An Examination In Time (Watari/Closed)

Kisho made his way to the training ground with no particular hassle. He was going to be a bit late but he had played this game before and had a good idea of how late he could be without suffering much more than a side-eyed glance. Petty for a seventy-year-old samurai in training? Well maybe, but he was in the middle of lounging and he figured the cost paid and owed worked out about even.

Well, that was the idea he'd express anyway in truth there was a sliver of doubt in his stomach. Late to his own examination, jeopardizing that examination, because he was worried about passing the examination. Kisho sighed at the half-had realization and shoved it squarely out of his mind because he had arrived.

He found himself in an area not far from the 5th Division headquarters, a football-size length field with a trimmed lawn divided up into a trio of smaller fields meant for practice duels and the like. Empty.

He paused for a moment in hesitation at the edge. Had he really been so late the instructor just left? He let out a quiet sound of frustration and shrugged it off. Whatever. What did it matter?

Begrudgingly he made his way to the field as instructed and waited. The sun shone from above, a quiet place, a quiet moment, stolen away in the heart of the Seireitei. He'd give it some time and hope he could make the most of it.

Watari just wanted to confirm in his own head, that he was not late. He was just fashionably delayed. Yeah, that was a good excuse for whoever it was that he was meant to be grading. Why they had put off this job on him he had no idea. Actually, he had a good idea. Most of the instructors were busy and he had recently graduated top of his class, coupled with him being the Head of the Suzumei Family and that made him some sort of savant.

The Shinigami rounded the corner onto the fifth squads training grounds, there were little people around and luckily he had managed to once again convince his guards to not accompany him. It would be easier for him - and them if people just thought he was some inconspicuous Shinigami who held little to no consequence.

“Yo” Watari raised a hand and felt the familiar itch in his knuckles to draw a cigarette and smoke. No, he shouldn’t do that, that was a bad idea and would look bad. He should definitely and no point start smoking.

He took a long draw of his cigarette and stood opposite to where the man was standing. Watari gestured to himself and nodded “Watari” and took another long drag before flicking the cigarette onto the dirt ground and stamping it out with his heel.

“I am meant to grade you in Zanjutsu but before we even begin I want to ask you a question. Why do you raise your blade? Why do you swing and parry? What makes you dance” it was a quick entry but they had already wasted time. Watari himself could only vaguely remember what this Shinigami’s name was, it was written somewhere on a scrap of paper in his head.

Ah yes.

“Matsumoto-san, why do you fight?”

"Fuck," Kisho cursed unheard amidst the otherwise silent and empty field. He turned once more and moved to leave. The minutes had ticked by and he had started to feel the fool. He'd come here for nothing, late a few minutes and the instructor left or decided not to show. He huffed and made it a step before he spied someone coming and paused. He folded his arms over his chest, sleeves piled around his forearms and appraised the approaching figure.

Kisho had no idea who this was, but they weren't any of his existing instructors, if they were at all. Still, he was heartened, if quietly that he hadn't missed them. He did his best to avoid feeling the hypocritical sense of annoyance, how dare this guy make him wait and instead gestured towards the fellow Shinigami as they raised a hand to him.

"Yo," he said back and raised his head appraising them. Kisho was in full uniform, relatively spotless aside from the slightly askew v of his neckline, Zanpakuto at his hip tied securely and sheathed. His dark brown hair was messy, not fully dishevelled but by design, he had what appeared to be a semi-permanent five o'clock shadow.

"Kisho," he replied back naturally and glanced at the drawn, lit, and then discarded cigarette and made a face partway between a frown and a grimace. Still, the man was talking and Kisho gave him the attention. Ahah, the philosophical question. He hoped this would be his one examination that was practical but it appeared like talking was a cherished trait in Shinigami. Still, he bore his boredom well and trusted his instructor would merely suspect his answer was canned and not be certain he was entirely full of shit. He replied with little hesitation, spoke clearly and confidently.

"Zanjutsu is the art of the blade. A Shinigami's primary tool, beyond their intellect and fellow Shinigami, is the Zanpakuto. We raise our blade to carry out our duty, swing to eliminate Hollow and purify their souls. Parry to protect ourselves and ensure our duty endures. We fight, for the sake of the Seireitei, the Rukongai, all of Soul Society and most importantly, our duty. To preserve balance."

Bullshit through and through but he wasn't going to bring that up here and now.

Those words, those boring meticulous words read from a textbook, the words of a brute, from a duty slave, from a man who did not understand what they meant and nor did they care too. The words of a Shinigami who was faceless. That was the difference between Watari and this boy, Watari understood duty and honor. He swung his blade not for false Shinigami ‘justice’ but for his own, to guide the Suzumei Family and to raise them higher than they’d ever been.

To slay the monsters of men.

That was the difference between him and this student, between Watari and the greater soul society. They all learnt for the wrong reasons “to keep balance” to “slay Hollow” false reasons. Faceless reasons. Half-truth and fallacies.

“Tch”

Watari flickered where he stood, shunpo carrying his movement. He had no doubt that the boy would follow it, of course he could. Watari’s base skillset was weak, but his skill with a sword? It had been unmatched in his graduation class and he would prove it. Perhaps this was why he’d been assigned to the boy, to tell him what ‘justice’ really meant.

“Wrong” Watari appeared in front of the boy and swung his zanpakuto that he now held in his non-dominant hand. Falsities and lies would convey in his defence, his zanpakuto was not only an extension of the soul but an extension of the body. To just mock ‘justice’ was to leave yourself open.

His asauchi bit into the other, “family”, “honor”, “duty” these were things a Noble Shinigami knew well, these were things that gave him an advantage. He was Watari Suzumei, he was a noble family head.

They both moved simultaneously creating space and the mentor raised his zanpakuto at the student.

“Matsumoto-san, why do you fight?”

A whisper across the now silent battlefield.

Kisho could tell his words didn't have the desired effect which was an unfortunate gamble because the truth was Kisho didn't give a shit about any of those things. This guy looked the type but he had to be wary of so-called true believers because they could smell his bullshit a mile away.

To his credit, as bad as Kisho was with the philosophy behind why he fought he was no slouch when it came to the fighting. His blade was up and drawn as the man closed with him. He parried the cut and shifted back a half step to give him the distance. That might not have been a killing blow, but somehow Kisho felt like his *instructor* wouldn't have minded bloodying him if he slouched. Still...

He had to admit he was impressed with the guy's skill. Kisho lashed out in response forcing them both at a bit of distance, resetting the stage.

Blade levelled Kisho stared at him past the tip of his blade. His posture was relaxed and breezy, the grip loose albeit natural. Despite the element of surprise squarely in Watari's court, Kisho looked calm if perhaps a touch confused though a less charitable description would be 'lax'.

"Tch," he shot back. he heard the mans words but all it did was raise his hackles. To hell with that kind of question. Always the same damn shit throughout the academy. Fighting for purpose, fighting for noble purposes. He wouldn't buy the canned response, and doubtless, he could bullshit anything further.

He moved suddenly, skipping the distance between them with an airy movement. His blade moved to thrust forward but pulled suddenly around to the opposite side of Watari's guard and slashed down to execute a feint.

"What the hell does it matter why!?" he called out, dropping his pretense.

There was this old metaphor Watari had been taught by his father when he was first learning Zanjutsu, that each sword strike was like the move of a chessboard. If you thought of Zanjutsu a few moves forward then you could reasonably know how to checkmate your opponent based on their actions and their follow through. The Suzumei Head had been playing the game from the beginning, right up to his hand choice. Left hand. Non-dominant hand. Loose hand.

The feint came, telegraphed by the traditional lunge into alternating swing. Common move in fencing, an even more common move that Zanjutsu students used on their mentors. He smiled as his limp wrist snapped his zanpakuto downwards parrying the strike. The mentor smiled and used that point of contact as a means of pushing backwards away from the student.

“It matters,” Watari said, passing the Zanpakuto to his dominant hand. His index finger slotted into the hole in the blade and used his knowledge of his weapon to spin it like a wheel swinging and slashing the saw-like zanpakuto at the other man’s side. At point of contact and rebounding of their blades his right hand would snap back onto the hilt to match the next blow.

“Because your Zanpakuto doesn’t sing and because it doesn’t sing it can’t dance. There’s a convention in musical theatre I like that I think reflects in swordplay” at this point they were just exchanging blows back and forth, conveying a point. Matsumoto’s blows were dull, they were only strengthened by frustration and anger at the words he spoke.

“When your passion to swing exceeds your need to speak, then you sing. When you can’t sing anymore. You dance” Watari looked for singing in his students, sometimes he managed to get them to dance and in that moment they danced he knew he had taught them something. This man however seemed reluctant the strikes were so . . . lost . . .so unfounded. There was definite skill here but it lacked something.

“You’re tone deaf and have two left feet” Watari hummed.

Kisho pulled his guard back naturally as it was parried aside and held his blade up warily as he prepared for a counterattack that lingered. The attack finally came, a hammering horizontal saw like slash towards his side. No place for a coy block, Kisho batted it away with a forceful counter blow causing the Zanpakuto's to ring across the empty field, and another notch was worn into his blade.

They traded like that, Kisho abandoning the cute footwork to press the advantage he felt like he had over the man, raw power. His blows hammered in but found themselves matched and deflected with lesser force. Frustrated, but holding his own, Kisho kept up an offence and fought well, but Watari barely looked pressed.

The talking of singing and dancing went well over Kisho's head, he ground his teeth together and bit back the urge to tell him to shut the hell up, because this was a grading after all, and he was fighting with an instructor. Wasn't he? Something about this whole situation just felt off, slightly askew.

More nonsense about passion, and singing and dancing. If this was a lesson, Kisho wasn't getting it. He was reminded briefly of how much he hated getting talked down to, and then it struck him. This asshole was a noble, wasn't he?

Tone-deaf, and two left feet? Kisho parted backwards and braced himself against the ground, raising his blade up in a neutral stance and took a breath. Of the two it was clear that Watari had taken the lead. A better swordsman maybe, or just good at throwing Kisho off his game. But this was a Zanjutsu examination, this was his ticket out of the academy. Better pay, privileges and responsibilities...

But did Kisho care about any of that? So long as he had food he was content, he didn't have much in the way of hobbies, and he certainly didn't give a crap about the Shinigami's grand responsibility, because if he didn't do it, someone, else would. So, why was he here? Why was he even bothering to try?

...

Tone-deaf and two left feet. Shutting this guy up was reason enough. A hint of wounded pride and a desire to win, supremacy was weak as a goal but it was a goal at least enough for a moment. He shifted back and danced off his back leg, bounced his weight left to right before launching forward sudden with an abrupt explosion of speed. The attack didn't come until the tail end of his movement, blade wavering only slightly until at last the path was decided. The blade pressed forward hard against his opponent's guard then he attempted to force it upward, to break his guard and slashed down to catch his shoulder.

A moment of effort, raw and real beyond the rote. A glimmer.

The more he pressed, the more the boy broke and there in the heart of it was why they chose Watari. There wasn’t a complex reason for it, really it was a kind reason more than anything. Matsumoto’s tutors cared about him and rather than letting him stray down the path of a monster they had prodded him in the direction of somebody who prided himself on putting them down.

In that glimmer of desperation, Matsumoto’s skill became raw and uncalloused. There was no aiming for a limb and thinking of a response. It was knowing all of the responses at once and letting them flow passed him like a river. Pure unbridled instinct. He moved swift and fast but the speed was not the reason his actions became nigh unreadable, it was undaunted courage. A blade that does not hesitate, can not be read.

Then the flame went out.

The kindling ember began smouldering.

Watari moved with grace, spinning away from the attack with a twirl and bringing his zanpakuto down onto the students neck.

The cold tongue of his zanpakuto on the back of Matsumoto’s neck.This was poetry, for a moment he could have sworn the man had danced, for a flicker of an instant he had actually sung. Too good to be true, but it was enough.

“You’re dead,” he said softly, sadly.

Then he spun away again and sheathed his zanpakuto, turning to walk away.

----

“Watari? Can you stop beating your brothers with your stick?”

“They just don’t get it mom!”

“Just because you can beat people down doesn’t mean you should”

---

Kisho's blade caught air, he stepped forward and tried to carry his momentum into a block but he felt the blade against his neck as his blade half raised. He froze and for a moment they held still, picturesque for a moment they stood like a tableau.

A gentle uncaring breeze filter past him leaving only the sound of Kisho's heavy breath.

You're dead.

His eyes locked on Watari's, unblinking for the moment it took the man to lift the blade and turn. Kisho didn't move to pursue the man stepped away, nothing as he sheathed his blade, nothing as he began to walk away.

At last, he lowered his blade, eyes pulled from the sight of the disappearing Shinigami and to the blade. He wasn't tempted by his anger to pursue the man and attack while his back was turned. He wasn't tempted to do anything. To just watch his empty blade, alone in an empty field in an empty section of the Seireitei.

Kisho felt haunted by that single moment, the glimmer where he felt alive. But he was unable to truly grasp it, unable to really call it forth and already the raw memory of it was drifting away filtered through the sieve to recollection.

Troubled was at least something to feel.

“ . . . “

Watari stopped and cocked his head to the side. It was almost as if for a second? Something had caught his ear. He glanced down at the asauchi that sat tied to his hip, as quiet as ever and yet something had changed. What? He couldn’t say. It was as if . . .

“. . .”

He looked back at the man who stood there, there wasn’t even a hint of defeat on his face nor was there anger or sadness. In fact he seemed almost contemplative. Matsumoto was no monster. In fact his actions showed that he was the furthest away from one.

---
“Watari you cannot go into that room” his butler looked into his eyes, those deep brown eyes once filled with joy now contained a profane sorrow. Watari didn’t want to fight him, but he had to. He had to know. He, the eldest of the Suzumei son’s pushed passed his butler and opened the door to his family's meeting room.

Crimson

And . . . laughter?
---

“You passed, you are no monster of man” the Suzumei Head called back to the student. He drew a cigarette from his pocket and took a long drag of it as memories from another time decided to bother him. He continued looking back at the student who seemed almost frozen in shock, was defeat really that easy for him? No this was something else . . . Ah he thought too much about the expressions of the people around him, it was much easier to just smoke it away.

“Don’t die next time” and Watari continued on his way.