A Fugitive in Shadowy Woods

Aokigahara. A location that was sort of infamous to the Shinigami. A place where, culturally, many afflicted souls gathered, and many, many Hollows were birthed. The gloom danced off the blue-green trees in a way that one might consider eerie, were they not an agent of Death itself. But either way, the yearly body sweeps by the government of the living did nothing for the Pluses chained to the trees who wept in penance. It was a gruesome sight, to be sure, but if Shuya was going to deal with all of them he'd be here all week.

Shuya had been working on this personal "task" of his for quite a while now. And while he was here on official business, there were multiple ways to look at that. These days he found himself doing a lot of work in darkness.

The mist was dense, flowing around his feet as he stepped silently through the woods. He could feel the weight of many spiritual pressures -- Hollows, drooling behind their masks, presuming him a meal. But each that gave into temptation died within moments as particles of iron formed beautiful facsimiles of flowers in their masks, tearing them apart from the inside out. Let it not be said that Shuya was an average groundskeeper of these afflicted woods. The smarter Hollows would know their place.

He stopped. Now he was deep enough in that he ought to find what -- or who -- he was looking for. He simply waited, knowing that his spiritual pressure alone would be enough.

Visitors were rare these days.

Aokigahara wasn't the most inviting of locations, and you couldn't exactly tell anyone this was where you lived. The only beings that visited here were the damned, the soon to be damned, and the occasional American Youtuber who decided to annoy everyone. The forest was tranquil for the most part sans the occasional snap of a neck or kicking of feet that served to, at best, delay an inevitable departure from this world to enter an even messier one. Make no mistake, this place didn't have the type of peace a sane man would seek, but if you were, say, on the run from a trans-dimensional super squad who wanted you dead?

You could choose a worse venue, that much was certain.

So you could imagine Ika's surprise when he felt the presence of a Captain level Shinigami intruding on his territory, and if it hadn't been so obfuscated by the series of Hollows hoping to kill it, he may have even recognized it prior to arriving on scene. Ika appeared from behind a nearby tree, lazily dodging the suspended leg of a corpse that seemed.. not fresh, but not exactly dated either. "Shuya, old friend. If I'd known I was going to have company I would have tried to clean the house a bit, maybe redecorated.. ah well."

Ika's smirk would grow slightly as his fingers began to cling lazily to the card currently situated in his right pocket. "Surely they didn't send you out here alone to kill me, we both know that wouldn't be the best idea for anyone.."

By the time Ika had arrived, Shuya had lit up a cigarette, a vice unashamedly plagiarized, and he'd made himself as comfortable as your stereotypical haunted forest could be. Confident as ever, Ika stood before him, utterly unafraid, which was the right choice as they both knew.

Shuya opened his mouth, then closed it. "Well now, it's difficult to not call you Captain when I'm standing right in front of you as it turns out." He breathed out a plume of smoke. "Ika, give me some credit here, if I intended to kill you I'd have at least tried to do it stealthily. Otherwise you'd whoop my ass out of principle." He remarked.

He cleared his throat. "While I'm technically here on official business, we can make it only as official as it needs to be, if you catch my drift. Tracking you down was partly a personal project. And one that I wouldn't have succeeded at if I didn't have scouts in Tokyo." He stated bluntly. It was never good to overhype yourself before Ika. He took great pleasure in hitting people right in the hubris.

"I was thinking we catch up. Share some news, and I'll still be looking for you later on." He shrugged.

Hey look, Shuya had taken up smoking.

It was nice to see that Ika had made such a noteworthy impression on the youth, and honestly if the allure of a cigarette and spirit-cancer was enough to keep them away from being gay lame and abusing vapes, Ika was all for it. A small smirk worked it's way across Ika's face as he reached into his front pocket. "You know.. I haven't had a light in a while, care to share for old times sake?"

Ika would extend his head outward, hoping to gently bite down on whatever tobacco he could find before snapping his fingers to light it. Provided he'd been reciprocated in a positive fashion, he'd move on to the rest of his former Vice-Captains commentary.

"You're not my Vice-Captain anymore and haven't been for a while Shuya, you're a Captain as worthy as anyone else they're fielding these days, no need to view yourself as my subordinate at this stage in your life.. Also hey, to be clear, if you try to kill me I'm beating your ass and the details surrounding that event or how stealthy it was will be pretty irrelevant as far as I'm concerned."

Ika would smirk, taking a drag off the still burning cigarette as some level of relief seemed to wash over him. "Yeah I noticed your birds, I just suspected they wouldn't follow me in here so I wasn't particularly compelled by them. Nice to hear you weren't setting up a raid, leaving all this would've been a bummer."

Ika's eyes danced around the rather non-descript forest before returning to the topic at hand. "Catching up sounds nice, unofficial business and news sounds even better.. Sure. Follow me, feel free to start talking whenever you want. I don't have birds these days. All my canaries died a long time ago."

Shuya listened and, as expected, his former mentor had no inclination to chastise him for picking up his vice. The younger shinigami shrugged, tossing him a cigarette. "If you relapse back into crippling addiction don't blame me."

He waited for Ika to light up, listening to him muse at him. No quicker way to the man's heart than reminding him about his skills.

"Well I appreciate you letting them get home safe and sound." Shuya offered. "I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that hunting you down and burning you at the stake has been demoted from an active priority to merely a nice-to-have. I reckon you've earned a good night's sleep or two. Other than that, there isn't much to tell. You're no doubt aware that Bashira's gone and fucked off to Hueco Mundo and our new Captain Commander's sent your psychotic brother after her last I heard. As usual the Gotei is being held together only by duct tape and prayer."

Shuya took a quick drag. "Truthfully things have been pretty boring. Maybe we'll actually get a captain for the Fifth, though, so there's some exciting news. And you? How has your hermitage been?"

It was interesting watching your influence be projected onto the world in real time. Ika watched this previously unafflicted Captain go from well-adjusted straight-laced man moving up the ladder, to something vaguely reminiscent of what Ika was 1000 years or so ago. The cigarette had been lit, Ika's long-held addiction had been assuaged, and now they could move onto what Ika presumed would be the more interesting portion of this little meeting. "Killing the expendables of the Gotei doesn't serve me any purpose. They grow on trees it seems like, a waste of my energy more than anything if I'm being honest.. Nice to hear I'm a lower priority though, might need to do something to change that just to keep my life interesting eh?"

Ika smiled a bit, taking a deep drag off his cigarette before turning his attention back to the conversation. "Still, being able to sleep with both eyes shut will be a nice improvement to my day. Might go nap after this meeting actually. I'm aware of the rest of it, Bashira's expulsion wasn't much of a surprise to me and Sano being an attack dog they secretly hope doesn't come back seems.. oddly on-brand. I feel bad for them though, whether they bellieve it or not he'll always find his way back..."

Ika's voice trailed off, his fingers dancing over the wrapped cigarette as though it were an upopened gift. "Nice to hear nothing has changed and the Gotei's the same shit-hole it's always been. I don't miss it down here, that much is for sure. My current plan is to recruit the humans and get them in fighting shape which.. will be an adventure to be sure."

Shuya smiled in a wistful, sad sort of way that indicated both jealousy and reminiscence of easier days. Things were less certain now, changing too fast, and secretly a hell of a lot more stressful. Maybe that's why he'd suddenly given into vice. And to think he once had the gall to scold Ika about it.

"Well, yeah. That's how it is." Shuya shrugged. "If what I heard about those humans back in Tokyo is anything to go by then maybe you've found a diamond in the rough. It wouldn't surprise me if Soul Society were blind to something under their nose. And what have I done to help with that?" He mused. It was a clear indication to Ika, deliberately given, that the Gotei would step up their monitoring of the humans in the world of the living. The details pertaining to Ika would be obfuscated, of course, but the fact remained that the Gotei had its responsibility to be abreast of any changes to the delicate balance of power. It was enough that they had to contend with Hollows. They didn't need a bunch of uppity humans to deal with too. "Either way... I hope their training is fruitful." He commented.

Who knows? If the balance of power were to tip -- or even just lean over slightly -- maybe that would give Shuya a chance to do something impactful. Currently he'd had little opportunity to effect change in the Gotei the way he wanted to, but if being in the Onmitsukido had taught him anything at all, it was that there was a right time for everything, and one simply had to wait for it.

The whimsy etched on Shuya's face was almost cute, he'd clearly been changed by the prospect of the times they were in. The way his brow furrowed was more aged and distinguished, his approach to discussions like these was more intentional and well thought-out. He'd become a man far from Ika's once watchful eye, a rare accomplishment in a faction that seemed stacked to the gills with power brokers who never intended to grow up and mature. Ika took note of the way Shuya spoke of the humans, he knew of their abilities and seemed to indicate the Soul Society at large had taken a more pronounced interest in them. This of course made sense, they'd have never allowed Lieutenant level combatants to slip away unnoticed in the past, there was no reason to suspect they'd do it now on a stage that could be best interpreted as a massive failure on their part.

"You know I wouldn't feel so inclined to help them if the Gotei did it's fucking job once in a while. These people don't give a damn about balance, they wanna live and protect those close to them, it's admirable, it's real, unlike anything I experienced in the Gotei after my first couple hundred years. There's a certain altruism in the Human commitment towards power that I find genuinely compelling.."

Ika took a drag off his cigarette, a smile parting his lips as he pondered what he was saying carefully. "I'm running out of hills to die on, this might be the only worthwhile one left my friend."

"Altruism? I suppose. Probably because humans are so short lived -- and they generally don't know what awaits them after death." Shuya mused. He looked up at the canopy, shrugging. "That's definitely an optimistic take. The way I heard it... No one group is more craven than them."

The last century had been both a blessing and a curse for humanity.

"They'll help each other sure. But I figure they're more likely to war with each other to the point where it takes us years to clear out all the Hollows. They'll divide themselves up every way they can and inevitably when they disagree some will cling to whatever power they manage and beat the others with it." He frowned, taking a deep drag from his cigarette. "It's all well and good that you've found a couple of heroic ones, Ika. And I hope you have them understood. But I feel like granting the wrong human the power that *we* use... Well, it could be catastrophic."

Another deep drag, then: "Well, I could be worrying over nothing of course." But foreshadowing is a plot device that--

“Don’t be absurd.”

Ika shot Shuya an almost condescending glance as he took a final drag off his cigarette, really letting the smoke do its damage before deciding to exhale and return to their now somewhat tense conversation. “I don’t fear my own creation. I’ll train them, I’ll ensure they can defend themselves and fight for causes I put them towards, but if I ever had a hint that one of them might put a toe out of line I’d gut them and be done with it. I was soft on you because you had the potential to be great, but there was never a moment I thought you’d leave my shadow and even if you did, you never displayed a momentary hint that you’d do anything nefarious.”

Ika frowned a bit, clearly disappointed that he once again found himself smokeless in this particular conversation. “I like them Shuya, I do. But I’m training pets here, they’re dogs with opposable thumbs and less cuddle factor. Pets are fine so long as they remember who feeds them. If they start trying to bite off more than they can chew they’ll be corrected, don’t you worry about that.”

Ika smirked, reflecting on times past. “You know, you’re always welcome to join me.”

Shuya tilted his head, listening to Ika continue to talk about them. This was the distance one expected from any of the old guard among the Shinigami, where personal morals were harder to come by. Shuya personally didn't have any problem with that -- he too was an asshole, so to speak, but he was nevertheless less callous than some of the previous generation.

The he got to that last bit.

"Join you...?" He mused, twirling the idea around in his head. "Hmm. I still have a whole division to take care of, unfortunately. Were the time to come where I could alleviate myself of that concern we could talk but for now..." He shrugged.

He fished out one more smoke and offered it to Ika as his own went dim.

It seemed that the suggestion that Shuya could join Ika was interesting at least, something he somehow hadn't thought of. The look on his face seemed to clarify things for Ika a bit, and a small wry smile would work it's way across his face as he retrieved the cigarette from his friends hand. "Yeah I reckon you'll find your way out of that mess someday. Retirement is so much more fun than that soldier stuff, I don't know. I always wanted to be able to fight for what I believe in, not what they said I should believe in. Maybe they're smarter than me, hell they probably are but.. ya know."

Ika smiled a bit, taking a drag off the freshly lit cigarette as his eyes did their best to pierce the canopy overhead. "I think sometimes we view being Shinigami as our own little shot at immortality but that just.. isn't the case. We'll all die some day, and then who knows what'll be retained of this version of yourself wherever you end up, if you end up anywhere at all. So many weird quirks to this cycle we claim perfect knowledge over and I just haven't the time or energy to try and put it all together Shuya."

Ika let the smoke begin to paint the faint rays of light overhead, obfuscating them as he did his best to finish his previous thought. "I hope one day you'll allow yourself the freedom I've been afforded. You deserve it."