36-Merit

Aizen and his squad ran the entire way to the headquarters without stooping to rest even once. 

Thankfully they didn't encounter any other enemies along the way, Unfortunately, the falcons Yuki sent kept coming back to him before disabling and dropping the rolled letters he had sent by his feet. 

In total there were five falcons who came back which meant that five falcons didn't manage to deliver their messages and considering their speed was impossible, that meant that five squads couldn't make it. 

Yuki, Aizen and the others could only sigh regretfully at this, nonetheless Yuki had sent dozens of falcons and only five came back which meant the others have delivered their messages successfully and knowing that served to relieve some of the stress the squad have accumulated. 

After a while, the clan headquarters appeared in their line of sight and although they seemed to be on high alert it was still standing nonetheless which made them exhale a sigh in relief. 

They were also a bit puzzled, from the suicide squad that they had encountered they had came to the conclusion that Aizen's thinking from before was most likely true, the enemy might have just been distracting them and the suicide squad was most likely sent to delay them. 

But, why was there no sign of fight anywhere near their base, not that they were complaining or anything like that but they felt that something was off, shouldn't there be signs of a fierce battle? were they perhaps wrong?

'Or perhaps Gojo handled it without anyone finding out?.' thought aizen, but he couldn't voice it out loud. 

Reaching the base entrance Yuki went forward first to verify their identity as transformation jutsu existed in this world and even if they all looked the same it didn't prove anything. 

After a while the rock wall in front of them which was quickly made using a jutsu was lowered, which considering they were shinobi there wasn't really a need to do that, 'Perhaps the people in command paid extra attention to the fact that we might be tired?" thought aizen. 

As the wall was completely down they saw Yuki waiting for them on the other side of it holding a hand sign, apparently, he was the one who lowered the wall, 'That makes more sense.' thought aizen 

Reaching him he only gave them some simple orders to go rest and recuperate and wait until they are called on again, surprisingly or maybe unsurprisingly he asked Aizen to come with him. 

And so Aizen followed him into a large tent but this time it was the command one instead of the fuinjutsu-making tent. 

Entering the command tent he saw a large circular table with three middle-aged men surrounding it, they all turned to look at him as he entered. 

Yuki went forward and stood with the other three around the table leaving Aizen alone standing there. 

One of the men, a guy with white sideburns at the side of his head, smiled which was really rare in situations like these as he looked towards Aizen and said, "Alright, now that all of us are here, how about we first explain to our new friend what's going on."

Pausing a little as he saw everyone nodding he looked at Aizen as he continued smiling. "First of all, let's start with the reason why we called you here, you've done a great survive to our clan, to YOUR clan by discovering the enemy's plan, it is not wrong to say that we would have lost this front and most of us would be dead by now if it weren't for you." he said. 

"There is no need for the thanks commander, it's my duty and I am happy to help " Replied Aizen seriously while standing up straight showing maturity far above his "age" and surprising the people there, except for Yuki, he already had a general idea about the kid from Interacting with him on the previous mission. 

Nodding at him the man said again, "And surprisingly you also made a tremendous achievement again by exposing the enemy bomb plan before it went out of hand and saved a lot of pf lives, to be honest with you am out of words, I don't even know how to reward you for this hahahaha." he finished laughing lightning the mood in the tent. 

Aizen also smiled and repeated,"As I've said before sir, it's my duty." 

"That being the case we still have to, even though it's your duty we still need to reward you, first because you definitely deserve it and secondly, if we don't even reward you for this big merit then what are the other soldiers going to say, their moral will hit rock bottom, so consider taking the reward as another duty you have to fulfil to your clan. "said another middle-aged man, although, no matter how he worded it, it was still the same and it benefited aizen. 

This guy had a goatee and a scar that ran from his forehead on the left side all the way down to his mouth. 

"If you say it like that then I can't help but accept." Replied Aizen before suddenly remembering something and hesitating whether to ask or not. 

Seeing his changing expression, which was of course done by Aizen himself as there is no way he will make such a mistake the man with the sideburns spoke,"If there is something you want to say don't hesitate, we are all clansmen here so there is nothing to hide." although he said that with a bright smile on his face he didn't really fully mean it. 

For example, if aizen asked for some top-secret information he could only come up with an excuse to not answer him and aizen knew that. 

"It's actually nothing that serious, but I thought that the enemy would have already launched a surprise attack before we could make it, how come there doesn't appear to be signs of battle ." Asked aizen 
 
"Oh that, it's like this……." 


(An: I've noticed that the story has been progressing really slowly so from this chapter onward I'll start to speed things up a bit)