Bureau of Justice [close]

The heads Hazuki had collected in Hueco Mundo had, just as she had promised, been mounted on spikes. There had been no effort to preserve them; things didn’t rot in Soul Society the same way they did on Earth, nor were there any carrion birds around to peck at the soft tissue. The heads remained pristine—or at least unchanged, one of them had arrived a little worse for wear, after all—and served as a potent reminder of what happened to those who fell afoul of the law.

She had picked the location with great care, on the face of an arch that passed over one of the main thoroughfares through central Seireitei, and she estimated roughly a third of the city’s Shinigami saw it at least once a day. If she wanted better than that, she would have had to have the heads marched through the fortress-city on a constant circuit, and that didn’t seem very practical—or tasteful.

She found herself gazing at them from a third-floor window of an adjacent administrative building as two of her subordinate officers sifted through boxes of files behind her, looking for some file, some scrap of information, that she hoped would illuminate something they were working on. Technically, she was supposed to be free today, but Hazuki was the way she was. Rania was working, Kasumi was working, and rather than lock herself in the empty apartment with a book or three, she had decided to do something useful with her time.

As she was stood there, looking at the heads and drinking in the dying light in silence, she was struck by a sudden longing for home—not the studio apartment she shared with Rania just off the Second Division highlands, but for the Seireitei in which she had grown up. It was difficult putting her finger on what precisely had triggered it, but she was reminded of the Garden, and the question she had been posed just before she had departed:

Are you ready to go home now?

She had paused, and the starry eyes had twinkled at her, and finally she had told him no, not yet. She didn’t want to leave, not right away. Neither of them had said anything else after that, but she saw in him that he knew the day would come, the same way he seemed to know everything.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment. Thought of Kasumi, and Kiriko, and Jasper, and her mother, and her father. Thought of how much she missed them all. Thought of—

‘Director, we’re finished.’

Her eyes opened, slid over to the woman who had roused her from her reverie. Nothing in her uniform suggested Hazuki outranked her—she wore the same black robes, the same circular steel badge (though on a thin but rugged chain around her neck and with far less scorch marks). Her male companion had opted for the lapel pin, but otherwise there was nothing that distinguished the three of them. But Hazuki’s authority wasn’t something she felt the need to parade around on her uniform. She didn’t want a haori. She had her badge, her sword, and her reputation, and that was all she needed.

‘Then let’s head back,’ she replied.

The walk back to headquarters was a short one, marked by a certain stiffness in those they passed. It might have been cause for some concern if she hadn’t seen that same stiffness in people who crossed paths with captains and lieutenants. By now, she was quite familiar with it herself. People straightened up in the presence of authority, and like it or not, the Public Safety Office was an authority. Balanced, she felt, by the promise she had made to her subordinates to personally crush anyone who abused it. That right, she felt, belonged solely to her. She made use of it sparingly.

The officers detached themselves from her with curt salutes once they were inside the complex and Hazuki made for her office, certain she would be able to find something worth doing. She rounded a corner and saw someone poking their head through her office door.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, voice level.


°699

Chatter in the distance perked Saya’s ears and then she pulled away from the slightly ajar door. Footsteps broke off from each other until only a single pair of clacking could be heard, each step seemingly slower than the next. It wasn’t until the person rounded the corner that the sound came to a stop.

Saya’s hazel eyes looked back at the pair of colorless, emotionless ones that regarded her with little interest. Like a bored cat gazing out the window.

It was strange to have those pair of eyes focused on someone as small as Saya. It wasn’t like she hadn’t ever seem Hazuki around before – everyone had seen the infamous woman at some point in their stay in the Seireitei—but to be the focus of her attention?

Saya couldn’t help but feel her shoulders tense up a bit.

“Director,” she said in a stern voice. The flat, almost monotone rumble of her voice was all she could do to hide away the nervous quiver. “I’d like to join the Public Safety Office.”

Blunt. Too blunt? Definitely. The words had just stumbled out, as if standing in silence for a moment longer would have been unbearable.

Saya paused for a breath, realizing her own faux pas. She broke Hazuki’s stare to look down at the manila folder in her hands. Careful not to fling the papers within, Saya thrust the folder out for the Director to take at her leisure.

“My name Is Saya and I’m a seated officer in the Second Division,” she started to clarify. “Here is my personal file. I figured you hadn’t really heard of me up until this point, so giving you my personal records would…” She stammered, mind blanking as she tried to bring up words she only recently learned.

“…I figured they would give credit to anything I say during this interview.”

[311]

Hazuki gave her visitor a cursory glance, making no move to take the proffered file. Her left hand made its way idly to Sakurazuki’s hilt, where it tapped a staccato rhythm as Hazuki’s eyes slid toward her office door, still ajar. Briefly, she entertained chastising the girl before her for entering without permission, but there was no real harm in it. There was nothing in her office that she didn’t want anyone else to see—there wasn’t much to see at all, in fact. The same reluctance to make it hers that had overcome her when she had taken the Third had struck again here, though not, she suspected, for the same reasons.

‘Did you?’ she replied distantly, gaze lingering on the door. She didn’t expect an answer. She had already taken great care in making sure all those who showed promise for the work the Public Safety Office did had been plucked from the Second. Saya was not a name she recognized, but then Hazuki rarely bothered learning people’s names.

She considered inviting the girl into her office, but thought better of it; it was a stuffy little room and there wasn’t anywhere for guests to sit—she had asked Kasumi for humble lodgings for the Office’s new headquarters and that was precisely what she had received. The privacy was more an antiquated symbol of her rank than it was a necessity: most of Hazuki’s work was done in the field, so to speak.

She turned her attention back to the brunette, the drumming of her fingers suddenly stopping, her dull grey eyes boring into the inexperienced seated officer. There was something in the way this girl stood, the way she talked, the way her spirit radiated that betrayed her—Hazuki had been surrounded by seasoned members of the Second her entire life and there was something about this girl that didn’t quite fit the bill.

‘Why?’ she asked at last.


°322

The girl puffed up her chest at the question and started explaining herself, but it didn’t take long before Hazuki cut her short.

‘No.’

All it took was that single syllable and it seemed like the girl in front of her deflated, robbed entirely of whatever it was that had kept her afloat thus far. In itself, it was a good indication Hazuki’s arguably kneejerk reaction had been the correct one. The proper reaction to setbacks in Hazuki Tsukimiya’s Public Safety Office was not to let them blindside you. It was to turn around and demolish them.

‘But why,’ came the plaintive bewilderment at last, and Hazuki shook her head.

‘I don’t have to have a reason.’

‘There’s no way you don’t have a reason!’

Hazuki pursed her lips in silent thought for a moment, then inhaled.

‘The Second was the first place I went to for personnel when the PSO was formed. Half of the people in that division were old members of the Sixth, which made it the logical place to start. You’re not former Sixth, or else you wouldn’t be here today. You also didn’t take the offer to leave the Second in favor of the PSO when it was first given, which in itself tells me a lot about you: you hesitated the first time, and you’ve been second-guessing that choice ever since. Now you’ve finally realized you’re fed up with the Second and are looking for greener pastures elsewhere and are hoping that I will accommodate you.’

She took a step closer to her interviewee, touching a finger to the file she had offered just moments ago.

‘If your reaction just now is any indication, I’m willing to bet that much of what I’ll find in here is half-measures and lack of follow-through. That’s not what I’m looking for.’

Her cold grey eyes bored into the other girl’s browns, as if challenging her to act.

‘The Public Safety Office is by design small, but it’s staffed by those who are very, very good. You are small, but you’re a far cry from good. Thus I am formally denying your request to join. Goodbye.’


°358

EXIT HAZUKI