Sorry if this chapter is a bit choppy, it just didn't want to be written. It was like pulling teeth. :/ Sorry for taking so long as well, Real Life has a way of getting in the way. At the moment, it seems, I have either free time or sleep time, not both. I apologize in advance, I have no idea how to do Gin's accent. Pointers, anyone?
Chapter 7: A Cleansing Rant
Sirius was relaxing in Gin's office, basking in the bright sun that filtered through the windows, which were open for the purpose of letting in the cool afternoon breeze. It was comfortable here, certainly.
Since he had gotten to the Seireitei, he had learned that about a half of a year had passed from when he had last seen Harry and he had had that little tumble into the Veil to when he had come to the proper afterlife. It had been a bit more than a half year since then, and he had relaxed into his place in the Seireitei since. He had wondered for a bare moment why he hadn't turned into a hollow. They were, after all, the souls of people who let their life damage their psyche, and his psyche had to be damaged worse than the goblet he had found that made any who drank from it feel as if they were under a pain curse as bad as the Cruciatus was dark.
The only sounds that were present in the room were the shifting of papers as the wind rustled them, and the crinkle of turning book pages. Sirius yawned widely, dropping the nearly forgotten pen in his hand into his lap, immediately grateful that the ink had already dried while he was lost in his thoughts. He placed the dry pen back onto the table atop his small sheaf of papers, twisting off the crusted ink as he went. Languidly, he returned to his musings.
Ichimaru Gin, as he had learned, was the captain of the Third Division. The other man he had met, Aizen Sosuke, was the captain of the Fifth Division. They were also apparently quite close to Tousen Kaname, who was the captain of the Ninth Division.
There were thirteen divisions, and though some divisions were specialized not all were or to the same degree. The hospitals were run by the Fourth, scientific research was run by the Twelfth, though he heard that was a more recent change, and the Second had an attached organization of assassins called the Onmitsukido. They were known for their stealth anyway, and their speed.
In the divisions themselves, apart from their other organizations, there were also some specialties. Brawlers and the hard-hitters both with swords and fists were kept (or not, as the case may be) by the Eleventh. Parts of the Fifth were Kido specialists, the Thirteenth often took care of dispatching Hollows in the Living World (in Japan only, he was told, because there were other settlements for other places in the Soul Society). The Fourth were all healers, even if many of them could fight. The Second had their speed experts, and were used as scouts. There were others, but many were less obvious.
All told, it was nearly as disorganized as the Ministry of Magic was and it only held together because of the distinct lack of real conflict.
There seemed to be little known about the First's specialties, other than that they worked with the Kido Corps on occasion if any of the Gotei 13 did and that they were involved in some sort of ritual-making. He decided to stay far away from them, knowing what rituals meant to his family. Pain and darkness and suffering. No, he would not be entering the First Division for anything not absolutely necessary.
Apart from the Gotei 13, there was also the Kido Corps, which were the only somewhat militaristic organization, or organization at all, that used reiryoku and were completely separate from the Gotei 13. He knew nothing about them except for that, which he had only heard of in passing.
There were also apparently noble families, as he had been rudely introduced to by that Kuchiki Byakuya, who was apparently head of the Kuchiki family. The Kuchikis were apparently some of the bigshots. He knew that his history with the Ancient and Noble House of Black worked against him in this case, and that he might be unnecessarily or undeservedly harsh to the noble families, but the formality the man preferred rubbed him wrong. In his experience, the Blacks, evil and insane as they often were, were the formal ones, while the Potters, the good, happy, sane ones, were generally informal.
This had led to him associating formality in the case of noble families as being inherently bad. And given that this Kuchiki Byakuya was supposedly the younger one (if the comments that had reached his ears were to be believed) the rest of the family could only be more stuffy. Age did that to people. He had given in and taken the test to see if there was any relation just for the sake of not hearing about it ever again, but he didn't know when he would be getting the results from that. In the Wizarding World, a potion would have been brewed and relation shown in a matter of a couple hours, sooner if more expensive if one involved the Goblins.
He was desperately hoping for a negative result.
He was also sure that the Kuchiki shared the sentiment.
The man had, after all, stalled the efforts for months supposedly on the by-your-leave from the Kuchiki elders who did not want to take the chance of a positive result from an interloper. He was sure that if Kuchiki had wanted to know, he would have leaned a bit more on his elders.
Sirius was gently brought forth from his thoughts by a chuckle. Across from him, Gin was chuckling mischievously as he toyed with a piece of chewy candy. Given that Gin had never shown much of an interest in the sweet stuff (though he had seen the man with lollipops every now and then) he decided to ask. He was a prankster, despite everything else, and he could definitely recognize a prankster's laugh when he heard one.
"So, Gin, who have you managed to trick or bribe into doing what to whom?" Sirius asked curiously.
Gin grinned in his endearingly creepy way. "Meh, y'know, if ya give Yachiru-chan a bitta candy she'll do almost anything for ya. Wonder if it hurts tha Kuchiki much to pull out tha stick, ne? Last I heard the bastard actually likes Yachiru-chan, so she'll be fine there. He'll tolerate her. 'Sides, the guy's been bothering Kurotsuchi and me bout ya. He deserves what he gets."
Sirius hacked out a laugh. "I don't even want to think about Kuchiki after all this is over." The laugh trailed off after a moment, and Sirius sobered up. "That test should finish today, though, and that should be the end of that guy bothering you two." Sirius shook his head from side to side. " Y'know, Gin, I honestly, truly, sincerely hope that you never meet my godson Harry."
"Eh? Why not?" Gin grinned more widely so that his eyes were forced even more tightly closed by the pressure.
"You both would be horribly bad influences on each other. Really, I hope you never meet, or you would be worse than a force of nature! Especially if you had the temerity to plan pranks together." Sirius responded. "It would be terrible, I tell you!"
Gin relaxed his face a bit. "Tha' not vera nice of ya."
Sirius raised his eyebrows comedically. "Since when do you do nice?"
Gin's face twisted into something between a grimace and a pout which sent Sirius into gales of laughter. His laughter had yet to subside by the time that Aizen walked in to the office doorway. Aizen merely raised an eyebrow at the scene inside the room. He didn't think that he had ever quite managed to create the expression currently transforming his ex-apprentice's face.
Sirius, who turned around at the sound of Aizen's approaching footsteps, breathed out a few more chuckles before suitably calming down to answer the implied question. "He's pouting because I told him that it would be a bad idea for the rest of us if he ever met my godson."
"Is that so?" Aizen asked bemusedly.
"Definitely." Sirius snorted loudly. "My pup is the king of revenge pranks. Cross him at your own risk, because I'm not sticking my neck in his line of fire again."
"Again?" Aizen parodied.
"Yes, again." Sirius shuddered exaggeratedly. "I'm glad that I'm on the same side as him-he's the last person I would like to have as an enemy. He fights dirtier than I ever did when I was in school, and I admit I used to be a menace."
Gin looked up, radiating innocence. "Dirty?"
"Yeah. He mixes pranking with fighting, and gets away with it!" Sirius replied.
"He must be an interesting opponent," observed Aizen.
"Interesting doesn't even begin to cover it," Sirius agreed. "He got his hands on a blade once, from Merlin-knows-where, and I still have nightmares about it. My godson with a blade in hand is enough to drive all of us insane. I don't know how he learned it at all, but in favor of actually learning an accredited or at least extant style, the boy picked out bits and pieces of various styles and used them together so that it was almost impossible to predict anything about his actions in a fight.
"Seriously-don't you start sniggering again, Gin-he makes for a difficult opponent. No one could discern any sort of pattern to whether he'd go left or right, upward or downward, dodge or parry or strike, or even when he was feinting or not, though the last was the only thing we had a chance at because of the physics of having to actually pull back your strike." Sirius paused a moment. "I don't even know why I thought of the word physics, but that boy is known for making sure we all know there's 'possible' in 'impossible', possibly because he it there, so I'll just say it's his fault and be done with it."
"Indeed?" Aizen prompted, curiosity stoked.
"He's a horrible little child, yeah, but he's my horrible little child." Sirius smiled a bit at the possessive. "If nothing else, he is my godson and I am honor bound to love and care for him. Not that that's the only reason I care, he's the child of my brother in everything but blood, which is worthless anyway because blood doesn't make family, and of a good friend of mine. Really, he's not quite like either of them while being both of them at the same time. From start to end, I care about him, hell, I love the brat-especially because no one else will take the time to do so." Sirius frowned, tapping his fingers against his legs agitatedly. "I hope that someone stepped up after I died, or there will be hell to pay when I meet them again."
"Why wouldn't other people take care of him?" Aizen questioned. "Your godson sounds like an extraordinary child. You sound like you two were very close when you were alive, no?"
"We were only as close as we could be, under the circumstances." Sirius answered cryptically. "I was believed to be a convicted criminal, the person who sold his parents out to Voldemort, the Dark Lord, and killed a dozen people after. As it happens, I was innocent, and I never had a trial. That didn't really matter-as far as they were concerned, it wasn't safe for me. I didn't get to see him much because he stayed at school except for summers, and he had to spend the first couple months with his mother's sister's family, intolerant oppressive brutes that they are. And I couldn't even send him letters, because it wouldn't be 'safe' for either of us. I would have sneaked more of them, except that all his mail was intercepted by one person or another.
"As for Dumbledore and everyone else in his stupid Order, they're too busy seeing his fame or his money or his title or any number of equally superficial things to actually take the time and effort to see that Harry is a person, not an object, nor a figurehead, nor a chess piece, nor even one of those little muggle dolls whose heads bobble if you touch them." Sirius had stood up and started pacing, twitching with angry energy as he ranted his piece to the other people in the room, purging himself to some extent he would decide later. "It is utterly ridiculous how little they see of his humanity."
"Honestly, I mean, the whole British Wizarding World put their livelihoods and their safety collectively on his shoulders from the moment he entered their world despite the fact that at that time he was an eleven year old child. Any why? Because he survived the night his parents died, and they celebrate that every time they call his name. Really, you would think that reminding a kid that their parents were gone all the time would be a bad idea, no? That they might not want that reminder, maybe even resent it?
"If there is one thing that he really hates it is being put in front of the spotlight and being the center of attention. He'd much rather be somewhere inconspicuous or standing next to all of his closest friends, hiding in plain sight or in the shadows. From what I understood when he explained it to me, it's the peace and quiet, and the companionship that he craves, not the noise and attention, Snape be damned. He hates how useless and spineless the Wizarding World is, and how its inhabitants depend on him to fix everything for them. As far as he's concerned, they all really need some skelegrow-they're certainly missing their collective backbones."
Sirius took a deep breath before continuing, his face now a rictus of righteous fury. Aizen let him continue unimpeded, making mental notes about this person Sirius seemed to care so much for, and about the place from which they were from. Information was power, and Sirius's rant was a goldmine opportunity. He'd be a fool if he only took the information at face level. Besides, sentiment was a weakness, and his new acquaintance seemed to feel a great deal of sentiment for his absentee godson.
Sirius, on the other hand, just needed to rant his way through his frustrations, and was basking in the chance to do so.
"And that's not even the worst of it." Sirius sighed, deflating. "Not even close, damn them all."
"D'you wanna spar, Sirius-san?" Gin asked perceptively, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Only if you promise not to actually kill me," Sirius responded. "You're the one with thousands of years of experience."
"A hundred, an' a bit. The only ones here who reach a thousand, let alone top it are probably Ukitake-taicho, Kyouraku-taicho, Unohana-taicho, an' Yamamoto-soutaicho." Gin corrected. "We're not all tha' old."
Sirius laughed, and continued laughing as he followed Gin out of the window, having gotten the hand of enough of the basics of shunpo that he could form the platforms under his feet so he wasn't squashed when he reached the ground, and down to the training field. Aizen left the Captain's office in the Third for his own, a small smile playing about his lips.