Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo, meaning it does not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Bleach storyline (such as Aporro [in character, not name] and Vicenta Acere) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
Vicenta emerged from the Senkaimon slightly pale and jaded, flinching as the bright sun of the Soul Society overhead bore down on her. She had a feeling she was never going to get used to the feel of the sun, no matter how many times she visited. It probably went against the nature of half of the blood in her body…
"Miss Vicenta!"
Blinking past the blindness, she smiled and nodded to the Captain of the Thirteenth Division, walking ahead of the shinigami escorts who had been sent to her and bowing when she was standing in front of him, "Captain Ukitake."
"Welcome back." Jushiro smiled, inclining his body slightly, "I take it your trip here was uneventful?"
"Yeah." Vicenta nodded, smirking slightly, "Much better than the last trip when Mom managed to get us thrown off the path and chased halfway across the Dangai by that Janitor…"
"That's good." Jushiro chuckled. He then saw the small white case in her hand and tipped his head slightly, "Your luggage?"
"Ah, yes." Vicenta nodded, glancing down at her bag and nodding, "It's actually bigger than it looks, but—"
"Here, allow me to take that."
Vicenta followed the new, outstretched hand up an arm up to the face of a man with black hair that stood straight up several inches, a long goatee that shared the same stiffness his hair did, and an odd white rope tied around his forehead like a bandana.
She recognized him; one of the Thirteenth Division's two third seats, Kotsubaki.
"Ah… Very well, then." Vicenta nodded, relinquishing possession of her suitcase if only to appear polite; in all reality, she felt an odd sense of revulsion towards the idea, which made her feel slightly guilty (again, her Hollow and human sides at war with one another).
Kotsubaki took it with a winning smile, and briefly flashed his captain a thumbs-up.
In a flash, though, a short blonde, shorter than Vicenta and far shorter than Kotsubaki, snatched the suitcase out of the male third seat's hand, the female co-third seat moving to stand in front of Vicenta and bowing.
"No, allow me, Miss Vicenta." The girl, Kotetsu, straightened, grinning and throwing her partner a triumphant look, "Because unlike me, he can't follow you into the women's quarters."
"Kiyone…" Kotsubaki growled, his hand shooting out and latching onto the suitcase, "She said I could. Besides, the Captain already approved it!"
"The Captain so did not approve it, Sentaro, and I'm the more logical choice! I'll carry it!"
"Kiyone!!"
"Sentaro!!"
Vicenta watched with a blank face as the two third seats in front of her grabbed onto opposing ends of her suitcase and initiated a game of tug-of-war, both of them shouting too loudly at one another to hear the sheepish and exasperated words of their captain as he tried to placate them.
It wasn't very long before one of the two accidentally discovered the button that snapped the case open and clothes went flying through the air, white jackets, hakama and gloves splaying across the dirt ground and getting dusted in a light tan.
Sentaro and Kiyone froze, staring at the mess around them in horror as the two shinigami behind Vicenta who had escorted her through the Dangai groaned.
Vicenta forced a smile to stay on her face as she and Ukitake looked directly at one another, though she couldn't stop a small twitch below her left eye.
Jushiro smiled back at her apologetically.
"…Sentaro, look at what you did!!"
"What I did?! If you hadn't tried to take it from me, it never would have spilled in the first place!"
"If you would have admitted the logic in my observation and just handed it over, we wouldn't have struggled with it! Besides, you pressed the button!"
"No, you did!"
"No, you did!"
Vicenta pinched the bridge of her nose, whimpering, "Can we just… go to the division now, please? All of this sun is giving me a headache…"
Vicenta frowned down at the shihakusho she was wearing, tugging the uncomfortable collar into place yet again as it threatened to slip open and free her breasts. Honestly, how these shinigami women got them to stay in place, or how they were even that comfortable with being so open…
Fortunately, it was night, and while everyone else may be sleeping or close to it, Vicenta was wide awake and far more at ease.
Sighing, she walked over to the door and slid it open, peeking out and looking up and down the hall. There were a few scattered shinigami drifting around, but the division was mostly empty, most either presumably in bed or out for the evening.
Like she planned on being.
For a creature born in a world of near complete darkness, like Vicenta, exploring new areas during daylight hours wasn't exactly… pleasant. Unlike her mother, she wasn't adapted to or all that fond of the brightness, so wandering around at the late hours was much more desirable.
As she left the Thirteenth Division altogether and set off down one of the many wall-lined, stone paved roads that was part of the maze that was the Seireitei, Vicenta considered what she would do her first night back within the Soul Society.
She could always wander around the Rukongai; she'd never been there, and though none of the residents (as her father had said) 'were hardly anything even remotely interesting', that didn't stop her from being curious. She'd never seen a non-spiritually gifted human soul and was curious as to how the reishi composition in the air around them would taste…
Then again, leaving the confinement of the Seireitei when she wasn't carrying Gavilan Pintado and without an escort would be a bad idea, especially if she got into a spat with some of the rougher inhabitants of the Rukongai and got herself trapped outside when the wall lowered.
Vicenta sighed.
She'd have to stick with wandering the inner sanctum…
Just as she was contemplating heading back and wandering around Captain Ukitake's small but quaint garden, something drew her attention to a courtyard she was passing.
A large sign with a cross and two lines below it, and even more distinctive than that a hanging sign below that with something that looked like a wriggling caterpillar being one of the supporting parallel bars.
The Twelfth Division…
Though she was completely and utterly sure her father would kill her if he knew that she was even considering walking into the SRDI, she couldn't help but meander on over slowly…
Szayel Aporro Grantz and Mayuri Kurotsuchi, despite being notoriously and strikingly similar in so many ways, shared a rivalry that was as much common knowledge as it was known that Yachiru Kusajishi had a series of tunnels dug throughout the Kuchiki manor for her own entertainment.
Still, Vicenta had rarely interacted with the shinigami scientist, and never had she been alone with him, so she couldn't help but be curious as to how the man was in his natural work environment, not to mention how he managed to run a smooth operation with so many sentient underlings (unlike her father, who was a veritable one-man-show with several dozen mentally challenged twits who were only able to handle up to three carefully detailed instructions at a time).
Really, though… she supposed she should have seen it coming.
Dressed as a shinigami and as little-known as she was outside of the 'inner circle', Vicenta should have suspected that the moment she walked into the division she would either be kicked out as a wayward trespasser or put to work…
And even though it went against the purpose of her being in the Seireitei to begin with, Vicenta had to admit she was rather thrilled when the latter happened.
"Finally!" Vicenta was snatched up the moment she entered the dark foyer of the laboratory, a rather harried-looking young male shinigami turning on his heel and dragging her further into the room, "Honestly, you would think with the time they give you new recruits to find your posts that at least one of you would be on time! You were supposed to take over my shift two hours ago!"
Vicenta blinked, figuring she should put up some form of resistance despite the fact that working actually sounded pleasant at the moment, "Actually, I—"
"Bah, no excuses!" The man swung her into a large room filled with U-form island tables that served as workstations for the dozens of shinigami who were buried in their jobs, "That workstation right there!" He pointed, "The beaker on the Bunsen burner! It's a typical and extremely basic substance that the Captain wants put under various stimulants! The chosen stimulants are right behind it in test tubes, the clipboard is on the right-hand side… You do the math!"
"I'm no—" Vicenta turned to speak to the man, only to blink when she saw the white robe he had been wearing over his uniform swinging from one of a long row of hooks on the wall behind her, the shinigami, himself, gone.
After a pause, the young Arrancar sighed and grabbed one of the several remaining robes for herself and slipped it on over her head, going to her 'assigned' workstation.
When she got a good look at the clipboard the young man had indicated to, she scoffed. Clearly, he hadn't been paying attention to his assignment at all; Kurotsuchi actually wanted the various fluids in the tubes behind the beaker combined in such a way that the liquid in the beaker, itself, (which wasn't basic in the least but actually extremely volatile) was neutralized.
No wonder he had been in such a hurry to get out; the idiot had no idea what he was doing and wanted the failure of his assignment passed on to a new recruit.
Fucking stupid greenhorns…
Vicenta snorted, poured a pure neutralizer into the already ruined liquid and dumped the useless remains down the sink.
She had just located a pure, untainted solution and was getting to work when an oppressive force stepped up behind her and the hairs on the back of her neck stood.
"What are you doing here, Spawn?" Mayuri Kurotsuchi drawled, using the derisive nickname he'd come up for her when she was younger and had continued to use ever since.
"Working, Potting Soil." Vicenta answered easily, glancing over her shoulder and smirking slightly when she saw him twitch at the jab at his name, "What does it look like?"
Mayuri twitched, making his daughter and the haggard-looking horned man behind him shy back instinctually, "It looks like you're ruining the integrity of my experiment. Who let you in?"
Vicenta snorted and rolled her eyes, turning back to the project in front of her and getting back to work, "The idiot who was working on this last and rudely mistook me for a new recruit. Honestly, do you let just anyone work in here?! You'd think these people had never felt the reiatsu of a Hollow before… Oh, and the last guy you had working on this was a dipshit. He was one ketone away from a poisonous gas leak that could have shut you down for months…"
The growling behind her got closer until it was right in her ear, Vicenta having to suppress a shudder as Mayuri hovered over her shoulder and watched her hands, his ridiculous hairstyle making her tilt her head slightly so a few stray blue strands would stop irritating her ear.
"…Well…" Mayuri scoffed when the previously red liquid in the beaker fizzed and turned clear, "It would appear as though the Perfect Being actually did something right."
Pointedly ignoring the jab at her father, Vicenta turned to the clipboard and scribbled down her results quickly, turning towards the captain and holding out the paper with a quirked brow, "Did you want this now, or is there some paper tray it goes in?"
Mayuri sighed, dismissing her with a flippant wave even as he started to walk away, "Akon, take it."
Vicenta narrowed her eyes at the back of his head, then stared at the horned man dully as he reached out and took the paper from her, slipping it underneath the already quite full snap on his clipboard.
When she met Nemu's eyes, the two young women stared at one another before they both nodded and bowed simultaneously.
Heaving a sigh, Vicenta turned towards her workstation and started cleaning, twitching when she was called to from across the lab.
"Oh, and Spawn! Make sure to bathe before you come back to work tomorrow; you reek of those disgusting creatures who are half your kin."
His answer was a beaker of the pure volatile substance Vicenta had been working with being thrown across the lab at the back of his head.
Despite the damages done to his lab and the budget he was going to have to pull fixing the mess, Mayuri would only be able to giggle about it later.
Vaida chewed on her finger irately, completely unaware that she'd broken the skin and was bleeding all down her chest.
No, she was far too stressed to notice.
Ever since the young, black-haired Arrancar who controlled the black balls had disappeared back into her rat hole with her two guards, there hadn't been a stir.
Not even the slightest flicker of reiryoku.
As far as she knew, there was no sort of substance or 'Arrancar' magic that could block the feel of one's spiritual pressure, but then again Vaida wasn't about to do anything stupid like assume there was none.
In fact, she was almost completely sure that she'd heard Gillo mention something about those sorts of properties once…
Still, it was that sliver of uncertainty that was making her so scared.
She'd gone through the trouble of sneaking out of Gillo's territory to come and stake out, but before she'd come she'd made sure that word had gotten to Daramos that she was onto something…
And it was in that instance that Daramos learned of her existence.
Now, she would be expected to deliver something, and if she didn't…
…She was pretty sure Gillo was annoyed enough with her that he wouldn't protect her.
Vaida shuddered and hugged herself, swallowing.
Maybe… maybe Gillo had been right… She was in a bit in over her head.
"Well, well, well, looks like a liiiiiittle sparrow found herself one big old assignment…"
Vaida tensed, her gauntlet fingers digging into the skin on her arms as she swallowed hard and looked up over her shoulder, her eyes wide.
A tall, proud woman grinned down at her, flaming red hair cascading down her back, over her shoulders and near dragging the ground and dark yellow eyes flashing dangerously.
Marccia Bone's long, dual serpentine tails whipped around and settled around her waist like two thick belts, disturbing her loin cloth and nearly revealing her sex.
Her still largely intact mask covered her cheeks, hugged around the back of her neck and swooped down beneath her breasts in sharp, angular plains, leaving the tops of her breasts bare to the pale moonlight above.
The Vasto Lorde's grin widened and sharpened when she saw the terror in Vaida's eyes, and she leaned down and grabbed the younger by the chin, pulling her up and off of her feet.
Vaida trembled as Marccia's reiatsu hugged her, hugged her tightly, constricted, tightened… tightened… tightened until she couldn't breathe…!!
"You, little sparrow," Marccia cooed, her forked tongue flicking out and making another gash on the other side of Vaida's cheek to match the one Gillo had given her, "Need a bit of help with this assignment. Don't you agree?"
Vaida whimpered and finally managed to struggle a bit when the woman pinched her jawbone until she heard the bone creak in protest.
"Ah… ah…!!"
Marccia chuckled, then leaned in and spoke in Vaida's ear in harsh, cutting tones, "This is what I'm going to have you do…"
Fun in The Sanctuary~!
Pong…!
"Agh, no, you don't twist it like that!"
Grimmjow freezes outside of his mate's lab, frowning. 'Kurosaki…?' Confused and interested, he leans in and presses his ear to the door, listening.
"You have to move it gently, back and forth… Grasp it firmly with your hand, but not too firmly. It's very touchy and the wrong kind of stimulus will make it become unresponsive."
Grimmjow twitches, his eyes narrowing. Just what in the fuck is going on in there…!!
"Son of a…" Vicenta whines, "The whole thing just went flaccid! What the hell?!"
"I told you, these things can be very touchy. See, you just have to grab it very carefully right here… now we'll shift it around until it— ah, there we go! Standing upright again, like it should be."
Grimmjow twitches again, his eyes widening. Just what… just what the fuck… is going on…
"Good, good… And that's all you have to do. Move it gently up and down."
"Right, right… And you're sure doing things like this will make Grimmjow more comfortable in my lab? I just hate it when he comes in here and has nothing to do but watch me…"
"Mmhmm." Ichigo grunts, "Y-Yeah, Grimmjow'll like it well enough. Guys like these kinds of things… Man, you're good!"
"Thank you." Vicenta sighs, "Honestly, men are so easily entertained… I just don't like the mess it makes…"
"Eh, cleanup's usually the easiest part. You just have to—"
"ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT!" Grimmjow bursts into the room, "KUROSAKI, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY MA—!" Grimmjow freezes, blinking.
Vicenta and Ichigo look up, both sitting in their own rolling chairs with a healthy five feet separating them. Between them is a dinosaur of a gaming system, and in their hands are joysticks. Dozens of thick wires are scattered around their area in an otherwise clean lab, and on the screen in front of them is a game of Pong.
"G-Grimmjow!" Vicenta jumps up, biting her lip and hiding her joystick behind her back, "It… it was supposed to be a surprise… I wanted to—" Something behind her back snaps and she brings it around, scowling down at the now limp joystick in her hand, "Son of a bitch handle keeps popping out of its socket in the base! Fucking old-ass human technology!"
Ichigo sighs heavily, throwing a smirk and Grimmjow and rolling his eyes, "I told you, you have to be gentle with the stick; this technology is older than you, after all."
Feeling immensely relieved, Grimmjow sighs heavily and leans against the doorframe.
"…Grimmjow, just what in the hell did you think we were doing in here?"
Grimmjow tenses. 'Aw, fuck…'