Chapter 7

The Taboku Kaiseki

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The Taboku Kaiseki was a restaurant in one of the more densely populated parts of the second district. It was popular among the locals and maybe because of this, shinigami were a rare sight there. Which was exactly how Urahara preferred it.

He took a seat, ordered some sake from the old, wrinkled waitress, lit his pipe and looked around.

Nicotine stained lampions hung cheerlessly from the ceiling and shone their dim, yellow light through the room. It was a busy evening - the place was crowded and the air was heavy with smoke, the smell of freshly made food and the bustle of conversations. At the tables, people were chatting heartily while laughter, drunken singing and the snapping sound of shamisen music echoed down from the upstairs guest chambers.

Urahara nestled comfortably into his chair and waited. He blew a puff of smoke and watched it disappearing into the gloomy gray mist that settled under the ceiling while he thought over his plans for the evening. When Mayuri arrives, they would drink some sake, discuss the solution to the problem with his serum, then he could reveal himself at last and offer a position on his research team to the other shinigami. He snickered quietly as he imagined the surprised face the other would make when he hears this revelation. Oh, he could hardly wait to see it! Everything shaped up perfectly! He exhaled the last mouthful of tobacco smoke and after some hesitating, he lit up his pipe again and leaned back on the chair lazily.

"Come to think of it, shouldn't Mayuri be here already?" he pondered.

Suddenly he felt light tapping on his arm. As he turned, he saw the waitress grinning a half-hearted, toothless smile at him. She bowed and asked:

"Excuse me, master, but would you like something to eat too?"

Urahara politely assured her he wouldn't, because he was waiting for someone.

The woman bowed again, and shot nervous little glances around before she left. As Urahara followed her motion he couldn't help but notice that even though people were so squashed together in the corner they were practically standing on each other's feet, the tables around him were all strangely empty.

About half an hour later the waitress returned, and inquired if he had changed his mind, but the bow was a bit less deep this time and the smile a bit less warm. Hearing the unfavorable answer, she reluctantly waddled away among the tables. By now Urahara's high spirit had evaporated and he was glancing more and more impatiently towards the entrance. It was already dark outside, but Mayuri was still nowhere to be seen.

When, about half an hour later, the waitress returned she wasn't smiling at all, and Urahara got the impression that a huge shadow of a man standing in the kitchen doorway with a cleaver in hand was watching him intently, as if he was thinking about the best way to make some shinigami-sashimi.

Urahara bit the inside of his face. Where the hell was Mayuri? He should have been here hours ago! Could it be he won't come at all?

He glanced at the little old woman, who was tapping with her feet. The whole situation started to became so uncomfortable, he decided it was time to leave. So he stood up and was just about to excuse himself when suddenly he heard the sound of someone clearing his throat behind him.

"Leaving already?" asked a voice wryly, and as Urahara turned around, he saw Mayuri standing there, armed with an all telling, disapproving frown. "I thought we were to drink something. Or was I wrong and you simply wanted to show me how you get yourself thrown out from a restaurant?"

Urahara took a deep, relieved breath. He felt that he had not been this happy to see anyone for a long time.

"Kurotsuchi-san! I'm glad to see you!"

"That is good," nodded Mayuri. "Then at least one of us is happy to see the other again."

"Don't be like that! No one forced you to come, yet you did," Urahara chided him with a cheerful, disarming smile, which almost instantly died a horrible death on Mayuri's icy glare.

"True," Mayuri admitted quietly after a moment of thought.

The two shinigami sat down at the table and watched as the waitress scuffled away for another menu while the rest of the customers settled back to their chairs with disappointed grumbles. Beating up a shinigami seemed like fun, but getting on the wrong side of two of them suddenly sounded too much like trouble.

"Already making new friends, I see," Mayuri stated sardonically as he glanced around the room.

Urahara scratched his head, chortling in vague embarrassment.

"I alway seem to draw the wrong kind of attention, don't I? I think it must be this black kimono..."

Mayuri just snorted contemptuously, as if to assure the other that the kimono had nothing to do with it, but instead of answering, he leaned back on his chair with his arms crossed and shot a pointed, measuring look at Urahara. It was suggesting that he would do well to get to the point, because although Mayuri might have come, he didn't feel like spending his time with idle chatting.

Urahara, however, wasn't easily unnerved.

"Come on, don't be like that! Why don't we just loosen up a bit?" he suggested placatingly. "I invited you here for dinner, so let's have something to eat. I will pay today, order whatever you want!"

Hearing this, Mayuri's eyes became unfocused, as though he was doing a lot of quick thinking, then abruptly his face grew a sly, evil smile.

"Oh? Generous, aren't you?" he said sweetly and when the waitress arrived back with the menus, he enthusiastically snatched one and began flipping through the pages. He finished shortly, saying only one sentence to the waitress: "I want one of everything."

The waitress' eyes widened.

"The... whole menu, master?"

"Of course. My friend here will pay for everything," Mayuri assured her nonchalantly, smiling sweetly towards Urahara, who could only gawk like a fish out of water.

"And, of course, we want sake," Mayuri continued. "Three bottles of your most exclusive one."

At last the waitress turned to Urahara and asked:

"And for you, master?"

Urahara, still in shock, could only squeeze out a weak: "Just a cup of water, please!"

When the waitress left, silence slammed down between them - an awkward, heavy silence. Mayuri was sitting so motionlessly that Urahara felt it would be easy to completely forget that he was there at all; he practically faded into the background. All the while, he was inspecting Urahara from behind half closed eyelids. It was rather uncanny.

Urahara thought: he is waiting me to react. This is his revenge for throwing him into the lake; he couldn't hurt me physically, so he must have decided to eat me out of my wealth instead. He has done something I should be angry for, and he did it on purpose, just to see how I would lose my temper and give a reason for him to strike back again, until one of us is scared away or bends to the other's will. I offered him peace, and now he is testing me and his boundaries with me.

But loudly he only said:

"It's all right," and smiled at the other shinigami. It's all right, because I won't back off.

A flash of annoyance crossed Mayuri's face for a moment, but it was almost gone immediately.

Soon the sake arrived, and they drank in silence for a while; or rather, Urahara did. Even though it was Mayuri who ordered the liqueur, he didn't touch it, he just sat there and watched Urahara with his distrustful, amber eyes.

At last Urahara grew tired of the situation, picked up the bottle and filled a cup for Mayuri.

"If I have to pay a month's worth of salary for it, won't you at least try it?" he asked tentatively.

Mayuri hesitated for a moment, shooting a suspicious glance at Urahara, but he drank it up with a swift move. The liquid hardly touched his lips, his eyes widened and he couldn't bite back a soft sigh of surprise.

The sake had a very smooth, sweet taste that tempted the drinker oh-so-subtly to drink another cup. It warmed his throat for a moment and became like liquid embers in his stomach. It flared up his blood and Mayuri bit his lip as he felt his cheeks redden from the warmth of the alcohol.

He cleared his throat in embarrassment, as he noticed Urahara's glance on him.

"So, what do you want?" he asked quickly, just to say something.

"Sorry?" blinked Urahara.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Mayuri snapped. He started to lose his patience and could only wonder if it had anything to do with his head feeling so light on his shoulders all of a sudden. "You are following me around, leaving messages to me, inviting me to this..." with a wide move he gestured around with a sneer of contempt on his lips "... this place and you are even willing to pay for my lunch. Obviously you want something from me."

"Interesting," said Urahara with an amused, but innocent smile. "And here I thought, it was you who followed me around. Like at the library, for example."

"Do not flatter yourself," growled Mayuri. "Why would I bother with following you? At the library I was merely looking for my misplaced book."

"Under the bushes?"

"Exactly," Mayuri replied calmly with a defiant glare, but he could feel his skin flush with shame. This sounded just too much like a blatant lie, he knew, but surprisingly Urahara didn't question it. He only smiled absently and nodded:

"I see."

"Well," Mayuri scowled, "some of my habits might seem strange to you, but trust me, the same goes for you. For example, where I come from knowing someone's name but not introducing yourself is considered extremely rude."

Ah, that's right! – Urahara reminded himself. Here was the grand moment that he had waited for so much. He stood up and bowed with a laugh.

"Let me make up for my mistake: Urahara Kisuke, Captain of the 12th Division at your service!" He watched this sink in, preparing for some grand reaction, like a surprised gasp or maybe even an expression of shock, but it didn't come.

Mayuri, however, was simply inspecting him, his head tilted birdlike from one side to the other, looking as unimpressed as ever.

"No, you aren't," he proclaimed at last confidently, with a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Do you take me for a fool? You are not Urahara."

Urahara's jaw dropped.

"Come now, you know that I..."

"No you aren't. This is deducible through basic logic."

"Really?" asked Urahara genuinely surprised.

"Of course," smirked Mayuri. "Nobody who wants to hide his real name would use its monogram as a pen-name. Not unless said person is either dangerously naive or astonishingly stupid, and I am sure you agree with me that a captain couldn't be either," he said in a slow, patient tone, as if he was talking to a very small child. "Then again, why would Urahara write under an alias? He is a captain, practically untouchable. If he wanted he could even post about his affairs in a public magazine in graphic detail and nobody would say a word," he added with a sneer.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that..." muttered Urahara dryly as he emptied another cup of sake.

Luckily, Mayuri seemed to enjoy his own train of thought too much to notice this comment. He leaned forward and steepled his fingers in front of him.

"The only possible reason why anyone would want to use U.K. as a monogram, is that person wants to make everyone believe that he is Urahara, because he is just too unimportant and low ranked to post about controversial topics under his own name."

Urahara had to admit that even though it was actually wrong, it was a well thought out reasoning - and this was quite disturbing. There was something rather schizotypal about listening to an explanation of why he couldn't be himself.

"Don't you think you put a bit too much faith in logic?" he asked at last. "What if Captain Urahara did it because he wanted everyone to believe what you have just said?"

"That is not possible," stated Mayuri firmly. "Urahara is the captain of the 12th and, I expect, a sophisticated man." Then he smugly added, "Not that you could understand such a thing, of course."

Urahara's mouth twitched.

"Of course. How could I?" he muttered with a sigh.

Such a simple thing the human mind is sometimes, Urahara thought. Captains were idols, and nobody wants to see his idol as a simple man just like himself, because this tends to inspire too many problematic questions, like: "If he is just a human like me, then why is he the captain instead of me?" or "Will he make mistakes just like me then?" - and these kind of questions might become much too uncomfortable when one asks them about a leader who makes decisions about the life of many.

And here Urahara was sitting in front of someone, who couldn't allow himself to believe that he was Urahara, only because he thought a captain is not supposed to sit in a restaurant with him, and Urahara couldn't help but wonder why. Mayuri could see so much more, if only he learned that reality doesn't have to be logical by his measures. But that was why he was here, to teach him!

Urahara's face grew a feral smile. He liked teaching people.

"Have you ever met him? Have you ever seen captain Urahara?" he asked.

Mayuri hesitated only for a moment before he replied, making a quick wave with his hand as if he was trying to shoo a bothersome fly away:

"That is quite irrelevant."

"Is it?" inquired Urahara. "Do you actually know anything about him?"

Mayuri hesitated again:

"Of course. I have read his publications."

"You mean those which were published under his name?" Urahara asked slyly and quickly glanced around. When he was sure no one was listening, he added conspiratorially: "He is fat!"

Mayuri's eyebrows knotted in annoyed confusion.

"What? How does that matter here?"

"This is a secret known only by the members of the 12th," whispered Urahara happily. "He is fat. A fatty!"

"Now, really..."

"That's the truth! He weighs two hundred kilograms! Could you admire someone who weighs two hundred kilograms?"

Mayuri opened his mouth to reply, but felt the words huddle together in his throat, reluctant to emerge into a world which was rapidly going mad. At last he gave up, and instead of answering, he drank another cup of sake. Even though the room was spinning around him, he still felt way too sober for such a conversation yet.

"And his face... it is full of pockmarks and spots and huge red birthmarks," went on Urahara blithely. "He just sits in his dark office like an overgrown orangutan, and he is so lazy, he doesn't ever leave that room." For a moment he stopped, and took a deep a breath before continuing: "He is a tyrant and he doesn't have any teeth either. They all rotted out long, long ago." By now Urahara could hardly stop himself from bursting into laughter. "But don't tell this to anybody! This is a secret!"

Mayuri threw him a vexed look from under his long lashes. He felt he was more amused than he should be and he didn't like it a bit.

"You are ridiculous, you know."

"Am I?" Urahara frowned, his face turning suddenly very serious. "It is you who have never seen him, so how could you tell whether I'm lying or not? Trust me, that guy is the laziest lollipop loving pervert Soul Society has ever seen."

There wasn't really any sensible comment Mayuri could make to this, so he put his chin in his palm, leaned on his elbow with a shrug and looked away as if he was examining the place. Another awkward silence settled between them, and Urahara felt uncertainty steal over him; things weren't exactly going as he planned. Again. Wondering what he should say, he inspected Mayuri again.

Urahara wasn't even sure he had ever noticed what Mayuri really looked like. It was difficult to see the man behind all that anger, cynicism and frowning. He was one of those people whose personality shone through so much, it suppressed his physical appearance, clearing his features out from the mind of any observer, leaving behind only the dour impression of somebody utterly unpleasant. And, in the human mind, unpleasant somehow, sooner or later, always becomes equivalent to ugly.

Now however, the warmth of alcohol painted a faint blush on his cheeks and softened the coldness of his eyes. Probably the sake had gone to his head, but he seemed to be relaxed for the first time since Urahara got to know him; and Urahara realized that behind the mask of constant sneering, Mayuri was actually quite handsome.

He had the slender yet muscular build that spoke of many years of hard training. With his thin bones he had a deceptive air of fragility, it reminded Urahara of reed which the wind and storm may bend but never break; it gave him a sense of indestructibleness and an aura of power. With his unusually dark skin, elegant, sharp features, high cheekbones and finely sculpted nose and mouth he was a strikingly attractive man. His golden eyes, that stood in such a sharp contrast with his skin, were shining with keen intelligence, malice and an almost childish naivety and curiosity – an unusual combination and (as Urahara had to notice) an extremely alluring one.

Urahara closed his eyes as he felt a familiar warmness spreading over him.

The sake must have gone to my head too, he thought with a smirk.

The waitress returned with the food and the two shinigami ate in silence. After a while, it was Urahara who spoke again.

"So there is absolutely no way I could convince you that I am Urahara," he stated, drawing the conclusion amusedly.

For an instant, he thought he saw suspicion and uncertainty flash in Mayuri's eyes, but in the next moment it was already gone as he shook his head and said:

"It would be more than pathetic to try, really."

"I see," said Urahara with an apologetic little smile. "Then it seems you don't leave me any choice but to admit that I am not."

If that was what Mayuri wanted to believe, he really couldn't do anything about it. The more he would insist, the less believable his story would sound, so, he decided, he might as well play along. It might prove to be fun.

"But still," he continued as hesitantly as if he had just admitted a lie and was only trying to keep up the appearance, "even though all this 'not knowing' has its charms, we still need to call each other something."

"Yes, and you might want to start with telling your real name," suggested Mayuri dryly between two bites of fish.

Urahara laughed.

"Now-now, that won't do it at all! I'm afraid you wouldn't believe anything I could say. Not to mention, what good would an unfamiliar name be to you? It is not like our names define us, right? 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' "

There was a pause. Then Mayuri said,

"Comparing yourself to a rose is a bit far fetched, don't you think?"

"Well, probably I don't smell that sweet," admitted Urahara, with a grin. "But my point is, that people tend to hold their past grudges just too close. Wouldn't it be better if we could forget them? I called you here today, because I hoped we would spend a good evening together. I hoped we could start everything from the beginning, without swords and lakes and bushes this time."

Mayuri hesitated; he was momentarily thrown. He expected many answers, but this one was certainly not among them. Urahara however, just went on:

"Can't we just pretend that we are two normal people who found out that they have similar interests and decided it would be good to meet, talk about science and drink a cup of sake together? Then we would have introduced ourselves like..." he quickly stood up, straightened his kimono and bowed as if he had just arrived. His face took on a serious look with just a touch of condescension."'Good evening! I am Urahara Kisuke! It's a pleasure to meet you!' and to that you would say something like," Urahara set his features into sweet smile (with the suggestion of sparkle in it), quickly went round the table, next to Mayuri and bowed again, chirruping happily,"'Good evening, Urahara-san! I am Yamada Momotaro and I am so glad to see you!'" Then he returned to his place. "See?"

Mayuri just glared at him in complete, alcohol steamed bafflement.

"Why would we want to do that?" he asked, a last.

"Why wouldn't we want to do that?" retorted Urahara sounding just about as baffled.

Mayuri rolled his eyes.

"Oh my. You... really are an unpleasant kind of man, Urahara-san," he said in the resigned tone of someone who would really do anything just to get free from this topic. "But for me I believe my actual name should be sufficient. The name Yamada always brings... incompetence into my mind."

"As you wish," he said with a smile and raised his cup. "Kanpai!"

Of course, at one point Mayuri will surely realize that he was wrong, and probably won't be too happy about it, but Urahara felt he couldn't be blamed for it, after all he tried his best to tell Mayuri the truth.

Mayuri might learn from it, though, decided Urahara. It will be a good lesson for him about the healthy amount of pride and self doubt.

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-oOo-

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Meanwhile, somewhere else in Seireitei, in a dark room, Morihashi was standing by a dusty counter, waiting for an answer. Behind the counter a tiny old woman, pale and wizened by age, was studying his pass with a stern gaze. When she finished with it, she looked up at the man in front of her.

"I see," she said at last with a rasp and laced her thin, bony fingers in front of her. "And what does Captain Urahara need those papers for?"

"For security reasons," replied Morihashi smoothly.

The woman studied his face for a moment before she nodded signaling that she understood. She slipped off her chair and leaning on a worn cane she waddled away, towards the ornate door at the end of the room. Morihashi followed her.

She was unusual for a shinigami. Morihashi couldn't even imagine how old she could be; she had reached that ageless age when years didn't matter anymore because even decades ago she had to be simply 'too old' already. Her skin was thin and yellow like an ancient parchment, and most of her face was hidden by a thick pair of glasses that gave Morihashi the strange impression whenever he looked at her that she had nothing but two huge, lifeless eyes between her chin and hair. Her kimono had paled into a dull grey shade over the years - as if the dust that covered everything in the room ate itself permanently into her clothes too.

For a moment Morihashi wondered how many times she could have taken this walk. He was sure he could feel the small dents through his sandal in the stone floor, left by the tip of her cane over the centuries.

When the woman reached the door, she fished a little silver key out from a pouch hanging around her neck.

It was an impressive door. It was so huge it occupied almost the whole wall and its top disappeared far up into the darkness hanging under the ceiling. It was made of shining, black wood, and someone with way too much imagination in Morihashi's opinion had carved millions of demons and dragons into its panels - they were growing from each others' mouths, interwoven in an eternal fight. On their bodies, as if they were a throne, an enormous creature was sprawling, with three fiery eyes and fangs crooked like a hog's, spitting embers from his mouth as he squinted with hatred down on the wheel he was holding in his plump, clawed hands. In the wheel, small pictures showing seemingly everyday scenarios of human life were lined up around a lavishly engraved image of the Spirit Realms.

Morihashi studied the picture with mild distaste; it was made in that superficial style that was so popular in the Living World and, Morihashi decided, was completely out of place in Seireitei. His eyes wandered to the upper right part of the wheel, where the artist placed the Realms of the Asura and carved the thirteen guardian asura kings as exactly the same kind of grotesque monsters as the huge creature behind them and he shook his head with disgust.

The old woman fumbled with the key for a while, but at last she managed to insert it into its lock and the door opened slowly with a thundering creak, revealing the most gigantic library the shinigami had ever seen. Countless bookcases, each as tall as the highest tower of Seireitei, were stretching into the endless distance with row upon row of neatly bound registry books standing on the shelves.

In spite of himself, Morihashi froze for a moment from the sight.

"Amazing, isn't it?" chuckled the old woman. "Everyone who has ever set foot in Soul Society, everyone who was ever born here or died here... We have registered everyone in these books. We write down every birth and every death here! This is the greatest registry on souls after the Great Spiritual Library's archives," she said proudly and smiled a toothless grin up at Morihashi, "Do not fall behind! You may never find your way back." And with that she strolled away among the shelves, and before Morihashi could react, she was already gone in the dull darkness.

When he caught up with her, she was already far from the door.

"How do you plan on finding a single book here?" asked Morihashi in a disinterested tone, more for the sake of politeness than out of curiosity, but the woman didn't answer; only chuckled mysteriously in her raspy, coughing voice.

Morihashi found her lack of answer ill-mannered. The endless shelves were oppressive and he thought that some smalltalk would ease that. He was just about to open his mouth to say something again, when he suddenly froze. For a moment he believed he heard a strange noise coming from behind him; a high pitched, soft little crackling, as if many tiny cogs were turning on each other. He spun around, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, and from the corner of his eyes he could still see the shadows move and light break on something yellow, but in the next moment it was already gone.

They walked in an uncomfortable silence for a while, but Morihashi couldn't help but feel that they were being followed. Sometimes he thought he could hear that rattling coming from behind him, other times he could have sworn he saw something scurry away among the books.

At last, after about a good half an hour of walking, the woman stopped by a bookcase.

"This is the one," she said, glancing around as if she was looking for something.

Morihashi inspected the bookcase. It looked suspiciously like every other one in the room. There wasn't anything, not even a number, that could have set them apart, so he asked sceptically:

"Are you sure?"

The woman snorted.

"Are you questioning me, boy? I was a librarian even before your grandfather was born! I would never forget a book I wrote!" she reprimanded him angrily.

Morihashi couldn't care less if he was hurting the old woman's pride, but he needed her help now and he couldn't allow himself the luxury of turning her against himself. He apologetically bowed his head and said in the charming voice of a well practiced sycophant:

"I had no intention to suggest anything like that. Please excuse me, madam! I was only astonished by your exceptionally sharp memory. This place is so huge, yet you found what you were looking for so easily!"

This must have been the right answer, because upon hearing it a haughty smile spread on the woman's thin lips.

"Astonished, are you? Not everyone could do that, right?" she said smugly.

"You do remember the place of every book here then?"

The woman frowned.

"Don't be foolish! No one can remember that much! Even I can recall only the more recent ones: the ones written in the past three or four centuries," she said, but then her face darkened again as she glanced up at the books above them. "And it isn't as if remembering that one would be much of a feat, really. I have never seen another clan that would take such a sharp turn and so suddenly, only because of the change of their leader. Ever since that man lead them, clan Kurotsuchi give me more work than any three of the other clans together. Especially in the 'death' section. One can't easily forget about them."

Morihashi's eyes narrowed, but he tried to sound as nonchalant as he could, when he asked:

"How could they give you so much trouble?" He hoped that if he sounded like a sympathetic enough listener the woman might say more. She had, after all, spent all her days in this secluded place alone; she probably would be glad to have someone to chat with, reasoned Morihashi - and it was quickly proved that he wasn't wrong.

The woman's eyes lit up as she lowered her voice and leaned closer.

"Ambition! Now, I wouldn't want to gossip," she said in the tone of someone who is just dying for some gossip, "but everyone knows the first thing he did when he became the leader was to sell his own sister. He gave her away to a man thrice her age. They say she cried and begged when she learned about it - she even said that she would kill herself if they forced her, but she couldn't make her brother change his mind."

"And this is just as it should be. A girl should obey her brother and she should be glad if she can be of any use to her family through a lucky marriage," said Morihashi.

"It wasn't about marriage, that man already had a wife," said the woman grimly. "Poor girl got into our books a year later. Apparently she kept her word."

"I wonder which family that could be..." said Morihashi curiously.

"One of the more important ones," chuckled the woman. "One that is trying so carefully to hide their skeletons in the closet. Not that they fool anyone, mind you! The truth is clear to everyone who knows where to look."

"What do you mean?" frowned Morihashi.

A sardonic little smile spread on the the woman's thin lips as she lowered her eyes and said:

"Ah... Well, yellow is such an unusual color for eyes, don't you agree?"

Morhashi wanted to say something to this, to demand a more clear answer, but the woman wasn't paying any attention to him anymore. She leaned forward on her staff, glancing around the room again with an annoyed sigh.

"Now, where are those little bastards?" she muttered, changing the topic suddenly. "They are never here when you need them!" She raised her cane and whacked the shelf next to them. "Come out! Come out before I sell you all for tin-cans!" she rasped angrily.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, slowly, soft clicking sounds filled the darkness, high pitched and rhythmical, as if countless tiny metal claws were slipping on the floor and Morihashi realized this was the same sound he had heard before. It filled the room now as the shadows started to move among the shelves and under the bookcases, and it became louder and louder until it seemed to Morihashi as if the whole library was shaking around them.

Then it stopped.

It was some time before Morihashi realized that he and the old woman were standing in the middle of a circle of what seemed to be an army of giant spiders. There were thousands of them. They were standing silently and motionlessly in the darkness of the room.

At last, two of them crawled forward obediently and climbed up the shelves until they got to the eye-level of the librarian. As Morihashi noticed their shining brass skin, he suddenly understood why they sounded so strange: they weren't real animals, they were clockwork spiders.

The woman examined the two that stepped forward. She seemed satisfied.

"The seventh book from the left on the thirty first shelf!" she commanded and then, turning around, she waved with her staff towards the others. "The other little buggers may go!"

And they were all gone as fast as they came.

Morihashi watched in astonishment as the two the woman had talked to climbed up onto the shelf swiftly, only to appear again a moment later with a book between their brass legs. The librarian took it away from them.

"You would think with all this 'technology' going on in Seireitei, they could give me something useful," she grumbled, pushing 'technology' as if it was an especially rude word. "But no! I must get spiders! Spiders! Bah! Here is the book," she said shoving it into the man's hands.

Morihashi opened it. The first of some fifty pages of thin, white rice paper bore only a single, huge kanji: Kurotsuchi.

"Yes," he said. "This is indeed the one I was looking for."

"Good," replied the woman. "You may take it, but tell Captain Urahara I want it back this week!"

"Don't worry," said Morihashi with a dark smile, as he traced the kanji with his fingers. "I will definitely tell him..."

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-oOo-

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"So my point is..." said Mayuri, trying to focus on Urahara. This proved a bit difficult as he was practically hanging from the other man's shoulder as they were stumbling down the dark streets. The fact that both of them, but especially Mayuri, was rather drunk didn't help the situation at all. "You see, the point I am trying to make is..."

He stumbled over something in the dark, almost knocking down the other shinigami before he regained his balance again. A little dark shadow fled from between their legs with indignant squeaking.

"Rats!" said Mayuri suddenly, brightening up. "That is my point! Very... very-very small rats."

"Mice then?" offered Urahara, helpfully.

Mayuri shrugged.

"Sure. Whatever. But the point is," he continued, pulling himself together, "they don't count. What does a rat know about sence...siense..." his eyebrows furrowed for a moment, "Science!" he blurted out at last, "Thass it! Science! So what does a rat know about science anyway? Legs are good. I mean, I have legs. You too. So what if it had a few more than normal? We can always cut off the unneeded ones, can't we? We can put them in the fridge; instant spare legs, if you like. You can sew back one anytime you need it... Very practical, if you ask me," he said firmly, idly watching the world spin by. "That test was a success."

Urahara pondered this. In his mind the mental picture of your average man formed, living his average life, with a fridge in his kitchen full of salmon, vegetables and legs. Something was off with this picture, he knew, but looking at it from the bottom of the bottle he found it a bit difficult to grasp what.

"Exactly how many legs are we talking about here?" he asked.

"Ugh... Some?" ventured Mayuri. It started to occur to him that maybe, but just maybe, he said more than he should have. "A few. I wasn't really counting, you know."

Urahara regarded him thoughtfully.

"Ah... I see! You did test your... your tincture...elixir... something. Right?"

There was a pause.

"No," said Mayuri, looking slightly guilty.

"Strange. I could have sworn you just told me."

"No, did not. You are hearing things," he said firmly. "And thassa sserum, thank you very much. It's totally different from a... a mere tincture! Sells in smaller bottles!" he said scornfully, and he let go of the other man's clothes he had been hanging from until now, and edged away from Urahara to the nearest wall. "I don't feel too good," he muttered and he sat down on the ground.

Urahara, too, decided not to press the argument, and looked around the street instead. He reckoned it had been quite some time since they left the tavern and they should have reached the gates of Seireitei already, but this place didn't look familiar to him. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but he could make out the simple fences made from dry, cut bamboo which lined the road, and the bushy, thatched roofs of small, but well kept houses behind them.

They weren't in the second district anymore, that much Urahara was sure about, because the thing with reed was, while it was cheap and used for roofing to keep the place warm in winters and cool in summers, it was the building material of the poor. It was something the more upper-class citizens of Rukongai, who lived in or anywhere near to the second district, would never touch. This, however, also meant that he had absolutely no idea where they were, realized Urahara with some dismay. Not that they were lost, of course, but they were somewhat geographically challenged for the moment...

Or for the rest of the night, he added in his mind as he inspected their surroundings again. He couldn't even see the Tower of Penance from here in this darkness. That would at least give him a clue in which direction they should go.

His thoughts were interrupted by a deep, raspy voice:

"Look boys, what do we 'ave 'ere! Real goddamn shinigami on our very own bloody street. Now that's what I call luck!"

Urahara turned around and, to his surprise, he found himself looking up, right into a pair of nostrils. It was a rather disconcerting sight. It could make it difficult to take the person you were looking at seriously.

The man they belonged to was tall, more than two heads taller than Urahara himself. Sun-bleached rags hung from his broad shoulders, but a katana, which looked suspiciously like a zanpakuto, was fastended to his belt. From the way his eyes bulged, it was also clear to Urahara that Mr. Nostrils had issues; and where you got a man like this, you got others too. They usually went in packs, because there were always many who thought it was healthier to be with them than being in their way. It wasn't any different now, and a small, ragtag gang was loitering behind him.

Urahara felt the roof of his mouth going dry as he heard Mayuri's stern voice snapping up from behind him, thick with annoyance, saying:

"Can't you see that we are talking? Stop bothering us!"

This command didn't really meet with the effect he expected. The men burst out in a roaring laugh, much like a pack of wolves would laugh at a pair of sheep that not only trotted away from the herd right into their den, but announced with mild baa-ing that they came to claim the place as their own.

"Or else?" asked the big man in the front, amused.

Mayuri looked surprised.

"You will die. In an interesting fashion. Now get lost."

This earned him even more laughter.

Urahara glanced back at him over his shoulder. Mayuri didn't do anything, he didn't move, he didn't put a hand meaningfully on the hilt of his sword; indeed, even his face looked like an impassive mask. And there was no reiatsu either, noted Urahara with surprise, only this clean and pointed killing intent, which must have been much more difficult to sense, or else all these people around them wouldn't be nearly this cheerful.

"Too bad, master, but can't do that," said the large man with a smug grin, spreading his huge, hairy hands. "Y'know, this is our part o' the city, and we wi' the boys din like no stinkin' shinigami messin' 'round 'ere."

He drew his sword. It looked old, its blade was chipped and its hilt practically lost in the man's huge palm, but the weak reiatsu that resonated from it was a sure mark of its owner's seriousness.

We could take all of them out, Urahara thought, as he saw more weapons being loosened around them. Probably wouldn't even break a sweat doing so, but then there would be questions from the Office of 46, wouldn't there?

They weren't normally inclined to deal with alley fights, but if it happened in the middle of Rukongai, and involved two shinigami and a small mountain of corpses of citizens, they had to do something in case humans complained. The relationship between humans and shinigami was already strained as it were, and it didn't take much to cause rioting among the poor, which incidentally also caused a horrible amount of extra paperwork for the Office of 46. So, they made sure that if they had to question any shinigami involved, it was done in a way that guaranteed they wouldn't have to do it anytime soon again. Or at least not with the same shinigami.

So Urahara tried to put on his most friendly smile and said:

"Careful now, gentlemen," waving his hands in a conciliatory way. "We are only looking for our way to home. We don't want to cause any trouble."

"P'raps your' a bit late wi' that, shinigami!" the man hissed and raised his sword menacingly, and he was just about to strike down when the darkness around them erupted in a sudden, blinding scarlet. Urahara could see a fireball shooting past his face and disappearing among the rooftops on the other side of the street. There was a faint smell of burned hair in the air.

For a moment, there was silence on the street. So much silence, you could hear it. Then Urahara heard a familiar voice behind him saying:

"Oh my! I missed, didn't I?"

Urahara slowly turned towards him in astonishment.

It was a Red Flame Cannon spell, he thought. A level 31 kido spell, and he, a cleaner boy, used it without the incantation, while being stone drunk. And I just saw a few days ago that he has "No Special Talent In Kido" written in his personal files! he thought and he felt cold suspicion creeping over his soul. Just how many other things could have been left out from that file and why?

He turned back to the man in front of him, who still stood there, with his sword raised high, as if he had frozen in time. He wavered slightly.

"Whut the... "he tried again. "Wut the... the fuck was that!?"

Excited murmurs ran through the gang.

"Look!" yelled someone, pointing towards a house on the other side of the street. Something was flickering with a sullen, red glow in the middle of the reed where Mayuri's spell hit it, turning slowly into a small red flame. It quickly grew, and in a blink of an eye, the whole roof was on fire, spitting embers, and tiny flames started to appear on other rooftops too.

Someone screamed in the night and Urahara could hear the rattling of opening doors and windows. He suddenly felt sober, way too sober; he could have sworn he felt as if all the warmness and gloom of the alcohol had just drained out from him through his spine and legs.

"Well, I agree, this place needs renovating, but I think you could have broken the news to them a lot more politely," he said grimly to Mayuri.

The gang-leader's mouth opened and he spun towards Mayuri, his sword sweeping through the air, eyes glowing with absolute hatred. Whatever it was that had held back his animalistic rage until now disappeared completely.

"You... little...shit! Now your' gunna fuckin' die!" he growled and lashed out towards the shinigami, only to fall flat on his face on the ground the next moment, with someone's leg pressing down on his neck.

"As I said before, we are not here to cause any trouble," said Urahara calmly, glancing around at the rest of their attackers, "but let me add, we will if you keep on insisting."

The gang-leader's head was crimson from the rage. He tried to move, to push the shinigami off himself, but Urahara stood as immovable as rock.

"Wut are you doin' standin' there? Get them!" the man barked from the ground, but Urahara must have pressed down a bit on him, because he yelped and his words died away in a weak squeaking.

"Must I point out," said Urahara, tiredly, "that I too have a sword and I too am capable of casting spells?"

The men glanced at him, then at their leader on the ground, then at the burning house, and they decided that they really weren't interested in learning what Urahara could do with his sword or spells. They lowered their weapons.

"Great," said Urahara. "Now we will leave, and you will not follow. If you do..." he hesitated for a moment, "Well, let's just say, you don't want to. Be nice and help quench the fire instead!"

The fire, driven by the wind, spread faster than a man could walk, and by this time the flames were racing along the rooftops on the other side of the street. All around them people were hurling possessions from windows or were dragging them through the doors. Some tried to quench the fire with buckets of water, the sound of crying and muffled yelling came from afar, but over all the noise Urahara could hear the sound of the fire bells' urgent alarm. The fire brigade was on its way, he knew, and the people had also started to form a line passing buckets of water from a nearby well. There was no point in staying here, they couldn't help these people.

"Forget it!" yelled a man. His face was black with charcoal. "You will stay here! You started this fire, you will pay for it!"

"Yes! Yes!" agreed another man and the yelling started to draw the attention of others too.

"Everything I had is burning in my house!" said a woman in tears. Her skin was red from the fire."Everything!"

Urahara realized that he and Mayuri somehow had become the center of a quickly contracting circle of angry faces. He took a deep breath.

"Look, I understand that you are angry, but..."

"What do you understand?!" yelled the woman. "You understand nothing!"

"You will die, shinigami! Do you hear me? You will die!" screamed a man.

This however was too much for Mayuri. He stood up from the ground and to Urahara's horror he drew his sword.

"You humans are always whining. Irritating!" he said and raised his zanpakuto. "Rip, Ashisogi Ji..."

And then he disappeared.

.

-oOo-

.

"We are still not safe," whispered Urahara into Mayuri's ears as he put him down on the cobblestones of a street; the world turned back from colorful flecks and lines whistling past them into buildings and streets again. From here the fire looked very far away, but the dumbfounded yelling of humans could still be heard on the wind. "I took only a few steps in shunpo, and we are not far away enough yet. They could still catch up to us, but I feel dizzy. I can't go further now."

Mayuri, however, was not listening to him. His eyes were ablaze with anger and he was still clutching his sword in his hand.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?!" he burst out. "How dare you stop me?! How dare you humiliate me like this?!"

"Kurotsuchi-san, it wouldn't do much good for us to start a war here, would it?" said Urahara tiredly. "Please, lower your voice or we will be found!"

"So what? Let us be found! I will not be scared by a bunch of peasants!" he said, waving his sword menacingly.

Urahara felt his patience starting to evaporate like snow under the summer sun. He faced Mayuri, and took a step towards him. This gesture could have been threatening to anyone else, but Mayuri didn't back away. He couldn't, even if he wanted to, because there was a wall behind him.

"You are acting irrationally," said Urahara. "I never took you for someone who thinks running headfirst into a wall is courageous. You talk as if you belong in the 11th division."

This, if possible, made Mayuri even more angry.

"Don't you dare to compare me to those barbarians! I am not acting irrationally, I will simply not let myself be threatened by a bunch of lowly fools!" said Mayuri, taking a step aside, trying to break out from between Urahara and the wall, but the other shinigami grabbed his shoulder, and with a forceful move slammed him up against the wall. Mayuri's eyes widened and filled with hatred.

"Listen," said Urahara in a placating voice. "You can't run around killing whoever you like!"

"Why not?"

"Because it draws too much attention! Do you want to be arrested?"

Mayuri of course knew that Urahara was right, but the sake was burning in his blood and he was already too angry to care about reason.

"This is all your fault," he hissed between his teeth.

Urahara couldn't believe his ears.

"What?"

"Yes! You and your insincerity!" went on Mayuri. " I know you have ulterior motives! What are they?"

"Ulterior..." gawked Urahara.

"Yes! You dragged me out here! Why? You tried to get me drunk to learn something from me, didn't you? I don't know what you are after, but whatever it is, you won't get it from me!"

Urahara could only glare at him. The rapid waves of strong emotions he had experienced this evening, the disappointment over his failed plans, the shock of being lost and attacked and the fire left him drained, his soul exhausted. Upon hearing this undeserved accusation something snapped inside him, something he didn't even know was there.

For a moment Urahara felt he could strangle Mayuri. He wanted to grab him, yell at him and shake him until the man came to his senses at last. He felt he wanted to talk to him, he had so much to tell him, so much to explain, and yet, when Urahara opened his mouth, he didn't know what to say. All the words got stuck in his throat, knitted into a tight bundle with all the anxiety, anger, excitement and this marvelous, unexplainable feeling, this wild desire to do something. Anything!

In the back of his mind he knew that the situation had suddenly got away from him, but tonight he had drunk a good measure of sake and now it whispered to him: why not let the situation get away from you every once in a while? Like, this once?

Seeing the expression on his face, Mayuri froze as the reality of his position dawned on him, and Urahara noticed a flicker of something surprisingly similar to fear in his eyes. In th moment he knew what Mayuri thought, what scared him: Mayuri was entirely in his power. He could have done anything to him, and the other shinigami would have been completely helpless against it. Urahara's heartbeat quickened and his mouth went dry as this thought sent a heady rush of arousal through his body.

His hands slid up from Mayuri's shoulder, up to his throat; the warmness of the soft skin was burning against his cold fingers, and he could feel the rapid beating of the Mayuri's pulse under his fingertips. He felt his insides turn to molten heat.

He leaned closer, his hand sneaked higher and twined into the blue hair as he bent down and pressed his lips against the other's. They were warm and dry and their sensual softness only honed his desire even further. Suddenly Urahara became sharply aware of the other's body pressing up against his, firm and pliant, and its heat as it radiated invitingly through even the many layers of clothing separating them. He carefully bit down and earned a small, protesting sound that escaped Mayuri's throat as his lips parted and Urahara deepened the kiss.

When Urahara broke away at last, his heart was thumping, and his body was still burning with desire.

Mayuri could only gawk, staring at Urahara with his mouth hanging open and his wide eyes full of shock.

"I think," whispered Urahara, amused by this sight, "This will be our 'good bye' for today," he said with a smile, pulling away. "Go home, and sleep, Kurotsuchi-san. We will certainly meet again."

And with that, he turned around and was gone in the night, leaving a bewildered Mayuri behind.

.

..


a.n.: Review please!