Your lives...
-x-
We were in a hallway and heading to meet all the Captains in what I could only assume was an incredibly important meeting. Delays were, while expected, meant to be kept to a bare minimum. To his credit, Gin was a very prompt individual when it came to escorting guests. His Vice-Captains watched us every step of the way, making sure we didn't stray – oh, hey, what's that?
A door in the hallway was open. And inside that door, there was a desk. "Mister Poe?" And on the desk in the open room was an open, rectangular box. "…Mister Poe?" And inside this open, rectangular box on a desk in an open room were chocolates. "Mister Poe." Delicious, amazing chocolates… "Hey, you can't go in there!"
"It'll only be for a second," I assured the short Vice-Captain. Her name wasn't all that important to me at the moment. I think it was Mimi? Something like that – no, wait, it didn't matter. There were chocolates. I grabbed the whole box and walked out of the room with it, "So good…" Was I drooling? I think I was drooling.
"Mister Poe, those chocolates belong to–"
"I'm going to have to stop you right there, Mimi."
"…My name is Momo."
"In other situations, I might care enough to remember." But right now, there was something more important here. More important than anything… let me explain, I didn't drink coffee. I didn't drink tea. So the concept of boosting me up with caffeine was a little outside my range of understanding. When one combined the lack of anything to keep me awake with incredibly long nights consistent with a college life… that left an interesting dilemma.
How would I be able to stay awake late into the night working on assignments without coffee or tea? My solution was chocolate. Chocolate, like coffee, contains caffeine. It also contains sugar and improved my memory and awareness late into the wee hours of the morning. I could stay up until four and be wide awake, pass out for anywhere between three to five hours, then begin my classes while taking naps in between them.
And what would keep me up that late? What would keep me awake in class? Chocolate…
It helped that I absolutely loved chocolate by itself. Not to toot my horn, but I was a chocoholic, a chocolate aficionado, a… well, you get the point. I loved chocolate. It had been so long since I'd had chocolate that a part of me was going through what I felt was akin to withdrawal symptoms. Was that healthy? Probably not. Did I care? Definitely not.
When I walked out of the office of a man whose importance made Mimi stutter with a box of delicious, gourmet chocolates, it felt surprisingly good… the first half-thumb sized piece tasted of gently blended coconut and raspberry, coated in fine, dark chocolate – almost black in its purity and lack of milk – while drizzled gently in threads of white cream. Smooth and carefully crafted with every detail taken into account, truly what I was letting melt upon my tongue was the work of a genuine artisan.
I spat it all over the floor.
"This shit's terrible! I hate coconut. Ugh…!"
And then I moved on to the next chocolate of two dozen. Perhaps this one would be more palatable.
-x-
We were one Captain short. The one with the long white hair… and two swords… I… Forgive me, this man's name left no impression on me. I think it started with a 'K'? If anybody was going to give me candy, it was the man who suffered from the miscellaneous, unnamed illness – the infamous "Not Tuberculosis but Totally Tuberculosis". And since I had a box of chocolates, I just could not be bothered to recall much about him outside the bare necessities – and yes, his name was not a bare necessity.
These people should be thankful I remembered as much about them as I did. I barely offered such a courtesy to people I knew for half my life. In the stifling silence of the room filled with people who could kill me, I opened my mouth to speak and was cut off by an old, bald, wrinkled dragon… with a really awesome beard.
"Yoruichi Shihouin." The tone Yamamoto took was almost impassive. He cared, oh sure, but it felt less like he was pissed and more like he was just remembering her in a way that was unpleasant to him. I decided at this moment that I would call this man 'Commander Grandpa'. Commander Grandpa shifted his head ever-so-slightly to look at "Suì-Fēng…" I was about to say her name, you jackass. Being interrupted mid-thought is the worst – "One of you betrayed us, the other was presumed dead… and now you both appear, as allies, with a group of Ryoka."
He didn't need to say it. This was a man who wanted an explanation. I again opened my mouth to speak and Yoruichi interrupted my line of thought entirely, "Well, in all fairness, we weren't expecting an audience quite like this…"
An honest statement. We did not expect to have a meeting with all the Captains – just Commander Grandpa. Was this a pleasant surprise? Well, I guess it could be considered as one.
"Judging from your expression, this wasn't just unexpected," the voice was dignified and clear. It was one that came from a man with a head ornament. Rukia's older brother.
"Byakuya…" Yoruichi smiled at him, "It's been a while." She was being coy. From the steeling of his eyes and the stiffening of his hand, Byakuya disagreed with her reaction to his presence.
"You…"
"Now, now," Gin drawled, "Calm down, everyone…" He was acting as mediator, I realized. My god, how fucked were we that this guy would be acting as the peacekeeper between groups?
A man with blue hair spoke up, "Weren't you supposed to kill them?" In one question, he made his motivations clear. He would crush Gin's attempt at resolving things peacefully here. "Meeting them, bringing them here… What, precisely, stopped you from trying?" I did not know how to describe his hat, but his grin pissed me off. White and black face-paint creased and curved with the widening of that grin, "Did you give up at the sight of two Captains?"
Gin shrugged and returned the grin to Kurotsuchi, "Nah. Just didn't feel like dyin' is all. 'sides that, there was an easier solution. An' if it was the wrong one… I haven't seen the Cap'n Commander complain 'bout it." He looked at the man in question, "Did I do somethin' wrong?"
The old man took a deep breath, "In this case, you disobeyed a direct order upon seeing its impossibility to be carried out. Instead, you settled the matter diplomatically and brought the source of our most recent problems here, into this room. I will withhold judgment until after we see what these Ryoka will do."
Gin nodded and looked at Kurotsuchi, "Looks like I'm right, then."
The scientist's brow twitched. A man with bells in his hair barked a laugh. I suppose anything that rankled Kurotsuchi would get Kenpachi's jimmies off – oh god, I did not need that mental image.
"Why you…" Kurotsuchi growled, "And if one of these Ryoka happens to be capable of displaying anti-Shinigami abilities? What then?"
I spat another chocolate out. It hit the floor with a loud 'plop'. Suì-Fēng's palm collided with her forehead and her voice was the only one in the room, "…Oh no…"
Only one man was watching me with wide eyes. He was a man who always stood next to Commander Grandpa, the Vice-Captain of the First Division, and he was watching me with incredulity and shock, "My… My chocolates…"
"Oh!" I called to him, "These are yours?" I put another in my mouth, chewed on it a little, and decided it was scrumptious. Grousing on the treat, I reexamined his tensing posture, "Yeah… these are yours…" My voice was hardly muffled by the sweet such was my practice with speaking and eating. I swallowed and started on another one. Imperceptibly, he twitched.
"You broke into my office." He accused me.
I nodded enthusiastically while chewing. "Oh, yeah! Yeah I did." I swam the chocolate around in my mouth a little. Everyone was staring at me… "I'm sorry, did you want one?" I held the box of chocolates slightly towards him.
His eye most certainly did not spasm, but his expression was constipated. "They are mine to begin with…"
"So is that a yes?" I asked. He only stared and he – Sasakibe, right, that was his name – Sasakibe looked like he wanted to wring my neck. "Cool." I put the box of chocolates down in front of me, reached a finger in my mouth, and scraped the gunk out onto my hand. I held it out to him, "You get one lick. That's all."
It is hard to describe what this man's facial expression became. The looks of disgust sent at me from my own band of merry marauders were like droplets of rain compared to the torrential downpour of disbelieving, almost embarrassed revulsion.
"…" I didn't think his eyes could get much wider. His mouth was wide open and twitching. I had just taken something this man deeply enjoyed and permanently tarnished it while insulting him and, likely, every person in this room.
With a swipe of my hand, I splattered the gourmet delight on the floor and made sure it landed a fair distance away from the first chocolate. It looked like I just took a shit on their floor – twice. "So I guess you don't want any. That's cool."
Gin's expression was frozen. I'm sure he had words to say, but they escaped him. Maybe it was morbid curiosity that drove him to watch me so closely. Commander Grandpa's expression did not change at all from the moment I first spat to the moment I publicly insulted everyone in the room capable of being insulted.
"Who are you?" Byakuya's voice was stern, "To show this level of disrespect, to blatantly steal and destroy the property of the First Division's Vice Captain, and to–"
"Is your sister dead, yet?" I asked suddenly. The man stopped cold.
"…No."
I nodded, "Alright, good to know you haven't murdered the one person in the world who deeply cares about you." I gasped, "Oh, no, wait, I'm sorry. Not murdered – executed. I believe that is the proper terminology. Unless our resident genius would disagree…?" I waved my non-chocolate and spit covered hand towards Kurotsuchi.
"I am a scientist, not a judge." He replied scathingly.
I smiled at him toothily, "And the world is all the better for it." My eyes dashed around the room. Shunsui Kyoraku, the man with the pink kimono draped over his shoulders. In another time, in a possible future far off from the current present, he would become Head Captain following Commander Grandpa's death. In a way, I guess it was my job to stop that since I was the only one who could.
"I notice," the last woman in the room, "That you haven't answered my colleague's question." Retsu Unohana's measured voice broke the silence before it could truly form and become deafening. Also, 'colleague', what an interesting way of saying 'comrade in arms'… I'd have made note of the disagreements shared between the Captains were I not already aware of it. But Unohana and Byakuya? Maybe I just pissed these people off more than I'd thought…
I swung back my arms to shift the position of my open hoodie and gave a brief bow, the kind of thing an actor would do at the conclusion of a play but not as deep, "Right!" and I stood, "Then let me introduce myself. My name is Poe R.R. Acti. My friends call me Ars…" I quickly looked at Shishigawara, "But everyone just calls me 'Poe'."
Kyoraku started laughing, "That was you!" he crowed, "Oh… That's brilliant! Haha… Hah!"
"At least someone appreciates my humor…" I mumbled approvingly and nodded. Raising my voice, I boisterously called to him, "Yes! It was me, it was all me!"
"All you…?" Commander Grandpa said dryly, "I suppose, then, that makes you the leader of the Ryoka?"
"No!" called everyone in my team.
"Yes!" called Shishigawara.
I shrugged, "My leadership comes and goes."
"…I see," Commander Grandpa pulled a handful of napkins out from his robes, ""We're going to kill Shusuke Amagai", you said?" he asked me as he read the crayon writings, "And in exchange, you would like for us to relinquish Rukia Kuchiki to your custody."
"That's the sum of it." I said with a nod, "Yeah."
Ichigo looked like he was going to object, "Amagai?" he asked, "Weren't we here to expose–" Yoruichi had the sense to hit him. I knew I forgot something important… I made a mental note; irony was only funny when it didn't threaten to bite my ass. Snapping at Urahara for keeping me out of the loop then doing the same to Ichigo was not cool.
"Amagai! Right," I smiled at him, "Because we found out he was doing something bad. So we came to stop him. But we were too late." My voice held as little emotion as possible, "It's very sad."
The shortest person in the room, a boy with white hair looked at me suspiciously, "That's… convenient."
"Yup. Convenient. One hell of a coincidence. Weird, huh?" I smiled, "Anyway!" I clapped my hands to bring everyone back to the previous line of thought. Slowly, I drew them apart. They felt sticky and uncomfortable. "That's the deal. Uh, Gin thought it was fair. Considering your order was for him to kill us, though, I guess it wasn't…"
"We are in the midst of civil war." Commander Grandpa stated very simply. "And you expect us to trust a group of Ryoka to assassinate an enemy leader?" An enemy leader who, with ease, defeated him… I could understand it. If some outsiders accomplished what he couldn't, it would be a sign of some kind of weakness right? I mean, this is a man who held incredible strength. It was not often he was defeated to the extent that he'd be forced to retreat.
And now some group barely half a week into the Soul Society was offering to take out the man who defeated him? If he allowed it and they were successful, he would have failed to defeat the enemy with the might of the Gotei Thirteen… It was a sign that the forces that stood for so many centuries weren't good enough, that the leader wasn't good enough – politics, right? These were the forces powerful enough to drive a man to kill those who would help him.
…Or maybe it was Aizen? No, Aizen was dead. But he could be alive. And if he was alive, would it be so hard for him to convince Commander Grandpa that I and my group were a risk – hah! My group, my group, like they were my subordinates… I might not have been the leader, but I was starting to think like one.
"The alternative is letting a man with powers you can't fight destroy you." I answered, "And what's one prisoner you were planning on killing compared to the thousands of men, women, and children under your protection who are actively at risk? It's an easy choice."
"So you would sacrifice one for the sake of the many?" he inquired.
I thought about it, "…If the one I was sacrificing was going to die anyway, and doing this would let that person live as well as the many? Sure. It's an easy choice." No. It wasn't. It was a surrender he could not afford in a time where every action would have him judged by every soldier under his command, by every noble who hadn't been dragged into the conflict sitting on their perches from afar, and by the nonexistent Central Forty-Six who rotted more with each passing second than they ever had in their miserable lives… or after-lives, as the case may well be.
"Even so, you ask the impossible. The Seireitei does not barter with assassins and residents of the Living World." His stance was unchanging, "To compromise our principles in the face of adversity would spit upon the spirit of everything we have ever stood for."
"Would the Central Forty-Six be able to change your opinion?" I asked.
"The day the Central Forty-Six overturn those kinds of decisions is the day I eat my hat, kid." Kyoraku commented, "You're in over your head."
"I guess you'll never eat your hat, then, since there is no Central Forty-Six at present." I smiled, "Somebody chopped them all up."
Dead silence, there were no words said. Yoruichi just stared at me in complete horror. She could not comprehend what I had done. That was fine. I had a really nice plan and it was going great.
The doors open and the Captain with long, white hair whose name I hardly knew stepped in, "I apologize for being late, I had an attack," his disease, apparently, "Is there anything I missed?"
Oh, he had no idea…
-x-
One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train
End-32
) Poe is an awesome protagonist!( 
) He should keep up the good work!( 
)