Set up and step up [Alastor, Erika]

"Who do you think you are?"

The petite woman glared at the redhead in front of her as he insisted on how something was going to be. Just who exactly did this guy think he was making demands of her, well not demands he'd actually worded it pretty nicely up until she glared at him but demands nonetheless. Why the heck did he think she was just going to get shafted with the situation because it suited him to ask her this favour?

"Why should I do that?"

She shot back with a pout that looked far too forced because she was trying to hard to convey her mood. Her resting face was far better for conveying when she was unimpressed than when she was trying to scowl. Ironic really.

"I mean, you heard me didn't you?"

He muttered with a sigh at how difficult the little brat could be. It wasn't like he was asking for her first born kid or trying to take the last cookie from the jar, they were all her's. A stray hand came up to run through his hair and sweep it back out of his face. Another sigh at getting ready to come to verbal blows over his request with the golden haired brat.

"I want you to run the show for a couple of days. It ain't that hard, is it? I mean you've been vice-captain for years or something and go way back with her. It's not like you've got to be a snob about it. Those officials wanna cry about it then just tell them to shut it and make-up some excuse like she's gone to investigate something or whatever you shinigami do."

As far as the customs and the traditions went up here Alastor didn't exactly care to learn too much about them. He spent more time on Earth anyway than up here and surely they had a concept of stuff like time off around these parts?

"So you want me to act in her place for a few days while you two run off to... Mongolia, is it?"

She looked at the poorly written note. His handwriting for Japanese was atrocious and she wondered how he even wrote reports with this junk. Still, the golden haired woman leaned forward over the desk to put her hands down and scowl more. She didn't get the whole leisure thing, once upon a time she did but she was a lot less sympathetic than she'd been there for what motivates people.

"So why should I do it?"

Erika reiterated with a frown.

"I mean, jeez squirt. You're making a big deal out of this."

He rubbed the back of his neck like he was trying to keep his cool and not just call her a little brat. He'd already slipped out squirt but hopefully she was a bit too distracted reading to have noticed it. Maybe, maybe not. Oh well. Regardless he could hear the fiery bitch in the back of his head snickering through the whole thing. She loved watching him wrestle with the vice-captain over things. Erika was the type of brat that if he asked for an inch she would act like he was trying to take a whole ass mile off her.

"Aren't you her friend? Doesn't seem like it'd be that much trouble to do something nice for her, right? I'm sure she'd do the exact same thing for you. You're pretty close last I checked not that she really talks about how you two became friends and all."

Damn, he hated all this nonsense. Downsides of dating the captain-commander huh?

She looked away for a moment when he brought up their relationship. Yeah, she'd do it for Murasaki but not for him. Still it'd given him a small break in her hostile attitude as she flashed through a couple of their old memories of when they were younger. When she was still a member of the Gotei Thirteen and Murasaki was growing up...

"Hmph."

Erika stood up from the desk and folded her arms over her chest. An almost childish look which rarely came out nowadays when she was struggling between wanting to have it her way even though she was in the wrong. She could be a bit dogmatic like that and he was pushing her into a corner and she'd paved the path towards it too.

"Fine. I'll let you have your way and take her out for a few days but I'm doing it for her and not you, right? Anyway, you can go now."

She asserted that little detail and looked down to begin scrawling on some paper to make a note of it to herself. He said that he wanted her to shut up about it to Murasaki and that he got to be the one to tell her. Whatever he wanted to do. There was just one more thing that was on her mind when she sat back down.

"Hey Alastor. Don't call me squirt, blacksmith."

Erika's face didn't change to show anything other than being unimpressed but her eyes did carry a hint of the smirk that she was suppressing. She heard that he hated that nickname that he'd gotten attached to himself, well she hated her short stature being brought up or poked at.

Why you little gremlin.

He didn't say anything but he did tense and resist the urge to hit her. Even if Murasaki thought it was cute or fine it annoyed him a little bit, there was something about the whole haha, it's because she's a zanpakuto that made it get on his nerves to be called that.

"Thanks Erika."

It'd probably annoy her that he didn't bother using her proper title and he did hear something along the lines of a correction being barked at him when he closed the door but he didn't care. He just took a deep breath and sighed about the whole thing. Why was she such a pain in the ass to deal with and he didn't really see what Murasaki found appealing about her when she had a stick so far up her ass.

Whatever, at least she had gone for it.