Quick as Lightning [Closed/Ginjiro]

The second division was tasked with keeping order within the Gotei. Ginjiro had been told that it was once the stealth force only, dealing mostly with information and stealth, before absorbing the sixth division, which had previously been the police force. Investigating crimes in the soul society therefore fell under the second division’s jurisdiction. Because of this, when Ginjiro had heard about and reported a string of food thefts by someone with shinigami level speed, he had expected someone to be assigned to, and quickly deal with, the case.

Three weeks later he had resorted to investigating himself on his day off. It was frustrating. What was more frustrating was that he wasn’t having any luck. He had found several people that had been stolen from, but the thief’s signature was being too fast to see, so it wasn’t doing him much good. Furthermore, no ordinary soul could be that fast, so this person was either a shinigami, or someone who really should have been a shinigami. Either there was a thief among the gotei, victimizing the rukongai, or the gotei had failed to notice some serious talent.

“You seem frustrated.” Kokai oni chimed in. “Could it be that you actually had some faith in the gotei left?” He asked sarcastically.

“I still have some faith in them. At least, as a whole.” Ginjiro answered weakly. “It’s just individual members that~”
“Yeah yeah yeah.” The spirit interrupted. In the brat’s defense, Ginjiro was getting a little tired of saying it over and over too. Ginjiro knew there were good people in the gotei, but truth be told, his faith in them was diminishing day by day, like water in a bucket evaporating in the summer sun.

Ginjiro would never have to give the retort he couldn’t find, because at that instant he felt the reiatsu of a strange shinigami moving toward him. A shinigami, or an incredibly powerful thief. No sooner had he turned towards the power than it blew through the crowd, as swift and imperceptible as the wind, at least to the uninitiated. Ginjiro however, being the expert in reiatsu perception that he was, managed to see where the signature was going. He jumped to catch the thief, as this had to be the thief, and for all his speed and foresight, barely managed to brush his fingertips against a strand of long blonde hair before the thief was gone. It turned out the speedster was a little girl, with the longest hair Ginjiro ever remembered seeing, a frilly pink dress, and enough self-confidence to stop and give him a wave before darting off again. Most importantly of all, was the decorative white katana on her back; almost certainly a zanpakuto.

Ginjiro gave chase immediately. Clearly he was dealing with someone who’s speed was far superior to his own, even as he pushed his shunpo to its known limits, but his skill in detecting reiatsu gave him an edge. Now that he had a lock, the thief would have to travel quite a ways to truly escape him. He could, and indeed had to, play deceptively. He would give chase for as long as he could, and then stop as if he had simply run out of stamina, which may even be true. From that point he would simply track his target’s reiatsu, while hiding his own, and catch by surprise who he could not by speed. It was his best chance.

Well, unless the thief just stopped and waited for him to catch up. That could work too. He stopped for a moment and stared at the girl. It was entirely possible that this was some sort of trap. Getting closer, at least directly, was a bad idea. Of course, it was also possible, however slightly, that she just wanted to talk, perhaps defend herself.

“Alright.” He said, taking the initiative. “You have my attention. Who are you? And why are you stealing from these people?”

WC: 659
GP: 13

Ha, so it seemed like he had taken the bait after all. The problem was now to determine what exactly to tell him..something she hadn't exactly stopped to consider, if she was being completely honest. Ah well, it didn't really matter. She had done plenty of reckless things before and came away from them somewhat okay...for the most part. Granted, the one reckless thing she had done that was still biting her even now was her decision to mess with Tova and go get herself infected with an Inner Hollow, but more and more Lessa was finding herself able to understand Kaiya just a little bit better. Locked all away in there by herself, wanting to be the one in control? Being totally alone and isolated? Lessa could understand that feeling pretty well.

"It's pretty simple, isn't it? At least the why part of it, I think. I'm powerful enough where I need this food to survive, and these people sorta don't need it," she pointed out to him, idly wondering what division he might be. If he was investigating a disturbance like this, she would say the sixth division...but at the same time, thanks to Souji she knew that the divisions had folded in on each other. Some of them, at least, and she had learned that the sixth division had folded into the second. Heh, strange. Had she stayed around for that, would that have meant she'd have been working under her brother? Lessa dismissed the idle thought, at least for the moment, to focus on him. There was still one other question to answer, wasn't there? She didn't want to leave him waiting and have him get all agitated, though she guessed that could be pretty fun. Still, no real reason to risk it, so she just shrugged.

"As for who I am? My name's Lessa," she answered him, figuring there was no reason to hide her name. Her appearance did stand out quite a bit, so no doubt he'd be able to learn who she truly was if he went back to look into records. Souji hadn't recognized the name, though, so she was crossing her fingers that what seemed to be an ordinary Shinigami, based on his spiritual pressure, would be much the same and have no idea who she was. If not...well, this would be a little tricky to explain to him, to say the least. "And before you ask why I did what I did, I decided to meet with you so I could explain. Better to do that then find myself being woken up in the night by you trying to drag me off. That wouldn't be too pleasant for either of us," she stated a moment later, crossing her arms as she looked him up and down.

For being just a regular Shinigami, he was somewhat powerful, now wasn't he? If this was how all Shinigami were now...well, she supposed that was a good thing, at least. If something like Tova's invasion were to happen again, they'd hopefully be more prepared this time, with strong guys like him around. Then again, she herself hadn't even been able to hold a candle to him, even in her most powerful form. Even after he had fought against Miki, so...no. Until they were stronger than even she, most Shinigami would never stand a chance against guys like him, no matter how many of them there were. "So, I'm betting you have a ton of other questions, right? I'll explain myself as best I can. You're probably just doing your job, so I can't hold this against ya." Lessa told him rather casually.

This Lessa person seemed to understand the situation remarkably well, and moreover was remarkably calm about the whole thing. Even so, there were a few details about which she was mistaken.

“Well, I appreciate you honesty, Lessa-san.” Ginjiro said casually. Either Lessa had no intention of attacking him and he had nothing to worry about, or she had every intention of attacking him and he needed to act like he wasn’t worried. Either way, soft voice, big zanpakuto. “However the situation is not quite as simple as you describe. First of all, while these people do not have to eat the food to survive, they still need it for other means.” He said, crossing his arms. Could it be that she honestly thought what she was doing was a victimless crime? If so, he was about to set her straight. “Most of them sell the food to the Seireitei in order to pay the rent on their homes. Many of them eat it as one of the few pleasures this life affords them. Beyond that, they take pride in it. Furthermore, for those who cannot fight, and know no special craft, farming is their only chance of improving their lives, moving to a higher district. If you think they don’t need it, you are mistaken.”

His voice was not angry, as he was not angry at her. Appearences were often deceiving in the world of spirits, but he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was exactly what she appeared to be, a hungry little girl. He was simply educating her, giving her another outlook on what she was doing. Specifically, he was giving her the victims’ point of view on her thefts.

“Also, technically this this is my day off. I supposed you could say this investigation is more of an... extracurricular activity than my actual job.”

“Did she really need to know that?” Kokai Oni chastised.

“Will it really hurt anything? Besides, she needs to know that there’s at least someone who cares about these people enough to investigate things like this.”

“Ah, right, because everyone knows the Seireitei doesn’t.” It was a cheap shot. Kokai Oni had twisted Ginjiro’s words against him, making it sound like he didn’t believe in the seireitei’s willingness to help the rukongai. Unfortunately, he was right.

“Most importantly however, is the fact that there are other ways to acquire the food you need. You could work for money and buy it. I’m sure you could put your speed to good use somewhere, You could grow it yourself, or help some farming family grow theirs and share the profits. Or you could do the most obvious thing. Become a shinigami. I can tell that you’re more than powerful enough to pass the exams. In fact, you’re probably more powerful than most unseated officers. If you did that you could have all the food you could eat, and by honest means. So tell me, why don’t you? Are you afraid of the fight? Or perhaps” he said, his voice lowering, “you have something against the gotei?”


WC: 518
GP: 10
TGP: 23

Wait, really? I...huh. I actually never stopped to wonder where all that food came from, did I?

If there was anything she got from what he said, it was that. Sure, she felt sort of bad for stealing the food from the people, but it made for a fun diversion, and besides, out of everything he said, most of it didn't apply to her, really. She took food from people that were clearly intending to eat it, so the pride part had already been taken care of since whoever had actually grown it had already done so. Which covered the farming part too, and the whole 'selling to the Seireitei' part didn't matter either. Maybe the pleasure thing did, but it wasn't as if there were no other pleasures they could partake in.

Plus, it wasn't like she was stealing all the food she could find. Honestly, she was impressed he had even taken the initiative to go out looking for her, especially on his day off, if what he said was true. "Mmh...yeah, I could do the farming junk, but while some people might like that sorta thing, I really don't," she told him, glancing around for a few moments before pausing. Ah, excellent! Target in sight, she hopped up on the window sill, taking a seat before turning her attention back to him, a childish smile on her face. "Besides that, it's fun and I don't take a ton of food. Didn't even know I took enough to get myself noticed by a Shinigami...guess I can get hungrier than I thought," honestly, she was just stalling for time while she tried to figure out just what to say to his last statement. Something against the Gotei? My he was sure quick to jump to that conclusion!

And they DID say it took one to know one...but she wouldn't stoop to such conclusions just yet. A few seconds after she last spoke, she offered a shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. Sort of a strange thing to ask right away, don'tcha think?" the playful girl asked of him, swinging her feet back and forth as she eyed him. Perhaps she could bargain with him? Say she'd answer if he answered her own questions...then again, no telling where his own loyalties lay. "Maybe you're the one with something against them?" she suggested, though she didn't seriously think that. It was just something she was saying to mess with him, and she felt he'd realize it as just that.

...Hrm. Perhaps she was being a little too playful with him? Honestly, with how much she had been trying to understand Kaiya, it was hard to restrain her impulses at times. And everything was telling her to mess around with him and not give him a straight answer, something Kaiya just loved doing with her. Still, she wasn't about to deny that it was pretty amusing to put up this little act, so why not go along with it for now? "I'd give you an honest answer on the whole 'why not join the Shinigami' thing, buuut I dunno how you'd feel about that honest answer. Promise you won't get red and all mad in the face if I do tell you?" well, it wouldn't be the complete honest truth, that much was for certain. It would be something that had caused her to pause and think about joining them back when she was much, much younger though.

“What an immature, self-centered, brat.” Kokai Oni grumbled. Ginjiro almost said how that sounded like the spirit himself, but he refrained. It would do little good and besides, Ginjiro couldn’t quite bring himself to disagree.

“Your reasons seem to boil down to you doing what you want to do regardless of the effects on others. You don’t want to farm, and it’s fun to steal, so you steal. You rationalize it by downplaying the effects, but neither your victims, nor the law, nor I will consider your justifications valid.” Ginjiro took care to keep his tone even. He was trying not to be angry or judgmental. He would leave that attitude to Kokai Oni. Ginjiro wanted to help, not to punish. He wanted to teach, not to condemn. He wanted to open her mind to why she was wrong, not shut her away in a prison. As far as he was concerned she was a child living in the rukongai who had chosen a wrong path for one of any number of painful reasons he had heard already. “Even so, it could all be forgiven if you change your ways, which brings us back to the subject of the shinigami.”

It was on that very subject that Ginjiro found himself on the defensive. “I- Of course I have no problem with the gotei. I am a shinigami myself after all.” His words were too fast, almost frantic. “It’s just that I’ve heard a lot of people in the rukongai who do dislike the gotei. With it so common, I assumed it was the same with you.” He never had been good at lying to anyone besides himself. His confidence in the gotei as a whole was crumbling, and deep down he knew it. At first he had had complete faith in them, in the law, in Kionchi. Then he had started to see some bad apples. Then he started looking at the rukongai, the results of their rule. Then he found out the truth about Kionchi and what kind of man he was. His loyalty was holding itself together by a thread.

Even with all of their faults however, the shinigami were still the best bet the world had for true justice. The only ones with both the power and the capacity for morality that was necessary. The surest way to change the world for the better was to remain a shinigami. It was Ginjiro’s best chance, and it was the girl’s best chance.

“I promise I will not lose my temper, no matter what your reasons are.” He chose his words carefully. He always did. He could not control what anger he felt, so he did not promise too. He could however control his reaction, and so he promised that instead. Ginjiro would keep his word. He always did. Besides, he had a feeling he knew what was coming.


WC: 480
GP: 9
TGP: 32

She arched a brow at that, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared at the man with a mixture of amusement and derision. "Pfft. I wasn't trying to justify myself, you know," she pointed out. Honestly, she didn't really care what he thought, so long as this meeting didn't end up with him blabbing to everyone in the Seireitei about the girl he had run across this day. That was the last kind of attention she would want, although he had no possible way of knowing that. If he was part of the 2nd or 6th, though, the divisions most likely to look into the incidents she had caused, it didn't seem likely to her that he would do that.

"Look, I'll think about it if it gets you stop being all badgering. That's about all I can promise though," the girl added a moment later with a slight roll of her eyes, unable to help herself as she did that. Honestly, it was pretty tempting to rush off right then and there, but then he might be on her tail forever. Plus he might call in some of his Shinigami buddies to help find her, and the less people that knew she existed, the better. She might just do some honest work, if only so as to not attract the attention of another Shinigami, and the Shinigami after that, and so on.

When he next spoke, she just stared at him, a skeptical look clear on her face. Maybe if he hadn't rushed to get his words out, or sounded slightly frantic, she might have believed him. But from the way he was talking, it was really hard to do that, and she had to admit it was funny how quickly the tables could be turned like this. All it had taken was one question and now he was the one on the defensive. She'd have to keep what she just witnessed in mind during this little talk of theirs. If he got that freaked out at the mere suggestion that he had problems with how the Gotei worked.

Though, she couldn't exactly find it too suspicious if people were like that. The effects of that Massacre were still being felt, after all, and no doubt many Shinigami had began to question the leadership of their society if some Arrancar could just waltz in and obliterate a large quantity of lives. "...Anyway, if you say so, I'll tell ya. I used to be with them, the Shinigami. After the Massacre thing though...sorta began to doubt them, so I just ran off. Defected, if you wanna call it that. Pretty sure plenty of other Shinigami did the same thing," she paused, wondering if he knew what the Massacre even had been before shrugging to herself. If he didn't, then what did that matter? He'd just ask anyway.

"Now, any questions? Oh, but before that, you sure you have no problems? I mean, just because you're with them doesn't mean you're one of those people who blindly idolizes what is told to them and believes it without question, right?"

He had not known what was coming. He could not possibly have been more wrong about what was coming. He had expected more of the “shinigami are all hypocrites and I don’t trust them” stuff that he had heard from so many in the rukongai. He had not expected to find out that the girl was a defector, and reasonable or not there was no other word for it. Ginjiro’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped a bit in surprise, but he easily kept his promise not to be angry. He was a bit too shocked to be angry. How could a shinigami, let alone one as powerful as this, manage to defect from the gotei and keep from being caught while hiding in the rukongai? If it had been the mortal realm that would have been one thing but... just how neglected was the rukongai?

Furthermore, why had she defected in the first place? Ginjiro had heard about the massacre, about the king of Hueco Mundo invading and killing a bunch of people in the soul society, but for someone to defect like that, for a lot of people to defect like that, had there been more to it?

Her next question caught him a bit off guard, or at least the wording did. She seemed to be good at that. He looked down, staring at a weed growing out from a nearby wall rather than the girl’s eyes. She really had him pegged, or rather, she would have not long ago. How much should he really tell her though?

“I was, once. I thought the gotei was synonymous with justice. Then... someone knocked some sense into me, and I started taking a closer look.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he was looking back at the girl. “I am becoming increasingly aware of the gotei’s... imperfections.” Imperfections was a very kind word. Failures would be more realistic.

“I’m... afraid the massacre occurred before my time. Before I was even in the soul society, let alone a shinigami. I only know as much about the massacre as they taught us in the academy, and my education was a bit rushed at that.” It was true. There were a few downsides to being rushed through the ranks by the likes of Kionchi. Not that he would really be expect the gotei to teach the darker parts of their history without bias anyway. “What exactly happened that would make defections so tempting?”

WC: 417
GP: 8
TGP: 40

If she weren't in the situation she were in, she might have smirked at the reaction he had. Slack jawed, widened eyes..it was pretty funny; as it was, she only barely repressed a smile, though she was sure it still showed a little bit. For being a part of the Seireitei, he sure didn't seem to know too much...a good thing, really. If he didn't know of her, then maybe plenty of others didn't either. Perhaps even her past transgressions had just been...forgotten? Fat chance of that, actually. At the same time though, if what she had heard was true, maybe she'd be put in rehabilitation or something if she revealed what she was to the current Captain Commander...not that she planned on doing that.

After all, if recent history was anything to go by, Captain Commanders did not last long at all. After all, in only two years, three different people had held the position. Kenshou had for a very brief time, then Kiriko, and now whoever this Tokiyo guy was. Well, whoever he was, she had no doubt he'd run into her eventually. That...was not a meeting she particularly relished.

"I sorta used to be the same. Well, minus the getting my sense knocked into me bit. I just sort of recognized it and left," she commented, thinking back briefly. Right...her brother, wherever he was. Looking back, it had been so silly to look for him so much, to try and find one soul in the vast sea of many. For all she knew, he had reincarnated by now. She wondered, if she had realized how foolish such a pursuit would be back then, what would her life be like now? Would she still be a Vaizard? Would she still be so lonely? Her thoughts were broken by him speaking again, causing her eyes to pivet away from the ground and towards him.

"You're...that new of a Shinigami? The Massacre only occurred roughly two years ago..." she trailed off, unable to help her surprise before shrugging. It was surprising that he was so new to the Soul Society, that he had went through the Academy so rapidly, but it was none of her business. Maybe he was a fast learner, maybe the Academy was starting to slack off, either way she didn't care. "Well..anyway. Pretty blunt question, don't you think?" the girl heaved, letting out a sigh as she glanced away and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Put simply, it was hell. Imagine it's just another day in the Soul Society. Then, a man everyone thought that had been cowed and defeated by us, the current King of Las Noches at the time Tova Diablo, appears through a Garganta. At first, there's confusion at what he's doing there, and that is quickly replaced by fear as he inflicts death and suffering everywhere he goes, and all just for his own amusement," her fist curled a bit at that. "Imagine trying to save the one you care about above everything else, being crushed like a gnat, and being helpless to do anything for her," Lessa continued, looking back at him now, unable to help the look of primal anger in her eyes.

"The inability of the Seireitei to stop that, alongside all their past mistakes, was good enough for me to decide to leave it. Granted, that...was probably a mistake on my part." she admitted. Perhaps if she had stayed, Miki never would have done what she had did. She might even still be here now, rather than...wherever she had gone off to.