Grunt Work [Mitsu]

Yuki hadn't really been paying enough attention to the time to notice that Mitsuoki was late. She had been standing there kind of absent mindedly when he showed up, apologising for his lateness and talking some mumbo-jumbo about rectifying inconvenience and all that nonsense. What was he on about? Was he late? Yuki didn't even know. She didn't even carry a watch so she couldn't even verify that he was actually late, she just knew that she'd get there a little early to survey the scenery. What a weird guy. And now he was apologising and bending the knee and shit, the hell!? She pulled a kind of confused face where her eyes went wide but her iris and pupils shrank and her mouth hung agape in surprise that he was being such a weirdo.

"I- It's okay Kumagai-san." she said. "Don't worry about it." a drop of sweat drooped down her temple, before she recalled all of a sudden that she was clutching their scrolls. She exclaimed, and they flew up into the air, and scattered across the floor. She was still a little weirded out by her co-worker's formal attitude. She came to a single conclusion about him then and there; p o i n d e x t e r. Blod would probably love him, find him cute or whatever. She wondered how guys like that actually functioned day to day. Did he speak like that to his friends!? Regardless, she bent down to grab the scrolls and pass the relevant ones to him, she looked a little like a rabbit as the ribbon tied in her hair bobbed up and down like ears. Sometimes Eiji called her Usagi-chan, at his own peril.

"So we're just going to be turning the seals on and off, and we have to call back on the denreishinki when we've done 'em." she explained. Super simple. "I drew the spot you gotta stand in chalk." she said, pointing towards a circle of white chalk she'd drawn. "We can take a break for a sec to let you get your breath back if you like." she told him, examining her nails. She'd be interested to chat to this guy, who had come from outside the Seireitei for sure. "The hell you come from anyway?"

She laughed nervously as he helped her pick up scrolls. She'd been so surprised that she'd dropped them there and then. Luckily like literally any rational, considerate person, he hadn't just stood there and gawked at her. Once they'd gathered the scrolls and she'd ensured he had all the correct ones and she had hers, she paced back to her own circle, not too distant from his, where she'd wait until he told her she was ready.

In response to her question, which had merely been regarding where he had come from that moment just passed, he told her his place of origin, where he had been born. She regarded him with another slightly shocked, slightly exasperated face at the misunderstanding. "Uuh that's not what I me-..." she trailed off quietly, as he continued to inform her that she was welcome to address him by his name.

"Oh, uuh, sure Mitsuoki-san." she told him, before sniffing slightly. Maybe he was just not very Japanese and didn't really get that way of doing things. That was fine with her, after all. Their soshi wasn't herself particularly Japanese, and as such had a funny way of doing things sometimes. "Ahh well Mitsuoki-san I shouldn't worry about being the best," she said flippantly, not particularly good at reassurances, "and anyways I'm here to make sure it goes right." she said, with a big thumbs up in his direction. "I don't think you're likely to be relocated, I mean your kido is better than some people even in the Kido Corps. But remember, Blodeuwen-sama is our Soshi, not a taicho. And we aren't quite a squad- the Kidoshuu is a separate military organization. Remember that and you'll be fine." she told him, before furrowing her brow. So this guy had low self esteem. Hmph. Yuki figured at least she shouldn't pick on him if that was the case.

"N- nani!?" She asked, pulling another comical face of disbelief. "No, hang on," Yuki was adamant that she instruct this young grasshopper of the truth. "There's no use getting irritated with me." she told him flatly. "Hirashi-soshi is the soshi, not merely some Taicho. A commander, the same as Yamamoto-sama. The Kido Corps are not one of the thirteen court guard squads either; they are an entirely separate organization. Our job isn't to fight hollows and purify humans and defend the Seireitei. The difference lies in duty, Mitsuoki-san." she informed him, finger raised, and eyes gently shut in the epitome of condescending explanation. "I understand it must be hard for you as a pea- uuh a person from the Rukon districts. However do please try and remember. Really, it seems perhaps the standards at the academy have slipped recently if you do not possess this basic knowledge! Not that it really matters to me if you get in trouble for saying these types of things anyhow..." she admonished, passive-aggressively. She kept perfectly calm, little ribbon fluttering in the gentle breeze. If he wanted any success these were lessons he would have to learn at some point. Yuki knew that not everyone was as fortunate as her to have grown up in a noble house, having been groomed for this job their whole lives. Indeed she was kind of impressed that someone like him could have made it into the Kido Corps at all.

And now he was displaying even more weird gaijin habits. One of Yuki's eyebrows disappeared beneath her fringe, and a short 'eh?' escaped her. This guy... He truly was a break from tradition! This would all be useful intel to report back to Blodeuwen about how exactly to promote the young man if he was indeed suited for it. She simply shouted in response, out of confusion.

"You really are some kinda weird gaijin, huh, is everyone from the rukongai as strange as you, huh buddy?" she asked him, a kind of exaggerated sense of panic rather comically entering her voice as she stared him down, a large droplet of sweat descending from her temple. However, Mitsuoki simply started to attempt to engage the first seal. Yuki felt like she needed to interject to explain that it was much easier for him to deal with his first seal when she had taken off the first one that she needed to undo, and stood there, slightly unable to believe that he was really just going to try and cast the same kido what must have been ten or eleven times (she had lost count).

Finally she couldn't bear to watch it any more, and several moments before he cast the final incantation that would remove the seal, Yuki cast her own, removing the initial enchantment that bound all the kido together into one, enabling Mitsuoki to undo the first seal, with considerable effort. She rolled up her scroll and picked up the Denreishinki and called Junta Nishikawa, who was on the other end of the line.

'Mmmhmm, yeah you can run the rest now. You'll text when you're done? SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO HEAR MY STUPID VOICE!? YOU SON OF A-' but then Nishikawa-san hung up on him. She looked at her phone with a disgusted expression, before turning to Mitsuoki. "Well, Mitsuoki, we just gotta wait a couple minutes for them to text us back then we can move and look at the next set." she told him, flatly.

Yuki pursed her lips and moved her mouth from side to side, as a silence overcame them. Mitsuoki was the first to break the silence between them, keen it seemed, to impart more of his life story. He kept staring at her as if he didn't have a soul. She found it kind of unsettling at how moody and edgy he was acting. It kind of reminded her a little of Eiji except he was nowhere near as good-natured as her brother. He told her that people called him a name that he hated and got wound up by. She regarded him flatly, looking to the side coyly before daring to ask.

"So what's your nickname that you hate then gaijin-boy?" she asked in a low, sly voice. Then he engaged in a kind of reasons-you-suck speech about how terrible life in the rukon districts was, and how shinigami didn't do anything to help. Yuki just yawned. She knew Eiji spent a bunch of time policing the rukon, defeating hollows when they appeared there, taking out lawless bandits where possible. But there were only 6000 or so shinigami, and millions if not billions of people living in the Rukon districts. It was impossible indeed to police a whole world. The humans in the real world seemed to do a grand job of it. In reality it was the fault of the peasants in the Rukon in that they had filed to organize and govern themselves as the Shinigami had been able to do. Her denreishinki buzzed with a text before she could answer.

"Okay," she said, reading the text, "look at scroll four... Kurohitame. Now to unlock this one, we'll have to alternate enchantments, starting with mine, does that make sense? Okay you can go ahead and start; I'll follow along." she said, suddenly all business.

"N-n- nani!?!? I didn't s-say anything like that ya goof!" She said, realizing her mistake and flushing bright red, stomping violently on the floor with her hands balled up into little fists at her waist. "A- Are you some kinda moron, huh buddy??" she asked him, before double-checking her own scroll, realizing that she had in fact got the order mixed up. "Of course I'm meant to go first again j- just like last time." she said, before furiously incanting. Having said that his look of confusion had been pretty damn funny.

After they were done, he looked pretty done in for. Yuki looked at him with a singular raised eyebrow. These sealing kido weren't too hard, maybe he was overthinking it a little. Well- they weren't too hard for shinigami in the Kido Corps, at least. Yuki had read his file. He was good enough. She didn't want to come across too much as if she cared, but it'd be easier for both of them if he acquired a little more skill in doing this, she guessed.

"You may be fine now," she told him when he assured her he was okay following her look, "but we have another couple of these to do. I'm not sure what you're struggling with but remember- the energy for these seals comes from long ago. We're not really un-doing them, just turning them on and off. You don't have to undo the whole seal by yourself, hell it shouldn't really take any reiryoku. Yeah I guess they require a little concentration, but it seems like you're applying your reiatsu in these incantations like a normal kido. Anyways that might not be the problem. And I don't really care. I just can't be bothered to carry you back to the Kido Corps if you collapse from exertion, as all." she told him with a short harrumph.

The two of them had been successful however, and she sent off a text to Junta to let him know. Now they waited again. Mitsuoki seemed to be some weird guy who was somehow really formal at the same time as being really informal. So he wanted her to call him like she would an old friend or intimate lover, yet also here he was talking about prudence and all that. Like a yo-yo! Yuki couldn't really understand such things.

"W-what!? Such a personal question! I grew up with my twin brother Eiji-kun. On the Hirashi estate of course. I was queen of the neighbourhood and lord of all the other kids, even the ones who were technically from higher ranked noble houses than mine." as she said this, she would appear as a giant figure cast in shadow, with a wicked sharp grin, terrorizing the neighbourhood children. "Of course Eiji-kun was always the one who was quiet and calm and soft spoken... Like a damn librarian. So no-one, me included, ever expected me to be in the Kido Corps. Of course I ended up coming here, since I was so good at kido, it was my duty!" she told him, triumphantly. His follow-up question though seemed rather silly. What!? Did she always want to...

"Baka! I already told you just now that I never knew I'd end up here, so how could I always have wanted to! That makes no sense!" she told him, her head large, and her teeth sharp as she admonished him sharply for his silliness. However, rapidly calming down she considered his question seriously. Had she had other dreams? Yuki wouldn't necessarily have thought about coming to the Kido Corps had her skill with kido not been so good, however, it wasn't as though she had thought about going elsewhere. Having said that, part of her had always wanted the fame that came with being a seated officer in the thirteen court guard squads as an officer. Instead of toiling away in relative obscurity here in the Kido Corps.

"Well everyone wants to be a famous captain like Kuchiki-dono, or Ukitake-dono, or... To- Toshiro-chan..." she said, hands clasped together, and eyes glistening as she thought of the little white haired taicho. So cool! So cute! So clever! That was three c words!! At the thought of each of them, Yuki threw a dramatic, heartbroken pose that she could not be close to Shiro-chan, who was by far the cutest in the Seireitei. "But even if I can't be with Toshiro-chan, it's my own personal philosophy that it would be stupid to have regrets about your own life!" she told him with a big thumb extended. His response to that question would confuse and anger her too.


"N- n- n- NANDAI!?" This time her form would be totally silhouetted, lines of anger wafting from her body though her voice was quiet and shaky, hiding an unyielding rage. "I don't understand, do you think I'm stupid?? Would I choose to have regrets, even if my own personal philosophy says that such a thing would be stupid?? This... DO YOU THINK SOMEONE YOU JUST MET WOULD REALLY SHOW THAT KIND OF HYPOCRISY!?" she asked, before deflating to the floor, defeated by the bizarre and nonsensical questions he was asking her.

"Either way... These questions should stay off the record, that's important, you know." The next thing he said would be the final straw, nonetheless. He asked... Her... If... The... Questions could... Stay off the record?

...

Yuki blinked, long and slow.

"Are you... Learning disabl-" before she could finish her question however, Nishikwa-san rung through. "Next set, scroll seven the one that says 'Dokugamine' at the top! You go first, you gotta keep enchanging and repeating, while I unlock the next set of seals. Nearly done now!" she told him, with a thumbs up.

As soon as he started enchanting, Yuki went though, one by one, unlocking the various seals until the set was done, before signalling for him to cut it out. Not that it mattered if he kept going, but she simply found it annoying for him to be repeating the same incantation when he didn't need to be. One day maybe she'd get a promotion to a rank where she didn't need to do this at all, but that day was not today, she still had somewhat of a long way to go.

"Hmm, was that any easier?" Yuki asked him. Of course, her guidance would be excellent, nothing short of it. But if he had developed some new, other difficulty it would make sense for her to help him out because if she didn't then he'd pass out and she'd have to carry him back. "That seemed better than before though." she congratulated him with a stern face, not wanting to get too buddy-buddy. She guessed maybe it was time for her to do some questioning.

"Sooo Mr. Rukongai, you still never told me that nickname. Is it something they called you in the districts? You came from sixty eight, huh? That's kind of a shithole, huh, you got pretty good manners to be a guy from around about there. I guess you were a human in the World Of The Living before that werencha? Bet you miss your family, right?" she asked him, not really knowing or caring if she was being impolite or prying, she was just a bit of a chatterbox. Mitsuoki might be a weird gaijin but at least he wasn't a dumb nerd.

Eh? How was Yuki supposed to know someone who knew his nickname? Ahh he was being so serious! She guessed this guy was a guy who felt serious deep down emotions... Not that she didn't, but gosh why did he have to take everything so serious all of the time. She frowned to herself. At least he had relaxed a little now. That was short lived; Mitsuoki regained his serious demeanor as he told her he didn't miss his family one iota. That was pretty serious too! Not at all! Had they been abusive? Yuki frowned. She was about to inquire further, but she got a call from Junta-san.

"Eh, last one? Sure. Why are you calling though? Suddenly missed the creamy smooth caramel of my voic-"

"..."

"You... You don't know how to spell it?? Do you not have it written down!? Someone else told you! Well which damn scroll is it? Moron." Yuki hung up the phone. So now she had to read the damn scrolls. She looked through the scrolls until she found the one that they needed. "You're looking for the scroll with Kodai Tatsuyama no shibari written at the top. I think this one we have to do at exactly the same time okay? So we'll do it on three. As in one two three and we go on three. Or should I say go and then go on go? No we'll just go on three it's much simpler that way. You got that? Go on three, not on go." she told him, throwing a thumbs up. Only an idiot would misunderstand Yuki's absolutely superb directions!

"One..."

"Two..."

"Three..."

and on three, Yuki began enchanting.

"Hey, that was pretty good. For someone who isn't very good at kido, you did okay!" Yuki told him with encouragement. Had he told her he wasn't good at kido? Or had she just guessed that from the fact that he seemed to bad at kido. It was entirely possible Yuki had made a huge faux pas just now, but Mitsuoki had, thus far, been so reserved and passive that she guessed that he wouldn't really say or do anything even if he was a bit offended. Regardless, she had complimented him at the same time as she had insulted him, so that would surely balance it out, right?

Then of course was the matter of his continued strangeness. What kind of icecream? Yuki wasn't a kid, she didn't eat ice cream! Unless... Was this his version of trying to make a move!? The two of them had been here for a while chatting and casting spells, what a lecherous person to assume she'd want to go on a date with him just cause they were colleagues.

"Whaaaaaat!? You're trying to ask me for ice cream or something! Gaaah, so inappropriate!! It's blackberry, like my hair, in case you want to buy me a gift, however." she told him haughtily, folding her arms. She got a text, all of a sudden, her phone buzzing. They were done? The seals were sorted, they would send in a team to run diagnostics...

"Well, Mitsu, we're done now." Yuki told him, hands on her hips. "How did that feel? Don't worry about feeling too inadequate, many people do when faced with a witch of such extraordinary power and beauty such as myself." she said, eyebrows raised in a villain arch. "I can take those scrolls back, if you want?" she offered.