A little exercice

Tatsu had seen alot of office work lately, he hadn't been outside much nowadays. The little tree on the side of his desk had even grown a little since the last time he was seen outside, his training..gone..his missions just the same..even some division members were even talking about the fact that he wasn't cut out for this kind of seat, but none were gutsy enough to actually duel him for the position. Many people in the division still hated him for his actions, back when he was a ryoka, he had ended many friendly ties within this division, and he would never be able to make up for those losses, one of the few person who held the third seated officer of this division in esteem was Kuro, a man of great worth that could see how lost the samurai was.


Leaning on his chair, looking at this all too familiar ceiling, then back down at this little tree on the side of his desk. It had grown a little since he had gotten it, it was to remind him Kaiyo, along with the bandanna in his hair. Letting a deep sigh escape him, he looked back down at the reports on his desk and started reading them.

''Blablabla...engaged an enemy...fight ensued...'' Then the following words marked him as if branded by red hot iron. ''Killed in action? An entire squad?'' This was something out of the ordinary, the 2nd division rarely engaged in direct hostilities, and even less took heavy casualties. Directing this report for the captain's office he took another one, from the same town in another area, the problem was, that the same circumstances happened with these same problems. A little more information was about this, white garbed enemies, the plurial used in that report troubled the shinigami.

Tatsu glanced at his sword and got the itch to go look in that city for his own curiosity, he was strong he would surely be able to keep himself where many others were not. He took all the reports from that city and read them, all squad who engaged that enemy, how many there were, had suffered great losses, so numbers weren't an option, if he went he would be one to go alone, leaving a letter to the captain to tell him of his reasons for going, a third seat ordering himself to go would sound very unthought, but it was something that needed to be done, for his own sake.

Tightening the knot on his bandanna and grabbing his sword and readying it, he turned heel towards his desk and the mountain of reports and took a deep breath while taking an empty sheet of paper and writing the paper that would lead him through the senkaimon that led to earth, and then another to explain his actions to the captain, and then another that he would leave on his door telling anyone who came there for reports to go to the second officer in command.




Leaving his squad barracks, he quickly made his way to the Senkaimon without further ado, even using shunpo to reach his destination a little faster, after all he was quite quick. Not much longer he had reached the area he needed to be, he gave the paper at the guard who proceeded to give it a look, quickly glancing at it the guard looked back at Tatsu, as if he was an idiot.

''Really now..an order signed by you, for you to go to the living world...I hope you know what you're doing...'' The guard said while stepping aside to let the seated officer go through. Not long after, the gate opened into the world of the living, a place he had been before, he knew his way around, the area. He knew the town in the reports wasn't far from where he had exiled himself so he knew where to go.

It took two days for the samurai to reach his destination, there was something odd the spiritual mass in the city was huge, but it didn't feel like it was coming from the residents or any hollow, it was different another kind of something that the samurai hadn't fought before..a group to be sure, it seemed like the spiritual pressure was huge.

Without any obvious fear the samurai made his way to the city center hoping he would be able to learn something from whatever was present in that city.




-----

The city had been calm, the group had been waiting there on the rooftops, watching feeling, they knew another group of shinigami would make their way into the city, they knew because it was their trap, it was their way of hunting, they knew what kind of food they wanted and how they wanted to get it, they wanted to force mobilization inside this city. What they felt was slightly different though, a single wave of energy rushed past them swiftly, nothing too powerful, a single men. The group laughed as they readied up at the approach of the lone warrior.

----

Tatsu looked at the horizon to see the weather, see if clouds promised rain, that would greatly help him out in the occurance of a fight, he didn’t know what he would going up against, but he didn’t want to find out in the worst possible way. He approached the city with a careful step when he figured he wouldn’t be alone for very long. He could feel movement, a single enemy closing in, massive spiritual pressure compaired to his own, he would need to act swiftly if he wanted to avoid combat this early on in his operation, there were chances that this man was watched by others and that he would receive help if things turned out bad, which was impossible for the samurai who wouldn,t receive any help in the current state of affaires, he was alone in this.

A tall man cloaked in white made his appearance, there only thing Tatsu could figure was that he was a bowman, he had only seen one of these in the past, and he wasn’t hostile, why would this man appear in front of him after killing so many shinigami. There was no talking his way out of this situation, what would the samurai do, he knew he couldn’t with his full fledged poiwer without knowing what the enemy was about.

It didn’t take long for the combat to break out, the samurai got showered with a rain of energy arrows that would surely hurt if they hit their mark, but Tatsu wouldn’t allow that so easily, he knew of his enemy, of some of their technique but nothing too serious, he simply dodged the attack and tried to gain some time to think.

‘’What are you doing, what drives you do this?’’

A deadly silent quincy stayed in front of the samurai, as if it the answer itself was really obvious. He stretched his bow and aimed at the samurai and without a single word the attack followed. Barely shunpo’ing out of harms way the samurai tried to break out of combat, using speed to seek shelter within the city walls. Hiding within a house the samurai tried to hide his spiritual energy trying to gain some time, it felt as if this guy was fueled by hate more than anything else, but why would someone like him wait and setup a trap within a city that seemed empty by now.

There was something missing within all this and the samurai wanted to go to the end of the line and figure out what was happening both to the people within the city and why there are quincies trying to lay out traps. Taking a quick peek outside Tatsu could notice two enemies on rooftops, seemingly talking to each other seeking out their escaped prey. He turned and looked at the ground, thinking to himself.

‘’Where are the people..why can’t I see any humans, why are there quincies, I thought they didn’t have any fighting power, now look at them, trying to kill me, I’m not going to make it easy for that’s for sure.’’

The samurai knew he would have to try and capture one of them if he wanted any real information on their activities, but firstly he wanted to know how big this quincy force was really. He glanced out at the window, trying to find the pair again when a flurry of arrows bursted the window and cracked the wall on the other side of the wall, luckily the samurai had dodged but he knew he had been found out and that this time the enemies had been doubled, he bursted through the house down the stairs to find one male quincy, frail looking and a female one, looking the same, as if they hadn’t had much to eat. Maybe Quincies were just frail by nature. The pair rose their bow at the samurai who proceeded to charge them swiftly, unsheated blade in hand swinging at the man who was struck in an instant without realising who he was going up against.

Flabbergasted, the woman on the other side froze in fear of this man, who was he, why was he so strong compared to the other shinigami they had dispatched. The samurai turned heel to face her, pointing his wet crimson blade at her.


‘’Its in your interest to tell me what is happening here’’

Stuttering the woman told him that she would give out no information, taking a step towards her, she broke in tears falling to her knee’s as if knowing the end was near for her. The samurai on the other hand knew he didn’t want to kill every member of this little rebellion.

‘’If you tell me now, I won’t have to kill you, I just want to know what happened to the habitants of the city, and to the shinigamies that step foot within this city, tell me!’’

The woman seemed to think over her situation, and she looked up at him considering the problem she was faced with.

Softly, she spoke, the samurai held his ear opened for what he believed impossible, misinformation about this city, something was odd here, this city had been built for future purpuses for the humans, funded by the quincy..so no humans ever lived here. Of course it was weird that the shinigami didn’t know about the situation but all in all it seemed plausible.

‘’How many of you are there? Why do you assault shinigami?”

The woman trembled in fear, sun rays piercing through the living room unto her face, she didn’t remind him of anyone, it was weird he usually had a memory of faces and it was as if she never existed. She told him about a dozen men lived in the vicinity and that they probably knew they were both inside.

‘’I get it, you didn’t attack the shinigami, it was quite the opposite..I’ll work some strings I can to stop investigations within the city.’’

Using shunpo to exit the city as quickly as possible the samurai checked out if he was followed, when he could safely say he was not he turned tail and returned to Seireitei and his offices. Filing a report about the city and its inhabitants he added a quote about his activities within the human world and his decisions, he added the fact that he told them no further actions would be staged against them, knowing fully well the opposite might happen, but then again they had killed shinigami, their fate wasn’t in his hands anymore...