Free Day

"I can't believe you would do something so reckless! Chiaki, you ignoramus, what were you thinking?!"

Chiaki simply shrugged as a tired Rukia pointed towards her accusingly, handling it with a nonchalant air that only served to anger Rukia. Despite all this, Chiaki still couldn't see the big issue.

"I mean, it's just one hollow right? I'm not taking Ichigo's job or anything, I moved to deal with something when it came up and I couldn't wait to see whether or not someone would die. It was a one-time thing."

Unfortunately, this logic did nothing to assuage Rukia, who shook her head in anger before crossing her arms, giving Chiaki a disapproving look. Rukia had gone out of her way to have this discussion, having asked Ichigo to go on ahead to school while she had a world in private with Chiaki, so she supposed it made sense that she'd be very pushy about it. Chiaki also noticed that Rukia had bags under her eyes, likely from staying up and watching Orihime, so Rukia was not only indignant, but she was also tired and cranky,

"I don't care what reasons you have, because, to begin with, the issue isn't that you didn't have a reason. The issue is that you are *not* the one who gets to decide when it is or isn't time for you to intervene. While I appreciate your vitality and determination, you do not have the experience of a shinigami to back up your decision-making, not to mention, you also do not have the tools necessary to reap souls. Only the blade of a Shinigami is capable of sending a soul where it must go, and the blade of a human is incapable of doing so."

Chiaki sighed, suppressing a desire to roll her eyes as Rukia went over her complaints in great detail. Admittedly, she'd always had great suspicion regarding the claims of shinigami keeping balance: the numbers simply didn't add up. They claimed Quincy destruction was the reason why the worlds became unbalanced, but destroying a hollow's soul only reduced the difference in the balance by a single soul. Sending a soul to Soul Society, on the other hand, reduced the human world soul count by 1 and increased Soul Society's by 1, meaning the actual difference increased by two, double that of what a Quincy would achieve.

If anything, Shinigami were more likely to unbalance the world with their Zanpakuto, to say nothing of sending souls to Hell. If the removal of a soul from the 3 usual worlds was so bad, then shinigami were just as much in the wrong by sending souls to Hell. Regardless, she couldn't say that right now, since her knowledge of those issues would raise a few eyebrows, but she could call out Rukia for being a hypocrite.

"Ok, let me put it like this. What's the point of all these shinigami rules? I'm sure you don't make these things up for shits and giggles, so what's the reason?"

"It's to protect the lives of humans! Shinigami have a duty to act in the interest of protecting all souls. These rules are for your own good, they keep the balance between the worlds stable. If shinigami were not keeping the balance, the flow of souls would be unequal, and the worlds would collapse into one another and be destroyed."

Rukia seemed a little smug at this proclamation, either because she was proud of her role in helping the world or because she felt she had very clearly won the argument. Her smile faded a bit, however, when she realized that Chiaki didn't seem to be in any way mollified by this argument.

"That's exactly my point then Rukia! The rules are there to protect people. If these rules get in the way of protecting people, then the only way the rules can protect people is if they're bent. I did what I did to make sure Chad was alright. You can't tell me you've never bent the rules to save someone before, right?:

Rukia opened her mouth to respond, before stopping and thinking for a moment. With a loud "Hmph", Rukia turned around, no doubt realizing that she had done exactly that by giving shinigami powers to Ichigo. Now it was Chiaki's turn to be smug.

"Yeah, I thought so."

Chiaki chuckled, giving Rukia a condescending pat on the shoulder, before starting to continue on her way to school. However, Rukia still had one last trick up her sleeve.

"Well, be that as it may, there is still another issue to resolve. I can no longer keep watch over Orihime constantly: my duties in mentoring Ichigo at shinigami responsibilities are becoming impeded, and I cannot drop everything for one soul. It's regrettable, but you must be in charge of keeping watch to make sure her brother doesn't appear."

This caused Chiaki to stop in her tracks; she hadn't been expecting that bombshell and she turned back towards Rukia to protest the decision.

"But I can't keep watch over her! I only have classes with her during the day. I can't just go over to her house and stay overnight?"

"I'm sure you can simply "bend the rules", as you put it. Besides I'm certain you could find a good reason to stay over anyway. My research has told me that this is a common occurrence among human adolescents."

[….I have no words for this betrayal]

It was Chiaki's turn to look stumped as Rukia walked away toward class, leaving her to fume. Still, Chiaki was nothing if not patient and resourceful; for now, all she could do was grin and bear it, keeping a neutral expression as she followed on behind towards school. But, in her head, gears were already turning on how to manipulate this situation.

"Bend the rules… I'll show you bending the rules…"

________

The rest of the day went by relatively normally. Since Chiaki had managed to get rid of Shrieker a day early, things would probably be relatively calm for a bit. Chiaki refused to let Rukia's complaints ruin the free day that she earned herself, no matter what she tried to get her to do.

[Luckily, I already have a plan for this.]

As the rest of the students listened to some jumble of words about mathematics from their teacher, Chiaki, who already knew the stuff by heart (something she thanked her past life for profusely), was using her time to think about how to deal with the issue of Orihime. Though Chiaki worked to project a calm and cool persona, there was one thing that really pissed her off, and that was people trying to outsmart her. If Rukia thought that she was going to just take it, then she had another thing coming.

Chiaki continued to fume throughout the rest of the morning all the way until around lunch time. By this point, Chiaki's sour expression had turned into a slight smirk. As she saw Orihime get up to leave, Chiaki walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder, causing the young girl some genuine surprise, before she smiled.

"Chiaki! Is there something I can help you with? Oh, if it's about my flat again, I told you…"

"No no, don't worry about that. But remember how a few days ago you kept getting into accidents."

Orihime's face scrunched up as she made an effort to remember. It clearly took a lot out of her, but the lightbulb in her head eventually turned on.

"Oh right! When I got hit by cars! Why, what about that?"

Chiaki sometimes forgot that Orihime was a real airhead. Still, she wasn't deterred and simply pointed back at the next room.

"You know Uryu Ishida right? The guy who's in the sewing club? Why don't you go and ask him to help you out with your clothing? I'm sure he wouldn't mind, and you do have a lot of torn clothing as of late."

"Hmmmm…."

Orihime's face scrunched up in deep contemplation, and Chiaki felt a little silly just waiting for her to come to a decision. Just as she was about to say something to give her a push toward what she had in mind, Orihime nodded, clearly looking proud of herself for having managed to decide so quickly.

"Alright! That's a great idea Chiaki! I'll go ask him right now."

Orihime proceeded to run out, likely to try and catch Uryu before he went wherever he went for lunch, and Chiaki breathed a sigh of relief. It might have seemed like a random request, but Chiaki was confident it would solve her issues. Walking towards the door and peeking her head out the doorway, Chiaki saw Orihime talking to Uryu in the hallway mid-conversation.

"So, it'd really help me out if you could use your skills to fix up some of my clothes. Is that alright with you?"

In contrast to Orihime's bubbly expression, Uryu had a very serious look on his face. Well, he always had a serious look on his face, but now it was even more pronounced, and he seemed to be genuinely concerned about something.

"Don't worry Orihime. Just come by tomorrow with them and I can help you fix everything. But try and be more careful… it's not normal to be getting so many injuries…"

Chiaki retreated back into the classroom and gave a small fist pump in celebration: she wanted Uryu to get involved, since, as a Quincy, he could not only effectively dispatch any hollows nearby, but do so before she or Ichigo even had a chance to reach the area. Uryu would have been watching the shinigami by now, so he would likely know about Acidwire, but even if he didn't, Quincy had incredible reishi sensory abilities. Chiaki recalled that Uryu had even been able to sense the state of reishi down to the speed of their fluctuations, being able to calculate how many hundreds of thousands of times per second the Arrancar Cirucci's blades vibrated. Detecting Acidwire's trace particles on Orihime to know she would have been targeted would be light work, let alone finding him if he manifested.

"And just like that, all my work disappears."

Chiaki knew that Rukia wouldn't appreciate her getting a Quincy involved. But, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, especially considering she had told her point blank to bend the rules. Really, Rukia would have no one to blame but herself if she ever found out. Chiaki refused to let even Rukia's orders interrupt her day.

[This is my first free day in a while, and things are going to get rough from here on out… I don't care what anyone else says, I'm going to enjoy it.]