Title: Blessed Victory
Chapter: 14/?
Rating: MA for smut, coarse language, and violence.
Warnings: Coarse language, as always.
Pairings: Kenpachi x OC
Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I am forever the slave to his world. Nanashi Katsue is mine.
A/N: A chapter of character development?
Hitsugaya Toushirou grumbled to himself, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the heavy stone door he stood before. His vice captain, Matsumoto Rangiku, sat on the floor in front of him with the little vice captain from Eleventh Squad crying in her lap. The little girl hadn't stopped wailing since Captain Zaraki had been locked in Senzaikyuu. It was impressive, really, considering that had been well over six hours ago.
"Can't you get her to shut up?" he huffed irritably.
"You can't blame her," Matsumoto sighed, "She thinks they're going to execute Captain Zaraki."
At her words, Yachiru's crying grew louder and more frenzied, her fists latching onto Matsumoto's hakama as she thrashed around in her lap.
"They're not going to kill him, damn it!" Hitsugaya yelled at the little girl, eliciting a momentary silence from her as Yachiru blinked in surprise. Then, with a trembling lip and a sniffle, she began again. Growling his annoyance, Hitsugaya pounded a fist against the stone door. "How do I get her to shut up?"
"You don't," came the growled response from the other side. Zaraki Kenpachi slouched in the darkness of his cell, his yellow eyes blazing fiercely as he listened to his little girl's voice. It was muffled through a good twenty centimeters of stone, but it was loud enough to keep him royally pissed off.
His chest rumbling in dissatisfaction, Zaraki slowly started to untie the bells from his hair. The sekkiseki stone the tower was built of was slowly starting to eat away at his spirit energy, and he sure as hell needed every little advantage he could muster for what he had in store for Sereitei. One by one the bells fell to the floor by his side, the only other sound in his rock prison other than his growl.
"Oi, runt," he snarled and ran a hand through his hair, feeling the strands slowly part from their spikes to hang around his strong chin. "Where you stand in all this shit?"
Hitsugaya sniffed irritably, fully aware of Matsumoto's calm eyes on him. "Why does it matter, Zaraki?"
"Tryin' to decide whether or not to kill you when I get out of here," he rumbled.
"I think you have targeted the wrong people," the short captain huffed. Yachiru's wails seemed to quiet, if only a little bit. "I'm only doing my job, Zaraki. You and that woman's relationship is not my business," with a deep sigh, Hitsugaya turned his head so that he talked towards the stone door. "Although I have to say, I never thought I'd see you act like this over a woman."
Zaraki snorted with a derisive laugh. "Me either," he rumbled.
They both fell silent, with only Yachiru's sobs to keep them company. Eventually the little girl wore herself out, curling up on Matsumoto's lap and falling asleep. Hitsugaya nodded at his vice captain as the tall woman gently gathered the little girl up in her arms, and left. Alone on the broad walk that led to Senzaikyuu, Hitsugaya turned his head up to look at the stars. Night had fallen in Sereitei, and no doubt there would be more rioting.
"It is rather quiet up here," a calm, cold voice redirected Hitsugaya's attention. He curled a lip in a silent grimace as he watched Captain Kuchiki prowl towards him. The arrogant ass was following Hitsugaya's stare, and watched the stars for a moment. "You may leave."
With a growl, Hitsugaya pushed himself up from against the door. "It is still my watch, Captain Kuchiki."
Slowly, and with all the arrogance that Byakuya could muster, he turned his cold black eyes on to Hitsugaya. "And I said you may leave, Captain Hitsugaya."
With a hand on the hilt of his zanpakutou, Hitsugaya snarled irritably and shoved past the captain of the sixth squad. "One day, Byakuya, your rank as nobility won't get you what you want," he growled.
Byakuya sniffed, peering down his long nose as he turned ever so slightly to watch Hitsugaya disappear down the far side of the walk way. "As if it ever has," he murmured under his breath, before resuming his purposeful walk towards the door to Senzaikyuu. He paused as he reached the warm stone, and then placed a hand flat against it. "Captain Zaraki?"
A loud thump sounded and the door shook. Growling and snarling, Zaraki slammed his fist against the door again. "Come to rub it in, asshole?" he roared. His reiatsu flared up as he punched at the door again, satisfyingly knocking a good sized chip out of the stone.
"Quiet," Byakuya growled back, his voice so low that Zaraki struggled to hear him. His chest was heaving with ragged breaths, and his heart beat pounded in his ears. Slowly, he calmed his massive bulk as he strained to hear the words that Byakuya was saying. "Even if you do break out of this tower, Zaraki, you can not pass through the Soul Gate without a seal. They are not stable enough to hold up under the spiritual pressure of a captain—"
"Bullshit," Zaraki snarled and pounded his fist against the door once again. "That Kurosaki bastard passed through, and he's at the level of a vice captain. It didn't do shit!"
"The Soul Gate in Sereitei is built to hamper the passage of vice captains and captains," Byakuya hurried to make himself heard again. It was irritating and annoying, he thought, that he was here in the first place. To think that he was helping this brute! "If you wish to pass through to the real world, you will either need to use a private Soul Gate from one of the noble families, or stay in that tower until you are weak enough to pass."
"What the hell are you getting at, Byakuya?" Zaraki snarled, pressing close against the warm stone. Just touching it, he could feel the cursed material sucking away at his spirit power.
Byakuya resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You wish to get your woman back?" he murmured.
Zaraki only snarled in response.
"Then you need to stay here, or wait until you are sent to the real world yourself."
"As if that will happen. I see you're so eager to volunteer the use of your private Soul Gate, you bastard!" he pounded at the stone again, splintering off another piece of the otherwise pristine white stone.
"No matter your reasons, Zaraki, I would not sully my family name by having you walking through my houses and using my gate," Byakuya replied coolly, his voice monotonous.
"Then why the hell are you here, asshole?"
Byakuya closed his eyes and counted to ten. Patience, he reminded himself, not everyone had the manners of the nobility. "Do not look a gift horse in the mouth, Zaraki."
"Me an' you never get along. Why the fuck are you here?" Zaraki persisted.
"This is not the first time Yamamoto has tried to separate a captain and their significant other," Byakuya huffed. "Despite the lack of law saying that we may not have a partner, he deems it as a weakness in the defense of Sereitei." He tried not to think of his deceased wife—tried not to picture her face on the pillows beside him when he went to bed at night. He tried, and failed miserably.
Zaraki rumbled with a deep growl and turned away from the door. He sagged against it, slowly sliding to the floor with an exhausted sigh. "Go the hell away, Byakuya," he grumbled.
Byakuya sniffed disdainfully as he turned, his deep black eyes closing. "Unfortunately, it is my watch now that I have dismissed Captain Hitsugaya. I suggest you get comfortable with my company. And please, do not try to break out while I am here. It is embarrassing having to wrestle you to the ground."
Zaraki snorted and closed his eyes, relaxing his head back against the sekkiseki stone. "This door is comin' down the moment I can make it through that damned gate," he rumbled.
Byakuya ignored him. He was focusing on his breathing, meditating even as he stood sentry in the cold night. His chest rose and fell with his deep breaths, his pitch black hair stirring around his strong, angled face as the wind played with his clothes. Unconsciously, he was watching the burning beacon of Zaraki's reiatsu slowly fall lower and lower. The brute was right, Byakuya thought. That door would come down, either under Zaraki's own force or Byakuya's. Either way, the captain of the Sixth Squad was not up for watching the stone suck another Shinigami dry of their spirit power as it had his little sister. Nor was he going to sit idle while Yamamoto dared to interfere in the private lives of his captains.
XXXX
Matsumoto gripped the hilt of her zanpakutou as she darted into the officer's dormitory in the middle of the Eleventh Division. Yachiru was passed out cold in her arms, the little girl's chest rising slowly with her shallow breaths. She was careful not to disturb the girl, but she was honestly more worried about the child's subordinates.
Loud voices were yelling and calling out in the night, shouting threats and oaths at any who dared to pass the gates of the Eleventh. They were on the verge of rioting again, Matsumoto thought as she slunk through the halls searching for Yachiru's room. The moment Zaraki's squad had discovered what had happened to their captain, all hell had broken loose. It was no surprise, really, when the entire Eleventh consisted of the most violent men and women ever to graduate from the Shinigami Academy.
She opened a door slowly and peered inside, only to find the tell tale signs of a male's occupancy. Sure enough, she had found Ikkaku's room. One wall was decorated with posters of scantily clad women, another with weapons racks that held sharp objects of varying sizes, shapes, and lengths. Matsumoto rolled her eyes, barely suppressing the urge to violate Ikkaku's room as she closed the door.
The next door opened on Yumichika's room, which was painted a pale red with blue accents. It was a pretty nice room, Matsumoto thought as she eyed the vanity and its rows of facial powders and make up. Much too feminine to be a man's, but then again, this was Yumichika.
The last door on the bottom floor proved only to be the fourth seat officer's, some nameless man that Matsumoto had never bothered meeting before. He had no business being an officer, she thought. But Zaraki hadn't felt the urge to strip the man of his position after he took over the Eleventh Squad, and Yumichika had favored taking the fifth seat for his own instead of his proper place as fourth.
With a sigh, she trudged up the steps towards where she knew Zaraki's rooms lay. Yachiru stirred in her arms, her eyes barely open as the girl lifted her head to look around. Without Matsumoto prompting, the little girl pointed to a door at the end of the hall. As she settled back in, Matsumoto slowly made her way to the huge, daunting door.
She stepped into a barren space that could only be Zaraki's room. "Don't you want to sleep in your own bed?" she whispered softly against the little girl's pink hair.
Yachiru whined and shook her head, pointing a little finger at the mass of blankets and pillows that Matsumoto assumed was Zaraki's bed. Blushing at the pile of ripped and bloody laundry in one corner of the room—there was a pair of bright red panties on top—Matsumoto carried the little girl over to the bed and gently set her down. Immediately, Yachiru snuggled into the mass of blankets, only her eyes peeking out at Matsumoto.
The woman gave the girl a sad smile, before slowly sitting down on the wooden floor beside her. "Everything will be okay, Yachi-Yachi," she whispered.
"They're gonna kill Ken-chan," the girl pouted, her voice muffled by the blankets.
Matsumoto shook her head, her golden-red locks brushing the wide expanse of her impressive cleavage. "They won't. Zaraki has done worse, you know that."
"But he was gonna kill the old fart!"
"Do you really believe that?" Matsumoto pressed softly. Yachiru whined again as she thought. Finally, she shook her head again. "Me either. I think Ken-chan was just trying to make a point."
"Will they kill Nana-chan?"
"For what? Being in love with Ken-chan?" Matsumoto ruffled her hair. "She did nothing, and everyone knows it."
Yachiru sighed softly before sitting up, the blankets falling away from her small body. Her eyes were large and watery, her bottom lip trembling as she looked up at Matsumoto. "I want Ken-chan and Nana-chan to be happy together. I like having a mommy and daddy again."
A sharp pain stabbed at Matsumoto's heart as she bundled the little girl up in her arms again. She hugged her close, even as the vice captain started crying again. She whispered soothing words, stroking the girl's soft pink locks as she rocked her in her arms. "Everything will be put to right again soon, Yachi-Yachi."
Both of them jumped as a loud crash sounded somewhere outside, followed by drunken cheers. The rioting started, Matsumoto knew, as she hugged the little girl closer to her chest. The men and women of the Eleventh would wreak havoc in Sereitei for the second night in a row, and no doubt other squads were mobilizing to minimize the damage. Where they would put the rioters for tonight, she didn't know, since the jail was still full from last night.
"They have to put Zaraki back in his seat," she whispered heatedly, as much for the little girl's benefit as for her own.
XXXX
Captain Unohana Retsu was struggling not to cry. As it was, her eyes ached and were unusually itchy as she sat on a small bed. She looked at the pristine pillow beside her and placed a small, creamy hand on the stark white. This was Katsue's room, she told herself as her eyes swept over to the nearby night stand. This was the woman's room when she first came to Unohana, angry and broken over one hundred years ago.
It had taken her a long time to break the thick walls the young woman had built around herself. When she had come to Unohana, she was full of pain and hatred. Her wounds were still healing from her duel with her own captain, and every day they seemed to act as a reminder to the girl why she hated the world around her. It took years upon years of patient and kind handling for Unohana to even gain the woman's trust.
But she had won out in the end. Once the woman had forsaken her fighting knowledge and adorned the roll of a healer, she had slowly begun her own arduous healing process. It was a long time until Unohana had first seen her smile—it was small and timid but brilliant none the less. And eventually it became more common, and accompanied by a pure, bell-like laugh that warmed Unohana's heart. This was why she was a healer, she had told herself over and over again as she watched the young woman stumble along the healing path.
When Unohana had discovered her involvement with Captain Zaraki, she had nearly lost the calm, cool nature she had worked so hard to obtain. It would be her luck that all the work she put in to recuperating the young woman would be destroyed at Zaraki's reckless hands. She did not like it, she did not approve. She had tried her hardest to convince Katsue that what she was feeling was only a dangerous attraction to disaster. It was common, she had told her, for a young woman to find a man like Zaraki attractive solely for the thrill of acting out.
She didn't think that anymore, as she sat in Katsue's dark room. There was barely nothing left of the woman in this room. The walls were still that soft blue color that she liked so much, but the shelves and drawers were empty. Her nightstand was void of whatever book she was currently reading, and the small photo of her deceased mother.
Unohana wiped at her eyes, and shocked herself to find that her fingers came away damp. With a sad smile she patted the pillow and stood, squaring her soft shoulders and taking a deep breath.
A chime sounded in the room, shattering her momentary peace. The hell butterfly lit on her shoulder, before flapping delicately in front of her. "Rogue Shinigami," the butterfly called out, the operator's voice shaky, "In the seventh section of Karakura Town. Captain Unohana and Captain Kuchiki, you are to report to the Soul Gate."
Rogue Shinigami?
Panic gripped Unohana's heart as she wiped hurriedly at her eyes, trying to banish the signs of her weakness. As she hurried to the door, she prayed that whatever signs of her tears would be long gone by the time she encountered a living soul.
XXXX
Kuchiki Byakuya didn't even frown at the butterfly that lit on his shoulder. He listened to it repeat its message one more time, before he looked over his shoulder at the sekkiseki stone door. It figures that he would be right, he thought, as he finally let out the breath that he held. "I'll be right there," he murmured to the butterfly. With a soft chime the thing dissipated back into darkness, leaving Byakuya alone with his thoughts.
His hands slowly squeezed into fists as he completely turned to face the door. Would he break the laws once again? He had already forsaken his duty twice in the past, and he had sworn that it would never happen again. But after that Kurosaki child came, and rescued his sister…
His eyes closed, his breathing growing deep as he took a moment to gather his thoughts.
Stealing his resolve, Byakuya slowly made his way over to the door. He pressed his hand flat to a small panel beside the cursed thing. A chill ran up his spine as slowly the mechanizations that locked the door released. With a low rumble, the door slowly ground open.
Zaraki Kenpachi stood on the other side, his chest heaving with angry breaths as he rumbled and growled angrily. His eyes were an electric yellow as he glared at Byakuya, his hands clenched into claws as his lips peeled back over his teeth. "Big fuckin' mistake, Byakuya," the brute snarled.
Byakuya regarded him calmly, before boldly turning his back to the man. "We've been summoned to the real world. I suggest you take advantage of the situation and come with me, calmly."
Growling, Zaraki considered him for a moment before he stepped out of the shadows of his dark prison. His hair was lank and loose around his shoulders, every muscle in his body taught with frustration and anger. "You don't do shit for other people unless it benefits you."
"Right now, I have a team of Special Ops guarding my home because one of your men decided to write lewd messages on my privacy wall with urine," Byakuya grunted disdainfully and started strolling back down the walkway, trying to pretend that he didn't care if Zaraki followed him. "Half of your squad is rioting as we speak. A quarter is locked up in jail. And Sereitei is without its main mean of defense. I think that benefits not only me, but the entirety of Soul Society."
There was a long moment where Byakuya thought that maybe, just maybe, Zaraki decided to kill everyone instead of playing along. He was rewarded though as a loud growling presence followed him closely. "Where's my zanpakutou?" the brute snarled.
Calmly, Byakuya gestured to a glass case that was tucked against the wooden railing at the far end of the walkway. It was the last place he would have held his enemy's weapon, he thought as Zaraki shoved past him and slammed his fist through the feeble glass. He wrapped a bloody hand around the hilt, growling in approval as the blade hummed softly under his touch. Definitely the last spot Byakuya would keep a confiscated sword. He would have to talk to whoever was in charge of these things.
"What the hell is happenin', anyway?" Zaraki rumbled as Byakuya calmly walked past him.
"Apparently, there is a rogue Shinigami in Karakura Town," he replied.
"Katsue," Zaraki breathed and shoved past him again, leaping down entire flights of stairs as he rushed down the adjoining tower to the Senzaikyuu.
With a sigh, Byakuya used his shunpo technique. It gave him immense pleasure to wait calmly and patiently at the Soul Gate as Zaraki came running up, snarling and growling and out of breath.
"Fuck you," the man growled at Byakuya's calm, smug look.
"C-C-Captain?" the third seat officer from Byakuya's squad nearly trembled beside him as he clutched an ink pot to his chest. "Z-Z-Zaraki Kenpachi has escaped!"
"I know," he replied casually and gestured to the massive man with a long finger. "Give him a seal also, please."
The officer nearly wet himself as he took hesitant steps to Zaraki's side. The beast's yellow eyes never left Byakuya, though, as he ripped open his kimono for the officer to paint a seal over his left pectoral.
"Captain Zaraki?" Unohana gasped as she finally joined her two comrades at the gate. Her vice captain was in tow, her eyes wide in surprise and her mouth open as she stared at Zaraki.
"He will be joining us," Byakuya was still the epitome of emotionless calm as he offered his arm to the woman. Unohana took his elbow absently, her eyes still locked on Zaraki's imposing frame as the man drew his zanpakutou in one easy motion. "Shall we?"
Still rumbling, Zaraki shoved past the both of them and tore the doors to the Soul Gate wide open. He moved quickly as his wide strides took him into darkness, with Byakuya and Unohana calmly following them. His eyes blazed, a yellow aura roaring up to encompass him.
My two favorite utensils while writing anything and everything:
1) A baby name web site. I find it a huge help to find names I like for any of my OCs.
2) Online dictionary. Learn it. Love it.
And as always, thank you for all the feedback!