A Pure Sword, A Pure Soul (Bleach)

"Fine," you sigh, quickly glancing at Mai to steel your resolve, "Give me the bracelets, I'll suppress my power."

Kori deposits them into your outstretched palm, where you examine them. They look and feel exactly like the cheap, unadorned gold bangles you would find at a discount jewelry store, the kind your father would make a show of putting down the garbage disposal if he saw you wearing them, whether or not it caught the house on fire. Strangely, you can't feel them suppressing your power at all, even while you're holding them.

"You have to put them on for them to actually take effect," the shopkeep explains. "Just force the ends apart with one hand and-" she mimes slapping a bracelet onto her wrist "-slap it on."

"How do I get them off?" You feel like you have to ask, "Just in case."

For whatever reason, the store owner takes the question in stride. She must have known you were going to ask, "You have to lower your spiritual pressure and flex the ends apart with your hand, but I would suggest you ask someone to help you, if you were going to remove them."

"Got it," you say with a sigh, before affixing the bracelets.

Unsurprisingly, since you aren't really using your spiritual power, there's no real difference between the moment before you put them on and the moment after. Actually, there is a slight, subtle difference. One you can only feel when you close your eyes. Instead of standing with that orange flame/battery/ocean/sun at your back, it's as if there's a screen or wall separating you from it, allowing only the lightest trickle through into the space you're in, a space dimly lit by a gold source you find yourself unable to identify.

Opening your eyes, you see that Mai and Kori have already started back to where they left your body.


"I-I'll go to M-M- the shop, you t-two are faster whe-when- if I- without me," Mai cuts Kori off, managing to put her foot down despite her stammering and what she actually said.

"That's… actually a pretty good idea, Koukin-chan!" Kori claps her on the shoulder with a smile, "it's good to be able to recognize your own limits." She then turns to you, placing a hand right on top of your head and turning you to the city, "Let's go then, Chiyu-kun."


"Why do you have something like that just lying around?" You ask Kori Kagami as the pair of you bound through the forest, with her somehow easily able to keep up with your speed in your Soul Reaper form.

"The Mod Soul? It's old inventory, that's all. I wanted to run some experiments on it before I destroyed it, but I guess that got lost in the shuffle," her response is gratingly nonchalant.

"Just got lost in the shuffle? Can't it… think? Or something," you still don't quite grasp the concept of a 'mod soul'.

"Think? I'm not sure, to be honest, gikon have never been my specialty," she stops for a moment, seemingly trying to put what she's going to say in terms simple enough to understand. "Regular artificial souls are like flash drives, they've got a preprogrammed personality and set of scenarios they're supposed to respond to. It's a pretty extensive list, and they have some capability for learning, but let's say they're close to rudimentary AI, just with the ability to do a lot more since they've got 'echoes'-" she adds the air quotes "-of emotions within them, allowing them to act more naturally."

"But mod souls don't act naturally?" You silently pray to whatever weird Soul Reaper god is listening to you that the thing inside your body doesn't run into anyone you know.

"That's the thing, they should be able to act like normal people since they were developed from regular artificial souls-"

That's good.

"-but, because they were meant to inhabit corpses or spare gigai to fight Hollows, they don't have the same emotional responses built into them as gikon do."

That's bad.

"What's worse than that, for us, is that mod souls are mod souls because they can modify the abilities of the body they inhabit-"

"You said that before," you cut in, "what exactly does that mean?"

"It could mean anything," Kori states to your horror, "it could mean that the Mod Soul has enhanced leg strength, or super speed, or healing capabilities, or that it can breathe underwater or even fly."

"Or anything else," you say, voice small and eyes wide as saucers.

Kori just nods.


"You can't sense it either, can you?" You ask Kori after you peek down your fifth back alley, Kori returning from hers.

"Worryingly, no, I cannot sense it. I thought it would have some spiritual pressure, and it seems like it does, it would have to to be able to animate a corpse. But it must be the minimum amount to blend in with spiritually aware humans," while pondering, the shop owner polishes her glasses, though you don't get a good look at her eyes. "And there are quite a few spiritually aware humans in Banmuro City, many of them are so close to baseline humans that they can't even be picked out of a crowd."

"There's no spell that would let you pick the mod soul out of a crowd?" You're beginning to feel the effects of suppressing your powers after remaining in your Soul Reaper form for so long all after fighting.

"There is," Kori replies, getting your hopes up, "but I don't have the Mod Soul's spiritual pressure signature," she dashes, then fully crushes your hopes, "and, like I said before, it's unremarkable for a spiritually aware human's, so the results would be incredibly muddled."

You can't suppress a deep sigh, "Alright then, let's keep looking."


Beep beep beep beep

Beep beep beeeep beep

Beeeeep beeeeep beeeep beeeep

"Oh no, come on- n-no not r-right now p-please!" Mai Koukin, hyperventilating, with aching legs, and on the verge of a panic attack, can't handle her Denreishinki ringing right now, not when she's a block and a half away from Mirror Mirror Specialty Shop. The only thing that would make it worse would be a Senkaimon opening up in the sky and letting out the Sixth Division to drag her back to answer for her crimes. She can't help but glance over her shoulder to make sure that isn't the case.

The wavy-haired Soul Reaper shakes her head, she knows that Kori Kagami's employees will be able to handle the Hollow better than she could, especially as she is right now. At least- at least Chiyu agreed to suppress her powers for Mai. If Mai were honest with herself, which she often wasn't, she would say that she was scared of what she had seen when Chiyu was using her powers, of the cracks on her zanpakuto, and of the feeling in her chest when she felt that pressure in the air, and saw her own clear golden spiritual pressure dyed orange. However, Mai didn't like thinking about those things, so she mostly just dwelled on how she was terrified of not getting her powers back and not being able to go back to Soul Society, or worse, being found out by Soul Society before getting her powers back.

So, doing what she does best, Mai tamps her feelings down and meekly walks in through the front door of Mirror Mirror, trying to make herself seem small.

"Oh damn, didn't expect to see you tonight," Ui greets, only glancing up from buffing her nails behind the counter, "not coming through the front without Kori at least." Before Mai can stammer too long, Ui looks up properly, dropping her feet from the counter and sitting up properly. "Oh no, what went wrong? Did you screw up or was it the kid? No wait, let me guess, Kori screwed you over."

"Um- it's not- I-"

"Alright alright, cut it out. Whatever it is, Kori can handle it without our help," Ui kicks her feet back up, though she doesn't go back to her nails.

"She sent me here to get s-some of her em- her employees," Mai manages after swallowing a lump in her throat. "S-so you have to come with me."

"I don't have to do anything," the tanned girl replies, sneering at Mai. "I don't remember agreeing to take orders from any Soul Reapers."

"I- bu- it-"

Ui scoffs, "Save it, you can try to get the others, but they won't listen to you."

Biting her lip and clenching her fists hard enough to draw purple crescents on her palms, Mai steels herself.

"No, they might not but you will," she says, actual confidence in her voice.

"Why's that-" Ui begins, but Mai storms up to the counter, slamming her hands on it, which Ui actually jumps back from.

"Because I'm not stupid, really," the brunette's mind won't lock up right now, she's gathered inertia now. It feels good to let it out. "Don't think I don't know who you are, who your parents were."

Ui stands up now, completely stiff, "What's that have to do with anything?" She confirms the Soul Reaper's assertion in her phrasing.

"I know how your family works and how mine works-"

"Again what's that-"

"You know who my father- who he was," this one actually catches her up, the young Soul Reaper doesn't like to think about her parents, they're the number one subject she won't bring up.

"Yeah, yeah right. Gee, I can't believe you of all people would pull rank on me," Ui looks at the other Soul Reaper warily, but in a new light. "Alright, I'll gather a couple of them up."

"I-I didn't want to…" Mai admits, deflating almost instantly.

"It's fine, I appreciate the gall that took," Ui then sighs, slips on a glove, then slams the thumb into her forehead. "Go lock the door," she says, now in spirit form, as she lays her body down behind the counter. In her Soul Reaper form, her shihakusho top is conspicuously missing, with a sea green obi fastening her hakama to her bare waist, and her chest being bound with a wrap that covers up her whole chest and ribcage.

After Mai locks the door, and Ui stashes her body somewhere that isn't visible from the floor, the latter pulls a whistle out from under the counter.

"Cover your ears," the tanned Soul Reaper warns the corporeal one, "this sound sucks." Mai does as she says, and the Mirror Mirror employee sounds the whistle. The piercing, warbling, shrill sound cuts through the air and summons three of Kori Kagami's other employees.

Three very young employees with very, very blank expressions.

"O-oh, hello Kuushou-chan, Gafuko-chan, Heiyamaru-chan," Mai greets them, after uncovering her ears and popping them. Ui had been right about the sound.

The three employees (there are five in total, not counting Ui or Kori herself), barely react to Mai. The girl, Gafuko, gives Mai a wave, while Kuushou gives her a nod, and Heiyamaru extends a simple grunt. Mai's taken to Kori's habit of referring to all of them with the same honorific, though she prefers 'chan' to the shop owner's 'kun', it just feels more appropriate to her.

All three are dressed the same way, in nondescript black sneakers, baggy gray pants of surprisingly fine material, and black button ups bearing Mirror Mirror's logo on the left side of the chest. Kuushou is (barely) the tallest of the three, with long and shaggy brown hair that Kori insists he keep out of his face by pinning it back with a pinwheel topped pin, big and empty green eyes, and a dusting of freckles across his cheeks and nose. Gafuko is the shortest of the group, and the lightest, being on the slim side with her shirt noticeably hanging off of her arms, brown hair on the border of blonde the same shade as Mai's, though shorter and straighter, and blank off-red eyes with just a hint of light behind them. Heiyamaru is the widest, hardly taller than Gafuko, and has the most personality of the three; his face is round with smaller, muddy hazel eyes and a regular frown on his thin lips.

"Looks like the gang's all here, tell us what we're looking at here," Ui prompts Mai, who takes a deep breath, and explains.


The Mod Soul whoops as it vaults a short brick wall, enjoying the freedom and fitness this new body has given it. The sheer luck of it being picked out of all the mindless artificial souls kicking around the back of Mirror Mirror, the fact that the body it was given was so fit and lively, the fact that those weirdos who gave it the body just up and left it alone. The Soul Reaper who looked like the body was probably mad at the soul, but right now, the soul just didn't care.

The Mod Soul needed something to call itself, it was coming to realize in the midst of the elated run it was undertaking through whatever city this was, but that would come later.

The Mod Soul took another mouthful of sunflower seeds, crunching the flavored seed inside straight out of the shell, before expelling said shells onto the sidewalk at speed comparable to bullets. Just to challenge itself, it took a potshot at a bird just taking wing, nailing it on the head and knocking it out of the sky.

"Heh," it chuckles to itself, "I've still got it." It keeps chewing on the seeds, making a mess of shells and sidewalk fragments as it goes, "Speaking of getting things, I still need a name. Or, I at least need to learn whatever this girl's name is…"

It's not long before the internal name debate is stifled by the appearance of a Hollow. Or rather, it's not the appearance of the Hollow, it's that the Mod Soul stumbles on a Hollow.

The Hollow is worm-shaped, around eight feet long, and its mask is covered in gore, a chain lying on the ground in front of it.

Because of its inborn programing, or maybe because it's been stuck in pill form for so long, the Mod Soul grins. It yells and waves to get the Hollow's attention, before spraying a volley of sunflower seeds directly into its eyes.

The blinded Hollow smashes into a tree next to the sidewalk, with the Mod Soul nimbly dancing away, appreciating the body it found more and more by the second. Finding a particularly spherical rock, the Mod Soul flicks it in front of its mouth, sucks in a big breath, and fires away at the head of the Hollow, shattering its mask.

"Pfft, still as easy as it always was, I dunno why those dumbass Soul Reapers decided to stop the program," it stretched, turning to go back the way it came and circle around in an attempt to avoid any other Soul Reapers, if there were any in the area. "Must've been scared of our success."

After making its way down a back alley, back up a more major street, and cutting halfway through a park, something pulled the Mod Soul out of its- her, she had decided; Based on the body, how she felt, and the fact that her voice kind of matched said body- reverie. That something being a huge, frog-shaped Hollow leaping from a distant high rise and slamming into the ground in front of her.

"You picked off my prey, little human," the Hollow's mask opens with an eerie chuckle, "I can't smell how strong you are, but you've got to be more filling than that little whelp would have been."

It raises one of its four forearms, preparing to crush the Mod Soul, and its body with it.

'Well,' the Mod Soul thinks, resigning herself, 'at least I got a taste of freedom.' Before squeezing its eyes shut.

Opening her eyes, she sees a giant of a man standing over her, holding up the Hollow's massive hand somewhat casually. "Hnn, you're Soichiro's sister right? Chiyu?"

The Mod Soul's huge savior is a casually dressed, lanky but muscular teen, frame still yet to be filled out by maturity. With pale skin, blue, almond-shaped eyes, and straight black hair that hangs over his eyes. The only real odd thing about him is that he's just going around with boxing gloves on.

"Who and who?" The Mod Soul, thanks to the shock of the whole situation, forgets to play along.

"What are you doing out here with a Hollow?" He asks, seemingly ignoring the Mod Soul's question.

"Two humans with big, tasty souls!" The Hollow exclaims, shooting its frog tongue at the taller of the two. The taller human catches the tongue on his left hand, which makes the Hollow chuckle again. "Fool! That trick never fails! Now-"

When the monster retracts its tongue, the Mod Soul's savior simply backhands it in the face with a shocking amount of power. The force of the blow takes the top half of the Hollow's head clean off, dropping its body and the human to the ground with what would be a loud crash, had said human not caught it with the same ease he had caught its initial strike.

"Sorry about that, again, what are you doing out here Chiyu? You know how your brother would react to knowing you put yourself in danger like this," he then scratches his head, "it's Eiji, remember?"

'Of course I don't remember, idiot! I'm not this Shoe or whoever you're talking about,' the Mod Soul thinks, before quickly putting on a smile. "Oh, Ujii, right! Yeah I was just coming back from the arcade and ran into these, you know how it is."

"I didn't know you were aware of Hollows, actually," thankfully, he ignores her flubbing his name, though a twitch of his eye indicates he caught it. "Most people who can see ghosts aren't."

"Well…" the Mod Soul trips over her own words. 'Shit shit shit, how am I supposed to get out of this one?'

Slipping off one of his gloves and tying it to the other, Eiji touches the Mod Soul's forehead with the back of his hand, "You do feel a little hot, can Hollows possess people? I should bring you back to base."

Even with his deep, calm voice, that statement makes the Mod Soul jump back. No way she's going back to any sort of base with anyone she doesn't know, not so soon after getting a body and a taste of freedom.

"Huh, guess you had the right idea coming back to the shop," a new arrival says, dropping into the park from even further away than the Hollow had. The Mod Soul turns, and Eiji moves to position himself between her and the redheaded, near-topless Soul Reaper.

"P-please slow down," another new arrival, seemingly human, says panting as she props herself up against a tree. This one is shorter, paler, and prettier than the Soul Reaper she came with, though she's more disheveled from running around. "I c-can't keep up right now, you n- you know that."

"Yeah yeah, calm down. That's her, right?" The Soul Reaper asks her embodied companion.

"I-it is that's her body," The Mod Soul recognizes the second new arrival by the time her savior had put himself between them and her. It's the brunette who had her pill, the one who gave her to this body.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Eiji demands, putting an arm in front of who he thinks is his friend's sister.

"Banmuro Search and Rescue, Spectral Division," the tan Soul Reaper says with a sneer, "and we're looking for that girl behind you."

The giant teen clearly doesn't like that answer, "Likely story, what could a Soul Reaper want with Makiyou?"

Now it's the girl's eyes who narrow. "How do you know about Soul Reapers, human? I've never seen you before in my life."

"Plenty of humans have a reason to not alert Soul Society to their existence," he states matter-of-factly, pushing the Mod Soul back.

"I never said anything about Soul Society," the tan girl states just as emphatically, and Eiji's eyes flick to her obi, noticing that her zanpakuto is conspicuously not there.

"That's even more suspicious," he responds, turning to flee with the Mod Soul.

Not that she's there anymore, she ran the moment he pushed her back and broke contact with her.

"Shit!" The Soul Reaper exclaims, darting forward only to be intercepted by the wall of muscle that is Eiji Iida, "Where the hell are those kids?" She wonders aloud as the two struggle momentarily.

Mai, for her part, sucks in a deep breath, and begins sprinting once again after the Mod Soul, her gigai's legs protesting the effort. Once she's in range, she begins intoning a spell. "Devour yourself, black dog of Rondanini. Let your hunger grow and eat your own tail! Bakudo Number Ten: Horin!"

With that, an orange rope girded with crackling yellow shoots out of her hands, wrapping around the Mod Soul's body, pinning her arms to her torso and tying her legs together. "Son of a- Soul Reaper magic!"

Mai once again has to catch her breath as she gets to where the Mod Soul has fallen. "S-sorry about th-that-"

'Oh maker, why is she apologizing to me?' The Mod Soul can't help but think as she flails.

"But you c-can't go around s-stealing bodies, alright?!"

"Yeah, sure. I guess you'll bring me back to kill me now?" The Mod Soul manages to roll over, fixing Mai with a withering glare.

"W-w-w-well I-I don't- that's…" The embodied Soul Reaper trails off, not sure how to respond. She hadn't even thought of it as killing before.

"We'd better get out of here," Ui tells Mai as she flash steps next to her. "Big guy there ran off, I don't want to still be sticking around here when he gets back with whoever or whatever he's associated with."

"R-right, yeah, back to the sh-shop?" Mai asks.

"Yeah, I'll carry the body and take the rooftops, you call Kori. The kids were hanging back cause they knew that guy was there, it would've been nice if they had told me, but they'll handle the collateral," Ui says, hauling the Mod Soul onto her shoulder as if she weighs nothing.

"L-let's go then," Mai replies, not looking forward to another run, but taking her phone out regardless.


"Why do so many Hollows look like bugs anyway?" You say, wiping the sweat out of your eyes and looking back at Kori. The store owner shrugs in response.

"Correlation with human fears? The weakest animals correspond to the weakest Hollows? I'm really not sure," a ringtone interrupts her line of thinking. "Hold on, that's Mai, I'd better answer."

You look down at the rapidly-disintegrating tiny Hollow you had killed. It was weird for one so small and weak to have popped out and attacked targets as strong as you and (presumably, though she keeps it well hidden) Kori. It was the second Hollow you had to deal with on the Mod Soul hunt, and you weren't happy that you kept being interrupted. You give it a weak kick to vent whatever frustration is left before Kori looks at you with a thumbs up.

"That's great!" She finishes, you hadn't really been listening in on her call, "We'll meet you back at the shop!"

"They found it?"

"They found it," she confirms with a nod. "Koukin-chan and Ui found it in a park on the west side of town, near-ish the town line."

"Let's go then!" You grab the older woman by the collar and start to drag her off. You just want to get back in your body and for this day to be over.

Kori lets out a light chuckle, and follows you willingly.


"Run it by me one more time, you found the Mod Soul in the park after tracking it to a minor Hollow it had killed, and it was with another dead Hollow, and a 'big edgy guy' who disappeared in a flash of green light after Koukin-chan captured the Mod Soul," Kori confirms with Ui.

"Yeah, that's right. The kids cleaned up quick and we all got back to the ship, we didn't want to be there whenever his backup got there," Ui confirms. "And that description is the Mod Soul's."

"Which you knocked out of Chiyu-kun's body because…?" Kori leads.

Her employee shrugs, "Seemed like the right course of action at the time."

"Hmm, that is understandable," the older of the two concedes, "Let's put it back in."

"Let's not!" You finally cut in, "No way is that thing going back in my body!"

"Fine, fine, but I'd like to hear what it has to say," Kori palms the pill menacingly.

With Mai's help, you get back into your body before she can do anything rash. She visibly deflates when you do that. "Stuff it in your body or gigai or whatever then," you provide.

"I don't think I'll do that," the store owner says, pocketing the pill. "So what're you going to do about your body, Chiyu-kun? You can't keep leaving it knocked out, and I don't think I'll let this thing out after it talks."

Part of you feels a pang of guilt that the mod soul, which could apparently think, would just be smashed after this weirdo experimented on it. But just a regular artificial soul would serve you just fine…

[] Ask for the Mod Soul back. You'll have to sit it down and lay out some ground rules, but it can't be all bad if it was able to evade someone like Kori for a couple of hours, and kill a Hollow to boot.

[] You'll just take whatever artificial soul Mai had wanted in the first place. Or, if Kori's out of stock with those, you'll take whatever normal artificial soul she has. Preferably in a sealed container so you know it's real.

[] All this artificial soul business can go stuff itself. You've had one taste of some other thing running around inside your body and you can't stand the thought of that happening again. Especially if it was some preprogrammed pill with no modicum of individuality.

A/N: Originally there was another part after this, but it would work a lot better with this choice having actually been made. The character sheet and end of volume EXP dump/vote will be up sometime tomorrow afternoon.

A/N2: Hopefully introducing so many characters quickly isn't overwhelming, if it is, or you think that there hasn't been enough characterization, let me know, because I know it can get out of hand for AU quests, especially with largely OC casts.