Just one more thing

Eighth Seat,
Eighth Division
Reiatsu
90
Strength
40
Defense
10
Speed
30
Spirit
10
His eyes are glazed over, dreary from a night of little sleep. A candle burns in the dark blue, morning haze that envelops Junya's office. He yawns, sitting slumped in his chair, waiting for the tea to finish up. It's a blend from one of the junior analysts' family in the Rukongai. As it steeps, Junya can smell the cardamom strong on the air, ginger sulking just below. He yawns again. The smell doesn't quite perk him up.

The knock on the door does. "Eighth Seat Ryoji, sir?" Junya darts his eyes toward the door, still slumped in his chair. A young unseated woman, too aware and put together to not be on the night shift, is standing in his open door-frame, with a scroll in her hands. It's sealed with wax. "Yeah, come on in." Junya puts his hand out and reaches for the paper. She carefully places it in his hand. As she walks back, he pops the seal open and starts reading, slowly mouthing the words on the piece of paper.

"He's out sick?" Junya asks.

"Yes, sir."

"Like, how sick?"

"It seems bad, sir."

"Bad enough that he can't get out of bed? This really isn't my billet."

"I don't think the Fifth Seat can talk, let alone get out of bed, sir."

Junya sighs and drags his hand across his face. "Alright. Tell the Lieutenant I'll head out shortly, please. And that I'll try to get to those density maps tonight, but no promises. That operation can wait, anyway." She nods courteously. Junya looks over at the kettle. "You want some tea, or?" She shakes her head. Night shift, right. The solider leaves.

With a groan, and a few minutes of feeling sorry for himself, he gets himself out of his chair and out the door. He carries a white tote bag on his shoulder, hanging loose over his black uniform. It's a fifteen-minute, mindless walk to the North Gate of the Seireitei, and another half-hour until he gets to the Ninth District, and meanders his way through the rolling streets and finds where he's meant to be.

It's a white plastered house, with light brown wooden paneling and a dark, green roof. Not large, but elegant. There are two sentries posted outside, posed with their hands behind their backs, and with their eyes now trained on Junya. He nods at them, and makes his way up the stone path to the front door.

"Hi, guys," he says, pulling the scroll he was given by the messenger out of his bag, before unrolling it and displaying it to them both. "Sorry I'm late. Eighth Seat Junya Ryoji, I'm from the Eighth. I have orders to observe this investigation and file a report with my commanding officers. I do so under the lawful authority of my Captain, and the explicit understandings between our division regarding investigations with, uh," he struggles to remember the line, "potential implications for matters of state security."

Junya shoots them a knowing, apologetic smile. They glare at him, silently. "Sorry. Can one of you take me to the senior officer here?" The two guards look at each other. The one on the right grunts, "Come on," and leads him through the house.

The crime scene's already being polished over by handfuls of Sixth personnel. A few soldiers are pouring over a bookshelf in the foyer. In the next room over, two empathetic, soft-faced looking shinigami talk to a man with his face buried in his hands, crying. More walk around in the distance, in the yard in the back. The guard assigned to him leads him through the web of investigators, who seem to move around and almost through each other with a telepathic, instinctual sort of manner, as if they are all really controlled by the same one person, working to get the job done.

They come to a room with two more guards posted outside, and cordoned off with red rope. As Junya's escort explains the situation, he looks off into the distance, staring at a gaggle of soldiers who are all staring at something on the ground in front of them. They're a half-circle centered around a single man, standing taller, at least in posture, than the rest of them. He knows who it is. Shit. Of course I had to get him. Probably what made that asshole sick.

Junya is let through, and his escort returns to his post. He walks up to the group of soldiers, and clears his throat.

"Excuse me, sir? Junya Ryoji, Eighth Seat, Eighth Division. I'm sorry I'm late."
 
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Lieutenant,
Sixth Division
Reiatsu
180
Strength
40
Defense
60
Speed
50
Spirit
30
The narrow, piercing eyes turned like a lighthouse to transfix a boat--except a boat wouldn't end up feeling like it wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere far away to escape the gaze. Those cool eyes flicked from head to toe, then back again: a quick inventory of the man who'd just arrived on the scene. Then, mercifully, the voiceless interrogation ceased.

"Ryoji," he replied formally, and nodded his head in a superior's bow: just a slight inclination, enough to indicate the other person was worthy of at least a little respect. The crowd of soldiers, mostly no-rank members of the Sixth, dispersed as if they had suddenly decided some other part of the crime scene was far more compelling. He did have that effect on people.

"My Captain has already come and gone," he said with a perfectly even tone--one of the reasons working with him was so difficult. He was well known for uttering these kinds of half statements, half warnings. Already come and gone. And where were you?

"My Captain," he continued, "believes it a suicide." This at last had some tone and feeling to it. He spoke sardonically, looking down as he drew the man's gaze to the ground. There not far from his feet was the splayed, bloody corpse of a kneeling man, now half toppled over. A slit had been made along his stomach and ropes of guts had begun to slide out. He lay in a slick puddle of gore, his hands pinching a bloody Wakizashi between a folded piece of rice paper, fully dead. It didn't take a forensics expert to determine the cause of death: his neck was a clean-sliced stump. It didn't take a forensics expert to determine the head was missing, too.

All around them was a scene of otherwise orderly everyday life. "Surprising a Third Seat of the First would want to live out here," Ichiro muttered as if to himself. He didn't seem to even realize he'd said it. The glamor of the Soul Society faded this far out, but it hadn't grown truly disheveled at this distance. There were only a few rips in the rice paper walls, only a few signs of age or water-warped wood. The rest of the room had been kept in remarkable cleanliness by the man at their feet. Brushes were in pots, ink was safely stowed. Papers were set neatly on the desk of the office they occupied. A few rooms away, the woman's sobs became a wail before the soldiers could quiet her down again.

Ichiro cocked his head, long black tail of hair swaying, as he walked around the body. His dark, unremarkable Kimono was wrapped around him tight enough to reveal he didn't have much muscle on him, though there was a kind of grace in the way he stalked around without his footfalls making a sound. He paused after making a complete circuit and looked at Ryoji mildly. "I would be indebted to you," he said with a solemn stare, "if you could enlighten me as to how a man commits suicide by cleanly removing his own head, then making it disappear."