Doing Things The Hard Way

"You ran out of there surprisingly fast," Ishida said suspiciously.

"You didn't hear what that thing was saying," Renji muttered, wiping his forehead.

"Mm?"

Renji shuddered. "He -- it -- that pink-haired thing was whispering in my ear about how it was hermaphrodite and that it was going to trap me in its webs and take my seed and then bite off my head while we were mating and lay eggs in me. Now I don't mind fighting Hollows, and I don't mind fighting Arrancar, but I do draw the line at fighting the completely wacko shithead insane freaks."

"Oh," Ishida said.

"And when it got to babbling about wanted to taste my maleness, I, um . . ."

"Led the strategic withdrawal," Ishida supplied.

"Oh, he was lying," said one of the little Arrancar, popping up from where it had been clinging to Ishida's ankle. "It's Halibel who does all that. Szayel-sama's perfectly normal. Well, you know. As normal as normal gets round here."

Renji looked down at the little Arrancar. "Really?"

"Really."

"Right. Fuck that." Renji readied his zanpakutou and charged back into the room they'd just left. "All right, you weirdo freak, here's where you get a real taste of my agggghhhhhhhhh --"

". . . then again," the little Arrancar mused, "I could be wrong."

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