Hell Butterfly
Damsel in Distress
~21~
o)0(o
The large blank screen fizzed into life, overflowing with a close-up of Matsumoto Rangiku's cheery face.
"Yo, Soutaicho-sama! The setting up of the new Karakura HQ is going well, bar the nosy human landlord! How is your day going?"
He leaned back a little, warding off the lieutenant's enthusiasm. "The situation here remains stable," he replied stiffly.
"Great. Well we've just figured out a way to run this outpost without paperwork," – was it his imagination, or did a muttered 'hallelujah' escape Hitsugaya-taicho's mouth? – "so all future reports will reach you via email or hell butterfly."
Yamamoto grunted in response to this. "Has there been any untoward activity on your side?"
A vast hand obscured his subordinate as she hid her giggles behind her fingertips and completely blocked the camera. "Actually, Ichigo-"
Bzzzt-shaaa-aaa
"-kidnapped…"
Skrrr-rr-r- -
"-a shinigami and now he's trapped in a basement and won't contact us at all so we're quite concerned over his condition –"
Fzzt!
Matsumoto trailed off in her explanation that Ichigo was endangered but they were waiting for his friends to step in due to the presence of ordinary living humans. She frowned slightly, and punched the colossal computer so hard that imprints of her knuckles were left in the dented metal casing.
The machine whined in protest and promptly flashed up the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
"MATSUMOTO! You're making it worse!" barked Hitsugaya, livid.
Her face was suddenly painted with black shadows of vengeance. "It shouldn't have crossed me."
"Could you stop being so bipolar and behave like a rational adult? I shouldn't have to tell you this!"
She turned and hauled him way up to her eye level by his white haori. "Are you crossing me?"
Navigating her temper had recently become like tap-dancing across a minefield – blindfolded. But then, he wasn't a captain for no reason.
"Are you crossing me?" hissed Toushiro straight back, as the room temperature plummeted to subzero.
At that moment, the shinigami currently on duty in Karakura staggered in through the doorway, looking distraught and dishevelled out of uniform. "Big trouble, taicho," Zennosuke croaked. "I - I need back-up and medical attention immediately!"
The two officers of the Tenth Squad glared at him in terrifying unison, still frozen at each other's throats. "OUT!"
o)0(o
Ishida skidded into the living room at the Kurosaki Clinic, school tie streaming behind him for lack of a Quincy cape.
"Ichigo's been kidnapped!" he shouted.
The jaw of every person in the room dropped in shock.
"Really?" gasped Inoue, hands drifting up to her face where they clenched into fists. Rukia's expression was beginning to grow strangled rather than fearful, and she burst into floods of laughter around the same moment that Orihime punched the air with a cry of victory.
"YAY!"
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Ishida and Chad directed deadpan stares at the two women. "Is that really fitting?"
They were unrepentant.
"Oh the glorious irony, aaahahahaha!"
"LET'S GO SAVE HIM! This is awesome, we can pay him back Rukia-chan! We'll be knights in shining armour, and he can be a princess, and we'll invade Hueco Mundo!"
Rather thrown, Ishida adjusted his glasses in the hopes they would bring clarity to the situation. "...um, Inoue?"
The short shinigami was rolling around on the floor of the sitting room, clutching her sides as they split with hilarity. Orihime, on the other hand, seemed to be drawing up an invasion plan and chewing a pen lid in her concentration. "We have time to make some armour, right? Where are we rescuing him from? If we're in a rush, I'll just make some out of cardboard boxes, I'll be really quick!"
"...Look, he's only being held a couple of houses away..."
"Ichigo is really pathetic at being kidnapped, isn't he?" snorted Rukia. "At least we got taken by captains and Espada."
"That's not very appropriate, Rukia-san!"
Chad unfolded his arms and slowly shifted into a more alert stance that could be taken as his attack pose. A suggestion lurched out of his long fringe. "...We should go now..."
Paper and scissors and sticky tape were flying in all directions. "Okay Sado-kun, just give me one more minute to finish Ichigo-kun's princess hat, okay?"
Uryuu coughed, the temptation overwhelming him as he glanced about the room to spot Yuzu's sewing kit, old bed linen from the clinic and a sparkling, mesmerising packet of sequins. "...You know, I could whip up a damsel-in-distress dress before we head over there to save him..."
o)0(o
Ichigo was feeling happy. Quite astonishingly, breezily happy, as if he'd been drenched in pure joy. Whatever was making him this buoyant was a mystery, though he suspected it was the sparkling green LED that blinked at him in the darkness. On. Off. On. Off. It winked at him like it was sharing a fun secret.
He couldn't quite catch his balance to stand up, and he wasn't in the mood to chase his balance around the room until it stood still long enough for him to grab it. There were some cheap blue nylon ropes tying him to his chair, however, so at least he wouldn't fall off it. That was quite considerate of them.
Right now, he didn't have a care in the world. So what if his head was full of giddy rainbows and there were a couple of pissed-off voices in the back of his mind yelling at him to get a grip and get out of there? Get out of where?
It was...it was his neighbour's house...maybe. Anyway, there was no danger here; he'd been vague friends with Mizzubisshle for years.
Ichigo couldn't remember ever being this relaxed, not that he could recall anything that might have made him feel lower than this high. Life was simple, right? His thoughts meandered and tripped over the secrets of the cosmos. They were all hidden in that light. On. Off. On. Off.
And now he was hallucinating that the Soutaicho had skipped down the steps and come to join him. Ichigo laughed. Whatever was going on, it made no sense, so he was just going to assume this was Orihime's random train of thought becoming contagious...
Hey! That green speck had vanished! ...Oh no, there it was. Safe and sound - ah! It was gone again!
The drugged teenager frowned, and decided he didn't like the green blob anymore...
Come to think of it...what was green?
o)0(o
With the impromptu ball gown stuffed into his satchel, and Inoue hiding the conical princess hat behind her back, Uryuu analysed the front of the neighbour's house with his two human friends backing him up. Rukia had declared the rescue a piece of cake, added that they really didn't really need a babysitter anymore and shunpoed away to report at the new Karakura HQ.
It was surpassingly normal. Double-glazing, window boxes heavy with blooming flowers, a few weak red spirit threads hazing through the front door…
"Well, I think this calls for destruction of property…"
"Ah…actually Ishida-kun, there's a policeman hanging around the clinic…and if I got caught trashing someone's house they'd involve my family…" Yes, she'd stood up to Aizen however briefly, but the common man of the law could still strike fear into the heart of any teenager.
Chad looked down from his great height, and mumbled in agreement. "Extradited…"
"Come to think of it, a medical student can't have a criminal record…" Ishida fidgeted with his Quincy bracelet whilst he thought of an alternative. "We will have to negotiate."
He pushed the doorbell, hiding his slight trepidation towards this unmeasured enemy.
The door creaked open a few moments later, and someone from their year group at school peered suspiciously through the gap. "No," he said in a pre-emptively flat voice, moving to shut it again.
Chad leaned one palm against the door, and it had much the same effect as jamming a boulder in the gap. "We're here to talk."
Flustered, but hiding it with skill, Mitsubishi let the front door swing in the breeze and leaned casually against the jamb with his arms folded. "So…you can speak after all, 'Sado'."
"…"
"We want Ichigo-kun back!" snapped Inoue immediately.
"Oh?" asked the student, staring at the dirt under his fingernails as if it was more interesting than the Quincy, the giant and the fairy-wielder that had just landed on his doorstep. "And what can you do about it?"
"I could slice you and your house in half," replied the girl quite frankly, eyes wide.
"Just tell us what you're after so that we can negotiate," interrupted Ishida in terse tones, gagging Inoue before she could put her foot in her mouth. Mitsubishi whistled and smiled.
"The aims of the Cult of Prometheus…well, everything, really. I know all about what's been happening in Karakura and Soul Society, you see. Ghosts don't bother to lower their voices around humans who 'can't hear them anyway'. I witnessed Kuchiki give her shinigami powers to Kurosaki, and I saw how fast he grew in ability. It was phenomenal. That enormous Hollow in the black cloak, with the long nose and the pointy boots and the Cero? I saw you both defeat that, Quincy. And most of all I've watched the fear and surprise growing on the faces of the reapers around Kurosaki, every time he pushes the limits to a new boundary."
His audience tried not to yawn. If the Gillian was still big news then this guy was way behind on their activities.
"So it's been obvious to me all along that this fusion of the living and the dead is what gives Kurosaki his unprecedented strength. Unless you have a better reason?"
Uryuu and Orihime glanced at each other, mystified, while Sado just shrugged. To be honest, that was the best explanation they had heard as well, beyond Ichigo's Inner Hollow.
The cult's ringleader smirked. "Now imagine if a whole group of humans was that strong. We could demand what we wanted of the world, and the world would have to submit. Imagine how it would be right at the top…"
"Cold," chirped Inoue, answering literally. "And penguin-y."
"You've taken this farce too far," growled Ishida, gagging his friend again. "You have no strength with which to back up your ambitions, so quit this ludicrous attempt peacefully before Soul Society and Hueco Mundo tear you apart. This is suicidal."
"We're not doing so badly," retorted Mitsubishi. His eyes were innocent, above a cold smirk. "We've already got your strongest fighter, and you won't be trying anything with a policeman so close. I wonder who tipped him off?"
The Quincy, who knew personally the consequences of such reckless attack against the world of the dead, gritted his teeth and prepared to betray his conscience to the utmost. "Would you really like me to call out the Thirteen Squads to deal with you?" His fingers itched to form bow and arrow. Humanity was making everything ridiculously complicated.
Contrary to expectations, their enemy relaxed completely. "They wouldn't dare do anything. We've already captured their leader."
"…Care to repeat that?"
"Really buff old dude, huge long beard with a ribbon on it?" Mitsubishi grinned. "He's at our mercy."
The rescue party blinked as one.
"Shit."
o)0(o
"Who was that at the door, Yoruichi?" asked Urahara, poking his head out of the lab where he was conducting the usual dangerous and only vaguely ethical experiments. "It was the Soutaicho," she said with mild surprise. "He wanted to borrow a gigai." The scientist snorted with laughter. "Pull the other one."
She transformed into a cat for a few moments, so she could have a good stretch. Only a feline's spine could catch every crick with so little effort. "No, really. He charged in here yelling about Ichigo betraying him and humans and cults and something with less reiatsu than a brick and how nothing was working and demanded a gigai and then charged off again." Her back went snap, crackle, pop! "I gave him the first one to hand."
Instinct, or perhaps a long acquaintance with Sod's Law, made Urahara double-check the rack of customisable gigai across the room from the Shihouin heir. His face went white.
"You gave him the upgraded version of Rukia's humanising gigai that seals all spiritual power in about five minutes. In effect he's going to be a doddering old fogey by the time he reaches his target." Kisuke's voice was curiously blank.
"It was the first one to hand," replied the cat innocently. Silence fell as they eyed each other.
"This is why I love you," cooed Urahara, disappearing back into his workshop with a cackle of long-awaited revenge.
o)0(o
Yamamoto pounded his wooden staff against the basement door pitifully. "I'll give you…the beating…of your life!" he wheezed. He really wished he'd brought a soul candy for getting out of this damn thing. It was a good thing he'd exiled Urahara if dangerous objects like this were all he created these days – although this might be personal payback.
He glared at Ichigo from beneath his long straggly eyebrows. At least this disproved Matsumoto's report that the substitute had betrayed them for a human cult. However the truth was hardly more comforting. The idiot brat was tied to a chair he could break with his little finger and muttering about some green thing not being his friend anymore.
Locating the flashing light, the Soutaicho of Soul Society wondered what an X-Box was, and slowly froze as it occurred to him that it might be a bomb…
In the silence heated voices began to filter through the thin walls and ceiling.
o)0(o
"The soul reapers will kill you!"
Mtsubishi shrugged, hands in pockets. "Makes no difference to me."
"You may not care what happens to yourself, but are you going to drag all your friends down with you? When the Gotei are erasing their enemies, they are indiscriminate."
"You're still alive aren't you? Didn't they kill you?"
"They tried." There was steel in Ishida's solemn gaze. "They succeeded with the entirety of the rest of my family. Every Quincy got hauled off and experimented on and tortured. Is that what you want?"
"I'll be too strong for them."
Chad couldn't hide a spurt of laughter, uncommon as it was for him. The only thing that had protected the cult so far, as much as reports could indicate, was their utter weakness to begin with.
"But what about your family, Mitsubishi-san?" asked Orihime, beseeching.
"It's got nothing to do with them."
"Aah, naive..." sighed the girl, and what a low blow it was to be called naive by someone as innocent and gullible as Inoue appeared to be. "Soul Society might not stoop that low, but you're forgetting about Hueco Mundo. It's a vast dimension full of bloodthirsty monsters. They kidnapped me. They killed Ichigo. They're fast and merciless; they can fit a thousand killing blows into ten seconds. D you really think you can handle that?"
"Uh..."
"And did you think that Ichigo-kun's little sister died of natural causes?"
"Karin?" Mitsubishi seemed thrown. "I heard she hit her head and had a heart failure!"
"Oh yes," said Inoue coldly. "She hit her head on an Espada and failed to have a heart anymore after it was ripped out of her soul. They'll turn your siblings into monsters and send them out to hunt you down and kill you. And you will die. And don't expect me to bring you back."
"Like you could!" scoffed the boy, latching onto the only part of her speech he thought he could understand.
"Tsubaki!"
The widescreen television in the living room was gouged into two halves.
"Shun'ou, Ayame!"
In a pool of tangerine light, the plastic and metal was swiftly reconstructed.
Mitsubishi looked rather white.
"I can do that to people too."
Mitsubishi sat down shakily. "Please...if that breaks my dad will kill me."
"Ichigo was torn to shreds and dead for two or three days," rumbled Sado Yasutora, deep voice forbidding. "A broken television is hardly on the same scale."
"You don't have the nerve to stand and fight in this war," hissed the last Quincy. "So don't you dare get in the way of those who do."
o)0(o
The leader of the Cult of Prometheus may have been disturbed by this, but he wasn't the only one whose opinion was being swayed. The entire parley had sifted into the basement. It was sobering.
The Soutaicho stared gravely at his unique substitute shinigami, who always acted without regard for him, as some kind of misguided freelance hero.
Ichigo was all of sixteen years old now, taking the world's responsibilities onto his shoulders and calling himself a man; but to the patriarch of Soul Society he might as well have been a baby.
Weak, and helpless, and crying as he could no longer maintain his state of denial with such damning words falling from above, he was locked in a vulnerable state by the Cult's poisons.
Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni, founder of Seireitei and leader of all shinigami for the past two millennia, who had seen the rise and fall of countless rebellions against the justice and order he pursued; who had witnessed the commitment and sacrifice of fighters beyond number under his responsibility, and whose heart had grown protective callouses accordingly; stared at this tiny child who was only the latest in a long, weary line.
And his nature softened a little towards that accidentally-on-purpose vaizard.
"It must have already dawned on you that this path of battle never ends, even though that peace is all we strive for."
Ichigo looked up at the gravelly words hewn from time and experience.
"I know that you have never backed down whether you were running in the wrong direction or the right."
The fog was beginning to recede from Kurosaki's bewildered mind.
"I will not unjustly distrust you again, shinigami!"
The substitute gaped. "Am I still hallucinating?" He shook his head, groaned. "What the HELL are you doing here?"
Yamamoto frowned. "I came here to destroy you for betraying my Court of Pure Souls for a petty cult!"
"Not you, Sou-chan, I know you're not real," sniggered the boy, flapping his bound hand dismissively. "I mean why is Kyoraku-taicho popping up out of the darkness over there?"
The Soutaicho turned, and Shunsui was indeed unravelling himself from the black shadows in the corner of the dim room.
"Yo!" he saluted cheerfully, doffing a red-tasselled falchion to his wide woven hat. "Would you two like a lift out of here?"
o)0(o
They all felt them arrive, that steady rise in the background hum of reiatsu .
"We're surrounded," whimpered Mitsubishi, peering out the living room windows.
"Oh! Ichigo-kun has moved outside!" said Inoue in surprise, without looking to check. Chad asked how she could tell.
"I can smell it," the girl confided, tapping her nose.
As they discussed how Kurosaki might have teleported out of the basement, the ringleader called the other members of his cult down from where they were plotting nefariously in his bedroom. "Guys, they've come out in full force, we have to retreat!" His followers joined him in peeking through the curtains.
"I don't see anything," they complained as one.
"Just trust me on this, there's over twenty top-class soul reapers out there. Listen - you guys escape, and I'll hold them off!"
"But what about you, Mitsubishi?" cried the loyal disciples.
"Go!" he bellowed dramatically. "The back door! To the Cultmobile!"
"I told you not to call my car that," huffed his older sister, tapping her keys against her arm.
"Will you be alright?" quavered a classmate, as Ishida, Sado and Inoue simply rolled their eyes at the melodrama. Hence they missed Mitsubishi dragging Zangetsu out from beneath a sofa and pulling a small green pill from his pocket. Also known as Kon.
"I'll be fine," he grinned with confidence, pausing only to crank up the volume of a CD player in the corner of the lounge. "I'm gonna go Halo 2 on their asses!"
He hit play, and swallowed the soul candy.
o)0(o
The full array of captains and vices waiting patiently out in the street greeted Kyoraku with casual waves as he materialised from the shade beneath a tree with his passengers intact. To any normal passer-by it appeared deserted, but on the spiritual side things were getting rather crowded.
The Soutaicho leaned against his staff and allowed his power to pour out, gushing through his false body at such magnitude that it caused the energy-sapping technology in the gigai to short-circuit. The flare completely masked the thin plume of foreign reiatsu drifting up from the suburban house behind him.
In no time at all the prototype gigai exploded, scattering charred lumps of synthetic flesh all across the pavement.
"The exile Urahara Kisuke has not yet made the cage that can entrap me," dismissed their leader in his old, gnarled voice.
A few of his best soldiers cheered inappropriately. In the silence that followed, music could be heard blaring from the open windows of Mistubishi's home.
If you wanna see some action! Got to be the centre of attraction!
Backed by the swooping howls of manic guitars, the singer pelted out her lyrics with pride.
Now you feel like Number One, shining like the midday sun! Living out your fantasy, the brightest star for all to seeeeee~!
The front door crashed open and the cult-leader sprang forth, black robes streaming, and the dark sweep of Zangetsu's cleaver blade gleaming slickly under the bright sunlight.
"…KAME HAME HAAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA!"
A sliver of blue light wobbled towards the legions of the dead, fizzling out an inch away from their eyes.
Someone coughed awkwardly.
"Dude, I've seen Don Kanonji do better than that," slurred Ichigo disdainfully.
Mitsubishi skidded to a halt in front of near-enough thirty expert shinigami officers, panting from exertion, struggling to even lift the wickedly sharp zanpakuto that was meant to make him so strong. Some of them had started arguing amongst themselves in whispers, utterly unfazed by his assault.
We have to defeat her Sentaro! Before she steals Ukitake-taicho away from us forever!
Fine! I will make a truce with you for now, Kiyone. But know that as soon as Rukia is out of the way, I shall once more be Jyuushiro-taicho's greatest subordinate!
Ha! We'll just see about that!
Bewildered by his opponents' blank and disinterested faces, the human-turned-rogue-shinigami began to shiver and edge back without even intending to. Pressure was pushing him away without a single finger being raised against him.
As his sister's car swerved out of the driveway and catapulted down the street, running over several captains in its path if only they weren't intangible; Mitsubishi started to feel terribly alone. He'd been stupid.
They'd warned him. The Quincy had said he'd be killed for his transgressions, and judging by the murderous look on the old man's face, the Quincy had told the exact truth.
He'd shrugged it off with the knowledge that he was already technically deceased, after stealing a reaper's powers; but for the first time he thought to wonder whether he could die twice.
"Him!" shouted a strange man in white robes. The teenager winced as he recognised this as the afro-shinigami he had captured first in his mission to imitate his neighbour's prodigious strength.
"Soutaicho-sama! I am Kurumadani Zennosuke, the shinigami currently on patrol duty in Karakura town! That human took my powers from me by force!" The low-ranking death god, not that he would admit it; gesticulated madly. No one would be happy about a portion of their soul being ripped out by a noob.
Rukia glanced at Ichigo and then looked away from the scene, whistling guiltily. In a way this was her fault, albeit for doing the morally right thing. It is a terrible thing to set a precedent.
Mitsubishi squeaked and hid behind Zangetsu, attempting to avoid the terrifying patriarch of the dead as he loomed over the ringleader of Prometheus. "W-what went wrong?" he shouted towards Kurosaki; "Is your mother really a shinigami?"
Still swaying slightly, Ichigo was facing the opposite direction when he answered. "N…nope! Haa! I'm just awesome…like Goku…"
Like a red stamp of rejection, crimson flames raced across the pavement into a deadly square that caged Mitsubishi on all sides. Yamamoto's judgement instantly cancelled out all other inane conversations, his steel gauntlet had finally been thrown. The ancient master of the other side struck the base of his staff against the ground and it clashed with the ringing sound of hidden metal. Its true identity: Ryuujin Jakka.
"I have no respect for you," he meted out in a dark voice. "Nor time, nor sympathy, nor patience. For what reason does a feckless worm sabotage the work of eagles; when they are already engaged in war!"
The last member of the Cult of Prometheus made no attempt to go down gracefully with his sinking ship of a rebellion. Zangetsu slipped from his weak grip and clattered sideways, he raised his arms above his head in instinctive defence.
"I-I know about the war! I've seen them! I've seen all of those monsters, and they terrified me! Have you ever been alive; do you even remember how it feels to be this weak and left to die in the background of dead men's battles? I-I-I wanted to be able to protect myself, because we're like gnats to them!"
"You may cast your fear aside." His voice slowly building to a roar, the Commander-General simultaneously cast his arms wide to exhibit all of his proud and powerful officers. "Our sole purpose in the afterlife is to protect you. But I will never suffer my shinigamis to be in danger from those they protect!" The fires rushed skywards.
Struggling for oxygen, Mitsubishi crumpled to the floor, subservient and beaten.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, I swear!" he gasped, as the flames flickered out.
"You won't be able to do it again," was the Soutaicho's final forbidding statement. He nodded to two captains, delegating the matter of removing the boy's spiritual powers to them.
As the chosen pair stepped forwards, every other shinigami present took several massive steps backwards, gulping in horror at such an unholy combination. The music still echoing from house's windows suddenly changed to creeping, chilling reverberations.
"Kurumadani, you will be under the care of Unohana-taicho and Kurotsuchi-taicho until such time as your zanpakuto and powers are restored to you."
The former reaper cringed, and blanched outright white as Mayuri tapped his chin with an over-long nail and mused, "Hmmm, perhaps with a few modifications when we restore them…"
Unohana directed a calm, vicious gaze at her colleague that sent many of the more squeamish vice-captains fleeing for their lives. "Not whilst I hold seniority over you, Kurotsuchi-san;" she admonished softly.
Most of the people with survival instincts left at that point.
With the issue of the Cult of Prometheus now settled Ichigo staggered forwards to snatch back Zangetsu and hug the black sword to his chest.
As the commander and the two captains hauled Ichigo's neighbour through a senkai gate, Zennosuke trailing miserably in their wake; the eyes of the remaining shinigamis turned away, and took the time to examine their surroundings properly.
To whit, Kuchiki Byakuya's gaze fell upon Kuchiki Rukia, and the latter responded with a nervous, guilty smile.
"G-good afternoon, Nii-sama…"
"Rukia," he stated coolly; "this was an officers-only summons. It is time you learned to cease inviting yourself along upon the assignments of others."
Ukitake waved cheerfully. "Ah, Byakuya-san, Rukia-chan is in fact my new-"
But the noble had already spotted the badge adorning his sister's arm, and the razor blossoms of Senbonzakura were already dancing and shimmering in the air.
"You can't mollycoddle her forever, you know," sighed Jyuushiro, shrugging. "In fact, impeding her development in this way is only going against Hisana's dying wish that you look after her sister. Right?"
Silent, stony-faced, Byakuya unleashed a torrent of deadly pink sakura in his senpai's direction.
One instantaneous reaction later; and every last petal was entrapped in a glistening wall of ice.
Rukia twitched, hid Sode no Shirayuki behind her back and tried to pretend the glacier wasn't hers. In the back of her mind, a euphoric feeling was screaming.
Holy shit, I just defeated Nii-sama! I am SO DEAD!
At the far end of the perfectly normal suburban road, Kiyone and Sentaro peered around a corner and decided that their futile plan to destroy Rukia and regain their captain's full attention was inherently doomed.
After a shocked stretch of silence, Byakuya closed his hanging jaw and moved to counterattack. However, Ukitake leapt into action at that point, and a blink later the Kuchiki was alone.
"I think I need to hide for a while," suggested Rukia, temporarily safe in her taicho's arms as they flash-stepped far away.
"Agreed."
o)0(o
Shinigami Cup!
o)0(o
Knock, knock, knock!
"Go away! I'm not coming out!"
Rattatat-tat!
"Tell your descendents to fetch me in two hundred years, when Nii-sama calms down! Until then, NO!"
"But Rukia-chan!" came a muffled voice through the layer of wood; "You're missing out!"
Rukia sighed, broke the kido seal locking the cupboard shut and slid Ichigo's closet door open. She was dressed in Yuzu's white pyjamas, surrounded by offerings of incense to appease evil spirits and held her hands together in a praying position.
She looked at the owner of said wardrobe, fell off her shelf in shock and started rolling on the floor again in yet another paroxysm of laughter.
Ichigo blinked down at her vapidly, scowl out in full force. Above the scowl was a fetching pink princess hat complete with long trailing gauze. Below the scowl was a ruffled, flouncy green dress stitched from old clinic bed sheets, with stylish ruches and a Quincy Cross embellishment picked out in large blue sequins. Tucked into the bodice was Ichigo-chan, his belovéd strawberry doll.
"Hello, shinigami."
His eye was twitching.
"I am a helpless damsel in distress."
Rukia felt like she was about to die from lack of air.
"Would you please rescue me?"
She died.
o)0(o
Rukia: What's Mitsubishi doing in your room?
Kon: Kon-sama is looking after his body until his soul is brought back!
Ichigo: About that…YOU LEFT MY BODY OUT IN THE STREET!
Kon: I was kidnapped too, ya know!
Ichigo: It got taken back to the clinic in an ambulance! They told my dad I was dead! Yuzu nearly had a nervous breakdown!
Kon: Yeah, yeah…you're just jealous that I got a hug!
Ichigo: You're a faulty product! I'm sending you back to Soul Society for dismantling!
Kon: NOOO!
o)0(o
Chapter notes: Shout out to blueturtle/turtle chan in blue for Sentaro and Kiyone's evil subplot! And of course, the songs Mitsubishi plays are the background theme music for the anime. Kame hame haaa and Goku are from Dragonball Z as 99 percent of you will probably know, and I'm sure the Cultmobile is a Mitsubishi make.
Updates should be faster from now on, as I'm slightly less busy and we're on to the awesome part.
All reviews are loved and read many many times.