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Prize of Victory	By : NovaAlexandria Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 87207 -:- Recommendations : 8 -:- Currently Reading : 8
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach nor make profit from this snippet

Chapter List
- 65
- 66
- 67
　
The garden erupted into sudden chaos as a small black shape came bolting from the trees right towards them, Ajuga hot on its tail. Byakuya and Orihime stared while Tatsuki simply raised an eye.
“Ajuga-chan, stop it,” Orihime suddenly cried frantically, rushing to her feet to intercept the little girl.
The cat leaped up onto the table, amazingly not disturbing a single platter of food or cup of tea, before leaping into Byakuya’s lap and turning to hiss at Ajuga.
“Santen Kesshun,” Orihime cried, fingers flying to her hairpins.
The golden glow sprang up before Byakuya and the feline suddenly sitting rather calmly, despite the situation, in his lap. Ajuga smashed head first into the shield, bouncing off of it to land with a loud thud on the wooden floor.
“Oh, Ajuga-chan, are you alright,” Orihime cried worriedly.
Ajuga picked herself up and gave her head a shake before turning a hurtful and tear-filled gaze at Orihime. Orihime tried to get to the girl to make sure she wasn’t hurt, but Ajuga darted out of reach, giving off a whimper.
“Ajuga-chan, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I had to stop you before you hurt her,” Orihime tried to explain.
“I wasn’t going to hurt it,” Ajuga sniffed, still refusing to let Orihime near her.
She even hissed at Hinagiku, Lily and Baigon when they tried to get closer to her to add in their own apologies.
“Ajuga-chan come here,” Tatsuki called firmly.
Ajuga darted past Orihime and dove into Tatsuki’s waiting arms, still sniffing and glaring at Orihime.
“I still caught the spy,” she said resolutely.
“Spy?” Tatsuki questioned.
“Funny I would be found out by a child,” the black cat spoke in a rather masculine voice.
Tatsuki stiffened in surprise, but after having lived with the Arrancar for a while the novelty of a speaking cat really wasn’t all THAT strange.
“Yoruichi-san,” Orihime smiled at her sadly. “Please tell me the others didn’t risk trying to come here.”
The cat shook its head.
“Only I can cross without being detected, at least by most things.” Yoruichi leaped out of Byakuya’s arms to land on the table and looked at Ajuga.
Ajuga stared back at the creature curiously, but made no sign she was about to go after the woman in cat form again.
“Mama’s even better,” Ajuga declared.
“I bet,” Yoruichi agreed. “I don’t dare waste too much time least my presence be discovered by a more unfriendly force, but it’s nice to know you are still stealing your sisters clothing,” Yoruichi winked one of her moon-yellow eyes at Byakuya.
He glared at her in disapproval, visibly miffed.
“Yoruichi-san, that was mean. It’s not Byakuya-san’s fault Yammy makes him dress like that,” Orihime admonished.
“But it’s still funny,” Yoruichi chuckled.
‘Say what you have to say quickly, and then leave’ Byakuya wrote out, frowning.
“Only you could make text look intimidating, Byakuya-bo,” Yoruichi taunted.
“The point,” Tatsuki interrupted before they could get anymore waylaid.
“I was looking for more information on these creatures. The reason I’m here is to see if Szayel had learned anymore about them.” Yoruichi sat down and looked at them seriously.
“Nothing new that I know of,” Orihime frowned. “What about you, Kuchiki-san?” Orihime asked.
‘Just the appearance of those larger beetles.’
“Yes, we have fought those. Nothing else?” Yoruichi asked.
“Well, he said they were a race of creatures with a hive-mind and he suspected somewhere there had to be something or someone in command, like a queen in a beehive,” Orihime added. “But so far we haven’t seen anything like that.”
“Swarming seems to be their favourite tactic. They are not really that strong,” Tatsuki added. “It’s just that they have numbers on their side and it gets worse every week. The Divisions just can’t seem to kill enough of them.”
“I got some,” Ajuga announced happily.
“Really?” Yoruichi looked at the little girl, appraising her.
“Uh huh. They interrupted my hunt,” she hissed. “And one tried to get Szay, but I stopped it,” she puffed out in pride.
“I can believe it,” Yoruichi commented, and an involuntary shiver seemed to work its way through the cat. “You nearly had me there!”
Ajuga puffed out some more at the compliment.
“Will you say ‘hi’ to the others and let them know we are alright?” Orihime asked.
“I will,” Yoruichi agreed.
“I don’t,” Orihime suddenly said.
“Don’t what?” Yoruichi asked, head cocking to one side in inquiry.
“Regret my decision to stay. Things have changed and I am happy here. Let the others know for me please.”
“I will,” Yoruichi promised before turning her head to look at Ajuga again. “We haven’t formally introduced ourselves. I am Shihoin Yoruichi,” she said gravely and bowed to the blue-eyed child.
“Ajuga Jagerjack,” Ajuga answered, bowing as well.
Yoruichi stared at the child, her feline features a little confused before she figured out the butchered family name and a mixture of distress and astonishment crossed her features.
“Then…” Yoruichi looked at the adults for confirmation to her fears.
“Yes, this is Karin-chan and Grimmjow’s daughter,” Tatsuki was the one brave enough to answer the question.
“How old is she?”
“I am two,” Ajuga answered for herself. “Not like Hana-chan, she is older. She is seven I think.” Ajuga seemed to muse for a moment. “Yep, seven, almost eight.”
“I suppose since everyone else here already knows, you should know I am pregnant as well,” Orihime admitted hesitantly.
Yoruichi’s stunned gaze snapped to her.
“I am happy too.”
Yoruichi was about to say more, but the oppressive feeling of Yammy’s reiatsu approaching stopped her.
“Damn. That’s my cue to leave. Ajuga-chan, can you promise me you won’t tell anyone about the talking kitty?” Yoruichi asked with a wink of her eye. “After all, a spy that is caught isn’t a very effect spy is it? It will be our secret!”
“Okay!” Ajuga giggled.
Yoruichi leaped from the table and darted away, disappearing in the brush and leaving the table sitting in a rather strange silence.
“Oh Kami, I didn’t realize how late it was,” Orihime gasped, as if suddenly aware of how late it really was. “We got to pick Hana-chan up from school.”
Tatsuki checked her own watch and let out a soft curse of her own.
“I can take off ahead if you want,” Tatsuki offered.
“Yes, please. She should finish in two minutes.”
“Alright. Thank you very much for the hospitality, Byakuya-san,” Tatsuki said in gratitude. She stood up and bowed politely. “Your Estate is most wonderful.”
He gave her a nod of acknowledgment before she darted away.
“Yes, your garden is simply amazing,” Orihime agreed.
“Can we come back tomorrow?” Ajuga asked innocently.
“I don’t think so Ajuga-chan.” Orihime smiled sadly at her.
“Pweeeeese,” she begged, turning big, watery, blue eyes up at Orihime.
“It is not my decision I am afraid.”
The sound of chalk writing over the board reached her ears and she turned to see what Byakuya had written.
‘You are more than welcome to return. It grows tiresome to sit alone.’
“Thank you, Kuchiki-san,” she smiled happily at him.
“Yay,” Ajuga cheered. “We can come back tomorrow?”
“Maybe, if you behave,” Orihime promised.
“I will, I will,” Ajuga promised.
“Alright, let’s go pick up Hana-chan than. What do you say?” Orihime asked.
“Oh right,” Ajuga went to stand before Byakuya. “Thank you for letting me play in the garden and come back again, Bya-san,” Ajuga bowed.
He offered her a small smile and a nod of his head. Yammy entered the garden at this point, smirking and approaching them.
“Come along, Ajuga-chan,” Orihime held out a hand to the girl.
Ajuga jumped into her arms, glaring at Yammy as they passed him.
“I don’t like him,” Ajuga growled once they were further away.
“Well, no one likes everyone,” Orihime said.
Ajuga shook her head.
“He is bad,” Ajuga pressed. “He smells bad, not nice like Bya-san.”
“Oh. And how do I smell?” Orihime asked.
“You smell good. Like Mama,” Ajuga chirped.
“Well, I am going to be a Mama soon,” she chuckled.
“Yep.”
“Does Ulquiorra smell good too?” Orihime couldn’t help but to ask curiously.
Ajuga didn’t really have many dealings with Ulquiorra, but she had met him this morning when Karin and Nanao had dropped the girls off on their way to work.
“He smells okay,” Ajuga admitted. “Not like Papa though. Ulcora smells kind of like food.”
Orihime couldn’t stop the laughter from bursting out at Ajuga’s statement. She wondered what Ulquiorra would think knowing the girl though he smelt like something to snack on.
“Just so long as you don’t try to eat him,” Orihime commented as she got over her giggling fit.
“I no eat,” Ajuga promised. “Honest.”
“That’s good, because I would be sad if he was eaten.”
“Well I no eat,” Ajuga promised.
“Speaking of eating, what do you say we get some ice cream on the way home after we pick Hana-chan up?” Orihime suggested.
“Yes!” Ajuga cried gleefully. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, and continued to do so as she jumped from Orihime’s shoulder and raced forward.
“Slow down Ajuga-chan, I am not as fast as you.”
“Come on, hurry,” Ajuga called.
“Sometimes I wonder if those two words are the only ones in your vocabulary,” Orihime chuckled softly to herself.
“Hurry, hurry,” Ajuga cried.
“Point proven,” she smiled.
　
　
　
“Where are Ajuga-chan and Orihime-neechan?” Hana asked as Tatsuki met her on the steps of her tutor’s house.
“They are coming. How are your lessons coming along?” Tatsuki asked.
“They went alright. Sensei didn’t seem happy I corrected him again though.” Hana reported and sighed.
“Again?” Tatsuki asked incredulously.
“He carried a 4 instead of an 8 and his answer was wrong,” Hana explained and then a cloud seemed to cover her small features. “He said my kanji look like someone spilt ink on the page,” she added with a pout.
“Well, I am afraid I would have to agree with him on that part,” Tatsuki pointed out.
“Yeah, I know. I just don’t find poetry interesting.”
“Why not? You like math and there are lots of numbers in poetry.”
“Yeah, but the words don’t make any sense at all. It’s all just random dribble. Sensei wasn’t happy when I said that either,” Hana admitted sheepishly.
Tatsuki laughed, knowing all too well what Hana was going through. She had hated literacy class as well. Orihime, on the other hand, had excelled at it.
“Tatsuki-neesan, how much longer is the war going to last?” Hana asked suddenly.
“I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “Why, are you scared?” she questioned.
“No. It’s just… I miss Mom, and ‘take-ji and Starrk-ji. And I worry they will get hurt and maybe not come home,” she admitted softly.
“Well, they are far stronger than these bugs, so I assure you that is one thing you don’t need to worry about,” Tatsuki smiled at her reassuringly.
“I know, but I still worry,” Hana sighed.
“Hana-chan!” Ajuga shouted in joy as Orihime and Ajuga came around a corner.“We are going to get ice cream!”
Instantly any depression Hana had been harbouring melted away at the promise of a cold treat.
“Thank the heavens children are so easily distracted,” Tatsuki thought in relief “Mortality is the last thing any child should concern herself with.”
　
　
　
Karin held back a wince as panic sudden came ripping through the Claim and slammed into her. At first she felt the stirrings of fright herself thinking the jolt had come from Grimmjow, but quickly realized she had been wrong.
Her anxiety turned quickly to anger. It wasn’t often she got strong surges of negative emotions from Szayel. She received the positive emotions all of the time. He was honestly as giddy as a fat kid in a candy shop when it came to his experiments.
The only time Szayel ever really felt large amounts of negative emotions was when Aizen was involved. Panic remained though and Karin tried to ignore it for the time being. It wasn’t as if she could charge in there and stop anything anyway.
However, when his low grade fretfulness showed no sign of escalating after a few minutes. she permitted herself to relax slightly.
“One of his experiments must have gone wrong,” she decided. “Or possibly right,” she added mentally.
While she’d insisted he act ethically when it came to his ‘research’ there were a few questionable projects he still had underway that might be troublesome if not kept under lock and key.
Eventually, the panic subsided only to be replaced with a large amount of irritation and at one point, stomach-churning disgust so profound that Karin almost became nauseous. For the most part, his emotions varied between giddy happiness, irritability and once, a sharp spike of fear and incredulity. So there was nothing life-threatening about what had just occurred. As such, Karin turned her full attention back to the troops at hand.
Their teamwork was definitely getting better, and they’d quickly developed an appetite for soccer once they learned the rules of the game. Right now units Three and Six were deep in the second half of a match, their Unit Commanders acting as team Taichou.
She had also noticed a sharp increase in their confidence as well as a huge boost in morale. The winning team would get a free round of sake and the points added to the board. The losing team ran laps. Karin had promised the entire Division that the team at the top by the spring equinox would get their own private party and the competition quickly became furious.
She had even caught the individual units out practicing in their spare time. She had no doubt that team spirit was at an all-time high, and Nanao couldn’t stop praising her for it.
Not that all of the training time was taken up by playing soccer. They did other things as well, like various versions of capture the flag, bug hunt, track the target and other scenarios. Sometimes they would spend the time just sparing, but since her weapons skills were lacking she simply oversaw those sessions and left the barking of commands to the unit leaders.
She did work them through the various martial art drills she knew. She used the hand-to-hand training simply because it worked and toned their muscles. It wasn’t as if she expected them to punch through the carapace of the Swarm, but one never knew when a skill would come in handy.
Terror suddenly slammed into her, albeit only a brief surge before anger quickly replaced it, mixed with not a little bit of derision and disdain.
“Shit!!!” she cursed and nearly stumbled.
“Fukutaichou?” one of the members waiting on the side line for their turn to rotate onto the field asked her worriedly.
“I am alright,” she assured the concerned man. “One of the Espada is throwing a temper tantrum and I was looking in that direction,” she explained, rubbing her eyes before pulling her shades down.
She had let the Division know she could physically see reiatsu, mostly to let them know that attempts at hiding or sneaking about to get out of any assigned chores or tasks was about as useful and doable as building a sandcastle on a beach during a typhoon.
“It was a brief surge, already done. Aizen-kami probably told them they had another living world mission,” she explained.
The man shared a weak chuckle with her.
Karin doubted that the Shinigami would be comfortable with the Arrancar any time soon, an understandable situation. The poor saps might as well be preschoolers challenging high school students to a brawl.
A sudden thought occurred to Karin that nearly caused her a moment of panic. Ajuga liked to hang out with Szayel and she knew Orihime had an appointment today. Cursing inward, she quickly grounded herself, slipped into a light state of Jinzen, and sought out her friend’s reiatsu.
She focused on Szayel first. The Claim made it that much easier to hone in on his already impressive pool of reiatsu. She found him in a snap, Nemu not too far away and the disgusting, powerful presence she recognized as Yammy, which definitely explained Szayel’s irritation.
There was no sign of Orihime or the others near the scientist. Expanding her senses further, Karin finally tracked them down. She blinked in surprise when she realized they appeared to be with Byakuya at his estate.
“Odd,” Karin thought before shrugging it off.
She knew that Orihime had been close friends with Rukia, Byakuya’s sister, so it really shouldn’t have surprised Karin that Orihime was friendly with him either. With Yammy nowhere nearby, Karin decided not to worry about her daughter’s safety and turned her full focus back to the game.
She was the referee after all and it wouldn’t do to have her daydreaming when she had a job to do.
“I wonder how much more interesting this would get if I permitted them to use their Zanpakuto and had to dodge Kido bombs?” she mused. “While protecting certain key points,” she added.
The idea was intriguing, that was for sure.
“Goal!” she cried, blowing her whistle as one of the teams scored.
She checked the time and gave her head a nod. It was almost lunch.
“Alright you sorry jackals, Unit 3 wins. Unit 6, you all know the drill by now. Four laps around the field, first one jogging, next two power walking, last one at your own pace. Go!” she ordered.
Her orders were met with a chorus of “Hai, Fukutaichou!”
She cleaned up the little bit that needed doing on the field while the losing team went through their laps. She followed them to the cafeteria after they were done to let the cooks know that Unit 3 were the sake winners and to grab both herself and Nanao a plate of food.
She wasn’t surprised to find Nanao in her office, buried under a mountain of paperwork.
“You know we could always just shove all that in a waste basket and claim a Kido spell went wrong,” Karin offered as she set the plate of food down in front of her Taichou’s face.
“Tempting, but since when did you or I ever do anything but perfect Kido,” Nanao pointed out with an exhausted sigh.
“True,” Karin agreed, taking her place at her spotless desk.
Spotless, because she had nothing to put on it other than training schedules and those were all neatly filed away. She settled quickly into her plate of food, devouring it like a starved animal.
Ever since Grimmjow had started training her what felt like a life time ago, her appetite had skyrocketed. She didn’t sit idle during training either. She ran alongside her troops either doing the courses or refereeing the current game.
Grimmjow had been getting rather intensive in his training as well. He would never say it, but she knew the Swarm had him worried. She didn’t have his Heirro and her Kido shields only lasted so long before they ran out.
Sometimes she wondered if the thought of finding her or Ajuga’s mutilated corpses somewhere didn’t keep him up at night. She still hadn’t told him about what the Generals had told her. In fact, the only ones who knew were Szayel, Jushiro and Nemu.
The fewer people who knew the better. If Aizen ever found out she was of Royal Blood she feared what would happen to her and her family. Ever since speaking to the Generals and setting Szayel off like a rabid hound on any information he could find about the Royal Family, the information that had turned up left her stomach churning in horror.
They only reason Aizen was trying so hard for an Heir was to turn his line Royal. If he ever found out that she and Ajuga had Royal Blood, she didn’t doubt he would take them both by force. Her first and then Ajuga when she was old enough. She already knew Aizen would kill Grimmjow to dispose of any complicating issue like a Claim, not that Aizen would care about such a thing.
If Unohana did manage to conceive, well, Aizen would probably consider her and her daughter a threat and kill the both of them outright. He might even go so far as to send a team into the living world to find and dispose of Yuzu and her brother…
Karin did her absolute best to remain injury-free on the field, or to at least keep any of her blood out of the Swarm’s mouths. Since that one day she hadn’t seen any of the Generals, nor had there been reports of any sightings of the creatures. If they were around they were keeping themselves well-hidden. Unfortunately, these things really didn’t seem to have much, if any, reiatsu, so Karin couldn’t spot them without deliberately looking.
Not that she was deliberately looking for them. She wasn’t foolish enough to permit herself to become that distracted during a battle. Grimmjow would kill her if she let herself get maimed by such pathetic bugs.
A knock on the office door tore her from her thoughts before she could brood on them for too long.
“What is it?” Nanao asked.
“My apologies, Taichou, Fukutaichou, but Kami-sama is looking for the latest battle reports,” one of the seated officers spoke up nervously.
“Damn it,” Nanao sighed in annoyance and quickly rooted through her papers until she came up with the handful of reports.
“Don’t even think about it,” Karin stated as Nanao went to stand up.
“These reports need to be handed in by a high ranking official,” Nanao protested.
“I qualify now, yes?” Karin asked.
“Yes, but…”
“Good. Give me those. You sit. If I see a scrap of food left on your untouched plate by the time I get back I will personally tie you to the chair and feed you like a baby. And you wonder where Hana-chan picked up her poor eating habits.”
Nanao looked half-mortified, half-amused, and slightly exasperated.
Karin snagged the reports from her hand before she could think up an appropriate response and walked out the door, ordering the shocked seated officer to remain and make sure their Taichou ate.
　
　
　
Huge loves for those that took the time to review. Unfortunately I am still very busy and won’t get a second to breath until sometime late next week.
Next Chapter: Aizen wants to see how Ajuga is doing and expresses an interest in Karin’s abilities.
- 65
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- 67
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Prize of Victory