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.”
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.”
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