flowers from far fields

“Cuba, huh, “Hinaai said, but despite herself, she was distracted. Her granddaughter was more beautiful than both mother and grandmother, and there was a rough charm about her not found in the noble families. When Toppa presented the present to her, Hinaai… 

“Toppa-chan, you didn’t…” She felt a tear well up in her good eye but quickly blinked it away. Opening her desk, she pulled out a fat golden purse and shoved it across the desk. “It’s not very personal, but I didn’t know what you wanted so...There’s at least five years worth of your normal pay in there, I think.” 

Hinaai felt bad for not getting her daughter something she might have really wanted, but she just didn’t know what to buy. Their relationship was strained, despite efforts by both to undo that fact. Emotion overcame her, so she stood up, walked around the desk, and embraced Toppa in an awkward hug. When she disentangled herself, not knowing what to say, she only offered a smile and picked up the cigars, handing one to Toppa. 

“Let’s smoke and talk,” she suggested. She snapped her fingers and produced a red flame to light her own cigar before moving to light Toppa’s as well, if she had taken one. 

“Find anybody worth mentioning yet?” 

Hinaai sat on the desk and took a massive draw from her cigar. She giggled at Toppa’s humor and ignored the serious undertones beneath it, before releasing an equally massive gout of smoke from her nostrils. “I had my first man almost seven hundred years ago. It was a tumble in the grass, if you would. Since then I’ve had a few but…well, before your grandfather died, let’s just say that most of my suitors were lined up for me by the family. I didn’t have these issues.” 

Taking another drag from her cigar, Hinaai gave her bastard a sly look. “Though you need to stop looking around these random shinigami. If you want a man, I can give you a few names to look into. But you’re young, so you’ll want someone who's as free as you to play around with. Try someone in the eleventh if you don’t want me butting in.” 

Pause. 

“How’s your bankai coming along?” 

“Sometimes,” Hinaai answered to Toppa’s question. “But nobility has a way of putting weird thoughts in your head. The Kenpachi is...well, she is well developed, I suppose.” 

Hinaai giggled again at Toppa’s joke and at her display of smoke before shifting to a more serious demeanor. She moved to the desk at the request for whiskey and pulled out a bottle of a make three hundred years gone. Hinaai put it on the table, beckoned for her granddaughter to sit, and poured two glasses from them both. 

“You know, that’s not him not liking you,” the Soutaichou began. She removed her cigar and blew out a series of holes and wisps to go through them with a smile. “Just like you don’t know how surprisingly good I am at distinctly un-noble things. You inherited more of me then your mother, Toppa-chan. Now you just have to learn to control what you got.” 

Leaning back and crossing her legs, Hinaai took a deep swing of her drink, draining the glass, before pouring another. “I used to have the same problem when I was your age, with your shikai breaking, except my spiritual force was so strong I couldn’t even seal my zanpakutou. Did I ever tell you about the Four Day War?” 

“Eh, wasn’t just me, to be honest,” Hinaai admitted. She looked through the window at the side of her office, staring past the walls of the Seireitei and looking into the past itself. “It was a conflict between my noble house and another not worth naming. They had fallen into exile so they amassed an army of captured hollow, prisoners, and plus souls to attack the city. 

“Needless to say, such a haphazard force was destined to fail, but they had some strong fighters. I still have the scar on my back from when one of their generals got the jump on me. Regardless, when the fighting began I was still a lieutenant with a green bankai. I couldn’t use the blasted thing because whenever I did, it ended up going haywire and messing up everything around it. 

“During the Four Day War, me and your great-grandfather drove a van straight into the heart of the enemy’s headquarters. Your great-grandfather was crippled in the battle that followed, and I was surrounded by...two hundred or three hundred enemies, something like that. I was weak back then, so it was scary, and I was afraid to use my zanpakutou because all it ever did was break on me. 

“Of course, I couldn’t defeat them all by myself. I had use to my blade, so I did. But it wasn’t something out of desperation. The blade is me, after all, just as your Afterburner is you, Toppa-chan. I put my trust into it, and it rewarded me with control. Then I ended the war.” 

Hinaai looked back to her granddaughter and drained her glass again. “What I’m trying to get at is, just because you can’t control it now doesn’t mean you should shy away from it. To be honest, Toppa-chan, you’ll probably be stronger than me one day, and that’s because of just you, but because of Afterburner as well.” 

She poured another glass.