Nights in Karakura Town were very different from nights in Soul Society.
After nightfall in the Soul Society, everything was quiet and extremely dark. Only the deep houses of some nobles and Seireitei were decorated with lights.
But Karakura Town, as a modern city, was the most bustling and noisy moment at night. The bright lights illuminate Karakura Town, especially some places like izakaya, which were even livelier.
Of course, in all fairness, this city was not peaceful either. As a well-known place of heavy-spiritual land, ghosts often lurk here followed by hollows, especially recently, in order to give Ichigo a sense of crisis and make him stronger, and at the same time in order to make Soul Society actively prepare for the battle, Aizen had previously started to release arrancars to the Karakura Town.
Even if after Yammy's incident, arrancar did not appear in the town again, but after nightfall, hollows still appeared from time to time.
Ichigo was determined to protect Karakura Town. Even though he was exhausted during his hollowfication training during the day, he still rushed out without hesitation whenever he discovered that hollows had appeared at night.
Mazuru also noticed this scene, although he did not stop Ichigo, but in name, he was the leader of the shinigami that were stationed in Karakura Town this time, so he also needed to take measures.
He immediately gave orders to Rukia, Renji, Ikkaku, Yumichika to assist Ichigo in dealing with the hollows appearing in the Karakura Town.
As for himself, he had more important things to do.
…
In an izakaya.
Mazuru and Rangiku had changed into modern clothes. When they walked into the izakaya, they immediately attracted some people's attention. After all, handsome men and beautiful women were eye-catching, especially Rangiku, who was a person only few could compare to. It gave people a strong sense of oppression, and it was difficult not to be noticed.
After stepping into the izakaya, Mazuru found a table.
Rangiku didn't care about the gazes of the people nearby, she sat down opposite Mazuru, watched Mazuru lightly ordering drinks with interest, and commented, "Captain Mazuru, you are very familiar with this kind of place."
Mazuru said with a smile, "After all, I have a few friends who like to drink, so it is inevitable that I am familiar with this kinds of places."
Of course, Rangiku found that Mazuru was talking nonsense. What she wanted to say was that Mazuru was very familiar with modern izakayas. Although Soul Society also has taverns, they were somewhat different from the one they were in at that time. Seeing how natural Mazuru behaved, Rangiku concluded that he must have come here quite a number of times, so to speak, he was actually the same as Isshin back then, often sneaking into the world of living.
Rangiku thought she had discovered some great secret, but she didn't mean to say it, after all, it was a secret and secrets were meant to be kept.
She looked at the surrounding environment, and said softly, "It's really different from the Soul Society's taverns."
"After all, the times are progressing." Mazuru said, "But generally speaking, they are all the same, after all, they are all places for drinking."
Rangiku nodded, and immediately, the two started to drink.
The feeling of drinking while wearing a gigai was very subtle. However, after years of research by the Soul Society, it had been updated by many generations. Wearing it on a shinigami soul-body was just like having a normal body. Some gigai were even more advanced, after wearing it, shinigami could even marry and have children with humans. The only difference was that this body was artificially made by shinigami, not born from the mother's womb. .
Just like they used to do in Soul Society, Rangiku and Mazuru drank quietly. Suddenly, Rangiku spoke to Mazuru, "Captain Mazuru, I want to thank you again for what you did today."
"You are talking about Captain Shiba?"
"Hmm." Rangiku was an emotional person, she was naturally very moved after meeting her former captain. She spoke in a low voice, "When Captain Shiba disappeared that year, and it was defined as a defection by Central 46. Although Toshiro and I have never believed that our captain defected, but rather we thought that he had encountered some danger, and so we were always concerned about his safety."
"Now, although captain doesn't want me to tell Toshiro that he's still alive and well, but it's great to see him all right."
Rangiku was very happy, or in other words, she had been in a happy state since seeing Isshin was still alive, and it was also because of the sudden happiness that she wanted to drink.
She doesn't know when it started, she gradually got this habit, she liked to drink when she was happy, and she also liked to drink when she was sad.
The happier and sadder she was, the more she drank.
Mazuru knew that Rangiku was very happy, so he also kept drinking with her.
In a blink of an eye, the two of them didn't even know how much wine they had already drank.
When they left the izakaya, it was already late at night, the moon was hanging high.
Two people were walking on the street, Mazuru still looked the same, Rangiku was slightly blushing and smelled of alcohol, they were about to go back to their respective residences, Mazuru lived in Sado's house, and Rangiku lived in Orihime house.
"Captain Mazuru, don't go!"
A deep, drunken voice came to Mazuru's ears, accompanied by the smell of alcohol.
Mazuru paused, "Rangiku, you're drunk."
"No, I'm sober." Rangiku pushed harder, she stuck behind Mazuru, her voice was low, "From the time I met you, I don't know how many times you helped me, Captain Mazuru, when captain Isshin disappeared, that time...it was you, who was the first to comfort me, and now, it was you who let me know that the captain is still alive, Captain Mazuru…"
"I'm really, really happy to have a friend like you, and really, really grateful to you…"
It seems that because of the alcohol, Rangiku talked a lot, and at the same time, she did express some of her thoughts, which were otherwise, would have been impossible to say.
"I really know that it is shameless to ask more favors from you and I couldn't even provide anything in return… Captain Mazuru, please… if possible, let me have a… have a talk with Gin… I don't even know what to do when… when I think that he defected… Please captain… please…"
"Rangiku…"
Mazuru just wanted to say something when he found that Rangiku had fallen asleep while leaning on him.
"You are one of the few friends that I genuinely care about... Moreover, Gin is my vice-captain… Even if he has left Soul Society, he is still my subordinate. So don't worry, I will bring him to you and then you can give him a piece of your mind."
Mazuru wouldn't have said so much but since Rangiku was dead asleep he spoke a few words. It was not for Rangiku rather it was for himself, to brace himself for what's about to come and for what's he about to do and face.
(T.L Note: I don't know if you guys remember or not that I made a poll regarding Rangiku's partner. Yes, this is the part where our mc and Rangiku were supposed to have an one-night stand and that was all for their relationship. So I changed this according to the poll results)
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