Seasons
It's summer again and the heat has turned you into a living melting ice cream. It has been two years since you chased away your last fukutaicho and Yama-jii has grown weary of your usual antics. He should be a bit more sympathetic but then again he's surely lost more friends and comrades in his last 3 or 4 thousand years then you'll ever know in your own life.
Lisa has been gone for 1829 days and you're still counting…not that it will do you any good.
Sadly, many officers have found better captains to fight for and all you've been left with is a bunch of lazy drunks. Much as yourself these days.
A cloud takes a few moments of your time in the sun and you've got a brief respite from the still too hot weather. The strange thing is that there is no wind to speak of and the air is oppressive as a heavy curtain of black velvet. Where could this cloud have come from? Minutes after minutes go by and when you finally open your eyes you discover there is just the sun in front of you and a smallish figure in between.
Your sight is not completely right and everything seems surrounded by spots of the deepest black. But when your eyes decide to finally adjust, you can see a girl, barely out of childhood and standing still almost like a porcelain doll.
And she is as beautiful as one. Her skin is white and flawless, her hair dark and finely composed. Her dress seems without wrinkles and her mouth a decisive line across her face. Only her eyes are hidden to your gaze but you sit and then you see: they're like the sky when the sun last touches it. Indigo.
Nanao.
Your little Nanao-chan.
Not so little anymore (you remember to yourself she is almost fifteen even if she seems twelve)
She is still standing waiting for you to give her leave to speak.
You nod and she finally opens her mouth
"Taicho, Ise Nanao at rapport. I've been assigned as Fukutaicho of eight division…"
The wind suddenly starts up just next to you and a powerful blast of fresh air caress your skin. It's a completely foreign sensation and your senses are coming awake the more you listen to her.
She has stopped, now, but this great sensation of feeling all of your limbs, all of your hairs and nails and everything that's you has not and while you know you love summer and the heat, the sweat and the stillness of it, you think you're starting to appreciate autumn too: its sparkling weather, the beautiful warm tones of the leaves and the earth and this new air that has finally come your way.
She is autumn, cold but not quite cold, and as unobtrusive as the tittering rain.
She is your Nanao-chan, growth but not too much and still as proper as you remember.
She is your new Fukutaicho (and your last you vow to yourself).
She is just that one good intake of air you needed to start breathing again.
For the first time in a long time, you're grateful again.