In which there is alot of cursing because coarse speech patterns is automatically linked to harsh language in my mind.

Come What May
Top of the Caste

"This is bullshit." Ikkaku grumbled to himself. Yeah, okay, so maybe he deserved it. 'Cause, you know, cleaning the classroom and the entire outside hall by himself just for making one of the assistant teachers cry was actually a pretty good trade.

For the third time since class got out he heard the door slide back and three other assistants exiting the classroom.

"Hey, baldy!" One of them called out mockingly. "You missed a spot!" The other two laughed. Ikkaku narrowed his eyes and suppressed a growl, watching them spread the mud from their waraji down his recently cleaned hall for the third time that evening.

Maybe it /wasn't/ so fair. At least not with those dipshits goin' around and purposefully tracking crap all over the damn place. 'Sides. She deserved it. Sorta. Pickin' on all the pretty girls in class because they looked a helluva lot better than her wrinkly ass self. And, because he told her so, she started getting all huffy and high and mighty and said something about stupid bald-headed freaks and of COURSE he wasn't going to let that go and…

He thought for a moment.

Okay, so maybe he went SLIGHTLY (very slightly, almost imperceptibly) overboard when he said she'd have better luck getting a good-lookin' guy's attention if she wore a Hollow mask over that shriveled up, burnt crater she called a face.

Peeking back into classroom he saw the floor was covered in tracks, dirt smeared on the walls and ceiling. The chairs were stacked in an unruly pyramid on a group of desks in the back of the class and the rest of them formed a small maze for him to navigate through.

Teeth grinding and broom handle on the verge of snapping in his hands, Ikkaku bit his lip and tried to resign himself to fate of no sleep tonight.

Two hours later, after getting the rest of the room cleaned and straightened out, he attempted to tackle the chairs. Ten minutes later a muffled scream of frustration and fury was heard from the collapsed pyramid.

When Nemu entered the class, she was surprised to find that everyone was talking and giggling quietly to themselves. The cause for this, she found, was the body lying sprawled on the floor near an overturned chair at the far corner of the room. A couple of the guys were daring each other to poke at it but no one took it up.

Leaning to peer over the desks, Nemu got a clear view of the body and recognized it as Madarame. Frowning slightly (she knew about his punishment and couldn't understand why he would be sleeping in the classroom if all he had to do was clean) Nemu approached the snoring boy and knelt down. If no one else was going to do it she supposed she would have to. After all, it was only proper.

The first time she tapped his shoulder. No response. The second time she shook his shoulder lightly. Still nothing. She shook it a little harder and he just snorted.

"No, no, no." Someone said over Nemu's shoulder. A broadly built student with shades that took up almost half his face- Iba, she recalled –told her, "Like this." He slammed his foot into Madarame's stomach, yelling at the top of his lungs: "GET UP YOU LAZY ASS BASTARD BEFORE WE HANG YOU UPSIDE DOWN FROM THE TREE NAKED AGAIN!" He stomped down a couple more times for good measure.

Madarame, choking from the assault, flailed wildly. "I'M UP DAMMIT I'M UP!" He rolled to his side, gasping for air. It was around that time he noticed the entire class was howling with laughter at him. Face flaring brightly he shot out, "WHAT?"

"Hang you upside down from a tree?" Matsumoto asked, raising an eyebrow. "Naked? AGAIN?"

"Shut up." He retorted before turning to Iba. "You're dead. You're so dead you'll wish you weren't."

Patting Madarame's head as if he were a child, the other student just chuckled. "Of course, kiddo. Of course." He snatched his hand back before Madarame had a chance to bite it.

Bracing a hand against a desk, Madarame pushed himself to his feet and noticed Nemu, still kneeling where he had lain. "Er…" Unable to think of anything for the situation he settled with, "Good morning?"

Rolling smoothly to her feet, Nemu smoothed out her uniform and bowed shallowly. "Good morning." She turned and took her seat with the same empty expression she always had. Madarame watched her, not knowing what else to do.

An eraser hit his head. "Madarame!" The instructor snapped. "If you're awake now, straighten up that desk and sit down!"

"All right, I hear ya. Ya fat windbag."

The chalk followed the eraser. "Watch your language, brat!"

Day 5 of solo cleanup, he thought to himself. Two more days to go and thank god for that. Ikkaku leaned heavily against the broom and yawned widely. He hadn't been able to grab more than a few hours sleep each night and barely had time to eat anything asides from lunch.

This, he had decided, was not good for the soul. He even considered starting to watch what he said to people but decided against it. After all, if someone was an idiot, it had to be someone else's job to let 'em know that!

But he just scowled and continued to sweep. Everything was so damn political around here. You had to act polite and be nice and suck up to morons- and that was just to keep on their good side! To get ahead you had to ten times more fake than that! Times like this he regretted leaving the Rukongai where you said what you thought, went where you could go and did whatever it took to get what you needed. Wasn't much of a life but it was less headache inducing then this place.

A painful thwack on his shoulder jostled him out of his frustrated musing and, because crashing into the wall upset his balance, fell on his hands and knees. One of the assistant teachers (assistant teachers his eye, they were just students higher up in the academy doing teaching work as credit for one of their classes) spat on Ikkaku as they passed by.

"Get up off yer ass. Students these days are getting lazier and lazier! Honestly."

"Yeah." Another answered. "Hurry up and clean the damn classroom, will ya? Most of the teachers have already gone home and you haven't even touched it yet!"

Ikkaku watched their heavy backs jumble away, cackling loudly as they went. His mouth opened and shut with sharp little clicks that meant he was really, REALLY trying not to say anything. Man, if only this was the Rukongai, he thought. He'd show them who was in charge.

Morning saw Ikkaku sleeping in an almost clean hallway. Almost clean because he didn't get a chance to clean up absolutely everything from the upperclassmen's last romp. Sleeping because he decided he could afford rationing his consciousness for a minute and promptly fell asleep.

And then woke up because he heard the familiar and teeth grinding voices of those pricks of upperclassmen somewhere down the hall.

It took him a moment to realize that they weren't harassing him.

The voices carried from somewhere around the corner and Ikkaku could only catch a couple of words. From the sound of it they were harassing some poor girl (oh god, he hoped it was a girl), able to hear terms like 'beautiful' and 'nice ass' and 'just a little kiss'.

UGH. He scowled so hard his neck hurt. The poor girl. Were this the Rukongai, he wouldn't even give it a second thought. Unless it was someone he knew.

The thought stuck in his head. Who was it, he wondered? He snuck a glance around the corner and his eyes widened.

Kurotsuchi?

She was braced against a wall, hands clasped and head down, as if the three most disgusting guys in the whole academy weren't blatantly and horribly hitting on her.

Ikkaku frowned, hand closing over the broom by his hip. Yeah. This definitely wasn't going to happen.

Nemu was obedient. She was brought up to be obedient and doing what she was told was always the first thing in her thoughts. If her superiors told her to do something, she would do it. The only one whose orders overruled all others was Mayuri-sama. In the end, it was his order that defined her every action.

So, when faced with a situation to which he didn't give her any sort of direction, she would do what the highest positioned person would say. And, in this case, she stood by quietly as the three upperclassmen crowded around her, laughing and jostling each other as they rudely addressed her.

"Hey!" A new voice interrupted them. "Back the fuck off!"

Taken aback, Nemu looked over the other students' shoulders and straight into the glaring eyes of a broom-wielding Madarame.

"Oi." One of the upperclassmen said. "It's that bald idiot again."

"Yeah?" Another snorted. "Aren't you supposed to be cleaning something?"

"Worthless." Muttered the last.

"Get away from her. Right now."

"Or what? You gunna sweep us away?" The three cackled.

"Like you could hurt us anyway!" The first said. "We're you're superiors after all!"

That comment landed a broom handle square in the nose.

"Fuck!" He stumbled into one of his buddies, clutching his splurting nose.

"Hey you little dick!" The third snarled. "You'll get expelled for attacking us!"

"Che." Madarame replied, settling into a stance with the broom crosswise in front of his chest. "And I'll bet everyone believes you guys are friggin' angels. So how 'bout apologizing to Kurotsuchi here and running along, huh? I ain't authorized to deal with monkeys after all."

"You think you're something, don't ya? I'm gonna-" the bristles of the broom cut off the threat, scratching across his face before shoving him against the wall. He spluttered and flailed, spitting out straws as Madarame turned onto the other students.

Nemu, unsure as to what action she was to take, couldn't help the shock of surprise running through her. Madarame moved like a panther, quick and light and never once standing still. Each movement knocked the upperclassmen around and not one of their flailing attacks came close to him.

Solidly batting one of them to the ground, Madarame turned and stopped just short of pounding the broom handle into the chest of a new arrival. He looked up into a pair of slit eyes that regarded him unfavorably.

"What," the newcomer demanded roughly, "is going on here?"

The upperclassmen huddled around this new guy- swollen faced with more than one bloody nose, missing tooth and blackened eye. "Hisagi-senpai!" They pleaded. "This guy just attacked us for no reason!"

"No reason?" The apparently named Hisagi repeated. He looked up at Madarame and Nemu. "Is this true?"

"Like hell!" Madarame shot back. "They were trying to force themselves onto Kurotsuchi!"

Mildly hiding a long suffering sigh, Hisagi turned his attention to Nemu. "Which is it?"

Nemu bowed her head. "Madarame did come to my assistance, Hisagi-senpai."

"You lying bitch! We did nothing of the-hiiiii!"

Madarame snarled, pressing the blunt of the broom against the mess that was the first upperclassmen's nose. "A broken nose isn't enough to teach you to watch your mouth? I can fix that easy."

Hisagi snatched the broom away. "That's enough." He commanded. "You two," he said the Madarame and Nemu, "get to class. You three," he glared at the others, "are coming with me. I've already heard about the trouble you've caused before."

"Hi-Hisagi-senpai-"

"Move it!"

Madarame watched them leave, scowl still on his face. "Knew they weren't nothin'. Lousy, good fer nothi-"

"Madarame."

"Hm?"

Nemu's brow crinkled slightly. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Attacked them?"

He blinked. "Uh, 'cus they were being asses to you? What, was I just supposed to let that slide?"

"But they're out superiors."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Madarame claimed, throwing his arms wide. "Just 'cus they're upperclassmen doesn't make them our superiors! They're just jerks trying to flaunt the fact they're further along the academy than us! If we just let them walk all over us, what sort of message are we sending them?"

"That we can follow orders."

Silence stretched between them as Madarame tried to decide if she was being serious or joking. He came to the unfortunate conclusion that she believed what she said. "You grew up in the nicer part of the Rukongai, didn't you?" He asked, not unkindly.

"I never lived there."

"Huh." He scratched his neck, wondering if that was good or bad. Then he nodded brightly. "All right then! As you apparently don't know how to deal with these kinds of people, I'm gonna stick with you for the rest of training. Or until you can take care of yourself."

Nemu blinked in surprise. "But-"

"Nope. You need to know these things and I'm the best person for the job."

Nemu didn't know what to say in response so she said nothing. But if no one else mentioned anything about the three teacher's assistants that went missing that day or why they would wince whenever Madarame came by or did whatever he told them once they returned, Nemu decided that he might actually know something worth learning.