Title: Blessed Victory
Chapter: 20/?
Rating: PG-13!
Warnings: Coarse language, sexual innuendo (big surprise)
Pairings: Kenpachi x OC
Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. In Japan, this would be considered as a great tribute to his sucess and genius. In America, not so much. :(
A/N: Please bare with me while I struggle through writer's block and transitioning to the next part of the story. D: I struggled with this one, so it's short. But it amused me, and randomly brought in Sado, Uryuu, and Tatsuki (who I think needs to be brought back into the main story in the anime/manga, she's a neat character). This chapter is more of a boys' bonding time.

With a huge sigh, Zaraki Kenpachi sank onto an over stuffed sofa at the front of the store. He ignored the bewildered looks that the young women milling about the store were tossing in his general direction. He had been receiving similar looks all damned day, ever since he stepped foot outside of Urahara's little shop. First it had been the mail man, then the policeman on the corner, and every single person he had strolled past. It was putting him in a piss poor mood, and playing Katsue's pack mule for the day wasn't helping.

He growled under his breath and propped his feet up on the low coffee table in front of him. He stared at the black boots—shit kickers, Urahara had called them. He liked them, he decided as he wiggled his toes in their comfy confines. They had pieces of molded metal in the toes and heels, and along the instep of his boots. "They always take this damn long?" he grumbled as Kurosaki sank onto the sofa beside him.

The orange haired man gave him a sidelong look before sighing himself. "Yep," he replied simply, before putting his own feet up on the table beside Zaraki's. He was only wearing a plain pair of shoes that Zaraki had learned were called "sneakers". There was nothing sneaky about them, he thought; they should have been named "squeakers", after the sound they made on tile flooring.

Zaraki snorted and stared at the pair of pants Urahara had given him to wear over his gigai. The thick faded blue fabric wasn't as comfortable as his hakama, but he did have to admit that he liked them. And Katsue had liked them, too; she had made some aloof comment about how she liked how his ass looked in them, or some such. But if she liked the jeans, she liked the tight black shirt he wore even more. He grinned slowly and propped his arms up along the back edge of the sofa as he watched Katsue, Orihime, and Rukia wander through the store they had stopped in. Katsue just couldn't seem to stop stealing quick glances at him, and he had noticed how her eyes lingered on the black fabric stretching taught over the broad planes of his chest. Now he understood why Urahara had told him to leave the much looser white shirt he wore over it unbuttoned.

"I was out once with just Rukia and Orihime for eight hours," Ichigo continued as he crossed his muscled arms over his chest. He was scowling as he watched the three girls converge on a rack of dainty swim suits. Blushing, he looked away when Rukia picked out a rather skimpy looking one. "Shopping is a girl's favorite past time."

"I tell ya what," Zaraki rumbled with a satisfied purr as Rukia held the skimpy little thing up to Katsue, "if they're gonna be buyin' shit like that, it's gonna become one of mine, too."

Ichigo shot him a glare.

"Is that a blush I see?" Zaraki roared with laughter as Ichigo looked away hurriedly, his glare deepening into a scowl. "There's nothin' wrong with appreciatin' a woman's body, Kurosaki, especially if they don't mind showin' it off to you."

"It's rude," Ichigo replied gruffly.

"It's rude not to appreciate it!" Zaraki laughed again. "There're two reasons women buy things like that, Kurosaki. One, to either make themselves feel more confident; or two, to impress a man they have an eye for. In either case you're only doin' 'em a favor by starin' or, at the very least, complimenting 'em."

"And what about when they get mad?" Ichigo grumbled.

"Let 'em. Still flatters them knowin' a guy thought they were worth gawking at. It just means they don't like you," Zaraki grinned and nudged Kurosaki in the shoulder. "Don't be a prude."

Blushing, Ichigo frowned as he let his eyes wander back onto the troublesome trio. Katsue was trying to convince Orihime to try on a little yellow and orange-striped bikini while Orihime was depositing a white one in Rukia's hands. "We should take them to the beach," he said after a long moment's silence between him and Zaraki.

Zaraki clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to make him cough. "Now that's puttin' your brain to use."

"I don't mean it like that!" Ichigo snapped, a nerve ticking in his forehead. "I mean that Rukia and Katsue haven't been to the beach before, have they?"

Zaraki shrugged. "Hell if I know."

"Well they haven't been to one here in the living world," Ichigo grumbled. "It could be like a little vacation, you know? What with all the shit going on lately, I bet they would enjoy it."

Grinning, Zaraki nudged him again. "And you too, eh?"

"Will you stop it!"

"I'm sure they would like it," rumbling, Zaraki settled back into the sofa comfortably. All three of the girls had discarded their respective bikinis, and were in the process of picking out entirely new ones. Katsue was smiling and laughing easily as they went from one rack to the next, sifting through various sizes and holding them up to each other. He couldn't help but grin himself as he watched her, perfectly calm and relaxed with people he was sure she called friends. She looked beautiful, black eye and all. "You sure have made Soul Society exciting lately, that's for sure."

Frowning, Ichigo looked at him sideways. "I'm not the one that got the Eleventh Squad to riot," he accused.

Zaraki shrugged. "I didn't have shit to do with any of that. You, on the other hand, broke into Sereitei and then brought those Bounto to our door step. I think you got me topped, kid."

"It ain't my damn fault."

"Not sayin' it is," Zaraki tossed him another toothy grin. "It was gettin' boring as hell there. You need to find your next big adventure soon before it gets boring again. I'm in desperate need of some play time, unless you finally wanna have that rematch you owe me?"

Ichigo's face suddenly went pale as he frowned at Zaraki. "That's not happenin' any time soon."

Chuckling, Zaraki crossed his arms over his chest and grinned as Katsue's eyes lingered on his taught pecs for a moment. She had to shake her head, this time, before she was able to redirect her attention back on the task at hand.

XXXX

Zaraki was grinning the biggest shit eating grin Ichigo had ever seen, bigger even than that manic grin he got when Zaraki was kicking Ichigo's ass halfway to Monday during their first encounter. And it was readily apparent that the reason was Katsue and her skimpy little maroon bikini. With a huge sigh, Ichigo rolled his eyes and went back to skimming over the manga magazine he had bought on their way to the beach.

"You're all a bunch of prudes," Zaraki cackled from where he was sprawled out on a beach blanket, clad in nothing but the black swim trunks Katsue had bought for him the moment Ichigo had brought up going to the beach. "You have a group of women running about, splashing in the water, hardly wearing anything at all, and you're reading books?"

Uryuu sniffed from where he sat in a beach chair, and simply flipped a page in his sewing magazine. Sado, like Ichigo, blushed and pretended to be focusing on his own manga.

"You've got to be shittin' me. What, are you all virgins or some shit?" Zaraki barked with laughter at the looks the three of them sent his way. "That's a blatant fucking yes. What're you, eunuchs?"

"Just because we're not shamelessly staring at women in bathing suits does not mean we are castrated, Captain Zaraki," Uryuu replied with another sniff. "We have more respect for a woman than that."

"Load of shit," Zaraki barked and gestured towards the girls. He had been flustered at first when he saw that the three of them ended up buying the first three pairs of bikinis they had been looking at, especially after they spent another hour and a half in that store looking at other ones. But now he sure as hell wasn't going to be complaining any time soon. If Katsue's swimsuit had any less cloth to it, he would have pinned her to the sand a long time ago and screwed her in front of everyone on the beach. "You're reading that manga shit when you got the real thing in front of you."

Ichigo coughed and flipped another page.

Frustrated, Zaraki lurched over to the side and grabbed the magazine from him. As Ichigo was sitting up to yell at him angrily, Zaraki latched his massive paws on either side of his head and forced him to look up. He fell silent as he stared, wide eyed and red cheeked, as Rukia and Orihime played Katsue and Tatsuki in a game of water volleyball. His eyes sure as hell weren't watching the ball, though; he was watching the four girls bounce around in waist-deep water.

"Gods damn it, Zaraki!" he bellowed and wrenched free from his hands. Zaraki was rumbling with laughter as he climbed to his feet.

"Have it your way," he chuckled and stalked straight towards the water. He was absolutely shameless as he waded in past the breaking waves, and grabbed first Katsue under one arm and then Orihime under the other. All four girls were screaming as Zaraki stomped about in the water, occasionally dunking one of them under the calm waves.

Ichigo, Sado, and Uryuu frowned as they watched him. The girls were screaming and laughing—even Tatsuki, who was usually the first to get defensive about a guy "abusing" women—while Zaraki tried to wrestle each of them under water for a quick dunk. Finally the four girls finally mounted a counter-attack, and were struggling to bring the towering captain down. Rukia dragged on one arm while Orihime had the other. Tatsuki was perched on Zaraki's massive shoulders and had her arms wrapped around his head as she tried to haul him backwards to knock him off balance. Zaraki made one last attempt to dunk Katsue, and succeeded by picking her up and tossing her back in the water before the girls finally managed to topple him over.

"You've got to be shittin' me," Ichigo grumbled under his breath as he watched Zaraki struggle to regain his footing, only to get mobbed by four laughing girls in skimpy bikinis.

"You bastards are just going to let them drown me!" Zaraki bellowed from the water the one time he managed to stand long enough to yell at them. Katsue tackled his head back under water before he even managed to get the last word out.

Quietly, Sado closed his magazine and stood. "Be right back," he rumbled quietly, before making his own way to the water. It was only a matter of seconds before Ichigo and Uryuu were following—Uryuu tugging his T-shirt off over his head as they made their way to the water. By the time the three of them waded out to the girls and Zaraki, the massive captain had Katsue perched securely on his shoulders while she screeched and tried to fight off the other girls as they tried to drag her back under the water with them.

It was only a matter of moments before each of them had a girl perched on their shoulders—Rukia barking out orders to Ichigo, Orihime squealing with laughter on Sado's broad shoulders, and Uryuu staggering to hold up Tatsuki—while they all attempted to knock each other's passengers into the water. Zaraki and Katsue were winning so far, simply because the Eleventh Squad captain was so much taller than the rest of them.

They froze mid-battle as a massive reiatsu flared from the beach, effectively silencing all their laughter and raucous screams. All eight pairs of eyes stared in open amazement at Kuchiki Byakuya and Abarai Renji from where they stood on the beach—fury emanating off of Byakuya like a furnace while Renji tried in vain to subdue a nosebleed.

"Onii-san!" Rukia screeched and tumbled off of Ichigo's shoulders. She was the first to make it to the beach, her slender arms covering her chest in vain as she looked up at her big brother. Byakuya was absolutely scowling at her, Ichigo was stunned to see. That had to be the most emotion he had ever seen on that man's face.

Byakuya shrugged out of his haori and shoved it on Rukia's shoulders as his scowl turned into a glare aimed at Ichigo. "What were you doing?" his voice held a cold fury as he regarded them.

"We were having fun until you showed up," Tatsuki answered angrily, scowling right back at him. "Who the hell are you?"

All eyes turned on to her—the only human among them that hadn't, up until now, been able to see spirits such as Shinigami. "I am Kuchiki Byakuya," Byakuya snapped in reply. "And who may you be?"

Ichigo clapped a silencing hand over Tatsuki's mouth just as she was about to make a retort. "You need something, Byakuya?"

"He needs swim trunks," Zaraki rumbled irritably and slung an arm over Katsue's shoulder. All of a sudden he wasn't feeling too comfortable with Katsue being clad in only a little bikini, with Byakuya standing only a few mere feet away from her.

"I thought that Captain Zaraki would enjoy the news that he has been found innocent of high treason, but instead I find that you have broken your house arrest and are cavorting in your underclothes on a beach!" Byakuya snapped angrily and tugged his haori closed tighter around Rukia's shoulders. She was blushing furiously and staring at the sand, her body completely dwarfed by Byakuya's huge haori.

With a toothy grin, Zaraki slung his other arm over Orihime's shoulders. "Any time you feel like pullin' that stick out your ass, Byakuya, you're welcome to join us. Abarai can ride on your shoulders."

At that, Renji cleared his throat and glared at them all, too.

"We are still working out the terms of your return," Byakuya snapped and grabbed Rukia's wrist. "Although after this I'm not so certain how long it will take. I hope you enjoy sitting around in the living world doing nothing, Zaraki." And with that, he spun on his heel and walked back towards the Soul Gate he had opened on the beach, dragging Rukia behind him.

Renji scowled and watched as the two Kuchiki's disappeared, the gate closing behind them. Sighing, he glared at the group before him. "You assholes didn't invite me?"

"Well, I guess you can ride on Ichigo's shoulders now," Zaraki chuckled deep in his chest, earning him a glare from both Ichigo and Renji. Katsue was strangely quiet, though, when he guided her back to the beach towels. With the fun killed, the girls were quick to wrap up in beach towels as the guys packed up their little camp.

"By the way," Ichigo grumbled under his breath, blushing profusely. "Those new bathing suits are really cute."

Orihime absolutely beamed at him after she tugged a baggy shirt over her head. "Thank you, Kurosaki-kun! That makes me really happy!"

Tatsuki scowled at and shoved a pair of baggy pants into Orihime's hands. "Get dressed, 'Hime. And Ichigo, keep your pervert eyes to yourself!"

Zaraki chuckled and tucked Katsue back against his side.

On a side note, make sure to check out my new Bleach story, starring everyone's favorite asshole: Byakuya! It's called "Sound of the Tide", and it makes me giggle with what I have planned for it.

Expect another update for both "Blessed Victory" and "Sound of the Tide" some time this week! And Happy Indenpendence day to all the American readers, and happy Canada Day or whatever you Canadians call it!