Chapter Six
It was nighttime in Soul Society when the confrontation came to pass. Shiba Tōshirō, Vice-Captain of the Tenth Division of the Gotei 13, stood to the side and behind his captain, Shiba Isshin, a noble and head of the Shiba Clan. Across the way from them, under the moonlight, was the man who had helped Tōshirō gain and mature his Bankai, Ikari Kenpachi, with his own vice-captain, Zaraki, beside him.
Shiba Isshin was a handsome man, but a far cry from Captain Ikari's preternatural beauty. He stood tall, with a head of well-groomed black hair, and his face was completely clean-shaven. A bachelor still, even as a captain and head of one of the Five Great Noble Clans, he had adopted Tōshirō as his heir, and so his loyalty was firmly with his captain, even though he did owe Captain Ikari a great deal, as did most of the younger generation of Shinigami.
"Well, Shiba-taichō, what brings you all the way out here this evening?" asked the other captain.
"Ikari-taichō, you are under arrest for the assassination of Aizen Sōsuke and for conspiracy against Soul Society!" cried Captain Shiba, drawing his zanpakutō, Engetsu.
"Heh. So that's why you're here," replied the Kenpachi, smirking and chuckling. "And what proof do you have of this heinous accusation, hmm?"
"Does that mean that you resist arrest?" asked Captain Shiba.
"That depends. Do you lack sufficient evidence to detain me?" replied Captain Ikari. "I mean, seriously, Shiba-taichō, do you really think I have nothing better to do than to sit in a cell for however many days? It may not look like it, but I do have paperwork that needs to get done if I don't want the Sōtaichō on my ass, as it were."
"Very well."
Captain Shiba charged with a battle-cry, and Captain Ikari took a step back, When Isshin slashed down with Engetsu, the Kenpachi drew Kokoronai Tenshi and parried without effort, one hand against Isshin's two. Captain Shiba flared his reiatsu to give him additional physical strength, but when he did so, Captain Ikari looked bored to tears if anything, and his own reiatsu skyrocketed, pressing Tōshiro to one knee with the weight of it. He looked up to see Zaraki towering over him, Nozarashi in its sealed form perched on his shoulder. "Yo. You just gonna stay down like that, or are you gonna get up and fight?"
Tōshirō gritted his teeth. "I don't need to take that from a brute like you!"
Drawing Hyōrinmaru from his back, he slashed upwards in a U-shape at the brutish vice-captain with a battle-cry, only to be crushed by Zaraki's reiatsu. "Yo! Taichō! Switch! Your guy's stronger!"
Tōshirō growled. "Weak, am I?"
"Yeah. You deaf or something?" Zaraki asked dispassionately.
"Sit Upon the Frozen Heavens, Hyōrinmaru!"
Tōshirō's reiatsu skyrocketed, allowing him to stand as his zanpakutō shot an enormous ice-dragon at Zaraki. Nozarashi, however, clove it in twain. "So, you can stand. But that better not be all you got, Shiba. Otherwise, at this rate, I really will kill you."
"Don't be so sure!" Tōshirō charged at Zaraki, Hyōrinmaru held in both hands as he slashed down at the other vice-captain, who parried it one handed.
Zaraki sighed. "Shiba…you are already dead."
Across the way, Shiba Isshin was engaged in a pitched battle with his fellow captain. Engetsu stabbed at Ikari, and when he dodged, the zanpakutō went directly into a swift horizontal slash that Ikari parried with a single hand. Their blades shook as they clashed, and sparks flew as the metal ground against metal. "Is this all, Isshin? I must admit I am impressed by how underwhelming that attack was."
Isshin cursed. This man, this boy, had the physical strength of a Hollow. The speed, too, he proved as he pushed off and flash-stepped behind Isshin, and the Tenth Division Captain pivoted and parried. Ikari yawned as he lifted his foot up and kicked Isshin in the chest, sending him flying. With a burst of Hohō, too fast to be even a Shihōin-level Shunpō, Ikari came after him. Isshin cursed again at being pushed to this point as he landed in a crouch, and held his zanpakutō in front of him in a kendō stance before crying out, "Burn, Engetsu!"
His zanpakutō became coated in reiryoku that took an appearance similar to fire—though his was not the power of Ryūjin Jakka, and so true flame it was not—and he launched himself at Ikari, sword held high in both hands. "Getsuga Tenshō!"
The blue reiryoku barrelled into Ikari, and moving as he was, he did not have the chance to evade. Nevertheless, he pulled to the side, and landed on the ground, rolling until he lay prone. Isshin began to walk up to him, his Shikai still unsealed, and readied to strike the finishing blow. It was then that he heard the words that made his blood go cold. "Descend…Kokoronai Tenshi…"
The kaigo to the first dark-elemental type zanpakutō seen in Soul Society wasn't exactly unknown. It was famous, in fact, heralding the death of anyone who had it declared against. But with Getsuga Tenshō nearly having bisected him, cutting from shoulder to hip, he stood up slowly, steam rising from his form, his shihakushō torn and his haori ruined, but his skin unmarred as his blade erupted with violet energy, his sword lengthening into its true form. "This…was my favourite haori. The original one the Kuchiki Clan gave me after I took care of their little outcast problem. You'll pay for that, Shiba Isshin. Kage-ō no Kamui."
The Godrobe of the Shadow King enveloped Ikari, and three sets of violet wings erupted from his back as he took to the skies, leaping with Hohō and suspending himself in the air. "Saishū Surasuto!"
He dove, fast and hard, and Isshin didn't move. The sword skewered Isshin, but the Tenth Division Captain merely smiled, grabbing the blade by the hilt and head-butting Ikari away with enough force to propel even someone of Vice-Captain Zaraki's size backwards, sending him crashing into the building behind him. He got to his feet, throwing off the upper portion of his shihakushō and his haori, taking a balanced Hakuda stance. Isshin tore the sword out of his body with no small amount of pain, blood pouring down his body. His haori was most certainly stained beyond repair, and Kukaku would have his head if he even suggested it might be salvaged. His cousin was never the most gentle of souls, but as the closest thing to a big sister he had, he supposed that such things could have allowances made for them. He ran at Ikari, getting ready to attack him head on, but someone got in the way.
She was small, a brunette he knew rather well from the Fifth Division. Tōshirō's childhood friend, Hinamori Momo. She parried his blade and forced him back with enough strength to catch him, already surprised by her appearance, off guard. He stumbled backwards, but she didn't relent. With a determined expression and tears in her eyes, she cried out, "Snap, Tobuime!"
The irregular blade stabbed into Isshin with force enough to make his eyes water and blood to come coughing out of his mouth. He was caught on his back foot, off his guard and with his pants down, and unnoticed behind her, Ikari got up and walked over to his zanpakutō, taking it up and sealing it before sheathing it at his hip.
"H…Hinamori… Why…?" Tōshirō gasped from the ground, where he lay in a pool of his own blood.
Momo sobbed and cried as she looked at Tōshirō with confused, angry eyes. "Don't move, Tōshirō! I know you're in league with Shiba Isshin!"
"For what?!"
"Don't act like you don't know! You murdered him, Tōshirō, both of you, and for what?! Power?!" Momo snapped, weeping.
"What are you talking about, Hinamori?!" Tōshirō asked, confused and ever so slightly terrified.
"Aizen-taichō figured out your little scheme! It's all here in this letter! It was the last letter he ever wrote! It says that you're conspiring with Shiba-taichō to steal the Sōkyoku, which holds the power of a thousand zanpakutō, and that you plan to use it to destroy Soul Society!" Momo cried.
"Hinamori, that's preposterous…! It must be a forgery—it's not like Aizen-taichō to turn friend against friend like this!" Tōshirō exclaimed.
Momo looked down at Tōshirō with pitiless tears in her eyes. She shook her head. "We're not friends. Not anymore."
"Bakudō No. 61: Rikujōkōrō."
Ikari.
"Yo, Taichō, that was boring," Vice-Captain Zaraki complained.
Ikari.
"Don't worry, old friend. Once justice has been done, we'll go have a nice spar like we used to back before all this happened."
IKARI!
Isshin got to his feet and charged Ikari with a battle-cry, bringing Engetsu in Shikai form down on his head. He turned, bored and unsurprised, his cobalt eyes narrow as he said, "You're predictable as ever, Shiba."
But what surprised them both was when Momo stepped in and parried the blow.
"You will not lay another finger on another captain, Shiba-taichō!" Momo spat.
"Bakudō No. 79: Kuyō Shibari," Ikari intoned, and Isshin was immobilised, the nine reiatsu-emitting violet-rimmed black holes trapping him in place. "Thank you very much, Hinamori-fukutaichō. I would likely have died if not for you."
Zaraki guffawed, unable to hold in his laughter, and Ikari turned. "I leave escorting these two to the holding cells to you, Momo—and you as well, Ichimaru-taichō."
Ichimaru Gin came out of the shadows to the side of the encounter, a reptilian smile on his face like some sort of plaster mask. "Aw, and it was just gettin' to the good part!"
"Worry not, Ichimaru-taichō. There are plenty of ryoka left to hunt in the Seireitei. One more, thanks to you. A Quincy. Tell me, Gin, why let the Quincy go?" asked Ikari without turning around.
"I thought it might do Zaraki-fukutaichō a bit of good to go ryoka hunting, and I wasn't about to take that away from him," Ichimaru explained.
"How very…considerate of you," Ikari replied, throwing a sinister smile even more artificial than Ichimaru's over his shoulder. "I'm sure you, Kira-fukutaichō and Hinamori fukutaichō can handle this duty, then. Come, Zaraki. We have business to take care of."
Zaraki grunted, the brute, and placed his chipped, sealed zanpakutō on his shoulder. Then, the pair walked out into the night, leaving three free Shinigami and two bound in their wake. Momo, Kira Izuru and Ichimaru all bound Isshin and Tōshirō and brought them to their holding cells to await trial. Unknown to any of them, however, Gin opened his eyes for a small fraction of a second, revealing brown, not blue, orbs.
The next morning, Shinji made his way down to the courtyard before the Eleventh Division barracks, his zanpakutō sheathed as he stood in the exact centre of the courtyard, feeling a familiar reiatsu approaching him. He had become accustomed to the feeling of the reiatsu of Fullbringers ever since he had wiped out Xcution a decade prior. He had thought he had successfully wiped out every last man, woman and child with the stink of Ginjō Kūgo on them, but he supposed that it was likely that he had missed one.
How fortuitous that it just so happened to be Suzuhara Tōji…
Fortuitous? I'd prefer to call it downright irritating.
He was your friend, Shinji.
That is correct. 'Was' being the operative term. Now he's nothing more than an obstacle between Sōsuke and his dream. And so I will remove him.
Don't kill him outright. He might be able to be reasoned with.
Shinji snorted mentally, fondly remembering a relatively weak punch that had laid him on his arse as a child. It had been the beginning of their association, and Shinji marked it the beginning of their rather eventful friendship. Suzuhara? Reasoned with? Not a chance. If he's anything like what he was, he'll punch first and ask questions later. Plus, I won't let another filthy Fullbringer out of my presence alive.
Tsukishima Shūkurō is dead, Shinji. You cannot let Book of the End's effects rule you.
He tried to take Sōsuke away from me!
He did not succeed.
That isn't the point and you know it.
It would not please Aizen to know that he is, however indirectly, the cause of as much of your pain and anger, towards the Fullbringers especially.
…This conversation is over.
Very well, Shinji. Simply make certain that this vendetta of yours does not lead you to do something you'll regret.
Noted.
Kokoronai Tenshi fell silent after that, and Shinji stood where he was, his hands by his side as he waited, but he didn't have to wait long for Suzuhara to show up. His clothing was torn, but his body was pristine in terms of injuries, not a bruise on him. Three of his four limbs were encased in a thick black Hierro, and it did not escape Shinji's notice that those limbs were the same ones his old friend had lost in the battle against the Thirteenth Angel, Bardiel. He winced inwardly, but kept his face stoic and expressionless, somewhat like the very same expression Kuchiki Byakuya made a habit of wearing. Or perhaps it was the other way around; Kuchiki Ginrei's grandson had, after all, been one of Shinji's best students from an early age.
Shinji wondered at how Suzuhara could have fought through so many Shinigami unscathed, but as the possessor of certain Hollow powers of his own, he surmised that the powers Suzuhara's Fullbring granted him included limited high-speed regeneration. But other than that, and the eyes that glowed an Angelic red, looking so out of place in Suzuhara's skull, the eyes of Bardiel that still sometimes haunted the Shinigami captain,, Suzuhara was painfully similar in appearance to how he once looked during the Angel Wars. In fact, only the tracksuit's conspicuous absence really changed anything about Suzuhara's appearance, apart from his larger and more muscular build.
"Suzuhara Tōji. My name is Ikari Shinji. I am the Kenpachi, captain of the Eleventh Division of the Gotei 13. The name of my zanpakutō is Kokoronai Tenshi. May I ask the name of your Fullbring, that I might bring the last of your perfidious race at last to its inauspicious end with honour?"
Suzuhara visibly steeled himself, taking a karate stance. "My Fullbring is called Angel Eyes. I was trained in its use by Urahara Kisuke, former Twelfth Division captain of the Gotei 13."
"I see that he explained to you what you are," remarked Shinji.
"Yes, and I know that the vast majority of my kind were despicable power-hungry monsters bent on world domination," replied Suzuhara. "So it is now for the lost honour of the Fullbringers and for the life of Kuchiki Rukia that I face you now to bring you down."
"It was Captain Kyōraku Shunsui who would have faced you today," Shinji noted. "Drunk as he was, he volunteered for it, the fool. But the extermination of Xcution is my responsibility, and as you are a Fullbringer by your own admission, under the martial law of Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, it is my duty to see to your demise. Are you ready to face death now, little Fullbringer?"
"Che. I don't fear death." With that, Suzuhara charged.
"You really should," replied Shinji. He slipped his arms out of his shihakushō, and slipped into one of the advanced hakuda stances only taught by the Shihōin Clan Onmitsukidō specialists. "Shunkō."
His bare upper body erupting into harmless violet flames, Shinji's back erupted with great Angelic wings of flaming violet light. The armour of EVA-01 enveloped him and gave a mighty roar as it then subsided into the raging storm of energy that Shunkō was known for. Suzuhara's arm erupted with a cero point-blank as he punched with a battle-cry, and Shinji's reishi-clad hand reached out and grasped the fist. The feedback of energy caused the cero to detonate within Suzuhara's arm, seams splitting through his Hierro-clad arm and causing it to erupt in an explosion of gore and reishi. Suzuhara screamed in pain at the loss of his arm, and immediately dashed back, his lost limb slowly growing back. It was subtle and slight, but Shinji could sense it by the slightly increased gathering of ambient reishi—Angel Eyes granted a portion of an Angel's ability to regenerate. It seemed that the encounter with Bardiel had tainted Suzuhara on a spiritual level, which could really never be undone, not even by the rite of konsō. It saddened Shinji somewhat to see his friend so polluted by that monstrous thing, but he buried it ruthlessly and continued with the fight, just in time to catch Suzuhara's next kick and break the boy's leg at the knee. Angel Eyes, it seemed, would accelerate healing greatly by human standards, but by Hollow standards, the Fullbring was as useless as Dirty Boots had been.
Suzuhara dropped his leg to the ground, limping on it as he tried to absorb more reishi so as to fix his shattered kneecap and mend his broken leg, but Shinji was not so merciful as to allow this. He swept Suzuhara's remaining leg out from under him and then axe-kicked the Fullbringer in the sternum on his way down. He smashed into the ground and rebounded a little before smashing back down to the ground with Shinji's flaming foot on his chest.
"Cry out for her, Suzuhara," Shinji demanded, kneeling down with his front foot still on Suzuhara's sternum. "Cry out for her, or I pulp your lungs with the shards of your own rib cage. I seriously doubt even Angel Eyes will allow you to survive something like that."
Suzuhara squirmed and resisted as Shinji continued putting pressure on his creaking ribs, but eventually he cried out a name. It was not, however, a cry for help, but rather a cry of relief. "Yoruichi-san!"
"Shunkō!"
Shinji looked up in time to see Yoruichi charging towards him, her violet hair flying as a mocha fist wreathed in white lightning came streaking for his face. Shinji caught the unexpected fist, but the momentum shoved him back off of Suzuhara's chest. "Well, I wasn't expecting you to take to the stage so soon, Shihōin Yoruichi. It's been what, a century since you went into hiding with Urahara-taichō?"
"Not long enough!" she snarled.
Shinji closed his eyes and smirked, shaking his head as he chuckled. "Always the impetuous youngster ever since you were little, aren't you, Yoruichi?"
Yoruichi gave a smirk of her own. "You know it…"
Using Shinji's grip as a springboard, she tried to get him with a backwards drop-kick, but he let go of her fist and caught her leg in his crossed wrists, a modified blade-catch. Throwing her back, he took one of the four basic hakuda stances, readying himself for his first true test of his hakuda aptitudes since he had executed his first sōkotsu against his zanpakutō spirit ages ago, it seemed. Yoruichi threw a kick, which he deflected with a raised forearm, gripping her leg and pulling the Goddess of Flash off balance. He brought his elbow down on her spine, but she disappeared in a flash of shunpō before he was able to make contact. Unperturbed by this turn of events, he set himself up again, shunkō still flaring around him.
"How are you keeping that up?!" Yoruichi called as she rushed him with a flying hohō kick to the head. Shinji ducked and, in that moment of underestimation, he tapped her leg lightly in two places, letting her know he could have broken the leg if he had wanted to.
Shinji tapped the patch of unusually giving skin above where his heart should have been, and smirked. "Hit me here and rip out my heart. Then I'll tell you."
He stood stock-still as she smirked herself and charged him, unleashing a barrage of punches at his chest. She dashed back, holding her bloodied hands in loose fists as she breathed heavily. "What in Soul Society are you?!"
"Something you will likely never understand." Shinji smiled, and then reached up, peeling away the bruised membrane of false skin that concealed his Hollow hole. She gaped. "Here is where my heart was."
"What did you do to yourself?!" she cried.
"What did I do? Nothing," Shinji replied. "It was my zanpakutō who must claim the credit for this. They say that Komamura-taichō has the greatest affinity with his zanpakutō of all the captains. I respectfully disagree."
"You mean that…?!"
"My zanpakutō appeared to me as a Hollow, Shihōin Yoruichi," he explained. "And so I can keep this up because I have two sources of reiatsu. Now, observe."
Shinji disappeared in a flash of Sonido, and reappeared behind Yoruichi, charging a cero at the tip of his first two fingers. It seemed to happen in slow motion as Yoruichi turned and moved to run, but too late.
ZWWWM…!
The plasma-type reishi beam fired.
Shinji looked around as the dust cleared. Yoruichi was gone.
"Tch." He donned his shihakushō and haori again, walking away and being careful to keep his Hollow hole concealed. He had paperwork to do.
Yoruichi dashed away, Suzuhara over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. She hissed as she looked over at her destroyed arm, blasted away by the black-violet cero with enough force to leave a crater where her shoulder should have been. Thankfully the wound had cauterised and left no bleeding, but the lack of her arm meant that no Kaidō could heal her. She would never be whole again, and she knew that, but right now it was time to get Suzuhara to safety. To tell Kisuke that Asuka needed to learn Bankai sooner than they'd thought.
She knew Aizen and his lover were corrupt, but to Hollowify Ikari to the point where his flesh was as strong as a Hierro, and his chest sported a concealed Hollow hole? That was beyond deranged, even for the current Fifth Division captain.
Thanks to her battle with Ikari, or so she told herself, by time she got to the hideout Captain Unohana and Commander Kuchiki had made for them, she was panting and out of breath. Unohana was gone, but Kuchiki Hisana was there teaching Asuka the finer points of Bakudō. Grateful that there was at least someone passably adept in Kaidō, Yoruichi descended and laid the broken body of the Fullbringer on the ground. Hisana rushed over, as did Asuka, though Asuka remained to some degree out of the way as Hisana healed his wounds. "It's like he went head to head with a Vasto Lorde!"
"Not far off," Yoruichi replied, cursing and holding her wounded arm as pain shot through it at her exertion. "It seems our dear Kenpachi is more than he seems."
"Shihōin-taichō!" Hisana cried, noticing Yoruichi's wound for the first time.
"Yoruichi! How're you doing?" asked Kisuke, coming around the corner.
"Urahara-taichō!" Hisana cried out again.
"Hey, Hisana. Nice to see you all grown up," Kisuke replied with a smile before focusing once more on Yoruichi with the smile gone from his face. "I guess you learned about Ikari's Hollow powers the hard way."
"Ikari-taichō is a Hollow?!" Hisana exclaimed as she worked her way through healing the rest of the Fullbringer's wounds.
"Not in the strictest sense of the word, no, but he can use abilities that would normally require Hollowfication to execute."
"That explains how he beat me," remarked Asuka, walking over to see what was going on. "He cheated."
"No, I watched. You lost, Katsuragi-san. Now, back to practising," Hisana chided.
"I don't think so. Not even nineties-level Bakudō could restrain a reiatsu of that size. Kisuke, he had Shunkō, and was sustaining it for more than five minutes with no sign of a wavering of reiatsu or any other kind of strain to his body." Yoruichi hissed as the pain intensified as Kisuke knelt beside her and began healing her vaporised arm to a scarred stump. "This just got big."
Kisuke nodded. "I agree. His normal cero seems about as strong as a Vasto Lorde's. And the only thing that can stand a chance against a power level of that magnitude is a Shinigami's Bankai."
Asuka nodded, remembering what Kisuke had told her. "The Bankai is the second and final release of the zanpakutō. Achieving it is one of the requirements to achieve captaincy. Every single captain has one, except for the Kenpachi, who won his captaincy in a duel and as such has never been observed to possess Bankai at all."
"He does."
"He says he does," Asuka corrected.
Kisuke sighed. "Fine, be semantic."
"Look, are we gonna get going with this Bankai thing or not?!"
Hisana gasped. "But…we don't have ten years!"
"Indeed. We have one better," replied Kisuke, a wide grin on his face as he held up three fingers. "We have three days with the method I'll be using."
Captain Ikari was in his office in the Eleventh Division barracks when Nemu found him, working away at paperwork by candlelight as she approached. One candle struggled against the tide of melted wax to stay alight as the Kenpachi did his best to work by its luminescence. She slipped around behind him and embraced him. "I'm sorry about Aizen-taichō, Ikari-sama. I know he was your friend."
"My mentor, a companion on par with Zaraki-fukutaichō in how long I've known him," replied Ikari as he reached up to pat Nemu on the arm. He sighed. "And now he's dead."
Nemu nodded, pressing her large breasts against his lean frame. "Would you like some comforting? I know there are several things that a woman does to comfort a man…"
"I'm sorry, Nemu, I sincerely am. You are…truly desirable as a woman. But it wouldn't be proper. I'm sure you're going to have to deal with a mountain of paperwork back at the Twelfth Division with everything that's been happening with these ryoka."
Nemu struggled to maintain her composure. "I know you're upset. Please, let me help you… I… I've wanted you ever since I was a little girl, Ikari-sama. Please, allow me to comfort you in your time of need."
Ikari softly and gently extricated himself from Nemu's grasp. "Nemu-chan, I'm sorry, but I can't."
She swallowed a hard lump in her throat. "I understand."
And she did. Despite his title's penchant for violence, Captain Ikari was a princely, proper, saintly figure, always charming, always out of her reach. She turned from him with tears in her eyes and ran out. She collapsed into the courtyard and wept openly. He didn't want her. He was too good for her, too kind, too pure, and how had she responded to his kindness? With debasement of herself, which she knew he hated to see, and attempts to manipulate his emotions, and for what, to get him into bed with her?
She was despicable.
Meanwhile, in the Eleventh Division barracks, where Shinji was working, Zaraki walked out of the shadows. "You handled that well."
Shinji smirked. He knew that Zaraki was the person that Nemu would go to for comfort herself, even though the berserker didn't give a shit about her. In truth, he hated playing with Nemu's emotions like this, or at least he had at first, until she showed herself just how worthy she was of the Kurotsuchi name. She was worse than her father was, but for once, he agreed with Central 46 in that she was a necessary evil. At least she never experimented on her own division members. That was the mercy that saved her from his blade.
Shinji stood. "You should go to her. I must wash her disgusting filth off of me as soon as possible."
Zaraki grimaced. "I'd rather spar."
"The plan, Zaraki, remember the plan. If she distances herself from us, we tip everybody else off that something's going on."
Zaraki chuckled grimly. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Jeez, I never thought I'd loathe getting laid, but this is just sad."
"Not for too much longer. Before much more time has passed, we'll soon be back in Hueco Mundo," Shinji replied.
"Do you think that Nelliel's gonna finally spar with me?" Zaraki asked with a grin.
"I somehow doubt it, unless you manage to antagonise her enough," Shinji laughed. "Don't ever change, old friend. Nelliel might not appreciate it, but I do."
"Che. As if I was ever going to change in the first place," Zaraki chuckled as he left to give Kurotsuchi Nemu a chore of a tumble. Shinji finished his paperwork, and then gathered up his things, making his way home again, where Sōsuke waited for him.