Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good new year's eve. Oh the joys of music, Malibu, and monopoly! Did you make any resolutions? My resolution was to break my new year's resolution, and then I confused myself. Take that society!

Chapter 3: The test

---

John Smith is a common name, especially for Canadians.

No arrancar would ever carry the name of John Smith. Aizen had decided this a long time ago. If he ever discovered an arrancar of this name there was no doubt that he would have to personally make sure that they were disposed of. Only those with exceptional names would do. Even now this thought still plagued his mind.

All arrancar had to be exceptional, in every way.

He needed a way to insure this. He needed to insure no unremarkable slipped through the net.

There were many ways to do this, but one in particular caught his eye. This may be because it would be interesting. Or it may just be because it would guarantee that Gin kept out of trouble for a few days. Gin really needed things to do here.

And so it was decided. There would be a test.

---

Amaya drew in a deep breath and prepared herself for the unknown behind the door in front of her. One by one, every Numeros had been called in order from youngest to oldest to this room. They would usually be in there a while, and then would leave and continues with work as normal. That meant whatever it was in this room couldn't be too bad, right? Surely they would continue like that if they had been scarred for life.

Every Numeros, without exception. Thirty six had already been and gone. Now it was the turn of the sixty-third Numeros.

Amaya was nervous yet again. She seemed to have been that a lot recently.

Gathering her courage into a big ball and placing it firmly in the centre of her thoughts, she knocked.

The door silently swung open, revealing the darkness inside.

"Um, hello?" she said while stepping through the doorway. The door closed behind her. A light flickered to life in the centre of the room. It shone down and illuminated the contents of the room. It was bizarre. A couch and an armchair sat side by side. The only other thing in the room was what was parked on the armchair.

"'Ello, Maya-kun"

---

Tousen was not a happy bunny.

Not only had one of his only two pairs of sandals been completely ruined by the irremovable stench of grapefruit, but now some of his other prized possessions were missing. Number one on his list was one of his visors. Other objects included some socks, several pens and a clipboard. And then there were the sticky, still wet paint stains spattered across his entire room.

Sometimes he regretted coming here with Aizen. Actually, that wasn't true. He had no problem with Aizen; it was the other person that bothered him.

The only person that could be behind all these disappearances from his belongings could be Gin. No one else would dare interfere.

But the question was; what was he doing with them?

--

"Sit, sit, Maya-kun"

Amaya stared at Gin. There was only one word that went through her brain.

Huh?

What was he doing here? Giving that creepy grin? With that clipboard in his hands?

"Maya-kun, whatcha doin'?" Gin looked at her from his place on the armchair.

"Oh, err," Amaya was knocked out of her shock, "nothing, Ichimaru-sama"

She bowed and walked over to the couch where she sat as she had previously been instructed. Gin watched every movement she made and needless to say, it made Amaya a tad uncomfortable. And when Amaya was uncomfortable, bad stuff happened.

It was less than a second after sitting when the devil was released.

Amaya tried to cross her legs and didn't realise her feet had been holding the tail of her skirt on the ground until it was too late. The movement of her leg was suddenly ceased by the white material pinned to the ground. She was caught of guard and lost her balance. A loud thud sounded as her head connected with the hard floor.

"Ya alright?"

Amaya's head popped up again. Big, fake laughter came out of her mouth.

"Hahaha! I'm fine! Hahaha!" she lied through the embarrassment while getting up and once more attempting to sit on the couch, this time with more care. Inside her head screams were resounding, telling her how much of an idiot she looked. Amongst them was a giant mocking laugh teasing her. She just told it to shut up.

Gin seemed to get past the interruption pretty quickly.

"So, Maya-kun, ya wanna lie down?"

"For what?" Amaya practically shouted back before she could stop herself. Gin's visible happiness only increased.

"That's what ya usually do" he told her matter-of-factly.

"That's what I usually do for what?"

"Oh, ya know"

"No, I don't know"

"When yar talkin' to a shrink. Today, Maya-kun, I'm a psychiatrist!"

Amaya blinked.

"Huh?"

"Yep, Aizen-kun wantsa full evaluation of the arrancar, includin' head stuff" Gin nodded as he explained. Then he started giggling. "Ya didn't think I meant anything else, didya?"

Amaya just sat blankly staring into nothingness. She was pretty sure she currently didn't have any eyes left after that. To put it simply, she felt like even more of an idiot. Of course, Gin found this very amusing. He could have even more fun with this. He leant forwards and placed a finger to her chin.

"Coz ya know, we could always do tha' instead, if ya wanted?" he asked quietly. Her eyes returned in a flash, except they still were not their usual selves. Large circles with simple dots in them took up most of her face at the shock she was feeling. She didn't move. Gin's grin got wider than should have been possible.

"Jus' kidding!" he cried happily before sitting back in his seat.

Amaya cracked like stone. She tipped sideways rigidly before falling flat onto the floor once more. Gin sat patiently for ten minutes before she finally decided to crawl her way back up the side of the couch. She sat like a balloon that had been let go before it was tied properly and waited for Gin to say something.

"Ok, question time!" Amaya only nodded feebly in reply, still in utter shock. Gin suddenly held a card up out of nowhere. "Whaddya see?"

Amaya looked at the card. Splats of different colours were splashed across its surface. It was clear to her that Gin had had fun throwing paint buckets around. She just hoped it wasn't in a place he shouldn't have. She peered at it a bit longer before speaking up.

"A tree" she answered. Gin turned the card around and held it out so he could get a look at it. He ended up turning it at a ninety degree angle, and then a hundred and eighty, and then two hundred and seventy.

"Aint heard tha' one yet" he mused before promptly dropping the card and picking up another. "How bout this one?"

Needless to say, Amaya was not completely pleased with his reaction to her first answer. It made her anxious. She had to keep reminding herself that for these types of tests there was no right answer. But still, if she was the first person to say such a simple thing as a tree...

"Two mutant fish feasting on the blood of the innocent" She winced after saying it. Maybe she had gone a bit overboard with trying to make it less simple.

"That's wha' I see too!" Amaya blinked and Gin picked up a new card. This one she would try answering honestly again. She didn't want any more insight into that twisted mind sitting near her.

"Err, two dogs running out of an explosion"

"How bout this?"

"A giant ant staring at me"

"And thi-"

Gin didn't get to finish his question. Before he knew it, the card had left his hands. It took him a second to register where it had gone. Amaya sat hunched over, looking around her shiftily, and nibbling away at the corner of the sheet.

"Pocky" she said quietly, still nibbling away. Gin wrote something down on the clipboard. Amaya kept on mumbling to herself about how it was her pocky, and hers alone, no one would take her pocky away from her. Sadly, her mumblings would not come to pass.

Gin reached out, took the corner of the card that had not yet been covered in drool, and started pulling it away from her. Amaya tried to follow. She didn't notice that soon she wasn't sitting on the couch anymore but was instead trying to float through thin air. It hurt when the solid floor struck against her shins and palms. At least it knocked her out of her dreamland where card could be used as a substitute for pocky.

Gin covered the card before she got another chance to look at it.

Amaya sat and looked ashamed of her actions.

"Next test" Gin said before throwing a piece of material at her. It landed in her lap and she picked it up cautiously. It appeared to be a mutated sock that had black dots drawn on and two pieces of cloth sticking out.

"Um, what's this?" she asked. Gin held a similar object in his own hands.

"Itsa rabbit" he answered before pulling the sock over his hand and holding it up so that the two pieces of cloth hung down from the top. If Amaya squinted she could sort of make out the shape of a rabbit with the two dots being eyes. "Think of it as yar true feelings"

Amaya copied Gin and held up the sock puppet.

"Itsa nice night, aint it?" Gin said while moving the toe of the sock to form a mouth speaking.

"Err," Amaya wasn't sure what to do. This all seemed slightly ridiculous. Uncertainly, she followed Gin's lead and started using the deformed beast of a puppet. "I suppose"

"My name is Aizen, I like tea, I also like meetings, I 'specially like tea at meetings" Amaya stared at Gin. He looked to be having barrels of fun mocking his leader. She didn't really want to interrupt him. He then switched to someone else. "My name is Ulquiorra, I like trash, trash is good, crying over pocky's good too, crying over trashy pocky's my hobby. My name's Kaname, justice is the best, ya can't live without justice, if there was a lake fulla justice I'd jump right in. My name's-"

"Ichimaru-sama?" Amaya butted in on Gin's joy, not quite sure if it was the right thing to do. Gin's head snapped up and he looked at her.

"Oh, yea" he said normally before whipping off the sock puppet and discarding it to the side. It lay unloved on the floor. Amaya simply took her version of the creepy bunny monster off and handed it back to Gin. Gin looked down at the clipboard again. "Whats next?"

His head turned upwards so that he was looking at her. Amaya felt a little unsafe with the grin he was giving her. She swallowed.

"Here ya are, put this on" Gin passed her an even stranger object than the sock rabbit. It was small, shiny, and most importantly, very familiar.

"Does Tousen-sama know you've got his visor?"

Gin only started giggling as a reply. This did not help calm Amaya's nerves at all.

Very slowly, watching Gin up until the last moment, she put the visor on. She was met with blackness.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now ya gotta imagine yar in a building" she heard Gin tell her. She nodded. "Whatsa building like?"

Amaya thought for a second before replying.

"It's old, and has some sort of colourful wallpaper on all the walls, it's pretty ugly actually"

"There's a window, what d'ya see outta it?"

"Err, trees"

"Okies, ya go out the door and follow a path. Ya meet a wall. Whatsa wall like?"

"Brick, with ivy growing up it"

"Ya keep going down the path. What's round ya?"

"Tall coniferous trees in neat lines"

"Ya get to a body of liquid. What's it?"

"A vast lake with small waves going up the pebble shor-" Amaya paused mid-sentence. "What are you doing?"

Gin let out another giggle and the slight pressure against the visor evaporated. Amaya took the moment to remove the visor and let her eyes work again. Gin was standing in front of her, grinning as usual. She looked down at the visor in her hands. She held back a smile at seeing the two cartoon eyes drawn on. Gin twirled the permanent marker around in his fingers.

"You know Tousen-sama won't be pleased at seeing this"

"But Kana-kun won't see it, will he?"

Amaya couldn't help but surrender to the smile.

"You're not very nice"

---

"So Ulquiorra saw all the inkblots as trash, Stark wouldn't participate with the puppets, and Grimmjow imagined the body of liquid as blood pouring from kittens' throats"

"Yep" Gin answered. Aizen looked up from the clipboard with Gin's notes on and smirked. There had been nothing to worry about. His Espada definitely were exceptional.

"Aizen-sama" Aizen's attention was taken away from the results of the test and instead focused on the person who had entered the room. Tousen stood with a less than happy look on his face.

"What is it, Kaname?" he asked while taking a sip of heavenly tea. Tousen stepped forwards.

"I demand that justice be served!" he shouted.

"Well, yar usually do" Gin spoke up from the corner of the room. Tousen turned to him. Gin tried not to laugh at the cartoon puppy dog eyes on his visor. Tousen obviously noticed something was wrong.

"What are you laughing at now, Ichimaru?"

"Nothing, nothing, Kana-kun"

Tousen sighed and turned back to Aizen.

"He's used the permanent marker again, hasn't he?"

"Yes" Aizen answered plainly. Tousen simply turned and walked out of the room, not even bothering to explain why he was there in the first place. There really was no point where Gin was concerned. He was a hopeless case. He was sure that one day, justice would have its vengeance on him. Until that day, he would have to wait.

"Gin" Aizen's deep voiced echoed off the high ceiling and bounced into Gin's ears.

"Yep?"

Aizen sat and stared seriously into the dark.

The smirk had disappeared.

This was definitely important.

"Get me some more tea"

---

Sorry that took so long to update, but I've been ill in bed over the past few days with the flu. This is the first time I've actually been able to get on the computer. So be grateful that I put this up at all.

That may explain why I'm not certain if that chapter was any good or not. If it wasn't, blame my swirling head, not me!

My poetry is bad
It makes me sad
But it helps me out
I've got the flu
So please review
That's what this poem's about