Mayuri Kurotsuchi's Guide to Personal Chemistry
(Heehee! Byakuya and Kenpachi look out! Somebody's about to use you for a science experiment. Just in time for Valentine's Day and right on the heels of lovely Bya's birthday, this one is sure to please! Enjoy! Love you all, Spunky)
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Chapter 1: Mad Science
Squad 12 Captain's log Entry 212014: I don't know why I even bother with this record. There is nothing going on worthy of wasting a scientist's time chatting about and I have no interest in talk when there are things to be explored...things to be done. Although half of my latest batch of ingenious studies have just been scrapped by that philandering drunk of a head captain! Why was he chosen anyway? Weren't we at enough of a disadvantage in the quincy war with no leader? Having a raving drunk and girl chasing leader is even worse!
And to make things even more unpleasant, ever since his banishment was lifted, that scheming bastard, Urahara can't keep his nose out of everything I am doing! I want to make him my next experiment. I want to poison him with something that turns him into a writhing, slobbering puddle on the floor! He deserves as much and worse! And what's more...
The twelfth division captain's fingers stopped, poised in the air over the keyboard as two raised voices sounded.
"I was gonna shred your pansy-ass and you know it!" Kenpachi's gruff voice rasped in annoyance, "I don't care what pretty new toys the king gave you. I was going to crush you if..."
"If you hadn't forgotten that we were training without reiatsu restraints to protect the area around our duel," Byakuya's solemn voice intoned haughtily, "I told you that it was a bad idea and we should have trained in Hueco Mundo where we would have been able to fight at full power without wrecking everything around us and putting Head Captain Kyouraku in a position to have to discipline us. Just be glad that his punishment was to have us assigned to patrol the precipice world and it wasn't to just have us assigned to be that insane fool's research subjects!"
"Ahem," Kurotsuchi said, standing, crossing his arms and glaring at the other two captains.
He waited for Byakuya to apologize for what he'd said, then realized how foolish it was to think that the squad six captain would ever do such a thing as apologize for his rudeness.
"What do you two want?" he said crossly, "I am far too busy to entertain a brute and a stuffy prince. So, out with it. Why are you here? Be done with it and be on your way!"
"We have been assigned to patrol the precipice world," Byakuya said, turning a cold, gray eye on Kenpachi, "The captain commander ordered us to report here to be dispatched to the area at once."
"Oh ho ho!" the scientist chortled in amusement, "Goofing off again and getting yourselves into trouble, ne?"
"What th'hell? We were just training!" complained Kenpachi.
"Ah yes, training," Kurotsuchi mused, calling up the images of destruction from their fight onto his screen, "It seems that you incompetent louts tore up a big section of the Seireitei with your ridiculous attempt at training that did not include the proper restraints. How unsurprisingly stupid of you both!"
"Eh, shut up and point us in the right direction," Kenpachi growled, his eyes glowing a dangerous golden, "We have shit to do."
"We haven't time to trifle with you," Byakuya agreed, more properly stated, but every bit as rude.
"I ought to feed the two of you directly to the cleaner," Kurotsuchi seethed, "except that even it has more sense than to want to spend five minutes with the likes of you two! You give new meaning to the word unpleasant."
"We shall be happy to redefine it for you, yet again, if you do not cease annoying us and lay out the correct path for us," Byakuya offered sternly.
"As though that smelly baboon with you could find the correct path even if it was right in front of his eyes," Kurotsuchi muttered, tapping angrily at the keys on his computer.
"That is why I am here," Byakuya said evenly.
"No, that mess on my screen is why you are both here!"
As the squad twelve captain worked, he watched the other two captains out of the corner of an eye, his dark mind finally coming back to life as he plotted out horrid ends for the two of them.
Although, if I kill them, I may just end up back in the Maggot's Nest, given that they probably want that blasted Urahara reinstated anyway! So I can't kill these two, but hmmm, maybe I can use my knowledge of the precipice world and their 'patrol' time to torture them a little! If they like fighting so much, then I will just give them a place suitable for that. There's no problem with that, I don't think.
Although, they may have a problem with the fact that I will control everything in their little world with mere taps of my fingertips...
"Come on!" Kenpachi yawned, "Give us the path already. I wanna get this over with."
"I wouldn't want the person programming your path in to rush, if I was you. The precipice world is a dangerous place. One wrong step and you'd disappear, never to be seen again."
"And wouldn't that be a pity," Byakuya said dryly, "to have that barbarian disappear forever..."
"Just remember that you are going to be with that barbarian. So whatever befalls him will certainly affect you as well."
"Be that as it may, we would like to begin our patrol as soon as humanly possible so that we can be done with it and part ways again quickly."
"What he said," Kenpachi rumbled.
"Fine, fine," Kurotsuchi said, looking down at his screen, then smirking to himself and altering the path slightly, "There."
Two hell butterflies floated into the room and fluttered in front of the captains as a senkaimon opened.
"Enjoy your patrol, fools," the scientist said under his breath as he watched the eleventh and sixth squad captains disappear down the chosen path.
As the doorway into the precipice world closed behind them, Kurotsuchi loosed a pleased snicker and returned to his computer.
"Ah, the day just got much more interesting!"
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Where the hell are you takin' us, princess?" Kenpachi asked impatiently as Byakuya paused and studied the corridor carefully, then frowned and looked more closely at the hell butterfly leading them, "It's not so hard, right? Following the path we've been given. Or are you suddenly as clueless about directions as I am? That makes you kind of a hypocrite, doesn't it?"
"Be quiet, you smelly baboon. I'm thinking that there is a problem with the path we were given. This looks wrong."
"Well, I wouldn't put it past that creepy bastard to give us a bum steer, but it's not like he can kill us and get away with it, so I say we follow the damned butterflies and you keep your trap shut and your conspiracy theories to yourself."
Byakuya glowered threateningly at the other captain, but then straightened and continued along the path.
"So, when we get back, you wanna go to Hueco Mundo and let loose on each other?"
"Oh, now he wants to listen to the advice I gave him. What? Is it my birthday?" Byakuya huffed, remembering suddenly the savory dinner, cake and gifts he had enjoyed with Renji, Rukia, Tetsuya and Ichigo the night before.
"Oh yeah, it was your birthday yesterday, wasn't it?" mused Kenpachi, "Well, whenever the hell we get back, I'll buy you a drink and give you your birthday pounding. How's that?"
"I cannot wait," Byakuya sighed in annoyance, "That sounds so much better than the walk in the gardens and moongazing I had planned."
"Well, I do my best," Kenpachi drawled, grinning, "Anyone can give you a special dinner and a cake, but no one makes you bleed like I do."
"I would have to admit that is true. It is unfortunate for you that I do not have an affinity for bleeding for you."
"You might not, but you're not boring. And as boring as most other people are, that makes you good company."
"I am so flattered," the noble said in a deadpan voice, "After all, amusing you is what I live for."
"You know it," Kenpachi chuckled, looking around questioningly.
"Is something wrong?" Byakuya asked in a disinterested tone.
"You hear that?"
The noble slowed, then stopped as the distant hum moved closer and grew louder.
"I hope that thing's in the next corridor. This would be a bad place for us to run into it. So, is this what you were worried about?"
Byakuya's frown deepened.
"Not yet, but it is quickly moving in that direction. We should take this branch."
"Is that what the hell butterfly says?" asked Kenpachi.
"Forget what the butterfly says," the noble said tersely, "Isn't it clear to you that, that crackpot scientist purposely placed us in the path of that thing for a reason?"
"You're dreaming. He wouldn't have the balls..."
"No?" Byakuya asked sarcastically as the cleaner appeared ahead of them and rushed towards them.
"Aww, fuck, I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch!" Kenpachi roared, breaking into a run, "You coming, princess? Or are you planning on getting eaten by that thing?"
Byakuya turned and flash stepped after his running colleague.
"I'm going to take your head off if you continue to insist on calling me that!" Byakuya snapped falling into stride next to the other man.
"What's your problem?" chuckled Kenpachi, "I just call you that cause you're a pretty boy. I respect your sword."
"You'd better!" the noble said warningly, "Run faster, you fool. That thing is gaining on us! Damn you for not persevering at your flash step! You are a poor excuse for a captain."
"Yeah? Well they had to make me one after I cut down the last one."
"That is one backdoor into captaincy that I would very much like to see closed..."
The two turned a corner and looked back over their shoulders and groaned as the cleaner followed.
"Damn, get the hell off!" Kenpachi panted, running faster, "Hey, Kuchiki, you can go on ahead. You're faster."
"I am not going to lower my pride and let a comrade die. Move faster. I don't want to have to turn and take that thing on."
"Turn and take that thing on...hmmm," Kenpachi mused, his feet slowing and his body turning back.
"Kenpachi, what are you doing!" Byakuya cried, his eyes widening.
A chill went through him as the eleventh squad captain began to laugh loudly and stopped in front of the approaching cleaner, drawing his sword.
"Come on, you big shiny bastard," Kenpachi mocked the cleaner, "Come and show me what you've got!"
"Kenpachi, have you lost your mind?" Byakuya shouted, launching himself at his colleague and firing a blast of kido at the wall, where he caught sight of a dim outline.
"Oof!" grunted the big man as Byakuya's smaller, but respectably powered body struck his and the two crashed through the doorway.
A moment later, they began to fall through what appeared to be a heavy rainstorm.
"Kuchiki, you asshole!" howled Kenpachi, "I am kicking your pretty round butt when I find you!"
They crashed down into water and kicked furiously for the surface, shedding their heavy haoris and heading for the shore. Byakuya paused as Kenpachi went under, then surfaced and bobbed unsteadily for a moment before sinking again.
He doesn't know how to swim?
He angled his body in the direction where the other man had been and arrived there, moments later.
"Kenpachi!" he called urgently, looking around.
A hand took hold of his foot and yanked him down. Byakuya took hold of the person's arm and hauled him to the surface, scowling as Kenpachi surfaced and choked on the water, spewing it all over his piqued colleague.
"Baka!" the noble panted, ducking his head into the water to clean the area.
He grabbed the front of the other man's shihakushou and dragged him out of the deeper water, then the two staggered onto the shore and collapsed in the wet sand, working to catch their breath.
"Thanks, princess," Kenpachi managed, "I think I would have met my maker if you hadn't helped me out."
"Don't worry," Byakuya said wearily, "I won't forget that you owe me."
"Naw, not you."
The two men climbed to their feet and looked back out over the dark waters.
"Looks like we'll be in trouble for losing our haoris again," Kenpachi mused, scratching the back of his neck, "Good thing Kyouraku isn't such a dick about that as old man Yama was."
"Lucky for us," the noble agreed, looking around.
He spotted a partially covered area under a cliff, near the water and motioned towards it.
"That looks like a place we might get out of the rain."
"Sure," Kenpachi said, following him to the small recess.
The depression in the rocks was somewhat small, requiring the two men to huddle close together to enjoy protection from the rain.
"So, what now?" Kenpachi asked, "You know any way to get back?"
"No," Byakuya said, looking out into the darkness.
"Well, then why the hell'd you bring us down here?" the bigger man complained, "I coulda taken that thing on, and we'd be doing our stupid patrol and not sitting here getting wet and freezing cold!"
"You're insane!" Byakuya said, turning aside to avoid looking at the other man, "The cleaner would have swallowed you up and you would be dead!"
"Aww, what's that? You sound like you really care. Would you miss me if I was gone, princess?"
"Not in the slightest," Byakuya replied dryly, "It was only a matter of honor that I could not allow even a stupid fool of a comrade to die if I was in a position to save him. That's all."
"And you say I'm nuts," the big man laughed, "I say that's nuts!"
"Exactly what I would expect from you," Byakuya huffed, shivering, "You know nothing of using proper manners or the rules of chivalry!"
"No," agreed Kenpachi, "I know about beating the shit out of things that try to kill me and killing. Those are my talents."
"Well, as much as we may need those talents now that we are trapped here, I would trade them for a warm blanket and a pillow right now."
"Yeah," Kenpachi mused, thinking back to his childhood in the low Rukongai, "Well, it looks like we've left the land of prissy nobles and splashed down into the wilderness, so if you want a pillow, you're gonna have to choose between that rock and my shoulder."
"Oh, let me think..."
"Be nice or I'll take back the offer," Kenpachi said, yanking the noble closer, then watching as Byakuya sniffed disapprovingly, then rested against the bigger man's shoulder. He was surprised at how quickly the cold went away as warmth radiated between them.
"Why don't you sleep first?" Kenpachi offered, "I'll keep watch."
"You'll probably fall asleep and we'll be monster bait before morning," Byakuya surmised, "You know that the door we came through marked the area as restricted. That means it's dangerous."
"I know what it means. Now, shut yer yap and get some sleep. I've got this."
"Are you sure?" Byakuya yawned, resting against the other man more firmly.
"Yeah."
"Very well."
Byakuya closed his eyes and slowly drifted off, losing awareness and completely missing the point at which an odd gas hissed out of the rock they leaned against and Kenpachi dropped off to sleep too.
Mayuri Kurotsuchi watched the monitor in front of him, snickering as Kenpachi began to snore loudly.
"Ah...this should be fun! A scientific study on whether or not a struggle to survive can bring two opposites together. I am really going to enjoy this!"
"Enjoy what?" asked Shunsui's calm, relaxed voice, "What are you doing there, Captain Kurotsuchi? Did you send those two I sent you off on their patrol?"
"Yes, yes," Kurotsuchi said impatiently, switching hastily to a different display, "You wanted them on patrol. They're on patrol. It hardly seems necessary for the captain commander to be about, checking up on rule breakers."
"Just doing my job," said the head captain, "You be sure and forward their reports as soon as they start coming in, okay?"
"Yes, whatever!" the twelfth squad captain said off-handedly, "Be on your way! I am busy here!"
"I'll expect to hear from you later then."
"Yes, yes," Mayuri said, flipping back to the display of the two sleeping captains, "I have a plan in mind for that too..."