Angel Meets Wolf [Joint-Training]

[Shōkan Kawada Ⅺ]

Since his return to the Seireitei, Shōkan had been adjusting to his new life. It was difficult, so much had changed in the last thousand years that it was almost like a different place... On the other hand, sometimes it was so similar, Shōkan expected old friends and faces to pop up, and was temporarily depressed when they didn't. He was terribly sad that everyone he had ever known was gone, dead. All of his friends, family, comrades, enemies, everyone. The saying "You don't know what you have until it's gone" comes to mind. And in Shōkan's case everything was gone, he was utterly alone.

Of course, he had gone about rebuilding relationships, familial (what little there was left of it), friendships (with his fellow comrades in the Gotei 13), and even enemies and rivals. He hadn't made much progress as of yet, but he had high hopes for the future. One of the first things on his agenda, was reastablishing the Kawadaa Clan socially. Many didn't realize that, just as a clan required battle prowess, they also required political power. They needed to show to the Seireitei, and the world, that they were not dead, and still as powerful as ever. Step one was already partially done, have members of the clan in high ranking positions. They already had a Vice Captain in the form of Arashi. Unfortunately, more than that was required, at least one captain.

To this end, not only had Shōkan been training his mind, in the new information and formalities of this era, but also his body, trying to gain back that battle prowess that had made him so famous and feared in his time. Outside of the Kawada Clan Manor, Shōkan was in their personal training grounds, going over his Hakuda techniques. Hard and swift strikes beating against the wooden post in the ground. Wooden smacks echoed across the area, "BAM! BAM! BAM!". In the final move of the kata, Shōkan lept up in the air, and performed a roundhouse kick, breaking the thin wooden board in half with the force of the blow.

'It still isn't enough'

[Kimiko Shihoin]

Well it was quite an annoyance to have mounts and mounts of paper work that was always in need of filling out. Since she had been appointed the Captain of Squad Seven Kimiko had done very little other than fill out paper work and get to known individuals in her squad. It had only been a short amount of time since she had assumed the position and gained such a high degree of authority for her age, but she had already needed to prove herself to many of her squad that she wasn't just a pretty face. A lot of the men in her squad had assumed that she only got the position due to her looks and her last name. Well she had handled them quite nicely the only thing that she regretted was that now she had to pay a fair deal of money to rebuild a section of the barracks wall.

It was about mid day and Kimiko had been in her office since dawn filling out paper work going over things as vague as drunken brawls between different squads who for some reason felt that an arrest was needed or that suing someone who beat you up was really going to change anything. It was annoying to say the least to learn how many of the Shinigami in the Seireitei were so spineless. She had even found a arrest report that detailed a man had assaulted one of her squad after being escorted from a bar only to start crying after being hit back. Just all in all paper work was not something that Kimiko enjoyed doing for hours upon hours of her day.

So about thirty minutes ago Kimiko had decided to go out and explore like she did prior to her new position. She had left her haoki in her office making sure to hang it up while the rest of her clothing was actually laying on the ground in the office. She had utilized In'nāfōmu in order to take on her animal form which just so happened to be a pitch black flying squirrel. After doing that Kimiko had secretly gotten out of her office through the window and vanished to all of her squad. She was going out for a few hours in order to relax and only her family if they stopped by would more then likely be able to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

---

Kimiko heard the sounds of someone working physically off in a distance. It wasn't a long way off and Kimiko was intrigued by what she heard so she started heading in that direction. It only took her a few moments to reach the Kawada area that Shokan was training in. It was so much fun being such a small animal. None of the guards or servants in the Kawada estate had even seen her so far and even if they did they didn't make anything out of it. Kimiko was a squirrel right now and showed no signs of being anything other then that. Right now she was on a long tree branch looking down over at Shokan as he roundhouse kicked the wooden practice post and broke it.

"It still isn't enough"

"You keep training like that and it'll never be enough." Kimiko said her voice altered due to her animal form. She had the voice of a strong willed large muscular man even though she was a tiny black squirrel who now had revealed itself to Shokan. Whether or not Shokan was surprised by this didn't matter. What Kimiko saw was a member of the Kawada family that looked to be in desperate need of getting stronger for their own reasons. Kimiko could more then relate to this man and Okami had told her that she needed to do her best to help build bridges between the Shihoin and the other noble families. So this could be a very good course of action for her to take.

"You've got to push yourself harder snow flake or else your limits are just going to stay the same." Kimiko gazed down at Shokan starring directly into his eyes with her own fierce gaze like an intense fire. It would be in that moment that Kimiko suddenly would vanish from Shokan's sight. "Is there no one in your family willing to train you snow flake?" Kimiko was somehow sitting with her tail wrapped around her on the wooden post that Shokan had just broken. She was sitting at the top where it had snapped apart with ease and looked right at him awaiting his response.

[Shōkan Kawada Ⅺ]

Well... This was unexpected. Somehow, this animal had infiltrated the kawada Clan training ground. At first, Shōkan thought it might be a mod soul, but this animal was certainly not stuffed, which left only a few possibilities... There was technique the Shihouin Clan used, Shōkan remembered the Clan head from his time using, at that point, the Kawada and Shihouin had been in good relations, and Shōkan had counted several members as personal friends. Nowadays however, it seemed the relationship between the two was strained. However, Shōkan hoped they might have improved, what with the Kawada returning the Omnitsukidou and Shihouin Clan grounds to them.

As to the identity of the animal, Shōkan hunched on the probability that it was someone using the Shihouin Clan technique, as it was the only likely explanation after all. From what he remembered of it, the technique changed the voice of the user to the oppsite gender, Shōkan however didn't know if that was unique to his past friend, as the man had enjoyed practical jokes from time to time... Either way, it was best not to assume. "Ohayou, Kinezumi-san... What brings you to this part of the soul society?" Shōkan had tactfully ignored the animals nickname for him, it could call him whatever it wanted.

Of course, it was a bit interesting, judging from the squirrels speed when it disappeared, it was fairly powerful, physically at least. That narrowed the possibilities a bit, and suspicions began to form in Shōkan's mind. For the indiviual to so nonchalantly waltz into the Kawada territory, they were obviously very confident in their abilities, and appeared to have the power to back it up from that demonstration. Shōkan decided to gather more information before he came to any conclusion, "Ah, and to answer your question Kinezumi-san, I'm choosing not to train with any of my clan members... I am finding my abilities... Lacking, and more than a bit embarrassing."

If this 'Kinezumi' had any serious skill in martial arts, she would probably have noticed something while Shōkan had been training. The style he used was archaic, and his technique was actually near flawless. But the speed, power, and excecution were what was lacking. It was like someone remembering somethign long forgotten, and had gotten rusty with thir skills. You could tell by looking at Shōkan that he was high level combatant, or at least used to fighting them. he had all of the habits you see in fighters of that level; the perfectly balanced stance, constantly aware eyes, even though he was relaxed, you could tell that he was prepared to move in a dozen different ways at a moments hesitation.

Giving the squirrel one of his classic charming smiles, Shōkan bowed patronizingly, "What can i do for you today Kinezumi-san? Perhaps you'd like to assist me? An outside perspective is always helpful when training."