When Manzou had come to her speaking of a lost soul he had dragged along from one of the very late districts of Rukongai, Nana had a hunch it would be a very long day indeed. She, like many others, had felt the outburst in the outer regions of Rukon, but it wasn’t until her Rokuseki had presented him with a fragile looking boy.
Somewhat unfortunately the boy seemed to be unconscious for the most part, and when he was awake... he seemed to be mostly unaware of whatever the hell was going on with him. Though she didn’t like what she was about to do anymore than the next person in charge of countless lives, she knew that she had no other choice.
She had to take this black-haired, teenage boy to the Central Forty-six. To the judges that would undoubtedly decide upon him a cruel fate. A fate she knew he probably didn’t deserve, but he was a potential threat to the balance.
No freshly deceased soul was ever found bursting into Soul Society with this much spiritual power. There had been rare cases before, cases where people of just under vice-captain level came into existence, but... to come into existence as strong as some of their captains?
That was just unheard of.
Grabbing the boy by his the collar of his shirt she flipped open her denreishinki and disappeared in a ball of fire. It wasn’t until she was in front of the Central Forty-Six Assembly Hall that she exited her shunpo.
Laying the half-dazed boy down for a bit she unsheathed both her zanpakutou and Murakumo and handed them over to one of the Onmitsu Kidou members standing guard.
“They are ready for you,” the woman she handed her weapons over to said in a calm tone of voice, nodding softly in Nana’s direction.
Helping the young man up on his two feet she nodded back towards the guards and led Ueshita Isamu inside.
“Amaterasu Nana, Matriarch of House Amaterasu and Captain of the Blitzkrieg Strike Unit,” she stated courteously as she moved towards the center of the assembly hall and bowed slowly before the judges.
“Thank you for responding to my request on such a short notice.€
“Yes, quite gracious of us indeed,” began Twenty-Eight, his voice grimly shrill as usual. “It’s not as if we have anything better to do during this time of the day.”
Through the thin veil of his paper screen, Mongaku’s gaze quickly detached from the Amaterasu matriarch and instead focused a good deal on the young lad she had brought along with her. He raised an eyebrow, taken aback at how a tiny little pup could have supposedly possessed such advanced levels of spiritual energy. Then again, with the amount of prepubescent brats going about carrying haoris these days, the bewilderment soon became misplaced... and ultimately null.
Running his fingers through the string of prayers beads dangling from his neck, Twenty-Eight continued, his voice seemingly aimed at Isamu, “Now then... what... do we have here? He seems rather frail for someone capable of leveling buildings and such. I doubt you’ve picked up the wrong child, Captain Amaterasu.”
Comparing the Gotei in its infinite lack of wisdom to a child unaware of its own strength was practically Emi’s signature. She preferred a firm hand from the 46 to wield the unrefined tool of the army they commanded. And here was one of its newly-minted Captains assembling this august chamber literally to bring a loose cannon before them. It was as though her metaphor had been given life.
She had a great many ideas for what to do with such a danger to the balance and the community at large, but she was on thin ice with others, older and more politically potent, in their ranks with her harsh rhetoric and hard line in the past. She had stilled her tongue in many meetings of late. She saw no reason this meeting would be any different.
Still, such a case was a refreshing break from the banality of recent trials. If nothing else, she hoped from behind the number Twelve, that this boy would humble the arrogant Captains of the Gotei Thirteen, who had grown too rebellious and untamed for the taste of the aging woman. Hopefully the knowledge that they were not special, in fact they were utterly disposable, would cause them to think twice before coming before the chamber as they had in the days leading to the death of the LaSalles.
This trial was not about the Captains, however. This trial was about the child who would walk among them. The wolf in their midst. Perhaps the better analogy would be the time bomb among them. Its hair-trigger could be set off and a disaster the likes of which seemed all too common might occur. The Twelfth Wise Woman did not want it to, but should it erupt in their very chamber she simply was out of surprise to give.
The most senior of the judges, number Forty-Three, eyed the heiress and the young man she escorted through the darkness that covered each member of the council. Perhaps the most concerned of them all, Forty-Three was not one to take lightly the gravity of the situation. His voice was quiet for the moment but impressed with his concern.
“Captain Amaterasu, please tell us – what condition was this...man in when you found him? Did you find any accomplices or weapons in his possession?”
“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves just yet,” Nana responded in a calm and serene manner as she addressed the various judges. “First of, I don’t think it is that strange to see a man of around sixteen visual wise to be capable of the destruction we have witnessed today.
“May I remind you that some of our brightest shinigami are around this man’s age visual wise? Some even age wise? Furthermore, before we get to the heart of this, I must admit that I too had to hear the majority of the report second hand.”
Shaking her head softly she breathed out a rather calm sigh. “I regret not having been able to get to the scene myself to evaluate it in its entirety with my own two eyes, but I trust in the judgment of my subordinates.
“As you may also have undoubtedly felt, this was no ordinary attack. To exert this much power, this man must have been one hell of a ticking time bomb, because that’s what he is... or was, rather.
“Forced into existence,” Nana continued, her voice carrying a surprising amount of weight behind each and every single word she said, “this man’s body could not contain the power it held and violently exploded outward upon arrival in Seireitei. No accomplishes, no weapons, just him and his extreme case of not knowing where he found himself at.
“He was found unconscious almost immediately by Manzou Kagetoki who in turn brought him before me. As this was the report handed to me after careful consideration by those involved with the incident, I hope you can look past the initial implications this man may bear for the future of oul Society.”
“You are quick to grant amnesty, Captain,” Forty-Three spoke with a tone of suspicion. “One would think that the heiress of the Amaterasu household would fully understand the implications for such an event...especially considering Anshinkan Raifuku’s penetration of our realm – and these very chambers. What if this man is one of his followers, come to strike out against us once again? Dismissing the very real concerns that surround this appearance is troubling to hear, indeed.
“What of your subordinate – Kagetoki Manzou – as you mentioned? Have you questioned him thoroughly enough to know he is not, in fact, an accomplice to this stranger? “
“Yes, with the fiasco with that dastardly Raifuku fresh in our memories, can we truly trust anything out of the ordinary?” Twenty-Eight’s scrutiny on the young lad remained unbroken as he leaned forward. “It is not paranoia that we mistrust the actions of your subordinate, Captain Amaterasu... or of your own, for that matter. It is simply a precaution should another wayward fool try and intrude within the Seireitei’s domain.”
Though cloaked behind his paper blockade, Mongaku couldn’t help but gesture intrinsically with his hands. Arms flared to the side, he scoffed, continuing, “If this child has truly been ‘forced into existence,’ as you say, then surely he must have came from the World of the Living not too long ago. Our records should indicate as to who exactly performed a soul burial on this lad. And yet... I see no documentation before me. Now why is that?”
The varying degrees of regal salutations, bold proclamations, and political posturing went largely unacknowledged by the very subject of most of what was being said. Lost somewhere in the shadows just beyond the center circle of the grand chamber, Ueshita Isamu stood stone-faced and sallow, thin shoulders slumped, making his slight frame seem even thinner than it was.
The truth weighed on his conscience like a stone, like rocks in his pockets dragging him deeper and deeper into the depths of despair. He had been the one who had unleashed that power. It was the teen’s own doing that so much damage had been done, that lives had been lost. Maybe he had known all along, had just used the inciting incident as an excuse, put the blame some place other than where it should have been: Himself. There was blood on his hands whether he had intended for there to be or not. People were dead. And it was all his fault.
What was this exactly? A trial? A tribunal? A sentencing? It could have been all of those if he chose so. They were talking about him, discussing him as if he were some sort of science phenomenon meant to be observed and studied. But the raven-haired teenager knew what he really was. A monster. An abomination.
And that was when the lanky youngster knew what he had to do.
A deep breath. And then a single step into the light.
“I’m guilty,” Isamu said breathlessly. “Please kill me.”
He could no more be brought into the Gotei’s ranks as he was than he could be pressed through the Academy. He was too volatile, too unsafe. Too unpredictable. Twelve wanted him to get his request granted, as unusual as it may be – unusual both to issue a death sentence these days as it was for her to want to grant a request. But the circumstance wasn’t usual either.
Perhaps he could be sent to the Maggot’s Nest for eternity to be watched over, but it was perhaps the greater mercy to put him to death. She actually looked on him with sympathy, not that he would know. He was too dangerous to be free, but that fact wasn’t necessarily connected to his will. Intent was not an element of these crimes. Regardless of how good the Matriarch thought the boy to be, he was a danger.
“Were it that simple, son, I gladly would urge my colleagues to grant that request,” she had probably never sounded so sympathetic. She genuinely believed that no fate he had in store would be as merciful as death and still serve the purpose of the Society of Souls. But she knew there were other factors to consider. If, as others had suggested, he was connected to Raifuku he ought entirely to be interrogated and sealed in the Maggot’s Nest for eternity. Given the timing of these events and the likelihood of the death of Soul Society’s most hated enemy, it was possible that this boy was the next life, the next incarnation of the man in white.
She had to, despite not wanting to, give deference to those who would draw this trial out, “We must understand what you are before we can assuredly assess the fate that will befall you,” and that was the honest reality of it. The truth, if such a thing existed, was that the boy was a danger, but perhaps a death he desired was part and parcel with the cataclysm he could create.
“Why indeed,” Nana responded in a calm and collected manner. These words thrown at not only herself, but Isamu as well... they were nothing new. They rang a hollow truth, a painful truth, but not a truth she knew was just.
There was one thing they forgot, though.
“You question my ability to judge fairly,” she continued, her gaze piercing through Forty-three’s veil as she did, “on what account, really? Is it not because of our past actions that men and women like Raifuku came to pass?”
Shaking her head softly she turned from Forty-three to Twenty-eight, her gaze still unwavering.
“But this isn’t about that, is it? Is it not exactly because of what happened that we should try to keep the extremities to a minimum? Have we not been blinded enough as of late?”
Taking a step back she bowed slightly before continuing. “My apologies for that,” she said with a straight face. “I am in agreement with Twelve, though--” her eyes shifted again, this time towards the woman veiled by the number Twelve “--We need to discern just exactly happened to this man. What caused him to ‘explode into existence’.
“I propose sending him to the Nest of Maggots and hand him over to the Ninth Division or research.”
“Your proposition is noted, Captain,” Forty-Three said before his tone grew stern and fueled with dominance, “but you will do well to remember how and when to address these chambers.
“Your eagerness to rush this man from a thorough examination before this council is unsettling, Amaterasu Nana,” he said, emphasizing as if she should know better. “Apologies or not, the audacity of questioning our judgment is not what we would expect from your household. “
The elder felt an anger rising within, unaccepting of the challenge from the woman and her speak so familiarly with the court. The ire that arose, though, had to be subdued and channeled properly, keeping as an example to the others – should he ever hope to ascend within the assembly of ruling nobility.
“Assuming there will be no more hindrance to this affair,” he said, turning his voice to the center of the room, “let us hear from the boy, himself.”
Twelve enjoyed few things less than agreeing with a shinigami. But she did agree with this one. Well, more accurately, the newly-minted captain agreed with Twelve. It wasn’t so much that Twelve had suggested a course of action as had Nana, she wasn’t quite ready to take any of the options laid out in front of her, but she did lean toward understanding how the boy came to be before ending this sad tale.
More than just that, though, the Wise Woman was surprised at the pragmatism shown by the Matriarch of the Amaterasu family. She had expected suggestion of his enlistment as a death god. Imprisonment in the Seventh at best, but the suggestion of the Maggot’s Nest was not, on its face, unreasonable. Still, she had to agree with the voice being heard at the moment – the boy needed to speak and be heard by more than simply the untrusting motherly figure behind the Twelfth screen.
“Wise choice, Captain.” Mongaku clasped his hands together, placing them down in front of him. “The Maggot’s Nest would serve well in keeping the boy under control should his rampancy prevail. Whether or not the inclusion of the Ninth is necessary is beside the point.”
The monk thought back on the child’s previous statement, his droll begging to be killed on the spot. It struck twenty-Eight as a rather curious sight, what with the absolute lack of self-preservation within the wayward soul. Certainly the boy’s mind was broken from the day’s strain, though his tone alone lied on a whole different spectrum of rationality.
Motioning to the other Judges from behind his paper wall, Twenty-Eight continued, “But I agree with Forty-Three. I feel it is needed that we should at least hear more from the boy himself. Surely he can’t simply rely on a complete and total stranger to explain his actions. That’s simply absurd.”
The solicitous demands for the thin teen to speak did nothing to quell the festering unease and shame in the pit of the young man’s chest. What did they want to hear from him? Isamu knew less about the circumstances of his existence in this place than the haughty veiled high authorities did.
There was really nothing for him to say. He was guilty of murder, a danger to everyone around him, a destroyer, a wrecker. Whatever it was these people of obvious power wanted to hear, he was not the one to tell them.
“I...” the boy started, making a brief futile attempt to speak before falling silent once again. There was simply nothing he could say, wanted to say.
From behind her screen Twelve was almost afflicted with sympathy. Almost. She could tell that the boy was having trouble, though of what nature she neither knew nor cared. “Tell us who and what you are, tell us the nature of your acts. Tell us these things in your own words, that we might know you better.” And, she didn’t add it aloud, she wanted to hear just how his words balanced between the terror he could cause and the contrition he might’ve had.
Considering the situation he was in, his speechlessness was understandable. Twelve wished more people had the wisdom to mind their tongues in this chamber. Still, they wanted to know, and that made his silence an inconvenience. The mercy he had asked for, the death he wanted, showed the Wise Woman something of who the man was. The idea of testing, understanding, but in a controlled environment seemed quite appealing and, as rare as such a thing was, seemed to be a point she and the Gotei agreed on. What was left was to hear from him.
Before, that is, the Judges did what Twelve assumed they already decided to do.
They were waiting on him to speak, to give some sort of explanation for the violent explosion of power that had torn through an otherwise quiet shantytown on the edge of their expansive society. But Isamu could not offer them much more? The veiled men and women were more in the know than the thin, raven-haired adolescent. All he knew was that he was dangerous, a ticking time-bomb, and he needed to be stopped.
“I- I woke up,” he started, voice cracking against the dull edge of blunted emotional steel. “-I woke up alone and in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think I knew what was going on, even less than I do now. There was no place for me to go. Where could I go? So I walked. But something was wrong. Even through the haze of whatever it was that kept me down, I could see it. This place is nothing like where I’m from. I just wish I knew exactly where that was.”
His eyes narrowed as they surveyed the ornate chamber.
“All I know for sure is my name. Ueshita Isamu. I wish I could tell you more.”
There was a swirling emptiness in the pit of the lanky teen’s stomach. For a second he wavered on his feet before the thick shackled upon his ankle forced him back into place.
“This thing that’s happened to me. Whatever sickness it is that’s making my body do this... You can have it. I don’t want this power. I don’t want any of it...” His voice faded, his head bowed down to the cold floor, towards his dirty feet, bare and worn. “I just want to go home.”
Home. And for a second, he thought he felt the spark of a life that had since abandoned him.
huehuehuehuehuehue. but seriously. let's fucking end this already.
“There is no ‘home,’ child. Nothing else other than what you see around you.”
Twenty-Eight’s tone took on a more surprisingly serious tone after hearing Isamu’s reasoning.
“It’s quite rare for someone to be so willing, and so, I see no other reason to beguile and interrogate this child.” Mongaku intertwined his fingers as he leaned his elbows atop the table. “This court rewards cooperation, be it to shinigami or a citizen of the districts. It would appear that the Nest of Maggots would only serve to further scar this child’s mind. If we were to simply throw him in there, what kind of monster would we create by such an act? Better yet, what kind of monsters would we be to commit such a misguided sentence?”
Lifting his fists, he motioned with one hand and rubbed his prayer beads with the other. “For research and documentation purposes, I suggest we allow the Gijutsukaihatsu Kyoku to determine the spiritual anomaly surrounding Ueshita Isamu. When they’re done, we shall not condemn him to the Onmitsukidou.”
Twenty-Eight looked around to his peers, giving a slight dramatic pause before ending his proposal.
“Instead, once the SRDI’s investigation is complete, we sever Ueshita Isamu’s soul sleep. That’s what the boy wishes, thenso be it.”
Truth be told, it was a good idea. If the boy wanted to be severed from his ‘illness’, the Forty-Six were empowered to deliver that cure. If one thing bothered her more than concurrence with a Shinigami, it was someone having a better idea that wasn’t her. The paper screen hid a glower that could ruin a person’s week.
Then again, there was more than just the grand solutions of her esteemed colleague to consider.“The child should be accompanied by an agent capable of containing his potential at all times. Should his... illness relapse within the SRDI’s laboratories, it would be problematic.” At least she contributed, so she could claim co-sponsorship of the idea. More than that, one of the few times the Shinigami didn’t annoy Twelve was when the SRDI was involved.
