A/N: Thanks to those of you who've read, reviewed, favorited, and/or alerted this! Simple acts, granted, but it makes me happy :)
At reaching the front of the training barrack, Ichigo stopped and turned around, smirking to himself. Some 15 seconds later, Kladias appeared in front of him and raised her eyes eyebrows at him. With two quick huffs of breath, she rubbed her hand briefly down from her chest to abdomen and trotted towards the second-story walkway of the building.
As he caught up to her, Ichigo thought somewhat excitedly; he beat her at shunpo! And where it seemed Kladias was slightly worn out, he was not even out of breath. Possibly he was stronger than her?
Then it occurred to him that she had been battling Kenpachi for 12 hours straight and got out of it alive and well. Maybe beating her at shunpo after that wasn't that big of a deal. He felt his heart deflate a bit, and with a slight look of defeat on his face, snuck a glance at Kladias. Shit. She was giving him a look that told him that's right, sucker.
He was about to say something about it when Kladias came to a stop in front of her office and stuck out an arm in front of him to stop too. She slid open the door with one move when Ichigo noticed the new note on it,
"Hey - they changed your title already."
The note that used to read 'Captain: Training Division' was now replaced with one that read 'Colonel: Training Division'.
Kladias took one look at it and scoffed, "More unnecessary the change is, quicker the 46 gaggle of freaks put it into action." she stepped into her office, "Get in, Kurosaki."
Ichigo did. And what he saw horrified him.
Ichigo let out yet another stifling yawn. At the rate this was going, his face was going to crack open in two. Fifteen minutes into the work Kladias gave him, he had been grinding his teeth, regretting that he had taken the entire shinigami job in the first place. That was hours ago.
He was currently sitting on a large cough at the side of Kladias's office, reviewing a shinigami personnel file on the coffee-table in front of him. Stacks of boxes size and height of standard A4-print paper boxes stood either side of him.
Blinking twice, Ichigo got back to reading the file he had in hand. When he realized that he was reading the same sentence a couple dozen time without having a clue what it said, he threw the file down onto the table with a resounding slap and threw himself back, arms outstretched above him. His spine cracked.
He threw a glare at Kladias, who was sitting facing him on the wide windowsill on the wall adjacent to him. She was leaning back against the side of the windowsill, one elbow supported on her leg bent at 90-degree angle closer to the window. The other leg was stretched in front of her, the bottom of her foot pressing up against the other side of the sill. She had a file in her hand too, and she didn't look so happy about it either.
"ALL of them?" Ichigo had asked, hoping she wasn't serious.
"That's what I said. Now get working." Kladias snapped before striding over to the window, plopping herself down, grabbing a folder from one of the two dozen 3-box stacks and opening it, leaving Ichigo open-mouthed at the foot of the couch.
"But there's like a million of them!" Ichigo yelled at his equally large piles of folders.
Kladias lifted her eyes from her folder and glared at Ichigo, "It's not too bad. Quit being dramatic, Kurosaki."
"The hell it isn't! When's the deadline? Today?"
"Yup!"
"TODAY? The hell's that supposed to happen?" Ichigo yelped, eyes widening even more.
"Shut up! If I needed someone to sound like a broken record, I would've bought a damn parrot. Get to work!"
Ichigo huffed and stuffed the bouts of complaint bubbling out of his mouth. As stubborn as he could be, he had a sense when to stop and when not to.
He propped Zangetsu onto the side of the couch and plopped down onto it. He grabbed a folder from one of the boxes, frowning. Each folder was basically a summary of life of a Seireitei shinigami; physical attributes, personality, life before the Academy, life(behavior, social standing, grades) at the Academy and finally current life as a shinigami. His job was to read over each and every one of them and fill out the evaluation forms based on their abilities with the four shinigami techniques: Zanjutsu(sword art), Hakuda(hand-to-hand combat ability), Houhou(speed and agility), and Kido(demon magic). Below that was a box that read 'Notes/Comments: '. Kladias had told him that he could write whatever he thought was necessary in there... Ichigo had half the mind to write snark comments, but he figured that they weren't worth his time.
Ichigo was in process of thinking up an way to pick a verbal fight with Kladias to get out of the boredom when a small black shape fluttered through the open window right at Kladias.
"AHH! FUCK!" she yelped.
With a flash of blue light, she swatted at it away from her face then gave it an almighty slap that sent it plummeting to the office floor. She jumped down from her windowsill and glared at it from a foot away with her fists clenched at her sides.
Ichigo saw the whole ordeal with a look of mild surprise on his face.
"If that thing flies into my face again, it's dying." Kladias growled, obviously annoyed.
"It looks dead to me." Ichigo flatly stated.
Kladias threw him a dirty look and bent down to gingerly pick up the black shape with the tips of her index finger and thumb. Ichigo now saw that it was a hell butterfly, charred and smoking.
The wings of the poor creature twitched - Kladias flinched and threw it down again.
Ichigo snorted out a laughter; so she was afraid of a little hell butterfly.
Kladias glowered at Ichigo and spat, "It's fucking CREEPY up close!"
"It's still a butterfly." No way Ichigo was letting go of that one easy.
Kladias turned her glare away and stomped on the butterfly(HARD) before turning away to go back to her perch at the windowsill.
"Isn't that thing supposed to carry a message?" Ichigo asked.
"Heard it already; it's welcome to die in peace." Kladias replied curtly, snatching her folder back up.
Before Ichigo can ask what the message was about, there was a knock on the office door.
"Come in." Kladias answered without looking up.
The door slid open, and the shinigami from yesterday who had brought Ichigo's traveling pack and Zangetsu to him stepped in. In his arms were two flat boxes of - is that food? Ichigo was suddenly realized how hungry he was.
"Good afternoon, Colonel Kurozachs," the shinigami noticed Ichigo, "Lieutenant-Colonel Kurosaki! Azutora Nakade reporting from the 8th squad." Ah, that was his name, Ichigo thought.
The shinigami gave the boxes in his arm a slight lift, "Captain Kyouraku sends his regards, special lunchboxes from the Syachi* Garden."
Kladias then turned her head towards the shinigami, "1 o'clock already? Oh, good. Put them on the coffee table and send Kyouraku my thanks, Azutora."
"Of course, ma'am."
He walked to the other side of the coffee table from Ichigo, set the boxes down on the minute space that wasn't occupied by folders, straightened up addressed to both Ichigo and Kladias this time, "Is there anything else you need, Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel?"
Ichigo was about to order him to finish up the damn folders and evaluations for him, but Kladias pointed at the motionless hell butterfly and spoke first,
"Pick up that piece of rag over there and throw it in the trash. Or incinerate it. Get rid of it."
The shinigami walked over to it and picked it up with a look of puzzlement on his face. He turned to face Kladias and asked in an uncertain voice, "Ma'am, this is a hell butterfly bearing the insignia of the 6th squad."
"So?" Kladias had her head turned to her folder again.
"Perhaps it would be better if I were to return it to the squad's care centre?"
Kladias turned and glared at him, "Do whatever you want. Get it out of here."
He noticeably flinched, "Yes, ma'am."
As soon as the word "Dismissed." left Kladias's mouth, the shinigami hurried out of the office, his footsteps going away for few seconds before scrambling back to close the door and then fading away.
Ichigo frowned to himself. It was stark clear that the shinigami was terrified of Kladias. What did she do to have that happen? Throw him out to the forest too?
"Chow time, Kurosaki." Kladias's voice shook him out of his little reverie.
Digging in, Ichigo once again noticed the silence. Kladias was eating her bento absolutely soundlessly, staring into space with her brows furrowed.
Something occurred to Ichigo,
"Hey - that guy was from the 8th squad. I thought you were from the 9th."
Kladias jerked her head towards Ichigo, looking as if she was surprised to find him there. She swallowed the food she was chewing and answered, "Kyouraku's been generous enough to lend me some of his portion of manpower in forming the training division. Since it's not official yet, I have to get what I need from the official divisions. Which reminds me..."
She put down her chopsticks, reached inside her shihakusho and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. She unrolled all 3 foot of it flat onto the table and Ichigo saw that it was some sort of a consent form with 13 slots for signatures. All but four of them were filled.
"This obviously is where the written support from the captains of the Gotei 13 goes, in form of signatures," she ran her hand across the slots, "Commander General said that he would give his when all other 12 captains have. Unohana, Kyouraku, Kensei and Ukitake gave theirs right away when I asked, Rose, Shinji, Komamura, Hitsugaya after little chitchats. Now, for the others," she tapped the 2nd, 6th, 11th and the 12th,
"Soi Fong stubbornly believes that her squad does not need extra training. Also, she seemed to be a bit miffed at you for some reason." Kladias threw Ichigo a brief glare, "Haven't talked to Kuchiki yet; have no idea how to approach his textbook opinions."
Ichigo raised an eyebrow.
"Kenpachi signed his after I promised to 'play' with him from time to time - keep on blushing, Kurosaki," she added after seeing Ichigo's face, "Kurotsuchi, I think I could bribe him with piece of my hair or something equally bizarre for him to experiment with. Now you," Kladias pointed her index finger straight at Ichigo, "try not to piss them off any more than you have already."
"Not like I try." Ichigo muttered. No honorific on any of them? He wondered if it was because she was on close enough terms with all of them, or didn't give a damn about honorific. He guessed the latter.
Kladias glared, shrugged, rolled up the consent form and put it back into her shihakusho.
Seeing no harm in continuing on with a conversation, Ichigo spoke up, "So, the creepy guide book, it was you who gave me that, right?"
"Yup. Had fun reading it?"
"No. Too creepy. Only thing that it taught me was that common sense is all I need for anything and everything. So I did use it well." Ichigo threw in a piece of teriyaki into his mouth, chewed, swallowed and continued, "What was the part about paying hell about?"
"Oh, don't mind that," a chuckle, "a year ago, when I was in class, the instructor tried to get his class to memorize the whole thing. The hell I would. When he wouldn't give into the entire hoard of whining students, I set my copy on fire and threw it in his face." she grimaced, "He ran crying - quite literally - to the higher-ups and got me to listen to a whole bunch of jabbers about respect, responsibility, discipline and whatever else I've blocked out immediately. Landed me a month of cleaning duty with the 4th squad, which I skipped out of, no trouble. Good times." Kladias grinned.
Ichigo grinned along - that sounded like something he would've done in the exact situation. Especially the skipping out part.
Kladias finished eating and stood up, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. She picked her empty bento box and chopsticks and tossed it into the garbage can beside the couch.
She jerked her chin towards Ichigo's pile of folders, "How many are you through with, Kurosaki?"
Ichigo grimaced, "Almost three hundred. You?"
Grin, "Five hundred."
Eyes wide, Ichigo yelped, "WHAT? How did you do that?"
"Talent." Kladias gave him yet another all-teeth grin that Ichigo right away interpreted as I am better than you.
She went back to the windowsill and put her finished folders into a box, evaluation forms into another. She then carried the two boxes to the coffee table and let them down with two thud.
"Folders here, forms here. Deliver those to the side office of the Central 46 when you're done."
"What? You're leaving me alone to do the rest? BY TODAY?" Ichigo looked frantically around at the boxes - thousands more folders left. His finished three hundred barely scratched the surface.
"Relax, Kurosaki. Not all of them."
"But you said-"
"I lied," Kladias grinned a mischievous grin that made Ichigo want to launch a good punch at her, "just wanted to see how fast you could work - which is a only bit above average."
Ichigo felt his temper rise as she continued,
"Deadline is today at 5 o'clock in the afternoon - shut up and listen," she shot at Ichigo as he opened his mouth, "we need a nice round number of one thousand. I've done five hundred, will match up nicely when you finish up the rest of your half."
Ichigo ground his teeth and glowered. He wanted to get out early, but didn't want to ask help from her to make that happen.
Seeing the resignation on Ichigo's face, Kladias began, "Excellent," she turned and started for the office door, "you can stay here 'till you're done, just shut the door properly when you leave. I'm going to sleep, see ya later."
"Hey! So you get to sleep while work my ass off?"
"I worked mine off already, remember?" she replied without looking back.
Oh. Right. 12-hour fighting streak thing and then half a thousand files.
Kladias's slid open the door and with one hand still resting on the doorframe, she turned her head towards Ichigo.
"The hell butterfly from earlier was from Renji. Day after tomorrow, he and few other seated officers are holding a practice combat session, you and me are both invited. I'm going, and you're going only if you finish the files on time."
Ichigo's mood, which had brightened the moment he heard of the combat session, darkened again - no way she was going to order him around. And apparently it showed on his face too, since Kladias chuckled as if finding his mood shift funny before stepping out and sliding the door shut behind her.
Ichigo turned back to the files with a newfound determination. He was going no matter what, but getting on the bad side of Kladias didn't seem like a smart idea, especially if she was going to get a chance to fight him. She had no problem intimidating people barehanded, but with a killing-stick in her hand? Variable X.
At least he now had something too look forward to, Ichigo thought as he flipped over another page of the file.
*Syachi = killer whale, according to Google Translate. Which should tell you that my Japanese skill is nonexistent ;_;
Laters!
