Winter War: Nanao: Morning, Interrupted
Title: Nanao: Morning, Interrupted
Arc: Winter War - an AU co-write with liralen and sophiap
Characters: Nanao, Ukitake, Sasakibe, Isane, Hinamori
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for language, references to character death
Summary: Morning tea with the Resistance.
Notes: This is a rather dark AU co-plotted with liralen and sophiap. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Links
1. Nanao: Winter
2. Ukitake: Waking Up
3. Ikkaku: What Is, What Was
4. Kuukaku: Holding Ground
Nanao: Morning, Interrupted
Somewhere within earshot, something was dripping, its irregular pulse a contrast to Isane's approaching steps. It was getting on Nanao's nerves. This old manor house that they'd occupied had been unoccupied for decades: it had belonged to a family in the minor nobility who had all died, married elsewhere, or just found some excuse to leave and never come back again. The garden had gone to seed, and the roof had gone to pieces. While they'd patched it up as far as was consistent with leaving it looking abandoned, that still allowed a lot of cracks, draughts, and leaks. She made a mental note to see who was due a punishment detail and send them up with some nails and tar-paper.
A few of the new recruits made nervous jokes about graves at the bottom of the garden. What rubbish. They'd moved at least twice since they last buried anyone, and they hadn't been able to mark the graves with more than anonymous headstones. It would have been too obvious a trail if they'd been found.
And that meant that Matsumoto Rangiku -- in all her golden cheerfulness, all her exuberance, all her laziness, all her life -- now slept in the quiet earth beneath an unwritten marker, and was spared the knowledge of her Captain's death. Nanao had never been close to Rangiku. But when she'd dragged her off the battlefield, with the blood from the huge wound in her side staining the ground and soaking Nanao's clothes, there had been no question of likes or dislikes or anything so petty, only the desperate attempt to save what could be saved . . .
Nanao put out one hand to pause Isane as they came abreast of each other in the passageway. "How is he?" she asked softly.
Isane smiled, very tentatively, very faintly. "He's doing well today," she murmured. "I've already given him his morning treatment and his tea. Sasakibe-fukutaichou is taking breakfast with him."
"Thank you." Nanao was about to continue, when a thought held her back. She laid her hand on Isane's arm. "Do you want to spar, later?"
Isane's gaze shuttered, and she turned her face away. "No, thank you," she said.
"I would be grateful for the practice, and Hinamori's off on patrol," Nanao tried. She was painfully familiar with that look of resigned failure in Isane's eyes. "It's been a while since we tested ourselves against each other --"
"You should test yourself against someone more your own level, Ise-fukutaichou," Isane said: it wasn't aggressive, but the choice of words was as painful a weapon as any anger. "I'm sure I wouldn't be a challenge for you."
"Isane --" Nanao's hand tightened on the oher woman's arm. "Please don't do this."
"Hush," Isane said quietly, composedly. "Ukitake-taichou will hear you and be upset." She shifted her arm under Nanao's hand, sliding it free from her hold, and continued down the passageway, head lowered in a nervous stoop.
She never used to walk that way when she was following Unohana-taichou, Nanao thought. Even though Unohana-taichou was that much shorter than her . . .
She bit her lip. This wouldn't help. She had to focus on what she could do, not think about what was lost, or she'd be as bad as . . . as bad as Isane. The thought was bitter. She couldn't blame Isane, not at all, because she knew exactly how it felt to lose a Captain. And she herself had only had the news of it secondhand. She hadn't had to obey a Captain's orders to retreat, while knowing exactly who the Captain was going to be surrendering to, and being able to guess what would happen next.
(And when she caught up to her own Captain in the next life -- she was quite definite about this point -- then she was going to have a few words with him about how he'd left her behind to hear the news of his death secondhand and never see him again. But that could wait.)
She schooled her face to mild control and efficiency, and went on down the corridor to Ukitake's office.
"Come in," he called in response to her rap on the door. His voice sounded healthier than usual, though still far from his earlier smoothness. Maybe, she allowed herself to hope, he was getting better.
The morning light slanted in through the windows, and the shadows of the untrimmed trees outside danced across the floor as the wind twisted their dead branches. A fire crackled in the fireplace, burning high: Isane must have just put some new logs on a few moments ago. Ukitake-taichou was sitting in the window bay, with a shawl thrown over his shoulders, his breakfast tray on the small table next to him, nearly crowded off by a set of maps; Sasakibe-fukutaichou was nursing a cup of tea, perched beside him on a stool, clearly having been just pointing something out. Both men nodded to Nanao as she closed the door.
"Ukitake-taichou, Sasakibe-fukutaichou," she said in return. "I'm sorry to be disturbing you gentlemen so early . . ."
"Don't worry, Ise-kun," Ukitake-taichou said. His voice was still hoarse and breathy, but it was such an improvement on what it had been that she couldn't suppress that little repeated burst of hope. He smiled fondly at her. "I'm sure that you wouldn't be here without cause."
She pulled another stool across, and sat down, putting her books in her lap for the moment. "Nothing unusual, sir. No incursions, no new reports from the patrols. We're starting to run a little low on food, given the current numbers, and should probably send out a sweep to collect some more within the next three days."
Sasakibe-fukutaichou nodded. "Excellent. No news is good news." He gave the closest thing to a smile that one saw on him these days, and sipped his tea.
Nanao toyed with the edges of her books. There was something she'd been wanting to ask for a while, but the opportunity had never really arisen. "Ukitake-taichou, if I may ask something?"
"Of course," Ukitake-taichou said quickly. He was looking at her as if he were worried about her.
"When you were," about to die, we all thought, "very badly injured, your zanpakutou spoke to us. Sir, I know that it is possible for a zanpakutou to manifest outside its user, or the user wouldn't be able to duel it and achieve bankai. But I've never heard of one actually doing so of its own accord in order to interact with other shinigami."
"Hm." Ukitake-taichou stroked his chin thoughtfully. "That is an interesting question, Ise-kun. I'm not entirely sure myself, to be honest. After all, shinigami are in combat situations or near-death situations all the time, and their zanpakutou haven't manifested in physical form or spoken to other shinigami to save them. Even Captains," he added dryly.
"Nevertheless, there have been very occasional cases," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said. "Enough that the situation is not entirely unknown."
"Just . . . rare," Nanao said.
Sasakibe-fukutaichou nodded. "But really, we know so little about zanpakutou in themselves."
Nanao looked hopefully curious. It was quite true, after all: there weren't rules and procedures for handling zanpakutou in the same way that there were for handling kidou. There were asauchi, and there was shikai, and then there was bankai, and that was all, and what you knew of your own zanpakutou was something intensely private.
"Yoruichi told me that she spoke to Kurosaki-kun's zanpakutou," Ukitake said. "She'd used some contrivance of Urahara's to summon it into physical form, so that Kurosaki-kun could achieve his bankai. It spoke to her freely, but only so far as she was involved in Kurosaki-kun's business."
"Contrivances and gadgets," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, with a distinct overtone of scorn. "The boy certainly had talent, but I'm not convinced that it should have been forced in that way." He coughed. "Granted the circumstances were unusual, but it must have left huge gaps in his training and practice. Simply being able to summon a bankai is no guarantee of using it effectively."
"This contrivance . . ." Nanao said thoughtfully.
"Unavailable," Ukitake-taichou said firmly. "Sasakibe-kun is right. Forcing yourself into bankai over the next few days won't help the situation, Ise-kun, and such artificial methods carry their own dangers."
Nanao supposed she should be glad that he thought she might have been able to do it. It didn't help much. They needed all the power they could get.
Ukitake-taichou reached across and patted her hand, making her blink in surprise. "Ise-kun, I can understand why you are asking. And if we still had access to the Archives . . ." He paused to cough. "If we did, then I would gladly give you the names of a dozen previous Captains so that you could read their memoirs, and . . ." He didn't say, Kyouraku would have helped you, which was a kindness. ". . . I would have done anything I could. The difficulty is that there isn't much that anyone else can do. Everyone's path to bankai is individual. What worked for Abarai Renji probably wouldn't work for you, any more than it might work for Sasakibe-kun here, or for Kotetsu Isane. I know that you can talk with your zanpakutou. That's the only entity who can help you. Some of them are more proactive, some of them less, but in the end, it's between you and it. And will you two please stop looking at me as if you think I'm about to fall over!" he added in a sudden spurt of irritation.
"It could be a question of the direction of power," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, turning the discussion neatly before it could get more awkward. He took another sip of his tea. "When Ukitake-taichou's zanpakutou spoke to the rest of us, Ukitake-taichou was throwing off flares of reiatsu, but with absolutely no conscious control. Maybe it was a case of the power being directed somewhere."
"That isn't the most comforting of thoughts," Ukitake-taichou said. "Our training has always been to recognise and master the zanpakutou, not to allow it to control us, or speak for us."
"Also, surely someone would have noticed beforehand if it were the case," Nanao said. It was easy to fall into a pattern of logical discussion and argument and research. It was so very easy. While it was going on, she could pretend that nothing had happened, that everything was just the way it used to be. "Even if there were only a few cases, there should have been some common elements."
"Ah." Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, and raised a finger. "But this is one of the few cases -- please forgive me, Ukitake-taichou -- where we have actually been able to observe the phenomenon up close to. Is it possible that the required factors are the necessity in the zanpakutou's point of view for communication with others, and a highly developed zanpakutou and reiatsu, but at the same time a complete loss of control by the zanpakutou's master? If the shinigami in question was competent enough to develop that level of power, he might be so competent that he would never lose that control in the first place."
"But is it that the zanpakutou develops together with the shinigami," Nanao asked, "or is it simply the shinigami's ability to recognise and use it?"
Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou looked at each other for a moment, and for that moment Nanao felt shut out by their mutual age and experience. Finally Ukitake-taichou said, "I'm not sure how to answer that, Ise-kun. But as the shinigami grows to know the zanpakutou better, so the zanpakutou also knows the shinigami. They have their own memories. You must know that yourself."
Nanao nodded, ducking her head in embarrassment.
"But it's true," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, "that there is . . . if not exactly development, then at least a closer interaction." His voice slowed. "A greater urge to force the shinigami into action. A holding of affections and grudges. Zanpakutou are buried with their users for good reason."
Ukitake-taichou opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
Nanao frowned. "Ukitake-taichou?"
"There was one case that I have heard of," Ukitake-taichou said reluctantly. "At the time, it was considered . . . unwise, shall we say, but given the bond of affection between the two people involved, and the fact that the previous owner had barely had it long enough to establish its form and name, it was passed over. In fact, everything connected with the matter was passed over rather too fast." Distaste was clear in his voice. "It's hardly surprising that you wouldn't have heard of it, Ise-kun. It was before you joined Eighth Division."
Sasakibe-fukutaichou blinked, then nodded in sudden recognition. "Ah. That case."
"Which one?" Nanao inquired politely. Surely they weren't going to just shut up and refuse to tell her.
Possibly they were.
"Tousen Kaname," Ukitake-taichou said, in a tone which clearly closed the subject. He coughed, and held up his tea-cup in obvious request, and Nanao busied herself filling it.
Doors slammed in the distance. All three of them looked up as the sound of running footsteps drew closer. Nanao hastily put the teapot down, readying herself to jump to Ukitake-taichou's defence.
The chamber door banged open. One of the junior shinigami who'd been posted to guard duty stood there, panting from his speed. "Ukitake-taichou! Vice-captains! Hinamori-fukutaichou is back from patrol with Third Seat Madarame, and she's got really urgent news! She says you need to hear this at once!"
Ukitake-taichou sipped his tea calmly, then put the cup down with a click. "Well then. Show her in."
"I'm here, Ukitake-taichou," Hinamori said, stepping round the young shinigami. She patted him on the shoulder. "Well done, Kouta-kun. You can go back to your post now." Her clothing was still spattered from the mud of travel, and her hair was the same short spiked mess that the little "accident" with shikai and kidou had left it in, but her eyes were glittering with a direction and purpose that Nanao hadn't seen in her for months.
Kouta closed the door with a nod, and his footsteps receded as he trotted off back to his post again, rather less enthusiastically and speedily than he had arrived. Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou both sat there, with the patience of commanding officers who were used to getting reports ranging from "it's the end of the world" to "salaries are being given out early and with bonuses". Nanao got up, put her books down, and pulled another stool over for Hinamori to sit on.
Hinamori wasn't just looking cheerful. Hinamori was looking positively incendiary. She sat down, folded her tiny hands between her knees, and leaned forward. "Madarame sent me to report direct to you, Ukitake-taichou." She gave a quick nod to Sasakibe-fukutaichou and to Nanao to show that she wasn't leaving them out. "We've got prisoners. From Hueco Mundo."
Arc: Winter War - an AU co-write with liralen and sophiap
Characters: Nanao, Ukitake, Sasakibe, Isane, Hinamori
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for language, references to character death
Summary: Morning tea with the Resistance.
Notes: This is a rather dark AU co-plotted with liralen and sophiap. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Links
1. Nanao: Winter
2. Ukitake: Waking Up
3. Ikkaku: What Is, What Was
4. Kuukaku: Holding Ground
Nanao: Morning, Interrupted
Somewhere within earshot, something was dripping, its irregular pulse a contrast to Isane's approaching steps. It was getting on Nanao's nerves. This old manor house that they'd occupied had been unoccupied for decades: it had belonged to a family in the minor nobility who had all died, married elsewhere, or just found some excuse to leave and never come back again. The garden had gone to seed, and the roof had gone to pieces. While they'd patched it up as far as was consistent with leaving it looking abandoned, that still allowed a lot of cracks, draughts, and leaks. She made a mental note to see who was due a punishment detail and send them up with some nails and tar-paper.
A few of the new recruits made nervous jokes about graves at the bottom of the garden. What rubbish. They'd moved at least twice since they last buried anyone, and they hadn't been able to mark the graves with more than anonymous headstones. It would have been too obvious a trail if they'd been found.
And that meant that Matsumoto Rangiku -- in all her golden cheerfulness, all her exuberance, all her laziness, all her life -- now slept in the quiet earth beneath an unwritten marker, and was spared the knowledge of her Captain's death. Nanao had never been close to Rangiku. But when she'd dragged her off the battlefield, with the blood from the huge wound in her side staining the ground and soaking Nanao's clothes, there had been no question of likes or dislikes or anything so petty, only the desperate attempt to save what could be saved . . .
Nanao put out one hand to pause Isane as they came abreast of each other in the passageway. "How is he?" she asked softly.
Isane smiled, very tentatively, very faintly. "He's doing well today," she murmured. "I've already given him his morning treatment and his tea. Sasakibe-fukutaichou is taking breakfast with him."
"Thank you." Nanao was about to continue, when a thought held her back. She laid her hand on Isane's arm. "Do you want to spar, later?"
Isane's gaze shuttered, and she turned her face away. "No, thank you," she said.
"I would be grateful for the practice, and Hinamori's off on patrol," Nanao tried. She was painfully familiar with that look of resigned failure in Isane's eyes. "It's been a while since we tested ourselves against each other --"
"You should test yourself against someone more your own level, Ise-fukutaichou," Isane said: it wasn't aggressive, but the choice of words was as painful a weapon as any anger. "I'm sure I wouldn't be a challenge for you."
"Isane --" Nanao's hand tightened on the oher woman's arm. "Please don't do this."
"Hush," Isane said quietly, composedly. "Ukitake-taichou will hear you and be upset." She shifted her arm under Nanao's hand, sliding it free from her hold, and continued down the passageway, head lowered in a nervous stoop.
She never used to walk that way when she was following Unohana-taichou, Nanao thought. Even though Unohana-taichou was that much shorter than her . . .
She bit her lip. This wouldn't help. She had to focus on what she could do, not think about what was lost, or she'd be as bad as . . . as bad as Isane. The thought was bitter. She couldn't blame Isane, not at all, because she knew exactly how it felt to lose a Captain. And she herself had only had the news of it secondhand. She hadn't had to obey a Captain's orders to retreat, while knowing exactly who the Captain was going to be surrendering to, and being able to guess what would happen next.
(And when she caught up to her own Captain in the next life -- she was quite definite about this point -- then she was going to have a few words with him about how he'd left her behind to hear the news of his death secondhand and never see him again. But that could wait.)
She schooled her face to mild control and efficiency, and went on down the corridor to Ukitake's office.
"Come in," he called in response to her rap on the door. His voice sounded healthier than usual, though still far from his earlier smoothness. Maybe, she allowed herself to hope, he was getting better.
The morning light slanted in through the windows, and the shadows of the untrimmed trees outside danced across the floor as the wind twisted their dead branches. A fire crackled in the fireplace, burning high: Isane must have just put some new logs on a few moments ago. Ukitake-taichou was sitting in the window bay, with a shawl thrown over his shoulders, his breakfast tray on the small table next to him, nearly crowded off by a set of maps; Sasakibe-fukutaichou was nursing a cup of tea, perched beside him on a stool, clearly having been just pointing something out. Both men nodded to Nanao as she closed the door.
"Ukitake-taichou, Sasakibe-fukutaichou," she said in return. "I'm sorry to be disturbing you gentlemen so early . . ."
"Don't worry, Ise-kun," Ukitake-taichou said. His voice was still hoarse and breathy, but it was such an improvement on what it had been that she couldn't suppress that little repeated burst of hope. He smiled fondly at her. "I'm sure that you wouldn't be here without cause."
She pulled another stool across, and sat down, putting her books in her lap for the moment. "Nothing unusual, sir. No incursions, no new reports from the patrols. We're starting to run a little low on food, given the current numbers, and should probably send out a sweep to collect some more within the next three days."
Sasakibe-fukutaichou nodded. "Excellent. No news is good news." He gave the closest thing to a smile that one saw on him these days, and sipped his tea.
Nanao toyed with the edges of her books. There was something she'd been wanting to ask for a while, but the opportunity had never really arisen. "Ukitake-taichou, if I may ask something?"
"Of course," Ukitake-taichou said quickly. He was looking at her as if he were worried about her.
"When you were," about to die, we all thought, "very badly injured, your zanpakutou spoke to us. Sir, I know that it is possible for a zanpakutou to manifest outside its user, or the user wouldn't be able to duel it and achieve bankai. But I've never heard of one actually doing so of its own accord in order to interact with other shinigami."
"Hm." Ukitake-taichou stroked his chin thoughtfully. "That is an interesting question, Ise-kun. I'm not entirely sure myself, to be honest. After all, shinigami are in combat situations or near-death situations all the time, and their zanpakutou haven't manifested in physical form or spoken to other shinigami to save them. Even Captains," he added dryly.
"Nevertheless, there have been very occasional cases," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said. "Enough that the situation is not entirely unknown."
"Just . . . rare," Nanao said.
Sasakibe-fukutaichou nodded. "But really, we know so little about zanpakutou in themselves."
Nanao looked hopefully curious. It was quite true, after all: there weren't rules and procedures for handling zanpakutou in the same way that there were for handling kidou. There were asauchi, and there was shikai, and then there was bankai, and that was all, and what you knew of your own zanpakutou was something intensely private.
"Yoruichi told me that she spoke to Kurosaki-kun's zanpakutou," Ukitake said. "She'd used some contrivance of Urahara's to summon it into physical form, so that Kurosaki-kun could achieve his bankai. It spoke to her freely, but only so far as she was involved in Kurosaki-kun's business."
"Contrivances and gadgets," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, with a distinct overtone of scorn. "The boy certainly had talent, but I'm not convinced that it should have been forced in that way." He coughed. "Granted the circumstances were unusual, but it must have left huge gaps in his training and practice. Simply being able to summon a bankai is no guarantee of using it effectively."
"This contrivance . . ." Nanao said thoughtfully.
"Unavailable," Ukitake-taichou said firmly. "Sasakibe-kun is right. Forcing yourself into bankai over the next few days won't help the situation, Ise-kun, and such artificial methods carry their own dangers."
Nanao supposed she should be glad that he thought she might have been able to do it. It didn't help much. They needed all the power they could get.
Ukitake-taichou reached across and patted her hand, making her blink in surprise. "Ise-kun, I can understand why you are asking. And if we still had access to the Archives . . ." He paused to cough. "If we did, then I would gladly give you the names of a dozen previous Captains so that you could read their memoirs, and . . ." He didn't say, Kyouraku would have helped you, which was a kindness. ". . . I would have done anything I could. The difficulty is that there isn't much that anyone else can do. Everyone's path to bankai is individual. What worked for Abarai Renji probably wouldn't work for you, any more than it might work for Sasakibe-kun here, or for Kotetsu Isane. I know that you can talk with your zanpakutou. That's the only entity who can help you. Some of them are more proactive, some of them less, but in the end, it's between you and it. And will you two please stop looking at me as if you think I'm about to fall over!" he added in a sudden spurt of irritation.
"It could be a question of the direction of power," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, turning the discussion neatly before it could get more awkward. He took another sip of his tea. "When Ukitake-taichou's zanpakutou spoke to the rest of us, Ukitake-taichou was throwing off flares of reiatsu, but with absolutely no conscious control. Maybe it was a case of the power being directed somewhere."
"That isn't the most comforting of thoughts," Ukitake-taichou said. "Our training has always been to recognise and master the zanpakutou, not to allow it to control us, or speak for us."
"Also, surely someone would have noticed beforehand if it were the case," Nanao said. It was easy to fall into a pattern of logical discussion and argument and research. It was so very easy. While it was going on, she could pretend that nothing had happened, that everything was just the way it used to be. "Even if there were only a few cases, there should have been some common elements."
"Ah." Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, and raised a finger. "But this is one of the few cases -- please forgive me, Ukitake-taichou -- where we have actually been able to observe the phenomenon up close to. Is it possible that the required factors are the necessity in the zanpakutou's point of view for communication with others, and a highly developed zanpakutou and reiatsu, but at the same time a complete loss of control by the zanpakutou's master? If the shinigami in question was competent enough to develop that level of power, he might be so competent that he would never lose that control in the first place."
"But is it that the zanpakutou develops together with the shinigami," Nanao asked, "or is it simply the shinigami's ability to recognise and use it?"
Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou looked at each other for a moment, and for that moment Nanao felt shut out by their mutual age and experience. Finally Ukitake-taichou said, "I'm not sure how to answer that, Ise-kun. But as the shinigami grows to know the zanpakutou better, so the zanpakutou also knows the shinigami. They have their own memories. You must know that yourself."
Nanao nodded, ducking her head in embarrassment.
"But it's true," Sasakibe-fukutaichou said, "that there is . . . if not exactly development, then at least a closer interaction." His voice slowed. "A greater urge to force the shinigami into action. A holding of affections and grudges. Zanpakutou are buried with their users for good reason."
Ukitake-taichou opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
Nanao frowned. "Ukitake-taichou?"
"There was one case that I have heard of," Ukitake-taichou said reluctantly. "At the time, it was considered . . . unwise, shall we say, but given the bond of affection between the two people involved, and the fact that the previous owner had barely had it long enough to establish its form and name, it was passed over. In fact, everything connected with the matter was passed over rather too fast." Distaste was clear in his voice. "It's hardly surprising that you wouldn't have heard of it, Ise-kun. It was before you joined Eighth Division."
Sasakibe-fukutaichou blinked, then nodded in sudden recognition. "Ah. That case."
"Which one?" Nanao inquired politely. Surely they weren't going to just shut up and refuse to tell her.
Possibly they were.
"Tousen Kaname," Ukitake-taichou said, in a tone which clearly closed the subject. He coughed, and held up his tea-cup in obvious request, and Nanao busied herself filling it.
Doors slammed in the distance. All three of them looked up as the sound of running footsteps drew closer. Nanao hastily put the teapot down, readying herself to jump to Ukitake-taichou's defence.
The chamber door banged open. One of the junior shinigami who'd been posted to guard duty stood there, panting from his speed. "Ukitake-taichou! Vice-captains! Hinamori-fukutaichou is back from patrol with Third Seat Madarame, and she's got really urgent news! She says you need to hear this at once!"
Ukitake-taichou sipped his tea calmly, then put the cup down with a click. "Well then. Show her in."
"I'm here, Ukitake-taichou," Hinamori said, stepping round the young shinigami. She patted him on the shoulder. "Well done, Kouta-kun. You can go back to your post now." Her clothing was still spattered from the mud of travel, and her hair was the same short spiked mess that the little "accident" with shikai and kidou had left it in, but her eyes were glittering with a direction and purpose that Nanao hadn't seen in her for months.
Kouta closed the door with a nod, and his footsteps receded as he trotted off back to his post again, rather less enthusiastically and speedily than he had arrived. Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou both sat there, with the patience of commanding officers who were used to getting reports ranging from "it's the end of the world" to "salaries are being given out early and with bonuses". Nanao got up, put her books down, and pulled another stool over for Hinamori to sit on.
Hinamori wasn't just looking cheerful. Hinamori was looking positively incendiary. She sat down, folded her tiny hands between her knees, and leaned forward. "Madarame sent me to report direct to you, Ukitake-taichou." She gave a quick nod to Sasakibe-fukutaichou and to Nanao to show that she wasn't leaving them out. "We've got prisoners. From Hueco Mundo."