Chapter two up.
I forgot a disclaimer in the first chapter, so here goes: Unless Tite Kubo turned Swedish, I do not own Bleach.
Ichigo was sitting in his classroom. Until half a minute ago, he had been doing well in his English class. Then, he had felt a strange chill run down the back of his neck, and in an instant, the entire classroom had frozen still. Not Toshiro-encase-you-in-ice frozen, everybody had just became still. Perfectly still. And now, he was in the corridor, talking to the only person he knew that looked kind and intimidating at the same time: Unohana Retsu, the yonbantai taicho.
"Whadda ya
want?" Ichigo asked in a slightly annoyed tone.
"The
seiretei has needs of your services." Unohana replied in her
normal, gentle voice. "I assume you've heard of the Hueco Mundo
invasion?"
"Urahara told me all about it. But since the
soul society no longer is in danger, I figured it's none of my
business if you want to war some more."
"We figured you
might feel that way." Unohana said. "But we're not asking
you to do this out of charity."
"Look, I can't afford to
fall behind even more in school. And if you guys want war, it's your
problem." Ichigo said, now visibly annoyed.
"We would
pay you to fight for us. As I said, no charity."
"Your
money is useless in the world of the living, remember?" Ichigo
countered.
"We do have a minor corporation in this world,
which funds our operations here."
Unohana scribbled something
on a piece of paper, and handed it to Ichigo.
"This is the
amount of money we're offering. And with each hollow you slay for us,
that number will grow."
Ichigo raised an eyebrow. It was a
lot of money. Definitely something that would help his economical
future greatly.
"Sorry, but if I am absent from school any
more, I'll be expelled."
"We have ways around that, you
know." Unohana countered.
That was true. They did have some
rather potent memory-warping tools, enough to keep him from getting
expelled.
"What about learning?" He asked. "I do
need to learn, and I need to pass my tests."
"We can do
that too. 12th have developed some really useful learning
devices."
"Aha!" Ichigo said, confident he had
found the argument that would have the seiretei leave him alone. "I
have hollow powers. You guys know that. You wouldn't want the big bad
vizard to work for you, would you?" Ichigo smiled
triumphantly.
"There was an investigation, and you were
deemed as "not a threat", Ichigo." Unohana said,
completely disarming his final argument.
"I guess I could
work as a mercenary, then." he said. "Out of curiosity,
what if you had thought I was a threat?"
"The 2n
division would have eliminated you" said Unohana, still smiling.
"We'll pick you up tomorrow at noon."
And with that,
she disappeared into a gateway back to the soul society.
"Well"
Ichigo thought, "at least this time I'll be making money."
(A/N: Ichigo is recruited the day after Byakuyas failure. Byakuya receives judgement three days after his failure. Continuity is a bitch)
As
Byakuya left the Soutaicho's office building, he struggled to find
some sort of emotion to apply to this odd, appalling situation.
Perhaps he ought to feel angry? Or sad? Depressed? But right now,
when his exalted position as captain and nobleman only had been taken
away minutes ago, he felt only empty.
He also felt he needed to
do something, or his head would explode.
He no longer wore the
kenseikan, or his precious scarf. He did not wear his captain's
haori- it had been left with the soutaicho- and he found that without
them, he felt... naked.
Somehow, his feet brought him to the
sixth division. It was the one familiar thing to him right now. He
might have been stripped of his rank, but he was still a member of
the 6th. Amidst the turmoil inside his head, at least this was
reassuring.
As he walked, he found that he had no idea what to do.
He spotted a new, unseated shinigami passing by.
"You
there." Byakuya addressed the shinigami.
"T-taicho"
the recruit stuttered, awed by his presence.
"If you had
found out that you had been fired and everything you ever fought
for had been taken away, what would you do?" Byakuya
asked, still incapable of thinking up anything of his own.
"Y-you're
not firing me, are you, sir?" the recruit replied
nervously.
"No. I do not have that kind of authority, anyway.
Now please answer my question."
"I guess I'd go out fer
a drink." the recruit said.
Alcohol. Yes. That seemed like a
simple, short term solution. Byakuya had never indulged in sake or
the likes of it so far, and he had never been drunk, but now seemed a
good time.
"Where's the closest bar?" he
asked.
"Umm, just down street. Why, taicho, are you all
right?"
Not paying the unseated shinigami any more attention,
Byakuya turned towards the indicated direction.
The bar didn't
really look the way he imagined it would. It was clean, and the
people inside seemed sober, for the most part. Of course, as a noble,
he could never have gone to a bar, associating with commoners would
have been below his dignity.
But things were different now.
Walking up to the barkeep, Byakuya said:
"You serve sake
here, right?"
The bartender, obviously not recognizing him,
said: "Ain't you a smart one. What was your first clue?"
"Just
give me ten bottles of sake, to start with. And keep them
coming."
The bartenders surly look lightened significantly
when Byakuya showed him his wallet, thick with money, and soon he sat
at a table with all the sake he could drink before him. And thus,
Byakuya started his first drinking binge.
Ichigo was in a
good mood. After two days of intense fighting, he, Renji, and the 6th
division had retaken the third battle position. They had entrenched
themselves, and thanks to his ban kai, any hollow army within his
range had been destroyed. And because of his hard work, he had been
given a day off after two days, a day which he meant to spend with
Rukia, who just had gotten out of the 4th division. Personally,
Ichigo suspected that his free time had as much to do with his
hollow's mask as his fighting power, since the 6th division members
didn't seem too happy about being bossed around by a shingami-hollow
hybrid.
Nevertheless, free time was good, and he was going to make
the most of it.
As he and Rukia passed the 6th divisions local
sake-and-sushi bar, Ichigo heard a loud, slurring voice. A somewhat
familiar voice. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn it was
Byakuyas voice. He told Rukia as much.
"Idiot."
Rukia said, elbowing him in the gut. "Nii-sama would never set
foot in such a lowly establishment!"
"Still, it sounds a
lot like him..." Ichigo said, stepping into the bar.
And
lo, it WAS Byakuya. A very drunk Byakuya, too. There were plenty of
empty bottles around him, and several more still not drunk.
A
bystander noticing Ichigos expression would have been amused. Ichigos
jaw had practically dropped to the floor, and his eyes were the size
of plates.
But that same bystander would have been less amused by
Rukias expression. Her face was a mixture of disbelief and horror.
The both of them would probably have backed out of the bar and
pretended they didn't see him (or at least Ichigo would, set as he
was to enjoy his day off) but Byakuya turned and noticed them before
they could.
"Well, if it ain't Isshigo an' Rukia"
Byakuya slurred. "Have a seat, will ya?"
"N-nii-sama"
Rukia stuttered. "What's wrong?"
"Ain't ´nii-sama´
anymore. Ain't even noble."
"What are you talking
about?" Ichigo said.
"Tole ya. Ain't noble annemore. So
I decided ta have a drink."
"Or a hundred." Ichigo
noted. "What's this all about, anyway?"
"Nii-sama
lost his battle station because of me." Rukia almost whispered.
"And now he's been cast out. It's all my fault."
"Hey!"
Byakuya said angrily. "Ain't sorry I did it. T'was my choice,
see. But ya can't
call me nii-sama anemore. Wouldn't be
right."
"You're still my brother, aren't you?"
Rukia asked. She looked like she was about to cry.
Catching on to
the violent gestures Ichigo was making behind Rukias back, he
answered.
"O' course I am yer brother. But now, I have ta
call ya ´Nee-sama´. Heh. Hehehe."
Byakuya chuckled, for
some reason amused by the fact that Rukia was above him in
status.
"Well, here goes my day off, I just know it."
Ichigo thought.
"Alright, let's get you out of here. We can't
leave you here, right Rukia?"
"Yes." Rukia said
meekly.
And with that, Ichigo flung Byakuya over his shoulder and
walked towards the 6th divisions quarters.
When Byakuya woke
up, the first thing he noticed was the pain. He had been cut,
stabbed, slashed and almost killed many times, but none of that could
have prepared him fot this. His head felt as if someone had
continuously bashed it with a sledhehammer, and his mouth tasted like
vomit, alcohol and gall. He just wanted to die.
When he had
gathered his wits, he realized that he must be suffering from a
hangover. He had had headaches before, but this was a thousand times
worse.
Sometime later, he inspected his surroundings. This had to
be the 4th division, he recognized the room. To his left, he saw a
small table with a glass of water, some sort of pill and a note,
which said: "When you wake up, take this, or suffer like you've
never suffered before. Without hesitation, he took the pill. Anything
was better than this.
"He WHAT?" Ichigo
said.
"Apparently, nii-sama has been fired and cast out at
the same day." Rukia said.
"What a load of bull."
"It's
terrible."
"Well, isn't it going overboard, just firing
him like that? I'm going to look into this."
And with that,
Ichigos day off was completely ruined.
Please read and review. It is appreciated.
