Disclaimer: Kubo is still god here. I'm just a minor cosmic meddler.
The Three-Body Problem
A Bleach Fanfic
Chapter Twelve: August
The exam results were posted, as promised, one week after the practica concluded.
For Uryū, there was a strange sense of familiarity about it—high school in the living world had not been so different in this respect. Scores were public for all and sundry to see. Though he supposed there might be a difference in the motivation for such a decision; there at least they believed there was motivation to be had. Here it was merely confirmation, with a bit of aggrandizement.
"All right, move outta the way!" Karin was clearing their path through the gathered crowd quite effectively. Most of these people hadn't even taken the exams.
Uryū let Yuzu precede him, keeping her in sight between himself and her sister at the front. When they finally broke through the crowd, they found themselves standing in front of a large bulletin board. It looked like there was a separate posting for every academic subject and then another for each practicum. The overall results were down at the other end—they might as well start here.
Searching through the lists, he used his comparative height to read the uppermost postings, while the girls took the middle and lower ones. Rather than attempt to all talk at once, each of them wrote down what they saw, then pushed their way further down the line. Karin got to the overall list first; Uryū worked on finding them a way out of the crowd.
Five minutes later, they were huddled at a table in the mess, comparing lists.
"Yuzu got a perfect score on the kidō practicum."
"What?" Yuzu bent over Karin's paper to confirm. "But I nearly lost the Raikōhō at the end!"
"Uh, yeah, sure. But you can cast a spell in the sixties. That's not even on the curriculum, so how could you lose points for it?"
Uryū half smiled, shaking his head. "How did we do, Karin?"
"Uhhh…" she searched the list. A total of fifty-four students had taken the exams: the fifty from sixth year, Saitō from fifth year, and themselves.
"Looks like you were seventh, and I was fifteenth. Not bad."
It wasn't bad at all, and that was the pattern of the results. Karin had scored top marks in zanjutsu—hardly surprising considering who her match had pitted her against. Uryū was fifth there, Yuzu nineteenth. They were second, third, and eighth in hohō—Yuzu's solo times and distances hadn't been quite high enough to warrant fourth, even with their obstacle run.
"Hmph. Bet some jerk just ran the course without helping anyone and got through it quick," Karin decided of the first-place finisher.
Uryū shrugged. "Perhaps." He'd suspected they might take a bit of a hit for slowing down to help each other, but it looked like the fact that they'd completed every obstacle was worth enough points to push them into the upper ranks.
Yuzu brightened, shoving her paper towards him. "Uryū, you tied for first place in hakuda. I guess your kata were slightly better than Fuwa-san's."
That surprised him somewhat. He'd chosen not to linger on what was an obvious disagreement between the exam proctor and Fēng-sensei on how to handle the matter. Fuwa herself had been quite conciliatory about it—and he respected her skill enough that he didn't particularly mind that she'd been awarded the match. This was a more favorable outcome than he'd expected.
He scanned the rest of the list. "And you placed sixth, Yuzu." Karin was twentieth, a bit of a low finish for her. But considering it was her weakest subject area, it was still extremely impressive.
Their academic scores were likewise excellent; studying had paid off for all three of them.
"How about the cumulatives?" Yuzu asked, glancing at Karin.
She grinned. "Check it out, you guys." She spun her paper around on the surface of the table and slid it over so they could read.
Cumulative Exam Results:
1. Ishida, Uryū
2. Kurosaki, Yuzuki
3. Kurosaki, Karin
"There's no way," Yuzu breathed, her eyes flicking back up to Karin. "Are you sure this is what it said?"
"Positive," Karin replied. "I read it twice just to make sure."
"B-but… how?"
Uryū considered it for a moment, scanning over the other documents. Slowly, the answer resolved itself in front of him.
"Take a look at the individual top tens," he said, gathering the papers together. "Notice how almost none of the names appears on more than one of them?"
"Except ours," Karin pointed out.
He nodded. "We have things we're better and worse at, but we aren't really specialists." They'd all worked to overcome their natural deficiencies in certain subject areas, mostly by relying on extra practice and each others' instruction. "But almost all of the other top scorers are. They did really well in the areas they decided to focus on, but…"
"Not great in the other ones," Yuzu finished.
There were exceptions, of course. Fuwa was ranked fourth, and a couple of the other names appeared in more than one top ten. But after that, the drop was significant.
"I guess they didn't have a team to train with." Karin sounded pretty satisfied with herself.
Uryū couldn't blame her; it was her instinct to work together that had formed their training group. And that was almost certainly the reason they'd done so well.
"Still… some of the divisions will probably care more about one test than the cumulatives." Yuzu was frowning slightly at the zanjutsu results.
Uryū nodded. "Which is why specializing makes sense for people with a strong preference. But you wouldn't want to be in a division that only cares about zanjutsu anyway, would you?"
"Mm-mm." She toyed with the end of her braid. "You know what this means, though? We have to go to interviews. With the officers. By ourselves." Yuzu's eyes were wide—apprehension tinged the tone of her voice.
"Eh. We'll do fine. How bad could it be?"
Apparently, it could be pretty bad.
Well, not the interview part—she hadn't actually gotten there yet. But as much as Karin had tried to get herself to believe that this was Not a Big Deal, she couldn't suppress the awkward turning thing her stomach was doing.
Because, yes, maybe it was kind of a Big Deal. It was true that people transferred divisions all the time, and that which one she ended up in first didn't necessarily determine the trajectory of her future career as a shinigami; but… it just might. Some people did end up spending their lives in one division. And this—this was her first chance to actually have any control over what these officers thought of her.
While her instinct might be to defiantly proclaim her lack of concern for other people's opinions, it was hard to maintain that attitude when she considered how important this could turn out to be for the course of her entire life.
Yuzu's anxiety was rubbing off on her.
She felt a hand on her head and glanced up. Uryū had rested his gloved palm on her crown. He was looking straight ahead, not at her—but when he spoke, it was obviously her the words were meant for.
"Be yourself. That way you'll know all the offers are for you."
She was glad he didn't put a 'just' in front of the 'be yourself' part. There was nothing just or mere about it. Not right now.
But he was still right—Karin wanted to do this her way. If that made things harder at points, well, she accepted that. She'd learned to bend a bit, to adapt to the situation around her. That was a good thing. But it was no use at all if she bent so far she became someone else completely.
"Karin Kurosaki? This way, please."
The interview room she stepped into was normally a classroom, but all the tables had been arranged so that a panel of people sat facing the door. Facing her. A large space was cleared in the middle, and she walked to the middle of it, taking up an attentive rest. Her arms were behind her back, her feet shoulder-width apart, spine straight.
The panel was identical to the people who'd attended the practica, which wasn't that surprising. A few of them were showing obvious signs of boredom or fatigue. The white-haired guy in the second-to-last seat looked especially exhausted, what with the heavy purplish rings under his eyes and the slight hunch to his posture. He looked really sick, actually—she wondered if he should even be here.
She pulled her eyes away from him, inadvertently meeting Hitsugaya-taichō's in the process. She frowned at him. He frowned right back.
The sound of a throat clearing drew her attention further back up the row. "Kurosaki-kun," said the man in the first seat. "I understand you've achieved shikai."
There was a pause, in which Karin belatedly realized she was supposed to respond. "Uh—yeah. I did."
She thought she saw a little smile quirk the corner of his mouth, but it was gone quickly if it had been there at all.
"Would you be willing to release it here, so that we might observe?"
"Oh. Sure." Karin gripped Hisaku and pulled her from her sheath. "Sobiero, Hisaku." She was a little more careful with the draw, now—the flame was suppressed. She doubted it would go over well if she accidentally hurled an attack at them. Even if it wouldn't put them in any actual danger.
The officers studied the sword, a few making notes on the paper in front of them. "What type is it?" asked the fukutaichō with glasses, pushing them up her nose.
"Elemental," Karin replied. "Fire, specifically."
"Do you know what its abilities are?" That came from the man in the helmet, the words half-muffled and echoing.
"Only one so far," she admitted. "I can draw or swing it to throw fire. It's called Habatake."
Helmet-guy nodded, apparently satisfied.
"Thank you for the demonstration, Kurosaki-kun." That was first man again.
Karin felt like she could guess their names if she had to, but it was probably better not to, in case she picked the wrong one. She sheathed Hisaku, sealing the zanpakutō in the process.
"Are there questions?" The others seemed content to allow the First Division's officer to officiate.
The Second Division's taichō, Fēng-sensei's cousin or however they were related, spoke up first. "If you were out on a mission, and your teammates were engaged with an enemy too powerful for them or you, what would you do?"
Karin paused consciously. There was a voice in the back of her head—suspiciously similar to Uryū's—urging her to think through her answer. "Has it noticed me yet?"
The woman tilted her head to the side, eyes narrow. "No."
"Get the drop on it, if I can." She folded her arms behind her back. "If it's really too powerful for us to handle, then… try and get everyone out intact and report it, I guess." It probably wasn't the best answer for a question from the Ōnmitsukidō's head—they most likely used stealthier options or whatever, but Karin didn't know those and probably wouldn't use them even if she did.
"Do you think there's any acceptable reason to leave the service of the Gotei 13?" That one came from Kira, the blond guy from drinks that one time.
"Uhh… sure. I mean, aside from just dying, people retire and stuff, right?" She shrugged. "I guess if you had a family to take care of or something, that might also be a good reason. Or if you couldn't do your job anymore, like if you were permanently injured." She wasn't sure exactly what he was getting at.
He nodded, though—while Karin didn't take that as a sign that she'd answered correctly, it at least meant she'd done so adequately. She shifted her weight to the left.
"It says here that you took the exams in Kidō Theory," said the gentle-looking woman with the braid in front. "How did you find it?"
"It was all right. Some of it was pretty interesting." Kidō wasn't really her area—Karin let her lukewarm answer convey that by itself.
The captain of the sixth—Rukia's brother, apparently—declined to ask her anything. Helmet guy was next.
"Your zanjutsu match was among the better demonstrations I have seen from an academy student," he said. It sounded more like an observation than a compliment. "Do you have intentions to specialize?"
Karin shook her head. "Zanjutsu was probably my favorite subject. I like it a lot and I definitely intend to keep practicing. But… one thing I've learned here is that it's good to know more than one way to solve a problem. I don't want to trap myself by specializing." She felt satisfaction from Hisaku, but the spirit did not interrupt.
The woman with the glasses was next. "What is the most important attribute for a seated officer to possess?"
She blinked. That was quite a question. Frowning, Karin tried to decide what she thought about it. "Strength," she said at last. "Not just the physical kind, but strength of will. Lots of people look to the officers for an idea of how to feel in a difficult situation. If that officer wavers, everyone they command will waver, too. Which seems like a really fast way to die."
The woman wrote something down with an unreadable expression. These people were not easy to get a sense of.
"Can you write?" Hisagi asked.
Karin's brow furrowed. "I took the written exams, fukutaichō."
He shook his head. "No, I mean, are you good at it? Writing essays or stories or anything like that?"
"Dunno. My essay grades were good, but I've never tried poetry or whatever."
That took them to Hitsugaya-taichō, and Karin felt her posture shift before she'd even decided to do so. She had started to relax; her spine stiffened enough that all that progress was reversed instantaneously. Something about this guy… he just rubbed her the wrong way.
He shook his head, indicating he had no question, and she had to stop herself from scowling openly. What the hell?
Somehow—Karin didn't know exactly why—she took this as a personal affront, in a way Kuchiki's pass had not been. Clenching her jaw, she affected boredom instead of offense, skipping right over him with her eyes and landing on the big guy.
"Do you like to fight?" He asked it with a lopsided grin—his eyeteeth were pointed.
Karin snorted. "Probably not as much as you, taichō, but yeah. I do." She knew exactly who this captain was; no one got through the academy without hearing at least one crazy story about the infamous Kenpachi Zaraki of the Eleventh.
The girl in the twelfth spot shook her head, making it the exhausted-looking man's turn. Karin was pretty sure he was Ukitake-taichō, Rukia's captain.
He studied her for a moment, a pleasant expression on his face. For all his obvious fatigue, he seemed a lot more relaxed than some of the others here. "What is the most important thing to you in this world, Kurosaki-kun?" The question was quiet—but despite his slight smile, she knew it was serious.
Karin answered immediately. "My family." Pushing out a breath, she took in another one. "Not just the ones related to me by blood—the people who choose to be my family, and the people whose family I choose to be part of." They were the reason she'd come here—and the reason she'd gotten this far.
It might, in some sense, be a selfish answer. Maybe what she was supposed to say was that she was here for the balance, or Soul Society, or whatever. But it was hard to care about the whole world. She tried—maybe succeeded, in her better moments. But when push came to shove, she was in this for the people she loved. And if she was going to be herself in all this, that was something she had to make clear.
Ukitake dipped his chin.
The Grand Kidō Chief had no questions, either—and with that, her interview was over. Karin emerged from the room feeling a little dazed, but overall pretty good about how things had gone.
"Yuzuki Kurosaki."
Karin watched her sister stand. As they passed each other, she reached out and squeezed Yuzu's shoulder.
"Knock 'em dead."
She felt like a mess. Fourteen pairs of eyes were fixed on her, leaving Yuzu to wonder frantically if there was a stain from lunch on her uniform, or if her sash was tied properly, or if her hair was actually a mess. She could feel a tiny tremor running through her whole body—it probably wasn't going to stop anytime soon.
She folded her hands, clasping them together in front of her to make the shaking less obvious. She hadn't been instructed to bow before the assembled, but it seemed rude not to, so she did. Plus, that was a few seconds where she didn't have to decide what to do with her eyes. As soon as she came back up, she fixed them on the table they sat at, rather than on any one face in particular. At least until the talking started.
"I understand you achieved shikai after a period of only seven months." The speaker was Sasakibe-fukutaichō—she'd borrowed old copies of several Seireitei Bulletins from the library so as to have faces to go with the names she'd learned in history class.
Yuzu inclined her head. "Yes, sir."
"That's quite the accomplishment; I believe it marks the fastest such a feat has ever been accomplished." Sasakibe was upright in his chair—it was a bit difficult to tell what he thought of his words.
A quick glance of the rest of the line yielded her more information. Apparently, not everyone had known this, or at least not that she was the person in question. She could not blame anyone for their surprise. Yuzu certainly hadn't expected it either.
"I believe so, Sasakibe-fukutaichō." There was no point in denying it, even if the sudden increase in scrutiny was palpable. She tightened her hands around each other.
"May we see it?"
"Of course." Yuzu forced her fingers to relax, letting her left hand fall to her side and drawing her zanpakutō with her right.
"Sakisomero, Hasuhime." The words were only a murmur—almost lost in the crystalline ring that accompanied the release. Carefully, she set the end of the shakujō's pole down on the ground, rotating her so that she faced forward.
"How lovely," said Ukitake-taichō, smiling mildly at her.
There was a murmur or two of agreement, though Yuzu couldn't say from whom. She returned Ukitake's smile with a tentative curl of her mouth.
"What can you tell us about your zanpakutō?" Sasakibe asked.
Yuzu pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Well, she's a kidō-type. I'm not really sure if she has any techniques, as such, but I've figured out that if I cast kidō with her released like this, I can channel the spells through her for additional effects. For example, I can cast Shakkahō in the shape of a bolt or whip instead of a sphere."
"And you don't use a named technique to do this?"
She shook her head. "No, sir. I suspect it's a property of Hasuhime herself, but I can't be sure. She is… reluctant to part with the secret."
"I see. Thank you, Kurosaki-kun. You may seal her."
Yuzu did so, tucking the tantō back into her sheath. When the time came for questions, Suì-Fēng-taichō went first.
"Does your zanpakutō always make noise like that?"
Yuzu nodded, a touch wryly. "Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid so." She moved her hands back in front of her, holding her back straight and trying not to hunch or cower.
Kira said he had no questions, but he did give her a nod. She hoped that only meant he had whatever information he wanted; not that she'd failed by some metric already.
Unohana-taichō tilted her head to the side. "Have you any interest in learning to heal, Kurosaki-san?"
"I do." It was the truth—they didn't teach such kidō at the academy, presumably due to the risk inherent in failure. That was frightening, in its way, but… Yuzu liked the idea of being able to use her skills for something straightforwardly helpful that way.
The fifth chair was empty. Yuzu supposed that the Fifth wouldn't be taking anyone new this year. They hadn't for the last two, either, according to academy record. She moved her eyes to the next person in line and tried not to flinch.
Byakuya Kuchiki exuded aloof nobility. Yuzu could scarcely believe he and Rukia were related, by blood or otherwise. Truthfully, it was that cool detachment that intimidated her the most, more than Suì-Fēng's pointed scrutiny or even Zaraki-taichō's reputed love of violence. Perhaps, if this were half a year ago, she wouldn't have even been able to look at him. But it wasn't half a year ago, and Yuzu forced herself to make eye contact. She couldn't read his face—not even to glean the little things she'd detected about the others.
"Which law of Soul Society is most important, aside from the first?"
"The dictum against murder," she said softly.
"Why?"
Yuzu swallowed, locking her elbows against her sides to still her desire to fidget. She was very grateful for the loose sleeves of the uniform right then. "Life is sacred," she said. "It seems to me that the reason the balance is so important is that maintaining it allows for the possibility of life at all. Taking a life should always be difficult. Taking a life without justification… that is abhorrent, and I think a custodian of balance should always remember what they're really protecting."
He didn't react much to that, simply dropping his eyes and writing something down on his parchment with a slight scratching sound.
Komamura-taichō demurred verbally. She thought maybe something about his voice was roughened, but with the helmet, she really had no idea.
Ise-fukutaichō asked her what quality she thought was most important in an officer.
Yuzu thought that interviews were every bit as terrifying as she'd been led to believe.
"I think—compassion," she replied. "It's important to be able to motivate people to be stronger, and to be able to make difficult decisions when the time comes. But I think one thing that helps with all of it is being compassionate. If you really understand what people are going through—and if they know that you care—then… everything else has better results. Building trust on a foundation like that strikes me as the most effective method."
"How would you feel about being in a division with no captain?" Hisagi asked the question bluntly, arms crossed.
At least it was an easy one to answer. "I expect it would be more work," she replied, "but I wouldn't mind."
Hitsugaya, Zaraki, and Kurotsuchi all shook their heads, skipping the sequence down to Ukitake.
"Do you consider yourself a prodigy, Kurosaki-kun?"
"What—no!" Yuzu bit her tongue, barely resisting the urge to clap a hand over her mouth. Her first thought had been that someone must have intimated to him that she thought so, and she certainly did not.
But Ukitake's eyes were gentle, and the corners of his mouth turned up. "Would you like to explain your answer?"
He offered her a chance to recover; she took it gratefully.
"That is… um. I don't know what the technical qualifications for that word are, if there are any. But I think the connotation of it would imply that I have some kind of special merit, or that I deserve to be treated in a way that is different from any other new squad member. Both implications, I would deny. I have…" she hesitated. "I have worked very hard, sir. I have tried to become a little better each day—to grow just a bit more. I think that on most days, I have succeeded, even if the 'bit' was very small. I will continue to strive for that. But if my accomplishments thus far are… meritorious in any way, that is the merit they have."
Ukitake's eyes crinkled at the corners. "I would say there's a little more than that, Kurosaki-kun, but humility is an admirable trait."
Next to him, the Grand Kidō Chief, Hitomi Kogo, straightened.
"Are you committed to the Gotei 13 as your next career step?"
Yuzu glanced back down the row of captains and vice captains. She slowly shook her head. "Not at this point, no."
Kogo wrote something down, and Yuzu was dismissed.
"Two swords in shikai?"
Sasakibe blinked, a few quick strokes of his brush leaving lines of black ink on his page. "What can you tell us about them?"
Uryū lowered Yorugen, holding the blades loosely. They crossed in front of his legs. "Not a lot," he admitted. "I'm not actually sure what type he is. He seems to be intent on getting me to master the forms before telling me anything else." Given how different hook sword forms were from the usual academy curriculum, he didn't think it was a bad idea, really.
With permission, he resealed the blades into a single wakizashi and sheathed it, adjusting his glasses with his other hand. None of his inward awkwardness made it to the surface of his demeanor—he refused to show weakness in front of these people.
Even if he was willing to admit it to himself.
Suì-Fēng took the first question. "How do you feel about assassinations?" she asked, arms crossed and eyes narrow.
"If I'm going to kill someone, I'd prefer they know exactly who did it," Uryū replied just as bluntly.
She frowned, but nodded anyway.
"What kind of squad atmosphere would you prefer?"
Kira's query was so innocuous that it threw Uryū for a loop. Come to think of it, though… he really hadn't bothered to give the matter any consideration.
He still wasn't entirely sure he was still going to be here in a week, let alone care what his assignment turned out to be.
"One where people aren't too pushy," he said at last, lifting his shoulders.
He was pretty sure Kira was trying not to smile.
Unohana passed her turn. When the sequence reached Kuchiki, he too shook his head.
"I am confident that I know what kind of person you are." He didn't make clear what the valence of that assessment was.
Komamura, captain of the Seventh, considered him for a moment through the eyeslit of his helmet. "You were once a ryoka," he intoned—either the helmet's acoustical effects were granting him unintentional gravitas or he was doing it on purpose. "Could you be loyal to the very same thing you once so casually defied?"
Uryū stiffened, then frowned. "Soul Society does not command my loyalty simply because it exists," he replied sharply. "A trait of mine which has proven to its benefit, if I recall the course of events correctly." He gritted his teeth, then forced his jaw to relax, exhaling heavily. "But nothing about my defiance, as you put it, was casual. I thought my actions through and I did what I believed was right and necessary. As I will always do."
"So then why are you here?" Hitsugaya picked up the thread of the conversation, but it sounded like the question he'd wanted to ask all along.
He squared his shoulders. "Because some people I care about have taught me that imperfect does not mean unsalvageable. I will never be loyal without question. But I don't think most of you are that, either. I'm here because I care about what all of you supposedly care about—maintaining balance. Protecting the people in both the living world and this one. Because there are things in both I could not stand to lose, and I recognize that, for all its flaws, the Gotei 13 is the best chance any of us have to preserve those things."
"Would you consent to be the subject of scientific research?"
The non sequitur immediately drew his attention. Uryū's eyes snapped to the woman who'd asked it. She'd been writing nearly constantly the entire time—he'd thought she must be going through other notes, perhaps uninterested in him specifically. Apparently not.
His brow furrowed. "No."
The only scientist he'd consider letting anywhere near him was probably better than anyone they had here anyway.
She didn't even look disappointed. He wondered what that was about.
Ukitake allowed a moment's recovery from that exchange before breaking in with his own question. "Ishida-kun, do you still consider yourself a Quincy?"
"Yes." He'd have thought that would be obvious by now.
"What about a shinigami?"
That gave him pause. Perhaps he should have been expecting it. It was, after all, the elephant in the room. Uryū grappled with the question, not for the first time, and reached the inevitable answer.
"…I believe that label is also accurate, yes."
"Guys, I got your mail!" Karin ran through the front yard of her house, shouldering open the door impatiently.
Uryū and Yuzu were both sitting in the living room, having tea with the old man. She threw the heavy white envelopes on the table and plopped down on the fourth side of it, turning hers over and over in her hands.
All of them were thick, evidence of lots of paper inside. Karin ripped hers open at the top, shaking out all of the documents into a pile. The sheet on top looked to be a summary of everything else in the packet—that was convenient.
Kurosaki, Karin:
Third Division, 20th Seat
Sixth Division, 18th Seat
Seventh Division, 20th Seat
Eighth Division, 20th Seat
Ninth Division, 16th Seat
Eleventh Division, Unseated
Thirteenth Division, 20th Seat
Twentieth was the common entry point for rookie officers, so the fact that most of the offers were for that was unsurprising. The Eleventh only let you advance of you beat the person in the seat above you, so even getting an offer was probably acknowledgement that they expected her to win something.
The offers from the Sixth and Ninth were interesting, though. She really doubted she'd made much of a favorable impression with Kuchiki, so she guessed Renji was behind that. Why Hisagi had offered her a sixteenth seat was beyond her. Maybe there was just an opening there or something.
"Here, pass me yours," she said to Yuzu, handing her own off to Uryū. "Easier than saying it." She snatched the paper as soon as it was offered to her.
Kurosaki, Yuzu:
Third Division, 20th Seat
Fourth Division, 9th Seat
Sixth Division, 20th Seat
Seventh Division, 20th Seat
Ninth Division, 20th Seat
Thirteenth Division, 20th Seat
Kidō Corps, 19th Seat
"Ninth seat? Damn, Yuzu, Unohana must have really liked you." Karin personally wouldn't really be interested in joining the Fourth, but she wasn't like some people about it—the Fourth was a legitimate division, and its members were a hell of a lot more useful to have around than some people.
"Ninth Seat in the Fourth?" Their dad broke into the conversation. "That's not just any post; that's the seat assignment of Unohana-san's personal nurse-assistant."
"Um… I wonder why it's vacant, then…?" Yuzu's brows knit.
The old man snorted. "Because she's a demanding teacher, that's why. When I was around, it seemed like she got a new Ninth Seat every couple months—if she had one at all." He put his teacup down and crossed his arms. "It's impressive that she offered it to you, Yuzu, but think carefully before you accept it."
"Well if the geezer's actually being serious about it, I guess you'd better," Karin put in, ignoring the subsequent bellyaching.
The lists shuffled again, and she glanced over Uryū's.
Ishida, Uryū:
First Division, 20th Seat
Sixth Division, 20th Seat
Eighth Division, 20th Seat
Eleventh Division, Unseated
Twelfth Division, 20th Seat
Thirteenth Division, 18th Seat
"Huh. No Third or Ninth. I kinda thought those guys would make offers to all of us."
Uryū folded open the first actual letter in his stack, lifting a shoulder. "It would be an extra imposition, I think, for me to be on a team without a captain. Riskier, since my reception in Soul Society is still mixed. I believe they are thinking first of their divisions' stability." Blowing steam from his tea, he took a sip.
"Guess that makes sense. That jerk of a captain at the Tenth didn't offer any of us a damn thing, though."
Her dad coughed; Karin decided it probably had something to do with him. At least in Yuzu's case. It was possible that the current captain just hated her on principle. She wasn't too fond of him, either.
"Well… let's see what the offer letters look like, I guess."
"What exactly am I supposed to do here?" Uryū held up his list in front of the projected screen, scowling. He was sitting in the room he borrowed from the Kurosakis for the moment, but only three days remained before he was supposed to be choosing a barracks to live in.
"Well… probably don't go to the Twelfth." Urahara grinned, as though it were all some kind of joke.
Uryū's scowl deepened. "I'm serious."
Onscreen, the shopkeeper sighed. "It looks to me like your choice has two stages: first, do you want to stay or leave?"
He adjusted his glasses. "I don't… I'm not sure I see clearly with regard to the issue."
"Oh?" Urahara folded his arms into his sleeves. "Why not?"
"I… there are people here who make considering this objectively… harder. People I would miss, if I left." It was surprisingly easier to admit this time.
The difference between having people here he would miss and missing some of those he'd left in the living world was that he was certain he would see his friends in the living world again. If he left Soul Society, taking his zanpakutō with him… it was hard to say exactly what the consequences would be.
"Sounds like you see plenty clearly to me, Ishida-kun."
Uryū ran a hand down his face. "But is it really the best thing to do? What about Aizen?"
"Look," Urahara tipped his head back, shifting slightly in his seat. "The offer to get you out of there doesn't expire. If it becomes necessary later to remove you, we can still do that. But it's a one-use thing. If you leave now, you probably won't be allowed back until you're really dead, you understand?" There was something like nostalgia in his tone.
Uryū hesitated, then nodded. "Yes." It was, in a way, a relief. Perhaps it didn't all have to be an elaborate lie, in the end. Too much of it was already truth anyway.
"But what division do you think is best?"
Urahara laughed. "That, I think you're going to have to figure out on your own."
"Hey monkey."
"Have I mentioned how I hate that you've graduated? No respect…" Renji turned to regard her anyway, lifting an eyebrow.
Karin rolled her eyes. "I didn't respect you when I was in class either."
He gave her a flat look. "Yeah, thanks for that. Now what is it? I have things to do."
Rukia made a sound that suspiciously resembled a snort. "No you don't. You were just talking about how you finished your work early."
Karin grinned. Renji glared at Rukia, then sighed heavily, his posture slumping. He made a 'hurry up' gesture with his hand—Karin decided to lay off him and get to the point, for now.
"How do I decide which division to join? I didn't think it was that important, but everyone makes such a big deal out of it…" If she thought about it, the emphasis did make some sense; she was still at a loss for how to make the decision, though.
Renji blinked, his brows climbing his forehead. "You're actually asking me for advice?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't get too full of yourself. I'm interested in what Rukia thinks, too." Karin crossed her arms.
He sheathed Zabimaru, flopping down onto the grass. Rukia, who had not been sparring, followed with a little more grace.
"Well, what are your options?"
"Ninth and Sixth. The Ninth's offering me Sixteenth Seat."
He nodded. "That's a damn good posting, right out of Shin'ō. One thing that some people do is take whatever is the highest possible seat they're offered."
"It's what you did," Rukia pointed out.
He grimaced. "Yeah. Kinda wish I hadn't though. Uh… look. I can't pretend I'm not biased here, because I had to work pretty hard to talk Kuchiki-taichō into that Eighteenth Seat thing, but… one point you have to consider is how things are going to look for you when you've got your feet wet and are looking for a promotion."
"Yeah? And how would they look different between one and the other?"
Renji looked at Rukia. "You're probably more neutral than me about this," he said.
She nodded. "Well, nii-sama's division is known for being very… upstanding."
Karin was glad her canteen hadn't made it all the way to her mouth by that point. "Upstanding? That sounds like a diplomatic way of saying they're a bunch of stiffs. Isn't this monkey their fukutaichō?" She jerked her chin at Renji.
"Um…" Rukia blinked.
"It's not that bad," Renji said. "Kuchiki-taichō really, really likes following the rules is all. As long as you do your work on time and don't cause problems, it's not that different from most divisions."
"It might be a slightly stricter environment than some," Rukia said. "But that can make your transfer prospects quite good. Few people turn down officers trained in the Sixth, because they're trained very well. It's easier to learn a few new quirks and eccentricities than trying to relearn all the actual rules if you weren't already following them."
"Plus it's a combat division." Renji shrugged. "With an active captain. That means that when the time comes… we'll definitely be in the middle of it."
"And the Ninth?"
"Hisagi-fukutaichō is good at his job," Rukia replied. "The Ninth had a shaky first year after Tōsen-taichō left, but they've recovered well. They're a little more relaxed in terms of atmosphere, but generally their transfers have done well in other divisions."
Renji nodded. "We have a guy from the Ninth. But a lot of that division's work revolves around the press. Which is fine if you like it—they still have time to train and stuff. But since there's no captain, they're less likely to get called up for missions outside the regular stuff."
"Ultimately, you should do what feels right to you," Rukia said. "That might not seem like great advice, but honestly no one else can tell you how to choose. And as far as I can tell, the people happiest with their spots are the ones who went with their instincts."
The evening before their decisions were due in, dinner at the Kurosaki table was a bit tense.
Uryū himself still had no idea what he was going to do. Logically, he supposed the Thirteenth was the obvious choice—he liked Ukitake well enough, and it was also Rukia's division, which meant he'd see more of a close friend.
But he wondered if that fact was clouding his judgement.
A knock sounded at the front door—Yuzu stood to get it before anyone else. Wondering who would be coming by at this hour, Uryū cocked an ear, but heard only a low masculine voice speaking, followed by Yuzu's lighter tones.
A few moments later, she returned to the dining room, a tall man in tow. The hat and pink kimono gave him away immediately.
"Kyōraku!" Isshin set his meal down, standing to greet him. "What brings you by?"
The captain tipped his hat up by the brim, smiling amiably. "Good to see you, Isshin-san. I was hoping to have a talk with your houseguest, actually." His eyes moved to Uryū and settled there—though the mild expression on his face never changed.
"Well, that should be fine; you're welcome to the engawa. But stay for drinks afterward, will you? I don't get such illustrious company very often!"
"Illustrious company? Where?"
Uryū swallowed the last of his fish, rising to his feet. He had no idea why Kyōraku was here; he hadn't even attended the exams. But it would probably be apparent soon enough.
They stepped out onto the engawa. Kyōraku leaned back against the wall of the house, folding his arms into the sleeves of his shihakushō. "Nice night," he said, eyes fixed on the fireflies beginning to emerge into the garden.
"I find it unpleasantly humid," Uryū replied, adjusting his collar.
Kyōraku chuckled, tilting his head and sending him a sidelong glance. "You don't really go in for small talk, do you?"
"No."
The captain's smile took on a strange edge. "That's a real shame. But it's a good quality of yours."
Uryū frowned. "Due respect, taichō, but I'm not sure you know much about me."
Kyōraku dipped his head. "Maybe not," he admitted. "But when you live as long as I have, you develop a sense for these kinds of things. You've been direct with me, Ishida-kun, so let me be direct with you, even though it's really not my style." He tipped his head back, looking out at the sky beyond the edge of the engawa.
"I know why you're really here."
Uryū tensed, pushing off the section of wall he'd reclined against. Kyōraku regarded him with obvious amusement, his smile turning lopsided.
"Yare, yare, Ishida-kun." He sighed with exaggerated heaviness. "No need to be like that. You should relax more. I didn't say I disapprove."
"Then what—?"
"Obviously, I'm doing what a good captain should, and trying to get a new prospect to choose my division. You should be honored; I usually don't bother trying to recruit men."
Uryū fixed him with a flat look.
Kyōraku sighed again, this time less theatrically. "Tell me, Ishida-kun. What do you think of Jūshirō?"
"Ukitake-taichō?"
The other man nodded. "The very same."
"He seems to be a very agreeable personality, and is well-liked by his subordinates, to my knowledge."
The captain's head bobbed in time with the observations, then stilled. "He is both of those things. He's also very protective of the people in his division. It's part of the reason they like him so much."
"And…?" Surely, there was some other shoe about to fall here.
"And if you joined his division, I have no doubt he'd be protective of you, too." Kyōraku removed his hand from his sleeve and scratched at his short beard with it.
"I thought you were trying to convince me to join your division."
"I am." Kyōraku paused. "Now me, by contrast; everyone knows I'm the laziest captain in the Gotei 13. Nanao-chan runs the division by herself, with a few small exceptions. My men like me well enough, mostly because I don't worry too much about it if they have fun instead of working all the time."
"…This argument is not persuading me."
Kyōraku smiled widely enough that it narrowed his eyes. "Not yet. But now look at this from the other side. Suppose you get yourself a promotion. Let's say you move from whatever seat you start at to, eh, Fourth Seat. Maybe it happens quickly, because you're talented and the upper ranks are sparse. What do you think people will say?"
Uryū did not ask why that would matter. It would—he could see it. Command structure didn't work if the people in command weren't respected. "…I suppose what they say would depend on the circumstances."
"I think you might be right about that, Ishida-kun. So suppose one of the circumstances is that you have a generous, agreeable, protective captain like Jūshirō. What do they say then?"
Uryū exhaled, letting himself lean back against the wall again. "I think it still depends, but… they might believe that I had attained my position because my captain was showing favoritism or simply being too generous."
"And if your captain was a lazy, good-for-nothing womanizer?"
"…then I must have done something obviously impressive. Or he left the decision to his fukutaichō."
Kyōraku nodded. "Who could perhaps beat out Kuchiki-taichō for love of the rules. I don't know if my Nanao-chan would save me from execution, even belatedly." He appeared to consider the scenario for a moment, though he showed no signs of genuine distress about it.
"I think you may be misinterpreting her reasoning in such a case," Uryū muttered dryly.
Kyōraku's eyes only crinkled further.
"But by this logic, should I not simply join the Sixth? Or perhaps the First?" He couldn't imagine anyone following the rules more stringently than the Sōtaichō himself.
"Well, I admit the argument does assume you would like to be promoted at some point. And not suffocate from boredom beforehand."
"I will… consider it."
Kyōraku straightened, placing a hand on his hat.
"You do that."
Yuzu sat on the engawa, running her fingers along the crease of the offer letter. One other still sat beside her. She'd narrowed her choices to two, but deciding between them was proving troublesome.
"There you are!" Her dad stepped out onto the porch beside her, closing the door behind him and sitting next to her.
He had a dish of sake in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. He handed her the latter.
"Thanks, dad." Yuzu accepted the cup, setting it down next to her knee.
"What's got that look on your face, Zuzu?" He spoke more softly than usual, and his free hand found her back. He traced lazy circles between her shoulder blades in a soothing motion.
She hadn't heard the diminutive in forever—not since she was a child.
"I'm not sure what to do," she admitted.
"Is this about what I said earlier?" He took a sip of the sake, then let his hand fall to rest on his thigh. "I didn't mean to make you worry, you know."
She sighed. "I know. It's just… I think I would do well enough in the Kidō Corps. Kozu-sensei talked with me a bit about their duties, and the expectations for the lower seats. But…"
"But you don't know if that's what you want."
"Mm. On the other hand, learning to heal sounds really great, and since I'd be in the Gotei 13, I know I'd still be able to practice with Hasuhime and my other skills. But Ninth Seat… it seems like too much. I'm afraid I won't be able to do it."
Her dad nodded thoughtfully, moving his hand from her back to her opposite shoulder. The weight was comforting. "There's nothing wrong with being afraid," he said. "I bet you were pretty afraid the first time you held your zanpakutō, huh? Maybe the first time you cast a kidō?"
She nodded.
"Probably your exams were scary, too, right? I thought I was gonna die when I went in for my interview."
Yuzu cracked a smile. "My body wouldn't stop shaking. Some of them are very intimidating."
"No kidding," he agreed, taking another drink.
"But you want to know something, Zuzu? I bet you can do it. And I bet you're brave enough to reach for what you really want." He gave her a squeeze, and she leaned into his hold.
"I don't feel very brave," she admitted into his sleeve.
He propped his chin on her head. "You can't be brave if you're never scared."
Yuzu let her eyes close, and inhaled deeply. Her dad always smelled like hospital sanitizer, laundry detergent, and mint toothpaste. He was right. She needed to be brave. If she wanted to grow, she had to give herself the room to do it.
"I love you, dad."
There was a pause; she heard him swallow past something. When he replied, his voice was raspy.
"Love you too, kiddo."
"Ready guys?"
They nodded.
It was the day—decision day. Ōnabara was waiting for their forms. They'd all signed their names, folded their papers, and slid them into addressed envelopes. It felt much weightier than Karin thought it probably should, but she didn't fight it. This was important. It mattered. For all of them.
The actual turning in part was pretty anticlimactic: Ōnabara just accepted the envelopes and asked them to confirm their choices before he wrote them in the school records. When they exited, he had three new entries in neat lines of script.
Kurosaki, Yuzuki: Fourth Division
Kurosaki, Karin: Sixth Division
Ishida, Uryū: Eighth Division
Term Dictionary:
Habatake – 羽ばたけ – "Flap (one's wings)." One of Hisaku's special techniques. By drawing or swinging the blade and using her reiatsu, Karin can create an arc of flame and shoot it outwards at an opponent.
Yare, yare – やれやれ – There isn't really a direct translation for this. It has a few uses—for example, when one sits down after a long day. It can be an expression of relief that way, but also one of fatigue, since it's an onomatopoeia for the sound of deep breaths. Kyōraku uses it here to imply that Uryū's tension is exhausting and he needs to chill out.
Well. That chapter was longer than I expected. It's also the last one for this fic though, so there's that. I really hope you enjoyed the ride; rest assured that the AU is far from complete. Next on my docket are a bunch of shorter fics set between the end of The Butterfly Effect and the beginning of the as-yet-unwritten Winter War arc. There should be a variety of characters and subject matter. I'm taking suggestions if there's anything in particular anyone wants to see. The first one will probably be about Byakuya and Rukia negotiating how to be a family, with a heavy dose of Hisana backstory. I'm excited for it.
Anyway, being that this is the last chapter and all, I'd love to know what you thought of the story as a whole, so please consider dropping a line or several. :)
All of the internet cookies to the folks who have already reviewed. I try to respond to them, especially the ones with questions, but if I somehow missed you, I do apologize.