“Ichigo Kurosaki, you’re coming with me.”
“No way, Kenpachi!” Ichigo protested, the prospect of having to spar with the Captain of Squad 11 frightening him no end. “And where are you going anyway?” He eyed Zaraki with suspicion.
“Someplace to fight, of course.”
Ichigo sighed. How could he have even hoped for a different answer?
Yachiru poked her head—a mass of bright pink hair—from over Zaraki’s shoulder and piped up, “Kenny wants to fight with you all summer long—He even wishes you could come with us, too.” She correspondingly drew the word ‘all’ for a couple of moments to give Ichigo an idea of how long the summer was going to be.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go back to my world and my family.” Ichigo said, knowing full well that his father had gone vacationing someplace with his sisters, leaving Ichigo with the house keys and declaring proudly that his son was old enough to go vacationing on his own. In other words, Ichigo wasn’t obliged to return to the World of the Living.
“Cut the crap already, Ichigo Kurosaki. I’m starting to wonder if you’re afraid of fighting me.”
Ichigo was starting to wonder exactly how thick Kenpachi Zaraki was.
“I’m sorry, Kenpachi. It’s just that... I have a lot of... homework to finish.”
“What’s homework?”
Oh, right. He wouldn’t know. “Homework is like... when you need to train your Zanpakutō... on your own.”
“Don’t be silly, Ichi!” Yachiru said; “Training is much more fun when you do it with Kenny!”
“Exactly where are you guys going?”
“To the Meadows.” That was Ukitake.
“The Meadows? What the heck are the Meadows??”
“The Meadows is where we hold our annual vacation.” Ukitake said.
“Vacation?!”
“That’s right. Once every year, all captains and lieutenants of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads visit the Meadows to relax.”
“You old peeps go on vacations?!”
Ukitake laughed. “I’ll pretend you didn’t just insult me. Anyway, being a captain or lieutenant is tough work. Everyone deserves a break.”
“Rukia never told me of this.” Ichigo said.
“That’s because she was never a lieutenant or captain.” Ukitaka said using simple logic.
Ichigo had a hard time digesting the fact that people of Byakuya Kuchiki’s emotional capacity could enjoy vacations. Was he going, by the way? “But shouldn’t that mean that Byakuya goes on vacation, too? All I’m saying is that Byakuya wouldn’t go somewhere for personal amusement if—”
“Well, Byakuya does, and he also enjoys himself.” Ukitake said, laughing.
“You’re shitting me!” Ichigo said incredulously. He couldn’t reconcile the cold, arrogant, noble Byakuya Kuchiki with the one Ukitake wanted him to believe. That would be akin to pretending Sado was a dwarf.
“There’s a lot about Byakuya that you don’t know yet.”
“I would have known if it were all true!” Ichigo burst out. Before he attached a string of expletives to that sentence, an epiphany struck him: that Ukitake was actually in league with Kenpachi Zaraki and was making a perversion out of Byakuya’s nobility just to convince Ichigo that they really were going on vacation, when in reality Ichigo would be playing right into Zaraki’s hands and risk being dismembered by him all over again.
“I know exactly what’s going on here!” Ichigo said with an intelligent glint in his eye and an air of omniscience. “This is all because Kenpachi wants to fight me! Isn’t that right, Kenpachi?”
“Partly, yes, but Ukitake’s right, too.” Zaraki said unconcernedly. “What’s more important is that unless I get to battle with you every day, there’s no way I could relax.”
So Ichigo was nothing more than Zaraki’s toy, was he?
“Ichigo Kurosaki, I don’t want you to feel like you’re my toy...” Zaraki said in an uncharacteristically soft tone.
Ichigo was about to forgive him, but Zaraki spoke again:
“But what can I do? You are my toy!” He started laughing.
How rude was that?
“Wait until Byakuya hears of this.” Ichigo threatened.
“Hears of what?”
It was Byakuya Kuchiki himself.
“Here you are, Byakuya!” Ukitake said. “Ever since you were a kid you had this strange habit of showing up whenever people talked about you behind your back.”
“I wasn’t talking behind his back.” Ichigo muttered.
“Wait until I hear of what?” Byakuya repeated.
“Er,” Ichigo said, delving into the depths of his imaginative mind to come up with a good answer. “Wait until you hear... of the fact that... Kenpachi-thinks-you-look-like-a-woman.” He said the last bit in a single breath so that the opprobrium it carried could be blamed on incoherency rather than intent.
Byakuya’s eyes widened. “How insulting!” he said in outrage, his voice rising in volume and pitch to a degree that not many people were familiar with. “Captain Zaraki, you’d better explain yourself.”
“The mutt’s lying.” Zaraki said, shooting a sharp glare at Ichigo. “I wasn’t even talking about you. And besides,”—he smirked—“the only reason you would get so mad is that you know, somewhere inside of you, that you really do look like a woman.”
“I will not stand for your insults!” Byakuya said. “I have an urge to release my wrath on you in the form of my Senbonzakura and gloat about the fact that my Zanpakutō is actually a Zanpakutō and not a rusty, crooked kitchen-knife, but I’ve decided to tolerate you and your crudeness until the Vacation. There I’ll show you how to really catch fish.”
“Catch fish? Never heard of that expression before.” Ichigo said, putting on a thoughtful expression. “Does it mean honing your skills or something like that?”
“What’re you talking about, Ichigo Kurosaki?” Byakuya said; “Why should catching fish mean anything else?”
“So wait, you’re saying that you guys are going to fish?!”
“That is what I meant.” Byakuya said; “Which would explain why I said so.”
“So you really are going to fish?”
“Yes.” There was a hint of irritation in Byakuya’s voice that Ichigo missed altogether.
“You’re seriously fishing?”
“YES!”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so before? You don’t have to be shy. There’s nothing wrong with fishing.”
“I never suggested there was.”
“But you ju—”
“That’s enough, Ichigo Kurosaki. I can’t work with all the noise you’re making.”
The commotion annoyed Hitsugaya so much that he personally had to see what the matter was. “At least try to keep it down, won’t you?”
“Oh, it’s Toshiro!” Ichigo said; “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
A vein twitched in Hitsugaya’s temple. “HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO CALL ME ‘CAPTAIN HITSUGAYA’?” he shouted.
“Now who’s the one making all the noise?” Ichigo smirked.
“Never mind that. Listen, Kurosaki, you are not to address me by my first name. Is that understood?”
“And you are to address me formally as ‘Captain Kuchiki’.” Byakuya added.
“You, too?” Hitsugaya asked. “And I thought he only did that to make fun of me.”
“That isn’t true, because he does that to me as well.” Byakuya said; “And Zaraki, too, although he doesn’t seem to mind. He isn’t noble.”
“Noble, my ass, Kuchiki!” Zaraki roared. “And you know what? I really did say that you look like a woman!”
“What’s all the commotion about?” It was Mayuri Kurotsuchi. “Nobody ever lets me concentrate on my work anyway, and now I’m being distracted even while talking to the Head Captain! This is an outrage! How people like you ever became captains in the first place, I wonder.”
It was true. They were squabbling in the balcony—a place accessible from all rooms in that building, and from where even the slightest sound is heard everywhere.
“And what is this Ryoka doing here? You had better watch out, or I just might take you to my lab and dissect you. You seem to be an interesting specimen—having acquired a Bankai with such little effort.” Kurotsuchi said; “You didn’t happen to steal any of my Spirit Energy Enhancer, did you?”
“You can actually do that?” Zaraki said incredulously.
“Of course. There’s very little I can’t do.”
“Like beat me.” That was Uryu.
“I seem to recall that you lost your Quincy powers in that battle.” Kurotsuchi said.
“And you lost half your body.”
“There’s a price to be paid for being resilient.”
The reason Uryu didn’t pounce on Kurotsuchi and beat the crap out of him to avenge his grandfather’s death was that his father had revealed to him earlier that his grandfather had actually died of old age years before he actually grew old, and it was actually his great uncle who trained Uryu to become a Quincy and was dissected by Kurotsuchi. It was an acceptable explanation. After all, there was no Quincy honor in being called a student of one’s great uncle.
“Rukia!” Ichigo exclaimed in surprise; “Why the heck are you tightrope walking across...?” Rukia was tightrope walking across the two parallel wings of the balcony.
“It’s closer this way.” Rukia shouted back; “And it’s fun, too.” She was visibly enjoying herself, oblivious of the peril of falling five stories.
“You’ll get yourself, killed, you idiot!” Ichigo shouted.
“Shut up, you warthog! Soul reapers don’t get killed so easily.”
“Actually, there is a possibility...” Byakuya began but was quickly cut off by Rukia:
“Weren’t you the one who told me that in the first place?”
“That was probably only to boost your confidence.” Ukitake said, saving Byakuya the trouble and humiliation of answering. “Do you think it worked?”
“Well, no, because frankly, I’ve lost count of how many times I was almost killed.” Rukia said in a reserved sort of way.
“Ah, but you were almost killed, right? You were never actually killed!” Ukitake said with a mischievous glint in his otherwise lifeless eyes.
“I guess so.” Rukia said. “Well, anyway, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m tightrope walking.”
She landed gracefully on the other side.
“I am, after all, good enough to be a lieutenant, and honestly, is there any lieutenant who can’t do that?”
An “Ouch!” followed by a ground-shaking thud was heard.
Rukia turned around and looked at the ground below the balcony. Soifon’s lieutenant was lying in a heap, and Rukia’s tightrope hung not so tightly in two pieces from either side of the balcony.
“You were saying?” said Byakuya.
“This calls for a promotion!” Rukia said; “Right, Captain Ukitake?”
Ukitake cast a nervous glance at Byakuya, who returned him a cold glare, and then said, “Erm, I’m not sure now is the best time.”
“Why not?” Rukia pestered; “You don’t think I’m good enough?”
“It’s... not that, Rukia, just—”
“You don’t want me as your lieutenant?”
“It’s just that after Kaien’s death, I don’t think I can bear to have anybody in that position, and the third seat’s already taken by two people, so if I were to place you there, it would be too crowded.” Ukitake explained lamely.
“Fine!” Rukia said petulantly.
Silence suddenly pervaded the squabbling group and everyone suddenly became aware of an ancient (but indescribably powerful) presence in their midst. To say that it was the Head Captain who personally came to restore peace would be a cliché, but clichés were meant to be clichés, so here’s what happened:
The Head Captain personally came to restore peace.
“I could hear you from my room.” Yamamoto said. “Exactly what is your problem?”
Nobody spoke for some time. Zaraki mustered up the courage after a few minutes, and said, “Ichigo Kurosaki doesn’t want to believe that we’re going on vacation.”
“Oh?” said Yamamoto, and that instant, everyone’s eyes were on Ichigo.
“Er...” Ichigo said uncomfortably.
“So, Kurosaki, you don’t want to believe that we are going on vacation?” Yamamoto said sternly.
“I... I never said that! Kenpachi’s lying through his white, shiny teeth!” Ichigo protested, pointing an accusing finger at Zaraki, who frowned deeply.
“The only way for you to believe that we’re going on a real vacation,” Yamamoto said, “is to come with us.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear that.” Ichigo said in a comical way, choosing to doubt his own hearing than accept the truth.
“You heard me well, Ichigo Kurosaki. You and your friends are coming with us.”
“No way, Kenpachi!” Ichigo protested, the prospect of having to spar with the Captain of Squad 11 frightening him no end. “And where are you going anyway?” He eyed Zaraki with suspicion.
“Someplace to fight, of course.”
Ichigo sighed. How could he have even hoped for a different answer?
Yachiru poked her head—a mass of bright pink hair—from over Zaraki’s shoulder and piped up, “Kenny wants to fight with you all summer long—He even wishes you could come with us, too.” She correspondingly drew the word ‘all’ for a couple of moments to give Ichigo an idea of how long the summer was going to be.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go back to my world and my family.” Ichigo said, knowing full well that his father had gone vacationing someplace with his sisters, leaving Ichigo with the house keys and declaring proudly that his son was old enough to go vacationing on his own. In other words, Ichigo wasn’t obliged to return to the World of the Living.
“Cut the crap already, Ichigo Kurosaki. I’m starting to wonder if you’re afraid of fighting me.”
Ichigo was starting to wonder exactly how thick Kenpachi Zaraki was.
“I’m sorry, Kenpachi. It’s just that... I have a lot of... homework to finish.”
“What’s homework?”
Oh, right. He wouldn’t know. “Homework is like... when you need to train your Zanpakutō... on your own.”
“Don’t be silly, Ichi!” Yachiru said; “Training is much more fun when you do it with Kenny!”
“Exactly where are you guys going?”
“To the Meadows.” That was Ukitake.
“The Meadows? What the heck are the Meadows??”
“The Meadows is where we hold our annual vacation.” Ukitake said.
“Vacation?!”
“That’s right. Once every year, all captains and lieutenants of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads visit the Meadows to relax.”
“You old peeps go on vacations?!”
Ukitake laughed. “I’ll pretend you didn’t just insult me. Anyway, being a captain or lieutenant is tough work. Everyone deserves a break.”
“Rukia never told me of this.” Ichigo said.
“That’s because she was never a lieutenant or captain.” Ukitaka said using simple logic.
Ichigo had a hard time digesting the fact that people of Byakuya Kuchiki’s emotional capacity could enjoy vacations. Was he going, by the way? “But shouldn’t that mean that Byakuya goes on vacation, too? All I’m saying is that Byakuya wouldn’t go somewhere for personal amusement if—”
“Well, Byakuya does, and he also enjoys himself.” Ukitake said, laughing.
“You’re shitting me!” Ichigo said incredulously. He couldn’t reconcile the cold, arrogant, noble Byakuya Kuchiki with the one Ukitake wanted him to believe. That would be akin to pretending Sado was a dwarf.
“There’s a lot about Byakuya that you don’t know yet.”
“I would have known if it were all true!” Ichigo burst out. Before he attached a string of expletives to that sentence, an epiphany struck him: that Ukitake was actually in league with Kenpachi Zaraki and was making a perversion out of Byakuya’s nobility just to convince Ichigo that they really were going on vacation, when in reality Ichigo would be playing right into Zaraki’s hands and risk being dismembered by him all over again.
“I know exactly what’s going on here!” Ichigo said with an intelligent glint in his eye and an air of omniscience. “This is all because Kenpachi wants to fight me! Isn’t that right, Kenpachi?”
“Partly, yes, but Ukitake’s right, too.” Zaraki said unconcernedly. “What’s more important is that unless I get to battle with you every day, there’s no way I could relax.”
So Ichigo was nothing more than Zaraki’s toy, was he?
“Ichigo Kurosaki, I don’t want you to feel like you’re my toy...” Zaraki said in an uncharacteristically soft tone.
Ichigo was about to forgive him, but Zaraki spoke again:
“But what can I do? You are my toy!” He started laughing.
How rude was that?
“Wait until Byakuya hears of this.” Ichigo threatened.
“Hears of what?”
It was Byakuya Kuchiki himself.
“Here you are, Byakuya!” Ukitake said. “Ever since you were a kid you had this strange habit of showing up whenever people talked about you behind your back.”
“I wasn’t talking behind his back.” Ichigo muttered.
“Wait until I hear of what?” Byakuya repeated.
“Er,” Ichigo said, delving into the depths of his imaginative mind to come up with a good answer. “Wait until you hear... of the fact that... Kenpachi-thinks-you-look-like-a-woman.” He said the last bit in a single breath so that the opprobrium it carried could be blamed on incoherency rather than intent.
Byakuya’s eyes widened. “How insulting!” he said in outrage, his voice rising in volume and pitch to a degree that not many people were familiar with. “Captain Zaraki, you’d better explain yourself.”
“The mutt’s lying.” Zaraki said, shooting a sharp glare at Ichigo. “I wasn’t even talking about you. And besides,”—he smirked—“the only reason you would get so mad is that you know, somewhere inside of you, that you really do look like a woman.”
“I will not stand for your insults!” Byakuya said. “I have an urge to release my wrath on you in the form of my Senbonzakura and gloat about the fact that my Zanpakutō is actually a Zanpakutō and not a rusty, crooked kitchen-knife, but I’ve decided to tolerate you and your crudeness until the Vacation. There I’ll show you how to really catch fish.”
“Catch fish? Never heard of that expression before.” Ichigo said, putting on a thoughtful expression. “Does it mean honing your skills or something like that?”
“What’re you talking about, Ichigo Kurosaki?” Byakuya said; “Why should catching fish mean anything else?”
“So wait, you’re saying that you guys are going to fish?!”
“That is what I meant.” Byakuya said; “Which would explain why I said so.”
“So you really are going to fish?”
“Yes.” There was a hint of irritation in Byakuya’s voice that Ichigo missed altogether.
“You’re seriously fishing?”
“YES!”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so before? You don’t have to be shy. There’s nothing wrong with fishing.”
“I never suggested there was.”
“But you ju—”
“That’s enough, Ichigo Kurosaki. I can’t work with all the noise you’re making.”
The commotion annoyed Hitsugaya so much that he personally had to see what the matter was. “At least try to keep it down, won’t you?”
“Oh, it’s Toshiro!” Ichigo said; “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
A vein twitched in Hitsugaya’s temple. “HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO CALL ME ‘CAPTAIN HITSUGAYA’?” he shouted.
“Now who’s the one making all the noise?” Ichigo smirked.
“Never mind that. Listen, Kurosaki, you are not to address me by my first name. Is that understood?”
“And you are to address me formally as ‘Captain Kuchiki’.” Byakuya added.
“You, too?” Hitsugaya asked. “And I thought he only did that to make fun of me.”
“That isn’t true, because he does that to me as well.” Byakuya said; “And Zaraki, too, although he doesn’t seem to mind. He isn’t noble.”
“Noble, my ass, Kuchiki!” Zaraki roared. “And you know what? I really did say that you look like a woman!”
“What’s all the commotion about?” It was Mayuri Kurotsuchi. “Nobody ever lets me concentrate on my work anyway, and now I’m being distracted even while talking to the Head Captain! This is an outrage! How people like you ever became captains in the first place, I wonder.”
It was true. They were squabbling in the balcony—a place accessible from all rooms in that building, and from where even the slightest sound is heard everywhere.
“And what is this Ryoka doing here? You had better watch out, or I just might take you to my lab and dissect you. You seem to be an interesting specimen—having acquired a Bankai with such little effort.” Kurotsuchi said; “You didn’t happen to steal any of my Spirit Energy Enhancer, did you?”
“You can actually do that?” Zaraki said incredulously.
“Of course. There’s very little I can’t do.”
“Like beat me.” That was Uryu.
“I seem to recall that you lost your Quincy powers in that battle.” Kurotsuchi said.
“And you lost half your body.”
“There’s a price to be paid for being resilient.”
The reason Uryu didn’t pounce on Kurotsuchi and beat the crap out of him to avenge his grandfather’s death was that his father had revealed to him earlier that his grandfather had actually died of old age years before he actually grew old, and it was actually his great uncle who trained Uryu to become a Quincy and was dissected by Kurotsuchi. It was an acceptable explanation. After all, there was no Quincy honor in being called a student of one’s great uncle.
“Rukia!” Ichigo exclaimed in surprise; “Why the heck are you tightrope walking across...?” Rukia was tightrope walking across the two parallel wings of the balcony.
“It’s closer this way.” Rukia shouted back; “And it’s fun, too.” She was visibly enjoying herself, oblivious of the peril of falling five stories.
“You’ll get yourself, killed, you idiot!” Ichigo shouted.
“Shut up, you warthog! Soul reapers don’t get killed so easily.”
“Actually, there is a possibility...” Byakuya began but was quickly cut off by Rukia:
“Weren’t you the one who told me that in the first place?”
“That was probably only to boost your confidence.” Ukitake said, saving Byakuya the trouble and humiliation of answering. “Do you think it worked?”
“Well, no, because frankly, I’ve lost count of how many times I was almost killed.” Rukia said in a reserved sort of way.
“Ah, but you were almost killed, right? You were never actually killed!” Ukitake said with a mischievous glint in his otherwise lifeless eyes.
“I guess so.” Rukia said. “Well, anyway, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m tightrope walking.”
She landed gracefully on the other side.
“I am, after all, good enough to be a lieutenant, and honestly, is there any lieutenant who can’t do that?”
An “Ouch!” followed by a ground-shaking thud was heard.
Rukia turned around and looked at the ground below the balcony. Soifon’s lieutenant was lying in a heap, and Rukia’s tightrope hung not so tightly in two pieces from either side of the balcony.
“You were saying?” said Byakuya.
“This calls for a promotion!” Rukia said; “Right, Captain Ukitake?”
Ukitake cast a nervous glance at Byakuya, who returned him a cold glare, and then said, “Erm, I’m not sure now is the best time.”
“Why not?” Rukia pestered; “You don’t think I’m good enough?”
“It’s... not that, Rukia, just—”
“You don’t want me as your lieutenant?”
“It’s just that after Kaien’s death, I don’t think I can bear to have anybody in that position, and the third seat’s already taken by two people, so if I were to place you there, it would be too crowded.” Ukitake explained lamely.
“Fine!” Rukia said petulantly.
Silence suddenly pervaded the squabbling group and everyone suddenly became aware of an ancient (but indescribably powerful) presence in their midst. To say that it was the Head Captain who personally came to restore peace would be a cliché, but clichés were meant to be clichés, so here’s what happened:
The Head Captain personally came to restore peace.
“I could hear you from my room.” Yamamoto said. “Exactly what is your problem?”
Nobody spoke for some time. Zaraki mustered up the courage after a few minutes, and said, “Ichigo Kurosaki doesn’t want to believe that we’re going on vacation.”
“Oh?” said Yamamoto, and that instant, everyone’s eyes were on Ichigo.
“Er...” Ichigo said uncomfortably.
“So, Kurosaki, you don’t want to believe that we are going on vacation?” Yamamoto said sternly.
“I... I never said that! Kenpachi’s lying through his white, shiny teeth!” Ichigo protested, pointing an accusing finger at Zaraki, who frowned deeply.
“The only way for you to believe that we’re going on a real vacation,” Yamamoto said, “is to come with us.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear that.” Ichigo said in a comical way, choosing to doubt his own hearing than accept the truth.
“You heard me well, Ichigo Kurosaki. You and your friends are coming with us.”
0 comments :
Post a Comment