Iba's Interview
Komamura and Iba - because everyone's had a job interview that goes badly
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Consider this a disclaimer.
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It was 2:04pm. Tetsuzaemon Iba, Fourth-seated officer of the Eleventh Division, was sitting on a small wooden chair outside the office of the captain of Division Seven. He'd been waiting here for fourteen minutes, but the captain wasn't around. Iba was surprised by that. Captain Komamura didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd show up late for things.
Iba was perfectxly groomed and wearing a fresh uniform. He sat stiff and straight, his eyes focused straight ahead, his hands on his knees. This was the lieutenant's office, the place he'd be working in if he got this job. It was one (closed) door off from the captain's office. It was a plain room, nothing special, no windows. The desk in it had been clear of all paperwork and personal items since the death of the division's former lieutenant in an accident in the Precipice World. If Buckethead –
Kuso! kuso! kuso!
For the past two weeks, Ikkaku had been taunting Iba with "whatever you do, don't call him Buckethead". Iba would never be so disrespectful to a captain, but Ikkaku had pushed the nasty nickname into his head so much that he knew, he just knew, that he was going to slip up and call him that.
And what was the story with the bucket, anyway? There were two common theories around the Gotei 13. One was that Komamura had been an Asian monk of some sort, and shunned the world. He hardly ever spoke, so some people said that he'd also taken a vow of silence. The other theory was that he'd been so horribly disfigured in battle that he kept his face hidden. Iba believed the monk story.
Stop thinking about the bucket.
Iba checked his watch. 2:06pm.
Ikkaku and the others didn't understand why he'd want to leave the Eleventh. He didn't want to, really, but he knew that he had to if he was going to get a promotion. So he'd been practicing kido on his off-hours for the past six months. He wasn't bad at it, but he wasn't particularly good at it either. Hand-to-hand combat, he was fine, and his swordsmanship was up to Eleventh Division standards, but kido worried him. He'd like to say that he'd mastered the art, but basically he'd been studying three spells: Bakudo 12, Hado 31, and Hado 61.
Hado 31 was a classic. He remembered that one from the academy. His Hado 61 wasn't bad – everyone knew that Hado 50 had the shortest incantation, so it was popular among lower-level officers, but for some reason nobody ever noticed that Hado 61's incantation was basically the same spell said twice. He could get through it smoothly enough, and it packed a punch. His bakudo was weak across the board, but he could do a 12 without an incantation. So, he figured that he could get by with Red Flame Cannon, one high-level hado, and a binding spell. They would at least get him through the initial screening.
He muttered to himself, hado 31, hado 61, bakudo 12, then looked up as the lieutenant's desk in front of him was hit by a spike of yellow energy that propelled it into the wall, and shattered it into splinters. Kuso! Iba lurched out of his chair.
The door to the captain's office immediately opened, and the massive form of Captain Komamura emerged.
"Komamura-taicho!" Iba practically shouted. "I thought you weren't…I didn't sense you, and I…I'm sorry about the desk, sir! I'll replace it for you right away!"
"It's all right. It was unoccupied", the captain said. Iba had never stood so close to Captain Komamura before. Iba wasn't a small guy, but he felt like a toddler standing next to the captain of the Seventh. Yet he'd masked his spiritual pressure completely. Was that a test? Had Iba failed by not detecting him?
The captain gestured to the broken desk and asked, "do you…do that a lot?"
"No, sir! I'm sorry about that, sir."
"Very well. Come in."
As Iba walked into the office, he realized that he could sense something from Komamura. It wasn't exactly spiritual pressure, at least not the way he thought of it. It was like – he had once been on a mission on a desolate world somewhere off the usual Precipice World paths. The world was so huge that the pull of gravity slowed him down. But what he remembered from it most of all was the sense of unfathomable size. That's what he felt from Komamura: the sense that somehow his dimensions were even beyond what they appeared.
The captain's office was practically empty: one desk, three chairs. No wall hangings, no nick nacks, no photos on the desk. This was actually more barren than the Eleventh's. At least Zaraki had a candy dish. It was usually empty, but still. Again, Iba thought monk.
Iba sat in one of the chairs facing the captain's desk. The chair behind the desk was huge, but not in a showy way - it had to be big to hold up Komamura. The captain sat down and proceeded to open a manila folder on his desk.
"Fourth-Seat Iba of the Eleventh Division. You're certified at a lieutenant's level with the zanpakuto?"
"Yes, sir."
"Proficient in shunpo."
"Yes, sir."
"And you, uh, know kido."
"Yes, sir, and again, I'm sorry about the desk."
"Your parents and grandparents were officers in the Gotei 13, but you're not a nobleman, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right. I was never raised to be one of those upper crust types."
"And you went through the academy, right?"
"Yes, sir, five years."
Komamura went quiet. Iba tried not to fidget, but he never could handle silence particularly well.
"Takaya was with me ever since I took over this division. I've never interviewed a lieutenant before."
Again, silence. Longer than last time. Komamura continued, "We patrol, we train, we fight; if the general tells us to die, we die. I need someone to take care of the paperwork and scheduling."
"Sure, and fight too, right?"
"Yes. Tell me, do you want to fight?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
Iba hadn't seen that one coming. He paused for a bit, wondering if Komamura was a better interviewer than he'd let on. He stuttered out a few starts at an answer, but he could tell that none of them sounded good.
He finally decided to be honest. "I never thought about it before. I'm from the Eleventh Division. We do more fighting than thinking. I mean, I could give you some reason why I fight, but I'd only be making it up. If I had a reason, would it make me any better at killing stuff?"
"You'd be surprised," Komamura quietly replied.
Seconds ticked by slowly. Iba hated this. He could feel himself starting to sweat. He mentally listed the mistakes he'd made: keeping the captain waiting, blowing up the lieutenant's desk, not having a good answer about why he fights…Iba figured that he'd not only lost the job, he'd be blacklisted among the other captains once word of this interview got out.
Komamura finally spoke. "What about you - do you have any questions?"
Huh? What kind of a question is that? A guy with a bucket on his head asks you if you have any questions? How about this: why do you have a bucket on your head?! He might as well ask - he's done everything else wrong so far. No, he couldn't. But then again, at this point it didn't matter much. He couldn't ask directly, but -
"Yeah", Iba finally said. "Ever lost a fight?"
"I have sparred against my betters."
"Me too, all the time. Actually, that I can handle. But I mean a flat-out fight. You ever take a crack at a hollow or something and it ends up winning?"
Iba swore that he could feel the intensity of the eyes behind the mask. "No. Have you?"
"Not yet. It's bound to happen sometime though."
"Do they teach you to be so casual about losing in the Eleventh Division?"
"Nah…it's not that I don't care about it. It's just, as long as I put it all out there, I'm ok with it. The worst is when you screw up something you shouldn't have. Nothing I hate more." Iba half-realized that he was talking about the interview.
"So, then, you do fight for something. For pride."
"Yeah." He thought about it. "Yeah, you know, that sounds about right."
"And if you wore the uniform of Division Seven, would you fight for its pride?"
"Sure."
"Good. Get the transfer paperwork together."
"Do you…uh, yes! Yes, taicho!" And Tetsuzaemon Iba hopped out of the chair and got to work.
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A/N: I just had to add a little more silliness – consider this an omake.
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It was twelve days later. Captain Komamura was on his way to a Captains' Meeting. His new lieutenant wanted to come along, but Komamura told him to stay behind. For one thing, Iba had picked up a persistent cold. For another, even though it was only going to be 45 minutes, Komamura thought it would be a display of confidence to leave Iba in charge of the division in his absence. It was the young man's first time as acting Captain.
The meeting itself was unremarkable. The only oddity was that Captain Unohana had brought a shopping bag with her. Captain Ichimaru made a joke about women shoppers.
After the meeting, Komamura headed back to his divisional headquarters. Captain Unohana caught up with him along the way. She seemed hesitant to make eye contact.
"Captain", she said, "Lieutenant Iba stopped by my office a few days ago. I didn't…I didn't tell him anything…" Komamura had never seen her flustered before.
She handed him the bag. "This is for you", she said, then quickly retreated.
He peered inside the bag. It contained two bottles of Kleen Pet Anti-Allergen Pet Shampoo.