𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄 | 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 [MINOR EDITING]

²⁷ ғʀɪᴇɴᴅ

Shinji,

            Please come over to the manor this afternoon. Bring your Zanpakutō. And your appetite.

                                                                    Abaron

I leave the brush resting in the inkwell and lean back on my hands. In all truth and honesty, Shinji has been the only person I've really associated with at the Academy. All other students I'd been paired with for exercises and the like were just that, not even acquaintances. They were just there. Shinji, however, over the course of the past two months, has grown on me. While he is one of the most insufferable men I've ever met, he has also proved to be the kindest, and most loyal. Here in the Soul Society, and even the Seireitei, these traits are a rarity.

These thoughts bring me straight back to our first night in the Soul Society. That... that vile man is a prime example of that rarity, defiling me how he did... I shudder on my place on the floor just thinking about it.

"Inari," I call over my shoulder. I hear movement from the opposite side of my chamber door.

"Yes, milady," he says.

"I'd like you to have someone deliver this to Rukongai," I tell him, and he opens the door. I stand, and walk over to him, handing him the folded-up letter. "The recipient is a man by the name of Shinji Hirako; he is a student at the Academy. You'll find him in the Hokutan District of West Rukon."

"Right. We'll send it right away."

"Thank you." When I don't hear the door shut behind me, I glance over my shoulder at Inari, who seems torn. "Is there something wrong?" Wary, he looks to both ends of the hall before standing and quickly entering the room, sliding the doors closed. "Inari?"

From his shihakushō, Inari pulls out his own folded-up piece of parchment, and hands it to me.

"Before Lady Kayanara left us almost two decades ago, two of the districts in Rukon had already been feuding," he tells me hastily. "Kusajishi and Zaraki... they've both had much time to let their hate fester between one another. This was unavoidable; your mother had been monitoring them before her departure, and they had been aware of her suspicion. Now, she is gone, and there is no one to stand between them."

I curse under my breath. "Great, just what we need," I grumble.

"Not only that, they know that the Lady has been executed," he goes on to say. "It's not hard to tell that they're planning to start an all-out-war against each other, especially when we've had eyes on them all this time." He gestures to the paper in my hands. "This manifesto... good men have been killed to return this here. The Seireitei has no intention on getting involved until either Kusajishi or Zaraki kill out the other. This must not happen, milady."