Chapter 4: Of Midgets And Men

AN- Hello all. Reuploaded. Review. Midgets. That is all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing! WHAT SO EVER!

Rangiku opened the door and gestured for me to go in. I shrugged, then followed all our favourite piece of fanservices advice.

The office itself was quite spacious, not exactly large but it wasn't small. It could easily fit a dozen people in it without anyone feeling cramped. Surrounding me were lots and lots of books. So many bookshelves took up most wall space in the room, giving the impression that their own was an intelligent man, (Small snigger) with the many bulky tomes only furthering this image.

I turned back to the centre, where a midget was sat at a desk. When in the presence of a guy who can summon dragons made of ice, you would think that he would be a bit more impressive in person. Impressive? (Another little snigger) Alas, he could not quite command my respect.

Seriously, this is probably a bit unfair, but BLOODY HELL, he was small! HELL! My little sister was taller than him! Then again, from the scowl he was giving me, I should probably stop silently mocking him. This was because of one simple thing. The smaller you are, the easier it is to knee someone in the groin.

"I just got phantom pain."

"As did I, as did I."

"Hey Captain!" Sing songed Rangiku as she strolled through the door, slamming it ominously. She brushed a strand of hair out her face and continued. "Do you remember how I paged you about a particularly promising Soul appearing in the Rukon District, who managed to take on a Hollow on his own?"

Hitsugya sighed, putting the papers he was looking at down on his overcrowded desk and standing up. Admittedly he wasn't much taller, but every little helps. Toshiro pushed some white hair out of his face, reminding me he was not only a midget but also had old man's hair. Twice as much reason to silently snigger.

"Now is not the time!" reminded my inner voice, despite he himself suppressing a snigger of his own.

"Yes Rangiku, I remember. How could I not? You practically sung a sonnet full of crap about some sort of new soul!" he spoke sarcastically with a scowl on his face, reminding me that all work and no play makes snow midget a pain in the ass.

"Thanks." I added, an eye roll of my own accompanying it.

"Look! It really was impressive!" Protested the busty Reaper.

"Let me guess," Began Toshiro while he rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Just as important as all that paper work you handed me saying "Ooooh, I was doing something important!", as important as the constant Friday night booze up's in the office? Speaking of which, that sick puddle still has not been cleared up, where was I? Oh yeah! As important as diverting half our squad's funding to help pay for a hot tub for you to sneak off to at the Kuchiki residence, as important as spiking the punch at the senior Captain and Lieutenants ball, as important as..." And so it went on, you can sorta get the picture.

I had the feeling this rant would go on for a while, so I sat down on the spare seat in front of his desk and waited. Twenty minutes later and the rant FINALLY finished.

"... AND I don't even want to know HOW that monkey ended up in the bathroom! What could possibly be so important that you had to drag him to me while I was doing all the paperwork you helpfully left for me!"

Rangiku looked like she had been waiting to talk for a while now.

"He manifested a Zanpakuto on his own, killed a Hollow, took on Kaiwan of the gatekeepers AND managed to not only block his attack but also inflicted a wound on him! This is nearly unheard of for someone who is supposed to be so fundamentally weak! He is a normal soul, just feel his spiritual pressure! Practically nil, hell, straight from the world of the living by the look of his clothes! He managed to summon his own zanpakuto, did I mention that before? Well yes, that IS a very big deal! He did all this without any assistance and then fought a battle even a Third Seat would have trouble with! I demand that he be enrolled in the Shino Academy! Surely his achievements in the short time he has been in Soul Society is important enough to bother you!"

Hitsugya looked surprised at this new information about the gatekeeper."Seriously?"

"Yep." Replied Rangiku. "He got Kaiwan pretty hard."

"If you had not interfered, could he have beaten Kaiwan?"

Rangiku bit her lip and twiddled her thumbs for a few moments before speaking. "Perhaps. He might have been able to get a draw if he continued to agilely dodge his strikes, then wear him down."

Hitsugya looked troubled by this piece of news. He stared out the window behind him before looking to me and asking "You," I Snapped to attention. "What... is your name?"

"What... is your quest?"

I ignored him, instead pondering the important stuff. "Quick!" I thought, wondering if I should give him my proper name. After a few moment I decided that if I was in the Bleach universe I should create a new identity for my self, just in case there was another Marcus Drake in this world. Not only that, a name has power. In the past Marcus Drake has been the name I have used and accepted, and with it comes my title of supernerd, as well as all the other little things associated with myself.

Skinny. Bony. Weak. A nerd. That smart little tosser in the corner who likes anime. Don't get me wrong, anime is my life at times, but I do sometimes wish that I had been given the chance to reinvent myself. Do I really want to be that nerd in a place like this? I still don't even know what is going on!

"My name is... Marcus D Solus." I finally said, having chosen a name I could happily live with for as long as I remained in the Seireitei. I chose it for a few reasons.

One; it had my first name already part of it.(I would probably accidentally forget my new name!)

Two; there was a D in there, so I could pay homage to my great love for One Piece and hopefully receive a little bit of that famed luck which makes Monkey D Luffy so invincible. (It also stood for Drake)

Three; I chose Solus as my surname because not only does it sound cool, but it is also the user name I use when on MMORPG's.

"Marcus D Solus?" Inquired Hitsugya, rolling the foreign name (To him) around on his tounge.

"Yeah, its British. By the way, just call me Marc."

"Interesting." Midget continued to ponder, his great intellect suitably interested.

"When and how did you die?" Was the next question, which required BIG answers.

"Another important choice." Prompted my inner voice.

He was right. If I told Toshiro the truth I would be locked up in the shinigami loony bin, simply because no one would ever believe me. I concluded that even if I gave the Captain details of my life at home, hoping that all the places I mentioned would exist in this world, they might look it up and discover I was lying, or find another Marc, which would open up a whole NEW can of worms to deal with.

Thus, option three is the most prudent. Lie of my ass and play the amnesic anime/RPG protagonist card. Heh heh heh. I am so smart.

"Actually, I don't really know. I remember my name and my nationality, but everything else is a blank, just hazy." Under their gaze I added, "I mean, I can understand you all perfectly, and I'm pretty sure that if you asked me I would know things about the world of the living. Like, you could ask about the pyramids and I could give you facts and figures about it but I would most likely be unable to tell you if I had been there myself or not. The only mystery is myself. Heh heh heh!" I added an nervous laugh just to complete my speech.

"They will never fall for this."

"Oh ye of little faith."

"Amnesic eh? That will be a problem." Pondered Hitsugya.

What do you know, he fell for it hook, line and sinker. I gave my subconscious a patronizing mental look, before rolling my metaphorical eyes and listening in again to the current conversation.

Rangiku had pulled Hitsugya close to her and was frantically whispering his ear. He in turn spoke back equally quietly, as they contemplated my fate. Like the polite Brit that I am, I waited for them to finish.

Eventually, their discussion ended, with Rangiku having apparently won it. The miniature captain looked at me, while Rangiku elbowed him encouragingly.

"Sigh!" He sighed. "Fine! I myself would happily send you off to the Twelfth Squad, but Rangiku seems to have a little soft spot for you, and unless I want her next party to be a repeat of the tiger in the toilet incident, I'll have to ask you this." The diminutive man cleared his throat dramatically. "Marcus D Solus... How would you like to become a shinigami?"

I blinked, while my mouth hung open like a goldfish. I wanted to become a shinigami don't get me wrong, it would suck to be in Bleach if I couldn't take part in any of the stuff. Similarly, if I wanted to find out what happened to bring me here, I would need to follow the plot. I just didn't think it would be this easy.

"Sure!" I squeaked eagerly, only to realise I looked like an idiot, so I repeated myself more masculinely. "Erhem! Sure!" I offered up a nonchalant shrug. HA HA HA AH! No one suspected anything!

"Great!" Shouted Chesticles, pulling me into a tight hug, right into her two giant... (AHEM!) melons. COR BLIMEY! SWEET JESUS, MOTHER FLIPPIN' MARY, HOLY FRIGGIN GANDY, GERONIMO, KAWAI, MOTHER FLIPPING SANDWICH! I could feel myself dying of asphyxiation but it was TOTALLLY worth it. Eventually, Rangiku let go of me and I slumped to the floor.

"AAAHH! FFLLOOORR!" I cried to it, hugging it tight. "YET AGAIN I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER TO DWELL ON YOUR SURFACE!" I had the feeling this would continue to happen regularly whenever I saw Rangiku, as an inside joke or something. "FLOOR! YOUR LIKE... LIKE... LIKE THE CEILING OF REVERSE UPSIDE DOWN WORLD!"

"Is he normally like that?" Questioned Hitsugya dryly.

"Maybe. He sort of did this earlier after I high speed shunpoed."

"Oh well. There are worse personality quirks out there. At least he isn't a second you. That would be terrible."

"OH FLOOR! TAKE ME AWAY!"

"Yep... take him away!" Commanded the Captain. "Now he's starting to freak me out, just a bit."

"ONWARDS!" Commanded Rangiku imperatively. "To the headmasters room!"

"Tell the old fool that I said to put Marc straight into class 1 in year 3. I'm sure he can handle it, and if not? Get him a damn tutor. Now GO!" He gave a casual wave before promptly sitting down.

"HEY!" I demanded. "DON'T JUST DISMISS ME LIKE THA...!" I was interrupted by Rangiku promptly dragging me out the office.

XXXXXXXXXX

An hour later I found myself at the Shino Academy, a series of large white Japanese buildings in which the Shinigami, Kido Corp and Stealth Force are all trained to run, spell cast, and generally kill things. (Save for Squad Four, whom just sort of reverse kill people, so aren't generally well liked amongst those of more violent tendencies, AKA the 99 percent of people that I am now seemingly a part of)

Rangiku led me down multiple corridors, which seemed to follow no pattern what so ever. I'm not sure if all old building are like this because their creators think its mysterious to have so many different passageways, which often lead to dead ends, or not, all I cared about was that without Rangiku there guiding me, I would have been lost.

As we strolled down another long corridor, I looked through a few windows into some classrooms. In one, students were having a kendo match, in another, there was a lecture on hollow anatomy, some students were practising incantations in another. There was also a firing range like the one in the Tenth Squad, where some students were firing fireballs at the targets.

"Fireballs" I told myself. "Fireballs in an anime, go figure."

"Can they be any more cliché? I myself think lightning and lasers are more classy."

"Hardly any less cliché than fireballs." I retorted.

Inner voice remained quiet, before ending our mini conversation with"Touché"

Eventually, we arrived in front of a large door saying. "Headmaster's office" Similarly to Kaiwan's door, it was unusually large. Like, really large. A tall basketball player could stroll through and not touch the ceiling if he stood up; that sort of tall.

"He is probably compensating for something." I held back a snigger. Rangiku stopped.

"Just a few things before we go in. ONE, Don't interrupt him. TWO, You will learn the full details of the course later on, just understand that it is a six year course and the Captain wants you to skip to the Third year." My mouth hung open vacantly. "Three, Be polite. FINNALLY, do your tie up, it looks disgraceful."

She said this with a look of dread on her face. Best not to ask why it is best to have your uniform correct, it was most likely a long and complex tale, filled with plenty of blackmail material. I fixed my tie.

"You have to knock on your own. Captain sent word ahead of us, so he should be ready for you." She turned to leave, glancing back at me briefly to offer some final words of wisdom. "Relaaaax! You'll be fine! When you graduate, remember, you can always head on over to Squad Ten, we'd love to have you there! Captain seemed to really like you."

"If that's him liking me, I'd hate to see how he treats those whom he doesn't like."

"Naaggh!" She shrugged off my doubts. "He's a little softie on the inside!" Hitsugya + Softie... doesn't really match.

"Well... see you around."

"Yeah! I'll see you later!" Rangiku shunpoed off, leaving me all alone in front of the serious breach of 'big headed' policies. Mark my words half of the office is empty space, not even needing to be as large as it is.

I just of stood there and looked at the thing, I can't say that I have had the best experience of schools, so it is natural that such an intimidating door would startle me temporarily. Either way, even if this is a dream or a stupid prank, or if it real or not, I still need to advance.

The only onwards, is forwards. Thus, I pushed open the the door to the office, hoping to GOD it would be a Dumbledore whom I meet and not a Snape.

AN- Well then, another reuploaded chapter. When I compare size of early chapters to later ones, it sort of sucks. Like much of my early fic before upgrades were made to it. Rest assured, if I rewrote all of this from the start, and not just reuploading and improving them, I would have most likely merged this chapter with the next one.

Still, please review, etcetera, etcetera. I for one, like most authors, like receiving reviews. It really motivates me, and sort of annoys me when I have like 8000 views, yet only 1/100 of them could be bothered to at the time write a little comment and hit the review button. Undying Soul out.