I finally got a punching bag in my room, too, so I'm a happy little person. I'll keep track of the number of times I break my wrist to entertain you all. (I haven't broken a wrist yet on punching bags, but I've broken knuckles plenty of times. My sensei told me I need to be more patient, my friends told me to go see a doctor.)

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"Teacher!" One of the students Hanataro had been training before his deployment greeted him brightly. His stomach was still churning, but he didn't want to be rude when his students had probably missed him so much, so he tried to be attentive. "I learned a lot of good kido when you were gone!"

"That's good," Hanataro smiled, though he knew it came out rather nervous because of his current state. "I have to go see Captain Unohana, so tell me about it later."

"It's not a good time to see Captain," the student frowned.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, Captain Kurotsuchi was just there and that bald guy from the eleventh division that we trained with-"

"Ikkaku?"

"Yeah, he was talking to the Captain. I don't think she's very happy right now."

"Why was he here?" Hanataro shook his head. He knew Ikkaku meant well, but the result being positive wasn't likely at all. Walking sluggishly up to his Captain's office, he thought of any possible way to get out of this, and finding none that would work, knocked tentatively on the door. It collapsed and he almost had a heart attack.

"Hanataro-" Retsu looked up from her paperwork.

"C-captain Unohana, I'm so sorry!" He bowed deeply. "I barely touched it and it fell, I didn't mean for it to-"

"It's fine Hanataro, just set it back up. Captain Kurotsuchi broke it, Ikkaku dropped by, and before he left he offered to come back tomorrow to fix it."

"Why did Ikkaku come?"

She smiled a bit, but didn't answer. "I'd like for you to give me a report on your mission."

"R-right," Hanataro stumbled over his words. His Captain's mild temper at a time when she'd just seen two of her least favorite people was welcome, but very surprising. As far as he knew, she had no idea what had happened during the riots, though with Mayuri being here earlier that might be pretty far from the truth. He more than likely bogged her down with all the gruesome details just to entertain himself. Regardless, he stood reciting a very detailed account of everything that happened, taking over a half hour to inform the calm Captain of every detail he could possibly remember.

"Who's Ganju?" She asked at the end of his report, not wanting to interrupt him during.

"Someone who helped Ichigo when he saved Ms. Kuchiki."

"Then he is trustworthy?"

"Yes."

"Then it's fine that he helped. I would like you to tell me, was Captain Kurotsuchi dutiful on his visit?"

"He wasn't focused, he seemed upset."

"Did he get his work done?"

"I-i don't know that for sure," Hanataro replied, looking down nervously.

"That's fine. But I do want to know one last thing."

"Yes?"

"Why did you try to appeal to a mass of rioters? They would not have listened even if they were human, if they were so riled up. You couldn't have honestly thought that a fight so intense with a high body count would be ended with a simple plea?"

"No..." Hanataro admitted lowly.

"Then what did you think that it would do?"

"It would have given them a chance to think about what they were fighting about. Ganju told me they were fighting because they wanted revenge, but I wasn't sure if that was the reason they were all ready to die. I..." He stumbled nervously. There was a very likely chance that his Captain would think he'd thought with his heart instead of his head, and that's never something approved of. He didn't want to finish the story and put her in a bad mood, or open a window for scolding.

"Go on."

"I thought it might be desperation, just wanting to be noticed. Once they saw that we noticed them and thought that we couldn't continue fighting, I thought that they might be happy with what they'd done. I don't know, and I don't think it would've stopped the fighting right away, but if it did something to harm their morale then it would be easier to fight them and reduce the body count as much as possible. I was ready to have the others come back once the crowd was ready to fight again, but if they were all there at the time, my words wouldn't have had the impact they would if they weren't in range to protect me. I knew I could flash step away but I don't think they would have understood that."

There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity in which Hanataro wished that he could have taken back everything he'd just said so dumbly.

"Very good," she replied, looking over some paperwork while attending to Hanataro as well. "You know, for someone of the fourth division to have Soul Reapers trained for combat obey them is something you could brag about. No one beneath Isane or I could manage that."

"W-well... It wasn't anything really."

"Didn't you want to know why Ikkaku stopped by?"

"Yes, Captain," Hanataro straightened his back.

"He asked for me to take out whatever anger I had on him," she smiled a bit. "I know Captain Zaraki, and I know that Ikkaku's not having an easy time with his Captain because of this whole thing, but he thought about how tired you would be after a hard mission and asked for me to have a little mercy. I didn't know people in the eleventh division could be kind."

Hanataro was a bit surprised at that. Of course he knew Ikkaku was kinder than he let most believe, but for him to do something so thoughtful wasn't exactly normal for him.

"He's surprisingly reasonable," she continued. "Maybe he's not so much the perfect eleventh division member after all, huh?"

"Captain-"

"I'm going to be watching him. He's not off the hook, so to speak, and I don't know how I feel about this altogether, but I'm seeing something positive at least."

"What do you mean?"

"Before Ikkaku ever came along, you would have never had the courage to stand before a mob of rioters and try to appeal to their insanity. You've never even been able to stand before your subordinates with any confidence. I still do not like the eleventh division, I do not like Ikkaku, and I do not approve. But I will not meddle," she smiled softly and looked up from her paperwork. "You may go home to rest for the remainder of the day; I'm sure you're tired."

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Short chapter, but I really like this one. It made me smile and be all happy. And there wasn't even a bit of blood and gore so it was a very fluffy thing.