Hey All, I thank you for reading along so far and I'm hoping that you are enjoying it also. Once again I don't own Bleach and don't get royalties from it either! Darnit. Special thanks to the latest reviewer PGW Chaos. As always read and Review please.
Marine, Basic
The following morning Captain Unohana gave Kira a quick physical and pronounced him fit for duty. While she was checking out Kira, another pretty girl was looking over Matsumoto. Her name he found out through listening was Isane. He liked her grey hair and the slim braids she kept in her hair. He also found out, through asking Matsumoto, that she was the Vice Captain of the Fourth Squad and a master healer.
On their way out Unohana told them to take it easy for a day or so and to stay away from any sparing. They both acknowledged her and went to the Tenth Squad headquarters.
Matsumoto went into the Captains office. "I'm back Captain, anything you need right now?"
Hitsugaya looked up from his stack of paperwork, "Nice of you to finally join us here at Headquarters. Do you think you could actually do your paperwork today? You also have to write up your incident report for the soul burial and the subsequent hollow attack. Then there is the incident report about the fight with your bodyguard, and just where is he?"
Matsumoto looked around absently for him then went to the door and found him at parade rest next to the wall eyes looking ahead at the opposite wall. "Kira, come in here."
Kira snapped to attention performed a right face and marched into the captain's office. He came to a halt in front of Hitsugaya's desk then stood at attention before saluting sharply. "Corporal Tenaka reporting as ordered Sir."
Hitsugaya smirked a little then turned to Matsumoto, "You could learn something from this man Matsumoto." He then stood. "Corporal, this is not the Marines, We don't have a salute here but I understand the custom." Hitsugaya then returned his salute. "It seems that there is a bit of a berthing problem in the Tenth barracks so you will be taking up residence with Matsumoto here until things are settled. And also as her bodyguard I would expect that you would want to be close to her anyway."
"CAPTAIN! What are you doing! I can't have him living in my quarters. There isn't enough room there!" Matsumoto was frantic and rather pissed at what had happened in the space of a few seconds.
"Understood Captain, Where do I pick up my gear Sir?" Kira's reply was curt and toneless which scared Matsumoto even more.
"What is happening here? Are these two conspiring against me? How am I going to make room in my quarters for this man? Hitsugaya said he was going to get me back for some of the things I've done, but this?" "Captain I'll take him to the Fourth's Supply depot and get him outfitted" Matsumoto put in quickly trying to get out of there before anything else could be thrown at her.
"Calm down Matsumoto, I took the liberty of having all of his required equipment drawn from supply already and delivered to your quarters. Isane was kind enough to take his measurements while you both were sleeping it off. And I asked some of the women to assist in delivering the equipment to your quarters. They were very interested in who all this stuff was for so I told them. I hope that you don't mind."
Kira felt the hackles on the back of his neck start to rise as he figured out that Matsumoto had managed to piss off her Captain, on more than one occasion. This was his non-lethal retort to her.
Hitsugaya then looked at Kira, "Now about your actions that got you here in the first place. Did you have any idea how badly mismatched you were against that hollow let alone going up against Matsumoto even though it was with a boken? Come with me out to the training grounds." Hitsugaya walked around the desk and opened a door leading out onto a spacious yard that was as large as a sporting arena.
"What do you know about being a Shinigami?"
Kira just looked blankly at Hitsugaya before answering. "Sir, I only know the legends that my Grandfather passed on to me. You perform soul burials and protect the living from the undead or as I now know them, hollows. Beyond that I'm rather in the dark. Vice Captain Matsumoto has not had time to brief me on the job Sir."
"Well your Grandfather was a smart man for telling you what he did. You have been given the basic outline of the job now here is the filler. We train to fight the hollows and we purify their souls to bring them finally at peace to Soul Society. The ones that were evil before they became hollows get a free ride to hell and no return."
Hitsugaya continued, "We fight using four methods of fighting. Zanjutsu, Haduka, Hohou, Kidou. Zanjutsu is the cutting techniques. You are most familiar with that and have a rather high level of training if your fight with Matsumoto is any gauge. Haduka is the art of hand to hand fighting, I am sure that your prior training brings your marks there up to an advanced level also. The last two are where you are behind. Hohou, the art of movement is a basic requirement, and it will keep you alive." To demonstrate he shunpo'd to the far side of the yard then shunpo'd back to stand on the other side of an amazed Kira. "The other art is Kidou, or the Demon arts." Hitsugaya called up his energy then shouted a short phrase "Destructive white lightning number 4!" A bolt of lightning shot from his outstretched hand blasting a target on the other end of the field causing a large cloud to rise.
Kira's mouth hung open for a few moments until Matsumoto reached over and lifted his jaw back up closing his mouth.
"These are the basics for any Shinigami to know. Matsumoto will train you in the Hohou and I will train you in the Kidou. This will take place after normal business hours and after Matsumoto is done with her paperwork for the day." The last was directed at Matsumoto with cold hard eyes.
"Understood Captain." said a rather glum Matsumoto.
"Yes Sir!" came the smart response of Kira.
"Now we have some paperwork to finish, Matsumoto begin your training after office hours today." With that Hitsugaya turned and reentered his office.
"I should have let the hollow eat you." Matsumoto mumbled before turning to go.
"Hey! That's not nice, I would have defended you no matter what. I also wasn't the one that wanted to fight a woman in the first place. What happened wasn't my fault entirely, but I'll accept my share. Now would you like me to assist you with the paperwork?" Kira followed her into the office.
"Can you read and write Kanji?" Matsumoto asked over her shoulder as she approached her desk.
"My Mother taught me and all of her letters to me were written in Kanji. So yes, I can handle that." Kira said with a smile.
"Good then here you go." She dropped a stack of forms on the end of the desk and gave him writing equipment. "These are the standard requisition forms for the squad and these are the reports that need to be submitted with each requisition form. All of them need to be filled out in triplicate"
"Hold up a second there. You have to fill out all of these forms by hand? Haven't you ever heard of a typewriter? or maybe a computer?" Kira was almost frantic at this point.
"And how would we power something like a computer here in Soul Society?" She asked raising an eyebrow. "We don't have electrical generation like the real world. No electricity, no computers."
"Does the sun warm your face during the day? Is it the same sun that rises in the real world?" He asked arching an eyebrow back at her.
Matsumoto was confused. "Yes it warms and I believe that it is the same sun seeing as the stars are the same. What are you getting at?"
Hitsugaya was listening to the exchange carefully at this point. "What is this man suggesting?"
Kira turned to Hitsugaya, "Captain, how would you like to plow through all this paper in a quarter of the time?"
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Hitsugaya asked now intrigued.
"Has anyone ever tried to set up a solar panel attached to a battery bank with an inverter to produce electrical energy? If it works then we could get a laptop computer a printer and a scanner to cut down on the amount of writing by a factor of three, and save on aggravation from doing everything in triplicate." Kira looked on as the mind of Hitsugaya churned over the information.
"What do you think Captain?" asked a almost pleading Matsumoto.
"Draw me up your proposal and make it clear because many of the Captains here have no idea what technological marvels are in the real world, let alone how to use them. Give me the list of required materials and I'll take care of getting them. One other thing, Don't breath a word about this near the Twelfth Squad. Their Captain is the head of the research department and he will go crazy if he finds out that we are modernizing the office without consulting him first. If this works I'll have something I can poke him with at the Captains meetings." Hitsugaya smiled with an almost childish glee.