Mediocre.

Author’s note: The end of mirror chapters, aw yeah (About halfway through it changes, I promise).

Why did I choose the eagle of sea? Well three reasons. One it was painted mostly in a greyish blue that reminded me of home, same for the name giving Eagle that was painted on the arching ceiling. Second it served great seafood, who would have guessed, and Soifon had once told me that she was much fonder of fish than meat.

Third, and that I came as a huge surprise to me, I knew the owner from my Shinigami school days. Said owner was currently walking towards me as I waited outside the restaurant. He was wearing a waiter uniform, black jacket over a dark blue shirt with long sleeves. “I see you have dyed your hair.” I said and greeted him with a firm handshake. “Well, black just looks much better with this uniform.” He said. “I thought you would come in a week or so. What happened?”

Apparently not much of the whole disaster had spread out yet. “Well this and that, let’s just say my date has a day of by random chance.” “Now that you mention it, you never told me who it is.” I smiled. “You wouldn’t believe me until you see her anyway.”

He raised an eyebrow but soon his attention shifted to something behind me. “Is that captain Soifon? Men, I had only seen her once when I still worked in the Gotei 4. From her reputation I didn’t think she would ever wear anything besides her uniform.”

I turned around. There she was, she looked the same as always with the difference that she wore a slightly modified version of her Special Ops uniform. Actually the only thing that was different was that she had left gloves.

I was just happy that my assessment of her character, meaning that she would come in uniform, had been mostly right because I was still wearing my normal uniform minus the rank pin as well.

“Right on time, Soifon.” I said with a look at a nearby street clock. The pointers just hit 14:59 and 57 seconds. “What else did you expect, Nize?” she asked and took my outstretched hand. My friend just stood there, speechless. “Rob, would you show us our table?” I asked.

He reacted with the usual keenness that every well trained waiter displayed. “I would be happy too.” He said and minutes later we sat down in a remote area of the restaurant. Soifon looked around. “Not bad, at the very least you did listen to my preferences.” I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of ‘I aim to please.’ But didn’t

How could I say that when I was about to leave her behind. Instead I guided the conversation to topics without much meaning, like talking about the origin of gunpowder, or where my name came from.

“So you are telling me Nize isn’t your real name?” she asked in a surprised tone. “Well to be correct it isn’t my complete name. When I arrived at the Shinigami Academy I had to give a signature and writing my whole name every seemed too much of a hassle so I adopted this one. It sounds pretty much the same as my old last name did and as it isn’t particularly widespread I just went with it.”

Soifon looked at the food that had just arrived. “I had wondered why you have only one name in our documents.” After that silence fell over the table as we started eating.

Soifon picked up the conversation after a couple of minutes. “So, how did you die?” the question was so blunt I almost choked on my food. “Pardon?” I asked after I gulped down some water. “You heard me. If it was bad enough to give you nightmares so many years later it must have been pretty horrible.” After I kept silent for a few seconds she added. “You don’t have to tell me, I was just curious.”

It’s not like it was a secret or what had happened to me was that unusual so I might as well tell her. “I died in a battle. We were marching when suddenly the enemy charged us. We had enough time to fire a single round but that didn’t stop them. In the following melee a soldier I was locked in combat with pulled a gun on me and shot me in the head. It was a clean **** but the circumstances weren’t exactly peaceful.”

Then I started eating again, telling the story had shaken me up a bit. Remembering once own **** wasn’t exactly pleasant. “From what read when I first revisited the world of the living world we won that battle anyway.”

“We?” Soifon asked. “The army I served in. You wouldn’t know the country and by now it has ceased to exist anyway.” I said, a little bit of sadness in my voice. Soifon noticed that. “After all that time you are still attached to your country?”

“Same way you are still attached to Yoruichi I guess.” I said, that seemed to make no sense to her. “But Yoruichi is a great person that has done so much for me and a lot of other people.” I smiled. “Yeah, so was my king and even though I never spoke to him he build a whole society of ten thousands of people. His ideals still make out a great part of who I am today.”

That answer seemed to satisfy her. Silence fell over the table again. I wanted to hold a conversation but the fact that I would just leave tomorrow hanged over me like a big dark cloud, threatening to explode into rain and thunder at any second.

I needed to tell her but I just couldn’t. Soifon didn’t know what happened but she noticed my darkened mood and how short for words I was. Eventually she gave up on trying to start a conversation. Silence fell over the table and when we left Rob wished us a good day.

We walked back to the Gotei 2 grounds. After we arrived Soifon looked at me. “Is something wrong Nize?” the question didn’t come as a surprise, I had been acting gloomy for a while now. “Not really.” I said, it was lie of course. Soifon sighed “When you feel up for it lets repeat this another time.” And then she walked away.

I should have felt sad at the fact that she just left me standing there but somehow her giving me another chance was all it needed to lift my spirits. I still needed to tell her that I would be gone by tomorrow. But i couldn't. A lump in my throat silenced everything i could have wanted to say. I resigned myself to being a loser this one time and went to my quarters.

Tomorrow would be a the start of a new path in my life.