Last time on Hunting Death Itself...
The Captains met and discussed their plans to combat the Jäger, deciding to send out five Shinigami under the command of Captain Niche Neeja of Squad 2 to launch an ambush against their enemies. However, their plans fell to dust as former Captain Hunter, wounded and being pursued by the Jäger, revealed that none of their traps would work against one of the leaders of the Jäger, who was chasing him. They counterattacked in force, managing to scatter the Jäger's forces, but one member of their team stayed behind to stop the strongest Jäger from purusing them. They managed to get away, but were confronted by one last group of enemies. A mysterious Shinigami intervened and defeated the group, revealing himself to be none other than Rouga Kouken, the ex-Lieutenant they had been seeking...
“Pick your jaw up off the floor, kid,” Rouga grunted to Niche, smirking slightly. “I’m just another Shinigami.”
“A Shinigami who’s been AWOL for five centuries!” Niche choked out, spluttering.
He raised an eyebrow. “So you know who I am?”
“Rouga Kouken,” Niche replied, still shaking his head in disbelief. “You were the Squad 9 Lieutenant during the Quincy Wars.”
His gaze hardened, and he prepared to speak, but he turned suddenly and drew his blade so fast it seemed to fly straight into his hand. “Get out here, Gurim,” he snarled into the bushes. “Suppressing your reiatsu doesn’t do you any good when I can pinpoint you from scent alone.”
“Damn you and your lupine senses, Kouken,” a familiar voice chuckled. The figure stepped out from cover, revealing himself as the Jäger who had led the group that had been pursuing Jin. “Still, I thought you’d never show your face to us.”
“Zeruda is smarter than that,” Rouga snapped, leveling his blade at the man. “She knows that I’d come out into the open if she made a move to attack the Seireitei. Why else would she have built up her forces so much lately?”
Gurim chuckled darkly again, twirling the tip of his goatee around his finger. “You’re as well informed as ever, I see.” He raised his bow, then his entire expression shifted to a far more sinister mask. “Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
“I could give you several, foremost being that you can’t beat me on your own,” Rouga replied. His voice was so flat it didn’t even sound like a taunt, more like he was simply stating a fact. “You’re also outnumbered, facing at least two Captain-class opponents, and Zeruda would rip your spine out with her bare hands if she found out that you killed me. We both know that she’s fixated on killing me to the point of it being obsessive.”
The Jäger grimaced, his bow dissolving into a flare of dispersed reishi. “Don’t think you can get away from us this easily,” he hissed, now glaring at Rouga with rage in his eyes. “We will have our revenge for what you and the other Shinigami did to our order.”
“No, you won’t,” Rouga replied firmly, sheathing his sword. “The only revenge you’ll have is against me. None of the other Quincy War veterans are even still alive.”
“It matters not,” Gurim growled, turning on his heel and walking away. “You destroyed our order, now we will destroy yours as recompense.”
“Hold it,” Niche snapped, causing Gurim’s steely gaze to shift to him. “What did you do to Kagen?”
“The fool who attacked me? He’s dead of course.” Gurim scoffed at the outraged look on Niche’s face. “Did you seriously expect me to spare his life?”
Niche’s hand clenched around his bow in a supremely uncharacteristic display of anger, but Rouga’s hand clamping down on his forearm stopped him from doing anything rash. “I’m going to kill you when we next meet, Gurim Königswald,” Niche swore, his own eyes matching the Jäger’s in intensity as he ripped his arm from Rouga’s grasp. “I swear on Kagen’s life that I’ll defeat you.”
“I’ll look forward to it, Kidou Master,” Gurim replied nastily before vanishing into the night.
“Son of a bitch,” Jaku muttered.
“Amen,” Katsumi echoed him, finally finishing up her treatment of Jin’s injuries. “Captain Hunter’s injuries are all sealed, but he won’t be waking up for a little while.”
“Damn,” Niche muttered, turning back to Rouga. “You have to come back to the Seireitei with us.”
“I was planning on it anyway,” he replied with a shrug. “Just two questions.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know a Shinigami by the name of Seijuro Arashi, and what seat is he currently?”
A thick, heavy silence fell over the group. “He’s dead,” Niche stated flatly, as Jaku flinched. “He was the Captain of Squad 7.”
The bitter look in Jaku’s eyes said it all; Rouga put the pieces together almost immediately. “Gods damn it,” Rouga snarled, kicking fruitlessly at the ground. “I can’t believe she went that far.”
“You sure seem to understand a lot about this whole mess,” Heisei noted, slightly suspicious.
Rouga sighed, running a hand through his windswept blond hair. “I damn well better know everything about this,” he murmured. “It’s my fault that it occurred in the first place.”
Jaku’s hand suddenly shot to his sword, but Niche held out a hand. “Enough. Rouga killed one of Zeruda’s family, and spared her life, which is why she’s bitter. He’s blaming himself for this because he left her alive.” Niche turned to look at him. “Right?”
“In some respects,” the veteran warrior replied vaguely. “Let’s get back to the Seireitei; we need to interrogate the unconscious Jäger and I need to do a lot of explaining.
***
A hissing rush of nose and blast of superheated steam expanded from Squad 6’s training grounds while freezing rain poured down from the heavens, a surefire sign of two Shinigami locked in combat.
A figure clad in crimson samurai armor whipped another blast of flames at his opponent, who countered by raising his hands and summoning a torrent of water and ice to intercept it. The two attacks clashed, the fire melting the ice and evaporating the water, but being extinguished as well. The first fighter sighed. “Come on, Kai,” he goaded, raising his blade. “Your Bankai should at least be able to overpower my Shikai, especially considering your weather advantage.”
“Come off it,” the Squad 7 Lieutenant growled, his black hair falling into his eyes from the rain. “You’ve had your Shikai for almost as long as I’ve been alive.”
“Longer,” Senshuken replied. “You’re not 200 yet.”
Kai gritted his teeth, but he suddenly gasped and collapsed to one knee as though a great weight had just fallen on his shoulders. The rain stopped after a few seconds, and out of the mist covering the training field his sealed blade formed into his hand. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath. “Don’t tell me I’m out of juice already.”
“You’re not used to fighting against an opponent who’s stronger than you in that form yet,” Senshuken sighed, his armor and massive sword vanishing into smoke as he sheathed his now-sealed katana. “Frankly, I’m not surprised. Your Bankai is powerful enough to affect the weather and climate, no matter where you are. That usually takes an immense amount of power, something that you don’t have the endurance to maintain against serious opponents right now.”
“But the rain restores my reiatsu. I should be able to keep going a lot longer than this.”
“I said endurance, not reiatsu. You have plenty of reiatsu, but expending so much over such a large area and having it restored in a cycle is incredibly stressful on your spiritual body. That’s probably why you’re limited to your Shikai attacks, and unable to properly shape the water and ice in other forms; your body wouldn’t be able to handle the strain and so it forcibly restrains your abilities.”
“Damn,” Kai muttered, flopping onto the ground with a groan of exhaustion. “I’m not going to be able to get a handle on that any time soon.”
Senshuken sighed, holding out a hand and pulling Kai to his feet. “You’re not expected to, Kai. You may be an Acting Captain, but you’ve got time before you claim the rank for yourself. Seijuro struggled for almost twenty years to even get his Bankai to a usable level in combat, and more than fifty to completely master it.”
“That’s almost twice the norm,” Kai noted, confused. “I thought Captain Arashi was supposed to be one of the best.”
Senshuken chuckled, walking over to a bench nearby and sitting down, offering the other end to his training partner. “He was, but his Bankai was a lot like yours; maximum spiritual strain in exchange for powers that surpass the spiritual body’s limits. He really struggled with it for a while and even when he learned how to use it in combat for extended periods he just couldn’t use all of his potential abilities. He trained almost constantly for nearly twenty years even after he’d learned how to use it in combat and became a Captain, but he just couldn’t get the hang of it. It probably had to do with the fact that despite his stamina, he just didn’t have enough reiatsu to make it work.”
“So how did he figure it out?” Kai asked, eager to learn how to replicate the training method so he could master his powers. “Did you help him?”
Senshuken shrugged. “It wasn’t me, that’s for certain,” he replied, leaning back. “Seijuro requisitioned for an extended leave of absence and had Aozora take over his duties as Captain for a while. He spent ten years out in the Outer Rukon districts, and when he came back his abilities were almost on par with mine. He never told anyone what he did out there, but if I had to guess, he got some help from someone who either had similar abilities or was able to massively increase his reiatsu levels in a short period of time.”
Kai considered this for a minute, then he gasped with realization. “You don’t think it’s that Rouga Kouken guy that they were talking about, do you?”
The experienced Captain nodded sagely. “That’s exactly what I think.”
Just then, a black swallowtail, more colloquially known as a Hell Butterfly, fluttered up to the pair of them and began relaying its message. “All Captains and Acting Captains are to report to Squad 1’s barracks for an emergency Captains’ Meeting.”
The two shared a quick glance and a nod, then they burst into shunpou and raced towards the meeting.
***
When Niche and the others walked in, they weren’t exactly expecting a surprise party to greet them behind the door. They weren’t expecting any happy welcome for that matter, and they couldn’t care less.
However, one other thing that none of them expected was for Kida to suddenly shunpou right into Niche’s face and lift him off the floor by his collar; quite a feat considering that he was over six inches taller than her. “Niche,” she growled, her voice low and angry, “what did I tell you before this mission?”
I’m so dead, Niche thought, as he tried to come up with a suitable reply.
Fortunately, Rouga stepped around him, to general murmurs of confusion as the Captains recognized him from their last briefing. “Kida, please put him down,” he stated calmly, even when she turned her angry glare to him. “You don’t know the full story; don’t make a hasty judgment and condemn him for your Lieutenant’s decision.”
He stared impassively at her for another few seconds, then she tossed Niche to the floor with a growl, causing him to land off balance and fall to the ground. Kida’s gaze shifted to each Shinigami in the group, picking up on their body language and ashamed stares being directed at the ground. “He sacrificed himself, didn’t he?” she asked softly, her voice still full of menace.
“Yeah,” Niche muttered, picking himself up off the floor. “He charged the strongest of the Jäger that attacked us to give us time to escape and fight off the others.”
She sighed, and turned to Rouga. Her head snapped up, and she suddenly slugged him across the face, tossing him to the ground. “And you didn’t help him because?” Kida snarled, her fangs showing in full.
“By the time I got there, I had to go help the others,” Rouga replied, wiping the small drip of blood from his split lip. “He wouldn’t have survived his injuries long enough to receive treatment anyway.” He met her eyes, regret clear in the gaze. “I’m sorry, Kida, but this is a war. We need to prioritize.”
If looks could kill, Rouga would’ve been nothing more than a bloody smear on the floor from Kida’s glare. She clenched her fist and cursed, turning away. “I know,” she snarled, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“I know,” Rouga replied, standing. “Again, I’m sorry, really.”
She sighed, shaking her head. “I know. Don’t think that you’re not going to hear about this later, though.”
Rouga chuckled darkly. “I’m well aware.” He then moved to the center of the room, dropping to one knee in front of Golde. “My apologies for causing such a stir, Head Captain, but I have information that you’ll need to hear.”
“I figured as much,” Golde sighed. “However, I think the biggest thing you need to explain is why you’re caught up in all of this. That will tell us everything from your motivation to the information you need us to have.”
“I suppose I should,” Rouga admitted, sitting back on his haunches in a very wolfish stance. “You guys might want to sit down.”
“Oh joy,” Rotrum muttered sarcastically. “I just love story time.”
Rouga chuckled. “All we need now is a campfire and some marshmallows.”
Arc looked eagerly to the Head Captain. “Can we? Please?”
Golde chuckled. “After this crisis is over, I don’t see why not.”
Rouga had to grin at the camaraderie of the current Captains, a far cry from the detached formality of the ones he had come to know. “I’ll bring the marshmallows,” he offered with a laugh.
“And we all know it’s never a party without some sake,” Dre rumbled from the back, to general nods of assent.
“Marshmallows and sake, what a combo,” Kida remarked, giving a halfhearted laugh, obviously still feeling down.
Rouga laughed, but he quickly calmed down and sighed heavily. “Alright, if you want to know about all of this, I’ll have to start at the beginning; the assassination of Lord Harkinian…”
***
“You all know the plan by now,” a slightly younger Rouga told the fifty or so Shinigami around him. “Wait until Lieutenant Enzeru and I take out the guards, then blast through the front door while the two shock squads accompany us through the back a bit more quietly. Keep the Quincy distracted and keep casualties to a minimum.” His bestial blue eyes bored into each and every one of the assembled Shinigami. “If anyone goes down permanently, immediately cut off their head or destroy their whole body with Kidou or a powerful Zanpaktou attack; it’s the only way to save their souls from being destroyed. Once I kill Lord Harkinian, we’re pulling out. Any questions?”
Nobody said anything. “Then fall out.”
The dozens of Shinigami dispersed into the trees around them, leaving Rouga, another Lieutenant, and roughly a dozen Onmitsukidou looking up at the Quincy stronghold in front of them; a literal castle.
“Another freakin’ assassination job,” Lieutenant Kurai Enzeru groused, tossing his slick black ponytail over his shoulder with nonchalance that befitted someone of his experience and confidence. “Old Man Yama really needs to find us something else to do.”
“Or get someone else to take our job,” Rouga replied, drawing his sword.
“Touché.”
They moved quietly through the castle grounds, slitting the throats of any guards they sensed around them, keeping their reiatsu expenditure to a minimum to avoid detection. The Gentei Reiin they wore assisted them greatly with this; only a fifth of their latent reiatsu wasn’t enough to bring undue attention their way.
Within ten minutes, all the Quincy guards on the ground were dead and the ones in the fortress were beginning to take notice. Kurai and Rouga met back up at the rear of the massive stone castle, finding a metallic door on one of the upper tiers. Rouga tried the handle, but of course, it was locked. He ran a hand over it, sniffing slightly to catch the scent of the material. “Spiritualized silver…” he murmured. “They’re serious about keeping us out.”
“I’ll do it,” Kurai stated, drawing a thin, ornate rapier from his belt. “Grasp, shred, and slice, Taka no Tsume.”
The blade lit up as pure light flared along its length, expanding into the shape of the claws of a bird of prey that stabbed its talons into the door before ripping it from its hinges and tossing it clear off the building with a flick of Kurai’s wrist. “Breaching complete,” Kurai stated smugly, sealing and sheathing his blade.
Rouga chuckled. “No matter how many times I see that, it’s still pretty impressive.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, old friend.”
Twelve black-garbed Onmitsukidou members dropped to the roof behind them. “You boys ready?” Rouga asked, receiving a full complement of nods in return. “Alright, signal the attack.”
The senior onmitsu weaved a quick hand sign and slammed his palm into the ground, then a huge rumbling was heard as the gate detonated and the Shinigami massing outside it charged with roars of fury and bloodlust. They met the Quincy defenders head-on, taking up positions in the front hallway and scattering to prevent the Quincy from taking them out in groups with their arrows.
Rouga and his cohorts slipped in through the back door, splitting off down different hallways to kill as many high-ranking Quincy as they could find here. Rouga proceeded directly into the heart of the foretress, knowing that was where he would find Lord Harkinian.
He felt a twitch from his Soul Communicator, and pulled it out to check the message. Lieutenant Kouken, you have permission to release your limiter.
“Excellent,” he murmured. He raised a hand to his chest, the insignia of the white poppy lighting up on his chest and dispersing, his reiatsu only spiking momentarily as he kept it tamped down as best he could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, as several Quincy came barreling around the corridor, shouting in German and knocking back their bows.
Rouga leapt into action with a cry of “Attack and Defend, Tanryoku no Rei”, spinning between the two Quincy and slashing the left one across the back while smashing the other across the face with his shield. He left them alive, not wanting to kill any more than was necessary. He’d killed enough people lately and wanted nothing more than to stop the senseless bloodshed that this war was founded on.
“Einbrecher!” another Quincy screamed down the next hall upon spotting Rouga. “Einbrecher in der-“
Rouga vanished and reappeared behind the Quincy, smacking him in the back of the head with his shield and dropping him to the ground silently. “That will do, mein Herr,” he murmured, continuing on his way towards the central chambers.
Another patrol of Quincy waited just outside the doors of the castle’s throne room, all of them clearly waiting for him with their bows at the ready. Upon seeing their target, they let loose with a flurry of arrows and some of the most obscene profanity Rouga had ever heard in German, forcing him to throw himself back down the corridor to dodge them all.
He quickly bounded back to his feet, running towards the wall opposite the intersection and managing three steps up its surface before he leapt into shunpou and kicked off the wall, appearing right in the midst of the Quincy guards. “Uzumaku Jiken!” he howled, taking the momentum from his dash and spinning at incredible speed, cleaving through most of the guards. He bashed another who had dodged against the wall with his shield, then ducked under an arrow and kicked the last of the group in the face, sending him flying down the corridor to land in a heap, unmoving.
Like bat swooping in on prey, a huge black-haired Quincy descended from the vaulted ceiling, twin Seeleschneider springing to life in his hands as he slashed at Rouga. The young Lieutenant dodged at the last possible second, the blades passing only an inch from his nose as he bent back and flipped away.
“Sie kommen nicht weiter,” the Quincy stated, his piercing blue eyes boring into Rouga’s own. You will come no further.
“Ich werde,” Rouga replied, raising both his weapons and letting his reiatsu flow at its full power, “und Sie können mir nicht anhalten.” I will, and you can’t stop me.
Both warriors charged, the Quincy crossing his blades and slashing outward, but Rouga struck with his shield instead and shouted “Iiyoru Shuusoku!”
A flash of energy erupted from the shield when it collided with the Seeleschneider, deflecting the weapons backwards and throwing the Quincy off-balance. Rouga spun, kicking out and hurling the larger man down the hallway before flashing after him and stabbing him through the instant he hit the wall.
“N-Nein…” the dying Quincy gagged, hacking up blood as Rouga pulled his sword out and stepped back. “V-Vati… Zeruda…”
“Es tut mir leid, Quincy,” Rouga murmured as the man’s eyes closed and death claimed him. I’m sorry, Quincy.
He sighed, walking back before the imposing double-doors to the throne room and plotting his strategy. Lord Harkinian had already defeated two Lieutenants on separate occasions; he’d probably manage to at least heavily wound Rouga before escaping if he engaged the man in an all-out fight with his Shikai. His best bet would be to use his Bankai to defeat Harkinian quickly, with the first move, if he could; not allowing his incomplete Bankai to dissolve before he’d won.
Hey Rei, you ready to try Bankai again? he wondered, knowing his Zanpaktou spirit would hear him.
Give it your all this time, Rouga, Tanryoku no Rei’s voice growled back. Do that, and I’ll hold the form for another ten seconds more.
“That gives me roughly fifteen seconds…” he muttered, calculating. “Good enough, with my enhanced reflexes.” He lowered himself to the ground; crouching as though he was about to pounce and tensing every muscle in his body. “Bankai!”
Instead of a huge, all-consuming blast of reiatsu, power rolled off him in sheets, forming over his body like the gossamer fibers of a cloak. His eyes grew sharper, his teeth and nails lengthening into fangs and claws. Lines traced up and down his body, marking him from head to toe in glowing blue tribal tattoos. His ears grew and pointed at the tips, and a diamond-shaped mark formed on his forehead, completing his fusion with his Zanpaktou. “Fukyuu Tanryoku,” he snarled, his voice coming out harsh from both pain and the transformation of his vocal cords.
He struck at the door, ripping it off its hinges with his blade and taking in the room beyond in less than an instant, his reflexes heightened to the nth degree. Pain from destroying the entrance radiated down his arm in searing waves, but he blocked it out as best he could and tried to focus on the room beyond.
A middle-aged, bearded man stood in the back of the chamber, a huge silver longbow clutched in his hand with a Seeleschneider pulled back and ready to fire. A similarly-aged woman stood off to the side, her own bow clutched in both hands as a futile defense. Rouga noted four other Seeleschneider placed in a deliberate pattern around the room and immediately understood Harkinian’s plan: create a Sprenger and stop his opponent from advancing into the room, giving them a chance to escape. Clever, but useless against someone with Rouga’s speed.
As the Seeleschneider leapt from Lord Harkinian’s bow, Rouga moved forward in a fluid, almost trancelike movement. He slashed upward, severing the Seeleschneider’s blade and destroying the hilt, sending the once-powerful weapon clattering uselessly to the floor in slow motion. He met Lord Harkinian’s eyes for less than an instant, forever memorizing their emerald green color, and then he vanished once more, beheading him from behind. His wife raised her bow and loosed her own arrow with a scream of terror and sorrow, but to Rouga it was like she was moving underwater, so slow and easy to read. He tilted his head out of the way of the bolt, vanishing as he spun and then his sword cleaved through her neck as well, bringing an abrupt and bloody end to her life.
His power faded abruptly as white-hot lances of pain suddenly burned through every nerve in his body. He dropped to the ground with an agonized yell, the motions just making the feeling worse. His transformation receded, the shifting of his body driving more and more pain through his already fried nerves. He collapsed to the floor, gasping and panting for breath with his now-sealed blade falling from his limp grasp. “Fucking… hell…” he rasped, the foul words the only way he could think to describe the pain he was currently in. “That wasn’t even fifteen seconds…”
I said I could hold the form for fifteen seconds, but I’m not going to just put you in more pain while I wait for you to power down your Bankai.
“Thanks for that,” he muttered darkly, heaving himself back to his feet and sheathing his blade. A small gasp behind him caught his attention, and he whirled to find himself staring at a young girl, only eight years old. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a neat braid, and her father’s emerald eyes sparkled out from her pale face. She stared blankly at the corpses of her parents, her gaze shifting to Rouga just before her knees gave out and she knelt like a puppet with its strings cut.
He cursed inwardly; this child had witnessed her parents deaths, and now it fell upon him to make the choice. Kill her and save her a life of torment, or let her live and hope to overcome her pain?
***
“Considering where we are now, it should be obvious which choice I made,” he muttered darkly. “I should have just done it; what was one more death on my conscience? But I couldn’t.”
“She was just a child,” Senny reasoned. “There’s nothing wrong with compassion.”
“That’s naïve,” Rouga shot back, his angry reply taking the Captains by surprise. “Compassion has no place in an assassin’s heart. My duty was to kill all the high-ranking Quincy I could find and I left the greatest prodigy in their Order alive.”
“But you accomplished your mission, didn’t you?” Zameric asked.
Rouga snorted derisively. “Yeah, at the cost of everyone in my assault group.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I was the only Shinigami to survive that expedition.” He sighed. “When I rejoined the battle, I found out that one of the targets we were sent to find was even more powerful than Lord Harkinian. He killed Kurai, then proceeded to annihilate the other assassins. He found Zeruda, and whatever he said to her was enough to make her go on a rampage against the Shinigami still in the front hall. Even with her young age, she was already at Lieutenant level, almost as strong as her father, and while enraged she ripped through the foot soldiers that made up the rest of the assault group like tissue paper. Combined with the other Quincy’s tactical command, they completely destroyed the others. I barely escaped; I had to resort to using my Bankai again and formed a Senkaimon without shifting back. I ran all the way back to the Seireitei and collapsed upon entering it; I’d used my Bankai for almost five minutes, which at the time was literally sixty times the length of any previous use.” He growled angrily at the memories of the failed mission and its aftermath. “There aren’t even words to describe how fubar that mission was.”
“So what happened to the Quincy?” Arc asked the most important question. “Did the Soul Society send more after them?”
“They tried to,” Rouga replied tiredly, “but the Quincy had already left. The Captains chased after them for decades, but never caught up to them. Eventually, they found their way into the Soul Society, far beyond even the outer Rukon Districts, where they remain to this day.”
“You can’t enter the Soul Society without a Zanpaktou, though,” Rotrum noted, his arms folded over his chest as he sat on the floor.
“They had Zanpaktou at that point,” Rouga replied. The others reacted with gasps of shock, realizing what he was driving at. “That group of Quincy became the first Jäger.”
“How many of them survived?” Niche asked skeptically, remembering the seemingly endless numbers of opponents they’d faced during the botched recon mission.
“Five,” Rouga answered, “but they’ve been recruiting thousands of souls from the World of the Living with potential spiritual powers over the years, first training them as Quincy, then having them ambush Shinigami in the World of the Living and steal their Zanpaktou.”
“’Recruiting’ how?”
“They have one of their members pose as a Shinigami and kill the recruit’s family, then have another member show up as a Jäger and drive off the fake Shinigami. They play to that person’s loyalties and sense of morals, saying that the Shinigami are evil and a whole bunch of other nonsense. I’m sure you can figure it out from there.”
Most of those present now bore outraged expressions; the Jäger had trodden on their pride as Shingami and they wouldn’t stand for it. “How much do you know about their top members?”
“Everything, from their names to their abilities, even their favorite color and what they like for breakfast,” Rouga said with a grin, causing a couple of weak chuckles. “I’ll explain them all to your strategist and Head Captain later, but for now I think that we should focus on interrogating the prisoner Niche and the others brought back.”
“Oh great,” the Squad 2 Captain muttered. “I hate interrogations.”
Rouga shrugged. “Then I’ll do it. I’ve interrogated enough people over the years that it doesn’t really faze me anymore.”
“That reminds me of one thing I wanted to ask,” Ant stated coolly. “How is it possible that you haven’t aged at all? I assume that you have some sort of ability that slows the aging process.”
“Sort of,” he admitted, tapping his sword. “My Zanpaktou is a transformative type; I literally fuse with it when I use my abilities, especially my Bankai and my other form. The transformation and fusion with my Zanpaktou keeps my life force stronger than normal, and thus makes me look younger, even though my potential lifespan isn’t much longer than any normal Shinigami.”
“Third form?”
Rouga sighed heavily. “I’ll show you later; I have to go interrogate that prisoner first.”
“Hold up,” Golde said calmly, standing. “We still need to determine your rank, now that you’re an active Shinigami again.”
“Who said I was coming back permanently?” Rouga asked, a challenge obvious in his voice as he also came to his feet. “I’m not planning on sticking around once the Jäger are taken care of.”
“You don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Golde growled. “It’s either you rejoin the Gotei 13, or you go to jail.”
“You didn’t strike me as the type to be a tyrant,” Rouga replied calmly, “but I’ve been wrong before.”
“I’m not a tyrant, but you’re technically a criminal for defecting from the Gotei 13. Just because you’re aiding us doesn’t mean you can waltz back out once you’ve done what you wanted.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re offering me amnesty in return for my rejoining the Squads.”
“Basically.”
Rouga sighed, his sense of honor and better judgment both stomping on his independent nature. “I suppose that since Seijuro died due to my failures, I’m somewhat responsible for his death.” He extended a hand. “I’ll take the taishou test when I’m done interrogating the prisoner. Fair enough?”
Golde shook his hand. “Fine by me.”
“One more question,” Aozora piped up, a nasty look in her eye. “How’d ya get all that info on the Jäger?”
“I’ve had nearly 500 years to spy on them, kid,” Rouga replied. “The only thing I don’t know about them is their specific battle plan, but I’ll get that from the prisoner we’ve taken. He’s a mid-ranking Jäger, part of their officer class, so he’ll most likely know the majority of it.”
“So you’ve been spyin’ on ‘em for five centuries and ya never took an opportunity to kill off some of ‘em?”
Rouga sighed, he’d known that somebody would bring this up eventually. “I wouldn’t have been able to do significant damage to them; each one of the top-tier Jäger are Captain-class or stronger, making assassination without another force to distract them impossible. I figured that it was better to gather information and wait until they made the first move before returning to the Seireitei with everything they could possibly need to know about their new opponents.”
“Yeah, well you did a really fucking awesome job of that, didn’t you?” she replied nastily.
Rouga’s patience finally snapped. “Shut up, you little brat,” he snarled harshly, his tone so venomous it made a cobra’s venom seem harmless by comparison. “Do you honestly think that I’m not regretting my decisions? That I don’t care that Seijuro, my student, is dead because I failed to anticipate their first move? You’re absolutely right in that I fucked up beyond any return multiple times, but do you really think that I’m going to let that happen anymore? I have new reasons to do this now, not some five-hundred year old grudge that I barely even care about. You can take your pathetic logic and shove it up your ass, because I already know exactly how badly I screwed up.”
Aozora rose to her feet as her temper and reiatsu surged, but Rouga’s blasted back to match. Just as they reached their peak, Golde’s own wave of reiatsu trumped both of theirs and brought everyone in the room crashing to the floor. “Enough,” he stated calmly. “Rouga, your Captain’s exam will take place right now, in the training ground outside of the barracks. You’ll fight Aozora one-on-one. If you win, you become the new Captain of Squad 7.”
“And if I lose?”
It was Aozora who responded, her milky red eyes now glowing like flaming rubies from her bloodlust. “Then I’ll kill you.”
"Joy and fucking rapture."
_________________________
Mmkay. Next chapter will contain the Rouga vs. Aozora fight, and the interrogation of the Jäger that Rouga captured. Probably a little more as well.
Points to you if you noticed how Kurai Enzeru's Zanpaktou ties in with the Jäger. Hint: it's already been in one chapter.
More points if you recognized who the black-haired, blue-eyed Quincy with twin Seeleschneider became in his next life. Hint: He has already died in this life too.
So, now we know that Kida knew Rouga from before. But how did they meet? Possible information for next chapter.
Does anybody think that Golde is acting... strage? Out of character? Rouga too, anybody notice that he shouldn't really be that prone to anger? Why is this, I wonder?
I... honestly hated how the whole "Lord Harkinian assassination" flashback turned out. I really just didn't like it; it seemed too much like a filler to me.
Next chapter may not be for a while, I'm leaving for college on the 20th of August, so it'll probably be sometime in September/October when I get it done.