Cooperative Ventures

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Branch

Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://alltrees.org/archive/).

Published on 2005-08-27 17:16:16.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on May 16, 2012 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Cooperative Ventures

One Kurosaki meets another Kurosaki. Humor, I-1

"Cousin." Hisoka planted his fists on his hips and glared up... and up... at the other young man. "Impossible."

The young man in question ran a harried hand through short, orange hair. "Not like it was my idea, shrimp. And if you're a shinigami," he added, as Hisoka reminded himself he wasn't allowed to kill humans whose time wasn't up, "why aren't you in uniform?"

Hisoka blinked. "Uniform? What uniform?" He frowned at Tsuzuki. "Was there a memo about getting uniforms, and you lost it again?"

"... younger sister... mother's name... well, yeah, if his dad was a... huh?" Tsuzuki looked up from the pad of paper he was attempting to chart the Kurosaki geneology on. "Um. I don't think so?" He smiled at Hisoka's maybe-cousin. "So you say you're a part-timer? That's unusual." He nibbled his lip. "For the living, anyway."

Ichigo fished out a small badge and tossed it over, still looking skeptical and out of temper.

Ok, maybe he was Hisoka's cousin after all.

"Oh!" Tsuzuki gave them both a bright, cheerful grin. "You're part of the other branch!"

"The other branch?" Hisoka and Ichigo chorused, and then glared at each other again.

"Different realms, under different rulers," Tsuzuki explained. "We do some of the same work, but recruitment is totally separate. We do cooperate every now and then, but there hasn't been a joint operation for... a couple centuries, I think. The Chief is probably the only one who remembers." He handed the badge back to Ichigo.

"At least he doesn't draw pictures," Ichigo muttered. He eyed them dubiously, but finally shrugged. "Whatever. Hey." He looked Hisoka up and down. "If you're from an old family, are you any good with a sword? They keep telling me I could use some extra practice..."

Hisoka smiled for the first time that afternoon.

End