”Captain, Utsuro is dead… Awaiting new orders- No, wait…”
The first words he hears from his Fourth Seated Officer, is the completion of his assignment. This is something Kyomu was already well aware of, having felt the embers of Utsuro's spiritual pressure dispersing into nothing. Did the failed Kuchiki doll put up a fight? Any resistance? Or had she simply laid there to accept her fate? These are all things that are of little to no consequence to the Captain. If the girl had any worth she would have kicked, and fought and clawed her way to survival one way or another. If she failed to resist or did resist but simply fell to Ochitsuki's blade, it meant that was all there was to her. She wasn't worth a second thought. Normally this is where the Oda would seek out a new mission, a new target to be directed to. Instead-
”Captain, I need guidance. I think I am lost. A new goal or direction is fine, so long as it is in service of the Second Division.”
Ochitsuki who has gone from the creepy Oda child doted on by former Lieutenant now Captain Yasu Yugure, to a deranged psychopath feared by his peers in the Onmitsukido and any whispered to becoming his next 'guest', now stands on the precipice of change and self discovery. It is truly ironic that, Himari the tormented and Ochitsuki the tormentor both find themselves enclosed in a space before their Captain, and both parties individually seek their own growth, having realized on their own who they were currently was not enough. His amber hues glance down towards Ochitsuki's bowed head before shifting over towards Himari who stares at her tormentor in confusion before turning her gaze towards her Captain. Kyomu's eyes shift back towards Ochitsuki who awaits advice, direction of any sort from his Captain.
"So..does that mean you've decided to give up on the goal of taking my life?"
Unexpectedly, what the Captain offers first is not direction, but rather the revelation that he was well aware that Ochitsuki had secretly been plotting and aiming for his life. Perhaps this might not come as a surprise to the Oda, however Himari was different. She is hearing from her Captain, that the man whom she was entrusted to previously, the man she had come to hate and distrust due to his peculiar nature, habits and of course the torture she had been subjected to, is also a man who has been seeking the death of the Captain they had both sworn loyalty to. It wouldn't be unnatural for her to be confused, confused to why even with knowing such things Kyomu had never acted against the Oda, and placed him in the position of Fourth seat and a Corps Commander.
The Captain's eyes stray away from the confused Oda as he begins his walk around the armory once again. He stops at a table, his focus appearing to be on the assortment of blades laid out before him, perhaps lost in thought or memory.
"I too was like you once. Trained to kill, it was all I knew to do, it was what I was raised to do. I was rather good at it, I excelled in the art of death."
As he speaks, his fingers reach out feeling the coolness of the blades, each one polished to the point they were like miniature mirrors, reflecting everything that met their surface.
"It is because I was so good at it that I made the perfect assassin...and an imperfect Captain. Following the path laid out before me I wielded my blade against the Commander as ordered by my Clan..commissioned by the Central Forty Six...and I ultimately failed in more ways than one. As an assassin of the Mukuro meant to always succeed in killing our targets, and...as a Captain meant to properly lead and guide those who followed me."
For the first time in a hundred years Kyomu talks about that day. The day where he was, despite maintaining his position as Captain forever branded as a traitor in the eyes of the Seireitei. Himari who was still a young shinigami floundering around in Fifth Division is learning the truth behind the rumors regarding her new Captain and mentor. Ochitsuki who was so far removed from the situation at the time now hears the series of those events personally from his Captain. Just as Ochitsuki's mind had been filled with nothing outside of killing and torturing his enemies and those who opposed him, his Captain had once thought of nothing outside of the ways of the Mukuro, the ways of an assassin. Though an agent of the Gotei 13, he was more an assassin than a Captain those days.
"After former Commander Shobatsu ordered me to slaughter those from my clan who were responsible for taking the commission and aiming me at him, like you I too felt a sense of...aimlessness. Floating atop the boat of uncertainty with no sense of direction, despite being a Captain. I suppose it is a silly notion to think about."
Himari and Ochitsuki are given a glimpse of a side of their Captain that is known by perhaps only three others within the entirety of the Seireitei. Kyomu leaves the table he is at, casually strolling over to another. Again his eyes carry over from object to object. It's uncertain if he is actually inspecting the tools of death or if he is gazing at something that lay beyond what was actually before him.
"Ochitsuki, you are gifted in the art of violence. When it comes to killing, tormenting and maiming others, your ability is without question. However-"
He turns to finally face the young Oda. As always, his face is without expression, and despite what one might consider a heart to heart between Captain and subordinates, his gaze still makes him feel distant from them.
"You are not the Corps Commander of the Interrogation Unit just for those aspects. You know what it means to be a warrior, you also know what means to be a killer. If you are to truly excel at the task entrusted to you, you must become more. You must be a brother, a comforter, a friend, a lover. You must be nothing, yet all things to all people."
Ochitsuki was great at his job, this is true, yet his methods despite how seemingly diverse, were also linear. The Oda knew how to inflict pain and how to instill fear yet...what if pain didn't work? If one couldn't feel it, or one could push past it? What of those without fear? The prospect of breaking them might excite and thrill him for some time, but once he was certain that no amount of physical torture would bend their will, no amount of threats to them or even loved ones and friends would shake their foundation, death was all that awaited them. It was time that Ochi realized that the unit he led was not the torture Unit, but interrogation. The two were alike in many ways, yet in the end were dissimilar concepts altogether. To be a good interrogator he needed to learn who the other person was, and from there transform himself into who they needed him to be. Someone who they could trust to confide in, or perhaps someone they believed they could manipulate or convert. The possibilities were truly endless but, those possibilities remained outside his reach so long as Ochi was only Ochitsuki the Psychopathic Oda.
He needed to learn that every situation was not a nail requiring a hammer, and that a blade or poison were not his only tools. To be better at his job in the service of his division, demanded that the Oda become an emotional and social chameleon. He needed to unmake himself so he could be whoever, whenever. Funny, that like his kin who also bears the title Captain, Ochitsuki must become one of many faces.
