The lieutenant of the Second division being an overly hyper young man was not something that Aigis had guessed.
In addition, he was the head of the Shihouin House, one of the Five Great Noble Houses in Seireitei. Aigis was not sure what she was expecting out of them, but it was most definitely not this.
A carriage at the gate of Seireitei took them partway through their journey to the sixty-third district, then they shunpo-ed the rest of the way. He was the fastest person Aigis had met in Seireitei by far, zipping through the streets and rooftops with the ease of an average person going for a stroll, and she was almost tempted to resort to Sukukaja to help her keep up with the breakneck pace, though in the end she decided to conserve her reiatsu for the moment. Worse still, he was asking questions at that same pace.
"Where're you guys from?"
"That's kinda far away! Still not as far as where we're going though. Any family?"
"That's so cool that they all have reiatsu! How do you find the classes at Shin'ou?"
"Well, as expected of the gifted students I heard so much about! Was it true that you led a group of students and beat back a giant pack of Hollows?"
"What? Information is part of Second division's specialty, so of course I'd be interested!"
"How did you meet Akechi?"
Aigis heard a loud crash behind her, and she stumbled to a stop on top of a tree branch. Shihouin also stopped ahead, turning back in surprise.
Niijima had landed on the ground far below them, a tangle of leaves and branches sticking out from her clothes. There was a second of awkward silence, before she hurriedly sat up and smoothed her clothes down as best as she could.
"Sorry about that," she apologised, still panting from the exertion. "Tripped mid-shunpo. I'll be more careful."
Shihouin looked on for a second more, then he shrugged and pulled Niijima up before either of them realised that he had moved. "Don't worry about it!" he replied cheerfully. "There's a supply point about five minutes away from here. We've covered a good deal of distance, so let's take a break there."
The students nodded, and he set off again at the same breakneck speed, leaving them scrambling to catch up.
Five minutes later, Shihouin was casually lounging near the entrance of the shed that served as a supply point, while Aigis and Niijima were still trying to massage some feeling into their sore legs. Aigis carefully dabbed some disinfectant that she found in the shed over Niijima's superficial scrapes that she acquired in the tumble earlier. It was all too easy to just leave them alone, but Aigis did not want to take chances if this mission was going to take a few days.
It was a good thing Niijima did not break any bones — Aigis did not trust her own kaido ability enough to fix such serious wounds, and Shihouin seemed disinclined to help, which could be taken to mean that he was testing their abilities, or just did not know how to use kaido. Either way, Aigis did not have any intention to rely on their chaperone at this point yet.
"Good job keeping up with me, by the way," he said once their breathing evened out. "Most don't even last halfway before they collapse."
"I…do believe this is the most strenuous exercise I've had since joining Shin'ou Academy, sir." Niijima said, giving herself one last look over for more stray scrapes. "I have never seen someone move as efficiently, or as fast as you."
Aigis had to agree. He seemed to move like a still frame — one moment, he was here, and the next, over there. There was barely a flicker of wasted movement in between, as if he glided through space.
Shihouin laughed, a youthful, hearty laugh that perfectly suited his personality. "Me? I'm good, but I'm not naive enough to think that I'm the best one out there. It is true that the Shihouin family specialises in speed, but plenty of captains are just as fast, or faster." he replied, though there was a tint of bashfulness in his voice. "And stop it with the 'sir', just call me Shihouin."
"T-there's no way we can do that!" Niijima waved her hands in front of her face, and Aigis nodded along enthusiastically, her face impassive. Shihouin just laughed in response.
"Well, whatever floats your boat then." Shihouin grinned. "As long as it's not 'sir'. Makes me feel old."
Aigis suspected that he was not that old in the first place, but age was difficult to tell in Soul Society, unlike the Living World. A person with a youthful appearance could be hundreds of years old, yet someone else with a wizened visage could be barely a hundred. She noticed that it depended partially on reiatsu level — those with higher reiatsu tended to age slower, and whether or not the person was born in Soul Society.
The idea that someone could be born in Soul Society, which by all means was the afterlife, sounded strange to Aigis's ears. But that was how the Five Great Noble Houses came about, and they generally did not practise adoption. She mentally shook her head, willing herself to stay focused on her current task rather than wonder about the workings of Soul Society.
"We were given rather sparse details about this mission." Aigis said once the laughter died down. "All we were told was that we were to patrol this district, but I suspect that there is something more, if you are the one who raised the request. May we know the full details of this mission, Lieutenant Shihouin?"
He shuddered despite the warm summer weather, cringing. "That's a mouthful and a half, but at least it's better than 'sir'." Shihouin commented. He smirked, making him look more like a panther on a hunt for his prey. "But you're sharp. You're right — there is more to this mission than just a patrol. Truth is, this originally started as a solo mission, but I needed some extra legs on the ground to make this work."
At the narrowed eyes from Aigis and Niijima, he sighed, losing his earlier smirk. "Don't worry. This mission is actually pretty safe for students like you who've survived through worse," he explained. "I'm trying to track down a bandit group around here."
"Why not ask any of the other shinigami in your division?" Niijima asked. "I'm sure they're far more qualified than us."
"We're short staffed." Shihouin spread his arms and shrugged nonchalantly. "There's simply not enough people to go around for everything we're handling right now. And you two came highly recommended."
Probably Matsumoto's fault, Aigis decided. She tried not to let her annoyance show on her face.
"Plus, it was one of us that recommended you to Shin'ou, wasn't it, Aigis?" He added cheerfully. "Akechi seconded the recommendation."
It was Niijima's turn to wear an impassive mask, her thoughts unreadable behind the pursed lips.
"Is there more information we have on the bandits?" Aigis asked before the awkward silence continued for too long. "Numbers, common activities, known sightings and such."
Bandits in the most traditional sense did not exist in the Living World anymore, but criminal and terrorist groups still operated in the shadows of society. Aigis distinctively recalled one Shadow incident that began when a terrorist group caught some delusions of grandeur by using the power of Shadows to become a god.
Not a single person survived — all absorbed or killed by the powers that they tried to abuse.
And then there was Strega, who used the power of Persona to become hired murderers. Aigis felt sorry for what they suffered through before they started killing people, but that did not excuse their actions.
"Let's see…" Shihouin put a finger to his chin and looked up at the sky. "As far as I know, they have around seven to eight people. We can confirm two women and four men, but there have been conflicting reports on the last members. None of them have enough reiatsu worth considering, but they are all armed with weapons, so it's beyond the average soul's capacity to fight back. They generally just go about threatening people to give them candy and water, and hoard resources from settlements."
"It doesn't sound like a group that should pose any trouble normally." Niijima pointed out. "Why did they send for you, a lieutenant?"
"'Cause they can't find their damn base." Shihouin grouched. "Every single shinigami that we sent came back empty handed. Worse still, extortions happened while they were in the village, but by the time the shinigami got there they would have disappeared. It's like they're taunting us. So, being one of the best spies in Soul Society, this mission got dropped on me."
Niijima put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "So it's a game of cat and mouse."
"Yup," he nodded. "Though this mouse is more like a slippery worm."
An entire group that managed to evade the shinigami long enough to make them lose face was not quite what Aigis had anticipated, but it spoke highly of the bandits' skill. Despite everything, she had to give them credit.
"Have they only been terrorising this nearby village lately?" Aigis asked. "Or have they gone to other settlements as well?"
"As far as we can tell, they came from further settlements, but lately have only been seen around this area." Shihouin replied, a finger fidgeting along his thigh. "So it's safe to assume that we will find their current base somewhere nearby."
"Do you have a plan for capturing them?" Niijima questioned.
His face split into a predatory grin, toothy and wide. "Care to be bait?"
Yushiro crouched on a branch, reiatsu suppressed and body hidden amongst the thick summer foliage, as he watched Aigis and Niijima walk brazenly amongst the villagers below. They had changed out of their student uniform to the standard black shinigami shihakusho, to better disguise themselves as average unseated shinigami. He, on the other hand, stayed hidden in the treetops, flitting here and there, scouting possible routes and hidden bandit bases.
The village sprawled haphazardly across the arid land, with uneven buildings and dirt covered roads snaking through the shacks. The area was ten minutes away from the supply point, which was why Yushiro had Aigis and Niijima rest there before they started the mission. In the early afternoon light, they kicked up shimmering clouds of dust as they walked.
The girls were professional — far more than he expected out of the average student, as if they had spent a lifetime training for such events, rather than just the few scant years in Shin'ou. They asked appropriate questions about the mission and had even packed their own supplies. Not enough to burden them, but good for emergency treatments. It was not enough, but Yushiro had to give them props for even thinking about packing, when most students he led before had come empty handed to missions (not that that was an issue, since he was usually supplying provisions for the entire team). Hell, Aigis and Niijima were more professional than some of his own Onmitsukido.
He already wanted them for his own division.
When Yushiro first received the quarterly report from Shin'ou Academy, he'd almost dismissed them entirely until he saw that one of his own had recommended a student to the accelerated course. Fourth Seat Akechi Goro was a loner, someone who vastly preferred working by himself and found working as a team a chore. But he always completed his missions adequately, so Soi Fon did not find cause to force him to work in a group if he did not need to. More importantly, he was reliable, which was much better than some other shinigami Yushiro could name.
Unexpectedly, when he mentioned the name in front of the girls, it was Niijima who had a stronger reaction than Aigis, the person that Akechi had recommended. Niijima did an admirable job of hiding her emotions, and Yushiro almost dismissed her fall earlier in the day as a genuine accident, until he mentioned Akechi again at the supply point, whereas a lightning quick flicker of emotion crossed her expression before she schooled her face into an unreadable mask, while Aigis merely looked on blankly.
Or rather, she had stolen surreptitious glances at her friend, as if she was worried about her reaction, which was an odd reaction in and of itself.
As far as Yushiro knew, Akechi and Niijima did not have any history with each other. Clearly, that was not true anymore, and Aigis might've known of the circumstances. The issue was, what kind of history did they have with each other?
He continued watching the girls question a villager, a poor man dressed in a ragged yukata, but surprisingly, they offered him a few pieces of dried raisins that they carried as part of their rations, before they moved on to the next household.
A useless piece of generosity in Yushiro's opinion, but he decided to withhold his judgement for now.
The plan was for the girls to act as bait — unseated officers asking after the bandits. For them to avoid the shinigami this long, they must have a robust information network that would inform them whenever officers were around, and it was Yushiro's job to identify that information network, and perhaps use it to his advantage to flush the group out.
Honestly, he'd rather have that network for himself. Up to date information on the outer districts was rare to come by, after all. If these bandits were open to reason, he might actually offer them a job as informants. He pinched himself to focus on the mission, before his thoughts jumped too far ahead.
The girls moved on to the next street, chatting away without a care. It was causing enough disruption to the village that its residents have begun peeking out of their shacks, ogling the unusual sight. In the deep shadows of a mud house, Yushiro spotted a dark figure darting away from the pair.
Yushiro gritted his teeth. He dearly wanted to follow after that figure, because that behaviour was clearly not normal within the village, but he also could not chase after it without exposing himself. So instead he burned the slender figure of the shadow into his eyes, and followed it as far as he could with his eyes, until he lost track of it behind another shack.
"Good work, girls!" Shihouin cheered, raising a canteen of water.
Aigis and Niijima each nursed their own cup of cool water, sitting seiza style around a flickering lantern in the supply shed. The cool night air offered some relief from their activities during the day, but it was still uncomfortably warm.
"We didn't find any useful information after all…" Niijima lamented. She chewed on a piece of raisin, musing over their efforts during the day.
It began with asking the residents of the village how their living situation was like lately, which Aigis immediately regretted. The thirty-fifth district was by no means wealthy, but its residents were still able to afford a basic level of living standards, which included sturdy housing, clean water, clothes, and the ability to grow their own crops for food.
The residents here did not have even half of that.
The vast majority of villagers she encountered today did not have shoes, many of them wore stained and threadbare clothes that stank of body fluids, and there was an unhealthy pallor to their skin. They lived in houses that were better described as shacks, filled with leaky holes that barely protected them from the elements.
In the end, Niijima and Aigis gave away their sweet provisions as much as they could, though both knew that it was a band-aid solution at best.
"Are the outer districts all like this?" Aigis asked in between bites of her onigiri.
"Like what?" Shihouin asked back as he took a big bite of meat jerky.
She waved her onigiri towards the entrance to the shed. "Poor, with substandard living conditions. Not much hope for them by staying."
What haunted Aigis to the core was how hopeless the people looked. They never spoke of the future, only of the past, and what could solve their immediate problems. There were no plans for what might come.
They barely looked better than those suffering from Apathy Syndrome.
Shihouin sighed. "That's just how it is," he said sadly. "We simply don't have the means to improve their conditions besides helping them solve their immediate issues."
"Don't have, or aren't willing?"
Shihouin and Aigis's eyes snapped to Niijima. Her maroon eyes were lidded, but the candlelight from the lantern seemed to add a dangerous red glow to her pupils.
"It took us half a day to reach here." Her words were quiet and weary, but with a tinge of steel. "If it was by carriage, it would be around a day, two maybe. That's all the time you need to transport resources here, discounting other parts of logistics. I know the inner districts produce enough food to feed both Seireitei and themselves with excess left over. Is it this hard to redistribute the resources so those in the outer districts can have a better life?"
"What would they need food for?" Shihouin drawled dismissively. "They don't have all that much reiatsu, so they don't need food to live. And there's enough fresh water surrounding the area, if we take care of the bandits hoarding them."
"What about the shacks and rags that they're using?" Niijima argued back.
"Their fault that they can't build anything better." Shihouin shrugged.
"Nobody even came to teach the residents at all?"
"What is there to teach?" Shihouin snapped, his food forgotten. "All we owe them is a safe enough environment that they do not become Hollow food. That is the sole objective of the Gotei Thirteen."
"So what about the bandits?" Aigis cut between them before they came to physical blows, asking in a way that hopefully emphasised her neutrality (at the moment). "If the sole objective of the Gotei Thirteen is to keep Soul Society and the Living World safe from Hollows, why are we trying to track down bandits? If we follow your logic, Lieutenant, I do not think that any of us will be on this mission."
Shihouin sat back down with a huff. "We just have too many requests about the same issue to ignore it."
"All you would have to do is to claim that the Gotei are too busy to attend to requests of this nature, if you did not want to deal with it." Aigis pointed out. "You would still not be technically violating the objective of the Gotei. The fact that we are here attending to their problem implies that you see protecting the people from themselves as part of the duty of being a shinigami, or at the very least, that you have no strong adverse reaction to doing this kind of work. From my perspective, that means that you care for the citizens on some level, at the very least, beyond the strict limits of what is needed for survival, and I believe that extends to the Gotei as a whole too. Perhaps it may be in service to allowing a safe enough environment, but I fail to see why the wrong reason cannot give rise to a positive outcome."
Aigis took a deep breath, then sat back down again. She had spoken much more than she intended, but she did not want to see Niijima suffer a bad review because of her outburst.
Shihouin sighed again. "I'm not saying that you're wrong exactly, Niijima," he began as he leaned back, staring at the ceiling of the shed. "But this is the way it's always been. The inner districts are better protected because it's easy for shinigami to get there. We only go to the outer districts for problems serious enough to need shinigami intervention. What do you think you can do about it, when we haven't been able to do anything in the past two thousand and three hundred years?"
"So, learned helplessness?" Niijima mused. "They don't have any independence, which is the most important issue here. If they don't have money, they can do barter trading instead for goods and services that they need, and all they really need to do is to learn a trade for themselves, whether it's farming, or lumbering, or something else. Perhaps having craftsmen stationed here for a bit to train some people might be good? Would they need sufficient incentive to do this though?"
The more she muttered to herself, the softer her voice trailed off, but it was clear that she had ideas. Shihouin instead just raised an eyebrow, before scooting closer to Aigis. "Is she always like that?"
"Rather, I would say that she has a soft spot for people in need." Aigis smiled. "But she prefers a long-term solution than any immediate aid, unless someone's life is in danger."
"Huh." He looked on at the scene, where Niijima had stopped muttering entirely and just fell into deep contemplation. "She looks and acts so much like a teacher's pet that I didn't think she had it in her."
"In her to what?" Aigis asked.
"Question her superiors."
"She follows rules whenever possible." Aigis said as she finished the last bite of her food. "She understands that they are there for a reason. But she is also perfectly willing to bend or break them if she felt that they were in any way unfair."
According to Ren, Niijima had come a long way from the stiff student council president back then. Aigis admired that aspect of her, where she was not afraid to question the situation or judgement of her betters, if she disagreed with their verdict. Somehow, Niijima was almost always able to get away with it.
"How long have you known each other? You seem to understand her very well." Shihouin asked. There was a hint of something in his voice — a mixture of admiration and curiosity perhaps.
"For most of our lives." Aigis answered simply. It was easier to blend in if she did not reveal that they kept their memories of when they were alive, so she gave a technically correct answer.
"And how about Akechi?" Shihouin pressed.
And there was the trap.
She had noticed his fixation on their reaction after he had casually brought up his name earlier in the day. Apparently, despite Niijima's best efforts, she failed to direct his attention away from the thorny topic.
"Huh?" Her contemplation was broken by the mention of the name.
A catlike smile formed on Shihouin's face. "Come on, something happened between you two before for you to react like that," he reasoned, his posture loose and relaxed. "Care to tell me about it? Don't worry, I won't let anyone else know."
"You mean you'll determine if the information will be an issue for Seireitei in the future, correct?" Niijima deadpanned.
He managed an awkward laugh.
She sighed, then ruminated on it for a while before she opened her mouth. "Akechi-kun was an acquaintance of mine a long time ago. He pretended to be an ally, but secretly tried to kill a dear friend of mine."
That was…a story with many missing parts, but Aigis hoped that Shihouin would not question it too deeply. His eyes were narrowed into slits, but eventually he relaxed.
"Got it." He blew out of his mouth. "Do you want revenge on him?"
"What?" Niijima looked briefly offended, but toned down her voice a moment later, hugging her legs close to her chest. "No, this was a long time ago. In the end, he was a victim of society too, and I think he's suffered enough. I wish he could've taken a different path, but what's done is done."
"Is that your idea of 'justice'?" Shihouin asked.
There was silence.
He opened his mouth to repeat his question, but Niijima spoke up first.
"Maybe it is," she admitted. "Maybe I just want a sense of satisfaction of being on the high ground, so to speak. But he didn't manage all that much in the end, and I see no reason to do more. As long as he is not causing further issues, I'm okay with leaving him alone to do what he wants."
Aigis watched Shihouin's face. His lips were pursed, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face, and his eyes were less guarded compared to early afternoon. "That's a very mature way of looking at it, Niijima," he praised. "Most would have been happy to ruin his life, if it meant being able to exact their vengeance."
"I didn't have much reason to do so." Niijima shrugged. "Plenty of other people had far more justified reasons compared to me, so I never felt that it was my place to take any kind of revenge."
"True, Akechi did give me the impression that he was not averse to killing people when I first met him." Shihouin mused, a considering look on his face. "But he hid it well under his smiles. What was your first impression of him, Aigis?"
Aigis stared into the flame of the dim lamp. That day he unexpectedly showed up at the orphanage seemed like an age ago, even if she logically knew that it had only been two years.
"He seemed…fake," she recalled. "My guardian did not believe anything he said."
If Niijima was eating or drinking anything, she surely would have spat out whatever was in her mouth, judging from the sputtering. Shihouin looked similarly amused.
"Well, your guardian seems like a good judge of character," he snickered.
"She also almost beat Akechi-san up when he carried me back to the household, after we killed the invading Hollows." Aigis added.
That startled a guffaw out of the lieutenant. "I would've paid money to watch that!"
"But other than that," she continued, " he was…alone, I think. Like he does not really belong in the Gotei. He worked with others only on a superficial level, and he was disinterested in going any deeper."
Shihouin nodded seriously. "He's been like that ever since he joined," he added. "Did he not have any family?"
Considering that his family was the exact reason why he had interpersonal relationship issues, Aigis thought it was an ironic thing to ask. Niijima, instead, shrugged. "Not that I know of here," she said. "Do you have any family, Lieutenant?"
Shihouin blinked. "Where did that come from?"
"You've been asking about us all this while," she reasoned calmly. "It's only fair if you tell us more about yourself. I suppose a noble's family is pretty big, right?"
"It's rude to pry into the private affairs of a noble house, Niijima," he warned.
"And it's not rude to pry into our lives?" She clicked her tongue in disappointment, though her voice remained even. "I did not take you for a hypocrite to this degree."
Shihouin shrank into himself. "Oh fine," he sighed. "Consider this a little compensation for asking about your past."
He flopped onto the dusty floor of the shed. "I have an older sister. She was the previous captain of the Second division."
"Did something happen for her to relinquish her position?" Aigis asked curiously. "I was under the impression that it was difficult for shinigami to retire from any position."
"And you somehow veered straight into private territory, Aigis," he grouched. "To sum it up, stuff happened, she now lives in the Living World, but she still works with the Gotei every now and then."
Aigis blinked. "Is it possible for shinigami to live in the Living World?"
"Usually not unless you offended Soul Society in some way, and it must be pretty big for that to happen." Shihouin waved a dismissive hand. "Besides, we need people on the ground. We have the Seventh to deal with most Living World stuff, but we still need on-site agents as first respondents in case anything happens. So my sister is basically a permanently stationed scout there."
"Is it…rough, for you to be separated from family like that?" Niijima asked, a touch of concern in her voice.
"Of course I miss my sister!" Shihouin wailed, a stark contrast to his earlier behaviour. "She's the coolest, strongest person I know, but she just refuses to come back to Soul Society! I keep telling her she should be the clan head but nooooo, she says she likes the freedom better! What even is there in the Living World for her to stay there even though she can come back anytime?"
Freedom, huh, Aigis thought.
His rant faded into the background as she mused on the word.
When was the last time she felt true freedom?
A/N: I spent the last 2 months alternating between drawing and playing through Persona 5 Royal. According to Steam, it took me 169 hours to clear it. So uh...
I haven't been writing at all.
Well, at least with P5R out of the way, I feel a bit more ready to tackle the Persona 5 story elements in this fic, so there's that.
Anyway, this chapter (and the mini arc) is a bit of a mess, so I'm not 100% happy with it, but it still went well when I asked my beta to read through, so here it is. Plus, it's a nice introduction to the current state of the Gotei.
So review! Let me know how you think this arc will go!