Chapter 19.5 Interlude

"I've never really had any plans against any attacks. I just knew I had to win so I did." - Ichigo Kurosaki

1. The tone matters! Cont.

...

Trial 5: Worshipping Tones

Model: Hinamori Momo

Target: Komamura Sajin

"And what do I owe the… pleasure… of your visit, Kurotsuchi?"

"Ah, well, you see Komamura, I have grown quite interested in you. Your animal like appearance and behavior combined with your immense reiatsu has always had me intrigued." he started, causing the man to cock a head in curiosity.

"Where is this coming from, Kurotsuchi?"

"I was hoping you would give me the honor of obtaining a small sample from you, for study? I want to learn more about you, captain." the scientist enunciated, eyes still completely level.

He could clearly see the flattered surprise in the animal like captain, who narrowed his eyes before sighing. "I suppose a small sample could do no harm, especially in troubling times such as these." he said seeing to convince himself. "What would you like?"

Success- though ill advised due to the high distaste from such actions from the performer.

...

Trial 6: Pitiful Tones

Model: Kira Izuru

Target: Isane Kotetsu

"Isane, please set up the files for the captain while I gather the proper equipment for the checkup." Unohana said with her usual sweet smile, nodding to the scientist before leaving the room with elegant robes in her wake. Her lieutenant, Isane Kotetsu, seemed to be increasingly uncomfortable in the situation having already finished pulling the files and being alone in the room with a mad scientist. Because apparently even the man who artificially adjusted his own body to his needs still needed checkups as per Unohana's irrefutable order.

The ma seemed to gain a glint in his eyes unnoticed by the woman, before sighing. She looked up curiously.

"Is everything a-alright, sir? You aren't coming down with anything are you?"

Of course not! Even if I had succumbed to something so low I could cure it much better than any could! He mentally yelled, frustration seeming to project in his voice when he replied. "Of course not."

She flinched, nodding.

"Though, I suppose I could do with more to work with… It's a scientist's disease you see."

"H-how do you mean?"

"Why lieutenant, imagine if you were a scientist hoping to further your work, but you could not obtain proper subjects to test your theories! It is a stalemate of curiosity, theory must be tested… otherwise it is nauseatingly infuriating." he suppressed a snarl at the last words, wishing nothing more than to simply leave with his test subject and get to work.

"And this is why you're reiatsu has been fluctuating, sir?"

"Possibly." he shrugged, grinning. "If you could help me, I suppose it will cure itself, no?"

She stood froze in her spot, not making any sign of answer as the door slid open revealing a smiling Unohana.

She ushered her lieutenant from the room and locked the door, she was much harsher in her work than usual.

High potential- expand further.

…

Trial 7: Original

Model: Kurotsuchi Mayuri

Target: Hitsugaya Toshiro(?)

Kurotsuchi stepped forward, eyes boring into the ball of reiatsu in front of him, sitting so innocently waiting for the next question.

"When you return, Hitsugaya, I will need to do several tests on you this is a strange phenomenon after all."

To this, the ball of energy spiked in horror and repulsing, a clear 'no way in a frozen hell' lasting in the air as Kyouraku snickered from beside him.

Failure. Hunting target advised.

-END-

2. I'm Bored!

A new look on a certain voice's opinion of the outside world.

OR a collection of inner thoughts that our little prodigy isn't entire aware of.

WARNING of GRATUITOUS amounts of SWEARING- at least more than usual...

...

~Paperwork

"This paperwork is really boring."

"Didn't we just fill something out that said the exact same thing"

"They destroyed a building while acting in a theater? How stupid!"

"See even the half pint thinks this is stupid."

"How much money do these people have?"

"That's one of the most stupid things I have ever seen."

"...I stand corrected."

"I'm really fucking bored."

~On a job

"When is this kid gonna figure it out."

"Well I guess that requires more info…"

"But I can't give him that."

"This is so slow."

"Kid I swear to the frosted hell on earth if you do not stop negotiating and kill this dumbass-"

"Oh good. He knocked the guy out."

"I'm bored."

~Training

"This kid only trains"

"I bet if he used my power he would be able to destroy that rock"

"I wonder if that sword ever dulls."

"How is he not tired yet I'm bored already."

"…and he went overtime again. This is messy."

"Freaking kids."

~Edolas wandering

"Dragneel is going to kill us all."

"wHY would you try that Dragneel"

"These cats make me mad"

"And hungry."

"No you MIDGET DO NOT STOOP TO THAT LEVEL"

"And he's doing it."

"At least we have food now"

"Yes yes yes punch him do it."

"Freaking kids."

"Why are mushroom trampolines a thing"

"Did we just land in a house"

"What."

~Confronting Carla

"Yes kid say that"

"Keep talking you're right in this"

"No don't back down this girl is stupid."

"kID no keep pushing it."

"You are going to be right you know it."

"Freaking kids."

~Torture chamber

"This bitch"

"Let me out"

"I wanna punch this asshole"

"Let me out."

"Kid listen to me"

"I swear if you hit this kid one more time-"

"THAT'S IT LET ME THE FUCK OUT"

"DAMN THIS BODY."

~During fights

"This feels nice"

"Let it all out kid, that's good."

"Yes do that."

"Keep doing that."

"No wait no-"

"This is stressful."

"Oh cool he can hear me now."

"Maybe now he can let me kill that guy."

"Maybe."

3. The many adventures of a strawberry and a cat

"Ichigo..."

…

"Iiiichigooooo"

…

"Ichigoooooooooo!"

The orange haired substitute let out an irritated groan, wiping the wet hair from his forehead. "What?!"

He loved heat, but this was just stupid.

Rangiku pouted. "It's so hot out, Ichigo!"

He scoffed. "At least you're in your spirit body."

"But Ichigo! I'm so used to Captain's reiatsu I'm sensitive to heat!"

"Bull. No one gets used to Toshiro's reiatsu." he countered.

"But It's so hot! I' wet and sticky all over, Ichigo! Fix it!"

"Don't say stuff like that!"

She moaned again, before huffing. "Fine, I'll just-"

But Ichigo was already stopping her from her actions. "Stop!"

She cocked her head, hand still at the buttons of her shirt. "What?"

"You will not strip here!" he yelled, face the same color as Renji's hair. Again the sad pout was on her full lips.

"But no one can see me! It's not indecent!"

"I can see you," he fired back, hands already flying to his eyes (through his fingers were admittedly parted slightly) and raising his voice. "Now stop! I'll fan you or something just don't-"

"Aww, Ichigo you're so sweet! Your reactions are the best~"

Ichigo vowed glumly never to let this woman stay in a room with Yoruichi Shihouin for more than five minutes after this experience, fanning away at the invisible woman.

…

A loud rumble echoed through the inn room, alerting both of its inhabitants to its source's predicament. Rangiku giggled, offering only a knowing smirk at the sulking man.

"Someone's hungry."

"Not my fault I'm a human and need food." He groaned. "We have no money…"

Her eyes lit up instantly. "I'll just go get something then!"

He offered a sharp look. "We are not shoplifting."

She waved this off with a dismissive hand. "It's fine! No one will know, no one can see me!"

He kept his face flat, offering a counterpoint. "They can see floating food though."

To this she had nothing to say.

(However, this didn't stop her from doing it. Rather she seemed quite content with scaring citizens with floating merchandise. Ichigo made a note to be careful what he said from then on.)

….

"Did you really not do any paperwork?" Ichigo asked. The question was out of the blue, coming up after a horrifying dinner prepared the by the lieutenant herself, served with a proud smile. Once they (read, she) was content, he had the thought and immediately voiced it. However, she simply pouted.

"I do paperwork! I'm just allergic, if I do too much my complexion sours."

He raised a bemused eyebrow at this. "Really now?" She nodded fervently.

"Yep! He's just asleep when I get there..."

"You only do it when he's asleep?" he asked, voice slowly becoming more and more incredulous. Once again he received energetic nods.

"Of course! It's a morale booster to wake up in the morning with more work done than you realized you know!"

"That sounds like laziness to me."

"Hey, morale boosting is my job! I do it perfectly fine."

"Do all lieutenants do that stuff?"

"Of course. The captains are so imposing, so we lieutenants need to bridge the gap and provide some humanity to their untouchability!" she said cheerfully. "Otherwise everyone would be depressed and terrified for their lives."

Ichigo blinked. He had been aware that the captains were imposing, but imagining someone like Ukitake being able to impose fear and terror in the hearts of men seemed a bit too wrong to him.

Then again, he had been wrong before.

…

"So what was it like when my dad was your captain?"

He hadn't meant to stir up emotions, really. He had been curious, wondering how a stupid goof like his dad could have been a military commander. He hadn't meant to fan an unknown fire. All the same, it had been fueled. Rangiku's tone went flat, along with her expression.

"Annoying."

This answer surprised him. "Really?! I thought you two would have gotten along."

Again, he hadn't meant to do it, but here he was looking icy blue eyes head on.

"He was so lazy!" she started, hands moving with her words as he thought about the irony of the complaint. "I always had to go chasing him everywhere while Toshiro did all the paperwork!"

Ichigo raised his brows at the change in address of the former captain. Normally she would call Toshiro captain, but now she had switched to his first name, and he wondered whether or not she had become overtaken by memory.

(He also wondered why Toshiro was the one doing paperwork even back then, but he let her continue.)

"He hid sweets all over the office and always tried to oggle me all the time!" she huffed. "And his attacks! You know, he went to all of the new seated members and flew through the window for a welcome greeting, sometimes from the ceiling or floorboards!"

"Sounds about right." Ichigo mumbled, thinking to almost every arrival at the home he had ever experienced. His father was… creative.

"If you look around the tenth you'll find little alcoves- it's where he hid to freak out subordinates, made them himself." she added, before grinning. "I use them to store sake now, and sometimes Toshiro hid in there when Zaraki came round for a spar. But Captain Shiba used to do that all the time, he almost got decapitated when Toshiro jumped to a seated position- and he was still laughing! Not to mention he always referred to us as son and daughter- honestly. From what i heard even at the captain meetings he did that! Honestly he was so embarrassing…"

Again, Ichigo thought this sounded very accurate. The very spontaneous, overly doting man he knew as a father would very happily have taken in people like Rangiku and Toshiro.

"Now that I think of it we were a lot like a family…" she said, seemingly pondering over memories. "He always doted on us and teased us, especially when Toshiro made his way to third seat. He used to pick Toshiro up by the hip and spin him around- it was so cute, Ichigo!" She squealed, though Ichigo was only imagining a very small Toshiro angrily kicking his father with his short legs- more comical than anything else. "And when we got hurt or anything he always got involved… heck he gained a lot of fear when Toshiro joined cause no one took him seriously and he got mad. The division nearly fell apart when he... left."

She paused, finally realizing she was ranting. Ichigo couldn't help a warm feeling in his chest. From the way Rangiku had described, when his dad had been their captain they had a lot of fun. Warm, happy fun, with true care and fun in their lives. But then something strange clicked in his mind.

"Why didn't you become captain? You said Toshiro was a third seat."

This question seemed to take the woman off guard. She had been expecting the boy to ask more about her old captain, or her current one, but not about herself. She shrugged.

"It's not that I didn't want it. Toshiro and I always had little bouts about who would get bankai first, mostly for laughs- you know he moved from 9th to third seat in the span of three months? There wasn't much contest."

She heard the light undertones of "damn prodigy" as she continued.

"Besides, really he was a much better fit." she sighed. "He's a genius, master of strategy and powerful to boot. He's serious and can ma snap decisions, so really he's the ideal captain. Even Captain Shiba always said he would get the job- he wasn't wrong. As for me, I'm a connector. While Toshiro's terrible with people, I can reach them and sympathize, the bridge between captain and third seat is very large, you know. We were luck captain Shiba cared so much about him or age would have been pretty much ignored."

"You still haven't gotten bankai?" He asked- though she knew he didn't mean it as a jab. After all, she had been training far too hard for someone like Ichigo to make that kind if remark with ill intent.

"Haineko just… isn't cooperating, I guess. She never has."

Understanding the signal not to pry, he motioned for her to continue her previous topic.

"It's alright, really. Lieutenants have more free time and their meetings are way better! Captains meetings are so dull and stuffy- it's always like summer in there! i can finally appreciate that…Hell for captain, gotta say…"

Back to calling him captain I see...

He let the woman blabber on, and couldn't help but grin. He felt a little bad for having to take these things from them, but in a sense they were all family then.

It only made him want to find Toshiro even more.

4. It's about pride, dammit! Cont.

"Where exactly are planning to find a feline partner, Redfox?"

"I'll find it of I have to scavenge the damned sewers!"

Toshiro sighed, arms crossed across his chest as he reluctantly followed the Iron Dragon Slayer through the town. After being dragged away from his previous paperwork for the senseless hunt he had hoped to escape the second he got an opportunity, but of course this plan was foiled the second he remembered that going back to guild also meant going back to loud raucous bar fights based on nonsensically irrelevant topics. At the very least, Gajeel was silent in his ridiculous determination.

Toshiro, usually only exploding the town during the night, was actually rather surprised at the amount of merchandise for the guild members sold by vendors in the daily. Even more so for s class wizards, dragon slayers, and women. Such merchandise included movable (and undressable) figurines, pamphlets, books on battle statistics of the members, art, and posters. Naturally, at one point or there he had bought the battle book, leaving the smiling vendor a bit more than slightly disturbed by the news that his own stocks had been near sold out.

On the plus side, Gajeel had been correct in that they did indeed have pedestals on their figurines, in case they were to ever acquire feline companions. Like that would ever happen.

Toshiro watched as Gajeel went into yet another alley, seeing large amount of cats and rather aggressively examining them. He would have felt bad, but he had never particularly cared for the creatures after one unfortunate time when one spent an entire day clinging to his hair.

"Redfox, I wouldn't be so rough, they still have-" he said, trying to warn the man who was gripping a sleek black cat that was trying to break free. He heard a loud yell of pain and a yowl from the cat.

"- claws… " he trailed off, sighing in defeat as the rest of the cats took followed the first in their assault.

"Idiot."

-END-

5. The logistics of sharing a dragon- the children's perspective

"So, I get the wings and legs. You get the head and tail, right?" Wendy asked. "Why? That seems like I get most of the work…"

He offered only a light glare at this. "I don't control the way this is distributed, marvel! Besides, without the tail you can flap all you want, you won't be directed anywhere."

To this she pouted. "But I have all four legs!"

"Would you rather we had to divide the legs between us and cause more complication?"

The pout deepened.

He rolled his eyes. "It's probably because you have the air element, so you cover more in terms of motion. You can manipulate wind to assist the wings and enhance the feet so they move faster and stronger." He reasoned. "My element is more offensive, so roars from the head and claws will have more effect. Tail swings will be more powerful with ice reinforcement, and I have more experience with such things."

"But what if I mess up? You're the one who actually got a chance to fly around with a tail and wings before this!"

He shrugged. "You'll be fine as long as you stay on your…feet… oh."

They both looked at each other for a very long time, neither saying anything as the point was made.

He finally sighed. "We should practice."

…

Wendy panted, feeling her arms still pulsating with power as she struggled to keep on her feet. They had been drilling movements and maneuvers, attack after attack, combination after combination, and sustaining the thing was one of the hardest things she had ever done on such rocky terrain. She moved her tired muscles along and the dragon followed suit.

Toshiro, who was not tired in the slightest, raised the dragon's maw, letting the tail flick almost playfully at the sluggish pace of the wings.

They had resorted to flying after seven attempts to work on the ground, all ending with a high pitched yelp and a face plant, leading to sharp low hisses of pain as the dragon crumbled into nothingness.

He moved to the girl, placing a hand on her arm and allowing more magic energy to flow as they continued, but to his dismay the girl crumpled to the ground panting. The moment her knees hit the ground everything vanished and he let out a grunt ad collapsed as well.

"Marvel…" he groaned. "We have work to do."

She nodded breathlessly.

6. The logistics of sharing a dragon- the "adult's" perspective

"That stupid ice brat gets all the cool powers! I wanna grow wings and fly!" Natsu whined.

"Probably because he has such a huge supply of magic power." Gray reasoned. "You can do a lot with that kinda reserve- don't think I've ever seen it run out."

"Yeah, but there has to be a limit!" Lucy added. "He can literally make dragons! Not to mention his unison raid with wendy!"

"That was very powerful…" Erza mused. "I could feel its effects from my battle station- I even had to switch my armor." And while she did enjoy the fashion of the military style coat of her freeze resistant armor, she would rather have had speed or strength at her calling. "All that training must pay off well."

"But it's movements were pretty sloppy…" Happy said cheerfully, as if proud of the dragon's clumsiness. " bet they didn't know what they were doing!"

"That would be because they had to split control." Carla said, seeming rather irritated by the whole conversation- not that anyone wasn't used to it. "It wasn't very coordinated…"

"But guys!" Natsu interjected. "Think about it! Imagine if we could fly to all of our missions on the dragon!"

"What happened to being motion sick?!" Lucy asked, to which Natsu turned on him with horror.

"Dragons aren't vehicles!" he said. "They're comrades!"

"Of course…" Lucy said, raising her hands in surrender after forgetting about Natsu's seemingly selective motion sickness.

"But you know, if thy trained enough that dragon could be used for many things…" Erza mused. "Perhaps a mascot?"

"Or a snow cone maker!"

"How about a hair dryer?"

"We could refrigerate our food on its back for days!"

Meanwhile, in the back corner of the guild the two children slayers had gone very pale. The prospect of doing such tasks for so long too daunting to even think about.

AN.

You know, I only just realized that I've been kinda heavily Carla bashing- strange since I actually really like Carla. Also, remember not to take these seriously, it's just cushion because I need time to get ahead on chapters. Though I suppose you can call these little hints at plot.

Expect chapter 20 in the hour!

Hope you enjoyed!

-jenumire