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Times were, Jin and Rin liked it when the big boss's eyes fell on them and he said things like, "ah, I can entrust you with that thing". Felt important, like understanding, like respect.
Now Rin coils tighter around his neck and resists the urge to sigh.
"Urahara-dono, sir?"
The boss nods slowly. "You're good with the weird," his daemon says.
Jin does not feel very complimented.
"Take your newbie with you. Urahara-dono's heir knows him, doesn't he?"
Urahara-dono's heir regards Jin's trainee the way one regards a dumb, hapless chicken in a field full of foxes and tiger dens -- with vague, despairing concern. It's, Jin supposes, not the worst thing. He could be regarding him like a newly powerful man regards the punk who used to try to beat him up behind the grocery store.
Jin supposes the operative word here is "try".
"Yes, sir," he replies, dutiful if not enthused.
"Oh, and I'm sending Matsuoka too. He's got to get used to dealing with Urahara-dono's cohort if he wants to get anywhere as an underboss," the big boss mutters, and Jin feels very briefly doomed.
--
Matsuoka-san is a very new underboss; a modern, ambitious type. His daemon is a falcon -- observant, wary, viciously fast to attack. He comes from a sister family to the Kishiume and he has a great many fresh ideas to revolutionize the criminal underworld.
He also has no fucking clue why the big boss went so far as to meet with some unkempt undercover-as-a-shopkeeper guy with no bonds of brotherhood to any other family when as far as anybody can tell he has twenty men tops and isn't trading out any weapons or sellable shit.
He'll learn, Jin knows.
"Or he'll get dead," Rin mutters. Jin doesn't even bother huffing his reaction.
"What'd you say, Rin-san?" Queen asks solicitously, craning her neck to catch a glimpse.
"Nothing of importance. Turn left at the next crossroads."
They turn left. Yamatora is humming nervously, fingers tapping the wheel, but he's a surprisingly good driver. He maintains his speed with machine-like precision and uses his turn signal religiously. They're not going to get pulled over today, no matter how completely suspicious the semi-trailer truck is, driving through narrow suburb streets as it is.
Inside there's a giant tub of water and a rigged-together bunch of sprinklers and some pulley system for a stretcher. Jin officially does not want to even wonder.
Matsuoka-san is following them in his sports car. If anybody gets them stopped today he will.
--
They get to the Urahara shop; park the truck on the stretch of beaten earth before its front door. Step out of the truck. The front porch is home to three men -- two of them massive and well-muscled, the last whipcord-thin and playing with something that shines in the sunlight. Jin does not want to take a single step closer to them. They bother him the same way Kurosaki-san's bodyguard bothers him -- something crazy in the gleam of their grinning teeth. He goes anyway.
He lets Matsuoka-san go first, though. It isn't his place to tell the underboss to be careful of bottom-rung flunkies.
"Tell your boss the Kishiume envoys are here," Matsuoka-san starts with, his falcon mantling her wings pointedly. Rin hisses quietly, winds herself tighter around Jin's neck. Queen briefly cowers behind Tora's legs, and then wanders out to swagger awkwardly as they try to provide backup.
The three men stare back for a long couple of seconds, and then the scrawny one with the fat lizard laughs, like they have an inside joke and it's on Matsuoka-san.
"Be polite, Di Roy," the red-haired one chides mildly, his baboon smiling in a too-human way for fangs that size. "Go get him."
"Yeah, yeah," the scrawny guy goes, standing up, and disappears indoors, daemon wrapped around his shoulders like a yellow-and-black scarf. The sliding door snaps closed behind him as he stomps on wooden boards loud enough to be heard from outside.
The guy who emerges isn't Urahara-dono. It's the crazy panther guy.
The panther slinks out of the door first, casually brushing against the last guy's warthog, and on her heels comes the man, loose-limbed and his eyelids heavy, unimpressed. He scans their trio and says nothing to Matsuoka-san, visibly at the head of it, stares at Jin himself for a second longer. Nods, to him and not to the underboss.
"I remember you."
That is... not something Jin knows whether to appreciate or not, but he nods back, expressionless.
The panther sits, licks her paw with casual unconcern. "Thanks for last time. We had fun."
Yamatora blinks dumbly. "Oh, at the p--" Jin elbows him. The hitman smirks.
And they've officially reached the end of Matsuoka-san's patience. Daemon fluffing up her feathers in annoyance, he takes a step forward. "I asked to see your boss. Where is he."
An arctic-blue look spears him right back. "No, you asked for their boss. That's me."
... Oh, hell. This is now a pissing contest. Jin knew it. He doesn't even know who to bet on; Matsuoka-san has a gun and a lot of rage, but the hitman is... The vibes. No. His panther is just going to leap and pluck the falcon right out of the air before anyone can even throw a punch, how can Matsuoka-san not see that?
Also how the hell does it work? Kurosaki-san is training under Urahara-dono, so how--
"Grimmjow, what the hell -- oh, you guys are here! Awesome."
And Kurosaki-san's daemon is now peeking out of the door, sans her human, looking as innocently curious as a black lioness can possibly be. She doesn't pad out, likely not wanting to strain her bond; instead she just... stares at Queen, and blinks myopically, and goes "Oh, hey, I know you. I think? Hi."
"I'm Queen!" Queen yaps, bristled in offense. "Queen and Yamatora!"
"Oh right! Taroyama. Yeah. I remember. Anyway!"
Tora and his daemon are suffocating with spluttery offense. Rin and Jin would be offended too if they thought Kurosaki-san actively meant to be offensive, but the fact of the matter is that she just doesn't seem to care enough to be deliberate.
They're not sure if she meant to utterly ignore Matsuoka-san to start with, but when his daemon starts angling out her wings like she plans to dive and strike, they know it's not gonna matter in the long run.
Kurosaki-san turns her heavy head up to the falcon, nods, expression a little more reserved. "You're Kishiume-sama's representative, huh? I'm Kurosaki Rikuto. Thanks for coming, we appreciate it."
"Do you," Matsuoka-san says back, jaw clenched. "Greeting us with disrespectful little punks, and then with half of you--"
The way the black jaguar slowly moves to stand between him and the lioness says nothing good. "I'm sure he couldn't help it," Jin says before the hitman can open his mouth and shoot something really impolitic right back.
"Yeah, he's -- ow, fuck." The lioness shakes her head, as if hurt; from inside the shop comes a muffled, "Grimmjow! Can someone come help me hold her down?!"
"Leu?" the lioness asks, and the panther groans.
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Kanchana, you and Edrad are in charge. You guys know what we need."
The hitman and his daemon amble back inside without another word. Fuming, Matsuoka-san hisses between his teeth, daemon with her feathers all puffed up.
The redhead with the baboon stands, a faint smirk on his face that could pass for apologetic in the right light. "Alright. Sorry for this. Things have been a bit chaotic this morning. It should go much smoother now that you and your men are here to assist. That the trailer? Can I check it out?"
--
At Edrad's instructions, they've turned the truck and the trailer around to back its opening against the front door. Matsuoka-san has been gritting his teeth over not being invited inside for the whole ten minutes it took, and Jin and Rin have been standing next to the big, silent one and his warthog in mutual, warily respectful quiet for just as long as the blond brat with the lizard pops in and out of a window to the side of the building to relay informations.
"Who do you think they were holding down?" Tora whispers in his other ear. "The journalist?"
"The journalist was months ago. It'd be over with by now."
Matsuoka-san narrows his eyes, as if he wants to ask for the story but knows better than to do it in a yard where everyone comes and goes. "Or they were giving us a half-assed excuse not to greet us properly. Who the fuck does that kind of business in the same rooms they receive people--"
From the shop comes a sudden, ragged scream; a woman's scream, raw and gut-deep. The three of them tense, Tora's eyes going wide. The big man beside them blinks down at them placidly.
"--Okay, who the fuck does that kind of business somewhere they can be heard from the street?"
Inside they can hear a mad scramble of feet approaching through the shop; the screams die down into wet gasps even as they get closer and -- bumps and thuds, feet, the trailer swaying under the growing weight of... they can see nothing, the trailer parked so damn close and the big man standing there blocking the hair-thin gap between it and the door. The paper squares of the screen are opaque and the light is stronger outside and Jin can see nothing but shadows.
Rin sees a lot of warm spots moving around, but that doesn't say much more.
"What... What do you think she did?" Queen whispers from Tora's arms, quaking just barely. Rin strikes at her nose, annoyed.
"How many times do I have to tell you, it doesn't matter what she did, or her lover did, it's not your business."
Their only job is to assist with transport. Transport of a screaming woman who needed to be held down, in a trailer with a tank of water more than big enough to submerge someone. Yeah, it's gonna be a right dirty job.
But Urahara-dono asked for that favor, to pay back some favor he did the boss a way back that's been hanging over his head for years. Here they are and that's it.
He hopes being asked to take the fall isn't going to be part of it. Surely the boss would have warned them. Or he would have given Jin and Rin someone else than Tora and Queen. Right now all they can do that isn't driving the truck and beating up people is providing a convenient corpse, and ... No, Jin didn't get that vibe. Which is good because he got kind of used to Tora's dependable stupidity.
--
They get asked to deliver the trailer to a secret address.
The address turns out to be a beach. A craggy little thing tucked between two cliffs, pebbles instead of sand with big splashing waves and a quick drop toward the depths. A great place to dump corpses.
Maneuvering the trailer down that beach is a six-person job; the two big henchmen, the blue-haired hitman, Kurosaki-san, and Jin and Tora themselves. It's heavy, and the slope is pronounced.
The water inside keeps splashing out, even though the thing inside seems to be doing its best not to move.
The waves lap at their legs, ankles first and then thighs. It's cold. Not a season for swimming. Kurosaki gets slapped in the face by a wave and huffs. "Ugh. Okay -- okay, a bit more. Harribel-san?"
Then the trailer shifts and bobs, half-carried by the waves, and unlocks from the inside.
The loading ramp flops down, slapping the water. A woman emerges to stand on the threshold.
Jin stops breathing.
He hopes he's being discreet. He hopes she doesn't notice he exists.
"Holy shiiit, babe alert," Tora whispers, and from her awkward perch over his shoulder Queen perks up, scanning her shoulders and around her legs for the daemon. Rin strikes out without a thought, hitting Queen's flank with her snout and stopping herself from sinking in her fangs at the very last second. Does he want to get them all fucking killed?!
Queen yips in betrayed surprise. The woman's eyes glance over them. Jin stands very, very straight and mentally catalogs his weapons; he barely relaxes when she finally looks away.
"That is not someone's girlfriend," he hisses under his breath. Sure she's tanned and blonde like any gyaru from the clubs but if she's more than half Japanese he'll cut off his pinky on the spot. She's... something else.
Back on the shore Matsuoka-san and his daemon are bristled up like they're still working themselves up to snarling something. Time to take one for the team. The big boss had better be thankful.
"Your pardon, ma'am. Do you need any help to unload?"
Whatever it is inside there, that the men didn't let them see carry in. Whatever they're carrying in water (water daemon?) to a disposal area (screaming woman with cement shoes?) that they will no doubt see now unless they leave straight away, and Matsuoka-san won't leave. He feels too slighted to allow them the discretion.
She looks down at him from above and her eyes are depthless, suffocating.
"If she needs help it sure as fuck won't be yours," the hitman laughs. "Yo, Harribel, you vacationing up here?"
She doesn't answer the hitman's jeer; she looks at him for a second and then back at Jin, and her voice is low, husky. "I will manage. Step back onto the shore. Grimmjow, have Nakeem hold onto the hitch."
The hitman makes a permissive hand gesture and the man with the warthog obeys. Kurosaki-san herds everyone else out of the water in big splashing steps, and they're still ankle deep when the trailer rocks and something massive slips out.
Jin was keeping watch over his shoulder. He still barely has the time to see the long body slip down the ramp -- white belly, dark back, fins --
"Is that a shark?" Matsuoka-san chokes out.
"It's obviously a fucking tortoise," the hitman drawls back with unimpressed mockery. His panther is watching them and Jin doesn't like the cant of her ears one bit.
"He's a Great White, I'm pretty sure," Kurosaki interjects, and elbows the hitman in the ribs. At the other end of the trailer a splash resounds, the woman diving smoothly after her daemon.
They miraculously all shut up for a minute or two as they watch the dorsal fin cut through the waves. The woman doesn't resurface for -- pretty long.
"All good, Harribel-san?"
"Satisfactory," she replies, bobbing with the waves. The dorsal fin resurfaces, and a great deal of sleek shark back. "Wait a bit longer for the trailer."
It's bobbing on the waves, the henchman Nakeem still holding onto the chain to keep it from drifting away and sinking. Dragging it back upslope is going to be a chore and a half.
Getting the shark back into the rig--
How did they even get it inside the first time around? Does Urahara-dono have a seawater pool with a winch in the backroom of his shop? It's ridiculous. His shop looks so small. Even if there's a basement it would need a freight elevator--
Not his business, he reminds himself.
"Shouldn't we at least beach it, ma'am?"
The shark surfaces, much closer to the shore than he assumed it could get. The woman shakes her head, expressionless. "It's not safe yet."
--Ah?
Further away -- so far, how long is her tether, isn't that uncomfortable -- a fish jumps out of the waves. A dorsal fin follows. The shark was between her and the shore not a minute ago.
"Not... safe?"
The henchman with the baboon laughs in amused sympathy. "So he doesn't react badly if you scratch yourself on the frame and bleed. He might bite down before he's thought it through."
Queen whimpers. "Oh my god."
"He's been cooped up a while, is all! He'll be more sociable in a minute."
The panther grumbles, batting at the lapping waves. "Yeah well he'd better hurry up, cause I want to swim too."
"Seriously? It's cold as hell! You're a tropical cat!"
"You're a whiner."
"Oh, fuck off--"
"Shut the fuck up," Matsuoka-san snaps without warning. "The fuck kind of job is this? A vacation?"
Kurosaki scowls back, but half-heartedly, more chiding than insulted. The hitman props an elbow on his shoulder and snorts, a derisive half-smile floating on his face. Both cats turn to stare, then the panther rolls her eyes and goes back to aimlessly slapping at the waves. The lioness starts scratching her ear with a back paw.
"We didn't have a trailer big enough," Kurosaki-san says, patient but tired. "And you guys did. Nobody said it was life or death, you don't need to be so tense."
Tora slips Jin a look like he's asking if they need to back him up. Jin shakes his head no. Urahara's people have twice as many men if this goes bad and Kurosaki-san is still attempting to deescalate; if Matsuoka-san wants a pissing contest it's probably not going to go further than a beatdown, which at this point he is asking for.
"Tense? The fuck do you mean?"
-- Unless the hitman gets involved --
"I mean tense like tense," Kurosaki-san snaps back, finally getting annoyed, "but if you want to hear it like scared that's not my business," but the hitman has already let his elbow slide off his shoulder, is already taking a gliding step forward--
"Grimmjow."
He stops.
Thigh-deep in the waves, the woman is staring, still expressionless.
"What," he growls back, head inclined toward her but still facing Matsuoka-san.
"Don't cause Urahara Kisuke problems."
"You're telling me you think his boss didn't send him here so we fix his attitude problem for him?"
Jin winces inwardly. Matsuoka-san gets shocked stupid, bird rearing back. Apparently he didn't have the first clue that his attitude needed adjusting and the concept is stalling his brain -- or maybe it's the matter-of-fact way they speak that hammers it in, like of course that's true, but it's nothing to get excited over, because he's just that unimportant, just that harmless.
"That doesn't matter. He didn't ask out loud. Let Urahara make the call."
"... Boring." The hitman gives Matsuoka-san a dismissive look and turns away.
Yamatora and Queen are staring, mouths open. "W-wait -- ah, miss -- lady -- are... you his boss?"
She walks up onto the beach, hair dripping. Her wetsuit follows every curve of her body, and they all spell predator. Jin wishes he had muzzled his rookie.
"He's on loan to Kurosaki Ichigo."
... Jin reorganizes his understanding of Urahara-dono's outfit in his head.
Is Grimmjow-san an underboss? Loaned with his whole team? Are they all crazy hitmen like he is? The man with the warthog daemon is expressionless like somebody dead and the one with the baboon normal, friendly, and standing between them and the car and Jin didn't notice.
"Thanks," Kurosaki-san says drolly. "How do I give him back?"
"You don't," the hitman leers back. "I gotta be wrapped all special in a... Edrad, what's the word?" he asks leadingly.
"Body bag?"
The man smirks wider, fangy, flicking his fingers at his man. "That's it."
"I can arrange that," Kurosaki-san grouches. "Harribel-san, can I drown him a little? Is it okay now? I don't want to give your daemon indigestion--"
"The fuck he could eat us!" the panther yowls, incensed. "Fucking goldfish--"
Sighing, the woman nods her agreement to the lioness, who sidesweeps her human's legs with her own flank, sending him careening into the hitman, who trips over his own daemon, and they all end up knee deep in the waves, spluttering and hollering insults. The henchman with the baboon laughs at them.
"Harribel-sama. Anything you need?"
"No. Don't get into the water yet, you'll seem more edible."
"Oh, I had no intention, ma'am."
She comes to a stop before Matsuoka. Her daemon is so far from her, swimming laps at the mouth of the cove, barely visible; she stands alone and barely seems to notice.
If he treats her like somebody's woman he is going to die. It looks like he does have some good sense behind the bluster, though, because he grits his teeth and says nothing and nods back when she does.
"Thank you for the ride. I won't be needing your help on the trip back. Edrad and Nakeem will help you get the trailer back and after that you may go."
... What?
"Convey my thanks to your head," she adds with another nod to the three of them, and then she turns right back toward the sea.
"But... How is she going home?" Tora asks plaintively.
Jin can only shrug.
Maybe there's a boat waiting out there. Maybe there's an oxygen bottle and a mask hidden somewhere in the rocks, and they will go out at sea and disappear that way. Maybe that is how she gets around usually and the inland side-trip was unplanned, a trap even, something Urahara helped her out of; and he doesn't know and will never know, and he sure as hell will not ask.
Unless they fit inside a carry-on, aquatic daemons are a disability for everyday life. Where do you live with them as a human; a barge? A cruise ship? Venice?
Where do you live that still lets you become a boss?
And how have they never heard of her?
He is so, so glad it's a question for his oyabun and not for him. He feels like knowing would shorten his lifespan considerably.