Fourth division was interesting.
On the one hand, the division of healers seemed to get all the scut jobs. Unlike the relatively modern idea of the Doctor being a noble and worthy profession in which one could become rich and powerful, soul society seemed to follow its outer appearance and subscribe to a rather older viewpoint, which was actually understandable. The healers got the scut jobs because healing was already a scut job, and a particularly nasty one at that, flat out requiring that the person who'd been suckered into it very closely inspect and take detailed notes on just about anything disgusting that could happen to a person, in an attempt to fix it. They got their hands dirty already with those menial, often bloody chores, and so a few more menial chores being relegated to their division wasn't thought of as at all odd by any of the other divisions. And really, from that point, it was just another short step to dumping all of them on fourth, leaving things at the current status quo. Ranma had spent her first few hours as a fourth division recruit painstakingly scrubbing another division's floors, apparently as a sample of things to come.
On the other hand...
On the other hand, the division was almost perfect for her needs, simply because the healers had no real choice but to sub as janitors for the rest of the shinigami. They had the keys to get everywhere and as long as you were carrying a broom, or a bucket of water and rag, nobody looked twice at a shinigami of the fourth division, or wondered why they were somewhere.
On top of that, Fourth had an extensive library all their own, apparently describing in clinical detail just about everything that could end up happening with the mis-application, or deliberately botched application, of spirit energy. She'd been a little light-headed at the discovery of this unexpected treasure trove, and thoroughly intended to work out ways to deliberately mimic some of the more interesting of those effects under more controlled circumstances.
It seemed that Fourth wasn't the only division with such a library either, Twelfth, the 'Research' division being the most well known other, as well as some scattered small libraries of esoteric, non-standard demon arts through some of the other divisions. There was no general library available to all shinigami, however, which was unfortunate. Twelfth division was apparently an extremely hazardous area for everyone, reaching near-lethal levels of danger for anyone that was not a seated officer there, and she didn't even know exactly which of the othe divisions held those secret libraries, yet.
No, until something came up to distract everyone, which would most likely be Ichigo making another boneheaded assault, she would settle for just greedily devouring the knowledge contained in the fourth division's library. That decided, she had remained in the library until late in the night, reading by candlelight.
Before that, however, but after the floor-scrubbing, she'd been subject to several hours of special kido training alongside the rest of the new recruits. Demon arts used specifically for healing were apparently used pretty much only in the Fourth division and so, officially, were only taught here. Not that someone couldn't learn them if they were inclined, which nobody was, and could sweet-talk someone from the division into it, which none would lower themselves to, but that was the official stance. Drawing upon her extensive knowledge of ki use and applying it to the lessons, Ranma managed to muddle along adequately in the surprise class, neither near the best or worst of the bunch, despite having never actually attended the academy and, really, having no idea what she was actually doing.
Of course, in spite of the apparent lack of brilliance, the way she had gone right from duty to study without complaint, and then continued on with personal study long after the minimum daily time had been met, lasting long after others would have slept, hadn't gone unnoticed. It was marked up to exceptional dedication.
xxx
Mahoranma
Ranma Is Not A Good Doctor.
xxx
"Ah! New recruit, Saotome-san, we need help in.... the eleventh division member introduced intoxicated and with multiple lacerations to the torso has become belligerent and we need every available hand to restrain him so he can be sedated."
"Oh? Lead on, then." Ranma replied, eyes not budging from the text she was engrossed in, but standing and following the senior member obediently enough.
As expected, the hairy, smelly man was laying waste to everyone who attempted to get near him.
"BAHAHAHA! Y'lil scrubs think jes' a few lil papercuts' enough t' keep an 'leventh down f'r long? Outta my way!"
"But sir, if left untreated, infection can set into even the most innocuous of wounds!"
"BAHAHAHA! F'r you puny scrubs, maybe, eh? Us 'levens're tougher than that!"
"Infection doesn't care how strong yoof!"
The howling man caught the worried medic in the stomach with a backhand, knocking him away. Ranma turned a page in the text.
"My, my. This is problematic. If he continues to so exert himself, then he'll bleed more, and the wounds I caught sight of were fairly deep. What do you expect me to do?"
"Help to subdue him, of course!" The senior member barked. Ranma bit off the almost formed statement that he didn't seem at all eager to throw his weight into the brawl either.
"Why?" She wondered aloud instead. "If things continue as they are, he's going to collapse from exhaustion or bloodloss sooner or later and operation can begin without further interruption. Or he'll die. One of those."
"Just do it!"
"Alright, alright, I'm going, Mr. Senior. Hey, hey, everyone. Back off a bit. I have some small experience dealing with disorderly drunkards." She said, eyes still not leaving the book as she flipped another page. The other recruits were more than grateful to get out of the way, and the elevent division member just seemed amused.
"Experience? Deal with this!" He yelled, swinging another wild backhand. Even without paying much attention to the sloppy brawler, Ranma didn't have to expend too much effort in just stepping back and avoiding it entirely.
The drunk stared dumbly at his fist as though it had betrayed him, and Ranma flipped another page.
"I'm required to advise that you return peacefully to your room, of your own volition, before any other action is taken. I'd really advise you to do so. You can get those stitched up without causing problems and then take a nap or something, I can get back to my study until some sort of menial chore for the day is assigned to me, everyone wins. So how about it?"
The drunk bellowed incoherently and slammed his fist into the floor where she'd been in lieu of an answer. He'd blinked, though, and somehow between that blink Ranma had gone from standing in the middle of what was now a spiderweb of tiny cracks in the wood to sitting daintily on the man's arm, legs crossed, still reading the text.
"I'll take that as a 'no', then. Looks like you really won't respond to anything but a show of force, as I'd expected. Oh well."
Ranma's gloved hand darted out to poke hard at a very specific spot of the drunk's shoulder, then returned to flip the page as she hopped off and took a couple of steps away. The man's arm went completely limp as she came to a stop, not yet bothering to turn.
"Wh-? I can't... my arm! Some kind of demon art?" The drunk wondered semi-coherently.
"Feh. As though I'd waste that kind of energy on the likes of you." Ranma denied. "Eleventh division is focused on combat, if I recall correctly. You should know already, that certain parts of the body are more... receptive, let's say, to sudden impact than others. This goes a bit beyond that, requiring a rather more advanced knowledge of anatomy. What I did just then was simply to depress a certain point with enough force to pinch a cluster of nerves beneath, causing a temporary numbness and immobility to the limb beyond that point. 'A foolish soldier is he that mocks the healer, not realizing that he who most regularly puts people back together is also he who is most efficient at taking them apart, should his mind be set to such a purpose.' You gonna be a good boy and behave now?"
Ranma couldn't exactly recall where she might have heard or read that quote, but it more than served its dually intended purpose, making herself look cool, and the drunk stupid. Perhaps noticing this himself, the man bellowed and tugged his zanpakuto free of the sheath.
Ranma snapped the book shut, and everything seemed to come to a stop as she turned her head over her shoulder, eyes cold.
"You draw? Here? You dare?" She asked, frostily. "You would truly choose to so exacerbate your circumstances? I am not, by nature, either kind or forgiving to those who raise either hand or steel against me, and have been unnaturally lenient thus far. And yet you, in the heart of another division, surrounded on all sides, dare...? Perhaps there is simply nothing between your ears but muscle. I shall offer you this one, final opportunity to quietly return to your assigned cot and trouble your minders no more."
The drunk snorted and spat idly to the side. Ranma's eyes narrowed, and there was a rasp of metal as she drew her own zanpakuto.
"So be it, then. 'A fool will not heed wisdom, lest it be preceded with humiliation.' Take heart, however. I shall not deliberately target your vitals, or do anything which would cause the instant and irrevocable death of a comrade in arms, even one such as yourself.. However, as we are indeed the division of healers, with medics at every side... perhaps it is to your misfortune, as I therefore see no need at all to restrain myself in any way aside from sparing you your life. Your dignity, you may never see again. I will teach you to show some measure of respect to those who may yet control whether you live or die."
'You do remember you're supposed to be just a mediocre academy student, right?' Kagami pointed out, and Ranma hesitated just a moment as she recalled that, her battle plan changing significantly.
"Like to talk!" The drunk snarled, lashing out with his blade.
Rather than the smooth, humiliating deflection and counter that she'd planned on using, Ranma hesitated for just a moment at the strike before dodging. Unfortunately, her opponent was far more adept with his blade than he was unarmed, and even in what should have been a drunken and bleary haze he managed to shift his thrust into a second, more lethal slash. Fast.... it was too fast, and accurate enough that by all rights the blow should take off the head of a recent graduate like she was pretending to be, previous displays of acrobatics aside.
Time seemed to almost freeze, and her mind went into a frenzied whirl. She couldn't just slide out of the way, like she normally would, and continue the fight. If she did, then the jig would certainly be up, and she had no intention of discovering soul society's policy on infiltrators firsthand. But if she didn't dodge it, then she was dead for sure. The only option was to feign a one-in-a-million chance, an unnatural stroke of luck for the new girl. Clumsily stumbling backwards.... no, no she realized immediately after the thought formed that the idea was no good. That would be completely out of character, and more, leave her open to another follow-up stab. A backwards roll or squatting was only marginally better of an idea. She needed to finish this, finish it now, before things got out of hand and her cover was in danger.
She leaned back, as far as she could go, in a calculated attempt to dodge the blade. Not quite enough. This would hurt... she opened her mouth, unwilling to lose any teeth, having been unable to research if they could be regrown with healing arts.
PAIN. Pain, as the last bit of the blade passed through first one cheek, then the next. For the briefest of moments, she could taste the metallic tang of blood and feel the zanpakuto's steel as it brushed gently over the top of her tongue. Fortunately enough, the drunk had extended just enough that he couldn't shift again into another lethal blow, this time a thrust she could almost see coming and piercing the back of her throat, and wasn't mentally swift enough at the moment to change his footing to allow that sort of a maneuver. That, there would have been no way she could have pulled a 'lucky' escape from, so soon after the last, and expect her cover to actually hold.
Kagami wanted to kill him, and deeply regretted bringing up her previous point and recalling attention to their subterfuges. Ranma, for her part, could almost hear Zero's enraged screech after discovering the wounds this idiot maneuver had left on her master's face, and the browbeating that would follow, as well as a renewed determination not to let her go anywhere alone. Wonderful... it had been hard enough to convince her that she was, in fact, capable of taking care of herself the first time. Not for the first time, she was in almost full agreement with her reflection.
She restrained herself, however, and took advantage of the huge opening following in the wake of the drunk's blow only to lung forward and bury steel into the man's shoulder, rather than heart, as her reflection and both swords urged, twisting sharply to send a spasm of agony down the man's arm, triggering involuntary muscle twitches as his blade flew free of suddenly loose fingers, spinning aside to lodge itself point-first in the floor.
Both his arms were useless now, but Ranma didn't let up the assault, wrenching her blade free and deliberately continuing the use of her sword as a sort of red haze went down, beating him with the flat and blunt sides of the blade, only occasionally leaving a gash or fresh stab wound. He'd made this personal, and it was a wonderful release of pent-up aggression.
When the haze cleared, she was breathing heavily, her hair had come undone from its braid at some pont and was hanging about her head and face like a veil, sticky with blood, the drunk was an unconscious mass of bruises, she had one foot all but buried in the unconscious man's crotch, and the rest of the division was several wary, wide-eyed steps back from where they'd been before the new girl's berserk rage had set in.
She carefully wiped her blade on the clothes of her unconscious opponent and sheated it before reaching up to her throbbing face and wincing.
"That's.... gonna leave marks." She grumbled softly, feeling the fortunately smooth cuts, blood rapidly coating those fingers. The scars would be small, but highly visible. "Great. Guess that's what I get for trying to show off. Okay people, I need a sterilized suture kit and disinfectants here... and, I dunno, someone sterilize a stapler or something for this bozo and with any luck we can have him mostly fixed and ship him back to his own division before he even wakes up."
The unseated shinigami around her rushed to fulfil the requests, driven by a combination of a hefty dose of fear and a dash of wary respect for the scary redhead.
xxx
They'd thought she was joking about the stapler, and although they had gone along and brought it, as well as a second suture kit for after the giggles had died down, she hadn't been. The orderly had gone a sort of green shade when she'd casually stapled the eleventh's gashes and stab wounds shut, then equally calmly sewed her cheeks back together.
Ranma didn't get why. When you got right down to it, the staples held almost as well as the sutures and, while both had a bit of trickiness to removing, they were much quicker and easier to put in place.
Tales of the incident had, by the time she finished and returned to the library to await further orders and study, traveled throughout the entirety of Fourth division and had begun to slowly circulate outside of it as well. A generous estimation would say that within twenty four hours, everyone within the central city would have heard about the new nurse with the really short fuse.
Seventh seat Yamada Hanatarou wasn't sure why he'd been invited to a private tea and chat with the Captain, vice captain, and third seat of his division, and seats four through six had been passed over, but he was sure that he wasn't going to particularly like the reason.
The refreshments had been nice, though, and the small talk had been fun. Ranma had come up a couple times, briefly, and the third seat had mumbled something that Hanatarou was sure he must have misheard in reference to the redhead. Because really, 'younger, slightly less restrained captain'... that couldn't possibly be what the man had said. Immediate, tooth-clicking shut-uppery after just a mild, gentle glance the third seat's way aside.
"Our new recruit seems rather exuberant." Unohana gently remarked, carefully pouring out a new round of tea. "Some people have sent in requests that she be transfered to 'a division more suited for her', although I am unsure how they believe they might force her to agree to such a transfer. Ah. What do you think, Hanatarou-kun?"
He considered that for a moment, allowing a brief smile to cross his face as the idea of not working so closely with the scary redhead floated through his mind. Then his thoughts ventured towards what other divisions she might end up in, and the grin turned sickly. A horrible ocean of eleventh toughs led by a cackling redhead and a scarred behemoth with a pink blur hanging tightly to his coat drifted through his mind and he forcefully wrenched himself back to reality.
"I, er, believe that it would perhaps be best to allow all the new recruits another week or two to settle in before we consider speaking with any of them on whether or not there would be any division they would prefer to transfer to..." except eleventh. "... and perhaps consider speaking with other amenable captains at a later date..." except Kenpachi. ".... but put off actually introducing any of them to other divisions or captains until that time." Especially eleventh and Kenpachi. And maybe Mayuri, because nobody really deserved something like that when a quick, painless execution would do instead, but primarily the point was keeping the scary girl in a position where she was more ally than enemy.
"I see." Unohana mused, then blinked. "Oh... it seems Zaraki-dono has arrived. He did mention he'd like a word with Saotome-san, after he heard about the little incident."
Hanatarou spilled hot tea all over his lap.
xxx
"Hear you're pretty tough, little lady." The eyepatched, heavily scarred, very imposing man in front of her leered down. Ranma tried not to so much as bat an eye, but with all the loose energy pouring out of the freak, she was having vivid glue-factory-vat flashbacks.
Actually, now that she thought about it, many of Genma's training methods seemed to fit a certain theme.... she brushed the idle thought off and focused on doing what she could to alleviate the near-palpable pressure. After a moment she started to figure out the trick.
"Wouldn't neccessarily say that." She demurred. "Guy was drunk. I'm sure if he was sober and in full possession of his faculties...." She trailed off, physically unable to actually go so far as to say she couldn't take him on, but more than willing to pull the whole deception thing.
"Heh. Didn't think much of her at first, captain..." the bald lackey of captain eyepatch said. "... but she adapted to your Reiatsu pretty damn quick. Might be something there after all."
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She'd screwed up, and could almost see her cover falling apart... but then, it was probably worth it to not have to behave like an idiot with heatstroke whenever this guy was around. The guy with the feathers just seemed amused, though, but the big guy and the bald guy were leering predatorily, and the pink child... wait, huh?
"Gonna play with her, Ken-chan?" the tiny girl chirped, having clambered up to his shoulder. "Gonna cut her up?"
'.... Wow.' Kagami said dumbly. 'I think I just got a jolt of how other people feel about us and Zero. It's kinda creepy from this side of things.'
"Haven't decided yet." The captain mused, rubbing his chin. He frowned. "You looking at something?" He asked, still staring at Ranma, who only then realized she was staring awkwardly back.
"Ah? Sorry, it's just... you have bells in your hair." She noted, suddenly realizing that this was so.
"Do you have a... problem with that?" He rumbled dangerously.
"Not particularly. It's just... I can't think of any purpose for them. They don't seem to be particularly heavy, so it isn't an impromptu bludgeon, there don't seem to be any sharp edges or pop out spikes, I suppose the glare off the metal might be able to momentarily blind someone if they were polished to be shiny enough, but they aren't.... they're just... bells. Why?" She rambled, honestly confused on this point.
A sort of slow rumbling came from Kenpachi, building up into a series of barking noises that it took a moment to identify as amused laughter.
"I like you! I've decided. You don't seem like much, but I'll put you to the test."
Yachiru hopped down, and Kenpachi pulled his robe open to bare his chest. Fortunately enough, it was obvious that his intent wasn't seduction... she hoped.
"Draw your sword. Hit me. I'll give you a free blow. If you can cut me, great! If you can hurt me badly enough, that's even better! And if you manage to kill me somehow, that would be fantastic, but I'm not holding out hope there!"
Ranma blinked slowly at the masochistic request.
"Ah... allow me to rephrase that to see if I understand, sir. You're not just asking, but ordering me to hit you as hard as I can, in the most pain inducing manner that I can manage?"
"That's right!" Kenpachi barked. "Get to it!"
Ranma shrugged wryly.
"Well... you're the captain, I suppose."
In the next moment, as Ranma launched her attack, different observers saw different things. Ikkaku, for example, had a vision of two walnuts suddenly smashed violently apart. Yachiru could have sworn that, for the briefest of moments, neon letters spelling out the words 'Super-Secret Critical Weak Point' flashed into being, then dissolved. What Yumichika saw need not be mentioned or described in detail. All three crossed their hands over themselves and winced in sympathy.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Ranma yelled at the top of her lungs, hopping on her good foot as she clutched at the one she had used to perpetrate the assault, which was now throbbing pretty badly. For his part, Kenpachi had stopped breathing, eyes glazed over, for a few moments before he composed himself.
"I-" He started, voice at least half an octave higher than he'd intended, before breaking out in coughs to cover it and trying again.
"I want you!" he snarled greedily, eyes flashing.
"Keep in mind, I have two feet."
"In my division!" Kenpachi hastily qualified, verbally backpedaling. "Although, for that matter, uh, would you, uh, like dinner or something?" He finished sheepishly, not at all sure what he was doing, and probably giving his male subordinates heart attacks.
Ranma's eyebrows crept to her hairline, and Kagami seemed completely at a loss for words.
"A-Ah?" She stammered, the conversation not having gone at all the way she'd intended.... although she wasn't sure she could have figured out a good way for this conversation to have gone anyway. "Er... how to put this... well, on the one hand, I don't mind not having to pay for my own food..." Kenpachi was looking almost unreasonably hopeful, and she realized that she had to nip this problem right in the goddamn bud before it grew out of her control. "But on the other, and I'm putting this in deliberately harsh words so there's absolutely no chance that you might misunderstand me, I'm a raging bull-dyke lesbian, and I would sooner carve out my own lungs than put out for you, so you're really barking up the wrong tree, here."
Kenpachi mulled the information over for several long, uncomfortable moments.
"How about if I was a girl?" He eventually ventured, somehow making the silence even more uncomfortable awkward.
'.......................................' Kagami stated eloquently.
Ranma couldn't help but agree, and turned and left the area without a word.
"So.... is that a yes?" Kenpachi eventually asked, more than a minute after she'd actually left.
"W-well.... It's.... It's not a no, as such, strictly speaking..." Yumichika managed, cursing his treacherous tongue, but at the same time not really able to find anything better to say, and equally unable to simply remain silent.
Ikkaku appeared to have actually fainted while standing, and Yachiru was poking him with a stick she'd found somewhere. They would be of no help.
"Then.... do you think I should ask again, or...?"
"Oh, look, a butterfly!" Yumichika blatantly redirected the conversation. "I'm pretty sure it's for you!"
It was, as apparently a captain's meeting had been called, buying the fifth seat enough time to make convincing, compelling arguments that would hopefully keep the captain from cutting him into bite-sized chunks if he decided to ask for advice again later.
xxx
"Are, are you sure that this doesn't need painkillers?" The man hesitantly wondered, glancing between avenues of escape.
"Oh, don't be such a big baby." Ranma chided. "You're eleventh division, right tough guy? This won't be a problem."
"It won't hurt?"
"Hey, did I say that? It'll hurt like hell. Suck it up and deal, pansy."
Ranma clicked the pair of pliers in her hand ominously, and the spooked shinigami was out the window in the next eyeblink.
"Humph. No problem going out and getting into barroom fights, but so anxious over just removing an embedded splinter." The woman assigned to evaluate Ranma's bedside manner declared.
"Splinter, what?" Ranma wondered. "I was told to give the guy a prostate exam."
"Ahahaha, 'prostate exam'." The senior medic snorted. "Haha, that's a good... that's a... that... you aren't joking at all, are you."
Ranma shook her head somberly, and the amusement died a painful death. The senior medic tried to speak, but after holding her mouth open a few moments, realized she simply didn't know how to adequately put what she was going through into mere words, and then gesticulated wildly for a few seconds.
"I... you... hng! Gah! Pliers!? I don't even... Get. Out."
Ranma quietly left.
xxx
It was obvious, through the meeting, that Kenpachi was more than a little distracted. This was made glaringly more so as, when the alarm was sounded along with a report of Ryoka invaders, he not only didn't drop everything and run out the door like a bloodthirsty madman, which, to be perfectly honest, he usually was, he didn't even fidget as he remained stationary, lost in thought.
"Kenpachi." Yamamoto barked after all the other captains had left, and the other man was still standing there vacantly. "Were you paying any attention during the meeting?"
"No sir!" Was the reply as he snapped out of his trance, followed with a sullen, half-hearted "Sorry, sir."
It was the apology, more than anything else, which clued the captain commander in that something was very seriously wrong.
"You seem troubled, Kenpachi. Care to talk about it?"
"I.... yeah, alright, old man. See, I heard about this interesting recruit in fourth, and I went to check her out. Long story short, I offered to let her take a shot at me, and she did. She nutted me, and I wasn't expecting it at all, and it hurt worse than anything anyone's managed to do to me in the past hundred years. Sir, I..... I think I may be in love."
"Kenpachi. Stop talking."
"It's just, ever since, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Her cold eyes, that sparkling glimmer of malice when I confirmed my offer for her, the way she clutched her sword to draw attention from the real attack, how the world went white for just a moment of blissful agony as she drove her foot into-"
"Kenpachi." Yamamoto insisted, clutching at the wood of his false staff, hiding Ryuujin Jakka within. "Stop talking."
There was a long moment of awkward silence between the two as Yamamoto digested the information and did the best he could to completely and utterly repress the tidbits he'd rather not have gleaned about his subordinate.
"Woman trouble, then. I'm afraid I won't be of much help. But I can say this, that agonizing over things won't make any difference in the long run. If you're interested in this woman, then you must do what you can to catch her interest in return. Just be sure to keep it quiet." He winked at the eyepatched man. "Technically, fraternization with subordinates, your own or others, is expressly forbidden, but after the first few times the captains all tried to mutiny against me and I had them replaced, that particular rule hasn't been strictly enforced. I just want plausible deniability, all right?"
"Thank you, sir! But, now that that's through, I wonder how I'm going to manage turning myself into a woman for her..." Kenpachi mused.
"What did I just say about talking, Kenpachi?" Yamamoto snapped. "Every time you open your mouth, something worse than the last time spews out..."
The old man left, trailing off into incoherent grumbles. Kenpachi followed shortly afterwards, only to pause as one of Soi Fon's ninja zipped past at almost untrackable speeds, leaving a tiny, folded over bit of paper in his wake.
xxx
The note had read 'Talk to Mayuri'. Nothing more. After the initial nonplussed reaction to the ninja, Kenpachi hadn't actually been all that surprised to realize that it had been listening in to the private conversation. That was just what second division did, and he'd apparently decided to help out, somehow.
If only the help didn't involve Mayuri... oh well. He'd just have to suck it up and deal, and at the very least he'd left Yachiru asleep, so the awkwardness should theoretically be minimized.
"Hiya, clownface." He said as he stepped into Mayuri's office, bare sword resting on one shoulder, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Zaraki." the other captain drawled in disgust. "I'm afraid I'm quite busy, so no matter how bored you may be, or what you may mistakenly have decided I'm responsible for, I'm simply not available to put you into Fourth's poison ward at the moment."
"S'not a problem." Kenpachi grunted, sheathing the blade as he sat down across the desk. "S'just people ask less questions about 'where I'm going' or 'what I'm doing' when I've got a sword out and smile on. Actually, only question I get like that is something on the lines of 'please, please, please say you aren't looking for me'. But anyway, I'm here because I need your help, in a personal matter."
"Oh?" Mayuri all but purred, smiling widely. "Now this is interesting. The esteemed Zaraki Kenpachi seeking my aid..." The grin suddenly went fixed and wooden. "In... matters of a 'personal' nature.... oh god. Please tell me I'm misinterpreting the nature of your request?" He almost whimpered.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I was told to talk to you about it, in the note the ninja slipped me."
"Oh god." Mayuri sagged into his chair, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, then pulled an earpiece out of a drawer and inserted it as he pressed down on a button. "Nemu. Fifteen milliliters of Lethe extract in a syringe, and the sample set..... The sample set..... You know exactly which sample set I'm referring to, you insuffereable..."
Mayuri paused and took several deep, calming breaths before continuing.
"The 'toy box', Nemu." He hissed softly. "Yes. Yes, that sample set.... I did say so right from the sta....." He paused, then hit the button again. "You hung up on me? How dare you, you....!"
Mayuri ground his teeth and pulled the earpiece free as the cloned second in command apparently hung up on him for the second time.
"I hate that girl so much." He snarled. "How anything with a fragment of my soul powering it can be so disgustingly irritating, I don't even...Ugh. In any case, as you've probably realized, Yamamoto pays us all equal amounts, ignoring that my division has the highest neccessary expenditures in the course of our work. "Look at Kyoraku's division." He says. "They haven't needed to ask for any extra cash in all the time he's been captain." He says. "You could learn a thing or two from his economics." He says. He never needs more money because the only thing that division ever spends surplus currency on is enough cheap booze to keep the whole division smashed until the next paycheck comes around!" Mayuri snarled, slipping into a rant, knuckles going white before he shook it off. "Damn old man simply refuses to grasp that.... I'm losing my focus. In any case, I can't imagine where my predecessor got his funding from, probably that noblewoman he kept shmoozing around with, but it was only a week after I took office before this division was completely in the red and spiraling towards having debts to all the other divisions with less pressing need for cash."
Nemu opened the door and wheeled an entire cabinet into the room, securing the door behind her.
"In any case, desperate times lead to desperate measures, and I discovered through chance that there was actually something of a market-"
"A very large market." Nemu corrected.
"Yes, thank you for reminding me Nemu, a very large market for the results of some experiments that I had initially deemed failures and useless. Go on, open the damn thing up. I know you want to, just get it over with already." He grumbled.
Nemu happily did so, and Kenpachi stared in a sort of awestruck horror.
"That thing in the goldfish bowl on the second shelf... is that an octopus?" He wondered aloud.
"Once." Mayuri grudgingly admitted.
"After the treatment, intended to be a possible upgrade to current gigai tech, the specimen developed a significantly increased elasticity..." Nemu demonstrated by fishing the once-octopus out of the bowl and stretching it to the full extent of her armspan before allowing it to snap back to its normal three or four inchish size. ".... and a new ability to gain nutrition directly from the reishi of the surrounding environs, causing a near total degeneration of the specimen's previous digestive tract. The experiment itself was deemed a failure as was intended, however one of the new recruits found further use for the specimen after reading through the data on it, and it became the first and still our most successful selling item. It's garnered from customers the affectionate nickname of 'the octo-pocket-p-'"
"It's still alive and it has tentacles." Kenpachi pointed out, about as reasonably as he could manage at the moment. "Lots of tentacles, with suckers on!"
"It makes for a fascinatingly unique experience." Nemu insisted, her entire bearing having shifted at some point to scream 'used car salesman'. "I would be more than happy to demonstrate its use, or allow you to test the prod-"
"No!"
"Very well." She stated unflappably. "We stock a wide variety of items for a number of tastes. Perhaps I can interest you in the-"
"No! I don't want to see any more of your box of horrors!" Kenpachi insisted, some portion of his hindbrain noting Mayuri's palpable relief at the statement, and Nemu's almost as obvious disappointment. "I just want something to turn me into a woman for a little while!"
"Top left drawer." Mayuri instructed.
"Of course. Our second best seller. I might have known." Nemu agreed, removing the large jar. "Unfortunate that the experiments attempting to duplicate it in a full female-to-male shift have as yet been unsuccessful. While the 'Dixie Chick' effect is enough of a substitute for the most part, enough discreet inquiries remain that there would be at least a thirty percent increase in sale profits if we could make that breakthrough. In any case, please enjoy your purchase with our compliments. Each pill lasts for a full six hours of curious, exploratory fun, and refills can be purchased at half off so long as you return with the original jar."
"I'll have Nemu bill you privately, and I'll give you another ten percent off the initial purchase if you get out right now so I can get to work on pretending this never, ever actually happened." Mayuri offered.
Kenpachi was gone long before he'd finished the sentence, and Nemu quickly closed up shop. Mayuri extended a hand and she dropped a small syringe into it before wheeling the cabinet out and, presumably, back to storage. Or her quarters, or wherever it was that she kept the thing when she wasn't making a sale. He shuddered, once again wondering just how the girl.... as the wheel noises faded until he couldn't hear them anymore, he uncapped the syringe and plunged it into the vein of his throat, injecting the contents, then removing the needle and...
And...
What had he been doing? He recalled working on an important piece of paperwork, and now he was sitting here and holding-oh. A customer had stopped by, then.
Not for the first time, he rejoiced that he'd discovered this little miracle drug, which could wipe the memories of even shinigami with captain class reiatsu, and kept the secret to himself. It couldn't replace the empty space with plausible memories, of course, or even implausible ones, so it wasn't at all difficult for someone to piece together that they were missing time, and with enough effort get those memories back... but if you wanted to not remember something, and you only ever used it when something happened that you didn't want to remember, then you knew enough not to even try to figure out what had filled that missing time, and it was something of a godsend.
In a slightly better mood, Mayuri discarded the empty syringe and returned to his paperwork.
xxx
A.N.
So. This chapter. Uh.
Anyway, it started when I got a review suggesting that Hanatarou get a crush on Ranma or something. Or two or three of them, I can't remember. Anyway, I was going to reject the idea out of hand, because I'm trying to avoid any pairings, kinda, or even suggest pairings, but I realized that would actually be kinda funny.
So I started along those lines, and then I was all 'this isn't funny enough' and 'what would be funnier?' as I ran through a potential list of implausible romance candidates, none of which were quite right... Then Kenpachi Happened. And then, after beating the idea a bit with a hammer to make it fit, This Chapter Happened, in a sort of giggly blur. This is why you shouldn't give me ideas, people!
So now you know! And while I'm not entirely sure I managed to keep everyone as in character as I could have, I liked it.
Also, Joker Smile. I can't remember what the hell I was thinking about when that happened, but with luck I'll remember. If I don't, hell... I'll just have the scars heal to be almost imperceptible if you don't know they're there or something. I'll figure it out.