"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"What? Of course it is. Iba's doing it."

"Ok."

"You guys?"

"Eh?"

"What are these balloons filled with?"

"Marinara sauce. Duh."

"I've never been involved in a battle while wearing grass sandals. Seriously. Your uniforms are stupid."

Yachiru had cornered Byakuya in the kitchen and manipulated him into learning how to play some kind of infernal card game.

"Okay Byakoo, you lose." Yachiru snatched his cards back and stacked them up with the others, shuffling them clumsily for another match.

"Very well." It was of no consequence. It was a childish game.

"Now you have to take your clothes off." Yachiru informed him as she dealt out another hand.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I've never eaten raw fish."

"THE RAIN IN SPAIN STAYS MAINLY IN THE PLAIN!"

It turned out that Hacchi had left his Epic Sound System on infinite repeat of everything on the hard drive connected to it. Once they'd gotten through the techno, the rock, the pop, the disco, and therefore most of the usable dance music, they reached classical on the third morning of the apparently never-ending party.

After classical was show tunes.

Unfortunately, Hacchi was passed out in the computer lab upstairs. His barrier was as strong as ever, and the only person who could get in or out was Orihime. The remote control to the epic stereo system was nowhere to be found, and neither was the key that opened the cabinet it lived in.

They. couldn't. even. turn. the. volume. down.

"THE HILLS ARE ALIVE, WITH THE SOUND OF MUUUSICCC..."

"I've never needed to be sedated for a visit to the 4th Division."

The Kenpachi staggered by, bleeding from the head and mumbling something about a tube of wasabi. Kon was clinging to the back of his haori, sobbing quietly to himself. Ishida wondered briefly what could have happened to them, but decided he didn't want to know.

Ichigo approached, regarding the two warily as they shuffled away.

"Shouldn't we wrap this up? It's been like, three days!"

"Ichigo, these people are celebrating the end of a war that's been a hundred years in the making. I agree that some of the activities are... distasteful, but let them have their fun."

Ichigo rolled his eyes. Leave it to Ishida to label something like marinara wrestling as merely distasteful.

"Yes, I get that. But at some point, somebody's going to choke on their own vomit and die."

Ishida waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't worry, most of them are already dead."

"I've never fought a vampire."

"No, no, no!" Rose threw a beer bottle at Love, who dodged it. The empty projectile smashed next to the wall-sized television at the back of the warehouse. The ending credits of Star Wars: A New Hope were still rolling. A small handful of shinigami were huddled close to the screen, still transfixed.

"That's not what I'm saying!" Love couldn't find anything appropriate to throw, so he took off his left shoe and threw it at Rose, who ducked. The shoe took out a bowl of trail mix, but it didn't matter because it was already going stale.

"THEN WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" screamed Mashiro, who was just walking by and had no idea what their conversation was actually about. She kept walking, leaving Love and Rose standing there to stare after her in bewilderment for a long moment.

"The Bounts were not vampires."

Orihime had managed to get out of the barrier long enough to go get an enormous amount of pizza, and suddenly she was everyone's favorite. Many of the shinigami had never eaten it, and so Shinji was highly amused to see their eyes widening in surprise and delight at their first bites.

The Vizard, of course, had eaten plenty of pizza over the years. Delivery had become a thing in the late 1960's and they had taken full advantage of it here at the warehouse. As unlikely as it was that some shinigami on patrol might randomly recognize one of them out on a grocery run, paranoia had been their constant companion for over a century. And given their potential fates if they had been caught, who could blame them?

No, Shinji decided. Pizza was perhaps the most perfect food ever invented. Though if memory served, there were no Mexican joints in the Soul Society.

Perhaps this would be a good night to introduce the spirit world to the delights of sopapillas and fried ice cream as well.

"Of course the Bounts were vampires. Lame vampires."

Rangiku was pretty sure that the girl with the glasses and the camera was one of the Vizard, as they called themselves. She was pretty sure the girl had once been the 8th Division's Lieutenant, who had disappeared mysteriously. She was pretty sure that Nanao was still sore about it.

Rangiku was also pretty sure that she had no choice but to offer to purchase several prints of the photo the girl had just taken of Captain Hitsugaya, who was peacefully napping inside a wooden crate with a pack of cigarettes clutched in one hand.

"I've never been able to clean my whole body with my tongue."

"What I'm saying is," said Love in a more calm and rational tone, "Is that it's an important character development point that Han shot first! He started out as a chaotic neutral character and only later comes to realize that the ideals of the Rebellion appeal to him."

"Yeah, and I'm saying you're fucking wrong!" Rose shouted, slinging a handful of the spilled trail mix in Love's direction. There weren't many things Rose would get as worked up about as Han Solo. "He had a conscience, but he acted in self defense!"

"Of course it was self-defense, he already knew Greedo was going to try to kill him!" Love seized the remote, started the movie over. The shinigami scooted themselves closer to the tv. "It was Greedo who made the mistake—why did he let Han get his hands on his blaster in the first place? He was a crappy bounty hunter, that's why!"

"Oh and I'd just love to see you try to do his job—"

"I have never organized my mp3's by genre."

"Princess," Yachiru informed Renji seriously, "Is looking for you."

Renji groaned miserably from his spot on the floor, blinking at her fuzzy pink form.

"Tell Princess there's a barrier in place and we're trapped here for the rest of eternity."

"Ok. I'll tell him what I saw you doing to MooMoo's feet earlier, too."

Renji stared at Yachiru's retreating form in confusion. He had no recollection of doing anything with Hinamori's feet. The last thing he remembered was making a hasty exit from the computer lab when he realized that Rukia was finally about to kiss Ichigo. (About goddamn time, too. How the humans put up with the two of them dancing around each other all the time, Renji did not know.)

But as he sat up and looked around, he realized that one of his boots was missing and there appeared to be a... breadstick? in the sleeve of his shirt.

Goddammit. Better continue avoiding Hitsugaya for the rest of the decade.

"I have never injured myself with a tube of wasabi."

Kuchiki Rukia had put a lot of time and effort into her career.

She took another sip of whiskey.

She'd put a lot of time and effort into her friendship with a certain orange-headed human brat, too.

Sip.

Unfortunately, by kissing that certain orange-headed brat earlier this afternoon (morning? evening?) she'd put both of those things in jeopardy.

She'd never had such an urge before.

Sip.

Long distance relationships were difficult, at best.

And Ichigo was two hundred years her junior, and he was a minor.

Oh God.

Sip.

They could not be stuck in here forever.

Yes, perhaps they could be stuck in here until Hacchigen woke up. Maybe.

But as Byakuya had already decided, this place was too loud, too smoky, and too chaotic for him to spend much time here. Why had he not left already, again?

He took a sip of whatever pink substance was in the glass he'd been given.

Barriers were made of kidou, and kidou was something that Kuchiki House was exceedingly good at.

Byakuya stepped outside. The green barrier crackled with electrical current, stretching from his feet upward to infinity.

He drained the glass of pink stuff. It was time to go home.

"Hey, Toshiro!"

"What?"

"Did Rangiku tell you?"

"Go. Away. Kurosaki."

"It's a penis."

"... what?"

"The disco stick. It's a penis."

The barrier cracked and began to crumble at the point of Byakuya's pressure on it.

Hmmm. It really should have just vanished, given the caliber of the spell he'd used.

Perhaps he'd inadvertently ingested more alcohol than he intended, and this had weakened his abilities.

Or perhaps the rumors about Hacchigen's uncanny abilities were true, and Byakuya's power simply did not stand up to the Vizard's.

In any case, Kurosaki Isshin was standing on the other side of the barrier, eyebrows knitted together in apoplectic rage. He stomped through the breach, past Byakuya, and entered the warehouse.

Well. Perhaps Byakuya could stay a little longer. Seeing the orange-haired menace suffer would be most rewarding.

"Never have I ever... slept in a box. Toshiro."

Kurosaki Isshin was clearly not a happy man. As he came marching out onto the warehouse floor battle-hardened shinigami scattered, ducking behind crates and into empty rooms.

He smashed the glass cabinet that housed Hacchigen's Epic Sound System, and shut it off.

He informed Ukitake and Shunsui that the Commander was demanding to know their location.

He stepped right over two unconscious Lieutenants to yank a drink out of Urahara's hand and inform him that the store hadn't opened in three days.

He grabbed Ichigo by the arm and Kon by the head and dragged them out, shouting about how worried his twin daughters were and how much everyone was going to suffer.

Ukitake and Shunsui looked at each other, both swaying slightly. What day was it, again?

Well.

The shinigami filed out slowly through Byakuya's breach in the barrier, guiltily waving goodbye and promising to show up for the Christmas party.

Isshin called later, promising that Ichigo would come to help them clean up the mess. He also informed them that he'd spoken to Urahara, who'd spoken to Yoruichi, who'd spoken to the Commander, who had declared that all of their records would be cleared. They were facing a kind of freedom they hadn't seen in a century.

Trouble was, there was an awful lot of booze left.

"I've never pretended to be a high school student, when I was in fact over five hundred years old."

"Yeah? Well I've never worn pigtails."

"I've never, ever done anything inappropriate to a carrot."

"I've never cried when a pop singer died."

"Oh yeah well I don't wear a stupid tie everywhere I go and I don't have big stupid TEETH!"

As ever, their bickering continued into the night. The beer and pizza gradually depleted, Hiyori fell asleep on the couch while Return of the Jedi was playing, and Hacchi pretended not to weep over the destruction of the Epic Sound System's cabinet. Rose and Mashiro picked up the garbage compulsively. Love sat on a crate, staring at a wall. Kensei took to his bed miserably, muttering something about a sexual epiphany and refusing to talk to anyone.

Shinji retired to the roof to watch the sunrise, knowing that sleep was still a long way off. It was many hours before he heard the door to the stairwell open, and Lisa came to sit beside him on the ledge, facing east. She handed him a flute of champagne. (They had champagne? Who brings champagne to a party like this? Oh right, Byakuya had been here earlier...)

"The Commander's people have been in touch with Kisuke overnight," she said, tilting her glasses down her nose at him. "They're asking if you'll take back Division Five, temporarily if you like, since they are so short on Captains. There's a lot of people still recovering and Seireitei is apparently in chaos."

Shinji didn't move. Although the idea had crossed his mind, he hadn't taken it seriously as a possibility. He'd assumed they'd continue on here as they had been for the last hundred years. This had become home, and although he had dreamed of having the freedom to leave for years his mind suddenly reeled at the thought of being anywhere else. Shinji didn't like change.

On the other hand...

He raised his champagne to her.

"We've never had a second chance like this before." he declared.

"To the future," she smiled, and they both drank.

Bleeeehhh. Champagne was overrated.