This chapter takes place just before Rukia leaves for Karakura. After this chapter events will take place alongside the initial points of the manga. However, Yasuhiro will not be affected by the events until the start of the Seireitei arc. There will probably be two to three chapters before that happens.
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Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, but the story and Nisshoku Yasuhiro are mine.
Chapter 1: Rukia and Renji
Yasuhiro carefully wipes down the bar. His customers for the night have spread throughout the room. In one corner, a crowd of people cheer at Matsumoto Rangiku's and Captain Kyoraku's latest drinking contest. By his count they're tied, but their contests usually last longer than people are willing to watch anyway. On the other side of the room Captain Ichimaru and Captain Sosuke are having a quiet conversation. Yasuhiro notes that Aizen forgot to remove his Zanpakuto again, but he lets it be. He doesn't recall ever even seeing the man draw the blade before, and he doubts it would happen tonight. The bartender glances at the window as the rain pounds against the glass. He does not expect to get many more customers tonight.
"Come on Rukia, it's your first mission outside of Seireitei. We have to celebrate!"
The door to the bar opens and a man with long red hair pulls a short black haired woman inside. Renji is grinning as he drags her through the entrance, but Rukia is clearly distraught at the thought of coming into the bar.
"Rukia, this is Nisshoku Yasuhiro, the best bartender in Seireitei."
"It's been longer than usual Renji, what's been keeping you away from my bar this time?"
"N-nothing you won't find out soon enough anyway Yasuhiro."
The bartender nods and ties up his bronze hair to keep it out of his eyes. "No need to look so nervous newbie, your brother comes in here often enough that he has no right to say anything against it."
"My brother drinks? I don't think I've ever seen him touch alcohol unless it would be rude to avoid it."
"Everyone drinks, Rukia, though Byakuya avoids drinking too much and tends to stick with sake, boring man if you ask me."
Rukia gasps at his words and quickly looks around to make sure that nobody heard him. Yasuhiro laughs at her worry and invites her to sit. The petite woman nervously sits in the stool next to Renji and glanced at the wall behind the barkeep. "I don't know what to order."
Renji chuckles and agrees to order for the both of them. "Since this is Rukia's first time drinking, let's keep it simple, two of those ales of yours."
"A first timer, huh? Why would you take a first timer drinking on a beautiful night like this?" As Yasuhiro speaks a flash of lightning shines through the window and the building shakes with thunder.
"Ha Ha Yasuhiro," Renji scoffed. "Where else are we gonna go? We have to celebrate Rukia's first solo mission outside of Seireitei somehow."
"So your first missions coming up, eh Rukia? Sounds like you'll be making some fond memories of the living world. Any chance you could bring me back some coasters while you're there?"
"W-What?" Rukia seems surprised at being spoken to. "It's nothing too exciting just some patrol in a little town. I think it's called… Carrotura or something like that."
"Don't be so nervous, Rukia. This is a bar; you're supposed to relax."
"I'm sorry Mr. Nisshoku, but I'm worried about my brother's opinion of the mission. He seemed really disappointed when I didn't get a seated position right away."
"I wouldn't worry about that, Rukia. Byakuya is a confusing man, but I have no doubt that when the time comes he will show you that he cares. He may be a little anal at times, but I don't think he's disappointed in you."
"I'm not so sure about that. Brother only seems to care for the rules."
"That's just what he wants people to think. Right now he's trying to place the world into the black and white picture he thinks it should be. But, sooner or later he'll realize how much he misses by taking away the colors. Trust me, Byakuya will get better, I'd stake my bar on it."
"If you say so."
"In fact, I bet when you come back from this mission of yours and tell him about all of the great things you did, it'll be the push that knocks his ego back into place."
"I don't think so. It's just boring patrol duty. I'll be happy as long as I don't become the biggest screw up in history."
"Now, now, Rukia, you'd be surprised at how fun these trips can be. Just thinking about all of the bars down there makes me smile. As for screwing things up, I can assure you that there is no way you can screw up worse than Renji here did. In fact, how 'bout I tell you about the first time my favorite little redhead went into the human world unsupervised huh?"
"Don't. You. Dare. Yasuhiro," Renji glares at the bartender and tightens his grip on his drink. "You promised me you would stop using that as an example story."
"Come, on Renji it's a cute story, don't get your eyebrows all twisted up. Besides, I said I would stop as soon as I found a better one to tell the newbies, and, considering your fiasco, that might not happen for a couple hundred years."
"If Renji doesn't want you to tell it, that's alright," Rukia interjected.
"Don't be silly, everyone should hear a story like this before heading into the mortal world. Besides, if I didn't get to embarrass people like Renji here, this job would hardly be worth it now would it? Now let's get crackin' shall we?
"It happened about four years ago. Renji finally managed to badger a fun mission out of Ikkaku and Yumichika. Apparently he'd been getting left over scrap since he joined the eleventh. Anyhow, the mission took him to a place in the human world called New York for two weeks. It's a big city with a lot of bars and way more people than they should be able to fit in it. Unfortunately for Renji here, they forgot to tell him about some of the more interesting parts of the city. So here he is, walking around in his gigai, when a kid in a hoodie asks him if he wants to meet Lucy.
"It turns out that our beloved officers of the eleventh forgot to tell Renji about certain … recreational drugs and their various nicknames. So, the next thing those two know the twelfth division is asking them why one of their members decided to leave his gigai in the middle of his street, release his shikai, and slice up various buildings around town. So, Ikkaku goes after him and hears him screaming at this giant television screen and swinging Zabimaru at it. So Ikkaku tries to stop him, and, eventually, ends up knocking him out for a few minutes.
"But, as soon as he turns around to open up the gate, Renji here catches sight of the Statue of Liberty, it's this really big monument these people have sitting in the middle of their harbor, and decides that it is a giant hollow. So Renji does what any newbie eleventh division member would do in a situation like that, he takes one look at the giant hollow, screams his head off, and charges straight at the thing's head.
"Now, Ikkaku wasn't in the best mood at this point. He was dragged away from a spar by the Twelfth Division, forced into the human world to chase his subordinate, who was definitely taking something he shouldn't be, and now he had to go after said subordinate a second time, after Renji managed to slice the arm off of one of the more famous landmarks in one of the most famous cities in the world. So he used the skills he'd gained as a seated officer in the most battle-hungry division of the Gotei 13, and skewered Renji's shihakusho to the nearest wall, only for this wonderful red head to keep running.
"So a couple hours later, we get a blushing Ikkaku carrying a mostly naked Renji through the streets of Seireitei on his way to the fourth division, just when the commander is doing his inspections of the barracks."
Yasuhiro paused in his story and looked Rukia in the eye. "Rukia, I have known Yamamoto for hundreds of years. I have seen the man angry, happy, sad, and tired. But, until that day, I had never even heard of the commander being speechless. He took one look at those two and stopped in his tracks, he did not move, he did not speak, and from what I'm told, most people were pretty sure he wasn't breathing. That old man stared at them for almost five minutes before he moved an inch. I asked him about it later and he told me what it was that made him freeze like that. It seems, that he was wondering how painful it must have been for Renji's tattoos to go everywhere."
The bartender glanced at Renji and held back a laugh. At some point during the story he had sunk so low that he had slipped off of the stool and onto the floor. Now, he was trying to crawl away from the bar before Rukia realized he had left.
"Come on Renji, don't be that way. It's a fun story!"
"Fun for you, Yasuhiro. Do you have any idea how many new recruits have asked me about that story in the last few years?"
"If I'm doing my job right then … all of them."
"Um, Nisshoku?" Rukia broke into the conversation. "How do you know that story? Renji mentioned earlier that you almost never leave the bar."
"I got the mission report from a trusted source. It's amazing what you can buy with candy these days."