It was late at night and most of the thirteenth squad had retired for the night. Curled over their own stacks of paperwork, Kiyone and Sentaro, the third seats, were no exception. They had tried once more to keep up with their captain, but here he was again, late at night working, while the rest of those under his protection dozed on. Chuckling quietly to himself and avoiding the loud floorboards, he draped blankets over them both and capped their inkwells. For a moment, he stood watching them. No doubt, in the morning, when they realized they had fallen asleep before him, he would hear their exuberant pleas for forgiveness, even when there was nothing to forgive. The Captain of the Thirteenth Squad may occasionally keep strange hours when inclined, yet he had never required anyone else to. His sentiments, however, were rarely heeded.
Turning back around, Juushiro returned to his desk, pausing on the threshold of his room when he caught sight of a small keepsake he had unearthed in his panicked search eariler. It was a stone that had been cleaved in half, revealing the warm shimmering crystalline surface beneath, now catching the light of his lamp. A gift from his late vice president for attending his wedding. Kaien would have stayed awake longer than the rest, even prepared hot chocolate for the both of them, before succumbing to sleep on the cushion by his captain's door. Juushiro sighed. So much life and innocence had been lost in Aizen's greedy search for power. He wondered when it would stop and recalled another victim's face.
It had been a few weeks after Yama-ji had declared Toshiro a traitor and enemy. Juushiro had protested, both then at the captain's meeting and afterwards, in private. The old man hadn't changed his sentence. Frowning, the captain of the thirteenth squad left that night, deep in thought, unable to shake the feeling that the sentence was wrong and something needed to be done. However, he had made his dissent public knowledge. He had had to wait for any suspicion to die before taking any action. Finally, he had made a visit to Karakura town and the shop of Kisuke Urahara, where he had hoped to find only knowledge of the young prodigy and where he learned of something else.
. . . . .
