Meet the Beta!

I joined the Anime Pulse forums (I'm division-ten, drop me a line!) about a month ago to find some people with similar interests to talk about anime and the like, and I asked if anyone wouldn't mind beta-ing my story for continuity, grammar, syntax, and overall cohesion. A very kind TimeChaserTwice is now assisting me, so yay! Please thank him profusely and shower him with Pocky when you get the chance! Also be nice, he's the only one other than me who knows what's going to happen. :-)

TimeChaser: Hello, loyal readers!

(Additional note- I've hit over 40,000 words! Holy smokes!)

Enjoy!

Tenth Moon, Twenty-Seventh Sun, Sixth Year (Metal)

If bottles had faces, the fourth one would be staring at me with a most evil smirk. It was the most unusual of the lot I had purchased the previous night, and there was a reason it was not tagged at all. I intended to deliver this one in person. And with Matsumoto on her day off, the office would be peacefully, blissfully, empty. I usually went to work an hour later and stayed in later on the Day of Metal, so I took the opportunity to box three lunches. I had to head halfway around the Seireitei and back, so I shun-po-ed quickly to the Academy, where the students were outside in line for their breakfasts. Like every other standardized food they offer in the cafeterias across Soul Society, the offerings were free and passable but hardly palatable. I stood on a tree branch above Ren's position and clacked my tongue three times before dropping the box over her head and speeding off, before the professors caught me. Sure, I was light years ahead of them in terms of ability, but this was not my division to run, and the Commander-General would have a fit if I entered the school's property without a proper introduction to the student body.

I arrived at my own office minutes later, cracked my back, and sat down to more clerical work. There was actually very little to do. With the festival coming up nobody was in the mood to handle much of anything, and it was the dreaded time of year for the general shinigami population of my own division: lots. Every national holiday, lots were drawn to see who had to work. Except at the bankai presentation, where there was a set captain in charge (me), all others had lots drawn. The unlucky captain who had to stay behind had to have their division draw for work as well (one in five), filling in all positions. Yesterday was the day when such papers had to be sorted and sent out, and since it had been done in such a timely manner, I had not much else to do. Groans from twenty percent of the office could be heard when I'd passed through that morning, and I was well aware of who was unlucky this year. Poor Tange Sakura, my third seat. This was her fifth year in a row. I honestly considered giving someone a bonus to switch with her. So after checking the budget and devising an appropriate bribe, I got my seventh seat to give up his day- he'd somehow never gotten a lot since I'd taken office. Come to think of it, Matsumoto never had to work on those days, either.

After settling the little bit I needed, I reminded myself of my promise to Ren, so I went and looked up her file.

Usually such things take months, and the problem is often due to their miss-sorting. I started messing with the mire of folders, putting them into tentative piles by century. The Tenth Division should really get their act together and start doing these things on the computer like a few of the other divisions, I mused. When budget review comes around in the Fourth Moon, I'll have that order placed.

My thoughts began to wander as I sifted through files, paying only enough attention to do the task at hand. I blew out a puff of air and thought of next week. I'd heard interesting stories about some of the other Captains- that Kuchiki's bankai looked like a sea of flowers, that Tousen's was as pitch black as night. Kurotsuchi's and Komamura's were huge, I'd been told, and everyone with a brain (of which some people unfortunately lacked in Soul Society) knew that Captain Zaraki of the Eleventh Division had no bankai ability. From what I'd heard, several of his lower seated officers ganged up on him for a friendly match, and it was the only time the deranged captain went lax on his division's motto that "losing mean death" (if that was the case, he'd lose six or seven powerful subordinates a year, something he could not afford to do).

Captain Aizen's, however, I'd heard was an artful piece of work- both shikai and bankai. I was very proud of my own abilities- both functional and fun to perform- but I'd heard his was quite a piece of work. This was something I could not wait to see for myself.

My cell phone beeped in spasms, and I looked at the clock Eleven-thirty. I pulled myself out of the mire of manila and red folders, tripping on the small stack of blue that had hidden itself in the far corner, out of anyone's sight. It was pure luck that I toppled over this stack, and read the small list of names that ensued as I reorganized it. Abarai's name was there; now that I think about it, he'd probably be fighting his captain at the showcase. What was he, fourth seat? I'd remembered hearing about him wanting to go for a vice-captain exam, too.

I flipped lower, seeing a bunch of people from World War One and Two- brutal murders that had decimated the bodies of these souls.

Wait… 1916. That's when Ren said she had died, right? Blonde hair, tall… I searched through the blue folders feverishly. Maybe she was manila (she couldn't have been red if she had remembered the year of her death), but she would have to havedied very young that way. What if she had been older?

Toriyama…

Dear God.

I thought third-seat-and-higher files were moved to another part of the records room. Mine was, so were most of the other Captains, vices and adjutants, unless they were like Captain Kuchiki- born instead of brought through- and the Soul Society was their first lifetime. You needed an access code to get a hold of those, one that not even I had.

I'd found Unohana's file. I didn't look inside; it was not my place to do so. But I opened it away from my face and felt the number of sheets. Two. Unohana never got her own paper back. I closed it, neatened the stack, and walked out of the room, sealing the door behind me.

I had lunch to attend to, anyway.

I pulled the two box lunches from the upper shelf of my cabinet, as well as the bottle of liquor, and headed out from my office to the right toward the Thirteenth Division.

Bowing at the gatekeepers, I followed the main pathway to the head office. Paper streamers were ablaze in red like the leaves here, and I quickly bounded over the ghost-post, a low wooden beam before a set of stairs- meant to trip spirits to prevent them from entering important buildings. An old Japanese custom, I remembered. Ironic.

My own division didn't have them, nor did the Fourth's. One of my predecessors must have gotten rid of the ones in the Tenth, and the Fourth could not afford for the ailing to be needlessly hopping over ceremonial barriers.

I plodded up the stairs and clanged the bell, waiting to be allowed in to seek an audience with Captain Ukitake. After a moment, an unseated officer pushed open the shoji and bade me in. He had come to visit my division many times, but I could not remember the last time I visited his- this might actually have been my first. I bowed graciously and entered Captain Ukitake's chambers.

"A visitor for you, sir," my escort said to the dappled silhouette I could make out from behind the large tan screen.

"I'm about to head to the cafeteria for lunch, Yuu. Please tell whomever it is that I request some time to eat. If they really need to speak with me, they are welcome to come along."

I must have written somewhere earlier in this entry the state of standardized food within the Seireitei. Did Ukitake stomach plain rice and miso every day? It couldn't help him feel any better; that was certain.

"I have food," I said, "It's not much, but I consider myself to be at least slightly able in the kitchen."

A pause. "Hi-Hitsugaya?" Apparently, he was taken aback by my arrival. "Truly?"

"What reason would I have to lie?" A slight hint of added sarcasm caused the older man to let out a choking laugh.

"Well then, do come in!" he said cheerfully, as his bout of coughing ended as quickly as it started. Rapping the screen with the back of his palm, the assistant pushed it aside to reveal the captain, sprawled haphazardly on the floor with a mountain of papers and scrolls, a small glowing tablet, and a pot of tea. His hair was everywhere, and, working alone, he certainly had no need for formality. If his uniform hadn't been neatly pressed and the brush pens and ink had been spilled or dried up, I would have mistaken him for having just risen from sleep. He slowly straightened himself out and dusted his haori twice, handing an earthen glazed pot and a half-emptied tea bowl over to the young man, a sign for him to take his leave.

"I think this is the first time I've ever seen you in this compound," Ukitake started, friendly as usual. "What brings you here?" His tone, now out of earshot of his subordinates, grew tense and serious- with good reason. I was the sane and practical captain, and certainly would not go around needlessly visiting other divisions like Ichimaru, Kyouraku, or Ukitake. Or so he (and I once) thought.

"Lunch." It was said with such finality that he raised an eyebrow and was very close to calling the Fourth Division down to check my mental well-being.

"That's all?" he asked quizzically, as if I was really trying to tell him something important in code.

"I thought I might try to bother you while you were doing work as you often do to me," I added with a mock sternness that elicited a snort from my elder captain. "You're ruining productivity in my division, and you know as well as I do that the budget is distributed based on standards of achievement. So I'm sabotaging you."

"You would so plainly speak to me of your motives, O-Wise-Yet-Egotistical-Villain?" he asked back, as I handed him one of the lacquered boxes and a bamboo thermos of cold tea. "I know your types- sneaking around all the time, acting innocent and diligent, until one day you snap, or fall into a vat of radioactive chemicals- you know, the usual."

My raised eyebrow gave him the hint that I did not quite get his joke, though, knowing him, if I had know the context, I might have cracked a smile- the closest thing to laughing I'd ever let myself do in the public sphere.

I unfolded the bento and he did the same. "And if I bribed you not to ruin this division, what would you do?"

'This'. He said 'this' again. Not 'my' division. 'This' one.

"Depends on what you are implying, Captain," I retorted.

"Well, there's always this," he replied, handing me a box. "I wasn't actually heading to the cafeteria, the fourth division sends my meals for the day directly to my house. I was heading to see you."

"What for?"

"You've only been dead half a century and you've forgotten?" He straightened himself up now, pushing the strands out of his face. "It's your own birthday. Not your birthday here- that's in the Twelfth Moon, you'll be fifty-five if I'm not mistaken, but you had actually died in the Eleventh and waited on a hill for a month until someone from my division found you and performed konso. However, sixty-one years ago this October Twenty-Seventh you were born. That's a just cause for a party, no?"

I… I could not believe that I had forgotten my own birthday. My real birthday. How had he known and I'd forgotten? And, yes, I remember the black-haired grinning man who had performed konso on me, wearing a wooden plaque with the number thirteen and a moon-drop flower etched on, tied with white fabric around his right arm. I'd never gotten to thank him for being so kind. By the time I'd become a shinigami myself he was already dead.

Which would mean that I'd be in need of adding an addendum to last night's entry, now that I think of it.

"Urahara told me you had always wanted a son," I said, hoping to provoke a response.

"See, now, that's the ambiguity of the Japanese language. I recall saying 'child'." He smiled. So he did know. Is this the new fashion, I wonder? "I don't know. Always wanted to be a father to somebody, never got the chance. Does it bother you? You don't seem the type to like any display of affection."

"I'm not sure. I never met my real father, so, what could I say?"

"You're a man of action, so why don't you just open the gift instead?"

Carefully, I loosened the strings on the box and lifted the lid. Inside was a small red book- leather- tied shut with a yellow ribbon.

"My former vice captain found this with you when you had died. We had to pry it from your hands lest it be burned away when you crossed over. I dispatched another man of mine to retrieve it later and bring it back the long way around." He paused, as if debating wither or not to tell me something, took a deep breath, coughed, and finally spoke.

"In my house, here, in Seireitei… well, erm, there is a room… I've amassed things like these. Not for my own sake. Back when Kurosaki was Captain, he'd have his men give people back the things that they thought most precious that mine had retrieved, like what you were so grasping on to, even in death. After he left, I didn't have the nerve to tell you about it, and the part of his division responsible just went back to other routines. Only a small number of his and my men did such a thing; that's why the Commander General never noticed. Over three hundred years! Unfortunately, people die faster than we can distribute such trifles. I've been trying to get this back to you for ages- but every time, you always seem to be caught up in work here or elsewhere. I'm fortunate that you came to me for once."

I know I'd asked Urahara if I'd been a good son. But…

"Ukitake, am I a good daughter?" I asked, holding the faded book in my hands. I couldn't even remember what was so important about it, anyway.

He bowed his head lightly and put down his bento, stretching his arms wider. "May I?"

I reached out, and we hugged. That close, I could hear his ragged breath, trying desperately to hold in a cough. "You won't make me sick," I said lightly. "Nothing's contagious here."

"That… that's true… Thank you Hitsugaya."

We let go- a childless father and a fatherless child, on some rickety boat to nowhere.

He put his hand over his mouth and coughed violently again, and this time I saw blood between his fingers. No wonder he released so quickly. He didn't want to stain me. I found a small basin of water behind him that he pointed to with his free hand and set it within his range. He dipped is hand in and now I saw his face, dripping with blood like a vampire from a child's nightmare.

He splashed water over himself a second later, wiping up with disinfectant followed by a towel. The monster was gone. I had one too; it just wasn't visible.

He reopened his bento and put the thermos to his lips. "So, are you ready for next week's ceremony?" he asked cheerfully. "And excellent tea, by the way."