CHAPTER 2d:
The 2nd Division: Special Operations
The breeze gently tossed a few loose ends of the tight bandages which entirely covered the 2nd Division Lt.'s thin body. Only a wide gray visor with small black slits for eye holes, and two small black holes at the ears remained uncovered. Over his bandages he wore a floor length, black cape held together at the chest by a small pin of blackened silver made to look like the insignia of the 2nd Division. The loose bandages and cape flapped in the wind, revealing a small black hilt tanto knife tucked into the inside of the black cape over his left breast.
The Lt. stood silently in the large grassy courtyard while twenty black 'ninja' clad Onmitsukido Executive Division/2nd Division members were sitting cross-legged in four rows of five each in front of him, their zanpaktuo's laid horizontally across their laps and their heads down with their eyes shut.
"Kyosuke!... let's go"
Cho Iwaza blurted out loudly as she erupted from the front door to 2nd Division Barracks, disrupting the quiet serenity of the courtyard. She made her way quickly down the steps of the barracks to the pathway surrounding the courtyard. A few 2nd Division Shinigami struggled to follow and keep up with her quick steps. One of the members held up a stack of papers while pointing to them, and the other ran in front of Cho trying, unsuccessfully, to use his back as a steady writing surface for the Captain. In Cho's hand was a pen, and she was blindly signing each of them, her exasperated face sighing with each new document.
Kyosuke Nukaga's head immediately flipped to look over to his Captain as she approached his training session. Cho was average in height but quite thin, her straight black bangs lay just above her eyes framing her pretty, but somewhat grizzled, face. Her long black thickly braided hair fell evenly between her shoulders, extending down past her waist. It flopped back and forth over her white sleeveless Captain's coat, which itself lay over her tight fitting short sleeve black Shinigami robes. Her lower legs were wrapped in white tape down to the white tabi shoes on her feet.
Kyosuke nodded in quick response to her and rushed to his customary position, just behind his Captain as she continued to sign paperwork. He kept a slight distance but his pace matched hers perfectly.
"Enough! Be gone you two..."
Cho said tossing the pen into the air behind her and motioning to the two Shinigami accompanying her, who immediately moved to the side and stopped in their place, bowing their heads low, with not even a 'yes sir' spoken to confirm her orders. Kyosuke then elegantly reached his mummy like arm out from under his cape, and snatched the pen in the air as it came close to him, then tucking it away in an inside pocket of his dark cape.
"You know, Kyosuke…this new Captain…she'd better be as good as Hirokatsu says. I mean, I can't stand those noble's getting handed ANYTHING they don't deserve."
Kyosuke then closed the distance between the two of them slightly. He nodded unseen to her and softly responded.
"Yes, sir."
Cho paused as they approached the large 2nd Division gate leading to the streets. She then stopped just short of it, as Kyosuke continued past her, who then reached out from under his long cape to grab the door handle and push open the door so she could go through, standing to the side as he did so.
She then waited for him to close the door and take up his normal position to the rear of her, before she then spoke to him again.
"Too bad 'bout the old 8th Captain though, he was a good one….Even at the end. Even still, a noble getting MORE power is not something I like seeing…"
She stood for a short while there in the shadow of the 2nd Division walls. Then speaking once again, she closed her eyes and turned to Kyosuke, her head hanging downward slightly to the ground, her voice pointed and with all seriousness.
"Create a five man squad to observe her actions for the next six months. I want regular updates of all her activities each week…understood?"
She finished raising her head to look up, directly into Kyosuke's empty black eye slits in his mask, her dark eyes emphasizing her orders.
Kyosuke nodded to her and responded, his voice always muffled some under the tight bandages around his mouth.
"Yes, sir…It will be formed and dispatched by nightfall…"
"Excellent."
Cho said as her eyes lessened their seriousness a bit. She took a short step closer to Kyosuke and patted him friendly, but firmly, on the shoulder. Then quickly she turned back forward and headed towards the 1st Division and the Captains meeting.
The twenty Shinigami seated in the grassy courtyard did not flinch from their seated positions as the gate from the 2nd Division courtyard to the Seretei streets banged shut, the afternoon breeze lightly lapping across their exposed skin. Under their dark attire the sun warmed them as they sat silently, eyes shut.