Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Kuukaku placed one foot in front of another, carefully, feeling for weaknesses in the SekiSeki shield. So far she'd found nothing, and was beginning to feel edgy. She felt moderately grateful that nobody in Sereitei ever seemed to look up; she'd have to mention it to Yoruichi next time...didn't Hollows rip holes in the sky? Idiots. Complacent fools. She was beginning to be slightly annoyed at the fact that they had been walking for quite a while and yet she still didn't have a plan. She knew that one would come to her (they always did, and they were the best plans), but it was taking it's own, sweet-ass time about it. She wondered how Zaraki was doing, as he hadn't said a word. Urgency drove the both of them: without knowing why the shinigami wanted Yachiru, they had to get to her as quickly as possible: the inching pace they were taking to avoid falling was driving Kuukaku nuts.
They had made their way down a long section of the wall (Kuukaku estimated it was a few kilometers at least) before the Kenpachi finally spoke.
"So, you gotta plan, or are we just gonna walk around all day?"
Kuukaku stopped and threw a hard look over her shoulder. "I'm thinkin', okay?" she said, perhaps more defensively than she should have, and cursed inwardly.
Zaraki, for a split second, began to nod, but stopped abruptly and stared at her. "So you don't have a plan after all," he said, almost accusingly. "You shoulda let me fight that guy back there; we coulda gotten in faster and saved time."
"I wasn't about to let you fight a good friend of mine, Kenpachi no Zaraki," Kuukaku snapped, irritated. "Whoever won, it would've sucked, okay? I'm taking it you're the kind that fights to the death unless there's actual rules, am I right?"
He grinned at her, unexpectedly. "Only if the other guy can take it," he said. "No fun bullying weaker people; it don't prove anything, 'cept that you're a coward."
Kuukaku smirked back and resumed progress, a little unnerved by his grin. It was always savage, and she had a feeling that only the girl could ever construe it as a disarming show of amusement.
"So whatta we do, then?"
She looked back over her shoulder, scowling. "I'm thinking, okay? Also, we're just rounding the twelfth division headquarters; we should be in sight of eleventh division in a little while. We could use shunpo, if we were absolutely certain of not falling off. With my balance -" she gestured to the general lack of right arm " - and your inexperience, we'd best not try it. Also, this gives me time to think. About how to get in."
"Seems t'me the best way to get in is to smash through the walls," Zaraki's voice rumbled behind her.
"No, that won't work," Kuukaku replied, this time keeping her eyes straight ahead of her, for better balance. "The sekiseki stone leeches reiatsu, remember? That's why I gave you the reiatsu focuser: just having it on you screws up the sekiseki influence, but you still can't get through it. The focuser won't let you make attacks outside of it, so you'd have to get rid of it, and then the sekiseki would eat your reiatsu. You lose either way."
"Che." Kenpachi reacted with scorn, but didn't say anything for a while, except for "Hurry up," and "Got any ideas now?"
At this last, Kuukaku, who had been on the verge of putting something together in her mind, lost what she had been scheming and began to turn around with a snarl. What she meant to say was I don't see you putting forward any bright ideas, but instead she ended up saying "fuck" instead of "see", as the action had tipped her already precarious balance.
She began to fall, and immediately her left arm dove for the reiatsu focuser in her pouch; by activating it, her reiatsu would keep her afloat. Just as she did so, however, an arm reached out from behind her, snagging her around the waist and hauling her back up to the wall. The blue bubble of the focuser activated, and, quite suddenly, she was enclosed in focused reiatsu with Zaraki Kenpachi.
Still off-balance due to the strength of Zaraki's arm and the rounded floor of the bubble, Kuukaku staggered backwards (inwardly cringing at the loss of dignity) and slammed into Zaraki's abdomen. Zaraki grunted, Kuukaku swore, and the bubble rocked: Kuukaku used the momentum to swing herself around the perimeter of the bubble. Hand still on the reiatsu focuser in the middle, feet scrabbling for purchase as the entire bubble swung violently forwards, Kuukaku tried desperately to breathe as the Kenpachi's giant reiatsu was compressed into the small space by her own reiatsu: gasping, she had to strain to keep the bubble focused and whole.
Kenpachi was flung forwards, now: just as the bubble banged into the edge of the sekiseki wall, Zaraki fell against the not-glass of the reiatsu-focuser.
Kuukaku had a long moment where, most likely due to lack of oxygen, she was oddly detached from everything, and watched vaguely as her reiatsu bubble pulsed - ah shit, somebody's bound to have noticed that - and its normal blue colour was splintered and replaced with lighting-yellow. The bubble - it wasn't a bubble anymore, more like a huge frikkin' bomb - shone with an unearthly, piercing light: she saw Zaraki's vicious grin as he realized what was happening, and all of a sudden there was a popping noise as the small reiatsu-dampener stone in her pocket shattered...
And she was back to herself, in the bubble, Zaraki laughing hysterically as she choked back gasps of oxygen and the brightness of his reiatsu burned her eyes. There was what sounded like a muffled explosion; it echoed and a column of pure energy spiraled itself up towards the sky, coming from the Kenpachi: the bubble walls were rock-hard and brittle, like candy, like sand...Kuukaku felt the grains of light under her hand as she braced herself against it. She knew what was coming next.
The reiatsu bubble, forced against the wall by either Zaraki's gigantic reiatsu or his sheer willpower, grated for a single instant, and then exploded into the sekiseki.
The wall blew inwards, the noise nearly deafening Kuukaku as she was thrown inwards: pivoting, she caught herself using shunpo and a handy rooftop, but had to cling to the lee of the tiles in order to avoid death by flying sekiseki stone. She couldn't see the Kenpachi. The explosion echoed and re-echoed (so much for a stealthy entry), and almost immediately the wooden alarms began to be sounded. Intruders. Ryoka. She felt for a brief instant the old resentment rise within her - the Shiba Clan were noble, damnit, no matter what! - but brushed that away.
As the shockwave settled, she began to search for Zaraki. They should stick together, find Yachiru, and then dole out some righteous havoc, but the first priority was -
There was a resounding roar, and Kuukaku turned to see Zaraki gleefully hacking his way down the street towards her, the shinigami standing in his way falling like leaves. She sighed, cursed, spat, then jumped down from the roof to meet him.
"Oi, where's the captain's headquarters?" Zaraki said, as Kuukaku dusted her skirt off.
"Dunno. Maybe you shouldn'ta killed them," she said sardonically, gesturing at the wake of carnage. "They were probably our best bet for finding the place."
"Che," Zaraki turned his head and spat. "Didn't kill 'em; they're just bleedin' out. They'll get over it. I don't kill weaklings...I thought you said these shinigami were a bunch of hardasses."
Kuukaku rolled her eyes. "Not when you catch them off-guard, they aren't. These - "
She was cut off as a squealing pink ball ambushed Zaraki from behind, clinging to the back of his head and chanting, very rapidly, "KenchanKenchanKenchanKenchanKenchaaaa-"
Zaraki, to his credit, merely put up a hand and grabbed the girl around her waist - his hand nearly encircling her entire, tiny torso - to pry her off of his head and deposit her on his shoulder.
"-aaaaaaaan!" she finished happily, rocking back and forth. "I knew you were lost! Good thing I found you, eh?" Her gaze landed on Kuukaku and she squealed, yet again. "Bedsheet-san found you tooooo!"
Kuukaku grinned and scratched her head. "Kid, why d'you call me Bedsheet-san, still? I'm not wearing them anymore."
"Cause you have a bedsheet on your head, silly!" Yachiru said, and it made all the sense in the world, at least to her. Kuukaku chuckled, but began to scan the area around them warily. There were bound to be more shinigami, at any moment. They shouldn't be out in the open.
"Yachiru," Zaraki said, and it was in the oddest voice Kuukaku had heard from him yet. It was almost...soft? Nah...
"Mmm-hmm?" Yachiru hummed, smiling from ear to ear.
"Where were you before you found me?" Zaraki continued, and he was deadly serious now. "Who was there with you?"
"Oh," Yachiru giggled. "There was Goggles-saaaaan -" she put up a finger "- and Hatori-saaaan!" She put up another finger, then suddenly shot her arm out in front of her, pointing directly down the road. "Look Ken-chan, there he is! It's Hatori-san! And Goggles-san! And...oh, look Ken-chan, lots of people came to play!"
Kuukaku saw it a split second after Yachiru: a man in the white haori of a captain seemingly stepped out of midair, a ways down the street: a momet later a man with sunglasses stood behind him. And then it began: like the silent gathering of stormclouds, shinigami dressed in black began to step out of the air, lining the street in black, with the occasional white haori or brown armband.
Aw shit, Kuukaku thought. Yoruichi, where the hell are you?
A/N: Whee, funtimes are ahead.