"I've never had a conversation with a cat."
Clearly, Hachigen wasn't paying too much attention to his barrier by day two, because Kon walked right through it mid-afternoon. He straightened his sunglasses and slipped in the back kitchen door, sneaking along the back wall and settling himself under a cabinet.
How dare they leave him! Ichigo couldn't just run off with his friends and leave Kon behind! The nerve of that boy, Kon thought. He knows he needs his co-pilot! His comrade-in-arms! His partner! Besides, Kon didn't go to nearly enough parties. And Nee-san was here too, and Kon needed to be around to protect her from harm.
Kon jumped out of his cabinet and made a run for the hallway, but was caught up by Captain PhsychoKiller. The captain clutched Kon to his chest in a terrified way, and shortly they were hiding together under a table.
A woman with glasses and dark hair walked by and took a picture of them.
This wasn't going according to plan.
"I've never helped any ryoka break into Soul Society."
"Hey, Captain?"
"Matsumoto?"
"What's a disco stick?"
"I've been wondering that myself, actually. I don't think I know what a disco is, unless it's like a disk. In which case, why would it be in stick form?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's a stick that you hang disks on?"
"Well, maybe. But then how would one ride on it?"
"I'm gonna go ask Renji."
"Ok, good. Real world music is strange."
It could, he reflected as he tried to stop up his bleeding nose, have been worse. She could have kicked him in the crotch instead, and considering the damage she'd done to his face that wasn't something he wanted to think about. After some consideration, Shinji made a decision to never get drunk at the same time as Hiyori, ever, ever again. He located one of his teeth lying innocently on the carpet.
Also, he would never fall asleep with her in the same room ever, ever again.
"I've never gotten a tattoo. Especially not on my face."
Man, the music in here sure was loud and screamy. Yachiru hadn't seen Ken-chan in a few hours, but she knew he was around. There was enough destruction on the south side of the warehouse to prove it; no one else could wreck a kiddie-pool of marinara sauce like Ken-chan could.
"Come on, get down with the sickness!" said the music. What sickness? Maybe the singers needed to see Captain Doctor. Sick people shouldn't sound all angry like that, they should be still and take it like a big boy. Then Captain Doctor might give them a lollipop. But hey, if they didn't want a lollipop that was their problem.
Yachiru hid the little bottle of liquor she'd stolen from Shiro-chan up her sleeve and slunk back toward the kitchens, where she expected to trade it for sweets.
"I've never been on death row."
"A tube..." Byakuya repeated slowly, "...of wasabi."
"Yes, Captain." said Renji, indicating the stitches on Rukia's face. Rukia, for her part, did not appear to be nearly as drunk as she actually was. Her dress was straight, her eyes were not glazed, and she held her balance well.
"Wasabi." Byakuya looked perplexed, or at least as perplexed as he ever did, which meant that to the untrained eye he looked no different than usual. Only Renji and Rukia, who knew him best, could tell that he was at all bothered by this turn of events.
"Yes, Nii-sama." Rukia bowed her head, "It was entirely my fault, and I offer my deepest apologies for shaming the Kuchiki House." She curtsied a little lower, and did not topple over.
There was a brief silence in which Byakuya blinked a few times and there was a small explosion from somewhere upstairs.
"Here, Captain." said Renji, "This will probably help you understand a little better." and he handed Byakuya a bottle of vodka.
"I've never slept in a 15 year old human boy's closet for three months."
Isane had never been to an event like this. Captain Kuchiki was here, Captain Ukitake was over there, even her own Captain Unohana was somewhere about, with her hair down and a drink in her hand. Madamare Ikkaku was teaching Hanataro how to drink shots. Ayasegawa was giving beauty tips to the Vizard girl with green hair. A stuffed lion was following Urahara around and yelling at him about "Nee-san" and "Valley of the Gods" and something about cheese.
After her discovery of Hisagi and a Vizard half naked together in a closet upstairs, Isane was sure that this party would only add fuel to her nightmares. Recently Aizen, Ichimaru, Tosen and bean paste had played a part in her awful recurring night terrors, and Captain Unohana had been kind enough to give her some tea for a dreamless sleep. Now that the threat to Soul Society had been eliminated and the whole ordeal was over, Isane was determined to rid herself of the dreams that had plagued her since childhood once and for all.
Isane took a drink of tequila and smiled. She suspected that this would work better than tea.
"Suck my ass, Renji."
"What do you mean, if somebody passes out you get to shave their eyebrows off?"
"Well, that's what Iba said."
"Well it's not fucking funny!"
"It's funny to us!"
"It's fucking stupid! I am going to kick ALL OF YOUR ASSES!"
"You might want to untangle your shoelaces first."
" What the fuck?"
"Yeah, that was Captain Kyoraku's idea."
"And why the hell am I covered in stickers?"
"Well, why not?"
"When I get all this straightened out, you are so going down."
"Good luck getting your hand off that table, then. I think they make solvent for that stuff."
"GODDAMMIT!"
"I've never had my ass kicked by said 15 year old human boy."
Having spent the last few hours berating herself and sobbing like a little bitch over the fact that she couldn't remember most of what had happened the night before, then demanding angrily that Hacchigen let her leave to no avail, Soi Fon got herself together and allowed Yoruichi to persuade her to have another glass of wine, "to take the edge off." she said. Currently they sat at a round table across from Abarai Renji, who was nearly falling out of his seat with laughter at a story about how Yoruichi had once taught a young Captain Princess how to skip rope. Granted, the mental image of the uptight man with a jump-rope was pretty amusing, but it wasn't as funny as Abarai thought it was. He must have been very drunk.
Iba was next up in the ridiculous game they were playing. He said something about never having used fruit for anything other than its intended purpose. This lead Ayasegawa to drink his shot daintily, and then to speculate what the intended purpose of fruit actually was, considering that, when you get right down to it, fruit is just a plant ovary. The word "ovary" when spoken aloud got giggles out of every man around the table except Ayasegawa, who sighed dramatically, and Hitsugaya, who simply groaned and lit a cigarette. Ikkaku then pointed out that Hitsugaya was too young to understand, and that he was probably going to turn out gay anyway. Hitsugaya responded that if anyone was going to turn gay, it would be Ikkaku himself, since he spent so much time hanging around that fruitcake Ayasegawa. (Soi Fon privately agreed, but said nothing.) This turned the conversation back to fruit.
I am surrounded, Soi Fon realized, by imbeciles. How does the Gotei 13 even function with these sorts of people in such high ranking positions? Thinking about it made her head hurt, so she stopped. Oh, well. At least there was Hacchi's end of their little bargain to be looked forward too. Urahara would never know what hit him.
Soi Fon smiled.
"Fuck you, Rukia."
"Hey Renji."
"Yo, Rangiku."
"What's a disco stick?"
"Ummm. I don't know."
"Damn."
"Well, when I was in the real world years ago, disco was a kind of dance."
"So... a dancing stick?"
"Maybe. Why don't we go ask Ichigo? He lives here and stuff."
"Good idea."
"I've never slept with anyone of the opposite sex."
Kon finally found Ichigo in a heated but uncomfortable looking kiss with Rukia in a computer lab upstairs. Nee-san's stitched-up chin was bleeding all over their faces, but it didn't seem to bother either of them. Kon considered interrupting them, but thought he would probably get the stuffing kicked out of him (literally!) if he did, so he snuck back out and caught sight of an unconscious Ishida, whose hair was matted down and stuck to his face with what appeared to be... marinara sauce?
Oh bother.
"I've never slept with anyone of the same sex."
Rose had retreated to his room to avoid the noise, and was now tuning his guitar just out of habit. He tightened another string and plucked it, staring down at the face of the digital tuner laying on the bed.
CRASH!
The door of Rose's room caved in with a bang and a crack, and in tumbled Love, who was tied up with part of an extension cord and being beaten across the head with a stick of pepperoni by Hiyori and sprayed with a bottle of soda water by Kensei. All three were covered in something red and tasty-smelling.
Pressing his lips together impatiently, Rose turned the amp's volume up all the way, and plucked a string.
The flat E reverberated throughout the warehouse, and all the noise from downstairs stopped for a second except for the voice of Axl Rose, who was currently knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door.
Kensei and Hiyori, eyes round and ears bleeding, backed slowly out of the room, Hiyori dragging Love along by his ankle.
Rose sighed, turned the volume back down, and resumed tuning the guitar.
"I've never been shot out of a cannon intended for fireworks."
"What do you mean, it's a penis?"
"It's a euphemism for sex. Period. It doesn't mean anything else."
"Thats... but then..."
"What?"
"I can't say 'penis' in front of Captain Hitsugaya!"
"You're right, Toshiro won't appreciate it. Just don't tell him."
"But finding out was my mission! I can't just pretend to have failed!"
"Sorry. It's a penis."
"Well, shit."
"I've never played this game before."
After getting a few good pictures of Shinji's poor damn face before Inoue fixed it, Lisa took a walk and discovered Ichigo and that Kuchiki girl making out in Hacchi's computer lab. Click, click. They didn't notice her. Well, if what Yoruichi said was true the boy was a virgin and terribly shy. Perhaps Kuchiki planned to rectify that.
Two doors down, Mashiro was beating the hell out of a dark-haired guy with a familiar 69 tattooed on his face. Click, flash. They did notice, but Mashiro wasn't really one to care. She yanked the guy's arms behind his back, sat across his shoulders, and demanded that he admit to being her bitch. Mashiro's own 69 tattoo was exposed by her low-backed top, right between her shoulder blades. Lisa took another picture, then moved on.
On a bench in the next room, Ukitake and Kyoraku were curled up asleep together. Lisa remembered how fond they were of one another, and recalled with a smile how Kaien had once commented on how cute it was that they thought their Lieutenants didn't know. She took a couple of shots, then shook them awake so nobody else would see them. She did have a merciful side, after all.
"I've never been attacked by a water fountain."
It had been a pretty good party, as parties went. And in the thousand or so years that Unohana Retsu had lived, she had seen some pretty damn good parties. This one would probably be talked about for generations. It was particularly nice to see so many nostalgic faces here, and to know that they had been around, and would still be around in the future. She remembered the memorial service for the eight fallen Shinigami with a twist in her stomach; that had been a sad day. Not only had so many friends and comrades fallen mysteriously, or so it seemed, but the Gotei 13 had suffered a devastating loss such as hadn't been seen in any of their lifetimes: eight captains and lieutenants presumed dead, two exiled and one disappeared without a trace. Eleven people gone, leaving the rest behind in a confused, tragic sort of chaos. She'd seen a lot of stoic, hardened people cry that day who hadn't shed a tear in the worst of circumstances before or since.
Retsu gathered her thoughts and rounded a corner in search of a glass of water and almost ran into her lieutenant, who was stumbling along, holding a bloody towel to her forehead.
"Isane! What happened to you?" she exclaimed, taking the tall girl by the arm.
"Well, you see, Captain," Isane began cautiously, "There was this tube of wasabi..."