LOTUS
A/N: lol Braxis seems like such of an ASS in this chapter, even more so than usual, idk I guess its cause him and Shuhei do not get along at all, but man did I ever write him out to be a jerk in this one. This chapter is OKAY its quite long and I think its kinda weird (:P). Anyway, now that this fic is finally underway again ENJOY!
Shuhei looked blankly at the schedule in front of him. About fourteen things were written on the parchment in blue ink and all but one sentence was crossed out. It read, print today's issue of Seireitei Communication.
The 9th division barracks was were bustling as shinigami scrambled in every direction attempting to complete all their usual daily tasks. Shuhei approached the printing room when a shinigami interrupted him.
"Acting captain, vice captain Yachiru requests your assistance in the Shinigami Women's Association's headquarters, she says it's urgent."
"Oh, thank you." Shuhei said quickly as he moved along, seemingly searching for someone.
He strolled over to a door towards the far left of the rectangular room and opened it quickly. Braxis was sitting against a wall and his jacket was unusually unzipped revealing a white shirt underneath. His eyes were closed, supposedly sleeping.
"Braxis, I'm not supposed to be your baby sitter and you're supposed to be providing some legitimate assistance to this division." Shuhei informed, loud enough to wake Braxis even if he was actually sleeping.
He wasn't sleeping and instead of making a scene and jumping up in surprise, he simply turned his head and opened a pair of very un-amused looking eyes.
"And?" He responded.
"And I need your assistance." The acting captain retorted.
Braxis let out a heavy sigh and got to his feet.
"I was wondering when you'd ask. I've been waiting here this whole time for you to show up and throw some loads of work at me. Hell, it can't be any more boring than sitting around here doing nothing."
Shuhei could not help but get a tad irritated by this statement, seeing as he'd been trying to get Braxis to aid him with tasks for the previous hour.
"What's your problem? I've been ordering you around for the past hour and you refused all my requests!" Shuhei barked, furrowing his brows.
"Exactly, you were orderingme, now that you've asked nicely… or at least relatively nicely, I'm more than happy to help." Braxis replied chuckling.
"So you can act like a complete brat, but I'm not allowed to give you orders, when you've been placed under my command?"
Braxis marched past Shuhei. "It wouldn't matter even if I wasn'tunder your command I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to bark orders at me if I was just some know it all, I almost forgot you shinigami are like that."
"What IS your problem with shinigami? You always whine about us and you never even say why or make any valid points against us!" Shuhei shot back, not completely angry, but annoyed.
"The fact that you have a wide spread superiority complex and the fact that you're apparently oblivious to that same superiority complex." Braxis hissed, snickering.
"Of course, because you're the perfect example of modesty." Shuhei riposted sarcastically.
"Shut up, you barely even know me."
"Maybe so, but correct me if I'm wrong, I'd say you have something against authority figures as a whole. I'm not going to pretend to know you, but if that is the case then isn't prejudging everyshinigami like that not only unfair, but juvenile as well." The dark haired man stated as they made their way outside.
"Whatever… Go ahead and make assumptions as you see fit, I couldn't care less."
Shuhei scribbled something on a piece of paper, handed it to Braxis and turned. He walked in the opposite direction, back towards the 9th division barracks.
"Follow those directions, once you get to the Shinigami Women's Association headquarters, find out what they need, but DO NOT take any action before I arrive." He called over his shoulder.
He continued to walk back. Braxis's gaze traveled to the paper, but his eyes were focused on nothing as he pondered. Was there truth behind what Shuhei said? He thought. Braxis couldn't help but understand that there was some verity behind his statement.
Braxis shook it off and his eyes focused what was scribbled on the paper.
"Luckily, I have an impeccable sense of direction!" He said to himself triumphantly, however his mind continued to graze over what had just been said.
[][][][][][][][][][][][]
"Toshiro!" Momo exclaimed as the miniature captain stood in the doorway of Aizen's old office in the 5th division barracks which her and Katsuo had been cleaning out. They were making extremely slow progress due to Momo's continuing denial that Aizen was now the enemy.
"Captain Hitsuguya." Katsuo greeted, grinning.
Toshiro looked at the mess of things scattered across the cluttered, stale-smelling room.
"The captain's office?" Toshiro inquired.
"Yes, me and Katsuo both agreed that cleaning up captain Aizen's office would be beneficial for the entire division, since it is a better location to get paperwork done and finish all kinds of other tasks." Momo explained.
Toshiro couldn't help but wince a little as he heard "Captain Aizen" slip out of Momo's mouth. The actual name didn't bother him, it was the way Momo used it - spoken like the name of a friend. Toshiro could tell she still didn't truly believe that Aizen was reallythe enemy.
"Toshiro Hitsuguya, I never actually got the opportunity to thank you for being so generous-"
"You don't owe me anything, you're just lucky you're not the true threat." Toshiro dismissed quickly.
Katsuo smiled in return.
Then, Toshiro looked at Momo with a bit of confusion. "Uhh Momo, isn't there a women's association meeting right now?"
Momo's face was suddenly drained of colour and there was a brief silence. "How did I forget!" She squealed and was about to storm out when she turned to address the two others standing in the room. "Sorry, but I really have to go!" She exclaimed as she scrambled away.
"You knew Momo was going to be at a meeting at this time, so why'd you stop by?" Katsuo brought up.
"I wanted to see if everything was running smoothly in this division… Things have been tough for them since Aizen betrayed Soul Society." Toshiro replied looking downwards.
"Their vice captain is more than capable of sustaining the division."
Toshiro looked up at Katsuo, a slight smile over his face, he turned about to exit the building when he paused, as if he had forgotten something important. "There is a bit of a disturbance in the Rukon district. Something to do with an increased amount of hollows, so it might take a little longer to get everything cleared up and assign the both of you with proper sentences…" He then strolled off.
[][][][][][][][][][][][][]
"Aha, Kuchiki." Braxis exclaimed as he jogged up to the shinigami. The enormous house was kept in extremely good condition; trees had been gingerly placed around the grounds, and pastel coloured flowers bloomed in neat little patches surrounding the property. Braxis ran over a patch of grass and approached Byakuya.
"You wouldn't happen to know where the Shinigami Women's Associations HQ is… well of course you would know, you live here, but if you could just point me in the right direction it—"
Byakuya sneered and then continued walking, as if Braxis was addressing someone else. Braxis craned his head, watching Byakuya march away.
"I try to be nice and look at what I get." Braxis snarled as a guard stepped in front of him.
"State your business." He ordered, blocking the doorway.
"Shuhei sent me to see what the Women's Association wants." The guard moved out of the way and pointed straight forward.
"Head down the hall, the first door on your left."
The inside was comparable to the outside of the structure, very clean and well kempt. The room was about 30 feet away from his previous destination. Quickly, he slid the door open. About seven women whom were sitting on the floor around a table, seemingly in mid-conversation, stopped what they were doing and immediately looked up at him.
"Who're you?" A short pink-haired girl from the end of the table asked.
"Uh… I'm Braxis, it's a pleasure to meet you all." He replied chuckling nervously.
Yachiru leaped out of her seat and over to Braxis. Since she was extremely short, no more than four feet tall, she gazed up at Braxis like a child observing something completely alien. She stood like that for about a minute in silence until she finally opened up her mouth to speak,
"You're funny looking." Yachiru stated bluntly, giggling.
"Uh... Thanks?" Braxis looked up noticing long flowing blonde hair. "Rangiku! Nice to see someone who's not so up tight around here, then again," he looked back at Yachiru who was still staring at him, "Never mind."
"Rangiku, you know him?" A girl with short silver hair enquired.
"He's one of the Ryoka, that was taken into custody." Rangiku replied, looking un-amused.
"I'm Yachiru, nice to meet you… what was your name again?" She asked looking at him curiously.
"Braxis," He said looking at her oddly.
Yachiru peered up at the white twisted smile over Braxis' mouth.
"I'll just call you Smiley-kun!" She stated joyfully.
"Okay… nobody has ever called me that before, but I guess its simple enough."
The both of them looked at each other for a second, then Braxis remembered the situation and began speaking again. "Anyway, yeah, I've been sent on behalf of Shuhei Hisagi to see… what you want." He said awkwardly.
"We've decided that this room is too boring!" Yachiru squealed. "That's why we wanted to get Shuhei to paint a picture of us, but since Shuhei hasn't come along it looks you're going to have to do it Smiley-kun!" She added smiling.
A girl with black hair tied into a bun and glasses stepped in. "President I don't think that-
"Well then Smiley-kun, are you gonna help us?" Yachiru asked, ignoring Nanao.
"Hey, I didn't come here todo the work... " Braxis pondered, recalling the last words Shuhei had said to him. "DONOTtakeactionbeforeIarrive." Braxis was about to decline when he remembered something else his 'boss' had said. Isn't it just a little juvenile?
"But now that you guys mention it, I've been itching to create a masterpiece." Hehe, you want to see juvenile Shuhei?
[][][][][][][][][]
"I've been on the run for years, loathing the idea of settling down and confining myself for so long, but I've been brought here by force and for once it feels... Correct. I've been craving freedom my as long as I can remember, but maybe that was a false belief, maybe that's just Braxis' ideology, but I think what I've wanted all these years is equality. It seems that Braxis just wants to shut everyone out and live in his own little world, but I want the complete opposite, I want harmony, to live in sync with others. Since I've been brought here I also realize how much me and Braxis differ from one another, for so long it seems that everything I've done revolved around him, but I guess it's time to finally face it, we're not the same person, our opinions on things are very different. I could tell years ago."
The ground was freezing and littered with bones. It was thick brown dirt but a layer of frost had grown over it. Katsuo shivered. His hair was shorter back than, a simple clean cut flattened out as it stuck to the wet surface of his head. The weather only got worse as the winter grew closer and closer and Katsuo clutched his blade that was lying next to him on the ground, shining a bit in the ashen moonlight. If this kept up he would probably die in the next few rounds, depending on how strong the hollows were, and if any got to him, which was likely judging by the amount of dead bodies he encountered while trying to discover a safe spot.
The recruits this year weren't a powerful group, Katsuo being one of the stronger links in the chain. He wore a brown cape over his shoulders, that was seemingly stitched together with potato sack material. Underneath he wore a burgundy long sleeve shirt, with black pants and boots.
"It was the annual recruitment. Lotus released the strongest pupils into a giant pit and freed hollows in timed intervals, the testing lasted four days, the first day weak hollows were sent out every 3 hours, the second day stronger hollows were released every 4 hours, the third was every 6 hours, and the fourth day hollows were released every 8 hours, I was only on the second day at the time."
Katsuo wobbled slightly, groggy from lack of sleep as he placed a blanket underneath him and he scooted over near the large rocky cliff looming over him, he had picked a spot behind a forest of dead trees, protected in the front by the forest and in the back the cliff, he lied down on his shoulder, looking out into the trees as he drifted off into sleep...
It was the crack of dawn when something scurrying through the trees awoke him. Katsuo immediately leapt to his feet, gripping his blade as he scanned the trees for intruders. Nothing, but the sound of quick footsteps still continued. Suddenly a flash of colour shot from the trees, tackling Katsuo onto his back.
A large-busted girl with onyx hair was laying on top of him holding a sharp object to his throat.
"Answer quickly, are you willing to travel in a group?" She demanded.
"Gladly." Katsuo replied squirming a bit.
With that, she jumped back to her feet. She looked to be average weight, she had a round face, brown eyes and a small nose. Her hair was long, and she kept her bangs kept away from her face with a hair clip. Her clothes were like the other recruits. A burgundy long sleeve shirt over black bottoms, although she was sporting a navy blue scarf around her neck.
"Rio, you can come out now." She yelled as the sound of rustling erupted from the treed to Katsuo's right.
A girl with short blonde hair leaped into view. She was a few inches shorter than the girl that had attacked Katsuo. She had large brown orbs and shared many facial features with the other girl, except the blonde was slightly thinner. Her hair was a bit higher than shoulder length and flipped upwards at the bottom.
"Who are you?" The one with the black hair looked at Katsuo, her brows furrowed.
"Katsuo Ishimura." He replied quickly.
"I'm Minako, this is my little sister Rio." The black haired girl claimed.
Rio smiled widely. "Nice to meet ya!"
"We should move out, they're gonna send out the next wave any minute now." Minako suggested as she glanced at Katsuo's belongings, which had been scattered around his resting area.
"Oh right, sorry to hold you up." Katsuo said, scrambling to gather all of his things.
"Its alright, we need all the help we can get, no matter how slow you are." Rio giggled as she folded the blanket Katsuo had been sleeping on and tossed it to him.
Suddenly the three of them all looked up, at the screech of something. At that Katsuo began moving quicker. Gathering up his canteen and blanket, he then wrapped the blanket around the canteen and carried it like a sack, over his shoulder.
"No, Moving too quickly would only draw attention to ourselves." Minako exclaimed, stopping Katsuo.
"Draw attention to ourselves? Judging by the noise it made, that's a massive hollow. Something that big can't hope to catch up with us if we run." He objected.
"No way, some recruits been killing a lot of hollows… Minako and I have only fought one hollow so far." Rio said looking up at the direction of the noise curiously.
"14 recruits go into this, I have fought four, with all of us that makes 11 others, isn't it more likely that is a groupinstead of a single person."
Minako's eyes shifted to meet his. "You saw the bodies too, there aren't that many people left, I say there is one person doing all the killing." She stated as she walked into the forest, Rio followed close behind. Katsuo hesitated a bit than continued with them.
They had strolled uninterrupted for hours until Minako was satisfied with the area. In the middle of a large clearing, the three settled down. The sun finally began to recede and the three sat in a circle around an imaginary point. They were barely able to see each other's silhouettes, as they sat.
"Hey Katsuo, I think Minako has a 'thing' for you." Rio stated slyly, eyeing Minako.
"I'm right here." Minako said bluntly.
"I haven't seen you act this soft towards a guy since you were a kid." Rio retorted with a smirk.
"Soft? What is couple soft to you? I said a of sentences to him?" Minako said turning slightly pink.
"Oh that's soft for you." Rio shot back, giggling.
"Shut up Rio!" Minako yelled, her cheeks now red.
Katsuo grinned as he witnessed the two bickering, but the tiny conflict ended in just minutes and they all drifted off to sleep.
The sun was just beginning to peek it's way over the horizon when the three of them were quickly awakened by a massive noise. A hollow loomed over them, it's giant shadow enveloping them in darkness. It was grey, it's mask most comparable to an old fashioned masquerade. It was a triangular shape, yet had rounded edges, on either side of the top were giant horns. It's rounded eyes like staring into nothingness, below them hung a frown. It was about fifty feet tall, with four gigantic arms and stubby legs. It swung an arm immediately for Rio and she jumped to the right, as she ripped her katana from it's sheath. She charged for the hollows head. The hollow whipped an arm at her again, slamming her to the ground.
"Rio, get back here!" Yelled Minako who had fallen back into the forest along with Katsuo.
Katsuo felt a bit helpless as he watched Rio get smashed into the ground again. "A hollow like that can't be attacked directly, wait! The legs!"
Katsuo unsheathed his blade charging for the small legs of the leviathan. At the same time Rio readied for another attack and leaped towards it again, this time she was targeting the arms. But suddenly, the hollow turned it's giant arm to reveal large spikes on the underside of its wrist, within seconds the beast swung its arm and Rio was impaled by one of the giant stakes. Her body went limp as the giant spear pierced right through her stomach and out her back. The hollow than shook it's great arm throwing Rio's body across the clearing.
"Rio!" Minako screamed, sprinting towards her sister.
The hollow caught glimpse of Katsuo, still running for it, and with a swift move, it hammered it's fist into the ground. Katsuo dodged it by diving backwards. Suddenly the beast raised its other fist, preparing to attack again. Suddenly, Blood showered out from its right
shoulder. Katsuo realized that the upper right arm had been completely severed.
At first Katsuo thought Minako had attacked, until he realized, she was still by her sister, who was now in a pool of her own blood. The lower right arm was now sent flying by the unknown swordsman.
"There we go, now it's fair game." A sharp voice exclaimed, sounding like it was behind the hollow.
The hollow spun around, than it began to laugh hysterically. "You're too late, once I devour that girl I will regain my strength." The hollow reached towards Rio, but the mysterious figure leaped forward, slicing off the other arm with a diagonal slash.
The man was not waiting for the beast to attack again this time, and he lunged towards its head chopping it through the middle, as the giant being turned to ash and floated into the sky.
The man was wearing the uniform that they had all been sporting, but his face was not visible above the collar of his shirt. Instead a black mask concealed everything but his eyes, the most notable thing about him was the paint over his mouth. The white splatter of a crooked, demented smile, holstering his weapon he marched over to Katsuo, who was still slightly dazed from the fight.
"Name's Braxis." The man claimed.
Katsuo suddenly snapped back to reality.
"Oh, I'm Katsuo."
"Man, was that ever close, you guys were a few seconds away from being dinner... Er breakfast." Braxis stated chuckling.
That's when Katsuo looked over at Minako, still crouched down on the floor next to Rio. Katsuo jogged over, followed by Braxis.
Rio lay lifeless in Minako's arms, the gaping hole in her stomach still seeping blood, as Minako sobbed quietly, tears running down her pale cheeks and dripping silently onto the ground. Katsuo and Braxis were still, frozen. Braxis once believing he had saved them all, he had come to a riveting conclusion. The few minutes that they stood still felt like days, as Minako's cries grew no louder or quieter.
"Minako... I'm sorry." Katsuo finally said, kneeling down beside her.
She looked at him, her usual firmness completely wiped away. "You have nothing to be sorry about, it was my fault! She was my little sister, but I ran like a coward, while she fought." Minako sobbed, holding the back of Rio's head but not looking into her eyes once full of life.
Braxis stood silently, he tended to shy away from situations like this as he was terrible at projecting sympathy, however certainly not terrible at feeling it. Katsuo reached a hand out for Rio's face, gently grazing his fingertips over her eyelids, closing them.
Katsuo looked at Braxis, clearly not knowing how to respond to such a thing.
"Even if Braxis didn't show up that second, it's safe to say I could've beaten that hollow on my own, me and Minako could've pushed forward together, but Braxis interfered. Months passed, the three of us were among just five that survived. Braxis and I were both assigned to brigade 4, there are only 7 ranked members of a group, the lowest being recruit, private, corporal, sergeant, officer, 2nd commander and commander. We were lucky to make it through the recruitment process, let alone being selected for the ranked portion of the brigade. I was ranked at corporal, while Braxis had been assigned the duty of officer. A short beginning to a long story."
[][][][][][][][][][][][]
Braxis stood over an easel paintbrush in hand and brows furrowed with determination. As he conjured up several different images in his head, he finally decided on one. He started to paint quickly (and badly). He had completed the crude picture in just a few minutes.
"Tada! My work of art is absolute." Braxis announced as he turned away from the painting and bowed theatrically.
What he revealed was a semi-scribbled drawing of himself standing above, what looked like the mangled headless body of Shuhei. Braxis stood with his left foot on his back, holding up a katana with is right hand. Hanging at the end of the Katana was Shuhei's missing head, with X's for eyes. The background was a bright blue sky, and behind the whole violent scene, the entire women's association, all of their eyes replaced with bright red hearts.
The women gazed blankly at the painting, Yachiru with a hand on her chin, focusing particularly hard on the painting, which more so resembled a doodle.
Nanao stared at it with furrowed brows, though her eyes seemed dull, there was a growing fury within. "What the hell—"
"I like it!" Yachiru burst out, to the surprise of many members of the group. "There's something missing though."
Yachiru stepped up to the picture, snatched the brush from Braxis and began to scribble all over the scene. When she was finished she shuffled over and exposed an extremely detailed picture of Kenpachi Zaraki, which had replaced Braxis' spot in the painting.
"There, now it's perfect!" She concluded.
Braxis raised an eyebrow at Yachiru.
"I liked it better when all the girls were infatuated with me, but I guess that still gets my point across." He said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
Nanao continued to glare at the ridiculous drawing in front of her. "With all do respect-
"Both of you step aside, I know exactly what it's missing." Sui-Feng suddenly stepped in, grabbing the brush and making adjustments accordingly.
This time Kenpachi had been replaced with a black cat, sitting on Shuhei's torso, clutching his head in between its jaws.
"Now its beautiful!" Sui-Feng exclaimed as if she was in a trance, as she stared at the picture with starry-eyes.
Yachiru and Braxis both eyed the painting.
"Uh… I don't get it." Braxis reacted as he continued to observe the house cat perched on Shuhei.
A pitiful squeal erupted from behind the group, like someone was about to say something but their sentence trailed off into babbling nonsense.
Everyone's attention snapped to Shuhei who had evidently made the sound.
His eyes were narrowed into near-slits and his mouth agape as he pointed a convicting finger at the easel.
"Hey, don't look at me. I have no idea what the cats doing there." The masked one said as he leaned close to the painting and observed the black feline.
Shuhei kept the same expression as he approached the canvas, but before he could make it there Yachiru whizzed by him scooping up the painting and somehow managing to hang it on the centre of the right wall.
"Its Peeerrrfect! Its going to stay up there forever." She said enthusiastically as she stared up at it, mesmerized.
Shuhei was left with a look of sheer amazement when he turned to Braxis.
The only reply Braxis could muster however was a simple shrug.