Preparing tea with a single hand was a difficult feat, even for a man with a solid millennium of experience in the act. The lack of a loyal lieutenant to do much of the delicate lifting was an annoyance, but he was nothing if not adaptable.
Even with his eyes closed and lacking an appendage, he was still Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto.
He ignored the more modern mixer in the corner, embracing the traditional ways he had pioneered.
Tea preparation and the accompanying ceremony had more nuances to them than just making tea and serving it. There was a beautiful structure to the ceremonial act.
One that was created to guide and suit its participants regardless of station. One that everyone from the most common soul to the most enlightened could appreciate.
It was one of the things that helped his transition from a warlord to a leader, from a bloodthirsty ruthless monster to a nurturer and guardian of the soul society.
Yet this same beauty was something that was lost in the modernity of the world he had found himself in, where everything was rushed and quickened. But he found it hard to blame them; there was something about the fragility of human life.
The process was generally a much longer one, but the apartment he found himself in was lacking much of the traditional tools he would've required. Yet he continued with the motions, and those steps aided in calming his thoughts.
They drew him from his worries about the fate of the Soul Society, allowed him to discard thoughts of Yhwach stomping through the hallowed halls of the Soul King's palace, instead replacing them with the motions of repeatedly grinding and preparing the matcha green leaves.
The final steps of boiling and serving the tea were done and finished with an inhuman skill born of experience.
With his self-appointed task done, he sat cross-legged before giving the swirling and steaming green tea in his hands a look. With sharp and steady yet slow motions, he lifted the cup of tea before taking a sip.
He almost frowned as he took it from his lips and cracked his eyes open to stare at the ceramic cup.
Its continued existence on this plane of existence was only possible due to his near-perfect control that stopped him from disintegrating the cup in his hands with a reflexive flex of his grip.
With slow languid motions, he placed the cup back on the saucer before finally allowing himself a slight frown, secure in the thought that it would be hidden on his weathered features.
"This is perfect, Yamamoto-san," the old woman across from him called out with surprised and wide eyes. "How did you do it?"
To most humans, this might have been the height of perfection. His skill was flawless, technique sublime, and experience unmatched.
Yet that did not stop it from being below his rigid standard. The leaves were disgustingly mundane. It lacked the flavored reishi that empowered the leaves gotten from his personal garden back in Soul Society.
He spent the next few minutes staring at the cup before letting out a slow breath and standing up. If he stared any harder, he was certain the cup would burst into flames spontaneously.
"Is something wrong?" The woman called out, moving to stand up too, but he waved her off as he picked up his cane.
He had noted she was very perceptive, yet her perception was beginning to border on inhuman, for she should not have picked up on his annoyance due to his stoicism.
"Nothing you should trouble yourself with."
His red eyes opened partway, and she quickly sat down and turned back to the tea with a slightly accelerated heartbeat.
Hmmm, Curious.
He left the thought unformed in his head and stepped out.
The building he had gotten residence in was surprisingly an orphanage, privately owned by the woman and partially run by the older ones who never got adopted.
If there was one noteworthy thing about humans, it was the way they treated their spawn. A younger him would've sneered down at the coddling, but the older him could see the benefit of it and had engaged in it even.
His legacy wasn't just his bloodstained hands and deeds; it was also the two children he left behind to stand in his absence. He expected Shunsui to have taken up the mantle with his disappearance, even if the perpetually lazy brat had to be forced into the white captain-commander haori.
He walked down the passageway, and the four children running about chasing themselves slowed down the moment they noticed his presence before bowing to him in greeting.
"Jiji."
He did not bother with a reply, knowing they would be too shy to stay in his presence for any longer than necessary. Even binding his reiatsu so tightly to his near-immortal coil, he still seemed to give off an easy menace.
His stroll took him out of the building and into the streets. The heat of the sun washed over him with barely a notice from him.
Once more, this area of the city was seemingly low populated. The few people who passed by gave him a glance and a short respectful bow before giving him his space. Smacking down on those whelps had given him some level of reputation among his neighbors, coupled with the natural deference he was accorded for his age and supposed veterancy.
Over the past few days, it has led to a quiet life so far. A retirement of sorts, one he was not certain of.
He was not sure of what he was doing here. His return to life was not planned for, and despite how much he tried to ignore the impossible circumstances, he always found it coming back to him.
What was he supposed to do in this new world he found himself in? His mind came back to the Endbringers and Heroes. He had little interest in the games the strangely super-powered beings played in this world, yet he could not deny they were an abnormality.
Neither Shinigami, Quincy, nor Hollows. Humans. He had yet to sense a single one of his kind; he had not felt a single Senkaimon open yet, and he had resisted the urge to tear open a Garganta, knowing the effort was useless.
The Humans that managed to wield power, he likened them to the rare Fullbringer that seemed to pop up in the human world.
He gently let his reiatsu loose slightly if only to make use of reikaku. He ignored the minuscule cracks he could pick up forming on the ground and the distortion that formed in the air, the longer he left his reiatsu loose.
Barely a fraction of what he could bring in a fight, yet it was enough to spread out over the city. To spread it even further risked him releasing enough reiatsu to draw attention.
Reikaku was the use of reiatsu to sense the innate Reiryoku everything possessed. And like flames, he could pick and spot everyone in his range. The average human released so little Reiryoku; it made the ones that released much stand out even more.
Men and women scattered around the city with basic to an average level of reiryoku. It didn't take him much to figure they were the parahumans this world seemed to have.
He ignored the one that confirmed his suspicions radiating from behind him easily and focused on the one directly in front of him.
For the truly powerful Shinigami, the eyes were not truly needed. To be a death god meant to surpass and discard your mortal senses.
So even without his eyes, he could pick up just about everything on the person across the road from him.
Male, young, unfamiliar yet with startling similar features to the pup that had come a few days ago. A scout to watch them then, a means to prove his worthiness perhaps. He refused to believe they thought they could sneak this past him, but once again he was forced to remember this world knew nothing about him.
Something rolled to his feet, and he shifted his attention from the child and moved it to his feet. A ball?
"Jiji." The children he remembered passing by came to a halt meters away. It didn't take him long to figure out what happened.
He ignored the child's toy and focused once more on the back of the retreating whelp, at least whatever instincts for self-preservation weren't atrophied like the man that had come before him.
He turned his attention away from the child and started walking once more.
After leaving his immediate neighborhood, it took him only an hour of walking to come to a conclusion. One he had formed after his first two minutes but hoped it was wrong.
The city was run down and discarded in a way that went against his sense. Whatever this world's version of a government was supposed to be was either ineffective or maliciously inclined.
Stepping over another drunk form that slept under the harsh glare of the sun, he continued his walk. Observing broken down and rundown buildings. Cracked and littered pavement. A populace that seemed to be at the edge of panic and desperation.
It irked some part of him.
The part of him that built the Soul Society from the ground up, the part of him that planned and effected a regimented government and environment that turned a festering pit of killers and murderers into a city of nobles with worthwhile goals and plans.
The only stain in the perfection that was the Soul Society was one that was created by their own hands.
The Zaraki and its neighboring districts.
His original captains all dragged and fought their way out of that hell. It forged them into an unmatched band of killers and cutthroats with the power of a death god behind them
Monsters.
So he left it as a testament of what they once were, and a breeding ground for the caliber of monsters he once knew, in case they were ever needed once more.
Zaraki Kenpachi was proof that it worked.
What excuse did this world have for allowing this place to turn into what it was?
He stopped and tilted his head as if listening to something before slowly turning on his feet and began walking back to where he was coming from, ignoring the shocked and startled cries of the humans that were forced to stagger out of his way.
These Humans had proven themselves to be remarkably dull. The greatest proof of it so far was the horde of light-skinned men with shaved heads that surrounded the building he had come to call home for days now.
They hollered and jeered at the children he could see hiding and peering out from behind the window.
Armed with blades, wooden bats, and spiked chains, their intentions here were as clear as day. Even if you ignored the way the lead whelp banged at the surprisingly reinforced door.
Yet they were not the most interesting things he had noted so far. Amid the raving band of juvenile bullies and whelps armed and armored in weakness and desperation seeking the presence of each other to produce a modicum of bravery was a woman who stood apart. A lantern to the flickering candles that were the whelps around her.
"Where are the chinks that hurt him?" she spoke to the man that stood beside her, a more quiet and subdued man that didn't seem to care much for what was happening.
Her words were a whisper laced with steel, one his senses picked up easily. "Where is the fucking chink that destroyed the face of my father's bastard, and tarnished our name."
She was covered in a plate of steel that he would've expected from one of an older era. Unburnished steel enclosed her in its metallic protection, yet the helmet on the back of her head exposed her pale blonde hair that moved with the wind.
What use was a full plate that left the back of the head opened, he mused idly. The man moved to speak before sensing something that made him turn back.
He was dressed in a military uniform, one that had that insignia sporadically placed around it, with a great overcoat and a gas mask to hide his face.
"Be calm, Rain, it seems like the prey you seek has come seeking you too."
She turned around with more speed than he expected of her, especially while clad in full plate.
The helmet had slits that exposed bright blue eyes. Whatever protection it was supposed to render stopped just after her nose, showing off the wolf-like smile she sent him.
"Finally!" she screamed, rounding up on him and eyeing him up with glee. "Some sport!"
He buried his staff in the ground and slowly cracked opened his eyes once more. Maybe he had been too lenient the first time around. Expecting grace and wisdom from whelps such as these.
He wouldn't make that mistake a second time.
...
Building up a plot in this particular time era was a battle and half, but I have finally worked that out and It's quite fun. To me at least. No actual schedule for this yet, but I'm working on that.