Title: Is He Poisonous?
Author: MeteorLeopard (HoneyBadger)
This is my entry for the HitsukarinFC competition on DeviantArt! The prompt was "snake" for the Chinese New Year. Enjoy!
"Is he poisonous?"
That was the question which had elicited his outrage. Was he poisonous? How on earth had she even thought of that?! So he'd spluttered a bit, gone red in the face and drawn several rattling breaths, trying in vain to stop himself from snapping at her. Of course, it didn't help when she started scrutinising it with a kind of clinical interest. Toushirou fought the urge to snatch it away.
"No, he is not bloody poisonous!" He was raging and waving his sword - the object of her scrutiny - in the air like a lunatic and if the way that she was wiping her cheek, he'd probably been literally spitting mad.
"Geez, no need to bite my head off. I was just asking. I mean, it is a snake. Makes sense that it'd be poisonous."
And then she had the gall be to flippant about it!
"There is nothing even remotely ice-like about a snake," Toushirou grumbled, turning back to frown at the insolent girl, carefully placing Hyourinmaru on his own side of the desk, out of her line of sight.
"Neither is there anything remotely ice-like about a dragon," she countered.
"Of course there is!"
"How so?" she argued back, already setting her face into her give-no-inch expression.
For a second, Toushirou actually had to consider it. "Well, that is... A dragon is more likely to be icy than a snake, at any rate," he muttered, not really able to come up with a concrete reason. Better to give that kind of rationale than not answer at all. If he lost this argument with her too then he would be forever stuck with Karin referring to his powerful sword as a poisonous snake.
"No it isn't!" Karin countered again, looking like she might just stomp her foot. "What is more, or less, likely plays absolutely no role in a zanpaktou!"
"Yes it does!"
"No it doesn't!"
"Prove it!" There, that would be hard to do.
She started ticking them off her fingers. "Renji has a monkey-snake that is apparently both male and female. Soi Fon has a rocket-launcher-wasp and Unohana has a flying stingray. So why can't you have a poisonous ice snake?"
"Because I have a powerful ice dragon! That's why!"
"That's not a reason! And stop being so touchy!"
"Stop being so insulting," he retorted.
She was getting angry now and he knew it but didn't care. He'd been angry a long while back and it was her fault, so she had only herself to blame. His office was feeling far too stuffy.
"Why did you bring up my zanpaktou anyway?" he asked, trying to redirect their anger. Maybe it was all Matsumoto's fault and he could assign her more paperwork as a punishment.
Oddly, Karin turned red and turned away, mumbling under her breath.
"What did you say?" Toushirou was leaning closer over his desk, as though proximity was the way to get the girl to spill the truth.
Karin seemed to find her courage then and, taking a deep breath that physically inflated her, she spun back to him and pointed a finger into his face. "I said that it's your fault!"
His automatic response was to rear back and bristle. "My fault?"
"Yes, your fault! If you weren't so damn secretive about your zanpaktou then I wouldn't even have to ask you stupid questions! I could have just looked you up in the library!"
Toushirou's anger had all but evaporated. "Library?" It was an image that should not compute - and it didn't. Karin - wild, vibrant, non-studious Karin - in a library, a space of learning and silence. No. She had to be joking.
"Yes, the library!" she insisted. "It's for that stupid research project that Mayuri is making me do!
Ah, that made more sense.
Karin had been a special case for the Soul Society. Upon graduating High School, she had made no secret of the fact that she held no interest in 'earthly professions' and would much rather die and go kill monsters for eternity. So, with her father and brother and her many other influential contacts pulling strings in the afterlife, Karin had been admitted into what was supposed to be the equivalent of an 'apprenticeship'. Apparently Karin's father had not been so willing to watch his daughter all but sign away her life and had only agreed after a lot of shouting and tears, on the condition that she be given a trial period of thirteen months. She was supposed to work her way backwards through the Divisions, spending a month in each and getting a feel for what each of them did, ending with the First Division and instruction from the Soutaicho himself. Currently, Karin was in her second month of 'apprenticeship' and spending it in the 12th. If her first question upon seeing his released zanpaktou had been if it was poisonous, Mayuri was obviously having far too much influence on the girl.
"And what," he asked, "is this research project about?"
"Anything I want it to be," she answered. "So I took a while to think about it and then figured doing something on zanpaktou could be cool. So I looked up the different captains in the library and there's plenty of information on all of them. Except you." She turned to glare at him then, as though severely disappointed in him.
"So?" he asked, glaring right back at her. "I can be private about Hyourinmaru's abilities if I want to be."
"Why though?" she was close to yelling at him again and, considering that they were in his office, would probably bring curious gossipers crowding to his closed door. "There's no reason for you to be secretive! All the other captains have got extensive reports on their zanpaktou here!" She slapped a pile of reports that she'd brought along for emphasis. "Names, ability, manifested forms, attacks, temperament; it's all there. But do you want to know what your profile has?" She pulled one single piece of paper from the rather large pile and dangled it in front of his face. It stated his zanpaktou's name and in the description, Toushirou could discern his own handwriting simply stating: Ice Dragon.
And that was it.
With a moment of clarity, Toushirou remembered when he'd been asked to fill out that form for the records and, being a new captain, had not appreciated it. So he'd left most of the spaces blank. He cursed his younger self for being so arrogant. If he hadn't been then he would never be in this situation of having to answer nosy questions from a persistent and irritating teenager.
"It is none of your business what the abilities of my zanpaktou are. Do your report on someone else. I'm sure Ukitake would be very glad to answer any questions you have for him."
"But I don't want to do my report on him!" Karin was leaning over his desk now, her dark eyes glittering with stubborn intent. "I want to do my report on you!"
"And I don't care if you do!" Toushirou was about ready to tear his hair out. "I have work to do. Go away."
Karin took another one of those breaths and then slapped both of her hands onto her hips. "I refuse. I won't leave until you answer my questions."
Toushirou lowered his head towards his work again. Truthfully, it wouldn't really be that bad to answer her questions. It was just the principle of the thing that was grating on him. "Suit yourself," he muttered, once more picking up his brush and returning to his reports.
Karin was gritting her teeth. "If you don't answer my questions I'll fail, you know!"
"No you won't. You'll just do it on some other captain who is more willing to answer your inane questions than I am."
"I'll get Matsumoto to go drinking with me!" she threatened.
"She drinks too much already."
"More than she drinks now! She'll be drunk the whole day!"
"So will you," Toushirou pointed out. "And she's drunk most of the time anyway."
Karin was grinding her teeth now. "I'll volunteer your Division's training hall as the new Battle Royale Ring for the 11th Division when I transfer there in three days!"
That made Toushirou pause for a moment. The thought was quite worrying. But he couldn't let her know that. "They fight wherever they want anyway."
"Just fill out this damn form, Toushirou!" A glance at her confirmed his suspicions that she was reaching the end of her patience. Her face was flushed and agitated. Rather attractive, in a way. Of course, he'd never tell her that either.
Sighing, he set his brush down. "Answer me this: why me? Why Hyourinmaru?"
Karin looked at him with something akin to hope. "Because it's the first Zanpaktou that I saw get released." A feeling of warmth was seeping into his chest despite his best efforts. That was actually... a rather decent reason-
"And also because your Division was closest to the Library and the least distance to walk."
A wave of frightened Shinigami were left in her wake as Karin practically steamrolled back to her room in the 12th Division. Damn that stupid midget! How dare he throw her out like that?! All he'd had to do was fill out that one form! It wouldn't have even taken him two minutes! But no- instead he had be irritating and conceited and better-than-thou and insist on keeping his precious 'privacy'! That complete, insufferable-
"K-Kurosaki-san," a voice squeaked, interrupting her rampage and she turned to find a trembling shinigami standing behind her, an envelope clutched tightly in his hands. He was turning blue in the face.
Karin was in no mood to deal with wimps. "What?" she snapped.
That apparently made the trembling - and the stutter - worse. "T-this j-j-just arrived f-for you-u." The man all but flung it at her before beating a hasty retreat.
Still fuming, Karin practically ripped the envelope open. As she scanned the piece of paper enclosed in it, her eyes grew wider and wider while her anger melted into murderous frustration.
"That shrimp has some nerve!"
She turned on her heel and marched right back to the 10th Division, ready to interrogate the stupid captain for his cheek to send her the meticulously completed zanpaktou form via spineless messenger.
He was wrong, Karin concluded as she smashed his door down and found his office empty. He was definitely a snake. A sneaky snake.
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