Burning Blood [Kanae, Hyosuke]

Though her plans could hardly even be called plans given their infancy, Kanae was already beginning to put them into motion. First and foremost she needed others she could use. A thousand years of ruminating was plenty of time for her to figure out her biggest problem was not having any co-conspirators or like-minded individuals on her side. Instead she, out of impatience and anger, went forth alone and was stymied in her efforts.

One promising individual she believed had the potential she was looking for was ex-Captain Hyosuke Niyagata, a man of rigid purpose who had left the Gotei out of disgust with the Captain Commander at the time. Kanae hoped his anger had festered into hatred, an emotion which could be manipulated and molded into a knife in the back of the Gotei United. It was Kanae's lucky day as well as this very man had left flyers for his dojo all around Rukongai and Seireitei. Thus she made her way to the advertised martial art school and entered silently, and with her spiritual pressure not hidden.

Truthfully before Kanae arrived, but after she had been noticed, Hyosuke was beginning to feel like quite the eye of a proverbial storm. So many students, so many trips, so many lesson plans and ploys and niceties and now..... raw emotion. Kanae could possibly consider the dojo to be rather modest for a noble and Ex-Captain to train in, really seeming designed for smaller classes, and though it possessed an upper level that was mostly left to storage of supplies for training students. As Kanae entered the dojo Hyosuke had been well aware of her approach and simply waited. He had heard of Kanae's release, if not having developed a true appreciation for just WHAT she was, and as Hyosuke looked down on the smaller woman he was not quite his usual more calm, jovial self.

"Ah, Nagoshi Kanae, from dungeon to dojo I see."

Hyosuke wore a smile, though it was obvious now he was wearing the smile and not feeling it, as Benicho Kogo rest against his shoulder idly. Gently spinning against the fabric of his robe along the handle as his singular eye met her own. A small, probing bit of levity in his tone as he stood there, having discarded his previous tasks to more fully address her.

"I am afraid there is not much I could teach one such as yourself...."

Hyosuke's singular eye sharpened softly, his voice almost teasing as he halted Benicho Kogo's spinning as if it emphasize his next words further, even as they stayed completely, carefully level.

"..... but you must have already known that when you decided to come see me. You don't seem the kind of woman to over-estimate herself. I daresay you know exactly what your capabilities are."

There were a multitude of secondary and tertiary meanings buried in that single statement but after only a short pause Hyosuke would give a charming grin. Seeming to relax as he met her gaze, unflinching and calm, Hyosuke would simply state.

"And you are much more impressive in person than even in myth.~"

The dojo may be modest for modern day Soul Society, but to Kanae it was a model of excess. After all, she had done all her training by leaving behind rivers of blood in the Rukongai. There was no room for teachers or students within her idea of self improvement. To her you could only learn by being under the threat of death. Formal education was never her forte, and it was another reason she so strongly hated Yamamoto and his ideals. His academy flew in the face of everything she believed about how Shinigami should be made.

Kanae listened to Hyosuke various statements intently. She was still sizing up what kind of man he'd become since leaving the Gotei, and whether he could prove useful to her machinations. Throughout his speech Kanae's friendly, but cold, facade slowly deteriorated until both her spiritual presence and face wore a much more sinister form. Her powerful presence cloaked the dojo in a putrid blanket of deathly Reiatsu, drowning the vicinity in blood lust. She intended on making her purpose perfectly clear to this man without saying a word.

Even as the weapon at her hip whispered bloodcurdling intimations to her, Kanae was focused on the one-eyed Shinigami speaking saccharin words before her. "Niyagata Hyosuke. Ex-Captain of the Gotei. Slumming it with weaklings better off dead. Oh how the mighty have fallen."

As Kanae allowed the type of bloodlust Hyosuke was all too familiar with a primal, formative way he would narrow his singular eye only briefly at her choice of words. His posture did not tense, his breathe did not deepen, only that subtle squint was any indication of the thoughts going on behind his eye. All the while that saccharin, easy grin of his bore down on the small woman like a steel mask of unshakable uniformity. But Hyosuke did not give Kanae the satisfaction of a prolonged staring contest, he got the impression from what he knew of her and, even more-so, her direct presence to avoid such a thing.

No instead Hyosuke would casually turn at the hips, as if slowly remembering where he was, as his eye swept above Kanae's short form to take in as much of his dojo as it could be he hummed. Tilting his head he would then murmur....

"Ah...."

Before gently raising a hand to lift off his eyepatch, his spiritual pressure intensifying greatly, as two eyes of pooling crimson would now look around the dojo before meeting Kanae's gaze directly, without fear, as the eyepatch was stowed away. Hyosuke was, undoubtedly, weaker than Kanae by an appreciable margin but the jump in his spiritual pressure was large enough that, should he have even more restraints, or be able to otherwise enable a similar jump.... then he would equal her. (3-3 to 2-3)

Only once he had surveyed his dojo with a sort of casual dominance did Hyosuke's smile widen as he tsk'd at her.

"From what I can see, Nagoshi Kanae, Ex-Captain of the Gotei, we are the only ones here. Thus, by my estimation you are far from weak...."

His voice would harden just a tiny but, both eyes sharpening in a wither, pointed look as he finished his statement.

".... better off dead, on the other hand? Well.... that remains to be seen.... "

Hyosuke let these words linger in the air, body poised to react, though posture casual, his head inclining forward in a pointed motion as the air between them thickened until.... he spoke again. His voice somewhat more relaxed, but firm.

"Now, assuming you have a more ADULT reason for coming to see me beyond hurtling insults I would like to hear it. Now."

Kanae looked on at the man taunting her with an unwavering, unemotional gaze. She had heard far worse in her day, and petty insults were expected from a man of his standing. Still, she noted his demanding tone with an amused, though barely perceptible, smile. Tosatsusha at her hip was begging to pierce this man's heart, but she ignored its pleas and kept her blood thirst in check. For now, at least.

"You think because this-" Kanae gestured with her arms to the dojo they stood in "-supposedly belongs to you, you have any right to make demands? You should know more than most it is power that lets us make demands. It is power that lets me stand here and do as I please. It was power that allowed a former Captain Commander to let invaders run amok in Soul Society. And it is power preventing you from taking the reigns of the Gotei and returning it to a better age."

From what she had been able to garner about Hyosuke, his utter disgust with the events surrounding the incursion into Soul Society could make him amenable to her and could prove a useful tool in plotting against Murasaki and the Gotei United. His reaction to her mentioning that historical disaster would either reveal this to be true, or show Kanae he isn't she thinks he is.

Hyosuke knew the smile Kanae wore for the moment, with "wore" being the operative word, as he did not believe for a moment the pleasant lie she put on. He was almost tempted to cross his arms, or roll his eyes, or otherwise display some other rejecting body language as Kanae began to make rather.... grand and foolish claims. Really only two of the assertions Kanae's words stabbed forth at his ego found any sort of purchase, and even those were.... quite clumsy. Though Hyosuke's body language did tense when Kanae mentioned the occupation of Soul Society he, otherwise, maintained his rather narrowed expression at her. Not letting his own mask slip in this moment as, frankly, it almost was not one. Kanae seemed a woman all but dancing to her own, unheard tune in the room, and Hyosuke could only exhale slowly out of his nose as he stared at her in a very neutral expression.

"Power..... you say?"

Hyosuke, despite what one might call the 'better judgement' of stepping so close to a psychopath more powerful than himself, stepped closer to look down at Kanae with measured intent to his words. His twin, crimson eyes bearing a very familiar hardness to them, the power of position and pride, of standing for something beyond himself himself as he responded as a glacier passively piercing the hull of a ship with slow, measured intent.

"Power is measured in more ways than you seem capable of comprehending. As it stands you are a one-armed woman blind on the same side she is missing an arm, lauding how strong your single arm is, and claiming yourself whole."

Hyosuke earnestly doubted Kanae would care to understand the metaphor, but whether or not she did, he continued.

"You believe you can do as you please? Such as spend a millennia in prison? I wonder what bade you pleased to do so.... or, perhaps, the demands you made of the current Captain-Commander upon being free, such was your vaunted power?"

Hyosuke's voice lowered to something not quite a hiss, his expression rising to a low amount of ire as he drew in a breathe. Letting his words hang in the air for a tense, single moment before he bit his next words forth with naught but passion.

"The occupation of Soul Society was a travesty of unforgivable proportions and the Gotei have never truly.... recovered. Such as it is I find the current Gotei to be a sickly shell of it's former self, but far better than the excrement that preceded it. Perhaps I could bring the Gotei to a better age, but such changes are beyond my current abilities and interests, to say nothing of your own lack of suitability for the role. Do you truly think I believe you came here to be a kingmaker? Hardly....."

Kanae was disappointed. She had spent an afternoon coming here, with evidently nothing to gain in return. "Hmph. It's clear you're not who I'm looking for." Her and her Zanpakuto's spiritual presence reverted to a calmer state as there was no longer any need to communicate through it. She then turned on her heel and left the dojo with some things to consider about her present situation. Surely, Kanae thought, there would be someone in Soul Society feeling enough unrest to opposite the Gotei? If not here, then perhaps elsewhere in the Rukongai. The search would have to continue then, though perhaps after her upcoming duel with the Squad 4 Captain.