Castle of Despair [Shishiyuki, Midori]

Shishiyuki would have liked to stay with the 2nd Division just a little longer, if she could. To receive more medical attention, certainly, but just as pressingly to ensure that Makoto was alright. But what sort of leader would she be if she abandoned this defense for the sake of her own loved one? How selfish that would be.

As her fist barrelled through another of the invading hollows, however, she felt a presence that she knew well. Perhaps painfully well, in fact, as she hadn't forgotten it in a thousand years. The Koizumi family head spoke out in an even tone, despite continuing her work of crushing every threat that was put before her.

"To what do I owe the honor of being visited by an esteemed member of the Zero Division?"

She might have been angry, that her sister would simply stand there and watch, smoking from her kiseru as if it were all so casual. But Shishiyuki was no fool. She understood that to intervene in this was simply not her sister's duty.

"I'm keeping an eye on the whole battlefield. Just in case."

Just in case of what was left unsaid, mostly because it was inherently understood, and perhaps more importantly, because to say it openly would have been a failure of her position. Midori simply stood atop one of the countless ruined houses, watching her sister tear through these hollows like little more than rice paper. Truth be told, she almost wanted to step in, if only because she knew that her daughter was certainly in danger.

But, even for something as important as that, she could only sit by and watch.

"I saw the estate. What a catastrophe, hm?"

There was no sympathy in Midori's voice, of course. It didn't matter to her, that so many of the family that had thrown her to the side were now dead. What mattered, however, was how gravely it had hurt her sister. The degree of loss it had inflicted on the woman. Midori had always wanted nothing more than for her sister to be done wrong in the same way she herself had been. In that sense, she doubted she could have come up with much better than this.

Anger flared in Shishiyuki's eyes as a kick scythed through one more hollow. It was simply a way to externalize her rage at everything that had happened, at the losses she had faced, that near everyone in the Seireitei had surely faced. She would not show any mercy now, to the ones who had taken part in it.

"It is far worse than simply catastrophe."

It was no secret that she had always held herself accountable for what had happened to Midori. She had tried to convey that, even if to no success. After all, what could she have done, that would not have made her family the target of all others? Ah, but that family she had prioritized over her own sister was now in flames. It made her wonder what might have happened, had she chosen differently back then-

But that was a waste of thought. She needed focus only on the here, the now.

"But just as before, I will not simply sit by. This, too, is a mistake that I will spend the rest of my life atoning for."

There was much left to do. Still more hollows to be purged, still more shinigami to save from death. Her niece was missing, and she was not nearly so foolish as to think that Murasaki had simply chosen to sit this out. No, something had happened, and she would not accept that idly.

"I'd imagine so."

Midori was willing to concede that much. She certainly held no small grudge toward her sister, and had held it for a long, long time. But this was the sort of grief that she had always wished upon Shishiyuki. Perhaps even a bit worse than what she had wished upon her. And though she was perhaps a bit loathe to admit it, she couldn't deny that she understood Shishiyuki's own tireless support of Murasaki's efforts.

"Well, consider a bit of that weight lifted from your shoulders. I think this loss has been atonement enough for that first sin."

It wasn't forgiveness. Midori would never forgive what had been done to her, nor would she ever forget it. But she had, at least, been left with her daughter. She had been left with her husband, even if he was hardly worth more than the blood he could spill. To see her sister driven into such a place of sorrow was all the catharsis she might have ever asked for. It was, in a word, nice.

"The inn I've been staying in was destroyed, unfortunately. I don't suppose the head of the Koizumi has room for a guest right now?"