Morning Tsubaki [Kaen, Mizu]

[“Mizu Tsuraiko" Orina]

朝椿

She would have thought she'd have a restless night. With the events of the previous evening fresh in her mind, and a number of unfamiliar occurrences that had jarred her from her usual rhythmn. She couldn't help but feel a bit anxious when she got to her room. She half expected to toss and turn, thinking about the strange little not-date she'd been on. But much to her own surprise, once she'd laid down, she'd quickly settled into a deep and restful sleep. So much so that she had even wound up waking a bit earlier than she was used to. Taking a moment to get dressed, she soon enough was walking through the sereitei, her mind wandering as she took a moment to make sure that no emergencies had occurred. Nothing needing her attention.

And so she made her way toward the Seventh Division barracks, wiping her eyes idly as she approached the training yard. Well, one of them, the fields used for exercises and different types of training weren't exactly all consolidated, sometimes any division could have one or two or even tons of them sprinkled around their section of the sereitei. Was this the one that Kaen used? She rubbed the back of her neck and pondered if she should just head to his barracks? Maybe ask one of the existing division members? Hmm, she wasn't sure. But... She paused and took out her phone. A pause as she opened up her contacts.

Ah wait, hadn't he... mentioned which training field they would be using? She furrowed her brows, trying to think back. Didn't he say that Seven had morning training? She looked through Seven's information site and then paused when her memory briefly skipped over the end of the evening. And her own little faux pas. Ah... yep. that ....was still embarassing. She flushed just a little, and then found herself a spot to sit. Realizing that NOBODY else was up. Just how early had she woken up?! She decided not to even look, maybe it was better not to think about that too had.

Instead, she stood back up and made her way toward one of the open field and sighed softly to herself. Peeling her zanpaku'to from her waist and holding it out in front of her. Maybe she just needed to focus on something. She gently smoothed her fingers along the length of her blade. Allowing energy to course around the weapon itself. Her own "Kido". Technically it was a cero, but honestly, could she even call it as such? Having gotten ...help....with her "kido" from a number of her allies. At this point, it practically WAs kido at this point. From the structure to the energy it gave off. Perfect. Like everything else she passed off as shinigami abilities. But she didn't linger on that. Instead, she focused on practicing her 'spells'. At least until the others arrived.

[Kaen Youji]

Mornings were rarely particularly difficult for Kaen. Despite the Shinigami's lackadaisical nature, he'd pretty much always been an early riser, but had also rarely had trouble adapting his schedule. Kaen was always the sort of person who was up before 5 in the morning to get his routine going, often starting his day off with a nice, solid several mile run. Of course, as Kaen had grown in strength and speed, that several mile run had gotten increasingly longer to such an extent that calling it "several miles" was only accurate in that the term "several" didn't really have an upper limit.

So getting up early for his arranged fight with Mizu wasn't difficult for him, and he was more than willing to get started. The Shinigami didn't sleep much anyways nowadays. Not for lack of trying-- Kaen understood rest was vital for the warrior to persevere, but when all was quiet and Kaen didn't have anything to occupy his mind but sleep, his mind slipped into dark places. The faces of the friends he'd lost in this stupid war. Flashes of his continuous failures. The malicious stare of that thing inside his heart. Especially that thing. Kaen could learn from failures, as painful as they were. He missed his friends, but for many of them had managed to come to terms with their deaths. The grieving process was an old friend. But living with that poison in his soul was a different matter, and not even the combined efforts of himself and Hachiryuu could expunge it.

That malicious ball of hate and vitriol was a part of Kaen. Perhaps not so literal as something like Celes's Inner Hollow, nor as tangible as a Nakabakki's nature (not that Kaen knew any Nakabakki.... right?), but it was real enough to Kaen. Whispering darkness in his ear, urging him to return to the point he'd been at several years before. A hand at his ankle, ready to pull him down. And when Kaen was asleep, at his most vulnerable, in his dreams, that malevolence was at its strongest.

It was because of this, that Kaen often found it especially easy to cut his sleep short, and get his day going. He climbed out of his futon on the floor of his office, and promptly switched on his "bedside" lamp for some basic illumination. He stayed for a moment, in a half-crouched position on top of the futon, still in his yukata, listening to the moments tick by. He wasn't even sure why. He didn't hear any of the nightime/early morning patrols, but that was understandable. He had faith the patrols were still being carried out, the Seventh Division territory was, afterall, quite large and it was impossible for a patrol to be everywhere at once. In fact, Kaen often encouraged his patrols to diversify and randomize their routes so-as to avoid predictability.

Kaen slowly rose to his feet, picking up the Kodachi from beside his futon, always the first thing he did when he awoke. He stepped out into his office and beyond going quickly to clean himself up (the hair, regrettably, refused to be tamed as ever), before returning to put on his full Shinigami uniform. He took a quick glance in the mirror to make sure everything was presentable and that he looked as he needed to as lieutenant of the Seventh Division. Then he set out.

He intended to be on time for his meet-up with Mizu but as ever there were certain duties to be attended to first. Kaen checked the schedules of the officers in the Seventh-- or more specifically, the third through sixth seats whom did most of the direct reporting to Kaen, and to whom Kaen delegated the majority of the tasks to further subdivide and delegate as needed (Damned bureaucracy). Since Kaen would not be attending the standard morning training today, he wanted to make sure someone would be ready to run it in his stead. He walked out of his office, summoning a Hell Butterfly. He sent a message to Hikari Nisei, "Angel" as she preferred, to handle the morning combat routines-- the officer of his division, Kaen had no doubts would run as strict and harsh a training session as he would. That woman had no mercy in her, whatsoever.

Alright! His immediate morning duties covered, uniform on, Zanpakuto on his back, cleaned up? Kaen was pretty sure everything was set to go. He contemplated bringing other aspects to his arsenal-- he felt strange without the additional weight of his chainmail vest, but decided for a friendly sparring match between divisions it was not required. This was just for seeing what Mizu was capable of, exploring his skills against new abilities and approaches. Maybe learn a thing or two; after-all combat was an endless journey, where you could always learn something from your opponent. ...And he was suspecting, probably a bit more on Mizu's part, but frankly, Kaen had no strategies for that and just figured he'd cross those bridges when he came to them.

It didn't take Kaen long, once he'd gotten set up, to reach the meeting point and it seemed Mizu was there ahead of him. "Good morning. I hope you weren't waiting on me too long." He offered as an apology. It looked to him as if Mizu had been doing a bit of warming up herself. Kido, it looked like? Unfortunate. Kaen already knew he could offer precious little advice on the actual ebb and flow of kido (though applications? Arguably so, since Kaen had seen kido used against him so much that he'd learned a few countermeasures to it-- and in turn had taught a few kidoists in his division, countermeasures to the countermeasures). But in any case, he was here now, and where things went from there? Only time would say.