Horonigai [Takahiro]

Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
6th Division Headquarters, 9:38 PM

There was an office in the Sixth Division that few Shinigami visited during daylight hours. It was a small thing, bare of furniture save a single desk and chair, lacking in the ornamentation so common to those rare few who were awarded their own, private workspace. Its current occupant kept it neat, each surface dusted and cleaned once a week, and it lacked the typical mountain of unfinished or haphazardly filed paperwork that typically hallmarked a large-scale bureaucratic endeavor as the Sixth. To the outside observer the office was an immaculate oasis of order, a speck of tranquil efficiency amidst the sea of chaos that was the Seireitei.

For Koharu, it was just an office.

The Fifth Seat of the Sixth Division sat at her desk in utter silence, sky-blue gaze fixed on the file before her. It was all laid out there, a few compact words that detailed the results of her mission: Dissidents discovered. Dissidents ordered to disperse. Dissidents refused. Force applied. Twenty-four dissidents killed, seven detained. Unknown number scattered to the Outer Rukon. Recommend continued surveillance of District and intervention to ensure populace does not continue to rebel.

Such a neat way of sanitizing murder. She thought, lips pressed in a tight frown as she read the report once more. The wording had to be perfect, sterile and emotionless in its delivery, without any of the vehemence she yearned to ink into the paper. The “dissidents” she had been sent to deal with had been little more than men and women too poor and too angry to care if they drew the wrath of the Seireitei for breaking into one of the local rice barns and distributing the grain amongst themselves. Rice was worth its weight in gold, most days.

Their crime had been minor, the punishment swift, brutal, and predetermined. She had followed her orders to the letter, dutifully cutting down unarmed peasants with impunity, allowing some to escape so they could lead hidden trackers back to any other potential cells and arresting a handful of the stouter ones for questioning without so much as batting an eye. It was maddening, but she could not show it. Not here. Not yet.

Koharu read the report one more time before she slid the paper into the thick file that sat in her lap, then stood up, careful to clutch the papers close. She had a meeting with Fourth Seat Hidekawa soon, and he would be expecting this particular report. Would be eager to know what happened, even. He was like that, especially when it came to the growing dissent in the Rukongai. Watanabe’s man to the core.

She pushed her chair up against the desk before leaving, long legs carrying her out of the office and down the hall, smoothing her features into a mask of polite disinterest. There were few Shinigami out and about at this hour, with most out on patrol or assigned to some menial duty to keep them busy, but that did not mean it was safe to go about scowling at the walls. You never knew who might be watching, or from where.

It was a short trip to Hidekawa’s office, just two turns and a corridor, the third room on the left, but Koharu took her time, walking with the unhurried pace of someone who had nowhere important to be. It wasn’t that she disliked the man, he was amiable enough when not discussing political matters, but his insistence on putting down the populist sentiment in the Rukon was… difficult to swallow on the best of days.

Today was far from one of those.

Eventually, however, she arrived at his office door, file in hand, bubblegum-pink hair set in a neat ponytail, uniform unrumpled and crisp, face flat and professional. The light was on, seeping through the paper wall and bathing the hallway in an orange glow, but that was no surprise; he had likely stayed late just to receive her report the moment it was finished. Fanatic.

Koharu smothered a smile at the thought and knocked on the wooden part of the door and, with a slight breath, said, “I’ve that report you requested, Hidekawa-san.”
 
Last edited:
Reiatsu
130
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
20
Only a paper-lamplight cast its faint, flickering glow across Takahiro's office, leaving much of his room darkened and his own face mired in a half-shadow. On one side of his wide mahogany desk sat a thick stack of neatly organized papers...as if. The loose leaves, reports and written approvals for various missions and arrests, found themselves splayed across the entire right side of the desktop. Each carried his thick black-ink signature, little more precise than a child's. No amount of dedication to his post could make paperwork an enjoyable task for the man. It was perhaps the only part of his job that he actively despised.

And yet, as the clock in his office sat across from him above the door drew near on 9:45 PM, Takahiro still told himself that he should feel satisfied with his day's work. There was great honor in doing one's job well, he thought idly. That was what he had been taught, at least.

With all of his paperwork done, there was at just one more thing left to do. He had a meeting with his Fifth Seat, Hinode. Leaning back into his chair with a telltale creak, Takahiro reached back and fiddled with his ponytail for just a moment as he looked to the drawer nearest the ground on his desk's left side. He licked his lips for a moment, and then bit the inside of his cheek, as if to admonish himself for even thinking of drinking at a time like this.

No matter how nervous you are, don't touch the liquor until the meeting's over.

His tempted haze was cut off by a knock at his sliding door. He practically jumped at the sound, his shoulders nearly popping from his shihakusho in a startled rush. Frantically, he moved to slide all of his paperwork into the bare makings of something resembling a well-organized pile. Uncharacteristically, he yelled out to the door with an anxious jolt.

"Hold on! Just a moment, Hinode!"

Any superior should hope to have themselves appear at least a little bit composed before their subordinates. That was easy enough in the field, where he felt natural. Sword in hand, he could go without breaking so much as a sweat in front of all but the mightiest of adversaries. He could, in his own way, inspire.

But fearlessness was one thing, and social, bureaucratic acumen was another entirely. Ten years he'd held his position, and for ten years he had always worried a tad too much about what his subordinates thought of him and his decisions.

As he managed to pull the papers into a mound that at least appeared somewhat well organized (albeit entirely mixed up in terms of date and order of approval), Takahiro then thrust himself backwards into his seat with a thud and called out to the door once more.

"Come in!"

In walked a far more controlled, composed, and orderly Shinigami than he. She stood straight backed, and held a tight-lipped smile across her face. Takahiro matched it quickly with a soft smile of his own, although further cursory examination told him that her look was nothing short of entirely forced. The muscles in her cheeks were tense.

She's upset, the ever-observant man told himself.

Even so, business had to continue as usual, and the younger woman had a report for him to read. Quickly, Takahiro stood up once more and strode across the room to his subordinate. For a moment, he locked eyes, with her. Koharu stood almost exactly at his full height, so he had a near-perfect window into her thoughts for that single second as he reached for the papers she held in arms quietly extended.

Then, he broke his stare to look at the paperwork for a moment. The header across the title read, "Dissident Suppression Mission, Southern Rukongai District 62". Still close to his subordinate, Takahiro looked backed up and spoke softly to the younger Shinigami with a quick nod of approval.

"Thank you, Hinode-san..."

His next words stayed stuck on his tongue for a moment, but after a brief second, that dam broke. He couldn't help himself.

"Did you mind staying so late working on this for me? I know you were due to leave over two hours ago, I apologize. Take a seat, and I'll make sure our conversation is brief."

The older man turned and gestured to one of two white chairs which sat on the side of desk across from his usual seat as he waited for the pink-haired woman to sit down.
 
Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
Koharu heard Takahiro’s near panicked replied, papers rustling and chair scraping as her direct superior (and didn’t that sometimes chafe) went into a frenzy of motion behind the thin paper door, his silhouette flitting from one side of his desk to the other in a clear attempt to make his office look less like a typhoon had torn through it. It was a pointless gesture, everyone knew he was hopeless at organization, but the… intensity of Hidekawa’s desire to at least make his space seem presentable was charming in its own way. Like a dog trying to clean up after it ruins your flower garden.

“Take your time, Hidekawa-san.” She replied to the man, half under her breath but likely still loud enough for him to hear. A few moments passed as the man stuffed his paperwork into one corner and straightened it into something resembling an orderly stack, but he spoke again, and there was no more time to delay.

Koharu opened the door and slid in quietly, sliding the door shut behind her before turning to face Hidekawa and, wordlessly, handed him the report. He, like always, looked into her eyes while taking the report, and she returned the stare, peering into the windows of his soul just as he did hers, each a swirling canvas of emotions too thick to read.

“It wasn’t an issue, Hidekawa-san.” Koharu said as the man sat down, noting the slight hesitation before he rushed on with his eager, almost fanatical need to know. She had expected this. Anticipated it. Prepared and steadied herself for the inevitable political discussion a simple report would devolve into… but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Even if she pretended not to mind. Again.

“What is it you would like to discuss?” She said, sitting down in the chair he had gestured to. She already knew, without having to ask, what he wanted. Details. Information. The minutiae of the mission that couldn’t be covered by a few lines on paper, but she would rather burn in Hell than give the man that information without a little work. A petty thing, truly, but there was little else she could do when it came to a superior that wouldn’t get her carted off to the hospital… or a prison cell.
 
Reiatsu
130
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
20
When Koharu replied with such brevity to Takahiro's apology, he had to restrain the urge to raise an eyebrow. Was something wrong? Something beyond the belated hour of their meeting and the natural stress that came with office work? Well, maybe the latter was an inconvenience exclusive to him, but regardless, he had always known the Fifth Seat to be passionate in her pursuit of her goals and duties, although she was clearly restrained by the nature of her work in the Sixth.

Frankly, any interactions they'd had outside of work had always been far more pleasant than their in-office and on-duty goings-on.

Takahiro maintained his smile, but could not help sighing as his subordinate questioned the purpose of their meeting. Genuinely, he had only meant to check in and be sure that everything was alright. Perhaps she thought of him as eager to hear about the deaths of dissident citizens of the Rukongai? Once, maybe that would have been the case. But now, the only pride he took in the deaths of others came from fulfilling his duty, and those who worked under him doing the same. He hoped the same could be said for Koharu. He met her eyes with his own brown orbs for a moment once more. From that glance, he could glean one thing at least; she'd rather not be here right now.

Now he just wanted to know why. If nothing else, he was a people pleaser, so the Fourth Seat decided to start things off as directly as possible.

"Koharu-san, I assume you're already aware I'd like to know more about the mission. And, to that measure, I will ask that you tell me why exactly the Rukongai residents you suppressed were found, based on your perception, guilty of a crime that warranted a death penalty-"

Takahiro closed his eyes paused, reaching out into his surroundings with his spiritual senses as if to be sure nobody was listening in. The air was quiet, as was the Sixth Division compound. He continued, and suspected he would surprise his subordinate with his next words.

"-however, before that, I want to know what about fulfilling your recent duties in the Rukongai has drawn such distaste from you. I'm not so senseless that a five-line report would quell my concerns about a dedicated Shinigami lacking the passion I know them to possess."

He spoke with a genuine kindness, making his concern known whilst still being sure to maintain the decorum of a professional discussion. To ensure that he'd get the most honest response from his subordinate, Takahiro made sure his smile was inviting and above all else, visible across his expression. His eyes, through which he could seldom conceal his natural curiosity, told the truth in this moment, of course. He wanted to know why Koharu felt the way she did. Not only how she felt. Then, he opened the floor to a response.

"I imagine we joined the Sixth Division for the same reason, so tell me what's drawn your ire so deeply, and perhaps I'll be able to help you reconcile that with however you feel."

Part of Takahiro wondered whether he was actually asking the same of himself.
 
Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
“...’Distaste?’” Koharu asked, almost whispering as her thin, forced smile faltered, Takahiro surprising her. She had thought her facade sufficient enough to pass his muster, but either the man had been practicing his Reikaku or, more likely, she was simply too on edge to maintain the illusion. A breath, slow and steadying, filled her lungs, and after a moment she spoke, voice soft and quivering despite the iron grip she kept on her emotions, gaze falling to the desk, away from him.

“Is that what you think this is, Hidekawa-san? Distaste?” She paused, biting her lower lip as she tried to rein in that impulse, that burning passion that had always propelled her forwards, pushed her to act, to do what was right, what was moral and good and fair, even if it went against her duty. The impulse she had ignored, suppressed, corralled and bloodied in recent months. Years.

But no more.

“I… hate what we are doing.” Koharu whispered, her gaze flashing back up to Takahiro’s, blurry and unfocused but open now, if only a little. “I hate what I am doing. Those people didn’t deserve to die, but my orders told me to put them down if they resisted. To scatter them to the four winds and crush any thought of dissent. And they knew that. They knew it and they-”

The words caught in Koharu’s throat as she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the emotions back, swallowing the bile that rose up through her until, with several steadying breaths, she got it back under control. Got herself back under control. This… is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

“They attacked us, Takahiro. Knowing what we’d do. What it would cost them. They hate us. And…” Koharu opened her eyes, a shuddering breath falling from her as she looked at her superior, truly looked at him. A risk. An awful, impossible risk. She’d be strung up. Court martialled. At the very least stripped of her position, her seat, her responsibility. The words came tumbling out anyway.

“I don’t know if I blame them.”
 
Reiatsu
130
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
20
At the sound of his subordinate's sobering, clearly honest words, Takahiro could only nod. With each pause accompanied by its requisite deep breath, he could see her duty-borne facade wane, and eventually, dissipate entirely.

She's a good soldier, he mused, so good that she's lost sight of her own goals whilst serving those of the Soul Society. He pondered upon that last part with an idle chagrin, one he couldn't quite understand, as, of course, he did believe that the Gotei always served a just cause...didn't he?

The smile on his face softened a bit as he registered every bit of what Koharu was saying. For a moment, when she asked him whether "distaste" was all he thought she was experiencing, he internally winced, for no reason but the expectation of angering somebody when his intentions were, truly, quite noble. As a leader, he tried to command respect, but it was difficult when he often valued the opinions of others too greatly. Feelings were a lofty burden, and Takahiro often carried a load too heavy for his own good.

Then came her admission.

Takahiro couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in mild surprise at the candor that the Fifth Seat spoke with. To admit to one's superior that you not only detested the duty to which you were called, but that you possessed sympathy for the enemy, was a tremendous risk in any environment, but more-so in the Gotei than anywhere else. Dissidents amongst the court guard and all those who chose to forsake their duty often met with, in the best case, imprisonment, and in the worst case, the sharp end of a Zanpakutō.

These last few years of turmoil, the latter had been seen as the diplomatically correct solution much of the time. He couldn't say he agreed with the guillotine hanging high overhead being used to deter any Shinigami who believed their job was not a noble one. He had, after all, fought with himself long and hard to control, contain, and focus his own relationship with death. But part of him, the part cultivated by years with Lieutenant Watanabe as his mentor, reminded him that those who did not fight for the common good as the Soul Society decided it to be had to be dealt with swiftly. Lest the delicate balance that kept the world in order be upset.

And still, another part of Takahiro held tremendous respect for Koharu's passion and her staunch belief in her own ideals, whether they were alike his own or not. He spoke with regard to this, careful to keep himself from appearing too encouraging of such thinking, but far from reprimanding her.

"I must say, whilst I am not impressed with this line of thought coming from one of our highest Seated Officers, it is only natural for every individual to have their own convictions and beliefs."

Takahiro tilted his head to the left and glanced at the girl with a serious, commanding look in his eyes, and then he spoke once more. This time he allowed himself to use an affirmative tone, channeling Ichiro and his own emotionless brand of leadership.

"Your duty as a Shinigami must come first in all things."

Then, he allowed himself to indulge in his empathy. What sat before him was a person who was distressed, bereaved, and in a way, broken. He couldn't say he hadn't been in the same situation once, albeit under very different circumstances. And so, with his next words, he dropped the authoritative look and returned to his softer side.

"However, your duty as a Shinigami is to give your life to vanquish great evil. I believe you joined the Sixth Division to do just that, am I correct?"

The question was not a suggestion; whether or not Takahiro liked it, the girl's answer did matter.
 
Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
“I-” Koharu began, closing her eyes as Takahiro- no, as Hidekawa spoke his piece, spouting off the same pointless drivel about duty and honor that Watanabe had spewed at the Academy. It was a near word for word recitation, catching even the inflection of the man’s voice, the quiet, unbending nature of the Lieutenant’s very soul. He had always been a passionate speaker. It was what many in the division enjoyed about him; his lively manner, the congenial attitude, the way in which he tried to make everyone else happier whenever he was around. It made him a good leader on the battlefield, level-headed and trustworthy, even if he did seem to enjoy a good fight. Or just a bloody one.

To hear that passionate voice level out into one of Lieutenant Watanabe’s maxims was… Pathetic.

“I joined the Sixth Division to make the Seireitei a better place.” She replied, dabbing the blurriness from her gaze as she returned her focus on the man before her. The dangerous man before her. Her face was far from smooth now, but Koharu did her best to master the emotions roiling inside, shoving them down with an iron grip until, finally, they bled away into a cold silence. An emptiness, of sorts, not unlike when she first learned to perform Jinzen.

“I apologize for my outburst, Hidekawa-san.” Koharu said once her emotions were under control, lips spreading in a wan, tired smile that was both forced and utterly natural- forced, in that she wanted nothing more than to throttle the pompous self-righteous hypocrite, but utterly natural in that she also felt extremely, utterly drained. Wholesale slaughter did that to a person.

“I regret what happened. This I will not deny. However… I regret it for its avoidability.” A true statement, though not for the reasons he would likely think. That was the secret, as Tatemae said, to a good lie; you had to layer in half-truths, in misunderstanding and assumption. It had never been something she’d been good at, though the Spirit had forced her to practice, both at deceiving and spotting deception. Every time she entered into her Inner World, actually.

“They could have stood down. Sir.”
 
Reiatsu
130
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
20
Takahiro had asked his question knowing that the Fifth Seat's answer would be far from straightforward. He watched carefully as her face contorted and shifted as she shook her head about, cycling through the options available to her as she formulated her response. More than once, he could have sworn that she was ready to respond, only to watch her choke down the words and reconsider. Watching this, the Fourth Seat concluded that, in that brief moment where she found herself caught between decisions, Koharu was unquestionably terrified of him.

The brown-haired Shinigami's own look betrayed none of this calculation. Only the facade of warmness that he portrayed remained, a facade that Koharu had long-since clearly seen through.

Otherwise, she'd have no reason to be afraid of me. The thought was as chilling as it was accurate. Takahiro didn't like the feeling that he held power over others beyond what he could do with his own two hands...but with rank came such abilities, and it was doubtless that in the bureaucratic world of the Seireitei, that fact alone could manipulate the behavior of those around him.

When the girl finally did manage an initial response, he found that it was refreshingly honest, and admittedly further from what he had expected. Koharu was naturally gutsy and passionate, and part of the Fourth Seat would have liked to have seen her vehemently refute his call to duty. Alas, she displayed far more discipline, and soon after the first words left her mouth, it seemed that her tumultuous emotional state had also made its way under her command. With an apology as professionally issued as he could have hoped to have received, the matter was, in his mind, closed.

With a graceful nod and a return to a courteous smile, Takahiro spoke, "Your apology is accepted, Fifth Seat Hinode. The Sixth Division, or at least certainly I, only expect that you do your duty, not that you do it without thinking for yourself."

However, it was Koharu's next words that intrigued him far more.

Takahiro responded quickly, taking advantage of what he gathered to be an interesting, perhaps even self-deceptive spin on emotions that either he, or Koharu herself, did not entirely understand.

"Avoidability? I believe you mean to say that, had the insurgent forces not attacked you, they could have been left alone and deemed to lack any sufficient threat to the Seireitei, is that not correct?" He paused for a moment before continuing, maintaining his smile, "There is certainly no sin in hoping for a peaceful resolution to situations that do not demand the drawing of a sword. If that was the root of your motivation for joining the Sixth Division and the Gotei itself, I certainly cannot fault you for it."

Then, silence. It was clear to anybody observing him that Takahiro was thinking through his next statement, and, in all fairness, this was exactly the case. However, his next words were perhaps a tad less welcoming than those he was used to uttering. He wasn't entirely sure where the root of his thought process came from, whether it was decades under Ichiro's wing, his own convictions, or simply out of the raw interest in seeing what sort of reaction the words would draw from the subordinate.

With an eerie, ever-so-slight cock of his head, Takahiro spoke once more with a questioning, albeit deceptively light-hearted tone.

"But, Hinode, I feel as if you've made a mistake in your perception of this last mission. Were you not under the impression that, when being sent to suppress the populace, that you had already been given the directive to do so with lethal force?"

Now, he narrowed his eyebrows, and dropped the smile entirely.

"If the crime deserving of the sentence had been committed only after you arrived on the scene, then why, pray tell, do you think we sent you to the Rukongai in the first place?"

It was not a question of his own opinions, but rather, a truth he had recognized moments after Koharu had voiced her initial concerns. Takahiro made no notion as to whether he agreed with or disagreed with the decision to eliminate the dissident population; his job was to uphold the laws of the Gotei under the orders and guidance of Central 46.

Somewhere deep inside, Takahiro writhed under the weight of his genuine feelings, his silent, but impossible agreement with the younger Shinigami. He knew his words would be perceived as naught but another attack on the Fifth Seat; but duty demanded that they be spoken. And such was the curse of leadership in an organization such as the Gotei.
 
Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
Koharu watched Hidekawa from a place of quiet, her face a mask of tight discipline as she listened to the Fourth Seat speak, his tone light and professionally jovial, the perfect caricature of what an officer of the Sixth Division was meant to be. He had accepted her apology, but she could tell there was more to what he wanted to say, what he wanted her to say. The man was like a bloodhound in that respect; once he caught the scent of dissent he would follow it, chasing even the smallest hints down until every last vestige was crushed into a fine powder.

I should never have trusted you. A foolish thing, trust. Fickle and easily broken. She had tried to earn his, earn the Gotei’s, had tried to be worthy of the position and authority and power that had been bestowed upon her. She had tried to play by their rules, to follow the game and, even if only subtly, change it from within. Another foolish choice. But she knew better now. The path forward was no more clear to her than it had been before she walked into Hidekawa’s office, but Koharu knew. There were some things that could not be undone.

And she was not going back.

“Of course, Hidekawa-san.” She replied, voice flat and controlled, once again the consummate professional. If the Fourth Seat was looking to spark a confrontation, he would need to do more than that. Much, much more. “I merely allowed my emotions to get the better of me for a moment. A failing of my gender, sir. They were under a death sentence from the moment I was sent to deal with them, and that sentence was carried out.”

She paused, allowing her superior a moment to process what she had said, to let the seed of her own mistake writhe inside of his mind for a moment longer before she spoke again, softer this time, but utterly without inflection. A quote ripped straight from his precious Lieutenant's own mouth. “The Seireitei must be protected at all costs, after all. What are a few peasants' lives against the weight of the entire Soul Society?”
 
Reiatsu
130
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
20
Koharu watched Hidekawa from a place of quiet, her face a mask of tight discipline as she listened to the Fourth Seat speak, his tone light and professionally jovial, the perfect caricature of what an officer of the Sixth Division was meant to be. He had accepted her apology, but she could tell there was more to what he wanted to say, what he wanted her to say. The man was like a bloodhound in that respect; once he caught the scent of dissent he would follow it, chasing even the smallest hints down until every last vestige was crushed into a fine powder.

I should never have trusted you. A foolish thing, trust. Fickle and easily broken. She had tried to earn his, earn the Gotei’s, had tried to be worthy of the position and authority and power that had been bestowed upon her. She had tried to play by their rules, to follow the game and, even if only subtly, change it from within. Another foolish choice. But she knew better now. The path forward was no more clear to her than it had been before she walked into Hidekawa’s office, but Koharu knew. There were some things that could not be undone.

And she was not going back.

“Of course, Hidekawa-san.” She replied, voice flat and controlled, once again the consummate professional. If the Fourth Seat was looking to spark a confrontation, he would need to do more than that. Much, much more. “I merely allowed my emotions to get the better of me for a moment. A failing of my gender, sir. They were under a death sentence from the moment I was sent to deal with them, and that sentence was carried out.”

She paused, allowing her superior a moment to process what she had said, to let the seed of her own mistake writhe inside of his mind for a moment longer before she spoke again, softer this time, but utterly without inflection. A quote ripped straight from his precious Lieutenant's own mouth. “The Seireitei must be protected at all costs, after all. What are a few peasants' lives against the weight of the entire Soul Society?”
Inside, Takahiro could only writhe. Watching this woman, his subordinate, his comrade, go through the motions of accepting her place in a system she clearly held disdain for was a painful experience. Her words, coated with a sharp-edged sarcasmTo an outside observer, he sat controlled and composed, the image of a responsible, dutiful officer, doing as they should when dealing with a subordinate who was experiencing doubts. Yet, as he witnessed her body language morph and heard her tone drop into a monotone hum of controlled fury, he was wracked with a feeling of overwhelming, insurmountable anxiety. It wasn't an entirely foreign feeling to him, to say the least. The root of the anxiety, however, was something he couldn't say he had knowingly experienced before.

For the first time in his fifty years as a Shinigami, Takahiro Hidekawa was genuinely wondering whether he was doing the right thing.

The thought was fleeting, brought under control by the modicum of self-respect he had for himself and his ability to make decisions, but even so, it remained buried in the back of his skull, a splinter in his brain. And now, he was faced with a choice. Would he address Koharu's belligerence? Would he accept it for what it was? Or would he let the whole issue go to rest, for both her sake and his own?

A moment of silence followed the ending of Koharu's evidently belabored "admission" of her mistake. Takahiro contemplated, if just for a second, about cutting her down right this moment. Treachery, as Ichiro had often put it, is a weed.

It grows, and eats everything around it for its own sake.

But, no matter how deeply he valued his wisdom and dedication to the Gotei, Takahiro was not Ichiro Watanabe. His oath, as he had said earlier, had been to die in the pursuit of vanquishing great evil. To not understand his subordinate's own moral quandries would be a worse sin than to act in defiance of them, surely.

And so he made his decision. Takahiro stood up, and spoke through carefully pursed lips.

"I do not believe your gender can be blamed for your own internal struggles, nor how they affect your work. But...your apology is accepted, Fourth Seat Hinode. Let us be done with this conversation."

Briskly, he walked to the door and slid it open, remaining by the portal as if to very clearly indicate that for better or worse, their meeting was over. However, prior to Koharu's departure, he snapped his eyes to hers and locked with them in a cold glare. Inside, he called upon the bloodlust he had spent decades burying, and projected it, making sure his eyes spoke on behalf of his heart, then he opened his mouth once more.

"In the future, Koharu, be certain you're pointing your sword in the right direction."
 
Reiatsu
100
Strength
40
Defense
30
Speed
15
Spirit
15
Koharu watched as Hidekawa’s eyes went through the usual gamut of emotions he held when confronting an insubordinate underling; anger, disappointment, a tightly leashed bloodlust that promised retribution. And yet, buried under the expected was something… different. His face was as calm and professional as ever, but beneath the sturm und drang was a flicker of uncertainty, a shred of doubt in his otherwise unbreakable facade. Perhaps this wasn’t a waste of time after all.

“Of course.” She said as Takahiro stood, bowing her head. There was an edge of malice to his voice, but she met it, weathering the cold, sharp edge of his Reiatsu as it flared ever so slightly to accentuate his threat. It was only when the man finished speaking that she stood, turning to face her lesser, no matter what rank or protocol or society said, with a look that matched his own.

“My swords will be ready, sir.” Koharu said, allowing a little of the tempest within to seep through into her voice as she walked past Hidekawa. He had chosen his path fifty years ago, and she had tried to follow, to make something of the world she had found herself in, to leave it better than what it was. It had been a fool's errand, but she had tried. Tried and failed, just as Tatemae had said she would.

The time for that was done now. Takahiro had shown her the rot within the Seireitei could not be cured from within. It was too pervasive, too powerful, too well established to be carved out. It had spread through the whole body of the Gotei, down to even its youngest members, leaving but one option. The hardest but, also, the only way. She had no clue where to even begin, what a realistic plan would like, or if she would even succeed, but one thing was crystal clear to her:

There was no saving the Gotei 13.