Ink Burns

Juushirou contemplated the blank page for a long time, marshaling his thoughts, before picking up his pen and beginning to write one of the most improbable reports in the history of Soul Society.

…After being dispatched to the human world, it was agreed that to make most efficient use of our time, the Eighth Division’s captain and I would conduct individual reconnaissance, since the territory to be covered was not so broad that we would be unable to render each other assistance if needed….

Shunsui’s idea, that, and he should have known when Shunsui suggested that they’d make better time by splitting up–“I’ll take the little fiddly bits around the edges, and see what I can ferret out, and you just look in on the big stuff and make sure we haven’t missed anything, how’s that sound?”–but then, no one else had a better knack at noticing small details, either. It was just in keeping with Shunsui’s luck that the territory he’d picked really hadn’t had any activity worth noting.

…As has been noted in earlier reports, the levels of spiritual activity in the Tokyo and surrounding regions remains at an all-time high. Our survey indicates that the activity is diverse in nature, including entities both celestial and infernal, as well as some influences from our counterparts in the other branch. A detailed list of all activity is appended to this report….

One demon in Kanagawa, very proprietary towards hir team, and tutoring at least one member of said team in various arcane arts. No less than three angels in Tokyo, shepherding assorted teams around, although none of them seemed half as territorial as the demon. At least one other demon and angel popping in on a regular basis to visit, Antichrist in tow, and that led one to the fact that the Messiah seemed to be settled in the area permanently, and took regular visits from Lucifer. Plus the interference from the shinigami from the other division and the malleability of the borders between realms at the academy that seemed to be obsessed with roses.

And that was only the junior high level, for pity’s sake.

What was happening in the high schools didn’t bear thinking about.

…Hollow activity does not seem to have increased noticeably, yet, but given the rising levels of concentrated spiritual energy, it is our conclusion that it is only a matter of time before it does….

On the other hand, it wasn’t like the motley collection of entities wasn’t capable of handling the occasional stray hollow, and quite likely had been since they’d converged on Kantou. The demon in Kanagawa had done so while he was in the area, although he rather suspected se had been showing off for his benefit.

At least, Juushirou thought, grimly, if Aizen decided to make his move any time soon, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would lose.

…It is our recommendation that the situation be monitored closely, and that we prepare ourselves to move swiftly….

Although Shunsui’s inclination to adopt a tennis team of his own was not precisely the monitoring Juushirou had originally had in mind. It had taken threats of calling Nanao-chan to dislodge Shunsui from where he was holding court with the team he’d picked out, trading puns and pouring sake liberally for the boys he’d elected to adopt, and Juushirou wasn’t certain that Shunsui had given up on his scheme, even now.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea, though, to have someone monitoring things on a more personal level—and at this juncture, the addition of more spiritual energy could hardly make a difference in the number of Hollows it attracted. Juushirou shrugged, and signed the report. As long as Shunsui kept his new hobby to his afternoons off, he couldn’t see the harm in it.