Here and There

Greenroom VIII

It was hard to claim that I won just because I got my flowery barracks because my cunning student got me to promise not to decorate the other barracks without their captain's permission.

So many wasted opportunities to make people miserable went out the window because of that.

But I got my pretty barracks.

Shunsui was sprawled out on the tatami mat floor, his head resting in my lap as I continued to work on my paperwork. Snuggles had taken over the katotatsu table in the center of the room to review the paperwork I had completed.

The Gotei 13 weren't a coherent unit. Most of the divisions had different goals and beliefs, and those were up to change every time there was a new captain; which happened at least once a century. The only consistent captains were Genryūsai, Shunsui, Jūshirō, Retsu, and myself. Last century we had five different captains for the 12th division, although the current one—Kirio Hikifune—seemed likely to last for at least another century. If I remembered correctly she'd be transferring to the Royal Guard eventually though.

The 5th division had taken over "special" or "difficult" missions that the other divisions weren't capable of handling. Either because they already lost too much fodder previously, or lacked the intelligence to make a trusted decision. We handled the purges, too.

We also managed the budgets for the Gotei 13. Genryūsai sucked ass at math, Retsu was liable to kill someone who went over budget, Shunsui also sucked ass at math, and Jūshirō was too soft to discipline morons who went over budget. All the other divisions had captains who didn't last long enough to bother transitioning it over.

I didn't like to do the accounting side of it, but it was better than having to deal with the politics like Genryūsai did. Would much rather do paperwork then have to pretend to care about the opinion of some noble who would die before I even bothered to learn their name.

Plus, when a division went over budget I got to discipline them! It was a chance to test my creativity. My favorite was when a stupid little fodder went over budget for his mission, then had the gall to complain to me that I hadn't given him enough money in the first place. For a mission to kill one hollow. One. Hollow. Yet he somehow needed thousands of kan (the currency used for Soul Society).

I tied each of his limbs to a different wood post and let him hang out in the sun for a month.

It'd been a decade since someone went over budget and I was itching to try out a new idea.

Shunsui sneezed into his elbow then rubbed at his nose.

"Doing okay?" I asked him, pausing in my arithmancy to look down at the sleepy boy.

Okay, he might've looked mid-twenties and had lived for several centuries in his second life but his soul was as young and innocent as fresh snowfall so he felt like a baby boy to me.

"Yeah," Shunsui said, looking over at Snuggles. "Why's he a cat?"

"Come again?"

"I've been thinking about it for a long time. Why did you make him a cat? You said you gave him that body to use while he's here. Why a cat? Kura I get, because he's a nine-tailed fox demon. Shiori said she's your contract summon and that's her true form, but Snuggles... Snuggles isn't a cat, yet you made him a cat."

"Huh. Well, his true form tends to make people cry when they see him. I went for the most opposite thing I could think of to it."

"What exactly is he, Teacher?" Shunsui asked with a raised eyebrow, intrigued.

"Ah—hmm—he's—" I struggled to find the words to aptly describe Snuggles. The black panther lazily looked up from using his telekinesis to work on paperwork, but then went back to ignoring us. "Mm. He's kind of the result of—ah—hmm—I got a little arrogant."