Exciting Proposal

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

A/N: This is the last chapter. For those of you who are interested, there is a Jyuushiro/Rukia oneshot I posted called "Serendipity". It was meant to be a chapter of this, but I decided against including it.

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The simple thing to do would be to beat her black and blue and maybe even yellow until she quit her god damn ear splitting dust raising tantrums.

"Kenseiiii Mashiro wants to go hooooome!"

Simple things aren't as simple as they seem, though. Beating her would shut her up for now but she'd give him pouty lips and sodden eyes for weeks until he cracked like a pot left too long in the kiln and apologized on bended knee.

Kuna Mashiro, the pain in Muguruma Kensei's terribly attractive ass.

"Shut up! If you didn't wanna stick it out you shouldn't have volunteered!"

She wailed, "Mashiro only wanted to stay with you! No one said anything about hollows!"

He didn't know what he'd done to warrant such devoted attachment. When it didn't incense him to violent rage it was quite flattering. Those moments were too few.

"Mashiro, you're a freakin' shinigami. It's kinda given no one has to mention hollows on a fuckin' soul burial trip!"

When she first abused his given name, he'd tried to force her to use his surname by invoking hers. Nasty little witch didn't even stir when he called her Kuna, though. It was easier to cuss her out as Mashiro anyway.

"Mashiro's bored and she's had enough. Let's go back, Kensei!"

He closed his eyes and imagined a world where graduation examiners marking crazy shits like her weren't half-crocked themselves; where no one in their right mind or even the wrong one would hand a sword and a job to a temperamental two year old in a young woman's body. He imagined a world, in short, where he wasn't hassled by Mashiro's frothing presence which was so good at making him froth at the mouth. Kensei's lips curved. He'd never ask for anything more.

Be careful what you wish for, a snide voice in his head crowed, and then the ground under his feet erupted.

A long white thingy rose past him and kept rising. Rubble punctuated the air around his skyward bound body like foreboding exclamations. He reached the peak of a parabola and began to descend, smelling blood.

Mashiro, he thought, his ingrained sense of male superiority concluding that where his bulk had failed her delicate body stood not a chance. It was after he landed with an ominous onomatopoeia and felt cold in the back that he realized the blood was his own.

God damn sneak attacks.

"Kensei!" she yelled for him and he would've loved to leap to her defense, only a largish slab of rock had fallen on his outwardly splayed arm, crushing his right wrist and pinning his elbow. He relinquished his grip on his drawn zanpakutou. Mashiro would have to deal with these guys on her own for the mo'. A trembling hand—the left, obviously—rose to his ear to contact the squad that had gone ahead, leaving him to deal with the green haired baby. His receiver was intact and voices jabbered at him—presumably mounting a rescue operation—but his mic was bashed up and he couldn't really form words.

"Kensei hold on, I'm coming!"

With nothing better to do but wait for the concussion to set in, he did as she asked.

He'd never thought of Mashiro in terms of strength. Well she so insistently, physically took up all his thoughts when in front of him, he wasn't inclined to think of her during those blessed times of peace.

"Take this, ya dirty rotten hollow! Mashiro KICK!"

He had to admit. Had he given her some thought, he'd have vastly underestimated her. The same voice that razed his patience to the ground when she whined knelled like death bells swinging through the air, blowing hollow brains out. There was even something cool in the way she could raise her foot to the side of her face, and bring vertical damnation on masked heads.

Yeah, he was probably concussed. What the hell. He watched her.

"Mashiro," he rasped, and the voices in his ear picked that moment to start talking again.

"Kensei!" they barked, "We see her! Hold on!"

Already doing that, wasn't he?

There was one hollow left, a big motherfucker with a ton of reiatsu. Mashiro flitted in front of it, luring the bastard away from Kensei. It had a whole of bunch of prongs on its body, some covered in Kensei's blood: this was the one that had taken him out of action just by showing up. It irritated him to no end that he'd been incapacitated by an enemy who hadn't even meant to do it.

Later it would strike him as deeply unsettling that organized hollow attacks were becoming so common these days. Worse, the shinigami were getting used to them instead of suspiciously fishing out the culprit responsible for the sudden united front. What was up with that?

(Aizen Sousuke was.)

The hollow lunged; the squad set upon it. Kensei's stomach contracted sharply as Mashiro went down under the fallen soul's mammoth body. A cloud of dust mushroomed towards the sky and then it was to hell with crushed hands or bleeding backs or unreleased zanpakutou; he roared with adrenaline and wrenched his arm free of the stone lying so jauntily atop it. His right shoulder popped out of his socket. The sheer fuckin' agony drove him to his knees and then one of his mates was helping him up.

"M'sword."

"Kensei, you're in no position to—"

"Gimme my damn sword!"

It was because of Mashiro that no one used his surname anymore, not if they'd been part of his division when she started. Mashiro was the baby of the Ninth; moody and annoying and too cute for her own good. There were some that might've taken advantage of that if there weren't others who'd break the bastards' bones for trying. No one blamed her and no one told her. Mashiro just didn't understand it, she didn't get how when camping out with a couple of guys she'd fall asleep on her sleeping bag and her unrestrained breasts would develop a life of their own, bouncing free of her yukata. It was enough to test almost anyone.

Someone held his zanpakutou out for him to take. His left hand gripped it inexpertly and gave it a few tentative swings. The rest of them were just gathered round the last hollow's dying body, deciding who would get to purify it. No one realized Mashiro was…

Gods.

The new guy, Tousen Kaname, stepped forward. Kensei wasn't sure what his own plan was, but he had a vague idea it involved hacking indiscriminately at the hollow. Probably (Kaname raised his blade) it was better to let the thing dematerialize—maybe Mashiro's body would be intact…

A horrid, ripping sound rent the air. Everyone froze and backed away from the hollow, whose back was bubbling weirdly. Hands held Kensei back and he tried to lunge forth, his nose thrust forward to sniff out who was doing that, the only person who might be inside the hollow itself—was it possible?

Kuna Mashiro breached the thing's failing skin, a spearing sphere of reiatsu in her small hands. She was covered in the stuff that passed for gore in hollows and looked faintly both pleased with and surprised at herself.

"Kuna!" someone gasped, and the hands let go of Kensei. He ran pell-mell, helter-skelter, arms trailing behind. He scooped her out of the hole she'd made and shook her and plunged his face onto her shoulder, giddy with relief.

Tousen Kaname lowered his weapon.

Mashiro hugged back, and the hollow vanished; disintegrated into a stream of shimmery particles. They dropped to the ground and applauding, cat-calling shinigami moved in on them, merrily thrusting the embracing idiots into the care of their healer squad. They weren't 4th Division, but they'd manage.

000

"Kensei made a full recovery like Mashiro knew he would 'cause hoopy guys like him don't stop for 'juries like that!"

"Kuna-san, please. The patient needs rest and quiet."

"Why do you call him 'patient', Isane? You know Kensei's name so use it!"

He opened his eyes because seeing Mashiro next to tall Kotetsu Isane made her look extra bite-sized and he kinda liked that.

She stuck her big eyes and pursed her lips in his face. "Kensei!" she squealed. "You're awake!"

"Ah crap. You again."

Mashiro's green head jerked back and she wailed. "Waah Kensei's such a meanie even though you hugged me when I popped the hollow you're pretending you don't love me!"

Isane took a break. Evidently Retsu had recently stocked up on aspirin.

"Mashiro," he sat up and gave her the stink eye, "You're a little shit and I don't like you."

"Liar, Kensei!"
"The fuck have I ever done to make you think that's a lie?"

"Don't you remember?" she stared wide-eyed as she trilled. "When Mashiro first joined our division her shinigami robes were too big! She was always trippin'. And one day she was about to fall down in front of Kensei and he caught her: love at first sight!"

There his heart went again, giggling nervously as she said 'love'. Mashiro only told him that about fifteen times a week, but his chest 'n' stomach never stopped reacting to it. Consequences. He constantly felt like throwing up.

Well, no one said love was pretty. Or Love, for that matter.

"Mashiro," Kensei was appalled, "That was fucking instinct."

"That's why Kensei's so amazing! Because being nice is instinct to him! You're a hero, Kensei! A life saver!"

She looked at him with brimming, sparkly eyes. Kensei didn't really know what to think. Mashiro had always treated him special for as long as memory cared to recall, but he'd never imagined it was because of their first meeting. How was he going to explain to her that the event she'd based all her love for him on meant nothing to him? Holding his arms out to a flailing, failing dame had come naturally; so much so that after setting her back on her feet and confirming her okay-ness he'd forgotten it so thoroughly even her reminding him was not ringing any bells. Was this the exalted occurrence that demanded her devotion?

Well, no. Not exactly. It had spawned it, but it couldn't have held her attention all this time. This was Mashiro and that had been years ago. Since then she'd remained stuck on him like stink on a dog because every day he showed her a new reason to do so. Kensei didn't have to say anything; what he did spoke so loudly to her she rarely heard a word that came out of his mouth. Definitely a good thing: Muguruma Kensei was so not a speaker.

"Mashiro…"

"Yeah, Kensei?"

He gave up. He patted her head. She rewarded him with a hug that dislocated his shoulder all over again.

Love, evidently, was pain.

000

A decade passed. The 46 Council completely lost its head and made him a captain. Muguruma Kensei in turn lost his head and said to Kuna Mashiro:

"Be my lieutenant, okay?"

She didn't seem to hear at first. Focusing on his rather dazed expression she chortled, "Yama-jii's totally losing his touch. How come Kensei's a captain? You're gonna look weird in that haori. Hey, didja say something?"

He stupidly repeated himself.

"Huh?" her eyes did that neat trick where they took up her whole face. "Me?"

Take it back. There's still time!

"Kensei!"

Too late.

"Yes!"

He was doomed. He didn't even regret it.

"See, you do love me!"

Well. Maybe just a touch.

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I had my misgivings about ending the series with a coupling that means so little to me, but I liked the symmetry of starting and finishing with a vaizard and also (broad) hints of romance. Besides, Shunsui and Lisa were not special when I wrote them; now they're among the dearest to my heart. Maybe I'll develop a thing for Kensei and Mashiro, having written this chapter.

In any case!

It's been a good run! Thank you very much for all the favorites, alerts, and encouragement in the form of sparkling reviews cut like diamonds in a shop. I hope I've delivered a fic that lingers in the memory, and maybe I'll see you around again~