A/N: This is a little different for me, not only because it is set in a universe that I enjoy but have never written for but it also includes an OC character. I hate OCs, as I worry about Mary Sue-ness (and please, warn me if it goes there!). Unfortunately, after a very long conversation with a die-hard Bleach fan, I've found that there really isn't a woman in the manga or anime fitting the personality I have in mind. So, I'm venturing into new territory in a few ways.

This will be multi-chaptered, but the timeline sometimes won't make sense. I'll try to keep it as understandable as I can time-wise. For all the past events, assume the present is somewhere around now, as it is in the manga.

And this is somewhat AU. My character has to be thrown in between Lisa Yadoumaru and Nanao Ise as far as the timeline goes. That puts her in the Seireitei as a fuku-taichou somewhere around 100-76 years ago, and like all the Kyouraku ladies, she'll fit the type. But this is not a romance involving him, other than some peeks at Shunsui/Nanao (who I heart desperately). As for her full timeline, it'll become clear eventually.

And a warning: this might get dark in places. It's going to deal with some subjects that might make some of you uncomfortable. There will be some major issues dealt with, and if you can't handle anything that explores all of humanity, I wouldn't suggest you read. This will have fluffy moments and some comedy, but there will also be some heartbreak and darkness. Be warned.

And expect this to proceed slowly—I'm not going to hurry through this story at all.

And as a side note, I started this story back in March and April. It's been a constant work in progress for months, and I will say (without spoiling it for those of you who don't know), while I anticipated some of the recent manga events, I didn't see all of it coming. It is a coincidence—good or not, I don't know yet. It might make this more AU than I wanted.

So enjoy, hopefully I can as well! And please, leave some feedback if you have it! I'm not a review hog, as anyone who reads my stuff knows, but the feedback lets me know if you enjoy it and actually care to continue reading. It wouldn't be the first story I yanked prematurely because I didn't think anyone liked it. (And no, for those of you who have followed me for years, on FF, AFF, or LJ, there are no plans to renew that monster.)

And, as a side note, I'm writing all of this listening to the Bleach Soundtracks and the Beat collection. I highly recommend it, just because you get to hear ZARAKI sing. It's awesome.

"The Noble Sort"

76 Years Ago

Pain. Indescribable pain.

The burning in her body lit up her nerve endings, sending fire racing from her abdomen straight up her spine. She could feel the connection between each and every vertebra as the sensation shot upward. It was the most agonizing thing she could remember, although her brain wasn't working the way it should have been.

Truthfully, she had never imagined this situation would be this painful—she hadn't thought it remotely possible.

Yet here she was, incapacitated, unable to move other than a few centimeters to try to escape the burning pain, and having every conscious hypothetical thought she ever had about such a situation proven definitely wrong.

The sensation of hardness tearing through dry, stretched tissue had woken her from a drugged sleep not even minutes ago. The cot felt heavy against her back, almost moist, which told her that she had, at some point, been sweating profusely. And all she could see—if it could even be called sight, considering the wavy image her eyes were feeding to her brain—was a silhouette of someone, something, above her, haloed by a bright light on the ceiling above.

As her unknown assailant continued his assault on her body, she felt skin splitting, rubbed raw from friction, and the fire brought tears to her eyes. Every stroke of his hips against hers was pure agony on a level she had never imagined. It hurt.

She had, in the back of her mind, always assumed her body would eventually react to the stimulation and lessen any early pain. This was a scenario every female she knew had thought about at one point or another, and they all had their own beliefs about it. She was wrong. On everything.

As her assailant picked up the pace, she stopped jerking her hips away from him, finally realizing subconsciously that there was no escaping the situation. As the first tear fell into her hair, already matted from something and she didn't want to know-it's bad enough to know this is happening-whoknowswhatitis-ohkami, she felt her psyche split into two separate parts, with some part of her consciousness staying in the real world just enough to warn her when everything was over.

The rest of her flew off into some other dimension, far from her present reality.

Like an echo in a too large room, she heard the man above her grunt as his thrusts became slower, jerkier, and a bead of sweat dropped from his hair line, dribbling down her forehead to mingle with her tears. She could feel the track it made on her face, tingling afterward.

He didn't allow himself the normal after-sex languid collapse onto his partner's body; instead, he wrenched himself up with another heavy noise, almost rolling off the bed she was secured to. His loud footfalls echoed in the concrete room, as did the heavy sound of the door shutting behind him.

What she didn't expect was the woman who came near after his departure, her calm, disturbing-did she watch-did she justwatchhimdothistome, face appear above her own at an odd angle. The pale woman leaned down, and mechanically said, "he's done now; rest."

Rest. Somewhere inside, she laughed.

She felt sanity give way as she finally realized what truly just happened.

Rape.

Sanctioned rape.

The woman leaning over her was wearing shinigami robes that came with a texture and a smell she would always remember, even if she never donned another pair herself.

One of her own had just raped her.

When Minako approached her mother and uncle three days after finally remembering, in full, the events that had taken place in the long hours she had been absent from her family home, the disbelief they showed wounded her acutely.

She could still see them, sitting in high state at her mother's formal kotatsu, sipping tea from the beautifully thin china that had been a wedding gift to her mother over a millennia ago, their faces wrinkled into disbelief and something very close to scorn. It was a side of them she had rarely been able to see, one usually reserved for their subordinates, not her.

She had had an entire side of the table to herself—how it had felt like an interview!—and they had been, in full effect, the crowning monarchs of the family passing judgment on her behavior. Or their presumption of what was her behavior—it wasn't like she had went out and done this herself.

It had been almost fifty years since she had felt so young and stupid.

It was a memory that would haunt her forever.

Never before had she had a reason to lie to them; she had always been a good, obedient child. (She was sure someone was laughing somewhere at the amount of proof in the universe that showed good and obedient were not two words usually attributed to her by her uncle.)

Okay, so maybe not good and obedient, but she wasn't the type of girl the crazy ninja police brought home because they had gotten caught breaking into something or being a menace somewhere after hours. She had been relatively well behaved.

So there had been some incidents in her youth—like everyone, she had been prone to adolescent idiocy and it usually ended in a horrible fight with her uncle—but the fact that they sat before her, unbelieving, led her to feel a stab of betrayal so deep she was sure it would never go away.

She knew, sat the very least, she had never lied about the important stuff—not the stuff that mattered in the end. She had always been very loyal in that respect. But their behavior made it obvious that they didn't believe her at all.

Why didn't she tell them that night, they asked.

Why had she not come to them earlier, they asked.

Why had she destroyed the evidence, they asked.

It seemed to Minako that her family conveniently forgot that she had had no idea where she had been that fateful Sunday night, and that the only reason she was able to come forward about the incident now was thanks to a minor shinigami in her division, whose specialty just happened to be mind alteration. Without Juro, she would still be as clueless as they were.

Which was unfortunate, considering her uncle seemed to loathe the sight of the eccentric shinigami anytime she brought him around the house.

She hadn't known anything about it until he had helped her, which was startling. There was no pain, although now she knew, she could clearly see the scars she had received.

Even more hurtful was the fact that her uncle said, if a rape did occur, then it was most likely a lone male shinigami, not as part of some farfetched conspiracy (apparently she was also a bad liar). She understood his problem with the idea; even she had wondered about her memories.

But her mind wasn't lying, according to Juro, and he had been almost as upset as she at the apparent heartlessness and calculated cruelty in the act.

She could still hear him retching in her mind, his body reacting to the disgust he had felt at the memories he witnessed. It had been somewhat disturbing to see the poor man in that shape emotionally.

Of course, her family had been upset as well, just with the idea that she would lie to them about the attack and not give them the full details. There had been no sympathy about the supposed—and she hated that they used that word—attack.

To her, it was a blatant denial of the full truth of the attack, and in her injured mindset, a denial of her.

There were, unfortunately, no suspects. The glaring light that had been shining down on her naked body had masked the shinigami's identity, and the woman who had spoken to her afterward looked like any number of Japanese women—pale, dark-haired, with brown eyes. There was nothing about her that could be considered unique or distinguishable.

So after the disappointing meeting with the heads of her family—truthfully the only parts of her family left—she had done the only thing she could think of…

She buried it.

She pushed the events to the far recesses of her mind, intent on carrying on with her life and her fuku-taichou duties. Her taichou would accept nothing less than her full effort, and he would get it.

And he did receive the best of her, at least for some weeks after the event.

But her best was less than the norm. The memories continually reared their ugly little selves when she least expected it, and it was the root of her newly-developed insomnia. She was also developing a paranoia that couldn't be allowed to continue, not with everyone around her wearing the uniform that was causing it. Her appetite was slipping. Her entire appearance and personality was undergoing a change.

Her perfect work record was slipping due to her condition, and her performance with it.

Her taichou, the nice man he was, never said anything other than prodding her to get more sleep. A well-placed "You should make it an early night, Minako-chan," or "You need to catch up on your beauty sleep, Minako-chan!" were his only comments.

Although, she did catch the covert, nonchalant concerned looks he kept sending her way. It really bothered her once the jokes—and the crappy come-ons—stopped. If he no longer thought her fit to joke with, he was definitely worried. It was the only way he would show it.

Eventually, though, prodding her wasn't enough. He took care of the situation in his own crazy way—he pulled Isane into the division's offices and literally locked them in a room together, telling her that if she wouldn't talk to him, maybe she would talk to her.

Yeah. Right.

They did enjoy the afternoon, though, and some gossip.

It had been a long time since either had free time to just be lazy and girly. The two friends were rarely free enough to do anything so fun, not with the schedules they had.

But she realized that the Isane Incident, as it would be called from then on, meant that she had to hide the psychological damage of the attack much better than she had been. He would only continue to push her if the signs of her psychological problems were still evident afterward.

So she worked doubly hard at being normal, tried to continue on with her duties, but the memories continued to plague her.

It all came to a head almost three months after the incident; she had been sick for some time, and she couldn't seem to fight back whatever was plaguing her. It had started slowly but built into something that was quickly becoming hard to manage and hide, especially from her taichou.

A trip to the Fourth Division after a week of suffering resulted in the hushed words she had feared after the attack.

Pregnant.

You're pregnant.

Thankfully, Isane vowed to keep the results secret; she wouldn't have to face anyone over the matter except the sweet medic. It would mean terrible trouble if they were found out, from both Unohana-taichou and her uncle, but she would hope for the best.

Some bastard had raped her, and now she faced a terrible decision: did she keep the baby? Could she possibly raise the child?

Even if the social stigma of being an unwed mother was not enough to pressure her into an abortion, the obvious disgust that she would face from her family cemented it. She couldn't possibly raise the child of the man who raped her, and she couldn't go to her family about this problem.

She briefly considered going to her own taichou; he would help with anything, she knew, but felt it was better to leave him out of it. He might find his loyalty to her uncle was more important and tell him, or he just might not agree with her decision.

That alone was heartbreaking; she had never really kept anything big from him. He had always been the one person she could trust. There were little things, sure, but when it mattered he was the first she went to. Changing that status quo ripped her soul.

Still.

She had finally fully made her decision, but now she had even more problems—such medical practices were common in the Seireitei for women, but there was the slight problem of having to inform Unohana-taichou. She would definitely tell her uncle.

And if she went to the human world, she faced medical practices that were commonly deadly to the populace.

She and Isane had a long conversation that weekend, closeted in her room until late in the night, jumping at every noise they heard and scared that her uncle would pop in at any minute. They had, at times, felt like young girls again, hiding under the covers when the parents came in to shush their giggling.

But this wasn't giggling, and it definitely wasn't some small fry situation like which boy they liked at the academy.

Finally, a decision was reached.

She would go to the human realm and contact one of the many medical practitioners that the courtesans and geisha commonly used; they were skilled in the procedure, according to Isane, due to its regularity among those women. She would go through the procedure as quickly as possible, giving herself some time to recover. Once she returned, Isane would be waiting to examine her and make sure that everything had been done correctly and that there would be no lingering problems, and then they would forget it had ever happened.

If she was caught, or someone found out she was pregnant and reported it, she would take the blame herself and leave Isane out of it. Likewise, if Isane was found to have kept a medical test out of a patient's file, she would claim it was all her doing, that the patient knew nothing about the test. There was no name on the examination sheet for a reason.

Each would protect the other if someone found out what they had done.

Minako was sure that this was not the large crime they were making it out to be; after all, it was normal in the Seireitei. Female shinigami could not usually afford the time it took to have children, especially at their level.

But there were problems, one being the fact that children were so rare and her bloodline considered important enough—and endangered enough, with only three of them—she would most likely be forced to keep it, even if she handed it over to someone else after the birth.

The other problem was her uncle—while the relation was not known by everyone in the Seireitei, enough shinigami knew who she was to make it an issue. It would be a scandal of immense proportions.

So, with their plan as perfect as they could get it, Minako approached her taichou and asked for a week or so pass in the human world. She gave all sorts of excuses, most of which he brushed off. Finally, she just told him she needed to get away and fight something.

Her taichou might not have been bloodthirsty, and he might have chosen to avoid every fight he could, but he understood, apparently, that sometimes she just had to kick the crap out of something.

She was packed and ready in under an hour, and she had all the information she could possibly need, as well as an address she'd never thought it likely she would need.

The trip itself was quick, and she soon found herself in the human world, alone and scared stiff.

There was no way.

No.

No.

The word kept running through her mind, bouncing off of her skull.

She had, after four days of trying, finally found a female servant to one of the local okiya that would actually talk to her. A few pieces of the precious gold she had brought with her, along with a decent meal for the half-starved pre-teen, had earned her the name of a doctor not a few blocks from here that would perform an abortion.

He was secretive, he had few ethical scruples, and, she had been told, he won't even ask your name. His patients were usually from the okiya, but he was known to have taken on individual cases when the money was right.

The young girl told her that it was a normal procedure for the women of the district, as pregnant geisha wouldn't get customers. She knew that at least three of the geisha and maiko in her okiya had been to see the man, and each had returned to work only a few short weeks after their visit with the doctor.

If he could keep the secret of lost virginity for a maiko, he would do for her.

She thanked the young girl, obviously way too world wise for her age, and made her way out of the small inn they had visited for lunch.

She quickly made her to his office, a small set of rooms in the back of a typical two story wooden home, and was admitted into his care after giving up most of the remaining gold pieces she had brought with her.

He explained that she would be given a mixture of herbs that would cause a miscarriage. She should expect some pain, and definitely quite a bit of bleeding. He would make sure that the fetus was expelled, and then she would be on her way.

She had been rightfully worried about the process, but he had assured her it was as normal as any back alley process could be. It was very common among the geisha and the female prostitutes in the district. No one wanted to have a child pop up in such a line of work.

He even told her it was becoming more common among the local women, who didn't want another child to protect and feed during the massive war they were fighting with America and China.

So, a little less wary of the procedure, she went ahead with it.

The first dose didn't work. She did bleed, and heavily, but he was adamant that there was no child present. So the next day, she was given another dose. Yet again she bled, and the pain was intense. But again, he was sure there was no child.

Each night was terrible, and she was sicker than she had ever imagined.

Her body was fighting the herbs, which were obviously very strong, and the cramping, the nausea, the vomiting all resulted in no sleep and horrible sickness.

On the last day of her allotted time in the human world, he gave her a final dose. He had warned her that this was all he could do; if no child was present she was not pregnant. And any more of his abortifacient meant she could be permanently damaged. Any future chance at a family could disappear, and there could be health problems. She understood his reticence and thanked him for his care.

Because on that third try, there was still nothing. He examined the sheets and her body, and told her he was quite sure she wasn't pregnant.

He assured her that sometimes this happened, that women thought they were pregnant and went through the procedure when they didn't need it. But she knew she was pregnant; was the gigai the problem?

No, it couldn't be. He had been able to identify that she had been brutally taken in the last few months, so it wasn't the gigai. And Isane—a much more knowledgeable physician—would have said something.

No.

How was she not pregnant? Isane was so sure that she was. She said there was definitely a small, foreign spiritual pressure present in her abdomen. Sure, she didn't have many of the symptoms of pregnancy, other than fatigue and some nausea, but how could one of the best medics in Seireitei be wrong?

None of this mattered anyway; her time was up.

There was an even larger problem looming over her head than the failed abortion.

She couldn't go back to the Seireitei pregnant. Or not. Whatever the case was, she couldn't return right now. If she returned only to give birth in six or seven months, then all of this had been for nothing and she would face everything she was trying to circumvent.

It felt like everything was closing in on her, the world narrowing to a sharp point at the end of a long tunnel.

Disappointed faces ran through her mind's eye—her uncle, her mother, her taichou—and she knew there was only one choice.

There was only one alternative.

Thank the Kami Kuukaku had prepared her.

The little shop she found at the address she had been given was nothing to look at. There were no lights on, no little cheery signs or happy cats in the windows. If she didn't know better, she would say it wasn't even a shop.

Of course it wasn't.

Kuukaku had told her, though, that this was definitely the place. Yoruichi had given her the information personally. It was supposed to be a last resort.

She slowly walked across the deserted dirt road, cautious and on the lookout for any traps he might have laid for shinigami—or anyone else—too close to his little hideout. Everyone was extra cautious with the war on, and am exiled shinigami would be even more so.

Nothing happened, and she was able to step up onto the tiny porch and knock on the large rice paper doors.

There was no reaction from inside the place for some time, and then she saw a flicker of light from the back of the store spreading across the wood and paper doors like firelight. Footsteps, light and echoing, were clearly discernable.

And then the door whooshed open, and she came face to face with someone she hadn't seen in decades.

His face was full of shock, something rarely seen on the technology genius. Other than that, he seemed to have aged only a small amount. He looked exactly like he had the last time she had seen him, other than the facial hair.

And he wasn't in chains this time. But that was expected.

He soon recovered, bowed his head in her direction, and stepped to the side to allow her to enter.

The door slid shut softly, and she watched his retreat to the back of the store and down a long hallway, all the time motioning with his unburdened arm for her to come with him. He led her to a small room occupied with only a table and some shelves, and gestured for her to sit down.

She didn't.

She watched as he folded himself under the bare table, his lantern placed right in the center, Benihime now propped against the table instead of secured in his armpit.

She dropped the tiny travel pack she had brought with her heavily to the floor. Then, as gracefully as possible considering how bad she felt right now, she folded her body until she was resting on her knees in the most formal bow she could mimic, and brought herself low, to the carpet.

"I need your help."

His eyes shined with sympathy, and she heard the ticking of a clock in the background.

She was late. Missing.

Yamamoto Minako had officially defected from the Gōtei 13.

A/N: I should probably say a few things about the prologue, other than I warned you. Although I did warn you. There are going to be some very heavy issues dealt with. This is just the beginning, folks.

Firstly, I'm basing Isane's medical technique on what I'm assuming from the manga and anime. We know they focus heavily on reishi, but also do surgery. So I'm going to blend the two together. We haven't seen a lot of how the medical procedures actually work, so I'm trying to keep loyal to Kubo's work but having to make some of it up from what I think is going on.

Secondly, if there are any terms you don't know, feel free to ask. I'm assuming some basic Japanese knowledge, although I know many don't speak it. And the form can always be different; much of it depends on where your teacher came from. Mine is from Hiroshima, rural, and she had admitted there are some spelling differences when translating to Romanji, especially in western culture. But shinigami is soul reaper, gigai the human shells they use, Seireitei the Soul Society, and taichou is captain. There will be more, and I'll try to point them out as I go.

Finally, an abortifacient, for those of you who don't know, was usually an herbal mixture that midwives or physicians used not to abort but to bring about the menstrual cycle. That was its official purpose. Unofficially, they were chemical abortions. The practice is thousands of years old and Japanese geisha—and probably regular women as well—were aware of the practice long before the WWII era this part was set in. It was a normal practice among these women, as they really couldn't afford the pregnancy while working and many of the children were obviously conceived by already married men.

They did tend to be harmful, though, so the dosage had to be as close to exact as possible. They would commonly make a woman very ill during the process.

If I have offended anyone, I'm sorry, but there are facets of the human existence that we repeatedly try to ignore. But they are part of our history and I'm including them.

I'll be posting this prologue with the actual first chapter so that the story gets going. I'm not going to just leave it at that right now!