>>5575879“Well, yeah. Why would I say it if I didn’t? Ain’t no point lying to you of all people - ya can see right through me, clearly.” The fact that you actually, truly meant that surprised you to no end, and yet at the same time wasn’t shocking whatsoever. The fact that two paradoxical and opposite feelings could exist within you at once should make no sense, and probably wouldn’t to anyone else should you try to explain it, but to you, it was a normal part of your existence.
“Really now? And are ya gonna do anyfin about it?” Hirako-taicho asks, resting his chin on his nestled hands.
You shrug. “Well, someone probably has to. If no one else does it, maybe I’ll get round to it at some point.
“That so?” Hirako-taicho’s grin grows wider still. “Maybe do it sooner rather than later. I wanna see what society would like when yer done with it.”
The two of you spoke for a while longer, before you bade your captain goodnight, and returned to the barracks to an awaiting Tsukuya. You woke the next morning, early as always, finding that by the time you had, Hirako-taicho had already promoted you to 9th Seat.
– – –
The year is 1870. You are Hokkyokusei Danketsu, and you are currently enjoying a day off. Your brothers had been bugging you to show them ‘cool shinigami tricks’, so you’d taken them off your father’s hands for the day under the pretense of showing them some of the Rukongai. All of you knew what you were really doing, of course, but your father was much too proud to ever accept you simply training them, implying you could do a better job than him.
Tsukuya had insisted on coming along, mostly due to the fact she’d only met Ichimi and Konban a couple of times. It was a fight you’d lose, and not one that you particularly cared about or that mattered either, so you relented, bringing her. It was good she was here, anyway - Konban clearly had a knack for hakuda, so she could help him in his training for that.
In the past few years, you’d actually had to take on responsibility, and so hadn’t had as much time to train as you may have liked. Still, that didn’t mean you’d spent no time training at all. You’d noticed a marked improvement in your…
>Zanjutsu>Kido >Hakuda>Hoho…and your body had grown stronger too, getting…
>Stronger>Faster>More durable 