Chapter 097: The Vice-Captains
A brief pause. A quick decision.
"Impossible."
Ukitake's voice was firmer than usual, and he repeated it in a way that had the quality of someone persuading themselves as much as anyone else.
"Something like that simply shouldn't be able to happen."
A Zanpakuto was a reflection of the soul. There was no reason it should manifest multiple different types or different abilities. It went against the fundamental logic of what a Zanpakuto was.
He said it directly, with a small apology in his manner for saying it quite so plainly.
"If there's nothing wrong with him psychologically, I don't see how this would occur."
"Wow, you can be pretty sharp when you want to be."
After getting that out of his system, Kyoraku settled his expression and gave a small nod.
"My thinking is almost exactly the same as yours."
No two Zanpakuto in existence were alike. By that same logic, a single Zanpakuto producing multiple entirely different forms with entirely different abilities should not be possible.
"Could it be a staged release? An incomplete form?"
Captains were captains partly because of how much they had seen. The hypothesis Ukitake was raising was the same kind of reasoning that had come up in other cases before, situations where what appeared to be multiple forms was actually an incomplete manifestation of a single one.
But that was not what this was.
Kyoraku shook his head and stated it clearly.
"Even with a staged release, the fundamental nature can't change at the root. A Kido-type Zanpakuto suddenly displaying the capabilities of a completely different type: that's even further outside what should be possible."
Silence for a moment.
Ukitake asked quietly.
"That young man. What's his name?"
"Matsushita Yusuke."
Kyoraku took a slow sip of the tea in front of him, and the smile that came with it had something genuine in it.
"A genius who might end up being our colleague one day."
Across the room, Hirako had been making the rounds and exchanging views with the others. Eventually someone noticed the obvious gap.
"Where is Kijishi, anyway?"
They were here specifically to discuss something that directly concerned him, and he was the one person not present.
"He was notified. Wouldn't come. I think the fight scared him off."
The expression that observation produced in the people who heard it was somewhere between disbelief and involuntary laughter.
"Seriously? What is wrong with that man? He calls himself a captain?"
...
In the room next door, where the vice-captains had settled in to wait, a different conversation was underway.
"Aizen. Hey, Aizen."
He surfaced from somewhere, tilted his head up slightly.
Standing beside him was a figure with one hand on her hip, looking down at him with a somewhat loaded expression.
She pushed her glasses up, and her tone carried a specific quality.
"What's going on with you? I've been saying your name and you weren't responding. What are you thinking about?"
She wore the standard Shinigami uniform, but tailored into something that bore more resemblance to a short skirt than the original cut. Distinctive. Immediately noticeable.
Aizen had glanced at it once and moved his attention to her face.
Lisa Yadōmaru.
Vice-Captain of Squad 8.
He rose slowly, pressed two fingers against his temple, and answered with an easy smile.
"My apologies. I was somewhere else for a moment. What is it?"
Lisa Yadōmaru pressed an entire can of beer into his hands.
"Want one?"
"I'm not sure this is entirely appropriate."
The standard arrangement for meetings like this was that the vice-captains waited in an adjacent room while their captains deliberated. Nobody had formally required it. It had accumulated over time from collective habit into something that functioned like a rule.
Aizen turned the can over in his hands, his smile taking on a mildly helpless quality.
"Our captains are in the next room working through a serious question. We're out here drinking."
However you looked at it, the optics were not ideal.
Though that raised another question.
"Where did this come from?"
Lisa pointed left without looking.
"Mashiro brought them. There's one for everyone."
Mashiro Kuna.
Vice-Captain of Squad 9. Green hair, a fashion sense that made its presence known, and a personality that matched. In terms of volume, she was the clearest presence in any room she entered.
"Kensei bought the round! Nobody be shy about it!"
Omaeda had already accepted his can. Aizen glanced at him, smiled quietly, and made the same decision.
The seal cracked open.
The beer went down. The atmosphere opened up.
The gathered vice-captains began talking.
"What are they actually in there discussing today?"
"Apparently some capable young man put the Squad 11 captain to flight."
"What?! A captain got beaten by some new face straight out of nowhere?"
"Don't look so shocked. Kijishi was always more reputation than substance. My captain mentioned this person before, actually."
Compared to the formal weight of the captains' meeting next door, the conversation among the vice-captains was considerably more relaxed. Titles came up less, first names more.
"Sosuke. I heard this young man knows you. Is that true?"
The voice came in with a directness that had an edge to it. Female, but not particularly gentle about it.
Aizen turned toward the speaker. She was a woman with long hair worn down, visibly somewhere in her fifties, with deep-set lines framing her mouth and a tight, composed expression.
In terms of physical impression, the word that came to mind immediately was capable, in the specific sense of someone who had spent a long time managing difficult things and had the face to prove it. The Shinigami uniform on her made that impression stronger rather than softer.
Iba Chikane.
Current Vice-Captain of Squad 3, and a squad member who predated even Otoribashi's tenure. By most accounts, a significant portion of the squad's actual day-to-day operations ran through her. Otoribashi's preference for aesthetic over administrative work had made that arrangement a practical necessity.
Among the vice-captains, she carried an authority that came from age and track record rather than title.
Aizen set his drink down, acknowledged her with a nod, and answered.
"I know him somewhat. He was a student of mine at the Academy, followed my calligraphy course for over a year."
"Oh! You actually know him personally?!"
"Hey, Aizen! What kind of person is he?"
"You think he might end up as the Squad 11 captain?"
"Ha, that seems like a stretch. He'd need to get familiar with how the Gotei 13 actually works before anything like that."
Omaeda, for his part, said nothing, wearing the expression of someone who was quietly enjoying the situation. He was, technically, the one person in this room with the strongest basis for a direct opinion, which he had chosen not to exercise.
Aizen fielded the overlapping questions with his usual composure, while turning the underlying one over in the background.
What kind of person was he?
A moment passed. Then he had his answer.
"An interesting one. The kind of person who might actually change what the Gotei 13 becomes."