"All right. At least someone came back."
Yamamoto sighed.
He was still annoyed at Kazuma for dumping his responsibilities onto someone else, but at least Batsu'unsai had returned to fill the vacant position.
...
Seventh Division
Batsu'unsai stared at the mountain of paperwork piled precariously across the desk and felt a crushing sense of helplessness wash over her.
The endless stacks of documents seemed to glare back at her.
For a moment, she seriously considered getting up, walking out, and returning straight to the World of the Living.
This was far too much work.
That bastard Kazuma really had no mercy at all. What kind of man dumped this much misery onto his own wife?
Batsu'unsai drew a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
She'd already agreed to do this. Running away now would be admitting defeat.
Reluctantly, she picked up a brush and began working through the complicated division reports.
At first, her attention wandered constantly, but as time passed, she gradually became absorbed in the work until everything else faded from her awareness.
Meanwhile, Iba Tetsuzaemon had just returned from patrol.
"Captain… where the hell did you run off to this time?"
He sighed wearily as he trudged toward the captain's office.
Kazuma was undoubtedly off somewhere enjoying himself while leaving yet another mess behind for his unfortunate lieutenant to clean up.
Tetsuzaemon increasingly felt less like a lieutenant and more like a beast of burden.
He had to handle all the ordinary day-to-day affairs of the Seventh Division while simultaneously taking care of work that should have been the captain's responsibility.
Remembering the several days' worth of accumulated paperwork waiting for him, Tetsuzaemon let out another heavy sigh and quickened his pace.
"Huh?"
He stopped when he saw the captain's office in the distance.
"Captain's back?"
Normally, the room would have been completely dark at this hour.
Tonight, however, faint light leaked through the closed door.
Through the window, he could vaguely make out someone hunched over the desk, busily writing.
Had Kazuma finally turned over a new leaf?
Was the man actually working late into the night?
"Captain!"
Hope surged through Tetsuzaemon.
He hurried forward and pushed open the door.
His excitement vanished instantly.
The person sitting behind the desk was not Kazuma.
It was Batsu'unsai, who'd disappeared from Soul Society years ago.
"C-Captain Batsu'unsai?"
Tetsuzaemon froze in the doorway.
"Why are you here? Where's Captain Kazuma?"
For several seconds, he simply stood there staring at her while Batsu'unsai stared back with equal surprise.
Then he finally recovered from the shock.
"Hmph! Your captain is dead."
Batsu'unsai snapped the brush in her hand cleanly in two.
"No idea when he plans on coming back to life."
Her expression had darkened considerably.
She'd already been in a terrible mood from handling the tedious paperwork, and now Tetsuzaemon had immediately started mentioning Kazuma over and over again.
It was like pouring oil onto a fire.
"Understood. I'll leave you to your work, Captain."
Tetsuzaemon bowed slightly.
Every survival instinct in his body was screaming at him.
The resentment radiating from Batsu'unsai was practically tangible.
If he didn't leave now, he might not get another chance.
He began turning toward the door.
"Come back here!"
Batsu'unsai's shout exploded behind him.
"You think you can leave after showing up?"
Tetsuzaemon flinched.
'Damn it.'
He reluctantly turned around.
Batsu'unsai was staring at him with an expression as cold as winter.
Then she shoved roughly two-thirds of the mountain of paperwork toward him.
The stack landed in front of Tetsuzaemon like a small hill, nearly burying him.
'These two really are made for each other.'
He couldn't resist complaining silently.
With immense reluctance, Tetsuzaemon reached out and accepted the enormous pile.
Every document felt as though someone had added another boulder to his shoulders.
He'd originally assumed that Batsu'unsai's return meant freedom from the endless administrative work.
Apparently, fate had other ideas.
He was still a workhorse.
"From today onward, I'll be serving as acting captain of the Seventh Division."
Batsu'unsai dropped another bombshell.
"That means you'll follow my orders from now on."
"What?! You're kidding…"
Tetsuzaemon stood frozen as though struck by lightning.
After several moments, the meaning finally sank in.
Batsu'unsai was going to temporarily take command of the Seventh Division.
Once the initial shock passed, however, Tetsuzaemon found a small reason to celebrate.
At least Batsu'unsai actually did her own paperwork.
Compared with Kazuma — who spent his days drinking, sleeping, and dumping every single responsibility onto his lieutenant — this was practically a blessing.
Ever since returning, Kazuma had embraced laziness with religious devotion.
If there was a way to avoid work, he'd find it.
He drank.
He slept.
And apparently that was the extent of his daily schedule.
Tetsuzaemon, meanwhile, had been running around like a spinning top from morning until night.
There was only one problem with Batsu'unsai.
She was terrifyingly strict!
The slightest mistake would earn him an immediate verbal beating, delivered with such relentless intensity that it felt like standing in the middle of a hurricane.
Sometimes Tetsuzaemon genuinely wondered whether he was her subordinate or her sworn enemy.
Still, the couple really did complement each other in a strange way.
One was the undisputed king of slacking off.
The other was strict enough to make grown men tremble.
How those two had ever ended up together was anyone's guess.
There was also a rather entertaining rumor floating around that Captain Kazuma was completely henpecked.
Supposedly, the moment Batsu'unsai became angry, Kazuma immediately behaved himself and barely dared to breathe too loudly.
Whether that rumor was true was impossible to say.
Perhaps only the person who started it knew the full story.
With Tetsuzaemon helping, the mountain of paperwork was finally cleared before too long.
"Whew… finally finished."
Batsu'unsai rubbed her aching arm.
Once she returned to the World of the Living, Kazuma was going to compensate her properly for this.
Ending up with such a lazy husband must have been payback for some serious wrongdoing in a past life.
"Captain?"
Tetsuzaemon spoke cautiously.
"Can I go home now?"
He was completely exhausted.
All he wanted was to collapse into bed and sleep.
Another miserable day in the life of a workhorse had finally come to an end.
He just wondered when his own salvation would ever arrive.
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