Yay! I'm so glad I feel like my newest story is finally hitting it off and that makes me so unbelievably happy! I'd have started another chapter yesterday when my latest reviewer reviewed but I had another person review a different story and I must update in order. So, thank you Albinos, the anonymous reviewer, and thanks to you, another chapter! Again I want to let you know that these first few chapters will be multiple starts of my personal ships and such, so expect fluff before content, and moments of fluff throughtout. Enjoy!
Chapter 6...The Hybrids
Tia steps out of her quarters and is immediately surrounded by her former fraccion. They begin to talk about how their morning had gone already and arguing about who had the worst bed head, and the worst was never the one talking. And of course, there was Sun Sun stating that she merely woke up in perfect condition every morning. It was the usual for her friends. They walk to the dining hall and grab some food. Once they've eaten, they go their seperate ways to do their tasks. It was, unfortunately, the final day they had before Mila Rose and Sun Sun went off to do stationary tasks in the physical world. Orihime had assured Tia that she would rotate them out after a bit. She didn't want anyone away for too long at first. Tia does her chores, which was something she'd been told was necessary when they'd made the move. Instead of having useless shinigami that cleaned (although she'd heard that 4th was pretty much that very squad) the Shinigami all had chores of cleaning. It made sense not to have useless soldiers though. Once she'd finished, she goes to Sun Sun's area of cleaning, and helps her out. Together they go to Mila Rose, and finally to Apache. After their chores were done, they had a 3 hour period where they could eat, train individually, or just socialize. They chose to do the latter.
Sun Sun leads them to nearest fountain. It was one of the few decorative aspects of the Seireitei that were consistent. Tia listens quietly while her friends chatted and argued. Finally, when she can stand no more of their bickering, she stopped them. "This is no way to be behaving. We are about to part ways and you three can't even manage to have a civil last day?" she asks. The three look ashamed. Tia's face softens, though you can't really tell with her mask. Taking a deep breath, Tia waves a hand over her mask, focusing her reiatsu to the point of partial transformation. Her mask melts down to be hidden by her clothing. The girls stare at her. It was an unnecessary waste of her energy, but she wanted to feel like they could see how sad she really was to see the two leave.
"Sorry," Sun sun mutters, always the first to try to get out of trouble. Tia nods, and the other two follow suit. They all fall silent for a few more minutes. Apache then makes a remark about how jealous she was that she didn't get to go to, and that was it for the girls. The three scoot together and hug. For all the fights they get into, they were close friends afterall.
"Its not for long," Tia begins, "Captain has assured me that in perhaps a month or two, you two will be rotated back to the Seireitei. Hopefully by then, Apache is ready for her first rotation. It is important to do well. This is our second chance after..." she stopped, but no one needed to fill in the blank. They'd received a second chance at life after all of the things they'd done under Aizen's rule, and no matter what, they needed to do well. Only then would the live to stay friends.
"What are we going to do when 14th disbands and we're assimilated into the other divisions?" Mila asks. Tia gives her a sad smile.
"We find time to see each other," Apache says firmly. "By then we will be allowed to request days off, and we should in order to see each other." Tia smiles at her former subordinates and they all pause then grin as well. It was nice to finally see the smiles that Tia gave them on occasion. They all hug, and then separate to go do their evening tasks and training sessions with their groups. Tia allows her mask to settle back over her face.
Stark was in his bedroom sleeping the day away. He'd gotten up at the crack of dawn when the sun was still low enough that doing his tasks was unbearable. After, he had returned to bed. He'd wake up again at evening bell and do his evening tasks. That was the plan anyways, until a soft knock started to rouse him. He groaned and buried his face in his pillows. The door slammed open like he knew it would and in stormed Lilinette. She leapt up onto the bed and kneed him in the stomach, also as he knew she would. Stark wiped the sleep from his eyes and sat up. "What do you want," he groans. Lilinette smacks the top of his head.
"Just how much have you missed while you were asleep?! I figured you would wake up earlier and go see if Tia was going to be alright without Mila Rose and Sun Sun!" Lilinette explained. Stark's eyes widened.
"What happened?" he asks. Lilinette rolls her eyes, explaining the situation. Stark stands, stretching and cracking all of his joints as a way to wake up further. He motions for Lili to follow him as he leaves his room and searches out Tia's reiatsu. When they reach her, Stark smiles back at the smile he sees in her eyes. He noticed the strain in her eyes and deduced she must have moved her mask in order to enjoy the last planned moment she'd had with her friends. He would have done it too if her were in her place, with a mask like hers and Lili leaving. He waves Lili off and the two sit down to have a conversation.
Lilinette wondered around Soul Society. She knew Stark needed some time with Tia, the two never really hung out anymore. So she planned to be gone for a while. But she didn't know what to do. She remembered something Orihime had said a while ago, about how they should really think about what Squad they wanted to go to when it was all said and 14th disbanded. Because you wanted to get to know your future squad and all of that. So Lilinette glanced in at training areas of the other Squads to try to find one she liked. 13th was too buddy buddy for her. 12th wasn't even training really, just messing with equipment and lap materials. 11th was just too scary of a prospect for her, all of the men were twice her size. 10th was way too strict for her and Stark. She paused at 9th, catching a glimpse of a tall man with dark hair training with the others of the squad. She was almost shocked to see a Lieutenant's badge on his arm. Ulquiorra never trained with them. The man looked up, sensing her gaze, and stepped towards her. Lilinette almost bolted, embarrassed, but she'd decided she'd like to be part of a squad where everyone trained together as equals. She meets the man halfway.
"My name is Lilinette Gingerbark, I'm the former fraccion of Coyote Stark, and I have no release state of my own, but Captain Inoue said that we should think about what squad we would want to go to when 14th disbanded, and this is the first one I've found that I might like" she said introducing herself, she then smiled up at him. The man smiled back down at her and gave a short laugh.
"You're forward aren't you?" he says, causing Lili's face to burn with embarrassment. "My name is Shuuhei Hisagi, Lieutenant of 9th, below someone you used to work for. Kaname Tosen, and it would probably be my pleasure to have you and Stark here," he said. Lilinette held her smile, though it pricked at her the Tosen comment. But she paused when she saw a bit of bitterness in Shuuhei's eyes. Tosen's betrayal had hurt him. Lili tapped her foot nervously, not knowing what to say then. Hisagi had practically said that he'd consider them for his squad, so what next? "I'm taking a break, would you care to join me for lunch and we can talk about you and Stark's abilities? My squad is in need of a Captain after all," he said.
"Sure!" Lilinette agreed. Shuuhei walked them to a restraunt that was still in his division's boundaries, and they sat down. The two began to talk about strengths and weaknesses about the former Primero duo. "Starks really lazy, I don't know if you want him as a Captain." she admits. Shuuhei laughs.
"I can help him with the paperwork. As long as he will be at least reliable and in one place when I need him to be I don't mind." Shuuhei says. Lilinette laughs and agrees.
"I'll keep him line Lieutenant Hisagi," she says. The two continue their conversations.
Nnoitra was looking at Tesla who had made him pause in doing the stupid ass chores they had to do. While he usually wouldn't care for the interruption, today it just pissed him off. It was really fucking hot outside and he wanted to be done so he could rest in the air conditioning in his room. Tesla told him that he was leaving for the physical world the next day and had just wanted to say goodbye before he left. "Like I would fucking care, go do what you're supposed to do and come back." Tesla's eyes brightened at the words of the man he idolized. Not in a creepy way, but in an I-want-to-be-like-him way. And to Tesla, 'come back' was just like 'be careful'. And maybe it was to Nnoitra, who just couldn't stand to ever even appear to be going soft. Tesla left, leaving Nnoitra to finish his tasks.
It was an hour or so later that Nnoitra was walking the halls. He heard a humming and his eyes narrowed. At the end of the hallway was Nelliel, his biggest rival. He stands where he was as Nel walks up to him. She nods at him meaning to pass him by, but Nnoitra slammed a long arm out to the wall on the other side. Nel (in her adult form permanently now) paused, eyeing him. "What you weren't going to say fucking hello?" he asks her. Nel's eyes narrow.
"Hello," she says. She watches as Nnoitra's eyes roam over her and her white outfit before meeting her gaze. His hand drops from the wall and he steps into his room.
Nel sat in her room later that evening, analyzing the interaction she'd had with Nnoitra earlier. It was something that had been happening more and more often lately. Usually he would just ignore her, but the eye roaming... it was recent. Maybe their rivalry had more to do with the man just being to tough and plain out creepy to admit he had feelings for her. Nel burst out laughing at the thought, simply because it seemed absurd. But deep down, maybe she wished a little that it wasn't such a ridiculous idea. Not because she liked him, if anyone asked, she would deny that, but because it would mean he wasn't as evil as she thought he was.
'Just keep telling yourself that,' Gamuta told her.
Lilinette and Stark sat in his room. She'd just finished telling him about her conversation with Shuuhei. Stark hadn't been thrilled that she'd gone without him, but it had saved him a trip. He didn't really care either way if he took Tosen's spot as 9th Captain or not. What he did care was that Lili might end up sent into battle without him one day. And with little skill with a sword and a cero that was immature and weaker than a menos, her safety was his major concern. "Tomorrow in our free time we can go talk to Hisagi about it," Lili assured him. Stark shrugged his shoulders and laid back on his bed, a sign for Lili to leave for the night.
Woohoo! Another slightly-longer chapter than usual! So I pulled in a few more of my pairings for this chapter! So in a brief rundown of the ones I have that may or not be sort of obvious at this point but now you know to look for! GrimmSoi, UnoKenpachi, RenRukia, TiaStark, NelNnoitra, yes UlquiHime, and finally LiliHisagi. More to come however! The plot of this story actually comes out better the more pairings I have so that's why I have so many. Plus, it keeps me interested with having all sorts of different things to write about! Ok, so review for more as always!
Albinos: Yes I did hint Ulquihime at the end of last chapter lol. The hint I was talking about was actually something about the major conflict of the story, but i'm not worried if no one guesses it. It was a tiny hint hidden in daily monotony. But anyways! Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter.