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 had purposely been ignoring Mayuri Kurotsuchi's summons, going so far as to hang out with Kyoraku and Ukitake out in the open so the Twelfth Division Captain knew just whom she was blowing him off for.
Because no matter how bored she was, or how interesting it sounded, there was no way in hell she was about to go back to that man's lab so he could snatch her up and make her his temporary assistant.
No way.
If she was anyone's lab assistant, it was her father's and her father's alone.
Vicenta crossed her arms stubbornly, pouting and glaring off into space. 'Stupid, persistent old man…'
"Miss Vicenta?"
Snapping out of her thoughts, Vicenta blinked and flushed at the amused look Kyoraku was giving her.
"Now what did the poor cherry tree ever do to you?" The Captain of the Eighth Division chuckled, sipping at his sake and quirking a brow, a lopsided smirk on his face. "And you know you're ignoring poor Akon…"
"Oh, right…" Vicenta nodded, then looked at the horned man from the other day and flatly said, "Tell Potting Soil he can go to hell."
Akon blinked, then sighed, and Vicenta had half a mind to feel bad for the poor scientist, but then Kyoraku and Ukitake laughed at her and she was angry and embarrassed all over again.
"'Potting Soil'?" Ukitake tittered, shaking his head and smiling at her, "Now, what did Mayuri do to you to deserve that sort of nickname?"
Vicenta sighed and stared at Akon dully, her voice low as she spoke, "Well, my nickname is 'Spawn', for starters. The man also made jabs at my father, my mother, and my race in general, and apparently finds my only redeeming factor to be my human half."
"Actually, he finds your redeeming factor to be your almost obsessive need to follow directions to a T," Akon mumbled back, his eyes sliding down to the grass, "But that's completely beside the point. The real point is I've been ordered to… 'harass' you every fifteen minutes until you cave, so can we please get this over with? I have a lot of work to do…"
"Let's not and say we did." Vicenta shot him down coolly, closing her eyes and sipping at her tea. The prospect of sitting underneath a shady cherry tree at midday and listening to two old men chat about the golden years and periodically getting hit on was becoming more and more appealing the more this shinigami scientist stood there.
"Aww, cut the guy some slack, Vicenta." Kyoraku said with a grin, waving his flat, saucer-like cup of sake and sloshing a bit of the clear liquid across the grass, "It can't be all that bad, now can it?"
In answer, Vicenta opened her eyes halfway and turned her head slowly towards the captain, regarding Kyoraku with a blank, flat and ever-so-slightly searching stare, as if she were partially hoping he was kidding but didn't really expect him to be.
"…Then again," The brunette ceded after a moment with a soft sigh and a sheepish smile, looking down at his sake and shaking his head, "This is Mayuri we're talking about…" He drank, then poured himself a bit more.
During all of this, Akon watched silently, and Vicenta wondered briefly if he was actually counting down until the next fifteen minutes was up.
"So, Miss Vicenta…" Ukitake began after a moment in a sheepishly nervous tone, clearly looking to change the subject, "Will you be staying long enough for the upcoming festival? Byakuya is opening the Kuchiki Gardens for a few days for a sakura viewing and the divisions are preparing a few booths."
Vicenta blinked, perking slightly. She liked the traditional festivals the Gotei allowed themselves to indulge in when times were peaceful; most of them took place during the evenings, and they all gave her a glimpse into the culture her mother had once been apart of.
"Well, that actually does sound like fun…" Vicenta mumbled, "I wonder if I should call Mom…"
"She'll find out one way or another, I assure you." Kyoraku chuckled, shaking his head. "And when she finds out, so will your father, and when he finds out she won't be allowed to go anyway…"
Vicenta sighed, concluding, "And then they'll get into an argument and I won't want to be at home, so in the end I'll end up at the festival… Yeah, you know what? Let's just skip telling my mom."
"Sadly, a wise choice." The Captain of Eighth sighed, raising his cup in a toast, "It truly is a shame Aporro can't come; she's always fun to be around when she's tipsy." He then took a sip of his sake.
"Miss Vicenta Acere," Akon began suddenly in monotone, his face blank, "You are hereby cordially invited to the Twelfth Division's Resear— Ah, hell." He sighed, rubbing the back of his head and giving the young Arrancar an exasperated and slightly pleading look, "Just come. Please. Even if it's to tell him to go to hell in person."
"Look, Akon, I already said I do—"
"He said he'd give you a computer so you can hack your father's system and check on your experiments."
"…Did I say I wasn't interested? Haha!" Vicenta laughed merrily, standing and skipping over to Akon to slip her arm through his and smile up at him, "I meant I'd love to come."
The captain's of the Eighth and Thirteenth Divisions raised their brows, and Akon stared down at the Arrancar with carefully masked apprehension.
He trusted this girl about as much as he did his captain. Which, no matter how much Akon may respect the man, wasn't much. He didn't like the way her eyes glowed… It reminded him too much of the Octava Espada.
Which Akon supposed was only to be expected, though that didn't make the situation any better…
"Pardon me, Captain Kyoraku. Captain Ukitake." Vicenta said politely to the two men, smiling and bowing to them, "But I'm afraid that Potting Soil and I have a previous engagement."
Kyoraku chuckled, shaking his head, "Have fun."
"And stay safe." Ukitake sighed, "Your mother would be quite angry with me if anything were to happen to you, not to mention how your father would react if he heard Captain Kurotsuchi was involved."
"I know, I know." Vicenta tittered lightly, keeping her arm looped through Akon's as she turned and started dragging him towards the Twelfth Division.
Akon twitched slightly at Vicenta's surge of enthusiasm to return to where she had previously been most adamant about avoiding.
Suddenly, he didn't want to go back to work.
"Alright, Potting Soil, I'm here." Vicenta announced, throwing one of the SRDI's lab coats on and walking in with a rather self-important air. "Let's get to work."
"You're late, Spawn." Mayuri mumbled, not looking up from the work he was reviewing, "Go scrub the glassware in the back."
"…I beg your pardon?!" Vicenta practically shrieked her indignation, making the working lab technicians cringe slightly, "You, Potting Soil, were the one who wanted me here so badly! I never conceded, thus a time span was never set! I refuse to do your grunt work!"
Ignoring her, Mayuri glanced up from his reviewing and stared at her dully, golden eyes half-lidded and gaze hollow with his mind clearly elsewhere, "I don't know how things work in your backwater 'laboratories', but here unless you are doing the nightshift your workday starts at six. Sharp. When you're seven hours late, like you are, you do grunt work. Now, go scrub the glassware; we will need clean beakers by this evening, if the way some of these dolts go through lab materials is any indication."
By now, all work had slowed dramatically or ceased in the lab, technicians and department heads watching the fight in mixed horror and amusement. While there were those amongst them who stood up to the Captain and, indeed, even argued with him, debates were always of an intellectual nature. Intellectual debates were really the only ones condoned.
But the Arrancar guest arguing with the Captain over basic laboratory etiquette and rules?
A different matter entirely. And one the Arrancar wasn't likely to win.
Even though everyone in the lab knew Vicenta was right; she and the Captain never had reached a mutual agreement that she would be returning for 'work'…
Though no one was about to openly agree with her on that and question the Captain…
Vicenta's back went rigidly straight and her face flushed with embarrassment, hands clenching at her sides. Grinding her teeth and huffing, she turned sharply and made to storm out, clearly ready to call the whole thing a bust.
The moment she clamped the doorframe in her hand to swing herself into the hall, though—
"Aaahh, just as I expected. The Perfect Being did teach you to run from unpleasant situations. How like him."
The wooden doorframe in Vicenta's hand split straight to the ceiling and Mayuri's expression went from dull to highly amused, a grin curling on his thin lips.
Vicenta lowered her head and giggled, her back hunching and shaking in anger.
To cede would be to prove a silent point he had made about her, but to just walk out would prove the verbal one he had made about her father.
That clown-faced son of a bitch had her trapped…
Vicenta spun around quickly, her grinning face meeting Mayuri's and the two scientists glaring at one another heatedly.
The shinigami underlings shuddered, taking an unconscious step back.
Though this wasn't nearly as bad as a showdown between their Captain and the Octava Espada (a situation they all unfortunately knew from firsthand experience), it did have an eerie echo of similarity and it made their skins crawl.
"This is so like you, Potting Soil."
"But of course, Spawn."
Not sparing one another any additional glance or word, the two went their separate ways; Vicenta marching to the overflowing sink in the back and Mayuri billowing to the lab that held his pipe organ-like computer.
Nemu, who had been standing behind her father for the entire ordeal, stayed were she was, staring off into the space in front of her. After a moment, she glanced first at Vicenta, then at her father.
She sighed.
For some reason, she could never bring herself to feel overly happy when her father made a new friend.
"If you were working with crystallized shinigami reishi, then yes! But this is Arrancar! You need to use a blue-lite laser!"
"I always have, and always will use the red. That isn't about to change because some uppity Arrancar brat who figures herself a scientist is trying to integrate her father's styles into my workplace!"
"Oh, for the love of— Arrancar reishi is denser, you dolt! You need to use something with a shorter wavelength to increase your precision! If you try to use the red, the beam will scatter and the cut will be jagged! No wonder your data readings are so skewed!"
"You little worm, my readings are not skewed! And the beam will not scatter! The longer wavelength will assure a far more stable beam than the blue ever could without the assistance of a condenser, which would defeat the purpose!"
"I did not agree to let you crystallize part of my reishi so you could screw it up! Use the blue!"
"Red!"
"Blue!"
"Red!"
"Blue!"
"Red!"
Nemu watched blankly as her father and his friend (though she would never call them that directly) screamed at one another over a rather dangerous-looking piece of equipment, resisting the urge to sigh.
What may have, at one point or another, been considered an intellectual debate had quickly disintegrated into a childish squabble, and with the volumes Mayuri and Vicenta were now reaching Nemu doubted she would be able to gain the attention of either of them.
Which was rather unfortunate, considering the laboratories were about thirty minutes passed closing for the evening and they were eating well into the time Mayuri had promised Vicenta use of his computer in exchange for the data he gathered from her.
Still… she supposed she should at lest try…
"Father… Miss Vicenta… It's after-hours."
Two pairs of differently hued yellow eyes darted to the clock above the door Nemu was standing in, then down to the Lieutenant, herself.
Nemu met the stares evenly, her face as void as ever.
"…Potting Soil, may I use your computer now?"
"…Yes, Spawn, I suppose you may."
Nemu stepped aside as her father strode out of the room, waiting until Vicenta had walked by briskly to follow the two to Mayuri's pipe organ-like computer.
Stepping aside with a snide smirk, the captain turned to Vicenta and gestured to his chair 'graciously', making Vicenta glance at him oddly before she sat.
Nemu blinked.
Only she and her father were able to read the tweaked and coded alphabet her father engraved on the musical organ console he had used in substitution of a standard, computer keyboard, so how…
"Master," She began slowly, walking up behind him, "I'm not sure she—"
"Silence, Nemu." Mayuri growled, backhanding her without thinking and watching Vicenta as she stared down at the keys in front of her intently.
Slowly, Vicenta lifted her hands and held them over the organ keys, trying to remember why she recognized the artful, curving characters at the bases of each of the keys that certainly weren't any kind of Japanese script.
Some kind of Middle Eastern lettering…?
One finger hovered over a key, but before she pressed it she looked up at the monitor. It was black, but emitting a soft light; it was probably in hibernation. At least she wouldn't have to make herself look like an idiot trying to turn it on; she just needed to hit one key and see how the computer reacted. Then she could…
As Vicenta slowly pressed down on a random key and it lit, three pairs of eyes twitched to the screen and watched as the complex computer came out of hibernation and started running a program.
Mayuri glanced at the program, then back at the girl in his chair, quirking a brow slightly when she moved the same finger she'd pushed the first key with up a manual and over five keys to the left, pressing the new key she came to.
When the program she had opened immediately shut down, Vicenta smirked and Nemu blinked.
"Alright, then…" The young Arrancar mumbled to herself, finally using all of her fingers to touch the keys and starting to 'play', her feet tentatively brushing the pedalboard when a few of the keys didn't react exactly as she had expected.
Nemu's eyes widened slightly when thirty minutes later Vicenta was typing rapidly on the computer in front of her, her amber eyes slightly glazed as if with boredom and her fingers flying from level to level of the organ manuals, playing key after key with near expert grace.
When she stumbled periodically and hit one or two wrong keys, her hands would automatically shift down a few manuals to type out a series of new keys that would quickly correct her error before she picked up where she left off.
"…Very well done, Spawn." Mayuri drawled as she accessed El Sanctuario's network, a scowl on his face as he studied her keystrokes carefully.
Though she knew he wasn't doing this out of the 'goodness' of his heart and was probably reaping some benefit from it, Vicenta couldn't really bring herself to care; even if the shinigami managed to find his way into the Arrancar network later the security would already have changed ten times over.
If anything, a fun little arms race would start and keep them occupied for a good few years.
Vicenta was just about to enter the password that would open her computer when—
"Hello, sweetheart…"
Vicenta stared at the screen in front of her in horror as the login page disappeared and gave way to a, presumably, prerecorded message of her mother sitting in her father's chair, leaning forward with a grin and purring.
"Now, Centa, did you really think Mommy and Daddy would be so stupid as to think that you wouldn't try to do your work from over there when you got bored? Tut tut, darling, you really do underestimate us, don't you?" Aporro's grin widened and her eyelids drooped heavily, "While Daddy got the pleasure of completely blocking your computer from your eyes, I get to gloat, so…
Aporro stood, her expression going from cool triumph to childish glee as her amber eyes livened and sparkled. The woman then pointed at the screen and—
"HAAA–HAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAA!! JUST TRY TO OUTSMART US, YOU LITTLE BRAT!!"
With that, the screen went blank and Mayuri's default desktop glowed proudly on the screen, all of the work Vicenta had done gone.
Despondent and numb, the young Arrancar turned around in her seat and faced the two Kurotsuchi's, something inside of her dying.
"…Are you really going to let them defeat you that easily?" Mayuri asked disgustedly after a moment, snorting and rolling his eyes when Vicenta's hollow, lost gaze turned to him, "Well, I don't know about you, but personally I'm already relishing the idea of completely obliterating your father's defenses."
Amber met gold and, after a moment, two grins of identical malice curled over two sets of teeth, one white and one decorated yellow.
Nemu sighed softy. It would appear as though this had just turned into a tag team cold war.
…Just why were the girl's parents working so hard to keep her out of her files, though?
"What a good little sparrow you are…" Marccia crooned, wrapping her long, thin fingers around Vaida's neck and lifting the younger Vasto Lorde up to her level, the redhead's lips brushing her cheek, "You followed my directions so well. I'm proud of you."
Vaida said nothing, flinching when Marccia's forked tongue lathed the injury it had made earlier on her cheek, opening it up, making it deeper, borderline making it so it wouldn't heal…
"Now, all we need is the final nail in the coffin… the thing that will push them over the edge and make their resolve crack." Marccia dropped Vaida without ceremony and turned to the Adjuchas kneeling behind her, smiling at them and tracing her plump bottom lip with a long fingernail, "I want you to take out a few more of those balls, but leave one for our precious little sparrow."
As the Adjuchas bowed and shouted "Yes, Mistress!" before dispersing, Marccia turned back to Vaida with a cruel smile, hooking her pointer finger underneath the younger Vasto Lorde's chin and bringing her up to her level again.
"And you, dear… You get a short rest. When I come back, I'll tell you what I want you to do with that final ball." Her eyes narrowed and flashed, "Do not tell Gillo what we discussed."
Vaida lowered her head and choked as Marccia crushed her with her reiatsu in what she supposed was to be a warning, the pressure lingering so intensely even after the red-head had left that when Gillo arrived, Vaida's face was a splotchy red and white, her lips blue.
Gillo's eyes widened slightly as his charge struggled to breathe and he flicked his wrist, sending a waft of his own spiritual pressure in her direction and making a breeze that blew Marccia's remaining aura away.
They both were silent as she collapsed, her body wracked with tremors and her ribs standing out as she gulped down air.
"…What did Marccia want?" Gillo asked in a low tone after a moment.
"N-Nothing…" Vaida rasped, taking a few minutes to try to struggle into a sitting position before she gave up, simply laying there and mumbling, "She… she just wanted to remind me of my place…"
Gillo stared down at her, his face blank.
Vaida wasn't sure if he believed her or not… And, for the moment, she didn't care. She was lightheaded, the world was spinning in front of her and her body was cold…
The young Vasto Lorde just curled up, closed her eyes and passed out, but not before she felt a large, comforting presence flop down beside her.
Gillo watched as Vaida lost consciousness.
He didn't believe the little brat; not for a moment.
Something was going on… but so long as she was going to be stupid about it, Gillo wasn't about to say anything.
He would be keeping an eye on them, though…
He didn't trust that bitch, Marccia, for anything, and Gillo had not saved Vaida from her once just to let that serpent hurt her again.
The moment Marccia Bones endangered Vaida's life, she would find herself down a limb or two.
Fun in The Sanctuary~!
The Snack That Smi— er… Whimpers…?
"How can you eat that?!" Ichigo cries, watching as Vicenta absentmindedly chews on an arm of one of her former lab assistants, Ursula.
Vicenta looks up and blinks, then glances down at the small, bony arm dangling out of her mouth. She flushes, embarrassed, then pulls the arm out of her mouth and covers her mouth as she chews.
After swallowing, she wipes her mouth and looks up at Ichigo, "It really isn't all that terrible, you know." She offers the unbitten end of the arm, tilting her head, "Would you like to try?"
Ichigo makes a face and sputters an indignant, "N-No!" He was starting to regret inviting Grimmjow and his mate to a picnic… Of course, Orihime had insisted, so…
Grimmjow throws him a feral grin, "Scared, Kurosaki? Go ahead and take a nibble; it might put some hair on your chest."
Vicenta throws him a flat look, "By that line of thinking, Grimmjow, then I, too, should have a hairy chest." She sighs heavily and rolls her eyes when her mate chokes on one of the rice balls the shinigami had brought.
Orihime looks at the arm of the former lab assistant sadly, her eyes watering slightly and her hand over her mouth as she mumbles, "The poor thing…"
Vicenta glances at her and blinks, then smiles, "Don't worry; Ursula was almost exactly the same as my Father's old Fraccion, you know. She can easily be rebuilt and have her old memories restored."
"I suppose…" Orihime sniffles. Rukia gives her a consoling pat on the back.
Vicenta blinks, "…She didn't feel any pain, and this was exactly what she was made for."
Orihime sniffles.
"…" Vicenta holds out the arm and waves it, "She's cheeeeeeerrry flavored…"
The arm is taken from the Arrancar's hand in a flash, the young soul chewing on it happily while looking at Ichigo with a grin, "Try some, Ichigo! It'll put hair on your chest!"
Ichigo and Rukia turn green as the two Arrancar and their fellow shinigami happily eat away at Ursula.
Apparently, Orihime Inoue's odd appetite knows no bounds…
"Can I put spicy mustard sauce on this?"
…Ugh…