The Letter

A slow day at the Zamoreus complex. In fact one of the only days that Zamoreus didn't have to attend some arduous meeting. Tatsuya and Sumiko took the time to stay in today. They had been traveling so much, they decided it would be better to just rest in the complex...In a manner of speaking. Tatsuya was enjoying the workout facilities in the complex and was the only one in the overly large room, aside from Sumiko and their to gikon. One of his requests to Zamoreus when he joined him, was that he have a designated time frame to use the workout area by himself. This was done so that he could be able to train in private in his shinigami form. Tatsuya spent ten minutes warming up and had already worked up a decent sweat. The others on the other hand had taken a more relaxed approach to the available amenities. His gikon was on a treadmill taking a leisurely stroll while watching a series of prerecorded mix martial arts fights on some sports network. Sumiko and her gikon were sitting on a bench closer to Tatsuya. Her gikon watching a movie on some dead, famous actor. The guy was some sort of big action star in his time and the movie was supposedly one of his best. Apparently him and his elite special forces team were being stalked and killed by an alien hunter in some jungle. And Sumiko, she sat on the bench with a tablet in her hand. She was reading a novel off of it. Something about a woman being the only female werewolf in the world and "The Pack" she lived with. Sumiko was drawn to it by the female of the book, apparently the main character.

"Not that way!" Tatsuya's gikon exclaimed at the fighter on the television causing Sumiko and her gikon to glance in his direction. "Left. No your other left...ugh." He grunted in disapproval. "Something...wrong?" Tatsuya inquired between his three hundred pound bench press. "These humans...ugh... they are just so slow." He explained his disappointment. "Well...what you...expect...from humans?" Tatsuya asked as he continued his reps. "Not much from the looks of it. An academy reject could take on any one of these guys." He said causing the two females to giggle and a slight smirk to cross Tatsuya's face as he finished his rep. "I wouldn't doubt it, seeing as they would not be able to see them." Tatsuya got up and added twenty-five more pounds to each side of the weight bar, and looked at him with half a grin on his face, the two girls giving a slight snicker of laughter. "Ha ha, you know what I mean, Boss." He shot an objectionable look at the two girls. "Indeed I do, but what can I say...They're only human." He laid back down on the benched and started another set.

"Now that's not right, Tatsuya." Sumiko laid her tablet on her lap and looked at his prone body. "What was?" Tatsuya kept going with his set, not even looking up; not easy to do while holding three hundred and fifty pounds. "Look at Mr. Zamoreus, he is human and look what he could do." Sumiko tried to refute Tatsuya's statement. "Well...My dear...He...is an exception." He concentrated on his reps as he answered Sumiko, before hanging the bar up. "You can't count the humans as a whole when only a few exceptions have the power." He sat up to grab the towel on the bench next to him and wiped his face. "It's true." He said as he headed over to a five hundred pound heavy bag. "Well, you shouldn't look down at them." She gave him a bitter look as he gave a few practice hits on the heavy bag. "Don't give me that look. It may not be a compliment, but it's far from an insult." He briefly paused and looked over at Sumiko. "Besides, It's impossible for me to look down at them..." He was interrupted by the two gikon laughing at his statement, because of how tall he was. "As I was saying..." He gave a slightly annoyed glance at the two gikon, who only snickered in response. "I would never look down on them. After all, both of us were human at one time. He smiled at Sumiko just before going back to hitting the heavy bag. "And don't you forget it." She said with a little playful attitude and smiled back before picking up her tablet. "You wanna change the channel and put on a movie like her." He pointed to Sumiko's gikon as he looked over to his. "I prefer working out over getting into trouble while I'm in here." He said after landing a couple of punches on the heavy bag. "Heh heh. Sure thing, Boss." He jumped off the treadmill and changed the channel on the television. Sumiko's gikon couldn't help but laugh a little at the situation. Sumiko shook her head a little, with a slight smirk on her face as she read her story.

Loud rhythmic thuds could be heard as Tatsuya skillfully worked the five hundred pound heavy bag. Each hit he landed caused the heavy bag to move just as if a normal human was hitting a standard heavy bag. Those regular heavy bags just didn't cut it when Tatsuya used them. They would usually pop off the chain before he could really let loose. Sumiko looked up, noticing something different about Tatsuya, and tried to figure it out. After a few seconds she realized what it was. "I think you're getting stronger, Tatsuya." She called out to him as he continued his workout. "Yeah." He stopped hitting the bag and looked at his right hand, opening and closing it. "I think it was because of that hollow I fought. It really pushed me to my limits." He thought back to that brutal fight. "To think that the fight with the hollow was actually beneficial for you." She watched as he pounded away at the heavy bag. "Heh, It didn't feel beneficial at the time." He paused to land a couple of combos on the heavy bag before continuing. "It felt like hell." He looked over towards Sumiko, the look on his face a little more serious then before. "Oh I saw the aftermath on your body, and believe me. It looked like hell." Tatsuya chuckled at her reply before going back to the heavy bag.

Minutes passed as Tatsuya worked on the heavy bag, everyone doing there own thing as they waited for him to finish. Not like they minded, they were enjoying taking it easy for once. They were soon interrupted by a knock at the door. Tatsuya quickly stopped pounding on the heavy bag and with a jerk of his head, told Sumiko's gikon to answer the door. "Hello." She opened the door to see one of the staff members with an envelope in his hands. "Sorry To disturb you. But Mr. Okibi has just had a letter delivered to him." The staff member handed the letter to her as they looked at Tatsuya's gikon, mistakenly thinking it was Tatsuya himself. "Oh, thank you." She took the letter and closed the door once the staff member left. "What did they want?" He looked over to the gikon as she walked back. "You had a letter delivered to you. Hand written by the looks of it" She held up the envelope, while Sumiko and Tatsuya looked at each other in confusion. "Who is it from?" Sumiko looked over to her gikon. "It doesn't say, it just has Tatsuya-sama's name and this address." She said as she handed it over to Tatsuya. Tatsuya briefly examined the envelope before opening it and pulling out the letter. His eyes quickly went to the closing. "It's from Captain Akarui." He looked up at Sumiko in shock. "He must have went through a lot of trouble to get it to you. What does it say?" She asked as she saw his eyes shift as read the lines of the letter.

Tatsuya didn't hear her as he read through the letter. His eyes at one point clearly filled with anger. His eyes quickly locked onto Sumiko in disbelief, the letter in his hand getting unintentionally crumpled in his rage. "What is it?" She worriedly looked at Tatsuya. "That damned son of a bitch." He whispered to himself trying to contain his rage. The room started to get very hot, very quickly as his spiritual pressure began to rise. "SON OF A BITCH!" Tatsuya roared in an indistinguishable rage, dropping the letter and flash stepping towards the five hundred pound heavy bag and laying waste to it with a single powerful punch. The punch sent the heavy bag flying into and through the outer wall of the massive complex, into the city streets. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGH!!!!" His reiatsu soared to new heights as he screamed out in rage, the heat in the room rising to an unbearable level. "TATSUYA, PLEASE! CALM DOWN!" She pleaded with Tatsuya, trying her best just to stay conscious in the oven like room, sweat beading from her body as if she were next to an active volcano. "MASTER!" "TATSUYA-SAMA" Both gikon called out to him trying to break through his rage to no avail. "IT'S HIS FAULT. HE'S THE REASON WHY WE ARE STUCK HERE!" He inadvertently yelled at Sumiko and punched straight through one of the pillars, causing her to fall back in fear, that fear present in her eyes. She had never seen Tatsuya like that. It was the fear that crossed her face that snapped Tatsuya out of his rage.

The air was quickly getting cooler as he lowered his spiritual pressure. "I'm...Sumiko...I didn't mean ..." He took a step toward Sumiko, but she responded by sliding back along the ground, still fearful of how he had just reacted. "I'm so sorry." He took his own step back to give them some space."What...What was that about? What did Captain Akarui say?" She finally asked after a brief period of uncomfortable silence. Tatsuya leaned against a pillar and slid down to a sitting position, sighing once he was fully seated. "It...It was Raiden. Raiden is responsible for everything that has happened." He looked over at Sumiko with sadness in his eyes. Sumiko had no idea how to respond to what he said. "Raiden killed the grand elder." He stated the realization making Sumiko look back at him with disbelief. "That's not possible. He's supposed to be the one protecting the family." She stated, not wanting to believe it. "It is possible. The captain's letter makes it abundantly clear." He picked up the crumpled piece of paper and opened it up before handing it to Sumiko. "Raiden's zanpakuto, Hitomane, allows him to take the form of anyone he has ever had contact with. He can use all of their techniques and abilities. Just because he takes on someone's form doesn't mean he knows everything about them, but if he has studied them for a long enough time he can impersonate them without fail." He explained the contents of the letter as Sumiko read it for herself, filling in the blanks where he saw fit.

Sumiko stared at Tatsuya with wide eye's when she finally saw what had sent him over the edge. "It still doesn't make sense. Even if he took the form of the grand elder he still took a sword through his heart. I saw it. I was there when they brought the body in and helped with the examination. He was dead." She tried to wrap her head around the situation that was before her. "There has to be an explanation. Captain Akarui even pointed out that he didn't have enough time to gather all the information, so there has to be more to his zanpakuto. A secondary ability that we don't know about. Perhaps some sort of time lag ability, or hypnosis. Something about his zanpakuto allowed him to take my sword straight through his heart and survive." He offered different explanations, but they were pretty outrageous. Then again hypnosis wouldn't be unheard of. "Wait! We can go back to Soul Society with this." She joyfully stated to Tatsuya. "No we can't." He replied, disappointing Sumiko. "But why not. You and Captain Akarui just need to explain this to The Shihoin Clan and Central 46." She tried to justify herself to Tatsuya. "That won't happen. The minute I set foot in Seireitei, I'll get arrested and just as quickly get assassinated while being held for trial." He started to explain the situation. "If it were that easy, Captain Akarui would have already made my case for me, and we would be back there already. The fact that we are still here is because we can only speculate that Raiden is behind everything. Even if it is the word of a captain, it is still a bold claim against a loyal servant of four hundred years. If I remember correctly, he was born into their service, and rose to his current standing. Simply accusing him of the crime without any physical proof would put the captain in serious danger. For whatever reason, Raiden has it out for me, and he went through the grand elder to get to me. As bold a move as it was, he sealed his own fate. He told Sumiko, who was a little confused at the last statement.

"How is that?" She questioned his outlook on the matter. "I'm alive." He simply answered confusing Sumiko even more. "I was supposed to be captured and executed on that day, but I managed to escape. Raiden hadn't counted on me leaving the grounds alive, and when I did, he thought that in a rage, Captain Akarui would have killed me. But most of the squad, especially the captain, knew that it was not in my nature to kill someone in cold blood, let alone kill a member of the Shihoin Clan." He took a moment to stand up and stretch his legs. "But the real wrench in his plan was the 12th Squad member Arawn DanShir. It was because of him that I was able to get out of there alive, when he shot that gun of his at us. While everybody thought I was dead, Junko Tenshi and myself left Soul Society through the wide open Senkaimon. It was weird to say the least. We could see everyone around us, but we couldn't touch them or hear them. We just phased right through them. It was like we were in a different dimension or something. But something with the gate nullified the affects once we crossed to the living world and everything was returned to normal." He slowly walked over to the big hole in the wall and looked out into the city, followed by Sumiko. "Raiden has already tried to kill me himself as you already know. They were able to find me because I remained stationary. A mistake on my part, but a blessing in disguise once I met Zamoreus." He smiled at Sumiko. "Because of Zamoreus, I've been able to stay on the move far better than if I was on my own. So Raiden finding me has been much harder then he has planned for. He knows that the longer I stay out of his reach, the closer he is to being seen as the real criminal. And because of that he is getting desperate, trying to kill the ones that are helping me. Captain Akarui and Mika have already been attacked multiple times already. Each time he sends out the omnitsukido to try and kill them, he runs the risk of getting caught. He's got to be more careful from now on, but he'll mess up. He already has; letting me live." He reached for the letter in Sumiko's hand and gave it a quick skim before tearing it to pieces.

Quote :

Tatsuya,

I hope that this reaches you with no trouble. I was able to look into the name you gave me that night we met in Yellowstone. I believe that this is the address that you are currently residing at, so that's where I've sent this note. I trust that everything is going alright with you and Sumiko. Mika and I have been working hard on readying ourselves for the time when you need our help. Like you had asked, we've also looked further into Raiden for you. I was able to infiltrate the Shihoin records room and read up on his abilities. Though I was prevented from securing a copy, I have enclosed an accurate summary on the powers of his zanpakuto along with this note. Once you read the summary, things should make a lot more sense to you just as they do to me now. Raiden seems to be getting nervous now. He's even sent a force of subordinates after Mika and me on multiple occasions. But there is no need to worry, we are doing well and still watching each others backs. I'll try to make a trip to where you are in the future so that we can go over our plans in person. Just stay safe and wait for the time that you're ready to fight.

Raiden's abilities are unique to say the least. From what little I read, Hitomane, his zanpakuto, is an illusionary type. It's ability allows Raiden to take on the form of anybody he has had contact with. I have first hand knowledge of how very effective that technique is. He was able to take Mika's form and it was a flawless copy of her appearance. It was only because of some key flaws in the personality that I was able to distinguish between the two, but with enough time spent around any person he could correct himself on those quirks and pass for that person without anyone being the wiser. By now you should be able to realize the implications of such a technique, just as I had when first learning of them. There is one aspect of his zanpakuto that I cannot grasp. How did he survive being stabbed through the heart? As much as I would like to infiltrate the records room again, it would be a pointless endeavor. Raiden has surely removed his personal records from there and has tightened security around the estate. I wish there was a way I could provide you with more details about Raiden and his zanpakuto, but it's just not possible. All you can do right now is wait for myself or Mika to make contact with you. Believe me when I tell you, we are doing everything we can to end this witch hunt and you will regain your honor and return to us. Be safe, dear friend.

-Kuro Akarui

Evaluated.