Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto is a man who had walked the grounds of Soul Society for more than two millenniums. His power is a force of nature, his presence itself strikes fear into his foes, his aura commands respect from his subordinates. He takes his duties seriously and is stern in his approach in upholding the hard-earned peace in Soul Society. How he carries himself and what was passed down through generations about his legendary feats is why Shinigamis in the Gotei 13 both respect and fear him.
That is why the moment he returned from a Captains' meeting, he took a pause and rubbed his eyes to check if his eyesight is truly failing him in his old age. Why is there a little girl, the robes on her person telling him that she is a Shinigami from the Seventh Division, standing in front at the doors of his office and dozing off as she leaned against the wall?
The soft snores he heard from the girl told him that his eyesight is indeed working perfectly, so he barked at the girl in his usual authoritative voice.
"Wake up, Shinigami!"
"Wha?! What?! Who?! I'm up! I'm up!"
The little girl who is only about one or two centuries old at most jumped up on her feet upon hearing his booming voice. The aged warrior frowned. What is Sajin doing? He must be getting lax in disciplining his men if this girl's behaviour is any indication.
"Oh, hi!" The young girl gave him a wave after the customary bow she gave him in respect of his position. "I heard from Captain Kyoraku that you have a nice tea set, so I came to ask to borrow it! May I borrow your tea set for a while? Pleeeeasssee?"
And that, was the first time Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto found himself truly dumbfounded in the two millenniums that he had lived. Not even facing against Yhwach and his ridiculous powers in his youth had that effect on him.
Despite how unbelievable he found it, that a young girl would come all the way to his barracks to ask him for permission to borrow his tea set, the aged Captain let her into his office anyway. She had obviously waited outside his doors for a long time, she at least deserves an audience no matter how brief it is.
What he initially planned to be an approximately two-minute talk before shooing the girl out of his office turned out to be a pleasant conversation that took several hours. He still remembers the very first question he posed to the girl. It was one that he just had to ask to sate his curiosity.
"How did you get to my office's doors?"
"I simply walked!"
"Walk?"
"Yup! For some reason, nobody stopped me when I entered the barracks. So I just kept on walking until I got here! I wanted to just borrow your tea set and leave a note behind to tell you about it, but then I remembered Sofu said that it is bad manners to do so without asking. So I decided to wait for your return!"
The Captain Commander can feel his slitted eyes twitching irritably in return, even it is so minute that no one would have spotted it. The route to his office is heavily guarded and not just anyone is granted an audience with him here. If a girl only about a century old is able to sneak past all his men, including his vice-captain, by walking, then it seems that he has been too lax with his men, not Sajin.
Sajin had raised a fine warrior in this little girl.
"If you want to borrow my tea set, then show me that you using it will not tarnish its purpose. Go brew me a cup of tea. If I deem your work satisfactory, I will allow you to borrow it."
"Aye aye, Captain!"
With a salute, the energetic girl dashed off to grab his tea set from where it is sitting on his shelf. The Captain Commander helped a little by starting a small fire with his power over the element for the kettle to boil, but that is all the help he is going to give. Come to think of it, he hasn't asked the small Shinigami for her name. He should ask for it later.
Yamamoto watched in approval as the little girl performed the tea ceremony perfectly. Not many appreciate the art that comes with the ceremony nowadays, something that he laments about the youngsters in Seireitei. Even his vice-captain, Sasakibe Chojiro, has different preferences from him when it comes to tea. His long-time subordinate prefers the western tradition when it comes to appreciating tea, unlike him who prefers the eastern tradition. The young girl is preparing the tea with the ways of the eastern tradition, something which he can appreciate. It is obvious at a glance that the girl had practiced the art of brewing tea for a long time. He can entrust his favourite tea set to her for a short while like she had asked.
The girl offered him the first cup of tea which Yamamoto took. He took a whiff of the aroma. It is well done. He followed up by taking his first sip. Splendid. He hasn't had such a nice cup of tea in decades, or has it been centuries? At the very least, his skills in making tea isn't as good as this little girl despite how long he had been doing it.
"Girl, what's your name?"
"Kuchiki Kurui, Third Seat of the Seventh Division, at your service!" The girl replied proudly. Yamamoto opened his eyes a little wider and finally spotted the kenseikan she wore in her hair. It seems that his eyesight is indeed failing if he didn't notice the hairpieces until now.
"Is your grandfather well?" Yamamoto asked in genuine curiosity. Kuchiki Ginrei had been one of his finest warriors and is finally able to retire. He misses the warrior that had the same views as him when it comes to upholding the peace in Soul Society. Despite that, Yamamoto believes that Ginrei had made the right choice in passing on the baton to Byakuya.
"He is! Thanks for asking! I heard a lot about you from him!"
"Good things, I hope." Yamamoto said in amusement. His mood had somehow got a lot lighter with the bubbly girl around. "Your clan does not lack fine tea sets, so why do you want to risk incurring my wrath to borrow mine?"
"Well, there are many reasons." The girl looked up in thought with a finger to her chin. "For one, I am curious what the First Division is like since I've never been here before. Two, if even Captain Kyoraku claimed that your tea set is the best, then it has to be the best. Three, I really want to brew a nice cup of tea for Sofu. I had the best tea leaves, but I need the best tea set to go along with it and you have what I needed. Four…"
The conversation carried on after that, with Yamamoto asking the girl questions and her giving him answers. It soon became a sharing session to her from him about his experiences and the battles he had been in, making sure that the bloodier ones are suitably censored for the little girl. He taught her a few tricks when she admitted that she is just above average in Hakuda. She told him about the latest happenings in the Seireitei. He allowed her to use his prized tea leaves collection to continue to brew tea for the two of them as their conversation carried on. She continues to brew heavenly tea for him as she chattered without stop.
It is a nice change of pace to be able to act like the weary old man that he truly is. He has no children of his own. He has Shunsui and Jushiro, who he viewed as his sons in all but blood. They have no children and he doesn't have any grandchildren as well, so having a little girl who is able to talk to him without fear of his status is a refreshing experience. Vice-captain Kusajishi from the Eleventh Division doesn't fear him as well, but she never visits unless there are promises of snacks. He could count on one hand how often these occasions are.
"You are more than welcomed to visit whenever you are free, Third Seat Kuchiki." Yamamoto remembered when their first meeting finally ended, he even personally wrapped his favourite tea set and put it in its box for the young Kuchiki to bring back home. "Next time, my men will be on alert since I will be giving them a stern talking to after this for failing to detect you. If you can continue to sneak past them the next time you visit, I will share more stories with you."
"Yay! Thank you, Captain Commander!"
The Kuchiki girl made her exit with a cheery wave as he gave her a farewell nod. He rang for his Vice-Captain the moment he sensed the girl leaving his division's barracks, mentally noting the path she took to exit without being caught by tracking her Reiatsu. Huh, who would have thought sneaking through the division's kitchen is a good way to freely enter and exit the barracks undetected?
His Vice-Captain appeared within minutes and Yamamoto cleared his throat. It is time to straighten his men back to their vigilant state. Geez, with how lax the youngsters are nowadays, it is no wonder that he is unable to retire.
The second time they met, the young Kuchiki is already sitting in his office brewing tea with the previously borrowed tea set.
"Hello Captain Commander!"
"Third Seat Kuchiki." Yamamoto returned the greeting as he closed the door behind him. He had known his men had failed once again when he sensed the girl's Reiatsu entering his office while he was at the other side of the barracks. It seems that he wasn't stern enough in the punishment he had dealt out to them for failing their duties. How hard can it be to catch a little girl?
As usual, Kuchiki Kurui let him have the first cup of tea. Her skills in brewing tea seems to have improved.
"Thank you for letting me borrow your tea set!" She chirped out as she brewed another batch when the tea starts to turn cold.
"Did Ginrei enjoy it?"
Kurui giggled as she continues to do what she is doing.
"You should see Sofu's face! His eyes nearly popped out when he saw me taking out your tea set! He wanted to rush here and return it to you immediately since he was convinced that I had stolen it!"
Ah, he should have guessed that the presence of his tea set in the girl's hands would have that kind of effect.
Their meetings got more frequent after that. The aged elder soon realised that Kurui is extremely sharp despite how she acted like an airhead with no sense of responsibility. She learns differently from most. Where most others would learn by studying, Kurui not only does that, but also actively listen to the experience of others and absorbed what they knew and shared. Yamamoto also prides himself as a teacher, and so he continues to share what he had experienced and learnt during their irregular meetups. He would surprise her with sudden chops to her head, explaining that it is to train her reflexes and dodging skills since she had complained to him once that she has no idea how to dodge Sajin's strikes in their Hakuda spars. She still never manages to dodge his surprise hits, but she is getting there.
Yamamoto doesn't know how she did it, but Kurui seems to know everything that is going on in the Sereitei. She is his eyes and ears with the slew of information she will tell him when asked or bribed with snacks. She would tell him how Shunsui slacks off on his job (and Shunsui will forever be baffled as to how he got found out all the time when Yamamoto made surprise visits to the Eighth Division just right when Shunsui decided to laze around), she would tell him about Jushiro's repeated bouts of sickness and how worried she is for him (not that there is anything they can do for him, but Yamamoto cannot bring himself to tell her that it is an incurable disease). She would tell him how she barged into the Fourth Division unannounced and tried to learn how to heal wounds with Kido under Retsu's motherly guidance (something that he is sure Retsu enjoys doing). She would tell him about the free-for-all matches she had with the Shinigamis in the Eleventh Division with gusto as she added animated hand gestures for extra effect (something that always got him exasperated with how seemingly suicidal the girl is).
Yamamoto would always open his eyes a little bigger whenever Kurui mentioned that she visited the Eleventh Division again. He needs to make sure that the little girl comes out unharmed after all. Zaraki is not known for being gentle to anyone who can put up a good fight.
And when she suddenly stopped visiting altogether, he was concerned. He is sure that he hadn't spotted any Kuchikis in the casualty reports that he receives from time to time in their efforts to uphold peace between the different realms. So where had she go to?
After sending his trusty Vice-Captain to find out the reason, Chojiro returned to him with news. The girl had volunteered to be posted to the 78th District of the Rukongai to help her new sister-in-law search for her long-lost sister. There is no telling when she will return.
Yamamoto accepted the news with a small nod of his head, although he will be missing the tea that the talkative girl brew for him. Oh well, he can afford to wait. What are decades to someone like him who had lived for more than two millenniums?
It was three years later when he saw Kurui again.
The girl is as talkative as ever. Her overall combat skills had also obviously improved, judging from how fast she took in reaching his office when he first sensed her presence outside his division's barracks. That was a pleasant surprise in itself. Before Kurui left Seireitei three years ago, his men had grown to detest Kurui in a weird sort of way, since every successful entry on her part means more scolding and harsh training sessions for them by him. It is also a humiliating display that a girl younger than more than half of the division can keep sneaking past their senses undetected. Kurui had never failed her infiltration into his division's barracks even once.
Kurui personally found their reactions to be hilarious. Every time she sneaked in, she will purposely leave big and obnoxious waypoints drawn in chalk along the way that depicted the route she took to get to his office without being caught. It is almost like she is laughing at their incapability. Safe to say, other than Yamamoto himself and Chojiro, none of the men in his division have a nice impression of her for how often she landed them in hot soup and at the mercy of their Captain Commander's subsequent fury.
The three years of peace that his men enjoyed had now come to an end with her return.
Yamamoto greeted her with an unannounced chop to her head. This time, Kurui managed to dodge it. However, she wasn't expecting a second chop from him that found its target on the top of her head.
"Captain Commander! I haven't seen you for so long and this is how you greet me?! And the second chop doesn't count!"
"You have improved, Third Seat Kuchiki." Yamamoto stated as he moved to sit at his usual spot. "Would you mind brewing some tea for this old man?"
Three years isn't a long time for souls. To them, three years passed by in the blink of an eye since their bodies track time differently as compared to humans. However, Kurui had obviously grown. She got a little taller. Her face is starting to lose the baby fats and her facial features are starting to grow sharper and more refined. Her body is starting to fill out curves that all girls her age will experience at this stage of their lives.
The unlikely pair sipped on the tea that Kurui had brew for them. Yamamoto knew that Kurui had revisited the Seireitei a few times when she was off duty in Inuzuri although she never had time to visit him. She had also come back once when Ginrei had passed away peacefully in his sleep. It was a trying time for the Kuchikis, but they pulled through.
Another of his men and good friend had left him. No matter how long Yamamoto had lived, the feeling of old comrades departing before him always left him in a solemn mood. But Ginrei had passed on his will onto his descendants. Kurui is one of them. The fire that had once burnt in him is burning strong in his grandchildren. They are the future of the Seireitei.
He and Kurui made idle talk as per usual. Kurui talked about the successful completion of her self-imposed mission and Sajin had approved of her transferring back into the Seireitei. She had overstayed in the 78th District when she had no need to. Most Shinigamis who were posted there are allowed to return back to Seireitei after a year or two. Kurui had stayed there for three years voluntarily.
Kurui told her about Rukia and Renji, her new sister and friend. She told him about how she met up with Shuhei, Kanisawa, and Aoga, the first friends that she had made and kept in constant contact via letters in the three years that she wasn't here. The trio would be graduating from the Academy in a year. Yamamoto made a mental note to keep a lookout on the three friends that had caught Kurui's eye. Maybe there will be unpolished gems among the three of them.
When it was time for them to part, Yamamoto gave Kurui a present, one that he had saw and bought just for her when he spotted it in his frequent strolls around the Seireitei.
"Captain Commander! This-"
"I have no need for two tea sets. A good tea set can only truly live its purpose with a good brewer handling it. I am entrusting it to you, Third Seat Kuchiki."
Kuchiki Kurui gave him a bright smile, one that Yamamoto enjoys seeing on the girl which he had secretly took to view as his own grandchild.
"Aye aye, Captain!"
"Captain, I saw that."
"You saw nothing, Chojiro." Yamamoto continues to walk as if nothing is wrong and cracked open an eye slightly to look at his most trusted subordinate, daring him to say otherwise. A few streets behind them, Kurui is munching on mochi treats that he had just secretly passed into her hands when the two walked past each other. Despite how notorious she is for her un-noble-like behaviour, Kurui carries herself professionally whenever she performs her duties in public since she has to uphold the Kuchiki name, no matter how much she views it as a chore. Yamamoto had sensed her Reiatsu during his nightly strolls and since he is nearby as she goes about doing her patrols, he had purposely detoured to check on her. Kurui greeted him with enthusiasm as he returned the greeting with his usual silent nod. And if Chojiro spotted him passing Kurui her favourite mochi treats when the two brushed past each other, then it must be the lights playing tricks on his eyes.
"Captain-"
Yamamoto continues to stare at him with one opened eye as his other remain in its usual slitted state. He is the Captain Commander. Whatever he says goes.
"I saw nothing, Captain."
"As I had suspected it to be, Chojiro. Your age must be catching up to you."
His subordinate's twitching eye told him everything that he needs to know about his inner thoughts and Yamamoto tried his best to not chuckle out loud. Who says that a strict old man like him cannot indulge himself in a joke or two every now and then?
