#also she gives him odd jobs in the place of his shinigami jobs

[gulava]

Realizing the reason Ichigo bonds with Ikumi is because he didn’t have Rukia in his life anymore to fill that hole of an older woman role model.

[kuboism]

Bleach Canon Vs. Studio Clown Episode 1

Intro to the series

WARNING: Long read but theres plenty of pictures

The first deviation we’re greeted with is what the anime presents as the arrival of hollows into the human world. With a likely artistic rendition of them forming from the shadows of Hueco Mundo and dripping/bleeding over into the human world like splotches of ink, after which they disappear - unable to be perceived by humans.

A/N: Which, kubos to the anime, is rather neat.

The anime also decided to incorporate the first volume poem which is the thematic beginning and a great establisher of the mood/themes of Bleach, which roughly translates to: 

我らは 姿無きが故に それを畏れ

“We fear that which cannot be seen”

And then they curiously add a line to this poem? 

姿無き故に敬う

”We revere that which cannot be seen"

A/N: Which, initially seems on brand with the spiritualism of that “which is not seen” - the shinigami, DEATH itself if you will. However, unlike the themes of “fear” and “fear of death/the unseen”, “reverence” is not really a theme prevalent or definitive for bleach. Reverence is not particularly reserved for death or death gods, but antagonists with themes of divinity/the Soul King himself, but I digress.

Next off the bully scene has a couple of missing/reworded lines, as well as some of the delivery changed, but overall it’s not significant enough to mention.

I also wish they’d kept Ichigo’s shit yourself scary face from this moment right here, since it really underlines how serious and personally invested Ichigo is in bringing small justice to the souls of the departed, but I can only pray a future remake does include it.

^ I am disappointed in y’all :/

vs.

v Karma delivery, bitch

Then for some reason the next scene is changed significantly:

In the manga, it builds up slowly to Ichigo’s reveal of supernatural abilities with the iconic TM character profile intros (which I can see why weren’t recreated in the anime, but I sure wish they put them in....)

with him spooking the bullies off with the ghost girl right behind him

Versus his scary face doing the job instead.....

It’s a small change, and I can see why it would be opted for - we don’t really know if they even saw the ghost in the first place (then again you could argue that would spook them anyway). There is a tonal difference in the long run though. The manga emphasizes once again *why* ichigo is scolding them in the first place - he sees the people disrespected by them knocking down the vase, he wants them to acknowledge their actions *because* in his mind, there are real victims he knows from it. While in the anime, since the ghost is not yet introduced, it feels more like “you are disrespectful to the dead” in a more generalized way vs. him actually being acquainted with the dead and treating them like the living. 

(Again, not sure why change it so much at all........the suspense and reveal are in the manga just the same.... but ok)

As well as cutting off this small moment where you can see Ichigo’s very human (and cute!) interactions with the ghosts. To him they’re just as real as the living, and he lends them a hand whenever they ask for help.

Also lmfao this 4kids level of censorship.....

It goes on rather faithfully for a while, no significant omissions, then Pierrot decides to randomly replace Yuzu’s lines with Karin??

Manga:

Anime: 

Which is an odd choice, given that not only does Yuzu sense ghosts just fine (albeit at a much lesser level than her family) and that later comes into play with Fishbone & Grandfisher, but Karin literally later admits that she doesn’t even want to acknowledge their presence, so why the change....?

They also cut short Karin’s little talk about Ichigo’s stats, which is a fair change for screentime’s sake, but mentioned for the record.

There’s a bit of a divergence with Yuzu lore, when the manga explicitly states she sees them, but not “clearly”, the anime focuses on her barely sensing them. I guess it doesn’t matter that much in the long run, since she is not that prevalent in the story, but it’s here for the record nonetheless.

Anime: 

vs. 

Manga:A

Also this next bit was removed, probably for the sake of pacing (which, totally fair!!), but it’s funny and I love the Kurosaki family so here it is:

It does make the flow a bit better in the manga, since this talk of selling his talents distracts Ichigo and creates an opening for his father to strike, in the anime, the same is done with Ichigo just randomly saying 

and thats where his father attacks him, which isnt really an issue, just kind of funny of how the manga is like:

Ichigo’s distracted by his sisters plotting to sell him out and hence Isshin has his chance to strike back

vs the anime being like:

Ichigo randomly thinks about dinner mid convo about ghosts and thats what distracts him from play-fighting with his dad 

gfdkhlgfdg okayyyy....moving on 

In the manga this scene is interspliced with Ichigo’s inner monologue about the nature of his powers (with hip jargon like “for real” courtesy of Viz ) 

(but my beef with Viz translations are for another day)

Also the line about “He told me more ghosts than ever have been haunting me” has been given to Karin for some reason, probably to make her feel more included in the scene/Ichigos life.

Notably, Isshin’s response is changed from “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you (Yuzu, singular)” to “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you guys?” as well, again probably to include Karin more into the dialogue. (Mmmm ok....)

Minor detail, but Karin’s lines has been changed to more “boyish” speech structure in the Japanese dub, which may seem insignificant, but ...... that is for later. 

.....

This little exchange

 is replaced with: 

Which, seems innocuous adaptation differences, but Yuzu’s lines keep decreasing and it’s a short enough moment to like....include and establish how motherly Yuzu is acting towards Ichigo.....but ok...huh. 

And now we get into the big boy changes.

So, probably for the sake of grounding the supernatural element of the series, the anime decided to skip time to the next morning and introduce the hollow attacks with a news report.

Which.....is an interesting choice. I am assuming this is addressing how the real world perceives the hollow attacks, which Bleach doesn’t put too much effort into addressing, but very soon after this we learn about stuff like memory replacement and other various technology to keep things under wraps so this is either redundant or implying that shinigamis have not been doing their job, which hm......

Next off is the bizarre choice to paint Isshin out of the picture for the night

Not sure why, but ok

Again, where’s the shinigami with their Kikanshinki (memory replacement devices)??? Pierrot where’s the lore coherence......

Anyway, Ichigo goes to replace the girl’s vase, but suprise-surprise she’s gone-zo. Wonder what happened to her.....

(And....again, people vehemently don’t want a reboot when the anime looks like this? )

So Ichigo hears a scream and a hollow scream and follows the sound (Ok?).

Totally random hollows attack. Which Ichigo somehow has never seen so far? Mind you, this isn’t like in the manga, where Fishbone was sent by Aizen specifically after Ichigo to make him aware of it. These are random-ass hollows attacking people, so how come Ichigo suddenly sees them. Ya coulda played it safe Pierrot, and stuck to the book, but we got plot inconsistencies episode one so let’s party.

The girl is, of course, not eaten and they run away.

She trips at the most inconvenient moment. (can ghosts trip? Ghost don’t even have legs in japanese lore and Kubo draws them floating around so okkkkkkkk)

(ok ok, im just being petty, bUT YKNOW)

(convenient tripping on deadass levelled ground is convenient)

(also God I really want that bag Ichigo’s got on his shoulder, it looks so nice)

Random-ass hollow closes in and 

BOOM

Rukia

(Now, if the rest of Bleach and the manga didn’t exist I would like this moment. We get a glimpse into Rukia’s abilities, into shinigami as a concept and we don’t really get to see her slice and dice hollows that much overall so the moment itself is rad in isolation.

Now, unfortunately for Pierrot’s screenwriters, Bleach manga exists and so does it’s lore, which again, would not be inconsistent with each other if the adapation was faithful. Now, Ichigo sees a shinigami, for some reason, for the first time in his 15 years of life. All of a sudden. 

You could argue, that much like in the manga, this is all part of Aizen’s plan TM, but like, she literally leaves right after leaving Ichigo gaping in awe ghfkjgdf. Why’d Aizen give him an appetizer, I really don’t understand how this change is benefitting the narrative in any way. It’s ....dare I say....generic.)

Rukia yeets the hollow

(why is this kid suddenly not wearing shoes?)

and goes off on her merry way, leaving Ichigo shooketh

ALSO RUKIA MA’AM THERES A FUCKING STRAY GHOST RIGHT AT YOUR RIGHT????? ISNT IT YOUR LIKE....JOB.......... TO HELP GHOSTS MOVE ON??? i know killing hollows is the fun part, but like ghjkfdlgfd ??? are you gonna ignore her???

( his fucking face ghfjdkgdlfgfd)

So after this wholeass pointless detour (you’ll see why it’s pointless in a moment)  we timeskip again (the filler is strong in this one. These 6 minutes were worth not coming up with something cohesive and removing scenes that actually make sense ah yes)

Ichigo is in deep thought TM about who tf is the stranger he’d just seen. Likely mulling over the monsters and how this person was able to slay said monsters. Probably thinking how unusual they are.

and as if on cue

the stranger makes their presence once more

(my God these faces gfhgkldfg)

....

Now let’s briefly address what happens in the manga instead.

Instead of the whole timeskip scene with the fight, Ichigo simply returns to his room on the same day, and oddly enough recognizes the species of the butterfly he sees? (nerdy boi! nerdy!! boi!)

rukia arrives much the same

(With the little text emphasizing how he’d never been aware of soul reapers, which is unsurprising given their secrecy, and makes sense in the long run since their first meeting is specifically orchestrated by Aizen. Two species that werent meant to interact brought together by his schemes.)

Back to the anime:

Ichigo pauses to ponder who tf they are and why the fuck they’re there.

and then the anime has the gall to suddenly revert to sticking to the manga, which like.... Ichigo kicks her for no reason? I guess because she isn’t answering? Even though Ichigo knows she has a sword and can wield it? Reckless boy.

Manga Ichigo thinks she’s a burglar, therefore, unsurprisingly, is comfortable kicking her outta his house. It’s a silly moment, but it also shows how accustomed or stupidly brave he is with the supernatural.

In the anime Ichigo asks her who she is instead of all that, and she responds pretty similarly to the manga

AND THE NEXT SCENE IS WHERE IT CLICKS WHY THEY WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REMOVE ISSHIN FROM THE HOUSE.

(Ichigo and Rukia addressing the pointless filler, this leads nowhere)

Rukia check him out like she’s checking if the oranges on sale dont have mold on them 

slapstick ensues

and Rukia decides to answer his question.

Vs. the manga in which Isshin doesn’t leave his children home alone for some random conference and is actually used very efficient for two reasons:

1) building up on the burglar gag with actually funny slapstick that is based on a previously established joke

2) Instead of Rukia just saying “oh usually people can’t see me”, we get an actual demonstration of it, the reader gets to see “oh Isshin can’t see her - she must be a spiritual entity,” which further clicks with her surprised reaction at him being able to kick her in the first place.

The next scene is the classique Pierrot censorship.

Ghost girl runs away from what I’m assuming is Fishbone.

Aside from not showing her get eaten, the scene is pretty much delivering the same message, 

bUT

BECAUSE OF THE STUPID ASS FILLER WITH THEM MEETING RUKIA BEFORE THIS, I CAN ACCUSE RUKIA OF NEGLIGENCE.

UNLIKE THE MANGA, where Rukia arrives the night before and is specifically seeking Fishbone, therefore having no time to help this girl pass away, 

This vvvvvvv

could have been prevented if SOMEONE DID THEIR FUCKING JOB THE DAY BEFORE VVVVVVV

(I rest my case. Thank you Pierrot for making Rukia either negligent or an idiot. Awesome, And mind you, these changes were unnecessary. The manga’s pacing is fine. They could’ve extended scenes. But nope, had to go for making them meet beforehand.)

Anyway, we get to see some actual stakes in the manga

The next scene which is this in the manga 

has two changes to it. Firstly, obviously Isshin being consoled by Yuzu isn’t included since he isn’t home in the anime, and even if he were, I can see why that would be removed, cute as it may be.

And secondly, due to them having met prior Ichigo asks two additional questions:

And Rukia nods at both, which means she acknowledges that she had seen the girl the hollow was after and yet did nothing to help her pass on. 

(Reminder the Bleach anime was in production WAAAAY past the first 4 volumes, which gave a good general idea of the series, which y’know, was fine to adapt as is.

You’ll see these changes add up into becoming inconsistent with further Bleach lore. There’s a reason people call Bleach a hot mess, and I’m afraid Kubo ain’t really it.)

(Volume 14 Note from Kubo where he talks about the anime being announced)

Back to the series

Pet peeve time: Wish the anime was half as expressive as the manga

These scenes are supposed to represent

This panel:

(Nitpicking? Perhaps, but idc)

So uh, this scene is odd

Again, because of the addition of that filler with the hollow

Ichigo has seen her in action

And they even added Rukia trying to convince him 

even though, yknow???

LITerally the previous day???

Anyway  in the manga, where Ichigo has reason to be distrustful of her and her claims since y’know hes never seen her or a shinigami in action, but has enough proof that she’s a ghost bc his dad didn’t see her, he simply dismisses her before she can reply, and instead of just getting angry for being called a pipsqueak

she shows both Ichigo and the audience proof of her spiritual powers by binding Ichigo and forcing him to quietly listen to her explanations.

(To reiterate - Anime Rukia  has to verbally try to convince Ichigo WHO SAW HER FIGHT A HOLLOW THE OTHER DAY that shes no ordinary ghost. And because of that, she has no other reason to use Sai on him other than that shes mad she was called a pipsqueak bc she just tried to verbally convince him shei is a shinigami. When they could just adapt the manga and have her both demonstrate her powers and put him in his place at the same time. Wild.)

Also CRIMINALLY BORING SHOT, WITH CRIMINALLY BORING RUKIA

#NotMyRukia

LOOK AT THE MANGA

LOOK AT HER SMUGLY OWNING ICHIGO’S IGNORANT ASS #FuckYeahRukia

Also the subs may not show it if you’re watching it on Netflix, but anime Rukia says “I am not allowed to lay my hands on humans outside orders,” which like, you ARE LITERALLY DOING THAT. Manga Rukia is fine with bullying Ichigo, but she draws a line at killing him, but man Anime Rukia, you give no fucks about the laws huh.

why so cheerful?

(also Rukia be right tho)

(specifcally compared to hell you could say Soul society is a resftul place lmfao)

Also anime salary man gets to rest in peace, even like, pray and shit

Meanwhile the manga

YEET TO SOUL SOCIETY

(also notice how we’ve been robbed of ichigo’s silly socks

I swear the anime knows how to suck the soul out of the manga 

Get it? Soul! haha ....moving on.)

Really Rukia? One of your jobs?

GUESS YOU WERE OFF DUTY HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I’M SORRY BUT LIKE, SEE HOW POINTLESS THIS FILLER IS UGH!!!)

(Again pet peeve but look at how ugly this screen is COMPARED TO THE MANGA)

(What have they done to you, queen)

(also they never mention the name Konso ( or as Viz calls it here -”soul funeral”, thanks Viz)

Next on, not a pet peeve, but an observation:

Anime Rukia keeps her sketchbook in her kimono

Manga Rukia keeps it at the titty

Yep, which you neglected to do the day before,

she literally says “With the konso I did just a  moment ago” like she used the word before. Like you can contextually get it, but why cut that line out of the dialogue if you don’t change the next line it’s referenced in?

There’s also a dialogue change from the manga’s well, Viz uses “vaporize” which is not a bad choice given the specific wording Kubo uses, but the original says 

昇華 • 滅却

sublimate/convert • extinguish

which is a clever little nod/foreshadowing to the nature of souls in bleach and that they can be “converted” in and out of a hollowfied state. 

While the anime just says “to slay hollows”, and albeit it lacks the little nod the manga has to offer, I can’t see how they’d include it in the anime at that stage so I’m fine with them simplifying it to like, an exorcism.

A better question then Rukia - WHY DIDN’T YOU SEND OFF HER SOUL????

also WAIT THE GIRL IS STILL ALIVE?? she’s dead-dead by this point in the manga.

BULLSHIT !!!  YOU LITERALLY EXPLAIN LATER WHY!! ACTUALLY YOU EXPLAINED EARLIER WHY!!! YOU LITERALLY SAID THIS, 1 MINUTE AGO :

Anyway, Fishbone almost grants her the priviledge of escaping this God-awful anime, but is suddenly stopped?

AND CAN TALK??

wait WHY DOES FISHBONE TALK?? GHFJD isnt this supposed to be  a juicy reveal for later when Ichigo realizes “hey theyre not actual complete monsters - but used to be humans!” Hm, ok.

Also leaves her alone? Damn ok...

Reminder:

Moooving on...

Speaking of the manga, this little moment is missing:

Since there is no pointless filler that would make him ask about the ghost girl therefore exposing Rukia’s slacking off of her duty, Ichigo realizes that there must be a hollow nearby bc in the manga he actually has braincells to spare. 

Also wiping off the Baron’s moustache moment is gone 😢

Missing and dearly missed is also this moment, which consolidates how protective Ichigo is of his family. He only needs to hear Yuzu scream to click that the hollow is nearby and his family is in danger. I feel like anime Ichigo should be even more worried since his sisters are alone but ok??

Also foreshadows their dynamic of Rukia trying to stop his reckless attempts at pushing himself to protect his family, bc yknow....she has her own Kaien trauma to process.

Next off....

This is .... a choice....

They were very eager to give Yuzu’s lines to Karin just a couple of moments ago but now this whole exchange:

Where we see a very pragmatic yet soft side of Karin

She doesn’t know what is happening, and doesn’t expect her brother to fight it - he just wants him to be safe, because she loves her family. At least warn him before it gets to him and hurts him.

is replaced with this:

Yuzu, sweetie, what do you think he can do to achieve that.

I guess at least Anime Ichigo tries to get Rukia to do her job as she looks down on Yuzu in silence. 

But compare it to the manga:

#MyRukia stops by Karin to check for a pulse and reassures Ichigo that his sister is alive.

Manga Ichigo is NUMBER ONE oniichan in town and doesnt have time to call out to a stranger to save his family - HES BEYOND READY TO GO FIGHT, RECKLESS AS IT IS, EVEN THOUGH HIS OWN FAMILY BEGS HIM TO JUST RUN. because he cant let himself be unable to protect them. He cant live with himself if he doesnt try his darnest to protect them.

*elevator music playing as ichigo tries to get rukia’s attention but she fucks off downstairs, but instead of doing shit he just does the worm on the floor*

which I guess is more realistic for a teenage boy, but Ichigo is literally traumatized by being unable to protect a family member. Y’all think a ghost he’s never seen before is gonna stop him? 

Yooo, pathetic. #NotMyIchigo

[recurring-polynya]

9, 13, 19, 23 for RenRuki OTP meme!

9. Have they made each other cry?

Neither Rukia nor Renji are criers by nature, but absolutely yes.

I looked it up, and weirdly enough, Rukia does *not* cry in the manga version, but she does cry in the anime when Renji tells her to go to the Kuchiki. Regardless, I think they both had some wet face syndrome in the days following that.

Rukia was having a pretty tough time in the Academy, and Renji was in a constant state of unconsciously rubbing it in. I bet he made her cry at least once, although she is way too stubborn to actually do it in front of him, I think she did it in private, later.

I’m not sure crying over someone is the same as them making you cry, but I believe with 100% of my being that the “fear she was trying to avoid” in the As Nodt fight was Renji-related, and even though she held it together pretty well at the time, I hope homegirl went home and had a good cathartic sob after the fact.

In the same vein, it’s very believable that Renji had at least one tearful breakdown at some point in the Soul Society Arc. I imagine he came home and puked his guts out after he had to arrest her and throw her in a holding cell and there could have been some tears that went along with that, and possibly also after he found out that Byakuya had no intention of lifting a finger to stay her execution. (I just realized this is not the first time I have headcanoned Renji puking out of grief and it’s true, I think he does, it’s great, I love my brain, thanks)

I would bet money that Renji (possibly both of them) teared up a little when Ichika was born, and/or when they found out about the pregnancy.

Also, not to ruin the vibe, but it seems highly likely that at some point in their acquaintance, probably in their Inuzuri days, Rukia kicked Renji in the nards hard enough to make tears come out of his face.

13. Name something they would never do for the other person.

Like the dealbreaker question, this one is really hard because they are both really intense people who are absolutely ride-or-die for each other (as well as everyone else they know). I am still sticking to my guns that Rukia became a shinigami in the first place for Renji’s sake, and Renji’s entire first character arc involved him binning 40 years of hard work and career ladder climbing to be with her.

That being said, though, they do maintain a fair amount of personal autonomy that I think they would stick to. Renji would never get his brow tatts removed, for example, no matter how much Rukia hates them (or conversely, I think he didn’t tell her before he got them because he knew she’d tell him not to, and he was determined to get them and wouldn’t have listened to her anyway). Likewise, if she asks, he will refrain from wearing a particular pair of extra-terrible sunglasses to a Kuchiki family picnic, but he’s not going to get rid of the sunglasses collection for her. I honestly can’t imagine her seriously asking him to do either of these things-- she’d rather just drag him for them.

I think the part in WDKALY where Rukia decides to keep “Kuchiki” as her professional name was written in a kinda stilted and dumb way, but I do not disagree with it. I am reasonably sure that this was decided at an editorial level, because if they have a Bleach continuation, they would want the character to keep her more familiar name, but then they added the fact that she took his name more generally because people are weird about women who don’t take their husbands name (and then people argue that her keeping her name is “evidence” that she doesn’t love him... so, honestly, there’s no winning either way). Personally, I didn’t like that they waited until they were actually in line at the Soul Society DMV to have this discussion (with Byakuya standing around, no less), but but otherwise, I think it’s a nice compromise, and that Rukia would want to use the names of both the men she considers her family. Renji seemed vaguely disappointed that she wasn’t taking his name entirely, and I can see that, but also, it’s her choice and he doesn’t make a stink about it, which rings true to me.

In all of these examples, the principle is that, all else being equal, each of them will take input from the other, but they would stick to their guns when it comes to decisions about themselves. That doesn’t mean they are going to die on these hills out of sheer stubbornness. I wrote a fanfic once where Byakuya died and Renji married Rukia in order to help her consolidate power in the family, and he took her name and very vehemently made everyone call him by it. 

Also, I am sure there are some household chores that Renji would like done to some particular specifications, and Rukia just will not. Like, she refuses to rinse the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher and she won’t squeegee the glass after she showers, or whatever the Soul Society equivalents of these things are.

19. If they could each write a single line in their marriage vows, what would they be?

I cannot emphasize enough that Byakuya paid for their entire fancy Kuchiki-ass wedding and even though they are constantly on their best behavior around him, he knows how they are and he would never, ever let them write their own vows.

So, here is a dispatch from some secondary drunken, backyard wedding that they had for close-friends only (Byakuya was also there, but Isshin slipped him a pot brownie and he was feeling very at one with the universe at the time)

Who the heck writes a single line of their wedding vows?? I gave them each a paragraph.

Rukia:

People have been joking a lot, every since we started dating, how lucky you are, but the fact is, I am the lucky one. I’ve been so fortunate, in my life, to have such good friends and family, but I feel luckiest of all to have you-- you’ve always been there to cheer me on, to pick me up, to make me pickles. You’re brave and you’re handsome and you have really, really great hair, and I feel like the luckiest person in Soul Society that I get to marry you. I love you so, so much, you big dummy.

Renji:

I used to think that I would be content if I could just love you from afar. That just being able to see you and hear your voice and know that you were happy was enough for me. But I was wrong, as it turns out, because being able to touch you and kiss you and tell you I love you a hundred times a day has made me happier than I ever thought I could be. I expect that being married to you is going to make me more powerful and obnoxious than anyone here could possibly imagine and I am absolutely not sorry. I love you so, so much, you little dummy.

See, Byakuya, that wasn’t so bad! (maybe it was)

Bonus! In the dead Byakuya fanfic I mentioned above, I had them get married under Gotei authority and I wrote some (partial) shinigami wedding vows that are basically perfect for them and also I was really proud of them:

How will you meet your enemies? As one, we shall meet them, as one, we shall fight.

And how do you swear this? We swear on sword and soul.

Let it be so. With this, you are forged together, a single blade. May your battle be long, and when you fall, may you fall together.

23. Write a ~300 scene between them with no dialogue, only body language.

Wow. Dang. This felt like a personal attack. Anyway, it was really hard, and I did it, but I didn’t like it.

Here’s the scene right where Renji hauls Ichigo off to go fight Ywhach, because I am always thinking about this scene and willing it to make sense (Rukia should have gone with Ichigo, I will die on this hill!!!!), and I think it only works if there’s a bunch of unsaid subtext. It’s depressing, but it’s only 511 words, which is very much like 300 words, almost exactly the same, honestly.

~

The others don’t see it, because they are busy watching Orihime restore Ichigo’s sword, his swords, for maybe the last time, but Rukia does, because she needs an explanation.

Renji’s shoulders slump, his chin tips down, his hands are open at his sides.

He is sorry.

He better be sorry! Rukia clenches her jaw, her eyes burn at him. She is the one who should have yanked Ichigo to his feet, she is the one who should go with him to his death.

Renji’s eyes slide upward and meet hers. His jaw is set.

He is right, and she knows it.

Orihime is hurt. Her lungs are making ominous bubbling noises as Zangetsu pieces itself back together under her care. Rukia is exhausted, but she can manage the kaidou that will save her friend’s life. Renji cannot.

It is more than that, though. Rukia’s bankai is perilous. Ichibei warned her that she should use it sparingly-- that it will take many hours of practice before her body can handle the wrenching temperature shocks. She has used it too many times already in the last 48 hours. She still can’t feel all her fingers and toes since she came back from killing As Nodt. Another go at it so soon may kill her before she even has a chance to be useful. It could kill her and everyone in her blast radius, which might be helpful, but probably...not. Her hand rubs nervously at the hilt of her sword. She tries to flex the dead pinkies, but they deny her.

Renji sees the motion, and he grips Zabimaru confidently. His bankai is new to him, too, but Hihiou Zabimaru was like a weighted practice blade-- So-oh Zabimaru is familiar enough and easy in comparison. Sode no Shirayuki and Zabimaru are both temperamental blades, but Zabimaru has always been at their most dependable when the odds are stacked against them.  

Rukia reaches out and gives Orihime’s hair a gentle pat. She will stay, but she will not like it. 

The side of Renji’s mouth ticks up in a rueful half-smile, and his eyes glitter with the last bit of humor he can muster. She can beat him up all she likes when he gets back.

Rukia flings an arm around Orihime, and stuffs her face into her friend’s shoulder. None of this is fair. 

Renji’s eyes soften briefly, and his eyes are filled with so much love for her. He knows he has the easy job. There aren’t any words to thank her enough for letting him go on a suicide mission with Ichigo while she stays back to give them something worth fighting for.

Then he stiffens, and squares his shoulders once again. He jabs Ichigo impatiently with one foot and screws up his face into the same scowl he always uses to armor his heart. 

It won’t work, Rukia thinks, as Orihime finishes her task and slumps backward. She will keep Renji’s heart here with her, and Orihime will keep Ichigo’s, and no matter what, none of them will die alone.

[my-one-true-l]

Hi, first of all I love your posts and I'm obsessed with your depiction of BB ♡ I'm very interested to know what the Wammy boy's ideal girlfriend would be like (her personality, how they treat her, traits they are obsessed with).

Hello Dear BeyondBirthdayxx!!! Aww, thank you so much! That makes me very happy.

BTW~ I love this ask!

Under a cut because Wall Of Text.

L

Their personalities compliment each other’s, which makes them a really good team no matter what they’re doing.

She’s someone that’s intelligent, but her thought process is different from his. Let’s say they’re working on a case together. They come to the same conclusions, but she usually got there a different way than he did. (He actually loves this about her because she can open his eyes to things he had been tunnel visioned from seeing.)

She’s creative. She has no trouble doing her own thing when he’s busy on a case. She has no shortage of interests and she always has something new to share with him or something she wants to show him. She makes his world a little brighter and pushes him to do/try things he probably wouldn’t have if not for her.

She’s patient. She understands that his work is demanding and sometimes (more often than not) she’s going to have to go with the flow and let his work dictate their schedule. It doesn’t mean that she means any less to him or that he doesn’t love her and she knows that.

She loves bantering with him and has no problem holding her own against him. (which he absolutely loves).

Long story short, she’s never boring and the way their personalities are together, she’s a perfect challenge for him.

Believe it or not, he’s quite affectionate, especially when they’re alone. He loves her touch and misses her when they’re apart, which makes it all that much sweeter when they can be alone.

He shamelessly spoils her. If there’s something she wants, it’s hers, no questions asked. Partly because he adores her and wants her to want for nothing and partly to make up for how often he’s busy. (She never takes advantage of his generosity).

He actually chooses to go to bed more often. Even if he doesn’t sleep, he wants to be with her and cuddle.

She is the most important thing in the world to him and he hopes that he does a good job of letting her know.

Looks have never mattered much to him. When he falls in love with her, she’s beautiful to him. He really does love the way her eyes look when she looks at him. It makes him feel safe.

He is very overprotective of her. He can’t help it. He’s seen too much to not worry about her.

Mello

She is strong-willed and not afraid of taking chances. He wants her to be able to handle his lifestyle.

He wants someone that will be on his side, even if they know he’s wrong, no questions asked (until they are alone anyway), a true ride or die.

She has a very loving side that only comes out when they’re alone. She wants to take care of him and make sure he feels loved.

She’s very good at letting him vent and express his frustrations. She doesn’t take it personally. She likes to know that she can help him when he’s angry.

She’s tough. She has no problem telling someone off if she thinks they aren’t treating Mello well. She’s one of his greatest defenders.

She has an edgy look that goes well with his style.

He thinks she’s the greatest thing in the whole world and wonders what he did to deserve someone like her, especially since he doesn’t think he’s worthy of the kind of love she gives him.

He calls her princess.

He loves to cook for her.

He’s super protective of her. He worries that he will make a misstep and she will be in danger (or worse) but he also knows she is smart and resourceful and can hold her own.

Near

She’s very kind and mild. She tends to be a little quiet. She’s perfectly happy to read or draw while Near is busy on a case.

She has a great imagination and likes playing with his toys with him.

She’s friendly, but mostly likes to keep to herself, unless she’s spending time with him.

He loves her very much, but is quiet in the ways he shows her, like holding her hand or pecks on the cheek (at least when others are around).

He makes sure there is always her favorite foods at his HQ, especially ice cream which is her favorite sweet.

She has her very own room that is full of art supplies. He even had a dark room put in when she took up photography.

At night, he snuggles up to her and they read to each other.

I don’t think looks matter much to Near, but flowy dresses and flowers in her hair always gets his attention.

Matt

She’s laid back. It takes a lot to upset her.

When she does get upset, she’s quick to forgive.

Once in a while, she can kick is ass at whatever video game they’re playing (and he doesn’t let her win).

She has a lot of hobbies that she’s pretty good at, but nothing she takes seriously or would want to pursue as a career.

She isn’t big on making things “official”, but wouldn’t mind spending the rest of her life with him.

He has a bunch of cute nicknames for her, all of them coming from characters in video games.

Every Friday, He takes her to her favorite pizza or burger place. They haven’t missed a Friday since they’ve been together.

He picks her up from work every day so she doesn’t have to walk home.

He, too, finds anyone he’s with beautiful, but really likes purple or blue streaks dyed in their hair.

Beyond Birthday

She’s intelligent. She’s on his level, but is submissive to him.

She’s sweet and gentle towards him. She thinks he’s the most wonderful, interesting person in the world. Every quirk, every obsession, she adores and is on board with whatever he wants to do. She is his greatest supporter.

She knows all about him having the Shinigami eyes and believes him without question. This makes having them somehow easier for Beyond.

She has a long lifespan above her head, which he can’t help but be drawn to.

She is extremely patient. She wants to help him more than anything in the world and when he is upset or on a rant about L, she does everything in her power to help him.

She doesn’t understand why he wants to take on “whomever this L person is”. She loves Beyond exactly as he is and wishes he could see it, too.

She worries all the time that he will snap one day because of his obsession with L.

If she had her way, he would forget about his past and marry her, having a happy life together because she thinks he deserves that and wants him to have it.

She’s playful and can see the gentler side of Beyond, the one that he pushed down many years ago.

He brings her little trinkets that he comes across during his days when he’s away being a “detective”.

Calls her every few hours just to remind her that he loves her and misses her.

He loves to hold her and stroke her hair while they watch t.v. or a movie.

He may have odd ways of showing it, but he adores her and has grown to rely on her. She is the only reason he hasn’t gone over the edge about L…yet.

[excorcismic]

ALRIGHT SO HERE’S THE DEAL ; if misa is my first favorite death note character , this angy kid right here is my second - i adore mello to pieces and he’s very close to misa in terms of how much i love him , but ultimately does she remain queen . but ! the cool thing is that in the series they never actually interact ( the closest being mello spying on her for a brief period of time ) which means i could play my two blonde fashion icons and voila , here they are . so here’s the gist on mello in canon & alucard and most importantly the plots i am digging bc my muse for him rn ?? is off the charts . LESGO !

IN A CANON NUTSHELL ( HUGE DEATH NOTE SPOILERS ) : So Mello’s introduced during the latter half of Death Note ( or maybe it’s more the final third but either way there’s a part where it significantly breaks in two ) - or , the very end of the first half , takes center stage during the second . He’s from the original home of the detective L , an orphanage of gifted children known as Whammy’s House - and essentially , the goal of the children is to maybe one day live up to L , one person taking his place . Mello !! Is one of the candidates . But he has a permanent chip on his shoulder since Near - the other candidate - always managed to beat him at everything . So when Light Yagami gets his way & L dies , Near and Mello are told that L didn’t choose a successor between them . When the idea that they work together to do just that is brought up , Near ( who honestly really liked Mello ) is like ‘hey! let’s do it’ and Mello ( still angy that Near is always right in front of him ) is like ‘FUCK you I’m gonna catch Kira myself’ and leaves the orphanage . Five years later , he works with the mafia , even getting his hands on a Death Note & with the help of a shinigami ( that he scared the living piss out of ) concludes that a rule that states a human will die if they haven’t written in the notebook in thirteen days is fake . He also like , blackmails the president and orchestrates an explosion that Soichiro Yagami dies after but he gets a wicked ass scar afterwards so it’s okay . Now working with L’s third potential successor , Matt , he spies on Misa Amane and makes connections between the second L ( Light Yagami ) & Kira , deduces that Kiyomi Takada is an accomplice , and kidnaps her to try and expose Kira as Light Yagami - but . . . he dies in the process , and so does Matt . The cool thing is though his discoveries led to Near’s breakthrough in the Kira case ( as he and Near met one last time , where he gives Mello the photo he has here in Alucard ) and Mello kind of gets the last laugh post-mortem . And also a kind of neat thing , his last appearance is as the narrator in the Death Note prequel , the Los Angeles BB murder cases - I’m gonna quote the whole thing in my eventual intro but ! It’s an awesome book and Mello is an awesome narrator . ( dn spoilers end here tyvm )

IN AN ALUCARD NUTSHELL - So Mihael Keehl ( his real name in canon , mind you ) is a twenty year-old runaway from the foster system - also sometimes lived in an orphanage but when he wasn’t , the constant tossing around because of his rebellious tendencies wrecked him . He isn’t employed , not does he actually have an actual home - living in a beat down truck most of the time if he can’t get a motel / hotel room for a night or a few . He makes basic expenses and fills his basic needs by doing odd jobs in exchange for money or favors - stuff like ‘if I do this for you for x amount of days or I get this for you you’ll pay for my phone bill for the next two months’ and that stuff . Basic arrangements . And he knows he can like , maybe try to commit to a job or a home but he’s actually . . . way too fucking scared of being tied down or in a worse situation that’s somehow more stable so the nomad life is kind of what he sticks with . But he’s homeless & it’s not good for him . At all . He’ll never flat-out admit that though which is why he calls himself a drifter . His main reason for being on his own , and refusing any extensive help from anyone outside of these favors , is because he has a point to prove - because that inferiority complex kicks in because the other kids he grew up against are doing amazing things and he wants to do better , and not receive any large amount of help . He just ,,, doesn’t understand he’s not doin’ any good for himself .

BUT OOOOOOOH YOU WANNA PLOT WITH MELLO SO BAD OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

so the biggest connection in the sense that it’s the most open , i mentioned that mello mainly pays for his own expenses ( or more so , gets other people to pay for them ) by doing favors or small jobs in exchange for either money or other forms of payment . so obviously , people he has these arrangements with - they can range from anything , mello is extremely smart ( a thing that comes up is that he has a shit ton of wasted potential ) in the books , technology , the streets and has a bunch of small talents he’s picked up over the years of living on his own ( saving money , sewing and mending / caring for clothes how else is he gonna keep that amazing fashion , cooking with very little ingredients , cleaning with little tools , fixing the kinks / souping up automobiles , ahem sexual stuff , tutoring , sometimes even mild illegal shit , you name it . ) so he can offer these talents / skills / etc . to other people who could use them ( most of the time repeatedly ) and in exchange , the other muses will pay him in cash or by doing things like paying his phone bill , car insurance , health insurance , food / groceries , hotel/motel room for a few nights , or even just offering him a place to use the shower or bathroom or even a bed for certain days of the week . This can also lead to many of the other plots I have listed here in the sense it’s a start , and it can happen with anyone , anywhere , for any reason .

literally the thing w/ mel is that he knows no limits and will do anything for anyone and is hardheaded as fuck about it because he’s got a point to prove and things to do and he won’t waste time refusing but the moment you offer your help in exchange for nothing or you’re trying to hold his hand a little too much and he catches on , the arrangement’s over and you’ll be lucky to see him again .

okay so uh . in that sense ?? maybe ppl who kind of helped him out and he did like . one thing for them and once he got his payment for that one thing he kinda bounced n they never heard from him again for whatever reason . nothing against them but he rly isn’t gonna make a habit of staying in one place for too long . 

obviously , those people that really think he’s gotta give up the ghost of trying to survive like this bc it’s wearing on his health & he doesn’t wanna admit it . and he’s tried shaking them off but he won’t leave and sometimes he’s forced to give into the help they offer but tries making them take a payment back .

old peers that felt whatever way about him back then but feel pity for his wasted potential ( at the moment ) , bc this dude was like . . . a straight-a student and was rly good at a bunch of things and now he’s living the way he is . whatever they wanna do and however they felt about him and how he interacted with them back then Differs but . there’s kind of like ‘damn u live like this’ now . gimme some kids who had crushes on him , kids he was rivals with , kids he got into fights with and maybe socked in the jaw a few times , kids who always admired him , kids who hated his guts - it always comes down to what life is like now vs. what life was like then .

i’d like some friends who were formed from the favors - and maybe they’ve stopped whatever they had with him but they still regularly hang out or something , maybe offer a place to stay for the night . 

just in general ?? people who keep their home open for him and whether he takes them up on their offer on a rare basis .

pls some folks trick him into accepting their help like leave him basket of chocolate candy and trap him or something like just . make it ‘wait what’ deal bc they all know he’s stubborn .

also uh . he’s been arrested for minor offenses a few times so some ppl who’ve bailed him out pls and he’s tryna repay him back .

mentor figures . mentor figures pls he’s trying not to accept their mentor-y guidance from .

so maybe the hero  . . . maybe the one person who was like the l to mello of alucard ( maybe even the Man himself ) that he just . looked up to forever and probably still does .

. . . favor idea ?? maybe he’s a stand-in boyfriend or date for events or somethin’ like mello kinda has that bad boy reputation but maybe he dated them for show on their whim at some point or they have that kinda thing ‘pls pretend to my boyfriend and i’ll let u use my shower every weekend for the next month’ or so .

also , one night stands or friends with benefits he uses only for the bathroom / a place to sleep . folks he’s dated for a period bc he did feel something and therefore he had them as an outlet but then broke up with them ( most likely ?? he was the one who ended it bc he has never known love stability & got spooked on it ending and just - did it on his own accord before he could further get hurt BUT THAT NEVER WORKS and he has hella commitement issues ) and tried to shrug it off as ‘ just another fling ’ even tho he’s highkey sad over it . ppl he’s slept with and then disappears with only a ‘thank you’ note as the evidence he was there . and do they accept it ?? are they pissed over it ?? that is up to You but it’s probably gotten around that mihael keehl has never had a stable relationship and never , ever stays . 

lots of ppl he probs has the above two arrangements or scenarios with bc again , gotta get shit done somehow .

enemies . . . he has an endless grudge with for some reason like maybe they screwed him over , 

i want . . . folks he can eventually get soft with and maybe actually seek that comfort in even tho u gotta chip at the five thousand concrete walls to get to that stage . i want to see him become better and that’s an ultimate goal for him in alucard ( even though it’s gonna be a bit more difficult with his memories returning ) to get better , commit to something , accept stability and get his life on a better track .

and yes , that includes an eventual ship ! really it can build off of any of these dynamics just . give me sneaking in through windows late at night , soft words and gentle kisses and protective hugs and please stay i know you never stay but please stay with me and the thought that maybe he should leave but he doesn’t and they wake up with him after a night and he’s still there and maybe there’s a scare he left like he always does but he made chocolate chip pancakes and he feels safe & alright which is . . . a rare occasion in his messy ass life . maybe something like friends to lovers , fwb to lovers , an old flame , anything this could be fun to do !! end goal though , i’d like something on the softer side that’s healthy and loving because that’s really what he needs . 

( some notes tho bc he’s only twenty i’ll sayyyy max i’ll do the more romantic / spicier stuff with in that aspect is . . . 23 - 24 ?? bc he’s almost 21 like if we put the fact we’re in october into account and his birthday is december 13th that isn’t too far away so . That’s That . he’s also pan as fuck . )

BUT , yes . the main connections / plots there are what i can think of . ik a lot of these are so wordy and i’m sorry bt as always ! i will take literally anything i love plots and i think with what i have for mello there is so much potential in what we can do here .

and as always . give me other death note characters . near or matt specifically would fucking make me cry and i’m here for it .

[ochaka-archive]

Kazui, Ichika and Nemuri headcanons! (teen)

I'll jump straight into it!

Kazui

-He's a sporty boy and plays many sports. His favorite is basketball, he loves water related sports too. He goes on tournaments often and Orihime makes him special snacks. He's immune to the odd taste and likes then usually.

-He has many admirers and friends. He doesn't have crushes on anyone in particular. Kids, and girls especially fight for his attention.

-He aspires to be like his parents when he grows up. He has powers really similar to his parents but sort of enhanced.

-He has many aunties and uncles from various different realms. Birthdays are very crowded for him. His room is crowded with toys and various thingies.

-He developed a really strong bond with both Karin and Yuzu, since he lived with them since early childhood. He loves spending time with them. Unconsciously he sees them as older sisters.

-He loves hanging out with Ichika and Nemu. Ichika visits fairly often and usually stays with the Kurosakis. He loves her as a friend very much. (maybe more later? maybe?)

-Nemu is kinda like Uryū as she is somewhat like a rival towards Kazui. He doesn't mind and still looks to her for some wise advice.

-He cooks with Orihime! Ichigo is usually relieved when he cooks since Orihime's food tends to be a little harsh for your stomach.

-He becomes shy and awkward but never stops smiling when a serious matter occurs, that he needs to discuss.

-Even as a teen he loves hugging both his parents. They love hugging him too. He's a big hug monster to the people he loves.

-He's protective of his mother and doesn't appreciate older gentlemen eyeing her when they go for a walk. He tells Ichigo all about it and he gets the job done. Kazui smiles when he sees those same men running away when they see him and his mother.

-He's really close with Grimmjow and Nel. Specifically when he goes on crazy adventures with Grimmjow. He scared little Kazui to tears when he was little but he grew on him. Grimmjow refuses to say he likes the kid, but Ichigo and Orihime know. They also know he's not allowed in a million different places in Japan. However it's completely different with Nel. She usually goes to fun theme parks with Kazui and has a lot of fun. In the end Kazui is the one babysitting her. He gets a little sick of certain rides after Nel repeatedly wants to go on them. He thinks she's a masochist because of that, and he's not wrong.

Ichika

-She's very feisty and quick to anger. She bites with her words more than she would want, which causes many apologizing sessions.

-She picks on Kazui a lot. She stretches his cheeks when he's being silly, usually accompanied with berating and sly remarks. Despite that, she cares for him deeply and looks out for him more than anyone would think. She protects him from bullies, harm and whatnot.

-She's very artistic! In contrast to her mother she draws very well and she's really talented. She mainly draws cute chibis or bunny girls.

-She acts a lot like Ichigo. To Rukia's dismay she often disagrees with her and it drives both Rukia and Renji nuts. Since she spends a lot if time at the Kurosakis, she heard many stories about Kazui's dad when he was young. She has a great bond with Orihime and Ichigo.

-She's a supportive friend. She always tells Nemu she's very pretty when she wears her makeup, and that she doesn't need it. She picks up Kazui when he's feeling down and is overall a great shoulder to cry on.

-She goes on field trips to Rukongai. She's a local idol. She plays and looks after the kids, helps old people and does her best to keep them safe. Renji and Rukia are very proud of her for it.

-She has a million Chappy plushies and charms from Rukia. Rukia says she's as cute as Chappy. While Ichika appreciates the gesture very much, it dies get too much when the Chappys get bigger than her small mother. She gives Rukia backrubs after she hurts her back from the huge plushes. It gives Renji a huge laugh.

-She would eventually join the 11th division. She's super cool with Kenpachi because of it. Kenpachi wants to fight Kazui to her dismay. She reprimands her captain a lot. She reminds most of Yachiru when she was little.

-She carries her zanpakuto around everywhere when she's in the human world. Most the kids fear her the same way they feared Ichigo. Girls try to talk to her and find she's a big jokester and that she really isn't as bad as she seems.

-She's secretly jealous of girls who approach Kazui hoping to date him. She tells Kazui they're bad news and Kazui just listens to her. Perhaps he knows why she's like that.

-She mostly trains with her father. They share a sweet bond. Sometimes though it's not as sweet as it is scary since they become really competitive. Rukia usually ends up being a victim if their shenanigans. Instead of giving them icepacks and bandages, she has to get some for herself too. She doesn't mind as long as both Ichika and Renji are happy.

-Her favorite animal is a cat. She likes drawing cats as well. That if course means she's pretty good with Yoruichi. She considers her her favorite teacher. Kisuke is not very dear to her.

Nemuri

-She's a big bookworm. She loves reading and being smarter than everyone. She hopes to be her father's lieutenant when she grows up. She works hard and studies for that.

-Kazui's relaxed attitude often annoys her but she cools down once she sees he can be serious. She still reprimands him when he does reckless things, however.

-She wears make up in a similar fashion to her father. White eyeliner and wing, navy blue wing above that and gold eyelashes on the ends of them. She also wears red lip gloss.

-She's great friends with Ichika. Those two basically grew up together, so naturally they'd be close. She usually holds Ichika back from doing anything which is a danger to herself. Ichika hates when she pulls her by her ponytail. In fact, Nemu started styling her hair in a similar fashion and also sports a ponytail. She has a white bow holding it as well.

-She admits her father is rather quirky but he's different around his daughter. He spoils her a lot and takes care of her health. In his odd way, he's a great father.

-She likes rain and water. She and Ichika go to Kazui's sport tournaments and she enjoys them a lot. She photographs everything and makes albums for everyone.

-Nemu is in the 12th division of course. She's very liked for her research and many young shinigami like her because she oddly mature for her age. Even thigh she loves experimenting with her father, she prefers psychology.

-She rarely shows sadness but when she does be prepared for ghibli sized tears! She's more likely to be smiling and chuckling than crying. However most of the times she's kinda sarcastic and snarky.

-She often asks Ichika to draw pretty girls. Ichika is more than happy to make drawings for a friend but she always asks why so many girls. Nemu never replies, or she just changes the subject.

-She is fascinated with hollows and arrancars. She hopes to meet an arrancar. Little does she know of Kazui's "fun outings" with two of them. Of course she eventually learns about it but is too shy to ask.

-She really loves sweets. She will often do the dumbest of things for a candy she's never tried. Kazui and Ichika take advantage of that sometimes.

-She feels pain less than most people would. That of course means she lacks empathy when Kazui scratches his knee or when Ichika hits her head against a wall. However she tells them to look out often as she's aware of her odd condition.

Alright! That's about it for now! You're more than welcome to disagree with me but please don't be rude! I hope you enjoy however.

[missstormcaller]

CAN’T FEAR YOUR OWN WORLD Part 3 Full Translation.

TN: When this third part was released on the Bleach/Jump+ app, Narita tweeted that “main house” was written in place of “branch house” in one line, I’ve spotted that line and made those amendments in my translation below already. He apologised for any confusion and has stated this will be corrected in the printed book version.

 Chapter 2

Several days later - Rukongai.

Hisagi Shūhei is engaged in two different occupations at the same time.

One of those occupations is his professional duties as Squad 9 Vice Captain, which everyone knows.

The other is being the editor-in-chief of the Seireitei Communication.

Seireitei Communication is a public institution magazine which is circulated throughout Seireitei and occasionally as far as some parts of the Rukongai, it is basically under the management of the 9th Division.

Naturally, it ought to be treated as equal occupations, but because the nature of the work differs too greatly from primary Shinigami duties, it was, in effect, perceived by society as something akin to a side job.

Until a few hundred years ago, this was a simple proclamation issued to the general public which could be referred to as tile block print, but from the period when Tōsen Kaname became Captain, that format would come to develop rapidly in accordance with the printing techniques of the Human World.

Perhaps due to Tōsen's serious disposition, the Captain himself began serving as an editor, it was now being spread throughout Seireitei as one large informational magazine, published with many running stories, or essays and novels and so forth, penned by the Captains themselves.

After Tōsen had left Soul Society, Hisagi, who was his Vice Captain, became responsible for that role.

By all rights, Muguruma Kensei who had returned to his post as Captain, should have been the one to become editor-in-chief, but the man himself entrusted all the decision making to Hisagi saying "during my time, I left it up to the troops…. Frankly, It just doesn’t suit me", even now Hisagi continues editorial duties as the responsible editor.

"So? The editor-in-chief of Seireitei communication has come all the way out here, what can he possibly want with me?"

The quizzical voice of a woman resounded from the doorway of a certain residence.

"What do you mean, I’m collecting information for an article of course."

The other party whom Hisagi replied to is Shiba Kūkaku, a pyrotechnician who could be described as a person of clear influence within the vast expanse of the Rukongai.

"What is it? Is it about my new objet d'art? I give up. Jeez, it’s not meant to be an exhibition you know."

With a boastful expression that was contradictory to her words, she shifted her attention to the item of artwork, stone statues holding up a banner which Hisagi had just passed under a moment ago.

Two huge statues imitating stern looking men stood side-by-side, they held up a banner with the words "welcome to Shiba Kūkaku’s residence" painted on it whilst striking an odd pose.

"No… I mean, it certainly became a popular topic of conversation among some people."

"In that case, I suppose you want to use it for the front cover in the next issue of Seireitei Communication?"

"…Well, I'll just make a note of that proposal for now."

Having returned an innocuous reply, Shūhei begins to broach the real issue at hand almost like he was half dodging the subject.

"I would like Kūkaku san’s cooperation in documenting a memoir of the Protection of the Soul King Great War."

"Huh? A memoir you say… hasn't it only been, like, half a year since then?"

"That's precisely why, you see, I want to keep an accurate record now while I still have the chance."

Shiba Kūkaku is both a pyrotechnist on the surface as well as behind the scenes, all involvement with Squad Zero and such were declared "side jobs". It is for this reason, that there exists a curious big-shot like air about her, even if Hisagi, as Vice Captain of Squad 9, ranked higher in terms of station; many among the Vice Captains view her with a sense of respect.

In fact, although they are currently a fallen house, the Shiba clan is a respectable family that once produced a number of seated officers and Captain ranks, they were a family of good social standing to the degree that they were known as one of the "Five Great Noble Clans" alongside the likes of the Kuchiki and Shihōin clans.

For that matter, Shiba Kūkaku herself, who is standing before him, is also a considerably powerful person.

He has heard that she struck down one of the mighty gatekeepers of the Seireitei with Kidō alone; in Hisagi's eyes, she wasn’t merely a pyrotechnician, but a figure of great influence hidden in the depths of Soul Society.

That he had called on such a woman, it was for the purpose of obtaining an interview on behalf of Seireitei Communication just as he described.

Although Seireitei Communication has currently suspended publication due to problems with its publishing systems, a small circulation of a simplified version is being distributed in various places in order to extensively report on the state of postwar reconstruction to the general public. With the target of officially getting it back into print on the first anniversary of the postwar period, it was gradually gaining a secure foothold.

Then, in anticipation for the upcoming first reissue, he started receiving requests from many readers asking for details regarding the "Protection of the Soul King Great War" to be addressed in his own segment called "Teach Me! Shūhei Sensei!!"

"Teach Me! Shūhei Sensei!!" has featured in Seireitei Communication for a long time, it is a page for his project in which Shūhei answers the questions of the readers.

Nevertheless, it's popularity is shaky and although​ it may be revived whenever there is demand, it is an unstable project which is often discontinued after only a few runs following its resumption.

Even so, the people of the Seireitei still had yet to grasp the full picture surrounding the war, it seems they were seized by a sense of anxiety about whether or not the war had truly ended, or whether such a thing would never happen again, and they looked to the public institution magazine that is Seireitei Communication to dispel those fears.

In fact, not limited to "Teach me! Shūhei Sensei!!", the standpoint of many with regard to the magazine itself is a desire to receive an explanation detailing all the particulars of the war, and Shūhei has decided to handle it all as a necessity for his own column.

This is a huge task imposed upon Seireitei Communication. It couldn't all be left up to the ordinary squad members. Given that the form is a come-back series of "Teach me! Shūhei Sensei!!" which coincides with the first reissue of Seireitei communication, it is he who must clutch the reins of information himself.

With that kind of motivation spurring him on, Hisagi had spent his days running around to personally interview the likes of the Visuals Department, the Department of Research and Development, and Squad 4's Special Relief Team, but he did not gather as much information as he had initially expected.

It seems there was virtually no one who was able to observe the entirety of the war from a bird's eye view. Just how many people's stories would he have to piece together before getting any closer to its domain?

Such misgivings crossed Hisagi's mind.

The man who presumably had the most extensive view of the battlefield, Yhwach, had already been buried at the hands of Kurosaki Ichigo. 

That being the case, he would have no choice but to take it upon himself to pick up and assemble the pieces of war.

If it could be spread far and wide how the Shinigami battled and triumphed in various places, then it’s bound to become hope for the people who were dealing with the restoration efforts.

The Soul Society has now entered a new battle known as post-war recovery.

It is during such times that people simply desire "information" which is able to put them at ease.

"…In other words, it's what you'd call a battle that only I can fight from here onward!"

In response to Hisagi who had explained the situation after getting himself all fired up, Kūkaku returned an answer as she folded her arms.

"I'm sorry to break it to you, even when you're sparkling those rugged sanpaku eyes at me, but there's hardly anything I'm able to speak of you know? I mean, all I did was launch up that lot from Squad Zero along with Ichigo's group."

It was a coarse manner of speaking belonging to a woman of mannish character, yet an oddly firm tone of voice.

With that alone, Hisagi had somehow or other come to the conclusion that "yeah, I guess this truly is a matter she can hardly comment on." Rather than being unwilling to speak of the past, she merely exudes a sort of atmosphere which accepted it all as part of everyday life, thinking "I did what I had to do."

"Well, I guess that means I’ll just be giving you my greetings for today, I’ll visit another time."

"It's nothing but a bother if you plan to keep coming back, and it makes no sense for me to even have a right to say anything about you Shinigami and your squabbles, if you want a story then ask my younger brother Ganju. That guy marched all the way up to the Soul King Palace together with Ichigo and his gang, I suppose he'd be able to tell you at least something."

"…He went up to the Soul King Palace?"

Speaking of Shiba Ganju, he is the man who once appeared as a Ryoka along with Ichigo and the others during the time of Kuchiki Rukia’s execution scandal. Why did a man from Rukongai go up to the Soul King Palace? Having been decommissioned from the front lines at the final stage of the war, this is the first time Hisagi is hearing of this fact.

—— Come to think of it, I still haven’t covered what happened around Kurosaki and his group….

Naturally, Ichigo’s group who were the most deeply involved by the end of the war should probably be interviewed. However, they are inhabitants of the Human World, not Soul Society. In order to travel expressly to the Human World for interviews, he must obtain the permission of the Captain Commander.

—— I think I’ll be able to receive the Captain commander’s permission, but I wonder if Kurosaki would give his full cooperation in this sort of thing…. I can’t see that guy talking about himself in much detail at all.

As he considered questioning Inoue or Sado about the subject when the need arose, both of whom apparently reside in Ichigo’s neighbourhood, Hisagi decided to leave the Shiba residence for now.

"Understood, then I'll listen to what your younger brother has to say first."

"Alright, if you want Ganju, he’s probably mounted on his wild boar, wandering around West Rukongai again. Even if you do a half-assed job of looking for him, I think you'd be able to find him right away? He’s a loud moron so you should be able to recognise him at a single glance."

"Right, it’s okay though, I’ve caught sight of his face every now and then whenever a disturbance occurs."

Having received the advice on this dynamic manhunt, Hisagi bows to Kūkaku before leaving the house equipped with a fireworks launch pad.

 Then, when he came closer​ to his vehicle which was parked a little further up the roadside, Hisagi noticed something.

A few men had gathered around 'that vehicle’ which Hisagi had gone to the trouble of ordering from the Human World after it had undergone Reishification. And, he also noticed that these men carry within them a Reiatsu so dense that they could not be mistaken for any ordinary inhabitant of Rukongai, on top of that, the nature of the Reiatsu is different to that of a Shinigami’s or Quincy’s.

"…What? Why is there a Kawasaki Z-II in a place like this?"

At the words of the man who had swept back hair that extended around his shoulders, the tall figure of a young man who was standing beside him shrugged. 

"Who knows?"

What stood before the men's eyes, is a motorbike originating from the Human World and characterised by its deep crimson paintwork.

For those who have died and arrived in the Rukongai, the surrounding standards of culture will have caused them to assimilate to the atmosphere, said to range from the Heian era to Edo period. Perhaps it was because of the fact that no major cultural reformation had occurred when compared to the Human World, that there are many things which almost causes one to feel its antiquity from the clothes to the buildings, and since coming to Soul Society, they have never seen automobiles of this kind until this very moment.

Then, standing behind them, a fellow befitting a gentleman with a black linen eyepatch covering his right eye, stared at this motorbike with great interest as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Hmm… regardless of the fact that we are Fullbringers who can manipulate the souls of matter, things that can be brought to this place through Konsō are only the clothes and articles that can be said to be part of our person, although… Perhaps there is someone who loved two-wheeled vehicles at a level that can only be described as unity of rider and horse."

"What about such things as gasoline?"

"It's said that Soul Society essentially produces no oil. Apparently, most of whatever becomes fuel in its place is sent around to the Technological Department or nobles of the Seireitei."

"So does that mean, this motorbike is just some noble’s plaything?"

Listening to these descriptions of Soul Society narrated by the youthful man, the man with the swept back hair clouded his face ever so slightly.

From behind him, words that denied such speculation were thrown out to them.

"I've been saving my wages up to buy that thing. Well, if you want to call it my plaything however, I guess I can't deny that."

Turning to look in Hisagi's​ direction - the newcomer that had just appeared - the man with the swept back hair narrows his eyes in a smiling expression.

"…Oh. I came to check things out after I thought I heard the sound of a motorbike which is rare in these parts, but I would never have guessed that I'd come face-to-face with a Shinigami as a result."

Observing the face of the man who had turned to look at him, Hisagi knit his eyebrows in unease.

That face closely resembled the profile of a criminal which, not too long ago, had been circulated many times over among ​the Gotei 13 as a "dangerous character who kills Shinigami".

Hisagi has never seen him in person, but his corpse, after being defeated by Ichigo in the Human World, happened to exist in Soul society.

"Ginjō Kūgo…"

The man who is the first substitute Shinigami, and later estranged, a man who slaughtered a number of Shinigami who were in pursuit of him.

The corpse was buried in the Human World at the request of Kurosaki Ichigo, but naturally, souls are a different matter.

Since they were also human beings who lived in the Human World, their souls which had slipped out of their dead bodies would have drifted into the Rukongai.

"Oh my, this is an honour. I'm surprised that a guy with a lieutenant's armband knows my face."

Hisagi’s Shihakushō is sleeveless, but when going out to a public place, he fastens his armband, putting it on display around his exposed arm.

In response to Ginjō who smiles boldly while looking at said armband, Hisagi lowers his voice.

"I’ve heard rumours that you didn’t fall into the depths of hell… but what are you doing in a place like this?"

"Dear me, you shouldn’t glare like that on our first meeting, wouldn't you agree? Have I done something to you?"

"Playing dumb all of a sudden huh… don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what you did to the Shinigami and Kurosaki.

As his eyes narrowed, Hisagi fixed a glare at the man who was once a substitute Shinigami.

Then, Ginjō also narrows his eyes once more, smiling fearlessly in Hisagi's​ direction.

"So what? Do you mean to say that I should get down on my knees and apologise? For your information, I have an obligation to Kurosaki Ichigo, but I’ve never planned on becoming a friend to you Shinigami lot, and I don’t regret being turned into an enemy."

"You bastard… what are you planning?"

"Ha. Does it look like I’m planning something? If that’s the case, what are you going to do to me?"

Ginjō laughed scornfully, at the same time, the tall young man who was standing next to him, closed the book he was holding and took out a bookmark from its crevice.

"Stop it, Tsukishima."

"Are you sure? But he's got a look that says he's going to come at us with a sword any minute now?"

The man called Tsukishima spoke with a cool visage.

Hearing that name, Hisagi heightens his sense of vigilance even more.

"Tsukishima… if I’m not mistaken, you were the asshole that messed up Kurosaki’s past."

The man in question, Tsukishima, looked at Hisagi with a cynical​ smile cast on his face.

"That’s a cruel manner of speaking. The past of the person himself hasn’t changed. Oh, although that last time, I helped with a little maintenance on his sword."

"……?"

Unable to comprehend the meaning behind Tsukishima’s words, Hisagi looked at him in puzzlement.

Having observed the situation, the gentleman with the eyepatch opened his mouth to speak as he heaved a sigh.

 "Ginjō san, it appears he has no knowledge of the fact that the two of you assisted Kurosaki Ichigo."

"You assisted?"

—— Come to think of it, I feel like Renji said something along the lines of "there was an unexpected helping hand"….

—— Tch. Should I have covered what happened there first?

During these past six months, Hisagi has continued to work his fingers to the bone as acting Captain of Squad 9 in place of Muguruma who was undergoing medical treatment for his zombified state.

Therefore, until Muguruma returned, he couldn’t get around to conducting detailed interviews.

Hisagi regrets his own decision to postpone interviews with those concerned on the mere basis that it could be done at any time, meanwhile Ginjō looked bored as he spoke to the gentleman with the eyepatch.

"Assisting him was no big deal. I only paid back a small debt."

Watching the three people engage in conversation with their placidity still on show, Hisagi thinks.

—— Can I take all three of these guys down by myself?

—— I don’t know this eyepatch guy, but he’s probably Ginjō’s comrade.

—— I’m not sure about his abilities… although, I've heard the stories about this other guy from Madarame and Captain Hitsugaya….

Having heard the rumours, could it possibly be this very man who is the "opponent cut down with a single strike by Zaraki Kenpachi"?

Hisagi thought as much, but he is not stupid enough to conclude that this man was weak just because Zaraki Kenpachi was able to defeat him in one blow. Because Hisagi knows well that there is not much difference between a wolf and a puppy before the presence known as Kenpachi.

However, at any rate, what is before his eyes, is the 'enemy’ who once butchered members of the Gotei 13.

Kurosaki Ichigo may have forgiven them, but this is a different​ story, as one among the Shinigami, they are by no means opponents that he can​ overlook.

Coming to that conclusion, Hisagi decided that, for now, he would keep the opponent talking whilst tightening his guard in order to probe into their intentions.

"The Shinigami…Ukitake san, why did you betray them?"

Then, the darkness that was dwelling at the back of Ginjō’s eyes faded away for an instant, he opened his mouth to speak as surprise and amazement intermingled on his face.

"…What a surprise. A Shinigami would ask me that now after such a long time?"

"That's right, I heard that Captain Ukitake used a substitute badge to monitor you. Though, was that alone enough to turn every member of the Gotei 13 into an enemy? I'm sure that was unpleasant, but it’s merely a matter of objecting against Ukitake san once you’ve noticed it don't you think?"

"…Once I’ve noticed it, huh?"

As Ginjō murmurs that, a silence falls over him for a moment.

In the next instant, he broke out into a laugh as if he had just witnessed a humorous circus trick.

"HA… is that so. It doesn't seem like you're trying to play the fool. Does that mean, even at Vice Captain level, your awareness of the facts only amounts to that much?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying I finally get it now. I get that you know nothing at all."

At that point his smile had disappeared and he began to fiddle with the cross shaped pendant that was suspended over his chest.

Hisagi sensed​ some kind of unpleasant Reiatsu fluctuating in that pendant; taking a step back, Hisagi reached his hand to his own Zanpakutō.

As they maintained their distance from each other, the air of an explosive situation fills the surroundings ——

In the next moment, that atmosphere was shattered to pieces by the squeals of a beast and the trembling of the ground.

When they turned their attention to the squeals, a huge wild boar as big as a Kei car, came careening from the direction of a neighbouring village before plunging towards the confrontation between Hisagi and Ginjō's group.

The wild boar rapidly eased up on its speed in front of them, and as a result, 'he’ who was riding on the back of the boar was thrust headfirst into the grassland between Hisagi and Ginjō.

"Buhhoo-…!?

The man who had crashed into the ground whilst issuing a comical shriek, staggered to his feet, he then gave a thumbs up towards the boar he was just riding as he raised his voice.

"Heh… that's my girl. Your​ style was so cool today too Bonnie-chan!"

As if ignoring the man who had just spoken, the wild boar galloped away in the opposite direction with momentum that was as swift as the wind.

With Hisagi watching the sudden comedy routine in round-eyed wonder, the man who had followed the wild boar with his eyes until it was out of sight then turned to face them and began to speak with a high-spirited voice.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's up with you guys? Is there some kind of trouble here?"

"It’s nothing, Ganju. I was just poking a bit of fun at this Shinigami who is ignorant of the ways​ of the world."

Hisagi looked at the stern face of the man who Ginjō had called "Ganju".

"Have you gotten into a dispute with the Shinigami? Jeez, I can understand your poor opinion towards the Shinigami, but you don’t need to raise a riot! Look I can't say let bygones be bygones, but it's not cool to all of a sudden go picking fights right in the open."

Having heard that, the gentleman with the eyepatch inclined his head as he posed a question.

"Is that so? But In Kūkaku dono’s stories, I heard that when you and Kurosaki san met, you got into a childish scuffle with him."

"Guh…! Big sister talks too much!"

The man, who had a face identical to the banner-bearing statues Hisagi had seen only a short while earlier, pulled a wry expression after remarking as such.

Confronted, beyond a shadow of a doubt, with Shiba Ganju —— the very man he was searching for, Hisagi knit his eyebrows together in bewilderment.

"I can't tell if your timing is good or bad…"

"Huuhh!? What's​ that you jerk!? ……Oh you're… if I’m not mistaken… you’re the Vice Captain of some squad… Vice Captain… Hi… Hisa…."

"……"

After an awkward silence, Ganju gives a firm nod, and with the same grin he had flashed towards his wild boar earlier, Ganju presents Hisagi with a thumbs up.

"Long time no see! Vice Captain! Vice Captain who is an acquaintance of Kuchiki Rukia!"

"Oh come on it’s only one more character! It’s Hisagi! Of the 9th Division! Hisagi Shūhei!"

To the side of a shouting Hisagi, Ginjō breathed a sigh as he released the pendant from the grip of his fingers.

"What's​ this, you guys know each other?"

Perhaps having confirmed that the tense atmosphere was now completely ruptured, Tsukishima also opens his book once again and turns his attention towards that.

"…Oi, Shiba Ganju, what’s the meaning of this? Do you and Kūkaku san know what kind of people these guys are?"

"Isn't that a given? Of course we know, these guys are the freeloaders big sis found and brought back with her."

"Freeloaders…?"

While Hisagi was unable to make heads or tails of it, Ginjō and the others were trying to leave this place a step ahead.

However, the sharp sighted Ganju who detected this, stops them in their tracks with that enigmatic, overbearing manner of his. 

"Hey, wait a minute! Where are you guys going!? I don’t know what happened between you and this Vice Captain brother here, but while I'm still around, I won't allow any fishy grudges between the Shinigami and friends of the Shiba to be left hanging."

Faced with Ginjō's group who had turned around, appearing to find the situation irksome, as well as Hisagi who wore a befuddled expression, Ganju spoke sonorously of his solution with a face that was brimming with self-confidence.

"Don't sweat it, I won't let you down. Leave it up to this self-proclaimed 'crimson bullet of West Rukongai’, the number one self-proclaimed but 'universally acknowledged boss of West Rukongai’ for 17 consecutive years! And finally, the self-proclaimed 'former number one Shinigami hater’, Ganju sama!"

Ganju was the only one in high spirits.

Unable to decipher how he should respond to the man who had just issued a speech on his puzzling self-introductions towards Ginjō and the others, all of whom were already acquainted with him, Hisagi's eyes closed half way as he just barely managed to produce a coherent sentence.

"That last one… It’s not exactly necessary to go by that title if it’s 'former’ don't ya think…?"

And thus the experience of being a Shinigami for many long years, causes his mind to procure a sense of foreboding.

—— This is bad.

—— I mean, I’m not being dragged into some troublesome course of events am I?

A few hours later - Seireitei - Squad 1 Barracks.

"This is a troublesome turn of events huh, very much so."

In response to these words issued from the mouth of Captain Commander Kyōraku, the two Vice Captains who were before him —— Ise Nanao and Okikiba Genshirō, exchanged a quick glance.

The words Kyōraku had spoken has half become a habitual saying, but from his tone of voice, the Vice Captains Nanao and Okikiba could sense that something​ was up.

Although it is a level of difference that can only be understood by those who are accustomed to hearing it, the Captain Commander's​ mutterings at present was in a tone of voice that was used only when something truly unpleasant had happened.

"What’s the matter, Captain Commander?"

At Nanao’s words, Kyōraku releases a heavy sigh.

"Ah, sorry, did I make you anxious? You can run into my arms if you want to stop your trembling, you know?"

"I’m asking you seriously, Captain Commander."

"…Yes, well then. A short while ago, before Nanao chan's arrival here, Nayura chan came to me with an escort. There was an official notice and a request from Central 46."

"Amakado Nayura sama, came to you in person?"

Nanao also knows about Nayura.

In Soul Society, the highest judicial branch that guides the Shinigami as the mouthpiece for the Soul King and occasionally hands down judgement, is the Central 46.

Amakado Nayura is the youngest amongst its constituent members, a small girl who only looks to be around 10 years of age in terms of appearance.

However, her shrewdness which has existed long beyond what meets the eye, is acknowledged by both Kyōraku and Nanao; with her as the pivot, the central 46 who prioritised nobility, were gradually changing.

There is a conscious disparity that exists between the status quo of the Shinigami and the Central 46, but that gap is slowly being filled through the pressure and encouragement of both her and Kyōraku. At least Nanao felt so, and although there was the question of balance, she was hoping that the administration of justice would settle things in good form for the nobles in their current state and the position of the Shinigami, or perhaps the commoners and every inhabitant of Rukongai.

From Nanao's point of view, kyōraku needed to refrain from addressing a member of the Central 46 with "chan" attached to their name, but because she often socialised with Nayura who would sometimes come to visit posing as a commoner, she also found herself inadvertently coming close to calling her "Nayura san".

Uttering the name of that young girl from the Central 46, Kyōraku breathed a sigh with a slight look of melancholy cast over his face.

"The other day, a rather troubling incident occurred among the Four Great Noble Clans. Though I think you’ve already heard about it."

"Yes. It’s regarding the assassins who invaded​ the Tsunayashiro clan and murdered their family head isn’t it?"

The fact that one of the heads of the four great noble clans and their household members had all been massacred, this is a major incident that would shake the very foundations of the Seireitei under normal circumstances. However, given that it's bad enough that the post-war turmoil has not yet settled down, the official story was declared in the form of - "their health came to harm from wartime anxieties, and it's an epidemic that took their lives". 

It is for this reason that the particulars of the case are known only to some of the top brass; those who have a handle on the course of events among the Gotei 13 amounts to only a small number of people including Captain Commander Kyōraku and his Vice Captains, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Onmitsukidō - Soifon.

"Well, I suppose Captain Kurotsuchi and Yoruichi chan would know about it through their own independent channels huh. Rather, following these events, they probably knew about it before I did."

"…Does this mean, there is some issue with the subsequent​ succession of the clan head?"

"I heard the general details from Nayura chan, but the strife among members of nobility is out of our jurisdiction after all. This falls within the jurisdiction of the Kinin* (*Golden seal) Noble Assembly, not the Gotei 13.… At least, for now."

In response to Kyōraku who uttered words with a hint of hidden meaning, Nanao narrows her eyes after understanding his intentions.

"For now? Does that mean this will develop into a situation that will involve the Gotei 13 later on?"

"I hope it doesn’t come to that."

After answering with a somewhat distressed expression, Kyōraku continued speaking as he gazed upon the official notice from the Central 46.

"Ah, also, won’t you summon Muguruma kun and Hisagi kun for me?"

"Squad 9?"

"It would be fine even if it was Hisagi kun alone. But given the circumstances, I think it's better to have the Captain grasp the situation too, just in case."

Meanwhile at Shiba Kūkaku’s residence.

"And then! No sooner than those stone statues or whatever had stopped springing up on us without a damn warning, that Ichigo asshole appears from behind us! 'sorry, we ended up moving down below earlier, so we're here to pick you up now' he says! And to think that my humble self and Chad got all fired up in order to 'prepare the way back for Ichigo'! The way back and all had already moved down to the Seireitei a step ahead, what's the meaning of that!?"

The guest room in the basement of Kūkaku’s house.

At the centre, was the figure of Ganju who was making Hisagi listen to his complaints as he gulped down his sake.

"Is he for real!? That guy Chad said 'Ichigo sees nothing but the path forward'! But, I'd never have guessed that it would be thrown in my face in that kind of way damn it!"

"Yeah… I guess, that must have been difficult for you huh."

"That Chad dude is just as bad too! The first thing he says to Ichigo in a situation like that is 'I see… it's over then' with a great big smile on his face. I mean if he's gonna put it like that, doesn't it make me look like some narrow minded oaf who whines too much-Gahhh!?"

Midway through his speech, Ganju received a firm kick from behind and was planted face first into the ground.

Kūkaku, the person who had dealt that kick, spoke as she trampled on her fallen brother’s back.

"Quit your infernal yapping! Your so-called guts was probably pathetic in action!"

"It hurts and that's uncalled for! But, big sis!"

"No ifs or buts! You punk… I spent years training you up so that you'd be able to fight on the front lines until the bitter end, and yet you lost sight of your companions and manage to lose your way on the road, what the hell am I supposed to make of that…?" 

"From whom did you hear that I got lost!? I bet it was Ichigo that jerk yeow-tetetetete! Will you cut that out big sis!? My spine will become sand! It’s going to become sand!"

Ganju wailed as Kūkaku continues to relentlessly trample on her brother.

Unable to comprehend how to deal with two such people, Hisagi, seemingly at a loss, took a swig of his drink for himself.

In the midst of doing so, Hisagi shifts his attention to Ginjō who was sitting at the very corner of his field of vision.

Earlier, Hisagi had been shown into this guest room by forceful invitation of Ganju who said "drinking sake will wash your grudges away", but at any rate, he enquired about the relationship between Ginjō's group and Ganju, and before he knew it, Hisagi wound up being made to listen to the idle complaints of Ganju who had become tipsy.

Incidentally, Tsukishima proceeded to read his book whilst leaning against a wall at the corner of the room without partaking in the drinking party; while en route here, the man with the cloth eyepatch who introduced himself as Kutsuzawa Giriko, retreated into the Shiba clan's kitchen saying "allow me to prepare some snacks."

"I mean, Both Ginjō and Tsukishima are fishy too, you know!? According to what I heard, they managed to skip right over us and get to Ichigo's location, how the heck do you explain that!? Isn't that unfair!? Hey, don't you think that's unfair!?"

Ganju, who was released from his sister’s foot, changed the subject of his complaints to Ginjō.

Dismissing Ganju's​ words with a nonchalant air, Ginjō drinks his sake in a refined manner whilst shrugging his shoulders.

"That’s because we travelled there directly through Yukio and Riruka’s abilities. Our end was running a fair amount of risk in our own way too you know?"

"Yukio and Riruka?"

At Hisagi's muttering, Ginjō opens his mouth to speak as he turns his eyes away.

"Oh, I used to hang out with those guys in the Human World. Unlike us, they’re not dead, but they came all the way up here to help Ichigo.”

"To help Kurosaki…?"

As an editor of Seireitei Communication, he wanted to explore these matters thoroughly, but his wariness towards Ginjō did not readily allow that.

At that point, Kūkaku who had observed the situation with Hisagi, now raised her voice.

"Will you quit trying to drink with that mean look on your face. Didn't we already tell you earlier? Ganju and I have accepted those freeloaders. Even if we got cut up from behind, we would bear no grudge." 

"But, those guys are…!"

"Even Ukitake agreed."

"Huh…?"

In response to Hisagi who choked back a voice of protest in the back of his throat, Kūkaku continued.

"Well, now that things have come to this pass, he can’t even attest to that."

"…Wait a moment. So, has Ginjō also met Ukitake san?"

When Hisagi cast his eyes in Ginjō's direction, he spoke whilst turning the empty sake cup in his hand.

"I didn't meet him. Honestly, I did not intend to meet him until I imposed upon this place."

"You mean things are different now?"

"Can't say. Even if we had met, we probably would have ended up killing each other don't ya think?"

"So, why go that far to-…"

What exactly happened between Ukitake and Ginjō, the first substitute Shinigami?

It's not like he could dispel his vigilance without understanding the matter even a little bit.

No, no matter what the reason may be, the fact remains unchanged, that the man before his eyes is the very menace who murdered Shinigami. 

"However", Hisagi thinks to himself whilst entertaining a small amount of doubt in his chest —— or perhaps, fear.

Assuming that he was able to kill Ginjō after simply crossing blades with him, would it be possible to say he had struck down an enemy of the Shinigami out of duty to the Gotei 13? Having attempted to put a stop to Captain Tōsen's vengeance, is it not a mistake to rely on emotions to swing one's blade?

Aizen’s words from six months ago are called back to Hisagi’s mind.

 —— What you are harbouring is not hatred. It is merely sentimentality for your lost Tōsen Kaname and the impression he left behind.

This choice of words may be correct in a sense.

If he were to ask himself whether or not he carried even the slightest fragment of emotion in his blade, then he would probably answer "no".

Nevertheless, he can't very well turn a blind eye to Ginjō here. Being misled by the likes of Aizen’s words, and even losing sight of how to use his own blade would be putting the cart before the horse.

Perceiving the indecision and fear within himself, Hisagi regains his presence of mind instead.

Erasing the traces of emotion from his countenance, as a member of the Gotei 13 who must assess threats to the Seireitei, he turned to face the man named Ginjō Kūgo once again.

"……Forget it, you were right, I don’t know anything. For this reason, please enlighten me. What did the Shinigami… what did we do against you, the first substitute Shinigami?"

Having observed the situation, Ginjō raises one eyebrow in slight astonishment, he places his sake cup upon the table before replying.

"I see, sure enough, it's not like you're seated as vice Captain for nothing."

Though he smiled with great interest, Ginjō paused for a brief moment before slowly shaking his head left and right.

"…I appreciate that you're willing to confront me about this seriously. But, no matter what comes out of my mouth, you just can't bring yourself to digest the words of a 'dangerous character', can you? Why not ask your Captain Commander?"

"I reckon that wouldn't be fair in it's own way. The Captain Commander isn’t the kind of person who would tell lies, but so far as it goes, I am a journalist. It's not really impartial unless I listen to both sides of the story."

"I didn't expect that a word like 'journalist' would fly out of a Shinigami's mouth. Besides, there are no rules that say journalists must be fair in the first place."

"Fairness is the number one priority, it is a policy I carry on from the previous editor-in-chief."

Hearing those words, Ginjō chuckles.

"You’re a strange guy. At first glance, you looked like nothing more than an ordinary Shinigami with your typical Shinigami ways."

"I’ll take that latter half as a compliment."

"So, then what? Supposing I revealed the reason for my betrayal and I was unable to convince you, what would you do?"

"I think you know. In that case I'll——"

The voice of Kūkaku, who had remained silent up till now, interrupted Hisagi’s speech just as he was about to respond with some resolve.

"Look, I don't mean to poke my nose into this discord between the freeloader and the Shinigami. But if you're gonna cross swords, do it outside, got it?"

"…Understood."

"Alright I got it, we won’t cause any trouble for you."

Hisagi nods obediently while Ginjō shrugs and accepts these terms.

The air which had grown tense fluctuated, and after several seconds of silence, Ginjō opened his mouth to speak.

"I guess I ended up deceiving Kurosaki Ichigo."

"…? Ah, so I've heard."

"I personally had Tsukishima alter my own past…. In that past, there was a half Shinigami human who was willing to cooperate with us in order to eliminate the Hollow power from us Fullbringers…. That half Shinigami and my old friends were killed by Tsukishima, that's how things supposedly went down."

Something all Fullbringers like Ginjō have in common is that they each have a parent who was attacked by a Hollow.

It is for this reason that they are born mixed with Hollow powers, and Hisagi has also heard that it manifests as a unique ability called Fullbring.

"So, having come back to my senses again, you might be wondering what it was like in my original past…. There was no such half Shinigami like Ichigo. Suffice it to say that I was the one who was undertaking the role of substitute Shinigami. Well then, who killed my old companions who were in those memories?"

"…Wait, if all of that was just down to Tsukishima's modified past too then…"

"Tsukishima’s ability… "Book of the End" allows Tsukishima to insert himself into another person’s past. Although things such as 'memories’ and 'outcomes’ where Tsukishima was concerned can be inserted, as far as inserting​ people who don’t even exist, that’s impossible. By the way, the guy who I believed was the half Shinigami was actually one of the Shinigami I killed in a fit of rage."

"…It can't be."

Getting an unpleasant feeling, Hisagi gulped.

Tsukishima, who was at the corner of the room, lifts his eyes​ up from his book to glance at the scene between Hisagi and Ginjō.

Perhaps having discerned that it was not the kind of atmosphere where he could cut in, even Ganju quietly strained his ears to the conversation of the other two; Kūkaku wore an expression that said "it’s no concern of mine", but she gulped down her sake in a silence that was quite out of the ordinary for her.

An uncomfortable silence dominates the space around Hisagi.

And it was the words of a dark eyed Ginjō that killed this silence.

"The ones who killed the friends from my past… are Shinigami. Though, they were a bunch of guys who are all strangers to me."

Silence and cold air tries to fill the scene once more.

However, Hisagi, who decided that he couldn't stomach that statement, shook his head as he rose to his feet.

"Hold on…. So, do you mean to say that Ukitake san made them do it!?"

"Hell if I know. But, by that time I had noticed the secret of the Substitute Badge. As for the rest, I guess you can figure it out even without me saying anything right?"

"Uh…"

In his mind, Hisagi recalls the conversation from a little earlier.

—— It’s merely a matter of objecting against Ukitake san once you’ve noticed it don't you think?

Although he was unaware of the circumstances, Hisagi realised how beside the point his own words were and was seized with a feeling of great shame. 

"I see…. It's not like I can swallow your story just yet… but I'm sorry about earlier."

"I don't give a damn about that. It made me laugh didn't it?"

After mixing in a bit of playful banter, Ginjō takes the conversation further.

"On the day I repaid my debt to Ichigo at the Soul King Palace, I planned to go meet Ukitake. I wondered just how far his orders went, after all, putting me aside whom he didn't trust me from the very onset, why then did my Fullbringer comrades have to be killed? But, it's a funny story. When I went looking for Ukitake all prepared to take his life even if it meant losing my own, by then, that man was no longer in any condition to talk."

"That's…"

Hisagi tries to say something, but words fail him.

In his head, he recalls the moment Tōsen is killed by Aizen.

At the time, Tōsen was indeed able to exchange words with Hisagi in the end. However, just before the paths each chose to follow were about to intersect once more, Tōsen was cruelly murdered at the hands of Aizen —— Hisagi, too, had forever lost the chance to exchange words with his opponent.

Observing the expression on Hisagi who had recollected such a thing, Ginjō heaves a sigh as he clicks his tongue.

"Tch… I've said too much. Those drinks must be catching up to me already dammit."

"Please wait. If that’s true…"

Midway through his sentence, the Denreishinki that was in his pocket produced a noise.

When he took out the device and reviewed it, a familiar notice to convene was displayed on its screen.

"…Sorry. I'm being summoned by Squad 1."

"Getting called in with this kind of timing huh, well I never, are you also being monitored from above?"

Confronted with Ginjō who speaks with bitter irony, Hisagi utters a reply.

"That might be possible if it were Captain Kurotsuchi rather than the Captain Commander…. Still, regardless of whether I'm being watched or whatever, I won't stop until I carry out my duty."

Upon leaving his seat, Hisagi finally speaks to Ginjō in a blunt manner.

"This doesn’t necessarily mean that I take you completely at your word. I am also a Shinigami. I don’t want to believe that my colleagues carried out a massacre in the Human World with no justification…. But, I will definitely investigate the other side of this story too. Because while I am a Shinigami, I am also editor-in-chief of Seireitei Communication. You can count on me."

"……"

"Anyway, we'll talk again soon. And Ganju, please allow me to hear your story next time too. Next time, the drinks are on me."

When he gave a final bow towards Kūkaku, Hisagi departed the Shiba residence. 

Hearing the sound of a motorbike engine echoing from afar, Tsukishima, who had been silent up till then, raised his voice whilst his eyes were turned towards his book.

"That's rare. For Ginjō to actually tell that story to a Shinigami from his own mouth."

"Yeah. I’ve finally lost my edge haven’t I?"

After remarking jokingly, Ginjō stares into space with a serious look on his face.

"Well, he probably just strikes me as a no-nonsense kind of Shinigami. An awful lot like the Gotei 13 huh. I guess I ended up wondering whether or not a guy like that would take my words seriously… nah, maybe I just wanted someone to vent my frustrations at instead of Ukitake who's no longer here."

At that point, Giriko spoke up, having emerged holding a plate.

"Oh. I have the snacks prepared but it seems the Shinigami gentleman has left already?"

"Yeah, I suppose he’s a punctual guy. He was in an awful hurry."

"I see, that is a wonderful thing. After all, the flow of time is an absolute law that remains as unchangeable in the Human World as it is in the Rukongai and Seireitei. If the Shinigami are anything of the 'gods' they claim to be, then it is only natural to abide by it."

Elsewhere from the Fullbringers who were having this conversation, Ganju posed a question to his sister who continued drinking in an unusual silence.

"Say, big sis, what do you actually think?"

"It's none of my damn business. I told you didn’t I? It’s not something we can poke our noses into when we’re not even Shinigami."

"…I wonder if big brother knew something."

This brother he speaks of is Shiba Kaien who served as Ukitake’s lieutenant before the collapse of the Shiba clan.

Although they were ousted from their position as nobles due to his death and the disappearance of Kurosaki Isshin who belonged to a branch of the main house, Ganju still considered his big brother the pride of the Shiba clan even now.

Recalling the face of her older brother who was no more, Kūkaku cast her eyes down to her sake cup whilst forming her words.

"…Who knows. The Shinigami are only alert to external threats all for the sake of protecting Seireitei."

.

.

.

"Just like it was with that Aizen bastard, when it comes to the Shinigami, they may just wind up becoming all kinds of thick-skinned against the scoundrels created by the Seireitei itself."

One hour later - Squad 1 - Head office.

"Hey, you’re late Shūhei. Just how far did you have to travel?"

"My apologies Captain, I went up to Shiba Kūkaku san’s place in West Rukongai to collect some material."

"Kūkaku…? Oh, Kaien’s younger sister…?"

When Hisagi enters the office, the Captain of the 9th division, Muguruma Kensei, is already waiting there; Kyōraku then makes an appearance from the door at the opposite end of the room.

"Dear me, I'm sorry to bother the two of you when you're both so busy."

Seeing Captain Commander Kyōraku raise one hand in greeting with his usual rhythm, Muguruma spoke up. 

"So? What’s going on Captain commander? Is there any special reason as to why it’s only the 9th division that’s been summoned?"

"Yes, you could say that. It’s kind of a matter that involves Seireitei Communication."

"Huh? If that's the case, then why am I here?"

Muguruma is the Captain of squad 9, but he is not involved in the editing of the magazine at all.

Only a few days ago, Muguruma was recuperating in order to treat his zombified flesh, and for a long time he was in no condition to even get a grasp on the current state of Seireitei communication.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I was told in person by the higher-ups that there is something they wish to formally announce in the Seireitei Communication. Therefore, I think it would be better to also run this by you, as the Captain, just in case."

"An announcement? And by higher-ups, do you mean Squad Zero?"

"No, they were from the Central 46. The group of nobles behind the Central 46 to be exact."

Saying that, Kyōraku turns his eyes to Hisagi for only a moment before uttering the rest of the story.

"Actually, it turns out that one of the Four Great Noble Houses is to install a new clan head. The matter has already passed through the governmental district and, as a formality, the new clan head will have been instated by now, but very much at the request of this new clan head, it appears that he wants to publicise news of his own inauguration extensively throughout Soul Society."

"Damn it, so it's just your average self-absorbed noble again huh."

Kensei spoke, looking rather bored.

Although there are exceptions such as Shihōin Yoruichi, basically, he knows only too well that both he and the aristocrats would never hit it off, and given that the subject also concerned Seireitei Communication, Kensei was rapidly losing interest in the matter. Meanwhile, Hisagi continues the discussion with a look that said he doesn't quite understand.

"*sigh*…. Around how many pages will it take? From the onset, the first reissue is still scheduled several months ahead, and it commences with a special feature which looks back on the Protection​ of the Soul King Great War, so having to balance it all against that will…"

"It seems he wants you to produce a special edition extra. He said he wants it to be distributed widely, even as far as the Rukongai."

"S-Special edition extra! If we have to get the publishing systems fully operational right away, we simply won't have the kind of budget for it…."

The inauguration of a new clan head among the Four Great Noble Clans is big news in itself. However, because the highest ranking being is the Soul King, it is rare to go as far to issue special editions involving the Four Great Noble Clans even on auspicious occasions or times of mourning.

Of course, budgets that exceed expectations are sometimes required, and if it is to be widely distributed even up to the Rukongai, then there is also the potential for that alone to bypass the annual budget.

Hisagi pondered how he could possibly get by on that budget whilst groaning in frustration, but Kyōraku placed a hand on his shoulder with a plop and smiled.

"You can rest assured. After all, it appears that the budget will be completely handled by that noble clan."

"Really!?"

If that's the case, he considered that it may be an opportunity to use the special edition extra as a pretext to promote the advance notice of the reissue and subscriptions to the regular edition of the magazine; in Hisagi's mind, he began to weigh up the benefits, the implications of which differed from just a moment ago.

However ——

As if to pull him back to reality, Kyōraku’s smiling face then clouded over.

"And, about the new clan head of said noble family…"

"…? Is something wrong, captain commander?"

"…I'm speaking about Tokinada, of the Tsunayashiro clan… you know who he is, right?"

The blood vessels in Shūhei’s body pulsated frantically.

"Tsunayashiro…Tokinada."

Hisagi knows this name too.

With the objective to bring Tōsen Kaname back to their side after he once strayed onto the wrong path, for a time, Hisagi probed deep into the past of Tōsen in an attempt to learn even a little more about him.

The details of the incident in which Tōsen’s close friend was killed is outrageous, the story goes that her husband at the time considered the idea of imprisonment mere folly, and that he continued to live his life comfortably without even receiving an adequate punishment.

"Hold on a moment. Surely that man is supposed to be in the lowest seat of the branch family…?"

"He has risen to the top. Factors such as the time Aizen massacred the Central 46, and the disorder born out of the last war, all worked to his advantage no doubt. Furthermore, last week the head of the Tsunayashiro clan and the family members around him were murdered by assassins, one by one."

"Captain."

Nanao, who had remained silent beside him up till then, raises her voice.

Martial law had been imposed in response to the turmoil surrounding the Tsunayashiro clan assassinations, Nanao couldn’t imagine it a good idea to carelessly reveal information to Hisagi even though he held the position of Vice Captain.

However, holding out a hand to quell Nanao's​ objection, Kyōraku daringly continues to speak.

"I won’t speak from conjecture. Nevertheless, it was Tsunayashiro Tokinada who completely annihilated those assassins by himself, with that meritorious deed in hand, he was then promoted from the lineage of the branch family. Conveniently, all members of the head house are no more… that's how the story goes."

Contrary to Kyōraku’s opening remark, the suggestion in his words were the kind where anyone could decipher 'the true culprit behind the assassination scandal and his goals', regardless of who was listening to it. Of course Hisagi was no exception and he gradually raised his eyebrows in discomfort during the course of the conversation.

"I know about him too. I think you've already come to realise this, but he is the sort of man who can do that kind of thing without compunction.”

At those words, not only Hisagi but even Nanao and Kensei expressed a little surprise, judging by Okikiba Genshirō who maintained a deep silence, it seems he agreed with Kyōraku’s words too.

Hisagi and Nanao were surprised because those words just now did not seem to reflect the speech and conduct of the usual Kyōraku who seldom speaks poorly of others.

Perhaps having noticed this predicament, Kyōraku let a wry smile laced with self-mockery play on his face before forming his words.

"Come now, not even I, am a man of noble character. It's just a matter of one or two men who I don't see eye to eye with."

Then, Kyōraku’s smile disappeared once again, he threw a question at Hisagi with a serious look in his eye.

"To sum it up, we have been instructed to issue a special edition celebrating his… Tsunayashiro Tokinada’s inauguration. Hisagi kun…… can you do it?"

[skateurgency]

Netflix Death Note 2/10

I watched this POS. I watched all of it. I forced a friend to watch it with me because I couldn’t go through it alone.

I couldn’t go more than 5 minutes without pausing it to sCREAm at how poorly it captured the original. I dented my wall guys. I became so enraged seeing one of my favorite series brought this low. It destroyed its source material and left behind the worst adaptation yet of Death Note and just an all around poor quality film. If you haven’t seen Death Note and are afraid of spoiling the source material with this film, don’t worry! Maybe 7% is the same. Maybe. However, there will be spoilers below.

Oh Boy. It was hard to get through. There as just so much wrong with it. Light’s a little bitch. Ryuk is barely there. Misa, aka Mia, is one of the most unlikable charterers I have seen in a long time. Granted, I didn’t care much for Misa Misa in the manga, but Mia took it from indifference to strong dislike. Mr. Turner (Light’s dad in this version. I can’t recall a first name) is such an unlikable man. Also, a plot point is that Light’s mom is dead and he doesn’t have a sister so you know right there that the whole Mellow arc is basically scrapped.

Now I know that this was an “adaptation” of the manga, and an Americanized version. There may have been a few too many creative liberties used because almost nothing followed the source material. It seemed more like a bad high school drama than Death Note. Hell, an important scene takes place at a homecoming dance. Light Yagami (Turner) at a homecoming dance. Talking about the Death Note in BROAD FUCKING DAYLIGHT.

After watching the film I made a comment to my friend that you could have taken out Ryuk from the film and it wouldn’t have changed the plot one bit. Except we would have been spared the scene of Light shrieking in fear and cowering under a desk. If you’ve made a Death Note adaptation that could easily remove the shinigami and nothing would be different, you know that you messed up right there.

Speaking of Ryuk, he is an odd presence in the film. He is no longer bound to the owner of the death note, instead it seems like he comes and goes while he pleases. Also, now he can only be seen by the owner of the death note, not just anyone who touches it. Thus Misa (Mia) can never see or talk to him throughout the film, which leads to some odd exchanges. Unlike the manga Ryuk, this one never goes in to the boredom speech. Remember when Light asks what he did to receive such a great power and Ryuk tells him it was just dumb luck that he picked it up, Ryuk just dropped it because he was bored? Yeah, there was none of that. There isn’t the scene of Ryuk telling Light that if he uses the death note that he won’t go to heaven or hell, and that Ryuk will be the one to kill him in the end. I always liked that scene in the manga, it gave Light’s choices more weight.  Ryuk honestly... doesn’t do much at all. He eats some apples, that’s pretty neat. Ummm... he has a nice line at the very end of the film... I think that’s it, asides from Light screaming or threatening him a few times.

Which really bothered me. Like, REALLY bothered me. This movie screws up shinigami death, along with a lot of the rules of the death note. Light tells Ryuk he’ll write his name down in the death note, and Ryuk just tells him “the most anyone ever got was two letters.” You can’t kill a shinigami by just writing their name down. There’s only a handful of beings that know how to kill one, two of them being Ryuk and Rem, who isn’t in the film at all. Yes, a shinigami can die if thery forget to put names down, but a way to kill one is by having a shinigami extend the life of a human they care for when that human’s life was supposed to be up. Rem’s friend does this for Misa Misa and then brings her his death note per his request. Not like any of that comes up in this film. Misa (Mia) never gets a death note, never becomes the second kira, and never gets there eyes. Because oh yeah, something key like the shinigami eyes and this girl being so in love she quarters her life span for a guy doesn’t make it in to this film.

A few other rules are off though, such as the way ownership works. The film makes it no longer Ryuk’s death note and has a scene about how it will pass from human to human (I don’t remember the specifics and I’m not about to watch it again) after a certain amount of days. I also do not think the owner loses their memory. There’s also this odd clause that if you write a name down but later destroy the page before it happens the death will be cancelled. But you can only do this once. This becomes a major plot point for the film when it isn’t at all in the manga (that I recall. Feel free to correct me on this.) Also, you apparently don’t need the right names because Light fucking writes down Watari as fucking Watari AND IT WORKS. WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY?

This is getting very long winded because I have a lot of rage, so I’m going to break this down by issues I had with each character and how off they were from their manga counterparts.

L - I’ll start of positive. For the most part, I liked L. The actor was much better than his rival, and made L seem human. His performance was a highlight. My main issue with L was the weird limo scene with some odd neon shades and asking Watari to sing him to sleep. It also upset me that he showed his actual face in a press junket. They focused more on his candy than how brilliant L actually is. Both he and Light don’t seem to be anywhere near as intelligent as they should be. In the film there is scenes of L coping with the loss of a friend that wasn’t in the manga since L and Watari die at about the same time. It was actually nice to see and made L seem a little more warm and human.

Watari - Good actor, gave a good performance. Odd casting choice in my opinion? Watari was one of the few Japanese actors in the cast when he’s playing the only non Japanese character. Watari was an old English gentleman. His name is Quillish Whammy for fuck’s sake. The actor gave the roll a good go, unfortunately it was just written poorly and most of his scenes take place at what looks like an old horror movie set.

Ryuk - I already touched on Ryuk previously. The VA did a fine job, he actually looked pretty decent. Sadly, his lines are all pretty worthless and for the most part he just makes Light nearly piss himself when he shows up.

Mr. Yagami (Mr. Turner) - This man is such a fuck. I disliked him so much. I really respected Yagami in the manga. He made tough decisions and was ready to do what he must to catch Kira. In fact, he quits the police force in near disgrace to fight Kira. That scene where he asks L to confine him as well because his son is confined in suspicion of being Kira? That scene where he is prepared to shoot his son and then himself? His father trading for the eyes but never using the death note on Mellow because he still wants to redeem him? Yagami being a good, developed character? Yeah, none of that. Instead we got tense conversations between him and Light because they don’t like each other. We get him choking L out at a family dinner because L says Light is Kira and Yagami abandoning L to protect his son at all costs. He even finds out his son is for a fact Kira and does nothing. 

Misa Misa Amane (Mia) - Boy did I dislike Misa in this film. The first scene is her being a cheerleader but being too “over life” to do the cheers? God, she is such an unlikeable, uncharasmatic bitch in this film. That’s such a big change from bratty but cute and bubbly superstar model Misa Misa. The actress had very little charm in her delivery. A lot of her scenes were of her trying to convince Light to kill more. A lot of them. Most of her scenes in the later half of the movie. She seemed to be going for a Harley Quinn vibe, complete with a “normal people scare me” hung up in her locker. Misa steals pages from the death note (since she doesn’t have her own) and sneaks behind Light’s back to kill the FBI agents trailing them. She also writes Light’s name down in the death note, to try and gain ownership of it. It honestly seemed like Light and Misa’s personalities were switched from what they were in the manga. Maybe it was to try and make her a strong female character, but it fell flat. What I found was one of the major characteristics of manga Mia was that she loved Light. She would do anything for Light, such as trading for the eyes twice or giving up her death note and memories when Light asks her to. This Misa seems to care much less for Light and more about the death note and killing. It doesn’t make her endearing to the audience, I don’t know what they were trying to do with her.

Light Yagami (Light Turner) - Where to begin. The acting was quite weak. The boy can scream and cry and beg, that’s for sure. However, he’s playing Light. There should have been no need for any of that. If only. I think what upset me most was that this film didn’t make Light seem smart. He does people’s tests for them at school and... that’s it. That’s where you’re supposed to infer that he’s a brilliant top of his class, getting primed for great things. Film version Light isn’t liked at school where as manga Light isn’t super popular, but he has friends. He has girls ask him out a few times. There’s some dialogue between Ryuk and Light about how popular he is with the ladies. Whereas Film Light is pretty much alone except for deranged Misa. There’s also no secrecy about the death note. He fucking has it in his lap during gym class, just chilling there. Misa asks what it is and he shows her how to use it. Just like that. They talk about it and killing people constantly out in public or in classes. It’s so unrealistic. Light doesn’t try to hide anything. On his first time meeting L he confesses to being Kira, just like that. He confesses it to his dad later on as well. He has a few exchanges with Misa about how much he wants to give up the death note and run way together because he loves her. After all, there was a montage of them making out while writing down names, it’s true love. The climax of the movie has Light writing down “if Misa takes the note book from me she will die” and Light telling her “it’s the notebook or me.” She chooses the notebook and you see him sob “I never thought you would take it!! I thought you loved me!!” and it’s so very manga Misa Misa. Light acts like the worst parts of manga Misa. He’s always ready to just give up and cry under a desk. The only good thing he does in this film is kill Misa.

One of the brilliant things Death Notes does is it challenged the reader about what is truly good and evil. Reading it for the first time I remember siding with Light up until he makes the jump to killing anyone after him. Then I was with L and the SPK. But then L dies. The leader of the “good side” dies and Light has his iconic “I win” panel. The whole world turns to Kira in support, and the reader does once again. He won out, he must be the good force after all. Then Near and Mellow show up and once again the reader is unsure of who to support. Mellow uses such underhanded tactics and causes Mr. Yagami’s death so he can’t be good. Near was a little kid so by virtue he had to be good, although personally I dislike Near. L and Mellow grew on me, Near didn’t. At this point Kira can’t be attributed solely to Light as he has Mikami and Misa working for him, but Kira is the bad guy again to the reader. The reader is thrown back and forth with who they support as things develop, but the characters themselves still fully believe that they all are what is good. The side of justice. The SPK thinks that they are in the right by bringing Kira down. Kira thinks that he is right by serving out justice and acting as god. It makes the reader really, really question what they think about right and wrong.

This movie version stripped that away. I never got the feeling that Light believes he is actually doing the right thing. He constantly is questioning their actions and wanting to stop. The viewer never thinks Light is in the right for a second, the viewer never wants him to win. You never have to question is Kira’s justice right or wrong.

I think what sums it up better than I could is the difference between these two scenes (Please note I do not have my copy of the book on hand and I’m not rewatching the film so this is from memory. Words may not be exact but the overall sentence is). In the manga Light comments “They have chosen to call him Kira. I don’t particularly like it as it sounds similar to the American word for killer, which is not what Kira does, he is justice.” In the film, Light states “I chose the name Kira because it’s close to the Japanese word for killer.” There ya go. Light chooses (CHOOSES) the name Kira because it sounds like a nice edgy name that is a word for murderer, which Light views himself as.

Bottom line, don’t watch it unless you too want to be upset. L, Watari, sometimes Ryuk, and the plethora of awful snapchat stickers my friend and I got were the highlights.

 2/10 - just not no chip scene, barely any scenes from the manga.

[xyliane]

life and death and love and

summary: yusuke and botan have a conversation about immortality. because neither of them are good at decorum, they have it over kuwabara’s grave. kuwabara wouldn’t care. probably.

notes: hello yu yu hakusho, my first fandom, my forever love, home to my favorite shonen protagonist and favorite mentor in anything. @wuzzyletoastermac is a terrible influence. gen, looooong post-series, discussions of death. yusuke and botan brotp, 1800 words

----

Yusuke stops aging at some point. Or stops aging visibly at least—he never looks as dignified and ageless as Kurama, or as young and pissy as Hiei, instead wavering between too young to drink and too old to not know better. But eventually, Kuwabara looks at him, dressed in old jeans that shouldn’t be as flexible as they are, then back to himself with salt streaks in his red hair, and says, “Shit, Urameshi, you stay young and you still don’t look as good as me.”

Then there’s a time when someone mistakes him for Keiko’s grandson and she still hasn’t stopped giving him shit for it. Decades dead, and Botan is still popping by with messages: Yusuke do you still have a thing for older women? Is that your big secret?

It is her fault, too, ripping into his ear for not showing up for her birthday party just because Demon World had been a little preoccupied with an influx of stupid in the form of militant invaders from another dimension, like a video game gone terribly bad. She’s eighty-one. She’s had eighty-one birthdays, she’d have eighty-one more if Yusuke has anything to say about it.

Needless to say, she doesn’t. If there’s one thing Yusuke’s learned in his impossible life, it’s that people die, and most of the time, they stay dead. Him and Kurama, he’s still not sure if they’re the lucky ones, or the ones that got scammed.

(Yusuke makes sure Botan gives Keiko a deathday card every year, now. He’s sure it makes her laugh, and if she ever wants to be reborn, Yusuke is sure he’ll keep sending them. Birthdays, deathdays—they’ll become unwieldy after a while, but he’s got a long time to worry about that.)

(For now, she stays dead and nags him from beyond the grave, beyond worlds. Yusuke can’t believe he loves her.)

Demons have an odd view of their own mortality, or lack of it. Yusuke first realizes this with Raizen, who for all his centuries is still fixated on years that soar by like fireworks, bright and brilliant and gone in a flash. Moments that shape his life, ignorant of the decades and centuries that lie between. Yusuke, still a baby in comparison if not in strength, can’t help but feel the years slipping through his fingers, each one staying in his memory even as some things begin to blur. It’s scary in a way he’s not used to, something he can’t fight against and isn’t sure he wants to.

“What’s it like to, you know. Live forever?” he asks Botan, offering her a smoke over Kuwabara’s grave. It’s been a few years now, and the dipshit is still insisting on haunting Yusuke’s thoughts. Absolutely unfair, really—it’s not like they don’t see each other, not with Koenma blatantly ignoring Yusuke’s irregular stints of breaking and entering Spirit World unless the brat needs something.

One day, Yusuke will admit he does it because he misses them, Kuwabara and Keiko and even the old hag. For now, he still looks young enough that a little B&E is excusable as a weird sort of early-demonhood rebellion.  

Botan crinkles her nose at the stench of burning nicotine. She’s perched on Kuwabara’s gravestone like it’s a posh throne, absolutely no care to deference of the graveyard or the cat toys half-buried in front of the grave. Maybe Yusuke’s finally rubbed off on her, but more likely she’s more comfortable in a graveyard than anywhere else in the human world. Someone smarter would have something to say about the boundaries between life and death, but Yusuke’s not that sort of person. “I’d think Kurama would be a better advisor on this subject,” she says delicately.

“Kurama’s in the same boat as me. We don’t die, but we already did, and who knows, maybe I’ll go three for three one of these days. I’ve pissed off enough people.” Yusuke takes another pull, smoke wafting in front of his nose. “Besides, I tried asking him already. He just gave me that annoyingly smug smile he gets when he doesn’t know the answer and told me to give it time.”

Botan giggles. “That does sound like Kurama.”

“Look, I asked other people too,” Yusuke huffs, counting on his fingers everyone he’s tried. “Enki and Kokou were too busy planning the next tournament, and I don’t think they really understood the question anyways, since we can die if we get punched hard enough. Hokushin and the monks went all zen guru on me again. Yukina practically gave me a dissertation on the power of life and made me babysit her twins again—one of them has Kuwabara’s hair and Hiei’s personality, and it makes my head hurt. The angry gremlin himself just did his grr I am angry piss off thing he does when he's not sure what to say. And I tried asking Jin and Chu, but they don’t seem to understand the idea of mortality at all. Fucking fight-happy dumbasses.”

It’s a sign of their decades of friendship that Botan restrains herself from more comment than, “They are the fight-happy dumbasses.”

Yusuke flips her off with his free hand. “So I’m asking you. If anyone knows what living forever’s like, it’s a shinigami, right?”

She laughs, bell-like. “I suppose I can see your point.”

And then it’s quiet again, birds chirping and leaves rustling. For all that Yusuke’s stopped aging, Botan never has. She’s always looked as old as she needed to, not so much like Koenma’s drastic physical change but just…fitting in. Never too old to be a kid’s friend, never too young to be an elder’s confidant. It might be magic, but Yusuke’s pretty sure it’s just Botan.

Yusuke finishes his cigarette and stabs it out on the dirt in front of Kuwabara’s epitaph. “So?” he demands.

“Hush you, I’m thinking.” She props her chin up on her hand, elbow on her knee and foot on the tombstone, like some perky gargoyle.

“If this is you thinking, maybe I don’t want to live forever. It’s like watching a loading screen.”

“Some of us actually use our brains on occasion,” she says. A strand of blue hair falls out of her ponytail, wafting on the breeze. She twists it around her finger.

“I’m more of a concept than a person, you know?” she says. “Death. Shinigami. Yamaduta. Grim reapers. We exist as we do because people think us that way, part of the wheel of life and death. We keep the cycle moving. Don’t want it getting clogged up, after all.”

Yusuke snorts. “So I…thought of death as a hyperactive blue haired girl? Puu aside, that does not sound like me. Definitely not fourteen-year-old me. I was a shithead.”

She laughs. “No, no. Nothing so personal as that. Many people prefer the concept of death as a terror, anyways, something to be feared and hidden. But we…I will live forever because death will always exist, and people remember that it exists. And if people believe death to be manifest, well. Someone has to do the job.”

“It definitely won’t be Koenma.” The thought of toddler-sized Koenma attempting to corral lost souls into the Spirit World is almost enough to cackle at.

“And I certainly don’t want his job. Or Jorge’s, for that matter. All of that paperwork.” She makes a face, nose scrunched and tongue out. “But I will live forever, because there are people to believe in me, and because there is a system that needs me. I’m an extension of more than just my thoughts.”

She hops off the tombstone, narrowly avoiding a kitten plushie an angry red-headed boy had placed there not too long ago. (Yusuke is, of course, sworn to absolute secrecy over this, but he doesn’t mind. He held Hiei’s secret long enough, holding onto Kuwabara’s spawn’s is actual child’s play. And if the kid’s anything like Hiei or Kuwabara, the blackmail potential will be endless.)

“So what does that make me?” Yusuke asks, neck cracking as he looks up at Botan. “I’m not ferrying anyone across any rivers anytime soon, not even if Koenma tries to hire me again. That’s a shit gig.”

Like he’s fourteen and stupid, rather than decades and aware of his stupid, Botan bops him on the nose. “It makes you who you are, Yusuke. And remember, you’re as immortal as I am, in your own way. As Keiko is, or Kuwabara, or Kurama or Hiei or the rest of your ‘fight-happy dumbasses.’ As anyone you love, and loves you.”

He considers this for a moment, turning the thought over. “You know Botan,” Yusuke says slowly. “You’re pretty smart. But you’re also full of shit.”

She laughs again and ruffles his slicked-back hair. He throws his arms over his head, attempting and failing to protect himself. Being a questionably immortal demon with nearly infinite power means keeping up appearances, especially since most of the demons he knows have never heard of the concept of hair gel and can get away with it on a mixture of spite, sarcasm, and whatever’s in the air in Demon World. “Botan!” he protests, feeling as bratty as he sounds.

Satisfied with her work, Botan leans back and summons her oar, hopping onto it in midair. “I love you too, Yusuke. And if I live forever, so will you, even after you do something stupid to get yourself killed again and Koenma makes me drag you kicking and screaming across the river.”

He leans back, propping himself up on his hands and crossing his legs. “Take your time, I guess,” he says.

She hovers there for a moment, obviously waiting for something. “Do you want a ride back?” she asks. She doesn’t specify where back is supposed to be: back to Demon World, back to his old home, back somewhere he never quite fit in but damn if he didn’t try.

Yusuke pulls himself to his feet, dusting off his jeans and pulling a comb out of his jacket. “Nah. I’ve got a family visit this afternoon. Gonna check in on the twerps, see how they’re doing.” He tosses the rest of his cigarettes onto Kuwabara’s grave, where they scatter over the plushie and the cat toys. He’s almost tempted to light them on fire, just to be ornery. He’s a moderately-sized scary demon from hell—youthful appearances and doting grandkids aside. “Tell Keiko I say…Well, you know. I love her, I miss her, all that. Kuwabara too.”

“Of course.” And she’s gone, off into the sky in a dash of blue hair and grins, her kimono manifesting halfway into the scattered clouds. It’s a nice day, sunny and bright despite the early spring chill. Kuwabara would’ve loved it, the old romantic.

Not Keiko, though. She preferred summer storms.

Yusuke sighs and jams his hands into his pockets, nose tilted to the sky. Maybe he is getting old, if he’s thinking about stuff like this. Well, there are worse things.

[rhysgfrelsa-eudyptula]

Gundam Wing fanfiction AU with a bit of GI Joe influence (blame BHG she a*muse*d me into it. XD) Pairings: 1x2 (eventually), 3x4 (sorry old hat but can't do better this story), 5x6 (eventually) Rating: explicit (cussing, eventual yaoi lemons, guns, tanks, 'splodeys.... Don't try this at home kids it ain't pretty.) Chapter 1: Cobra Commander Plays “Capture The Tanks” Heero and the other GI-Gundams with him bounced along the sands of the Arabian desert in their two Leo Humvees, the two Trago tanks and one Vayeate tank taking longer to get to their destination. Heero wondered about the Intel, not sure how reliable this “Wizard of OZ” was. When they were close to their coordinates, the Leos stopped just behind some dunes that hid them quite well. Heero and the others get out, Heero belly crawling nearly to the top of the dune and looked towards their target. /Targets appear unaware./ Wing Zero informs in a metallic, monotonous voice through the tiny speaker embedded into his right ear canal. “Prime target status?” Heero inquires. /Unknown, stand by./ Wing Zero replies. Flash, clad as per usual in black light body armor over their usual blue with white (silver) trim bodysuits, belly crawls up next to Heero. “Any word?” “Negative. Awaiting confirmation.” Heero states. “Status of the Tragos and Vayeate?” “Ten klicks south of us, sir.” Breaker says after belly crawling up to the other side of Flash, the comms system on his back making him look like a square shelled tortoise, it was wired into his helmet which had a mouthpiece hanging near the right corner of his mouth, over his blue and white (silver) bodysuit. /Target acquired. Cobra Commander confirmed. Ten yards Northwest of your current coordinates./ Wing Zero announces in his ear. Heero swings his binoculars over, and as Wing Zero said, plain as day, stood the Cobra Commander with Storm Shadow at his right side…. The two as different as night and day. Cobra Commander was clad in a skin tight black body suit with a face concealing black hood, the Cobra emblem was emblazoned in bright blood red on the hood and on the left pectoral of the bodysuit, and obviously armed to the teeth with thigh holsters, back holsters and hip holsters carrying a small variety of guns and knives of varying sizes. Heero was willing to bet that the knee high shitkicker boots also concealed knives if not small pistols. Storm Shadow, on the other hand, was clad in a resplendent white body suit and a half mask covering his face from the bridge of his nose down and a close fitting hood. Storm Shadow was more obviously armed to the teeth, possibly because the black weaponry stood out more on the white than Cobra Commander's did. Not to mention the rather noticeable katana strapped to Storm Shadow's back. Heero couldn't tell which one stood out the most... they stood out spectacularly on the light tan sands of the desert. Meanwhile on Cobra's side of the oil field... /Enemy Leos in position ten yards southeast of you, two of them. And two Tragos and one Vayeate approaching from the same direction about ten klicks from our location. Recommended action, disable or destroy. For best results, those sticky bombs, smoke bombs and grenades that you stashed away. A game of “capture the tanks” would give us a bargaining tool to keep those Global Idiots of Gundam safe and keep those asshole scientists at bay./ Deathscythe informs Cobra Commander through the tiny speaker embedded into Cobra Commander's left ear, though he could have used the one in the right also. “Ez şa me, ku tu ji min re da baş dizanin, hevalekî kevn min ên hezkirî im.”1 Cobra Commander says, keeping his voice as low as he can. “Did you say something?” Storm Shadow asks, turning towards him, onyx eyes examining him like an entomologist examines some super rare species of dragonfly pinned to a pinning board. Cobra Commander suspected that the Chinese man was not as he seemed. He knew the man was Chinese from the look of his almond shaped eyes and also from the formal Mandarin and swearing in Taiwanese or Vietnamese he had caught the man doing every now and then. No proper Chinese would dare swear in Mandarin, it just wasn't done. Cobra Commander had his suspicions because everything the man did made his own instincts scream “cop” and “law enforcement”. As such, Cobra Commander didn't confide nearly as much in the man as any person would to their right hand man. When you can't trust those truly in charge, it was severely bothersome not to be able to trust his right hand man. “Just talking to myself, busy mind and all that.” Cobra Commander replies airily, waving Storm Shadow off with his hand in a negligent manner. “You keep these idiot grunts working as long as you can. I need to go elsewhere.” Storm Shadow looked at him askance. “Don't give me that look. Do as you are told, unless you want to find out personally what I do to those who question my orders and my decisions.” Cobra Commander states irritably. Storm Shadow shrugs one shoulder and looks away from Cobra Commander. Cobra Commander was tempted to slap him on the back of his head... tempted, but he had things to do... namely disabling tanks, before they could turn things into a FUBAR day. Cobra Commander then made his way to one of the supply trucks, the one that still had it's ramp conveniently attached. He had ordered it that way in case they should have company... of the irritating kind. When he entered he walked along one of the walls near the rear door, looking for the sticky bombs, smoke bombs and grenades that he had stashed. Sure enough, they were all right where he had stashed them, between the chains marked “CHA” and the oscillators marked “OS”... Cobra Commander smirked to himself at the inside joke. Chaos should have been his middle name. Duo Chaos Maxwell... it had a nice ring to it. He chuckled at his own joke and placed six sticky bombs, four smoke bombs, and a couple grenades into the small saddlebags that he had installed on the tail of the motorcycle that was also sitting in the truck. He had only allowed his own personnel load the motorcycle into the truck, Yazidi people whom he called family, about three currently with him, four others he had forbidden to ever accompany him, not counting the young-ins. He knew women were capable, but he respected them and wanted to keep them safe. The motorcycle itself had been loaded in, despite the odd looks it received, just because the other Cobras weren't smart enough to be inventive or able to figure out ways to deal with things, doesn't mean he wasn't or couldn't. He knew he'd need something small, fast and open to him being able to reach things from the vehicle, a motorcycle was a perfect tool. This motorcycle however, was more than just a motorcycle, it was a gorgeous black and green Kawasaki Ninja H2R, considered the most mental of all super bikes, it was not pretty. It possessed a deadly beauty that no other bike could match. It was the masterpiece of Kawasaki, in Cobra Commander's opinion. If Lamborghini had a Japanese bike building cousin, Kawasaki would be it. The H2R looked aggressive, like it wanted to tear you limb from limb... and kick your ass with a steel toed boot. Cobra Commander lovingly strokes his fingers along the top of the H2R. It was lean, mean and deadly, like himself. It was said that no mere mortal could handle it, such was especially true about this particular bike. /Good thing I am Shinigami, not any mere mortal./ Cobra Commander thinks. If motorcycles were angels, the H2R would be Lucifer, on his way to hell. Which was why he named it after the most famous fallen angel, though nicknamed it Lu. It was one of his pride and joys, having built and tweaked it by hand from scratch from the tires up. And like the H2R from Kawasaki, he didn't even bother trying to make it street legal. He had built it to the same exacting specifications as Kawasaki did... plus some tweaks here and there that made it even meaner than Kawasaki's version. Considering the nine hundred thousand US dollar price tag, he had decided that building the thing himself would be a much better option than buying one and tweaking it. Once he was done with the tanks, Lu would then be loaded into his personal helicopter.... he never left any of his babies behind, much to the irritation of the scientists, not that he really cared what the old troglodyte codgers thought of him. When he wanted to get the job done, the job got done. It wasn't his fault if their visions of world domination were idiotic at best to him. He had his own plans to accomplish. He straddled the H2R, pulling off the glove on his left hand to place his hand on the touch pad just above the gas tank, one quick scan later and Lu snarled to a start and then purred beneath him. He put his glove back on and revved the beast. Lu snarled and trilled, giving a buck as if eager to be off and running, this gave him a stab of pride in his heart, his bike was as wild as he, himself was. Cobra Commander had a Shinigami smile as he disengaged the kickstand and gave Lu some throttle... the H2R lurched like a nightmarish version of a racehorse at the opening of the starting gate, giving him the sensation of flying. He roared out of the supply truck, the few Cobra grunts nearby shuddered in fear as Cobra Commander's wild laughter made them think of the bony fingers of death reaching for them or the feeling of someone walking on their graves. He rode out, taking a longer more roundabout route before turning Lu to aim where the tanks were expected to be, becoming a black comet racing over the surface of the desert sands. /Anomaly detected. Cobra Commander appears to be on his way to the tanks... he is approaching 200 miles per hour./ Wing Zero alerts Heero. “K'so.” Heero spits out. “Something wrong, Sir?” Flash asks/ “What do you know can get up to around 200 miles and hour in less than ten minutes?” Heero asks. “Unless he has a rocket strapped to his ass, I'd say a really fast motorcycle on a suicide run.” Barricade speaks up from where he was leaning against one of the Leos. “Warn the tanks.” Heero orders. “Too late.” Breaker says as he starts hearing the tanks broadcast a general 'What the fuck is that?' over the radio. Heero wanted to wait for the tanks, they would be a turning point, he knew. “What do we do?” Ban'zai asks from the second Leo. “We wait.” Heero says grimly. /That is Wufei's opinion as well, he doesn't know what Cobra Commander is up to, he was simply told to keep the grunts working. Nataku relayed his opinion./ Wing Zero says. The roar of Lu's engine and the whine of it's supercharger would have been all the warning the tanks would have received, had they been able to hear it, before pulling an all stop and nearly making themselves dizzy spinning their turrets to try to catch a glimpse of the black, angry comet that was now bedeviling them. “Flint, you got visuals?” Steeler, one of the Trago commanders asks the other Trago commander through their coms. “Other than what had looked like some kind of wicked, angry, black comet? No. Thunderwing?” Flint replies and adds a question in to the Vayeate commander. Thunderwing snorts, “Are you kidding? I'd have an easier time playing prairie dog just to spot this devil.” Cobra Commander couldn't help himself, really... it was too damned funny, watching the turrets spin round and round so fast as he lapped them laughing gleefully. But he had to get this done, he grabbed the first sticky bomb from the saddlebags and slowed his speed as he turned to one of the Tragos, popping the seal for the sticky bomb, it's protective metal casing dropping to the sands as he moved in to reveal the gluey, sticky softball sized explosive that was it's name. He was lucky that the tanks had stopped while trying to figure out what he was, he slowed down to nearly a crawl as soon as he was on the right side of the farthest Trago. He opted to stick the bomb onto the top of the track rather than throw it before the gunned the H2R's throttle and raced away. He made a wide circle as he pulled another sticky bomb from the saddlebags. The first bomb goes off with a bright white flash, the bang sound as if a hakkotsu thunder b grenade had gone off a mere five feet away from his head and a puff of dark grey smoke that seemed to pelt twisted and shattered track onto the sands like a bad parody of rain. He starts forward again, this time aiming for the second Trago. “Goddammit, I'm hit but with what? Who or what is this damned thing?” Steeler yells and growls. “I can't tell, it hit your other side.” Flint replies. “Most likely it is Cobra Commander and probably on a motorcycle if his speed was any indication.” Breaker tells them over the radio. “Sonofabitch.” Steeler growls. The black comet slows once again as it gets in between the two Tragos, zipping away with a snarl and a trill leaving another sticky bomb on the second Trago's right side track. As he made the wide turn, the bomb went off, another bright white flash, loud bang, puff of smoke but with the added sound of the resultant shrapnel pinging and clanging as it pelted the side of the first Trago as well. “Damn this son of a bitch.” Flint growls. “That little demon got your tracks.” Steeler says with a growl. “Which means he probably already hit your tracks.” Flint responds, fuming. While they were busy talking, Cobra Commander was busier. He turned towards his last victim, the Vayeate and smirks under his hood and mask as he grabbed two sticky bombs from his saddlebags, popping the metal casings off of them, slowing as he got to the Vayeate's left side. “That means he's after mine now!” Thunderwing growls, giving the orders to move the Vayeate. Indeed he was... but even as the Vayeate started to lurch forward, the two bombs were already stuck on the larger Vayeate's track, and Cobra Commander had already moved over to about one hundred feet behind the second Trago he had hit, the middle one. He pulled out three handmade M-18 smoke bombs and a hand grenade from the saddlebags and started to juggle them. The two sticky bombs explode, almost at the same time, the double flash was nearly enough to blind Cobra Commander, the double bang was almost loud enough to make his ears ring, almost. But the sound of twisted and broken tracks pelting the sands made him chuckle, even as the Vayeate tried to move forward. The slack in the track made it lurch and it stopped immediately. “Where the fuck is he?” Thunderwing hollers as the double bang reverberated in the Vayeate. “I'm gonna rip his arms off and beat him with it! I'm gonna strip his hide off in strips!” Thunderwing continues to rant and rave. “Easy now, Thunderwing, it's only one guy.” Steeler surprisingly tries to soothe. “Dude, even I know not to even dare look at much less touch Thunderwing's baby.” Flint replies. “WHERE IS HE?!?” Thunderwing roars. Cobra Commander pulls the pin from the hand grenade and while still juggling the smoke bombs one handed, chucks the hand grenade at the middle Trago, it lands on top of the turret and Cobra Commander goes back to juggling the smoke bombs. The resultant blast actually does make his ears ring this time, but he doesn't stop grinning from ear to ear, not that anyone could see his maniacal cheshire cat grin. “He's got to be nearby.” Flint says rather loudly as the grenade actually made his own ears ring. “On the count of three, we pop our heads up and see if we can spot him” Steeler says. “One” Thunderwing growls. “Two” Flint says, still a little too loudly. “Three” Steeler says. They all pop their heads out of the top at the same time.... only to see something drop into each of the tanks, one by one as Cobra Commander pulls the pins and chucks the smoke bombs right down each hatch. “What the fuck you little shit! I'm going to kill you!” Thunderwing roars as purple smoke starts filling each tank and billowing out the top. Unable to breathe in the smoke, all four from each tank have no choice but to rush out. As they rush out, Steeler, Flint and Thunderwing try to find Cobra Commander. The sound of a gun being cocked startled all of them. Thunderwing found himself the recipient of the muzzle of a SIG SUAER Legion pressed to his left temple. An arm wrapped around his neck, making him bend a little to accommodate the surprisingly shorter Cobra Commander. “You sonofabitch I'm gonna kill you.” Thunderwing growls. “How are you gonna do that? I'm not the one with a gun pressed to my head now am I? As for the rest of you.... disarm yourselves, just toss them near my lovely bike... hurt the bike and I'll shoot a body part.” Cobra Commander orders. They all do as he says, not without some nearly disasterous moves but when Cobra Commander's finger tightened just a fraction on the trigger, they thought twice. Once everyone was disarmed, Thunderwing included, Cobra Commander moved his head in a way to indicate movement from them. “Good, now go over there behind that first Trago, about one hundred feet and sit down all nice and slow like and put your hands on your heads.” Cobra Commander says. “You won't get away with this, bad guys never do.” The driver of the Vayeate growls. “Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.” Cobra Commander simply says, ironically quoting Ash from the Evil Dead series. /The tank haulers and personnel are on their way, they should be here in about ten minutes./ Deathscythe informs Cobra Commander. “While we wait for some more playmates, who's up for a round of Kumbaya?” Cobra Commander suggests cheerfully as he swings Thunderwing around and lets him go, making the guy stumble into the rest of the group. He pulls out another SIG SAUER Legion and cocks it. “Just so you know... they are set to PewPewPew. Which means I can shoot as many bullets with one squeeze as are loaded into the mag. Don't tempt me.” Cobra Commander warns, he keeps at least one gun trained on them as he straddles the H2R and turns it to face them. He leans on the handlebars and points both guns at them in an almost careless fashion. The group of 9 men glares at Cobra Commander who sighs. “Which way would you want to do this then?” He asks irritably. “You get to keep your lives but lose the tanks or you get to lose your lives and still lose the tanks. Your choice. I surprisingly prefer to let you all live and just take the big toys away from you. Don’t let your foolish pride make me do something I would surprisingly rather not do. Hell, I even offered to sing Kumbaya with you all. I hate that song. I prefer Five Finger Death Punch or Bring Me The Horizon or Disturbed… not some stupid campfire classic that no one likes.” Cobra Commander rants. “Why do you care anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be the bad guy?” Flint asks. “I am the bad guy, in everyone’s eyes. I am also the pain in the ass thorn in the side of the ones who seek to tell me what to do in the Cobra organization. What I am about, I can’t tell you, nor do I want to. You’ll just have to be happy with the fact that despite everything, I don’t want people to die because of all this. At least, not you GI guys. And I won’t explain why either.” Cobra Commander says. “I won’t forgive you, you hurt my baby.” Thunderwing growls. “Mmhmm and I am also taking that baby with me, do I really look like I care whether you hate me or not? Please. At least you get to live longer to hate my guts more than what the other Cobras would love to do to you and all other GI Gundam guys.” Cobra Commander says, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly. /5 minutes away./ Deathscythe informs Cobra Commander. Cobra Commander sighs. “But all of you have to admit…. Who else would be crazy enough to take on three tanks with a built by hand, modified H2R and some explosives of varying uses?” Cobra Commander asks and laughs. “No one that we knew of. You’d be the first, and successful, unfortunately.” Steeler grudgingly agrees. The others grudgingly nod their heads in agreement. “And that is what made it so brilliantly successful. No one else is as crazy or naturally adept at all things that go BOOM, except me. Well, that and playing McGuyver every chance I get. Everything I used, I made or modified. Never mess with a tinker, we always invent new ways to get what we want.” Cobra Commander says, a grin could be heard in his voice, the amusement that usually makes one grin anyway. “Who moved the rock and found you?” Thunderwing asks, trying to insult. “No one… some idiot detonated a landmine in the sands of these deserts and out I came.” Cobra Commander says with a laugh, turning one insult away while technically insulting himself. “It is your own faults that all of you come to confront me in my own backyard. No one knows the deserts like I do. And the cities therein.” The could hear the rumbling of the tank tow trucks from nearly a mile away, growing like an incoming thunderstorm. Cobra Commander chuckles. “And here come the repo men for the tanks. Maybe I'll have some fun and tinker with these babies later, could be fun to see if I can’t make them even better than they are.” Cobra Commander says with ideas already in his head on what he wanted to play with as far as modifying the tanks. The GI Guys just might like his modifications, when he gave them back… much later. He wasn’t going to stay with Cobra forever. But no one except himself and a handful of others knew this, and no one else was going to know, until the time was right. The tank tow trucks and crew came rumbling up, crew jumping out to get the tanks up and running before the two trucks had a chance to fully stop. A small group of three came up to Cobra Commander, taking care not to startle him. “Tu çi dixwazî ji me re ji bo ku ez bi wan re, patronê?”2 The biggest one asks, gesturing towards the 9 GI Gundam men. “Wan zindî bihêlin. Tie wan û ji wan re li vir bihêle dema ku tank derkevin. dûman Orange, îşareta yên rizgarkirinê xwe. Paşê helîkopterê min bînin û bar H2R nav it. Ma tevîhev ne, tenê ji van dînên ji morîmaran rast biparêze.”3 Cobra Commander replies in the same language that the other man spoke in, which was Kurdish or Kurmanji. “Ewle bimînin, birayên min. Eger yek ji we werin kuştin, hûn ê ji min re paşê hez ne.” The three chuckle softly and pull out their own weapons to point at the GI Gundam guys as Cobra Commander puts his own away and gives the H2R a quick revv, making the black and green beast give a short snarl and trill. He turns towards the other Cobras. “Get those things fixed and on transport to headquarters within twenty minutes, or all of you will end up on the bad end of the firing squad AFTER I have my pound or twenty of flesh from your sorry carcasses.” Cobra Commander shouts the orders before turning the H2R and heading back to the oil wells to deal with the other 8 GI Gundams that he knew where there, looking more like a black comet than some crazy asshole on a very fast bike. The day wasn’t done yet, but by his reckoning, he was already ahead by three very powerful tanks. That would make those asshole scientists happy, even though he was planning on giving those things back later…. Much later. As a part of his notice of self termination of employ with those assholes. A/N Cobra Commander speaking Kurdish or Kurmanji in order of his speaking: 1. “I am glad that you know me so well, my dear old friend.” 2. “What do you want us to do with them, boss?” 3. “Keep them alive. Tie them up and leave them right here when the tanks leave. Orange smoke, to signal their rescuers. Then bring my helicopter and load the H2R into it. Do not engage, just keep these idiots safe from the real Cobras.” “Stay safe, my brothers. If any of you get shot, you won't like me afterwards.” Why is he speaking Kurdish or Kurmanji? You'll find out soon enough. Entomologist is a person who studies bugs aka insects, arachnids and such. A pinning board is what is used to mount insect/arachnid specimens, can be made of wood, plastic or metal. FUBAR = Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition