Rangiku was having a bad day. She'd wasn't even back, officially, but she had made the mistake of opening a drawer in the captain's desk. There was a pile of incomplete staff reports nearly filling the drawer. She opened another and found the year-end review forms stacked on top of six-month reviews, also completely blank. When she found the fiscal reports in the bottom drawer she nearly lost her mind.
Third Seat Nakajima cowered back under her furious gaze. The division's entire yearly budget was decided based on those reports. If they hadn't been filed—the entire division budget could be cut!
The result was Rangiku and five other officers stuck in the office for hours filling out forms—and late report forms—while Kinta did his best to get in everyone's way.
Gin suddenly appearing at the window in the late afternoon when she'd finally taken a break to eat did not make her any happier.
"Ran, you have to have to come with me now," he told her, completely ignoring the stacks of paper surrounding her and the staff of miserable officers handing out bento boxes like a lifeline.
"I'm eating lunch," she told him in annoyance.
"Don't be silly! It's nearly four," Gin answered. "You've got to hurry or we're going to miss it entirely!"
"What?"
Gin hopped the sill and caught her by the wrist, pulling her to her feet. "Leave Kinta here-there's no time-you all can watch him, can't you?" Gin said with a quick glance at the others, but he didn't wait for their response before he was dragging Rangiku out the window and vanishing with her.
The Tenth Division officers barely had time to exchange baffled looks before Kinta burst out crying, and they had their hands full.
"What are we doing?" Rangiku demanded, when Gin finally stopped atop a building across from the Twelfth Division main gate.
Gin was grinning hugely and staring down the road like he was waiting for something. "I hope it's Kyoraku," he said, softly. "Though Kaien could be a bit of a show too."
"What are you talking about?" Rangiku very nearly shouted at her husband.
"You heard Ukitake took a turn for the worse yesterday?" he said, not taking his eyes from the road.
Rangiku frowned. Of course she had. Changes in Captain Ukitake's health were always a topic of prime interest in Seireitei. Everyone was well aware that they could lose the captain of the Thirteenth any day. There was even a very illegal underground pool going on with hundreds of people betting on whether he was going to survive any particular spell. Rangiku thought the idea of betting on a person's life was sick; Gin had made a small fortune a few winters previously when the Captain had come down with double pneumonia. He had not mentioned his win to Rangiku. He didn't think she'd appreciate it even if she knew he was one of the few people who'd actually bet the Captain would pull through.
"What's that have to do with anything?" Rangiku demanded.
"It wasn't his usual ailment," Gin said. "It looked like a hemorrhagic fever. He was rushed to Division Four, and Unohana has been using her bankai to keep him alive. Seemed a bit strange so I went to check on things this afternoon, tried to get Kaien to tell me anything, but he was useless. Thought I'd wasted the trip when sweet little Lieutenant Kurotsuchi appeared, apologizing and offering an antidote for a poison she claimed she'd inadvertently exposed the Captain to. I didn't wait for the whole story. Instead I went to fetch you. I knew you wouldn't want to miss anything."
"Then why are we at Division Twelve instead of Four?" Rangiku wanted to know. She would have to get the details from Miyako later. It was hard to believe Nemu could have poisoned Captain Ukitake even if it had been on accident, and how on earth did you poison a person on accident? Did the girl just carry poisons around with her, and, oops, she spilled one? That was insane.
"That's why we're here," Gin said, directing Rangiku's attention to the street below.
Captain Kyoraku was striding swiftly down the street with Nanao in tow. For a second Rangiku couldn't figure out why he looked so wrong; then she realized he wore neither his signature pink haori or his round hat. The expression on his face was all wrong as well. He looked angry.
"I hoped it would be him," Gin said, grinning even more enormously. "Aren't you glad I made you come?"
"What's going on?" Rangiku asked.
"Isn't it obvious?"
She watched Kyoraku stop at the gate and turn to the guards. "Tell you Captain I want to see him now," Kyoraku said, in a forceful tone Rangiku would have sworn he couldn't have managed however hard he tried.
When the guards stared at him in understandable surprise, Nanao spoke up. "I suggest you hurry."
Both men took off at a jog.
Kyoraku watched them until they vanished into one of the buildings. Then he turned slowly and raised his head. His eyes went straight to Gin and Rangiku. Kyoraku raised an eyebrow.
Gin grinned and waved back. "Should we join?" Gin asked. "No, I don't think so. It's none of our business. Don't think he'd appreciate help anyway."
Rangiku frowned. "You don't think he's going to try to kill Captain Kurotsuchi, do you?"
"Nah," Gin said. "Nemu's antidote must have worked. Kyoraku wouldn't have left Ukitake if his life was still in danger, and if he'd died, I doubt Kyoraku'd be waiting politely at the gate."
"Then what's he going to do?" Rangiku asked, watching the waiting captain with growing anxiety. There was nothing outwardly threatening about Kyoraku. His reiatsu was suppressed as it normally was, a hum on the edge of her awareness, similar to that of any other captain, and his hands did not stray toward the hilts of his twin zanpakuto even once. He did not look like he was looking for a fight, except he wasn't wearing his haori; that alone was enough to make Rangiku think Kurotsuchi would be wise to take an unexpected vacation right about now.
Clearly she wasn't the only one who thought so either. As other shinigami walking along the street caught sight of the captain they stopped. Some decided to go back the way they had come. Others just stopped where they were and stood watching the captain. Not one person walked past him.
Quite a crowd had gathered by the time Kurotsuchi appeared. He looked only annoyed by Kyoraku's appearance, but his hand on the hilt of his zanpakuto made it clear he knew exactly why Kyoraku was there.
"Well?" he demanded in that shrill, annoyed tone that seemed to be his favorite. "What do you want? I haven't got all-"
Kyoraku interrupted with a single phrase. "Bakudo 99, Part One: Kin."
Rangiku gasped as the scientist was wrapped in lengths of black cloth that stretched across the ground tugging him downward as one after another huge gray stones pinned the cloth to the ground. She had never seen Bakudo 99 before.
Beside her Gin said, "Without a chant." He was also staring at the two captains.
"What do you think you are doing?" Kurotsuchi demanded, struggling pointlessly against his bonds. "How dare you use kido against me!"
"I'm putting you in time out," Kyoraku said as he slowly walked toward the imprisoned captain. "I'm told you're a smart fellow. I want you to think about the wisdom of your actions. Do you really think it's a good idea, picking a fight with Ukitake? He's a nice fellow, probably not even going to hit back; that's what you thought, eh? But he has a lot more friends than you do. Do you really need that many enemies?"
He had reached Kurotsuchi by then, and he leaned over and said something too quietly for Rangiku or Gin to hear. Then he turned his back on the man and calmly walked away.
"Come on, Nanao-chan," he called. "No reason to hang around here all day."
The crowd parted for the pair. Each and every shinigami watched Kyoraku walk away with a newfound respect for the lazy-seeming captain. He had completely incapacitated another captain with seemingly no effort at all. Perhaps Captain Kyoraku was a little stronger than public opinion would lead one to believe.
Rangiku hurried after them and soon hopped to the ground to join the Eighth Division captain and lieutenant.
"Nanao-chan, how is Captain Ukitake?" she asked quickly.
Nanao turned and frowned. "Wasn't Captain Ichimaru with you?" she asked.
Rangiku glanced over her shoulder in surprise. She had simply assumed Gin would follow her. "He was," she said a little uncertainly.
"Gin-kun stayed to watch Kurotsuchi work his way out of the binding," Kyoraku said. "It's not often you have an opportunity to watch someone break a high level bakudo. Never misses a chance to learn something new, Gin-kun doesn't."
"Oh," Rangiku said. She's never actually thought about that before, but Kyoraku was right. Gin was obsessed with learning. He was always reading or training, going as far as finding ways to persuade people who didn't particularly like him to train him in things he couldn't master on his own, but somehow she'd never thought about why. She had vaguely connected it to his determination to make captain, but he'd made captain, and he hadn't slowed down. Why did he want to learn everything?
"Captain Ukitake was doing much better when we left Division Four," Nanao said, answering Rangiku's earlier question. "Nemu's antidote worked almost instantly, and Captain Unohana is confident that he will be able to return home within a few days. Unfortunately there will be some lingering weakness, and that may continue for some time, and he will be more vulnerable to relapses or contracting other illnesses until he is fully recovered.
"It is infuriating to find that Captain Kurotsuchi has been allowed to create such monstrous poisons," Nanao continued. "I cannot see what purpose they could possible serve for the Gotei. Nemu claims this one was not even considered lethal, only incapacitating. She insisted her father must have chosen it without considering Captain Ukitake's already unhealthy state. She is sure the poison was meant to be a message rather than an attempted assassination."
"You're sure the bakudo was enough, Nanao-chan?" Kyoraku asked abruptly. "There are some really lovely Hado, and nothing gets a point across like a blade just an inch to one side of the heart. I'd hate to have gone to all this trouble and the moron tries something else. I really would have to kill him then, and Yama-ji would be terribly cranky about it."
"I'm sure he's learned his lesson, sir," Nanao answered. "It will be very humiliating for him to struggle to break out in front of so many witnesses. I hope he takes so long Captain Ichimaru gets bored and decides to help him out. Accepting help from Ichimaru would be the ultimate humiliation-not that I mean anything against Captain Ichimaru," Nanao added quickly, remembering Rangiku was walking beside her. "Kurotsuchi imagines himself to be so much better than everyone, and Captain Ichimaru is the junior most captain, which makes him the weakest in Kurotsuchi's mind."
Rangiku smiled. She really wasn't worried what anyone thought of Gin. She'd never seen him try to make anything but a bad impression so it really was his own problem if people didn't think much of him. "Gin said Nemu accidentally poisoned Captain Ukitake; how could she accidentally poison someone?"
"She brought Captain Ukitake an interdepartmental report from R&D. Kurotsuchi had laced the letter itself with the poison," Nanao explained. "She didn't see him open it, and she had no idea he'd been exposed to anything until she heard about his symptoms. She was very apologetic about it, and she stayed to see if she could help to reverse some of the damage it had done. I do believe she was completely innocent in the whole thing. It's too bad Kurotsuchi didn't talk it over with her ahead of time. She could have explained to him that he was really just making more trouble for himself. After this he's almost certain to be under permanent oversight from Central 46."
"They should throw him in prison," Rangiku declared, annoyed that even attempted murder seemed to be an excusable offense for a captain.
"I think they're considering it an internal squabble that went a little too far," Nanao answered.
"Be Ukitake's turn to finish the squabble when he's up to it," Kyoraku said, looking thoughtful. "Times like this I almost wish he had a temper. Wouldn't have been right for me to kill Kurotsuchi, but Ukitake could. Nobody'd complain."
Rangiku's eyes widened at his suggestion. She couldn't even imagine the quiet, gentle captain drawing his zanpakuto on a fellow shinigami regardless of their crime. She secretly wondered, just like Kurotsuchi did, how Ukitake had ever managed to become a captain of the Gotei.
"Don't be ridiculous," Nanao replied. "Captain Ukitake's not going to do anything. You've dealt with Kurotsuchi, and there won't be any further problems. All Captain Ukitake needs to worry about is getting better. Don't you dare tell him otherwise."
A huge grin spread across Kyoraku's face. "You're a good girl, Nanao-chan. You always take good care of all of us. You were worried too, weren't you?"
"Of course I was. I've no idea what I would do with you if you lost Captain Ukitake. You'd probably start expecting me to keep you company twenty-four hours a day, and despite what you think my life does not revolve entirely around you. I do have other things I would like to do with at least some of my time."
Kyoraku smiled and patted Nanao's head. "Of course you do, Nanao-chan, of course you do."
Rangiku thought Kyoraku was probably right. Nanao was about as likely to have anything she wanted to do for fun as Kyoraku was likely to want to do actual work. Then she remembered the actual work she had been doing at the division earlier, until Gin had interrupted her with a bit of fun, and she abruptly stopped walking.
Nanao looked back at her in confusion. "What's wrong, Rangiku-san?"
"I left Kinta at the Tenth over an hour ago," Rangiku said, looking a bit pale.
You did have someone watching him?" Nanao said, eyes widening.
"He's probably screamed at them the whole time! I've got to go," she said, vanishing before she'd finished speaking.