Warning: Display of Rayna's poor knowledge of French. ^.^' If anyone out there actually knows French and notices any mistakes in my attempts at using it, please do tell me…
And, on that note, if you have the chance send your shout-outs and thanks to Bladre MKT, who has so kindly offered his talents in Spanish so that any mistakes I make can be smoothed out.
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 just stood passively as a few females poked and prodded at her, lifting her arms and pushing her into positions as they held different and colorful kimonos up close to her, trying to find the 'perfect one'.
"Her hair is gorgeous…"
"So are her eyes… but they just throw a wrench in the color scheme."
"Nemu, your dad has dark hair and yellow eyes; how does Captain Kurotsuchi match colors for these kinds of occasions?"
"Master Mayuri doesn't wear traditional clothing; if he goes to these sorts of events at all, he wears his uniform."
Vicenta zoned out as she was compared to Potting Soil, who she did not want to think about at the moment…
Not because they were fighting, because they were but they didn't let it get in the way, but because she was having no luck in getting past her father's fucking blocks on El Sanctuario's network, and thinking about Mayuri reminded her of that.
Why?
Because he was getting just as testy about it as she was.
When he'd finally gotten sick and tired of watching her amble around without any results, he'd literally thrown her out of his chair and sat down, trying out for himself.
When even he hadn't gotten any results, though, they'd both started to get pissed, and the atmosphere had finally gotten bad enough between them that Nemu had simply walked out, unnoticed, without excusing herself.
After several hours, Mayuri and Vicenta had finally walked out of his computer room and through the labs, severely bloodied from various but unseen wounds and bruised in obvious places.
The odd part, though, was despite the fact that the two had clearly inflicted the damage on one another, they both were plotting together in a way that was as close to 'chummy' as either of them would get while working together. And no matter how they tried, the division members who saw their state and saw them still working together couldn't quite bring themselves to be shocked.
After all, the Captain and the Arrancar girl were (odd) friends.
Of course, predictably enough, as they were walking Vicenta had let it slip that the reason Mayuri and Vicenta, together, hadn't been able to outwit her father's programming was because she had helped her father with it.
And, of course, this had caused Mayuri to automatically lash out and cuff her over the head, though they'd both continued to the division kitchen like he hadn't.
And the division members who had seen them had been more than exasperated.
Yeah… they were definitely odd friends…
…She was supposed to go back to his lab today so they could continue their work, but, instead, Nemu had tricked her and dragged her to this… thing at the Shinigami Women's Association.
Apparently, Yachiru had heard that the young Arrancar was in the area and was excited about having such a nice 'doll' to dress up for Kuchiki's party… Not that Vicenta minded. After all, she did want to immerse herself in the culture.
However, she was starting to find that kimonos were quite cumbersome.
Her first instance was when she'd finally snapped out of her thoughts to find herself back in the Twelfth Division labs, Mayuri staring at her blankly.
Vicenta blinked, wondering just how she'd managed to zone out the walk between the Shinigami Women's Association all the way to the Twelfth Division, then looked down at herself and twitched.
Somehow, she'd let herself be stripped and shoved into a pale pink, silk crepe kimono that went down to her ankles. The left sleeve was decorated with hand painted, softly-faded, off-white leaves, and the lower left hem, above her feet, was done in a similar fashion with a few springs of the same kind of leaves accompanied by black-stemmed, blood red spider lilies.
The obi was orange, decorated with a red brocaded pine motif, and secured around that was a tightly woven, thick red cord.
"…Spawn, who did you let shove you into that god-awful eyesore?"
It wasn't even an exclamation; it was a simple, almost innocent question.
And it was one that prompted a simple, almost innocent toss of a solution-filled beaker at the Captain's head.
Mayuri dodged easily by simply tipping his head slightly to the left, the blank look on his face never fading.
"If your precious kimono gets ruined by something, I will not have you whining and sulking about it." The Captain said, deadpanned, as he quickly turned and walked across the room.
"I assure you, Potting Soil, your fears are groundless." Vicenta answered blandly, jerking one of the work robes over her head and following. "I'm no more enthused about this than you are."
"Then why are you wearing it?" Mayuri scoffed disinterestedly, snatching a clipboard from Akon before the man could hand it to him properly and looking it over.
"Why don't you ask the Lieutenant?" Vicenta asked back snappishly, making the Captain glance at Nemu.
Nemu blinked, offering her only explanation as, "President Yachiru's word is law."
Apparently accepting her explanation, Mayuri quickly abandoned his brief interest in his daughter and went to work, waving Vicenta in the direction of his computer room, "I want that code cracked today, Spawn."
"You and I, both." Vicenta grumbled, turning and walking off.
When she was in the room and went to sit down, she struggled for a moment, the kimono tight around her knees and making it awkward to ease herself into the chair.
Things got even worse when, as she tried to lean forward, her tightly fastened obi dug uncomfortably into her diaphragm and restricted her breathing.
Letting out an indignant huff, Vicenta sat back and drew herself up straight, glaring down at her stomach with pursed lips and a twitching eyebrow.
After a moment, she scooted forward and sat, rather painfully, on the edge of the chair, forced to keep her back erect and her shoulders rolled back slightly in good posture so she could keep breathing.
A pain in the ass, yes, but ultimately all in the name of accessing her computer and trying to find out just why her parents wanted to keep her in the dark so badly.
Glancing over the manuals and keys to reaffirm her mental layout, she flexed her fingers a few times before she started typing, the display automatically responding as if to the familiar hand and complying with her commands.
Vicenta's fingertips flew across the keys, quickly and easily accessing the basic El Sanctuario network. After that, figuring her way past the initial wave of security measures was almost like clockwork, and then she reached the third tier of protection and…
Ground her teeth, cursing violently under her breath a at her father's twisted sense of humor.
'My Dearest Fille, let's forget the frivolities of sémantique and focus on the beauté of the noise, for while it appears shabby and riddled with splinters, this is regarded as being rather agréable à l'oreille to some native of Bretaigne or another.'
Vicenta twitched, staring at the screen.
…Was there any method of security her father hadn't used?
And had he suddenly geared the attention of the interactive ones to her for the simple fact that he knew she was trying to hack in?
He knew she hated the various tongues the humans spoke in, and though she'd never bothered to learn any but her own that didn't mean she was so uncultured as to not be able to recognize a foreign language when she heard one.
…Though she was so uncultured that she wasn't able to even begin to guess what language speckled her father's otherwise Japanese words.
"Spawn, are you making any progress?"
Vicenta froze, her eyes widening, and then she jerked back to life and quickly shut the computer down, standing and walking past Mayuri as he walked into the room.
"Fuck this shit." Vicenta growled, tearing her lab coat off and balling it in her hand, "I quit."
Like hell she was about to admit to the Captain that she had been stumped by a simple language barrier. He would find the gap in her knowledge utterly hilarious and she'd never live it down.
"Spawn—" Vicenta tensed when Mayuri's hand latched onto her upper arm, "What do you mean 'I quit'? You weren't even in there for twenty minutes today, and our work hours aren't over until eleven o'clock this evening."
"I'm not a shinigami." Vicenta hissed, glaring over her shoulder at him, "So I don't share your work hours. I can leave whenever I damn well please, and I want to leave now."
"…You've hit a snare in what you know to be an utterly simple barrier."
No questioning or exclaiming inflection; monotone as always. A simple statement of fact.
And yet, when the corner of Vicenta's eye twitched, a wide, sadistically pleased grin spread across his face and Mayuri started cackling, making the young Arrancar hiss and strain against his grip in vain.
"Let's go, then, Spawn." Mayuri cooed in a condescendingly 'gentle' way, tugging her back into the room and ignoring her adamant protests and struggles.
Getting jostled and confused when the Captain actually used his strength, Vicenta found herself sitting back in front of his computer in a flash, the laboratory robe back on her body and large hands painted in a resilient, heavy white make-up forcing her fingers to rest on the keys.
"Now, then, Spawn," The shinigami's voice purred next to her ear, making her shudder involuntarily, "Bring up the security barrier that gave you so much trouble and we'll review it together."
Vicenta ground her teeth audibly and hunched her shoulders, waiting as the Captain chuckled and backed away before she started to reluctantly type.
When the bilingual riddle was back on the screen, she waited as Mayuri read it, flinching when he started speaking not two seconds after.
"The other language is French, and the answer is 'cellar door', though he is probably expecting it to be written in English."
Vicenta blinked, staring at the kanji on the screen.
Now that she had a language and the answer, she could see how it all fit, but… She didn't quite get it…
"…A cellar door is beautiful…?"
Behind her, Mayuri sighed heavily, "Not the object itself, but the word; cellar door," Here, he said the phrase in what she was sure was English, "Is largely considered, in terms of phonoaesthetics, to be the most beautiful compound in the English language. Of course," Here, his tone turned derisive, "That is taken purely from a romantic's point of view, and thus has no factual base in terms of science. Once again, your father has managed to show another of his endless shortcomings insofar as his status as a 'scientist'. Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't cut out his own tongue for the shame…"
Vicenta had already blocked out his words and was thinking, instead, about how he had said 'cellar door' in English.
…Surprisingly, the words had made even his voice tolerable, so she supposed that the compound was, indeed, rather beautiful.
Of course, she wasn't going to tell Mayuri that; he was still going on about her father.
Instead, Vicenta switched the computer's font to English and carefully clicked the letters in, frowning and stumbling slightly.
Almost in the same instant she had to hit one of the many backspace keys, Vicenta found herself shoved out of the chair and off to the side, scowling when she looked back and saw Mayuri's hulking white mass in the chair.
"Prick." The young Arrancar grumbled, standing back up and taking off her lab coat so she could smooth her kimono out. Much as she hated the thing, she wasn't about to insult the Shinigami Women's Association by ruining it in the first hour of receiving it.
Mayuri ignored her and kept typing, having long since blown past the riddle and already working six tiers in.
Vicenta sighed and slipped the coat back on, tugging it into place before going to his side and looking over his shoulder at the screen passively.
And, as they had every other time, they didn't break through the last few codes before Vicenta had to excuse herself for the day and Mayuri was called to attend to matters in his division's laboratories.
"This is getting increasingly tiresome." Mayuri grumbled as they walked alongside one another to the building's exit. "I have half a mind to contact your father and hold you hostage…"
"It wouldn't get you far." Vicenta reported blandly, slipping her lab coat off yet again and hanging it up, "Not before my mother would have a bitch-fit and you would find yourself facing a court-martial."
The Captain nearly automatically snapped and said that the fools in the First Division would have to bodily drag him in for such nonsense, but then remembered the former Octava's rather bitchy mate and calculated that that would be exactly what would happen.
Which was a hassle he didn't want to have to deal with; the girl was hardly worth it and it would cut into his work unnecessarily.
…Though now that he thought of the rather brutish mate of Szayel Aporro Grantz—
"Will your mother be attending Kuchiki's festivities?"
"Eh, if her party senses tingled, probably." Vicenta shrugged, sighing, "She loves parties…" She paused, then shook her head, "But I really, really hope not. She isn't a lightweight, but Mother does love to get sloshed…"
Which was exactly what Mayuri was counting on.
The Captain was glad that they had reached the door and Vicenta walked out, because as he turned to walk back into his labs he couldn't hold back a wide, sinister grin curling on his lips, making his broad, golden teeth flash in disturbing resonance with his eyes in the dim lighting of the division.
"Akon, Nemu, front and center! I believe it is about time we explored the wonderful world of alcoholic beverages…"
Aporro suddenly looked up from her work, a wide, pleased grin spreading across her face, "Booze."
Szayel, who had been trying to block out the painful and scarring ordeal his mate was putting him through, blinked and looked down at her, quirking a brow, "I beg your pardon?"
"Booze." Aporro repeated, looking back at her work, "Lots and lots and lots of booze."
She didn't elaborate further than that, and Szayel was partially glad for it.
Now that Szayel was stuck back in the present, though, he looked down at himself and flinched.
His mate was currently using him as a mannequin as she made, by hand, the kimono she planned on wearing to Byakuya Kuchiki's sakura viewing festival. It was one of the few times Szayel intensely regretted ever making a doppelganger, though he supposed he couldn't deny the logic in her argument…
"What, you can use me as your double but I can't use you? Nice double standard, dickweed." She'd said.
Though all of it was oddly reminiscent of an argument they'd had so long ago, Szayel didn't have much time to reflect on it when he was, once again, snapped out of his thoughts. This time it was by something cold on his chest; Aporro was shoving bowls into the bra she'd fitted him with.
"Cold, cold, cold!" Szayel protested, slapping at her hands in weak protest.
Aporro looked up at him flatly, asking, "Do you want to go to the festival in your uniform, or do I get to dress you up?" When Szayel froze, twitching, she nodded and started adjusting the bowls, "Then be a good boy and stay still."
Szayel twitched again, glaring down at the top of his mate's head over his 'breasts'. She was going to pay for this later, dearly, that much was certain… but for now he had to distract himself.
"Where did you learn to do this?" Szayel asked, lifting his arm when she directed him to and watching as she looped fabric over it.
"I think I had to learn it waaaaay back when I was human…" Aporro answered with a distracted mutter, past all of the pins she had clamped between her teeth, "My family was pretty affluent, and like most families who would afford it I had to learn quite a few traditional things…"
Szayel quirked a brow, wondering, as he had so many times before, if he should be concerned that no matter how many times his mate's life was recycled she still managed to remember things from when she had been human…
However, those thoughts were banished when he flinched and hissed, a fine-point sewing pin jabbing into his thigh, not piercing but definitely denting his sub-par hierro.
"Sorry, sorry…" Aporro offered a muffled apology, screwing up her nose in concentration and taking the pin back out, this time not stabbing Szayel when she slipped it back through the fabric.
Szayel sighed and kept his arms held out at his sides, watching listlessly as his mate continued to pin the pieces of fabric to one another, wondering just how she planned on finishing this before the shinigami's little get-together…
"Aporro, do you actually see completing this as realistic?" The former Octava asked in a low, slightly disinterested murmur, twitching slightly when his mate's eyes shot up to meet his, nothing but determination burning in her slightly glowing amber gaze.
"This will get finished before then." Aporro said stubbornly past the pins in her mouth, glaring at him as if daring him to object, "Even if you have to stand there all night."
Szayel groaned petulantly and let his head fall back.
One way or another, he was going to get the bitch for this…
Fun in The Sanctuary~!
Mutual Agreement…
"Hello, Szayel."
Szayel tenses slightly, then sighs and relaxes, continuing to take off his bloody work clothes. He hadn't even felt his mate tucked away in the darkness of the sitting alcove of their room, but he was not about to let her scare tactics get to him.
This game was wearing them both thin…
"Hello, Aporro."
"You were right, you know." Aporro continues after a moment, standing slowly and walking towards him at a calm, even pace, "I already can't take this."
Szayel smirks. He knew it…
"However…" She places her hands on his hips and draws him backwards, nuzzling the back of his neck and murmuring, "You can't, either…"
Szayel shudders, twitching. She's right… However…
"You're still the one giving in first, dear…" Szayel drawls with a smirk.
"No, I'm not." Aporro growls in his ear, then pauses and sighs, wrapping her arms around his waist and setting her chin on his shoulder, "I'm proposing a truce."
Szayel twitches, wondering what she's getting at.
"As you can guess by now…" Aporro mutters, sighing dramatically and slipping past him, flopping back on their bed and propping herself up on her elbows to quirk a brow at him, "There's quite a large pool out on which of us is going to cave. I'm not sure if you know about me, but I know about you and I know neither of us appreciates this very much."
Szayel twitches again. She's right; he doesn't like that. Szayel absolutely loathes the idea of others manipulating him for their own gain… it makes him feel all twitchy and gives him the need to slice someone open…
"Your point being, dear?" Szayel mumbles, staying cool and smooth as he quirks a brow and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the post at the end of their bed. Just because he agrees doesn't mean he's about to cave…
Aporro smirks, "My point being I'm the only person who, anonymously, of course, made the new poll option that says we'll talk it out, get over it and just have sex again. And as of thirty minutes ago, I was also the only one who had any money placed in it. The odds are stacked high against me."
"…Very well, then. I apologize for conducting that rather heinous and admittedly uncouth experiment."
"And I apologize for using sex as a punishment."
"Truce?"
"Truce."
The two mates immediately launch themselves one another, meeting in a frenzy of touches and caresses on the edge of the bed before they roll right off and fall onto the floor, making sure not to make any attempts to muffle the noises they are about to make.
Haggling could be saved for later, but Aporro was thinking they'd split the money… 70-30.
Of course, you could guess who would be getting the 70.