Good evening, and thanks for dropping by ^_^
It's Wednesday -
Where - we actually begin to have a plot. W00t!
Wednesday, July 3rd
Occupation Month 6
'I've taken the liberty of summoning him', Stark said, resting his pointed chin on the back of his hand and dreamily glancing through Ukitake. 'He should arrive shortly.'
The words caught the Shinigami by surprise, and it took him a few seconds to realise what Stark was talking about. He understood it soon enough, however, and it took all of his strength not to recoil.
'You waste no time,' Ukitake noted, in as self assured a voice as he could manage.
'I am an icon of initiative, efficiency and exactitude,' Stark had responded, then yawned as widely as the fangs under his chin allowed, and stretched at his leisure.
Ignoring the open provocation in the Arrancar's eyes, Ukitake advanced towards the center of the room, each of his steps driven by dry anger. Though he found it odd, the additional understanding of Stark's vicious strength he'd gained since the Arrancar contingent had moved in the grounds of the 13th, had made Ukitake feel far more assured around the Primera; it was not only a question of comparable levels of strength, but also one of personality. Thus far, Ukitake not seen Stark strike out in fury, and though the Arrancar's heart might have been on fire with anger, even the pain Stark inflicted again and again on the innocent bystanders of his feud with Ukitake was dealt with a steady hand and mind of ice.
'It did not strike you that you could have given them a few more weeks?' Ukitake inquired, stopping before Stark's couch and awkwardly brushing a few books away with his ankle. The gesture seemed to irritate the Arrancar - his reiatsu flared briefly, but his features remained benignly distracted.
'The child was born almost six weeks ago,' Stark said. 'If anything, it strikes me that you should have kept a better eye on the situation, and reported to me when the child was well enough to travel. Or did your officer have no desire to see you?' he inquired, his eyes sparkling with amusement, and making Ukitake's heart sink.
The Shinigami had shot a reproachful glance at Lilinette, who been sitting on the windowsill, pointedly absenting herself from the conversation and chewing on a blade of grass. The girl was the only possible source of that information; Ukitake's visit to Kotsubaki's cottage could not truly had been witnessed by anyone else, and none of the Arrancar in the vicinity could have come close enough to know that once he'd been reluctantly allowed inside, Ukitake had been barred from seeing either the young child or her mother.
Lilinette briefly met his glance, shrugged, and looked away once more.
'I don't think I can blame him,' Ukitake bitterly said.
'Neither can I,' the Arrancar replied, 'If I were him, I would also expect the worst of you. Still, I think on this particular occasion he will have to indulge you. We had an agreement, Ukitake Jūshirō - that they may stay until the child is born. They have stayed longer than that, as proof of the fact that you are as good at avoiding the truth as you are at stalling, but they may stay no longer. Given the fact that you and your former officer seem to have some difficulties communicating, I've summoned him here so that you can tell him that.'
Ukitake's lower jaw tensed. 'Privacy would be appreciated,' he said, with a distinguishable menacing undertone. The thought of finally having to tell Kotsubaki that he would have to leave already filled him with dread; the perspective of having to do it under Stark's amused glance further filled his mouth with bile.
'Are you trying to kick me out of my office?' Stark asked, innocently raising both eyebrows.
It was Lilinette who looked to Ukitake this time, her rounded eye filled with the same odd expectation as it had been on the day of their encounter with Apache. Still, though he felt furious enough to do something completely uncharacteristic, and actually take a swing at the Arrancar, Ukitake knew all too well what was expected of him and fell in line.
'Kotsubaki doesn't deserve this humiliation,' the Shinigami said, slowly. 'And whether I am forced to tell him in private, or in public, my own humiliation will not be lessened. Why do you...?'
'Three reasons,' Stark answered, making some attempt at sitting up straight. 'The first is, of course, that myself and Lilinette will enjoy the sight. The second is that I truly wish to impress upon you the fact that the only things you get past us,' the Primera continued, giving Ukitake the distinct impression that his notion of us had nothing to do with Aizen or any other Arrancar, 'are the things we allow you to get past us.'
He stopped abruptly, as if he'd forgotten his train of thought.
'He needs to leave today or tomorrow at the latest,' Stark ended. 'Make sure he grasps that...'
'Tomorrow?' Ukitake breathed. 'That will leave me no time to make any sort of arrangement...'
'Yuh, well, if you hadn't been avoiding the issue for a month an' a half, you would've had shitloads of time,' Lilinette spitefully muttered.
'I thought...' Ukitake began, between clenched teeth.
'That I had forgotten about it?' Stark interrupted. 'An easy mistake to make, but a serious one nonetheless. I tend to remember a little bit too much.'
The soft knock on the wooden frame of the Shouji panels reverberated inside Ukitake's head as if it had been an explosion.
'Give us a moment,' he said, loud enough to be heard on the corridor, but with a delay which allowed Kotsubaki to misunderstand the second of silence for permission to enter. The man had already pulled the door half open, when Ukitake had turned around with fires in his eyes. 'I said give us a moment,' he commandingly uttered, in a voice that made the thin silk panes of the door tremble.
He made only short eye contact with Kotsubaki before the door slid back shut, and did not let the look in the man's eyes dull the edge of his anger.
'Give me until the end of the week, Stark,' Ukitake hissed, hoping that his voice did not carry outside into the corridor.
'I am unsure...' Stark began, not taking the same precaution.
'I did not mean to get anything past you,' the Shinigami continued, in a low whisper, 'though I had, indeed, hoped that time would dull the relevance of the issue. I do not want to disarm this man; I do not want to have him removed...'
'Which is precisely why I want both,' the Primera nodded. 'And you should have known that by now...'
'Oh, I know it,' Ukitake responded. 'I am, however, still in denial over the fact that you would obstinately cause willing hardship to an undeserving individual just to spite me.'
'The eastern quarter of your division grounds was assigned to Barragan's...my troop,' Stark angrily responded, finally straightening in full. 'Your officer just happened to live in the wrong place.'
'So you are, yet again, just being diligent?' Ukitake spat.
'And taking ultimate pleasure in it,' Stark answered, jumping to his feet, taking a step forward, and forcing the Shinigami to instinctively acknowledge his intimidating height. Still, though he was forced to look up to meet the Arrancar's gaze, Ukitake did not back down.
'Give me until the end of the week,' he repeated, putting his reiatsu behind his words, but though lightning crackled somewhere in the distance, the oppressive humidity in the room rose at Stark's will.
'To do what, Ukitake Jūshirō?' Stark whispered, in such a low tone that the Shinigami wondered whether even Lilinette had heard it. 'To make sure that this one is nestled as close to the rest of your Division as possible? To arrange that the neatly bundled 13th Division quarters that you are silently growing in West Rukongai are not leaderless? You've been stalling because you had hoped you will get time to share your intent with your officer, but he's been blindly obstinate in not wanting to see you, while you've felt watched and feared to press.'
Ukitake let out a ragged breath.
'Do you think that I do not see what you are doing, Shinigami?' the Arrancar asked. 'The strength of your troops only half relies on their swords; the rest resides in their links to each other, and if you could not preserve the former, you did your damned best to preserve the latter. You have been subtle - so subtle, in fact, that I think your people don't understand what you are attempting, and they will not understand it for a very long time. Perhaps they will never understand it. And I won't give you the time to explain yourself. Especially to this one.'
'He has until tomorrow.' Stark ended, in a low growl. 'Make yourself clear.'
'Come in,' he called, letting himself fall back on his couch, and allowing the pressure of his reiatsu to dissipate as if it had never been, but not giving Ukitake any time to recover.
Though Kotsubaki entered immediately after permission had been granted, Ukitake's gaze lingered onto Stark's for a few seconds longer - in confusion, or frustration, or simple, pure fright; in turn, Stark simply extended his arm to the side, bidding Lilinette closer, and, despite a minute hesitation, she joined him on the couch. As soon as she'd sat, the Primera had wrapped his arms around her, and rested his chin on top of her mask, then coolly lifted his eyebrows, prompting Ukitake to action.
'We don't have all day,' Stark quietly mouthed.
The Shinigami felt as if he'd been drowning.
The few seconds it had taken for him to turn around had felt like an eternity.
'Gods of nothing, Lilinette,' he'd heard Stark whisper behind him. 'Gods of nothing at all.'
If the Arrancar's words had felt as if he'd been submerged into a river of molten lava, meeting Kotsubaki's glance had felt as if he'd been cast into a frozen lake, and for as much as Ukitake had sought to find something, anything of what he'd hoped to see in his officer's eyes - not sympathy, but perhaps, merciful indifference - he'd found nothing. Kotsubaki's eyes held naught but fury and despise.
'I...'Ukitake began, finding that his voice had frozen along with his heart.
'Get it over with,' Kotsubaki cut in, proudly lifting his chin. 'We all know why I am here.'
'Kotsubaki Sentaro,' Ukitake heard himself say, 'by edict of the New Central, your tenure as Shinigami is to be terminated immediately. As such, you will surrender your zanpakutoh and be asked to vacate your allotted premises on Sereitei grounds by the evening of the fourth of July.'
'Wow,' Stark conspicuously whispered, 'it came out all in one!'
Lilinette shushed him audibly, but the words had reached their intended target already. Ukitake breathed out deeply, and closed his eyes, counting the seconds and awaiting some form of divine reprieve - from the sharp irony at the Arrancar at his back, or from the cold despise of the Shinigami before him...
Kotsubaki lingered with his hand on the hilt of his sword; for a moment, the hatred which vibrated in his reiatsu overtook even Stark's.
'Is this it, then?' he asked; Ukitake glanced up pleadingly, but, when he spoke, his voice was cutting and dry.
'Yes,' he answered.
Kotsubaki nodded, pursing his lips, then slowly, his eyes never leaving Ukitake's, slipped the sword out of its place on his right hip and held it out straight, almost daring his former captain to reach for it. Ukitake's hand trembled, but his overly thin fingers wrapped themselves decisively about the wooden scabbard.
Kotsubaki Sentaro did not let go.
'You would take my zanpakutoh, on behalf of that?' he asked, indicating Stark and Lilinette with a swift motion of his bearded chin.
'I have no choice,' Ukitake breathed. 'We have...'
He cut himself off, and looked to the side, avoiding his officer's unspoken question. Not because he had not had an answer to it, but because he knew the answer all too well.
There is no we left, Ukitake thought. There is no 13th, and he thinks it is me who has made the choice to disband it.
'Please let go, Sentaro,' he whispered, this time in an open plea. Kotsubaki did, and his sword oddly felt too heavy to hold.
Without adding a further word, the officer turned to leave. A flurry of thoughts and feelings rose to Ukitake's mind and heart, the latter almost stifling the former.
'Most of the 13th have found West Rukongai...' Ukitake suddenly began, taking a step forward; behind him, Stark stirred abruptly, but he did not care - Kotsubaki glanced over his shoulder, and the very glance that Ukitake had been praying for stopped him in his tracks.
'Most of the 13th?' the officer growled, turning around at great speed and taking a step forward in his turn. 'You mean the others that you have rendered homeless and soulless for a Hollow that's pulling your strings like those of some pitiful puppet?"?'
'The New Central...' Ukitake started, in a shaky voice.
'Yes, the New Central!' Kotsubaki exclaimed. 'Did they offer you your zanpakutoh at the price of ours?'
'No,' the white haired Shinigami answered. 'No.'
'Then what could they possibly have offered you, in exchange for all...'
'Have you not heard what happened in the 8th and the 6th?' Ukitake exploded, not caring for the fact that Stark had stood, and Lilinette's reiatsu was flaring as hot as the sun. 'Do you not understand...'
'Oh but I do understand,' Kotsubaki hissed. 'I understand that the 6th and the 8th died with their honour, while you never even left us the choice of dying with ours. I understand that you are a coward, and you think us all cowards as well - it's the only way you could have brought this shame on us!'
'That is not...' Ukitake attempted.
The other shook his head, and left, without once glancing over his shoulder.
'Sentaro...,' the white haired Shinigami whispered.
'Spare me,' Kotsubaki said, once more shaking his head in disgust. 'I used to think that I would follow you into hell,' he added, softly and regretfully. 'Now, I am only happy that Kyione is not here to see what you have become. It would have broken her heart.'
The Shouji panel slid furiously shut, the dry noise marking the beginning of an eternity of silence. Long minutes in which Ukitake could think and feel no more than his own next pained breath stretched one after the other, equally endless and pointless. His shoulders bent under the height of the world, Ukitake found the strength to look over his shoulder, but not the strength to speak.
'You may,' Stark shrugged.
Ukitake headed for the door.
'No, wait,' Lilinette suddenly said.
As if awaiting naught else than a whiplash, Ukitake straightened and looked at her.
'Ya did't tell him the third reason,' Lilinette surprisingly bit - not at himself, Ukitake noted, in astonishment, but at Stark. The Primera clenched his lower jaw into a tight square.
'Lilinette,' he warningly hissed.
'No,' she calmly uttered. 'Ya didn't tell him...'
'And I do not intend to,' Stark muttered, leaving Ukitake stunned at the fact that, for that mere second, the roles of the two seemed to have naturally reversed, with Stark emitting an odd vibe of childish rebellion, and Lilinette holding steadfast.
The little girl looked towards the Espada in the same punishingly expectant way as she had at Ukitake, but a few moments earlier. Stark breathed out heavily, and turned away, nervously raising his palm, as if attempting to block her out.
'Fine,' Lilinette said. 'Then I'm gonna tell him.'
'It makes no difference,' Ukitake tiredly interrupted, not knowing whether he had done so because he'd been trying to protect himself from more cruel barbs or because he'd found hard to keep standing.
She frowned, tilting her head to the side. In turn, the Shinigami shook his head.
No more of this, he pleaded in his mind. Just let me go.
'It truly makes no difference anymore,' Ukitake smiled.
Stark looked over his shoulder with something that resembled satisfaction, and, without giving Lilinette a chance to respond, Ukitake pulled the door closed behind him.
Up next - Stuff makes great big boom, as Lili would have it. Szayel Aporro disagrees with her vocabulary, sigh.