The 11th's Missing Member:
Disclaimer: Bleach doesn't belong to me, it is the property of the incomparable Kubo-sensei.
Spoilers: Slight spoilers for post Soul Society Arc. Nothing major, but you have been warned anyway.
It was late at night in Soul Society and it was quiet. Quiet, but not silent for no matter the hour there was always someone up and about in the Court of Pure Souls. Patrols from each squad of the Gotei 13 patrolled their assigned sectors constantly; members of the 4th Division who had the misfortune to draw maintenance duty often performed such tasks late at night so they could work uninterrupted while other members of the 4th Division spent the night at the Division Headquarters on alert for possible medical emergencies. Other members of the Gotei 13 monitored routine traffic between Soul Society and the living world as well as keeping an eye out for any unusual activity while messengers scattered around the Court of Pure Souls waited to spread the word should anything untoward happen. Over at the Research Institute there was almost always someone running an experiment deep into the hours of darkness and this night in particular was no exception.
In the 11th Division Headquarters there was also one figure that was still up and about as well. Kurosawa Michiko, the Division's Fourth Seated Officer was tucked away in what was technically supposed to be the Third Seat's office doing paperwork. The reasons that the office she occupied was supposed to belong to Madarame Ikkaku was because when Ikkaku was doing office work he used the Vice-Captain's office since no one even contemplated trying to get Kusajishi Yachiru to do the work associated with her position as 11th Division Vice-Captain and if she wanted to do something indoors she appropriated the seldom used Captain's Office anyway. The reason that Michiko was still doing paperwork despite the late hour was because if she didn't do it, it simply wouldn't get done. To be fair to Ikkaku when he was there he generally took care of the Captain's paperwork, but that still left Michiko with the Vice-Captain and Third Seat's paperwork to do on top of her own. To make matters worse with Ikkaku in the living world she had to do Zaraki-taichou's paperwork on top of her own oversized workload forcing her to work late into the night to get everything done.
Michiko placed the sheet she had just signed and sealed in the oversized out pile and reached for another one, only to look up in surprise when her hand encountered the bare wood of her desk. It took several seconds for it to register that there was indeed no more paperwork left but when it did Michiko sighed in relief. It meant that not only was she done for the day but that her workload would be getting smaller from then on since she had finally caught up with the backlog that had been created during the incident with the Ryoka and following the defection of not one but three Division Captains the Court of Pure Souls was on emergency wartime footing the paperwork that kept everything running in more peaceful times was going to be considerably streamlined.
Michiko rose, unsteady for a moment as her lower legs and buttocks had fallen asleep during her long hours at her desk but more steadily as feeling returned. Picking up her zanpaktou and slipping into her sash she walked out of the office and closed the door behind her. Once outside Michiko's first thought, given the lateness of the hour, was to seek her quarters and turn in for the night but on a second consideration she decided against it. Though her eyes ached from staring at forms and files all day the rest of her was still more or less awake, if a little stiff. Rather than heading for her quarters Michiko instead headed for the divisional training hall. Even if she was too often cooped up in her office keeping the rest of the division running smoothly Michiko was a member of the 11th Division and far from immune to the battle-lust that was something of a trademark for that Division.
It was a short trip from Michiko's office to the training hall though it took a little longer than necessary since she took a brief detour to the kitchens to retrieve a small basket of eggs. The eggs weren't for a late night snack but part of Michiko's training and one of the reasons she was glad that the training hall was empty when she entered since when she performed her 'egg trick' she drew more of an audience than she liked.
Putting the basket to one side where it wouldn't get in the way Michiko picked up an egg in her left hand and drew her zanpaktou with her right. Her zanpaktou, Hoshikage by name, was dominated by blackness, from the black starburst shaped tsuba to the black on black lacquer work on the sheathe. Even the blade, while not truly black was dark grey that seemed to drink in the light. Michiko held Hoshikage out straight; the cutting edge pointed straight down and with great care balanced the egg on the broader back edge. The fact that the egg stayed balanced there even after Michiko removed her hand was an impressive piece of balance but that wasn't what drew audiences. What drew the people's attention was what came next as Michiko pointed the tip of Hoshikage's blade down and let the egg roll down until it was just about to fall off. Before the egg could fall though Michiko jerked the blade up straight again, launching the egg into the air, though only about ten centimetres. The egg arced smoothly through the air before coming down and landing back on Hoshikage's blade, this time on the flat and not a single, infitesimal crack appearing on the fragile shell. Michiko was only getting started however.
Again the egg arced into the air, this time a little higher and once again it was caught without cracking, this time on the other flat side of the blade. The egg went flying for a third time, this time flying up nearly twenty centimetres before coming back down back on the rear of the blade. Again and again the egg flew up, each time getting higher and higher and each time the egg flew up the way in Michiko caught it was more and more elaborate, even catching it on the tip and the cutting edge several times and rolling it along, the edge and still the shell remained uncracked.
As Michiko continued bouncing the egg around with what could only described as consummate skill a tiny smile crept across her lips. It wasn't the same as facing a live opponent in battle but she found a degree of thrill in being able to control her blade so absolutely. It also intimidated the hell out of lower ranked members of the division, a state of affairs that Michiko found not entirely unpleasant though it did mean that Ikkaku and Yumichika, who could have held the Fourth Seat position if he really wanted to were the only ones willing to spar with her, though given how much time she had been spending in the office she had yet to really feel the loss.
Realising that she was starting to let her thoughts wander Michiko brought her routine to an end in preparation for moving onto a more difficult challenge using several more eggs. She launched the egg high enough so that it missed the ceiling by just a hair's breadth and then as it came down Hoshikage's blade lashed out in a dark flash, cutting the unfortunate egg clean down the middle. A slight twist of the wrist at the very end of the cut and both halves of the shell were sent flying away while the raw egg and yolk continued straight down to land squarely in Michiko's mouth.
Wiping away a small fleck of white from the corner of her lips as she swallowed Michiko was startled by rather enthusiastic applause. She raised Hoshikage into a ready position in an instinctual action but even before she saw the new arrivals she knew who they must be and she cursed herself for not realising it earlier. Zaraki Kenpachi was notable amongst the higher ranked shinigami for his lack of control over his reiatsu. He had enough control over his enormous power to avoid flattening random bystanders nearly a kilometre away while not engaged in combat but even at several tens of metres it was impossible for him to hide his presence and the only reason that Michiko hadn't noticed him approaching was that she was so caught up in her practice. And if Zaraki was present that meant that meant that the clapping could only be Yachiru.
"Bird Nest Hair Girl is really clever!" Yachiru said from her customary place on Kenpachi's shoulder.
Michiko grit her teeth at the annoying nickname but let it pass. It was nigh on impossible to get the pink haired Vice-Captain to refer to anyone by anything other than the annoying nicknames she bestowed on people (Kenpachi excluded of course) and besides the Michiko's was more or less accurate. Her hair indeed looked like a bird had been nesting in it. Instead Michiko just shrugged. "It just takes practice," she said dismissing the concentration and control required to use a zanpaktou blade to juggle an egg without breaking it.
"A shit load of practice I reckon," Kenpachi said. "Question is you any good with that in a fight or is it just a fancy toy for bouncing eggs around?"
Michiko swallowed nervously. While fortunately rare occurrences it wasn't unheard of for Kenpachi to drag one or more unfortunate individuals out of the beds for a sparing session when he was suffering from a sleepless night. However since Michiko was already available it looked like she was the unfortunate one this time around. Still if it was a fight that Kenpachi wanted then Michiko was going to give him as much as a fight as possible. Still she was at a distinct disadvantage, even without the radically different power levels.
Kenpachi could not be called a true giant, not when measured up against the Gate Guardians but he was definitely one of the taller shinigami around which put him head and shoulders and then some over Michiko who was about half a head shorter than Yumichika giving him not only the advantage of reach, but also leverage. To make matters even worse while Hoshikage had the proportions of a katana like the vast majority of other zanpaktou the nameless blade that Kenpachi wielded was a nodachi, longer than Hoshikage both in absolute terms and relative to Kenpachi's height, further exaggerating the reach difference. The reach difference however was the one thing that Michiko could do something about though.
"Whisper, Hoshikage!" she said in a soft, but commanding tone, spinning the hilt around her hand so fast that it blurred. The blur grew reaching out in a black circle until it was as wide as Michiko was tall and only then did it stop, coming to a rest balanced on Michiko's outstretched hand. Like Hozokimaru Hoshikage's shikai was a polearm but there the similarity ended. Like it's sealed form Hoshikage's shikai was dark, the main shaft made of black wood wrapped in dark leather for grip and the blades were made of the same dark metal as the sealed form's blade. And it was the plural form for there was a blade attached to each end of the main shaft. In comparison to weapons from the mortal world the blades were probably most like the sword known as the Hyup-Do with a broad, curved cutting edge and a small spike on the back edge for catching an opponent's blade. The cutting edges of the blades also faced in opposite directions that allowing Michiko to bring each to bear consecutively when she swung Hoshikage in a constant circle.
"Not bad," Kenpachi said as Michiko brought her weapon up into a ready stance. "Now let's see if there's anything behind the show," his own, nameless, battered zanpaktou being drawn out of its scabbard even as he spoke.
Michiko's heart began to race as she was hammered by the force of her captain's reiatsu but she know that Kenpachi wasn't exerting more than a small fraction of his full power and if she allowed herself to be paralysed she was going to be demolished in a single blow. Focusing her own reiatsu and her courage Michiko dashed forward and swung Hoshikage around in an arc that would have taken a lesser shinigami's head off, even before Kenpachi's blade had completely cleared the scabbard. Kenpachi was not so easy to defeat though and he stepped back out of the way even as he finished drawing but Michiko wasn't finished. She used the momentum from the swing to keep turning even as she continued forward, bringing the second blade forward, though this time she aimed lower, coming in under Kenpachi's guard and aiming for his belly.
This time Michiko actually hit. It was only a shallow cut but it was a distinct hit and Michiko grunted slightly as the shock of contact was transmitted up her arms even as a thin red line appeared along Kenpachi's lower abdomen. Doing that much against a Captain, even one only half prepared and not engaging in serious combat was an impressive feat for a mere Fourth Seat. Had she tried for a hard strike and not a shallow, sweeping cut Michiko would have ruptured every blood vessel in her hands and probably shattered every bone in her arms from the shock of Kenpachi's reiatsu. A circular slash that barely cut the skin lessened the shock of that immensely. Even then Michiko shouldn't have drawn blood but for one other fact. To the best of her knowledge Hoshikage's shikai form had the sharpest cutting edge in all of Soul Society, sharper even than the fragments of Kuchiki Byakuya's Senbonzakura and when she fought against any opponent Michiko focused all her reiatsu onto that cutting edge. She couldn't hope to match her Captain's truly phenomenal amounts of power in absolute terms but in that tiny space were blade met skin she could overpower him locally.
Michiko came to a sudden stop as she finished her arc, blade sill pointed towards Kenpachi, even as the Captain pulled back another few steps, the beginnings of a maniacal grin on his face. "Sneaky," he said in a rather admiring tone. "And not too bad either," he added, running a thumb along the cut and inspecting the crimson smear that came away. "Question is can you keep that up?"
That was all the warning that Michiko got before Zaraki's blow came in. It was slow, for him at least but it was fast enough to give Michiko trouble but she had had time to get back into a defensive stance and was ready. Even holding back though the overhead blow was powerful enough that if Michiko had tried to block Hoshikage would have shattered in her hands but she didn't try and block. Instead she caught the oddly shaped tsuba on Kenpachi's zanpaktou on the middle of Hoshikage's shaft as she spun it. The motion forced Kenpachi's blade to the side as Michiko moved in closer. She could have levered Hoshikage up between her Captain's legs to land a really nasty blow at that point but she would have run into the backlash problems and pissed Kenpachi off no end as well, so discretion prevailed on that count and instead Hoshikage dipped down and swept one of Kenpachi's legs out, throwing off his balance.
The loss of balance, coupled with Michiko's forward momentum caused Kenpachi to fall right across Michiko's shoulders. Letting Zaraki Kenpachi that close to one's person in a combat situation for any length of time was a bad idea so even as Zaraki fell Michiko let her back leg collapse as her forward leg straightened explosively. The end result was to send Kenpachi flying across the room and even as he went airborne Michiko was in motion, leaping after him, Hoshikage raised to unleashing an overhead strike.
Kenpachi landed hard, making the wooden structure shudder as he hit but it didn't seem to bother him in the least and his hand lashed out and caught Hoshikage just behind the blade before it could open a major blood vessel in his neck. Another Captain might have taken exception to a subordinate attempting a potentially lethal strike in a sparring match with naked blades, but Kenpachi just grinned and tossed Michiko away single handedly as he rose to his feet. "This is fun!" he gloated as Michiko landed, on her feet after some deft mid-air twists, the grin on his face matched by one on Michiko's though where as Kenpachi's grin was probably best described as manic and rather bloodthirsty hers was tighter and while joyful not describable as manic in the slightest. She also had the oddest look in her eyes and Kenpachi remembered one occasion of Yumichika bemoaning her lack of personal grooming but saying when in battle that she had beautiful eyes. Kenpachi didn't put much store in Yumichika's ideas of beauty but looking into Michiko's eyes at that moment he was willing to concede his Fifth Seat might have a point in this case.
For her part Michiko wasn't aware of the look in her eyes and the grin on her face that had attracted Kenpachi's attention, however temporarily. Actually she wasn't aware of much at all for her attention was narrowing down to all that existed in her world was herself, Hoshikage, her opponent and his blade. It was the same sort of focus that allowed her to juggle multiple eggs with a sword and it was that concentration that made her a fighter that more powerful fighters treated with respect lest they wind up hurting. Which she would do herself is she allowed Kenpachi to take the advantage of momentum so even as his zanpaktou rose again she was in motion, pushing hard in an unrelenting attack.
Conventional wisdom in Soul Society held that there was a limit to how many attacks that it was possible to link together before a need to pause and regroup and in training there was much emphasis on exploiting this brief period of advantage but Michiko and Hoshikage defied conventional wisdom in this regard. When in shikai form Hoshikage's twin blades favoured a circular, slashing motion as the primary form of attack that allowed Michiko to link a theoretically unlimited number of attacks together without pause. Against an opponent with sufficiently superior speed and power like Kenpachi such a method of attack wasn't always possible but even in this regard Michiko was fortunate. Since she couldn't block her captain's attacks directly Michiko's only options were to dodge or deflect them and the most effective nature of deflecting them flowed naturally into a counter-attack against Kenpachi's wide open body. Michiko had in fact scored several more Kenpachi's torso, arms and upper legs using such methods. Kenpachi wasn't stupid and had caught on fairly fast but Michiko kept varying her targets enough that she was able to catch him out of position.
The fight was far from one sided though. Both Michiko and Hoshikage paid for every hit they landed and after the first few faint lines of blood were leaking from around Michiko's grip. It wasn't enough to affect Michiko's grip but it was sign of how much even her successes were costing her. Kenpachi was also getting a feel for her moves as well and they were becoming less effective as the fight wore on. The second time Michiko had tripped him for example he had landed flat on his back but Michiko was unable to obtain any advantage from the fact because she had been forced to back away from a low kick that probably would have pulverised her left knee if it had connected. On top of all the pressure from Kenpachi's reiatsu was slowly climbing as he got into the spirit of the fight and while Michiko's narrow focus on nothing else but the battle she was in allowed her to shake off the worst of the effects it was taking it's own toll on her body, making it harder to move and react.
They had been going at it for nearly ten minutes, a truly stupendous amount of time for anyone but another captain or maybe Ikkaku to last against Kenpachi, even in a sparring match when what should have been the decisive blow landed. It was Kenpachi who landed it of course, using his superior speed to sneak a slash through her guard. Had he struck with the cutting edge, even one as battered and chipped as his zanpaktou's he would have taken her left arm off halfway between the shoulder and elbow and carried through most of her chest but while invigorating the fight had yet to awaken his bloodlust in full force and he remembered at the last moment to turn his blade so that he only struck with the flat. It was still enough to send Michiko sprawling off to the side, the snap of bone clearly audible throughout the training hall. But to Kenpachi's surprise she didn't cry out in pain or react in any way other than to stand and bring her zanpaktou back up in a one handed stance.
The same mental focus that allowed Michiko to keep going when she should have been flattened by the pressure of Kenpachi's reiatsu allowed her to cope with the pain of the broken arm. It wasn't that she didn't feel the pain but other than acknowledging what it signalled, in this case that she no longer had any practical use of her left arm, she didn't allow it to affect her. The effect was somewhat eerie and so far from Kenpachi expected that Michiko was able to slash him twice more, one across his right shoulder at an angle that would have proved a serious hindrance if had cut too much deeper, before he forced her back with a wide, rising slash.
Kenpachi grinned wider, his smile threatening to split his face as Michiko still pressed on. This was the kind of opponent her appreciated no matter the form of battle, one who never stopped fighting, even when it was clear that they had no chance of victory. He even spared a few moments to appreciate the way her fighting style changed no that she had the use of only one arm. Rather than using the leverage of both hands to bring her blades to bear she now used her entire body to help generate her spinning, slashing attacks. Visually it looked even more impressive than what she had been doing before, though her limp, useless left arm ruined the effect somewhat, and both her attack and defence were almost as effective as they had been before.
Almost as effective but not quite for this time it took Kenpachi less than a handful of minutes to spot the opening in Michiko's defences. This time he used the back of his blade to land the blow against his relentlessly attacking Fourth Seat, sneaking through her guard to strike her right leg about a hand span below the hip. This time the crack of bone was not quite as loud as previously but still quite audible and Michiko faltered as the broken leg refused to hold her weight. She still didn't cry out nor even fall for one of Hoshikage's blades sliced into the floor as Michiko used it as crutch.
Kenpachi couldn't help but roar with delighted laughter as Michiko switched her full weight to her uninjured leg and then continued to attack. It was utterly insane (a common impression of the 11th Division by the rest of the Gotei 13) but it against a lesser opponent it might have just worked. The attacks Michiko was using were powered by wild gyrations of her body on the ball of the foot or the heel of her good leg and looked as flashy as all hell but were still frighteningly effective. Defensively though the moves Michiko was using were reckless and left huge openings, though they lasted for only a fraction of a second and her movement was limited to short hops in either direction that would make her relatively easier to out manoeuvre for all that she was still dangerous to close with.
Had it been the heat of a battle to the death Kenpachi would have simply used his superior power to smash through her defences, taking a chance that on the damage one of those fiendishly sharp blades might do. Yet for all the fun he was having he was keeping his head and the prospect of having such fun opponent to fight against was enough that he had no intention of killing her. As such it took him almost a full minute to deliver the blow that finally did end the match, though a lot of that was taken up with appreciating how much skill it took to manage what Michiko was doing. He didn't even bother to use his zanpaktou to end it, instead unleashing a single straight punch that landed right between Michiko's eyes, knocking her out and causing a bright spurt of blood from her nostrils.
"Bird's Nest Hair Girl is pretty good," Yachiru said approvingly as Kenpachi resheathed his sword. As the pink haired little girl came over Kenpachi picked up Hoshikage, which had reverted to its sealed state when Michiko was rendered unconscious and resheated it before throwing it Yachiru.
"We're taking her to get patched up," he said, throwing Michiko over one shoulder. A grin crossed his face as he added, "We need to get her up and ready for the next time!"
"Yay!" Yachiru put in happily, following Kenpachi as he headed outside.
Fortunately for Michiko's future health Kenpachi passed her to one of the messengers who were stationed at all Divisional Headquarters rather than trusting his own sense of direction, or worse yet, Yachiru's. Once she was handed off to the messenger Kenpachi headed off to the showers to wash the blood off and then to bed, his insomnia now a thing of the past.
Michiko woke to bright sunshine which was how she knew that she wasn't in her own bed for her quarters faced west. The faint medicinal smell suggested that she was in the 4th Division's infirmary and as memories from the previous night came back to her she could only consider that a good thing. Opening her eyes and looking around briefly confirmed her suspiscions while further inspection revealed that her broken limbs were bound with wrappings infused with kidou to accelerate the knitting of broken bone. Further inspection of condition was interrupted by the apperance of the 4th Division Vice Captain Kotetsu Isane.
"Kurosawa-san, how are you feeling?" Isane asked, stopping next to Michiko's bed.
"Considering I was fighting Zaraki-taichou, excellent," Michiko replied, her voice slightly stuffy thanks to her broken nose.
Isane just smiled slightly. Michiko was hardly the first member of the 11th Division who had required hospitalisation after a 'sparring' session with Kenpachi. "Is there anything I can get for you?"
Michiko looked around. "Where's Hoshikage?"
"Your zanpaktou?" Isane looked around and found the weapon propped up against the wall near the head of Michiko's bed just out of her line of sight. "Here."
Michiko smiled gratefully and held her zanpaktou close with her good arm while Isane just shrugged mentally. She didn't understand why most 11th Division got so edgy with out their zanpaktou but she had treated enough of them to be used it by now. "Oh by the way," she said as she got up to leave, "Zaraki-taichou also sent a message. He wants you patched up as soon as possible. He said that except for Madarame-san it's been years since anyone in your Division gave him a decent work out and he doesn't want to have to wait too long for you to be ready to fight again."
Isane was a little disconcerted by the smile that spread across Michiko's face and her steps hurried just a little as the other woman broke into slightly manic laughter. If she had ever needed more proof that every member of the 11th Division was insane she just got it. Why anyone would actually look forward to fighting a monster like Zakarki Kenpachi was beyond her.