Renji had never been so bored in his entire life. The paperwork stacked on his desk in the 6th division's office had grown exponentially over the weekend and the hangover from last night's partying was DEFINITELY not helping. Matsumoto had invented a new drinking game the night before (something about taking a drink every time the guy two tables over nodded off while waiting for his date to show) and he, Kira, and Hisagi were totally plastered by the time they all left the bar.
"Man that was stupid. I really should have watched how much I drank last night. I don't think I've had a hangover this bad since the celebration party after becoming a lieutenant." Renji mused while brooding in his seat. "I wonder if Kira and Hisagi are as hung over as I am …"
The paperwork continued to loom from its lofty position on Renji's desk, almost as if it was trying to intimidate him into doing something about its existence. The breeze flowing through the open window sent the top papers fluttering and a few of them threatened to fly away.
Renji sent a withering gaze toward the waiting paperwork and muttered, "Oh, go screw yourself. I don't have the energy or willpower to deal with you right now." He then returned to staring at the subtle patterns in the walls until a noise startled him out of his hangover induced stupor.
A little while later, a Hell Butterfly meandered through the open window and alighted on Renji's outstretched hand.
"Abarai-fukutaicho, there is a visitor waiting for you at the main gates. She says she must speak to you and that it is urgent."
"Finally! Something to get me away from that pile of paperwork!"
Renji jumped up from his desk and bolted for the door. As the shoji door shut behind him, the breeze from his passing was the last straw for the ominous stack and it fell over into a haphazard heap.
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Renji decided to maximize his time away from the dreaded paperwork by taking a leisurely stroll through the division on his way to the gate. The 6th division was busy as usual, but he couldn't see anyone looking lost or out of place. Groups of fellow shinigami wandered about, catching up with their friends and coworkers after the weekend. Others swiftly maneuvered through the crowd, intent on finishing tasks they had been assigned before taking their lunch break. A few soul reapers waved and called out greetings to Renji as he passed by. Renji smiled and returned the greetings, sometimes stopping to chat for a few moments with them.
"You seem to be in a good mood, Lieutenant Abarai" one of the soul reapers (Renji couldn't remember the guy's name for the life of him) commented.
"Yeah, I got a notice that there was someone up here at the gates who needed to speak with me."
"It got you out of the office, so that's pretty great right?"
"You read my mind. Now, excuse me, I gotta go figure out why I got a message in the first place."
"Alright. See you later fukutaicho!"
Renji continued his walk to the guardhouse. The guardhouse was located next to the gates in a small, unassuming room that shared one of its walls with the main wall surrounding the division. A single window was set into the wall and looked over the road through the main gate. A set of nearby stairs went up to the top of the wall where soul reapers could be seen keeping watch. Back below the shinigami on guard duty, various crates and boxes were stacked outside the guardhouse door, lending an uncharacteristically messy air to the structure. Each box and crate had a large number 12 stenciled on the side. Some more boxes were stacked on rather empty looking carts that were positioned nearby.
"The captain's gonna have a fit if he sees this" Renji muttered. "Good thing he's out of the office dealing with Kuchiki clan business until tomorrow. I guess I'll see what's going on before telling the shinigami on duty to clean up the mess before the captain returns."
As he walked through the open door to the guardhouse, Renji noticed that the clutter from outside continued inside the room. Boxes lay open and objects were scattered over every available surface, except for the table underneath the only window. Next to the table, two shinigami were conversing while a third dug through yet another open box while muttering to herself.
"Now where on earth did it go? I could have sworn I put it in this box."
"You've said that about every other box you've opened in here today" replied one of the other soul reapers. "Seriously, we've got more stuff to deliver so let's get a move on."
"What is going on in here? The place looks like something exploded." Renji announced.
"Oh, Lieutenant Abarai! We didn't see you there sir!" The three shinigami snapped to attention with varying degrees of grace.
Renji nodded at them, signifying that they could relax. As he continued to survey the mess that was spread out along all available surfaces, confusion rapidly spread across Renji's face. "Seriously though guys, what on earth is happening?"
"Umm, it's kind of a long story fukutaicho …" one of the soul reapers replied.
"Well then give me the short version." Renji countered.
"Oh um OK. We'll do our best. It started when that one –" he gestured to the soul reaper who had resumed digging through the box from before "– was assigned to deliver new equipment to each of the other squads. The Captain insisted on all of this being delivered today, but we've only delivered about a third of it. It was all going great until she misplaced the materials we are supposed to give only to you or Captain Kuchiki, so we've been here for…"
"FOUND IT!" the female soul reaper interrupted jubilantly. "I KNEW it was in here somewhere! It just had to be!"
"Well, yeah it has to be, since you put it in there before we left the 7th, Tanaka" her fellow member of the 12th griped.
"Whatever, Akagi. At least I found the stuff. And we don't even need to go looking for Lieutenant Abarai anymore since he's here already."
Akagi continued to scold Tanaka, his voice taking on a note of hysteria as he got more worked up. "He's here now Tanaka because I asked the shinigami on duty to send a Hell Butterfly for him, not because he was just wandering around or anything. Even if he was, he probably only stopped by because of the absolute MESS you created both outside and inside this guard station! We're never going to get all of this delivered by sundown if you keep having to stop at each division for a couple hours to get everything in order! Can you imagine what Captain Kurotsuchi would do to us if we showed up late?"
They stopped glaring at each other as a violent shudder overtook them both.
"Honestly, I don't even want to think about it Akagi. Yuck." Tanaka turned to Renji and bowed. "Sorry Abarai-fukutaicho for taking so long to get this all ready for you."
Renji blinked, pulling himself out of the daze he had fallen into while the others were arguing, and barely responded in time to avoid an awkward pause. "It's alright. Now what is so important that you can only give it to me or the captain?"
"Well you see, Captain Kurotsuchi gave us loads of equipment to distribute to all the divisions." Akagi continued explaining.
Tanaka chimed in. "It's been a real pain dragging it all around Seireitei let me tell you!"
"As I was saying, the Captain has created some communicators that will be faster and more efficient than Hell Butterflies for emergencies. Since there's been an upswing in emergencies in Soul Society lately, he thought it was prudent to create a better system so you are all more in sync. These communicators operate on a secure network only available for captains and lieutenants, so he wanted to make sure they are only given to said shinigami. Tanaka here misplaced the ones meant for this division so we've been digging through the boxes to find them."
"Here they are fukutaicho." Tanaka handed a small wooden box to Renji before turning around and continuing to rummage in one of the other open containers. Renji opened the box and found two wristbands nestled inside. Each wristband looked similar to a watch from the world of the living, but instead of a clock face, there was the symbol for the 6th division covered by a piece of circular glass. The wristband itself was made of plain black leather, but it seemed to be of relatively high quality. Renji turned the device over and examined the back. As far as he could tell, the back was made of plain metal, with no engravings or special surprises inside.
"So how exactly does this work?" Renji asked.
Akagi started to answer, but Tanaka interrupted before he could get a word out. She turned around and began pointing out the communicator's special features to the lieutenant. "It's quite simple really. The division insignia will light up when there is an urgent message from one of the captains or lieutenants. Tap once on the glass cover to play the message and tap twice then speak into the communicator to record a response. In about a week the communicator will be attuned to just your reiatsu so any messages will only be able to be heard by you. There's a prerecorded message from Captain Kurotsuchi on the communicator already so you can test it out!"
Tanaka bounced on the balls of her feet impatiently as Renji gave the communicator a dubious look and then strapped it on. Surprisingly, the communicator didn't morph into something slimy and full of tentacles and Renji didn't feel any sort of weird sensations from the watch. It was safe to say that, for the moment at least, the communicator wasn't going to attach itself to Renji in a more invasive manner. Renji heaved a sigh of relief before tapping the communicator face once as instructed. As soon as he did, the communicator emitted a loud shriek and then Captain Kurotsuchi's voice reverberated through the small guard house.
"Good for you. It seems as if you have enough brains to figure out how to use this new communicator designed by Research and Development. Take care not to lose it! If you do, I will be forced to attach the replacement more permanently than the first."
As the message faded into static and then silence, Renji stared in shock at the small device on his wrist before he and all the other Soul Reapers in the room suppressed an involuntary shudder. Keeping track of the communicator was now a VERY high priority.
"Thank you both for delivering this equipment to me. I'll make sure it gets into the right hands. Was there anything else that you needed from me?" Renji asked the two representatives from the 12th.
"There's some odds and ends of new equipment for the unseated shinigami in the boxes stacked in the corner." Tanaka gestured to a large stack of about 15 boxes piled in a heap. "Other than that, I think that's about it."
"Wonderful." Renji thought. "Just wonderful. I can't wait to have to sort through all this crap. Maybe I can get some of the other officers to go through it for me. Hand it out to the others and stuff like that. You know, that's a pretty great idea. I'll talk to one of them as soon as these guys from division 12 head out."
Renji turned to the members of the 12th division and said, "Thanks so much you two. I'll make sure this all gets distributed. Well, I'd better get going. There's a lot of stuff for me to do today."
As Renji moved to walk out the door, he heard Akagi yell for him to wait.
"Sorry Lieutenant Sir, but Tanaka forgot the most important bit here besides the communicators." Renji spun around to see Akagi stumbling out of the guardhouse with a stack of tightly bundled papers at least three feet high in his hands. "All of this requisition paperwork needs to be filled out by a lieutenant or captain and then returned to the 12th by noon tomorrow." He handed the pile to Renji, who stumbled at the sudden weight. "Man this stuff is heavy," Renji thought. "It's almost as if the paper is laced with seki seki or something. Knowing that clown-face Kurotsuchi, he probably did lace the paper with that stuff. Keeps others from tampering with it or whatever."
"Alright, I'll make sure this gets taken care of Akagi. Have a good day!" Renji nodded at the other soul reaper before flash stepping the pile of paperwork back to his office.
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As he set the paper bundles down on the floor next to his desk, Renji looked up to see that the tall, neatly organized piles of paperwork that had been on his desk before he left were now scattered in a large mound all over his desk and the floor.
"You have GOT to be kidding me!" Renji muttered. "It took me three hours yesterday to organize all of that crap before I left with Izuru and the others. There's no way I'm going to get this all done! Especially with that new batch of forms for the 12th." He sighed and bent down to start reforming stacks out of the paper conglomerate. "I guess I don't have a choice. I'd better get started on this."
Right after Renji had made up his mind to complete the greatest paperwork marathon that Soul Society had ever seen, there was a knock on the door to the office.
"Lieutenant Abarai, are you all right? We heard muffled cursing and thought you had fallen or something." One of the lower seated officers poked her head around the now opened door and saw Renji's glower. "Oh umm I guess we'll leave you to all that paperwork then. You look like you're busy."
Renji softened his gaze and called out to the officer as she was closing the door. "I'm fine I swear. There's just a ton of stuff on my mind at the moment. Hey can you do something for me super quickly? There's a bunch of boxes out in the guardhouse full of equipment that needs to be distributed to everyone. Could you get some of the other officers and go through it all? I've got to take care of all this paperwork."
"Sure, fukutaicho. We'll get right on it!" The lower seated officer nodded emphatically and ran off to assemble her troops.
Renji turned back to all of the paperwork that now lay in somewhat organized piles by his desk, sighed, and sat down to fill out the mountains of forms.
"I guess the only question left is whether Rangiku has some sake she'd be willing to lend to my all night paperwork crusade. Nah, I'd probably end up more drunk than I was last night and then not get anything done. Guess it will have to wait until tomorrow."
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Hey guys! Just a quick author's note here. This is my first foray into writing fanfiction, so please read and review! Any advice/constructive criticism is welcome. Creative writing isn't really what I'm good at, so I need all the help that I can get. Thanks!