Walking Through A New Door

[William O, Creed]

Walking through the town known as Karakura the officer of Tokyo by the name of Creed sought out the base of operations for his new place of employment. He’d been in Karakura on one occasion little more than a month previously where he had encountered a very specific Bount. This time though was for something completely different. This time he was going to check out the spiritual group known as UE. Kazura Uzaki, the wealthy inventor, had crossed paths with William and together they had put an end to a few Hollows. Through that little bit of teamwork though Kazura had extended a branch to William. He Fullbringer had seen enough since moving to Japan that made it very clear his skills, power and knowledge just weren’t enough, they’d rusted and it was time to sharpen them all again. So joining this group that seemed to want the best for all people even the spiritually unaware was the best option.

As he walked down the street towards the major building William realized that he’d been wrong. This wasn’t the first time that he had been in Karakura, the last time he’d been here had been when he had brought Kazura back to the very building he was seeking out now. He’d been exhausted at that time though and been quick to return to Tokyo. Now though after a couple of days which allowed him to heal the minor injuries he suffered and rejuvenate his energy. Now William was going to find out exactly what Kazura wanted from him while he stayed in Tokyo in order to fulfill his role as a normal officer of Japan.

Once he got to the tower getting inside was simple, no more difficult than finding any other specific building. Once he got inside William let the receptionist know that he was here to see Kazura. Moving over to one of the chairs in the waiting room William sat down and did his best to relax. This really was something new to him. He’d worked alongside a few others while he had been growing up, but nothing as big as this. He wasn’t altogether certain what sort of things Kazura was going to want from him beyond keeping a lookout and dealing with Hollows that may arrive in Tokyo. Exactly what he happened to be doing already on his own accord.

[Irina Davayte]

Irina was neatly plaiting her hair after her lunchtime workout when she received a message from Kazura. ”Stuck in Laboratory crafting new and exciting tech. Please evaluate new hire William Creed and complete his orientation into the company. Thanks in advance, I’ll pay you extra today!” She texted back affirmatively, and hopped on the elevator to the appropriate floor. This will be nice, the introvert, who had been looking forward to a quiet afternoon, coached herself. Meet someone new. Show him around. This will make my afternoon more interesting. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people. Growing up in a close family meant that she felt most comfortable when others were around. But even as she’d grown up and gotten older, Irina still felt nervous when meeting new people. That’s a great look for the manager, Irina, she mentally chided herself. Just...Be nice, do the thing, and be calm about it.

She greeted Kazura’s secretary Nancy, who was the only person at UE Irina could think of with whom she didn’t necessarily get along. ”Good morning! I’m taking Mr. Uzaki’s 2:30 appointment. Could you point me towards the gentleman?” Nancy looked her up and down, seemingingly apprising whether Irina was dressed appropriately, as she did whenever they interacted. Irina did a quick inventory of her outfit. Pants. Short-sleeved dress shirt. A plain necklace with a small snowflake on it. She’d removed her cardigan when she’d left her office, but even still, by almost any standards, Irina was dressed pretty conservatively.

Nancy seemed to give up on whatever she had been concerned about, and gestured to William, a tall dark haired man sitting in the waiting area. Irina walked over. ”Mr. Creed? My name is Irina Davayte, Mr. Uzaki sent me to take over his appointment with you today.“ She reached out to shake his hand and if he stood up, she’d note that he’s a foot taller than her and built like a linebacker. She nodded towards the elevator, and once they were in the elevator she would address him. ”Tell me about yourself. How did you meet Mr. Uzaki?” Once they reached the basement floor of the Spiritual Department, she'd ask him a follow up question. "Did you want to meet in my office or in the gym?"

She remembered how in her first meeting with Kazura, he had kicked her in the back of the head to test her reflexes. She was fairly certain this is how he regularly handled orientations. At the time, it certainly hadn't bothered Irina who had just moved away from living with two rambunctious older brothers, but this certainly wasn't her style when meeting someone new.

[William O, Creed]

Sitting in the waiting room area of the main lobby William was left with his thoughts for the time being. This wasn’t something that he had since he’d first really come to Japan. Normally he was always moving, constantly with something to do, but right now he literally had to sit here in order to actually do what he needed to do next. All he could think about though was how despite the many interactions he’d dealt with here in Japan his skills were still sloppy. His training was coming back while he refined himself once more, but he still fell well behind the standards that were thrust upon him growing up. It hurt, but William knew it to be true and the only way to improve once again was to continue putting an end to the spiritual threats that happened throughout Japan on a regular basis.

It was a few minutes of sitting down and waiting before William took notice of the young blonde that was over by the secretary, this woman was obviously looking for him. So when she came over to him William was already standing up and ready to follow her. He wasn’t expecting to hear that Kazura wouldn’t be the one meeting him, but instead this woman in front of him now. He didn’t have any issue with that, she was a pleasant sight, far more enjoyable to look at than Kazura. A thought that conjured the question in William’s mind. “Can I get physical with co-workers?” He had to wonder, as he wasn't even really sure about the answer when pertaining to his job in Tokyo on the force.

Shaking her hand with a sturdy grip while doing his best not to crush her own hand. William followed her over to the elevator staying quiet while he did. That is until Ms. Davayte asked how he had come across Kazura. “I was out exercising on a nature trail when a small group of Hollows attacked. Kazura arrived to help me deal with them while saving the others that were on the trail as well.” Short and brief William didn’t mince words, but chose to leave out the part where William had to essentially drag Kazura back to this building due to his exhaustion. William wasn’t sure how employees would look at the boss if they knew about something like that so he kept it to himself.

“I don’t have an issue with either, but if you’re going to test me on both I’d suggest the office first since no one wants to answer questions while tired.”

[Irina Davayte]

William had met Kazura on a hiking trail, and apparently Kazura had managed to recruit him to UE in the process. Sounded about par for the course. "Ah, so you're the one who took Kazura in to see Toma Sui the other week? He mentioned something about a trail. Thanks for that. Kazura's always getting into some kind of scrape. I mean, I guess most of us are around here." Frankly, she'd had to drag Kazura out of a dangerous situation more than once herself. She hadn't meant to make their work environment sound so dangerous, and winced as she said the last bit, but decided she was fine with it... If danger was going to make William nervous, it was only fair that he should know about it upfront.

Irina lit up slightly at the mention of exercise. Had she found another workout buddy? Since she'd quit the fencing club at her university, the Spiritual Department at UE had been a pretty effective place to find people to exercise with. She had not yet been turned down when she asked her coworkers to go fencing or jogging or something. The amount of testosterone around was... a lot. She was the only female she saw around regularly. But at least that meant she always could find someone to work out with.

"Unfortunately, it seems that I'm underprepared for our meeting. I didn't hear much about you other than your name. What does your schedule look like? Do you have a day job somewhere else? No worries if you do; it seems like that's the case for a lot of us in the Spiritual Department. I'm working on a Master's in Materials Science and Engineering." There were times when she wondered when she was going to actually put that degree to use if she was going to focus her energy towards spiritual matters, but she would leave those thoughts alone for the moment.

She cocked her head in response to William's idea that he'd be tested both by interview and in the gym. Well, that was a thought. Was that what she was supposed to be doing? How does one evaluate new spiritual employees, anyway? she wondered. There was no manual for this. What was the protocol here? She swiped her ID badge, which read "Irina Davayte, materials science/engineering, statistical analysis and data reconfiguration" to get into her office area, which, in addition to her desk space, also contained some empty cubicles, a kitchenette, and a small conference room, and a larger one that opened up on one side to the gym on the floor below. "We just moved the Emergency Response Team down here. I haven't caught the other guys to move them in yet. It's the first time we've actually had an office space," she said as she scribbled "manual for employee orientation" on a Post-It note and stuck it to the inside of her desk drawer for later, hoping William wouldn't notice. "Do you want a cubicle?" It was a strange thing to offer someone, but here she was.

Had she even introduced herself properly? She hadn't told William what her job was. It had started that way since they were generally careful not to discuss Spiritual matters in front of the Front-of-the-House staff at Uzaki Enterprises, but now they were too far into the conversation for this introduction to not be weird. This is why I need a protocol, she mentally scolded herself. "So anyway," she said with a deep exhale as she took a seat at a table instead of behind her desk, gesturing to a chair across from her that William could take, dissolving into less formal language than she'd started with, "I'm newly the manager of the Emergency Response Team, as of last week. I'm still figuring out what I'm doing. We have two floors down here that make up the spiritual department. The one below here has some training rooms and a gym. This one has meeting rooms and offices."

If another fairly diminutive, twenty-three-year-old department manager had asked her for advice on developing a leadership style, she would have advised them to keep things very formal and sit behind a desk to convey authority. Still, Irina wasn't the type to let people walk all over her, and she hoped she could recover if things seemed to be shaping up that way. "It's not really that I need to interview you; you're already hired. But to help me get an idea of how you'll work best with our team, tell me about yourself. How did you get into the Hollow Fighting business?" She'd have some more questions, but she'd let William catch a breath first.

She made herself a mental checklist and resisted grabbing more Post-Its to check the points off as they went. She needed to figure out how William fit into the team to help her a she delegated tasks to the group, go to Hank the security guard for an ID badge that would be programmed to allow William to get in the building after hours and to both Spiritual Department floors, show him the online system for documenting incidents, swing by Yabe in payroll, and make William a note to grab an Omni-Tool later for Hollow alerts. But in a much better order. No running upstairs and back like I don't know what I'm doing, she told herself.

[William O, Creed]

“Nothing more than what can be expected when dealing with Hollows, although as the Boss I would have thought he’d have more precautions or backups.” William remarks as he continues to follow Irina to wherever she wishes to do the interview or orientation, or really whatever verbal thing they were about to get done. All William knew right now was that this was definitely a group that he could benefit from working in. Sure doing things himself was bad, but the resources these guys seemed to have would make things a lot easier. Of course doing this while also keeping his day job was just going to add stress, but nothing worth doing ever came easy in William’s eyes.

“No harm done, I have the entire day off. I have about as much free time as any hard working individual, but do what I must when it comes to the spiritual. I have a job in Tokyo on the police force.” William was quick to answer Irina questions although he was quite curious about her schooling and what she could accomplish with her area of study. “Going to help Kazura build soemno s/s of covid, temp sort of super science gun to help fight against the spiritual threats?” William asked while a grin spread across his face. It was quite obvious he was asking as a joke although he wasn’t so sure his question didn’t have some chance of being right.

William followed Irina through a door that had been sealed off, an I’D’ card that William assumed would be given to him once he made it through this new employee test. Memorizing everything around him was just something that the man had been taught to do since he was a small child and right now all he could really see was that this group was either constantly moving or still getting used to things. “Perhaps this is a new building?” William thought to himself not wanting to come off as rude to Irina. What he could see was that Kazura definitely was using his money to make things available although now as Irina asked him if he was going to want a cubical William paused with a blank look on his face. It would be obvious to Irina that she had just caught him off guard.

“I’m not really sure, I’m not much of a pencil pusher, I typically stay out in the field and keep my research to myself, although I guess I’ll have to start giving what advice and knowledge I know to others.” William really wasn’t sure how much use he could make out of cubical though. He didn’t have any sort of desk at the Tokyo office as he was still staying low, not wishing to draw attention to himself. How much was he going to be down on this floor? In this room? How much did they expect him to be here? Wouldn’t it be better if he was out dealing with any Hollow that managed to rear its ugly head.?

William sat down at the table that Irina motioned to and sat down at herself, listening to how she explained that she was a new leader on a response team. It all made sense, Irina being essentially the same as a squad leader of a SWAT unit. William had to question if they wanted him in that unit though and if so would he be able to actually do it. He was confident in his knowledge even though his spiritual and physical skills had been allowed to fatten, they weren’t the issue. How was he supposed to be a part of an emergency response team when he lived in a different city?

“I was raised dealing with the spiritual activity of the world alongside my sister by my father. I traveled across America dealing with dangerous spiritual individuals that either attacked others or were too dangerous to be allowed to continue living in certain situations. I had stopped for the last few years, but recently started up again and that’s how I came across Kazura and why I’m here now.”

[Irina Davayte]

“Nothing more than what can be expected when dealing with Hollows, although as the Boss I would have thought he’d have more precautions or backups.” Irina smiled a little bit crookedly. She'd suggested the same thing not too long ago. "Shouldn't you have more of a backup plan when you're going out and messing with these things?" she'd asked after Kazura had cracked some ribs going after a larger-than-expected Hollow. "Do *you* want more oversight when you're going out and 'messing with these things'?" "Not really." She liked doing her own thing. Why would she want to get more people involved than she needed to? And so that was where they'd left that.

"You'd think," she responded idly, the wheels in the back of her mind turning. Maybe they should at least set up some kind of automatic alert for the Emergency Response Team if someone's vitals slipped outside of a normal range. That way if someone was bleeding out or something, a la Luca when he'd apparently picked a fight with some Arrancar, someone could at least go get them. Maybe that was something they could make happen with the next version of the Omni-Watch.

William had a full-time gig as a police officer in another city, but that wouldn't be a problem. "Ah, that's great! We've got a couple of spiritually aware contacts on the local police force, and they tend to call us when things are outside the scope of what their people know how to handle. We always keep that on the down-low though. Things get too hard to explain otherwise. It's tough to give statements about things that happened, which nobody else could see. Anyway, I think it'll be best to do scheduling with you basically the way I do for myself: let us know when you're available, and we'll work around your first job schedule. We'll call someone else when you're busy; I won't bug you unless, you know, everything is metaphorically on fire and it's all-hands-on-deck. Which almost never happens. And of course, if something strange happens in Tokyo, we're not that far away; you can always call us for some under-the-radar help."

Super science gun? It wasn't too far off; her most recent project had been a shield of sorts. "Something like that," she answered cryptically. Not that anything was really a secret among the Spiritual employees. "Weapons are not really my specialty, but Kazura definitely has some different handguns in the company shop. I can point you that way if you're interested." In addition to not really making weapons, Irina didn't particularly use them, other than her Fullbring, a sword. Instead, she preferred to work with her surroundings, particularly giving attention to her skill in Soul Command and the associated abilities.

William looked equally enthusiastic about the idea of his very own cubicle as she expected Raph and Luca to be. "It's really not that there's that much paperwork to be done. I mean, sure, we're expected to turn in a report of the emergencies we respond to. Keep everyone on the same page to make sure we're not constantly re-learning what's going out of there. If something threatening is still out there, everyone should be aware, and that kind of thing. But since this floor has been repurposed for the Spiritual Department, I figured it might be good to at least have some furniture." She showed him the computer system for documenting incidents. "So some people go into more detail than others, but basically, we like to keep track of who's been doing what, and what's still out there." Irina still fully anticipated being the only one to actually use a desk, but at least the gym they'd been using for years would continue to see a lot of use.

Ah, so William had worked as a mercenary of sorts, traveling around to neutralize threats. If he'd returned to that kind of work, that meant he likely wouldn't have any problems with the less-than-fun parts of dealing with the less savory challenges they ran into at UE. She felt good about new hire; he should fit in well. "Tell me about how you work with challenging people. What would you do if someone on your team was taking actions that you weren't safe?" Although, truthfully, their current team worked well together, it wasn't easy to have so many individuals with different ideas about how things should be handled.

And, as much as Irina would love it if there was, there wasn't exactly a rulebook in place to spell out exactly what constituted an acceptable versus unacceptable action. Instead, everyone was trusted to use their own judgement unless they proved this wasn't a viable option. It wasn't how Irina would have set up a company...but then again, maybe it was her place to add some rules, protocols, and guidelines to her own department. She'd contemplate that later when she put together a training manual.

[William O, Creed]

The conversation was going quite well which William wasn’t sure he had been expecting or not. Irina was definitely someone nice and he didn’t mind the idea of listening to her although following orders from anyone that proved themselves wasn’t an issue. Irina seemed to have things gathered mentally and he’d find out what she could do in a fight soon enough. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to the fact he’d be able to call in help to Tokyo if something should happen without being quite negative so instead he simply nodded his head in agreement. As they were walking towards the next room they continued the interview of sorts and William learned he wasn't the only one that thought Kazura would have something else in store should he get hurt in battle. That little bit of information told him that he was the sort of boss that tended to take things on head first and could get hurt quite a bit throughout a year.

“What’s your specialty?”

William asked after Irina made it a point that she wasn’t one of the sort to develop firearms although they were available if William found any of them worth purchasing. He couldn’t judge based on anything that he’d seen so far yet based on her build and the way that she walked William assumed she was the sort to excel at Soul Command. Many a Fullbring utilized the ability in order to make the environment fight for them which could lead to them never developing their own body or the movement skills necessary to face down some of the more graceful foes, a fact he hoped didn’t apply to his new co-worker. Getting to the unit office William felt like he was stepping into a classroom for the first time in a decade, a sinking feeling that he didn’t enjoy.

“Don’t worry I have to write reports and keep up with paperwork quite a bit with the police work in this country.”

Now came the first real question that had some weight to it. William didn’t have to stop and think about how the situation would play out as he had to deal with it quite a few times while he’d been growing up. “It depends on what they do in what situation. If they’re being loud when we need to be quiet then a quick stern look then a reprimand once we return to base. If we’re in the middle of a battle and they start doing something obnoxisly dumb like getting out from behind cover or starting to panic then I may restrain them in order to both protect them and raise the chances of accomplishing the task with as little damage as possible.”