A short one, to bring some Original Flavor life back into the thread. Next up I get to the Omake Situation, and then will probably be an interlude about smaller scenes featuring various people, before we finally start the next arc.
Intermission - Heartsong
"Still can't believe ya managed this," Gin said, his ever-narrowed eyes widening just a fraction of an inch. "God but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it."
"I know, right?" Luppi said, grinning. "Just look at this punchable face!" He pulled Urahara's gigai's cheeks between his fingers, making it grin an idiot smile, and wobbled its head from side to side. Gin burst out laughing again.
"I know it ain't him, but I still wanna stab it," Gin said, rubbing his chin.
"No stabbings! It's the only one I managed to get away with, I had to use the other one as a distraction. It's valuable. And hilarious," Luppi added with a grin, before releasing the gigai (which promptly slumped forward like a passed-out drunk) and plopping down on Gin's bed with all the boneless grace of a heap of laundry.
"I used to have one of the deactivated skellibones as a mannequin," Gin sighed, "but it turned back on and wandered off one day. Never seen it since. This'd make a nice replacement."
"Nah nah, loot's mine," Luppi said with a childish giggle and shoulder-shake.
"Take it ya did well out there, hm?" Gin said, poking at the gigai with the tip of his sword.
"Well, I got hurt. A bunch. But most of it stuff that healed quickly. Thank God for regenerating tentacles, eh? Although, now that I abused this trick to hell and back, I doubt it'll work quite as well again. I'm gonna have to adapt my style."
"Hmm. Managed to steal from Big Hat Man himself, tho. That's impressive."
"Yeah, that's one thing I was thinking!" Luppi said excitedly, propping himself up on his elbows, still on the bed. "Everyone in these fights is always so focused on hurting and avoiding getting hurt, it's all about push and pull and parry and feint. People are totally blindsided when you pickpocket them. I'm thinking the same must apply to other tactics - if I practiced disarming someone's Zanpakutou, I might score wins on people who outpower me just because they never actually fought anybody smart before and so it's a blind spot in their tactics."
Gin raised an eyebrow.
"Now that's some Luppi thinkin', all right."
"Ah!" Luppi chuckled, then fell on his back again, writhing his arms at the ceiling. "I like that. 'Luppi thinking.' It's the only reason we made it out as good as we did, you know? Without me the others would never have managed a coherent effort when the Shinigami regrouped. They'd probably still have been all standing when Hats & Clogs arrived, and then we'd have been proper screwed. But do I get the credit? Noooo."
"Be fair now," Gin said, smirking and sitting back into his chair, finally letting the corpse-doll alone. He began cleaning his nails with his zanpakutou. "Ya kinda can't tell them how important you were, 'cuz then it wouldn't be a secret weapon anymore, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah…" Luppi sighed. He reached over and twisted his wrist a certain way, and the fake Urahara deflated with a hiss, then turned into a small, soft ball of rubber-like consistency, which the Arrancar pocketed. "At least I get to boast I took down a lieutenant myself. That'll look good on my resume."
"Oh?"
"Yeah!" Luppi grinned, pulling his arms back down and waving them on the sheets as if trying to make a snow angel. "Rangiku Matsumoto, that red-haired gal? She was honestly really strong, and her release was like, perfect for fighting me - cloud of dust-blades, can slip past my tentacles and hurt my actual body, that's scary. Problem was she lacks defensive power, so she needed someone to stand in front of her taking the hits, and then Baldy went off on his own and left her defenseless… So I took her down in one shot before she could use her offensive prowess to hurt me."
Gin paused in his manicuring, admiring his reflection in the blade.
"Nice," he said, smiling. "Good tactics, there."
"I know, right? And I heard she also got shot down in Grimmjow's illegal raid, by Tousen - poor gal can't catch a break, seems like. Maybe now they'll take her back home and she'll sit out the war."
"Gotta mind your steps, tho," Gin said, pulling a small whetstone from his nightstand and setting to hone his short sword. "Ya got lucky."
"Yeah?" Luppi turned an eye towards him, lifting an eyebrow.
"That kinda power? Long-ranged attack, focused on a single blow, precise enough to slip past your tentacles… That's your bane, right there. If ya hadn't been straight more powerful, and hadn't had that opening of surprise, she might have hurt you bad. If ya met someone on your own level with that kinda ability? More dangerous than any big tough guy or Kido master, to ya personally."
"Oh yeah," Luppi said, eyes wide, "I'd be screwed. Can't say I know anyone who fits the bill, though."
"Hmm. Still, gotta watch your back."
"Honestly," Luppi sighed, "I wouldn't have ticked to her abilities a month ago."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. It's like… God, servant life." He made a grimace and a displeased grunt, and Gin paused in his work, tilting his head.
"Don't see the connection, sorry."
"Urgh. Well, basically, being a Fraccion is awful most of the time. I have to cook, I have to clean, I have to actually bother keeping track of what Cirucci likes and dislikes, I have so much less free time we barely hang out anymore…"
"I did miss our talks," Gin nodded.
"But I'm learning so much. And it's a kinda forced learning. It's not stuff I'd have ever thought to pick up or practice on my own. Having to be attentive to the needs of someone else? Watching them live their day to day? Watching how they interact with someone they have a strong bond with? Changes your perspective. You learn to pick on so many cues. And then, there's the Coro Nocturno - Lord, I loved giving them a hard time, but they were good eggs, really. We whipped them into something great, something artistic, and as silly as Nemo's proposal was, it worked. We did it by forcing them to bond with each other, acknowledge each other as allies, friends, people whom they needed and could rely upon. Like little… Threads… Notes… Building up to a harmony. And I started, more and more, to pick up on that harmony. Partly 'cause I had to if I wanted to make them work as a unit in the short time frame we had. Partly because it slotted nicely into my desire to understand what made Nemo and Cirucci work, and I'm always much better at something when I'm driven. And when the gala opened, and the music started, and I watched the crowd…" Luppi spread his hands above his face, eyes wide, staring at something past the ceiling, an explosion of light. "It was an illumination. Things I could never see before, obvious to my eyes. That's why I spotted the red girl's threat. That's why I realized the Popsicle Kid was building up a dangerous attack and had to be hit immediately, not left for later. I can hear things… You wouldn't believe."
He paused, sighing contentedly. For a moment, the scrapping of the blade against the whetstone was all that filled the bedroom.
"Ya never talked quite as much as that about such personal stuff before," Gin noted in a curious tone.
"Yeah… But I figure it's fair, you know? Give and take."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"I mean," Luppi said, flopping over to his side, elbows planted on the mattress and his chin resting on his sleeves, "now you gotta tell me what you're gonna do about me taking out your ginger darling."
Pause.
No more scraping sound.
Gin slowly raised his head, smile widening incrementally, eyes as narrow as ever.
"Now that'd be a mighty curious thing to say."
"I can hear, Gin," Luppi said, his grin wider even than Gin's, his eyes filled with manic light. "I can hear the music of the soul. The notes people make when they sing together, their harmonies and dissonances. That transformed self the wish-stone gave me, it's so full of untapped potential. The aura was only the start. The more I trained my ability to sense reiatsu the more it revealed to me. People's connections and feelings towards others are as much of a song to me as the opera Elcorbuzier and I put on. Every time I speak of Rangiku I can feel the sour note of longing in your soul, every time I say I hurt her I can hear the scratch of one notch being put down in a ledger of bloody, bloody revenge. It's magnificent. I wish you could hear it."
The snake tilted his head, still smiling.
"I wouldn't be the first defector to have left a lover on the other side of a war. Tousen has his best friend still fighting for Soul Society. They're our personal tragedies, not your business."
"Are they?" Luppi said, mirroring his tilt and his smile. "You're a Captain and a Shinigami. Enormously powerful, and likely to stand with Aizen if us Arrancar get delusions of rebellion. If you told him, 'I'm joining you, but no one is to hurt Rangiku,' I'm sure he'd agree. You're just that valuable, and she's just a Lieutenant, not that hard to get around without killing her. Yet you didn't, but every time I mention hurting her, you get that little spike of killing intent. So you're not just accepting that 'personal tragedy.' You're working on something. And it's not protecting her. You left her behind and..." He frowned, thinking. "Hoped she'd be all right on her own? Trusted in her strength?"
"You're waaay too clever for your own good," Gin said, his smile growing a fraction of an inch wider, and a dozen degrees colder.
"You're keeping a messed-up ledger of people who hurt her. Me, Tousen, we're both gonna bite it. But why join in the first place if that's gonna be a problem? Could it be there is a greater harm to avenge? Could it be…"
"Enough." The smile faded, but Gin's remained ever so narrowed, ever so unreadable. "Why tell me at all?"
"Because," Luppi said, pushing himself on his elbows and standing up on the bed, his smile growing wilder and hungrier by the second, "I'm the Betrayer. It's what I do. Don't you remember? You listened to my story, bit off my arms, laughed at my misfortune, dragged me through the sand, writhing in agony, to Las Noches where I was broken and amputated and bound into this pintsized, armless shell of a body. Because you made me a pawn, and I have suffered humiliation after humiliation until I became a mere servant. A maid. So I bid my time and watched you. I saw your weakness, and thrust the knife. I maimed your lover. So go ahead. Exact retribution. Kill me."
Gin stared at him. For a long moment there was nothing in the round, no sight of movement, no sound at all, only the dry, breathless tension of two suppressed reiatsu bound tight within two bodies, just waiting for a trigger to strike.
Then Gin said,
"Nah."
Luppi blinked.
"What do you mean, 'nah?'"
"Nah," Gin said with a shrug, "I ain't gonna kill ya."
"I could go and tell Aizen about your scheming," Luppi said with a frown. "Or I could keep it to myself, but tell others that when I fought that red-head I noticed something dangerous and we should kill her on sight next time."
"Yeah," Gin said, "but ya won't."
"Why," Luppi said flatly, less a question than a statement of sheer anger and confusion.
And Gin's smile came back. He tilted his way this way and that, looking at the room.
"Aizen's told us, 'Be careful. Don't reveal your Zanpakutou's powers to the Arrancars. They might be rebellious, and we might need trump cards if they revolt.' I got no idea how the hell you managed to get the word on my Shikai, but I'm not stupid."
Luppi frowned, but said nothing, his fingers twitching in nervous anticipation.
"I'm waaay stronger than ya, and ya know it. But we're in my bedroom, where my extending sword ain't even useless but an actual liability. Ya got that instant gigai back in your pocket. Ya told me earlier how keen ya were to how my kinda power is your fatal weakness. And even earlier ya told me all musing-like how you should practice on disarming opponents. So I try my sneaky surprise extendo-stab, you flash-step out of the way and leave the gigai, my sword gets stuck in it or the wall past it for a split second, just time enough for you to be on me and rip it outta my hand. Then we're both fighting barehanded in a confined space, unreleased. My power don't matter then, 'cause we're playing to all your strengths, and I lose."
Luppi glared with frustration enough that Gin's uniform might have spontaneously caught fire, his fists clenched tight, and the Shinigami just leaned back in his chair, put down the whetstone, and resumed curing his nails.
"Why tell me this," Luppi said coolly, "instead of stonewalling me with your aggravating smirk and stabbing me in the back later, in a place where you have the advantage."
"Why tell me about Rangiku," Gin said in an amused tone, "and try to get me to attack ya? Whaddaya gain from beating me up? Fraccion beats up one of Aizen's two lieutenants, all the shit falls on your shoulders. And actually killing me brings ya nothing. I don't buy your spill about hurting me back for your Arrancarization. Ya love being a sneaky little shit with actual legs to go around messing with people."
"So we're at a stalemate, then?" Luppi said, relaxing slightly, but still frowning.
"Nah, not that either," Gin said with another shrug, not bothering to look at Luppi, entirely focused on his hands and his short sword. "I' heard too many of your stories to miss the pattern, yeah? Ya were trying to rile me up so ya could beat me to within an inch of my life and then rub my head into something I'd missed. So just skip to the last part. What's the trick up your sleeve?"
Luppi stared at him for a moment. Then finally the frustration faded from his features, and his smirk returned.
"I already told you. Don't remember? Second time Ginger gets maimed. And there isn't gonna be a month-long lull for her to get better, and people with higher priority got hurt, like her Captain. She's probably not gonna be part of the war at all, just recovering in some infirmary deep in Soul Society. Alive. I saved her life - saved her life from any other Arrancar who might have actually killed her in battle."
One step took him to the edge of the bed. He leaned down from his perch over Gin's chair, until his face was inches away from the Shinigami's, and his voice a low murmur.
"You owe her life to me, Gin. And soon, I'll have you pay up."
Slowly, the ex-Captain lifted his chin, until his eyes narrowed down to two thin lines met Luppi's wide, manic stare. He smiled.
"You're telling a fox you picked out his favorite hen, and deigned not to cook it for dinner. How mightily kind of you. Foxes are well-known for holding by their obligations, after all."
"Say whatever you want," Luppi said with a cold smile, "I hear the music of your soul. You may be a fox, but I have you on a leash. You'll pay up. In time."
The two stared at each other for a silent moment, neither looking away.
"So I take you really aren't gonna leave me the gigai for my home arrangement," Gin said, his tone as amused and empty as if they'd been talking about nothing at all.
"I have plans for it," Luppi said, cocking his head and grinning. "See you around, Gin," he added, and with one step of Sonido was at the door and leaving.
Alone in his room, Ichimaru Gin stared at his sword for a moment. Then he sighed, put it down on his nightstand, and began humming a song about foxes and hens.
