Not mine. Fortunately. Soundtrack: As The Days go By, by the Talking Heads.
Ikkaku yawned and stretched. He liked getting up early, when the day was shiny and new and the birds and brats were just waking up. He dressed quickly and headed out to the water pump.
He almost tripped over the fifth seat, who'd been kicked out of the Shiba house so his sister could have her wicked way with Tessai. Ikkaku figured Kuukaku just had a thing for muscular guys with moustaches. Thank god Don Kanonji hadn't died, or the Seireitei would be fucked.
He dunked his face in the water. Now he'd just make his morning cuppa, forage in the kitchen for breakfast, and spend the morning terrorizing the rookies. He walked right into an ambush.
"Ow! Yachiru, quit it. You're a little lady now, start acting like it!"
Yachiru detached herself and pouted.
"I'm the same old Yachiru I've always been," she said huffily. "Besides, you're leaving soon, so I gotta get my nibbles in."
"Since when do you get up so early?"
"We have a meeting today, and Crown-san's leaving this morning. Ken-chan said I ought to see her off. "
Oh yeah, the meeting. The one where they'd parcel off Ninth, Fifth and Third's officers. As if on cue, a hell butterfly fluttered in.
Ikkaku Madarame, please report to First at once.
Oh, shit. Yamamoto was taking an interest.
88
Yamamoto glowered at the two errant shinigami. Byakuya looked a little subdued, and Ikkaku was failing at looking unruffled. Yamamoto ranked fairly high on Ikkaku's list of People Not to Annoy.
"Madarame, do you know how many shinigami dream of becoming a captain? You practically have the haori on your shoulders, and then you draw your sword against another captain? I ought to demote you down to rookie, but given the shortage of suitable candidates, I can't do that. Kuchiki, I expected better of you. Rukia is eligible for the position after all. You each forfeit two months pay, and I sincerely hope you've both learned a lesson."
Damn it, Ikkaku thought. And then: my paycheck!
88
"You know, every time I go to these meetings, I keep thinking of the time Mashiro tried growing zucchinis," Kensei confided to Love. "You turn your back on zucchinis for a minute, and they get really big and there are more of 'em then you ever expected."
"You have a point," Love agreed.
"Kensei's weird," Mashiro chirped, hopping on her former captain's back. "And Hachi's behaving really badly. He spent all yesterday with the first wife, so Rose had to go to Eleventh."
"Mashiro, what the hell's this first wife business?" Kensei grumbled.
"Well, Hikifune and Hachi were married- or as good as, anyway. Then he went and cheated on her with Zaraki-taicho and got him knocked up. So Zaraki's the second wife."
"For the last time," Love said. "Yachiru is Hachi's grand-daughter."
"Mashiro, honey, Zaraki's a total dom," Lisa said breezily, walking by. "I guarantee you that he wouldn't get knocked up."
"What's a dom, Kensei?" Mashiro asked.
Kensei added another item to his list of "reasons why Yadomaru should have been drowned at birth." He had a feeling explaining the dynamics of certain relationships would only give the little green monster ideas.
88
"So, now we move on to the matter of recruits," Yamamoto said. Ikkaku seethed. Yamamoto'd taken everyone but the fourth seat from his division. At least he got Ninth's third seat in exchange, but he knew fuck-all about the officers he'd got. Eh, he'd just invite them all out for a drink soon.
"Dibs on the Kurosaki sisters," Kenpachi called out.
"Kenpachi-kun," Kyoraku pointed out, "You already have Ganju-kun and the talented Arisawa-chan. Please, leave some recruits for the rest of us."
Yamamoto interrupted, "Zaraki, you have already added forty new recruits to your ranks. How did you manage that?"
"A lot of lost little lambs followed me home. I got soft-hearted and decided to keep them."
Ikkaku bit down on his lip to keep from laughing. Lost little lambs that ate the shepard, more like.
"Y'know, I think that's the biggest whopper I've heard since Yoruichi said she was following the dress code," Rose said. "And that was a century ago."
"I was," Yoruichi retorted. "I was wearing my captain's haori."
"I think you're supposed to wear a uniform underneath."
"Moving on," Kyoraku said. "I'd like to add Karin Kurosaki to my division, please."
"No way," Kensei called. "My division's decimated."
"No one should even consider recruiting the twins until they graduate from high school," Isshin said firmly. "And I'd require collateral from Captain Kyoraku and Captain Mugarame. A testicle apiece ought to do nicely."
"Yay, Dad," Ichigo muttered. No old lechers were going to get their hands on his little sisters.
Isane raised her hand. "Sir, I still require a vice-captain. Unless the vice-captain of Tenth is willing to resume her duties?"
"Not in this life-time," Matsumoto said. "I'm staying with the patrol units."
"What about Ururu or Mashiro?" Urahara suggested.
"Mashiro wants to go traveling with Shinji and Lisa," the greenhaired bane said.
"If Ururu serves anywhere, she's going to serve at Twelfth," Mayuri Kurotsuchi protested.
"Do you happen to like the idea of life as a pudding?" Kenpachi asked lazily. He'd broken Mayuri's wrists on a couple of occasions when he'd seen Mayuri slapping Nemu around. Mayuri took care to reign himself in when Kenpachi was around, as he found healing his wrists a massive inconvienience.
"If you laid a finger on her, I'd let him," Nemu added after Mayuri shot her a Look.
"And of course there's Jinta," Urahara added.
"Don't you dare put another set of children into this meatgrinder," Matsumoto hissed. She stormed out. Sado glanced at Yamamoto, got a nod, and headed out after her. The patrol units had suffered the least casualties, and all their recruits were already tagged and bagged.
Tessai raised his hand. "I wish to recruit Inoue-san."
"I'm sorry," Unohana said, smiling. "Orihime-chan has already agreed to join the Fourth Division when she comes to Soul Society. Her powers were put under considerable strain, though, so right now, she's only at the level of an average reiatsu sensing human."
Orihime muttered something that looked suspiciously like 'thank god.'
"There's been a misunderstanding, Unohana-sama. I wish to recruit Sora Inoue. I believe Iba-kun's been training him," Tessai replied.
Ichigo went very, very pale. Orihime smiled happily and nearly bowled Tessai over.
88
The meeting broke up. Ikkaku called Rukia over, and suggested they take a tour of Fifth Division. He noted that Iba really needed to be taken down a peg or three- the man looked far too smug about securing first pick of the Academy students for his division.
"Hey, Hisagi-san," Kensei called. "You want to be my vice-captain?"
"We'd never get any work done," Shuuhei said.
"Yeah, 'cause you'd be too busy getting done," Renji said, elbowing his senpai.
"Not in front of Orihime," Shuuhei squeaked, turning red. Shortly after the War, Ichigo had fucked up with Orihime big time. Rangiku had dumped Shuuhei, and gone off with Yasutora's group to retrieve Ashido. Sado, at the time, had been with Nel, who wanted to show her appreciation because Sado'd used some of his reiatsu to help her stay in her adult form. Then Nel had disappeared, along with Grimmjaw and Szayel. Rangiku and Sado had somehow ended up together, and every bachelor in the Seireitei went into mourning. The reengagement of Iba and Kiyone had followed shortly after that, to almost everyone's surprise. (Kiyone's older sister had only been surprised that it took them so long.)
88
A slim brown-haired young man waved at Ikkaku and Rukia. "Excuse me, Madarame-san, do you know where Iba-sensei went? I was supposed to meet him here."
"You must be Sora Inoue," Ikkaku said. "Iba's at Fourth,taking a nap. You and your sister don't look much alike."
Rukia went almost translucent.
"What the hell are you freaking out about?" Ikkaku asked her.
"I-uh- I just realized, if I'm going to be the vice-captain of Fifth, I'll be sleeping in Ichimaru's old quarters. I can't do that, it'd be like sleeping with him! I demand you remedy this immediately!"
Ikkaku suspected that she invented something else to freak out about to cover up the real thing. She wouldn't even be living at Fifth most of the time.
"I don't think anyone'll be living in the vice-captain's quarters for a while," Inoue said. "Since Hinamori-fukutaicho was staying at Fourth before the Winter War began, the defense committee decided to place a few items around Fifth, just in case."
"Are you telling me that someone booby-trapped my division?" Ikkaku snarled.
"Yes. Don't worry, I know where all of them are."
88
Ikkaku winced at the state of the captain's quarters. Hurricane Hinamori had struck with a vengeance. It'd be a long time before the rooms'd be anywhere near habitable-they were damn near ashes. Shit.
He didn't pretend to have high standards, but he liked his living quarters to have four walls and no holes bigger then a hand in those walls. He'd just have to rent a place or room with an officer until he could get the rooms fixed up. At some point, he'd also have to get the duckling brigade to fill in the pits in the courtyard. The boardwalks were nice, but it kinda ruined Fifth's image.
"How are the rooms- oh," Rukia said. "Hinamori must've been really upset."
"She had a right ta be, but I wish she'd saved it for the field," Ikkaku conceded. "Well, I guess we'll just have to bunk somewhere else till I get a chance ta organize things. How's yours?"
"My jail cell had less monitors then those quarters. But at least it's got all four walls. I'll have to replace the furnishings."
"Oh, that's no problem. Just ask Kotetsu to take the monitors out. By the way, why do you and Ichigo dislike Sora Inoue so much?"
"We don't dislike him as such," Rukia said, looking at the floor. "It's just.. worrying, that's all. Two years were erased from his memory. It's probably better that way. I ought to get back soon."
"Yeah, me too. I should drop by Second-between his girlfriend and work, I've hardly seen Yumichika at all lately."
Fine, if she was gonna play coy, he'd just ask Sora.
88
"Question time, sensei," Renji said, having fought his way through the mob. Dinners at Eleventh were always a madhouse, but lately, it'd been even more of a mob scene. Most of the old hands dropped by Eleventh every so often- Yumichika and Renji had been let off their respective leashes tonight.
"It's silly to call me that when you outrank me," Ikkaku pointed out.
"Only for a few more days. How do you shut up a subordinate who won't stop talking about another shinigami? I'll scream if I have to hear about Mugarame one more time."
"Throwing you in the koi pond always worked."
"I tried that. It hasn't worked on Shuuhei."
"Throw him into a bag after Orihime leaves and leave it on Kensei's doorstep. Or throw him and Orihime into the bag. I'm sure she'd enjoy herself."
"You get to distract Tats, then."
"Yeah, yeah," Ikkaku said. He prodded his noodles with his chopsticks. It paid to be cautious, now that Kenpachi'd discovered chile peppers. He was still a little bit dissatisfied. Sora hadn't been faking the amnesia, he was sure. Konso amnesia wasn't uncommon, but that didn't explain Rukia's reaction.
As for the whole Rukia thing- Ikkaku knew he had to come clean. It wasn't fair to her to be used as a pawn, again.
"I gotta go."
"And miss dessert? Unohana-taicho's coming over to taste it. Chocolate-chile ice cream with fried bananas- this is gonna be fuckin' epic," Renji exclaimed.
Unohana claimed she was coming over to test the ice cream for 'the health and safety of the public.' Admittedly, it did sound like something Orihime would make, but Kenpachi claimed that the public wasn't in danger from anything but 'deliciousness.'
"I don't care for sweets."
88
Ikkaku found his quarry sitting by Thirteenth's lake.
"I just thought we should have a chat," he explained. "It's a madhouse over at Eleventh right now."
"I can't hear anything," Rukia said. "Everyone must still be sober."
"Anyway," he said. "I thought I should come clean. I meant everything I said about ya, but I never intended to become a captain. I figured Kuchiki-taicho'd kick up such a fuss that I'd never be considered again. He did fuss, but Yamamoto just fined us both for fighting."
"So that's how Ni-sama got beaten up," Rukia grumbled. "He gets so over-protective. But that doesn't mean I'm letting you off the hook."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Rukia pushed him, hard. He lost his balance and landed face first in the lake. Rukia wasn't that mad- she hadn't frozen the lake first.
88
Tatsuki cocked her head, looking amused. "So what happened? Looks like Madarame the brave got drunk and fell into the lake."
"I was pushed," Ikkaku said, attempting to wring out the top of the uniform.
"A likely story. Hmm.."
"What?"
"Is that a frog in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
88
It was, indeed, a frog. Tatsuki didn't have to snicker so much, Ikkaku thought as he squelched home.
Hopefully, Rukia'd accept once she had a day to cool off. He'd really hate to lose her to some other division. He scowled. He didn't want to be a captain, but the universe seemed to disagree. Couldn't the universe go and pick on someone else? His luck'd been going straight downhill ever since he'd met Yachiru and Kenpachi.
Damn, why did I do this to myself? Things were simpler when I just had ta worry about food and watchin' Yumichika's back. Then I had ta go shootin' off my mouth in Akizuki, and look where that got me. If I'd known it'd lead to this, I'd've just kept my trap shut.
Yeah, right.
1. I don't know where the Tessai thing came from. Well, they have similar interests, and those servants she has look a bit like Tessai. If anyone dares to write a Don Kanonji/ Kuukaku fic, I'll review it. It's bound to be cracktastic, even if it's not romance.
2. Yamamoto actually ranked second on that list. First place belonged to Unohana.
3. Nel and Sado are actually pretty alike. They're both pacifists, after all. After the Bount Arc, I thought Ran and Sado'd make a fantastic couple,(yeah, yeah, fillers are not cannon, I know) and 'Viene converted me to the 'ship of Shuuhei and Orihime.
4. Chocolate and chile are wonderful together. And I'm not sure why Tatsuki's character ended up as Mae West's and Jackie Chan's love child.
Profile business: New poll will be up tomorrow. Next chapter will be the week after next. I'd also like to give National 'Sneak Zucchini onto your Neighbor's Porch Night' (August 8) a shout out. I salute those who are burdened with unwanted zucchini!
*Coughs* Reviews?