Here a nice little one shot Bleach Fanfic I spent last few days on that might lead onto a bigger work.
Rate and review please :)
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Family Honour
Byakuya quietly walked along the corridor in the research and technology institute of squad twelve, clearing his thoughts for the meeting ahead. It was not long before he finally found who he was looking for.
"Captain Kurotsuchi" he spoke quietly and dryly to the white and black face of squad twelve's captain.
"Kuchiki, I assume you are ready?" he replied to his greeting. Byakuya nodded.
Meanwhile in the land of the living Byakuya's sister Rukia was involved in one of her favourite pastimes with the Substitute Shinigami Ichigo Kurosaki.
"Well maybe if you remembered that to buy more milk you would have been able to have cereal this morning!" she shouted at him.
"Well if you didn't drink the last of milk and had some orange juice instead, then there been enough left dam it!" he shouted back. Kon at this point decided to interrupt there arguing.
"Will you both shut up before I call the stuffed animal police for you two waking me up with your arguing once again?" He screamed, they both turned to him and shot daggers at him with there eyes.
"Or maybe I could just go hide somewhere..." he said in a small voice before running away.
The pair looked at each other.
"I could just get more milk from the supermarket I suppose…" Ichigo remarked.
"Yes... go do that" was Rukia's reply as Ichigo rapidly left for the supermarket.
Rukia quietly giggled to herself after she was sure he was gone at her how well her cunning plan had gone, truly she had mastered the art of Itchi-control-do, using methods as simple as calculating how much milk his family drank. She then promptly pulled out the latest romantic novel she been reading when she could get five minutes silence. Ichigo would be gone for at least half an hour and she be able to sneak in another chapter as she had planned.
It was sometime latter in the day that the Kurosaki household had an unexpected guest. It was Renji, and when he entered the Kurosaki household he didn't look exactly happy and jolly, miserable and worried would have been better words to describe him in fact, and he had brought sad news for Rukia.
"Byakuya's seriously unwell, and even worse he was going to be holding talks with another noble family" Renji spoke darkly to both Ichigo and Rukia once they were in the security of Ichigo's room.
"How seriously unwell is seriously unwell Renji?" she asked, her tone serous and sombre.
"He's asking for you to come to the estate Rukia…" he took a long pause "…he look like he's on his last legs" Renji in a tone just as sombre. Rukia slowly and softly nodded.
"Then it's decided, I'm going back home" she stated to Renji. He then nodded in reply. Ichigo looked between the two before resting his eyes on Rukia.
"Rukia, is this something for you alone or…" Ichigo left the sentence hanging.
"Come with me Ichigo" she simply replied.
It didn't take three of them that long to get ready to depart the Kurosaki household. It was Rukia who explained the situation (in only an ever so slightly twisted form)
."My brother is very unwell Isshin and the doctors are unsure if he will live, so I got to go se him, Ichigo has decided kindly that he is coming with me for moral support" Anyone who was even merely acquainted with Rukia could have told her voice was very much subdued. Isshin nodded at her before turning to Ichigo.
"You best look after Kuchiki, Ichigo" he said in one of his rare rather serous moments. Ichigo nodded seriously to his father before they walked out the door.
It was sometime latter in the soul society, inside the Kuchiki residence.
"Brother" Rukia simply said as she looked down at his form. He was pale as a sheet and his eyes barely open; he didn't wear his normal items and the pillow under his head was soaked with sweat. He also seemed to shaking quiet badly. "You're in quiet a state"
"Yes" he replied quietly, his voice retaining it coldness even in his clearly very much weakened state. Such a Kuchiki, Rukia quietly thought to herself.. "And I see you brought Kurosaki with you"
"Oh he brought himself for the little difference it makes, through even if I told him to stop, I doubt it have any effect anyway"
Byakuya weak laughter took Rukia off guard. Ichigo jumped a bit as he did so.
"Rukia, I leave your in charge of the Kuchiki estates …do not fail your duty" was the last words he said before slipping into unconsciousness.
Sometime latter Rukia was pacing up and down what she was calling her 'office' or to be more accurate a spare bedroom minus the bed. Renji had been force to see to his squad's duties. With his captain out of the picture he a lot of responsibility to see too, leaving Rukia alone with Ichigo and an elderly adviser know as Seiko.
"So what I got to see too then which Byakuya would deal with?" She asked Seiko.
"There two matters which require your attention, firstly there a man calling himself Black Timothy, that wishes to become a retainer waiting downstairs, then there is the matter of the Aodoragon family trade deal details being finalised Lady Kuchiki "
Rukia gave the two names a thought.
"Never heard of this Timothy character, what kind of guy is he anyway, that name sounds weird"
"He appears to be an Englishman from his accent and appearance Lady Kuchiki. He also wears a black leather trenchcoat, a white shirt and shades; his hair is of a yellow hue and he has a ponytail"
Ichigo said what Rukia was thinking.
"We have some crazy English guy who thinks he's in the Matrix?" he asked with a dismissive tone.
"Will return to him in a minute... these Aodoragon's, are the same Aodoragon's who think woman are useless and refuse to take them seriously?" Rukia asked Seiko.
"The one and the same Lady Kuchiki"
"I think I see to the weird Englishman first" she said with a small sigh.
"So what make you think you are suitable for the post of retainer of the Kuchiki clan Black?" Rukia asked the skinny teenage come Neo want to be. Who was opposite of the low table to her and Ichigo.
"Because your most noble and honourable family lack a arcane bodyguard oh glorious and beautiful Lady Kuchiki!" he nearly shouted in the most humble tone Rukia had heard for a long time.
"So you can cast magic like... Harry Potter?" Ichigo commented. This got quiet a response.
"No not like dam Harry Potter!" he exclaimed, all humbleness leaving his tone "I went to Hogsbridge and learned the dark and dangerous power of the arcane, risking life and soul to understand and commanded fell and dangerous secrets of reality and not some dam underpowered party tricks with a stick!"
Rukia just stared.
"This is a rather sore point for you isn't it?" she quietly asked. He seemed to click on that he just embarrassed himself.
"Forgive me Lady Kuchiki!" he said returning to his original tone "but being compared to that clever parody of a true wizard with his lazy 'schooling' is most agitating oh glorious and beautiful Lady Kuchiki!"
"So... could you show us a spell?" Rukia asked in her nice-nice voice.
"I shall oh glorious and beautiful Lady Kuchiki!" and with that he pulled out a top hat and strangely, a carrot.
"Oh mighty and powerful forces of the heavens, I sacrifice this glorious and rather tasty carrot to you!" he shouted loudly in English, and with that the carrot disappeared and extremely cute white rabbit with glowing golden eye and silvery fur came out the hat!
It took several minutes for Ichigo to separate Rukia from the magical rabbit. Since Rukia was still obviously enthralled with it, Ichigo decided to ask a few questions.
"So I guess you can do more than rabbits?" Ichigo asked the wizard.
"Well I can obviously do more than celestial rabbits, but something that minor isn't going to drain me or cause structural damage "he explained in a much more normal tone.
"Also may I add that while conjuration is my specialty school, I am quiet capable of doing all the others to the sixth tier" he continued with some clear pride in his voice.
"Perhaps it be best if you showed me some of your other spells" Ichigo asked curiously. This guy was clearly a bit odd, but this whole magic thing was looking pretty interesting.
"Ok let me show you how useful say divination can be… third tier divination…soul read!" he shouted after making complicated gestures with his right hand while looking strongly at Ichigo. Then a rather odd thing happened. He went pale as a sheet, the rabbit disappeared and he ran away screaming out the estate.
"Chappy go?" Rukia asked in a rather disappointed tone.
Rukia and Ichigo were sitting side by side back in Rukia's office. "So that's the retainer interview over, sort of" Ichigo spoke into the silence.
"Any clues why he ran away like a girl?" Rukia asked.
"I think it was something to do with that 'soul read' spell he was showing me" Ichigo answered. A look of realisation came across Rukia's face.
"He saw your inner hallow Ichigo" she explained to him calmly.
"Oh that explains a lot" he said flatly.
"But moving on... how we going to deal with the Aodoragon's?" Rukia said with a sigh.
"Well I was thinking about possibly pulling out Zangetsu…" Ichigo started but stopped in the face of Rukia rapid head shaking.
"No way Ichigo. Pulling out a weapon in negations, no matter how big a narrow minded jerk the other side is is consider –highly- dishonourable" the way Rukia said highly and the way she looked at Ichigo as she said it had the desired effect.
"So that's not an option then…" he said with a thoughtful look. The two of them were silent a while.
The silence was eventually interrupted as the two of them heard a disturbance from the hall outside.
"Capitan Zaraki! Vice-Captain Kusajishi!" shouted the voice of one of the numerous retainers. Rukia and Ichigo gave each other a mutual look of horror at the killing machines and his sidekick's name.
"We know Icchi here and were going to find him!" shouted the loud pitch voice of Yachiru, easily the youngest Shinigami in the whole Soul Society. A few moments the door was pushed wide open, and the captain and vice-captain of the eleventh division standing before them. (Well technically only the captain, since Yachiru was on Kenpachi's shoulder as per usual.)
"We found you!" Yachitu yelled with a happy gleam in her eyes. Ichigo looked utterly terrified at the half crazy captain. Who then laughed. Loudly.
"None of that kind of fun with you today Ichigo" Kenpachi said with a grin, much to Ichigo's relief "A promise is a promise after all". Yachiru sighed briefly before her returning to her normal bright smile "So what fun are we going to have with Icchi and Roo today then Kenny?"
"Not a day of fun today Yachitu, but of honour" he said with clear seriousness "But I try to find ways for you to have fun".
He turned to Rukia and Ichigo. "So what are you two exactly mopping about anyway? I know Byakuya in a bit of a state and he's left you in charge Rukia, but I thought you be too busy to be mopping"
"Trying to figure out how to deal with the Aodoragon's, literally how to deal with them too, got to negotiate a rice trade deal with them" Rukia explained to the Capitan. Who looked at her perplexed.
"And how hard can that be?" he asked curiously.
"They don't take woman seriously" Rukia explained with a sigh. Yachitu pulled out her zanpakutō. "I know how to be taken seriously!" she said with a gleeful smile.
"Apparently pulling out a zanpakutō is considered worse than treating the temporary family head as a none entity." Said Ichigo flatly and Yachitu frowned before shouting loudly.
"That just not right!"
"So you not figured out the simple way off how to deal with that problem yet?" Kenpachi said with a smirk. Yachitu looked at him before he whispered something in her ear; her reaction was one of glee. "I let Yachitu explain how you could easly deal with it".
She then pulled out a doll that looked suspiciously like Rukia.
"Oh look at me!" she said while moving the doll through the air in an over the top walking motion "I'm Kuchiki Rukia, Shinigami of low rank, but high respect who's famous for doing things by the book and acting with honour and dignity! Now I shall go the world of the living to do a normal patrol for hallows!"
At this point she pulled out an Ichigo doll.
"Oh what is this?" she asked "a young human with some spiritual power, perhaps I should do something highly illegal, like turning him into a Shinigami, which also leaves me as weak as a kitten for a complete stranger!" Rukia listened as she spoke, remembering how he been so determined to protect.
"Ekk, I have been arrested and my one true love has been left with no Shinigami powers to boot, I am so much in complete trouble now!" she put the Rukia doll away and pulled out a fair few other familiar looking dolls. Both Rukia and Ichigo blushed at the one true love comment.
"I Kurosaki Ichigo have somehow more than fully recovered my Shinigami powers and brought together a band of warriors to rescue my beloved Rukia from the Soul Society!" She said with a bouncy motion.
"Jidanbō, the big undefeated gate guardian... defeated! Ikkaku... defeated! Renji... defeated! Then even Kenpachi the most mighty swordsman ever defeated!" She seems excited as she spoke the names, pulling out the dolls and related weapon toys, with the Ichigo doll winning each doll swordfight in turn "Then he rescues Rukia and kicks Marechiyo, Isane and Chōjirōn butt without even pulling out his Zanpakutō!, then goes into bankai and wins Byakuya in a fight!"
Kenpachi smiled and sarcastically spoke "the only explanation is the power of loooove!"
Yachitu giggled loudly.
"Were not lovers at all!" Rukia almost shrieked loudly, much to the two members of eleventh division amusement.
"Oh but you miss the point Kuchiki" he said with a distant smirk, he was clearly enjoying this "to most of the Seireitei it must be because of love that you two did all those crazy things for each other. You forget that most people lack the imagination and the facts to draw other conclusions than the most obvious"
"Which give us advantage!" Yachitu said while bouncing up and down.
"It's a simple plan really, claim Ichigo is your beloved, which allows him in these unexpected circumstances to act as joint head of house with you and be your mouth piece with those idiots you can't beat into submission"
Rukia thought the plan over a while. Ichigo stared at Yachitu a few moments.
"I just realised something..." started Ichigo
"That you're in love with Roo!" she teased, Ichigo just sighed and muttered sugar rush under his breath before continued.
"No that during the whole thing with the dolls, you didn't use a single nickname" Yachitu grinned before replying.
"That's because a real lady keep in character when doing drama, and neither you nor Roo use nicknames" she replied happily in a slightly upper-class tone.
"She decided she wants to become know as a lady of war when she gets older" explained Kenpachi "Both elegant and deadly, and I'm happy to let her follow her dreams"
"We do it" Rukia said suddenly. Her mind was firmly decided. Ichigo looked pretty shocked by her sudden words so she added "Oh be a man for five minutes Ichigo, I'm a Kuchiki, no one going to bat a eyelid if we not all over each other when were in public"
And that was that.
Rukia and Ichigo were now setting opposite the three Aodoragon family members, who were looking at Rukia like she was something the cat had given as a present.
"You only seem to have one representative, who is not even of the house of Kuchiki" said the fat bald one in the middle, Ichigo responded in a surprising civil tone.
"Byakuya is currently unavailable, as Lady Kuchiki lover, it is my responsibility to see to matters that Byakuya would normally see too"
This statement got quiet a reaction.
"None in the Seireitei are aware of any proclamations of union between the Kuchiki and…" he paused in thought; clearly he didn't know Ichigo's family name.
"Kurosaki families" finished Ichigo, but he then went on "and that's because myself and Lady Kuchiki have been up till recent times, very much busy in dealing with the hostile actions of the traitor Aizen, as well as the issues with the Bouts, and as such we had little time to deal with political and family matters. However consider this meeting to be our first public proclamation if you so wish"
They stared at Ichigo sometime.
"What does the Kurosaki family do exactly?" the shorter and much thinner Aodoragon "I'm unfamiliar with the name."
"That's because to my knowledge, I'm the first of my family to enter the Seireitei" Ichigo stated in quiet a clever spin of the truth, not of course mentioning he was both a human and of dubious legal status.
"Ahh, a member of a peasant family with high aspirations then" he said with more than a hint of distain.
"Oh very high" Ichigo said with his eye firmly on the short Aodoragon. "I aspire to live up to my name meaning number one safeguard by safeguarding the –whole- Soul Society and bring honour to my beloved and her most noble family who gave me so very much".
This little speech got quiet a reaction.
"What could a woman give you that's worth that much honour?" Said the third Aodoragon, who was rather tall and thin.
"She's my savoir, sensei and close friend as well as my beloved" Ichigo said with that same confident look that showed up when he was fighting "and if you think I'm some kind of joke, I advice you to go talk with Captain Kenpachi or Tōshirō, I'm sure they vouch for quality of my instruction in the way of the Shinigami. Course since admitting Lady Kuchiki is acutely a skilled Shinigami would mean breaking through the mental block of a women being actually good at anything, I forgive you if you lack the courage to face the reality of the situation"
They look at him stunned a few moments, and Rukia smiled softly at Ichigo, they had no real counter to that one. Then the Aodoragons did something very dumb, they drawn there swords. If Rukia hadn't seen Ichigo flash step in the past she had been hard pressed indeed to have seen the rapid motion in which he drawn his sword, sliced the blades of the three men's swords to the hilt and puts his sword away again.
It was pretty clear they, the Aodoragon, hadn't seen it at all, but when the three blades dropped to the ground, the look on there faces were priceless.
"Remove yourselves from Lady Kuchiki presence at once" Ichigo said in a dark and serous tone "or I will remove you myself"
All three of them ran like hell. Rukia looked at Ichigo with another soft smile on her lips.
"Well the trade deal didn't turn out that well" she said cheerfully.
"So why you so happy about it then?" Ichigo asked slightly irritated tone.
"Oh I think I can explain that "said the voice of Byakuya with a hint of arrogance in it. Rukia and Ichigo both jumped up quickly turned to the captain. He was wearing his usual kenseikan and scarf, as well as his haori and he looked perfectly fine.
"Rukia is happy because you acted in a way, while not up to normal Kuchiki standards, was passable and did not bring dishonour upon the family name" he said calmly. "I am also content with both of your performances today, especially yours Kurosaki Ichigo hence I henceforth grant you permission to date my sister if you both wish to so, assuming you continue to act with honour"
Ichigo's jaw dropped, Rukia's on the other hand... ".. .You planned this all as some elaborate test for Ichigo didn't you!" she shouted loudly at her brother, he raised his eyebrow before speaking again coldly
"I also assume you also be accusing me of somehow persuading Kenpachi to aid me in setting it up too?"
Rukia blinked. How had he persuaded the crazy killing machine into helping him?
"You two be best making you way back to the world of the living through a senkaimon" he said while returning the way he had originally came in, much to Rukia's annoyance.
"I'm not finished with you!" she yelled to his departing back.
"You might, but I think he's finished with us Rukia" Said Ichigo quietly, turning to her. Rukia sighed.
"I'm sorry about all this Ichigo, Byakuya had no right to pull this on you and I sincerely hope it not been too much of a pain for you to go through" said Rukia in a apologetic tone to Ichigo, who replied with a slight smile and a surprisingly content tone.
"Well beside the whole beloved thing, it was kind of fun to be honest Rukia, tell Byakuya I help out anytime." and with that Ichigo walked happily out the door and
Made Rukia realise a truly terrible truth at that point. Ichigo actually liked politics.
Sometime latter at 11th Division headquarters…
"So let's get this straight, you been at the Kuchiki place all afternoon, because you made a deal with Kuchiki Byakuya to help him out in exchange for etiquette lesson for Vice-Captain Kusajishi?" asked Ikkaku with disbelief.
"Because he teaching me the lady part of lady of war Baldy!" Yachiru yelled loudly. Ikkaku looked at her blankly and spoke "He's got a lot of work ahead of him hasn't he?"
What her reaction would have been to this comment was lost, as the three Aodoragons from earlier decided to enter the headquarters with some confidence.
"Captain Zaraki!" The fat one shouted loudly "the one known as Kurosaki clamed you as a reference of his so called skill and dared to insult your name!"
"Oh Kenny and Icchi are best friends and really enjoy playing with each other!" Yachitu shouted happily.
"Oh shut up useless female brat!" barked the fat Aodoragon.
The silence that followed was so thick that it could have been cut.
"Yachiru, show them what a real lady is would you?" Kenpachi said with a dark grin.
"And make its beautiful Yachiru!" Yumichika said with a smile as the young Shinigami charged into the fray…