Long See No Time. [Erika, Kisuke]

"I'm not a businesswoman nor am I interested in gains or profits. I won't pretend to be good at your job."

Erika retorted, she was far too honourable to make a living out of ripping off people or upselling them to make greater profits. She was awful at it and she'll likely remain just as bad at it no matter what people tried to do to change that.

Still there was the trouble that he was asking her for things that she didn't have the authority to give, Murasaki could make these deals or even an authority within the Third Division but Kurotsuchi had unceremoniously left them for something personal which still baffled her to think about, who threw away a captaincy for such an asinine thing as her?

She was sure that the smarter a person became, the less sense they made in both words and actions because that was to the point of absurdity.

"Listen Urahara, I can arrange that you have the opportunity to talk to Captain Kagayaku about that but I am not a voice of authority within the Third Division and without a captain the authority falls to the vice-captain or the captain commander herself."

Once again trying to straightforward approach and get him back onto the rails of giving his insights into the situation of Hell. She stretched a little bit and gave away that this gigai was uncomfortable. Too tight, Erika would probably end up wasting some of her salary on whatever unique gigai that he could push out depending on what kind of note their meeting ended with.

"We're all businessmen and women, it just varies what we deal in. It just seems that you are short on wares."

It seemed that they had reached an impasse. Erika really had come here expecting him to offer up his services to her like he was already a slave to the system again. On a matter as important as this too. The arrogance of the gesture did actually irk him a little, perhaps that was the best sign of how little she respected him. Just a tool, nothing more nothing less. His smile did not falter though, just as playful as it had always been.

"So, you do not speak with the Captain-Commander's authority then. I suppose I should be thankful for that, lest we end up in quite the conundrum."

He didn't laugh, though he very well could have. Instead, Kisuke just let his gaze wander past her again and off into the rest of the store. Drawing slowly past the aisle where new gigai could be found, though there were no particularly unique models there. He kept the custom pieces set aside for a rainy day, after all, so that he could rip off the masses with his incredibly fairly priced wares.

"Instead, you simply want me to plot out the best way for the Gotei to execute a subtle power shift in Hell without provoking a war with the demons, who are themselves only a stone's throw away from descending into chaos all by themselves?"

She bit her lip and sighed, she was losing him and it bothered her. She did want to just come here and be able to go back with some advice to give Murasaki, it was her that proposed Urahara in the first place and the weight that she had in the words that he gave. It just bothered her, Urahara and Aizen were from the same cloth. Schemers, manipulative individuals that played mindgames - she knew that by her experience in the Winter War. She knew that by her role as a seated officer under the former Captain of Squad Five and she hated people like that.

Erika wasn't made for that kind of thing. Urahara had been key in the victory of the Winter War though, a monumental success for that matter, was it too much for her to want to be able to rest easier with his insights for whatever could occur within Hell. A realm that she had never been into, a realm that most shinigami knew of by only name and nothing more.

"No, I just want to know what Hell is like. Hell went from a sealed enigma into a fortified fortress of demons, underneath Shadow Fall after the Demonic Incursion eight years ago. Unable to be easily breached let alone surveyed. You knowledge could prevent the deaths of shinigami on mass and help us to try and restore stability to the soul cycle rather than every sinful soul we cleanse to Hell straight into the demons' clutches."

"I want your insight so that we can plan better, you were present during Demonic Incursion and fought in it. Surely in your time since then you've kept your eye on it and what's going on down there after Shadow Fall took control and turned it into a second realm for their expansion?"

She bit her lip while she turned solemn. It didn't matter did it?. Urahara was the type that saw gains and losses, tangible things meant more than intangible things and the benefits. How much this was worth it, how much would she swallow her pride to have Urahara's help? How much did Tsubaki value and respect Urahara's abilities? Enough to make her put aside her ill-feelings towards manipulative people.

Kisuke's fingers drummed a discordant beat against the woodwork of the counter, it seemed his first piece of advice had gone over her head. Was he to blame for expecting a little more from Murasaki's wunderkind right hand than a few bullish demands and thinly veiled insults? Probably, in this case. He had miscalculated.

"The Hell of the past is a far cry from the Hell of today. It collapses in on itself, unable to contain all that vast chaos and misery stored within ever since Shadow Fall took charge. This was, in a way, an inevitability."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he considered the exact cost of his mistake. He could send the Vice Captain on her way and listen to reports of hundreds of Shinigami dead, or he could try to do a little good every once in a while. It would make her feel like she had accomplished something significant, in a way she had. But it was all just a means to an end anyway, how exactly the pieces fell would not change the shape.

"So, if your best plan is to march in there with an army and stake your claim in blood, be prepared to paint the wastelands knee-deep in red. Fortunately for you, I do not believe in wasting lives, only wasting time, so go tell the Captain-Commander that I'll sit on the inner circle of her invasion plans and maybe we can make something feasible together."

Eh? Erika stared at him caught dumb for a moment while she let his words sink in. He would do that much? She had expected to leave with just some greater understanding of Hell but his direct assistance in the situation with Hell was far more than she expected.

"Thank you, Urahara."

She said and knelt down to bow her head, the kind of thing one would realistically only expect a shinigami to do to a superior as a form of respect and maybe it would irk him a bit to see her do such a nostalgic gesture from the era of his time being a captain but Erika was honourable and she did appreciate his help.

He would want something though, right? She felt bad that he had given her more than what she had come for and was unable to reciprocate besides this gesture. Well, there was some way that she could give him something.

"If it is within your capacity I would also like to make an order for various gigai to distribute among the divisions tailored to their specialties."

Would it satisfy him to receive that kind of business deal? The Gotei did have means to make gigai but there were few that could make them to the extent of this man in front of her. To make a gigai that flawlessly concealed the reiatsu of an individual was difficult and could benefit the Fifth among other quirks that he may be able to incorporate which may benefit the other ones.

Good gigai were hard to come by after all.

"Oh, you don't need to do all that."

Urahara laughed nervously as Erika dropped into such a deep bow before him, a hand scratching at the back of his head once more. He appreciated her thanks, it was at least something to make up for what had come before, but he was also terrible at receiving praise in any form and the best he could do was laugh it off. His other hand waved out in front of them, indicating that she should rise rather quickly.

"But I knew that you had at least some business instincts about you. So, please, get your desired specifications to me and we can begin processing a request of such magnitude. We certainly have the capacity for any number of requests, and given the nature of the discussion today I do wonder about the urgency to deliver such an order too."

A moment of dry humour, perhaps, but that was just a further attempt to defuse the situation a little. He had promised her to be there and help with some planning, there was not all that much more to be done at this stage.