Captain Shinji Hirako had always kept a good eye on the Shino Academy. You never know when another Hitsugya or Ichimaru will show up. He also did so to look out for another Aizen. In this case, however, he was working with the academy on finding an appropriate teacher to teach Ichigo the needed reiatsu control to safely live and use his powers in the living world. He worked through the psychological profiles, teaching methods, as well as available time slots. Nothing lined up.

Now Shinji was on plan B, find someone who had issues with control in their time as a student, but now do so at an expert level. When Shinji looked at the list Hinamori gave him, one name stuck out, someone who was decidedly average to below average at everything at the time of her entering the academy, but was now a captain candidate, one Lieutenant Rukia Kuchiki. Sure, her control was never below average, but now she had near-perfect control. He grinned, if anyone could teach someone as stubborn as Ichigo, it was her.

"Hinamori, inform the head captain that I have someone who may be able to teach Ichigo," Shinji mulled over other candidates, but Rukia made the most sense. Lieutenants were in charge of making sure their divisions were in fighting shape and assisting the captain in administrative duties and thus were in charge of training their divisions in anything they were deemed lacking in upon exiting the academy

"Yes captain," Hinamori was a textbook example. She was well respected by the fifth, powerful enough to compliment Shinji's own combat ability, and the trait that got her into trouble, loyal. She would have been one in a long line of great but unnoteworthy lieutenants in the history of the Gotei, but her first captain was Sosuke Aizen.

She was barely keeping herself and the division together when he had been given his old posting back. He had forced her on leave for a month to get help and work out whatever bends and twists Aizen put her mind through. She still has a pair of scars from the two times she was run through. Once by Kyoka Suigetsu, and the other by Hyorinmaru. This echoed the situation Rukia was in now. She had been running the thirteenth as acting captain since Ukitake's death and was likely still grieving. He had heard from the unseated rumor mill that she had been forced to take leave before she went to recover Ichigo. It checked out. The thirteenth was a challenging division to run. It had numerous demands on its captain and lieutenant. While the eleventh may be the big stick of the squads, the thirteenth had the most deployments on average, and most of those were to the living world, which were bureaucratic nightmares, and Rukia had to effectively be both the captain and the lieutenant.

He had seen the circles under her eyes recently from the last few meetings. Maybe this would help her out. Though he'd have to convince the head captain to take on the paperwork to make it work.

Byakuya Kuchiki was walking from his office. He was trying to keep a straight face, but if one stepped into his office, one would see, or more appropriately smell, why he left. As a former senior unseated herself before becoming a lieutenant, Rukia had connections to what some called the unseated underground.

These were shinigami who had mastered the art of doing nothing, or doing what they were told as fast and efficiently as possible so that they could go back to doing nothing, known as 'shaming.' This was largely tolerated as their only responsibility was to do as they were told, thus, if they had no standing orders, they were being paid to do nothing. That and these individuals could pull miracles of acquisition and ingenuity that even he was impressed by.

The thirteenth was the main patrolling force in the living world, augmented by a rotating standby roster from the tenth, eighth, and seventh. This meant their unseated shinigami could get just about anything into the Seireitei from the living world, as long as it could fit in a shihakusho or field bag. He had even gotten some things this way. Not that he would ever admit it. And someone had used their connections to said group to plant a Chappy-branded stink bomb in his desk, with the release tied to the back of the drawer above it, where he kept his pens to sign his paperwork with.

"Hey captain, why are you out here? Shouldn't you be in…" Renji moved to open the door to the office. Byakuya knew there wasn't any time to say anything.

Renji opened the door to the office, retched loudly at the smell, and slammed the office door shut. "What the hell was that?!"

"I sent Rukia a glitter bomb several days ago," Byakuya calmly replied, hiding his disgust at the smell beneath his stoic mask.

"What does that have to do with… oh no, not this again!" Renji knew where this was going. Rukia and Byakuya had been in a low-intensity prank war since Byakuya had mended his relationship with Rukia. It usually was restricted to the manor, but since Rukia became a lieutenant it had winded down, and his captain decided now was the time to start it back up. "What did she use?"

"A Chappy branded 'Shiba Special'," the Shiba Special was a new pranking stink bomb to the Seireitei, one that had a reputation in the Rukongai for having one of the most repugnant smells imaginable, yet not leaving any residual smell and it also only lasted 30 minutes. This meant that it just barely met the stringent requirements for the rules of a 'Kuchiki prank.'

That this was happening the day of a captain's meeting was no coincidence. Since Kyoraku became head captain he had changed some things. First, all squads would be represented. This meant that Isane Kotetsu and his sister were representing the fourth and thirteenth respectively, this meant she would be in the same room as him after she had severely inconvenienced, but not disrupted, him in his duties. It was resourceful, as her pranks had always been, but there was an item on the docket today that he could weaponize.

The matter of who taught Ichigo how to control his reiatsu.

Rukia was walking to the first division barracks, specifically to the captain's meeting room. Normally she wouldn't be allowed to join in the meeting, but the head captain had changed the rule slightly such that in the event of the death of a captain, the highest ranking officer was given the title of 'acting captain' which came with a provisional security clearance and all of the responsibilities of a captain.

This meant that she and Lieutenant Kotetsu were expected to represent their divisions. This had been the status quo for the past year, and honestly, she liked it. This allowed the other divisions to coordinate with the ones that lacked captains without using the lieutenant's meeting.

This also meant that she was going to have a say in who trained Ichigo. She simply hoped they would actually explain why when he asked questions because he could be infuriatingly stubborn.

She walked up to the doors to the meeting room and stopped as she waited for the guards to open the door. She had spent hours cleaning her shihakusho of glitter for today after her brother's prank. She simply hoped that her gift would have frazzled him.

"Lieutenant Kuchiki, you're early," Captain Hirako had looked at her with his normal disinterested expression. He was one of only two other captains present, Captain Yadomaru and Captain Hitsugaya. The fellow ice wielder gave her a nod as she took her place. It almost felt wrong standing where her captain once stood.

The other captains filed in one by one, leaving her dwarfed by Captain Zaraki and across from Captain Kurotsuchi. When her brother walked in he had not seemed phased by her present earlier today. He probably already had started work on his reprisal.

Once all the captains had entered Head Captain Kyoraku officially started the meeting. The first part of the meeting was uneventful. It was the time when the statuses of each division were relayed. For the most part, there was simply nothing new to report, they were still recovering from the war, and were heavily undermanned, but there was also a relative peace, she had relayed information on the pilot program for whatever the hell the head captain cooked up and slapped the 'substitute shinigami' title onto, and as crazy as it was, the training methods were working. Karin was on schedule to receive her asauchi at the end of the week, and then begin the process of allowing her soul to operate separately from her body, assuming that the asauchi didn't force the issue. Though she had brought up concerns about infrastructure. Right now there was only one place equipped to train people for this, and they needed this type of training available within a reasonable distance of areas of need. Put simply, it was working now, but she was unsure of how well it would scale.

Kyoraku had noted and appreciated her input, then they had moved on to their main subject of the day. Training Ichigo so he could resume his human life, and so Captain Hirako, who had been assigned to find a suitable instructor, stepped forward.

"As you all may be aware, Captains Aikawa, Magamura, Otoribashi, Yadomaru, and I were involved in training Ichigo to use his abilities as a visored. We learned from that that he doesn't respond well to indirect training," that was an understatement. From what she had heard, they had him doing chores non-stop, then put him on a ski trainer Hiyori had made without telling him the goal of any of it. "Because of that, I had narrowed the search pool to those who were more direct. However, I ran into issues with scheduling as most of the teachers from the Shino academy were booked out this year," that was good news in a way. It meant the recruiting drives were working. "So I looked through our own ranks, and I had made a good list of candidates who were both good teachers and had difficulty with their own reiatsu control initially, but now are proficient or better," Shinji pulled up a piece of paper, probably a list with the names of suitable individuals to train Ichigo on it. "Then one name floated to the top, so I formally recommend that Ichigo's training be looked over by Lieutenant Kuchiki."

Rukia's train of thought had been sent into the sky by what could be best described as the equivalent of a large explosion, then, after a long time in the air, rolled down the hill into a body of water while dragging the cars behind with it. Thus Shinji's further explanation faded into the background, that was until she heard her brother speak.

"I second this recommendation," no. He didn't. She stared at her brother, who had the subtlest of smirks on his face, daring her to speak up, daring her to break decorum, daring her to give him the win in this round of their prank war, and it was working. She breathed deeply, trying to keep her cool.

"Lieutenant Kuchiki, do you have any objections?" the head captain gave her the opportunity to speak.

"As much as I agree with Captain Hirako, I simply have too much to do to be able to free up time to train him and fulfill my duties to the thirteenth as acting captain," Rukia was right. She had a double stack of paperwork every day, she had to assist in organizing patrols months in advance so that Central 46 could approve them. Then she had to-

"Then I shall take on whatever you cannot delegate to your subordinates in order to free up the time needed," the head captain's response caught her mid-thought and caused her to do a double take.

"I'm sorry head captain, can you say that again?" Rukia did not believe her own ears. The head captain was offering to take up her work to make sure Ichigo got trained. Sure she was good at reiatsu control, and she knew how to train Ichigo, the methods she had done to do so now formed the basis of her training regime for the thirteenth, but she can't be the best available.

"If Captain Hirako says you're the best one to train him, you're the best one to train him," Kyoraku knew that Shinji was a strong judge of character as well as an extremely observant individual. He had correctly predicted that Aizen was going to be a problem. Combining that with his own experience with training Ichigo, and that the other visoreds had also seconded his recommendation meant that she had to be the best option. "Anything that stops you from being able to do that needs to be removed. Next week you will begin teaching Ichigo how to control his reiatsu, and that will become your main priority," Rukia was at a loss for words. She had a responsibility to her division.

"What of my responsibility in training my own division?" she failed to notice Byakuya's smirk grow.

"You have two third seats no?" The head captain's question was an answer to hers, but was also said to remind her of her responsibilities to the larger Gotei 13, as well as… she cursed at herself internally. She had ever so slightly broken decorum. Her brother's little trick had worked.

"I shall begin preparations," she stepped back, as was normal when yielding the floor. She then glared at her brother once again as the more menial closing items were addressed. This was a simple meeting between divisions, not a meeting meant to address an emergency.

As the captains began filing out, her brother walked up beside her. "That would be six," six times he got her to break. It was never big, but it still counted.

This prank war started after Rukia found it hard to break the frost around their relationship after Ichigo had rescued her. Thus she had resorted to something she had done in her time in the Rukon, and had observed in her time in the Kurosaki household, a prank. It had escalated since then mainly due to his own pride, and they had agreed on the rules after the second exchange. The goal was to cause the other to break decorum in whatever environment they were in or going to be in. Byakuya's goal was to make it harder for those who would seek to remove her from the clan to fabricate a cause to do so. It had actually been entertaining and had achieved his original objective. Now he was doing it to distract her from running herself ragged, though he had not expected Captain Hirako to suggest that she train Ichigo, he was simply going to bring her name up as a joke.

The fact the other visored captains backed him and Captain Hirako was unsurprising, they also had experience with training Ichigo, and his other mentors were simply unavailable, thus, his little sister was the best option.

He simply hoped that she didn't cause any trouble between the Kuchikis and the newly ascended Shibas.