Written by Ichizawa Tomine

Owned by Tite Kubo


One Hot Day

Chapter 1

It was one unusually hot day in Soul Society. The sun was high and there were no clouds to afford anyone the comfort of some shade. The air was very humid, and there was no breeze blowing. The streets of Rukongai also looked pretty deserted – most people had flocked to the beach, rivers and springs (cold, mind you) to cool off.

However, not all people could be as fortunate as the people of Rukongai. Inside the gates of Seireitei, to the First Bantai's headquarters, inside a room with very small windows, were Soul Society's most powerful men and women, looking very grim and feeling highly irritable. They were assembled for the annual interdivision meeting, one of the longest and troublesome meetings ever to take place. Here captains and vice-captains voice out their concerns (comments, insults, etc.) to other divisions' captains and vice-captains.

As of the moment, Mayuri Kurotsuchi and Zaraki Kenpachi were the ones who were talking… er, bashing each other. The sotaichou was hearing their case.

"Yamamoto-taichou, this man's subordinates tore down one of my headquarters' walls!!" Mayuri shrieked and pointed to Zaraki.

"I told you, it was all an accident!!" Zaraki spat back.

"It was no accident, you oaf!! I know you secretly want to turn my space into one of your damned barracks!!"

"As if my men want to go anywhere within a mile of your place, asshole!! I told you they were just passing by on their way to the fields!!"

"That's no reason!! Why are they going to the fields? To plant corn?" Mayuri snickered. Apparently, with the many apparatus he installed to his body he could no longer feel the heat's intensity as much as the normal shinigami do.

Yamamoto massaged his temples in frustration. With the steadily rising temperature of the room, Mayuri's shouting interlaced with Zaraki's cursing did nothing but worsen the situation. The rest of the shinigami in the room ignored the two, shifting every now and then to a position that seemed less hot. Even Shunsui took off his pink haori and Unohana kept her long hair in a neat bun at the back of her head. Byakuya tied his hair into a ponytail (Isane was snapping pictures for the SWA), and Nanao was actually using her fan instead of slamming it into her taichou's forehead. Jyuushiro's hair was also tied up (Isane took a picture of him too, for Kiyone), and Komamura was licking himself every chance he's got (when the other captain's gazes seemed to be in other directions) to keep cool.

By now a string of curses and insults had already been exchanged and the two displayed their colorful vocabularies to the whole Gotei 13. Normally, the sotaichou wouldn't stand this but when Zaraki nonchalantly said to Mayuri that Mayuri sounded like a bitch, the surrounding captains shifted their attention to their sotaichou and expected (and prayed) that he would blow the place up and end the meeting right then and there. But when the sotaichou didn't budge from his seat, Mayuri got into the act and lost no time in calling Zaraki "Tinker boy (in reference to the bells in his hair)" right away.

Thirty minutes later, the scene was as we left it, though the captains had visibly lesser clothing. All of them had taken off their captain's jackets and in Shunsui's case, stripped off his black kimono too. Matsumoto could be heard pleading to her taichou to make the temperature in the room drop some degrees. Hitsugaya, pissed at Matsumoto for giving him 175 reports to finish up the last time, decidedly said no and the two started to make some noise themselves – Matsumoto trying to coax her captain to do what she asked and Hitsugaya promptly shrug her off, which made Matsumoto beg even more.

Isane was already mugging Byakuya with the camera, quite shamelessly in fact, and this led the usually reserved guy to blow off his top. The sweltering heat and the flashes on his face certainly did not make a good combination. He gave Isane a good scolding – plenty of words for a man like him (in other words, just a few) – but it was enough to scare the wits off Isane. She went to take a seat beside her captain, but apparently Byakuya was still hot on the trail, and continued to rail her from the other side of the table. Unohana, herself in a bad mood brought about by the heat, decided to steam off by bickering with Byakuya. They were son arguing (yes, Unohana flung some witty words at him), and this kinda silenced the room for a while. They looked at Byakuya and Unohana, who were now standing face to face, talking with raised voices at each others' faces.

But what was the point of keeping quiet? The ruckus went on and pretty soon enough everyone started to follow suit, Renji in a heated conversation with Hisagi, Jyuushirou trying to evade Shunsui's invitations to take him out to the red lights' district that night, Nanao yelling at Shunsui, Shunsui apologizing to Nanao and asking her for a date, Nanao slamming her fan on to his head, making Shunsui step on Komamura's tail, Komamura howling in pain, Yachiru giggling madly, Soi Fong screaming at her vice captain and well, it was very, very noisy.

Still the sotaichou remained quiet. Chojiro looked at his taichou nervously. This silence cannot mean anything good. Chojiro backed up a bit, anticipating that his taichou would burn the whole place any minute now. After a few moments and still nothing happened, Chojiro neared his captain and found out that he was… sleeping.

"Taichou," Chojiro whispered while shaking his captain's shoulder, "wake up. The meeting is a mess!!"

Yamamoto did not stir for a while. But soon enough he opened his eyes, the whole scene slowly registering into his head. His meeting room was now an ensuing verbal battlefield and nearly fell of his seat on seeing his two most levelheaded captains on each other's nerves, saying some things which I will not type here.

Yamamoto rapped his cane on the floor and called the attention of his captains in a booming voice, "ALL OF YOU, STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS RIGHT NOW!!"

All of the captains involved in the noise-making stopped in the middle of what they were doing. Mayuri was holding a chair midair about to slam it on Zaraki's head, Hitsugaya was suffocating in Matsumoto's bountiful assets, Renji and Hisagi holding each others' collars, Hinamori and Nemu were standing on the table arguing about something I failed to mention, and Byakuya and Unohana, still in each other's faces.

"RETURN TO YOUR SEATS AT ONCE!!"

The ruckus filled room suddenly became very eerie, and the shinigami in question quickly grabbed the chair nearest to him (Mayuri had an advantage, so to say).

"Now can anyone tell me who was behind all of this?" Yamamoto said with a calmer voice.

Everyone immediately pointed to their opponent. The old man became even more enraged.

"AND NOW NO ONE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY?! YOU ALL ARE SOUL SOCIETY'S MOST RESPECTED MEN AND WOMEN!! AND YET ALL OF YOU ACT LIKE BUFFOONS!!" Yamamoto declared, his voice trembling once again.

Everyone in the room did not look up to the fuming sotaichou. Whoever got the old man's ire was surely a poor soul… each individual in the room hoped that it wouldn't be them.

"But… isn't it your fault since you slept instead of stopping Clown-face from making Ken-chan mad?" Yachiru pointed out. Zaraki cursed that he shouldn't have picked Yachiru off the streets. Even he did not want to face the old man.

Shunsui swallowed his courage and commented to Yamamoto almost reluctantly, "Is that so, Yama-jii?"

All heads turned to the General Commander of the whole Gotei 13. They had been so engrossed with their verbal jousts that they forgot that Yamamoto was sitting in an area which gave him good visibility to their rambles.

Yamamoto cleared his throat and looked at Shunsui with piercing daggers on the background. Shunsui had an urge to cut his tongue right then and there. "That's it! This meeting is consummated. Everyone out!!"

Many heads hit the table, filled with sweat drops. Matsumoto and Renji wanted to laugh but granted the mood of most of the populace was in it wasn't very advisable. They got out of the room as soon as they could, filing out in two lines. But the battles weren't over yet. They eyed their antagonists with venomous intensity that anyone who had the bad luck of straying within 50 meters of their radius was bound to get suffocated. Meanwhile, Shunsui thanked the gods profusely that day, visiting every temple he could and pouring his precious sake on the ground. With the show of gratitude and thanksgiving he gave to different deities that day I think he could have been declared the holiest man in Soul Society. Yama-jii didn't grill him. At least, not yet.

The next day…

4th bantai HQ

Isane shuddered as she watched her taichou rubbing her hands. It wasn't a good sign… it meant that the demure beauty was in a foul mood.

"Kuchiki Byakuya will regret every word that came out of his mouth," Unohana said in a gentle manner though every word dripped with poison. "Isane, do you think you can get me 6th bantai's medical records by this afternoon?"

Isane suddenly felt sorry for the noble. He was a dead man. But she was a dead woman too if she defied her taichou's orders. "Hai, Unohana-taichou."

11th bantai HQ

"That Circus-freak will die," Zaraki said out of the blue, while Yumichika tattled on the reports that came that morning. "I'll make him pay. Heads with no grey matter huh? I'll show him the red matter."

"Taichou?" Yumichika waved his hand in front of his captain's eyes. He had finished reading the reports and was asking permission to leave when he noticed that his taichou was not paying attention to him.

"Waddya want?!"

"I'm done with the reports so can I get my beauty sleep now?"

"Die, Ayasegawa."

"So can I? You know taichou, you'll get more wrinkles if you keep frowning like that."

"Whatever, now get out of my sight!!"

"My, my, the taichou sure is in a bad mood today." And with that Yumichika skipped away from his captain, wondering to himself what had happened the previous day since the captain was also sour when he and Yachiru got back from the meeting.

- End of Chapter 1 -