As promised things start moving in this chapter, and the main conflict has begun!

Also I realized that there has been some confusion with the length of the bet, I've been confusing myself much less for you poor readers, but it is one week not two, no matter what i may or may not have said in previous chapters. Just thought I would clear this up, before there was anymore confusion. So if I say two weeks, just ignore me and know that I mean one week.

anyway enjoy.

Disclaimer: eye doo not ouhn Bleach...


There was a heavy pounding on the office door. Rangiku sighed, it was bearly twelve o'clock yet and already something had gone wrong. She glanced over to Toushiro who also was glaring at the door.

"Just let them in before they make a hole in the door." He muttered.

"Come in." Rangiku called out wandering who on earth had something that important to talk about that they had nearly broken down the door. She raked a lock of ginger hair behind her ear, she actually was not complaining about the disturbance, the paperwork she was doing was so boring that she thought she was going to lose her mind any minute now. But usually when someone knocked on a door with that vigour either they were really excited or something was really wrong. She would bet that something was really wrong.

The man that entered was panting as though he had just run across the Seireitei. Okay, something was definitely wrong. Toushiro had even put down his brush and was studying the man with the utmost scrutiny.

Matsumoto recognised him as their eleventh seat Arakida Eto. "What's the matter?" She asked.

As soon as, no even before the man regained his breath he blurted out, "Captain, Lieutenant! Some men from the eleventh division picked a fight with some of our men."

Toushiro growled and slapped his forehead. This happened way too often for his liking. But he had a gut feeling that this was not all that Eto had to say. And he was right.

"And not only have they injured four of our men, but they also damaged part of the main kitchen."

"What!" Toushiro snapped banging his fist on his desk, "Who's down there right now? And I want to know exactly what happened!"

"Third seat Ibuka and fourth seat Mazaki, sir."

So the third and fourth seats were already there. Rangiku smiled at the squad's efficiency, Toushiro really had trained them well. She glanced at the said boy, who had already summoned a hell butterfly sending a message on ahead. It was amazing sometimes to see him kick into captain mode, well he was usually already in captain mode but to see such precise decisions made by him in an instant and the way he barked out orders, was not something you expected from someone who looked ten years old. She summoned a hell butterfly herself, to request an audience with Captain Zaraki.

"Matsumoto, request an audience with Zaraki-"

"Already on it."

He nodded then turned back to Eto, "Let's go, you can explain what happened on the way. Come Matsumoto."

"I appreciate all of this, Toushiro, but aren't I supposed to be the captain?" She raised an eyebrow, the instant he had gotten wind of the crisis he had forgotten about the bet.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Fine, lead the way, Matsumoto."

("\(^.^)/")

Well that was it for the kitchen wall. It had almost been floored completely on one side; the other side was crumbling down before their eyes. Matsumoto's jaw dropped. What on earth had happened? She knew that the eleventh was rowdy but this was ridiculous. It looked like they had taken a bulldozer to the wall. How the hell did a couple of unseated members manage that? She shook her head; at least the food stores had been on the other side of the room, as well as most of the cooking equipment. Only one of the stoves had been rendered useless. This was not good. Now this was yet another thing that needed to be repaired and she knew for a fact that the division could not cover the cost of it, this time around. And Toushiro would rather die than ask the Head-captain for a loan or anything. Speaking of Toushiro the small boy was silently fuming beside her.

His fists were clenched tightly and he had closed his eyes for a second. That was his tyring-not-to-shout-so-loud-that-people-would-be-able-to-hear-him-in –the-world-of-the-living pose, and boy did she know that one well. But before he was able to unleash the fury of his lungs she took matters into her own hands. She was supposed to be captain, wasn't she?

"Okay somebody is going to tell me what happened here." She ordered folding her arms across her chest and glaring at the few men who dared to stay behind. Toushiro stared at her for a split second before nodding in approval and going over to study the extent of the damage and see to the injured men.

It had all started as a minor disagreement between a few members of both squads. They were not even sure of the exact reason, something about the eleventh being too loud last night. And the eleventh, being the eleventh took it as a reason to start a fight. It was then Matsumoto discovered that it was not only the kitchen that was destroyed but also the wall that separated the tenth's grounds from the eleventh's. She could see the budget plunging into red numbers in her mind. So that was a stove they had to replace, the kitchen wall and now the boundary wall as well. In the back of her mind she just wanted to go drink a few shots of sake and forget about all of this, leave it to Toushiro to worry about, he was used to all of this stuff. Let the expert deal with it, because quite frankly she had no idea what they were going to do about this one.

The men of the eleventh that had caused the ruckus had long since left the battle scene. Thankfully though, she did not think she could deal with the eleventh's crap right at the moment. But now that meant she had to go sniff them out later, along with their captain, who should have been here right now.

"So let me get this straight," She said, rubbing her temples, only now she understood why Toushiro did this so often. "When you guys went over to tell the eleventh that they had been too loud and you had been unable to get much sleep last night, they told you to shove off and stop being such pansies?"

"Yes Lieu... Captain."

"And then you started the fight? Because from what I heard that, it was a few of our men that got violent first."

"But it was the eleventh that knocked down the wall and then moved the fight towards the kitchens, and destroyed that as well."

Rangiku sighed. Now she really was unsure what to do. Toushiro trotted back to her side with a scowl that could kill etched onto his face. "Lieutenant, what are the casualties like?"

Toushrio flinched at being called lieutenant but hid his annoyance well. "Four injured; two with fractured bones one in the left wrist, the other in the collar bone, one with a deep gash in the right side of his stomach and the last with a concussion. Our own medics will be able to take care of them in the sick bay; there will be no need to contact the fourth."

She nodded, well that was some good news, the not needing to contact the fourth. She turned back to the men, "Were any of the eleventh injured?"

"A few of them, Ma'am, but none as serious as our own men."

She chewed her bottom lip and turned to Toushiro. He sighed and decided that it was his turn to take over. Rangiku had no idea what else she was supposed to do in a situation like this.

"Alright," He shouted. There was still a lot of commotion going on and he needed everybody's attention for this. "I would like to meet with anybody who was there at the time of the incident in my office right now. Someone needs to bring the injured to the sick bay and someone else needs to survey the extent of the damage to division property and give me the report by tonight! Ibuka, Mazaki." He called out to the third and fourth seats. They were at his side almost instantly, "I trust that I can leave things here under your supervision?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Matsumoto, lead the way."

The ginger woman nodded. She didn't care what anybody else said, Toushiro was definitely cut out to be captain.

They both sat in the office. Toushiro was leaning over the lieutenant's desk with his fingers drumming against his temples. The last of the witnesses had left the office ten minutes ago. He had been taking notes as they talked to Rangiku. She wasn't sure, nothing like this had ever happened before, but this did not seem like regular protocol. Sure their division got into fights with the eleventh enough times for it to become regular occurrence, but nothing had been destroyed before. Injuries were common but the breaking of buildings was not. Usually Toushiro would reprimand the men who had gotten into the fight and everyone would be on their merry way. But now that was not the case. And right now she was seriously considering backing out of the bet, so she wouldn't have to deal with this. Damn Zaraki and his unruly men. Couldn't he teach them to contain themselves at least a little bit?

She shook her head and pulled out a copy of the budget report. They had a grand total of 5,000 kan left for expenditure. There was no way that that could cover the cost of the repairs. What were they going to do? Asking Head-captain Yamamoto was always an option, but she did not want to do that, and neither did Toushiro. Asking for more money was basically saying that they were incompetent as leaders since they could not even manage such a simple thing as money. Toushiro would sooner dance around division twelve in a pink tutu than ask Yamamoto for help. And she would rather give up sake for a month... no a week.

"So, Toushiro." She sighed, "What are we gonna do?"

He glanced up at her, "Well Matsumoto, once the report comes in saying how much damage has been done I'll... you'll see to it. If it's less than 5,000 kan then it won't be a problem."

"What happens if it's more?"

"If it's more then I'm taking the matter of with Head-captain Yamamoto. We're going to demand that the eleventh division pays for this."

She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, "Somehow I don't think Captain Zaraki will be willing to cooperate."

"I know, that's why you and I have to work together to plead the case to Yamamoto so that he will make Zaraki pay the cost."

"But it was our men that started the battle..."

He sighed, "I never said that this was going to be easy. We're going to have to do a lot of investigating and thinking."

She groaned that sounded like a lot of work. He raised an eyebrow at her not so enthusiastic response. "Are you up to the challenge, Captain?"

Her grimace turned into a grin. "When was the last time I ever turned down a challenge?"

He smirked and stacked his notes into a neat pile and placed them in the top drawer of his desk. "Good."

"So do you think we can do this?" Her silver-blue eyes meat with his blue-green ones. They held each other's gaze for a while. Rangiku knew that there was no backing down. When Toushiro got that look in his eyes; hell or high water he was not going to back down. And neither was she.

"We better." He stated. "Because I'd sooner dance around the twelfth division in a pink tutu than ask Yamamoto for money."

And boy did she know her captain well.


Questions, comments, emotional outbursts?

Well I thought that it was high time that a situation came around that showed just how well Rangiku and Shiro can work together. They do make a darn good team except this time Rangiku is in charge... so this may or may not be a good thing.

Anyway, review with any comments you thought necessary. They will be greatly appriciated.

-Mymomomo