Chapter Text
Masaki stifled a yawn. On stage, the lecturer droned on and on.
“And so, we see from this analysis that repeated history of inbreeding, as occurred among the royals of Europe, produces a higher degree of genetic consanguinity than would otherwise be expected. Among the House of Windsor, their family tree was so intertwined with itself that cousins were more like blood siblings.”
That got her attention. Wasn’t the main house always on her case to marry Ryuken?
Then again, she thought wistfully, it’s not like they would stop a cultural practice just because of scientific evidence that it would eventually be disastrous.
Still, better to know than not to know. She filed this fact away for future reference.
Shiba Isshin yawned loudly. He had already sent two subordinates to patrol this — Karakura Town, was it? Yes. Karakura Town. Karakura, Naruki, Chiba, Sonezaki, Kyoto, Kyomizu-dera, Naha, Shuri, Shimizu, Shizuoka… the Human World had so many names for places! It wasn’t like Soul Society, and yet, in terms of their clothing and other fashions, in many ways it was.
He shook his head. Fashion and cultural studies could wait. There was a killer loose here; a killer that targeted Shinigami.
The latest reports from the research team had been that the number of variant Hollows was increasing. It was so unlike prior patterns that one might almost suspect an intelligent hand was behind it, though of course that was pure speculation. The conservatives that were in charge liked to attribute such things to the cycle of life, or the weather, but the Hollows were dead and the only weather that might affect them was fluctuations in the Dangai, or in Hueco Mundo, about which very little was known.
Really, it was a shame that, having so much power, shinigami were fundamentally incurious about the world, though his own House of Shiba was no less of an example of this. Soul Society history had started with Yamamoto Genryuusai, the 13 Divisions, and Seireitei, and a certain ritual they had devised to fix the Soul King in his physical and metaphysical place at the center of the universe. All power and meaning flowed from this one source. Nobles were closer to the source than others, so, why would they look outward?
If they did, and if they managed not to dismiss the innovations of the human world as mere curios and trinkets, they could see the problem. Human society was progressing. Soul Society was stagnating. Many of the ideas of humanity were alien, chaotic, and more than a little disturbing. But, that was also what enabled them to grow.