And a little omake.
It is also a part of another fic, but it started out as an 'ending' to this one, so what the hell. I can use it as an omake.
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"Yo, brat."
Ichigo blinked, looking up to the scantly clad and a little flushed form of Yoruichi.
"Yoruichi-san!" he straightened up, wincing as he felt the bandages, already aggravated by the day's festivities. He tried to TELL those bastards that he was too sore but...
'...If only they didn't get Oroihime drunk...' He sighed.
Hanataro was good, but with so much reiatsu involved, what he could do was limited.
"Eh, drop the -san finally, would you." She threw him a bottle. "Drink. You deserve it."
"I'd rather not."
"Drink." Yoruichi flashed him asmile. "Treat it as a training excersise - teacher's orders."
"Training excersise?" Ichigo looked at her suspicously.
"Of course. You just defeated the most major threat Soul Society had in athousand years. More, porably. You are a regular hero of epic quality, kiddo. All of you, even that Quincy brat." She chuckled. "You think they'd let you go without a huge official celebration? Or several ones? Including private ones?" There was a brief spike of reiatsu and alow level kido blew off the top of the bottle. "So drink up. You need to build some tolerance." She flashed him another grin. "Especially since Urahara decided he won't be outdone by 'prissy pencil pushers' and promised a REAL party after you return."
"...Oh great." Ichigo eyed the bottle for a moment. "Well, no choice then, right?" He smiled faintly.
"That's the spirit, Ichigo!" Yoruichi cheered as he took a chug. "Bottoms up!"
Ichigo paled, coughing, but subbornly swallowed the alcohol.
"...gah!" he hissed. "MAN that's nasty...!"
"Heh. Another chug or two and you won't think that, believe me." Yoruichi said with a knowing smirk, only to blink as he chucgged another. Then another.
"No sense waiting then, right?" he crowed and Yoruichi laughed, sitting next to him.
"So, why aren't you with the rest? Sicne you've been basically confined to Urahara's tender mercies..."
"Don't feel like celebrating right now." Ichigo shrugged. "Too sore for one. Also... It... Aizen and all that... Didn't kind of sink in. Kind of hard to beleive that bastard's gone, really." he said lowly.
"Yeah. I get what you mean." Yoruichi nodded thoughtfully. "But he is. We may finally rest easy. To the next crisis, of course."
"Well I doubt it'd be anything as big as THAT mess." Ichigo took a chug off the bottle. Yoruichi was right. It did get easier with each one.
"You'd be surprised, Ichigo." Yoruichi shook her head. "Soul Society puts out various quasi-apocalyptic fires with surpising regularity."
"Well, that's not my problem, right?" Ichigo shrugged. "That's what Gotei 13 is for, right?"
"So, hanging the sword?" She raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."
"Nah." Ichigo sipped some sake. "I'll keep on fighting hollows. I have the power, I'm good at it and... well, I got used to it." He shrugged. "It's jsut... I'm not the part of Gotei 13. So I'll just keep doing my thing." He frowned.
"Heh. There are bounties for killed hollows. And there are ways to turn Seireitei's wages into real money. With your killcount you just might make a good living of it." Yoruichi smirked.
"Huh. Really?" Ichigo blinked. "Rukia never said that."
"She's a Kuchiki. I some ways, she is very naive about how the world works."
"Heh." Ichigo smirked. "You're right about that. Just don't let her hear that."
"Ah, who knows. It might be amusing." Yoruichi chuckled, before eying the bottle in his hand. "Well, well, well... It seems the straight laced Ichigo likes his booze." She said smugly.
Ichigo blinked, looking down at his hand.
"...Huh. Who wouldda thought?" He said with amazement.
One third of the bottle, or more, was gone.
'And I think I know where it had gone...' he thought feeling the warmth and slight dizzuyness. It was nothing bad, he was far form drunk. He was maybe tipsy at best, relaxed and a little warm, but that was it.
Should he pace himself? It wasn't exactly his first time drinking, but he only drank beer before, and not much of it. Still...
He chugged the booze and Yoruichi raised an eyebrow.
"I just killed a bastard with a god complex and averted a war. I think I can get as drunk as I want to." He said flippantly.
His sometimes-feline companion chuckled.
"You got that right."
She took a long swing of her own, the slight flush about the only thing betraying she had been drinking even before she came here, slight flush and sake on her lips.
Ichigo's eyes widened as he felt her hands encircling his neck, drawing him to herself with astonoishing force.
Not that she needed to. Since the moments their lips met, it would propably take a gentlest of tugs to move him anywhere she wished to, really.
Ichigo didn't know wheren her body suddenly stopped to eb warm and becasme scalding hot under his hands. He dind't know when his hands found their way to her body at all or when did he manage to slide her to his lap.
He know only sudden chill and coldness of previously warm night when they separated.
"...whuzaa...?"
"Well, I doubt women in Seireitei will leave you alone either." Yoruichi smirked, tugging at her pontytail and letting her violet mane loose as she got up form Ichigo lazily. "So treat it as another training exercise, hmm?" She threw over her shoudler with a grin as she sashayed towards the Urahara Shoten compund.
"...Oh." Ichigo nodded dumbly.
Yoruichi stopped for a moment, rising her eyebrow.
"Hmm, are you waiting for soemthign specific?" She asked witha smirk. "Should I remind you that training session lasted three days at least?"
Ichigo's eyes became very wide.
"Oh."
"Well, care to see if you can master THIS special method?" She grinned.
He took one lost shot of the liquid courage, before throwing the empty bottle away with a grin.
'This 'epic hero' deal might not be so bad after all...' He thought following Yoruichi.
*
END.
...or just the beginning? B)
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