Love and The Art of War By DarthAmmonite

This is just pure crack, and I am so very, very sorry. It just...kinda...happened. So very, very sorry.

---

It began, as so much of her worst trouble did, with a library book.
Ise Nanao leaned back in her chair, pulled her glasses off, and sighed. Her eyes ached. She'd been working for hours writing up the description of a demon binding she had finally perfected, and while the spell itself was wonderfully intricate, laborious, and wickedly put together—rather like Nanao herself—the write-up was tedious.

Someone made a noise behind her.

Had it been about two octaves higher, it would have sounded like someone clearing his throat. As it was, it was a kind of subterranean rumble, like a train passing directly underfoot.

"Yes?" She put her glasses back on, turned her head, and found herself at eye-level with what appeared to be a wall wearing a belt.

She looked up. And up. And up.

The wall turned into slabs of muscle, widened out into mountainous shoulders, and finally resolved into a spiky-haired nightmare with an eyepatch. There are people who can be described as "sculpted" but in this case, the sculptor appeared to have used a chainsaw, or perhaps dynamite.

Oh, good god.

It was Captain Zaraki Kenpachi.

She'd known he was somewhere nearby, of course. Any time Zaraki was in a hundred yard radius, everybody knew it. It was like having a thunderstorm roll in. You went psychically blind and deaf and had to rely on such lesser senses like real sight and hearing. (This was actually rather nice at general staff meetings, when the auras of dozens of absurdly powerful shinigami could become overwhelming. It was a pity he attended so few of them.)

Still, she hadn't realized he was in the library. It wasn't the sort of place you expected to find a seven-foot-plus killing machine. Nanao had assumed that he'd been somewhere outside the building, presumably either hurting someone or contemplating where he could find someone to hurt.

"Zaraki-taicho!" She leapt to her feet, bowing smoothly from the neck. "Can I help you?"

He made another low rumbling noise, the growling of a meditative volcano. "Ise, right?"

She nodded. The lack of honorifics didn't particularly bother her. After a century of being "Nanao-chan," she could handle being just Ise.

"I'm looking for a book."

Nanao stifled her first, uncharitable thought—He knows how to read?—and said cautiously, "Any particular book?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, and contrived to look vaguely uncomfortable. "Hmmmm." He held up a slip of paper. "This one. It's in the card catalog, but not on the shelves."

Nanao silently cursed the gods that had caused her to miss the sight of Zaraki using the card catalog. She extended a hand. "May I?"

He gave her a wary look—wary? Zaraki? What in the name of the thousand gods is going on?—and held out the scrap of paper. Nanao took it. In clear, if somewhat blocky handwriting, it read "Everybody Wets The Bed Sometimes, Smith & Goldberg, 62035.75"

Nanao, after more than a century under Captain Shunsui, had one of the best poker-faces in all of Soul Society, but her lips twitched briefly anyway.

"Look, it isn't forme," he said hurriedly.

"I didn't think it was…" she said, which was at least 90 percent true.

"It's Yachiru. She gets a little overexcited when we fight is all…" He stared off at the ceiling, looking pained. "We go through a lot of laundry," he said after a minute.

If this were anyone else, I would be looking for the hidden cameras about now, but I don't think he actually has a sense of humor…

Still, Nanao was not entirely without pity, and Zaraki was—in a somewhat twisted fashion—a single parent of sorts. And I suppose this counts as lending reasonable aid to a fellow Vice-Captain…sort of… She put on her best professional air, inclined her head and said "If it's not on the shelves, it's probably down in the archives."

An interrogative rumble.

"Down in the basement. They're probably closed up now…yes. You could try tomorrow."

"Nah, I'll just knock the door down," he said. "Thanks." He turned away.

"It occurs to me," said Nanao, hurrying after him, "that I've probably got a key." (She really shouldn't have a key to the archives, but she'd had the liberty of having one made years ago, for when the research bug bit in the middle of the night, and the thought of Zaraki rampaging through the stacks like an enraged bull with a library card was not to be borne.)

"Hmmm? Oh." He shrugged. "Sure. Whatever."

He followed her across the lower floor of the library, taking one stride for every three of hers. Despite the smothering power that followed him like a dark cloud, Nanao found that standing next to him wasn't all that bad. It was a little like being in the eye of the hurricane, an almost eerie stillness. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, but that was about it.

"These aren't organized very well," she said apologetically, as they descended a narrow staircase into the basement. "It's probably in here somewhere, though…"

He grunted. Nanao glanced back over her shoulder and saw that he was having to hunch over in the low corridor. Bells hit the ceiling with a faint, discordant chiming.

She fitted her key into the door, opened it, and sighed. High rolling shelves were jammed together with only the narrowest of paths between them. Nanao herself could only have gone down some of the walkways sideways and holding her breath.

This could be a problem…

Zaraki managed to fit through the door, and looked around the narrow walks with an expression that on another person might have been dismay.

"Hmmmm…"

"Stay there," ordered Nanao. "I'll find it." She slid into the stacks, wiggling between oversize copies of books no one had read for hundreds of years, Time-Life Encyclopedia sets, and alchemy tomes that promised eternal life and cures for baldness. The library of Seireitei was vast and home to untold knowledge. Unfortunately, it was also home to a lot of crap.

Dust rose up in clouds from the bookshelves. Nanao could hear the faint sound of bells as Zaraki shifted his feet.

It occurred to her that she had just barked an order to the Captain of the Eleventh, a man not known for his tolerant and easy-going nature.

Did I really just do that?

Astonishingly, she still seemed to be alive. Perhaps he was trying to figure out how exactly to kill her through the wall of books.

Oh, well…

"62035.75?" she called, dropping to her knees.

"Right."

Great. The last pair of rolling bookcases were jammed together. She could just see the spine of what she wanted, on the bottom shelf of the back case, on the far side of the shelf in front of her.

Zaraki could undoubtedly have moved the shelf, but they would have had to empty half the room to do it. No help for it. She pulled out a half dozen books—Training Hollows for Fun and Profit, No Bad Arrancar, How to Win Friends and Influence People and Then Kill Them—stacked them neatly beside her,and examined the resulting gap on the bottom shelf.

It was just barely wide enough. She flattened out on her belly, wiggled through, and reached. An inch more…two…she fumbled with one foot, found one of the shelf uprights to brace against, and shoved herself through.

There! Nanao pulled it out, read the cover, and on a whim grabbed the volume next to it just in case Zaraki's reading comprehension wasn't as low as she thought.

"Found it!"

There was a pleased grunt and the soft rattle of bells.

Nanao gathered the books up, tried to wiggle back… and discovered a problem. She'd been able to push herself through with her feet, but she lacked any kind of leverage to do the same with her arms. There wasn't enough room to get her elbows under her on the shelf.

She felt frantically for a toehold and didn't find one.

Uh-oh…

The library complex was shielded against the use of flash, to prevent the books from leaving the premises without being checked out. Demon magic would have been wonderful if she had (for example) wished to burn the archives down, or get someone else as trapped as she was, but wasn't much good otherwise.

"Um," said Nanao. "I appear to be stuck."

She wondered vaguely whether Zaraki was going to laugh, leave her there in disgust at the weakness of lesser beings, or do both and knock the wall down to get the book on the way out. Her money was on the latter, but you never knew. (Ironically, any of those options would be better than if Shunsui were here, since he'd take her predicament as a gift from the gods. He'd definitely drag her out once he was done groping her, but Nanao wasn't sure if she wouldn't rather stay stuck in a bookcase for a few days.)

Zaraki snorted once, explosively, and said "Hold on."

She listened to the sounds of books moving aside, mixed with chiming, and then a long wooden groan. Wheels skreeked and scrabbled on the floor. Nanao could turn her head just far enough to see bookcases being backed against the far wall, and then he got part of a path cleared and somehow managed to wedge himself around the edge of the bookcases where they met the wall.

A single dark eye peered down at her. She looked back up. (And up. And up. He was even taller if you happened to be lying on the floor.)

"Hmmmm…"

The eye vanished. A second later, he grabbed the back of her obi and hauled backwards, which did get her loose, but also cracked the back of her skull against the bookcase behind her. Nanao saw stars, and a moment later, pages, as myriad contents of the shelves rained down on her head.

Eventually the avalanche subsided. She took a deep breath, let it out, and looked up into the face of Zaraki, who had both eyebrows up in what was probably mild dismay—either because of the avalanche or because she was so obviously an idiot, it was hard to tell.

I could probably venture a guess…

"Your books, Captain," she said, and held them out with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances.

He took the books, reached down, grabbed her by the collar, and set her on her feet. She slapped dust off her robes, depressingly aware that she was covered in dirt and cobwebs, her hair had come loose, and there were about a hundred books that needed to be picked up.

"Thank you, Zaraki-taicho."

"Mmm." He glanced down at the books, turned over the extra one, and read the title. "A Parent's Guide to Treating Childhood Incontinence. Oh. Yeah, that might help." He flipped it open and scanned down a page.

Doesn't have to move his lips when he reads. I'll be damned.

"I live to serve," said Nanao dryly.

She started picking up and shelving books. Zaraki chimed his way out of the narrow walk and muscled the bookcases back into alignment. Another meditative rumble, and she heard the door shut behind him.

Well, that was an adventure…

She emerged from the basement twenty minutes later, threading the pins back into her hair, and nearly ran into him again.

"Ise?"

"Zaraki-taicho?" Sweet gods, was he waiting for me to get out of there…?

"Wanted to thank you," he said. (Nanao guessed that he didn't thank people very often, because he managed to make it sound like a threat of bodily harm. "First I'll thank you…and then I'll start on the kidneys…") "Also…I'd rather you didn't mention this…"

He leaned over her when he said that. The effect was rather like having a cloud pass over the sun. Nanao felt her backbone trying to compress in a cower, and fought it back with iron will.

"Her secret's safe with me," said Nanao, meeting his eyes squarely. You're not going to bully me, I don't care if you are three times my size… "And perhaps in return, if you could not mention the bit where I got wedged in a bookcase…?"

He grinned. It was a deeply villainous expression. "Deal." He started to turn away, and then paused.

"Ah." His expression was odd. It looked as if he were reading a script off the inside of his eyepatch. "You were helpful. Look, I hate to feel obligated for anything. It drives me crazy. Do you need anyone killed?"

Nanao put an eyebrow up. "Not…really…" Shunsui frequently made her want to scream and bite things—and not in the way he was probably hoping—but the occasional goosing wasn't grounds for setting Zaraki on somebody.

"No enemies?" He sounded disappointed.

"I'm fresh out."I suppose if he gave me an hour I could go try to make some…slap a few people across the face with gloves, that sort of thing…

"Well, then. Can I…uh…" More consultation with the eyepatch. "…buy you dinner or something?"

Sweet gods and demons, did he just ask me out?

It had been a distressingly long time since Nanao had been out to a dinner where her sole function was not to make sure that Matsumoto and Shunsui got home before dawn. Still…Zaraki…

Nanao opened her mouth to make an excuse and heard herself say "Well, not killing me is thanks enough, I'm sure, but I'm off-duty around eight."

"Sure," said Zaraki, "I understand, maybe another…"

There was a brief, awkward silence, and Nanao felt a smile tug at her lips.

I wonder which one of us was more surprised by that…?

"Oh. Hmmm." He shook his head, setting the bells ringing. "All right. You know the Grey Lotus?"

"Yes." She knew it only in passing—decent food, decent alcohol, very high ceilings. "Nine?"

An affirmative rumble. She bowed politely, as befit a Vice-Captain to one of his rank, watched him leave the library, and thought What in god's name did I just agree to…?


--------------


"My god," said Matsumoto, "you look amazing."

"Thank you." Nanao turned away from the desk, shuffling the stacks of papers into a neat pile. She was wearing a kimono the color of old ivory and had finally managed to get all of the cobwebs out of her hair. "What brings you here?"

The other woman leaned against the doorframe. "Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out drinking, but it looks like you already have plans…" She grinned. "It's Shunsui, isn't it?"

"God, no!" Nanao caught a glimpse of her own horrified expression in the mirror across the room and closed her mouth with a snap.

"Oh. Darn." Matsumoto dropped onto the couch and lounged. Her lounge had been known to bring males of the species to their knees from thirty feet away, through brick walls. "You should really wear your hair down."

"You think so?" Nanao glanced in the mirror again. "No…well, I don't know…"

Why on earth am I even remotely worried about how I look? It's Zaraki. He's got all the aesthetic appreciation of roadkill. He won't notice my hair unless there's a dead body in it.

"So who's the lucky guy?"

Nanao told her.

Matsumoto's mouth opened and no sound emerged.

Well, well. I have lived long enough to see her rendered speechless…Nanao turned away to hide her smile. It was probably worth it right there…

"Za…Za…what?"

"He asked me out to dinner." Nanao shrugged, glanced in the mirror again. "You really think I should wear my hair down?"

"I—I think you should wear plate mail and a chastity belt and—and—a hazmat suit!" Matsumoto sat bolt upright on the couch. "Better yet, I think you shouldn't go! You can't do this! You—you can'tpossibly—"

"I already said I would." She'd leave the hair up. No sense in going nuts for what was probably going to be an excruciatingly awkward dinner.

"Send a butterfly! Tell him you're injured! Tell him you're dead! Tell him you're not coming!"

"Now, now…" She picked up the last stack of forms from her desk, tapped them so the edges lined up, and dropped them in Shunsui's in-box, where they would probably sit for the next century. "Zaraki was very nice to me in the library." For a certain homicidal value of nice…

There was a moment while Matsumoto attempted to parse "Zaraki," "nice" and "library" in the same sentence and suffered cranial overload. Nanao took advantage of the respite to pick up the contents of Shunsui's out-box.

"You still can't go!"

"I'm going." Contents of out-box--one used tissue, a coupon for half-price sake, and an obscene poem written in (she had to admit) pretty fair iambic pentameter. The Captain had talents, you had to give him that.

"Zaraki's not a man, he's a killing machine!"

Nanao shrugged. "Well, I haven't had much luck with men. Maybe it's time to try killing machines."

"That's not funny, Nanao."

"Am I laughing?"

"He files his teeth!"

"I'm pretty sure they're just naturally pointy."

Matsumoto narrowed her eyes. "Does Shunsui know about this?"

"You can ask him." Nanao leaned around his desk and nudged the edge of a mound of snoring pink with one foot. "I don't think you'll get much of an answer, though."

"What—Captain!" Matsumoto dropped her to her knees. "What did you do to him?" She clasped a hand to her bosom, which did not so much heave as engage in tectonic shifts.

"I didn't do anything. Captain Shunsui," said Nanao pleasantly, "received three bottles of sake from a secret admirer this afternoon, and is sleeping the sleep of the just and the inebriated."

Matsumoto considered this. "Is there any sake left?" she asked, in a rather more serious tone.

"Probably not."

"Then you can't do this! You know Shunsui's always carried a torch for you."

"The Captain carries more torches than an army invading by night. He'll live."

"Nanao…" Matsumoto reached out and caught her shoulder. Nanao sighed. "Honey…it's just…you know that if anybody ever hurt you, I'd come down on them like a ton of bricks, right?"

"I suppose," said Nanao warily.

"Well…thing is…I could come down like a ton of bricks on Zaraki, and he wouldn't even notice."

Nanao suspected that no straight male with a pulse could fail to notice Matsumoto, attacking or not, but took the point. She sighed. "Look, Matsumoto—it's nothing to get worked up about. We'll go out, we'll have dinner, we'll make some very awkward conversation, discover that we have absolutely nothing in common, and I'll be home by ten-thirty for a book and a hot bath."

"If you're not home by midnight, I'll…I'll…I'll send the whole Tenth out looking for you!"

"I think that's an abuse of power," said Nanao, heading for the door.

"Not if we're looking for your body in an alley, it isn't," muttered Matsumoto behind her.

Yumichika had just settled down to a long afternoon's manicure when the door to the Eleventh Division common room crashed open and somebody picked him up by the throat.
"Hi, Captain!" he gurgled happily. Any attention was good attention, so far as he was concerned, even if it involved oxygen deprivation.

"Got a job for you," said Zaraki, carrying him into the next room and dropping him on the floor in an untidy (but very pretty) heap.

"Sure!" Yumichika jumped to his feet, smoothed his eyebrow back, and clasped his hands together. "Anything! What can I do?"

Zaraki told him.

Perfect skin lost some of its color. "Wh-w-what, Captain? I don't think I heard correctly…"

Zaraki told him again.

"You have…a date."

A jingling nod.

"With…with…from the Eighth…Ise Nanao?"

A shrug.

"How…why…?"

A warning rumble. Yumichika could hear metaphorical ice cracking under his feet and took a careful step back onto solid land. "Right. Okay. You're the captain."

To the fifth-seat's eternal credit, although he blanched, he didn't back down. Shirkers did not go far in the Eleventh. He gazed up at the mountain of raw material, walked around his Captain two or three times, a tiny cleaner fish investigating the jaws of a great white shark, and said "Um."

"Hmmmmmmm?"

Attempting to make Zaraki pretty would have been beyond the best attempts of gods and men. Yumichika had no such ambitions. He suspected that even "marginally less alarming" would be beyond his powers, but rallied gamely.

"Maybe you could take off the eyepatch for the evening, sir?"

"Nobody touches the eyepatch."

Yumichika sighed. "Well, perhaps if we took off the bells and—"

"Nobody touches the bells."

Yumichika gazed up at his captain a third time, then reached out and took his hand. Zaraki frowned. The fifth seat lieutenant fitted his captain's fingers back around his throat and said "Sir…I think you had better just kill me now."

The Grey Lotus was not terribly busy, possibly because they specialized in Asian/Tex-Mex fusion cuisine. Ultimately it was a good thing, because having Zaraki in a room made it crowded even if no one else was there.
The host appeared and smiled politely (as, indeed, he would have smiled if the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse had appeared and requested a table.) "Captain Zaraki! So nice to see you again. And Vice-Captain Ya…"

His eye actually fell on Nanao at this point, and there was an almost imperceptible pause. "…and Vice-Captain Ise, of course. Ah." He folded his hands. "May I assume then that the Captain's party will not be requiring a coloring book this evening?"

Zaraki gave him a look that could have peeled paint. Nanao put a hand over her mouth.

I see that things are off to a lovely start…

They sat down. They stared at the table.

They ordered their food. They stared at the table.

Their drinks arrived. They stared at the table.

"Hmmmmm."

"So…"

They stared at the table.

Zaraki caught her eye and grinned like a shark. Nanao found herself grinning back. "Sorry," she said. "My conversational skills aren't what they used to be. These days, I generally just go out to make sure nobody passes out in their own vomit. I usually spend half the night folding napkins into origami cranes."

Zaraki shrugged. "Whenever Yachiru and I go anywhere with silverware, she wants me to make her a bunny."

Nanao leaned back in her chair. "A bunny?" This I gotta see…

Zaraki reached over, took her steak knife and his, and began bending them together with enormous strength and surprising delicacy. After about thirty seconds, he had something that did indeed resemble a bunny, albeit with serrated ears. He set it on the table, where it looked cute and rather pointy.

Not exactly child appropriate, but then again, it is Yachiru… Nanao smiled. "Definitely superior to origami cranes."

"At least you can kill someone with it."

Nanao considered this. "You could probably kill someone with a paper crane…"

"Only by ramming it down their throat," said Zaraki, with the air of one who has already performed the experiment.

"Riiight…uh…so how is Yachiru?"

"I left her with a babysitter. Ikkaku."

"Is that wise?"

Zaraki shrugged again. "He'll survive. Probably. There are no weaklings in the Eleventh."

"Of course not." Nanao smiled wryly and drained part of her drink. "He has my sympathies. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time as a babysitter myself."

The Captain of the Eleventh smirked. "Your captain. Yes."

"He's like a brother to me…" Nanao stared down into her drink. "Well, an idiot brother." Zaraki put up an eyebrow. "With wandering hands." Zaraki put up the other eyebrow. "Okay, that bit's pretty obnoxious." His good eye narrowed.

"Still." She straightened in her chair. "He is my Captain, and I would die for him, of course."

"Naturally," said Zaraki with approval.

They clinked their glasses together.

"So what did you do with your captain?"

"I left him with a babysitter. Three bottles of sake."

The rumble that followed was definitely tinged with amusement. "Was that wise?"

"He'll survive. Probably. There are no lightweights in the Eighth."

"Of course not."

The glasses clinked together again.


-------------


Nanao stepped inside the common room of the Eighth, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it. She could feel a smile spreading across her face, and she couldn't quite stop it.

Against all expectations, she'd actually had a pretty good time. It turned out that, far from being completely illiterate, Zaraki had read a surprising number of books…all of them related to warfare, of course. Once they'd figured that out, they'd spent most of dinner arguing Sun Tzu vs. Miyamoto Mushashi.

"Hmmmm. Musashi was overrated."

"Overrated? He wrote the Book of Five Rings! He killed his enemies with a sword whittled out of a boat oar!"

"That's nothing. I've done that."

"Killed someone with an oar?"

"He shouldn't have been standing up in the boat…"

Then somehow the conversation got over to applied tactics, and she'd started to illustrate a point using the edge of her plate as a fortification and a carrot stick as a battering ram. By the time they'd hit the third or fourth drink, a pair of castles constructed of water glasses, an empty wine bottle, and the remains of dinner were sprawled across the table, her origami crane was trying to hold the gate against his knife-rabbit, and Zaraki had started breaking up furniture to provide more building materials. (Apparently used to the Eleventh, the Grey Lotus put this on the tab without batting an eyelash.)

It had been…fun.

I would have won, too, if I hadn't gotten flanked by those breadsticks…

They'd settled in a draw, but it had been a near thing. Nanao shook her head, smiling, and headed towards her quarters. The first conversation with an adult she'd had in years that hadn't involved either work or the phrase "Guess how drunk I am!" and it was with Captain Zaraki. What were the odds?

She had no sooner opened the door than she realized that she'd walked into an ambush.

Matsumoto, Ukitake, and Captain Shunsui—who probably qualified as her three closest friends, and how tragic was that?—were arranged on the couch in various stages of consciousness. Ukitake was awake and apparently sober, Matsumoto was at least awake, and Shunsui was disoriented, drunk, and seemed to believe he was at an intervention.

"Nanao!" Matsumoto leapt to her feet, which put dangerous stresses on her uniform. "You're alive!"

"And we've been meaning to talk to you about your drinking…" muttered Shunsui into the recesses of his hat.

Nanao rolled her eyes. "Oh, for the love of…have you three been waiting here to pounce on me the whole time?"

"Nanao-san, it's nearly one in the morning," Ukitake pointed out.

"Oh, really?" Nanao glanced at the clock. "Hmm. So it is. Kind of you to be concerned, Captain, but you see that I'm fine…"

"You don't do enough of it," Shunsui informed her, or possibly his hat.

There was a pause while everyone attempted to re-locate their place in the conversation.

"So?" asked Matsumoto.

"So what?"

"Tell us all the gory details about Zaraki!"

"There aren't any gory details." Nanao pulled the pins out her hair, feeling very tired. "It was intellectually stimulating. He was a perfect gentleman, unlike some people." She glared at Shunsui, who was sliding gently down the couch under the force of gravity.

"Well." Matsumoto attempted to collect herself. "At least you survived, and it's all over now, and nobody died and we can put this behind us…."

"Actually, he asked me out again when the Eleventh gets off the next patrol."

"What?!"

"We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors," he'd quoted, as they stood in the street outside the closing restaurant. A light fog was making the world vague around the edges and somewhat clammy.
"Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy," Nanao countered, taking her glasses off and cleaning the lenses. Zaraki briefly became a looming, indistinct form in the fog, like an iceberg with an eyepatch.

"Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength."

She scoffed. "The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him."

Zaraki's grin was pure pleased villainy. "There is timing in everything."

"I thought you said Musashi was overrated."

"He is. Eleventh is going dirtside tomorrow on Hollow patrol—rematch the day after?"

"Eighth is on patrol that day. The one after?"

"Done."

They bowed to one another. It wasn't until she was halfway home that she realized she'd given him the bow of one combatant to another, and that he'd given it right back.

Nanao raked her fingers through her hair. Ukitake and Matsumoto turned on the drunken Shunsui and shook him back to consciousness.
"I'm up, I'm up…you don't have to hit me so hard…." He tried to hide under his hat, but Matsumoto yanked it away.

"Tell her she can't go out with Zaraki!" the strawberry blonde ordered.

"Why would my darling Nanao-chan do anything like that…?" He frowned. "Unless it's all that drinking she's been doing…"

Nanao pinched the bridge of her nose and prayed for strength.

"Really, Nanao-chan, dearest, you can't go out with this Zucchini person…" He slid down the couch again and ended up with his head in Matsumoto's lap. "Not that the love between a woman and a vegetable isn't a beautiful thing, but…zzzzz….."

"There, you see? That was an order." Matsumoto looked triumphant.

Nanao threw a look of mute appeal at Ukitake, who was probably the only other one in the room who qualified as an adult. The white-haired captain had the decency to look uncomfortable.

"Nanao-san, you're a grown woman, and I would hardly try to stop you, but…the man's not stable. You know that. It would be safer not to meet with him again."

Nanao put a hand on her own door. "And you think standing him up would be safe?"

Matsumoto blinked. Ukitake inhaled. Shunsui rolled off onto the floor and snored. Nanao took advantage of the silence to flee into her quarters. She did not slam the door—she was a grown woman, damnit, not a petulant child, and anyway the paper screens couldn't slam for beans—but she did stalk across the wooden floor with a heavier tread than entirely necessary.

"A perfect gentleman," Matsumoto said, and sighed.

"Intellectually stimulating…" Ukitake dropped the hat back over Shunsui's face.

"You don't suppose she's dating Zaraki's evil twin, do you?"

Ukitake ran a hand through his hair. "Wouldn't any twin of Zaraki's have to be thegood twin? By definition?"

"Right..."

In the compound shared by the Eleventh, three people also waited. Yachiru had fallen asleep on her favorite blanket, which had a design of happy disemboweled bunnies, and Ikkaku and Yumichika were staying awake by virtue of punching one another at random intervals.
"Nothing will happen," said Yumichika, for probably the fortieth time. He preened his feathered eyebrow back. "He'll come home bored out of his mind, and that'll be it."

"Right." Ikkaku nodded. "Absolutely. Except…"

"Except?"

"It's already awfully late. I would have figured he'd have gotten bored by now."

"He's probably just knocking over a building or something." Yumichika punched him.

"I was awake, damnit!" Ikkaku rubbed his arm irritably. "Yeah. You're probably right."

"It's not like she's even pretty."

"Well, the Captain's no beauty himself."

"Oh, well, yes, but that's different—hey! Not the face!"

"Right." They lapsed back into silence. Their Vice-Captain snored in the corner.

"You don't think…" Ikkaku began, with no clear idea of how to finish the sentence.

"No!"

"It's just…" Ikkaku ran a hand over his naked scalp. "The Captain likes a challenge, right?"

"She's hardly a challenge." Yumichika sniffed haughtily. "I don't care if she is a kido master, he could pound her into the ground like a tent peg."

"Yes, but—unf! Not the kidneys, damnit!—Vice-Captain Ise's really, really smart, right?"

"If she's that smart, why doesn't she do something with her hair?" Yumichika tossed his own dark hair over his shoulder in a gesture that would have gotten him summarily thrown out of the Eleventh if Zaraki had been around to see it.

"I'm serious. Look, nobody could beat him in a fight, obviously, but…well…if she gets him in a battle of wits somehow…look, quit hitting me, I'm just sayin'!"

Yumichika opened his mouth to explain just how wrong his friend was, when the door slammed open. Yachiru sat up, rubbed her eyes, and crowed "Ken-chan! Kenchankenchankenchan!"

Zaraki stalked in, stomped the water off his boots, and waited patiently while Yachiru scampered up his leg like a hyperactive pink squirrel. After a moment, it occurred to him that two sets of eyes were riveted on him, with near-identical expressions of suspense.

"Well?" breathed Ikkaku.

"—kenchankenchankenchan—"

Zaraki shrugged. "It wasn't that boring."

The silence that followed was broken by a thump. Ayasegawa Yumichika had fainted dead away.