Bleach 1. Chapter 1

**So, this one needs a bit of an explanation. This first chapter will give a really good overview of who the OC is and why she's there/how she got there. It will probably be a little easier to just read the first chapter and make your own decisions on whether to follow the story or not. As for the time frame, I have this just before the Bount Arc that the Anime added. This story will divert from the storyline the anime gave as this character is an extra.**

**As to how this character got started - when I was very young I would daydream about what I would do if I were in the story and a story alter ego started. Of course, this alter ego became more and more badass as I would read more stories and the character would have some how gotten to that world too. When I got older, this character stopped being my alter ego as the backstory I gave her became more and more gruesome. You'll see some of that here too. While I wouldn't mind having this character's baddassary, I would never want her past. Over the years she stopped looking anything like me and became her own character. So, here she is in the Bleach world.**

**Reviews and PMs are always appreciated. **

**I do not own Bleach, though I do like to take some of the characters out for a spin every now and then.**

* * *

Yachiru was on holiday. She was at the beach with Rukia and the third seat to Squad 13. He couldn't remember her name and didn't really care. They were going to be gone for a few days so, to escape the boredom, he decided to wander some of the outer districts incognito and see if he could get anyone to fight him. It might hold his interest for a few minutes at least.

He was walking on the road connecting the Southern District 78 with District 77 when an opening appeared in the sky ahead of him and a body fell out of it. It moved and looked up at the sky.

"Gods damn you, Merlin! Always 8 feet. Every single time. I swear if I ever see you again, I will punch you in the face for every time I've been dropped from a height of 8 feet!"

It sounded female. Who was this Merlin person? Her entrance would have set off alarms and soul reapers would have been dispatched. He might as well find out what's going on. Who knows? Maybe she'd prove to be interesting.

"Hey! Where did you come from?" He called to her. He decided the body had to be female. She was dressed strangely. She was wearing leather armor and she was bristling with weapons. There were a pair of swords sticking out of sheaths on her back and a pair of handles that came up on either side of her neck. He had no clue what they were to. There was an unstrung bow strapped to her back that he could see peeking over her shoulder as well. At her waist was a long pouch and he couldn't tell what was in it. He could see the quiver of arrows hanging from the belt and another small pouch hanging opposite the longer pouch. He could see various knives in sheathes at her legs, arms and peeking out from her boots.

She turned calmly to him and folded her arms in front of her chest. Her hands were gloved but he could tell she was missing the index and pinky fingers of her right hand. "I could tell you, but it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Let's just say that I'm not from around here and if you manage to stick around, I'll do what I can to explain it."

Her accent was strange. He took a moment to see beyond all the weapons. She was blood splattered, like she had just come from battle. Her hair was light brown and he could see blood matted in it. She was very short. He guessed she might be a little over 5 feet tall. She had a larger scar across her left cheek, following the cheek bone for the most part and a much smaller and straighter scar on her left cheek closer to her jaw bone. He could see another similar small straight scar on her neck but the rest of her was covered.

He raised his spiritual pressure. He couldn't feel any coming from the girl and wanted to put her in her place and make her understand who she was talking to. She stared at him with steel colored eyes. She should have passed out by now.

"Your entrance would have made an alarm sound. You are coming with me back to the 13 court guard. It's better that I take you in then for them to find out I saw you and didn't take you in. What's your name, girl."

"Erin."

"No fighting? Just gunna come along quietly?"

"I know how this works. I take it you have authority here?"

"You might say that."

"You are taking me in for questioning. It's the same every time. Do what you have to do, though if you try to harm me, I will kill you without a second thought."

The thought of this little thing killing him made him chuckle out loud at her. Her expression didn't change. She just waited. "Yeah, whatever. This way." He continued in the direction he had been walking in and she fell into step beside and slightly behind him, but staying to his left side.

They walked for several hours and if he couldn't see her out of the corner of his eye, he wouldn't know she was there. He didn't understand how someone wearing that much metal could be that silent. It was a little unnerving.

The stretch of road they were walking along had trees to either side as this area cut through a forest. Very quietly Erin said, "There is an ambush about 200 yards ahead of us." He started to reach for his zampakuto. "No. Don't reach for your sword. You'll scare them away." She paused. "Four to the right; two in the trees and two on the ground. Three on the left; one in the trees and two on the ground. This will be interesting. Can you fight?"

"Yeah, I can fight. I'll take the right."

As they got closer, he could see the movements of the trees and bushes that weren't being caused by animals. He decided he would take out the guys in the trees first.

To Erin, it was like a badly scripted play that she had seen hundreds of times before. A pair of scruffy looking guys stepped out of the bushes. The "leader" didn't even get a chance to say his scripted part before Zaraki charged him and ran him through. Seeing the large man moving forward, she did too. She pulled her scimitars from their sheathes and took out the other guy with a blade swiped across his neck. She quickly took out the other man with a few well-placed cuts at artery junctures and used the man as a human shield against the arrows coming down on her. She sheathed one of the scimitars and pulled a throwing knife from one of the hidden sheathes nestled in her armor and threw it at the man in the tree. He wasn't very far up into the tree so the throw was fairly easy. It slid into his throat and when he fell from the tree branch, she collected the knife and sheathed her other scimitar. When she turned around to see how the large man was doing, she saw that he had apparently taken out the guys in the trees first and was now facing off against the last swordsman. She leaned against the tree and watched as he toyed with the man. It was odd that despite the ambusher clearly hitting the large man, he wasn't causing him any damage. The large man eventually killed the last bandit and turned to Erin, hoping to get in on her fight and was disappointed when he saw her waiting on him.

He looked over her handiwork, noting the neat slices and minimal work. He used his foot to push at the third man. "What did you use on this one?"

He watched her as she pulled a throwing knife from a hidden sheath in the leather armor and then tucked it back in.

"How did you know they were there?"

"You either didn't spend a lot of time in the woods or don't care that you clomp all over the place; giving away your position. Anyone with a decent amount of wood lore would have spotted them instantly."

"Is that why you walk so silently?"

"It never made sense to me to break habits that have kept me alive." She made an "after you" gesture and he continued down the road; Erin again taking up position next to him.

After a little while of walking, he said, "You fight better than I thought you would."

She quirked an eyebrow at him that he may or may not have saw, but chose to say nothing to the backhanded compliment.

He tried again. "Any of that blood on you yours?"

"Some of it probably is."

"Did you need to see to any wounds?"

"No." Was the simple reply.

_Aren't girls supposed to be talkative? I can't get Yachiru to shut up sometimes but I can barely get this girl to say anything without a direct question._

Night was falling and he left the road for the shelter of the woods around them. When he found a decent clearing, stopped and sat down. "We'll stay here for the night." He watched as the girl made a slightly confused face while touching her stomach. "Are you hungry?"

"No, but I should be. I haven't eaten since this morning." She sat down nearby but facing the large man.

"It's because you don't have any spiritual pressure. Souls without it don't get hungry."

"Souls? Is that what you call humans here? And I don't understand what you mean by spiritual pressure. What is that?"

_Finally she talks!_ "When humans die, they come here as souls. And spiritual pressure is…." He floundered for how to describe it. "Can you see a glow around me?" She looked at him and shook her head. He raised his spiritual pressure. "How about now?" She continued to shake her head. He contemplated taking off his eye patch, but decided against it. "I don't know how to explain it then. It's how you measure your raw strength against someone else and you have none of it. I've never encountered anyone who can't sense it or see it at all, let alone not pass out around the amount I raised mine to while having none themselves."

"If you say so. How do I call you?"

"Call me Zaraki." She nodded.

She took the smaller pouch off of her belt and began rooting through it. He looked at her strangely because her entire hand was in the bag and it should have shown through on the outside, but it didn't. She pulled several other bags out of the one and after looking them over, selected one and pulled out large jugs of water and a large porcelain basin; the kind used to wash the dirt from your face and hands. She looked over at the large man and the incredulous look on his face and realized they must not have bags like this here. "They are bags of holding. Quite roomy ones too." When he continued to look at her blankly she went with a simple, "They're bigger on the inside then on the outside."

He blinked a few times and seemed to relax. His eyes stayed on the small bags, wondering what else could possibly be in them.

"I'm going to wash up." He continued to stare at her as she pulled out a few more items; some soap and shampoo. She tucked the bags back into the original and wandered away from Zaraki. When she was out of his sight, she stripped down and did her best to scrub the grime from her body. When the water got dirty, she changed it out. She dried off and changed into clean clothing similar to what she had been wearing under her armor which was a linin like material that would be light enough to wear under armor and not cause her to pass out from heat exhaustion.

She came back with her armor in her arms along with a water jug and the basin. Everything else had been tucked away.

"Did you want to wash?" She offered him the basin.

"Um, yeah. Sure." She pulled out the soap and shampoo from her bag along with a few more jugs of water, a towel and a wash cloth for him and handed them to him. He went off in another direction with the items, still astounded that it had all come from such a tiny space.

While he was gone, she pulled another basin from one of her bags and proceeded to scrub her armor of the blood splatter and the sweat and grime on the inside. It had become pretty funky and she had no intention of putting it back on when it was so disgusting.

Kenpachi was actually pretty grateful for the chance to feel clean again. It was the only thing he hated about going out and looking for fights like this; no chance to get clean unless he went to an inn and paid for it or stumbling across a body of water. His only other option was to wait until he got back to his squad. She even had soap and it didn't smell girly. Today was his lucky day. He even got to fight some people. Sure it wasn't a great fight, but it was at least a fight.

When he finished and redressed, he came back to the clearing to find the girl scrubbing her armor. He had a chance to really see what she looked like as the armor had added bulk to her. She was skinny, but well-muscled. He could see the shape of her arms and legs beneath her clothing and could tell that she wasn't a weakling. Her hair was very short and kind of spiky. Nowhere near how he wore his hair and it was by no means styled at all. It just had that look to it that she just ran her fingers through it a couple times to "comb" it and that was it.

He set the items she had given him nearby and she nodded that she saw them. She eventually finished cleaning and put everything away that wasn't needed. She left her armor where it was and strapped on the quiver and pulled the bow from the pile and strung it. She left everything else and walked into the forest without a word. He was going to stop her, but when he saw she had left everything else, decided that she wouldn't go far.

It was getting late and he was beginning to wonder where she had gone to and if she got lost when she silently padded back into the clearing carrying a pile of wood and a dead raccoon.

She set the wood and used a box of matches to start the fire. Once she was satisfied that it would not go out, she turned to the raccoon and expertly skinned it and gutted it. Kenpachi was actually pretty impressed. She even had some tall forked sticks on either side of the fire and eventually put the carcass on a spit and began roasting it over the fire, turning it when it was called for.

"Where did you learn to do that?" He asked.

"I can't remember. From a soldier, I'm sure. You can survive or starve on what you can catch jobbing for an army."

"You've been in an army?"

"Yeah, more than I can count." She pulled out a jug of water again and poured some of the water on to her hands, giving them a quick scrub.

"How many jugs of water can you possibly have in there?"

She gave a small smile. "You would be surprised." She handed the bag over to him. "Go ahead and put your hand in and feel around."

He was apprehensive about it, but she hadn't had any problems reaching in to any of the bags. He hefted the bag. It was kinda heavy for its size. He put a hand inside and was amazed that he hadn't touched the bottom immediately. Part of him figured that it had to be some trick, but he could feel the jugs and that there were even more under them. Some felt like they were made of glass and others felt like they were made of metal or plastic. Some had hard sides and others felt like water skins. The jugs were in all shapes and sizes and even though his arm was in the bag up to his shoulder, he couldn't feel the bottom of the bag yet.

He pulled his hand out from the bag. "Why do you carry so much water?" He handed the bag back to her.

"I never know when I'm going to be dropped into a desert." She replied.

"Tell me about where you came from. I've been patient."

"That you have." She turned the raccoon on the spit. "I was 25 when it happened. I was a college student who was also addicted to reading and living in my parent's basement. It was a normal day. I was sitting on my bed reading like usual and when I looked up, there was this blurry opening in the middle of my room. I thought my eyes were going and needed to get new glasses. Yes, I used to wear glasses. I was also over weight as I was no longer as active as I had been when I was still going to high school.

"I always read about all these adventures and once I realized that it was a portal, I didn't care. I wanted an adventure too and I was too stupid to even stop and think about it. I grabbed a few essential items and jumped through without even a thought to what would be on the other side. I can't even remember if I left them a note.

"I ended up in Camelot. It's about the most clichéd place I could have gone. I was taken before King Arthur and his wizard, Merlin. In all the stories of Camelot, Arthur is always young or at least in his thirties or forties. The man I was brought to was old. Merlin was old too. They looked to be similar in age. Usually the stories have him as older. In my world, Camelot was only ever a legend. It was actually believed to be a story that took 3 real kings and mashed them all together behind a bunch of magic and fake names. This was a world where he really did exist.

"Turns out that I was brought there because they needed someone with an open enough mind that wouldn't just go crazy on arrival and be unable to handle the change as well as someone that knew how to defend against an invading army. How my reading of adventure and fantasy novels counted towards that, I don't know.

"With Arthur as old as he was, he was no longer able to fight. Camelot had been at peace for so long that they barely had a standing army and the famous Knights of the Round Table had long ago disbanded. They had gotten old and members became harder to replace. Camelot still had a few knights, but nowhere near what they had in the stories I grew up on." She turned the meat on the spit, making sure it cooked evenly. Zaraki just watched her, listening to everything and no interrupting. She appreciated that. The story was odd enough without someone interrupting you constantly.

"King Arthur had no heir and a neighboring kingdom decided that Camelot was ripe for the taking. They even went so far as to notify Arthur that he was going to come for Camelot in 2 months and that Camelot could either be given or taken. Arthur didn't want that king to govern his people. Merlin had told me that he was a tyrant and abused his people. So, they turned to an outsider to tell him how to defend.

"The first thing I did was ask about conscription. Turned out that the people stood completely behind their king and men of all ages were taking up arms for their king. That at least solved one problem. The knights they had were busy training the men, so that sort of solved another problem. I took a tour of the ground outside of the castle and keep. Trees came up almost to the walls and that was a problem. The recruits were directed to cut down every tree around the keep for a mile. They got about three quarters of a mile, maybe less before the siege eventually started. That solved two problems. It gave the recruits strength training and gave me a killing ground. Movies and books always talked about preparing the killing ground and that's what I knew we needed.

"We used the branches from the trees to make sharpened poles. Large ones were set into the ground at angles so that it became hard for an invading army to just run up and smaller ones were set completely in the ground with just the point exposed. I had them make a few pit traps lined with the spikes on the bottom and had them covered up so it looked like bare ground and I had them also make channels on the ground filled with tar. If there were too many people attacking the walls at once, we needed a way to separate the army into smaller chunks. Fire would be kept near some archers and they could fire into the tar channels if we needed them to. That solved some other problems. The last major thing I did was have them block off all but one small, easily defended gate."

"Where you successful?" He asked.

"Yeah. Surprisingly enough, the preparations were successful." She had a sad look on her face when she said that and he wondered what she wasn't saying. "It was several weeks after the siege when Merlin went to send me home. I guess when he had cast the original spell, he had made it so that no time would pass in my own world. I don't know if that still stands. I learned later that magic like he was casting meant that every gesture, every inhalation and exhalation of breath, every little movement and vocalization are all part of the spell. Any deviation from the spell can result in catastrophe. Anything from exploding, burning out your magical energy or even just changing the spell are all fair game and you don't know what you're going to get until it happens. I can't remember what happened anymore. Was it a cough? Was it a sneeze? Whatever he did changed the spell. Rather than the portal forming and being able to just walk through it, I was sucked through and dropped from a height of 8 feet in the middle of a plain in a foreign world.

Merlin quickly cast a spell to keep the portal from closing, but by the time he did, the portal was only large enough for an arm to pass through. Even if he had anything to pull me up with, there was no way I could get through. He realized immediately how the spell changed. Instead of sending me back home, I was going to be sent to the worlds out of balance. When a world was balanced, I would get sent on to the next one until they were all balanced and I could go home. He did the only thing he could think of. He cast another spell that would grant me gifts every time I passed through a portal that would help me on my journey. I just wish the gift he could have granted me was the gift to go home. He couldn't cast that in the world I was in without also being there and the portal was getting smaller. When he cast that last spell, I wasn't even sure it went through at first. I've been traveling ever since. That was almost 900 years ago."

"Balanced how?"

"Between good and evil. You can't have one without the other and when they become imbalanced one way, you get tyranny, slavery and other senseless killing. You go the other way, and you get xenophobia, prejudice, and bigotry and for some odd reason, really weird religious cults." She shrugged at that.

"So, what kind of gifts?"

"Mostly mental and physical ones, though I have gotten a few magical gifts over the years." She saw he was about to ask specifics and continued. "Languages, sight, hearing, the capacity to learn all of these things. I became more intelligent, faster, longer stamina, dexterity."

"Fighting?"

"No, I had to learn that the old fashioned way, but the gifts that improved my body made learning to fight much easier." She checked on the meat and found it to be cooked. She pulled out a pair of plates and some forks from one of her pouches and used one of her many knives to cut sections of meat off of the spit. She handed him one of the plates and forks and handed over the knife for him to do the same. He took it and carved liberal amounts onto his plate.

Erin went to take a bite and then stopped. "Something wrong, woman?"

"I'm still not hungry. I thought that maybe the smell of the roasting meat would whet my appetite, but it didn't." She set the plate down, not eating anything. Zaraki shrugged and continued eating. It was nice getting fresh meat. He hadn't been expecting any unless he had stopped somewhere at one of the districts. All he had on him was some fruit, some bread, and some nuts.

Erin checked on her armor and when she found it to be dry, put it back on.

"Why are you putting the armor back on? It will be hard to sleep in."

"It's another one of my old soldier habits that has kept me alive. Always wear your armor to bed in a strange new world. Or when you're in the middle of a campaign."

"You mentioned magical gifts?"

"I have some control over the elements. It varies with the world I'm in. Sometimes I can't use it all. I don't like to use it if I don't have to. Tends to freak people out."

"Show me."

She closed her eyes and held out a hand. At first he couldn't tell what she was doing, but slowly a ball of water appeared as she pulled moisture out of the air. The ball of water got to be the size of a fist before it collapsed and she started panting. "That took more out of me then I thought it would."

Zaraki mentally nodded at the display. _So she's not making it all up. She can prove at least some of her story. At first I couldn't tell if she was just delusional or what, but then she saw that ambush. At the time I thought she had maybe somehow planned it and that was why she knew it was there, but that wouldn't have made any sense. What's the old man gunna do with her? Probably lock her up and throw away the key. That's too bad. She seems to know her way around a battle. _

"You should probably get some sleep, Zaraki. I'll take the first watch." She took the rest of the meat off the spit and started cutting it up and putting it in a cloth to keep it for the morning. She tossed the bones where she had tossed the skin and guts and came back to the fire. It was beginning to burn low and she went to grab more firewood while the large man laid down, accepting her offer of first watch.

False dawn was approaching and she knew she should get some rest. She didn't need sleep like a normal person anymore. It had been one of her gifts. All she needed to do was go into a deep meditative trance and stay that way for 3 to 4 hours and get all the rest she would need for the rest of the day. She was beginning to get tired, so went over to the large man to wake him up. She had noticed that he was shivering in his sleep last night so had pulled a blanket from one of her pouches and laid it over him. He was currently snuggled in to it.

She laid a hand on his shoulder and pushed a little while saying, "Zaraki!" He woke with a start and looked around, noticing the false dawn and that he had a blanket over him. "Wake me up in about 3 hours and we'll be good to continue on. The leftover meat is on a pan over the fire heating up. Don't let it burn. The blanket is because you were shivering in your sleep last night. It got pretty cold."

"Why did you let me sleep so long? Only 3 hours? Are you insane? You need more rest then that."

"I don't sleep like you do anymore. Another one of my gifts and one that has actually come in handy in the past." She went over to where she had been keeping watch from and laid down on her back near the fire, but not too close to heat her weapons or armor to unbearable temperatures. Right before she laid on her back, she removed a few throwing axes from the small of her back along with the bow and set them to her side. When he looked at her strangely, she replied, "They hit my tail bone weird when I lay down. The rest has become normal. I actually feel odd when I don't lay down with weapons strapped to my back." She closed her eyes, but her breathing never changed.

Shaking his head at the girl's strangeness, he ate the meat from the pan, and folded the blanket she had lent him. She had left out a jug of water so he drank some of it and washed his face and hands as well. _She thought of everything._ He even gave the pan a quick wash.

After the three hours he put a hand to her shoulder to wake her up and found a knife at his throat. He had barely even caught the motion before it was just there. And as quickly as it had been pressed to his throat, it was removed. "Sorry. Reflex." Was all she said as she got up and put the throwing axes and bow back in their places.

She also collected the pan and when she saw it was clean, put it and the blanket into their respective pouches. She took a nice long drink from the water jug and used the rest on the dying fire before putting the empty jug away.

Zaraki was looking around with an odd look on his face. "Are you lost?" She asked him. He tried to reply with authority, but it only sounded sheepish to her ears when he replied that he wasn't. Erin moved towards where the road was and pointed. He didn't say anything as he just went where she was pointing. When they got to the road, he hesitated, so she just started in the direction they had been traveling in the day before and he quickly took the lead.

* * *

**Thanks for sticking through to the end of the chapter. I do enjoy hearing from you, so don't be afraid to message me even if it's to tell me you think it sucked. I do request that if you hate it, you let me know why. Heh... I always thought Sui Feng's name was spelled Soi Fon... One of the many names for me to look up the correct spelling.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's chapter 2. I hope you like it. As always, reviews and PMs are appreciated.**

* * *

It was around midday when they had passed District 61. Very suddenly they were surrounded by Soul Reapers from the second division. Erin only knew that they were surrounded so went to grab her scimitars. "Don't reach for your weapons, girl. This is the punishment force. I was expecting something like this as we got closer to home."

Erin moved her hands away from her hilts and the petite captain of the second division stepped forward. "Is this the ryoka, Captain Zaraki?"

"Yes."

"Why have you not restrained her? Or removed her weapons?"

"I didn't feel there was a need to. She agreed to come quietly, Captain Feng."

She snapped a finger and several of her squad members came forward to remove the girl's armor and weapons. As they were grabbing at her she said, "You could just ask me."

Sui Feng waved the men away. "Remove your weapons and armor, Ryoka."

Erin kept her eyes on the small captain while she did so. She did, however, keep her pouch with everything else in it tied at her waist as well as keeping her gloves on. Kenpachi noticed that he had only seen her without them on while she was gutting and skinning the raccoon.

When she was down to her linen shirt and pants a long with her boots, a pair of shackles was placed on her hands with a lead chain. Her gear was gathered up and the lead chain was pulled as they began walking towards the 13 court guard. Zaraki stayed near the girl during the trip. They had marched hard and were close to District 48 when Captain Feng called for a halt for the night.

As camp was made for the night, Erin was tied to a tree. They had her sit with her back to the trunk and tied her above her elbows and leaving her lower arms free, tied her at her waist with the knots on the other side of the tree. The way she was tied was effective in that she was unable to get the ropes above her elbows over her head.

"I'm telling you, Captain Feng, you don't need to restrain her like this."

"And did you tell her that execution is a possibility for illegal entry to the Soul Society?" Erin kept her face impassive. Execution was always a possibility. It hadn't happened to her yet, though other worlds had come close a couple times.

"You did tell her!"

"Actually, no I didn't. And the old man won't just execute her. He'll want to know why she's here first."

"And why is she here, Zaraki? Did you ask her that?"

"Yeah. And I think the old man will want to hear it first. Haven't you noticed that I've raised my spiritual pressure to my limit with this eye patch on and the only people who are still conscious are you, me and the girl?"

Sui Feng looked over at the girl who seemed to have no adverse effects from being around Kenpachi, yet, she had no spiritual pressure of her own. She raised her own and for emphasis, he took off his eye patch and let it surge around him. Erin looked at him surprised.

"Are you finally able to feel my spiritual pressure?"

"No. I just didn't know you had an eye under there that worked. Why wear the eye patch?"

The captains both chuckled at her response, though Sui Feng was still very surprised that the girl was still conscious when all of her men were knocked out. They both reined in their pressures and he replaced the eye patch as he explained. She looked at them both dubiously which made Zaraki laugh.

"I'll grant you that she's interesting, Zaraki, but I still think she'll end up executed."

As Sui Feng left to go wake up her men, Zaraki sat down next to Erin, leaning his back up against the same tree she was tied to.

"I tried to get her to untie you from the tree, but she wouldn't listen."

"It's ok. I've been tied up in more awkward and painful positions before. This one isn't that bad in comparison. I'm starting to feel faint, Zaraki."

"A delayed reaction from the spiritual pressure?"

"I keep telling you I have no idea what you're talking about with this spiritual pressure thing."

"Are you tired? We were walking faster than we were yesterday."

"No. I could have run the distance and not be tired. I feel weak and like I'm going to faint."

"Try eating something. Souls with spiritual pressure get hungry and can faint from hunger if they don't eat. Even though you aren't hungry, the effect might be the same. You've effectively not eaten for nearly two days now."

She gave him the look of, 'and how do you propose I eat?' He chuckled and pulled out an orange he had in his pack for travel food. He peeled it and traded off feeding her a slice and eating one himself. He pulled a small bread loaf from the pack and tore off small pieces to feed to her as well. When he was done he took his water skin and tipped it to her mouth to drink what she wanted.

When he had finished feeding her, she gave him her thanks and leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree.

"How do you feel now?"

"It's a little too soon to tell, but I think that's what I needed."

After some time had passed she opened her eyes and turned to the large man. "I'm feeling better. Still a little weak, but not so faint anymore." She looked up to the sky and studied the clouds for a moment. "At least it won't rain tonight. It will be a little cold tonight. Did you want a blanket?"

"What don't you have in those pouches of yours?"

"Indoor plumbing."

He chuckled. "No blanket for you?"

She wiggled her pouch free and started rooting around for the pouch that had bedding in it. "One of the gifts I received was the ability to ignore heat and cold. That's not to say I won't freeze to death or get heat stroke, but the stuff that won't kill me I can ignore." She found the pouch and handed it to him. "I can't hold the pouch and pull out a blanket. The restraints get in the way."

He took the pouch and pulled a blanket from it's depths. It was a large one and after handing her back her pouch, spread it over both of them. "There's no need for you to ignore the cold when there's a blanket right here."

She handed him back the pouch. "Hold on to this for me. It's got my life in it, so please don't lose it. I've had to fight to get that back in the past because it's gotten taken away. Maybe if I have someone specific holding on to it, I won't have to worry once we get to wherever we're going."

"You're trusting me with this?"

"You've trusted me. Besides, you can't be that hard to hunt down if I have to. You look like you would stand out in a crowd." He chuckled and tied the pouch to his belt.

He eventually fell asleep and she eventually found her own rest. In the morning he shook out the blanket, folded it and with some direction, placed it back in the correct pouch. He decided that it was time for him to change into his uniform and captain's jacket as there was no way he could find any fights traveling with such a large number of soul reapers. He went behind the tree Erin was tied to and changed his clothes and put his hair up into spikes with bells attached to the ends. The tree was large and no one was stupid enough to follow the large man to see what he was doing. He had asked Erin if there was a mirror in any of the pouches and she directed him to the correct pouch. He ended up pulling out a tall stand mirror. He found it very helpful in getting his hair in to place.

She had to direct him on how to get the large item back into such a small appearing pouch, but once he learned the trick of just getting a part in the opening and allowing the item to just flow into the bag, he had no problem. He felt bad for the way he had stuffed the blanket into the other pouch.

He stepped out from the back of the tree and into Erin's line of sight. She looked up at him without expression. He noticed that she was always like that. Hard to read. The only time she had really opened up at all was when she admitted she was feeling faint and then later with the blanket.

"You don't give anything away in your expression, do you?" He finally asked.

"I used to. I found it gave me more problems than just leaving my face blank." She saw that the pouch was on his white belt, opposite his sword. "Brown pouch with brown ties has food in it. Blue pouch with blue ties has the water in it. I saw that the orange and the bread were the last bit of food you had in your bag."

He opened the pouch and dug around for the pouches she was referring to. He used one of the water jugs to replenish his water skin and pulled up some items from the brown pouch. There were a lot of canned goods there that required a fire, but he found some cheese, some fruit, bread, and even some beef jerky. "Why do you carry around so much food and then go hunt like you did the other night?"

"The bags all have preserving spells on them, so the food I put in there comes out in the same condition. I like to be prepared and I never know when I'm going to be somewhere that doesn't have game or food I can eat. I've been in so many different worlds that I find that if I can prepare for everything, then maybe I'll finally get to see my family again sooner rather than later."

He went to the back of the tree and undid the knots in the ropes binding her. He helped her loosen the ropes from her arms and handed her some of the food. They ate in companionable silence until Captain Feng strode up to them.

"What the hell do you think you're doing untying the prisoner like that, Captain Zaraki?!"

"She's still wearing the shackles. And I'm making sure she's ready for the day. Turns out that even though she doesn't have spiritual pressure and doesn't get hungry, her body still requires food."

Sui Feng grabbed the end of the lead and dropped it on Zaraki's lap. "If she escapes because of your actions, you will be held responsible."

"If she's my responsibility, then remove the shackles. I'd like to get back today and we aren't going to be able to do that at this snail's pace. I'll carry her on my back and we can just run back. But you keep her hands chained up like this and she won't be able to get her arms over my hair."

"You could have left it down."

"It was only down in the hopes of luring in idiots who didn't know who I am so I could fight them. Even worked once. Kid warned me of an ambush and I got to get my zampakuto wet."

"She probably set up the ambush."

"Considering that she was with me from the moment she fell into the Soul Society until this moment, I find that hard to believe." An angry glint entered his visible eye and Sui Feng decided to leave it be. She unlocked the shackles on the girl and left her with the large captain.

When everyone was ready to leave, Kenpachi crouched down with his back to the girl. "Get on."

"I can run. You don't need to carry me."

"Trust me that you won't be able to keep up and just get on." She grabbed his shoulders and tried squeezing his sides with her knees. He stood up and it caused her to tighten her grasp. "Not so tight." He put his hands under her knees and adjusted them so she wasn't digging in to his ribs and showed her a better spot to hold with her hands. He let Sui Feng take the lead and he followed after her. She gasped at their speed but soon relaxed enough to enjoy the ride.

After a while she leaned in so he could hear her. "You're right. I wouldn't have been able to go this fast." She could see that he smiled, but he said nothing.

The sun was just beginning to go down when they came to the walls surrounding the 13 court guard. They passed through the gate and headed towards the captain's meeting room. Upon entering a hell butterfly was sent to the other captains to tell them to attend the meeting and Kenpachi set Erin down and directed her to kneel in a spot just inside the door to the right.

"Don't speak unless spoken to." He let her know.

She nodded in understanding. "If you end up needing to show them anything in my pouches, feel free to. I trust that you won't use anything in there against me considering that you've been in my corner so far. I would stay away from the black pouch with white ties though. It's the bag I keep my explosives in and unless you know how to use them, I'd just leave them be." He nodded in understanding and took his position.

Other captains filed in and many looked at her curiously before taking their own positions. When everyone was there, the meeting began.

Kenpachi started with how he encountered the ryoka and everything that had transpired up to when Sui Feng arrived. She took over and went over what she had done up to the point Kenpachi had freed the girl and then had her remove the shackles. He explained his reasoning based on what he knew of the girl and also showed that he had been entrusted with the bags of holding. Most of them nodded thoughtfully at this new piece of information.

The head captain turned his attention to Erin who had been silent through everything. "Do you have anything to add, child?"

Erin stood up and moved so that everyone could see her. She stood up on her toes and rolled her ankles so that her weight went from her toes, along the outsides of her feet and rested at her heels. Loud clicks sounded as blades popped out of the toe and heel of both boots.

"I'm sorry for not adding my boots to the pile of weapons and armor when you asked me to remove them, but I really didn't want to walk for who knew how long in just socks. I had every opportunity to escape even after hearing that execution was a possibility and I didn't. While that may sound stupid to do, I like to think I was giving you the opportunity to not do so." She rolled her ankles again so that her weight went from her heels to the insides of her feet and back up to her toes and the blades slid back into the boots. She knelt down and removed her boots, set them on the floor and returned to where she had been kneeling and knelt back down. Kenpachi did his best to suppress a smirk but it still showed through making Sui Feng glare at him.

"Did you know about the boots, Zaraki?" she asked him.

"I did not. I just think it's amusing that she proved that she wasn't going anywhere again."

The head captain banged his staff for silence and got it. "Child, your fate needs more discussion. You will be held in the second division's holding cells until a decision can be reached. I encourage all of you to take time this week to meet with and speak with this young woman and become better informed. This meeting is dismissed."

Erin waited while everyone filed out of the room and the small captain came towards her. She placed shackles on her and led her to the holding cells at Division Two. She showed her to a clean cell with a bed and chair in it. Once inside, the captain had her stick her hands out through the bars and Sui Feng removed the shackles.

"I will send someone with food for you."

"Thank you, Captain Feng." She didn't answer as she walked away.

An hour later a young man came with a tray of food. "I hear you aren't violent?"

"I can be if need calls me to be so. If you mean that I won't attack you for bringing in food, then you are correct. My name is Erin."

He had a nervous demeanor as he replied. "My name is Hanataro. You promise you won't attack me?"

Erin went to the farthest corner of the room, turned to face it and knelt down, put her head to the walls of the corner and her hands behind her back and stayed in that position.

Hanataro cautiously opened the door and entered the cell. He set the tray on the chair that was set near the entrance and as he was about to close the door, Captain Zaraki with Captain Kouraku walked forward.

"You really have done this before, girl." To the squad four member, "It's ok, kid. She wouldn't have harmed you." He let Hanataro leave and lock the door behind him. When she heard the door close she came out of the kneeling position and turned to her visitors.

"He seemed nervous so I wanted to put him at ease." She strode forward and looked at the tray of food and saw that only a pair of chopsticks were there as the eating utensil. She stood there, contemplating the tray with her right hand over the lower half of her face.

"Is there something wrong with the food?" Kouraku asked.

"Hmmm? Oh. No, captain." She turned to Kenpachi. "I hate to ask so soon after giving you my pouches, but I need something from one of them." He looked at her oddly so she picked up the chopsticks and attempted to hold them in her right hand. "I'm right handed and I don't have enough fingers for this." They shot out of her grasp as she tried to make them move. She had to make a quick grab for them which had Kouraku hiding a chuckle behind a hand. "My left hand just doesn't have the right kind of dexterity for these either. The grey bag with grey ties has all of my cooking items. I need a fork."

He gave her a half smile as he went through the pouches to find the right one.

"Be careful when you reach in. The cooking knives don't always go back in hilt down. You'll be looking for a wooden box." She cautioned.

He nodded and felt around gingerly for the box she was talking about. She had made gestures to the size and when he thought he found it, he pulled it out. When he opened the box, he saw it was filled with knives, spoons and forks. He pulled out one of the forks for her and she traded him the chopsticks for it.

While she ate, they spoke to her. Kouraku wanted to know more about the pouches and where they came from. She explained as well as she could. It wasn't like she could point to a map, so explaining was probably more vague then he would have liked. She apologized for the lack of information and he went on to asking what was in the pouches and how she knew which bag held what without looking.

"Feel free to empty them out and go through whatever is in there. I would warn you about two things though. First, if you're going to empty them, do it one bag at a time and in a large open space. Second, stay away from the black bag with white ties. I keep explosives in that one and unless you know what you're doing, it's best to leave it alone. They are all stable, but some need less encouragement then others to explode. As to how I remember what is which bag, practice mostly. I tried to choose things that made sense to me. The black bag with black ties is just weapons. The black bag with red ties are guns, and the black bag with blue ties holds armor. I tried to keep like items in the same colored bags. I was lucky in color selection because I had commissioned them from a wizard that was hard up for some gold. They were apparently easy enough to make. He explained how he did it, but he really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me."

They chatted for a while and when they got up to go, she stopped Kenpachi. "I have a couple more requests as there isn't a whole lot to do in here. I would like a couple items from the yellow bag with yellow ties, namely the journal in progress, a blank journal, my sketch pad, and a pen or two as well as my MP3 player and solar battery from the red bag with red ties. I understand if you have to get permission first."

"I don't see why not, Zaraki. They seem like reasonable requests." Shunsui replied.

The large man nodded and pulled out the requested items, though she had to pull out the MP3 player and solar battery herself as he didn't know what they looked like. He asked what it was and she checked the battery. It had enough juice so she found a song he might like, checked the volume so she wasn't going to blow out his ears and handed him the one of the ear buds. Shunsui grabbed the other and they listened for a while.

"So it's just a music player?" Shunsui asked.

"Yeah. The quiet can get to me sometimes, so it's nice to have something I can use as back ground noise."

"Oh? Why don't you like the quiet?" The squad 8 captain asked.

"I have been in a lot of cells since this journey of mine started. Let's just say, this is one of the nicest I've been in and leave it at that for now."

Shunsui was a little surprised that of all his questions, this was the only one she had evaded. He nodded to her thoughtfully and left with Zaraki.

Shortly after they left, Hanataro came back to pick up the tray. Erin went to move back to the position she had taken when he brought it in, but he stopped her, telling her it wasn't necessary. He collected the tray and when he left, Erin popped the ear buds in her ears, turned the player on and started writing in the partially complete journal. There was a lot she needed to get down from the last place she had been and bring it as up to date as possible. She wrote long into the night and when the battery went, she hooked it up to the solar battery. She would have to wait until morning for it to start being able to charge. She decided that it was a good time to rest so she laid down and did so.

When she became conscious again she saw that clothing had been left for her as well as something to eat. She was grateful for the change of clothing and noticed that it was actually her own clothing that had been left. _I guess Captain Zaraki is starting to get the hang of the bags of holding. I could really use a bath though._

She ate the food and thought about getting in some exercise before changing her clothes. She decided that was for the best and started with pushups. She was getting ready to switch over to crunches when a pair of female soul reapers came up to the bars.

"We are here to take you to the bath house we use for the holding cells. Please put your hands through the bars so that we can restrain you."

_Looks like this is going to be common place now. If only they knew that I could just dislocate my thumb and slip out of those shackles, would they still make me wear them?_ She did as she was asked and the shackles were placed on her wrists. She withdrew her arms from the bar openings and collected the clothing that had been left for her. Even sandals had been left for her. He must have been trying to find something he could be sure wouldn't hold a weapon like her boots.

When she had the clothing in her arms, the door was opened and she was led to another room. It was a very small bath house without any windows. When she entered the room, she set the clothing on a nearby surface and held her hands through the bars to be unshackled. She was and she withdrew her arms again.

"There is a curtain on your side of the door for privacy." Erin nodded and looked to where the soul reaper was pointing and pulled the curtain closed.

She stripped down and entered the hot water. The bath must have already been drawn before she was fetched. There were various cleaning products nearby and she enjoyed the minor luxury. She soaked for a little while and then started scrubbing. She bathed whenever she got the chance, but doing as she had done when traveling with Captain Zaraki only did so much. When she finally got out of the water, she pulled the plug on the drain and found a towel. When she was dry enough, pulled on the clean clothing. He had even supplied clean gloves for her. She was happy about this. She didn't have a problem with the way her hands looked, but it seemed to put people at ease around her when they couldn't see the scars over the sockets of her missing fingers. Seeing that clean underwear had been left for her made her blush thinking that the large man had been going through her underwear. _I suppose it can't be helped. I did tell him he could go through any of the pouches and he is a guy. And clean underwear feels nice._

She gathered up the dirty clothing and set it aside. She opened the curtain and stuck her arms through the bars. As before, she was shackled and when she withdrew her arms, she picked up the dirty clothing and waited for the door to open. When she was walked back to her cell, there was another captain there. He was slight of build and had metal in his hair. The process of the shackles was repeated and she set the dirty clothing in a corner, not quite sure what to do with it.

"Hello Captain. I apologize, I did not catch your name."

"You may call me Captain Kuchki."

"It's nice to meet you, Captain Kuchki." He was not sitting in the chair nearby on his side of the bars, so she stood also.

He stared at her for a little while. His eyes rested on her hands. "Why are your hands covered?"

She explained about the scars over the sockets being off-putting to many people, so just kept them covered. It felt weird having only one hand gloved, so wore both.

"I would like to see your hands."

She removed the gloves and tucked them into the waist of her pants. She stepped closer to the bars and put her hands through so he could see them better. He looked at them, but did not touch them. He noticed the many cut scars over her left hand and surmised that they were likely from learning to sword fight with her off hand. There had been a meeting that morning with what Shunsui had learned about the girl so knew that she was right handed.

The sockets were a little appalling, but he saw that the fingers were removed by a surgeon. He could tell that much at least as the scarring around them was pretty precise. He also noticed numerous round scars all over that hand. They appeared at the middle of the bone and again at the joint. _What could have caused this?_ He mused. He directed her to flip her hands over. They were very smooth and he wondered at her sword handling ability without even the smallest of swordsman callouses. The right hand had those round scars again on the palms and fingers. They were all in the same places.

"You are a swordsman?"

"Yes. I am a weapons master. I have trained with all manner of weapons and am considered an expert in each of them."

"Your hands are smooth." He thought he had caught her in a lie.

"Cut me. It doesn't have to be a large cut, but you need to make me bleed. It will make sense once you do so."

He only had his zampakuto, so he drew it and used the edge to knick her on her finger. Blood welled up from the cut and he could see the edges of the minor wound.

"Watch closely. Don't blink." She wiped the blood away and he watched as the sides of the wound knit themselves back together. It wasn't long before the finger just had a smudge of blood on it, but no wound. "Larger wounds take longer, but it's been around 600 years since I've had any new scars. My hands heal too quickly to acquire callouses. It's another good reason to wear the gloves. Just because I heal quickly, doesn't mean that tears in my skin don't still hurt." She withdrew her hands from the bars.

"To what extent can you heal yourself?"

"I've never really tested it's limits. I don't think I can reattach my limbs and I'm pretty sure a thrust through my heart would probably kill me. I have taken thrusts through my lungs before. They leave me pretty weak afterward and it takes a longer time to heal from them, but I can survive them."

He nodded thoughtfully. "How did you come by this injury?" He gestured to her right hand.

"If I sound disrespectful, I'm sorry, but I don't know you well enough to talk about that. There are a few episodes of my life that, to be honest, I would be happy to never have to think about them again. The way my hand became as it is, is one of those episodes."

She pulled her gloves back on. They were a thin leather, unlike the pair she had been wearing before. These were also leather but had padded palms.

His eyes widened a bit but realized it must have been very traumatic for her to evade the question in such a blunt manner. He nodded to her and left without even a backward glance.

Sometime after lunch a shorter man with white hair came to visit. She could tell by his white jacket that he was a captain. He looked very young, but she knew from long experience that age could mean very little when it came to skill. He must be very skilled to have become a captain while so young.

"Good afternoon Captain."

"I am Captain Hitsuguya. The head captain said that we should all visit with you and make our own decisions about you." She had been sitting when he arrived and had stood up as he approached. He made a sit down gesture as he brought over the chair on his side of the bars and sat down. She still waited for him to sit before returning to her chair. She had been making some sketches, trying to get some of the people she had come to know in the last world she had been in on paper so she could, when she finally got home, frame them and hang them so that she could look back fondly on her companions she'd had over the years.

"It's nice to meet you, Captain Hitsuguya." She replied companionably.

"You are sketching?"

"Yes." She showed him what she had been sketching. It was the bust of a man with light colored hair that was wavy and long. He would have been the poster boy for some underwear company back home except for the pair of large horns sticking up from his forehead. "This is Dra'jokain Serv'ikran. When we were on a battlefield, we would often end up back to back. He liked to tease me about not having horns, and he always would ask me after a fight if there were any chips in them. Very vain, that one."

"What is he?"

"The best translation would probably be demon. His people weren't evil. Just about everyone had horns there. Only the very young did not, so it was very odd that as an adult, I did not have any. He would joke that I must still be a child because I was so short. His people easily topped 7 feet tall. It was very annoying to be surrounded with so many tall beings."

"What were you there for?"

"I guess a long time ago there were these two gems. One of the sun and one of the moon. They were very large and very powerful. Many battles had been fought using these gems. Whole cities would be destroyed in a matter of moments. Over time when the population had become so decimated, wise men came together and shattered both gems. The gems, if ever put back together again, would be just as destructive as they ever were. The remaining cities at the time were each given a piece of each gem to safeguard against anyone ever reassembling them.

"I was there, because someone was doing just that. Dra'jokain's family had been entrusted with the 2 pieces his city had and rumors abounded about someone collecting all the pieces of the moon and sun gems. In the end, it was only the pieces he had that kept the gems from being completed. Armies were raised and battlefields were drenched. The battle I had come from when I met Captain Zaraki was the last one. The gems were recovered and shattered once again. He told me that he planned on dropping a few pieces in the ocean so that they could never be recovered. He had just told me that when I was sucked into a portal and ended up here." She set the sketch pad down on the ground.

"I understand that you can control the elements to some degree. Can you show me?"

"It's a little bit difficult here, but I'll see what I can do." She stood up and went to one of the metal bars and ran a finger over it. Satisfied that it would respond, she placed her hands on it and closed her eyes. The change was slow. Toshiro watched as the metal changed. Scales began to form and while the bottom narrowed, the top thickened. It was several minutes later when Erin slumped to the floor, panting as though she had just had the work out of her life. Between them was a long serpentine dragon complete with bearded ruff, long mustaches and short stubby legs. The bar was no longer straight but had long lazy waves in it.

Toshiro opened the cell and helped the girl to the bed. "Go ahead and rest. I won't keep you any longer." As the words left his lips, he saw that she had become unconscious. _Must have passed out. _He left the cell and closed it behind him. He marveled at the dragon for a little longer and then left. While she rested, several of the captains came by to look at the metal bar she had changed. They did not disturb the resting girl.

She woke up several hours later. _Must have passed out. His eyes reminded me so much of Gelios I just had to recreate him. There is someone else on this bed…._ As she came to realize there was weight at the end of the bed, she exploded into movement. She grabbed the head board and used a hand to summersault over the end to get something in between her and whoever it was. She was at a ready stance when she saw who it was.

* * *

**So, what do you think? It's hard to keep all of Tite Kubo's characters in character, all the time. So sorry if they seem a little OOC every now and then. Please review. **


	3. Chapter 3

**No reviews yet and no PM's. I hope you're enjoying reading as much as I'm enjoying writing. It gives me something to do during my lunch break besides eat. I'm sorry for any spelling errors, especially with names. I try to look them up so that I have the right spellings, but the wifi at work is hit or miss.**

* * *

"Captain Zaraki, you surprised me." She kept the bed between them. He was just sitting at the foot of the bed with his back against the wall. She stayed alert. Men who she had found to be nice while she was armed had become all hands when she was disarmed and in a cell.

"I didn't think you slept like that." He replied.

"If I'm knocked unconscious or faint or otherwise pass out, I don't really have a choice on the matter."

"Hmph. You have the other captains in a stir over that." He pointed to the bar she had changed. "I don't think I've had so many captains come talk to me in one year, let alone one day. Had to come see for myself. When I saw you were asleep, I didn't want to wait for you to wake up on that hard chair out there, so I came in here. You didn't even twitch in your sleep when I sat down."

She walked around the bed and sat at the head of the bed with her back against the wall. "Why did you want to speak with me?"

"To find out why you did it. What you did with the water was a lot smaller than that and it drained you too."

"When we had stopped for the night I had already been up for the previous day and night with little food in that time. That last battle was a big one. When I came here I was already pretty tired, I just didn't really want to show it in front of someone who might have been my enemy. Since then I've had plenty of rest and food so I had the extra energy to use."

"Did you know that Hitsuguya's zampakuto takes on the form of a dragon when you did that?"

"His what takes on the form of a dragon? I did that because his eyes reminded me of a dragon I knew a couple hundred years ago. Exact same shade."

"Zampakuto. His sword."

"Ummmm, I have no clue what you're talking about. A sword is a sword. It doesn't just change shape."

"If it wasn't set up so that only captains can meet with you, I'd send in my third seat to show you."

"Show me what? You're not making a whole lot of sense, Captain Zaraki."

"I told you before. Just Zaraki. Had I wanted you being so formal I would have told you to call me Captain Zaraki."

She nodded. "Well, thank you for getting me a change of clothes, Zaraki."

"That wasn't me. Shunsui wanted to take a look at your bags of holding last night so we went through a couple of them and he came across one of them carrying clothing. We found the others with that same color as that seems to be how you sort your items and he insisted on taking them to the forth division. That kid who brings you your meals is from forth squad. He's the one that brought you the change of clothing. He was also told not to send chopsticks with your meals. That's why there's been forks each time."

"Oh. When I see him next, I'll have to be sure to thank him; Captain Kyoraku too."

"Why did you react that way when you woke up?"

"You get all types that visit cells. Didn't know which kind you were at first."

"What do you mean?"

"Some people are the same whether you're armed or not and others think that just because you're in a cell they can do whatever they want. I've had to disabuse people of that notion in the past." He looked at her with a mild bit of concern showing in his eye. "Not here. At least not yet."

After a little while he left, closing the cell behind him. He knew it wasn't necessary, but also know that Sui Feng would kill him, or at least try to, if he left it open.

It wasn't long after that when Hanataro came by with dinner. She thanked him for the clothing and ate when he left.

* * *

The next morning at the captain's meeting.

Kenpachi listened as Kuchki related his morning meeting with the girl. He hadn't really had a chance to look at the girl's hands but his description of the scarring on her hand made him wonder what had caused it. He was a little surprised that the fingers had been removed surgically and was even more surprised when Kuchki revealed that she healed very quickly.

He thought back to when they had first met and he had asked if any of the blood was hers. She had replied that some of it might be, but that she didn't need to see to any wounds. He had brushed it off because he didn't overly care and wanted to get back. When she had removed her armor that night he saw that she was fine so assumed that maybe she had already seen to any wounds she had, not that any wounds she may have received on the battlefield had already healed.

He was starting to put the pieces together. She didn't like silence in cells and the round scars on her hand. He eventually spoke up. "I think she may have been tortured one of the times she was imprisoned."

Everyone turned to him in surprise. He explained his reasoning and then mentioned that she always wore long sleeved shirts and long pants with socks and shoes. She couldn't hide her hand, so just put it in a glove.

"Have you found anything in her bags of holding that back this up, Zaraki?" Komomora asked.

"No. Not yet, but she has journals. Maybe something is in there?"

Several of the other captains looked appalled at this idea. "That would be worse than going through her underwear, Zaraki." Sui Feng finally replied.

Unahana put a hand to her mouth and chuckled. "I believe I already have a squad member doing that when he brings her clean clothing in the morning."

Shunsui grinned. "So what kind of underwear does she wear?"

Toshiro elbowed the man in the gut.

"Enough!" Yamamoto called out, banging his cane on the ground for attention. When he received it he turned his attention to Toshiro. "Captain Hitsuguya, what of your meeting with the girl?"

Toshiro explained what had happened, her story of where she had just come from, the sketch she was drawing and his request for her to demonstrate her elemental ability.

"And she was completely wiped out after the demonstration?" Unahana asked.

"Yes. As soon as I helped her to her bed, she passed out."

Kenpachi was lost in thought. He thought he remembered seeing sketch pads in the same bag she had him pull out the journals. What bag was that again? Maybe Shunsui would remember.

When the meeting ended, he called the man over and Jushiro followed. Kenpachi nodded companionably to the white haired man. He never had a problem with him. "Hey, do you remember which bag the journals and sketch pads were in?"

"You aren't going to read her journals, are you?" Jushiro admonished.

"No. I wanted to see the sketches. I don't know, outside of the journals it's the only place I can think that she might have documented being tortured."

"You could just ask her." Shunsui replied.

Jushiro shook his head. "How do you go about asking someone something like that? If Zaraki is right, then what she said to Kuchki suggests that she doesn't want to talk about it. Besides, who are we to pry?"

"The fewer secrets she has, the more likely the head captain will release her." Zaraki replied.

"Why does that matter to you?" Ukataki asked.

"I wanna know if her immunity to spiritual pressure means she can cut me. And if she can cut me, then I want to fight her."

Shunsui rolled his eyes. It always came back to fighting with this man. "The bag was yellow."

He immediately opened the main bag and began looking for yellow bags. There was only the one. He started pulling out books. Most were the journals but he found a few of the sketchbooks. Shunsui and Jushiro stayed and looked through the sketchbooks as he pulled them out. Some images were landscapes, some were architecture, but most were people. The people were as diverse as it was possible to be but none of the sketchbooks so far had anything that Kenpachi had been hoping to find. It was the last handful of books from the bag and he was already surrounded by piles and piles of journals.

It was in this handful that there was a lone sketchbook. It looked older than many of the rest and while the rest looked well taken care of, this one did not. The cover was bent and many of the pages were loosening. He set the journals in his hand aside and flipped open the sketchpad. The image that assaulted him was the only confirmation he needed for her torture. The image was in chalks and charcoal. It showed her tied to a chair and a man punching her in the face and blood spray in the air. The man was dressed in what looked like a metal armor and Erin looked thicker. She had mentioned that she had been overweight at one time, this might have been back then. Was this Camelot? Was this what she had not said? He flipped the page and she was naked, hands tied behind her back and a man was behind her with many more waiting their turn. The image made him sick.

He flipped the page and now she was on a table with another man holding a heated iron over her and marks all over her body. The next few pages showed a progression of markings and always her face in a tortured scream. One of the last with her on the table showed a spiked device being placed around her hand. It looked like a book but instead of pages, it had spikes on either side of the inside covers. The next page showed it shut over her hand and blood pooling over the table and onto the floor.

There were images of her in cells getting skinny to the point of bones being visible under the skin and drinking the blood of what looked like a rat. The last pages showed her being whipped. The clothing the people were wearing looked different from the place with the table. He handed it to Shunsui. He gasped at a few of the images and tears fell from his eyes while looking at others. You could tell he didn't want to continue looking through the book, but couldn't stop.

Kenpachi busied himself with putting the other books back into the bag. When everything was back in place and the other men had looked through the sketchbook, Zaraki took it from them and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"I want to ask her about this book."

"What does it matter now? You can't do anything about it." Shunsui asked quietly.

"I want to know the truth."

When Kenpachi left the room, Jushiro turned to Shunsui and said, "I think he's beginning to like her. Otherwise he wouldn't care if she had been tortured."

"I think you might be right. Think he has any clue?"

"Nope."

* * *

Kenpachi made his way to the division 2 holding cells, sketchbook in hand. As he walked, he thought about what Shunsui had said. _Why do I want to know so bad? I've only known her for a few days, so what's the deal?_ He didn't know the answer, so just shook the thoughts away.

He had just entered the holding cell area of the division 2 compound and he could hear voices. One of them sounded pretty angry. Was that Korusutchi?

"Unhand me!" A male indignant voice cried. "Oww! Do you know who I am?"

"I'd like to think that if I was to be given any kind of injection, I would be told about it first."

He rounded a corner and took in what was going on. Korusutchi's left arm was being held behind his back by Erin and her right arm was around his neck in a partial headlock. He was scratching at her arm leaving gouges that bled and healed over and over.

Kenpachi decided to step out so that he could be seen.

"Zaraki! Get this mongrel to unhand me!"

"What's in the syringe, Korusutchi?"

"Nothing! It's none of your business!"

The two men watched as the syringe floated up and started moving towards the painted man. As it came into his reach, he started to grasp at it. Erin unwrapped her arm from his neck and grabbed his other arm and pulled it behind his back painfully as she was using the bar behind him as leverage.

Sweat beaded on her forehead as tip of the needle pressed against the painted man's neck. "How about I just inject you with it if it's so harmless?"

Kenpachi watched as Korusutchi's eyes widened in fear. Erin looked like she was losing strength. "How about I take that and I'll show it to the head captain, Erin." He reached out and took the syringe. It fell into his hands easily. He grabbed the captain by his neck and Erin release her hold. He escorted the protesting man from the building and stood at the door until he stormed off.

"You'll pay for that, Zaraki!" He called over his shoulder as he left.

When he was sure the 12th squad captain was going to stay gone, he returned to the girl's holding cell. She was wearing jeans, a tank top and a long sleeved shirt over it, but it wasn't buttoned at all. The sleeve for her right arm was a little torn and pretty bloody. He didn't say anything, just went to the small bathhouse he knew wouldn't be far, wet a hand towel and came back to the cell.

As he walked up, her sun darkened face paled visibly and she just turned and walked away from him.

"What's wrong, girl?"

"If you've come here to ask me about that sketch pad you have tucked into your shirt, then you can leave. I have no interest in ever seeing that book again. Please burn it."

"What is it?"

"An attempt at self-therapy. Please leave."

He set the book down on the chair and then decided to take his captain's jacket and drape it over the book so that it couldn't be seen.

He then opened the cell and strode over to her, grabbed her by the arm and pushed up her sleeve to start cleaning the blood off of her arm.

_His grip is like steel! And he took off that white jacket thing. Why?_ She turned her head and saw the chair outside the cell. _Oh._ She turned her steel colored eyes back to the large man in front of her.

"Um… Thanks, Zaraki."

He finished scrubbing her arm and released it without looking at the scars he knew she had on the underside of her arm. "Did you want a change of shirt?"

"No need. I've been covered in my own blood before. It's nothing new."

"You were able to lift the syringe."

"Yeah. I was more lifting the fluid in the syringe then the syringe itself. After yesterday, that was very difficult to do."

"I noticed. So what happened?" He directed her to sit on the bed and he sat down in the chair that was the only other furnishing in the cell.

"I had just come from the bath and I saw that there was a captain waiting for me. I was lead back into the cell and when my escort left he asked me to come closer. I did and when I got close he reached in and grabbed my arm and was trying to inject me with that syringe. I knocked it out of his hands and grabbed his arm and brought it up behind him while twisting him around. I had just got my arm around his neck when I heard you coming down the hall. You saw the rest. What was he trying to inject me with?"

Zaraki held out the syringe. The fluid inside was a dark orange. "I don't know, but I know who can find out." He tucked the syringe away. "I did come to ask you about the sketchpad." Her face became stony at these words. "But I guess I really don't need to. Shunsui was right. I'll let Captain Feng know about Kurosutchi." He got up and left, flustered, but not really understanding why. He collected the sketchpad and his jacket on his way out.

He spoke with some of Feng's seated officers and told them to relay his message to their captain about Kurosutchi and then headed to the squad 4 hospital where he knew he'd find Unahana. It was several hours later and many wrong turns before he found the hospital and Unahana. He explained what he saw and handed her the syringe.

"I will get this tested, Zaraki. What do you have tucked into your shirt?"

"Oh. It's one of the kid's sketchbooks. It's proof she was tortured. I went to ask her about it, but she was pretty adamant that I leave if that was what I was there for."

"I'll have Hanataro take her a new shirt. She shouldn't have to spend the day in a bloody shirt. I'll have the results of what's in the syringe by the meeting tomorrow morning."

He nodded to her and left to his own division.

* * *

That evening Captain Komomora stopped in and they chatted. He found her to be pleasant but straight forward. She didn't give a lot away without a direct question. Later Sui Feng came in and they pretty much sat in silence for a long time.

Eventually Feng spoke up. "I wouldn't have made you walk here in your socks."

"Good to know. I noticed that your subordinates don't shackle me anymore to take me to the bath house."

Feng looked over to the dragon shaped bar. "You keep trying to prove that we don't need to restrain you and that it's pointless to try to. Why is that?"

"I should stay here all meek and not let you know that your precautions aren't necessary? Besides, I'm not fond of restraints or cells. If I can get you to understand that sooner, rather than later, then it's all for the best, in my opinion."

"You could leave here at any time, couldn't you?"

"Not today. Today I need to rest. Maybe tomorrow." Erin flashed one of her rare smiles to show she didn't mean the words.

Sui Feng did not smile back. "I will be on my guard then. I heard what happened with Kurosutchi. It will be brought up at the meeting tomorrow morning. Is there anything you want to say in your defense now?"

"No. Captain Zaraki took the syringe to someone to get it tested. It's unfortunate that he came in before I broke his arms and injected him with whatever was in that syringe. I do not appreciate his kind."

"He has his uses. I will see that he is not allowed back in these cells. My subordinates have been notified to come to me immediately should he walk into division 2 at all."

"I appreciate that, Captain Feng."

"Zaraki has been here a lot to see you. What was he here for this morning?"

"He wanted to ask me about one of my sketchbooks. I'm sure it will also find it's way into your meeting tomorrow. After it is shown around, please see that it gets burned. I really never want to see it again or even talk about it."

"I will see to it if it does not need to be kept around for any reason."

Erin nodded her appreciation and Feng left soon after.

* * *

The next morning at the Captain's Meeting.

"Furthermore, I want that mongrel to be delivered to me for experimentation!" Myori exclaimed.

"I received this syringe from Captain Zaraki that he picked up from the holding cell were Erin is staying." Unahana cut in.

"He probably planted it there and any contents just to make me look bad!"

"You do a good job of that on your own." Shunsui retorted.

"Not to imply anything negative about Captain Zaraki, but the contents of this syringe are far too sophisticated for him to have created it. I found micro sensors and some kind of neural impulse toxin. It's ultimate use is unknown to me as I have never encountered it's like."

"Captain Kurosutchi. Please explain." Yamamoto said. Myori tried to get around explaining but Yamamoto demanded an answer from the painted man.

"I was trying to make her more manageable."

"You were trying to experiment on her." Jushiro accused.

"She would have been more accommodating towards it."

Zaraki growled deep in his throat as many of the other captains cast looks of disgust at the scientist.

"Captain Kurosutchi, you are to refrain from coming near the girl without supervision. Should she approach you then that is another matter. Is there anything else to discuss?"

"I found this in her stuff." He passed the notebook to the head captain and after he looked through it, it was passed around.

"I found her to be pleasant. It's hard to imagine that something like that happened to her." Komomora responded after looking through the sketchpad. When it came back to Zaraki, he went to tuck it back into his shirt to put back with her things, but Sui Feng stopped him.

"She asked that the sketchpad be burned. She has no interest in ever seeing it or speaking about it ever again and I can see why now. Does it need to be kept for anything?" The head captain shook his head. Kuchki raised his hand, spoke a kido and the paper went up in flames.

Kenpachi cursed and dropped the book before the flames could burn his fingertips.

"Captains Ukitake and Unohana. You are the only two who have not seen the girl privately besides myself. Do you intend to?" They both shook their heads. "Then let's discuss her fate."

After a half hour, the general consensus was to let the girl free but with restrictions. She needed to have a captain with her at all times minus sleeping and bathroom functions. This job eventually fell to Kenpachi. He was the only captain that didn't really have other duties and because his lieutenant slept at his captain's quarters, the lieutenant's quarters were empty and available, solving the problem of where to house her as they couldn't put her in one of the empty captain's quarters as there was no captain to supervise her. While 13th squad's lieutenant's quarters were currently free, with Jushiro often being sick, there was no way he could watch her. Shunsui offered to share his quarters but was quickly denied.

Toshiro eventually pointed out that they really didn't know the extent of her abilities and suggested a demonstration. She had claimed to be a weapons master, so why not prove it? The notion went around and it was decided that she would fight many of the captains and lieutenants to get a feel for her ability. They would only be allowed to use up to shikai and she could only use a single weapon type during their fight. They had Zaraki pull out the weapons she had and they went over them. They decided to add in an "empty weapon" slot so she could show them if she knew any martial arts as well.

* * *

That evening, Retsu visited the ryoka with the clothing pouches in her hands. Erin had her back pressed to the bars with her arms hooked through them and slightly lifted in the air. She was using the leverage to lift her legs and lower them as she exercised her abdominal muscles. Her ear buds were in her ears so did not hear the captain approach. At Retsu's touch, Erin paused with legs lifted and glanced over her shoulder to see who it was. When she saw the captain's coat, she quickly dropped to the floor and removed the ear buds.

"Sorry, you caught me off guard, captain."

"No need to worry, Erin. I came by to inform you that we are requesting a demonstration of your fighting abilities tomorrow. I've brought your clothing so that you can dress appropriately. Please make sure to get plenty of rest." Retsu handed the bags over to Erin and left with a smile on her face.

Erin replied to the captain's long gone back, "This will be interesting."

She went through the clothes and found the clothing type that she usually trained with. No point in hiding the scarring anymore after they saw the sketchpad. She pulled out a black tank top, loose black pants, socks and a pair of old Adidas Sambas. Several of the worlds she had been in were Earth alternates so was able to find plenty of familiar items. She also pulled out appropriate underwear along with a set of padded leather gloves that she preferred when fighting. She set the clothing aside and continued her exercise regimen. That night she gave herself 4 hours of rest rather than her normal 3 to ensure she would be well rested as the captain had suggested.

* * *

**Please let me know what you think.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's chapter 4. I really wish I had some reviews by now. If you've stayed with me this long, thank you, and I hope you enjoy the story.**

* * *

The morning bath went as normal and afterwards was directed out to a courtyard. She recognized most of the captains that had come and visited her and only didn't know the names of the 3 that had not. There were several people there that she did not recognize. None of them were wearing the white jackets but they did each have an arm band. Her eyes eventually fell on Zaraki and the odd pink haired child sitting on his lap. _What is a child doing here? Do they start them young here?_

She was brought over to the center of the courtyard by the 2 division two subordinates and then they left. She still didn't know their names but didn't feel too bad about it. There was some murmuring and she assumed they were talking about the scars that were visible along her arms and what was visible of her back.

"You have been asked to give a demonstration of your fighting abilities. You will be fighting up to 13 of our top people. Some of them are captains and some are lieutenants. There are 12 weapon choices. We would also like to see your hand to hand abilities. Lieutenant Omaeda, step forward as the first opponent." Yamamoto called out.

A large man walked to the center of the courtyard in a cocky manner. He was much taller than Erin and perhaps he felt that because he had more spiritual pressure then her, that she was of no consequence. Erin immediately disliked the man.

"Choose your weapon, child." The head captain said kindly.

Erin looked over the weapons available. Her eyes fell on something she hadn't been expecting to be classified as a weapon. She began laughing wildly and eventually the old man asked, "What is it, child?"

Erin held up a yo-yo. "Sorry, Head Captain. This is a child's toy from China and later there are records of it in Greece. While I have used this as a weapon in the past, this is really a child's toy." She picked it up, wound it up and placed the middle finger of her left hand through the loop and began playing with the toy. It wasn't a standard plastic Duncan. Instead, it was made of metal. She had found it during her travels and had actually used it as a weapon at the shop it came from. Some thieves were trying to rob the place and she had used it to knock the men unconscious. The shop keeper had given it to her in gratitude.

"We can find a different weapon while you use something else in this fight."

"No. It's ok. I've actually gotten pretty good with this yo-yo. I have no problems using it in this fight." She caused the metal end to pause at the bottom and spin for a while before giving the tug with her hand to bring it back up.

Omaeda stepped towards her, expecting this to be a short fight. He didn't even feel the need to use his shikai. He swiped down and Erin's hand shot out, flinging the yo-yo at the man's head. It fell short, and she snapped it back into her palm. He tried to do an upward slash and she rolled to the side, and flung the yo-yo at the man's leg. When it wrapped, she pulled, causing the man to become unbalanced and fall forward into a split. As he tried to windmill and get out of it, Erin tugged the weapon free and did a "round the world" movement over her head and nailed him in the head. She was careful to not hit him in the temple which would have killed him, but did manage to knock him out.

"Do I need to make this a killing move, or is knocking him unconscious enough?" Erin looked around, asking anyone who knew the answer.

The fourth squad captain and her lieutenant pulled the unconscious man to the sidelines to see to any injuries other than to his pride. The captain called over her shoulder, "Oh, no. That's enough. Don't give me more work then you need to." She smiled and Erin got the feeling that her smile was misplaced. She shrugged it off and replaced the yo-yo with the other weapons and waited for the next opponent.

Kenpachi watched the fight with a critical eye. The squad 2 lieutenant was a waste of space. He was only in the group fighting the kid because if his family found out he wasn't chosen for this demonstration, the old man would have hell to pay. He liked that she had taken him out so easily with a child's toy. Maybe it would take his ego down a few pegs.

"Leutenant Iba. Step forward."

Another tall man strode forward; this one wearing sunglasses. _Maybe he has sensitive eyes?_ Erin shrugged and went back to the table with the weapon choices. She grabbed the set of daggers. They were a little large for daggers with their blades both being about 10 inches long. They had a simple symmetrical shape to them and both edges were sharpened. She strode towards the man in front of her with the left dagger in a reverse grip and the right in a normal grip. She stopped several paces from the man and took a stance, waiting for him to make the first move.

He shot forward with amazing speed and made a swipe at Erin's side as he passed. She only just blocked the hit as she spun around to face her opponent who was already swinging his blade down. She caught the blade on her left hand's dagger and slashed his upper, inner arm with the dagger in her right hand.

Retsu was watching the fight and looked around at the faces around her. No one had caught the significance of that hit. She watched as Erin worked to stay inside of Iba's reach and the lieutenant did his best to keep her at a distance so he could attack.

Erin made several more slash attacks on Iba and eventually even scored another hit to the other upper inner arm. It was a few minutes later when she finally maneuvered the right hand dagger to Iba's throat while using her left hand to push his sword out wide.

"I believe you are dead, Lieutenant." Unohana called out. The head captain grunted his agreement and called Lieutenant Kira to the center of the courtyard.

The slight blonde man strode forward. He had noticed that neither of the lieutenants had used shikai. He would do that as soon as the fight started.

Erin looked at the young man before her. He had the look of resolve in his eyes. _Maybe this fight will be interesting._ She looked over the weapons available. _Hmmm….. These fights have been getting a little harder with each fight. Do I go hand to hand and get it over with or do I get the great sword out of the way? I wish they had chosen a different weapon. With my hand the way it is, this is not going to be the easiest weapon to control._ She picked up the large weapon. It was only a little shorter then herself and was very wide for a sword. The lower hilt was very long and there was a second hilt towards the base of the blade. You could either keep both hands low if you were powerful enough, but you gave up control. For someone like her, she needed to have one hand on the hilt cut out in the base of the blade as well as one on the lower hilt.

She hefted the weapon and gave it a few practice swings, getting a feel for the weapon she used so rarely. She decided that she needed to be the one to start this fight. As she strode to the blonde man, he called out, "Raise your head, Wabisuke!" Erin was a little stunned when the weapon changed shapes. She shook off the feeling and immediately swung the great sword at the lieutenant. She knew that the trick of this weapon was going to be to keep it moving.

He took a step back and smacked the large weapon as it passed. Erin immediately noticed a change in weight and she struggled to keep the weapon in her hands against the centripetal force she was creating.

"Such a bulky weapon to use against Wabisuke. Every time it cuts your weapon, it will double in weight until you-"

She cut off his little speech as the second pass cleaved through his zampakuto and the extra weight was lifted from the blade. She altered the path of the great sword and thrust it towards his neck, stopping short. "A great sword was designed to cleave through plate armor. By adding still more weight to it, your sword never had a chance."

Kira bowed and retrieved the other half of his sword and stepped to the sidelines. She moved back to the weapons to replace the great sword and see who she would be fighting next.

_The kid's not bad. I wasn't expecting her to be able to use that sword like that. It looked way too big for her. I wonder if her immunity to spiritual pressure is what allowed her to cut through his blade like that._ Kenpachi mused while watching the latest match.

"Lieutenant Hisagi. You are next." Boomed the head captain.

A young man with a tattoo of the number 69 on his face strode forward. _What a dumb tattoo. Is he advertising his favorite position or something?_ Erin thought. She picked up the halberd and gave it a few practice swings. Halberds were a general name for different types of pole arms. This particular halberd was taller than Erin by a good 2 feet, maybe more; she had never measured, and had a smallish ax at the end with a spike balancing it on the opposite side from the ax head and also had a spike at the very tip. The other end was capped in metal but was otherwise blunt. She walked towards the dark haired man and when he pulled his sword from it's sheath, she charged him with the spike pointed right at him. She was expecting him to move and when he did, she brought the weapon in a sweeping arc, but missed him completely. She turned just in time to catch his blade on the shaft of the weapon. He stayed in close to destroy her advantage of reach.

Well aware of what he was doing, she used the weapon more like a quarter staff and eventually used the blunt end on his foot. She felt it give and knew she had broken something in his foot, but he fought on, only grimacing at the pain and later favoring his other foot. With the gap between them opened briefly, she tried to entangle his legs with the length of the halberd, but he saw what she was doing and moved back.

He released his shikai and Erin was again surprised at the odd shape his sword took. The scythes were not standard shape and were chained together. _Why would you chain together a pair of perfectly good scythes?_ As she was thinking this, he threw one of them at her. _I see. That's why they are chained together._ She dodged and charged towards him again. She saw him tug on the chain and knowing that the weapon would be returning, she fell into a split and swiped at his legs as the weapon passed over her head. She caught him on the upper inner thigh and she quickly rolled to escape the falling scythe. She stabbed out as she rolled, catching him in his side, but not deeply enough to cause damage.

She rose as he checked his wound and he came at her with a double downward strike. She caught them on the shaft and rotated the weapon to trap both of his hands towards the right and swung the blade of the halberd up and to the man's neck. He didn't even have a chance to move away.

"Good try, Hisagi! Better luck next time." Shunsui called.

Erin moved away from the lieutenant and his sword changed back to its normal shape as he limped over to the squad 4 captain for treatment. Erin went back to the weapons and set the halberd with the other used weapons. Hisagi had cut her a couple times, but she had healed so quickly that she hadn't noticed them. She used some of the water at the weapons table to give her arm a quick scrub and took a long pull from the bottle.

Lieutenant Matsamoto was called out next. _Hmmm I would probably do better with hand to hand against a female, but she's quite a bit taller than me. I'll chance waiting. What about that guy in the clown makeup? Will he be one of the people I fight today? I could easily take him in hand to hand. _ Her eyes fell on a bull whip_. Nah, I think I'll use that on him if he's called up. So what do I use against this woman before me?_ She picked up the rapier on the table and strode out to meet her opponent.

Erin stood with sword up in a guard position and her right hand on her hip. She swung the rapier and the tall woman before her blocked. They traded blows back and forth as Erin tested the soul reaper's ability. She had good reflexes, but Erin could see why this woman was not a captain, though, of course, she hadn't actually fought against a captain yet. There was a hesitancy to this woman's thrusts and she hadn't noticed any such hesitancy when she had watched the tail end of Zaraki's fight with the bandits.

Erin stepped up the fighting a bit and started scoring several cuts. Bored with the fight, Erin put out a flurry of attacks that put slashes over each artery in the woman's limbs. On the defensive, Matsamoto pulled the only card she had up her sleeve. She released her shikai.

The sudden lack of blade surprised Erin, as did the ash or pebbles assaulting her. She ignored the cuts as they would heal quickly and charged the blonde, thrusting at her heart, but stopping short.

"Ha ha! Looks like you're dead too, Matsamoto!" Hisagi called out.

She smiled at Erin and flounced to the sidelines with Erin shaking her head at the odd woman. At the weapons table, Erin again cleaned off her arms and decided to give her face a quick scrub and waited for the next person to be called.

"Renji Abari, step forward." Yamamoto called out. The red haired man stepped forward and immediately released his shikai. Erin gave a little shudder at the shape of his blade and selected a set of narrow blades. They didn't have a cross guard and she usually wore them when she was all suited up. They stuck up on either side of her neck like a pair of handles. They were the length of a normal sword, and came to a point, but the blade, while sharpened on both edges, was only about two inches wide. She used them more as skewers then as swords.

They came together with a clash, trading slashes and stabs. The sound of metal on metal barely ended before it started again. Blood was splattered liberally on the flagstones and Renji's hair had come undone. Eventually, he pushed away and swung out his sword, letting it extend and swipe out at Erin. The sudden change was surprising, but she saw how the blades were connected and so used her skewer to stab in-between the blades, stopping the movement.

She quickly reversed her grip and drove the skewer into the ground to the handle, trapping the blade. To further trap the weapon. She ran up the length of it, causing Renji to eventually drop the hilt of his zampakuto. As the weapon started snapping back together, Erin jumped and landed in front of the redhead with the skewer pressing against his chest over his heart. They were both breathing heavily and they had both lost quite a bit of blood. While Erin's wounds had already healed, Renji's were still bleeding. He began to fall forward and she quickly tossed the skewer away and caught him before he fell. She had her shoulder under his, holding him up. He was barely conscious as Retsu and her lieutenant took him and his zampakuto back to the sidelines to treat him.

Erin collected the skewers and took them back to the weapons table. She scrubbed her arms and what she could get of where the red haired man had struck her.

"We will break for lunch. Erin, please follow Captain Sui Feng to the holding cell and lunch will be brought to you." Erin nodded to him and walked towards the diminutive captain.

"I think you're surprising everyone with your weapon skill." Feng conceded as they walked. "You've lost a lot of blood. Are you feeling weak at all?"

"No. I replenish my blood fairly quickly. I would appreciate some kind of juice to help with energy. I won't feel weak for a while, but I find it's always best to take care of possible problems before they do become problems."

"I will make sure it is added to your lunch."

They had arrived at the cell and Erin went in and sat on the bed. When lunch came, she ate what she could and drank all of the juice that was brought. She meditated to rest as much as possible before the second batch of fights began.

All too soon, Feng came to collect her and brought her back to the same courtyard. Most of the blood had been scrubbed away, Erin noticed. She moved over to the weapons and waited for her next opponent and was surprised when Captain Feng stepped forward. Erin made the snap decision to make this the fight that was hand to hand.

Seeing that Erin did not have any weapons in her hands, she removed her zampakuto and handed it to her lieutenant. They met at the middle of the courtyard.

"You may regret your decision to not use a weapon against me."

"Probably." Erin replied with a grin.

They circled each other, looking for an opening. Sui Feng used her speed to make the first strike, surprising Erin with her speed. After taking a few hits, she started to get used to the small woman's amazing speed and started to rely more on her instinct than her sight. The fight became a flurry of movement with both sides taking and giving hits. At one point, Erin caught Feng's arm and gave it a twist, breaking her wrist. Feng had no choice but to not use that hand. She got even, or so she thought, when she struck the girl in the knee causing it to break and dislocate. Erin simply wrenched everything into place, favored it for about a minute and continued on without issue.

The fight lasted two hours and in the end the fight was not won through superior fighting, but through healing factor and stamina. Feng watched as bruises she had given Erin formed and then faded in the middle of the fight while her own still throbbed.

They were both crouched down, catching their breath when Yamamoto called a halt. Feng nodded to her opponent with a small smile on her lips and went over to Retsu for healing. Erin took the opportunity to check on her knee. It still hurt and it shouldn't. After feeling around, she realized that the bone hadn't set properly. Shaking her head she went over to the weapons table, looked over what she could use and grabbed the halberd. Yamamoto went to tell her she couldn't use that weapon again when she quickly swung it around and slammed the metal end into her knee causing it to rebreak in the same spot. She tossed aside the halberd, sat down, and set her leg properly.

The courtyard was silent while she stayed seated and waited for her leg to heal. When it could support her again, she stood up, and drank some water and finally looked around, realizing it was so quiet.

Kenpachi was the first person who spoke up. "I think that was the most badass thing I've ever seen a human do."

"I could have healed you, Erin." Retsu finally got out.

"Let's get this over with. Who's next?" She replied. She saw juice had been added to the table and grabbed one of them to drink. She was going to need the extra energy.

"I am." Korosutchi called out as he strode forward. _Sui Feng beat her up pretty good. This will be a nice easy fight. All I have to do is stab her with my shikai and this fight will be over._

Erin smiled widely and immediately grabbed the bull whip. She slowly walked forward, letting the whip snake behind her.

_Insulant bitch! _ Was the scientist's thought. "When I beat you I'm going to take samples from you, girl. I'm going to enjoy listening to you scream."

"You are welcome to try, but you will not succeed." She swung the whip around expertly causing multiple cracks as she snapped her arm back and forth, causing the direction to change abruptly. He charged in to take away her distance advantage and she pressed a latch on the handle of the whip causing a metal spike to protrude from the end of the whip. It wasn't much, but it was at least something for close fighting. She parried his strike and jumped back to open the space between them. She swung out with the whip and struck him across the face and then swung again wrapping his leg and pulling back. He made a movement to cut the whip so she quickly loosened and pulled back to get the whip to unwrap.

He released his shikai and after getting close, stabbed her in the stomach. She could feel the poison immediately, but she could also feel her body fighting it.

"Ahhh, I've won the fight. The paralytic poison running through your veins makes it so you can't move, but…" He cut her again. "….leaves the pain receptors so you can feel every thrust."

He turned around and continued to brag, but Erin tuned him out. She moved her head and clenched and unclenched her fingers. She lifted a leg experimentally and realized most of the poison had already worked its way through her system. She was very glad that her healing ability worked on all manner of poisons too. The really strong ones would still make her very sick for a few days, but wouldn't kill her. She found that out the hard way only a couple years ago. _Damn two step_! She again mentally cursed the snake often nicknamed the two step for it's venom that can kill a person before they took two steps.

She knew she might be a little slow for the next minute or so, so decided to act fast. She swung out with the whip, causing it to wrap around Myori's throat. She pulled it tight and quickly kicked him forward on all fours. She shoved her foot into his back while tightening her grip on the whip.

"For a man who claims to be a scientist, you don't listen too well or see too good. I heal quickly." She held him there as he struggled for breath until he passed out and then she unwound the whip from his neck and walked back to the weapons table, tossing the whip on the used table and then leaning forward on it, shaking her head at the stupid man.

She pulled up her shirt and looked at the wound on her stomach. It hadn't healed all the way yet and was still tender. She poured some water on it and scrubbed away some of the blood. She scrubbed away at the other cut he made on her. When she was done, she grabbed a bottle of juice and drank while she waited for the next person to be called forward.

_She's pissed. She at least gave almost everyone else a fair fight, but she actually choked him out. I can see why Zaraki likes her._ Shunsui mused.

"I am your next opponent, little one. Have you finished healing?" Komomora asked gently.

Erin looked up into the kindly eyes of the wolf faced captain standing next to her. He had been quiet. It wasn't often someone could sneak up on her.

"Almost finished. It can heal while we fight."

"You have been taking longer to heal lately."

"It's the price of a long battle. The poison may have some effect that make healing take longer. Or my body could have healed the poison first and then worked on the wounds."

"Do you want Unohana to look at it? I don't want to begin our fight while you are still wounded."

"No need. Come on. I still have four more should I defeat you and it will be a long day." She picked up a pair of battle fans and walked to the middle of the courtyard, waiting for the captain to follow her.

Komomora turned to the head captain. "Head Captain, haven't we seen enough? Do we really need to continue this? She's clearly tired and are we being any better than those who have tortured her in the past? It's just a different kind."

"I agree with Captain Komomora. I think this has gone on long enough." Unohana spoke up.

"Really Head Captain, We all felt this was too many fights when we originally discussed this. Even you should be able to tell she's standing by pure spite at this point." Jushiro spoke up.

"The fights will continue. You are up, Captain Komomora."

"I will not. I concede the fight." He strode back to the sidelines.

"I also concede my fight." Hitsuguya stated.

"As do I." Shunsui added.

"Hell, I'll fight her. Let's see how far she can go." Zaraki grinned and strode forward. "But not with those sissy fans. Grab the scimitars that are still up there."

Erin obligingly went back to the weapons table and set down the fans, picked up the scimitars and strode back to the center of the courtyard.

Yamamoto harrump'ed, but let the fight stand.

Zaraki started by testing her reactions and movements and Erin did the same. Satisfied by what they saw, the fight really began. They picked up speed and intensity and cuts were both given and taken on both sides. Zaraki had a hard time keeping up with both of her swords, while she had difficulty in being able to block his strong strikes. Each one made her knees want to buckle beneath her. The fight was another long one, lasting several hours. Erin had scored 3 of her artery slashes but was breathing heavily. Zaraki was enjoying every minute of the fight. He had to hold back from accidently killing her, but felt she would make a good sparring partner.

She had left herself open in her tiredness and Zaraki took it, plunging his sword in just under her left breast. He was careful to not hit her heart, but did pierce her lung. The shock of the hit stopped her movements cold and she slid off the end of his blade, falling to the ground as her swords fell from suddenly numb fingers.

She rolled over, put her right hand to the wound and lifted herself off the ground with her other three limbs. She began coughing and frequently spit out blood.

*Cough, Cough. Spit* "I suppose" *cough* "if I can" *cough spit* "kill you three times in this fight" *cough, cough, cough spit* "then you can kill me once." *cough*

"Kill me?"

Erin passed out and Retsu hurried over.

"I think she was getting delirious. She said she killed me three times."

Retsu pointed to the three slashes she had made over arteries. "I noticed that she made these cuts on many of the people she fought. These cuts are made over arteries. Had she cut any deeper, you would have bled out from any one of these." The courtyard had fallen silent when Zaraki's blade had pierced the ryoka girl. Retsu's voice was loud enough for everyone to hear and those who had received those cuts which were now all healed, unconsciously touched where they had been cut, realizing that their fights had ended much sooner and she had said nothing.

Zaraki looked at the girl with a little more respect in his eyes. He had thought they had been desperate hits that lacked any real strength behind them, but instead, she had cut him with precision.

Retsu used a healing kido on the kid and gasped in surprise.

"What is it, Unuhana?" Asked Shunsui, who had walked up to the two other captains.

"The kido….it just….slid around her."

"What?"

"Watch." She did another healing kido while the two men watched closely and even to Zaraki's untrained eye, he could tell that it slid over Erin.

"What about other kido?" Shunsui did a simple binding kido that would only put her hands behind her back and it slid off her as well. It was like it met a barrier and slid off the surface.

"Her coughing has lessened, so at least it sounds like she's healing herself." Kenpachi noticed.

"Pick her up, Zaraki and let's bring her back to the squad 2 holding cell. I'll at least bind her wounds and get her cleaned up there."

"No. If she's going to be my responsibility, we can take her to the squad 11 compound. I think I saw a bed in one of her pouches. We can set it up in the lieutenant's quarters. I had one of my new recruits clean out the place and air it out last night." He lifted her up and Yachiru jumped up to his shoulder.

"Kenny, do you think she'll get better? You were having so much fun with her."

"She'll be fine, squirt."

He carried her to his own quarters and set her down on his bed. "You can treat her here. I'll find her bed and I can move her there when you're finished." Retsu nodded and when the large man left with his young charge, she stripped the girl, cleansed her wounds, and bound them up. She also took the time to see to the rest of the blood on her body. She wrapped Zaraki's sheets around her when she was finished and waited for the large man to return. He came back a half hour later, saw that she had been wrapped in his sheets, and just picked her up and carried her to the lieutenant's quarters which, like his own, were separate from the rest of the barracks and they each had their own small courtyards; the Captain's courtyard being larger than the Lieutenant's courtyard.

No one had used these quarters for years and the neglect of the grounds showed with weeds coming up through the flagstones and the definite lean to the small building. He'd have to see about getting someone over to make the repairs. He added it to his mental checklist. The building was sound though. Unohana held the door open for him as he carried her through the entrance and into the bedroom. He laid her down and Unohana shooed him out of the room while she removed Zaraki's sheets and snugged her into her own bedding.

"Here are your sheets. I need to go get her some clothing she can be comfortable in while she heals. Come, let me take a look at you. She got you pretty good too." She handed him his sheet.

"I'm fine. No need to fuss with me."

Unohana smiled and said, "I really think it would be beneficial if you would let me take a look at your wounds."

Zaraki paled slightly and finally replied with, "Fine." Unohana let him back to his own quarters and had him remove his captain's jacket and his uniform top and cleaned him up.

While his wounds were being seen to, Sui Feng stopped by with the items from the girl's cell along with some of the juice Erin seemed to favor, and the pouches holding her clothing. He added the pouches to the main pouch and when Unohana was done with him, went over to Erin's quarters, added the juice to the fridge and dropped off her pouches on the kitchen counter. He checked in on her and saw that Retsu had propped her up in bed. Probably in case she still had any blood in her lungs. She had blood on her chin so he went to the bathroom, grabbed one of the wash cloths he had the guys supply the place with along with other toiletries and used it to wipe off the blood.

The rest of the room was bare. He decided to check that furniture bag for a couch or something. He did eventually find one and set it opposite the bed. He knew he didn't need to keep a watch on her while she was sleeping, but without knowing how long she would be unconscious, he would have to set up some of the guys to watch her during the day. It was getting late, so after setting up the couch and replacing the pouch, he collected Yachiru and after putting her to bed, went to bed himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello. Thank you for the review, Tulip. Your review is fair, but I did want to address your concerns. First, the title is called "The Traveler" which refers to Erin. That means that you are going to see a lot of her in this story. I get that so many chapters with you getting to know her and see her interact with everyone makes it seem as though I'm showing her off. What I'm actually doing is trying to avoid an OC trap of not giving you any info about her and when she does something that would otherwise be extraordinary, it looks like I pulled it out of the air. I get that I could do what others have done and just give a description of her and what she can do, but lets all be honest about that - not everyone will take the time to read it, those that do may or may not remember everything mentioned, and that's not true story telling. Take a look at my profile - I'm writing fanfics to exercise my writing ability and part of that means that I make it so that you can visualize a character I create in a story as well as you can visualize any of Tite Kubo's characters. So, yeah - you're going to get a lot of character development.**

**This chapter is a little longer then the others and you will see the Soul Society's side of the beginning of the Bount Arc. Things will start getting a little more Bount story line after this chapter.**

**oh - also, I noticed that most of the first paragraph of this story got cut off in chapter 1. I went back and added it. it just explains where Yachiru is.**

* * *

The next morning Zaraki went over to check on the girl and saw she was still out and had stopped coughing up blood. She also appeared to be breathing easier. He saw that Retsu had been back because the sheets weren't pulled all the way up to her chin and he could see the white hospital clothing on her. He went out to the training grounds and set up some guys on rotation to keep an eye on her while she's unconscious and then went up to his office to take care of some of the paperwork that had piled up over the last week.

He had lunch in his office and then went down to Erin's quarters to check in on her and take a nap. She was still passed out, so he relieved the guys on duty and used her couch to nap. Before leaving, his subordinates let him know that Retsu had been back in and had injected her with something but they didn't ask what. He woke up a few hours later and the girl was still the same. As he was walking out to go get in some training, Retsu was walking in.

"Hey, my men said you were injecting the girl with something." He mentioned to the squad 4 captain.

"Sugar water. With her healing ability, I'm not sure how she would react to an IV and I'm hoping that the extra sugar in her system will help her recoup faster."

"Is it working?"

"I don't know, Zaraki. She was exhausted before you stabbed her in the lung, so I don't know how long it will take her to wake up."

He nodded and continued on to the training grounds to get his blood moving. When he got there, he noticed that there were the usual amount of guys nursing wounds, Yachiru was off chasing after Ikkaku's bald head, and some of his higher seated officers were training the non-seated members. As he entered the training grounds, many of his men called greetings. He sent a pair to go keep an eye on the girl and checked on the improvement of some of the newer members; some of them even had promise, but he could already tell that before too long, he would lose about half of them to other squads. The 11th was not for everyone.

He had just dismissed the squad members watching the girl for the evening when Erin started stirring. He took a seat on the couch and waited for her to come around.

Erin laid still as she opened her eyes. _This doesn't look like the ceiling of the holding cells._ She looked around and saw that Zaraki was watching her from a couch. _That looks like one of my couches. And why is he watching me. That's just odd._ She moved her arms and realized how weak she was. She also noticed that she wasn't wearing what she had been wearing from the fights. She shifted a little and realized that she also wasn't wearing any underwear beneath this clothing. She lifted the sheet and realized it was her sheets and after coming to a little more, realized she was laying in her bed with her pillows.

"You look a little confused."

"How long have I been out?"

"Almost a whole day and night."

"Whose clothing am I wearing?"

"They are hospital clothes from the 4th division so that you could sleep a little easier. And before you ask, you are in the lieutenant's quarters of the 11th division. She doesn't use them, so they were available."

"That was going to be my next question." She laid her head back down on the pillows, already tired from holding her head up the short time she had.

"How are you feeling?"

"Weak. Tired. Like I was recently stabbed in the lung."

"Can you eat or drink anything?"

"I might have enough energy to drink something."

Zaraki got up and grabbed one of the juices Feng had brought. He opened the container and helped Erin to sit and even held it for her after she almost dropped it.

"Thanks." She said between sips. "I feel like I could sleep for a week."

When she was done drinking, she asked him to help her remove some of the pillows so she could lay flat and he did so. He let her know he'd be by in the morning and let her get some rest.

Back at his own home, he quickly sent a hell butterfly to Unohana to let her know that the girl was awake. Afterward he had to wrangle Yachiru into her bed to get her to go to sleep. He went to bed a little while later.

The next morning, Kenpachi woke up a little later than normal. Rather than cooking himself, he went to the division's mess hall and picked up breakfast for himself and Erin. Yachiru was already up and running the squad ragged. That little girl had the division wrapped around her finger and new recruits soon learned that her size meant absolutely nothing and was a force to be feared.

When he entered Erin's bedroom, he was a little surprised to find her on the couch instead of the bed.

At his odd look, she responded, "I tried to get up and walk and maybe even get outside, but I was so weak my legs wouldn't support me and it took me about an hour to crawl to the couch."

"Why didn't you just get back in bed?"

"It's too high. The couch was just low enough for me to climb up."

Kenpachi chuckled. "You up to eating?" He held out a plate of food to her.

"I'm willing to try." She held out her hand for the plate.

"Yeah, I'm not going to risk that again." He set it on her lap instead and she chuckled.

He sat down next to her and ate with her. While they ate, he informed her of the Head Captain's decision and how she has to be in the company of a captain at all times except for sleep and bathroom functions, and how she came to be under his watch. He also grabbed her pouches from the kitchen and handed them to her.

"Do you think you can make it out to the training grounds with me or do you want to stay here and rest?"

"I'd like to get up and move around as soon as possible, but I'm going to need help walking."

"I could carry you."

"I'm not fond of being carried if I can help it."

"Do you think you can get dressed or do you just want to wear that?"

"I'll try and get dressed. It might take me a while."

"I'll be back in an hour or so."

When he left, she dug into her clothing pouches for some easy on clothing. She decided on clothing similar to what she wore while fighting the lieutenants and captains but wore a pair of sandals instead of lace up shoes. When Kenpachi arrived back, she was fully dressed and doing her meditative rest.

He came in and sat down next to her. She opened her eyes and stood up shakily. He stood back up and got next to her.

"Here, put your arm around my waist." He pulled her arm around him and he put his arm across her back with his hand under her armpit on the upper ribs. Together, they walked very slowly to the training grounds. He wished she would just let him pick her up, but understood that she was trying to get back to normal as soon as possible. By the time they got there, she was huffing and he was supporting most of her weight. He set her down in a good spot where she could watch everything. Today he was working with the seated officers to gauge whether any deserved to be moved up or down.

It was lunch time and Kenpachi sent one of his subordinates to grab him and Erin some lunch. They ate together and many of the seated officers decided to bring their food back to eat with their captain and this strange woman that they had heard beat several lieutenants and even a couple captains, though not theirs. She offered pointers to several of the officers and her suggestions were well received. She received a couple challenges and she accepted them for when she had her energy back which she expected would likely be tomorrow.

That afternoon she continued to watch the men train. Kenpachi sat with her and they watched the men. She offered pointers and they finally just started having single matches in front of her for her to critique, which she was happy to do.

By dinner time, she was able to walk to the mess hall with little assistance, though still was huffing by the time they arrived. The thing that surprised her was that no one even seemed to give her scars and lack of fingers a second look. This was the 11th division. Everyone had a few scars, so seeing someone with a lot just meant that they survived that many more fights. It was refreshing to her.

After dinner, she was walking slowly but without assistance. Zaraki saw her to her quarters and when he was satisfied that she would be fine, left to his own. Erin took the time alone to bathe and check out the set of rooms she was using. There was a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining area, her bedroom, and another room that was likely meant as a living space. Satisfied, she snuggled into her bed and rested.

When she awoke later that night, she realized that she had healed quite a bit. She didn't have anywhere the kind of strength or stamina she would need to fight a captain or lieutenant right now, but could easily fight a lesser fighter. She decided it was time to pull out some more furniture so pulled out a wardrobe and filled it with mostly the kind of clothing she wore when she was training. She also pulled out some kitchen items, and a dining set as there was nothing there. She went to the living space and pulled out a writing desk and another couch, a couple chairs and a coffee table. She really didn't expect to use it, but it was nice to have a place for it just in case. She left the walls blank as there was no need to decorate.

She went outside and saw how the building was on a little lean. Her guess was that some of the supports had sunk and settled over time. When she had more energy, she would see to raising the earth underneath up to remove the lean. The weeds coming up through the flagstones didn't bother her, so she went about setting up an area she could work out mornings.

She had several items mostly used by gymnasts, but found them to be helpful in working out. She set up a high bar, and a balance beam for now. She figured she could always bring out more items later. She then went through her weapons and found a belt and set of sheathes for her scimitars. Now she could just wear them at her hips rather than wearing the whole set of upper body armor.

Dawn was approaching, so she decided to get in a quick workout before Zaraki came and collected her for the day. She started with the high bar and did pull ups. When she was sufficiently warmed up about a half hour later, she went over to the balance beam with her scimitars and did series of attacks, blocks, spins, and flips as if she were fighting an imaginary opponent. She liked doing this on a beam like this because it was something else for her body to do while training with weapons. It forced her to keep in perfect balance and considering the beam was high and narrow, it was beneficial to always stay in balance.

This is how Kenpachi found her in the morning; fighting an imaginary opponent on a tall balance beam.

He watched her for a while and eventually went up and said, "You're looking better today."

She paused in her movements. "I feel better. Not quite up to fighting you again, but definitely doing better."

Yachiru popped up from her hidden perch. "Oh good! So you'll fight Kenny again?"

Erin blinked a few times at her sudden appearance. While her eyes were on the pink haired child, her words were for Zaraki. "Um… You have a kid, Zaraki?"

"Yeah. Close enough. This is Yachiru, my lieutenant. She stays with me which is why the lieutenant's quarters were free."

Yachiru jumped onto the balance beam and held out her arms as she walked across it. Erin jumped off of the beam and sheathed her scimitars. Yachiru started running and jumping on it.

"This is fun! What were you doing on it with your swords?"

"Training. I use it to help my balance. You can do all sorts of things on a balance beam like this."

"Show me!"

"Ok, but you'll have to come off."

Yachiru leaped into Kenpachi's arms and Erin took off the sword belt and set it aside. She also took off her shoes and socks so that she would have a better feel of the beam beneath her. Her training had allowed her to be just about as good as any gymnast on either of the two apparatus she had out, so felt confident in giving a demonstration. She didn't go for any of the flairs that a normal gymnast being judged would, so there was no flashy arms in the air after a flip or series of flips.

She did aerial twists, flips, hand stands, cartwheels, hand springs and finally did a typical aerial finish as she leapt off the end of the beam. She did stick the landing but refused to lift her arms. She wasn't doing it for points, but to entertain a little girl who had probably never seen an Olympics to know that was how you were supposed to end such a movement. When she was finished, Yachiru clapped and wanted to try it herself. She hopped back up on the beam and tried to do some flips and while she landed just fine, she overbalanced and wound up on the ground laughing.

"Not bad, Erin." He watched Yachiru play.

"I think I have some practice pads I can put down for her or lower the beam if you want. The pads aren't going to be too thick, but at least she won't crack her head on the flagstones."

"Nah. She's tougher then you'd think. You don't mind if she plays on it, do you?"

"Not really much she can do to it to harm it. I don't see any reason to keep her off of it." He nodded.

"Do you have a last name, kid?"

"I don't know why you insist on calling me kid. I've probably seen more years then you have. My last name's Graves. I never realized how fitting it was as a last name before all this happened and I started putting people into their graves." She sounded bitter and Kenpachi didn't understand why. She didn't seem to have any problems killing those bandits.

"Killing's not so bad. It's when you have to keep them alive for trial that sucks." Kenpachi replied.

"Yeah. Been there, done that. You know that they will eventually get free somehow and it all could have been resolved with a thrust through the heart."

"So why do you sound so bitter?"

Erin looked up at the large man, meeting his gaze. "This is not the life I was meant to have, Zaraki. By rights, I should have been dead a long time ago. Humans weren't meant to live as long as I have. We aren't made for it mentally. And then I have to wonder; what happens when I finally do get home and get done explaining all of this." She gestured to her ruined right hand and the scars visible on her body. "And then maybe have to watch my family get old and die while I remain like this. In comic books, characters with healing abilities like mine don't age normally. Zaraki, as much as I want to go home, I really don't want to go home like this. What I want more than anything is to go home and grow old and eventually die with my nieces and nephews still alive."

Kenpachi really didn't know how to respond. "I guess you'll just have to wait and see. Come on. There are some guys that want to fight you and you look ready enough. Have you eaten?"

"No. I kinda forgot. It's hard to remember to eat when you don't get hungry." Erin sat down and put on her shoes and socks.

"Hey! What happened to your feet, Errey?"

Erin gave Yachiru an odd look and Kenpachi explained. "She doesn't call anyone by their name. She gives everyone nicknames near enough." He went over and looked at the bottoms of Erin's feet as he spoke. Even the bottoms of her feet had several of those triangular burn scars.

"It happened a very long time ago. Don't worry about it, Yachiru."

She finished putting on her shoes and socks and then belted on her scimitars. After that she got up and grabbed her pouches. She never went anywhere without them. She tied them to the belt.

"Come on then. The mess hall should still be serving breakfast." She nodded and followed the large captain. She was again surprised when the little girl seemed to fly out of nowhere and land on Zaraki's back. They grabbed a quick breakfast and then went out to the training grounds.

Once there, the seated officers that had challenged her to a fight walked towards her as soon as they saw she had swords with her.

"Hey, you ready for our fight?" the 9th seat called to her.

"She's fighting me first." Shot out the 10th seat.

"You're both wrong. She's fighting me first. I have seniority and I asked her first." The 6th seat retorted.

"I can take you all on at once, if you like." Erin replied. She walked out where there was room and pulled her scimitars from their sheaths.

The three men looked a little horrified. "In the 11th, all challenges are one on one, Miss Erin." The 10th seat replied politely.

"Do you even train against multiple opponents?" Erin asked.

"Only the higher seats will on occasion or the captain." He replied.

"That seems silly. Have you ever tried it? I actually find a fight against a group of opponents easier than against one. Against two is the toughest if they are working together, but more than that and you can use their numbers against them."

"No, I've never tried it." He replied.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure. It's just never crossed my mind."

"We'll work on it then. Later though, I believe I have a few challengers to face." She turned to the 6th seat and made a 'come on' gesture. The fight was rather short. She only used the flats of her blades against his skin, but he quickly realized that she was way above him in ability. The other fights went much the same and as she fought each of them, she told them what they were doing wrong.

It wasn't long before most of the division stopped what they were doing to watch this tiny woman dominate any fight she was in. More and more men wanted to fight her if only to get pointers. Fighting was what they did and she was a patient teacher giving practical pointers.

She eventually had to call a halt, reminding them that their captain had recently stabbed her through the lung and she was still healing. This surprised them as that meant she wasn't even fighting at her best and had already done so much with them. After lunch, Kenpachi brought her back to her quarters and let her know he was going to take his afternoon nap and to just stay there until he woke up. She shrugged and decided to take the opportunity to get her journal up to date.

A few hours later Zaraki came back to collect her and took her up to his office. He was behind on the paperwork again and set her to work on reading the larger documents and summarizing them for him. He came across a few transfer requests from new recruits. He had expected them so quickly signed them and set them in the done pile. Yumachika usually came by every now and then and filed paperwork or did whatever was supposed to be done with the stuff. He really never paid much attention to it.

At dinner, Zaraki let her know that they had a squad 4 member that was in charge of any food shopping for the captain and vice-captain. Each squad had one assigned to them and theirs was coming by tomorrow for the shopping list. He had the list at home so when they got back to his place, he showed it to her and told her to write down anything she wanted. Erin noticed that there was quite a bit of candy on the list and the rest was mostly meat. She chuckled and added a few meat choices and fruits and vegetables along with eggs and bread.

She started rooting around in one of her pouches and pulled out pieces of gold and silver.

"What are you doing?" He asked her.

"I'm not sure what things cost here and I don't have the currency used, I'm sure. Is there a money changer around here somewhere?"

"Don't worry about it. This is part of what the squad funds take care of. Each division has their own mess hall and squad funds take care of buying food for that too. Nobody in a squad goes hungry and it isn't taken out of their pay. They can buy their own meals elsewhere if they choose, but food is never something a squad makes a person pay for out of their own pocket. That goes for you too. So put it away."

"Oh." She put the precious metals away.

"I appreciate the offer."

"I didn't take you for a candy fiend." She smirked, pointing to the list.

"That would be Yachiru."

"Do souls not have to worry about physical health?"

"They do, but I just can't say no to her." He smirked and took up the list. "Are you finished?" When she nodded he placed it on a clip outside and explained that the kid that picks up his list likes to come early and avoid his men. When she gave a slightly confused look, he explained that only wusses that can't fight wind up in the 4th division.

"I wouldn't call it wussy to be unable to fight, but to be able to cut someone open to find the interior damage that won't stop bleeding and actually get it to stop; that takes guts. I've seen many a surgeon at work having to make the decisions of who to save and who is past saving. Their fight is just as hard if not harder than yours on the battle field, Zaraki.

"Had I not been able to heal myself after our fight, do you know how I could have been saved from death?" He shook his head. "I would be willing to bet that the squad 4 captain and some of her higher officers know how to and so do I. There have been some worlds where my ability with a scalpel has done more to help balance a world then my swords." She smiled at his blank expression. Some people didn't value a decent doctor. "It's getting late. I'm sure you would like to sleep." She left to her own quarters, took a bath and then went to bed.

When she became conscious again it was still dark out as was usual for her. With so much down time, she decided to set up some laundry lines and get to scrubbing. The dirty laundry had definitely piled up over the years and she did try to get things washed where she was able. She pulled out a large laundry tub and started heating water to pour into it. She also had the washboard out and some laundry soap and even a ringer to get most of the water out of the clothing before hanging it up to dry.

This was how Kenpachi found her the next morning; surrounded by drying clothing and attempting to scrub out a blood stain. He saw that there was another pile of clothing that, upon closer examination, were either badly torn, heavily stained, or both.

"We have squad four members assigned to us that do that too."

"It would be rather unfair for me to just pile on a whole bunch of dirty clothing on your launder. And trust me, I have a lot. I don't get a ton of time where I can do this. Most of the time its battle after battle. Not to mention, some of these clothes are from completely different worlds and have washing instructions in other languages." She smiled. "Besides, I've found that I don't mind doing laundry like this. It has a meditative quality to it where you can just zone out and think about other things."

"What's with that pile over there?" He gestured to the pile he had noticed earlier.

"Throw aways. Too damaged to clean or repair."

He left and came back a few moments later carrying a bag. He dumped the discarded clothing into it which filled the bag. He tied it close and set it on the porch area. "For garbage pick-up."

"Another squad 4 member?"

"No. New recruits. They get some of the grunt jobs until they've proven themselves. Sometimes, if a subordinate has disgraced themselves or the squad, they'll also be put up on one of the cleaning details."

Erin was finishing up with the laundry she had room on the drying lines for and once the water was discarded of, she walked back over to the large captain while drying her hands. "I believe you wanted to fight me again?"

"Oh yeah!" He replied with a grin.

"Where did you want to do this?"

"The training grounds, of course."

Erin looked down towards her feet with her hands on her hips as she spoke. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Huh?"

She looked up at him. "Had you been a poor captain, I would have no problem beating you in front of your men. But they love and respect you and I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to fight in front of them."

"You think you can beat me?"

"I think you know I can. When we fought, I had already been fighting most of the day with a short break for lunch. You were rested and uninjured. I admit that your pure strength could drive me to my knees, but I also know how to counter that. Even as tired as I was, I still managed to give you killing cut after killing cut."

"What are you talking about? You gave me three that Captain Unohana said were killing blows. That's it."

"That cut I gave you across your chest was to let you know I could have stabbed you through the heart. The cut to your abdominals was to let you know I could have disemboweled you. The cut on your back was to let you know that I could have stabbed you in the lungs and the cut to your face, just under your eye was to let you know I could have stabbed you in the eye. I may not have cut you very many times, but I cut you with a purpose.

"Zaraki, I am a better swordsman then you and I respect you too much for your subordinates to watch you get beaten. How about we spar in your courtyard instead." She belted on the pair of scimitars.

The news was stunning to him. He remembered each of those cuts and looking back he realized she had been holding back on him. _Maybe she can help me get better._ He thought, thinking of the declaration he had made after being beaten by Ichigo.

He grinned and replied, "We'll see." He led her to his courtyard and Yachiru who had gone unnoticed by Erin jumped off his back and sat up by his porch to watch the fight. His courtyard was a little larger then hers and was actually well taken care of. Erin guessed that either the 4th squad took care of it or it was taken care of by the new recruits or as discipline.

Erin strode to the center of the courtyard and pulled her scimitars free from her hip sheathes. "I would suggest you change into something you don't mind getting cut and bloody."

"I would suggest the same to you then."

"I have no problem with these clothes getting damaged."

He only removed his captain's jacket and uniform top before coming back to face Erin. "There. I'm ready."

The match only took 5 minutes before Zaraki had several cuts on his arms and chest and the tip of her left handed scimitar pressed to the area just behind his chin.

He laughed. "You weren't just holding back on me, you were holding back on everyone! Weren't you?"

"I wasn't so much holding back as conserving energy. Now stop holding back on me."

He smiled widely. "Again."

Erin complied. She removed her sword from his neck and stepped back. The next match lasted much longer, but the result was the same. They had a few more matches each lasting around a half hour and with Kenpachi no longer holding back, he started giving Erin much larger wounds and wining about half of the matches. When Erin finally called a halt for the day, Kenpachi was covered in cuts of varying depths.

He wanted to keep going but Erin decided that both of their bodies had had enough. When he kept on insisting they continue, she pressed her sword tip to just below his left bottom eye lid. "You will sit and you will let me take care of your wounds. We are done for today." When he tried to protest, she pressed in just enough to begin parting the skin and he could feel the pressure against his eye.

He pulled away, rolled his eye and sat down. Erin dug through her pouches until she found the one that had her med kits in it. She removed a chest about the size of a large tackle box and opened it up. It had an odd smell to Kenpachi. She rooted around in the box for a short time before pulling out an ointment. She pulled some clean cloths and a water skin as well. She removed her gloves and tucked them into her belt. She cleaned each wound and put the ointment on each cut. After a wound was covered in ointment, she pressed a piece of gauze to the wound to help keep the cuts clean.

"How long does it take for wounds to heal for you?"

"Depends on the cut. Most of these will be healed by tomorrow."

"Now they'll be healed by dinner. This ointment cuts healing time by about half." The news made him grin. "No, we will not continue sparring after dinner. Your body needs rebound time. I will be more than happy to spar with you tomorrow morning."

He smiled. It had been so long since he had really fought without any restrictions. It was nice not having to hold back like he usually did.

"Your ointment itches."

"That would be your skin knitting together. Try not to actually itch."

"Is this what it feels like when you get cut?"

"A little bit. I should say it did in the beginning, but now it happens so quickly that I just feel the burn of the weapon slicing across my skin."

"I see why you didn't want to do this in front of my squad, but I wouldn't have minded, you know. They know I'm always looking for a good fight. They would have probably just been happy that they weren't the ones fighting me. It probably would have made them want to learn from you even more."

"I would rather have not risked it. Besides, what I did with you just now was kind of embarrassing. You didn't need an audience for that."

"Being beaten in a fight?"

"No, being made to let me see to your wounds." She smirked. He chuckled and agreed. "So don't put up such a fuss next time."

"Fine, fine." He stood up and put his uniform top and captain's jacket back on. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No, not yet." She put everything away and wiped her hands on the soiled cloth and then put her gloves back on.

"Forget again?"

"I got caught up washing clothes." Kenpachi rolled his eye at her and she shrugged. "It's not easy, you know. Eating doesn't even sound good so any time I do eat, I might as well be eating ashes or dirt. It's like constantly being full, so eating is kinda the farthest thing from my mind and a bit of a chore. Any other world and you wouldn't even need to call me to a meal, but here, it's different."

Yachiru ran to Kenpachi and jumped onto his shoulder. "She should eat with us, Kenny! Did you have a fun time?"

"Yachiru is right. Come inside. And yes, I did have fun, squirt."

"Yay! I'll cook!"

"No. Last time I let you cook I was finding sticky spots in the kitchen for over a week."

"Awwww…. You're no fun, Kenny!"

"Hush. You're just lucky I didn't make you clean up."

Yachiru continued to pout as Kenpachi stood up and walked into his home with Erin following after them. He directed her to sit at the table with Yachiru as he pulled out pans and food items.

When he was finished he set a plate in front of Erin piled with eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, and sliced potatoes. As Erin looked at the pile in front of her, he set down a plate of a similar amount in front of Yachiru but covered in syrup and a plate similar to Erin's in front of himself.

"You know there's no way I can eat all this, and what's with all the meat?" She looked over at Yachiru's plate. "Syrup?"

"It's the only way she'll eat it. Eat what you can and I'll let you know when you can stop." He grinned at his joke.

She ate a little bit of everything but the plate was still rather piled by the time she was done. "I can't eat another bite. I didn't take you for a cook."

He looked over her plate and decided it would do. "I've been Yachiru's guardian since she was a baby. You think I would have let her starve?"

"You weren't here then?"

"No. We lived in the outer districts back then." She didn't ask any other questions and he didn't supply any further answers. He speared some of the meat still on Erin's plate and munched on it while they waited for Yachiru to stop licking the syrup off her plate. He made her clean her hands and face before letting her back on his shoulder.

Erin shook her head at the pair as she followed them out to the training grounds. While she worked with the men, Shunsui stopped by to see how Erin was handling being around a bunch of rough men.

"She seems to fit in well, Zaraki."

"Yeah. She fought me again today." He was still grinning from the fight earlier.

"Looks like it was a good fight. How long did she last?"

"I had my ass handed to me a couple times. She held back on everyone."

"It makes sense that she would economize her energy knowing she was going to fight so many of us."

"At least the cuts she gave me have stopped itching."

"Huh?"

"Oh. She made me hold still while she put this ointment on the cuts to help them heal faster. It itched at first but it's stopped now."

"Did you get a hell butterfly message this morning?"

"Yeah, damned thing woke me up. So the gate to the living has been shut down and Feng sneaked through just before it closed." He had been sensing the spiritual pressure of the former lieutenant of squad 11 every now and then and wondered if this new development had anything to do with it. He shrugged away the thought, not caring to spend much time in thought about the man Maki Ichinose as he wasn't worth his time.

"Yeah. That about sums it up. Why do you think they closed it?"

"Don't know, don't care."

They watched while Erin set the men to spar against each other and she walked up to the two captains. "Good morning Captain Kouriku."

"You look like you're doing well. Those louts behaving themselves?"

"Louts? About the same as most soldiers I've been around."

"Oh? Well I just stopped by to see how you're doing. Maybe later we can have dinner together."

"I will think on it. I appreciate the offer." She replied evenly. He smiled and waved as he left.

"Trouble?" She asked.

"Probably not. Just checking to see if I received a message this morning." He looked over to the young appearing woman. "Why did you turn down Shunsui's dinner offer?"

"I did not turn him down. I told him I would think on it." She saw him smirking at her. "I have rarely been in a world this long without something happening. My guess is that it has already started somewhere; perhaps in this world of the living you two were talking about." He looked at her in surprise as she had been too far away to hear them. "Gifts of hearing, remember? I have ears like a dog now which is not all it's cracked up to be."

The rest of the day went much like the last had with Kenpachi taking his midday nap. The next day was uneventful as well. It was the day after that Kenpachi received a message to attend a captain's meeting immediately. Because Erin had to be with a captain at all times, he went over to her quarters and collected her. He had her remove her weapon belt and made her climb onto his back to make it to the captain's meeting on time. When they arrived, he had her take the place she had before and admonished her again to stay quiet.

Kurosutchi strode in angrily and began accusing the other captains of tampering with his equipment. He finally noticed Erin and stabbed a finger in her direction. "It's her! She's been doing this! It didn't start until she got here!"

The head captain called for order and Erin sat back on her heels with her arms crossed in front of her chest, saying nothing as she had been told to.

"Are you trying to tell me that with all your cameras you actually caught her on camera coming anywhere near the 12th division?" The head captain asked.

"Well, no…." Myori hedged.

"Then keep unfounded accusations to yourself. What information do you have?"

He showed them the video footage he did have and explained that information about Bounts had been denied him. Yamamoto eventually requested Captain Kuchki to go through his family's records for any information about these beings and he agreed to. The meeting was dismissed and Zaraki took Erin back to his office to help him with paperwork.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry it took so long for an update. I kept trying to write this as more of an adventure story, but the characters kinda took on a life of their own while I wrote and it started to lean more towards romance. As a result I've updated the genre. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I've been enjoying writing it. As always, reviews are appreciated.**

* * *

It was the next day that he received a request for some of his men to assist Ichigo in the world of the living with the Bounts. He sent them his third and fifth seats.

"I should have gone with them, Zaraki. If the fight is happening there, then that is where I need to be."

Zaraki looked at his charge. "From all we've heard, this is something our men can handle. There's no reason for you to be there. I doubt this is why you are here. Besides, they can't even get here and you were sent here, not the world of the living."

"I think you're wrong, Zaraki. They have 4 lieutenants, 2 seated officers and 1 non seated member there along with that substitute soul reaper you mentioned that has a captain or lieutenant's level of ability. That should be setting off warning bells in your mind. Especially when there are only reports of how many of these Bounts? 5? Sounds like a lot of fire power for nothing."

"Just leave it be, woman." Erin rolled her eyes at the large man as he glared at her. They were resting between sparring matches, waiting for Erin to finish healing. She only had about one more match in her for the day at least against him. She had never encountered anyone with so much raw strength. "If you're healed enough to be flapping your lips, you're healed enough to spar again." They still sparred in his courtyard each morning, though lately, though not today, some of the men had heard about their fights and would watch from the porch.

They sparred again and Erin used her anger at his dismissal to fuel her. By the end of the match, Kenpachi realized he had pissed her off. She usually used the ointment on his wounds and instead, this time she just tossed it at him and went to her own quarters to clean up.

When he had finished with the ointment he went over to his charge's quarters. She had her back to him and was changing out of her cut up tank top. She had already cleaned up the blood so just needed the clean shirt. Seeing that her back was completely bare and not wanting to cause an even more awkward situation, he turned his back to her and waited.

She had heard him come in and had also heard the abrupt sound of him turning around. "I'm decent again. You didn't need to come in to get me, I would have come back out, you know."

"I came to return the ointment." He replied as he turned around. "And to find out why you're so mad about not going to the world of the living."

"It's because this kind of thing always seems to happen. We find out about a situation and because I have to be tethered to somebody like I am to you, I'm not there to offer my aide or my strategy planning. Look, I've got nothing against you or this place, but if I could have taken care of this now, then I'm that much closer to going home. By the time they do get here, things will spiral almost completely out of my control and if we win, it will be by the skin of our teeth."

"From everything we've heard about these Bount things, they should be easily taken care of by the soul reapers we sent out."

"And this is the only issue that has come up since I've gotten here. Why do you think I was sent here if it wasn't for this?"

"I don't know, but this wasn't it. And don't tell me you think I'm wrong again." He admonished. She lowered her eyes and shook her head which to him conveyed the same message. He shook his own head and they left to the training grounds

It was a couple days later that the alarms began sounding that ryoka had come into the Soul Society. Erin looked over at Kenpachi with a smirk and he just said, "Don't even."

Very soon a hell butterfly called them to a captain's meeting. She took her usual place by the door and waited. During the meeting she was granted free movement and would no longer be required to have a captain with her. The news made her eyes light up. She would also receive news of Bount sightings so that she could help hunt for them. In the days that followed, she was rarely seen out of her full armor and was often in the company of Toshiro as he had been put in charge of the Bount hunt.

During the time away, Kenpachi noticed that he didn't just miss the morning fights, but he also missed having the girl around. They had been able to talk about almost anything and while he could talk to Yachiru about anything, found that the conversations were vastly different. They still tried to get together for a meal, but more often than not, she was out in the Ronguki patrolling and hunting; sometimes alone and sometimes with a team.

She was home when Kenpachi came back with the news that the younger Kuchiki was ambushed and beaten badly. He let Erin know where it occurred and after that, he didn't see her for a while. He eventually went to fight Ichinose and it was on his way back that he came across Erin.

There was a group of souls milling around something on the ground.

"Kenny! What do you think they're looking at?"

"I don't know Yachiru, and I don't care. Which way do we go to get home?"

"I wanna go find out. I'll be right back!" Zaraki rolled his eyes as his lieutenant jumped off his shoulder and squeezed in between the people. He kept on walking, knowing that she would eventually catch up to him after she sated her curiosity. "Kenny! You better come over here! It's Erry! And she's hurt really bad."

When he came back the souls moved out of his way. She was on her back and it looked like nearly all the sheaths were empty. One of her scimitars was broken and the long pouch at her belt was spilling it's contents. They were metal cylinders and there was a metal spear not far from her as well. He suspected that they telescoped out to make the spears as the base was thick and the head was narrow. He finally got a good look at the surrounding village. Throwing knives and arrows studded the walls of several buildings as well as there being many on the ground. There was even a building that was mostly destroyed.

"What happened here?" He asked the nearest soul.

"This woman was hunting for certain people and was describing them to us to see if any of us had seen them. We hadn't. She was about to leave for a different area of the village to ask others when this woman attacked her. Put her sword right through her abdomen from the back all while laughing. We thought she was finished for sure but she started healing right away. We've never seen someone do that before. She fought that woman for several hours but that woman was healing herself just as fast. But then the woman here wasn't healing as fast and then wasn't healing at all but that other woman was. And she just kept on cutting and stabbing the woman here. Eventually she fell and didn't get back up and that other woman left. We've tried our best to dress her wounds but every time we move her, she just bleeds more."

Kenpachi knelt down next to Erin and felt for a pulse first and found it. Satisfied that she was still alive, he reached for the smaller pouch still attached to her belt and looked for the medical chest she had. She had shown him what various ointments were good for.

"Yachiru, go and collect all of Erin's knives and arrows." As she went off to do as he said, Kenpachi cut away the straps to the girl's armor and when it was removed, started checking the wounds. "How long ago was the fight?"

"She collapsed yesterday and we've been trying to help her ever since."

The wounds still looked pretty fresh to him. It was like when she had fought the lieutenants and captains. Her body was pushed past the breaking point and was now taking longer and longer to heal. He used the ointment she always had him use on her wounds. He knew it could only heal skin damage, but right now she needed to be able to keep her blood in her own system and it looked like the wounds had scabbed over and been broken open several times. He slathered on the ointment and placed gauze over each wound to keep it clean.

By the time he was done, Yachiru was done collecting the weapons. He had her place everything, including the now ruined armor into one of the pouches. He lifted her into his arms and traveled back to her quarters as quickly as he felt he could. He had Yachiru go get the squad 4 captain and shortly after he laid Erin down in her bed, Retsu arrived.

"What happened to her?" She asked while injecting the girl with sugar water. Kenpachi related what the villagers had told him as Unohana looked over the wounds. She asked about the ointment. He explained that as well and she left the wounds dressed as they were. She gave Erin several more injections of the sugar water and told Zaraki she would be back in a few hours to give her some more. She wanted that ointment to start working before she started cleaning the girl of the blood that seemed to cover her.

He sat down on the couch in the room and Yachiru sat next to him. "Do you think she was right, Yachiru? Should I have sent her to the world of the living with Ikakku and Yumachika?"

She patted his arm. "Don't think like that, Kenny. She'll be fine now."

"I think I forgot to tell her that the Bounts heal themselves too."

"Maybe Toshi told her?"

"Maybe."

He was still sitting there, lost in thought when Retsu came back. Yachiru had fallen asleep on the couch and Kenpachi couldn't blame her. It was a rather comfortable couch.

"Zaraki, I need to clean her and redress her. Please leave the room." He nodded and left the room. He got as far as the kitchen/dining area before pulling out a chair and sitting there. He couldn't help wondering if the girl was in that condition because of him.

A while later, he didn't know how long, Retsu called to him again, "Zaraki, I need you to come here."

He entered the room and Retsu had the sheets pulled back around the girl's abdomen. "Yeah?"

"You said she was talking to the villagers and the Bount threw a sword through her back and it came out at her abdomen?" Zaraki nodded. "There is a bulge here that should be. I think the sword severed some of her intestines and that may be one reason she's not healing quickly. Her body is still dealing with this rather serious internal damage."

"So what do you need to do?"

"It's what we need to do. I think this can't wait for me to go back for tools. First, I need you to find that bag that had the ointment. She may have surgical tools in there too. Then, we need to make an incision and see what's going on. We may have to remove some lengths of intestine or we may be able to just align them so she can heal. We won't know until we open her up."

"You want me to help you with an operation?"

"You're the only one here, now get to work."

A little apprehensive, he pulled out the white bag with red ties and started pulling out items, most of which were in chests that sounded like they were filled with glass bottles. He finally found what Retsu was looking for in a set of sterling silver surgical tools. Retsu used a kido spell to burn off any impurities on the metal and quickly cut open the area in question. Kenpachi did as he was told but quickly realized that the girl had been right about a scalpel being able to do more to balance a world then a sword.

When the procedure was over, they were both relieved to watch the incision begin to very slowly heal itself and Erin's color also began improving. He hadn't realized how gray her pallor had become. Retsu bound up the incision, knowing that stiches would be pointless.

"She should begin getting better now. You said she fought for several hours with that internal injury?"

"That's what they told me." Retsu shook her head in amazement at the girl's durability and after cleaning up and injecting Erin with more sugar water, had Kenpachi help her change the sheets. When that was done, she left to her own division.

Satisfied that the girl would be ok now, he picked up Yachiru and because it was late now, tucked her into bed, cleaned himself up and went to bed himself.

The next morning, Kenpachi checked on Erin to see if she had woken up yet, but she hadn't. He checked a couple of the bound wounds to see how the healing was going and saw that they were mostly healed. He left to his office. All of the commotion with the Bount was done and he had paperwork to catch up on.

After lunch he headed back to Erin's quarters to check in on her and sleep on her couch for his afternoon nap. She was still unconscious as he expected her to be. He quickly fell asleep but was woken up an hour or so later by the sounds of thrashing and whimpers. He looked over to the girl and realized it was coming from her. There was now blood staining the bedding as well.

He got up and went over to the bed, not sure what to do. He put a hand on her cheek and made hushing noises that had seemed to work when Yachiru was younger. She slowly relaxed but when he removed his hand she started whimpering again.

"Fuck." He sighed and eventually got into the bed with her and laid his hand over her stomach. The small contact seemed to be enough and he went back to sleep, unsatisfied with the short nap.

Erin came to slowly and her thoughts were slow and fuzzy. _How did I get in a bed? Where am I? Oh, I'm back in my own bed. Who found me? Did that gut wound heal?_ She sluggishly moved her hand to her stomach and encountered a hand. She tugged on the fingers and realized that the hand had too many fingers to be hers', not to mention not being able to feel any of that. _What the?_ She turned her head and gasped in surprise that Zaraki's face was so near and she had completely missed that there was someone in her bed. _I must be really out of it still, but why is he in bed with me?_ His eye patch was off and he was looking straight at her.

"You woke me up. Twice now."

"What? Why? How?" She stumbled over all the questions she wanted to ask and didn't have the energy to ask. His hand was still on her stomach and she didn't know why it was there to begin with.

"You were having nightmares and the thrashing was reopening your wounds and the whimpering was keeping me awake." She continued to look at him questioningly. "You only quieted when I was touching your face. You didn't leave me much choice in the matter." He removed his arm and got up from the bed, sat on the couch and put his eyepatch back on. His hair was a little off from sleeping on his side, but he'd take care of that later.

"How did I get back here?" She finally asked.

"Yachiru found you and I brought you back. We had Captain Unohana look at your wounds. You had one that was keeping you from healing the rest of yourself. She put a hand to her abdomen. "That's the one. She had to go in and remove some bits and stich up others. She made me help her." He made a face and she chuckled at it. "You've done that kind of stuff before?"

"I'm not an expert at it, but similar stuff; battlefield surgery." He made the face again and she chuckled again. "You know, I didn't used to get them."

"Get what?"

"Nightmares. It started happening shortly after I killed for the first time. The resting through deep meditation only started about 150 years ago, give or take. I remember hearing that only a person who lived without regrets also lived without nightmares, but I don't think that's entirely true. I had regrets before the world hopping, but no nightmares. I really haven't had any since traveling, but it's now that I get the nightmares."

"You regret the killing?"

"No. I feel that just about everyone I've killed outside of a battlefield has deserved it. I was even an assassin for about 26 years. Killed people when they were the most defenseless. Never loved it though. Never once have I taken a life and loved doing it. It's always just been necessary. A friend told me once that if I ever like it, I should throw my weapons as far from me as I can and run in the opposite direction."

"What would it mean to you if you started enjoying killing people?"

"If I started to enjoy it, then I don't think I should ever be allowed to go home. I would have become a monster. Have you ever enjoyed it?"

He shook his head. "Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it, but I enjoy the fight, not the killing." They were silent for a few minutes, lost in their own thoughts. "You should eat something. You were unconscious all of yesterday and half of today."

"I don't know if I have enough strength to eat anything quite yet. I can barely move my arms as it is."

"Just means it will be like when you were tied to the tree." He smirked and went to her fridge to see what she had available. When his back was turned, she blushed. He returned shortly with a plate of fruit and cheese along with one of the small containers of juice Erin seemed to prefer.

He set them down on the couch and then helped Erin into a seated position and moved her over in the bed so that he could sit next to her, but opposite so they could face each other without him having to sit completely on the edge of the bed.

Once they were settled, he set the plate on her lap and the juice container between his knees as there wasn't anything to set it on. He fed her slowly as she barely had the energy to hold herself upright. He started to enjoy it when her lips brushed his fingertips. It was odd, but he was actually enjoying feeding her like this. _Her lips are so soft. Pull yourself together, Zaraki. She's never going to be interested in you. As soon as she was allowed to go where she liked without supervision, she was hardly ever here. _He held her head steady as she drank some of the juice. Her eyes had become heavy with sleep and her eyelids were fluttering as she tried to keep them open. She was passing out instead of going into her deep meditation.

He laid her back down and took the opportunity to check on her wounds. They had healed, so he removed the bandages. He ate the rest of the food on the plate and drank the rest of the juice. _No point in leaving it._ He thought. He tossed away the bandages and juice container, and cleaned the plate they had been using. He was about to leave when he heard her whimpering in her sleep again. He found that he cared too much to leave her knowing that she was having a nightmare.

He sighed. It was too early to go back to sleep but he didn't want to just leave her either. He decided to compromise. He went back to her room and lifted her into his arms and went back to his home.

"Kenny, what are you doing with Erry?" Yachiru asked as Kenpachi walked into the house carrying a now sleeping soundly Erin.

"She's getting nightmares every time I stop touching her and I couldn't just leave her to them. I never left you to yours." He sat with her on his couch. "Go to the mess hall and pick us up some dinner, will you, squirt?" She nodded and left, coming back a short time later with a pair of plates. He set Erin's head on his thigh and they ate together.

When they were finished, Yachiru asked, "What now? Is she going to sleep here?"

"Let's see how she does." He got up and put a pillow under her head and moved away. They waited a little while and she again started to show distress. He waited until she began to whimper before cupping her cheek as he had earlier and just like before, she quieted down.

"I guess you'll just have to sleep with her! Your bed or hers'?" Kenpachi started at her choice of words, but realized that the words were innocent.

"Will you be ok here by yourself?"

"I can sleep on her couch. You said it was really comfy."

Kenpachi nodded and had Yachiru stay with the girl while he got cleaned up for the night and got ready for bed. When he was done, he had Yachiru do the same. She was excited for the sleep over so did what he asked without her usual complaints. While he had bathed, he had thought about just having Yachiru sleep with her, but realized that wouldn't work when he had come out of his room to fine Yachiru trying to calm Erin, but it not working. What was it about him that seemed to make nightmares disappear? First for Yachiru when she was younger, and now Erin.

At Erin's home, he laid her on her bed, quickly got Yachiru settled on the couch and then laid beside Erin and did as he had before and laid his hand on her stomach.

It was early morning when Erin awoke. She felt Zaraki's body next to hers and his hand on her stomach. She looked over and saw that Yachiru was sleeping on her couch and smiled. She was feeling much better. Not nearly her normal self, better, but she did feel like she would be able to walk around at least. She didn't want to wake Zaraki up so stayed still and went to her meditative rest.

It was now morning and Kenpachi was waking up.

"Thank you, Zaraki. I guess they came back, eh?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't have to."

"It's fine. I wouldn't have felt right just leaving you."

"Were the Bount defeated?"

"Yeah. Some chick scientist from centuries ago made it so their leader could be defeated. Kourisutchi killed the old man, and one of Ichigo's friends killed the woman that got you. Did I remember to tell you that they heal themselves like you do?"

"I was briefed by Captain Hitsuguya. We had all split up to ask around for the Bount. Once we found one we were going to be working together to take it down. We were checking out separate districts to cover more ground. We were just supposed to locate, not fight, but she ambushed me and I couldn't do what Captain Hitsuguya had told the others to do in that situation. Something about pulsing their spiritual energy. I've never fought against someone with a healing ability before and hers didn't seem to take away any of her energy. Just used the surrounding buildings for healing. I hadn't been expecting her to heal so fast either."

"Why didn't Hitsuguya send a soul reaper with you?"

"I think that he just didn't think of it. He did at first, but when we weren't encountering any Bount, we started to want to cover the extra ground. And to be fair, I was arrogant, thinking that they couldn't defeat me. This isn't really something I've ever encountered before. Fighting armies, yes, not guerrilla fighters. Being a guerrilla fighter I can do all day long. And then for the fighters to be so resilient!"

"I should have sent you out when they were still in the world of the living."

"Don't worry about it. Help me up, would you? I think I can start moving around today. Did my weapons ever get collected?"

"Yeah, I had Yachiru collect them. One of your swords snapped." He got out of bed and helped her get up. She was a little unsteady at first but quickly regained her balance and was able to slowly move around without help.

"I remember. Are there any blacksmiths around here?"

"I thought you said that the only thing you didn't have in those pouches of yours was indoor plumbing."

"I have a portable forge, but it's not meant for something as large as a sword."

"Are you telling me you can forge weapons?"

"Yes and no. I'm better at small items, like daggers or horseshoes or nails. While I can do larger items, like swords, I'm not going to be nearly as good as someone that does it for a living. Nails, on the other hand, I can do really well." They both chuckled which caused Yachiru to wake up.

"Erry! You're awake!" She jumped off the couch and barreled into Erin, causing her to completely lose her balance and fall heavily to the floor.

"I'm awake and doing better, but not well enough to be able to catch you like that."

"Oh. Ok. What were you getting nightmares about, anyway?"

"I don't remember. A really common one I get is finally going home but not being able to recognize my family. It's been a long time since I've seen them last and their faces don't even show up in my dreams anymore. There are a few others I get every now and then, but that one happens the most."

"You'll see them again, don't worry, Erry."

"I hope so, Yachiru, but I will always have my doubts until I see them again."

"I'm hungry. What do you have to eat?"

"I think I'm well enough to make breakfast. Help me up."

"You don't have to, Erin." Zaraki replied.

"It's ok. I haven't been eating here much, so the food either needs to be cooked or it will spoil."

Zaraki helped her up and they all went into the kitchen. She pulled out the items in question and got to cooking. She made Zaraki stay out of the kitchen so he went back to his house to pick up syrup for Yachiru.

After breakfast, they left to get dressed for the day and so did Erin. It turned out that he didn't know about any blacksmiths so she replaced the broken scimitar with another in her stockpile. It wasn't as good of a quality, but it would do for now. Their days fell into a bit of a routine as Erin healed and Erin began to wonder why she hadn't been sent to the next world yet. It was a couple weeks after the Bount had been defeated and she was having lunch with Shunsui and Jushiro.

"Captain Ukitaki, I can't help but wonder why I'm still here. The conflict is over, but I'm still here."

Shunsui replied, "You know, it could be that there is something else coming that you need to be here for."

"Yeah, because I was such a great help with the Bount." She replied into her teacup.

"I've been thinking about this as well. Have you ever thought that maybe you aren't here for fighting?" Jushiro replied.

"It's happened before where I was in a world to help with healing or to help with strategy, but you don't need either here."

"Kenpachi has been alone for a long time except for Yachiru. He cares for you, you know. And when he's around you, he's happier then I've seen him except when he's had a good fight."

"Captain

Kyōraku, what you're suggesting doesn't make much sense to me. You realize that as soon as this world has found balance or found a means of becoming balanced, I will be rather forcefully pulled from this world and dropped into another. Don't get me wrong, Zaraki is a good man and if this was my world, I wouldn't have reservations. But this isn't my world and leading him on, possibly falling in love with him and him with me….you're asking too much. It wouldn't be fair to either of us."

"You have had no relations in nearly 900 years of travel? How could you even manage?" Kyōraku responded with mock surprise and hurt.

"Have I remained celibate? No. But any relationships are gone into with an understanding that It can't be forever. And why are we discussing my sex life?"

"Because it might be what you need too. The worlds you've been in, has it always been battle after battle?"

"Sometimes there are short respites, but yes, it is battle after battle; one way or another."

"And you haven't had that in this world. Maybe you need to remember how to love too." Kyōraku replied.

"I will think on it."

"You don't have to, Erin." Ukitake replied gently. "It's just a thought. Shunsui has often been known to think at things from angles most people don't, so he could just as easily be wrong."

"Jushiro is right. I could be wrong, I just don't think I am on this one."

"That means that pretty much as soon as he loves me, I'll be taken from him. How does that work out, Captain?"

"It may just be that he needs to become more open to loving things other than fighting and you would be able to help him towards that goal. But Shunsui is right. We all see how he is after being around you."

"Then he hides it well from me because he always sounds like he's annoyed about something."

"That's just his normal speaking voice. You forget, he grew up in the roughest district. Being nice got you killed. Sounding nice got you killed. You survived by making sure everyone knew that if they messed with you, they were the ones that got killed. Having Yachiru with him would not have made that easier. Not with the slavers always looking for new meat. I can't even imagine what her life would have been like if he hadn't taken her under his wing like he did."

"I will think on it. Again, this is not an easy decision. I refuse to make any first moves. Like I said, a relationship other than friendship between us is very unfair to either of us."

"That's all I'm asking. Think about it. It could be why you're here, after all." Kyōraku replied.

They finished lunch without any further mention of it. When she left them, Shunsui smiled and asked, "Do you think Kenpachi will ever make the first move?"

"No."

"Should we take bets on how long before he realizes he loves her?"

"If we're taking bets, then I'll take a year or so from now." Shunsui laughed and pushed his friend over. "Wouldn't it be nice if this was her world after all?"

Zaraki walked around the corner. "It would be nice if this was her world. You two meddling again?"

"How long have you been listening?" Kyōraku asked.

"Long enough to know Ukitake would lose that bet."

"What brings you here?" Jushiro asked, nonplussed by the comment.

"I was wondering if it was a possibility that Erin is from our world of the living. It sounds like you were wondering the same thing."

"Korusutchi could find out. See if there is an Erin Graves in the world that looks like her and see if she is currently in residence. I'll ask him."

"Thanks." Kenpachi left the two men and went back home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thank you for the review. Also, this chapter has a bit of a lemon in it. **

* * *

The next day found Jushiro in front of Myorri. "Why should I help you do this? I was banned from even being in the same room with her without someone else being there as well."

"Call it scientific curiosity then."

"I suppose I could collect the other Erin and experiment on her if she exists."

"That would be boring for you. The other Erin would only be a human without any spiritual pressure and nothing to distinguish her from any other human."

"So how would this benefit me then?"

Jushiro thought for a moment. "What if you do this for me and I'll see if I can get you a blood and maybe a tissue sample from her as payment?"

"I want guarantees, Ukitake, not maybe's."

He sighed. "I'll ask her then." There was nothing else he could offer the scientist, so sought out Erin and found her at the Division 11 training grounds.

Erin saw the kindly captain of the 13th squad and walked over to him. "Hello Captain Ukitake. What brings you here?"

He thought how to pose the question and finally decided to be blunt. "Shunsui and I were curious if it was possible that you might be from our world of the living. I asked Captain Kurosutchi if he would look into it for me, but he declined unless I can guarantee blood and tissue samples for him to study." Erin was about to answer and he held his hand up to stop her. "Before you respond, you should know that he is greedy. He will want several vials of blood and several tissue samples." He lowered his hand.

"What made you want to know this?"

Jushiro glanced at Zaraki who had his back to them and then lowered his voice. "I think you know. If you are from this world, there would be nothing holding you back."

"I have been to many alternate versions of my world. More than likely, your world of the living is just another alternate version of mine."

"What's the harm in checking?"

Erin eventually nodded and they left together. As they walked, Erin spoke up. "Captain Ukitake, I can't go into certain rooms anymore. Cells I can deal with, but rooms with tables and straps are just something I can't handle anymore. I found that out the hard way once. It just brings back too many bad memories and I don't have control of my fear responses which, in this case, make me want to kill anyone in the room."

"I understand. I'll have him use a different room than his lab. He won't be happy about it, but he'll do it."

When they arrived, Jushiro had Erin wait outside while he went in and made the arrangements. As she waited, Zaraki strode up.

"I saw you walk off with Ukitake and wondered where you were going. You didn't look happy to be going wherever it was. Are you ok?"

"Kurosutchi has a price to see if I'm from your world of the living. I'm here to pay it."

"What is his price?"

"Blood and tissue samples."

"You don't have to pay it."

"It would be nice to know. I've checked out other Earth worlds and every now and then I do find another me. Just as often there is a dog or a cat that belongs to that world's version of my parents that they have named Erin instead. Or they have a male child and they've named him the male version of Erin."

"If you've seen these other versions of your parents, then how come you said you don't remember what they look like?"

Erin smiled sadly. "Because they all look different. Each world has small differences. After a while I couldn't remember what my parents actually looked like because of all the versions of my parents I've seen. Sometimes it's hair color, sometimes it's nose shape, or weight, or even height."

Jushiro came back out of the building. "Oh, hi, Zaraki. Are you coming in too?"

"Might as well. He'll be less inclined to go too far with both of us there."

Jushiro led them to a small room with a concrete floor that had a drain in the middle. There was a cluttered desk and a couple steel chairs in the room as well as a small table with a few empty syringes, a scalpel, and a few specimen trays. Korusutchi was standing in the middle of the room tapping his foot impatiently.

"Brought your watch dog, did you?" Korusutchi sneered. Zaraki growled in response.

"You required blood and tissue samples?" Erin asked to break up the growing tension in the room.

"Yes. Took you long enough coming back here, Ukitake."

"Well, you know me, frail health and all" he replied disarmingly.

"Sit here, child." The scientist barked, pointing to an uncomfortable looking chair. Erin sat and waited for further instructions. He tied off an arm, found a vein, and stabbed into it. He filled 5 vials and when he was finished with that, happily grabbed up a scalpel and sample jar. He stabbed into her arm, hoping to get a response and was disappointed when he didn't even receive a gasp of pain. He took a few narrow chunks and steadily took larger. He also stopped to watch the wound heal itself and even took a video recording and a few other recordings of it. After 6 tissue samples, it was Jushiro who said it was enough. Zaraki had wanted to earlier, hating to watch someone cut into her with such ferocity. But with Erin not giving the clown the screams he clearly wanted, he wasn't going to be the one to shame her.

"Oh fine, though these will hardly do for samples."

Erin was given a damp cloth to clean up with and Korusutchi lead them to one of his large computers. He began typing into it and eventually asked her for a middle name to help narrow the search. She gave it and he continued to type. It wasn't long before a driver's license appeared on the screen. The picture was as Erin had looked right before she stepped through that first portal.

"Yes, that picture is similar to the one I still have in my pouch. Different shirt, but the picture is the same."

He hacked into satellite cameras and cameras around the area. They eventually found her and had to admit that this was an alternate world from the world Erin came from.

"Thank you Captain. It was worth knowing for certain." Erin said to the painted up captain who was already clearing the computer of the search results.

"It's what you paid for. Nothing more." He replied dismissively.

Erin, Ukitake and Zaraki left the building and Ukitake left them to head back to his own division. As they walked back to the 11th, Zaraki asked, "So why did you do it?"

"Captain Ukitake asked me."

"That's all? Just because he asked you?"

"I was curious and the price wasn't too high to discourage me."

"It's too bad. I was hoping this was your world."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I don't come across too many people that can give me a decent fight." He now won more fights they he lost when they sparred, though Erin suspected that it had more to do with him getting to know her fighting style than anything else. She had been contemplating switching weapons on him.

Erin let it drop. She didn't want to either encourage or discourage him. _Why didn't I just tell her the real reason?_ Kenpachi silently berated himself for a short time before finally asking, "Why didn't you make him stop taking skin samples? It had to hurt, but you didn't even gasp."

"And let him win? Remember when we fought he said he was going to make me scream. He got the samples he said he was going to take from me, and that sucked, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him hear me make even the slightest noise of discomfort."

He pulled her in a quick side hug as they walked. "Definitely Division 11 material. Too bad you don't have an ounce of spiritual pressure."

She playfully shoved him away. "Psh! Like I need it! Besides, it sounds like this spiritual pressure crap is just more annoying than it's worth."

"You just wish you had my spiritual pressure." He crowed.

"I have yet to see any evidence of this spiritual pressure you keep on going on about."

"Sure you have. Remember that ambush we were in when we first met? I saw you watching the tail end of my fight. Remember when that last guy was striking at me and he couldn't cut me?"

"His blade was just dull."

"No, Erin. My spiritual pressure is so high that his blade may as well have been a stick. You would never be able to survive our fights if you had a normal level of spiritual pressure."

"Are you sure?"

He laughed. "Do you remember when Captain Feng had you tied to the tree and I took off my eye patch?"

"Yeah. I had thought you were missing an eye and was surprised that you had a working eye under it."

"And do you remember all of Feng's men who passed out when that happened?"

"Yeah…."

"That's a pretty normal reaction when a Captain releases all of their spiritual pressure like we had both done." Erin fell silent as they reached his office, lost in thought. Kenpachi handed her a stack of papers for her to go through. He had fallen behind on the paperwork again and was happy that Erin was willing to continue to help him with it.

_His fingers keep on brushing mine. Is he doing it on purpose? Come on, Erin! Get a grip on yourself! You can't keep him! You can't fall for him! You just can't, Erin. Why did they have to tell me he likes me?_ She mentally shook herself and decided to pretend she was completely oblivious.

They had finished for the day and Kenpachi turned to Erin. "How's the arm Korusutchi took all the samples from?"

"Back to normal. I'm not sure why he took one of the scars, but the skin healed clear." She showed him the arm in question. He ran a finger over the area where the scar used to be and she shivered. "It's a little more sensitive then I'm used to it being."

"That one took longer to heal then the others."

"It was also the last and largest of the samples he took."

"Come eat with me and Yachiru tonight. Otherwise you'll only eat some small meal. You've gotten skinnier since you first got here which means you aren't eating enough."

"Yeah, I've noticed."

"Don't make me put you on the Yachiru diet of all candy."

Erin made a face that made Zaraki chuckle. "I was never a huge fan of sweets like that. Bread and pastas, yes, sweets, not so much."

"What about a sweet bun?"

"Yeah, I enjoyed cinnamon buns and honey buns."

"I'll see what I can find. Did you like deserts?"

"Yeah. The cheese cakes and the lemon cakes and you can never go wrong with key lime pie."

"I don't think I've ever heard of any of those. Sounds like you liked your sweet with citrus."

"Yeah. It's just the right combination for me."

"Good to know." He smirked and Erin caught it.

"What's that supposed to mean? Are you plotting something?"

"Me? Plot? Do I look like some noble?"

The mental image of him as some proper nobleman made her laugh loudly. She wanted to go back to her quarters and work on a new set of leather armor for herself so he left her for the afternoon until it was time for dinner. He had been able to find some sweet buns and he admonished Yachiru to not eat them all. He went over to collect Erin for dinner and found her shaping leather. She had used her old set as a pattern and was now getting it to stiffen and hold a form.

"I always meant to ask you. Don't most people who use armor use metal?"

"Metal becomes too heavy and causes my movements to be restricted and slowed. Leather is just enough protection and allows me full movement."

"With the amount of weapons you have on you when you wear your armor, you're concerned with a little more weight?"

"The amount of weapons also act like metal armor so why have more metal?" She shot back at him.

"Just thinking that maybe that Bount wouldn't have been able to stab you if you had been wearing a metal armor."

"Still worrying about that? Metal armor has joints and she would have just found one of those to stab me through and I might not have been able to survive those hits more than likely."

"Dinner's ready. Come on." He held out a hand for her to use to pull herself up. She took it and he pulled her up quickly, causing her to stumble into him. She pushed herself away with a little bit of red staining her cheeks and quickly turned and walked towards his home.

When they got to his house, the food was already on the table and Yachiru already had one of the sweet buns stuffed in her mouth. They ate and Kenpachi was happy to note that Erin ate more than she usually did. When they finished, Erin grabbed up the empty plates to wash them.

"What are you doing?"

"You cooked, so I'm helping to clean up. It's only fair."

He went to pull the plates from her hands but she maneuvered so that he couldn't. He finally caught up to her, grabbing her around the waist so she couldn't get away. "Stop. I wouldn't invite you to have dinner and then let you clean up."

"You do a lot of the cooking and you are making me feel like a free loader. I don't even have to pay for groceries. Let me do this." He continued to hold on to her waist, his hands warm on her hips. "Please just let me do my part to pay my way."

"You fight me every morning. Believe me, that's payment enough." He drew her in closer to take the plates from her hands but with his hands off her hips, she made a spring for the kitchen sink.

"Gotta be faster than that, Zaraki!" She ran the water and started working on the plates. She grabbed a towel and put it over her shoulder only to have Kenpachi pull it off of her.

"I'll dry then."

"I suppose I'll let you dry." She smirked. He spun the towel in his hands to twist it up and then flicked an end out at her butt, making her squawk in surprise.

"You suppose?" She smiled and then gave him a faux glare. He spun the towel again so she quickly hip checked him. They finished cleaning the plates and as she was drying her hands he very quickly spun her to face him, grabbed her by the hips and lifted her onto a nearby counter. He held her head and leaned in, kissing her firmly. She was a deer in headlights and it took a little bit to finally push him away.

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"I won't be here forever."

"I'm ok with that." He brushed some strands of her hair off of her forehead. "I decided that for whatever amount of time I can have you, that I will have you."

He leaned in for another kiss but she turned to look for Yachiru so he got her ear which he began kissing and sucking. Yachiru had left, knowing that Kenpachi was going to finally make his move on Erin that night. He had been talking about her a lot since the Bount incident.

"Your daughter?" She was trying to keep in control but the feel of his lips on her ear and then on her neck was making her logic center fail miserably.

"She's taking a walk." He pulled her face back towards his so that he could kiss her again. He lifted her off the counter and carried her out the door and over to her quarters. He had her straddling his hips as he carried her so she could feel his arousal against her pubic bone.

"It's been awhile, Zaraki." She confessed.

"Kenpachi. Call me Kenpachi, Erin." He leaned her up against the frame of the door as he kissed her again and opened her door. He continued to carry her into the house and shut the door behind him with a foot. "Why have you waited so long then?" He asked in response to her confession.

"It's the leaving that's hard and then dealing with the aftermath of my emotions. It's just too hard. It's so much easier to just keep my distance."

They had arrived at her bedroom and he had set her down on the bed. "I'm not going to let you keep your distance from me anymore." He untucked the tank top she was wearing and lifted the shirt off of her, revealing a black sports bra. His hands traveled along her sides, stomach and back and he could feel the triangular burns everywhere the skin would have been tender; her sides, her stomach, the undersides of her arms and even her armpits. He could feel the multitude of crisscrossing scars on her back that he knew came from being whipped.

He couldn't keep the question from his lips as his finger traced one of the whip lashes. "How many times?"

"I was told they lost count after 157. I had lost consciousness several times and I was throwing insults at them which made them lash me more times than they probably would normally."

"Why did they do it?"

"You remember how I arrived in this world?" She felt him nod. "I did that in the middle of an army encampment at night. They thought I was a spy or an assassin and wanted to know what I knew. Considering that I didn't know anything at that point, all I could do was be a smartass. I was going to be whipped either way."

He rubbed a finger against one of the triangular scars. "And these?"

"I dropped into a world that was in the middle of a witch hunt and I dropped in too close to a witch hunter. All three of the tortures happened in my first 75 years of travel. I had become proficient with a sword but still only really knew how to use a bow and a quarterstaff with any real ability. So it's not like I am now. He had me at musket point the moment I landed. I was dressed differently than they had ever seen and I had arrived out of a hole in the sky. What else could I be but a witch? But their laws demanded a confession before a public killing. That was how they tried to make me confess. It lasted weeks. The last thing they did was use that spiked device on my hand. And then they threatened to do it to my other hand or even my feet and legs.

"When they were finally convinced that I wouldn't break, and I wanted to, many times, they threw me into a cell to rot. Gave me food sporadically, so I ate raw rats to stay alive. Drank their blood for something to stop the burning thirst in my throat."

He tugged off her gloves. "Don't wear these around me anymore unless you need to protect your palms." He tossed them away. He kissed the places where the fingers were missing. "How were the fingers removed?"

"The hand was crippled afterward. In the world right before the army encampment, there were all kinds of different beings. They had explored other planets and there were beings of many different worlds there. The technology was very advanced and a doctor there repaired my hand. He said that the bones in the hand had fused together in strange ways and there were other areas that were like puzzle pieces for him to put together. There was a lot of nerve, bone, and tendon damage to the whole hand. The tendons for the now missing fingers had snapped apart and there was no way to reconnect them. It was just as well because the nerve and bone damage was so severe, he felt that the best thing to do was to remove the fingers. It took a long time before I could use my hand the way I used to be able to, but he was also a very good doctor." She fell silent with her face tucked in to the hollow of his neck.

He was now just hugging her close to his chest. He had never asked her about what he had seen in the sketchpad, but he wanted to know everything he could about her. "What kept you going?"

"Back then I could still remember the faces of my family and I couldn't bear to leave them without even a body to mourn. To never know what happened to me. Back then I still had hope that I would see them again."

"You've lost hope?"

"It comes and goes. Lately it's been mostly gone. I get a spike of hope when a new portal opens and then it leaves when I realize I'm not home."

He kissed her again deeply, trying to convey his want and the comfort he could offer her here in this world. She kissed him back hesitantly, holding herself back from her feelings. As much as she wanted this, she also didn't want it. She knew the companionship he was offering would feel great while she was there, but would leave her desolate in the next world.

"Quit holding back, Erin. I'm not looking for love right now, just let me pleasure you as you pleasure me. Let go of your fears and enjoy the moment." He had worked her sports bra off and had shrugged out of his captain's jacket and uniform top. She gasped against his lips as his hands explored her breasts. They had not been spared from the heated iron. He went to rub a finger against her nipples but found instead another triangular scar that obliterated any sign of her nipples. The undersides and sides of her breasts had received similar treatment. "Tell me if you don't like something."

She began touching his exposed chest, tracing the planes of his muscles and grazing his nipples with her fingertips as she explored other areas of his torso. He leaned her back as he kissed her neck and brought his hands to the waist band of her pants. He pulled them down as his mouth traveled lower, sucking on her breasts and paying equal attention to the areas with scars as those without. He sucked where her nipples should have been and he felt her writhe against him.

He caught a glance at her panties and smiled. "Boy shorts?" He kissed and nibbled on her stomach.

"They don't ride up in a fight." She whispered huskily. She was biting her lip and soft low moans of pleasure were escaping her lips.

He slipped his hands down the sides of her panties, pulling them free of her as well. Her inner thighs hadn't been spared either. The sight made him want to kill the man who had taken such pleasure in her screams.

She had expected the pauses. The first time a man saw the amount of damage she had taken always made them stare. Sometimes that ended any possibility of sex and other times they would continue but the guy would avoid touching any of the scars. It surprised her when he didn't. How could he not be repulsed by them? Hell, she was repulsed by them. Seeing that her skin had healed back without that one burn scar after the scientist took a sample had her seriously wondering if it was worth it to have him remove all of her scars like that.

Kenpachi didn't hesitate long. His fingers trailed up her thighs as he knelt between them, softly caressing the skin regardless of the texture. He leaned forward to kiss her and while they kissed, she took the opportunity to untie the white sash at his waist and slide his pants and underwear down. He removed them the rest of the way. She could feel his length pressed against her leg and the anticipation was making her eager as she began kissing him back with as much passion as he was kissing her. One of his hands trailed down her side and made its way between her legs.

He touched her lightly, causing her to quiver with want. He slowly rubbed the outer edges of her entrance, making her inhale sharply. His fingers traced her opening and then around her clit teasingly. He continued until she finally whispered, "Please stop teasing me." He obliged her by slowly inserting a pair of fingers into her causing her to gasp in pleasure and press into him. He thrust into her a few more times tantalizingly slowly with his fingers to see what she would do. While he was teasing her, he had not been kissing her. He had been watching her reactions. She brought a hand up to his face and pulled it closer to her while she leaned up, her lips catching his.

He shifted and removed his hand making her groan with want. He pressed himself to her entrance and slid in, causing her to arch her back, pressing her chest to his and gasp against his lips. They began slowly, her enjoying the movement of him on top of her and him enjoying the play of her inner muscles against his penis.

As they began moving against each other more urgently, she wrapped her legs around his waist allowing him a slightly deeper entry and a slightly different angle. Her breathing changed as she came, but he noticed that she didn't make much sound as she came. The squeezing of her orgasm as she pressed into him helped him find his own release. He rolled onto his side to watch her and run his hands along her side and sighed in pleasure as she did the same.

_Probably the only way she got any kind of privacy was to be quiet during sex. If she's been in campaign after campaign, then she's probably lived in a tent more often than living under a roof like this._

His hand roamed down her back and rear and he felt even more of the triangular burns on the underside of her ass. He frowned as he encountered it and when she saw the face, lifted a corner of her mouth. He pulled her in close. "I didn't mean…"

"I know. Don't worry about it. It's a lot to take in all at once even when you know what to expect. At least you weren't turned completely off by it all."

He hugged her a little tighter. "You've had guys walk away because of it?"

"Yeah. The scarring is pretty gross. I don't blame them. You didn't have to kiss and suck on them like you did."

"There's nothing wrong with the scarring. Any guy who has a problem with it isn't worth your time. So stop apologizing for something that's not your fault."

"Thanks Kenpachi. I needed to hear that." She felt him stirring against her stomach. She adjusted herself so that she could kiss him and wrapped her free leg over his hip. He took the hint and slid back into her.

He pulled away briefly from their kiss to tell her that he wanted to hear her this time. She moaned and gasped a little bit more, but the sound level didn't really increase. He was ok with that and made it his mission to see how much he could make her give even the low sounds she did. As she came, she gripped his ass and bit into his shoulder, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make him grunt louder than before as he came. They didn't stop with the orgasm, but continued to buck against each other. Zaraki rolled her back onto her back so he could thrust a little more urgently. Her breathing sharpened again as she came again and again, her gasping getting a little louder which excited Kenpachi further.

"How many is that?" He whispered into her ear as he latched onto her neck with his lips, nibbling and sucking.

"I don't know anymore. They're blending into each other." She moaned huskily.

"Good." He responded as he thrust into her again, cumming. He slowed his thrusts, enjoying her continued orgasm. This was how he liked to leave a session, with his partner unable to stop cumming until he stopped thrusting. She continued to buck against him slowly as her orgasm came to an end, shuddering with the post orgasm quivers. When she finally quieted he gave her a small grin. "Feeling satisfied?"

She closed her eyes in pleasure, her arms still around his waist. "Very much so."

He gave her another kiss, this one light. "Good." He rolled off of her and sat up. "I hate to leave you, but Yachiru has never spent the night alone at home, and I would hate to surprise her with that."

"No worries. I don't rest for very long anyway and I'd probably wake you up."

"I'll see you in the morning then." She nodded and when he finished dressing, came back for a quick kiss goodbye and then left.

With Kenpachi gone, she grabbed a shower, updated her journal, and then went to bed still surprised at the turn of events that day.


	8. Chapter 8

**I know - I'm horrible about updating. Thank you to those of you who follow or favorite this story. When I see the notifications, I remember that I haven't updated and need to. I try to post about 10 pages per chapter, but this one is a little short. I've stopped it at a natural pause, but will be posting 2 chapters today. I currently have about 114 pages written already, and these chapters will put me at about 86 of the pages posted. I will try to be better at posting. **

* * *

The next morning, she was doing laundry again when Zaraki came over. "Still behind on laundry?"

"I think I just might be starting to catch up." She ran a few items through the ringer and hung them up to dry. "Just room for a few more pieces of clothing and then we can fight. I'm going to switch weapons on you. I think you're getting too used to my scimitars and my fighting style with them."

"What weapon are you going to use then?" He asked. She had thrown a washed shirt into the ringer's bin and so he picked it up and put it through the ringer as he had just seen her do so and then hung it up, surprising Erin as she had never seen him do any part of laundry before. He smirked at the look on her face. "I do know how to do laundry, I just choose not to."

Erin shook her head and then realized Yachiru wasn't with him. "I was thinking the quarterstaff. Where's Yachiru? She always watches us in the morning."

"She belongs to the women soul reaper society. She's the president and they had an early meeting today." He explained. "The quarterstaff? That's kind of a wussy weapon, isn't it?"

"You'd be surprised. A master swordsman can still get beaten by a person who knows how to use a quarterstaff. In my opinion, it's actually a superior weapon to the sword with the spear being superior to the quarterstaff."

"If the spear is better than the quarterstaff, they why aren't you using a spear today?"

"Because cutting a person isn't the only way to beat them." She handed him the last piece of laundry and he gave it the same treatment he had the others. She took care of the dirty water and set the laundry supplies on the porch to dry. She then went inside and grabbed the wooden quarterstaff she had pulled out of her weapon's pouch earlier that morning. It was a little taller than her shoulder, but not by much. When she came out to stand near Kenpachi, she rested it against her shoulder and tugged on her gloves with the padded palms. She gestured in the direction of his courtyard, "Shall we?"

He nodded and they walked over to his courtyard as they had done nearly every morning since she had arrived. They fought and it was again like they had fought for the first time. He was holding back because he didn't want to break her stick as he saw it and she did not. She did modify the force she used so that she wouldn't break his bones, but would leave welts and bruises.

"You can't be afraid to use force against me. I know what your strength is like and if you break through, then so be it."

He leaned over and kissed her. "I was worried that your stick would splinter and I'd end up accidently killing you."

"It's stronger than you think. And if you're so worried, work on your technique instead of relying on your strength. But first, try fighting as if I had a pair of swords."

The fought again and it took a few times, but by the end of their session, he was fighting like she had become used to. The quarterstaff had some good nicks to it, but had not splintered. He had quite a few bruises and she had to remind him to let her take care of him.

"But I'm not cut." He protested.

"But you are bruised and I do have something that can help them heal." She pulled off her gloves and tucked them in the waist band of her pants. She rummaged through the medicinal chest he was used to seeing. The ointment was a slightly different color and had a different odor, this one spicier smelling whereas the other had a more musky scent. The procedure was the same. While she worked on him, he kept a hand at her cheek and jaw area, rubbing and stroking lightly. "The areas I've covered in the ointment will heat up a little, so don't be alarmed."

"You held back when we were fighting, didn't you?"

"Only from killing and bone breaking blows. I didn't want to send you to the 4th squad because while I can set your bones, I can't heal them."

"There's no way you can kill with that stick."

She smiled and stood up. She grabbed up the quarterstaff and had him stand as well. She moved the weapon to his temple. "This blow would kill you. In my world, they slaughter cattle by hitting them in this spot. It would kill you too." She moved the weapon so that it pointed at his zyphoid process. "There is a small piece of cartilage at the end of your sternum. Even a small blow can knock it loose and it would go straight into your lungs. You would die by drowning in your own blood." She moved it to over his heart. "A strong enough blow can cause your heart to begin beating abnormally and has potential to cause you to go into cardiac arrest." Lastly, she moved the weapon to just under his nose. "If I break your nose with enough force, the cartilage will be driven into your brain. This can also kill you." She pulled the quarterstaff away from his face and grinned.

"Fine, fine, so it's not just a fancy stick. Let's go down to the training grounds. I need to check on the newer recruits. Only four left from the original 20 I received this year. Time to see if they deserve to be made seated members. Maybe I'll have them each fight you and your stick." The fact that he refused to call it a weapon or even give it it's proper name made her giggle as they walked down to the training grounds. The men were surprised to see her without her swords, though Ikakku was happy to see someone else with a staff style weapon.

Zaraki called over the four men and then introduced their sparring partner. They had seen Erin around, but had not practiced with her yet as they were Ikkaku's responsibility and had been told that they were nowhere near any kind of level to even spar with her.

"But Captain Zaraki, why are you having Miss Erin spar with us with only a quarterstaff?" One of the men asked.

Ikakku jumped in, "Are you trying to say you look down on staff style weapons? Do I need to remind you what I did to each of you with my shikai?"

"No 3rd seat Madarame!" They chorused together. Erin had seen the man's weapon change form and knew the shape it took. While she had seen similar weapons before, she had never seen one with a spear end and was fascinated by it.

Erin set her quarterstaff against her shoulder while she tugged her padded gloves back on. As Kenpachi had asked, she was only going to wear them when she needed to. "Who's first, Captain?" She asked formally. She had always stayed formal while in front of his men, so her change from personal address to formal had been expected.

One by one she fought each of the men. She held back so that Zaraki would have a chance to see what they could and could not do. By the end of the matches, he had concluded that none of the men were ready for a seated position. They would continue to work with Ikakku until the next set of recruits came in and then they would be in charge of their own training. Kenpachi moved on to spar with his seated officers to see if any were ready to be moved up or had allowed others to become better than them and needed to be moved down. There were a couple minor changes but nothing upsetting to anyone. Most of the guys had a good enough idea of each other's ability and often knew when one of them had surpassed another.

While he worked with the seated officers, Erin worked with the non-seated members. At the end of the morning, Erin mentioned a few names to Kenpachi. These were men who had improved quite a bit and might be ready for a seated position. He nodded and agreed to take a look at them after lunch. When lunch was over, he checked out the three men she had indicated. He sparred with each of them and found that one was ready to be moved up to 20th seat, but the others were very close. The change was made and the day's training continued.

Kenpachi and Erin spent the evening together and their days started following a similar pattern that they had before, but now with frequent sex.

It was another week when Kenpachi learned in the weekly Captain's meeting that he was to accompany the 12th squad captain as he did some research in the precipice world. On his way there, he stopped by Erin at the training grounds and let her know what was going on as he didn't know how long he would be gone for.

He arrived home late that evening without Yachiru and wearing an odd bracelet. Erin was waiting for him on his porch with a hot pot of tea and an extra cup.

She didn't see the lieutenant when he sat down next to her. "Where's Yachiru? I didn't see her come home and I see she's not with you and it's getting close to her bed time."

He had a slightly annoyed look on his face, but Erin just assumed he was annoyed about the baby sitting job he just finished. "The Female Soul Reaper Society is getting together to plan for something they are doing in the human world together. She'll probably sleep over one of the other woman's homes because they are leaving in the morning."

"Oh. I wish I had known, I would have liked to wish her a good time."

"That means you can sleep over." He grinned. His grin looked a little different to Erin. It had a little more of a feral quality to it, but maybe he was just excited for the private time.

"Sounds like fun." She touched the bracelet on his wrist and he jerked it out of her touch. "I was just wondering what it was. I've never seen you wear jewelry before."

"It's not. We encountered some odd readings in the precipice world and it's a sensor. Korusutchi wants to monitor it's readings."

"Oh. Any more tea for you?"

"No. I just want you." His words and the way he was looking at her made her shiver in anticipation.

He was much rougher than he had ever been before. Had she been a normal person, she would have had a lot of trouble walking the next day. Her healing factor had helped out quite a bit. There was no foreplay at all which was also not like him. To Erin, it was almost like having sex with a completely different person and this worried her. She was going to see if Korusutchi would talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she would take someone with her. There was something wrong, but she just couldn't place her finger on it. It was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and she was worried.

Over the night she had decided to act on some of her worries and pack up a few items such as her journals. There was nothing else she had unpacked that she couldn't leave behind if push came to shove. She hoped it didn't, but the feeling of unease wouldn't leave her. That morning, during their sparring match, Kenpachi struck at her with more force than he had ever used against her before and even splintered through her quarterstaff, his sword biting into her right collar bone and torso.

"I told you that stick was a wussy weapon. Only use swords with me from now on." His tone was dismissive and his actions raised a lot of red flags for her. She decided to take the opportunity to be away from him and see if she could talk to the captain of squad 12. She hated the prospect of lying to him, but he was acting strangely. She would apologize to him later.

"I think I'm going to need Captain Unohana's help in setting this injury. I'll catch you up later."

He nodded and walked away. She quickly headed in squad 4's direction but when she was out of sight, quickly set the bones and waited for them to heal. She then ran over to Captain Hitsuguya's squad. He lived the closest and had been friendly enough when they worked together before.

She walked over to his office and saw both Hitsuguya and his lieutenant inside. They were both wearing the bracelets. The sight of them sent a chill down her spine so she kept walking. They had not seen her, so there was no need to say anything. She tried several of the other captains and found each of them to be wearing the bracelet too. She avoided the people wearing them or if she couldn't, made polite conversation or waved to them and kept walking to indicate she didn't have time to talk.

She eventually decided to just sit on a roof and think things over. Up high, she wouldn't encounter anyone and wouldn't have to talk to anyone. But mostly, being up high helped her to mentally get a better view of a situation. As she thought about the odd bracelets, a minor commotion was going on below her. Ikakku was below her. He had on the bracelet and he looked like he was looking for a fight. Granted, she was used to most of the men in the 11th division having that look, but it was more than normal. He spotted Yumachika who was not wearing one of the bracelets, ran over to him, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him somewhere out of her sight.

As she contemplated on whether or not to follow, another scene was playing out below her as well. The squad 4 lieutenant was urging the squad 4 captain into a building. The lieutenant had the bracelet on and the captain did not. _What on earth is going on? It's like an invasion of the pod people. Of course, if that's the case, then I had sex with a pod person last night. I don't get why he was so rough last night and then this morning. I wish I knew what was going on. Do I risk going to the squad 12 captain? I don't like being alone with him and if he's stronger and angrier like Kenpachi was, I might not be able to take him._ As her thoughts chased each other in circles, the captain of squad 4 exited the building with her lieutenant and now both of them were wearing the bracelets. _Definitely pod people. Maybe I can get more information from the Kenpachi-pod._

It was beginning to get late so she headed back to Kenpachi's home. Without him reminding her to eat, it had slipped her mind, but she was beginning to feel weak, so stopped at the mess hall and grabbed some food. Kenpachi was at a table alone, so in order to keep up appearances, she sat down across from him.

"Took you long enough."

She had to think quickly. She was worried that he could have spoken with Retsu during the day and found out she had never seen her. "Once the bleeding stopped, I was able to get a better feel for the injury and was able to set it myself. I spent the rest of the day walking around. You know, since I got here, I really haven't gotten to know the place. So I took a minor tour by myself. I hope you don't mind."

"I was wondering why you said you were going but didn't."

"Kenpachi, why is everyone wearing those bracelets now? Did you all go into the precipice world?"

His face turned harder and his voice rougher, angrier, "Don't worry about it. It's something that is only affecting people with spiritual pressure, so you don't have to worry."

"Oh. Ok." She didn't really believe his explanation and his behavior still seemed off to her. She spent the night with him again because she wanted to keep up her oblivious appearance. The sex that night was just as brutal and passionless. That night when she woke up and the Kenpachi-pod was still asleep, she went to where she had been staying and packed the rest of her things. She was going to do the morning sparring match but after that, she was going to find an excuse to go out again. She contemplated going to one of the districts and hiding out until she could figure out what to do and how widespread the problem was. She was genuinely worried. There had always been someone else she could rely on in other worlds and right now, she had no one she could talk to about any of this.

He had wanted her to use swords from now on, so she pulled out her scimitars and belted them on. She grabbed some fruit and bread from her fridge and cabinet and munched away, knowing she would need the energy soon. His behavior was beginning to scare her. She had never been scared of Kenpachi before this but she had the distinct feeling that he had been trying to fuck her to death last night. It made her sick to think that she had gone into that willingly.

It was getting to be the time he usually woke up, so she went out and waited for him on his porch. She heard him moving around and she began to wonder why she didn't leave for the districts while she had the chance. She still had hope that he would be ok again. That was the only reason she could think of. The Kenpachi-pod, as Erin thought of him, exited the house with his sword slung over a shoulder.

"There you are. I was wondering where you ran off to. Get up. I want to fight."

Erin did so and moved over toward the middle of the courtyard to give them room and when she went to turn around and get in a guard position, found him already there with a sword coming down at her. She gasped as she leapt back. She should have heard him coming, but hadn't heard a thing. His bells were in his hair but she still hadn't heard them he had moved so fast. This fight was unlike any she had had with Kenpachi. She was constantly on the defensive and found she could only block or deflect hits if she used both swords. His strength was beyond any she had experienced. If she had time to think, she would have wondered if her Kenpachi had been holding back on her. As it was, she only had time to dodge or block on instinct. When she used both swords to block, he came in with his left fist, striking at her ribs or face. She tried to move with the blows to reduce the damage he did, but as it was, he was breaking her ribs and facial bones. He would give her a moment to set the bone, but she began to realize that it was so that he could break it again and again. He was enjoying the ability to damage her over and over again.

He switched tactics and began striking to kill. The first of those strikes to get through cut across her neck. She had pulled back quick enough that he only nicked her artery. Two large plumbs of blood shot out one with each heartbeat before she used her magic to make the water in her blood create a seal so that the artery could heal. It was extremely taxing and the lack of blood was going to start affecting her very quickly.

She decided to be playful and see what his response would be. "Careful, Zaraki. You almost killed me there."

"Too bad. The take-over is almost complete and I don't need to keep you around for appearances anymore." His smile was chilling. Erin knew she should have left when she could and now there was no possibility. She could run fast, but knew she would never be able to outrun the man before her. Fighting one on one against a skilled opponent is difficult. She knew that the only thing harder was to fight against 2 skilled opponents who were working together. After that it's too easy to use your opponents against each other.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Kenpachi Zaraki. I don't know what I ever saw in you. It's time for you to die now. Goodbye Erin Graves."

His strikes struck more often than not now as Erin began to feel the effects of the blood loss. He finally get her in the lung like he had the first time he fought her. She already sported several other stabs to the arms and legs as well as many deep cuts that hadn't had time to heal yet. Her energy was gone as she fell backwards, spewing blood from her lips.

"Time to see if a stab through the heart will kill you, bitch." He lifted his blade to do the finishing blow when a light blinded him and she was gone. "Fuck! Where did she go?" He looked around everywhere but found no trace of her. Finding that the house she had been using was empty and that she had been wearing her pouch pissed him off further.


	9. Chapter 9

**I forgot to mention that yes, I skipped a few of the anime arcs. The two that I wanted to concentrate on the first part of this story are the Bount arc and the Impostors arc.**

* * *

A red haired boy in soul reaper's clothing stood in his bedroom surrounded by captains and lieutenants as they discussed what was going on in the soul society when an opening appeared in the ceiling and a body dropped down covered in blood and coughing up blood. The eyes of the girl opened blearily and then closed.

"Erin!" Several voices called out. She was pale and she was covered in large wounds that should have still been bleeding heavily, but were only bleeding a little bit.

Kenpachi was already on his hands and knees next to the girl. He wasn't in a gigai so couldn't touch her. "It's Erin and she's in bad shape. Where are the gigais, Korusutchi?"

"At Kisiki's home. Did you want me to draw you a map so you can actually find it?" He sneered.

Ichigo covered the girl in a sheet so that she could be carried and not have his body covered in any of her blood and carried her down to the clinic. His dad and sisters were away so it was closed to the general public. In the meantime, a message had been gotten to Kisike to bring over Kenpachi's gigai immediately. He could only look on helplessly as Ichigo did what he could for the girl.

"What happened to her, Ichigo?" He knew she had been in a fight, but he need to say something.

"I think you already know, but I can at least tell you about her wounds. They're all pretty deep. Looks like there is one to her lungs too. Her blood flow is low." He grabbed a slide and put some of her blood on it so he could get it typed. He injected her with sugar water and bound her up the best he could and got her onto her side so she didn't choke on the blood still coming out of her mouth. Kenpachi had told him what had worked before and that she could heal herself fairly quickly but for the wounds to still be open, she must have had some fight. Ichigo took the slide and put it under a microscope. He had blood typed for his dad before when they got busy, so knew what he was looking for.

"Kenpachi, do you know what her blood type is?"

"No. Never asked and she never needed blood. Why?"

"Because I can't identify her blood type. Her blood looks like nothing I've ever seen."

"Huh?" Ichigo directed him to look in the microscope and to look at the images of what the different blood types looked like. The kid was right. Her blood didn't look anything like it.

"Kenpachi, do you think we can get her conscious long enough to answer?"

"You can try. I can't touch her or talk to her until my gigai gets here. Kuchiki put in a call for me and Kisike is on his way."

"What's her name?"

"Erin Graves." He replied.

Ichigo nodded and went over to the unconscious girl. He saw that some of the bruising had healed. He gave her a few more of the sugar water injections. Her color had slightly improved. He called to her and shook her a little bit. She opened a bleary eye. "Blood type." He knew he wouldn't have long with her awake so wanted to just get what he needed.

It was hard to hear, but she replied with a mumbled, "Any" before falling back into unconsciousness. Ichigo nodded and found what they had the most of and what was getting close to the expiration date. Even kept in proper conditions, blood only kept for so long. He hooked up an IV and Kenpachi reminded him that that they would have to keep an eye on it. Her skin could start trying to heal around the needle.

They were watching the skin around the needle and the bag of blood. Erin, of course, didn't stir.

Ichigo turned to Kenpachi and finally asked, "Who is she to you? You seem to be concerned for her."

"She's …mine."

"She's your what?"

"Just mine. It's all you need to know for now."

"Does she have anything to do with what's going on?"

Kenpachi shook his head. "She arrived just before the Bount did."

"Arrived?"

"Don't worry about it."

Shortly after their conversation, Kisike arrived with Kenpachi's gigai.

"Is this your girl, Zaraki?" He made an affirmative grunt. "What happened to her?"

"She fought someone. Don't know anything else." He took the offered gigai and tugged it on. As soon as it was on he pulled over a chair to the girl's bedside and took her hand in his, rubbing her fingers with his. "How long before she's stable enough for me to take her out of here? She can't stay here, your dad will ask too many questions."

"I don't know." He checked on a few of the wounds and found them to have healed a little further. The bag of blood had finally emptied so Ichigo changed the bag. It was getting late and Erin was on her third bag of blood when Zaraki noticed that the skin around the IV was beginning to heal around the needle. Ichigo had to cut the skin away from around where the needle was in order to get the skin to go back to normal. "What do we do now?" He asked.

"Retsu only ever used syringes of sugar water."

"I can keep doing that. Do you know how many?" Kenpachi shook his head. "We'll do a few then and then you can take her to Urahara's shop." He did as he had said and when he was finished, Kenpachi gathered her into his arms and turned to Kisike who had been sitting quietly and watching the goings on, and waited for him to lead on.

"Thanks kid. I owe ya one." Kenpachi called over his shoulder to Ichigo as he followed Kisike to the sweets shop that was also his home. Everyone who was staying with Urahara were already there by the time they got back. All he had left was a smaller room, but Zaraki didn't even see it as he laid Erin on the bed mat.

"Do you want me to send in Tessai?" Kisike asked.

"Kido doesn't work on her. Just slides off." He replied distractedly. Urahara closed the door and left the large man. Kenpachi removed her clothing and used the items from her pouches to clean her, covered her wounds in the healing salve, and redressed her in clothing she would be comfortable in. He also found her bed and felt she would be more comfortable on it than on the bed mat. He put Erin onto the bed and tucked the mat under the bed. He changed into the sleeping pants that Urahara had left for him and got into the bed with Erin. He curled his body protectively around her with her head resting on his upper arm and his right arm over her abdomen. Yachiru was staying with some of the other women so that he could do whatever he needed to with Erin.

It was morning and Erin was waking up. _How did I survive? Where am I?_ She looked to her right and saw Kenpachi's sleeping face next to her's. She panicked. _What happened? Did he decide fucking me to death was going to be more fun for him?_ She scrambled away from him and ended up falling off the end of the bed. She noticed that she was dressed differently then she had been earlier and felt clean, but in her panic, she set these thoughts aside for the pure need to get away. She saw her pouch and moved towards it when the bed started creaking.

Kenpachi breathed deeply as he sat up and realized that Erin was gone. He looked over the side of the bed and quickly spotted her. "Did you fall off? Are you ok?" He was met with blind panic. "Erin, why are you scared of me? You've never been scared of me." He whipped the blankets off of himself and crouched on the floor in front of Erin who backed away. "Erin, talk to me. The last time I saw you was when you were on the training grounds and I told you that I was ordered to the precipice world with Korusutchi. Tell me everything that happened since then."

The voice and the tone were right. She wanted to believe him, needed to believe him. She told him everything. As she spoke, his face became stony, but it was the stony that she knew from when he was listening to something that pissed him off. He crooked his finger at her and she moved toward him enough for him to lean forward and gather her into his arms as she finished her tale. He kissed her temple.

"I have something for you." He stood up with her in his arms and laid her back on the bed. He dug in the clothing he had been wearing and pulled out a small box. He opened it and pulled out the contents. It was a gold charm on a gold chain. The charm was in the shape of the badge a lieutenant wore and had the insignia of the 11th division etched on it. He placed it around her neck. "The shop I had it made at sent me a messenger to tell me it was ready. I picked it up right before I left to the precipice world. I had it on me when I was taken. I wanted you to take the 11th with you wherever you went after you leave this world."

"Kenpachi…I.."

"No." She looked up to him. "Whatever you were going to say, don't." He rubbed his fingers across her cheek and then pulled her in for a kiss. When he finished, he said, "I told you that for as long as you are here, you are mine and I can give you whatever I wish to without question." He smirked at her as leaned in for another kiss. When he was finished, Erin was a little out of breath and clung to him weakly. "You are healing much faster than last time."

"I'm hungry, Kenpachi."

He smiled. "I never thought I would hear you say that, but we're in the world of the living, so it makes sense. Can you walk or do you want me to feed you again?" He grinned at the thought of getting to feed her again.

"I don't think I can walk on my own yet, but I can feed myself."

"We'll compromise then." He lifted her up and carried her to the dining area while she squawked at being carried, making him laugh. He was just happy that she was ok.

She ate more than he had ever seen her eat before and it actually made him happy to see it. "You fell out of a portal again."

"I did? The last thing I remember was that fake-pachi standing over me, about to stab me through the heart and then waking up here. I feel healthier, so I guess I may have received another gift of healing or maybe I'm healing better because I'm in the world of the living here. My magic feels a little stronger here too. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable."

"Has that ever happened to you before? Staying in the same world but going through a portal?"

"No. Never. Though, technically, I'm not in the same world. But I've never been in a world like this where there are other worlds connected to it." They were sitting next to each other while the others staying with Kisike ate quietly, but listened with curiosity. She leaned in to him, enjoying the feeling of having the real Kenpachi next to her.

Yachiru came into the room and saw the necklace on Erin. "Yay! Erry's up!" She tackled the brunette, but because she was stronger and was leaning against Kenpachi, was able to keep her balance.

"Ooof!" She grunted as she adjusted Yachiru on her lap. She reached up and touched the necklace.

"He finally gave it to you! I'm glad. He was fiddling with that box the entire time we were captured." Some of the soul reapers around the table hid chuckles behind hands as that described the large man very well during captivity, grumbling about how he should have made the clown wait while he went back and gave it to her.

"Yachiru, why didn't they make a copy of you too? The fake came back without a you on his shoulder."

"That guy said I wasn't needed." Yachiru replied.

"What guy? The fake?"

Renji interrupted, "No, Erin. There is someone from the 12th division that did this. He created copies of all of us and when we were replaced with the copies, we were locked up. He used cast off spiritual pressure that the precipice world holds on to in order to create the copies that would be able to act like us and have our spiritual pressure signature."

"But they didn't act the same. They were angrier, quicker to pick a fight. And I don't know if Captain Zaraki has been really holding back on me, but that copy seemed a lot stronger. I could barely block his blows."

"I hold back a little bit. I don't bring my full strength to the fight, but that's more because I still only use one hand with you."

"Then I would say that these copies are at least physically stronger. He was only using one hand on me as well. I can't say anything about the spiritual pressure aspect of it."

"How are you feeling? I want to show you something." Kenpachi mumbled in her ear.

"I think I can walk." She whispered back.

"Good. Let's get you back to the room and you can change out of those clothes." She nodded and Yachiru hopped off her lap and he pulled her to a standing position. She wobbled a little, but was able to walk with little help. When she got back to the room, pulled on jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of boots. Kenpachi watched her get dressed, enjoying the view as she removed her clothing and then the reverse strip tease as she got dressed again. "I like seeing you dressed like this. I like seeing you naked too. Come here." She walked over to him and straddled his legs, kissing him deeply. "Mmmm, as much as I want to take you right now, I need to train. Tonight. I want to be able to take my time with you." She gave him a sad sound, kissed him again, and stood up for him to show her whatever he wanted to show her.

He led her to the underground training area under the shop. "I'm going to be spending a lot of time here training. It will contain my spiritual pressure so that I don't attract too many hollows. I wanted to let you know because while I train, you won't be able to see me in my soul form and I wanted you to know where you could find me."

"Soul form?"

"This is a gigai. Souls wear them in the world of the living so we can interact with it. Without spiritual pressure, you won't be able to see me when I take it off. I wanted you to also have a chance to meet the mod soul that will animate the gigai while I'm here training. I didn't want you to have any issues after what happened."

"Mod soul?"

He explained what a mod soul was and why they used them. He showed her the green pill. "This was the only model Urahara had left. Personally, I think he just wanted to see my body animated by a preppy mod soul. The man is sick. It's name is Peppy. Are you ready?" She nodded and he swallowed the pill. She didn't see his soul leave the body. All she saw was him stagger and went to move toward him but he waved her off.

The mod soul looked in what Erin thought was a random direction, saluted, and said, "What can I do for you, sir?" The voice was oddly happy and buoyant. She immediately didn't like it. The mod soul nodded and turned to Erin. "Your soul reaper has said I need to introduce myself to you as I will be your protector while he trains. My name is Peppy. It is nice to meet you."

"Where is Kenpachi?" She looked around worriedly.

"He is there." Peppy pointed to where he could see Zaraki.

Her facial expression fell, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to hear him, feel him, or see him like this.

Peppy looked to where he said Kenpachi was standing. He nodded and replied, "Yes sir." He turned to Erin. "Your soul reaper says he is going to return now. It was nice to meet you." The body staggered again as the green pill popped out of his mouth. He was able to catch it before it fell to the ground.

"Are you ok? You looked uncomfortable."

"It was odd. I'm glad you did this. I think being surprised by it would not have gone well. I might have thought you were playing a bad joke on me." He hugged her close and they stayed like that for a while, each needing to feel the comfort of the other.

They separated and Kenpachi took a good look at her. "You're tired. You should have let me carry you down the ladder. Hop on my back and I'll take you back up. You're healing about a day quicker than you were previously." She nodded and he crouched down for her to climb up. She did so and he carried her up the ladder. He let her slide down his back as he knew she hated to be carried and they walked outside to find Ichigo's friends setting up a barbeque. Kon was walking around in his lion body which made Erin take a few steps back.

Kenpachi leaned in close to her and whispered, "That's Kon. He's Ichigo's mod soul. When he's not using him, he keeps him in that stuffed animal." Erin nodded and they found a place for her to relax and continue healing. He ended up setting her next to the odd girl that the duplicates seemed to be trying to capture. He kissed her again briefly and said, "I'm going to leave Peppy with you now. Call me when the food is ready." She nodded and he swallowed the green pill again.

She looked for any sign of him but couldn't even see a dust trail. "Your beast is there." The odd girl said, pointing at a spot next to Erin.

"He's not a beast. Why would you call him that when you probably don't even know him?"

"That's ok, Erin. She calls me a pervert." Kon replied.

The girl laughed and Kon made indignant noises. Seeing her confusion, Peppy filled Erin in. "Your soul reaper responded with "Kon, you are a pervert." That is why the young lady there laughed." Peppy nodded and then turned back to Erin. "Your soul reaper is going down to train now." Erin gave a small smile and nodded. She didn't like not knowing where he was so that she could at least talk to him and not in a random direction that he may or may not be in.

"Hey Erin, I hear you're immune to spiritual pressure." Kon called out.

"So it seems. But I can't sense it or see it either."

"That's kinda cool. Zaraki has so much of it that it's hard to be around him." Kon replied

"That's what I've been hearing, but even when he takes off the eye patch I can't feel a thing."

"Is it true that you spar with him every morning?" She nodded. "HA! Ichigo is afraid to spar with him. He won't admit it, but he always turns a funny color when Zaraki asks him to spar."

Erin turned to the green haired girl. "What's your name?" She huffed and turned away. She turned to Kon and asked, "What crawled up her skirt?"

"I don't think Nozomi really trusts us yet. She won't even tell us why the copies are after her." The green haired girl slipped away while Kon was speaking and when everyone noticed she was gone, ran to find her. Erin got up to join the search, but Peppy stopped her.

"I don't know the area and neither do you. We will stay here in case she comes back." Erin nodded in agreement. She didn't like not helping but understood that he was trying to protect her and he had a point. It would take time to scout the area enough to not get lost and had known the girl the least amount of time, so wouldn't know where she might go.

As she waited, Kisike walked up to her. "Hello Erin. We haven't met yet. I'm Urahara and this is my place."

"It's nice to meet you Urahara. Thank you for letting us stay here."

"It's no problem at all. So, you're Zaraki's girl. You must be a pretty good fighter to be able to keep up with him."

"More of a soldier, really. What did they tell you of me?"

"Everything except what brought you here to the world of the living." He replied. "You intrigue me. You're completely immune to spiritual pressure, and you can fight at the skill level of a captain. I'd like to spar with you."

"I'm not back to full strength yet."

"I want to see your skill level, not your speed or strength. Come with me." He stood up and led her to the underground training area Zaraki had showed her earlier.

"Your soul reaper wants to know if lunch is ready." Peppy supplied.

"Where is he and how far away?" She asked. He pointed and told her he was fairly close. "No. Urahara wanted to spar with me. That green haired girl ran off and the others went to go find her and bring her back.

"He says to have fun and has admonished Urahara that if he harms you that he will harm Urahara as he knows you are not at full strength yet."

"Don't worry Zaraki. I won't use any of my shikai's special abilities and we'll use the flats of our blades."

"Your soul reaper has indicated that will be allowable, but also doesn't want you to exert yourself too much."

"Kenpachi, you are becoming a worry-wart. I'll be fine and you know it. Now shoo!" She made shooing gestures and then turned to Urahara. "What weapon do you want me to use?"

"I've been told you do well with dual weapons. I haven't fought against someone with dual weapons in a long time."

"I have scimitars, daggers, battle fans, smaller war hammers, and smaller war axes. I can also do combos such as sword and dagger, sword and sword breaker, hammer and ax. Do you have a preference?"

"The war axes sound interesting." She nodded and pulled them out

"I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to use the flats of the blades with these, but I'll do my best."

They squared off and Peppy moved to a better vantage. Urahara pulled his sword from the cane he carried around and released the shikai. They circled each other, testing defenses and skill. Fighting the blond man before her was a very different experience. He was very skilled and like her, used minimal movement. He didn't use flash step on her either, but was still quick. Unknown to her, Kenpachi eventually stopped training and took over the gigai from Peppy. He hadn't watched her fight like this since she had the series of fights right before she was released to his supervision. Here, she wasn't holding back or economizing her energy. He wondered if this was what she looked like when they fought together. Kisike eventually won, though Erin knew he had been holding back a little more than she had been.

When they finished, Kenpachi strode toward them, making sure Erin saw the green pill in his hand so she knew it was him and not Peppy in the gigai. I put the pill into his pocket and took Erin's face into his hands. "You've worn yourself out, haven't you?" She smiled and nodded. "Are you hungry again?" Erin laughed a little and nodded. "I don't think I'll get used to hearing that." He rubbed a thumb across an eyebrow. "Come hop on my back. We'll see if the food has finished cooking."

By the time they reached the top of the ladder, the smells of good cooking filled the air. He let her down off his back and they walked out to the barbeque. They sat with plates piled and chatted.

"I don't get how you let Urahara win."

"I didn't let him."

Urahara cut in, "You forget Zaraki. I had her use battle axes which I would guess she doesn't use often and she isn't at full health yet."

Zaraki gave her an appraising look to see if what Kisike said was true and he realized it was. His shikai had special abilities and he hadn't used any of them during the fight either. "I suppose you're right." He reached over and squeezed Erin's hand. She smiled back up at him.

Night was approaching and everyone had gone home. Erin and Kenpachi had retired to their room. Everyone had agreed to give them their space. The only detail that Kenpachi had released to everyone was that the copy of him was the one that had nearly killed her and he had made it plain that it was the only detail he was divulging.

Erin stepped into the bedroom first and immediately became nervous. _What if I can't enjoy being with him? I want to be with him again; to feel his hands on me instead of that fake's. I need this, but what if?_ She heard the door close behind Kenpachi and then heard some clothing being dropped onto the floor. The sound made her tense up. He stepped towards her and rubbed his hands slowly down her arms as he leaned down and kissed her neck softly. His hands trailed down to her waist and drew her in close, crossing his arms in front of her stomach. He felt her relax in his arms. He knew this wouldn't be easy for her, but they both needed to feel the level of intimacy they had become used to.

She closed her eyes and leaned into him, putting her hands over his. "That's my girl. You tensed up on me. Are you going to be ok after…" He trailed off.

"I was worried, but you're so different. As soon as you touched me, I realized I didn't need to worry."

"Good." He turned her around so he could see her face. His hands had already been busy and had undone her jeans so as she turned, they fell to her ankles. She used her feet to pull off her boots and kicked away the boots and pants. He leaned down and kissed her while pulling up her shirt. When it came to her face, they broke so that he could pull the shirt the rest of the way off and went back to kissing. He broke the kiss to whisper into her ear, "The walls are thin here and your bed squeaks. There's a bed mat underneath it that we'll use." He sucked on her earlobe, eliciting a small gasp and moan of pleasure. She rubbed her hands across his chest and sides, sucking at the skin on his chest as that was the nearest she could reach of him. "Mmmmm, let's get you a little higher." He put his hands under her thighs and lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. He was hard and she was already wet for him so it took little maneuvering for her to slip him inside of her making them both gasp in pleasure at the contact. They paused for a moment, her enjoying the feeling of him within her, and him enjoying the play of her inner muscles.

"Please don't make me beg. I need to feel you, Kenpachi." He kissed her and made his way over to the bed, holding her in place as she ground her hips into him. He used a foot to pull the mat from under the bed and kicked it open.

"Easy Erin, you're going to make me cum and I wanted to take my time with you tonight." He knelt down on the mat and eased her down. He stayed kneeling so her hips were lifted on his thighs. He gave her a few slow strokes while he teased her breast. She gasped in pleasure as his hand squeezed her breast. He leaned down, adjusting his legs, and kissed her neck. He lightly bit her neck, drawing the skin into his mouth and sucking lightly. He kept his pace slow, but thrust deeply causing her to moan louder. He kissed her deeply, muffling her moans. She held him close to her as a flush of heat swept up from her groin to her breasts and then her inner muscles began to spasm with an orgasm and her hips bucked against his.

He slowed down, letting her catch her breath. She touched his face. "You haven't cum yet."

"I told you. I wanted to take you slowly tonight. I can't help it if you've already cum."

She loosened her grip on him and rubbed her hands across his chest and then up to his shoulders. "So take me." She grinned up at him. He gave her a light kiss before thrusting into her again, this time a little faster. He watched her, waiting until she was getting ready to cum. Right before that happened, he stopped his movements, making her whine. He grinned and waiting for her to calm down before beginning again. He brought her to the brink again and again stopped before she could orgasm.

"Kenpachi, I can't take it anymore. Stop teasing me."

"All you had to do was ask." He thrust into her with the pace he knew she loved and they came together. When they finished, he rolled off of her and laid next to her and she snuggled into his side.

"I missed this, Kenpachi."

He teased her, "It's only been two days. Becoming addicted to me?"

"I believe that I am. I've met a lot of people, but I've never met anyone like you before. Didn't think someone like you existed. You make me feel complete. I wouldn't mind not getting to go home if it meant I got to stay with you." She curled in closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. He stayed silent but hugged her to his side and kissed the top of her head.

After a while, he said, "Come on, let's get cleaned up and grab showers." That night they slept soundly after Kenpachi asked her to sleep normally rather than using her meditative rest. He had told her he really wanted to wake up with her rather than waking up and finding her already awake and gone from the bed. She had agreed as she could choose which way to rest so long as she wasn't knocked out.

The next morning had Erin back at full health, but because he could only train in soul form and she couldn't see him in this form, they were unable to train together. Erin, as a result, was with Peppy most of the day.

During one of these days, Nozomi discovered that she had a zompakuto and Erin watched as Ichigo and his friends surrounded the girl and fired off their various energy strikes at her to try to force her to learn more about her zampakuto. Erin found it silly and had offered to train her how to actually use the darn thing, but everyone was all keen on her learning its name and getting shikai quickly. Erin could only see some of the people around Nozomi as some were in soul form. As Erin watched, the girl's sword began to glow and the archer's energy shots were being sucked into the blade.

A large commotion at the edge the field drew everyone's attention. It was Kenpachi, but the way he was acting and dressed made Erin realize it was the fake at about the same time everyone else realized the same. Not to mention, Peppy was there wearing the real Kenpachi's gigai. She wasn't wearing her swords, so started digging for the right pouch.

"No Erin. Your soul reaper told me to keep you safe and his subordinates are taking care of it." When Erin continued to pull out her sword belt and strap it on, Peppy grabbed her up and carried her over his shoulder and away from the fake. "My orders are to keep you safe and being safe is not letting you fight the fake." He ran away from the commotion while Erin squawked and flailed her arms and legs trying to get free. He smacked her ass and held her legs to his chest. "Stop that." He ran back to Kisike's shop and then down into the training room.

"Peppy, let me down!"

Peppy did not reply to Erin, but instead, when he reached bottom, he turned to what felt like a random direction to Erin. He saluted and said, "The fake you came and your subordinates are taking care of him."

"I could have taken him, Peppy. Let me down."

"Your soul reaper says you nearly died last time you fought him."

"I had to hold back. I didn't know if he was you or not at the time, Kenpachi. I couldn't kill him."

"Your soul reaper wants you to know he is re-entering the gigai now." There was a shudder and then the feel of the hands on her legs changed and he drew her off of his shoulder and set her on her feet.

"For as long as I live, I will never let you go through killing me. Peppy did the right thing. I see you still want to fight though. Do you have a sword in there like mine?"

"Similar. Might be a little shorter then you're used to."

"Pull it out and we'll work out your need for a fight."

Erin did so and Kenpachi gave it a few practice swings to get used to the feel. When he was ready they faced off. His fighting style was completely different which worried Erin. "Your fighting style…."

"Gigais aren't as resilient as my soul body is. I can't go full out like I normally do which is why I can't train with you here. Just fight me like you usually do." They fought and even though He seemed more reserved than normal, his strikes still had strength behind them. They both received several cuts and when he felt she had calmed down, directed her to the healing spring to soak. They were sitting and soaking with little more than their heads above water when he turned his head and appeared to be listening to something.

"Ikkaku and Yumachika are reporting in." He mumbled to her. He continued to listen and then responded, "Good work. Too bad I couldn't be there. Let me know if he shows up again." When they had left, he spoke again to Erin. "They said they were able to keep the fakes away from the girl and they got to fight the fake me. They said they didn't defeat him and he got away. They also reported on the girl's zampakuto and it's abilities. I think we will be returning to the soul society soon. We'll have to have a meeting tonight about everything."

They were in the bedroom Kisike had been lending them and they were getting ready for the upcoming fight. Kenpachi was always ready, but Erin was putting on her leather armor that she had had to remake after the fight with the Bount woman. Everything had already been put away and Erin had strapped on the last piece. She looked just like she had when he first met her.

"You don't have to come with us, you know. I could come get you when we're finished."

"Don't be silly. It's almost time and you're going to have to show me where to go because once you get out of that gigai I won't be able to see you and I don't think I'll be able to see the gate to the precipice world either."

He stepped close to her and brushed a finger across her cheek. "I never thought I would love someone like I do you." He leaned down to kiss her and didn't see the flash of light behind her. Erin cried out as she felt the pull behind her. Kenpachi looked up and saw the portal and tried to hold on to her as tears leaked down her face. "It's ok, Erin. We knew this wasn't going to be forever. I love you. Don't forget me." He pulled her in and kissed her one last time before releasing her to the portal. He watched as the portal closed and continued to watch that spot long after she disappeared, a lone tear trailing down his face.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello. Ok, so this part of the story is a bit AU. I found Bleach through the anime and have read only a handful of the manga. As I watched the anime, and saw the way it abruptly switched between the non-manga arcs and then the manga arcs, it kinda felt like there were two animes going on at the same time...if that makes sense? I started the story with the assumption that The Winter war happened in it's entirety, and then the non-manga arcs happened, and then the Fullbringer arc occurs. In this second part of the story, Erin is back home and this reality's version of events, the traitors have just recently revealed themselves as such. So, here's chapter 10 and I hope you like it.**

* * *

326 years and 5 months later

_You'll have to excuse the last couple months of entries. I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm back home. Really back home! Everything is familiar but different. I know I haven't written anything for the last couple months, but I've been busy selling all those items that I've collected over the years. The coins and stamps have sold the best and Ebay has been really helpful in getting a lot of items sold quickly. I'm actually closing on my own house today. I'm finding that being in the city is just unbearable. It's too noisy and there's just too many people. _

_ Mom and dad have finally come to terms with the changes in me and they are finally at the point where they no longer think I'm crazy. Or, should I say that they no longer believe that I have somehow been tricking them. _

_ I'm especially glad for all the stealth training I did when I was an assassin. When I first came back, I couldn't accept that there wasn't a mission to be done so I spent the first month back sneaking around the worst parts of the city looking for criminals to kill._

_ It's almost time to start signing papers. The house is a little bit large for just me, but the price was right and so was the location. It even has a large room I'm going to use for a workout/training room. Mom doesn't think I'm ready to move out with all that's happened to me, but I've been on my own for so long, living with them again just isn't right._

* * *

_ I've been moved in for four weeks now and all of my pouches are finally empty. It certainly took longer than I thought it would. It's a little weird though. For the past week or so it feels like I'm being watched and even followed. I've been followed before and I'm very good at figuring out who is following me and getting the drop on them, but I can't for the life of me see who it is! I know I've been through post-traumatic stress disorder when I first came back, but this is different. I can't describe how, but I guess it's just like I see something at the corner of my eye and then it's gone. I've tried evading who ever it is and getting up high to see them, but it's not working. I've tried every trick I can think of too. Maybe it's just because I'm living alone now and there's always been someone around._

* * *

Two men were in a small forest surrounding a lone dwelling waiting for another. Neither flinched as a gateway opened nearby and a large muscular man stepped out.

"Good morning, Captain. We weren't expecting you to come here. You don't seem to get out too much." One of the men said by way of greeting.

"Your report sounded interesting, so I promised the old man I couldn't do too much damage here. Where are we anyway? It doesn't look like there's anything other than that house there for miles."

"We're somewhere in North America. This region is typically dormant with very few people having spiritual pressure, so it's odd that hollows have been appearing here lately. In fact, they all seem to be coming to this location and the girl that lives here doesn't have a single drop of spiritual pressure. I have noticed some very odd things about her, Captain."

"Yes, you mentioned that in your report, but you didn't give any specifics. What's so unusual about a human girl?"

The other man took over, "Well, you see, Captain, we've both raised our spiritual pressure to their fullest around her and she doesn't even react. As a human with no spiritual pressure, she should react and she doesn't." Their captain made a non-committal noise in his throat. "That's not all, Captain. She trains with weapons daily and from what I can see, she's very good. It's not just with one type of weapon, but with many different types. If what I've seen is indicative of her talent, I would say she's a weapons master." The captain looked at him directly, clearly surprised at the news, but turned his attention back to the dwelling.

The first man took up the report. "There are 3 more items of interest, Captain. The first is that even though she can't see us, I think she can sense us. When we're around she starts looking around as though she can feel our eyes on her and when we've followed her, she's taken evasive movements to lose us and then look for us. She's been trained. It's rather obvious." The captain nodded. "Second, something _has_ happened to her. She's missing 2 fingers on her right hand and even though she wears gloves and is covered from her neck to her toes in public, in private, she doesn't wear as much. Her hands are both covered in scars and there are more along the insides of her arms. I suspect there are more elsewhere on her body. She could have been tortured to the point that she can see us but not react to us or our spiritual pressure. How he could have done that in two weeks is beyond me and why have hollows come after her?"

"You think Aizen did something to her and she escaped?" The captain asked.

"It's possible. He's a sick bastard. Who knows how long he's been hiding things from us?"

"You said three things."

The other man spoke up. "She has a necklace with a pendant showing the 11th division badge."

"What?!" He roared.

"She usually keeps it tucked under a shirt. We contacted you when it slipped out of her shirt and we saw it for the first time."

The captain nodded. "Where have you been staying?"

The first man answered. "In the house. We took turns following her so when she was gone from the house, the one staying here could grab a shower. We've had to make trips into town with our gigais to get food though."

"Both of you, go back and make your report to the old man. Let him know I'm staying to investigate. Your initial report leaked to Korusutchi and he begged me to get a reading on the girl. I haven't decided if I will or not. Feel free to let him know that too. His device is so flimsy it just may crack when I hold it normally." His subordinates snickered. "Keep Yachiru out of trouble and keep the men in line."

When Ikkaku and Yumachika left, Zaraki strode to the dwelling before him. It had a decent size to it. _Must be some rich bitch then._ He entered the house and found it's inhabitant sitting on a couch with a cell phone on the coffee table in front of her on speaker phone. The girl was in a plain green short sleeved t-shirt and blue jeans. She had leather bracers on her wrists, but her hands were bare. She was muscled but not heavily so. What struck him was how tiny she was. Not only was she skinny, but she was short too. She almost looked like a doll on the couch. Had her arms and legs been stick thin, she would have completed the look.

"Tammy, I don't want to go to a club. You know I hate them."

"Erin, you've been cooped up in that house for a month. No one has even been by to see it yet. Come on out with me. You need to get out or we'll start thinking you went back into that PTSD haze you were in for months.

"Why did I ever get a phone?"

"Because your parents insisted and you didn't want to keep worrying your mom."

"So how did you get my number?"

"Because your mom gave it to me. She agrees with me, by the way. She thinks you need to get out more too."

"Tammy, you live an hour away now."

"Look, missy, you either get your ass down here, or I swear to God, I will hitch hike to your new place. Your mom gave me the address too."

"You would too. You would get in the car with some secret psycho and he would chop you up and then it would somehow be my fault."

"It would be your fault. All you have to do is come out to the club with me tonight. Besides, I feel bad that I wasn't around when you got into that bad car accident."

That was the lie they had concocted to explain the scarring and missing fingers to anyone that asked. It always left a bitter taste in her mouth whenever it was mentioned making her twist her lips in displeasure at hearing the lie spoken out loud by one of her old friends. "You were pursuing a relationship with that trucker boyfriend of yours. Why are you back here anyway? I thought you were getting married and were getting a house in Tennessee or something." She had found an old diary she kept before the traveling so had been able to catch up on her life before she left. The entries had helped to jog her memory.

"It was Kentucky, and it turned out he liked his cocaine more than he liked me."

Erin rubbed her hands across her face in exasperation. "Fine. But I don't drive cars anymore. I find them claustrophobic. Dress appropriately for a motorcycle. I'll be by tonight to pick you up."

There was excitement on the other end. "And you dress for a club! Or I swear I will dress you for you."

"You will take me how I come or you can fucking take your chances hitch hiking." She snarled back.

"Ok, ok. Fine. I'll see you tonight." She hung up before Erin could change her mind.

Erin picked up the phone and threw it at another couch. "Fucking Tammy. Am I ready to face old friends? Fuck it, they'll just think that car crash cover story will account for anything I do that's out of place. I need to work up a sweat." Zaraki watched as the girl walked to a bedroom, changed her clothes and entered another room. He didn't feel wrong for watching her undress and then redress. He granted her some privacy and at least only watched her back. Ikkaku was right. She was heavily scarred and judging by the type of scarring he could see, she was tortured. The question then became, by who?

He followed her into a room that made him smile. The walls were covered with weapons. Along one of the walls was a large mirror. The girl pulled out a sword belt and belted it on. She drew the twin weapons, a pair of scimitars, and began to go through a series of thrusts, blocks, parries, and counter attacks. The way she was moving suggested that she was practicing fighting against multiple opponents. He moved over to get a better look at her movements and to appraise her ability.

At that moment, she turned and looked up at the mirror and froze. Her swords clattered to the ground. "Kenpachi?" She turned around with hope in her eyes, but saw nothing. She searched the small room with her eyes and then, thinking he may have left the room somehow, ran to the hall and stood quiet, listening. "Where did you go? I should be able to hear you." She went back into the room and again his reflection caught her attention in the mirror. "You're not here then." She dropped to her knees. "I should have known better. You're in another world. So why am I hallucinating about you now? Over three hundred years later?" She looked up again. He looked like he was studying her. She couldn't take it anymore and tears began to roll down her face. She got up and ran out of the room.

_She recognized me in the mirror, but she can't see me. She looked for me and even though I was right in front of her, she went right past me. Over 300 years ago? I've never met her before. She's fast though. Look at her run. _ He followed her as she ran into the forest and then climbed up a tree effortlessly. He jumped up to a tree near her to see what she would say or do but once she was up high enough, she just sat on a branch and stared out into space with tears continuing to run down her face. He tried talking to her and he tried raising his spiritual pressure to a level that should have knocked her out, but she continued as she was for several hours. Eventually, she wiped the tears from her eyes and went back to the house to take a long hot shower.

It was late enough that when her shower was done, she got dressed all the while feeling like she was being watched. She attributed it to the odd hallucination she had earlier and just ignored it. She threw on an old faded black t-shirt with a skull and cross bones on it, a pair of black jeans, and a pair of black leather boots. At the garage, she pulled a pair of leather chaps and a leather jacket out of a closet and put them on, along with a pair of thin leather gloves that had been created without the first and pinky fingers of the right hand glove. Once she was ready, she strapped a helmet onto the rear of the bike and put one over her own head. Zaraki followed after, sometimes falling behind on the highway, but she was never too far out of sight.

It was an hour later that they arrived at Tammy's apartment. Zaraki felt a little winded at the long run and at such high speeds. He was used to running. Hell, he ran just about everywhere, but running around in the Soul Society also meant frequent stops as they came to dead ends. He followed Erin up and waited as the girls chatted while Tammy got ready. He kinda liked Erin's attitude with this friend of her's. The friend would preen and pose and Erin would just stand there with her arms crossed, tapping her foot and threatening to leave if she didn't get her ass in gear.

It was another annoying hour before Erin was able to pull Tammy out the door and get her on to the bike. Tammy told her how to get to the club and they both left for it. At the door, they were let in quickly and while Tammy went off to dance, Erin plopped herself down at the bar and ordered a jack and coke. She wasn't worried about drinking and driving due to her high metabolism and healing factor. It meant that it took quite a bit to get her drunk.

Erin was on her third drink and Tammy was already in the lap of some guy, making Erin roll her eyes. As she was taking a drink, a hand started groping her ass. Zaraki was curious as to how she would react. She looked over to the owner of the hand who was staring at her. "Hey baby, wanna be with a real man?"

"Yeah, you see one around here?" She took his hand from her ass and dropped it away from her.

"You bitch, I'm the best thing that could ever happen to you, you three fingered freak." He put an arm around her shoulders. "You should feel honored I'm willing to fuck you."

She smiled as she grabbed his hand from her shoulder and gave a quick twist, braking his wrist. He screamed like a little girl. She tossed his hand away from her and he clutched it to his chest. "You fucking bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"I'm the woman that will kick your ass if you don't leave me alone. You think you're god's gift to woman but the truth is, you're just pathetic. So just get the fuck out of here before I toss your ass out."

He left in a huff and the bartender turned to her. "Here's one on the house." He slid another jack and coke over to her. "That guy bugs the women that come in here all the time. It's nice see someone not let him get away with it."

"He got off easy." As she finished the drink a bouncer came up to her with the man clutching his wrist to his chest.

"That's her. She broke my wrist!"

"Did you break this man's wrist, miss?"

"Did he tell you what he was doing or saying when his wrist was broken?" Erin asked, bored.

"It doesn't matter, so long as he wasn't physically harming you." The bouncer replied. "Just be glad he isn't pressing charges."

"He isn't pressing charges because he was sexually harassing me which is also against the law. You want to toss me, I'm fine with that. But I demand you toss him as well, for the safety of the rest of the woman here."

He turned to the man with him. "Is that true, were you harassing this woman?"

"Of course I wasn't! She just attacked me!"

The bartender cut in. "Danny, I saw the whole thing. He harassed her and she gave him a chance to leave quietly. He kept at her, so yeah, she broke his wrist. If you're tossing her, you gotta toss him too."

Danny turned to the two people in front of him. "You're both out of here. I'm not banning you, but you can't stay here tonight."

"Gladly." Erin replied. Erin called to Tammy, "Hey, time to go. If you're fucking him, have him follow us to your place. If you're not, then get your ass in gear." Tammy nodded and Erin went out to wait for her. She was leaning on her bike, looking towards the entrance of the club with her helmet in the crook of her elbow. She caught a motion in the shine of the helmet and looked down. Kenpachi was standing next to her. She gasped and dropped the helmet as she looked over to where he should be, but again, saw nothing.

"Why now, Kenpachi? I thought I was over you and a hallucination of you does this to me." She drew out the pendant from under her shirt and rubbed it as she had many times when thinking of him. She did not reclaim the helmet until Tammy walked over to the motorcycle, her new man in tow.

"Hey Erin, Jimmy's gunna take me home."

"No he is not. Get your ass on the bike. You know the rules when we go out. You go home with the person you came with unless both parties know the third party and it was agreed to before we left the house. I will allow him to follow us to your apartment, but I will know that you at least arrived home safe. Besides, you dragged me out here and I had to break some asshole's wrist. Put your helmet on and hop on."

"You're so grouchy now-a-days."

"Nope, just tired of cities. I warned you I didn't want to go to a club but you insisted."

"Fine, fine. Jimmy, just follow us, ok?"

"Ok."

He went to his car and Tammy came over to the motorcycle, put on the helmet and got in place. "Besides, Tammy. If he does end up being some killer, your apartment has video cameras on the outside and they'll catch his face. You will call me tomorrow and let me know you're alive."

"Yes, mom. You're such a kill joy."

"Yup. Deal with it." She drove back to Tammy's apartment, made sure she dropped her off in view of the camera and made Tammy wait until Jimmy was visible by the camera before letting her leave with him. She tied the extra helmet to the bike and then made the trip back to her place.

She had just parked her motorcycle in the garage and was headed out to the mailbox when Zaraki sensed it. It was a hollow and coming this way. He waited for it, giving himself some time to bounce back from the long run. It rushed at the girl as soon as it saw her. Zaraki rushed to intercept and caught it's claws on his sword. It was obvious that the hollow only wanted the girl as it kept on trying to get around the large captain. He quickly dispatched it and turned his attention back to the girl who never even noticed the fight.

After she went through the mail, which wasn't much, she went up to her room, got dressed in sleeping clothes and picked up the portrait of Kenpachi she had done while still living with him. She sat on the bed and talked to him. She hadn't done that in a long time, but with having hallucinations of him twice in the same day, she needed to.

"Why are you haunting me, Kenpachi? Why am I seeing you when I look in reflective surfaces? It's not even every time I look at a reflective surface. Why can't you be a hallucination right in front of me? Isn't that how hallucinations are supposed to be? And why today? Is there something special about today?" She sat with the drawing she had done that was framed, staring at him and remembering the time they spent together. Zaraki watched this strange scene and even looked at the drawing. It was a good likeness, but didn't understand how she had it and why she seemed to know him. He decided that tomorrow he would put on the gigai and talk to her and see what he could discover. When it looked like she was settling in for the night, he went to her kitchen, grabbed a few things to eat from the pantry and then holed up in one of the guest bedrooms for the night.

The next morning, he was surprised to find that Erin was already up and training; this time with battle fans. He snorted at what he felt was a wussy weapon and waited for her to finish, staying out of the line of the mirror. He waited and let her take a shower and get redressed before he left with his gigai, put it on outside and rang the doorbell.

The door opened slowly at first, but when Erin saw who it was, the door was opened quickly and Zaraki found that she had jumped up on him, wrapping her legs around his waist and was already kissing him and sometimes drawing in his lower lip to nibble on it like she knew he liked.

In between kisses which he was not returning, she asked, "Kenpachi! How did you get here?" It was then that she realized he wasn't kissing her back and his hands weren't on her at all. She pulled away and looked at him, putting a hand to his face. "Why aren't you kissing me back, Kenpachi?"

For the briefest of moments, he had thought about kissing her back and seeing how long before she realized he wasn't who she thought he was, but thought better of it. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away which caused her to drop in front of him, landing in a crouched position. "I'm not who you think I am."

His hair was in the same bells and he still had that warrior look to him, so she knew he was still Captain Kenpachi Zaraki, but wasn't quite sure of what else might be true of him. He saw her look and so added, "You clearly know someone that has my name and my likeness, but I am not him."

"It was a true alternate world." She whispered, almost to herself.

"What was that?"

"It was you in the reflections I saw?" He nodded. "It's nice to know I wasn't hallucinating." She had her hands over her mouth in embarrassment, but lowered them as she replied. "Please excuse me, Captain Zaraki. Please come in and I'll make us some tea. I know you have questions and I'll try to answer as well as I can." She stood up and gestured inside.

She began walking into the kitchen so he closed the door and followed her. Once there, she set a teapot full of water on the stove to boil and pulled down a tea tin. He recognized the type of tea; it was the exact same he drank.

He sat down at the table and Erin sat across from him, waiting for the kettle to begin whistling. "Now, what did you say after you finished kissing me?" He rubbed his lip wondering how this woman knew he liked to be kissed that way.

Erin blushed and looked away. "I'm sorry, Captain Zaraki. Are you familiar with the concept of alternate worlds? Where a decision made by one or many can cause a branching of possibilities. In one world you turned right down a path and in another, you turned left. Each path leading you to still other possibilities."

"I understand so far."

The kettle had begun to whistle, so Erin finished preparing the tea and set a cup before the large man. Once they both had a cup in front of them and the tea pot had been set so they could refill if they wanted, she told him how she came to travel to different worlds, how she had met the other him and some of what happened, though leaving out the now obvious fact that she and the other Kenpachi had become lovers. She explained that this was the world she came from and had gotten back 6 months ago and had only just recently bought the house. Like the other Kenpachi had, he listened patiently and didn't interrupt her. She got up from the table and pulled out some fruit, cheese, and some precooked sausages. She chopped up the sausages, threw them in a pan to give them some heat, and brought the items back to the table.

"You probably haven't had a chance to eat very much. Snack away and I'll make something for lunch. And then you can tell me why you're here. You have no reason to have looked for me, so something must have happened."

He waited until she was done cooking. She set a pair of plates on the table and sat back down. He reached over the table and pulled the necklace free. "He gave you this?" She nodded, unsure of how to react to him. "A little over two weeks ago, three of the captains turned traitor. When hollows started coming here, a pair of my subordinates were assigned to take care of them, and find out what was attracting them here. They followed you, trying to find out why. When they saw that necklace of yours, they called me. They thought you had maybe escaped from Aizan. From what I understand, you never went out except to town for a few items and with you living so far from everyone, it made sense that you could be hiding. I came over and I took over the investigation. Just seeing you interacting with that friend of yours made me realize you had nothing to do with Aizan. That means only one thing then. He wants you. But why?"

"Aizan… That name is familiar. Those other two….Gin and…. Tosser?"

"Tossen. Did that other world have the same problems?"

"Yeah, but it had happened a while ago. He had already been defeated. Kenpachi didn't talk much about it except when we were in the world of the living and staying with Urahara. He had mentioned how he met Ichigo, but the issue was resolved, so I didn't feel the need to catch up on the history. All I really know about it is that they called it The Winter War and the names of the three captains who had defected."

"You said you're immune to spiritual pressure. Maybe he wants that. Or, for all we know, he knows you came here through a portal and wants to know how."

"I think you _know_ I'm immune to spiritual pressure. If you're anything like the Kenpachi I knew, you are or have raised it as far as you can without your eye patch off and wonder how I can be conscious."

He chuckled, confirming her statement. "So you heal quickly?"

"You want to fight me but are still worried you'd kill me because I'm a human without spiritual pressure." She reached for her belt where he knew she had a knife and pulled it free. "Don't blink." She sliced her hand across the palm nice and deep so he could see that it was cut and then watch it heal. He grabbed her hand and looked at it, wiping away some of the blood that had come up. Her hand trembled a little in his hand.

"Are you ok?"

"I look at you and I see him. It's hard to remember that you aren't him. I know he didn't like people to avoid looking at him when talking to him, but you'll have to understand that will be hard for me to do." She had been keeping her eyes turned away as much as she could.

He smirked, but she didn't see it. "Wanna fight?"

"When we were in the world of the living, he said that the gigai wouldn't be durable enough for a real fight."

"From what you told me, he would have left the Soul Society without a limiter being placed on him. That much spiritual pressure would have put strain on the gigai, making it more fragile. I won't have that much of an issue. I have had the limiter put on me and I know how to compensate."

Erin nodded and led him to her training room. She belted on her scimitars as she knew he liked fighting against her with them. Or at least, her Kenpachi had preferred it. She gestured to the weapons on the walls, "Choose the one you want to use." He chose the same sword she had suggested to her Kenpachi when they had sparred in Urahara's underground training grounds.

As she had done with the other Kenpachi the first time they fought, they started slowly, testing each other's' defense and speeding up when they liked what they saw. The fight was over very quickly as this Zaraki had held back too much and Erin had not held back. He laughed and wanted to fight again. It was almost an exact replay of that first day she was out of the cells and healthy enough to fight him. After several fights, he still wanted to fight, but she did as she had before; she put the tip of her sword against his lower eyelid and told him to sit still while she saw to the wounds she had inflicted on him. He tried to protest, so she just pushed a little on the sword so he would feel the pressure against his eye.

"Captain Zaraki, even when I fought your counterpart, when his body was as damaged as yours is now, I made him get patched up before I fought him again."

He huffed but stayed still as Erin pulled out the healing ointment she had used on the other Kenpachi so many times. She pulled off his shirt and used the ointment on him and dressed the wounds. He watched as the last cut he gave her healed up. He had noticed that the cuts began to take longer and longer to heal as they fought. Her fingers trembled against his skin and she continued to avoid looking him in the eye. She had looked at him long enough to place her sword tip and avoided looking at him after that.

"You should be good as new by tonight. This ointment speeds up your healing. It's the last I've got of it though, so if you get injured, I'll have to stitch you up in the future."

"You can't make more?"

"I could if the key ingredient was available in this world. I've only ever seen it in a handful of worlds and earth alternatives don't ever have it."

"Give me the jar. I'll see if Captain Unohana or Kurusutchi can duplicate it." She handed him the jar, avoiding brushing his fingertips.

"I'm sorry about the shirt. I should have had you remove it before we fought. I can get you another if you like."

"No. We aren't going to be staying here long. I'm going to put in a report to the Head Captain and then I'll need to bring you back to the Soul Society. We can't protect you here like we can there. The other captains will have questions." Erin nodded and left to go pack.

Zaraki called in to the Head Captain and explained his findings. Yamamoto asked him if he had taken the readings that Korusutchi had requested and when he answered that he hadn't, he was reminded that it was important and to bring the girl in for questioning. When he hung up, he went to find the girl. She was couched at the corner of her bed and had the leg of the frame in pouch. He watched in amazement as she lifted and the bed just flowed into the pouch. She had mentioned them, but hadn't realized that was how they worked. After that, she threw in clothing and shoes. She decided to leave her gloves at home except for the padded ones she used when fighting. Kenpachi had said not to wear them when around him and even though this wasn't her Kenpachi, she would honor his wishes. She hadn't really been wearing them except when she was out of the house. She knew her mom especially preferred it when she wore them around her.

"How long of a stay do you think, Captain Zaraki?"

"I don't know. Plan for a couple weeks at least."

She nodded and pulled out her cell phone. She called her parent's house and put the phone on speaker phone so that the captain could hear both sides of the conversation.

"Hello?" Her mom answered after a few rings.

"Hi mom. I just wanted to let you know I was going on a trip and I'll be out of the state for a few weeks."

"Why, honey? And where are you going?"

"Mom, I just need to get away. There's just too many people who knew me and I hate lying to them. I think I want to do some traveling out west. Where were some of the places we went to when we went out there? I might check them out. I was too young to remember the trip." She made a face showing how much she hated lying to her mom.

"Well, we went to the Painted Desert, and the Grand Canyon, and the Corn Palace. Depending on where you're headed, we also went to the Bad Lands and Mount Rushmore."

"Ok. If I'm feeling like I can be around people, I'll check them out."

"Ok, check in every now and then. Please?"

"I'll try to, mom. I don't know what phone reception will be like."

"I love you Erin. I hope you find whatever you're looking for out there. You just haven't been the same. Like you're depressed."

"I am a little depressed, mom. Coming back hasn't been easy, you know. Twelve hundred years of always having to watch my back and now I don't. I look around and all I see are ambush points. I notice someone has taken the same couple turns I have, and I immediately want to take evasive maneuvers because I assume I'm being followed. It's going to take a long time, mom. Just bear with me, ok?"

"Ok, baby. Call me and let me know you're alive every now and then. Ba-bye."

"Ok. I will. Bye mom." She hung up and looked up to see the captain watching her.

"Are you finished packing?"

"Only thing left are my scimitars if you wanted me to bring them, Captain Zaraki."

"I would. You can grab them after I run a few scans I was asked to run on you. Hold still." She did so and he pulled the device out of his pocket and ran the scan, moving the device as the captain of the 12th squad had told him to. When he was finished, he pressed the button he had been told to press, and the readings went to the 12th division computers. He tucked the device away and nodded that she could get her swords. After she grabbed them she came back and stood in front of the captain, waiting for him to lead on.

Zaraki noticed that she hadn't been lying about being depressed. The only time he had seen her with any life was when she was fighting him and when she had kissed him. Maybe being in the Soul Society would perk her up? "This way." He led her outside. At the edge of the forest, he stopped and turned to Erin. "I'm going to get out of my gigai and open a gate right there." He pointed. "I don't know if you'll see it open or not. When you see the..."

She stopped him and held up a hand mirror and turned away from him. "I won't be able to hear you, but once you're out of your gigai, I should be able to see you this way." He smiled. He had forgotten about that. He nodded and got out of the gigai. She watched him take his sword out and insert it into something and then a gateway appeared. He entered the gateway and waited for her. She turned directly around and saw nothing. She walked forward and as soon as she crossed the thresh hold, she saw Zaraki again.

"Come. Climb on my back and I'll carry you. We'll have to hurry. The gateway will only stay open for so long." Erin paled slightly and took a step backwards. "Careful! Don't touch the wall. What's wrong?"

"Just let me run. If it becomes an issue, then you can carry me."

He narrowed his eyes at her odd behavior. He gestured ahead of them. "Set the pace. I'll keep up with you." She took off at a sprint and he followed, not expecting her to keep such a ground eating pace for long. She surprised him as they exited the gateway and she wasn't even winded.

"Did we need to go straight to the captain's meeting hall or did you need to send a hell butterfly and then go there?" The immediate feeling of being full settled over her. She had missed that, but didn't relish the thought of having to force herself to eat from now on.

"We can go straight to the hall and wait there for the rest of the captains to show up." Erin nodded and took the lead, proving to Zaraki that she had been here before. At the meeting hall, she waited for him to open the door and immediately handed him her dagger and pulled the scimitars from her pouch and then went to the spot he was going to direct her to and knelt. "You've done this before, haven't you?" She nodded but continued to avoid looking at him. He didn't like it, and he would have to find a way to get her to stop doing that. He sent out the hell butterflies and they waited for the other captains to arrive. He watched her and she just kept her head bowed and her hands in her lap as if she were resting.


	11. Chapter 11

**So... Chapter 11. I hope you enjoy it. **

* * *

It wasn't long before the other captains began filing in. They had heard the reports about the girl, so some flared their spiritual pressures to see if she would react. Oblivious to the antics of the captains, she stayed as she was. Some of them chatted companionably with Zaraki or each other as they waited for the Head Captain to show up. She tuned everyone out, hating that she knew so much about everyone there, but they knew nothing about her.

"Zaraki! Did you even run the scans properly? Give me the device now." Korusutchi demanded as soon as he walked in. Erin flinched at the sound of his voice and a couple of the captains noticed it.

Zaraki tossed the device to the painted man. "I did it exactly as you told me. You think you can do better, there she is."

"I think I will." Erin clenched her hands into fists against her legs. "You, girl! Stand up." Erin slowly stood up. He grumbled about her taking so long but he did exactly as she saw Zaraki do at her home. He shook the devise. "Did you break it, Zaraki? It's a delicate instrument, you know."

"I did not break it."

"I will need to take samples then." He grabbed Erin's wrist and was pulling out an empty syringe from his pocket. Erin twisted her wrist out of his grasp.

"Please do not touch me, Captain. I am not a research specimen for you to poke and prod."

He went to back hand her across the face, but Zaraki grabbed his wrist. "You heard her, Korusutchi. You can slap your subordinates all you like, but she is not your research project. You want samples, you need to go through the Head Captain or ask the girl herself."

He pulled his hand free from Zaraki's grasp and huffed as he turned and went to his spot. Erin went back to kneeling and Zaraki smirked. _Looks like she does have some spirit in her yet. So she doesn't like Myorri. I wonder what happened between them in that other world._

The Head Captain arrived and called everyone to order. "Is this the girl, Captain Zaraki?" He asked.

"Yes, Head Captain. Her name is Erin Graves."

"And you did the scans Captain Korusutchi asked you to do?"

"Yes, Head Captain. He did not believe the results so did them himself when he arrived."

"What are the findings, Captain Korusutchi?"

"As far as I can tell, she's just an ordinary human with no spiritual pressure." He replied.

"Captain Zaraki, you reported that she traveled to other worlds and came to an alternate of our world and met all of us before." Some of the captains muttered amongst themselves. Yamamoto cracked his staff on the ground, silencing the room.

"Yes, I did, Head Captain."

"Erin Graves, do you have any proof of this?"

"I have my memories and I have.." She dug into a pouch, her arm disappearing as she rooted around in the pouch, causing many of the captains to gasp in shock. She pulled out a sketch pad. "…this. I was here for about two months last time so I had time to do sketches." She handed it to Captain Ukatake as he was the nearest to her. He flipped through it, noticing portraits of all of the captains and lieutenants bar the three traitors along with a few other seated officers. When he finished, he passed it on to Zaraki who hadn't seen any of these sketches. The sketchpad made it's way around to all of the captains with Myorri being the last to hold it. He didn't look at it, but just held it, not interested in the sketchpad's contents.

"She did not make these today. Erin, what do you know about each of us?" Komomora asked. She listed what she knew, holding back a little bit about what she knew of her Kenpachi and the gap was noted by several of the captains.

"Are you sure that's all you know?" Captain Feng asked, pointedly.

Erin blushed. "I would rather not go into detail about what I knew of the Captain Zaraki of that world if you don't mind."

Kyōraku gave Zaraki a knowing wink and he growled back.

"Did you have a relationship with that man?" She continued.

Erin pulled her necklace free of her shirt. "I did. He gave me this right before I was pulled into the next world to always take the 11th with me." She was still blushing and she very pointedly did not look at Zaraki. "Can you please stop asking me questions about him? I get it. It's probably not often you get to tease Captain Zaraki about things. But that man there," She pointed, "I have only met this morning and beyond anything general, I know nothing about him." She dropped her hand.

Yamamoto cleared his throat and the snickers and mutters died down. "Miss Graves, by your drawings and your general knowledge of us, I can't be certain that you weren't coached by one of the traitors. You could have been planted by Aizen as a means of getting someone here to get planning back to him or to sabotage us. Do you have any proof that you are not a spy?"

"Head Captain Yamamoto, I'm a human without spiritual pressure. As someone in Soul Society without spiritual pressure, I don't get hungry, but because I am a human or maybe because of the world hopping I went through, I still require food. You don't trust me, that's fine. Put me in a cell and don't feed me. I'll eventually starve to death, all the while feeling full and content. It won't be so bad. I just request my Ipod, a sunny window, and my solar battery charger. You want some proof I'm not a spy. I tell you now that I'm here because I choose to be. That, at least, is something I can give you proof of if you like."

"And how would you do that?" Sneered Kurosutchi.

She looked up to the head captain who nodded. "Choose an element; earth, air, fire or water."

"Earth." Yamamoto replied.

Erin had become stronger in the elements since she was in that other world and this version of Soul Society had a lot more magic to it as did her own world of the living. They were on a first story with no basement underneath. She closed her eyes and put her hands on the floor in front of her. There was a lot of metal underneath them. She mentally reached out to it, drawing it towards them. She looked up at the captains' faces around her and clenched her fist as spikes of metal shot up through the floor in front of each of them, slicing through pant legs on some of them.

"Did you need more proof that I am here because I choose to be?"

"Can you get rid of these spikes?" Ukataki asked.

Erin concentrated and put the metal back in the general areas she got it from.

Yamamoto cleared his throat. "Do you think that's why Aizen is after her, Head Captain?" Hitsuguya asked.

"It's a possibility." He replied. "At this point, we don't know if we need to protect her or be protected from her. Do you have anything to add, Captain Zaraki? You have at least seen her when she didn't know anyone was watching her."

Zaraki looked over to the kneeling woman who was still not looking at him and then down at the spike hole, and then back at her. "Erin, tell us how you came to be tortured." She looked up sharply at him, eyes wide.

Murmurs filled the room and Yamamoto banged his staff on the floor in front of him and the mutters stopped.

"Which time?" She asked.

"How many times?" He retorted.

"The simple answer is three times. The second time was actually a multiple of times over the course of 2 or 3 weeks. Time gets kind of lost when you don't see daylight."

"The first time. What did they want to know?" Zaraki asked.

"They wanted to know the defenses for a castle that I set up the defenses for."

"What did they do to you?"

"I knew the other Captain Zaraki well enough to share that with him, but he also never needed to ask me. I don't know anyone in this room well enough to talk about the specifics of my tortures. Why do you want to know?"

"If we can determine when, why, where, and how you were tortured, we can prove that Aizen didn't have anything to do with it." He replied.

"When was over eleven hundred years ago. Where was on worlds I am happy to be free of. Why is a different reason for each world. The second grouping of tortures was because I landed in a world in the middle of a witch hunt. I fell right in front of a witch hunter. They wanted me to confess to being a witch as they required a confession before a public execution. The third was because I landed similarly in the middle of an army encampment at night. They thought I was a spy and wanted to know what I knew. And how I was tortured is none of your damn business. Maybe if I get to know one of you a hell of a lot better, I'll feel comfortable enough to tell you, but my parents don't even know the specifics. Got it, Captain Zaraki?" She glared up at him.

Zaraki smirked. "It's nice to see you have some life in you, girl. I was beginning to think you were just some depressed mouse."

"Depressed?" Shunsui asked.

"Let's see any of you go through over twelve hundred years of almost constant battles and we'll see if you come out the same. The constant battles drove me insane once. Took a while to get it back."

"Psh. Sanity, can't say I've ever needed such a thing." Zaraki replied.

"And that's where you're wrong, Captain Zaraki. Even in the depths of your blood lust, you're still sane. I was attacking trees for looking at me funny. Trust me, I highly doubt you've ever gone that far down the rabbit hole."

"I believe she's telling the truth, Head Captain. I don't believe she is an Aizen plant."

"Will you take responsibility for her?"

"I will."

"This seems out of character for you, Zaraki." Unahana pointed out.

He held up the scimitars Erin had given him upon entering the captains' meeting. "Yeah, well she can fight too." He replied sheepishly, causing several of the captains to chuckle.

Yamamoto cleared his throat again, getting everyone's attention. "Miss Graves, you, for now, will be the guest of the 13 court guard. As Captain Zaraki is taking responsibility for you, you are to stay at his division and except for when you are sleeping or using the bathroom facilities, you are to be in his company until further notice." Noticing that Korusutchi still had her sketchpad, "Captain Korusutchi, make sure that sketchpad gets back to Miss Graves before you leave for your division. You are all dismissed."

Myorri walked over to the now standing Erin and went to hand her the sketchpad. As she was reaching for it, he went to stab her with a needle with his other hand. Erin saw the movement and exploded into action, grabbing the wrist of the hand holding the needle and using a pressure point to force him to drop the needle and then using her other hand to do an open-handed shove against his chest and releasing his wrist. She ended in a fighting stance with her eyes on the scientist. Zaraki went to put a hand on her shoulder and as soon as he did, she grabbed him by the wrist and flipped him over onto his back. Seeing who she had flipped, caused her to redden in embarrassment.

"I didn't…"

Zaraki laughed. "Oh, we'll have some fun for sure." He got up and retrieved the syringe and the sketchpad. The syringe was empty. "Thought you would go in for another attempt at getting a sample, Korusutchi?" He held the syringe up in front of his chest so it was visible to anyone still in the room.

"It must have slipped…"

"Yeah. See that it doesn't slip again. Come on Erin. Let's get you settled in." He waited for her to walk ahead of him and then left with her. "Here's your sketch pad." He handed it to her and she dropped it into her pouch. "I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing that." She nodded but continued on without speaking. _Aren't girls supposed to be talkative? Hell, when she thought I was the other me she was so happy to see me, but now, it's like she wants nothing to do with me. I wonder why. And I wonder what happened between her and the other Korusutchi. I'll ask her when I get an opportunity._

They arrived at the 11th division compound and he took the lead. He was leading her to his captain's quarters but she seemed lost in thought as she continued toward the lieutenant's quarters.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"The lieutenant's quarters."

"I wouldn't ask you to stay with Yachiru." He replied, not understanding.

"But doesn't she stay with you?" She looked over to the lieutenant's courtyard and saw that it was kept and that the building wasn't on a lean either. "The grounds and building are kept up."

Zaraki moved over to stand near her. "You look shocked. Of course the lieutenant's quarters are kept up. She insists on doing it herself. Were they not in the other world?"

Erin shook her head. "No. The other Yachiru stayed with Kenpachi and the lieutenant's quarters had been kinda left to itself. The courtyard had a lot of weeds sticking up between the flagstones and the building was on a little lean. Has your Yachiru always stayed here?"

"No. She originally used this as a play house and eventually wanted to start sleeping here. She's been here full time for the last couple years. She'll still come over to sleep with me when she gets nightmares though. You, on the other hand, will be staying with me. I have a spare room from when she used to stay with me full time." They walked back over to his home. He showed her the room. "Sorry it's pink. It's Yachiru's favorite color. Do you….need any help?"

"The room is fine and I don't need any help. It's just odd seeing that there are changes between this Soul Society and that Soul Society. And it was a shock that I would be staying with you in your home."

He really didn't know how to reply to that, so just said, "Well, hurry and get set up. I want to get down to the training grounds." And left the room.

Erin pulled out her bed and hung her clothing up in the closet. She hadn't brought much else except for some alcohol. She intended on attempting to get drunk that night as the day had been very bizarre. She left the bag there, but changed into her usual workout clothing as she had often worked with her Kenpachi's men and wanted to be prepared to do the same if asked. She tucked the padded leather gloves in at her waistband. He hadn't given her back the scimitars and she decided that she wasn't going to ask for them either.

She headed out to the living area and he noticed the change in clothing. He turned and left the house, with Erin following after. He led her to the training grounds and she was surprised to see that the men were using wooden practice swords to train.

"Where are their swords?" She finally asked.

"They are nearby, but they practice with the practice swords. The only time they use their zampakuto outside of battle is when they are challenging for a higher seat. Why? How did he do it?"

"The men always practiced with their zampakuto. My Kenpachi fought against his subordinates semi frequently and made the decisions to raise or lower someone's status."

"I used to have them train with their swords, but Captain Unahana got tired of all the training accidents and said she wouldn't treat anyone else from the 11th with a training accident. She even brought over a cart load of the practice swords."

Ikkaku and Yumichika, upon seeing their captain arrive with the woman they had been watching in the world of the living, strode over to find out what was going on. Yumichika introduced Ikkaku and himself and explained that they had been in charge of watching her for the last two weeks. Zaraki briefly explained about Erin and the Head Captain's decision.

"Hey Erin," called Ikkaku. "I've seen you practice before and I've been dying to spar with you. What do you say?" Erin looked over to Zaraki and he gave a brief nod.

"Sure, but I'm not used to using a practice sword."

"You get used to it. Here, catch!" He tossed her one and she caught it easily. She tucked it under her arm as she put her padded leather gloves on.

"What's with the gloves?" Ikkaku asked.

"I heal very quickly. That means that I can't acquire any calluses. And even though I heal quickly, tears to my palms still hurt and I'd rather avoid the unnecessary slippery grip from the blood." She swung around the blade and hated how light it was in comparison to her normal swords. "Definitely feels weird."

Ikkaku chuckled and led her to an open space. They tested each other out and Erin adjusted the skill, strength and ferocity of her attacks to be at a level near his but still above it.

"Quit toying with him, Erin."

"I am not toying with him. I am training him. How is he to become a better swordsman if I simply do this?" She made a few quick movements and had her sword at his throat. Zaraki chuckled. "Which would you prefer, 3rd seat Madarame?"

"Go a little tougher then you were, but you don't need to make me feel like a raw recruit." Erin nodded and they began again. She worked with him for the next hour or so until Zaraki called a break for dinner. Sometime during Erin's and Ikkaku's sparring match, Yachiru came back from her woman's meeting and Zaraki quietly got her up to date on what was going on.

Erin followed Zaraki back to his home while Yachiru rode on his shoulder.

"What are you makin' tonight, Kenny?"

"Hmmm, how about a ramen?"

"That sounds good. With chicken?"

"Sure, we can do a chicken ramen." He replied.

It was odd seeing a Yachiru that didn't need everything she ate smothered in sugar. Erin just shook her head in amusement as she followed the pair to the house. Yachiru hopped off his shoulder and sat at the table. Erin wasn't quite sure what to do, so when he went to chop up meat, she went over and asked him if she could help with the prep work. He directed her to cut up the vegetables. When the cutting was all done, she went to her room, grabbed her shower supplies and took a shower while Zaraki continued cooking. The food was done by the time she was done with her shower. She came back out in clean clothes and did what she could to stuff down some food.

"You didn't eat much, girl."

"Eating isn't very easy for me to do here, Captain Zaraki."

"Just Zaraki, Erin. And what do you mean?"

"What I said in the captain's meeting is true. I don't get hungry here, but I still need to eat. It's like always feeling full. So, I force down what I can, but it's never much." She smiled sardonically. "Don't worry about it." She got up and grabbed the empty plates. "Come on, I'll help wash up." For Erin it was odd washing dishes with Zaraki again. There was no playfulness, and he didn't try to stop her from doing the dishes.

Sometime after dinner, Zaraki walked Yachiru over to her quarters and got her into bed. While he was gone, Erin grabbed her pouch and brought it out with her. She sat down and leaned against one of the porch posts and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and lazily drank from the bottle. Zaraki was gone for about a half hour and Erin had drank about a quarter of the bottle by the time he came back. He sat down and leaned against the other porch post.

After a while he reached over for the bottle and Erin passed it over to him companionably. He took a swig and said, "I didn't take you for much of a drinker." He took another long pull and handed the bottle back.

Erin took the bottle and drank deeply. "I'm not, but after such an odd day, attempting to get drunk sounded nice." She drank again and passed the bottle back over.

The bottle was now three quarters gone. "Attempt?" He asked, taking a long drink.

"If you are anything like your counterpart, you don't get drunk very easily. I'm like that too. I heal too quickly and I have a high tolerance for alcohol. So, yeah – attempt is the right word." She finished off the bottle and pulled out another. "More whiskey or should we go to vodka, tequila or sake?"

"I'd prefer sake." She handed him the bottle to start it off. They continued like this, passing a bottle back and forth while they talked.

"I wasn't very fair to you in the captain's meeting, Zaraki."

"Oh?"

"Your counterpart didn't need to ask me about the tortures because, in a way, he already knew what happened. You see, I had given him my pouches for safe keeping while I was in the Division 2 holding cells. While the captains discussed what to do with me, I told him he could go through the pouches as he wanted and use anything he found in there to prove or disprove that I was a threat." Erin looked down, not really wanting to go on, but knowing he deserved to know. He looked over to her, waiting for her to continue. "After they happened, I was pretty messed up in the head. It's a lot to be almost taken to your breaking point over and over again even if it did occur over a 75 year period and at that time, over 800 years ago. That second one really did break me. I was almost a wild animal by the time I was rescued.

"I attempted some self-therapy because there wasn't anyone I could talk to about it. I thought that if I could get everything I felt on paper, maybe it would stop tearing me up inside. So I drew. I filled a whole sketchpad with drawings depicting everything. My hope was to one day be able to look through the pictures and not feel the same way I did back then. It never worked. I would look at them and all the horror would come crashing back on me and I would throw the book away from me.

"That was the sketchpad he found and when the captains finished looking through it, I begged Captain Soi Feng to destroy it because I never wanted to see it again. I understand that Captain Kuchiki did it for me."

Zaraki stayed quiet for a while after she finished. "Can I see your hand?" He finally asked. She nodded and scooted over to him and held out her right hand for him to examine. He noticed that she didn't tremble at his touch and attributed it to the alcohol relaxing her. "Is there any stiffness?" He asked as he moved her fingers, testing the dexterity. She shook her head. "I've never seen round scars like these before. They look like they went all the way through at each joint and then again at the middle of each bone in the hand." He saw that her eyes had begun to fill as she nodded. "What happened to the missing fingers?"

"The hand was crippled afterwards. The tendons in those fingers had snapped and retreated all the way up to my elbow and they couldn't get reconnected. They had shrunk too much over time and restretching them would have been almost impossible and very painful. The fingers themselves were so badly damaged that the doctor felt it was better to remove them, rather than to repair them and just have dead fingers on the hand getting in the way considering that there was extensive nerve damage to the whole hand as well. Over the years, the nerves have healed, but I would have never been able to move those fingers again." He looked like he was going to ask a question about how the round scars were made so she beat him to the punch. "It looked like a book but instead of pages, the covers were lined with spikes, and that's all I really want to say about it." A tear leaked from her right eye and she looked away as she reclaimed her hand and scooted back to where she had been sitting. She wiped at her eye and continued to drink.

"Thank you." She nodded and they stayed quiet, passing a bottle back and forth. After the fourth bottle had been drained, she said good night and went back inside with a good buzz and a very full bladder. She took care of the bladder and then got ready for bed. She heard Zaraki enter the home a little while later.

The next morning, Zaraki woke up and went to check on his charge. He was surprised to find that she wasn't in her bed. He checked the rest of the house but didn't find her. He began to wonder if she had left while he was asleep and decided to do a quick look around before reporting her missing. He had decided to set up a search party and when he left the house, he saw her practicing her hand to hand fighting skills. He watched her and noticed she was listening to her ipod as she trained. He could tell she had been at it for a while because she had a sheen of sweat on her exposed skin. He walked over to her and put a hand to her shoulder. The response was immediate as she pulled him over her shoulder in a flip.

She pulled the earbuds from her ears and said, "I'm so sorry! I didn't hear you!"

He laughed. "I see you're feisty today. Go get your scimitars from my room. We'll have some fun."

"But how will I be able to help you heal quicker without the ointment?"

"Don't worry about it. We'll go after. Now go get your scimitars, girl." He commanded.

She did as he asked and after he took off his captain's jacket and shirt, they sparred for several hours, each taking and giving injury. She eventually called an end to the sparring, gave him her sword belt, and did her best to bandage him up. When she was as finished as she could be, he put his shirt and jacket back on, took her swords back to his room, and grabbed the jar she had given him back in the world of the living. They traveled to the fourth division.

At the fourth division, Unahana's third seat met them shortly after arriving. "Captain Zaraki, are you ok, sir?" She asked timidly after seeing the bandages on his chest that were bleeding through.

"I'm fine. Where is your captain?"

"I believe she is in her office, captain." He grunted and chose a random direction and started walking. Erin tugged on his sleeve and took the lead.

"Where is Yachiru? The other her liked to watch my fights with the other you."

She popped up over Zaraki's shoulder. "Here I am!" She waved at Erin.

"Where did you come from?" Yachiru giggled in response.

"She hopped on as we started for the 4th division. You were walking next to me and kept your eyes straight ahead to avoid looking at me." He smirked.

"Yeah, well, you're wearing the face and form of the man I still love. It's not easy to look at you and keep my distance, to not want to react as I would normally."

"You love Kenny?"

"Not your Captain Zaraki, Yachiru. I don't know the man you are riding. But I did know a man that looked and acted much like him. Didn't you bring her up to date, Zaraki?"

"I left out a few things."

"Like what, Kenny?"

"None of your business, squirt."

"Did she kiss you?" Erin and Zaraki both colored. "She did! Did you like it?"

"Of course I liked it, Yachiru. But it wasn't meant for me. Now leave it alone."

"Why don't you like my Kenny, Erry?"

"Because I don't know him, Yachiru. I've missed being called Erry by your counterpart, Lieutenant."

"Would you like him if you got to know him?"

Zaraki looked over to her and saw that tears had begun rolling down her cheek. "Yachiru, leave her alone."

"But Kenny!"

"Not now, Yachiru. We're here anyway." He opened the door to find the captain of the 4th division looking over a report. He cleared his throat and she looked up.

"Captain Zaraki, I see you are injured. I told you about training with bare blades."

"I'm not here for that, Unahana." He pulled a jar from a pocked with a residue in it. "Can you look at this and see if you can create something similar?"

She took the jar from his outstretched hand. "What was it?"

"Erin." He made a gesture to indicate she should explain.

"It's a healing salve, Captain Unahana. I can make it if I have the right materials, but one of the ingredients is only found on a handful of worlds. We were hoping you might be able to create something to replicate it."

"What's the missing ingredient?"

"It was called the bleeding warrior in one of the worlds I was in. If you have some paper I can draw it." She nodded and handed her paper and something to draw with. As she was finishing the drawing, Zaraki spoke up.

"Are the petals pink with blood red spots near the center?"

Erin looked up at him in surprise. "How did you know?"

"I've seen it before."

"Where?"

"The place I found Yachiru. I went back there years later and they had bloomed there."

"The other Zaraki said when he found Yachiru, it was after a big fight. A bunch of bandits hacking apart people or something like that. Was it the same for you?" He nodded. "That makes sense then. The seeds require blood to be spilled on them before they will begin growing. They can lay dormant for decades. What is the flower called here?" She asked Captain Unahana.

"We called it the bleeding lady because it's pink and the blood colored spots." Zaraki supplied.

"Can you take me there?"

"Is this ointment really so useful? We can use healing kido." Unahana interjected.

"It's only good on cuts to the skin. It won't repair anything deeper, but it cuts healing time in half. I like to train with bare blades and so does Captain Zaraki. It will make it so I don't have to stich him up every morning. Besides, what do you do when you have a trainee that can't use healing kido or a healer that becomes too weak to use it? What would you use on me if I became injured to the point I couldn't heal myself? I was told kido doesn't work on me at all. I don't know if that holds true in this world too."

"I would like to verify that." Unahana replied.

"As you wish." Unahana tried a restraining kido and watched as it slid around her. She tried something more high level and that slid around her as well.

"I've never seen that before. May I examine you?"

"What does that entail?"

"Nothing that I can't observe. Listen to your heart and lungs, take a few scans. Nothing evasive." She replied.

"Ok. I'll allow it."

"Come with me. I have an exam room we can use." She directed them to a nearby room complete with an examining table. "Please take a seat." She directed Erin to sit on the table. She did as she said she would. She tried a few more kidos, warning her when it was one that could cause damage. She also checked her heart, lung function, reflexes, and took a few scans. When she was done, she thanked Erin and said, "For all I can tell, you're a normal human with all I can observe normally. Even the scans show you as normal except for that immunity to spiritual pressure and kido among your other abilities." She turned to Zaraki. "Captain Zaraki, I'd like to talk with you." He nodded and they headed outside as Erin put in a pair of ear buds.

Unahana looked at Erin oddly when she did that so Zaraki explained. "She has very strong hearing and she is trying to be polite as you didn't want to talk to me in front of her."

"Oh. That was nice of her. Zaraki, I think you should take her to pick up those flowers."

"Why? She's safer here than out there."

"Two reasons. The first is that I agree that this ointment will be very useful. The second is that maybe she'll open up more to you if you're alone and traveling like that. She loved the other version of you, maybe she'll come to love you too."

"I don't need some woman." He growled

"Yes you do, Kenny." Yachiru giggled.

"Think about it. Do you really think the other Zaraki was looking for a mate? Besides – she can fight and is willing to fight you every day. What more can you want?"

He looked up towards the door and then back down to the woman in front of him. "Someone that doesn't avoid looking at me because I remind her of someone else." He sighed. "Fine, I'll take her, but Yachiru, you need to stay here." She pouted at the news. They returned to the exam room and they saw that Erin had her eyes closed and was singing lowly to herself. Zaraki chuckled and then cleared his throat loudly, making her jump and pull out the ear buds. He chuckled again. Yachiru smacked him on the ear and he just took it making Erin smile at the familiar antics.

"Erin, can you write down the recipe for the ointment for me? I'd like to be able to make it too when you and Zaraki come back from getting that flower."

Erin smiled and nodded. "Sure. It's a long process, but I don't mind writing it all down for you." Retsu handed her a pen and paper and Erin began writing out the complicated instructions for making the ointment. When she was done, she handed it to the captain and she looked it over.

"I have most of these herbs or can get them easily. Be on the lookout for the last three ingredients on this list while you're out. I don't know if I'll be able to get them."

"I have everything at my house other than this flower." Erin supplied.

"Erin, it's dangerous for you in the world of the living right now. We can't risk you going there even with Zaraki for protection."

Erin's face fell. "I didn't pack for traveling."

"We'll pick up anything we need at the market." Zaraki replied. "Come on, let's go."

Erin followed him to the market and he bought food that would travel well and then took her to a clothing rack. "Find your size." When Erin looked confused he replied, "You'll stick out like a sore thumb. Find your size and grab 3 sets of clothing and a pair of sandals." Erin took a few items and tried them on in one of the booths the seller had. They left with 3 yukata and a pair of sandals. "Do you need anything else?"

"I can hunt fresh meat for us, but I'll need a bow, arrows, and a skinning knife."

He liked the sound of fresh meat on the road so brought her to a stall with the necessary items. She checked several of the bows and tested the pull before settling on one. She gave the arrows a thorough examination, but only needed to test the edge of the skinning knife. They brought everything back to his house and they packed everything they were going to need in her pouch. Unahana had given her a bag for the herbs she was going to collect and had requested that a few of the flowers were brought back whole so that they could try to cultivate them. When everything was set, they went up to his office so he could sign off on a few things.

"Where's the rest of the paperwork?" She asked him.

"Rest?"

"There's usually a good stack… Isn't there?"

"He took care of all of his paperwork?" He asked. She nodded. "I hate paperwork, so each of my seated officers is responsible for doing paperwork 1 day out of the month. They can authorize up to a certain level and they leave anything they can't sign off on for me. I come up once a week and spend about 10 minutes signing off or rejecting anything they couldn't do."

"Aren't you worried about someone trying to…. I don't know…. Make the division pay for a large bar tab or something."

He laughed darkly, "They know that if I ever found out, I would kill them on the spot."

"Seems like a better system."

"Yup. And I get out of doing paperwork." He smirked. "Yachiru thought of it." He scrawled his name across a small handful of documents and left them in the out tray for someone to take care of later. As he had said, he was only there for about 10 minutes before directing Erin out to the training grounds to meet up with Yachiru who had run ahead. The training went as normal and Erin trained with a few of the men. They halted for the day and back at Zaraki's house, they had a meal and went over the items that were packed. He added her sword belt to the pouch. They showered and went to bed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello. Sorry it's been a while since last update. I just got married, so things have been a little hectic and are now starting to slow down. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you like it. Reviews are always appreciated.**

* * *

The next morning Kenpachi woke up to find that Erin had again woken up before him. He went outside and found her sitting on the porch in one of the yakatas he had bought her yesterday and the sandals. She was sipping a steaming cup of tea and a tray with another cup and the pot sat next to her. He was dressed in his own yakata and sandals, reminding Erin of the first time she had seen the other Kenpachi. He sat down next to her and poured his own tea.

"You're up early." He finally said after taking a sip of the tea.

"I don't sleep like you do. I only need about 3 to 4 hours of deep meditation in a 24 hour period. I can sleep normally, but I tend to get nightmares anymore. I'll be able to keep watch most of the night while we are outside the 13 courts."

"That explains a lot. The guys said they could never wake up early enough to be up before you." He finished his tea and set the cup back on the tray and picked it up. "Come on, let's get something to eat. I'll go get Yachiru."

Erin nodded. "I'll start making breakfast then." He left and she went inside. She pulled out some potatoes and started chopping. She was almost done with all the prep-work when they walked into the house. Erin could tell that Yachiru was still mad that she wasn't coming with them. Zaraki immediately started cooking and soon breakfast was ready. They ate fairly quietly and when it was time to go, Yachiru hugged Zaraki fiercely. He reminded her that she was in charge now and that he didn't expect to be gone long. She finally let him go and he left with Erin to the north gate.

Once the gate was open, he crouched down in front of Erin. "Come on, hop on."

"Can't I just run?"

"Erin, I don't want to spend more time then I have to away from my division. Now get on." She hopped on and adjusted her knees and grip on him before he had a chance to correct her. "You've done this before?"

"Once." She answered quietly. He nodded and then started off.

It was an hour or so until midday when Erin asked him to stop. "Let me down. I want to hunt for us while we still have some daylight. I can pick up some firewood as I go too." He nodded and let her down. She pulled out the bow and arrows and soon disappeared into the woods after telling him to continue walking, she would stay close enough to be able to find him again. He was amazed at how quiet she was and continued walking. She was gone for about an hour and he was wondering if she had become lost when a voice at the side of the road caught his attention.

"Quick kneel down as if you have to retie your sandals or adjust them." He did as Erin asked. "About a mile up the road is an ambush. There are scouts not far but they haven't seen me. I'm going to take them out, but keep going ahead. There are about eleven men up there waiting. I wonder if this is a merchant route or something. You've been crouched too long now. Get up and start moving forward and I'll see you in about a mile."

Zaraki smiled. He did as Erin had said and got up and headed forward as if he had no idea what was going on. He heard a few muffled thuds as Erin took out the scouts. He wondered at how she had gotten so close without being seen and decided he would ask her later.

Things went as Erin had planned with the ambushers having no advanced warning of Zaraki. She also took out the scouts further north so that they couldn't get away or reinforce their comrades. This was a rather large gang but the size made her think that they mainly went after merchants. By the time Zaraki showed up, the gang had been reduced by half with only these eleven men left. She took up position and decided that she would let Zaraki have his fun and only interfere if she had to. She shouldn't have worried as he ended up decimating the men as they called out for the other already dead men to help them. A couple of the men tried to turn and run away, but Erin shot them down, revealing her position to Zaraki. When the bandits were all dead, Erin stepped out on the road and retrieved her arrows.

"So how do you do it? Move so quietly." He asked as he caught up to her.

"With a lot of training and practice. I have enough game for us for lunch and dinner. I found one of the other plants Captain Unahana didn't think she would find too." He shook his head in exasperation. She started to search the bodies, tucking away a few coins and knives as she came across them.

"What are you doing? We don't need any cash. Let the locals check the bodies for coins."

"Habit." She upended the coin purse she had pilfered and tossed away the empty pouch. "There is something that seems off about this ambush, Zaraki. I have been on both sides of many ambushes and this one is too large unless this is a major trading route with trade caravans." She looked up in time to see his face. It told her that there was no such thing in this world. "That means, they were here for a purpose." She continued to search the bodies. "This one's the leader. Maybe he'll have something."

"How can you tell who the leader is?" He asked.

"His clothing is newer, his weapons are a better quality, and his purse is fuller. Means he takes the largest take." She pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded and unfolded many times. She opened it up and after a few seconds, handed it up to Zaraki. It was a reward flyer with a good likeness of Erin on it with "extremely dangerous" underneath and a reward for an insane amount. "I wish we would have kept one of them alive now." She said quietly.

"How did you know that this wasn't a normal ambush?"

"Too many people and a regular stickup job doesn't use scouts. I wonder how many other groups out there have this poster."

"I should take you back, but we need to find out more information. The amount they are offering as a reward is the kind of cash only nobles would have."

"Unless they aren't planning on paying it out." Erin supplied.

"True. Come on, get on my back and let's get away from here. The sooner we can get what we came out here for, the sooner we can get you back where it's safer."

She put everything away and climbed up on his back, settling into place. He ran for a few miles before finding them a spot to grab lunch. She pulled out a few squirrels she had caught along with the firewood and tinder she had scavenged. She also pulled out some fruit and bread for them to munch on while the squirrels cooked.

"When did you even have time to gut and skin them?" He asked. Erin chuckled in response. _I think I'm starting to see what the other me must have seen in her. The way she took down those runners without hesitation, the way she found and took out the scouts…. I could see myself with someone like her. She can fight. I never thought a human could fight like that. Even Ichigo doesn't fight like that. I would have kept walking when we were done killing them, but she knew something was off. Hell, even packing for this trip, she thought of everything. Who does that? At least she isn't flinching or freaking out when she gets on my back._ When the squirrels were cooked, she handed him one of the squirrels on a stick and took the other for herself. She wasn't able to eat very much of it and offered the rest to Zaraki who happily ate the rest. They kicked out the fire and continued their journey north.

Dusk was approaching so Zaraki turned off the path for the night, finding them a secluded clearing. Erin set another fire with the wood she had collected and set some rabbits on some spits to cook.

"That's the last of what I hunted. I may hunt some more while you sleep or in the morning."

"We should get to the site by midday tomorrow so long as there aren't any more interruptions."

Erin nodded. "I'm going to look for some more firewood. Will you watch the meat?" When Zaraki nodded, she left. She came back an hour or so later and pulled out the wood, stacking it nearby. She looked up and breathed deeply. "It's going to get cold tonight."

"How can you tell?"

"Lack of cloud cover and the air has the right smell to it." He looked at her oddly when she mentioned smell. "Gifts of the senses. Only one I never got was taste, which was a good thing. Some smells are so bad you can taste them, so not having even more of a sense of taste has been a good thing."

"I remembered the hearing. How sensitive are your senses?" He asked.

"I can see at night as though it were twilight. Hearing and smell are harder to quantify. Wind can carry either. Every person and animal has their own distinct smell; no two are alike. Like a dog, I can smell these differences, but I couldn't track by smell alone. A dog can, for example, follow where someone has walked several days ago, assuming that rains haven't washed out the scent and there aren't a lot of extra smells. I'll give you an example. My parents have this dog and I brought her with me when I was working on getting my apartment all set up. They had been by to look at the place before they went out of town and she immediately put her nose to the floor and followed where they had walked around in the apartment. I couldn't do that. I might be able to detect that they were there a few days ago, but that's about it. My hearing is different. It's about as good as a dog's from what I can tell, but it gets to be too much for me. It's like being in a crowded room with everyone talking at once. I can concentrate on a conversation, but it's something I do have to concentrate to do. My sense of touch might be a little more sensitive than yours, but not by much."

"Good to know."

"Did you want to take first watch or second?"

"I'll take the first watch." Erin nodded and laid down near the fire and pulled out the blanked they had brought.

"Remember, I only need three hours." Zaraki nodded and turned away to go check the tree line. His three hours were uneventful, so he went to wake Erin. He touched her shoulder and was about to call her name when there was suddenly a knife to his throat. She pulled the knife away quickly and laughed quietly.

"What was that about?"

"I'm sorry. Over twelve hundred years of creating habits makes it hard to not do something. I laughed, because the first time the other Zaraki woke me up, I did the same thing to him." She got up and stretched. "Go on. Get some rest. I'll wake you in the morning." Zaraki settled in to the spot she had vacated. It was still warm which was nice as she had been right; it was getting colder.

She continued to collect firewood throughout the night, knowing that they would have at least one more night on the road. It was also cold enough that she wanted to keep the fire going so Zaraki didn't get too cold considering he was doing all the heavy lifting. All she had to do was hang on and go hunting on occasion. While she was out, she ended up finding another of the plants that were going to be harder to find. There wasn't much there, but it was fortunate that not much was going to be needed. She gave him a good 7 hours of sleep before waking him up. She watched him first for a few minutes before finally waking him. For those few minutes, she could pretend that he was her Kenpachi. She wanted to reach out and touch his face like she used to. She mentally shook herself and just woke him.

He woke up easily and for the briefest of moments, he saw pain behind her eyes before the walls went back up. "Breakfast is in the pan. I also heat up some water for you if you wanted to give yourself a quick scrub before we leave. The other you liked to feel clean." She colored as she looked away. He grunted and nodded. He ate the rest of what was in the pan after she told him she had already eaten. When he was finished, he started shrugging out of his yakata, so Erin quickly turned away from him, making him smirk. She could hear him undress the rest of the way and then the sound of him scrubbing. He knew she was still blushing because he could see that her ears had turned red.

"How did you want to handle the wet towels?" She could now hear him drying off.

"If you hand them to me, I can draw out the water and then they can just go back into the pouch dry. He finished drying and walked over to hand them to her. She did a half turn to take them from him and flushed further when she realized he was still naked.

"I don't get why you're embarrassed. Our bodies can't be that different."

"Did you really want me to compare you now? Just because I knew the other you intimately, doesn't mean I get to stare at you the same way."

"I don't know. It might be nice to have someone look at me the way you did when we first met and you thought I was him. Come. Look at me and tell me if we look the same. I have underwear on now so I'm decent."

She gave him a quick glance to ensure he was telling her the truth, and he was. She faced him and as she was drawing out the water from the towels he had given her, she looked him over. For the most part he looked the same. Same build, same amount of muscles, same tan to his skin. But she spotted something. It was a missing scar. "He had a scar here." She pointed to his abdomen and traced where it would have been.

"Must have dodged a different way and got hit. Is there anything else? Do we smell the same to you?"

She looked up to him a little apprehensively. "I need you to come lower. It's easier for me to catch a person's personal scent from the crook of their neck. It's warm and there's a lot of skin all together there."

"Is that the only place like that?"

She colored. "We are no where near where I would feel comfortable smelling you there, and I'm not a fan of sniffing armpits."

He chuckled, knowing she had been referencing sniffing his crotch. He leaned over so she could sniff him and she subconsciously took a step back. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to him. "Stop being so skittish."

She leaned in close and he could feel her breath against his neck. She inhaled deeply, pulling his scent into her nose. She exhaled and inhaled again just as deeply. She stepped back with her brow furrowed and her fingers tapping against her chin. "Very close. There is just the tiniest difference. It would be easy to mistake you for him by scent." She faced away from him, continuing to keep watch while he finished dressing.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Yes and no, Zaraki." They had begun packing up.

"Explain."

She was tying the pouch to her belt and was getting ready to climb up onto Zaraki's back. She had to direct him to the road and the direction they were headed in before answering him. "It kind of makes me feel guilty. I had come to know him very well and it's weird knowing so much about you but you knowing nothing he knew about me. It's like taking advantage of an amnesia patient. And that wouldn't be fair to you. Hell, it's not fair to you either way."

"Either way? How do you mean?" He liked that she was talking to him like this and opening up. He wanted to continue to see her with her walls down, to understand what another version of himself would have seen in her; a mere human.

"If I keep my distance from you and never give you a chance to get to know me because you aren't him, I deny you the chance at the happiness the other you had with me. If I'm open and maybe even pursue you, you may feel that I'm always going to compare you with him, or, I don't know… like I'm expecting you to become him or something. Either way, you're going to get the short end of the stick." She leaned her head against his back as he ran.

"What if I pursue you?"

"You want someone with too many memories of another version of you?"

"Fewer surprises for you then." He felt her shaking so he slowed down. "Are you ok?"

The voice was quiet. "Yeah. It's just a lot to take in all at once. I was ok with never seeing him again. It took a while to be ok with that. It wasn't easy getting over him, you know. And then you showed up, but you aren't him and now you're telling me you want to pursue me? I'm just really confused and wish I could be alone for a while and just process everything."

He used one hand to rub her leg and the other to rub one of her hands. "It's ok. I understand." He waited until she stopped shaking and then started back up again. "Did you need to do any hunting today?" He asked some time later.

"I hunted while you were asleep. We should be good for today." He gave her a hand a quick squeeze.

"How is it that you think of everything for a trip?" He finally asked.

He felt her laughing against his back and it made him smile considering their earlier conversation had her shaking. "A lot of practice. I didn't really have a set home for most of the time I was away. I mean, sometimes we would be defending a castle or a keep or a town, but more often than not, we traveled and lived in tents. Being prepared could keep the people I was with alive when they would normally have died."

"Can you give me an example?"

"I had a pouch that was just full with bedding material. Mostly blankets. It really came in hand one campaign. It was late spring and the enemy had these weather mages we didn't know about at the time. They made it so cold that if I hadn't been able to supply everyone with blankets, most of the men would have died. We couldn't keep the horses near a heat source, because they don't like fire, so we were able to use another pouch of supplies I had full of tents and camping gear. We used the large canopy tents and lined the walls with rugs to help keep their heat in. There were very few deaths from the cold because I was prepared enough. It's stressful being in charge of so many lives. I don't know how you captains deal with that on a day to day basis where your decisions could get everyone killed." She tightened her hold on him, making him feel he was being hugged. He liked that feeling and decided that he wanted to feel it more often.

"It's not so hard as you're thinking. Besides, you don't make it to a seated officer in the eleventh squad unless you're really good." He reminded her.

"I know." She said quietly.

It was around midday when they arrived at the site. There were several of the flowers scattered around, but Zaraki was frowning.

"There were more here when I was here last."

"They are a pretty and unusual flower. I'm sure people have plucked them before or tried to take them to plant elsewhere. They probably didn't know that they need blood. If you move them, you have to give them blood when they get transplanted. Otherwise they die, but if you leave them here, they are a perennial, so they'll keep coming back year after year. But they are sensitive. If you pluck the flowers at the wrong time of year, the whole plant won't grow back." She dug up whole plants and set them with the other whole plants she had harvested and had been keeping watered. When she was done, she took a knife from her belt, lifted her sleeve, and cut her arm deeply and held open the wound. She walked around the area, wetting the area with her blood.

"What are you doing?"

"Ensuring that any seeds here can germinate. They need blood to awaken." She released her wound when she was done and he watched it close up. She grabbed a few items from the pouch at her waist and cleaned off her arm.

"Let's eat. Stay on your guard, and pull out your scimitars. This isn't the nicest of districts. The only one worse than this one is the next one out; the Zaraki district." She nodded and did as he asked and belted them on. They found a clearing, set a fire, and cooked the meat she had cut from a larger raccoon she had caught the night before. She knew it would take too long to cook the whole thing, so had spitted smaller sections of meat for a faster cook. While they ate, they chatted, getting to know each other. When they were finished, they kicked out the fire and she got back up on his back and he took off, heading back home.

They stopped for the night and ate dinner while sitting next to each other. They had finished and were having a companionable silence. She moved so she was still sitting near him, but was looking at him straight on. He looked at her curiously.

"Someone is coming….no a group of people. I can hear them in the trees. They are being quiet, but not quiet enough."

"How close?"

"Hard to tell for sure. The wind is in the right direction, so it's carrying the sound too." She closed her eyes and listened. "Maybe a quarter of a mile? Maybe closer."

"Can you tell how many?" She shook her head. He pulled her in so that she was straddling his lap and she squeaked at the sudden closeness. "I can sense spiritual pressure. It's a decent amount, so my focus will be on him. I need you to pull out your swords and this position should block them from seeing you pull them out. I might not be able to protect you." She laughed at the thought of needing to be protected but his serious face stopped her. "Listen again. How far and how many."

"Closer than a quarter mile now for sure and I think…..more than ten, but no more than twenty. It's hard to tell with so many feet. They are starting to split up. I think they are going to try to flank us on both sides." She found the sword belt and pulled it free. She was going to belt it on, but he stopped her.

"Let them get closer. It's gotten dark and I can't see like you can in the dark. I'm going to need to lure them in. Just set the swords between us and let's make it look like they are interrupting us." He smirked as he leaned in to kiss her. She froze and her body tightened. He rubbed his hand down her back. "Relax. If you have to, pretend I'm the other Kenpachi, but we need to draw them in close." He leaned in again and started light. A tear ran down her face, but she put a hand up to his neck and kissed him back, releasing a small moan as she opened her mouth to him. He pulled her hips in closer to him and she could feel him beginning to harden. She rubbed her pubic bone against him causing him to groan with want. He released her mouth and pulled her head over to the side to suck on her neck. "How about now, Erin?"

Her breathing had become ragged as she continued to rub her pubic bone against his now rock hard penis and was teasing his nipples as her fingers brushed past them to grip his shoulders. "They are at the tree line watching now. I can hear one of them to your left masturbating. They are talking about who will get me first when you're finished with me."

He growled deep in his throat and nipped her neck making her moan in pleasure. "Sounds like they won't move until they've had a show then."

"I can light the area, but it will drain me and I don't know how long I'll be able to do it for."

"I can't risk the light going out in the middle of the fight."

"I could just kill them all. I can see just fine."

He had rubbed up from the end of her rib cage up so that his thumbs caught her under her breasts, lifting them and then cupping them and giving them a squeeze, making her gasp loudly. "You are not going to take my fun away. I'll let you kill a few, but that's it." She chuckled. "I'm going to lay you down and we'll pretend for a few minutes. We'll pretend to cum and hopefully, that will bring them in. Otherwise, we may have to try your light trick." She nodded and opened his yakata and hers to make it look real and held on to her sword belt so she could maneuver it as they moved. He smirked and rolled her across his lap as he got on top and started to "thrust" against her. She was still getting the right kind of friction so after his "few minutes" actually shuddered with an orgasm, moaning loudly as she came. "You actually orgasmed." He shook his head and after a few more fake thrusts, grunted as though he had cum as well.

"I can't help it, you were rubbing me the right way."

He chuckled as he laid on top of her. "You have me aching so much for you. For real afterwards?" She smiled and nodded. "Are they moving yet?" He kissed her so that they didn't look odd to the watchers.

She listened for a little bit and then ended the kiss. "They are moving out now."

He kissed her again while getting a hand on his sword which he had maneuvered her next to when he pulled her across his lap. Her swords were lying next to her on the other side, so couldn't make a grab for them without them seeing.

"So nice of you to warm her up for us." A man called out as the group closed in.

Zaraki lifted himself up to a kneeling position and pointedly covered Erin back up, and tied her sash. "Hate to be the one to break it to you, but I ain't sharing."

"You don't have a choice. She's wanted and we're gunna bring her in after having a little fun ourselves. Watching you with her has our blood singing."

"I guess you'll just have to take her from me then." He pulled his sword from where he had been hiding it and stood up, letting some of his spiritual pressure slip free of his control. He exploded into action, killing men left and right. They tried to swarm him but he started laughing. Meanwhile, Erin pulled her swords free and quickly got to her feet at the same time Zaraki made his move. She went after those out of the fire light, thinking they were safe because they couldn't be seen. She saw that some of the men were breaking and trying to get back to the tree line. She quickly pulled out her bow, strung it and grabbed the quiver of arrows, taking out runner after runner.

The fight didn't last long and when Erin saw that Zaraki was fine, she checked for anyone that may have made it to the trees. Her hearing caught someone crashing through the trees, so she chased after him and shot him down when she got him in her sight. When she was certain she couldn't see or hear anyone else, she retrieved her arrow and went back to retrieve the rest. Zaraki had finished the last man and was waiting for her to return.

"Did you get him?"

"Yeah. Let's see if they have anything on them and then go find another campsite. I don't feel like dragging them away and I don't feel like sleeping here." He agreed and they checked the corpses. They found another of the wanted posters, but nothing else to indicate where she was to be taken once caught. They cleaned up their gear and doused the fire. Once out on the road, Erin got back onto his back and he ran for a few miles before stopping.

They set up another camp and he turned to her and said, "I'm still rock hard. Are you still game?"

They were sitting, so she moved over to his lap and sat facing him and straddled his legs. "I'm still aching too. I'm ok with this." She stroked his face and kissed him. She felt him undoing her sash and pushed the yakata off of her shoulders to slide down her arms and back. She undid his sash and did the same. She opened her mouth to him and he deepened the kiss. He laid her down and pulled off her panties, making her giggle at how quickly he seemed to need to get her naked. He removed his own underwear and tossed them away.

"It's too bad. You're supposed to be as sexually frustrated as I am right now, but you got to cum. I'm going to have to make you ache for me again. You're going to have to beg or somehow over power me to get another orgasm out of me." He smirked down at her. "Tell me, how sensitive are your breasts?"

"I guess you'll just have to find out." She grazed his nipple with a knuckle, watching it stiffen.

He grabbed her hands and held them above her head. "Oh no. You don't get to touch or tease me until you beg. I'm not going to hold your arms here, but I'm commanding you to keep them there or I'll stop and I won't touch you again tonight." He let go and she kept them there. He traced patterns on her breasts to see what kind of sensitivity to touch she had. Despite the scarring, he found that she still had nerve endings enough to feel, though where her nipples should have been didn't have the same kind of sensitivity they should have. He leaned down and drew that skin into his mouth, sucking the area where her nipple should have been. She moaned while arching her back to meet his mouth. He pushed her chest back down and smirked at her. "This is going to be fun. I can tell." He leaned back down and licked and sucked on one breast while palming the other and pinching the area where her nipple used to be making her suck in and gasp. He changed which breast he was sucking and which he was palming and pinching making her squirm and buck at him.

He put his hands on her hips and pushed down. "You know what you have to do." Her breathing had become more ragged as she began to whimper with want. He reached a hand down and flicked her clit causing her to writhe, pushing at his fingers for more. He chuckled at her want, wondering how long she would go before finally giving in. He flicked out at her clit again, lingering his fingers, and brushing at her lower lips. He loved the mewling sounds of want she was making. He was harder than he'd been in a long time and he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman before. Sure he'd taken women before, but never wanted them like this.

He slowly inserted a finger into her, causing her to gasp. That movement alone almost had her begging as she quivered beneath him. He withdrew his finger just as slowly and she tried to push down on him, but he was using his other hand to keep her from moving. He flicked her clit again, causing her to shudder. He pulled her head to a side as he began to suck and nibble on her neck while continuing the slow torturous movements of his fingers slowly inserting, slowly withdrawing and then flicking the clit. She tried to buck against him, but it made him stop his movements until she stopped bucking.

He attacked her ear next, sucking on the lobe and breathing against the areas he had moistened. "Beg me." He whispered.

"Please." She replied huskily.

"Please, what? What do you want me to do to you?"

"Please let me touch you, kiss you, suck you. Please stop teasing me like this. I can't take it anymore. I need to feel you in me. I need to feel your hands and mouth on me. I need you..." At that moment he thrust into her deeply making her cry out with pleasure.

"Touch me." He commanded. She hesitantly moved her arms and when he continued his movements, tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him ardently, sucking on his lower lip and his tongue. When he pulled his face away for a moment, she latched onto his neck, pulling his head to the side as she bucked her hips beneath him. He groaned with her ministrations, doing his best to keep his pace slower so he could last longer. He was bound and determined to make her cum first. He latched onto her neck as he palmed and pinched her breast. She reached up and pinched his nipple, making him shudder and thrust a little more urgently.

"Just like that, Zaraki. It won't be long now."

"Kenpachi, Erin. I'm balls deep in you, woman. Call me by my name." She laughed and he liked the feel of her inner muscles play against him. He continued to pinch where her nipple used to be, tugging as he thrust into her forcefully and quickly. She came hard, calling out as she had never felt she could before while living in tents. He loved that he got her to let go like this and a few thrusts later he was grunting as he came. He slowed down, kissed her again and slid out of her. He laid next to her and she curled up next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. She had a hand on his stomach, so he laced his fingers with hers. "What made you change your mind? You said you needed time to think."

"When we were pretending, you knew how to get me to moan even though we weren't supposed to be doing anything for real. You never hesitated when you saw my body. It was like you knew everything about my body without having to ask or hesitate or wonder if I would like something. That's a rare thing when it comes to me."

"To be fair, I had seen you naked before. When I watched you that one day, I watched long enough to make sure you weren't going to do something else. Like if you saw me and were trying to get me to give you privacy just because you were naked. I still wasn't sure if you were faking or not at first. Your body wasn't a surprise to me, so I had no need to hesitate." He brushed his fingertips across her face. She nodded and drew herself closer to him. "Are you mad that I watched you?"

"No. If I had been in your shoes, and you in mine, I would have watched you too." From her vantage point, she could see him stiffening again. "I see you're ready for more. Must be one of your insatiable days."

"I think with you, I'm always going to be insatiable."

She climbed on top of him and slid him inside of her and began sliding back and forth on his dick, squeezing and releasing with her inner muscles. He put his hands on her hips to help her rhythm. He leaned up to suck on her breast and made her shudder. She reached behind her to stroke his balls, making him shudder. They released each other and sped up their pace as she bounced heavily up and down on his throbbing penis. He finally rolled them over to take over the pace. It wasn't long before she started cumming over and over again. The constant squeezing had him releasing his own orgasm. They slowed down the pace and she slowly started to come down, shuddering with each post orgasm pulse.

They rested and started back up several more times throughout the night. For Erin, it was like all the time she had been away from the other version of Kenpachi no longer mattered. As if she had never been apart from him even though it was another version of him. When they had been talking, she had realized that the major events of the two Kenpachi's lives were the same with only minor differences in the minor events. For Kenpachi, it was like finally finding someone who understood him, could keep up with him, could fight him at his level, and his spiritual pressure didn't matter. Everything he could have possibly wanted in a partner, she was it and then some.

"Let's not set a watch. Can you sleep normally?" She nodded. "Sleep next to me. Sleep with me."

"I may get nightmares."

"I think I can keep them away."

She pulled out the blanket and spread it over them both and snuggled in against him. He held her against himself and felt her relax into sleep. He followed soon after. They woke up late and he watched as she set about rekindling the fire and putting some food on to cook and a pot of water on to heat up enough to wash with. She sat back down to wait, but he pulled her onto his lap so that she was across it. She leaned into him and he held her. She sighed in contentment as he rubbed her head, eliciting soft moans of pleasure at the contact. They ate and then when the water was warm enough, watched each other bathe and then dress.

When they were done, he rubbed a thumb across one of the smaller straight scars that was close to her jaw line. "What did this? It doesn't look like a sword."

"Arrow. Just missed me, but was a deep enough cut to leave a scar." She turned around and lowered her yakata. "See the triangular scars near my shoulder blade? Those are from when arrows actually hit me." She turned around and showed him a scar he had noticed before at her right shoulder near the collar bone. "This was a barbed arrow. It had hooked around my collar bone and was poisoned. They tried cutting it out, but ended up having to push it through."

He rubbed the larger scar higher up on her cheek bone. "And this one?"

She looked down. "It's the only physical scar I received from my first torture."

"Do you feel you can talk to me about it yet?"

She looked up at him and then looked down, talking to his feet. "It was the first world I went to. The only one I went to willingly. I had set up defenses for a castle against an invading army. I was out with a few of the soldiers, going over the defenses and making sure there weren't any holes. We were ambushed and they were killed, while I was kidnapped. They tied me to a chair and beat me in an attempt to get me to talk. He was right handed, so he punched me in the left cheekbone a lot. The cheek and orbital bones eventually both broke and the skin swelled and split apart with the assault. He broke my ribs too, but the skin didn't break.

"When I wouldn't talk, he tossed me into a barracks full of men with my hands tied behind my back. I blacked out a couple times I think. In the morning, I was naked and he tied me back onto a chair. They were getting heated irons ready for me this time, but I kept losing consciousness. I was dying. I could feel it, but they kept bringing me back. I was rescued at some point before they started with the heated irons and I woke up back at the castle bandaged up with a healer working on me. When I could walk again, they took me to the battlements and showed me some heads on spikes. I guess those were the men who took me, but I was too out of it.

"I was still out of it when the siege started. I was in shock I think. I had become very good with a bow. I had demanded to be taught a weapon when I first got there. They wouldn't teach me the sword because I'm a woman and women aren't supposed to fight with swords, but I convinced them to teach me the bow. I stood on the battlements and fired arrow after arrow until my fingers bled and even after. They would patch me up at the end of the day or whenever they could get me from the wall long enough to patch me up but I didn't feel it. The pain was nothing compared to the rest of it. The skin was so damaged, that it came back scarred too." She showed him the fingertips of her right hand. He touched the pads of her fingertips, noticing for the first time that she had no fingerprints there. He pulled her into a hug, knowing how hard that probably was to tell anyone.

"Why didn't you just tell him?" He finally asked.

"I was already in pain, what was a little more at that point? And then I realized that if he got through, not only would he put everyone there through what he was putting me through, but he could kill Merlin and then I would never get home. I didn't want to be stuck there. I wasn't going to age until I made it back home, so how long would I have been stuck there? Until that world turned to dust? Until I died?" She faded off, not wanting to contemplate it, knowing the 1200+ years she had been gone had been bad enough.

"Come on, let's get back home. We need to show the old man the posters of you and you and Unahana can brew up that ointment." They finished gathering everything and she got up onto his back. She rested her head against his back as he ran and they arrived back home late that night. He sent off a hell butterfly to the head captain as soon as they got back to his house and received one back to come to his office and report immediately. He had Erin come with him and they were soon in front of the head captain.

"Report, Captain Zaraki." He explained about leaving to find this flower and why and the two bands that attacked them and Erin's part in the battles as well as what she found. He handed the posters to the head captain who looked them over. "You should have asked permission to leave with the girl, Zaraki, but this poses an interesting problem. You should have captured one and brought them back alive." He fell silent for a few minutes and then looked at Erin. "Do you have anything to add, child?" Erin shook her head. "Very well. See Captain Unahana in the morning with the flowers and do what you had set out to do. This ointment sounds like it could be useful in the fights to come."

When they left the head captain's office, Erin turned to Kenpachi. "Come on, let's get you to bed. Three days without your afternoon nap, I'm surprised you haven't killed me yet." She smiled to show she didn't mean it. "You never told me what changed your mind about me. When we met you didn't want anything to do with a human; especially one without any spiritual pressure."

"You were nervous around me and skittish. But you knew the other me and he must have liked you to give you that necklace. I wasn't too sure until I saw you with your defenses down with that first ambush. It was like it was every day for you and you didn't hesitate to kill like a normal human would. You saw a problem and already decided how you were going to handle it. And then to do everything else you did in that short amount of time. Hunted, skinned, collected firewood and spot scouts; all without making a sound. That was the Erin he must have seen. That self-sufficient human where it didn't matter that she was in a world that wasn't her's, she just adapted. Fighting him every day must have helped too. I could just finally see it and I wanted that too."

They headed back to his house and when she went to her room, he pulled her into his room. "I liked being able to sleep with you last night. I want that again." He explained. They undressed and got into bed. She was nearer the night stand so when Kenpachi took his eye patch off for the night, he handed it over to her to put on the stand. She grabbed a hold of the part that would normally be against his eye and ended up touching the underside. As soon as she did she began having a seizure. Her shaking was violent and blood speckled foam began leaking from her mouth. He panicked at first, but realized she was touching the eye patch. He had to pry it from her fingers but as soon as it was free, the seizure stopped, but she was out cold. He set the eye patch on the stand and wiped the foam from her mouth. He tried to wake her but when he couldn't, sent a hell butterfly to Unahana with the message "Urgent. My house. NOW!" He quickly got dressed and dressed Erin in something appropriate and then paced like a caged animal.


End file.
