O Captain, My Captain

by miiikechang

After a war as crippling as the Arrancar War, Soul Society is lacking in reliable shinigami, especially Captains. What happens when a certain lieutenant is sent to the real world in search of a suitable one? Yaoi. ShuuheiXIchigo. DISCONTINUED

2. Reflection of One's Self

Tch, I was kinda hoping for more reviews, but I guess I can't expect much since this fic is just starting up and what not. I guess I'll just wait…patiently…almost desperately…for reviews…PLEASE REVIEW. I'm crying here…

CH2: Reflection of One's Self

"You're a real bastard, y'know that?" Ichigo said as he plopped himself face down on his bed. They had just finished the dinner/fight and Ichigo was dead tired…not from being full; rather it was from beating the crap out of his father.
"What can I say? I got abandoned by my father," chuckled Shuuhei in reference to his alibi. Ichigo merely shifted his head to face the other way in ignorance of Shuuhei. "Well, I guess I'll be staying here a while then," he sighed.
"No way in hell. You're leaving tomorrow" said Ichigo gruffly.
"No can do. A mission's a mission, and I'm supposed to bring back a candidate and that's what I'm gonna do." Shuuhei sat himself down on the floor and reclined against the closet door, as if waiting for Ichigo to refuse once more. Instead, Ichigo just lied on his bed, refusing to face Shuuhei. They sat like so in silence and waited for the other to say something…but nothing really came of it. It was then, that Shuuhei realized that he had absolutely no idea who Ichigo was. Sure, he knew that Ichigo had become a shinigami by abnormal circumstances, and sure he knew that Ichigo had achieved bankai in a matter of days, and sure he knew that Ichigo had defeated not one, but two captains…but what more could be said of Ichigo? Insanely strong was one thing, but what else could be said of the teenager lying in front of him? Shuuhei stared at the bright orange hair and after several minutes of contemplation, he concluded that the only other thing he knew about Ichigo…was that he was immensely anal-retentive. Shuuhei sighed to himself and mentally laughed at the lieutenant who would have to bear with this stubborn man as a captain…assuming Shuuhei could convince him to become one in the first place.
"Hey!" yelled Ichigo. Shuuhei snapped out of his trance. "God, I've been yelling at you for the past friggin 5 minutes now and all you do is give me that damn stare!"
"What do ya want?" asked Shuuhei curtly.
"…Did you ask Urahara yet?" Ichigo asked curiously, not making eye contact but facing him nonetheless.
"…I did."
"And?"
"And he refused."
"Tch, thought as much," sighed Ichigo as he turned his back to Shuuhei once more. They sat there in silence once more, again waiting for the other to speak. It was Ichigo who finally spoke first, again. "Why'd you let Urahara off so easily then?"
"…What do you mean?"
"How come you let Urahara refuse, but won't let me refuse?" asked Ichigo, lowering his voice considerably.
"…I didn't say I wasn't letting you refuse. But…you didn't seem to put a lot of thought into my offer. Urahara-san at least considered the idea before he rejected…" lied Shuuhei as he remembered how bluntly and flatly Urahara had rejected. "So that's why I've been forced to resort to living with you. So that I can…persuade you, I guess."
"Yeah, well, all you're doing is just making me more pissed off" answered Ichigo, the roughness back in his voice. It was at that moment the rest of the family chose to pop into Ichigo's room.

"Hello, hello my two dearest sons!" cried Isshin. He jumped in and started doing a pirouette that ended up as a full-on roundhouse kick to Ichigo's face…that was promptly blocked by Ichigo.
"I had enough for one day, old man," muttered Ichigo tersely.
"Otou-san, Onii-san, that's enough!" cried Yuzu as she walked in, hauling what looked like a bed frame.
"Oye, you two, help me with this!" shouted Karin from the bottom of the stairs. Shuuhei stood up and walked outside to see Karin dragging a large mattress up the stairs. He went up to the mattress, grabbed it, and dragged it one-handed the rest of the way.
"Y―You got big guns there…" muttered Karin in disbelief. Shuuhei smiled at the praise.
"Yeah! Shuu-san may be even stronger than Ichigo!" chimed in Yuzu. Ichigo scowled at this and turned his back to the rest of the family.

After setting up the bed frame, they had to decide where to put it. Initially, they had wanted to fit it snugly between a wall and the foot of Ichigo's bed, but that proved difficult to manage since it was too big to fit in. After moving the frame from one spot to another, they finally decided to throw Ichigo's table into the corner at the foot of Ichigo's bed and to place Shuuhei's bed right next to Ichigo's bed.
"Then how do I get outta my bed?" asked Ichigo stubbornly.
"You just crawl across Shuuhei's bed, duh," answered Karin sarcastically. Ichigo grimaced at the thought of having to crawl over the other man's body.
"Can't…can't we put a little space inbetween the beds?"
"Nope. There's barely enough room in your room as it is. If we put a space in between your two beds, then Shuu-san's bed would be put up right against the closet and that would block it out completely," stated Yuzu in a 'matter of fact' tone. "Besides, it's not like you're sharing the same bed; it's still two separate beds." Ichigo shook his head at this. The two twin size beds put together seemed to resemble a large queen size/king size bed.
"Ohoho…I know why Ichigo is being so picky!" chirped Isshin as he reentered the room. "It's because Ichigo gets all clingy at night. When he was little, he would run into my bed and snuggle up beside me and cry because something had scared hi―" Isshin didn't get to finish his sentence. Ichigo had swooped him up in a massive bear hug and was squeezing all the air out of him. Shuuhei just laughed. He was getting used to their display of…well not love, per se, but something like it. After setting up the mattress and putting on the bedspreads, the family left the two to themselves once more. Isshin shot one last comment before leaving.
"If you're not the touchy-feely type, I'd suggest putting a pillow inbetwe―" Isshin was thrown out of the room before he could finish.

Ichigo sat on his bed doing his homework while Shuuhei rummaged through Ichigo's closet in search of something suitable to wear.
"Oye, don't be so fucking picky. Just find something already," grunted Ichigo as he started graphing a certain function. But Shuuhei wasn't being picky. Rather, he was just amazed at the amount of clothes Ichigo had…and the type of clothes they were. Most (if not all) Ichigo's clothes seemed to be tight-fitting clothes, the type that would snap to your body and expose well-toned muscles. Definitely something Shuuhei would want to wear.
"I'm not being picky…it's just that…I've never had such a wide, selection, I guess…" muttered Shuuhei. He thought back as far as he could and remembered the rags he had worn when he was still in the Rukongai. The Shinigami Academy uniforms were a welcome improvement, but they didn't leave much for the imagination. And even as a lieutenant, he was forced to wear the same standard Shinigami clothes everyday. The most he could do to vary his look was to cut off the long sleeves. He sighed as he kept rummaging through clothes and then realized something subtly funny.
"What, no undergarments?" asked Shuuhei jokingly. Ichigo looked up from his homework, pencil in mouth, with a questioning look in his face. He pointed at the drawer at the bottom. "These…are shorts…really really short shorts. And thin too…" said Shuuhei as he held up the said undergarment.
"They're called boxers…" said Ichigo, trying to suppress a smirk. "You said you wanted undergarments, so there ya go."
"…No fundoshis?(1)" asked Shuuhei skeptically.
"You're…you're kidding, right?" asked Ichigo, now chuckling aloud.
"What? You never seen one before?" asked Shuuhei incredulously. He pulled his jeans off to reveal a black, satin fundoshi. "See, this is a fundoshi" explained Shuuhei as he pointed.

It wasn't that he didn't like fundoshis. Nor was it that he didn't like the view before him. Far from it. Ichigo stared intently and felt a blush rising to his face.
"Oye, Ichigo, you're bleeding" said Shuuhei. True enough, a slow trickle of blood was flowing from his left nostril(2). As he stumbled out of bed to get to the bathroom, he mentally thanked God. Shuuhei really didn't understand what thoughts Ichigo was having at that moment. But then again, neither did Ichigo. Men really weren't at the top of his nosebleed list…or at least, they weren't supposed to be. He sighed as he sat down on the toilet and stuffed a wedge of paper up his nostril, realizing that women weren't at the top of his nosebleed list either. In fact, nothing ever got him…'worked up'. Thinking back, Ichigo could never recall a time where he had actually been 'worked up' by someone. Sure, he had been embarrassed (he remembered with a blush the time he and Yoruichi had shared a hot spring), but he honestly could not remember ever being aroused by any female…or male for that matter. At times, he had went so far as to suppose that he had no lusty desires whatsoever, which made him seem like a saint. But in the end, he always came back to the same conclusion: it wasn't that he didn't lust, it was just that he was brought up to avoid it. Morals had been drilled into his head as a child by his ever virtuous father and loving mother, and the need to be the upstanding brother for his sisters had always prevented his thoughts from lingering on sex and the like…but what happened just now? The image of Shuuhei in a fundoshi lingered in his mind still, and he couldn't erase it from his memory. But why? Why was he still thinking about it? Why could he remember it so vividly? Was this…lust? Ichigo shivered at the thought and tried to shake the feeling off… and blushed a bit as he suddenly realized that the bleeding had stopped in his left nostril but now flowed from his right nostril.

Upon entering the room he found Shuuhei dressed in his favorite pair of boxers (white with a strawberry pattern spiraling outwards from the crotch area). But other than that, he was shirtless and relatively nude. Blood surged for his nose once more but he pinched it closed, cursing his inability to understand what was happening to him. He started to exhale and inhale slowly and started to remind himself of 1) his morals and 2) the fact that he was a guy. 'Guys don't go well with guys' thought Ichigo mentally…but the TV downstairs blaring "HOMO HOMO HOMO" seemed to think the opposite. Sighing, he quelled the blood surge and threw a white tee at Shuuhei.
"At least put this on," grumbled Ichigo. Shuuhei turned around and caught the shirt in mid-drift. After putting it on, he jumped onto the bed and closed his eyes as if to start sleeping. Ichigo sighed as he tried to crawl over the other man's body to get back to his homework. Suddenly, a blaring noise went off inside the room. Shuuhei sat upright immediately…only to slam his face right into Ichigo's chest.
"The hell? What do you think you're doing?" yelled Shuuhei. But he didn't give Ichigo time to answer. Jumping out of bed, he ran to the desk and picked up a cell phone which Ichigo assumed was Shuuhei's Soul Society communicator.
"Hollow. Let's go" commanded Shuuhei gruffly. He shuffled the objects on Ichigo's desk around until he found Ichigo's shinigami badge. He slammed it into his chest and let his gigai fall flat onto his bed. Ichigo grabbed the badge from Shuuhei's now limp hand and slammed it into his chest as well, letting his body fall back on the bed right on top of Shuuhei's body. The two, nodded at each other and opened the window to jump out into the cool night.

The hollow they were ordered to kill that night had already killed 3 other shinigami before the two reached it. Upon arriving at the scene they were greeted with the stench of death and the grizzly sight of dismembered body parts. Luckily, the hollow didn't feel the need to hide its presence so finding it was easy. There in the middle of the park was the hollow which seemed to be a floating mask, resembling a plain skull, with no body, arms, or legs to boast of. However, surrounding the edge of the mask were jagged mirrors, giving the impression of a lion's mane.
"More shinigami?" sighed the hollow in a feminine voice. She seemed bored, if not tired. "To be honest, I think I've already eaten enough…but then again, you can never have too much of anything" giggled the hollow devilishly. Shuuhei wasn't one to respond to taunts in battle, nor was he one to waste his breath on mocking his opponent. He leapt forward and flash stepped behind the hollow. The back side of the hollow was completely exposed. There, in the center of the mirrors, was a black spot, which Shuuhei assumed to be the neck area, or the equivalent. Lunging forward, he made a motion to slash at the vulnerable area, but was stopped as the hollow started spinning furiously. It flipped onto its side and flew straight at Shuuhei as if it were a frisbee, rapidly rotating its sharp edges. Shuuhei's reflexes weren't fast enough to dodge the attack and he most likely would have gotten ripped apart…had Ichigo not blocked her onslaught with his zanpakutou.
"Tch, some lieutenant you are…" grunted Ichigo as he struggled to deflect the hollow's mirrors. He swung down with all his strength and unleashed a mighty wave of energy, but missed as the hollow flew away just in time to dodge.
"Oh? Two-on-one? Seems unfair, doesn't it?" laughed the hollow in an annoyingly high pitched voice. Shuuhei ignored this and flash stepped behind the hollow once more and slashed at the back area but missed once again as the hollow propelled herself higher into the sky.
"Not much for words, are we?" she taunted once more. She continued to float higher and higher until she was at least 100 ft above the ground, and started to spin rapidly again. But now, instead of flying forth, it rotated in place.
"What's it doing?" asked Ichigo loudly. Shuuhei shot him a glare to tell him to shut up. Ichigo caught his drift. Their attention turned back to the hollow now, as it let out a piercing shriek.
"Die, Shinigami!" she cried aloud. As she shrieked, she fired off the shards of mirror on her mask like missiles. The rained down on the two shinigami and stabbed and pierced the earth with relentless fury.

After several minutes, the hollow finally stopped firing her mirror missiles and the two were finally able to stop flash stepping. Surveying the scenery, Ichigo was able to see Shuuhei land soundly on the other side of the park they were in. Inbetween them, however, was a forest of jagged mirror shards.
"My, oh my, what skilled shinigami! I hope I don't miss this time around…" giggled the hollow. Ichigo was about to jump forward and let rip a Getsu Gatenshou but stopped when he noticed the shards on the ground glowing. Each and every shard that had implanted themselves into the earth now shone forth an eerie light. As he stared on, they suddenly began to grow. The mirrors crackled with light and energy as they grew bigger and bigger, until they all reached the height of a one story house.
"The hell…" muttered Ichigo under his breath. The hollow above started cackling evilly as it descended down into the forest of mirrors and out of view. "Kuso…" cursed Ichigo as he tried to jump into the forest of mirrors. As he gained altitude, however, it became clear that he had the disadvantage at sky. The hollow from her spot in the center was able to see him clearly in the sky and fired several mirror shards, cutting Ichigo at several spots around his body before Ichigo could finally fall back to the ground.

On the other side, Shuuhei was faring no better. After seeing Ichigo's brash action, he rushed headfirst into the forest in the direction of Ichigo, but found himself utterly lost. Drifting through corridors after corridors of mirrors was making him dizzy, at best. It didn't help that he saw himself every time he made a turn, and each time made him jump like every time before that. Anxious and his sight disturbed by the mirrors, he was actually glad when he found the hollow. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped forward and slashed at the hollow…only to find that he had slashed through a mirror.
"Oh? Can't tell the real thing from a mirror image? My, oh my, how skilled you are…" mocked the hollow. "Come on! Let's see you try that again!" urged the hollow. In a shout of frustration, he swung forth and slashed through 3 more mirrors. This time, his slash yielded a result: a scream. But not the scream of the hollow…it was the scream of Ichigo.

Ichigo kneeled down on his left knee as he looked around to see what had attacked him. He had several cuts along his body from the hollow's earlier assault and now he had just gotten a large slash in the back…but the hollow was no where near him from what he could tell. Bleeding in several spots and aching from the ungraceful landing, he cursed the pain began to walk through the mirror maze. After several minutes of mindless wandering, Ichigo lost his patience.
"I'll just cut these damn mirrors down!" he yelled. With that, he lifted Zangetsu and brought it down in a deafening release of energy. The bright wave flew forth and crashed into the mirror directly in front of him Upon impact, it seemed as if the mirror was actually resisting the energy blast.
"Shit!" yelled Ichigo aloud as he flash stepped out of the way. 'These are mirrors; mirrors reflect attacks. Duh, Ichigo' he mentally scolded himself. He gazed on as the bright energy pulse continued to fight with the mirror. Suddenly, the mirror shone brightly as it absorbed the entire energy blast into itself. After the blast was completely absorbed, the mirror cracked and crumbled to pieces.

Shuuhei was running down another corridor when he felt an abnormal spike in energy from behind him. He turned around just in time to see the mirror directly behind him flash brightly and expel a massive energy wave towards him.
"F―Fuck!" yelled Shuuhei as he flash stepped out of the way. But as quick as he was, he wasn't able to dodge the wave completely, suffering a cut spanning the length of his left arm.
"Damn…" He knelt down on one knee and took hold of his left arm to null the pain, but it proved futile. He tried to heal it with a quick Demon Art but had to abort as another energy wave burst from a mirror beside him. All of sudden, all the mirrors started shooting energy waves forcing Shuuhei to strain his energy and flash step several feet from the spot. "Guess I needa cut these down to get through this…" he panted, as he picked up his zanpakutou. Facing the mirrors around him he started slashing furiously, letting loose a flurry of slices and cuts, destroying several mirrors at a time.

Unbeknownst to either of the shinigami, each time either of the shinigami tried to destroy a mirror, the other shinigami was forced to face the same effect of the other's attack. Needless to say, the two wandered aimlessly through the forest of mirrors, Ichigo getting multiple cuts each time Shuuhei slashed, and Shuuhei getting blasted by powerful pulses each time Ichigo let a Getsu Gatenshou rip. The hollow hovered in the center of the mirror maze and laughed to herself, watching the scene from through two separate mirrors depicting the futile efforts of each shinigami. She almost pitied the damn insensibility of the two fighters…but she decided that she'd do that after she tasted their blood. She giggled as she flipped onto her side and began spinning wildly and fired rounds of mirror shards into the mirrors surrounding her. No way she could miss this time.

TBC

Little tidbits:

1) Fundoshis are traditional Japanese underwear, somewhat similar to a very loose fitting jock strap. They're still worn today as the preferred choice of undergarments for physical activities like sports.

2) Don't know if this is necessary, but I'll include it anyways. A bloody nose perverted thoughts

I kinda felt Ichigo was OOC in this chapter since I made him seem so damn innocent…but whatever, that'll be fixed soon.

And to the reviewer who's refusing to read cause Hitsugaya and Zaraki are dead…would you be willing to read if I miraculously resurrected them?

Hah, I kid. Ain't no way I'm changing that (and you'll get to see why later). Suffice to say, just because they're dead doesn't mean they're not going to be mentioned in the fic. In fact, they're pivotal characters in later chapters (hence the title, hint hint).

Anyhow…R&R please! I'm ripping my hair out waiting for something…anything…maybe even a flame…