A Captain In Search Of Fun

Anz walked slowly through the seretei his eyes plastered to the screen of a small device, which by any standard looked a bit odd. On the top a small radar dish spun pointing in various directions to either side a lights blinked on and off as small bit’s of steam and gas poured out from various holes along the side. Pausing for a moment he adjusted his white fedora, which contrasted starkly with the black of his eye patch and shinigami uniform. On his belt his zanapkauto lay strapped next to a small metal rectangle with a glowing green liquid visible through a glass window.

A frown crossed his face as he confirmed what he had dreaded; this had all been a colossal waste of time. It had started about eight hours ago. Having spent a few days working sleeping, and eating in the twelfth division laboratories he had decided to see if any of the gadgets in the spare part and failed experiment, store room contained deuterium particle spin balance capable of preventing one of his nuclear fission turbines from shaking during a trial run and blowing up half of the seiretei. He was about to give up when he ran across an old nemesis, the dark particle detector.

Picking up the device with the intent to gut it, he flipped it on to make sure the power cells still worked when of course it indicated signs of sub-atomic particles tunneling below the standard reaitsu threshold rate. This of course could redefine the very understanding of the base origin of reiatsu. With an ecstatic smile he had faithfully followed it for eight hours to this spot where of course the signal died out before any significant readings could be taken… the third time this had happened with this machine.

Completely oblivious of his surroundings Anz slammed it upon the ground screaming.

“I HATE YOU, DAMMIT give me something… anything… do you know the amount of time I’ve wasted on recalibrating you stupid friggen spin regulator.”

Anz stopped his minor breakdown interrupted by the sudden arrival of a smiling weight on his head, which oozed captain level reiatsu. As the boy flipped off of his head Anz whipped of what was once his pristine white fedora diligently cleaned daily… when he remembered. Two small black shoe prints lay firmly stained into the material. Before replying to the culprit of this heinous crime, he ran through various permutations of cleaning solutions for the hat before settling on sodium borax and bleach to remove the stain. Now turning to the child who had just ruined his favorite hat he spoke, while at the same time used PATCH the cleverly disguised supercomputer which was hidden in his eyepatch to scan the boy’s face and run it against soul societies records to determine which squad he was part… or judging from his reaitsu captain of, the data came quickly Emi Kusajishi captain of the 11th.

“Well hello to you too, though I would ask in future encounter you use your words not your feet to greet me… with all due respect Kusajishi Taicho. As for the device it is not a game, it is a black particle reiatsu detector that if it weren’t a complete failure would help me discovered the pre-historic origins of both spirit particles and reiatsu. However at this rate it’s nothing more then an over glorified, quantum spin analyzer with a bunch of bells and whistles.”

With a frown hidden behind his best poker face Anz watched the young captain, who was giddily jumping around. He never much understood children, even as a child he had been more interested in science then the giddy non-sensible play times of his peers. As the captain reached out to touch the devices Anz realized that perhaps he could still gut it for the part he had originally wanted so with as much respect as he could muster he spoke,

“Sir, if you wouldn’t mind it is quite a delicate piece of equipment… and although admittedly my previous behavior was abit… shameful. I would appreciate it if you returned the device to me.”

Anz was about to respond the young captain when the name came out, Cyclops san. He wore an eye-patch but was not disfigured; he had two perfectly functional eyes. PATCH was designed as eye patch because A. contacts were uncomfortable and B. eye patches were cool… pirates wore them after all and pirates were cool. About to speak his mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened as the young captain drove his finger through the device at the exact point of the deuterium counter balance he had wanted. The moment seemed to slow down, a real life example of Einstein’s partially disproved theory of relativity time crawled as his finger drove through the device bits of machinery crumbling out the opposite end. Memories of the countless hours that went into its creation rushed through Anz’s head an irking reminder of what he lost.

Taking the device with dejected sigh knowing it was a captain who broke it, and there was nothing he could do. He tried to speak with respect but eventually he just broke.

“My name isn’t Cyclops-san, sir… It’s Anzai Kuro…. Dammit, Dr. Anzai Kuro I’m a triple PHD for soul kings sake! And captain or not you just broke a machine that took me well over two years to build you snot nosed little… I’m sorry that was… inappropriate to my station and yours Tai….cho.”

With a frown, Anz remembered the time all those years ago when he had first become a member of the 12th squad and him and his old friend Yuuki had been given the opportunity to join a rebellion against Soul Society. With captains like this… why hadn’t he joined again? The kid heard black particle detector and went instantly to stories, at the same time a small nagging doubt crossed through his head, hadn’t rayleigh followed him out of the lab?

Anz looked down at Emi originally intending to flatly refuse the captain who had once more used his body as a jungle gym much to Anz discomfort. However, something struck chord deep within Anz, it wasn’t the filthy germ covered lollipop that had been offered to him that was clear. No, it was the reminder of a young boy isolated by being exceptional. As a youth few wanted to be around the child who was more interested in particle physics then the playground no one wanted to play with him either. And here he was the same as the others about to ostracize this child. True, there was a different while he had been ostracized for his intelligence Emi was ostracized for his strength… No he would not be that man, he would give this child a good time, at the end of the day captain or not, he was still a child.

Bending down to one knee he spoke trying to get closer to eye level with Emi. “Why not Kusajishi Taicho, though my name isn’t Cyclops-san it’s Anz look I have two eyes”

Reaching up to his face he disengaged the electric potential within PATCH’s circuitry, electricity rolled across the eye patch before he lifted it revealing his other eye that was perfectly normal. After a moment or two he lowered the eye patch again re-engaging PATCH’s neuro-optic circuitry.

“Wait for a second, there is someone I’d like you to meet… but please be very gentle with him, he is very shy and a very old friend.”

Curling two fingers into a circle he pressed them against his teeth releasing an extremely loud and shrill whistle that echoed across the seireitei. A few moments passed before a response was heard a cat’s “reow” as it woke from a deep slumber somewhere on the rooftops.

A few buildings over Rayleigh rose to his feet with a yawn and stretch, His sleek black fur reflecting the sun. He kept to the rooftops mostly, while the twelfth division was used to the sight of a three-eyed two-tailed cat. He lazily skulked across the rooftops dropping down to the ground about a foot from Anz and sitting patiently by his feet.

“This is my friend Rayleigh”

Anz smiled, Emi seemed ecstatic over the arrival of Rayleigh who proceeded to slink behind his leg hiding from the over excitable child who had noticed his presence. Anz, looked in contemplation, such child like innocence… in all his years he had never experienced such simple happiness, perhaps this was what Voltaire had meant in his story of the Brahmin. Was the pursuit of knowledge intrinsically linked with unhappiness? A moot point at this stage in his life, already hopelessly devoted to the pursuit of subjects that more then likely would produce no results. However, this tangent was neither here nor there for now it was enough to see if he could Rayleigh to go within a foot of the young captain in front of him.

“Of course you can play with him, however he is very shy so you need to be very relaxed around him or he’ll run away scared. Why don’t you give him a treat, when I give it to you hold out your hand gently and wait for rayleigh to come to you. If he eat’s it he’ll let you pet him just don’t touch his tails… he hates that!”

Using PATCH he activated the etherium box a cloud of smoke raising from the small cylinder on his belt and swirling around Anz’s hands. Luckily he had packed Rayleigh’s treats into the box before leaving the lab today or he may have had to go through the trouble of cooking some up. The smoke cleared and in Anz’s hand was a bag that read kitty munchies: a snack for cats. Reaching Anz pulled out one of the fish shaped snacks that Rayleigh had now zoned in on his eyes staring intently on the potential snack, which stood before him. Holding the snack out to Emi Anz kept his eyes on the cat watching to see if he was going to pounce and attack the treat before the transfer of hands.

(OoC: I’ll leave whether Rayleigh pounces or not up to you.)

Anz tried desperately to stifle a laugh as Emi’s arms wrapped around Rayleigh. Hindsight being twenty-twenty he probably should have warned Emi that rayleigh wasn’t used to other humans having spent his entire life in a lab or slinking across rooftops. However Umi had been bugging him about becoming social and pushing rayleigh to do the same. However, Rayleigh would hear none of that writhing and clawing trying to get out of Emi’s grip the second he hit the floor he was running heading towards the rooftops his fur sticking up with an indignant meow. Anz burst into laughter his sides throbbing with pain from the force in all his years he’d never seen Rayleigh so flustered. That cat was normally so self righteous and composed it was all he could do to keep his footing.

“I’m … Sorry…. I didn’t think you’d just grab him like that…. He’s such a prude… you just caught him way off guard… He’s gunna be in a foul mood for weeks now…Anyway, He’ll get used to you… someday. How about we play another game something fun for the two of us… A board game, logic puzzles, I could teach you some elementary level algebra… Or we could go to the library it’s open around now and they just got in a huge shipment of new books for the year. We get all the best novels, and I even have access to the reserve sections!”

Pausing for a moment to consider the idea, that Emi may not find reading up on the ladies annuals in quantum theory quite as fun as he did. He tried to think of what he liked to do at Emi’s age… Then he tried to think of what normal kids liked to do at Emi’s age….

“Or we could play tag?”

Anz smiled a devious smile kneeling down low to get face to face with Emi. The boy was excited, that much was for certain practically giddy he clapped his hands in anticipation of their game. Investigating his opponent Anz wondered just how fast his opponent was, he was after all captain of the 11th squad and therefore would be a harder challenge then his physical appearance would indicate. However, at the same time Anz was an accomplished physicist and at the end of the day tag was nothing more then a game statistics, probability, vector addition, and distraction. Deciding to start the game quickly he placed his hand gently on Emi speaking in a clear and contained voice showing no emotion.

Well that’s tough to decide, I mean either option is good… However, TAG YOUR IT”

The second he finished speaking Anz would disappear using shunpo to appear on the rooftops to the back left of Emi. His feet surged along the roof as he dashed away making a sudden drop to an alley between buildings and surging left towards the main entrance to the seireitei.

(OoC: sorry it's short)

Anz darted down the alleyway when suddenly Emi burst out from nearby alleyway. Determined not to be caught on the first try, he used PATCH to materialize a simple plate of sheet metal between him and Emi, the young captain screaming in delight at his apparent victory before his hand touched the cold metal. As soon as Emi made contact, Anz would burst in the other direction using shunpo to reach the rooftops once more dashing away back the way they came. However this time he used a trick dropping down into an alley he whispered.

“Bakudo no 26: Kyakko”

Fading from sight he used this moment to retrieve a small metal box, with a button known as reiatsu emitters. By pushing the button it gave off a perfect duplicate of his reiatsu. Completely invisible he activated the box throwing it to the left and dashing right. Still invisible he shunpoed behind some crates and crouched his reiatsu suppressed. If Emi fell for the trick and followed the box he would use that moment to dash back heading the way that Emi came from his invisibility fading away. If it didn’t he would fling the boxes high in the sky as a distraction and dash away on the rooftops.

Anz watched as Emi walked past him, it would seem he had jus wasted a reiatsu box. He would have to remember to restock on them when he got back to his lab. With Emi walking past his hiding spot He burst out splaying boxes into the air and dashing in the opposite direction the young captain was facing. With a quick pivot he dashed left and shunpoed onto the rooftops running as fast as he could to avoid his pursuer. Deep in he felt a slight pang, he had been so stressed with work that it had been awhile since he had a goodnights sleep and this was not making him feel any better. Using PATCH as he ran, he moved his lab time to later and schedule himself a nice long nap it would be necessary if he wanted to keep up this pace.

“Come on Emi you’ll never catch me if you don’t start thinking your strategies through.”

With a smile he doubled his pace pushing off into a series of shunpos to help himself gain ground.

(OoC: Sorry it's so short, couldn't think of anything.)

As Emi walked passed the area Anz was hiding, he turned around in response to the loud sounds coming from the area, he saw Anz running away, he looked a little tired and Emi giggled as he used shunpo, disappearing to a rooftop and jumping from roof to roof before hearing Anz speak he used a series of shunpo to catch up quickly, appearing infront of Anz putting his hand out, jumping forward towards Anz attemping to touch his chest, "Got you now Pirate-san!" Emi shouted with a big grin on his face and a giggle that came afterwards. He was real determined to get him this time.

Whether he hit him or not, a member of the 11th squad came by, "Captain Kusajishi! There is a mission for you from Captain Commander, he wants you go to on a mission for hollow slaying, there appears to be a large amount of them around the eastern side of the forest, they appear to be gillian's but reports state there may be an adjuchas or 2." Emi looked over to the man and pouted, "Oooooh, That sucks! I was having so much fun...." he looked down and kicked the ground before looking up at Anz, "We'll play again sometime soon I hope!" He said with a big smile, reaching into his shirt he pulled out a chocolate chip cookie, it wasn't covered in hair or anything, it seemed pretty good, lifting it up to Anz, "Here have this, I was gonna eat it later but this was a lot of fun!" He offered, smiling and giggling.

(I figured I should wrap it up if its gotten so hard to post, haha.)

Shocked by the speed of the young boy who popped in front of him, his hand slamming into his chest as he screamed out “got you now pirate san”. Shifting his weight for the chase he was about to dash forward when a voice rung out calling the young captain back to duty, Anz smiled and graciously accepted the lollipop from the young captain, to be honest he was happy the game was ending such frivolities were unbecoming of his station and he should have kept a better presence of mind. What if a member of his squad had seen such shameful behavior, however that was not the point at the moment. Holding out his hand green smoke swirled around it condensing into a large triple Decker chocolate ice cream cone with whip cream sprinkles and a cherry.

“Here you go Emi, hope you enjoy it and good luck on your mission go kill some hollow!”

With a respectful bow he turned as the young captain ran and made his way towards his lab. His experiments were waiting and he was sure there was already a pile of paper work on his desk as tall as he was. But such were the perils of being a Vice-Captain with no Captain. Hopefully after his captains test later this week, he would quickly get a vice-captain and his troubles would be reduced significantly. Turing the corner he entered his lab and pulled on his white coat, yup today would be fun.

(OoC; Thanks for understanding )