The Degeneracy of Shinigami [R-18]

Day 4

"Ok, Orihime, this is the plan," Rukia said whipping out her notepad. "You're going to be the lookout while I sneak into Captain Kurotsuchi's room and plant the hidden camera. He should be in the lab along with most of the other twelfth squad members."

Orihime looked at the picture of the ninja bunny standing in front of a door while another bunny, dressed like a Shinigami, placed a stuffed animal on a table in what looked like the nether realm.

"The bunnies are going to give the Captain a gift?" Orihime asked, sounding strangely giddy.

"No. There's a camera hidden inside. We'll be sure to get a shot of him without that make-up on this way." Orihime's face was unreadable at she stared at the odd drawing a few more moments before looking up.

"Ok, let's go," Rukia said, tucking her notepad away.

"Don't we have to wait for the bunnies," Orihime asked obviously confused.

"There are no bunnies, Orihime…just us." Rukia failed miserably at trying to hide her frustration with her friend, but it went completely unnoticed by the orange haired girl.

"But you just said that bunnies were going to help us. Why would you say bunnies were coming if they really aren't?"

Rukia tried to control her twitching eye as she yanked Orihime by the arm and marched to Captain Kurotsuchi's.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the mad scientist's quarters. No one seemed to be around. She practically waltzed right in, but then again, who would be there? Most people avoided Mayuri like a leper. 'Better for us,' Rukia motioned for Orihime to stay on the outside of the house.

"If you see anything give me the signal ok?" Orihime nodded and Rukia turned, walking quickly into the Captain's home.

Thanks to the painted windows it was extremely dark inside, despite it being midday. Rukia had a good idea where his room was from the night before so she headed off in that direction and tried not to run into anything. Even in the dark she could make out some of the disturbing things Mayuri used to decorate and she tried her hardest to ignore it. The house was a lot larger than expected, but it appeared that most of it was underground. There were three separate doors she opened that revealed steps leading underground. Having no desire whatsoever to investigate, she moved on and found his room rather quickly. She stumbled around in the dark room looking for a good spot before something caught her eye.

On the right side of the room was a slightly open closet. Not that an open closet door was odd, but there was a red light coming from inside. Knowing Captain Kurotsuchi, it was a very large possibility that the devil was roasting marshmallows in there. Against her better judgment, she went over to the closet and pulled the door open.

"What the hell?"

Before Rukia could process what her eyes were seeing she heard a strange sound coming from outside, scaring her half to death. She jumped and on impulse snapped a picture of the inside of the closet before slamming the closet door closed.

"What the hell is that," she said as she went to peek down the dark hall that had led her to the bedroom.

"CaKAW…CaKAW!" The sound came again, but much louder than before.

It sounded like a dying ostrich, which was impossible since there were no ostriches in Soul Society.

"CaKAW, CaKAW…QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!"

'Is that Orihime?' she thought, eyes wide.

Her question was answered when, what was obviously a whole barnyard full of farm animals, started making noises.

"Crap. Someone must be coming." In a panic Rukia turned the camera to video mode, threw the stuffed animal onto a table in the corner and ran down the hall, reaching Orihime just as she changed into a sheep. She barreled into her friend almost knocking her over, grabbed her hand and ran to take cover behind a nearby tree. She put her back against the trunk of the tree and tried to catch her breath.

"He has a fucking shrine," she said between breaths. "In his closet…a shrine…Urahara."

"Who are we hiding from," Orihime whispered, obviously not grasping the seriousness of what she'd just said.

"Whoever was coming. Good thing they didn't see us," she said thrusting the camera into her friend's hand.

"Nobody was coming," Orihime said absently as she stared at the picture. "Oh my goodness, Captain Urahara is a God?"

"What? No," she said rolling her eyes. He's obviously obsessed with him. You should see it in real life. It's crazy…wait, what do you mean nobody was coming," she said completely forgetting about the memorial she'd seen in Mayuri's closet. "What was all that noise about? I thought that was the signal."

"You said give you the signal if I saw anything, but then I realized that I didn't know what the signal was, and I couldn't come ask you because you said to stay outside. It was alright at first, but then I saw some birds, then some more birds. Then, I saw someone in the distance. It was so many things…I'm glad you came out when you did. I would have lost my voice. But I just made the first noises I could think of until you finally showed up. So did you find a good spot for the camera?"

The nerve on Rukia's temple throbbed dangerously as she just stared through the trees at Mayuri's residence. She thought about the haphazard way she'd thrown the camera on that table before darting out of the house. She let out a yell of frustration before disappearing in a flash of shunpo leaving a confused Orihime behind.

Day 5

Rukia was pissed. Earlier she'd gone back to Captain Kurotsuchi's, without Orihime, to retrieve the camera. Just as she'd expected there were hours and hours of really awesome footage of absolutely nothing. His bedroom was too dark for the camera to pick up much of anything and even if it had, it had been facing the ceiling anyway. When she returned Orihime was waiting to tell her that Rangiku had decided it was the perfect day to have a movie night…a mandatory movie night to be exact. She could think of approximately a million other things she'd rather do. Although the Society was proving to be a lot more entertaining and informative than she'd ever expected it to be, Kukaku made her nervous and, honestly, so did Yoruichi. If possible, she would like to spend as little time as possible with the deranged group of women.

Plopping down on her bed she closed her eyes and tried to forget about the stupid mission for just a couple hours. She desperately needed to get some sleep. There was no reason for her to be losing sleep over anything having to do with that stupid Society, which was exactly what she had been doing. Just as she began to relax, someone grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her like a rag doll.

"Rukia wake up it's time to go. Do you wanna make us late?"

She opened her eyes as she batted Orihime off of her. How the hell could it possibly be time to go?

"It's still morning," she grumbled. "I thought you said it wasn't until tonight."

"It is night, silly. You've slept the entire day."

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