"Head captain… You blame me as if acted on my own authority."
"If a Father tells a child to nail a hole in the wall. And the child nails the hole too deep…"
"Would you blame the child for acting on the Father's request?"
"Or would you hold the Father accountable for not giving clear orders to the child?"
.
.
Blood red eyes scanned the lush greens of the forest.
Standing in the middle of a carnage, the young woman observed every single corpse of the hollows she took care of moments ago.
As she scanned the few bodies of the hollows, one observation caught her attention above all.
'They didn't disappear right away... That's quite odd.'
Normally, when low reiatsu type hollows were destroyed with zanpakuto or other purifying techniques like kido, they automatically disappeared and returned back to being regular souls.
'But that isn't happening. Instead, I'm looking at supposed low reiatsu hollows with bodies still very much put together.'
Turning her head to the side, the woman stared ahead at the deeper levels of the Rukongai forest where the hollows had attacked her.
"If only I had more time, I would've investigated further."
With this said, she drew her blade and walked towards the nearest hollow.
A bright ray of golden light shone through the sky before it disappeared just as quickly.
Holding her blade in front of her, Kirin cut her finger with the edge and formed a symbol on the blade surface with the blood.
The symbol glowed red before the symbol faded away.
Turning her sword over, she yanked off what appeared to be a talisman hanging off from a short chain from her hilt.
She then shoved it into her shihakusho pocket and sheathed her sword.
'I don't have much info about this case yet. So I'll have to investigate further. But who could have more details?'
...
'Ah, that's right.'
A small smile formed on her face as the answer came to her head.
Using shunpo, she began making her way over to her division.
'Seems like I'm going to spend the rest of my day with my dear captain.'
.
.
Sprawled out on a couch in the wide office space of her captain, Kirin snacked on some cookies while reading the case file of her mission for the umpteenth time.
The details still didn't make sense to her.
As lazy as she was to anything considered to be work, she prided herself on her efficiency in getting important, tasking jobs done the quickest.
After having the reports of the mission delivered by a squad member to the 12th and 8th division, Kirin had begun undergoing her own investigation.
So there she was in her captain's office…
Intentionally crunching as loud as possible on the cookies she had by her side while enjoying the occasional sound of Shinji's pen snapping and him struggling to hold in his irritation.
Shinji looked up from the paperwork that he was trying to do.
His lieutenant had been lounging in his office for the past hour, doing nothing but reading a single paper over and over, eating from a large sack of cookies and testing his patience.
He had taken Ukitake's words to heart and decided to be a bit more calm when dealing with her.
But she was making it practically impossible.
Crunch!
His eyebrows twitched at a particularly loud crunch.
"Patience… Just ignore her," He muttered to himself.
Crunch!
"Just ignore her—"
Crunch!
"Just ignore—!"
Crunch!
"Kirin! Why you little!! Get out!!!"
.
.
"Captain! As your lieutenant, I deserve to be treated with respect!!"
Kirin stayed kneeling beside the office desk on her captain's orders, with her hands raised high in the air, several bumps forming on her head and an unapologetic frown on her face.
She stared at her captain with a look that swore retribution when she was finally let out of her punishment.
While she was intentionally trying to annoy the man, she didn't think it would get to a point where he would place her in corporal punishment just for chewing loudly.
It was an injustice.
She glanced, seeing her captain engaged in a conversation with the captain of squad 7, Love Aikawa.
He often visited Shinji to discuss mission reports and other stuff. Apart from often working together on missions, they were also very good friends.
Slowly, she lowered her hands to her side so her captain wouldn't notice—
"I see what you're doing Kirin!"
A punch to her skull immediately made her shoot her arms back up.
"Ohh, Captain!!" She whined in a high pitched tone. "My arms are tired and I have work to do! Please let me go!"
"Idiot! You didn't remember you had work when you were lazing around earlier did you?!" Shinji yelled back, returning to his seat. "You're not going anywhere until two hours are up."
Kirin visibly deflated at her captain's words.
And all she did was chew too loudly.
Love, who was watching nearby, burst out into loud cackling.
"Shinji! This lieutenant of yours is hilarious!" He managed to say in between breaths. "But really Yagami, you need some behavioral corrections."
Kirin shot him a glare. "There is nothing wrong with my behavior. You all are just too uptight."
"Shut it!"
Kirin squealed as Shinji's sheathed zanpakuto was whacked onto her head, forming another bump.
"Captain! This is considered abuse you know!!"
"I said shut it!! For that I'm adding an extra hour!!"
"Arghhhh!"
.
Later that evening…
"Ugh! Why do we have to be in charge of patrols every night huh?! It's so not fair! So what if we're fresh graduates from the academy! We're still useful assets to be stuck doing patrol like this! Stupid seated officers of squad 5!"
"M-Milim, lower your voice while saying stuff like that!"
"Shut up, Shoda! You can't lie that it doesn't piss you off! Honestly, why can't that lieutenant of ours handle jobs like this since everyone says she's just a deadweight?!"
"Milim! Don't disrespect Lieutenant Yagami like that in public! Besides, rumors are just rumors. We haven't even met her yet."
"Oh yeah, don't remind me how she didn't even attend the meeting to welcome us into the squad. Isn't that proof enough to show the rumors are true?"
"T-That's…"
A smile crept onto the face of the dark haired girl, perched on top of a pole in the middle of her squad's area blocks.
She was dressed in her usual shihakusho, a black rose print haori over it and a zanpakuto at her side.
"My, my…" She giggled, her red eyes piercing through the dark night. "Are they talking about me? Looks like the rumor of the "lazy lieutenant of squad 5" have reached them."
"Good."
The two freshly appointed shinigami, Milim Watanabe and Shoda Kurio kept on with their conversation all while not noticing the shadow like body that was slowly approaching them from behind.
"Everyone says third seat Aizen is the one who's supposed to be lieutenant," Milim, a brown haired young girl with pigtails, continued with her criticism. "And it is so true! Not only is he so nice but I hear he's pretty strong too!"
Shoda, a boy with a mop of red hair that covers his eyes, quivered before hesitantly nodding. "Third seat Aizen is pretty nice. H-He is so encouraging too."
"See?! If only we could drive that useless Lieutenant out of the—"
"Hello!!!"
The two young shinigami jumped at the cheerful voice that echoed from behind them.
Kirin stood behind them with a wide smile on her face.
Shoda was the first to react to her presence, stuttering and looking like a deer caught in headlights.
"L-L-Lieutenant Yagami!!" He squeaked, before giving a deep bow. "G-Good evening ma'am!"
He looked up to his side in horror as his friend, Milim not only did not bow in respect, but even dared throw a glare at the lieutenant.
Kirin didn't lose her smile, even as the young female shinigami directed a glare at her. She just kept on staring at both of them with her usual piercing red eyes devoid of emotion.
It appeared to be a staring contest in a stalemate, before Milim spoke up.
"You're not supposed to be out here so late,"
Shoda wanted to dig a hole in the ground and disappear. He couldn't believe the way Milim had spoken to Lieutenant Yagami.
Regardless of whatever rumors were going around, she was still a lieutenant. And there had to be a reason why she was in that position.
Kirin let out a chuckle lacking any emotion. "Oh? I didn't realize how late it was. I was doing some work in my office and I guess I fell asleep. Do you hardworking squad members mind pointing the direction to the squad barracks? It is so dark at night."
Milim let out a deep scoff before gesturing to the right. "Over that way. You're a Lieutenant for crying out loud yet you don't even know how to find your way in the dark? Pathe—"
Shoda immediately shot up to cover his friend's mouth before she said anything more.
He didn't understand why, but the moment Milim had begun speaking again, he felt an ominous chill run up his spine that told him that they had better get away from their lieutenant.
If they wanted to live.
"U-Uh, the squad barracks are to the right at that crossroad ma'am!" He responded quickly, pulling Milim down to join in the bow. "Y-You should find one or two squad members still on patrol who can direct you to your quarters from there!"
"Hm, thank you."
"I-I am glad to help ma'am! H-Have a good night ma'am!"
With that, the male shinigami scrambled off, dragging his struggling friend with him.
Kirin watched them run off before slowly pushing her zanpakuto back into its sheath.
'That young shinigami girl, Milim or whatever was very lucky that her friend had gotten her out of there in time.'
She began walking in the direction of their squad barracks, pulling on the black cloak and scarf she had kept hidden.
'If she had kept on talking for even a second longer, her head may have ended up on the ground,"
With that, she used flash step and vanished.