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.
"I'm relieved I had the foresight to plan for your rude and abrupt arrival." Byakuya said icily to Aporro, his eyes narrowing slightly when she gave him a muggy look, "Had I not, you would not have had an invitation waiting."
"And I appreciate that so much, Byakuya." Aporro drawled with a slight slur, waving said pristine and rather fancy-looking invitation with one hand, smirking and skillfully cradling her saucer of sake with the other, "I really do."
Vicenta winced at the twitch that the Sixth Division Captain's eye performed when the pink-haired Arrancar shrugged her silk-covered shoulder at him and tipped a bit of sake from her saucer into her mouth, simply letting it drizzle over her tongue and down her throat.
Beside Aporro, Szayel sighed and growled, "Aporro—" Before he could get any further, his mate turned to him and grabbed his jaw.
"Drink and chill." Aporro cooed, smirking as she poured a bit of alcohol through Szayel's lips.
Szayel made a face but swallowed, jerking her hand away and narrowing his eyes at her dangerously, "Aporro, you are going to pay for this. Dearly."
"I know, I know." Aporro waved him off flippantly, "Just be sure to warn be before you drug me with whatever anesthetic you plan on using, alright? I hate randomly waking up on the operating table…" She then looked at her now empty saucer and pouted.
"Ah," Shunsui leaned forward, holding up the sake container, "Here—"
"No, no." Mayuri interceded suddenly, leaning forward and reaching into his sleeve, "Allow me."
Interest and suspicion automatically peaked as attention turned to Aporro and Mayuri, the former quirking a brow at him and the latter giving his usual, wide and toothy grin.
"Kurotsuchi…" Szayel sneered, glaring at the scientist coldly and letting his reiatsu spike, "What are you playing a—"
"No, Szayel."
Szayel twitched, glancing at his mate with a deep frown.
Aporro glanced at him and smiled, then looked back at Mayuri and shrugged, "Let him. I mean, come on, we're all on the same side now, right…?" She leaned forward, offering her saucer with a dark grin, "We should trust one another."
Vicenta lost all feeling in her legs as she swallowed.
It was no small secret that Aporro and Kurotsuchi held something of an animosity towards one another, one that had nothing to do how the shinigami felt about the female Arrancar's mate.
No, these emotions were between them and them alone, and they stemmed from the fact that, despite Mayuri knowing full well when Aporro and he had fought during the Winter War those decades ago that she wasn't an Arrancar, he had allowed her to suffer though his Superhuman Drug for the sake of his research.
While Aporro, at the time, had been able to justify it as an effect of the war, now that she was an Arrancar and naturally livid over such things she allowed herself to harbor a festering hatred towards the scientist.
She was clearly challenging him, everyone at the blanket could see that.
If, after drinking whatever Mayuri was going to offer her, something bad happened to Aporro, the captain would be facing quite an ordeal, as the treaty was still tender and new and any negative actions from either side would be met with severe ramifications.
A double-edged trap, yes, but they were really the only kinds Aporro was good at.
Still, despite the obvious challenge, Mayuri's grin only widened at her and he pulled a long, thick-glassed bottle out of his sleeve, uncorking it and reaching across to pour it into her saucer.
Aporro blinked, her animosity fleeing in an instant as she tilted her head curiously and watched as a green liquid poured out of the dark neck of the bottle, swirling around in her saucer before settling.
"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to mix your liquors…" Aporro mumbled, smelling the liquid before flicking her wrist and spinning it around a bit.
"You've hardly had enough sake to worry about something as trivial as that." Mayuri dismissed her statement with a more than slightly flippant wave.
Aporro snorted at him, then pressed the rim of the saucer to her lips and took a sip.
Szayel watched her closely, his eyes flickering from the sclera of her eyes to her throat to her temples to her hands and then back to her eyes to start all over, looking for the beginning signs of any sort of toxin or poison.
When his mate's eyes widened and she started coughing, Szayel's hand automatically flew to the hilt of Fornicaras and he glared at Mayuri, seconds away from lunging at him when—
"Son of a bitch, Mayuri!" Aporro barked hoarsely, grinning at him, "What the hell is this?!"
"I suppose you could call it a… 'family' recipe." The scientist answered with a grin.
Aporro laughed loudly, holding out her saucer again, "Whatever it is, I'm gonna need more of it."
"I thought you'd never ask." Mayuri purred, pulling a short tumbler out of his sleeve and filling it halfway with the green concoction.
Aporro took it quickly when he handed it to her and downed it like a shot.
Szayel watched silently, still glaring at Mayuri.
Vicenta, still by Shunsui, watched nervously as the others around her did, wondering just what in the hell her new lab partner was playing at…
And as she wondered, her mother downed another mouthful of the Twelfth Division Captain's odd concoction.
"Oooooooohh… Froggie went a-courtin', and he did ride, uh-huh. Uh-huh." Aporro slumped against Mayuri's arm, grinning, "Froggie went a-courtin' and he did ride, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Froggie went a-courtin' and he did ride, sword and pistol by his side, froggie went a-courtin and he did ride, Uh-Huh!"
No longer grinning, Mayuri stared down at the now too-friendly Arrancar, his lips actually meeting in a thin line.
Still, regardless of his obvious disdain for the situation, whenever her glass was close to being empty he'd 'kindly' refill it for her.
And though Szayel wanted to find out why (he really did), someone (he vaguely suspected Kyoraku) had slipped a cup of sake into his hand at one point or another, and he really didn't trust his limbs at the moment.
So, all he could do was sit where he was, his shoulders admittedly slouched more than he would have liked for his perception of posture, and watch how Mayuri acted around his mate like a hawk, making sure he wasn't trying anything.
At Mayuri's side, Aporro was still leaning against the scientist's arm, her head pleasantly buzzing, her limbs nice and warm and her hand wrapped around her glass limply.
"Hey, M'yuri…" She mumbled suddenly, ignoring him when he insisted on 'Captain Kurotsuchi…!' and tipping her head back, ignoring it when her muscles refused to support her head and her chin went back a bit too far, "What is the con… the condensation o' this liquor…?"
"Concentration." The shinigami absentmindedly corrected, glancing down at her, "Sixty-six point six nine percent."
"Hah!" Aporro laughed, grinning, "Nice." She polished off her glass, then held it out for more.
"Regrettably," Mayuri said, his grin returning as he showed her the bottle and shook it back and forth, "I'm all out."
Aporro whined loudly, her head lolling back further than before until she was slumped across Mayuri's lap, "Noooooo…!!"
Barely hold back a sneer of disgust and a violent push that would send her halfway across the courtyard, the captain tilted his head and grinned down at her, "I do have more, though. Back in my laboratory…"
"Well, al-fuckin'-right!" Aporro dropped her glass and brought her legs up, rolling her spine and jumping onto her feet, "Let's get goin'!"
Vicenta, still watching from the side of a now pleasantly buzzed and flushed Shunsui, quirked a brow, again wondered what Mayuri was planning.
"Ah… Aporro…" Aporro looked at Szayel, blinking and smirking at his flushed face and glazed eyes, "I don't want you to… That isn't… a good…"
Her smirk widening to a grin, Aporro leaned over and grabbed the back of his head, breathing against his mouth, "You're just too fuckin' sexy when you're drunk." She then kissed him briefly before pushing him flat on his back, walking over him and away with a wave, "Honestly, with all the shit you make and drink, one would think ya'd be able ta handle a bit o' sake…"
Vicenta watched after her mother as she stumbled away, tensing and moving to follow when—
A thick, well-muscled arm slipped around her waist, something smooth and sharp brushed her left cheek and someone growled next to her ear, "Hey, sexy…"
Vicenta shuddered and leaned back against the barely covered chest that waited for her, blue hair tickling her neck when the person's mouth moved down to bite on her shoulder.
"Ya know…" Aporro slurred, hooking her arm through Mayuri's and leaning against him so she could walk without running into any more walls… or people, "For a creepy, shmarmy, shic… no, sick person, yer really, really warm."
Mayuri grunted, letting her maintain contact if only so she would feel comfortable and so he could lead her. She was fairly drunk, but he had a sneaking suspicion that drunk Aporro was more dangerous than sober Aporro.
"Really warm…" Aporro mumbled, nuzzling his shoulder before pausing, "Slowly getting warmer… way warmer… too warm." She was about to pull away when Mayuri's 'warmth' went back down to a comfortable level and she smiled, leaning against him again. "And now you're a nice warm again…"
Mayuri grunted again, absentmindedly checking the temperature of his body. Thirty-seven degrees Celsius… and he was 'warm'? She must be slightly cold-blooded, as her zanpakuto would suggest.
Though he supposed the fact that it was only two hours to midnight hardly helped the temperature of the air.
Still, he'd have to remember her preferences for if he needed to… 'call' on her 'help' again.
"'re we there yet?!" Aporro whined, jabbing her finger into his side and making the scientist absently smack the back of her head.
"Not yet!" Mayuri snapped, consciously smacking the back of her head again for good measure, "Now shut up!"
Lightheaded and feeling a bit sick from all of the smacking, Aporro did just that, leaning against him and shutting her mouth. It never crossed her mind to get angry at him for hitting her… She was too busy trying to figure out why it felt like she was on a spin cycle.
The spinning was just escalating when she was suddenly pushed into a chair, Mayuri's hands planting themselves on her shoulders to keep her upright when she swayed.
Aporro blinked slowly and looked up, frowning slightly at the screen in front of her, "…Thassa big-ass computer…" Her head tipped back even more when she saw the bronze organ pipes rising out of the back, amber eyes widening, "Holy freakin' shit…"
"Yes, yes, yes…" Mayuri mumbled, leaning forward and grabbing her wrists to lift her hands and set them on they organ keys, "Now, I need you to access the Perfect Being's computer network…"
"…Why?" Aporro asked numbly, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
"So you can have more liquor."
That worked.
Aporro opened her eyes again and looked at the screen, pouting. The gears were clearly turning in her head as Mayuri directed her fingers to press the initial keys, and once they reached a certain point she grumbled and shook him off.
"No, no, don't do it that way…"
Mayuri immediately pulled back and stared down at her, scowling, "It's the only way in, Doppelganger."
"Nah-ah, nah-ah, you don' wanna go through all of tha' looping security bullcrap…" Aporro growled, looking down at the computer and pouting as she hit a few keys slowly, "T' get in quickly, y' gotta take the backdoor…"
Mayuri froze, watching with eager anticipation.
A backdoor program? And the woman not only knew of it, but knew how to access it? This was far more than he'd hoped for…
Of course, he knew there had to be one, but he had summated that, at the most, the woman would have been the unknowing vessel of the password; that perhaps Szayel had given her a seemingly ridiculous riddle or phrase to associate with the El Sanctuario network.
But the fact that she consciously knew of it certainly saved him time…
Though it did instill doubt…
What if the woman's knowledge of the 'backdoor' was a plant? A red herring? A falsified trap that would alert the entire system should she try to use it?
Still… even if it were, he had to watch her to see how she accessed this 'backdoor'; in the event that it was a trap, he would at least have a general idea of what to look for in his next attempt.
"See…" Aporro mumbled, forefingers still pecking away at the keys, "Right about when you get to the third tier… there's a hidden program you can run… Ya gotta know it's there in order to run it…. oth'rwise ye'll blow right past it and it… becomes useless…" A bit more frowning, pecking and glaring at the screen, and then Aporro's face lit up, "Ah!"
Immediately, Mayuri pulled a tube out of his pocket and uncorked it, prying her mouth open while tipping her head back to make her drink the contents.
Aporro choked and gasped as she fell, writhing on the floor, but the shinigami ignored her and took her seat, his eyes flickering back and forth and his fingers flying across the organ manuals as he skimmed the pages and pages of plaintext that loaded before his eyes.
Tears poured out of Aporro's eyes as she hacked and wheezed, watching him as she became sober frighteningly quick and the world inverted, and suddenly things seemed to be happening scene by scene and in black and white negative, like a 35 mm filmstrip.
Feeling herself getting sick, and fast, Aporro closed her eyes and curled in tightly on herself beside Mayuri's feet, letting the world narrow… narrow… narrow… until…
All there was to be perceived was the sound of the shinigami Captain's fingers flying across his keyboard.
"Uuuugh…" Aporro peeled open her burning eyes, wrinkling her nose and smacking her lips and tongue to try to get rid of the stale, metallic taste in her mouth.
Odd… she didn't remember going to bed…
And, yet, even as she moved, fairly stiff but clean sheets played against her body, her palms sinking into a sheeted mattress as she rolled onto her stomach and tried to push herself up. Clearly, a western-style bed…
Son of a bitch, Kurotsuchi had some good shit! She didn't even remember passing out!!
…Then again, she also didn't remember much of anything after that first shot.
Aporro had a feeling she should be vaguely concerned about waking up in a bed she didn't recognize (and she certainly did not recognize this one; hers and Szayel's was a helluva lot softer), but she couldn't quite bring herself to worry… After all, the last time she'd passed out in the Seireitei, she'd woken up in much the same condition she was in now, only she'd been at Jushiro's estate, Ugendo.
So, if only for the moment, she was far less worried about where she was and more focused on how her head felt like it had an awl going through it every time she turned it.
Suddenly, someone moved beside her and Aporro groaned, flopping back down and scooting close. Really, she figured there was only one person she'd be sleeping next to…
"Remind me to plant a cherry bomb in Kurotsuchi's toilet…"
"Humph. And here I was under the impression that you approved of my liquor…"
Aporro froze, her eyes snapping wide open and slowly wandering over to her left as she pushed herself up slightly.
A face with unexpectedly medium-toned skin, void of its usual makeup, faced the ceiling, golden eyes swiveled to meet hers and lips curled in a sneer, "Why are you still here?"
After taking the moment to make sure she'd identified the voice correctly, Aporro screamed and jerked back, falling out of the bed and taking the sheets with her.
The startlingly un-makeup-ed man peered down at her from over the mattress, quirking a short brow, "And here my hypothesis stood with you as a masculine screamer… Huh, you actually resemble your gender in some minute way."
Aporro's eyebrow twitched, her gaze locking onto his shoulder. He was wearing his shihakusho… She glanced down at herself. She was wearing a shihakusho…
…Wait, she was wearing a shihakusho?
What in the…
"Your kimono is exactly where you decided to leave it; the next time you go streaking through my lab, I won't be so lenient."
…What in the…?
"And I want my uniform back before you leave."
…What in the…?!
"And I want my probe back from wherever you shoved it."
"…WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Fun in The Sanctuary~!
What Aporro Fears…
"I feel them everywhere I go…" Aporro mutters, hugging her arms to her stomach tightly and looking around with panicked amber eyes, "Eyes… eyes watching me… Always watching! I can't get away from them! They're in my bedroom, in my bathroom… In the dining hall, in Szayel's lab… They follow me and they giggle…" She whimpers, covering her head, "I… I'm ashamed…"
"That's perfectly fine, dear." Retsu Unohana smiles, reaching out and stroking Aporro's back, "Remember, all of these meetings are confidential…"
"Still… to think I have to go to a support group…" Aporro hiccups past the tears, then looks up at Byakuya and smiles slightly, "Though, knowing that even you have to come to one of these does make me feel a bit better."
Byakuya twitches slightly but says nothing.
Retsu just keeps smiling, "That's why they're called 'support' groups, dear. Now…" She clasped her hands and stared at Aporro with a critical eye, "These eyes… how long have they been following you?"
"F-For a few months, now…" Aporro mutters, "I mean, I've been getting weird feelings every since the pseudo senkaimon were set up to allow shinigami and Arrancar to wander back and forth between worlds, but it's intensified a lot recently…" She hiccupped and lowered her head again, sobbing, "I… I… I feel so violated!!"
Nodding in understanding, Soifon reaches out and sets a comforting hand on her shoulder, "That tends to happen with stalkers; the initial contact sparks the interest and that festers for a while before the intense need to follow sets in…"
"Che." Renji rolls his eyes, muttering lowly, "You'd know…"
Soifon twitches, throwing him a dark look, "What was that, Lieutenant Abarai?"
Renji swallows, "N-Nothing, Captain…"
"Now, now," Retsu gives her scary smile of 'stop-it-or-you're-fucked' before she calms again, "Remember, no one is allowed to pull rank…" When Aporro stiffens and starts hyperventilating, the captain looks at her with a soft, worried frown, "Aporro…?"
"They're baaaaaaack…" Aporro whines, curling up and covering her head.
The others in the room look at her sympathetically, then tense simultaneously.
"We can feel your presence." Byakuya uses his chilly voice as he glares at the wall, "Come out."
The painting of a bowl of fruit he was glaring at swings open slowly, eerily…
Aporro wails softly and shrinks back in her chair…
…And a small, energetic ball of black and pink shoots out from the tunnel behind the painting, flying across the room and latching onto Byakuya.
"Hey, Byakushi, guess what?! I found a whole new place to make tunnels!"
Byakuya blinks, then sighs and looks at Aporro, who had screamed and shot out of her chair the moment Yachiru had launched herself from the tunnel, "Miss Aporro, you have earned my sympathy and respect for your troubles and willpower."
…Somehow, Aporro doesn't feel better.