Hello again! Sorry for the delay in my posting. I meant to get it out before my spring break ended, but I ended up getting very busy. This chapter ended up growing and growing on me!
This one is a bit darker in tone, but such is growing up. In the 12th squad as in real life, the haze of youth doesn't last forever.
"Hold Still!"
Akon rolled his eyes. He had scratched an itch, and if he hadn't done so, he would have probably jerked in an odd way throwing Hiyori off even more.
"Sorry."
"Doesn't matter now. I've already pricked myself on the goddamn pin."
"Sorry."
The blonde growled. "I don't understand why the hell it's my job to make sure that everybody gets their fuckin' uniforms. Everybody here's got two perfectly good hands, and they might as well put them to good use instead of standin' there with their thumbs up their asses."
"I have better things to do than to sew, you flat-chested shrew," Mayuri huffed. "Now if you would just do your job, we could both get back to what we wanted to be doing in the first place.
"I-I'd stab you with a pin right in the ass, except you'd actually like that, you fuckin' pervert." She sighed, pinning another layer of fabric. "There. Now get outta that. I can't get done with this when you're still wearin' the damn thing."
"Good. I was beginning to get a headache from being next to such a racket."
"Fuck you." She punched him in the back.
"As if I would ever give you the satisfaction," answered Mayuri.
Hiyori made a series of contorsions and convulsions. "Ugh, no! Grrr! I hate you, I hate this place!" She shook one last time, Mayuri smiling bemusedly at her. "Why the hell do we have to wear these ugly things anyhow? It's like you've shown up to work wearin' a tent."
Akon had to agree with her—the labcoats did kind of give the wearer a blimp-like shape. But, Urahara had insisted that the fabric was fireproof, acid proof, waterproof, as well as bulletproof, and that the design gave the most accurate configuration to maximize all of these qualities.
"C'mon kid. You too. Give it here."
Akon slipped out of the fabric only narrowly before she had ripped it off herself. He watched Mayuri slide out of his and lay it over top of Akon's coat, as it was very obvious that Hiyori did not want to touch him any more than she had to. The door to the lab opened with a kick and the very top of Urahara's head could be seen over the box of lab equipment. Collections of glassware, a variety of instruments, and several gages of tubing stuck out from the box helter-skelter. The door slammed behind him with the same force it had been kicked open with.
Urahara peeked around the box. "Ah Hiyori-san! You've done such a nice job with everything!"
She glared at him.
"Suck it."
Tucking the cloth under her arm, she stormed off to measure other members of the lab…in the room furthest from Urahara.
"She's always so funny." Beamed Urahara. "I've always admired a woman with a little bit of fight in her."
Akon didn't really understand either of them. Hiyori spent most of her time with the fifth squad captain and constantly bitched about Urahara, about the lab, about Mayuri. Urahara on the other hand took her abuse, all of it. He could see the faint bruises from where he had let her land a punch on the side of his face. He had seen Urahara take down the most brutish of men with his bare hands in the Maggot's Nest; as fiery as she was, he doubted that any of the hits were real.
"Why would he do that," he muttered.
"Because he's fighting a war of attrition."
He hadn't noticed the teenage girl walk in behind him carrying a stack of technical manuals. She set it down on the table and tugged on one of her chained pigtails.
"Megane-san."
Of the group of general workers that Urahara took with Akon, she was by far the most normal. Save for a tendency to daydream, stopping midsentence while you talked to her, and her room filled with questionable pin-up calendars named things like "The Girls of Soul Society—Swimsuit Edition" or "Shinigami Gone Wild!—Unseated Ladies of the 8th Squad", she wasn't that different from the average shinigami woman. She didn't seem anything like him or like Mayuri. Hiyosu was and looked like a freak, just like most of the others, but she was different. It only made Akon wonder harder, as he'd never dare ask her that burning question.
Nobody ever talked about why they had been in the Maggot's Nest—they only looked forward, though their dangerous natures were still intact.
"He's just wearing her down. One day she'll never understand why she doubted him in the first place." Megane-san put a hand on her hip. "He was like that in the nest, too you know."
Akon nodded. He did know. He had seen it every time that Urahara had sat in front of him with a bunch of raw materials and a split open body with a complex design but a simple, glaring error.
"Ne, Akon-san! I've had a lot of trouble trying to build this. Would you mind checking it for me?" he'd say.
Akon had always found it patronizing, but now that he sat back and thought about it, maybe it was the only way that Urahara knew how to try. Maybe he had been trying hard to make him ready for Mayuri, too, but like Hiyori, he was too dense to see his vision.
Mayuri brushed past Akon and browsed through the stack of tech manuals. He pulled out a few before carrying them over to a bookshelf near his work space. Akon clutched at his qualitative methods book walking over to his bench. He was so short that he could barely reach over the counter, but today when he had come into the lab, he had found a small wooden platform for him to stand on placed in front of his place.
Urahara.
He looked over to see the captain with his favorite partner, watching them bicker now in the corner. It was a sight to behold, Urahara's golden aura pressing back against Mayuri's black. Urahara stepped forward; Mayuri stepped backwards. It was an angry dance, as Mayuri followed, rather than led. Eventually he had been swirled around and around, and was backed against a wall. Even so, Akon could see the truth that Mayuri tried so hard to conceal.
Mayuri didn't talk to people he truly despised. There was deep respect there beneath the veneer of bitterness, of curiosity beneath the disdain.
Akon wondered how Urahara had won over Mayuri that first time. Was it his forcefulness; did he wear Mayuri out, grinding him down, too?
Regardless he knew better than to ask.
xXx
Akon had awoke to the sounds of shattered rock, explosions and the crackling of fire. He sat up in his bed, his eyes piercing the dark.
Electricity juiced his nerves. The feeling drained from his fingertips and they tingled like a thousand needles had been shoved through the pad. The familiar but foreign feeling made his heart race. Shakily, he shoved his feet into his shoes, threw on a lab coat, and made for the door. At the end of main hallway down the 12th division barracks, he could see the sparking power cord as it waved. Akon broke into a run, pulling the cloth of his coat over his nose when he entered the smoky room.
He gasped as he entered and stopped, frozen in place with disbelief.
The laboratory was in shambles. Akon winced as the glass crunched under his feet. The bookshelves were thrown over, their contents scattered all over the floor. Various organic materials lay splattered; their cases cracked open. It was as if someone was looking for something, and had torn up the room like a wild beast. He could feel his mind slipping away, the cold water-like sensation rising up to suffocate him.
Everything was gone.
Slow down. Slow down.
The breaths came easier now, but the tightness still squeezed at his neck. His hands still tingled with the feeling of pins and needles, but it was less. All he needed was less in this maelstrom of too much.
"Who's there?"
Akon hadn't noticed the man who had been in the far end of the lab. The shadow stretched lean and catlike, lying on the ground, waiting in the shade.
"Assistant Director."
Akon looked closer. The dripping sound that he had heard earlier wasn't water at all. The drip drip drip of blood from Mayuri's hand hit the concrete floor—one of the few parts of the laboratory that had been spared. The man was grinning, his yellow eyes reflecting in the shadow.
"Are you all right?"
Mayuri laughed, a deep and hearty laugh. It echoed against the remaining walls and crescendoed.
"All right?" He said. " All right! I couldn't be better now could I?"
He licked his palm, pondered the taste and took a deep breath.
Akon wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He padded over to Mayuri, past the broken machine that was belching smoke, around the lake of spilled chemicals. He stood next to Mayuri, who sat up.
Mayuri looked past him, rather than at him. "Waste," he said. "A complete waste."
Akon nodded. "What happened?" He asked.
"A group of inspectors from the central 46 came in and took half of our research. They destroyed this place! " Murderous intent flashed in his eyes. "I came in to work just as they were leaving this mess."
It was odd. Something wasn't right.
He was the only one with Mayuri. There should have at least been Hiyori left to shout orders and control the damage. Or perhaps it would be Urahara's calm demeanor trying to soothe anybody who entered the broken laboratory. But now, there was no one there. Instead, the air rang out with silence and the soft rumbling, crackling, scraping sounds of decay and destruction.
"He isn't here" said Akon.
He surveyed the scattered notebooks, the smashed specimen glasses. He felt the air with his reiatsu, searching for familiar forces. Suddenly, he knew.
"He's not coming back." Akon swallowed, looking at his feet.
"What did you say?" The metallic voice cut through the air.
Akon tried to take a step backwards but Mayuri lunged at him.
"Why on earth would I care if he was coming back!" Mayuri grabbed Akon's collar roughly and wrenched the small body down into his face. "Why should I care!"
The blood from his hand soaked into Akon's lab coat. Blossoming a deeper and richer crimson, the stain grew the harder Mayuri pulled and shook. "It's his fault. Why else wouldn't he be here!"
Suddenly the bloodlust in the face was gone. Akon's heart still hammered in his chest; he knew Mayuri was capable of great violence, but it was the first time it had ever been turned against him. A mode of temperance had just been removed; he had been lucky.
Mayuri released him, almost gently, and he pumped his fingers as if he was just now noticing the lack of blood to fill them. Akon ripped the bottom hem of his coat and started binding the wound tight, crunching together the fine bones that outlined Mayuri's palm. He reached out to use kidou to heal it further, but Mayuri shook his head.
"I'll do it later." He said. "Now, it feels nice."
Akon watched the dreamlike haze film across Mayuri's eyes. Mayuri plunged the tips of his fingers into the cut, pressing harder, harder. His breathing grew less haggard and more steady. Now blood soaked through the bandage, too. But still, the man did nothing but sit there with his head cocked.
Mayuri's face was blank. Akon couldn't imagine the thoughts that flitted through the face in front of him. But he could tell that they were fast moving. The eyes burned brighter, the ideas moving more and more swiftly and circular and circular, winding and projecting forward like the stream from a broken movie projector. There were skips. There were jumps. But the film was in full color, beautiful and intact.
Again, Mayuri flopped down onto his back. Akon squatted into the space beside him—the one not covered in glass shards. He reached over the man's body and scooted the glittering points further away from his torso.
He jumped as Mayuri set a hand on his knee.
He examined his hand. "The bleeding stopped."
Akon fell back from his haunches. He settled into the hollow beneath Mayuri's ribs. He half expected Mayuri to draw away…but he didn't. He didn't' even acknowledge that they were touching at all, he just stared emptily up to the bright blue sky in the lone high lab window—the only sign there was as to whether it was night or day. It was odd, this juxtaposition of a beautiful day and sheer destruction.
Now that he thought about it…this was the closest they had ever been to one another. All except for that one night, when Mayuri had stared over his shoulder as he worked. The night that he cherished.
"It's supposed to be a full moon tonight…" Mayuri trailed off.
Akon nodded. He knew. He always knew.
A butterfly flew into the lab, landing at Mayuri's ear. His eyes flashed at the news, then went into an unreadable mask.
"Treason," said Mayuri. "He's been exiled." He laughed. "Whatever that means. He was nothing but a fool."
"You couldn't trust him."Mayuri said, not moving his gaze from the sky. "I could never figure out what he wanted. It only figures that he would be thrown out in due course."
Akon said nothing. He understood enough to know that he didn't understand. Like Mayuri, he was a creature of logic. So if it was a situation that would unhinge Mayuri's logic, so too would it unhinge his.
Mayuri began to speak again. "Funny how people like us remain, isn't it? Not that we're any less dangerous."
Akon remained silent. There was really nothing to say.
"Treason." Mayuri sighed. "The bastard actually had an interesting project, brought me out of that hole, and didn't even have the nicety to share in what he was doing."
Akon didn't want to think about the rebuilding that would have to be done, the endless stores of data that would be reconstructed. It would be easy to have people from other divisions to help out in rebuilding the walls, installing the tables, and the shelves…but the true inner contents. The vacancy of a captain…and a vice captain…
"You're right." Akon said.
"Of course I am." The superior note to his voice sent a shiver down Akon's spine. With those words, it was the end of an era.
Akon looked out at the cloudless sky one last time, so ironic, like the gods had a sense of humor. He closed his eyes and lay back on the ground, close to Mayuri, but still the centimeter separating their bodies felt like a mile.
Finally the clouds began to roll in, and with them the promise of a storm. Akon's strange sense of unease began to quell. Now if only the clouds could bring the night.
xXx
"Move over! You're blocking the entire window!"
Hiyosu grumbled. "But then I can't see!" He stepped back anyway.
"You've got that damn eye crank that you put in last week," spat Akon. "Use it."
"But it's sore…"
Akon elbowed his way in, standing tiptoe, resting his chin on the high pane. The window was small, but still they could see the circle of people who stood around a lone man.
The voices in the crowd were faint; Akon strained to hear them, wishing for the wind to blow in just the right way.
"Your zanpakuto is of the poison type," said a voice. "The provided antidote has been taken by all members of this committee."
"Should this fail to be the correct concoction, a team of officers has been positioned to neutralize you. I'm sure you understand the precaution."
Heat rose to Akon's face. It understandable from a rational standpoint; there was talk about sending them all back when Urahara was exiled. But even still, rationalizing and feeling the verbal punch in the gut were two matters in themselves that Akon could never unify. As much as this was about Mayuri, hell everything was about Mayuri, there would be some small victory for him too. White-knuckled, he simmered, an infusion of hope, spite, and vengeance.
Mayuri grinned, his knowing, superior smile that hid all of his thoughts. He said something; Akon could see the black-painted lips moving, but he couldn't hear nor see well enough to make out any shapes. Suddenly the crowd backed away from the gaunt looking man, forming a line along the far wall, whispering amongst themselves
"Hiyosu." Akon elbowed him. "You can read their lips. Tell us what he said."
"Stand back."
He had seen Mayuri's shikai only a handful of times, but Akon had marveled at how well it suited its owner. The damage was stealthy and deadly; it still had an element of surprise even though the jagged tines of the trident and the purple clouds of smoke that belched forth from the gilded child's mouth were ostentatious and gaudy. The thrust of a point like a pin through a butterfly, transfixed, a specimen…
Akon could read these words. They were spoken slowly, deliberately.
Ban Kai.
The area around the hilt began to smoke a darker, blacker shade of violet as soon as the man had tilted his wrist at an awkward angle. Screaming filled the air along with a gastly fanfare for the growing creature, a mix of the groaning of splitting earth and an unearthly chorus of horns.
Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou!
The peanut gallery around him gasped. But for Akon, it wasn't much of a surprise. Sure, the sheer size of it was impressive, but it too fit the weilder.
The golden infant's head spewed out more poison and a multitude of blades spiked forward from the chest. Mayuri waved his blade, motioning down the wide hall. A hundred large-but-tiny legs surged into motion, and the creature dove headfirst into an empty building, which crashed to the ground.
The officers who had stood on the sidelines now stepped closer, smiling and clapping. The creature pulled its head out of the building and waited patiently behind Mayuri while he bowed to his strangely adoring crowd, who at just a few moments before had been ready to condemn them.
Akon smiled. Mayuri was now their equal. Even if they disliked him, or even still felt some distrust, he had entered the ranks graced by the few and powerful. He was worth keeping, worth negotiating with to have the aid of his power and intellect. The stakes were too high now to simply throw him away. Urahara may have originally given him freedom; but now he alone had preserved it, and with it, the fate of everyone from the Maggon's Nest who worked in the department. This was a double edged truth—just as Urahara had once been their protector, now Mayuri owned them.
Akon was the first to say something once the captain entered the door to the lab.
"Congratulations." He kept his eyes down, intently staring at the work in his hands.
Mayuri walked over to him, slowly, deliberately. "It was easy. I've been able to manifest my zanpakuto spirit before they ever locked me up." He folded his arms across his chest.
Mayuri made his rounds of the room, hunting silently, like a snake through the grass. Akon felt the breath on the back of his neck.
"Were you watching, Akon?"
Akon paused. He couldn't lie. "Yes."
Mayuri raised his arms in exasperation. "No wonder there wasn't any work on any of the projects while I was gone. Pitiful."
He continued. "You will be in here for an extra two hours tonight. I expect progress, Akon. Progress. It's not that difficult."
He stepped back and looked at the other members who were in the laboratory. "That goes for you as well. Two extra hours of work for everyone reports are due in the morning. I have a new drug I would like to test, and those of you who do not make sufficient progress can and will be used in the phase one trials!"
Even amongst the moans, Akon couldn't be angry.
After all, he wouldn't have missed it for the world.
xXx
Akon tugged on his sleeves. He could have sworn that the labcoat fit yesterday. He knew it did. But today the fabric stretched perilously tight across his shoulders, clipping the radius of his reach. Sighing, he stood at his bench, eyeing the jars of reagents that sat, neatly packed against each other.
Hmmm…
He squinted at the labels, wandering until he read the formula H3PO4. He reached forward for it, but the stitching on the shoulder gave. Rrrip!
"Akon-san!"
Megane had turned from her bench at the sound.
Tch. Where was he going to get another jacket?
She examined the shoulder. "Aw man…I can't fix it this time. You're too big now." She flipped up the wrists of his sleeves and sighed. "There's nothing left in the hem."
"I suppose I'm going to need longer gloves," said Akon, dryly. "No, I'm fine. I can whipstitch the shoulder and go back to work."
She cuffed him. "We have standards uphold here and the director would be pissed if he found out that the sterile technique protocol of his experiments had been confounded."
Akon stared her right in the eyes, glaring flatly. He couldn't remember matching, let alone being above her gaze before. When had he gotten this tall?
He waved her away. "I know, I know. Where do we have a new one?"
Megane frowned. "None in your size. It's not like I'd be able to alter one of—" she looked around. Her voice got softer. "It's not like I could alter one of Urahara-san's old coats."
Akon nodded.
"I think Rin's in the back room. Go see if there's something. We at least need to get you some longer sleeves."
The storeroom was dark and dry. Akon examined the jars of specimens surrounding him. He remembered preserving some of them—the creatures sliced open, insides splayed and then preserved forever in aldehydes or plastinated with little labels pointing out the parts. A matter of old equipment and broken machines lay stacked up against the wall, springs, cogs and wires jutting out where they lay. It was a place that could inspire nightmares for anyone, save the most desensitized.
"I can't even find the main fabric!" Junk flew past Akon as Rin dug through a shelf. Rin stopped, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Oh wait!"
He came back with a mess of older coats, some stained at the cuffs, others slightly eggshell rather than white. "Maybe one of these will do until we can sew you a new one."
He pulled out a very tall one and a very short one; Urahara and Hiyori. Akon shifted uncomfortably. He pulled out another that was wide enough to fit four of his widths, most certainly an old coat of Hiyosu.
"Oh, try one of mine."
Akon slipped his arms into the sleeves but they got hung up halfway through, his arms like stuffed sausages.
"I was afraid of that." Rin blew a bubble with his gum which popped and plastered itself against his face. He sucked it back into his mouth with a big slurping sound.
"Huh, I'm not sure who this one belongs to." He squinted at the tags. "It doesn't even look like it was made by us. Someone's before they came to the lab or something."
It was somehow still pristine white, it was just the edges that were a little bit frayed. Rin shook out the shoulders. An ID card fell out of the pocket and clattered onto the floor. A school ID. Rin picked it up and dropped it almost immediately.
"Oh, wow." Rin scratched his head. "I'm not sure if you want to wear this one or not. I'm not sure what would happen if…"
"Let me try it on," Akon said.
He pulled it over himself. His arms glided through the sleeves and the yoke of the shoulders fit him like a glove. He buttoned it up, smoothing it across his chest. The arms were slightly too long, but he rolled them up.
Megane had wandered back into the room. She stared at him. "Gosh, Akon. You look…" She caught her breath again. "You look good."
"For a guy," she added. "If I was into that sort of thing. Would you like a mirror?"
She pulled him in front of a glass panel leaned up against the wall. Akon gazed at his reflection. It was strange, seeing himself in something that fit, if just a bit long. As a small child, everything had been made to grow, and seemed to be either far too big then all of the sudden tiny and confining. The chest laid over the muscles that were starting to fill out his still somewhat spindly frame.
It was a man's coat.
Akon picked up the ID. It gave admittance into the laboratories at the academy in a year far away. A strange face stared back at him; the hair in a blue Mohawk, the face blanched fully white. He slipped it back into the pocket.
"I'll wear this one until we can make me a new one."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'll take my chances."
xXx
Akon heard the footsteps coming toward him, but he knew better than to look up. Looking up meant that you weren't working, that something was more engaging than science, more beautiful than knowing the truth.
When the footsteps stopped, he knew it could be a trick, so he immersed himself more deeply in the test tube that he rolled between two fingers, the black and white lingering at the side of his vision. He returned the tube to the rack and began to note his actions in a well-stained lab notebook.
The stack of designs hit Akon on crown of the head and slid down his face, page by page.
"What the hell is this?" Akon rubbed his head.
"Don't ask me, read it."
Mayuri regarded him with probing eyes, the look that vivisected every living thing it came into contact with. For a few brief seconds, Akon stared back. The hair on the back of his neck tingled, his senses felt sharpened. It was strange, this being afraid while not being afraid at all. The thrill of licking the blade of a knife…
Akon dropped his head as he resorted the papers that had scattered across the bench. They contained the designs for a body. Curiously, the skeletal design was female, but the genetic material was not.
The structure of the bone marrow was crosswired so that it formed an internal support structure that was as strong as steel but as light as if the bones belonged to a bird. She also had a cyborg-like quality, in the eerie scanners that were fused into her eyeballs, the gilded reinforcements that kept her muscles and tendons tight to the bone. This…all with the smoothest curves he could have ever drawn.
"I'm building her." Mayuri crossed his arms. He began to tap a foot impatiently.
"Why you showing me this?" Akon grunted.
"Because you're going to help run the lifesupport until I've got the gikon into the gigai."
"Isn't Hiyosu better at this?"
"Just do what you're told," he snapped. "Hiyosu's out on fieldwork until next Tuesday. I want to be done within the week."
Mayuri spun on a heel, heading back towards one of the operating rooms. Akon hurriedly scooped up the papers, tucking them under an arm. He scurried after pale figure who was already halfway down the hall. Mayuri reached the door.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Get in there."
Akon grinned as he sprinted through the open doorway. He pinned the schematics on the board on the wall, the sketches flicking from one side of the room to the other. In the center of the room was a gurney. The fluorescent lamp hung above it, and it blinked slightly. He examined the gutted body, picking up a skinless arm, the wrist flopping with gravity. He slid his hand into the open chest cavity and felt around the heart, the liver…
"Are you done mucking about in my work?
Akon pulled his arm out sheepishly. "Sorry. What next?"
"The lifesupport machines are over there. I need you to monitor them and to do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I tell you to. It's a job I know you can't screw up."
Akon blushed. A compliment. He was warm, floating almost.
"Yes, Director."
Akon plugged the little electrodes into the flesh of the gigai; a series of needles went to the heart, the lungs, the brain. The parts inside the box whirred and the display blinked. 'Stage One' it read.
The chest began to rise and fall. It was an eerie sight, Akon had to admit. Like a half dissected corpse, still alive. The moisture on it glistened.
"I am going to put in the soul." Mayuri produced a weird spider-like object. "Heal it with your kidou instantaneously while I force in the tendrils."
"Tendrils?"
"We don't want her falling out of the gigai do we?"
Akon nodded. This was definitely something new.
"Now!"
The green heat surged from Akon's hands, streaming from his fingertips to the body below. Mayuri dug through the organs, placing the mod soul behind her heart. The legs of the spider began to cut into the body as Mayuri thrust his power into them, growing as he infused it with his power. Sweat rolled down Akon's face. He wasn't accustomed to giving kidou backup for this long; his shoulders ached and his back stiffened.
"There," said Mayuri. He nodded.
Akon turned up the knob on the machine. Stage two.
The two scientists began to fit skin to the body, stretching it over the bones, anchoring it with a fascia forming foam. Akon still couldn't believe the feel under his fingertips. So soft, the curve of her hip plush under his hands, but so strong. Not the slightest bit of luxation in the joints as he worked the knee and hip, spreading the skin further up her thigh. The muscles of her leg were hard and full, even in this relaxed state.
Akon again gave his attention to the machine.
"Now, Akon."
He hesitated. "But you're not done."
"I said, now."
Akon took a deep breath and turned it up a notch. Now all he could do was watch. He began to type on the tiny keyboard that was attached, adding a little more, a little more until…
The scream.
Mayuri's face lit up wild. He laughed as the body beneath him howled in pain.
"Yes! Pain is good! Pain is proof that you are alive!"
Suddenly Mayuri jumped upon the gurney, kneeling, straddling her waist. He drove a bladed instrument deep into her neck. The tears flowed down her face until finally there was nothing.
She had closed her eyes. He slapped her across the face. She didn't wake.
"Hmmm," said Mayuri. "Did I lose too much of the pain response? No…we'll need that for battle."
He looked down at her, both madly and greedily. He adjusted something again with the bizarre instrument in his hand.
"It's like she is sleeping," said Akon. There she was, dreaming through the storm.
"Nemu." Mayuris voice was solid.
"What?
"Her name. What did you think it was!" He spat. "Nemu…the sleeper…"
Akon cranked the machine to the final setting. He moved to the head of her bed, staring at the features that had been only a chunk of meat a mere few hours ago. The halfway parted lips, the lush eyelashes that brushed her cheek. He reached out to touch her.
Nemu opened her eyes. Akon jerked his hand back. They were so empty, lifeless pools of green that sucked him in as if to drown his hopes. If he looked hard enough, he could see the retinal implants that had not yet completely healed.
"Yes," hissed Mayuri. "My creation. My brainchild. My daughter."
She struggled to sit up; Mayuri supported her shoulders until she was upright. She coughed and coughed and gasped for air. She hacked up blood first, then liquids Akon didn't care to name. He just dabbed at her face with a towel, until her breathing evened and settled.
"You're dismissed." The once jubilant timbre was now cold, jagged.
"What?"
"I said you're dismissed. I don't have a need for you."
The electrodes deep in her body were pulled out one by one, but her face remained fixed, without even a twinge of discomfort even as pinpricks of blood welled up. She turned her head and stared at, no, beyond Akon, spacing out at the wall. Mayuri ran his hands down her body, checking the alignment of her bones, her muscles, her form. It would look creepy, even lecherous if it were anyone else's hands, but there were few tasks Mayuri could do that wasn't neutered by his clinical veneer even as his fingertips trailed over a breast. He clasped the sides of her face between his thin palms, forcing her to face him, his gaze boring into hers, inches away from her face.
Akon stepped backwards. He closed his eyes and saw the green voids that Mayuri stared into now. He stepped back again, again, and his back hit the door. As much as he tried to shake it, now he felt empty too.
xXx
Mayuri looked at him as if he had grown extra limbs and changed color. "Well, how did you expect her to get a zanpakuto?"
The idea of it sent a shockwave through Akon's mind. He had always known that two people could be visited by the same zanpakuto, and that if they did, they would have to fight to the death for the privilege of wielding their weapon. But still, as far as he was aware, it hadn't happened in hundreds of years. And now his captain wanted to induce it artificially for the sake of Nemu…
"Director, are you sure this is legal?"
"What can they do about it? There are strict laws in place as to what one must do in this situation. Perhaps they are a bit uncivilized—but they'll do."
Like a mirror to Mayuri, Akon's mouth curled into a wolfish smile. "Will it work?"
"Of course it will work." Mayuri straightened himself up. "Search parameters…"
Mayuri looked at the roster on the computer screen, playing his inaudible concerto of research. "Family tree must be taken into consideration…no lines that have produced a bankai user. However, a vice captain level is acceptable."
The clicking of his nails on the keyboards grew more frantic. "Also, a low level name but not a student taken from the Rukongai."
He tapped Akon on the shoulder, making him jump. "I want a history, but I want the drama minimized."
A list of names filtered through—fifty of them. Akon stared at the pictures that gazed back at him.
"Any other filters, director?" Akon asked.
"Ah, yes, one more…."
Beside each name a flury of titles, certificates, skills and ranks appeared. "Scientific ability."
"No sense in losing an expert or a diligent fundraiser." He scratched his head. "Anyone on here you just don't care for, Akon? I never saw any reason to trouble myself below seat 20…but you've gotten pretty popular since you joined the men's association."
Akon examined the faces, thirty-three were male, twenty-seven were female. None of them were great scientists…but none were truly bad either—every single one of them was destined for mediocrity and probably a division transfer.
"Should we pick a female to remove any other confounds in the experiment?" He asked.
Mayuri's face brightened. "Good idea. Cuts the list down too."
Akon noticed the picture of a woman with mousy brown hair and a long face. The eyes stared back at him, boring into him. He pointed at her, reporting. This was what death sounded like—his voice.
"This one is weakest in combat. She has the fewest specialties and she only receives a modest amount in grants that she applies to. She is a middle child born into a newly established house…born 3rd in a family with five children."
"Vice captains in lineages?"
"No. But several seated officers."
"Good. What were the release powers?"
"A fire user, an ice user, an illusion master and an unidentifiable type…"
"She'll be a wild card then." Mayuri frowned a little harder. "I suppose that's alright. Zanpakuto qualities are often inherited through families, but not always."
Mayuri hung there, thinking. "Go get her for me, and then you'll help me with the process."
Help with the process. Images sprang to Akon's mind. Nemu laying on the operating table, the skin not fully formed over her body. The hands of his captain sliding against her warm skin. The feel of the door against his back. He shook it away. Mayuri needed him for this now as he needed him then. Akon was a tool to be used, just like any other member of the division. He knew what he was and he was happy to serve.
He nodded his head and began his long walk down the hall. He held his breath and then blew it out. He was going to have to figure out what he was going to tell her.
xXx
Akon watched the fight, observing calmly.
The girl collapsed on the ground, her breathing ragged. The sweat trickled down her temples, carving their way through the caked on dirt. Her ankle was broken and it bent off at an unsettling angle. Nemu stepped closer to her, calmly.
"No!" The girl scooted back.
Nemu's eyes were flat, mechanical, seeing and unseeing. She reached forward, grabbing the girl's neck. She clawed at Nemu's grip, scratching and scraping her nails into Nemu's skin, but Nemu didn't recognize any of it at all. She was aware of pain only so much that it prevented her from damaging her body to the point of immobility or bleeding to death. It was just an annoyance.
She gripped tighter and twisted with a jolt, the arms of her victim flopping to the sides as the spine was broken, nerves severed. The terrified expression still stared up at her. With her free arm, Nemu pulled back, letting her hand spin like a drill. She plunged it deep into her opponent's chest again and again.
The blood splattered against Nemu's face. Her expression was unmoving as she let down the lifeless corpse.
Mayuri had slid forward on his seat, hands on the railing. He turned to Akon as the fight officiant moved to pronounce the loser as dead.
"She was a fine choice on your part."
That familiar warmth returned to him. Maybe he was useful to the captain, after all.
xXx
"I'm sorry, Akon."
Megane placed a hand on Akon's shoulder. He shrugged it off and brushed the place where the warmth remained. He hated that, the way that a light touch lingered, tingling, itching his skin. Like sitting down on a seat too soon after another warm body, except here, he couldn't get away from it unless he somehow crawled out of his skin.
"Sorry for what?" said Akon flatly.
Rin shuffled over towards the two of them, carrying a beaker with an unknown liquid sloshing around inside of it. He set it down on the bench next to Megane and clasped his hands together, his fingers wiggling nervously. His constant sugar high was even more squirrely than usual.
"Well, to be honest, we all thought that…" He took a deep breath. "Well, we thought that you'd get it."
"Get what." Akon growled. "I'm not a mind reader."
"The vice captain's position!"
Akon flushed.
"It has nothing to do with me." He frowned.
"But you've been helping him all this time."
He shrugged. "Being angry about it won't do anything."
"Akon."
They silenced.
He was right, after all. Just like he usually was.
Maybe a little part of him had hoped, too, that he would stand there beside Mayuri in the officers meetings, just like he had done when Mayuri was just beginning his career as an acting captain. Even if it meant being berated more often than one of the lower officers who scurried in and out of the shadows in the newly expanded laboratories. Even now, he did the work that Mayuri would rather not dirty his hands with—the blood that he was learning to ignore that stained all the way up to elbow deep in a body.
No, there was a gulf between them, still. His bones were leaden as he reached up to grab at that man. He was foolish for thinking that he might have been ready. He hadn't grown enough, he wasn't far enough, and now Mayuri had grown tired of waiting.
The embarrassment thrummed in his ears. Years had passed since Mayuri was thrust into leadership; for all of those years Akon had failed to pick up that slack.
The door slammed.
"Why are you all just standing there?" The voice was sharp, even for its normal, frenzied tone.
The circle around Akon shifted uncomfortably, each member of the group performing their own neurotic signature, as if pretending that it was not them that stood there. The scratching of a neck, the twiddling of a lock of hair, the shuffling of feet. One by one they went back to their stations, quickly occupying themselves with their work, or at least looking busy.
"I do not pay you to loiter around. I do not pay you to waste my precious time. Must I babysit you to get you to stay on task?" The fabric of the captain's haori fluttered in his wake, brushing Akon as he walked in beside of him, then passed by.
Mayuri stopped behind him.
Akon could hear his labored breathing; he must have been in the lower floors of the basement and walked all the way up. Akon held his breath, waiting for him to move on, to say something, to do anything but hang in the suspended animation he was swimming through.
"Akon."
Akon turned around to face him, golden eyes holding him captive. He searched Mayuri's face for questions, for answers. All that he saw was that probing, wondering fire that burned behind the gaze that most people regarded with mistrust. It wasn't a staredown, it wasn't a message, it wasn't caring of any sort.
What Mayuri was searching for he couldn't tell. The feeling of stupidity slithered deep into the pit of his stomach. Akon flinched.
Mayuri waved a hand. "Nothing. Get back to work."
Nemu approached, filing behind her master, graceful yet staccato, deerlike. She was ethereally beautiful. That too was something that he was not. He was of the earth, of the empirical world, the place where science stems from. Hypotheses are grounded in observations of the earth, and in turn eventually are disproven using the same worldly observations. What use was that which could not be measured?
From then on, Nemu was always there, everpresent, two steps behind him. Her eyes were deeper, emptier than he had remembered on that operating table. She stepped lightly, her hips rocking in an uber-feminine sway.
The rage inside him burnt so hot that his nerves were now gone and nothing but numbness lived in their place. Still, Akon couldn't hate her. She was a shell, a creation. He had helped to make her, but in the end very little within her was his.
Mayuri stood observing a project of two lower seated officers. His face was fixed in his toothy grin. Akon sighed with relief. That face could easily change, but it was a welcome change from the heavy pressure that had filled the room earlier.
He heard her soft bell-toned voice. "But Mayuri-sama, don't you think that—"
"No, I don't. And if you'd keep your irrelevant thoughts to yourself, maybe you could learn something from me."
The hit echoed across all corners of the laboratory. The impact hurled her into the wall with a yelp. She hung there for a moment before straightening up, as if nothing had ever happened.
"Yes, Mayuri-sama."
Mayuri looked across the research lab, all eyes regarding him and Nemu suddenly busy and turned to their work.
Nemu continued to trail behind her captain, like a neat little pet, never straying more than an arm's length away. At that moment, Akon understood his gift of freedom; 3rd seat was pure power without higher responsibility. It was profound how Mayuri said the most with the words he never said at all. Even if he never meant to say them.
It wasn't until later that Akon saw the letterhead for the SRDI that he learned what Mayuri had really done. There was his name, written in the beautiful caligrapy. Assistant director to the SRDI.
He smiled. Not a word. Still not a word. But in that silence was a world indeed.
Expect the final installment to be out in the summer. As always, reviews are writer fuel and always nice. It's always good to hear from the readers.