Downtime Frowntime

"Uggggggghhh..."

Yukari was slumped across the bar of the sushi restaurant as her third giant sigh of the evening left her lips, the 12th Division Lieutenant left utterly miserable by the dwindling hours of the day. She had managed to explode so many things today, but it just wasn't enough. It was never enough...

"Long day at the office?" The man behind the counter asked as he cleaned off his various knives under the faucet. While his collection of dirtied utensils showed evidence of a busy day of making sushi for customers, Yukari didn't have a scrap of food in front of her. All that remained was a half-full cup of sake and all of her frustrations. One of those things needed the other more than the other.

"Not long enough if you ask me..." Yukari said wistfully. Silly Alex and his silly rules for not letting me take bombs home... Was it really that much to ask for? Can't a girl just practice making high yield explosives on her own time? What has this world come to, really... "And now I have to wait until the next day rolls around to get anything done, again." Yukari's fourth sigh rang out as she propped up her head with her hand, her eyes drifting over to her sake cup.

"One day, I'll be able to explode all the time..." The man behind the counter gave her an odd look, but nonetheless continued cleaning his knives.

When Hisao walked into the sushi restaurant, he wasn't really in terrible shape, which was a growing trend that he was liking from the past few days. Terrible luck, but he was incredibly healthy, active, and alert, which he wasn't sure how all filled together without some kind of plot armor keeping him from losing one of his various (read: two) arms.

Hisao wasn't terribly superstitious, but one thing that always happened after he ate at the sushi place was that his bad luck tended to cease for at least some period of time. He had done a lot of kido instructing earlier, plus some of his own personal research and training, and really, splurging a little on sushi didn't sound all that bad.

Though he had no idea what really to do.

"Um. Uh. I'll take the... chef's special?"

It was decorum to leave stuff to the guy who knew his fish the most, right? Especially for set-menu type eating? Whatever the case, sushi was seriously delicious, so he couldn't complain much.

Yukari had resigned to blowing small raspberries with her lips in-between sighs as she slumped on the sushi counter. She wasn’t exactly wanting to go back home or anywhere else since nothing would have changed explosive-wise, and going back to her room would just have her staring at the various chemical formulas she had strewn about the place without any way to put them into action. She was basically a lump of depression flopped on a stool when Hisao walked in and gave his ‘order’.

The chef had himself a little chuckle as he took his hands out of the sink and dried them off on the dishrag as he got his various knives collected for the job ahead. “Sure thing, one ‘special’ coming right up.” Truth be told, there wasn’t exactly a ‘chef’s special’ for this particular restaurant, but now that the chef had free reign over what to make, the third most expensive item was coming right up!

(Making the first or second most expensive food would have just been rude)

Yukari swiveled her head around to get an unenergetic look at the newest person to wander into the sushi restaurant she had been moping in. “Kinda risky to leave it all up to the chef to make you whatever, dontcha think?” She asked lazily, letting out another one of her countless sighs escape her as she looked Hisao over. Her eyes soon caught on to the Lieutenant badge on his robes, and her eyes lit up in the briefest hint of interest. “Oh hey, you’re an LT too. How’s it going?”

Oh pleaaaaase distract me from my self-induced semi-coma someoooooone… Hopefully he can explode. If I’m lucky.

"What do you mean? I'm not really allergic to anything."

It could have been that the other person at the counter nursing their sake knew a thing or two more than the average bear about sushi, or simply that Hisao just didn't know a lot about ordering. Though honestly, if he hadn't done that, he would probably have deferred to whatever the first order he heard was. In the worst case, he would have ordered the first thing that he saw, and that would be the sake.

"But yeah, I'm a lieutenant. Ninth division. Had to train some new recruits. You know how it is." He laughed lightly. "Like they're awesome, but just starting out and seeing them stumble out the gate. It takes me back, I guess. Before I was used to getting run ragged by training."

"Pfffft, food allergies? It'd be best for you to not have any money allergies. Chef here can get pretty pricey if you don't watch yourself. There's a reason I'm only drinking some sake here, you know." Well, that was only really the half truth. The other half was that this was one of the few places left that wouldn't throw her out on account of her "disturbing the peace" bologna that they kept spewing about.

So what if she liked to celebrate with a few "firecrackers" she sneaked out of the lab once or twice? It's how she showed she was happy! They should have been glad she gave them her business!

Good for nothing tattle-tales got my 'bombs in public' privileges taken away, hmmph... "Anyway, glad to see another second in command running around here too, I guess. But I can't exactly... compare with training new recruits and stuff, to be honest. I'm kinda all cooped up in my lab to see anyone else, heh." Yukari slowly slid her hand across the table, palm facing upwards, in Hisao's direction as she looked up at him.

"Yukari Motou, Lieutenant of the 12th, cool to meet you and stuff..." She guessed? The new guy could at least help take her mind off of very slowly drinking her woes away at this sushi restaurant. "Ninth's the... Kido guys, right? Sounds like you guy would be training a  lot then, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I can take a hit every once in a while." More than once in a while, really? After all, they were paid a fairly hefty sum and poverty wasn't something that they necessarily had to worry about in Seireitei proper, especially as lieutenants.

He nodded along with Yukari "Well, I mean, yeah, all of the Gotei have all their different jobs. So I'm guessing that would make you...?"

Yeah, 12th Division! They were a lot of weird people, but really interesting to talk to. Hisao stared down at the proffered hand momentarily. That was kind of too weird to be a handshake, right? Which meant...

Hisao low-fived Yukari.

"Yeah. Hisao Miyanagi. We're in charge of kido, yeah. Training for mastery's part of it, but I do a lot of experimental stuff with kido. In a way, the stuff I do sometimes overlaps with some of the R&D that you'd expect out of 12th."

“Heh, you say that now…” Yukari joked, smirking slightly as she teased Hisao slightly. The sushi wasn’t going to break the bank really, but it was a big of good-natured ribbing she had with the chef when she visited. Mostly because she couldn’t just shoot off a bomb or two when she was in a real joking mood, sadly. “But really it’s kinda just good to have someone else to talk to, really. This cup of sake won’t talk back no matter how much I complain to it, so I’m betting you’d be a bit better for conversation.”

At least she really hoped so. Him being in the Kido Corps didn’t exactly bring up too many conversation points other than a quick chat in the difference in their jobs, and Yukari herself didn’t exactly use ‘normal’ Kido most of the time either, so…

And then he went and gave her a low five. Yukari stared down at her open hand for a few seconds, then back to Hisao, then back to her hand. A small snort of laughter came from the 12th Division Lieutenant as she sat up in her seat fully, still chuckling. “Okay, have to admit I wasn’t expecting that at all, gotta hand that to you, Hisao.” Alright, so maybe he’s not gonna be a total bore after all. She thought playfully.

Her eyebrow perked up a bit in interest at his mention of ‘experimental stuff’ though, and rested her head in her hand as she looked on at Hisao. “Experimental, huh? What kinda stuff are you talking about? I might have come across a few of your things in my work, but it uh, might have gotten pushed to the side a bit if it wasn’t about bombs and stuff. Kind of a specialty of mine. Alex would probably get on my case for not looking at everything but eeeeeeh, what can you do?”

Bombs, you can do more bombs. Can’t go wrong, really.

Wait, so she wasn't sticking her hand out for a low-five after all? It turned out okay, what with newly-introduced Lieutenant Motou's mood lightening up, so Hisao didn't go on to pursue the question. So at her praise, he just kind of gave a clueless thumbs up and smiled along.

"Well, um. I do all sorts of things about making kido more automated and faster. I've actually worked with a few Division 12 people before. So if it's about kido flow and stuff going through circuits, I might have touched that. Recently, once I woke up with my head embedded in a wall testing a thing."

He chuckled, remembering it like it was yesterday.

(It was.)

"Just... I dunno. Stuff. I did this one thing that was reishi-to-text, but it's still under refinement. I don't know the least about bombs, though. I could build you an ignition, or a remote, but I don't know any of the chemistry behind the rest of how they work out."

“Ohhh, neat.” Kinda? There was probably a way she could spin that kinda tech into something more attuned to her field, if she put some effort into it. Except she couldn’t right now because WORK WOULDN’T LET HER AN- Yukari sighed her worries away as she brushed off that frustrating train of thought. No need to seem like a total grumpy gus to the person she just met.

“Hey, sometimes waking up inside of a thing means you’re gonna have a good day or you already did. Especially when it comes to R&D.” She added with a small grin. Yukari of course had plenty of experience with those sorts of things, but not all of them always led to good thing. In fact, several of them resulted in her getting written up while still at the Academy. And then new rules named after her.

Ah, memories…

She nodded slightly at Hisao’s admittance of not knowing too much about bombs. It was only fair, not many people would know nearly as much about bombs as Yukari did. And if they did, she would be getting to know them. “Well hey, igniters and remotes are pretty important too, not gonna lie. But man, the chemistry’s where all the fun is! There’s nothing like finding the exact mix that’s gonna lead to the biggest bang for the buck, and then adding just a bit more to it to make it even better…” She said wistfully, a far-off look in her eyes.

“Food’s here.” The chef interrupted, lying a platter of several sushi rolls of various ingredients, sizes and colors in front of Hisao with a pair of chopsticks in the center. “Soul Sea Special, eat up.” He nodded once to Hisao before turning around and beginning his task of cleaning the knives once again, his chefly duties now performed.

Hisao smiled and nodded in thanks as his meal arrived. He picked up a piece of sushi and slowly chewed on it, savoring it. It was true that this stuff was super pricey, but going into a sushi restaurant? That was kind of par for the course. He could afford to splurge every once in a while, after being afteralive for quite some time.

"Yeah, I guess so. Could have a better day if I have full knowledge that I'll live long enough to complete what I'm working on, though."

He shrugged. There was definitely a camp that put their research on top of everything else, but being alive was something that Hisao totally couldn't complain about, particularly when there was still so much that was left to do in this life.

"Food's good, though."

He nodded as he popped another sushi.

“Pffft, what? You trying to imply that making bombs is dangerous or something?” Yukari joked. She was well aware that most people might see her job as… a little bit hazardous at times, but that just meant that the reward at the end of the day was just that much better! Mostly because it would explode. Actually, solely because it would most likely explode.

“Well, joking aside, being careful about all that stuff is pretty important, yeah. I mean, I love bombs, but you still gotta treat ‘em with respect and everything or else you blow up a school lab and almost get expelled or something. Not that I’d have any experience in that of course.” She smirked. (Except she totally did) “Besides,” Yukari started, waving her blackened fingertips in Hisao’s direction. “Sometimes you have to learn a lesson or two the hard way, helps you remember them more.”

She placed her hands back on the counter  as she watched him munch on a few of  his sushi rolls, the high price of the fish apparently worth it as he seemed to be liking them a lot. Yukari meanwhile just sipped a bit on her Sake. The most filling after-work snack? Not exactly, but she had plenty of stuff back home that’d be just fine in keeping her from being hungry.

"Yeah, I guess so. Some people are like that. It's a good thing that we start people off at low-level kido though. It'd be pretty awful if we didn't." Hisao was comfortable with the lull in the conversation. He really wanted to get at his food while it was fresh.

"So, uh, how're the bombs, I guess?"

"Yeeeep, it'd be real bad to have some new guy accidentally blow everything up using a kido they weren't used to or something..." Yukari said behind a yawn. "That reputation needs to rest solely on me, after all. Can't have just anyone stealing my thunder, you know?" She added with a small smirk.

Granted, a kido mistake would have probably been worse off on the person who messed it up than Yukari just setting off bombs in the designated area with the proper explosive ordinance rules properly followed and all that jazz. That was a part of her job that Yukari liked as well, she had a license to bomb to her heart's desire, as long as she put some of that effort into helping the Seireitei every once in a while.

Speaking of liking her job, as soon as Hisao asked about the bomb, a large dreamy smile made its way onto Yukari's face. She propped her head up in her hands as a far-off look made its way into her eyes. "The bombs are doing wonderfully... I've got a few new chemical mixes in the works that'll increase the blast radius without sacrificing any power at all, not to mention I've been working on some tunneling charges and, *sigh*..."

Yukari slumped down onto the counter, her cheeks tinged with a hint of red as she lazily traced the edges of her cup with her finger. But because work's over for the day I can't actually do anything with them and now I'm all homesick all over again..." A statement that was of course punctuated by another sigh.

"Yeah, uh, you can keep that honor to yourself." Hisao actually knew of some pretty awful stories about people messing up really bad with kido, but demonstrations of how things could go really nasty deterred practitioners in Division Nine from really messing themselves up. There was totally a giant chunk of time where they were taught how to treat kido with respect and not end up back in the cycle of reincarnation the next day.

With all that said? It looked like Yukari liked to talk about bombs. Like, by a lot. It could have been the alcohol, maybe, but it did seem that Yukari's interests were as singular as they were explosive. "Well, uh, I guess you should rest up at some point. I mean, sleep bridges the time between leaving work and getting back at it, so it could be something to invest in sometime."

Yukari chuckled softly as she looked back over at Hisao. "Oh yeah, a real big honor to have. But hey, I can't complain too much; It did give me this job and a fancy new explosives testing room to have fun in after all was said and done." Which really could have been a way for the Academy to have gotten rid of here, now that she thought about it... Naaah, she totally earned the right to be Lieutenant herself.

"And yeah, I know sleep's important, it's just..." She sighed. "Does it have to take so long? I mean, seven hours gone a day to just lying down unconscious and not doing anything. It's a real bummer, man..."  Or at least let me sleep in the lab more often, it'd save the time it would take me to get ready for work and everything, after all. And saving time's something really important to do when you're doing experiments and everything...

"Really, what I think our next thing we need to work on is some kinda pill or something that gives you a full night's rest in like five minutes instead of having to go down for all those hours. I mean I'd probably have to get Alex's help on that, that kinda stuff's out of my field really." Chemistry? She had that covered. Biology? Ehhh... not so much. Yukari's finger came off of the edge of her cup and she drained what was left in it, setting the now empty back on the counter.

"So, you got any other hobbies or anything outside of work? Or are you married to it like I am?

"A pill like that's something to talk to the rest of your division about. Maybe even to our guys or the Fourth about. Something that just leaves you well-rested like that sounds like it'll take more than just chemicals, since there's all that stuff sleep does for the body."

Hisao scratched his head. It could have been that Yukari was onto something. After all, it would be a really useful thing to have whenever doing long stake-outs or just things that stretched into the night in general. "Outside of work... I mean, I guess I make things? Read, sometimes. I pick up and put down hobbies sometimes. Souls have such a long lifespan, I figure it's pretty important to pick up at least a few."

"Yeaaaaah... But I mean in the same time? That'd mean I'd have to find some time when I'm not locked up in my lab testing my new bomb designs too, so..." Yukari shrugged slightly in Hisao's direction with a slightly apathetic look on her face. "If you'd want to give me a list of those guys in your Division who might be able to help I wouldn't mind it either. In all honestly I'd probably leave a list or a note or something on Alex's door in the morning when I'd head in to work."

He'd know what to do, right? I mean, he IS the Captain and everything. Heck he could be working on something like that already and I just not know about it... Maybe I should probably try talking to Captain Alex more often... meh.

Her non-bomb related thoughts were soon graciously distracted by Hisao bringing up his own hobbies, so Yukari saw fit to latch onto those instead of dwelling on non-work related work. "Ooohh, you make things too? What kinda stuff, something I would have heard of? And I guess I understand what you mean about picking up a few hobbies and dropping a few, yeah. Like this one time about 30 years ago I used to be really into this thing Humans call 'Tennis'? But I couldn't find anybody here that wanted to play in a long time, and I couldn't use my special exploding tennis balls in the Living World so... You can see how that all got old fast..."

"It'd have to be a collaboration, right? Kind of difficult not to when it's something spanning all these disciplines." Hisao said. "And I mean, stuff like this is happening all the time! I think that we should work on promoting research in the other divisions. Like it definitely happens, but when you have an entire division that's meant for research, it's what people look to first."

He nodded as the conversation turned to hobbies again. Funny how they tended to do that. "Oh, yeah, I know of tennis. It's a sport with something. I mean if you do it in an anti-gravity chamber it would probably be interesting. Exploding tennis balls sounds a bit too painful."

"Collaboration sounds pretty good, yeah. Kinda like that whole 'Divide and Conquer' thing, right? I think?" Humans really did have a lot of weird sayings when it came to things like that. Like some kind of saying about bushes, birds and hands? Who in the world would keep either of those things in their hands? Weird humans making up stuff, that's who.

"But I guess maybe if we bring in a few people from other Divisions to help work on the pill thing, that'd probably help a lot? Probably need to bring in someone from the Fourth at least, just to make sure it doesn't have some kinda awful side-effects or the like. Wouldn't be too much good to be able to stay up nearly an entire day if you started bleeding out of your eyes or couldn't stop blinking or something, right?" Also they totally understand stuff about how the body works a lot more than I do... Hehe, but I can still wire a detonator better than any of them, that's for sure! She thought with a slight smirk forming at the edge of her lips.

Anti-gravity tennis? It'd certainly be... interesting? Yeah, that's a good word. "Pffft, it wouldn't be all that painful if you just played well enough. Otherwise it's just one really good serve and then you're cleaning scorch marks off the pavement for the foreseeable week." She let out another one of her innumerable sighs as she lazily looked over at Hisao. "So, what kinda stuff do you make?"

"Yeah, I guess. But uh, I make all kinds of things. Mostly electronics and little machine curiosities, stuff like that. I've made some stuff that uses reiatsu to function too, like a stamp that can change characters and stuff like that. Boss hands us a lot of paperwork to do, so it totally makes things a breeze."

Isao laughed as he pulled a small, clockwork mouse out of his uniform where he had sewn in a pocket. Pockets were really useful things to have. You'd think that the Gotei would be better about having them. The mouse itself didn't look remotely like a mouse at all; it was a clear, boxy chassis with the word "Mouse" written on it. It had four legs which were delicately geared and jointed the way that a rodent was expected to be put together. A wind-up key was on the "back" of the box.

A pipe cleaner jutted out one end, evidently the tail.

"But uh, I make clockwork things too. It's relaxing to put them together, and I can study motion that way. It doesn't look pretty, but hey, it works."

He began to wind up the mechanical mouse.

"Ohhh, little gizmos and doohickeys, that's pretty cool." Yukari said offhandedly as she looked down at her drained sake bottle. Hmm... Maybe a second bottle wouldn't be too bad after all. It's not like I'm buzzed right now or anything, yeah... "Hey chef, could I have another bottle please? Same ol' stuff no need to change anything up at this point."

The sushi chef simply grunted and nodded as he placed a fresh bottle of sake in front of Yukari, taking the empty one to parts unknown as he resumed his tidying around the shop.

She kept about half her attention on what Hisao was pulling out of his pockets as she poured herself a fresh cup, the other half of course being devoted to the actual pouring of said liquid. There was a... box? With some gears and stuff inside? It didn't really look like a bomb or anything, meh... "So... 'mouse'? You planning on making a 'cat' as well and watching your two creations chase each other around or something?"

"Yeah, maybe, if this one goes over well."

He wound up the mouse and set it down on the table. Its little mouse motor began to whir and it began to walk along the counter all mouse-like. "The big draw is that the gearbox in the middle you can change using reiatsu. So with a little buzz of reishi..."

He pulsed a small puff of cloudy blue-white into the mouse box. There was a soft click and the mouse began to turn. "You can make it turn."

It was then that one of the legs blew out, popping off and landing straight onto one of Hisao's remaining sushi. The mouse fell over onto one mouse-box side and began to make sad, sad circles on the counter. Hisao stared hollowly at the poor guy before fishing (ha) the leg off of the sushi.

"I see, I see..." Yukari said offhandedly as she watched the tiny mouse-bot make its robo-mousey way across the bar counter. It was simple, yes, but still a bit impressive for someone making it just in their spare time because they wanted to. Lucky... You found a hobby that you can show off to other people out in public. But if I ever want to show somebody something it usually has to take place at my lab and then that's a whole other thing that happens and well...

Yukari squashed her train of thought quickly and instead decided to focus on the little change Hisao made to mouse-bot with just a tiny bit of reishi. "Ohhh, now see that's kinda nea-" But sadly her compliment was cut short as life (or whatever semblance of it the tiny mouse had) became very bad for mouse-bot. Its leg now firmly planted in Hisao's sushi, she watched as it performed its sad, one direction dance slowly on the counter.

She watched it for several seconds before a snort escaped her, followed by a small stretch of barely contained laughter as she looked down at the tiny creation. "O-Okay, I can see what you mean by wanting to see if this one goes down well first. Otherwise this would be the easiest robo-cat and robo-mouse chase ever!" She said playfully as she picked up the mouse and handed it back to Hisao. "But hey, it worked for a little while. That's something, right?"

Hisao felt warmth rising to his ears as he chuckled awkwardly and scratched his head, He accepted the gift graciously and pocketed it. He moved the stray leg off as well and wiped it off on a napkin.

"Yeah. Well, I mean, the gear mechanism itself works great, and I've been testing it out with more precise stuff like prosthetics. The idea's not new and there are a lot of other systems for it, but one day, maybe, we'll be able to go around in full robot armor. That'd be a sight to see."

The tiny robo-mouse leg finally returned to its owner, Yukari took another long drought of her sake as she leaned back in her chair. "To be honest, it really does seem like you got the main stuff going good for you, it's just the itsy bitsy parts that kept it from going all the way and stuff. And luckily for you, all that happens when your stuff doesn't work is you get a tiny leg stuck in your sushi." She said playfully.

"If it were one of mine, well we probably would have this little roof above our heads right now. Or the walls. Probably a bit of a crater as well." The chef shot her a slightly angry look, but Yukari held her hands up defensively. "Hey, I said if. Got nothing up my sleeves right now, chef." He looked at her for a few more seconds before he sighed softly and walked to the back room of the restaurant, leaving the two shinigami alone.

"But hey, if your parts not being up to scratch is something holding you back, you can always take a trip over the 12th's Labs. Even if I don't use them all that much, we've still got a lot of robotics stuff lying around. Granted, I kinda keep them off in their own little corner..." Still in their boxes, to be precise. Robots weren't nearly as exciting, really...

"Wait... robot armor?"