To Babysit the Captains
Part One of the Soul Society Holiday Project
Prologue: The Captains Are All Kids?!
One clear Sunday morning, Yamamoto-Genryuusai Shigekuni, the powerful leader of the Gotei 13 and the greatest shinigami in Soul Society, woke up, yawned and jumped out of his bed as if he was a young man. He hummed a false and hoarse tone while getting dressed in his shihakusho, and happily made his way to the 1st Division Captain Room. As he sat down on his chair, his Vice-Captain, Sasakibe Choujirou, gave him a big, brown envelope while reporting.
"Sir, Urahara Kisuke had requested a meeting with you, Sir. He said that he had something interesting to talk about with you, and that it is an urgent matter," the Western-addict reported.
Hm, Yamamoto thought. What could be interesting and urgent at the same time? Aizen? No way. Aizen's no interesting topic, and Yamamoto was sure that Urahara was well aware of that.
"Sir?" Sasakibe addressed. "What do you think on Urahara Kisuke's meeting request? Should I deny it?"
Yamamoto thought again. Something interesting and urgent would mean something unique -- something that either had never happened in Soul Society, or something that only happened once in a blue moon. This could be amusing, Yamamoto thought.
"No, don't deny it. Let him come," Yamamoto ordered, making the decision.
"Yes, Sir. I will tell him about the matter," Sasakibe bowed slightly at his Captain and disappeared in a flash of shunpo, only to reappear in front of the Senkai gate. He opened the gigantic gate and exited it. He arrived in the Real World, and made his way towards Urahara's humble candy shop.
He knocked at the door. "Is Urahara Kisuke there?" he asked. The door slided open, revealing a meek little girl behind it.
"Yes, Kisuke-san is here. He just woke up a few minutes ago," Ururu answered politely.
"May I meet him?" Sasakibe asked again.
"Yes, please come inside," the black-haired girl answered, gesturing for the vice-captain to enter the store.
"Ah, if it isn't Sasakibe-fukutaichou," Urahara greeted, his right hand on his striped hat. "What honor do I owe to receive a visit from you?"
"Yamamoto-soutaichou had agreed to meet you," Sasakibe replied without wasting much time. "It should be better for you to come with me now, and get with meeting."
"Yes, yes! The faster I get done with this, the better!" Urahara replied in his usual cheerful tone. "Shall we go now?"
Sasakibe said nothing, and opened the Senkai gate for them to go inside Soul Society. He motioned at Urahara to enter the gate first. Urahara walked into the Senkai gate, and was followed by Sasakibe. The two arrived in Soul Society in no time, and made their way towards the 1st Division.
Yamamoto cleared his throat as an approval as Sasakibe and Urahara walked into the room. Yamamoto, clearly interested, wasted no time and asked directly, "Urahara Kisuke. What is the matter do you wish to discuss?"
Urahara grinned. "I heard that Soul Society has been pretty boring after the War," Urahara began with a small talk. "I want to present a fun project to amuse all of us," he continued, chuckling slightly.
What is urgent about this, Yamamoto thought. This is no urgent matter, but this might be interesting.
"Please continue, Kisuke," Yamamoto said, nodding.
"This project will involve all the captains, who had been working hard since the end of the War," he said. "And the vice-captains would have a part too, they've also been stressed," Urahara's grin became wider.
"And what could this project be?" Yamamoto began to get curious.
Urahara shook his head and took something that looked like a pen from the Real World from the inside of his jacket.
"What is that?" Yamamoto asked, even more curious.
"This is... a pen that could amuse all of us!" Urahara said happily, clearly attempting to beat around the bush.
"And... what could it do to amuse us?" Yamamoto was tired of this probably endless conversation.
"Something interesting," Urahara's grin grew even wider. "I would tell you nothing, Soutaichou, but it would be best for you to try by yourself. And all the stressed captains can have fun!"
What is he talking about, Yamamoto pondered. It seemed to him that Urahara was only talking about nonsense. Yamamoto grunted.
"And what's all urgent about this, Urahara? Please make yourself clear," Yamamoto began to get annoyed.
"Please assemble the vice-captains first, we need to know what are their opinion about the matter," Urahara seemed to be throwing a wink at Yamamoto, but it wasn't clear as Urahara's hat was shadowing his face.
Yamamoto thought for a while. Would it be wise to follow Urahara's order? He was the Soutaichou, anyway. He considered it for some time before deciding to do as Urahara wished.
"Fine, then. Sasakibe, please assemble all of the vice-captains in the captain's meeting hall, where the place is bigger," he ordered.
In less than 30 minutes, all of the vice-captains were already assembled in the captain's meeting hall, each of them wondering why they were summoned.
Yamamoto, as usual, sat on the big chair at one of the ends of the room, facing the big door. The vice-captains stood in their captains' order, and Sasakibe stood beside his captain. The vice-captains were surprised to see Urahara standing in front of the room as well, but none of them made any comments. Yamamoto cleared his throat as a sign to commence the meeting, and Sasakibe began speaking.
"Good morning everyone, I know this is pretty early to call all of you for a meeting, but apparently, Urahara Kisuke from the real world has something interesting to show us."
"And what could that interesting thing be?" Oomaeda asked, his mouth full of rice crackers while his fat hands were holding a big bag of them.
"We should ask Kisuke himself about that," Yamamoto interrupted. "So, now, can you please present your idea, whatever it is?"
"Well," Urahara began. "I think everyone in Seireitei, especially the Captains and the Vice-Captains, have been working hard since the end of the Winter War." He paused for a while. Every of the vice-captains stared at him blankly.
"Everyone must be stressed enough," he continued. "Now, I propose a fun plan for the vice-captains, for you all."
"Wait, wait," Yamamoto interrupted. "I thought you said that the Captains are going to be the object of interest of this plan?"
"Ha, that's it," Urahara said. "They are indeed the object of interest of this project, and they're the one we're going to get rid out of stress," Urahara explained with an "XD" face.
"…And what would that project be?" Renji asked with a curious look on his face.
Urahara produced a small, pen-like thing out of his jacket folds, and showed it to everyone in the room proudly.
"Err… What is that, Urahara-san?" Kira asked.
Urahara's expression became mysterious. "This is…" there was a pause between his words as he was trying to make himself sound mysterious. Everyone in the room stared at him curiously. Those at the back began to lean forward to take a closer look.
"This is a…" Urahara repeated himself, and paused again. He opened his mouth to continue, but stopped confusedly. "Eh, what should I call this great creation of mine? It doesn't have a name yet!"
Everyone in the room had angry expressions on their faces and large sweat drops.
"At any case," Urahara resumed his presentation. "This thing can turn an adult into a kid, I meant… a toddler. Like 2 or 3 years old child," he explained to everyone.
Everyone had an O.O look on their faces.
"What would you do with that thing?!" every of the vice-captains, excluding Sasakibe and Nemu, exclaimed at the same time.
"Well, you see, children don't have stress," Urahara spoke casually. "I am going to use this on the captain."
The vice-captains' eyes grew bigger and their mouths gaped so big that their jaw hit the floor.
"What did you just say?! You're going to make our captains kids?!"
"Yes, right!" Urahara grinned and nodded happily. "The captains are obviously stressed from the hard work they have done the past months, and they need refreshing! They can play free and happily if they are children!"
"Are you insane?! And why did you assemble us here instead of our captains?!"
"Well… Actually, I want you guys plus Yamamoto-soutaichou to baby-sit the captains. Yamamoto-soutaichou is going to be the only captain who's not turning into a baby," Urahara explained to them with a jovial grin plastered on his face.
"You want us to what?!" the vice-captains sounded really surprised.
"Baby-sit the captains, with the help of the Soutaichou," Urahara nodded proudly.
"What kind of stress-relieving is that?! Wouldn't that be stress-increasing?!" Renji yelled.
"I think it would be fun! Baby-sitting Ken-chan, yay!" Yachiru squealed happily.
"That would at least relieve the captains' stress, no?" Urahara said. "And I bet you guys would have fun as well since I'm sure none of you have seen your captains in childhood. Wouldn't you like to see that?"
All of the vice-captains stopped for a while and thought. Wouldn't it really be interesting to see their captains at childhood? Who knows if they've got totally different? And hey, Iba got to take care of a possibly-cute puppy! Wouldn't that be nice?
The vice-captains exchanged looks between themselves and all of them agreed to try it.
"Okay, deal. Just do it," Renji spoke up.
Urahara opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Kira.
"But... is it safe? I mean, can you return the captains back to adulthood when this 'project' is over?" Kira asked hesitantly.
"Sure, sure, I can do it! I can reverse the process when I think the captains' minds are relaxed enough!" Urahara said assuringly.
"So, when are you going to do this?" Rangiku asked excitedly. "I want to see Hitsugaya-taichou as a baby! I know he's a child right now, but I still want to see how he is as a toddler!"
In the 10th Division Captain Office, Toushirou sneezed.
Back in the Meeting Room, the presentation had been over and Urahara asked Yamamoto to summon all of the captains. The captains were surprised to receive such an early summon, and thought that there was a really urgent thing. Everyone quickly came into the meeting room and met the vice-captains who were on their way back to their own divisions, giggling madly.
"What's happened?" Ukitake asked.
Yachiru jumped on Kenpachi's back. "Ken-chaaan~! You should come inside, quick!" She jumped down from Kenpachi's back and started giggling non-stop again.
"What's going on, Yachiru?" Kenpachi asked, but Yachiru didn't answer and ran away.
"It seems that our vice-captains have gone mad," Byakuya concluded, glaring at a laughing Renji.
"Maybe that is why we were summoned," Kyouraku said, looking at Nanao who was weirdly giggling.
For short, the captains entered the meeting hall, and before they realized anything, a beam of light was shot at them and all of them collapsed onto the floor.
A/n: So how was it? I hope you liked it! I'll try to update asap if you like it! Please Review!