Sorry for the wait—but here is the latest installment of my Ichigo torture sessions! Behold—Kurotsuchi Mayuri! A big thank you to Moonfayth for giving me the idea to use him and then Nightsmoke for what to do with him!
Almost forgot the reviewers! Thank you darkangel1910, FantasticallySnarkastic, CandleLight-Soul, Rawiyah-Taliesin, Catastrophic Monsoon, Lupanari (2), AngelicxDemonic, Moonfayth, Rai-Kata Reese, Nightsmoke, and papercliped-angel.
Ichigo slammed his hand down on the alarm clock, not wanting to wake up at all. After the fiasco with Byakuya and the bubble gum—he didn't know if he could take any more of the substitutes Hitsugaya sent down to "assist" him. Once Byakuya left that afternoon, Ichigo's family noticed how jumpy he was and pummeled him with questions about what could have caused the change in his behavior. Then his father energetically came to the decision that all his son needed was a day to himself so he vowed to take his younger daughters out for a full day of bonding time while Ichigo was alone at home.
"You know—you should act like this more often," Karin teased outside his door before bed the previous night. She and Yuzu were going to spend the whole day at the circus while Ichigo would have to deal with whatever messed up shinigami was sent to earth.
"Shut up!" he said angrily as he tossed his pillow at her, only to collide with the door that she shut with a chuckle.
Now that it was morning all he wanted to do was sleep and pray that Hitsugaya would forget.
Who was he kidding?
As Ichigo drifted between dreams and consciousness, he had the strangest feeling that someone was watching him. When he couldn't take it any longer he sat up, fully expecting to reprimand Kon for lack of tact, when he stopped dead.
"W-what . . . what are you—"
"I was hoping you would stay asleep a little longer," Mayuri sighed. "I wasn't finished monitoring the activity of your temporal lobe while you slept." The 12th division taichou was sitting across from him in his chair with a peculiar machine beside him. Ichigo frowned when he noticed there were wires connected to the machine and that they led to him.
His eyes widened when he saw that there were probes delicately placed around his head and one or two on his chest. "Get these off of me!" he shrieked, yanking them off and feeling slightly sickened by the suction sound it made.
"It's not like they were going to hurt you," Mayuri tsked, turning to his machine. "While it may not have been complete I did receive an ample amount of data." He glanced at Ichigo who was starting to panic and who had his back to the wall of his bed. "Would you mind going back to sleep so I may continue?"
"Would you shut up and get out of my house?" Mayuri rolled his eyes and began to fiddle with the machine.
"Why are you here anyway? Did Toushiro send you?" Ichigo knew that the purpose behind sending these people was revenge, but Kurotsuchi Mayuri? That was a little extreme.
"No—that minuscule spec of reiatsu intended to send that oaf of a lieutenant, Omaeda, but I was able to—persuade him otherwise with some sweets laced with sleep inducers," the taichou pronounced proudly. Ichigo could tell that Hitsugaya probably hated the scientist as much as he did, and felt slightly better that him coming here wasn't intended.
"But why?" he asked, fearful of the answer.
"So that I may study you!" he said happily. "And if you don't mind—could you call over your other friends? I never had the chance to study the Quincy, and the powers of your other friends are so peculiar in the sense that they manifested in mere humans due simply to being exposed to your overflowing reiatsu—"
Listening to Mayuri talk about him and his friends like objects to be dissected and evaluated made Ichigo sick to his stomach.
He grit his teeth. "No way in he—"
"Then I guess I'll have to make due with you," the taichou resigned himself. "Now, I would like to observe the physical and mental changes that occur when you separate from your human body into shinigami form, and vice versa." He began pulling out various tools and instruments from a medium sized bag that didn't look like it could possibly hold all that he took out of it. For a brief moment Ichigo related it to the bag of some babysitter in a Western movie he had seen a long time ago, yet the owner of this bag wasn't going to take him on an adventure inside a chalk painting or fly around with an umbrella, judging by the obscure and terrifying tools the taichou was pulling out of the bag.
"You're not going to study me!" Ichigo yelled forcefully, determined to do whatever it took to stay out of this man's mad scientist clutches. He didn't know what was worse—this, or Kenpachi desiring his blood every time they met. Maybe he could distract him like he did with Kenpachi.
But how could he do that?
"—and that is how you play Twister," Ichigo sighed. He would never be able to believe it, but he had succeeded in distracting Mayuri from dissecting him and his friends by offering to describe the way different things worked in the human world. Right now they were going over all the games in his family's closet.
"What is this one?" Kurotsuchi asked as he pulled out a long, thin board.
"It's called Operation—" Ichigo began.
"Yes, yes—I can tell what it's called but what is its purpose exactly?"
"The object of the game is to pull out all of the objects inside the guy without hitting the sensors and causing his nose to glow red," Ichigo explained.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri glanced at the game for a few more seconds before grinning. "I would like to inspect this game further," he announced, walking towards their living room.
As they sat down to play Ichigo was seriously wondering if the world was turned upside down because here he was, sitting in his living room and playing a game usually meant for six-year-olds with a man who was the equivalent of an evil scientist, who was obviously enjoying it.
"This game is quite fascinating," Mayuri remarked after he successfully extracted the bread basket from the stomach, earning 1,000 points. "It gives human children an early appreciation for learning all about the human body. I wonder if there have been any incidences involving this . . . "
"It's just a game!" Ichigo said angrily. He swore as the nose buzzed while he was trying to extract the wish bone from the chest. He was never good at this game.
"No it's not!" Mayuri exclaimed, seemingly affronted. "While it is simple in its design, the idea behind it is quite remarkable. Let me demonstrate. Nemu!" he yelled, turning his head to the left.
"Yes, Mayuri-sama," the girl said as she bowed, appearing to come out of nowhere. The substitute shinigami almost fell out of his chair in surprise.
"W-were—were you here the whole time?!"
The stoic girl turned to him and nodded.
"Now, Nemu," Mayuri began, drawing her attention back to himself, "I would like to show Kurosaki the thrill of being a scientist. Undress and lie on the table."
"Yes, Mayuri-sama," she said as she reached up to untie the band around her haori.
"Wa-wa-wa-WAIT A MINUTE!" Ichigo screamed, forcing the two shinigami to turn and look at him with Nemu's hands frozen in place where they were.
"What's wrong?" Mayuri asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.
"What's wrong?!" Ichigo exclaimed, a furious blush on his cheeks. "What's wrong? Why are you telling her to undress?"
"Because I want to show you the wonders behind a real dissection!" the 12th division taichou proclaimed, gesturing towards Nemu and the game.
"What if I don't want to?" the teen protested.
Mayuri lifted an eyebrow as he scrutinized Ichigo for a moment, then sighed. "Are you really that unfamiliar with the female body, Kurosaki? I assure you that there aren't too many differences from our own."
"IT'S NOT THAT!" he yelled, his blush turning a deeper shade of red. "I just don't want my family to come home to see a naked woman on the table!!"
"But your family wouldn't be able to see us regardless," Mayuri pointed out.
"Just don't do it!"
Mayuri sighed and turned to Nemu. "I guess this means our time here is done if Kurosaki is unwilling to appreciate what I do. Prepare the portal, Nemu."
"Yes, Mayuri-sama," she said as she retied the sash around her waist.
"I regret that my time on earth has been cut short, but I am eager to look over the readings I procured from your sleeping," Mayuri said. Ichigo was all too happy to see him and his fuku-taichou go. Once they had disappeared and he began putting away the game, he made a mental note to send back the next replacement with an earnest plea for Hitsugaya to stop sending substitutes over—hang his pride.
Sorry for it taking so long to update! It was really hard to write Mayuri. I hope you all enjoyed it! I got the idea for Nemu making Ichigo feel uncomfortable after watching the most recent anime episode.