Aging is never a graceful experience, Yamamoto thought to himself.
Although his body was kept fresh due to his immense reiatsu; his muscles and bones as strong as the day he was born, his digestion had become worse in the last few years and as he stared at his breakfast he sighed loudly.
"Is something wrong, sir?" His loyal lieutenant, Sasibake, asked from behind him. The old man shook his head, staring at the bowl of fiber-filled, nutritious oatmeal with nothing but contempt.
"No Sasibake, everything is fine." He responded, shoveling a spoonful of the tasteless gruel into his mouth. Where once his breakfasts had been delicious fruits and hearty meats, it was now oatmeal and yogurt. He never seemed to eat anything solid anymore.
"Shall I leave you, sir?" Yamamoto nodded, and without another word his lieutenant flash stepped away.
Despite the relative tastelessness of the meal, the aged Soutaicho still looked forward to his breakfast each day. It was the view, the view from the first squad's porch, located directly outside his office. Although he had seen the same view every year for over a thousand years, the site of the sunlight glittering and bouncing off the white stone of the entirety of Seretei astounded him every single morning. He had no need to wake up early, and did so solely for the view.
Although I suppose it's slightly different now. He mused silently. When he had first taken the position of Soutaicho, Seretei had simply been a district of Rukongai, one of the richest. However, within a half century it was converted to the military compound that it was now, the various noble occupants selling the land and moving to less urban areas.
Yamamoto finished his breakfast quietly, staring out at the view he had come to love so much in the last millennia.
Elsewhere, things were not so quiet.
"Really taicho, I don't understand why we have to be up this early."
Tall, dark, and… disheveled, Ken Kasumi groaned loudly as he sat down at his desk, placed next to his Captain's, and scratched the back of his head. His hair stuck every which way, and as Soi-Fon sat down at her desk she mused that it looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of it.
"I didn't even get to shower." He complained, tipping back in his chair and chewing on a pen. Soi-Fon shrugged, smacking his legs lightly with a ruler when he tried to put his feet up on the desk.
"That's not my problem. If you had finished your paperwork yesterday, we wouldn't have to be up so early. Now get to work." Although her current lieutenant was certainly lazy, she had to admit that Ken was certainly an improvement from his predecessor. He complained often, and seemed to put more effort into getting her to abandon her paperwork than he actually did into the paperwork, but unlike Omaeda had done he actually helped with the paperwork.
The best thing though, is that I will never again have to deal with the crunch of those fried crackers. She thought, smiling, as Ken ran a hand through his messy black hair and picked up a large manila folder stuffed with paperwork.
Soi-Fon had a relatively small workload, having done most of it the day before, and finished within the hour. Standing up, she brushed some pencil shavings off of her pant legs and walked to her porch.
"This time, finish your paperwork before you leave." She commanded, opening the back door to her office and flash stepping away before he could utter an excuse. Ken was left alone, his only company the three-foot high stacks of paperwork on his desk. He sighed loudly, staring at the spot where his Captain had stood before getting back to work.
Flick
"C'mon…"
Flick"C'mon…"
Flick"Goddamit!" Kira paused with his hand on the door handle as the sound of breaking glass echoed out from inside his Captain's office. He waited a few seconds for any more crashes, before slowly opening the door and sticking his head in.
"Come in Kira. Can you believe this shit?" Kira closed the door behind him, walking over to his Captain's desk as Mugen kicked several shards of glass under a couch in the room.
"What happened?" The lieutenant inquired, sitting down at his Captain's desk with the day's stack of paperwork, which was incredibly small. Ever since Mugen had taken the position of Captain, people just learned to stop sending paperwork to the 3rd squad, knowing they would never get it back. Even Kenpachi did paperwork more often than Mugen, who had yet to sign off on a single thing. Only the most important of reports came through, and even they were rarely glanced at.
Mugen Kuriyuke was taller than most, and built quite solidly. Although he certainly had the potential to look handsome, he seemed not to care, and as such constantly looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He was rarely shaven, and seemed to have a constant case of 5 O'clock shadow, his hair was long and unruly and parted only over his right eye, and he had cut the bottom of his shinigami uniform pants with a Zanpakuto so that they were shorts. Finally, to top off this disheveled look, he simply refused to wear shoes unless it was raining, having instead developed the practice of keeping a small layer of reiatsu in between his feet and the ground so that he seemed to be constantly hovering a centimeter off the floor.
"Mayuri can invent a machine that opens a portal into another universe, a sword that can turn somebody into a liquid, but out of six lighters not one that works! Hado 31: Red fire." A tiny ball of red kido erupted from his hand, lighting the cigarette in between his lips before disappearing. Kira sighed. Although he liked his Captain, much more than most, even the most loyal of Mugen's friends tended to avoid him in the morning.
"If you don't mind me asking, taicho, why are you up so early?" As if in answer to his question, the door to Mugen's office opened to reveal Soi-Fon, who completely ignored Kira's presence and turned instead to the third squad Captain.
"Are you ready?" Mugen nodded, and the two of them silently left together.
Mugen had explained to Kira that Soi-Fon had agreed to teach him Shunko, if Mugen could help her with her swordsmanship. Although Mugen was arguably the best swordsman of all the Captains, his hand-to-hand skills were so poor that some of the stronger lieutenants could beat him in a straight spar. The exact opposite could be said of Soi-Fon, whose swordsmanship was barely up to par for a Captain, but whose hand-to-hand skills surpassed even those of her teacher Yoruichi.
Kira supposed he was lucky to have a Captain at all.
"No." Renji ducked a powerful kick to his head, throwing a powerful punch directly at his opponent's flat, bare stomach and sending her flying back a few feet. She ignored the pain that the blow must've caused, although he had gone easy on her, and came rushing back without hesitation. Renji ducked and swerved, avoiding the barrage of blows the pale girl threw at him, all the while taunting.
"No. No. No. Not even close- ack!" In a surprise move, the thin willowy lieutenant spun around in place, her long brunette hair smacking him in the face and briefly obscuring his vision, before delivering a roundhouse kick directly to his chest. Renji was sent flying back head over heels, before roughly smashing into a tree. When he opened his eyes his opponent was standing over him, staring down at him triumphantly.
"Well, looks like I have to start taking you seriously now, Himura." He said, dusting himself off as he stood up. She smirked, giving him a playful slap across the face.
"Probably, you could've avoided that embarrassing defeat. Pay up." Holding her palm out, Renji stared at it for a few moments before sighing and dropping a week's wage into the girl's grasp. Although it was the first time she'd ever beaten him, it was also the first time they'd ever bet on the results of their spar.
"Double or nothing?" He asked hopefully as the petite lieutenant strolled away. He received no response, and scratched the back of his head before flash stepping away and leaving the girl to her own devices.
"Did you win, Rikai?" The brunette nodded before sitting down to a desk full of paperwork, tossing the bag of coins she had earned into the air and catching it before stuffing the satchel into her pocket.
"Yes, taicho. He almost had me for a second though." Rikai's Captain was in the Captain's quarters, which was adjacent to the Captain's office, which was conveniently located right in front of the Fifth division sparring grounds.
"Good for you." With a small clicking sound, the door closed behind the Fifth Squad Captain, who strolled past Rikai to stare out at the now empty sparring grounds.
Guinevere was a tall, beautiful woman with a surprisingly noble air to her. Never did her countenance of thinly veiled emotion waver, never was her red lipstick smudged, never was a strand of hair out of place and the blue kimono which seemed to be her constant companion was never ruffled or wrinkled. If Rikai had been given one word to describe the woman, it would have been 'composed'.
"We have a meeting today." Her Captain said without turning around, just loud enough for Rikai to hear.
"What about, taicho?" Her lieutenant asked, feigning interest.
"I'm not sure."