Chapter 096: Rumors
The atmosphere in the room shifted into something slightly awkward.
The captains who had been in the middle of saying things went quiet in a way that was not entirely natural, and most of them turned to look at Unohana.
Kyoraku, who had been the one to invite her opinion in the first place, let out a small laugh and made the face of a man who had gotten considerably more than he had bargained for.
Well.
Senior colleagues were senior for a reason. Landing a statement that cleared the room was apparently one of the associated skills.
Though in fairness, Unohana was not normally like this. The topic had clearly produced an unusual response from an unusual person.
Working through that in his head, Kyoraku glanced sideways at Ukitake.
How was he supposed to follow that up?
"A little help here."
Ukitake smiled, pressed his lips together, straightened his collar, and spoke.
"As a proposal, it may be slightly on the direct side."
Any argument had to go somewhere. Ukitake tried a different angle.
"The reason we moved to contain the information in the first place was precisely because the situation was so unusual, wasn't it?"
A captain against an Academy student.
The gap in formal standing between those two positions was not a small thing, and the implications for the Gotei 13's reputation were real.
Ukitake was not one of the captains from the Thousand Year Blood War era, but he was Yamamoto's personal student, which gave him a reasonably clear picture of how the older generation in this room thought.
"Captain Unohana, I believe this is the kind of matter that warrants careful deliberation before we reach a conclusion."
A measured position, and by stating it, a clear indication of where he personally stood.
Ukitake was on the side of maintaining order.
"But Squad 11 has always been a special case, hasn't it?"
Hirako Shinji extended his right hand in a gesture that conveyed the whole problem was fairly simple once you looked at it straight.
"Unlike the other squads, that unit was built specifically around its combat emphasis. That's the whole point of it."
Which meant.
"Getting the priorities backwards seems like the wrong direction."
Persuading people through argument was never easy, and it was considerably harder when everyone in the room had a different view of the same facts. Hirako's entry opened the floor, and the captains who had been holding back began making their positions known again. Sasakibe listened to all of it, then put together a working summary.
"Support and opposition are roughly equal?"
In some ways, an expected result.
Stability against decisive action. The organization had been in motion for centuries, and the membership had changed, but the fundamental tension between those two instincts had not. Whether that was good or bad was not a question with a clean answer.
What it meant in practical terms was that further discussion was necessary.
"We should wait a little longer. The Commander-General will arrive shortly."
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni.
As Commander-General, his opinion carried the weight that settled things when argument had reached its limit. When deliberation went in circles, the Commander-General's view was what moved the needle.
"Take a short break. Please make yourselves comfortable."
Sasakibe stepped out. The tension in the room eased, and the captains began talking among themselves.
Naturally, certain groupings formed.
Old noble houses had their own gravitational pull. Yoruichi and the Kuchiki patriarch drifted toward each other without any visible decision being made.
"What's your read on this new talent?"
Yoruichi's tone was casual. The age difference between the two of them was not small, but among the old noble families, age was not really the meaningful barrier. Lineage was.
"A potential talent, perhaps."
Ginrei Kuchiki gave a small sound and took a slow sip of his tea.
"Kijishi was never someone who belonged at that level in the first place. Having him removed is not an unwelcome development. Though whether this student has the qualities to become a captain is a separate question entirely."
Yoruichi clicked her tongue.
"Still as demanding as ever, old man."
"You are too lenient, head of the Shihoin house."
"You're not wrong about that. But this particular new face, I actually like what I've seen."
"For what reason?"
"Well, I'm the one who found him. How about that?"
A short pause. Ginrei turned his head slightly to one side, and something that might have been a quiet exhale of satisfaction came out.
"In that case, yes. Worth some satisfaction."
Across the room.
Kyoraku and Ukitake had ended up together, as they always did.
"Shunsui, what's your honest read on Kijishi's actual level?"
"We're all captains here. You're really asking me that?"
"Cough, cough. Sorry, sorry."
"I'm joking. Don't look at me like that."
The tone was more complaint than genuine irritation, because the complaint was also a given. Ukitake's condition was common knowledge. When it came for him, showing up to a meeting at all was more than could be expected, let alone keeping track of every institutional detail.
"You weren't at Kijishi's investiture either, were you? Not having much impression of the man is understandable."
Back to the point.
"His actual level..."
Kyoraku rubbed his chin and took a moment to think it through.
"Honestly, he belongs at the bottom of the captain tier. That's about the size of it."
In the context of the captains' room, of course.
"His Bankai has always relied on a particular trick, and I won't be coy about it: if any of us actually went at him seriously, the ability gaps would make it straightforward. He would lose."
"Cough, cough. Then why..."
"Why did he become captain? That's a history question, and not one worth going down right now."
Ukitake wiped the corner of his mouth with a cloth and thought it over, then nodded.
Fair enough.
"He's not the interesting part of this conversation anyway. The student worth paying attention to is the one we were just discussing."
Kyoraku's expression came alive in a way it hadn't been a moment before.
"For professional reasons, I did a bit of digging once the news reached me. And I found something genuinely interesting."
Professional reasons.
Ukitake recalled what Kyoraku's professional reasons actually were.
Squad 8 had a specific operational focus: intelligence. Collection, recording, analysis. If you were looking for the single most capable person in all of Soul Society at acquiring information through whatever means were available, Kyoraku Shunsui was the answer without much competition.
"Cough, cough. What's interesting about him?"
"His Zanpakuto."
Kyoraku said it the way someone says something they've been sitting on.
"The general understanding is that each person's Zanpakuto has one form. One type, one expression. That's considered settled, isn't it?"
He paused, then added:
"Our own situations are somewhat exceptional, of course. But not in the way this student's is."
"What are you saying?"
"A single Zanpakuto that has completely different forms, completely different abilities. Does that seem reasonable to you? Does it seem possible?"
****
70+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces