"...and resulted in twenty casualties on our side." Karin and Toshiro glanced at each other, angry expressions on both their faces. While it could be said that they were winning due to (usually) having less casualties than the rebels, it did not change the fact that souls were still being destroyed- forced into their second death.
Okay, that was not entirely fair; the rebels were using shinigami zanpakuto and kido to fight, and, regardless of how the zanpakuto were stolen and the kido was unpracticed, they still sent souls through the cycle of reincarnation. Toshiro was just glad that it had no chance of developing into another thousand year blood war. One was more than enough for anyone, thank you. (Though at having this thought he felt a sudden wave of pity for the former Soutaicho).
The hell butterfly finished its report and dissolved, leaving Toshiro and Karin alone in his office. Toshiro closed his eyes, taking a moment to mourn for the souls who were lost in battle and noticed Karin doing the same. The two of them remained silent for a full minute before Karin stood up and grabbed Toshiro's attention.
"I'm going to go tell the other members of the group about this, I have patrol there soon anyway. Is there anything else you want me to tell them for you? Other than telling Rangiku not to drink, of course."
Toshiro's lips quirked up into a small smile but he shook his head. "No, thank you. I'm going to be meeting with some other captains now to see if we can pinpoint a pattern to the attack locations. I'll be in the first division if you suddenly need me for something, but I'd try not to interrupt us."
"Is it really a good idea for all the captains to be meeting in one place right now? If word gets out this might cause them to think this would be the perfect time to stage an attack…"
"Don't worry about that, I'll be one of the few there. The rest are going to listen and communicate through a shared video network from their group bases. I just happen to -unfortunately- be the captain most used to the world of the living so Kyoraku-soutaicho wants me to be there to give insight on whether a pattern could be the result of a base in the world of the living. No one else really knows how to navigate Japan's maps so I'm going to be asked to do that."
"Yikes, poor you. Well, I'll be sure to conduct a proper funeral for you when you get back from the torture of having to take a semi-active role in a captain meeting for possibly several hours. Would you prefer orange lilies or a candytuft or both for your funeral?"
"...Doesn't orange lily mean hatred in the language of the flowers?'
"Yup."
"...And candytuft mean indifference?"
"Well, if we both heard Rangiku tell us that it seems likely. So which one would you rather have? I'm afraid I have good information which states that all other flowers are going to be gone by then."
There was a long silence which stretched between them as Toshiro brought his hand to his face and covered his eyes before giving a long-suffering sigh. He glanced through cracks in his fingers.
"For a shinigami you are extremely rude when it comes to death. I feel like you got this sense of humor from Hirako-taichou, but at this point I honestly can't be sure you didn't already have it." As he spoke, he noticed Karin's smirk getting wider and her overall expression radiating vindictive pleasure. "I suppose I have to say I prefer hatred to indifference, even if I don't particularly like the color orange."
"Oh, why would you choose that? I honestly thought you'd pick the other one for how much it resembles your usual attitude when it comes to dealing with your squad."
"I wish I could be indifferent to all of you-" Karin smirked again, proud of her ability to teach her boyfriend her sense of humor "-but I also heard Matsumoto say hatred is the mirror image of love while indifference and apathy are the opposite. If I had to pick one, I suppose I can settle with that one."
"...You know, we don't really see her as often as we used to with this whole rebellion going on, but I feel like she taught both of us a hundred times more facts than what the academy did."
Toshiro found he could not actually come up with a reasonable argument to discredit that statement.
"Anyways, as fun as this has been, I should probably get going. I have patrol in, like, twenty minutes and need to tell everyone the results of the recent battles before then. I'll see you later."
Toshiro smiled and nodded to her before she vanished, her shunpo taking her to the tenth's districts in a matter of seconds. Another glance at the clock and Toshiro stood up, realizing he needed to get going to avoid being late for the captain's meeting. (Actually, he still had another thirty minutes, but, to him, being 'on time' was the same as being late).
(It made Karin occasionally want to strangle him).
When Toshiro landed in the meeting hall his first thought was on how many maps were in the room. Rolls of paper were scattered on practically every table they could be fit on and several were stacked on top of each other to fit more. He turned to Kyoraku, one eyebrow raised.
"Is it really necessary to have to many of these?"
"Well, I asked some of my subordinates to find you maps on the world of the living, but none of them have been on any missions there which lasted more than a day. They're not familiar with the geography… so they might have gone a little overboard in finding maps. It sort of depends how specific you want the maps to be."
Toshiro walked closer to a table and picked up one of the maps. On the top of the map were the words Kingscote, Gloucestershire. A quick search on his phone revealed to him that it was a village in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. Toshiro was, unfortunately, not very familiar with the country as England was relatively far from the current spiritual hotspot. Now that he thought of it, he was pretty sure no shinigami had really heard of this town before. So that begged the question;
"I… What exactly is the purpose of having a map on this? Won't keeping it here just make it that much harder to find the ones we need? I'm afraid I have trouble seeing the logic behind this."
"Yeah, I think you're right." Toshiro turned to Kyoraku with a disbelieving expression which his superior officer glanced away from as if a misbehaving child.
"Did anyone supervise what was going on inside here while you were preparing for the meeting? I can't imagine more than a handful of people would make a mistake like this."
"Yeah, someone probably should've."
Toshiro's expression turned to a glare; for all that he respected the man and knew not to behave like this in public, he could get annoyingly Urahara-like vibes from his 'superior'.
"You know, Shiro-" the nickname earned him an even deadlier glare "I'm pretty sure you're the best in the Gotei Thirteen at organizing people like this and planning how you want things to be done,"
"Byakuya Kuchiki also possesses skill in that department."
"Yeah, but he already has a clan to take care of and such. You're also working on the rebuilding of houses in lower districts, so you have planning in that." Toshiro scowled, but did not object; he, Sensai and Karin had managed to get permission from both the Kuchiki's and Shihoin clan, allowing them to have finished Shihoin and Shiba territories. They would get started on the first section of Kuchiki territories in a few days.
"Do you have a point you're trying to make?"
"Yes, I had an idea. Maybe it would be best if you took over planning meeting from now on. I mean, Yama-jii did that before, but he was also the best at it. I personally think everyone would agree you'd be a better choice. You could just check in with me on what I want and handle the rest!"
Toshiro stared- half worried over the Soutaicho's mental health and half worried over his own mental health. Surely he just heard wrong or was in the middle of a hallucination, Kyoraku could not mean it.
Yes, the points he brought up did make sense, and yes, Toshiro would be the best choice for it, and yes, it was the kind of idea Kyoraku would come up with and be completely serious about… but why would that be a good idea? He was one of twelve captains, would giving him extra authority cause issues and distrust among them? This was quite possibly the worst time for distrust among the captains, why would he bring it up now?
However, even as he stared and blinked Kyoraku continued standing in front of him with a carefree smile, his wide-brimmed hat dipping slightly to cover his eyes in a far too Urahara Kisuke-like manner. Come to think of it, they had been spending a lot of time together recently whenever Kyoraku wanted to reach Ichigo and company.
"...Why don't we get started with what we actually planned on having a meeting for and then we can worry about that later. After the meeting we can suggest the idea and see what the other captains think." Toshiro felt captains like Kurotsuchi-taichou, Soi-Fon or Byakuya Kuchiki would be the most strongly outspoken against the idea, so at least he would have some backup in convincing Kyoraku.
The screens surrounding them suddenly flickered to life as the other captains began to connect the calls. As Kyoraku began his introduction Toshiro searched through the maps to find the most relevant ones.
Actually, the job reminded him of something Karin had told him once about her time in the world of the living; whenever she had far too many useless papers to get through a presentation, she would fish around for an semi-important one and explain the rest of what she wanted to say from memory.
Toshiro had always pre-planned and created presentations exactly how he wanted them to be, but he supposed it would be worth it to try. He remembered the map of Japan he had looked at for missions, so once he found a larger, less specific map of the country he set it down and unrolled it.
"...and for this we will mostly be using information from the second division, but any other information squads have found will be valued. We are fairly certain the base is in the world of the living, please speak out if you know anything," Kyoraku continued as Toshiro began listening to his introductory speech. "I have maps of the larger world, so I'd like to start off with any larger areas of land you think we can cross off. Countries or even continents would be best."
Toshiro saw Soi-fon nod and pull up papers while he pulled out a notebook to write down the checked areas. She cleared her throat and stepped forward slightly.
"We have been tracking the places unregistered gates have opened and have noticed none of them have appeared even close to any of the American continents. This is theorized to be because South and North America are so spiritually thin and any gate made nearby would have been noticed…"
The discussion continued as Toshiro jotted down notes and crossed off countries with information from most divisions- Kurotsuchi had stopped paying attention and Kenpachi had not bothered starting to listen- leaving them with only Japan and a handful of surrounding countries in Asia.
Soon Toshiro put Karin's suggestion to the test, using only his memory to cross out specific sections in each country. For all the areas Toshiro did not know he made a quick search on his soul phone for, though luckily there were far fewer of those than he had feared there would be.
Once the maps had been narrowed down far enough Kyoraku stopped them and ordered the second division to scout around those areas for possible locations. Toshiro breathed a sigh of relief; he could handle most things, but simultaneously writing on a map with no words and explaining the information the tenth had found to the whole group was capable of exhausting even him. Then Kyoraku decided that was the time to suggest his ridiculous idea.
"By the way, before we go I would like to propose something; I've been a bit busy lately and even Yama-jii had trouble putting together research before a captain's meeting, what if we had Toshiro do it?"
Before Toshiro could object- too busy with staring in shock at the fact that Kyoraku had just volunteered him- the other captains began nodding along.
"That does seem like a good idea." Soi-fon nodded, "We could increase your pay for the effort and if the Soi-taicho orders you to do this there would be no need to create a new position. We have started creating divisions which specialize in certain areas already, this would not be too different," she said, referring to the twelfth.
"Actually, I believe something like that has a chance of creating problems with the balance of power and such. As the divisions are meant to be one Soi-taicho with twelve equally-ranked captains it doesn't seem like a wise decision to change that. While I admit meetings could be planned better, I wouldn't want to cause issues like that."
"If ya did the meetings'd go a whole lot smoother," Hirako-taichou said, making several captains nod in agreement. "Besides, if we 'ad one person doin' it then none of the other captains would have to worry about it. It'd make everything more efficient."
"Yes, it would also give me more time to work on my experiments," Kurotsuchi agreed.
Ah, that explained it. Toshiro raised an eyebrow as he realized the other captains just did not like doing the work (barring Byakuya, who really just wanted the meetings to run more efficiently). How could the highest ranking people in the afterlife- some of the most powerful beings in existence- be so lazy? Well, lazy when it was not something that interested them, at least.
Toshiro honestly would not mind doing the work, but he was getting a bit annoyed at how eager the other captains were to give it all to him. Just because he was the only one who occasionally enjoyed paperwork did not mean he enjoyed it all the time. He sighed as he acknowledged he was probably the best choice.
That did not change the fact that he wanted nothing more than to start repeatedly banging his head on the closest wall. He resisted the temptation. Barely.
"...Alright. If there are no objections to this I can take over planning all future captain meetings-" he ignored the way even the captains who usually kept masks on broke into huge relieved grins "-now, is there any other information on possible locations of the base we can share before ending this meeting? I would appreciate it if we got back on topic."
"Yes, actually." Kyoraku instantly captured everyone's attention, his body language shifting to resemble what they expected from the Captain Commander. "I will inform you if this changes based on the reports from the second division, but for now we have pretty much no idea what kind of defenses the base will possess. While it would be silly to not include some of our strongest fighters in the attack, I would also like you to start considering shinigami who have somewhat unique skills. In the event that they would be useful to us I'd like them to be there."
Based on the description the first person who passed through Toshiro's mind was Sensai. While she could be put in danger as a result, she also had a one of a kind ability Toshiro had not seen in any others. It was mostly just a question of whether it was worth it to put her in danger when her ability was likely unnecessary.
Maybe Karin could help him figure it out.
As soon as the captains were dismissed Toshiro broke off into a flurry of shunpo to where Karin was handling her patrol. She always helped him figure out the angle he needed to look at a problem from.
This time Karin barely blinked at his sudden appearance, though her hand did twitch towards her zanpakuto before she confirmed who it was. It helped that Toshiro was also faster at proving his identity.
Once he did she relaxed her shoulders and leaned back slightly, raising a single eyebrow. "You know, Shiro, as happy as I am to see you… if you keep showing up like this while I'm on patrol I'm going to start thinking you don't believe in me. Well, that, or you're actually more lonely than I originally thought."
Smiling at her snark, Toshiro shook his head and said, "Actually, I'm here for some help. At the captain's meeting we discussed that the Soutaicho wants us to invite people who have unique skills on the invasion when we locate the base. He doesn't know what their defenses will be, so the larger variety in soldiers we have the more likely we are to succeed. And I… I was considering that it might be a good idea to invite-"
"Sensai?" Karin guessed, having seen his uncharacteristic hesitation. He did have a point, she was pretty unique, but could easily injure herself in battle. The girl who fixed houses was not exactly what Karin would consider 'combat ready'. Especially given that Karin had only seen her work in controlled environments.
But if they did end up needing her, then she would be vital to the battle. It was mostly just a question of how likely that was to happen, something they had next to no information on.
Karin pursed her lips.
"Okay… how about this. You can explain the whole situation to her-"
"-Classified."
"-some of the situation to her, and let her make the decision herself. If this was live combat and you needed to make a split-second decision I'm sure you'd be able to, it's this whole dwelling on it thing that's making you worry. But, hey, we have the time, you might as well ask her. She's not in your squad in the first place."
Toshiro nodded, his posture relaxing and the signs of stress leaving his expression. "That sounds good."
"Actually, can you wait? I'd like to talk with her too, it's been a while."
"I can, how much time left do you have of patrol?"
Sneaking a quick glance at her phone for the time- she really needed to get around to buying a watch- Karin sent Toshiro a slightly- apologetic but still teasing smile, "I have around two more hours, think you can survive that long without me? If not, I'm pretty sure Rangiku is in the tenth division group's little base-thing, so you can talk to her."
"...Well, I should probably check that she's done her paperwork. I'll see you in two hours then, can you meet me at that base? I might just do my paperwork there."
"Anything his majesty the captain commands."
"Isn't it a bit contradictory to say 'his majesty the captain'?"
"Maybe, I don't care. Off you go now," Karin told him as she made dismissive motions with her arms. Toshiro nodded and left, leaving Karin to suffer through two more hours of the somewhat-important but mind-numbingly boring job. And the worst part was that you could not let your numbed brain rest, you had to always be ready.
When Toshiro arrive at the base the first thing he noticed- much to a certain Lieutenant's fear- was that Matsumoto and another member of the tenth division had found a large bottle of sake. Putting on a slightly drunk and false smile, Matsumoto waved at him and not- so- subtly tried to hide the sake bottle under the bench.
"Hi, taicho! The two of us are off our patrol, so we thought we would come in here to relax. We have no patrol until around 11:00 PM- which I hate by the way, it leaves us no time to sleep- so we figured we'd calm down and enjoy ourselves. Do you want to join us? It might be fun!"
"Matsumoto. This is the time in which you're meant to sleep before you go to your patrol. That also doesn't answer the question of why you're drinking sake in my office."
"Isn't it the group's office?" Matsumoto asked, clearly not noticing the rapid drop in temperature or the ice beginning to form on the windows. While Toshiro had gotten much better at controlling his physical outbursts, some of the impacts his emotions had on his reiatsu were more of a challenge.
He took a deep breath and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to calm down. "I came to both make sure you were getting some rest and check if your paperwork has been finished. As I can see the former hasn't been achieved yet I am hesitant to ask, but did you finish the paperwork I gave you?"
"Ummm… "
Toshiro stared at her, waiting patiently for his answer.
"...Well, you see, I… the thing is that, well I was, I just was…"
By now, the man she had been drinking sake with was starting to inch away, fear evident in his face.
"The… problem with that is, um, paperwork is the enemy of all existence as we know it so I haven't exactly… I need a little more time?" As Toshiro continued to stare at her in silence she became increasingly worried. "Taicho?"
"...In around an hour and a half Karin will be coming here so we can go meet with someone to suggest something to them. I will help you until then, but you will be finishing the rest yourself. Am. I. Understood?"
His eyes had begun glowing an icy bluish-white and the other soul was very, very glad he had started backing away. He was pretty sure he was starting to see his breath, so he quickly left the room and decided to follow his captain's advice about sleeping before he had more patrol.
"Y-yes sir."
Later, when Karin arrived at the division, she was greeted by both her captain and lieutenant working on paperwork (though it seemed to be that one of them was working on it while the other cried as she rested her head on it, smearing the ink). Toshiro, who had noticed her reiatsu, looked up and gave her a nod before putting away his work and moving to leave with her. As he left, he cast a glance back at his lieutenant.
"Finish all the work we still need to do."
"Yes sir…."
Karin held back a laugh and an eye roll as Toshiro sighed again and the two of them left. Toshiro, being by far the best at sensing, led the way to Sensai, who happened to be at the market.
"Sensai," Karin called out as soon as they arrived, but felt slightly guilty when her sudden word caused said girl to jump and turn around, almost falling in the process.
"Oh, Kurosaki, Hitsugaya-taicho. Hello."
"Hey, Shiro wanted to talk to you about something."
Toshiro nodded and sent her a smile. "This is entirely optional, but I thought I could bring it up. If you want to I think we could have you on the attack force which will be sent out because of your unique skill… I don't want to assume anything or make you feel pressured, I'm just suggesting the idea and telling you I" "we," Karin interjected, "yes, we will support you if you choose to. Just thought I'd bring the idea up."
"I… that, thank you. That really is an honor, um, can I have some time to think on it?" At Karin and Toshiro's simultaneous nods she was able to relax a bit more. "And is there any update on the villages? Anything more I can do for that?"
"Well, actually, and I haven't had a chance to tell you yet," Toshiro began, directing the latter part at Karin, "the captains all decided that from now on I would be in charge of planning the meetings and organizing them, so I should be able to bring those up sometime and gain more support."
"Oh, so they finally realized that you're obviously best at arranging meetings and if you do it they won't have to?" Karin asked, realizing what had happened in seconds. For all that Toshiro could excel in politics, Karin completely understood the other shinigami and captains.
"I suppose so. Regardless, I just thought I'd suggest the idea. I'll see you soon." He told Sensai, to which the other girl blushed and nodded, mumbling how she would be happy to see them for the work on Kuchiki villages.
Toshiro and Karin turned to each other, sharing a smile, before they gathered their reiatsu and seemingly vanished.
1) So I'm considering having a chapter at the end which shows what their lives are like after everything and a few years have passed, sort of like what happened in the actual Bleach manga. I'd like to hear your guy's thoughts on this, because I'm still not sure. Also, if you want me to include kids I'd appreciate some suggestions for names I could use. Thanks!