Just a little something I wrote when I was bored...and procrastinating on stuff that needed to be done... Oh well. Enjoy!

THE DAY HITSUGAYA WENT INSANE

Matsumoto should have seen this coming. She should have known it would happen eventually. After all, who knew her taicho better than she, the fukutaicho who worked under him?

Matsumoto conveniently forgot that she never actually did any work.

The morning (or rather, afternoon, considering the time) Matsumoto walked into the office, she should have noticed the first sign.

"Taiiiicho!" Matsumoto wailed, collapsing theatrically onto Hitsugaya's desk, her large breasts threatening to fall out of her uniform. It was done on purpose, of course. Matsumoto knew how much doing something like that flustered the innocent Hitsugaya, not to mention how it irritated him when she messed his carefully organized piles of paperwork. Depending on his mood, Hitsugaya might be inclined to ban Matsumoto from the office to avoid dealing with her.

Matsumoto was well-versed in the art of pissing off her taicho.

"Is there a problem, Rangiku?" Hitsugaya asked pleasantly as he mopped up the puddle of ink that had already ruined numerous important documents, interrupting Matsumoto half-way through her well-rehearsed lie on why she couldn't do paperwork today.

"– and then a Hollow appeared, so…" Matsumoto stopped at the mention of her name (she never really paid attention when Hitsugaya was talking, as he was usually lecturing her about her sake-drinking) and gave her tiny taicho a curious look. "What was that, taicho?"

Hitsugaya dropped the now-soiled rag in a nearby waste bin and repeated himself. "I said, is there a problem, Matsumoto?"

Funny…I could have sworn he used my first name, Matsumoto thought to herself, but then brushed it off as an after-effect of her hangover last night. "I have a terrible headache, taicho, and I'm horribly sorry, but I just can't do my paperwork today!"

Hitsugaya's face assumed a concerned expression. "Well, if you don't feel up to work, why don't you go home and rest, Matsumoto? Don't worry about your paperwork, I'll take care of your share."

Matsumoto was gone the moment the words left Hitsugaya's mouth. She never even stopped to question her taicho's sudden change in personality as she made a beeline for the Eighth Division. Kyouraku was sure to have some sake on hand so long as his fukutaicho Ise could be distracted.

Matsumoto was very good at distracting.

It wasn't until Kyouraku had asked how Matsumoto had gotten out of work this time that the busty blonde realised something was up.

"I'm surprised you got here so quickly, Rangiku-chan," Kyouraku noted and took another swig of his sake jar. Ise had been successfully distracted by Matsumoto's cunning plan, a plan that involved several poor new recruits and a hundred boxes of faulty Hollow alert systems. "You beat your past record by an hour."

Matsumoto giggled. "I like to think that my acting skills are extraordinary. Taicho bought my story…without…a protest…"

Kyouraku gave Matsumoto a curious look as she trailed off, confusion clouding her own face.

"In fact…he told me to go home…and he offered to do my work…" Matsumoto remembered, her confusion quickly turning to horror. "He must be planning something! No! Taicho found my back-up replacement secret stash of sake! He's hiding it, and he sent me away so I wouldn't know!"

Matsumoto immediately jumped up and raced back to her division, intent on saving her precious sake. Even then, Matsumoto didn't realise what had really happened.

Unfortunately for Matsumoto, she had forgotten she was drunk, and stumbled rather than ran back to the office.

Crash!

For a few seconds, neither Matsumoto nor Hitsugaya moved. In her rush to return and save her alcohol, Matsumoto had forgotten to watch where she was going. As a result, Hitsugaya's favourite porcelain pot and the last decoration Matsumoto had yet to destroy, was broken.

Immediately fearing for her general well-being, Matsumoto started backing out of the office (to get a head-start should her taicho begin pursuit).

"Taicho, I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going…I only wanted to come back and…check on you…to make sure…"

Hitsugaya waved away her apologies. "Don't worry Matsumoto; I know it was an accident."

Matsumoto froze. "Eh?"

"It was only a matter of time before it broke," Hitsugaya continued. And then he did something that Matsumoto thought she would never see him do. Hell, she would have found it more likely that Kurotsuchi-taicho quit his experiments and become a missionary…for something.

Hitsugaya smiled.

"Was there something you needed, Matsumoto? How is your head?"

With a screech of terror, Matsumoto fled the office, knocking over several division members in the process. She didn't stop running until she had made it back to the safety of her home, where she immediately went to the kitchen to break out her Last Resort When Everything Else Failed and the World Was Ending store of sake.

"It's just a dream…it's just a dream," Matsumoto repeated to herself until she drunk herself into a stupor.

Unfortunately, there was no escape, even in dreams.

Matsumoto was not happy. Dreams were supposed to have lots of sake, sunshine, and parties. Not ice and snow. She was very glad to spy a fire in the distance, and quickly ran as fast as she could towards its warmth.

To her surprise, Hitsugaya was sitting in front of the fire, waiting for her.

"I'm glad you're here, Rangiku," Hitsugaya said with another of those terrifying smiles. "I was almost out of fuel for the fire."

Here he gestured to a large white pile beside him, and Matsumoto realised with horror that her uptight taicho was burning paperwork for fuel.

"!#$!^$^!"

Matsumoto awoke with a strangled shout, and then breathed a sigh of relief she had only been dreaming. Suddenly she realised that she was no longer in her kitchen, but on the ground of the Tenth Division's training grounds.

And it was snowing.

"Ah, you're awake, Rangiku," came a terrifyingly familiar voice. Matsumoto could almost hear the speaker's smile. "I was nearly out of fuel for the fire."

Slowly, dreading what she was about to see, Matsumoto sat up and looked over towards the sound of the voice.

There sat her taicho, who was burning a very large pile of paperwork for a fire.

Matsumoto's scream was heard even in the far reaches of Los Noches, causing Ulquiorra to cringe in pain. Grimmjow took that as a challenge and immediately drew his sword. Nnoitra, not wanting to miss out on a battle, clashed with Grimmjow. The rest of the meeting fell into chaos that resulted in the premature destruction of Aizen's plan.

Gin simply smiled even more when he recognized the scream.

Matsumoto fled the Tenth Division, still screaming. She couldn't believe what was going on, or why her taicho had suddenly changed like that. Why wasn't he yelling at her? Threatening to withhold her sake if she didn't work? Sighing with defeat as he resigned himself to doing her work anyway?

All these questions raced through Matsumoto's mind, until finally it hit her.

Hitsugaya had finally gone insane.

It all made sense. How could anyone stay sane with the amount of work Hitsugaya did? It was impressive that he had lasted so long as it was, but it was only a matter of time before it happened. Matsumoto only wondered why she hadn't realised it until now.

"My poor taicho!" Matsumoto said sorrowfully. "The work finally broke him. I told him work was bad for his health!"

Stopping in the middle of her flight of terror from her now-insane taicho, Matsumoto thought. There was no way Hitsugaya could stay insane, he was a taicho for goodness's sake! He had to regain his insanity, because otherwise Matsumoto would end up like Kira, depressed and over-worked.

Somewhere in the Third Division, Kira sneezes.

Suddenly Matsumoto had another life-changing realisation.

"That's it! I know how to cure him!" Matsumoto exclaimed with relief. It would require a lot of self-sacrifice, but in the end it would benefit Matsumoto much more. Immediately, Matsumoto Shunpo'd off to the Tenth Division.

Several minutes later, Matsumoto was creeping into the office. She wasn't sure if Hitsugaya would be there or not, but she was prepared to restrain him if he was. Fortunately for Mastumoto, the office was empty.

Dropping her instruments of mass destruction…ahem…humanely capturing insane taichos…Matsumoto quickly strode into the office and locked the door behind her. It would not do to have her taicho walk in on her in his condition.

Matsumoto took a long swig of a very large jar of sake to fortify herself before approaching Hitsugaya's desk. To her surprise, and dismay, it was still covered in paperwork. Matsumoto forced herself to take the piles and move them to her desk, each movement causing her pain. Matsumoto could swear she was breaking out in hives, and was worried that she might be allergic to paperwork.

"This is for Hitsugaya-taicho," Matsumoto told herself firmly. "To cure his insanity. I'll turn you back to normal, taicho, I promise!"

And so, Matsumoto began to diligently fill out paper after paper, determined to finish the whole lot before Hitsugaya appeared. Matsumoto was sure that if she kept the cause of Hitsugaya's insanity (the paperwork) out of his sight, then he would eventually turn back to normal.

Matsumoto just hoped he was cured before she went insane.

...sakesakesakesakesakesakesake...

"Hitsugaya-taicho…are you sure you haven't…gone too far?" Ise asked nervously when they peered through Hitsugaya's office door's window to check on Matsumoto. She not moved from the desk for four hours, even after her sake had long since run out. Matsumoto was beginning to look a little sick.

Hitsugaya only smirked. "She'll be fine. I will be surprised if it takes her more than a day to find out it was all an elaborate plan. But by then, she would have completed two months' worth of paperwork. And it's all hers."

The conspiring duo began to walk away from the Tenth Division office.

"Now, what shall we do about Kyouraku-taicho?" Hitsugaya asked with another smirk.