A/N: Holy crap, is that---A CHAPTER?! OH MY GOD, THE APOCALYPSE HAS ARRIVED. DUN DUN DUN.
..... I'm so sorry about the delay guys, but my hands, and my life, and UGH. Dx I'm gonna try to work double time to write another chapter, but my life is busy busy and I'm trying to bring up my math grade from a C by the end of the quater, and work on cosplay stuff for a con coming up and...UGH. MY LIFE IS SO BUSY. WHY?!
This chapter was beta'd by Desert(dot)Moon, kthx.
Life is a Deception – Chapter 4
The first morning practice came two weeks later. Nobody was foolish enough to be late, lest Kaien work them to death more so then he already did. The soccer team had learned that while Kaien was an easygoing, laid-back soul off the field, he became a military drill sergeant on the grass. Despite this fact, first practice was filled with many sleepy-eyed teenagers. Several, Rin and Rikichi included, looked dead on their feet.
"Alright~!" Kaien shouted his voice more powerful than any bullhorn in the early morning mist. "G'morning everyone! Ya'll look a little tired, so the first exercise is to get the blood pumping! Take two laps around the school buildin'!" The orders elicited groans from the team.
"Hey, what'd I tell ya'll about complainin'?!" Kaien barked. "Get a move on!"
"Yes, sir." Wearily, the team turned and got going. While his team suffered and Kaien watched their somnolent progress with a satisfied smirk, the coach's cell phone rang.
Kaien whipped the device open and greeted the caller with, "'Sup?! This is Shiba." There was silence as he listened to the caller.
"Uh huh, I see," Kaien said nonchalantly. "That's good. Awesome. Keep me posted on your progress, alright? Great, thanks. Bye." He closed his phone with a 'snap' and grinned. One less thing he had to worry about.
"C'mon you lot, get a move on!" he shouted, turning back to his charges. "You guys keep slacking off and you'll never get close to beating Hueco High! Run!"
"Yes, sir," the boys called miserably before picking up the pace. Kaien chased after them, forcing them to sprint the entire way.
"Alright!" Kaien bellowed as the team lay gasping for breath five punishment laps later. "Drills are next! Hanataro, Rikichi, in the goals! Let's go, kiddies, chop, chop!" The boys moved sluggishly into place and started the passing drill. It wasn't long before Kaien stopped them to criticize.
"Hanataro, keep on the balls of your feet! The ball ain't gonna eat ya! Rikichi, stop snickering!
"The rest of ya: You ain't snails, so stop moving like 'em! Pick up those legs! Run it again, startin' with Toshi and Pineapple!"
The team lined up and ran the drill once more. By the end of practice, they were pathetic heaps on the field. Kaien was smirking and the morning detention students had started to arrive. Several teachers had gathered along the edges of the field and were watching with interest.
"All right, ya'll, hit the showers!" Kaien called to his team. "Next practice is Wednesday, same time, same place. Don't be late!"
The team dragged themselves up and into the school. They piled into the locker room and stripped to wash the sweat from their limbs. Toshiro stood under the spray for a few minutes, simply enjoying the cold. He washed quickly and wrapped a towel around his waist before pulling the curtain back.
As he dressed, he overheard snippets of conversation, all about Kaien and the practice from hell. He listened to complaints about sore limbs and did his best to ignore the throbbing in his own legs. He finished buttoning his polo and put on his socks and shoes, then grabbed his backpack from his gym locker and slipped from the locker room. Aizen's classroom was near the gymnasium, so Hitsugaya headed straight for him homeroom and first period.
He took his seat at the front of the classroom after a not-too-surprised looking Aizen let him in. The junior worked on some homework he hadn't quite finished while the rest of the class filed in. The members of the soccer team stumbled in just before the late bell and slumped miserably in their seats, thoroughly exhausted.
"Really, now, what's wrong with some of you?" Aizen finally asked after about thirty minutes of listlessness from half of the class.
"Shiba-sensei," the soccer team groaned in perfect unison.
The bespectacled teacher raised an eyebrow and closed the textbook with a thump. "Oh, really? How so?"
"He ran us into the ground!" Rikichi supplied.
"He's a slave-driver!" another member groaned.
"Six-thirty AM practices!" Rin whined plaintively.
Aizen sighed. "Do you have any suggestions for Shiba-sensei so you won't be so exhausted in my classes and in other teacher's classes as well?" Not one student made a noise.
"Very well, then." Aizen turned to the board and began to write. "I want all of you, that includes non-members of the team, to write an essay about how six-thirty AM practices may be detrimental or beneficial towards learning in general. You may begin now, and it is due first thing as you walk in the door tomorrow morning."
The assignment sparked groans from the entire class. More than a few of the non-team students glared daggers at the soccer team members. For the rest of the class, it was silent except for the sound of pens against paper.
About five minutes before the class ended, the vice principal of the school strode into the room and whispered something in Aizen's ear. The brown-haired teacher's eyes widened and he smiled, nodding.
Sasakibe nodded curtly and left the classroom. He appeared to be talking to someone outside of the classroom, but nobody could see who it was. The door opened again, and the administrator returned, this time leading a relatively tall man with shoulder length, jet-black hair. The new man was dressed in the finest tailored suit and a silver-green silk scarf wound its way around his neck. Bone-white ornamental tubes were clamped in his hair and three long bangs hung in his face.
Behind this finely-dressed man, two burly men—who were obviously bodyguards—dragged a teenage girl wearing a sundress into the room, the door slamming behind them. She also had shoulder-length black hair, but hers framed her face and a stray bang fell between two wide purple-blue eyes. She struggled helplessly against the two men.
"Let me go!" she shouted, turning and giving one of the guards a sharp kick to the shins. Said guard released her with a yelp and some healthy swear words. The other guard soon suffered the same fate as the first.
"Why you little—!!" The first guard growled as the girl darted for the door. "Get back here!"
"Rukia." The class, which was in an uproar, froze, as did the girl. The astute, well-dressed man hadn't moved from where he was standing, but his slate-grey eyes were fixed on the teenage girl. "Do not create more trouble. You are already in enough as it is."
The teenager turned back to the man. "Yes, Byakuya-nii-sama."
Outside the classroom, a tall man with silver hair grinned like a feral fox. "Welcome back, Miss Kuchiki," he muttered, not loud enough to be heard by anyone but himself. Still grinning, he turned and disappeared into the classroom next to Aizen's.
-/-
Thirty miles away, a blue-haired teenager yawned noisily and stretched. His teacher, a tall, thin, and pale man with shoulder-length pink hair, pushed white-framed glasses up his nose angrily.
"Mister Jaegerjaquez," the teacher said in a deathly-quiet tone, "is this lesson boring you?"
The teenager shrugged. "Ya could say that, I guess."
"Then, if you find my lesson so boring, you must have mastered the material," the teacher said in the same deadly tone. "Come up and teach the class, if you please."
"Naaah," Jaegerjaquez drawled. "That's what ya are for, teach. I'm perfectly fine sittin' here."
The teacher's golden eyes narrowed. "You will not talk to me that way, Jaegerjaquez, I do not care that you are the star player on our soccer team!"
"Ne, sorry, sorry," the teenager drawled, fully aware he had stopped the lesson and had the entire class's eyes on him. "Don't get your mask in a twist, Scientist-sen~sei."
"That is it! Get out of my classroom, Grimmjow!" the pink-haired teacher ordered, looking furious. "Get out!"
The blue-haired teenager grinned ferally. "With pleasure. See you, ladies." He stood, flashed the girls in the class room a cocky grin, and sauntered into the hallway. He was soon joined in the blank Hueco Mundo High hallways by a white-haired teenager of his same age.
"Hiya, Nameless," Grimmjow greeted his fellow classmate. "How's it goin'? You sent to Primera's office by the Scientist, too?"
"You moron!" Nameless hissed. "You know its 'Hichigo' and "Appro-Grantz-sensei' when we're in school! You tryin' to get us on the wrong side of our lord?"
Grimmjow shrugged. "I don't care, s'long as I get to kill the targets in the end."
"At the rater yer goin', you won't get a chance to kill 'em!" Hichigo exclaimed. "An' then I'll be stuck with that creep Man—I mean, Nnoitora, as a partner! Or worse, Ulquiorra!"
"Nah, the emo kid's paired up with Yammi," Grimmjow drawled. "Won't happen." The two gang members walked until they reached the school's office.
"Have fun against Stark," Hichigo said, staring at the office door.
"Aw, that ol' lazy cowboy don't scare me," Grimmjow drawled again. "'Sides, he's too lazy to expel me."
The white-haired teen shrugged and almost left when he remembered something. "Oh, yeah, Grimm, I got a text in class. The Hogyoku's been found."
"Really?" Jaegerjaquez asked, turning to look at his partner. "Where?"
"Implanted in the body of Target A," Hichigo responded.
"So we kill the target, we get the Lord's praise as well as some of the dough from the Hogyoku snag?!" Grimmjow asked greedily. "Hot deal!"
His partner shrugged. "I dunno, Fox didn't specify."
"So now you're usin' names," Grimmjow growled. "Well, whatever. Has the Lord given orders?"
"Not yet. We gotta wait."
The blue-haired teen licked his lips hungrily. "Ya tell me as soon as we get orders, got it?"
"Sure thing." Nameless grinned. "There's gonna be a meetin' tonight."
Jaegerjaquez nodded. "Will be there. See ya, Nameless."
"It's Hichigo!" the white-haired teen replied. "Bye, Grimm."
"Well, that's Pantera to you!" Grimmjow replied as he opened the front office door and ambled in.
In case you didn't realize, Pantera = Grimmjow and Nameless = Hichigo. THe others, well....infer. ;D
AND YES. RUKIA IS BACK, STOP ASKING ME WHY SHE'S A FRICKIN MAIN CHARACTER. And Byakuya. Yay~!
I'll update as soon as possible, guys...but, my life might make that update sometime in January... e__e
-Love always, Toasty