Written by: Tomine Ichizawa

Disclaimer: All hail Tite Kubo.

A/N: Thanks so much to all who reviewed, and those who read the first chapter!! XD And I'm really sorry for the very late update… My part time job kinda drains me and I just arrived from out of town today. Well, I hope this is fine : )

Legend:

"One Hot Day" – talking

One Hot Day – description, action

'One Hot Day' – thought

'One Hot Day' – flashback

One Hot Day

Chapter 2

"This Means War"

It was a very pleasant morning in Seireitei the day after the dreaded meeting day. There was a breeze blowing and though it was quite warm, it was still one of the finest mornings Soul society has ever seen. It was as if the gods (of the death gods) were compensating for yesterday's intense heat. Unfortunately though, no explaining or coaxing could calm the anger and annoyance of almost all the people who participated in the meeting. There was only one thing in their mind now: revenge. And they were going to get any way they can.

Unohana meticulously went through every word of the tome she had in her hands, looking for a snitch. A snitch that could make Kuchiki Byakuya a very sorry man. She had been working for almost three hours now; Isane did her job very well and instead of dropping in the records by afternoon, she had it on the office table in ten minutes. Unohana hoped that she would find out small blotch in that man, thinking of the nice walk she was missing just to exact some kind of admonition on Byakuya.

'This is foolish,' Unohana thought as she flipped though Byakuya's record on his 375th check-up. 'I'm wasting my time. Maybe I should just let it pass…the argument was probably just brought about by the heat, to be sure. Hmm… maybe I can take a walk to the 6th bantai and apologize."

But as memories of the noble's tirade yesterday visualized into her head, Unohana was starting to doubt her peacemaking plan.

'And besides, whoever thought of wearing their braid in front? Isn't the purpose of looping it together and placing it in the back to get it out of the way? Tch, what's more, it looks absurd.'

Unohana suddenly felt the urge to rub her hands again. 'My hair is absurd? Maybe he needs to look in the mirror. No straight man will ever wear hair clips as flashy as his.'

'Oh, and I know for a fact that whatever gentleness you display is a forced quality. If it were not, how come the brainless, fight-loving goons from the eleventh cower from you?'

'Forced? How dare he.'

'And what about your strange zanpakuto? For all its size it's absolutely useless in battle.'

'Minazuki may not be apt for battle, but it has saved million of lives. I'd like to see his cherry blossoms do the same for the wounded. He has gone too far.' Apparently this time, whatever was left of Unohana's resolve to make peace with Byakuya was utterly destroyed. She started to flip through the tome she had earlier closed with much more gusto, subjecting several more records to her scrutiny.

Kuchiki Byakuya was signing each paper on his desk carelessly. Carelessly in the way that his characters were quite irregular and some were visibly darker than the rest. He didn't notice them, though; he was thinking of Unohana's words to him the day before.

'Wherever are your prided impeccable manners, Byakuya? No well-mannered man verbally tousles a lady, especially one who is of no relation to him!'

"… impeccable manners… the camera was stuck to my face," Byakuya said out of nowhere, dipping his pen into the inkwell.

Renji, who was working beside him, looked up from his own paperwork and looked at his taichou quizzically. "You said something, taichou?"

Byakuya merely looked at him when another of Unohana's speeches played in his head.

'And don't you know the image you paint of your division? I suggest you practice some sort of respect to your fukutaichou, not bossing him all the way so that it wouldn't look like the poor boy(Renji) is subject to your every beck and call, to your every whim and fantasy!.'

"No, Abarai, get back to your work."

Renji just shrugged and did as Byakuya said, unconscious of the thoughts which were now running in his taichou's mind.

'I'm supposed to be gay?! I'm a widower, if I have to spell that out for her. I hire geisha to soothe my nerves. I keep a picture of Hisana in my room. I've seen Yorouichi naked once in my life, and it's disturbed me for many nights. And now I'm supposed to be in love with Abarai??' Byakuya looked at Renji from the corner of his eyes and shivered inwardly. He proceeded to grab another stack of papers, signing them with a furor to get bad pictures out of his mind. In his agitation, he failed to notice that the papers had already been consumed, and that he was already signing his name on his otherwise spotless desk.

Meanwhile, Renji stared wide-eyed as his taichou began scribbling on his desk. He looked at Byakuya but Byakuya was staring off into space with a somewhat annoyed expression on his features, still signing away on the poor table.

"Uh… taichou?"

Byakuya was now starting a hole on the desk. Renji stood up and tried to wave his hand over his taichou's eyes, but it induced no reaction from the latter. Byakuya was still staring into the air and Renji backed up to the wall and watched his captain.

'Is he possessed?' Renji thought fearfully.

Byakuya's pen was now being gripped excessively – proven by the fact that it was already beginning to snap. Renji hurried out of the office, just in time for the whole pen to split into half. A passing shinigami looked at Renji.

"Run, now, run for your life! Kuchiki-taichou is possesed!!" Renji told the shinigami who just stared at him as if the redhear were crazy. Renji ran out of the vicinity and the shinigami looked in the office. He jumped in surprise as he saw the taichou looking down at him with a creepy expression.

"K-K-Ku-Kuchi-Kuchiki-t-taichou," the shinigami greeted, falling on his buns. 'The fukutaichou was right!'

"Where is Abarai?"

"A-Ano… A-Abarai-fukutaichou r-ran th-there a while a-g-go." The shinigami pointed to a doorway standing ajar. The rest of the place was devoid of people.

"…" Byakuya followed the direction pointed to him earlier by the shinigami. He was going in for the kill. Unohana will learn why no one messed with the Kuchiki.

Hitsugaya and Matsumoto sat in silence in their office. Hitsugaya, finally fed up with all her whining about the heat, froze the whole room Matsumoto excluding. Now she was pulling on her robes to cover most of her body to fend from the cold. She couldn't escape; her taichou had sealed off the door under inches of ice. She could only get out if she finished 10 stacks of reports. She slumped on her desk, toppling about 7 of those 10 stacks.

"Taichou, what did I do to deserve this?" Matsumoto groaned as she got down on the floor to stack up the papers together again.

Hitsugaya hid his smirk as he replied, "You asked for this didn't you?"

Matsumoto pouted.

"Uh-uh Matsumoto, that's not going to work on me."

Matsumoto whined. They had been repeating this conversation for some 5 times already and each try, Matsumoto failed to convince Hitsugaya to let her out. She had no plans of staying in the ice box any longer.

Matsumoto was coming up with a new trick when some ungodly sound was heard from miles away, like a huge bomb was dropped into a metropolis. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto looked at each other.

"What was that?" Matsumoto asked.

Before Hitsugaya could do anything, a horde of shinigami banged on the frozen office door.

"Taichou! Taichou! Open up!!"

Hitsugaya quickly undid all the ice made the door stuck and in came the shinigami.

"Zaraki-taichou and Kurotsuchi-taichou are fighting and they're getting near our headquarters!!"

"What?!"

End of Chapter