Since I forgot to mention this in the first chapter… Bleach doesn't belong to me. But of course, everybody knows that.
Chapter 2
Mayuri retreated two steps and looked worriedly at Hitsugaya, Soifon and Kyoraku, who had taken their swords out.
"It's me. How idiotic can you get to try to infiltrate a captains' meeting like this?"
He didn't know what had happened to his reiatsu, but seeing that he'd been so confused lately, maybe there was a possibility it really had changed. Fascinating, he'd have to study the phenomena… when he managed to get the captains to calm down.
"Quite dumb," Ukitake agreed. "But never underestimate the idiocy of your enemies."
"I'll prove it to you, then," Mayuri said, holding out his sword. "Bankai!"
And the others waited. He waited, too.
"Ban-kai," he repeated, feeling the color drain from his face. "Bankai…"
"You have, indeed, proven something," Soifon said, smiling in a troubling way.
But Mayuri wasn't listening. What had happened? Why couldn't he use his Bankai?!
"Ashisogi Jizo", he whispered, realizing for the first time that he couldn't communicate with his zanpakuto anymore. In the next second, though, his head snapped up towards the three. Soifon attacked at that very moment, Kyoraku and Hitsugaya following closely. He jumped back and detached his scythe ear, ready to throw it.
Suddenly, everything in the room stopped.
"Mayuri," Soifon said.
"You believe me now?" Surprise filled his voice.
"There's only one human being gross enough to do things like that to his body… and that is you," Kyoraku answered. "But how did you get in this state?…"
Mayuri looked at him coldly, while desperately trying to think of an answer. "An experiment gone a bit weird."
Everybody stared at him and then Kyoraku started laughing. "It finally went against you!"
"Ha, ha," Mayuri replied.
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The wind blew slightly in the dusk. A tall, thin shinigami stood on a tree branch, seeming to be in some sort of pain. She was beautiful, yet a bit sickly, shivering although it was warm. Her eyes followed somebody through the quiet crowds of the Seireitei.
"Hear my silent prayer, heed my quiet call, when the dark and blue surround you" she chanted in a soft tune, sounding like a child warding off the monsters under the bed. "Step into my sigh, look inside the light… you will know that I have found… you."
She sat on the branch, humming to herself and shivering, with a look that made you wonder if she were caged and yearning for something that she could never reach.
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He slowly walked back to his quarters, feeling odd. He needed to clear his mind, start talking to his sword and figure out what was wrong with him. But some things never quite work out as planned. In front of his door was her. Izanami. Sitting on a step and looking as if she had been waiting for a long time. He walked towards her.
"Hello," he muttered.
She looked up and he felt the need to smile to her.
"Captain," she breathed. "Can I speak to you?"
He made a motion, inviting her in his house and didn't stop to think twice before leading her towards his dormitory. It struck him suddenly as a cold and impersonal place, but she didn't seem to mind, as she jumped on the bed and scratched her chin.
"I can't take my mind off you," she said. "I think I'm in love."
He looked at her, his face unreadable. Then, he spoke.
"I am experiencing changes of a calibre that hasn't been recorded in any of the documents of Seireitei. I cannot feel my sword anymore. I cannot use bankai and I don't understand why."
"Something happened," she said. "Something weird. I never experienced anything like this. I didn't plan to fall in love with you, I didn't plan for this to be so… so… Something is changing in me, too."
"Hmm," he let himself fall on his bed, tiredly. For once, he had no answer.
"There's one more thing," she said with a shy smile. "You didn't… well… come. When we… well, in the experiment. It struck me only afterwards."
He looked at her uninterestedly. "Orgasm and ejaculation are different. I decided not to ejaculate, since it's a waste of energy and I did not plan on reproducing."
She widened her eyes at him. "That's the first time I hear a man say that. Where did you learn that? How did you find out how to do it?"
He seemed to be thinking on other matters, but answered her nonetheless. "I realized it in the moment I was doing it."
"You're weird," she said, sprawling out on the bed. "Sooooooooooo… care to try it out again? Please? Pretty please? For experiments, of course."
Mayuri's mind made a quick calculation. He had felt his mind much clearer during and immediately after – maybe this time it would be the same. And he needed to have his mind clear again and figure out what he could do. He turned to say "yes", but then saw her giving him such a look that he could only smile at her in response. He leaned in to kiss her.
Nemu pulled back sadly from the small hole she had made a long time before in the room's ceiling to spy on him.
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Yamamoto took his head in his hands. He had encountered the phenomena once before. Just once. A long time before, before he founded the shinigami academy. About… 2000 years before. And then add some more. He had been young at that time and his friend, the phenomena, had already been quite old. His name had been Ryu – or at least, that's what the old shinigami had gone by. None had known his real name. He had appeared out of nowhere, wielding a power greater than any other. Except, he never bragged about it. For most of the time, he appeared to be just a normal shinigami.
Yamamoto had asked him once, while they were in the shinigami equivalent of a bar, how he had managed to gain it all. Ryu had looked at him gently, growled in a dragon-like almost playful way and answered.
"I was very powerful to begin with. Very clever. I had achieved bankai… Yet one day everything just changed, my sword would not speak to me and I appeared to be doomed. Then I recovered and became as I am now."
"Do you know what caused the change?" young Yamamoto had asked.
"Yes."
"What was it?"
Ryu had just smiled and asked the woman who served at the bar for a drink. Yamamoto had not dared to ask again, just sipping on his drink and wondering on the enigma. Oh, how his older version wished he had insisted!
Soon afterwards, he'd found a note, written in Ryu's fine calligraphy: "We found each other on the hills, in the folding silk of the moving wind. We were bound by the limbs of our fire, though mine is old and tame and yours is young and wild. With the water of knowledge we put an end to the thirst of our spirits at the drinking table. And now it is the time of earth, into which I must retreat and complete our cycle and indeed, my cycle. I bid you farewell, a long lasting life and more importantly, a good one. Your friend, Ryu."
None had seen him again. He had not left any other notes and the secret of his power remained unrevealed.
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"Renji!" Rukia cried, startling Ichigo. "You are here!"
"I'm bringing news from Seireitei," he answered, smiling wolfishly and sharing a hello with Ichigo. "Your brother sends his hello and all his love."
"Byakuya said that?" Ichigo asked, amazed.
"No… more like… meant them. He actually said something along the lines of "hmmm" when I said I was coming here."
"That sounds more like him."
"Also, strange news," Renji continued. "Mayuri can't use his bankai. He lost it in some experiment."
"You can lose a bankai?" Ichigo asked, worried.
"I never knew you could, either. He seemed very worried and thoughtful. Anyway, the news is already all over Seireitei. He stopped all technological activity. It's very good news for the 12th division, you do realize."
"He had it coming," Ichigo grinned.
"So, anything else?" asked Rukia.
"Yes, apparently Soifon flashed the royal guards by pulling a Yoruichi. Not intentional, mind you, one of the new trainees misused a Demon Art and blasted off her clothes. She then chased him naked around Seireitei. A beautiful sight…"
Rukia sighed and Ichigo pretended he didn't enjoy the subject.
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Author's Note: Thanks to all those who reviewed my story! Keep them coming, I'm enjoying that! grins And errr… the more you send, the quicker I'll update. If for no other reason, then because I'm reminded to actually put this story down on paper. Also, the author's block I had experienced slightly at the end of the previouis chapter is gone.