—@the-hxnged-man
It must be a big deal, then. If it’s just a little Huge Hollow, they could send a couple of lieutenants, dispose of it in a few days or a week. But they’re sending the commanding officers of a squad, the captain and the lieutenant. So it’s a big deal.
This is what Kensei figures in his mind, walking out of the Captain’s meeting. If there had been more information than that stated aloud, he’d missed it, somewhere between the bickering of the more recent captains and the droning of the old man. It’s hard to focus in there.
But Yamamoto had handed him a stack of papers thick with official seals. Even without his glasses, he can see the stamp of Central 46 and the mark of the Gotei 13. He can even imagine the key phrases, bolded or italicized in the crisp handwriting of a scribe; permission to use full force and arrangements for compensation.
Because that’s their job. To risk their lives and die to eliminate a threat, and in return for hounding after a particularly dangerous threat they get paid extra.
The lieutenants are waiting in a gaggle at the foot of the big staircase, and as Kensei approaches he gets a vague sense of trepidation, a gut-churning kick of de ja vu. Hasn’t he been here before? Walking out of a meeting like that, carrying a stack of paperwork like this? He’d had a larger force to command then, yet that hadn’t saved any of them.
“Hisagi.”
He hands over the stack of papers and ignores his gut feeling. That’ll kill him one day, but not today. Not tomorrow. Not yet.
