ignore the cold

"Brr... it's cold." He stated, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. His had decided to forsake his captain's haori in order to avoid being completely noticeable. Thankfully, his fetures were relatively unremarkable, although they may have been better in his prime, he looked like a decent businessman, smoking a small pipe against the dropping termperature of Seireitei. At any rate, it didn't take much time to find his former teacher, he merely had to sense the strongest spiritual presence in the nearby area within tea shops. He hid his own spiritual presence to that of an average shinigami, he had no desire to be interrupted at the moment.

One of the things about peace was that there was much less to do, not that there still wasn't an insurmountable stack of political and strategic affairs that he needed to handle in the midst of peace, but compared to the past, his workload had been lessened by quite a bit. Enough to be able to slip into a tea shop without losing a couple hours of sleep. "Sensei." He raised his hand at his former academy teacher.

Seating himself down opposite her, taking the teapot and offering to refill it. But upon touch -- "This tea is cold." He raised his hand into the air, gesturing for a waiter to come over. "Can we get another pot please? This batch has gone cold." "Yes of course, be right back." 

It was only after the teapot had been replenished that he refilled Izumi's teacup before filling his own. "I apologise for making you wait, being a husband is a lot different from being single."

"Hmm." Staring at the map, Kariya briefly took a hand to his chin. The zones marked were in human populations with relatively high population counts, meaning that their objective was to aim for the wanton slaughter of a large amount of people within those areas. A 2% casualty rate was considerably steeper than usual because of this, but Kariya needed to note their intentions as to why they chose a large population.

"If the Hohlreich wanted to simply consume spirits, they wouldn't enter into larger populated areas. " Kariya briefly pointed towards areas of the map in which were nearby the populated zones, but were relatively less populated than those of the marks. "So the intention is not to cause humans trouble, but to pose a risk towards the balance of souls towards the Shinigami. In other words, they're baiting us out."

He took a sip from his tea, placing a finger on his temple before speaking. "I would say if this is the case, bait them out with a skilled unit, so that they believe that we have fallen for the ambush, then afterwards, we'll have enough information to handle the situations. Not to mention more intelligence on their actions would lead to a better resolution of the situation."

"Ah I see, I was under the assumption that these hollow were sentient. If not that makes it easier to alleviate. In any case, we cannot simply ignore the issue, we'll have to send in a task force to investigate the areas around here, even if it means risking the lives of our Shinigami peers.

Is there any information on what sort of spiritual activity is occuring? If the twelfth division believe it to be quincy, it means that spiritual density is being eliminated yes?" Kariya briefly considered the possibility of quincy defending the population. "If the quincy are there, and the humans are being defended, as much as I dislike to depend on our enemies, it would be best to hold back until we can get more information. But still, the best course of action is to gather intel, as you have said, we currently have no idea of how many men to send."

"By the way, what happened to the men that were stationed in that area?"

She felt that the situation arose required the skills of captains, that much was clear, and so when she asked that they personally go and investigate Kariya had braced himself for that suggestion. In truth, while he would rather spend time home with his family in his off time, he supposed something like this could not wait. "Alright then, let me at least make preparations in my absence, and we can depart immediately." Finishing his cup of tea, Kariya pulled out exact change for the meal with 10% extra and placed it on the table. Then, he stood up and prepared himself to go back home for the moment. "I'll just need a few minutes to sort things out with my division and my home. Where would you like to meet?"