Tiger Got to Hunt, Bird Got to Fly (ch. 11)
XI. GHOSTS OF OLD KYOTO
He’d put it off for far too long. Now that he was settled into the Third, there was no reason to avoid his old friends anymore. Kira huffed a sigh of relief as he thought of meeting them for drinks - something he hadn’t done at all during his stint in the Fourth.
His first thought was to see Hisagi, whom he’d grown closer to while his self-deprecation had pulled him away from Hinamori and Abarai. Hisagi was under consideration for a promotion to Lieutenant, though, and he seemed to have a lot on his mind. Kira told himself that he would congratulate his sempai along with everyone else when they held a promotion party for him. It wouldn’t do to bother him now.
Renji would be at the bar with his Eleventh Division friends. They were always there, so it would be easy to find them. Kira had passed them by many times, ignoring the raucous laughter, but tonight he would finally stop hiding.
As for Hinamori, she had never been one for drinking. Kira stopped by to see her on his way to the bar. She seemed happy; maybe happier than he’d ever seen her. And, maybe, he used to tease her about her crush on Captain Aizen because he’d been jealous. Renji used to say it was because he compared himself to Captain Aizen too much and, falling short of their captain’s talents, would become gloomy and pessimistic about his chances with Hinamori. Their backgrounds were similar enough - the Aizen family having not much more wealth or prestige than his own - and Kira’s accomplishments were comparable to what Captain Aizen’s had been at his age. Somehow, there was still no comparison. Kira had denied it, of course, but he knew that there had been moments where he had thought to himself that, if she would only look at him as a man, he would have courted her in earnest.
Hinamori brushed back some of her hair and smiled when she saw him approach. They chatted for a while, and she commented on how he was looking better these days.
“I could never work in the Fourth,” she said. “Being around sick people every day... It’s no wonder you looked like you had a permanent cold!”
“It builds up your immune system after a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?”
Kira raised his gaze to the sky in contemplation. “...A while.”
She snorted and playfully punched him in the arm. The sibling-like gesture, like all those that had come before, cemented for him how she would always see him as a boy.
“It’s not the same without you and Renji around, but I’m glad you guys are okay. It’s nice knowing that you’re getting along with your new divisions.”
“Yeah. I’m happy for you, too.”
He left her blushing in the gardens of the Fifth, her eyes darting toward her captain’s quarters.
---
Kira is in Abarai’s room, relaxing after a hard day’s work. Renji. Renji’s room.
Abarai-kun insists on being called Renji, “at least when we’re off duty”, and Kira is trying, really, but old habits are hard to break. It takes conscious effort for him, having been socialized as a noble, to let go of those mannerisms which are second nature. Eat, sleep, shit, honorifics. It will be some time before he can cuss out loud without feeling like he’s done something wrong.
Kira isn’t used to referring to his colleagues with their given names. No one had used Kira’s given name since he had come of age, and he often finds it difficult to return to the informal atmosphere that he hasn’t had since he was a small child. His remaining relatives have gradually distanced themselves with politeness. After Aunt Michiko’s passing, her children have come to take her lessons to heart. To his cousins he is no longer Izuru who once ran with them barefoot through the mud. More often than not, he’s the lord of the house who must be respected on the rare instances when he returns to the family grounds.
Danna, Danna. They make him sound like a wealthy old patron, and themselves like geisha girls. (It’s ironic, Kira thinks, that his anxiety about the upcoming mission has him thinking of everything in terms of Kyoto and soft geisha accents and Ichimaru Ichimaru Ichimaru.)
So no one calls him Izuru save for Lieutenant Ichimaru, but even he had not been given permission. It’s just that Ichimaru, more often than not, does whatever he wants. This new assignment is no exception.
The Fifth Division has been assigned to the Kansai region. Ichimaru, in a bold move unusual for a lieutenant, takes charge of the Kyoto team right from the start. Protocol dictates that lieutenants and captains only descend to the Living World when the scouts send for them during an emergency. On top of that, for him to choose not even the largest city under the division’s jurisdiction, Osaka, strikes many as being beyond odd.
Surely one would think that more Shinigami are needed in the larger cities. It’s only common sense to assume that the number of deaths, and thus the number of earthbound spirits, is proportional to the overall population. But this simply isn’t so. As Ichimaru explained to the Captain Commander, Kyoto is “a special case”, and they make exceptions for special cases, don’t they? Like the Kanto region’s Karakura, a single mid-sized city that the Thirteenth Division patrols more religiously than it does Tokyo proper.
Of the entire Kansai region - no, of the whole of Japan, Kyoto runs neck and neck with Karakura as the most dangerous territory for Shinigami to be posted. Speaking of which, Ichimaru had also mentioned that Karakura could really do with a full-scale cleansing like they’re about to perform for Kyoto. But for some reason, that’s a no go. The Captain Commander won’t allow it, and he won’t allow for it to be brought up, as Ichimaru learned the hard way. So the lieutenant had shrugged and dropped that topic with a smile and, perhaps to make up for his earlier gaffe, put his own neck out on the line to take down Kyoto with barely any reinforcements.
The old capital is a hotbed of ghost sightings. Its numerous temples and ruins give an otherworldly feel to the place, or so the humans say. Kyoto remembers her past glories. The ghosts tend to linger; so much so that the air itself is awash with a layer of spirit particles almost as thick as that which blankets all of Soul Society. So much so that the barrier between worlds is paper-thin, like one could just reach out, pinching at nothing, and pluck a hole into the Dangai as simple as that.
Kyoto is magical, Ichimaru had said, and not in a particularly good way. Once, when he was a child, he had snuck his way into the palace looking for things to steal and wound up being chased around by a slew of hungry ghosts. (Nowadays, he had said as an aside to Kira, he knew they had been Pluses nearly hollowfied.) The imperial servants who found him huddling in the wine cellar had chuckled at his tale of a vengeful samurai spirit, blood dripping out of empty eye sockets to splash against the chain attached to a hole in its chest. And when the cooks and maids kindly shooed him out with a handful of stale rice balls, he could have sworn that the ghosts of fifty or so concubines, all with chains coming out of them that bound them to the palace, giggled into their sleeves and waved goodbye. He had been the first person in a long time who could see them.
Kira wonders if he’ll be able to meet those same ghosts, and he wonders if he’ll be the one to perform the soul burial on those pieces of Ichimaru’s past. His brows knit at the thought of the daunting task they have ahead of them. To make a long overdue clean sweep of the ancient capital, to eradicate centuries’ worth of spiritual stagnation...
“Yo, Kira. You gonna drink that or just nurse your cup all night?”
Kira brings his hooded eyes up to meet those of his best friend.
“Oh, I get it...” Renji obnoxiously jabs his finger onto Kira’s forehead. “You volunteered for this mission just so you could get some steamy alone time with our creepy-ass lieutenant.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Suuuure.”
“I distinctly remember asking if you wanted to come.”
“What, and spend a month camping with Ichimaru? No thanks, man.”
“I also asked Hinamori, figured she might find the atmosphere to be inspirational for her paintings...”
“But she’s too busy making googly eyes at Captain Aizen.”
“Exactly. You’re the ones ditching me.”
At this, Renji pauses. His lips purse as if he’s eaten something sour but can’t bring himself to spit it out. He sighs, resigned to some horrible fate, and turns to Kira with a disturbingly caring look in his eyes.
“Do you need a wingman that bad? ‘Cuz you know I’d do it for you even though I’m hella freaked out by your taste in men. I mean, I thought you had it bad for Hinamori, but this...”
This makes Kira’s eye twitch, though he hopes it’s imperceptible in the dim lighting of the bar. He so dearly wants to make a sarcastic jab at Renji, but holds back at the last minute when his conscience rips him a new one about how his friend doesn’t need yet more grief about inappropriate attractions to midget girls and their stuffy brothers. (He’ll probably make that comment anyway, after a few more drinks.)
“Thanks, I guess, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Hold up,” Renji says before he slams back another drink. “I need to be more drunk for this conversation.” He refills his cup and downs it once more.
“What conversation? It’s just a mission.”
“No, not that. The ‘I-thought-you-had-a-thing-for-Hinamori-what-do-you-see-in-that-creeper’ conversation.” Renji closes his eyes for a bit, massages his temples, and says, “Yeah, about two more shots oughta do it.” He tosses back those two in quick succession while Kira gapes at him, completely at a loss for words. “Okay,” Renji continues, “The hell’s going on? Help me out here, ‘cuz I’m not seeing what Momo has in common with Ichimaru.”
Kira shrugs. “It’s a personality thing, and a mental connection thing. Somehow, it’s as if I become physically attracted to someone only after I’m mentally enamored of them.”
“Yeah, I can see that. It’s all deep and stuff. ‘Cuz you’re an egghead like that.”
“Ha, ha.”
“No, really. It’s cute. The sensitive-types would totally fall for that stuff if you told them. You’d have to beat them off with a stick if only you’d let people know how cute and shit you are, so why do you never tell them?”
I just told you, Kira thinks. He bites the inside of his cheek and refuses to admit that he used to almost sort of maybe have a thing for Renji way back in the day. Because Renji is kind of a big idiot. A loyal, lovable idiot, but still an idiot. Kira shakes his head and vows to drink until he can’t remember this embarrassment of a conversation anymore. He steals the sake bottle.
Chug, slam, chug. Over and over, he refills the cup just to suck it all down in a single gulp. Time jumbles around him until he can’t tell minutes from hours. There are moments of clarity interspersed with the buzzing and swirling and raucous laughter.
Somehow, they still end up back on the same topic - why can’t they just let it go! - but it’s funnier this time because Kira can’t quite make sense of what they’re saying.
“It’s not like he’s the only man I’ve been attracted to.”
“Aha! I knew you were staring at Hisagi’s ass!”
“Shut up! It’s a nice ass!”
Did those words come out of his mouth?
“Next you’ll be saying you used to have a thing for me!”
“You have a nice ass too!” Kira shouts as he trips over the table. While still sitting. He giggles at his amazing feat until the hiccups kick in.
Well, shit. There went his plan to never, ever tell Renji about that crush he used to have... Oh, double shit. He forgot to deny it to himself, too. Not that it matters, because if he’s hearing things right, Renji is saying, “Yanno who’s gotta niiiice ass?” And then they’re both squealing in girlish falsetto, “Oh, Aiiiizen-taichoooo~!” and laughing and snorting until liquor comes out their noses and they pass out.
Or Renji passes out - he has a higher tolerance, but he’s had more to drink.
“We’re such dicks,” Kira says. He giggles himself into a drunken stupor, vaguely amazed that he was able to bring himself to say the word ‘dick’ out loud. Then he promptly passes out, too.
Kira shadows his lieutenant as they pass through into the living world. There’s an uneasiness stirring in his gut at the thought of the limits placed on Ichimaru’s powers. Usually he would be fine with that bit of regulation, but it’s too risky for this mission, he thinks. It’s almost as if someone’s trying to get rid of them - or, well, get rid of Ichimaru, anyway, and Kira would just be one extra minion out of the picture and no big sweat either way - but that’s just paranoia, isn’t it?
Originally, the Head Captain had approved a mid-sized team of ten or so shinigami for the sweep, and only after a small scouting unit had been sent first. Now the scouts had been recalled, and the allowed team size decreased to a handful of volunteers at best. In reality, after Ichimaru further limited the volunteers to seated officers with demonstrated combat ability (and jokingly added “preferably with a death wish” to the sign-up sheet), it’s down to the two of them.
Not for the first time, Kira curses himself for not taking Abarai up on his “wingman” offer. He curses himself for not having the guts to beg and grovel at Hinamori’s feet and bribe her with pictures of topless Captain Aizen at the hotsprings. He wonders if, when he dies, Hisagi will know to publish his poetry posthumously.
“We ain’t goin’ to visit the poet’s house, if that’s why ya wanna come.”
“I wasn’t thinking of poetry at all!” He really wasn’t - he had been thinking mostly of being alone with Ichimaru and how he was going to die young - though the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the place where the most venerated master of haiku wrote his saga is certainly appealing now that it came to mind.
“Sure, sure. Well, I might be persuaded to make a detour to snag some persimmons from the dead man’s tree.”
Kira’s lips immediately pucker at the remembrance of the taste. It would be appealing if the place wasn’t blanketed with persimmon trees, he amends.
Sighing, Kira broaches the topic of his reservations. “Lieutenant Ichimaru, with how much they’ve cut the mission allowances but are still allowing us to continue, doesn’t this almost seem like it’s a --”
“Set up? Suicide mission?” Ichimaru’s grin stretches tight with a feral edge to it. “My, ya catch on quick.”
Oh.
Shit.
They are so doomed.
“Lieutenant,” Kira shakily begins. He clears his throat and tries again in a steadier voice. “Lieutenant Ichimaru, permission to speak freely?”
“Granted! S’just us here.”
“Pardon my language, sir, but who did you piss off this time?”
“Oh, no one in particular...”
“I suppose that’s everyone, then.”
“You wound me, Izuru. I’m sure it wasn’t more’n half of ‘em in Central 46, an’ Captain Kyoraku seemed to get a good laugh out of it.”
Kira’s shoulders slump, and he feels the overwhelming urge to hide his face in his palms. “Lieutenant,” he says mournfully, “you’re giving Captain Aizen a bad name.”
His lieutenant only grins. “Yer cute when ya go all mother hen on me. But no worries, we’re stronger’n they think.”
Rolling his eyes, Kira bites back the urge to ask the other man if he’s ever serious. If he also bites back a smile, it’s not something he’s willing to admit.
Lieutenant Ichimaru has stationed himself in the very center of the maelstrom: the old palace. He stands up on the roof, sun glinting off his silver hair, and keeps watch for stray spirits wandering about. They aren’t very hard to find, given how Ichimaru had to cut a swath through hostile spirits just to get where he was. Ichimaru is constantly hopping down from his perch to perform a quick konso here or cut down a Hollow there. He’s surprisingly quick about it, and it’s a testament to his strength that he can continue to smile after so many consecutive battles.
Kira, meanwhile, scans the outer regions. He moves in a circular pattern, working inward. Where Ichimaru had taken the dangerous route and charged straight in, he’d ordered Kira to stay at the vanguard. At first there are few spirits, but it gets busier as he closes in on the center. It’s quick work for most of the Pluses. Some run, and some try to chat him up first, but it’s an easy konso for the majority.
Of the troublesome ones, the runners are better than the chatters. Kira isn’t a newbie by any means; he’s done his fair share of konso missions before, but he isn’t quite hardened enough to ignore the pleas of the spirits he’s sending off. When they chat, Kira is inclined to listen, and he’s inclined to help them find some semblance of peace before forcing them to move on.
Really, the mission isn’t as bad as he had feared. Not that there are less Hollows than expected or anything, but perhaps it’s just that Lieutenant Ichimaru is too strong to fall, even when he’s only at half power. Kira is proud of him. His reiatsu feels more and more like a captain’s these days, growing at a remarkable pace. Or maybe it’s always been this way, and Ichimaru is only now letting it out. Surprise! I’ve had bankai since before I hit my first growth spurt! Something like that, maybe. Just one more secret; one more subversive layer to the man.
On the last night of the purge, when Kira is nearly at the palace grounds and Gin has taken to playing peek-a-boo with the last few Hollows, Kira encounters a woman.
She’s dressed as a courtesan and she sobs into her sleeves. And keeps sobbing. And keeps sobbing. There were a few other Pluses in the neighborhood, but they’ve since departed for Soul Society, courtesy of Wabisuke. Still the woman sobs, and Kira finds himself reluctant to approach her. He doesn’t know what to say to ease her pain, but he can’t just leave her there.
With a sigh, he rifles through his pockets for a handkerchief and goes to kneel down before her.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” he asks in healer’s tones.
The woman accepts the handkerchief and dabs away the tears. “Please, sir, Shinigami-han, I know what y’are. I-I want to go with you; I’m not runnin’!”
But, Kira thinks, there’s always a but. If there wasn’t, they’d have been able to reach Soul Society on their own.
“My son,” she sobs. “Please, ya have to save my son.”
It hurts, listening to her story. It bursts out of her like she hasn’t ever had anyone to listen to her. A hundred years she has spent scouring the streets for her lost son, who died with her, murdered beside her. Kira sits with her as she repeats again and again how she was a bad mother, how she should have made a better life for him, how he wouldn’t have had to steal if only she hadn’t been so weak-minded while she was alive… Her tears are endless, even as she tells him of happier times and how her boy was so clever and sweet, kindhearted, loving. There are shadows behind her words.
“What is it you’re afraid of, ma’am?” Kira feels like he’s on the verge of puzzling it out. “I might have sent your son on ahead of you. You’re the last Plus I can sense around… unless…”
“I’m afraid, what I’m most afraid of,” she whispers, “is that I’ve pushed my son to become a monster.”
“Hollow?”
She nods. “He was strong, and there was a darkness, such a darkness in his heart that I’d always pretended not to see! But he wasn’t bad,” she’s quick to amend, “He was always such a good boy, jus’ ambitious. An’ I know what that does to us ghosts, when we can’t get what we want, what we need. It’s ambition that eats at us ‘til we depair an’ turn into th’ empty ones.”
It took a while for her words to sink in. Kira wrestles with himself on what to do, but in the end he relents.
“All right. I shouldn’t be doing this, but… Well, do you think he’d be in the palace?”
“Yes, yes! I’ve always thought that’s why I couldn’t find ‘im, because he’d gone where I was too weak to follow. He loved sneaking into the palace, that boy.”
“That’s good. You see, ma’am, I’m not actually alone. I came with a… friend, who’s taking care of most of the Hollows. He should know if your son was among the ones he’s sent off.” Kira glances toward the palace to see if he can catch a glimpse of Ichimaru, but there’s no glint of silver. He frowns slightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you there. You’ll be safe with me.”
The woman smiles oh-so-widely; it’s beautiful. “Thank you so much!”
As he escorts her, they talk some more. Slyly, she pokes him about his “friend”, to which Kira says, flustered, “We’re really just friends!” Although… he may have gone off a bit on how his lieutenant is the best lieutenant and is just plain brilliant, a genius, tragically misunderstood, but absolutely someone to be admired! She just giggles, and it feels good to have someone to say this to who won’t look at him as if he’s gone crazy, speaking like that about Ichimaru.
The trip to the palace feels almost too short. The palace itself is too quiet. Kira extends his senses and feels… nothing. There’s nothing but Ichimaru lounging on a stone in the gardens.
“Izuru~ All the Hollows’re gone~ I’m so bored~”
“Yes, well, this lady here has a question for you…” When the Plus beside him did nothing but tremble, possibly due to Ichimaru’s reiatsu, Kira continued for her. “Ah, we’re looking for her son, who might have, you know, become Hollowfied, and we were wondering if… if you’d seen… him...”
Ichimaru is up, and he’s staring at the woman with his eyes closed. He still smiles, and that’s just creepy, even on Kira’s desensitized scale. He’s giving her the full brunt of that intimidating grin. (Why would he threaten a civilian?) The woman, though, is staring back just as hard. Kira has never seen anyone do as she does. Trembling and tearing up, she meets him straight on.
“Ya really think yer son became a Hollow?”
“I… never dared… to hope otherwise…” Each word she chokes out is accompanied by a step toward the man before her, glowing silver and cold in the moonlight. When she reaches him, she has to crane her neck up to see his face. She touches his cheek, reverently, and Kira sees, really sees the similarity in facial structure just as she sighs, “Gin, my son.”
This, for Kira, is a moment he will never forget. It’s a one-of-a-kind event never to be repeated. The moment when Lieutenant Ichimaru melts before a civilian and allows her to take him into her arms.
He embraces her back. They murmur comforts and condolences, of which Kira hears only a few snatches. (“Ya joined the military? Gin, I thought ya hated the military!”)
“Ma,” Gin says after what feels like an age, “we need to send ya through.”
She nods in acceptance, but when he doesn’t let go of her, it’s Kira who makes the approach.
She whispers to Gin, “I still think ya’d make a pretty geiko.” Then, with a wink at Izuru, “Take care of him for me, will ya? Ya seem like the sensible type. This boy’s always bitin’ off more’n he can chew. I always said he’d need a sensible partner.”
“I’ll try, ma’am.” Wabisuke’s hilt is at her forehead. He presses down.
“See that ya do. An’ call me ‘ma’.”
It’s a regular konso. There’s a shimmer, and then she’s gone. It feels anticlimactic, somehow, but Kira is too emotionally burned out to care.
“Pfft. I think my mother just gave ya my hand in marriage. Wanna have yerself a geisha bride, hmm, danna?”
“Please don’t call me that. My cousins call me that. It’s disgusting.”
“Goshujin-sama~”
“Oh, gross!”
There’s another mercurial shift in mood just as they feel the portal open. Gin stiffens and frowns. “Ya speak of this to no one,” he says, as if that’s even necessary. Gin of all people should know that Kira is on his side; even more so after all that they’ve just been through.
And again, just as suddenly, blowing hot and cold in the blink of an eye, he’s back to the carefully maintained irreverence of Lieutenant Ichimaru, the mask he wears for Soul Society. Ichimaru turns his back to Kira and starts walking, all flippant waves and predatory grace. “C’mon, then. Mission’s over. Pickup crew’s here.”
---
They hadn’t met up for a long while, but it was surprisingly easy to slip back into their old routine. Renji also had his own concerns, and so was distracted enough not to grill Kira on why he hadn’t been around lately.
Their conversation drifted to the topic that was on everyone’s mind.
“He’ll be born in Karakura, most likely. I read a study by the Twelfth Division that Shinigami souls tend to reincarnate near the place where they died. His last mission was to Karakura, wasn’t it?”
Renji grunted and shrugged. “I guess so. That’s the Thirteenth’s territory, ain’t it?”
“There’s no need to worry, then. Someone as strong as Lieutenant Shiba is bound to come back. He’ll be a Shinigami again before you know it.”
Even though Kira felt uneasy about the situation, he feigned confidence that everything would be all right. He had learned long ago that some things were dangerous to say aloud - things like one’s doubts about the fairness of the rulings of Central 46 or, well, things like The Wall.
If you said them, or hinted at them too often, you were marked. Soul Society had ears, and it was detrimental to a Shinigami’s career to be known as one who was disobedient or couldn’t keep his mouth shut. To be marked was to be cut off from the line of information. You wouldn’t know the latest political machinations until it was too late; wouldn’t know until the target was you. If you got on the wrong side of an ancient house, they had the power to strike your name from the record. They could make you disappear.
Things were different for those who weren’t nobles. They didn’t need to cultivate contacts or keep an eye on those hidden movements, and they certainly didn’t need to worry about being the cause of an entire clan’s downfall for having said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Kira wanted to protect Renji’s honest world where there was no possibility of foul play involved in Lieutenant Shiba’s death. At least until Renji made a name for himself as an upper seat and became a target of interest in the schemes of nobility, at least until then.
Lieutenant Shiba was a noble, though, and famous enough even without it. Even though his clan had been disgraced, had fallen. There was still the distinct possibility that someone up there hadn’t liked him and his wife, and had therefore planned for them to meet their demise on a mission. “Dangers of the job” and all that. This, Kira knew from experience. (Bitterly, he kept those thoughts of Kyoto and meant-to-be-suicide missions to himself.)
“Yeah? You really think he’ll be back?”
“He should be... Unlike the way Hollows cannibalize each other and mix their souls, Shinigami souls are immortal.”
“That’s gonna be weird, if I suddenly meet up with some dude with the face of a dead guy I used to know.”
Kira nodded, and with a sly smirk, said, “He’ll be stealing Kuchiki-san’s attention away from you in no time.”
Renji growled and cuffed him on the back of the head, but that just sent him into a fit of laughter. His relationship with his friends was back to normal. Things were changing with Gin, and Kira wasn’t sure what effects this would have on the direction of his career, but... Yeah, life was good.