. You understand that, right?”

“Yep.”

“All right. Your Aunt and I have the same father but not the same mother.”

“Sooooo, that means you guys are half brother and sister. And you and Mama don’t have the same mom or dad.”

“Correct.”

“Kay. Mama says you can shoot arrows like her and Aunt Ama can.”

“Yes.” Uryuu said, feeling like pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache that had just started there.

“I can too!” she said proudly. “But Mama says I can’t do it in the house anymore ‘cause I shot a hole in one of Daddy’s shoes when I was three. I mean, hello, I was three. That was forever ago. I don’t think it was so bad anyway. Daddy and Grandpa thought it was funny but Mama was mad at me.”

“I can only imagine. There you are. All finished,” Uryuu said, handing her back the newly sewn dog.

“Yay! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

“Hey, did you know I can turn into a wolf?”

Uryuu felt like this was some kind of trick question. “Uh, no, I didn’t know that.”

“Yep. Grandpa can too. He’s way bigger than I am and he’s all black. Mama says I’m silver and grey. She told me cause I said I never looked at me when I’m that way. Mama can’t shift and she said it’s cause it skipped her and went to me. Daddy couldn’t either but he could do other cool stuff. Wanna see?”

“Do I have a choice?” Uryuu mumbled under his breath.

“Nope!” Cyan said and from one blink to the next she went from being a little girl to being possibly the cutest wolf pup in the history of the Universe. At least according to her. She pounced playfully on the newly mended stuffed dog and Uryuu had visions of having to mend it again from her teeth.

“See? Told you I could do it!” she said proudly. Uryuu was frankly stunned that she could speak in that form. But considering the fact Cyan spoke at great length and volume he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised.