What Jun hadn't expected was that he would get busy just a few days after visiting the Twelfth Division.
The Twelfth Division had suddenly placed an enormous order for live Hollows, and, uncharacteristically, the First Division had immediately approved it and issued the assignment. The quantity had no upper limit whatsoever: they were to keep going until the Twelfth Division said it had enough. It was that outrageous.
As a result, not only did the Tenth Division's workload increase, but high-ranking seated officers from other divisions were also assigned to help. To satisfy the Twelfth Division's appetite as quickly as possible, everyone was to avoid killing any Hollows that appeared in Soul Society if they could help it—or rather, they were all supposed to capture them alive.
People from other divisions had come to help, so how could Jun, a single-digit seated officer of the Tenth Division, have the nerve to sit around? Everyone in the Tenth Division except Captain Shiba Kazato was active on the front lines.
After nearly a month of this, the assignment was still far from complete. Instead, Jun's adjutant had finally finished her assignment in the World of the Living and returned to the division.
"What!!???" When Asai-nee heard that she was supposed to serve as Jun's adjutant, she broke down on the spot. She looked at Jun with an indescribable expression, as if to say, "Are you a demon?"
Only then did Jun realize that the psychological trauma he had caused her seemed far worse than he had imagined. But that was precisely why he needed to keep her close. He would either cure her or drive her mad. If she recovered, all would be well; if she went mad, he would kill her outright. Everything would be under his control, and she absolutely mustn't cause some disaster that shook Soul Society.
With that in mind, Jun naturally had no intention of changing his decision. Since the higher-ranking officer insisted, the lower-ranking one had little room to resist, and Asai-nee had no choice but to become Jun's adjutant.
After they left the office, Jun asked, "Do you need a few more days to rest?"
Asai-nee said nothing, so Jun continued, "If you need to rest, tell me now. The division recently took on a big assignment, and we're extremely busy. Look, there's nobody here right now. If you don't need to rest, come with me on the assignment."
Asai-nee still didn't say a word. Jun felt like there were thorns pricking his back. He barely dared look at her. She was reasonably pretty, though not as pretty as Isuzu, but right now he was feeling a little nervous.
Still, he had no choice but to turn around, and their eyes met. Jun could really feel the laser-like heat in her gaze. For the first time, he realized that human eyes really could emit energy.
"No rest." After Jun had looked away more than a dozen times, she finally spoke, brief and to the point.
"Ahem, then keep up." Jun was particularly nervous now, because Asai-nee had just gone several minutes without blinking. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was engraving him into the deepest recesses of her memory. But this clearly wasn't love—it was hatred! It felt like one of those scenes in a TV drama where a wife whose husband had died said to her child, "Look! Don't blink! Remember! That's the man who killed your father!"
Jun walked in front, able to sense her following right behind him, but he still felt uneasy, afraid she might suddenly draw her sword and run him through.
Clearly, though, the young man was worrying too much. Nothing happened even after they reached the woods. Jun glanced at today's map and stopped after several steps of Shunpo.
They were in a bamboo grove with a small stream running through it. A clearing had been made in the middle of the grove, and the scenery was quite pleasant.
"Let's wait here. Want some tea?" Jun tried to start a conversation.
But she still said nothing, so Jun went to the usual spot, took out the tea set he had hidden there, and went to the stream to wash it. Then he fetched water, took out some tea leaves, and went about making tea for himself.
Jun's carefree attitude finally made Asai Shinten feel that something was wrong. "I may be your adjutant, but what kind of assignment are you carrying out like this?"
Jun explained the assignment to her, and she asked, "Then what are you doing now?"
"Waiting. Once someone finds a Hollow and notifies me, I'll go capture it alive."
"Notify you?"
"Right, notify me." Jun took a small tag from his robes and tossed it to Adjutant Asai. "This is a Locator Tag I asked the Twelfth Division to make. This is the Master Tag, and the other squads have Slave Tags. Whenever a Slave Tag is activated, the Master Tag shows its location. Then we just have to head in that direction."
"After all, you don't see Hollows in Soul Society every day. Ever since we got these, everyone who's used them has had good things to say. They save time and effort and give everyone some time to rest."
Watching her fiddle with the tag, Jun smiled. "If you like it, you can keep it."
Before he had even finished speaking, the tag was tossed back. Jun wasn't angry. "Come sit down and have some tea."
She ignored him, and Jun didn't mind. He simply picked up a cup and began slurping his tea.
Jun drank tea very crudely, the way one drank it from a large bowl. It was a far cry from Soul Society's tea ceremony, and since Jun preferred brewed tea to matcha, the difference was even greater.
But Jun didn't care. He did whatever was comfortable. His slurping, however, made the other person present uncomfortable all over, and whenever he made a noise, she couldn't help looking over at him.
Only then did Jun realize that she might have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Hehe, the sound of me drinking tea bothers you, doesn't it? Pfft."
"How can you be so crude!? Didn't you learn the tea ceremony at the academy?"
"I did, but I don't like it. I drink tea to enjoy myself, not to show off. Of course I know the tea ceremony, but should I perform it for you now? Or for myself? I'm not old enough to be cultivating my state of mind, and my life isn't that peaceful yet."
Slurp, slurp~~ Slurp, slurp~~
Jun's words had somewhat stunned Asai Shinten, prompting her to take a fresh look at him. Unfortunately, the sight of him squatting there and slurping tea was unacceptable no matter how she looked at it.
Suddenly, the tag in Jun's robes rang. He tossed his teacup aside and jumped up. "Haha, here we go! A Hollow turned up on your first day back. You really are a lucky charm!"
Asai-nee was baffled. Since when was attracting a Hollow lucky? But Jun vanished in an instant. She remembered him throwing the teacup, and when she looked over, she found that the tea set had already been put away neatly.
"When?" Surprised as she was, this was no time to dwell on it. What she needed to do was use Shunpo and catch up with Jun.
The message had come from quite a distance away, and Jun used Shunpo more than thirty times before arriving. As soon as he landed, he skipped the chatter and immediately unleashed the Bakudō Kakushitsuijaku.
"Oh? Sixteen of them? Haha, what a haul!" Jun's expression darkened before he had finished laughing. "Why did they split up? Is there no one commanding them? I'll go ahead. You just follow."
The four-person squad that had sent the message was a little bewildered. Jun vanished as soon as he gave the order, and Asai-nee only arrived then. The five of them stared at one another.
"Where's 9th Seat Shimizu?"
"10th Seat Asai, um..."
"I'm the 9th Seat's adjutant now. Where is he?"
"He went that way. He told us to follow him."
"Then what are you waiting for!?"
The five hurried off. By the time they found Jun, he was surrounded by Hollows pinned to the ground with spirit rods. All sixteen were accounted for.
"Oh, just in time. There are quite a few of them, and I don't have much Spiritual Power left. Use Binding Type Bakudō to tie them all up and send them to the Twelfth Division."
"Uh, 9th Seat Shimizu, have they all been sealed?"
"Ah, not one of them could fight. Saved me a lot of effort. You handle the rest." Jun turned away with a flourish. "Adjutant Asai, come with me."
This time, she showed no reaction and simply followed Jun away. As the two walked along, Asai Shinten suddenly asked a question.
"Why are you so strong?"
"Huh?"
"How can you be so strong? You're still so young."
"Well, talent, I suppose, and intelligence. Um, courage too? Toughness? Resolve?" Jun rubbed his chin as he shamelessly listed them off.
"Stop joking around!!"
Although Asai-nee had blown up, Jun wasn't afraid. As long as a problem was right in front of him, it wasn't a problem. "Do you think I'm joking?"
"Huh?"
"What I said is true. I'm very talented, and I'm smart too. While recording Kidō, I even thought about what ancient warfare was like and wrote a novel around it. I'm also very brave. The first time I saw a Hollow, I chose to capture it alive. Tough as I am, I endured fifty-eight years at the academy despite all the rumors and gossip. How could I have done that without firm resolve?"
"Well..." Asai Shinten had to admit that what Jun said seemed to make a lot of sense.
Jun snorted softly. "What about you, then? You asked why I'm so strong, and I gave you an answer. Based on my answer, shouldn't you tell me what you were like back then?"
"I..."
"Your talent was average, and you weren't smart. You couldn't memorize the complicated, unrelated Kidō incantations, and you weren't very brave either. After all, being defeated by me once was enough to make you fear me. You weren't tough, either. Everyone at the academy said graduating early was impressive, so you graduated early. You didn't have the resolve to stick to what you believed was right. Is that right?"
Asai Shinten's face turned paper-white in an instant, but Jun wasn't surprised. What he had said applied to ninety-five percent of the Soul Reapers in Soul Society. The remaining five percent were the strong, either captains, vice-captains, or single-digit seated officers.
"Now do you understand the difference between us?"
"Yes." In an instant, Adjutant Asai seemed to have had her soul drained away, as though she had fallen into deathly silence.
"Then have you ever wanted to change?"
"What?"
"I mean, have you ever wanted to become stronger?"
"Of course!"
"Hmm. You wanted to get stronger, but you didn't want to work hard, and you had no direction. You just prayed for heaven to send you a benefactor who would help you get stronger. Is that right?"
"I..."
"You must have blamed the captain and vice-captain. They're powerful members of the Shiba Clan, already so strong, yet they won't help you."
"I-I didn't."
"If you didn't, why did you hesitate?"
Asai Shinten was finally at a loss for words. Jun, however, said, "Actually, I'm quite surprised. If that's your mindset, how did you become the Tenth Division's 9th Seat? Could it be that you're an old woman of eight or nine hundred?"
"I'm only 32!" Asai-nee finally exploded. Women in Soul Society were still women, and age was always a taboo subject.
"Hm? You graduated a hundred..."
"One hundred and thirty-three years ago."
"That's pretty good!" This time, Jun's admiration was genuine. "Look, aside from the vice-captain, isn't everyone from 8th Seat Tōjō upward over two hundred years old? You're pretty impressive!"
"But I lost to you."
"So why compare yourself to me? Um, to put it bluntly, I broke the record for all of Soul Society. Right now, I'm number one in Soul Society, its greatest genius."
Asai Shinten's gaze grew complicated again. Of course, it wasn't as full of hatred as before. Instead, it had turned questioning: how could anyone be so shameless?
"Anyway, you're my adjutant now. Have you heard about the Division Evaluation Meeting I organized?"
"What's that?"
"It's a study group, organized for people like you who've been Soul Reapers for a long time, feel like they're not quite up to it anymore, and need to improve but have no direction."
"I'm the main instructor. Classes were supposed to be starting around now, but this assignment delayed them." Jun tapped his chin. "Actually, that works out. I hadn't prepared much before, and if I'd gone up there to teach, I reckon I'd have run out of things to say in a few days. So I'll spend this time preparing lesson plans. Since you're here, you can help me write them down."
"What lesson plans?"
"Plans for teaching, called lesson plans for short. They're for use in class." Jun continued walking, talking as he went. "This is an assignment for you. You can't refuse without a special reason. Remember to bring paper and a pen tomorrow. If you have any particularly good tea, remember to bring me some."
Jun continued forward, knowing that the girl behind him was burning all over. Those were the flames of hope.